How is it deflecting when you call me a “white savior” for having an outsider opinion about this genocide, if I hold your opinion to the same standard? Have you considered that the rank and file of Hamas live in Palestine? The ones that are fighting and dying? That they themselves are the children and orphans of Palestine?
I’m am sure that there is a variety of opinions among the Palestinian people, just as there are among the Israelis and Americans. I am aware of the limitations of my own perspective, but all I can do is apply my knowledge and principles to the situation as I see it. You’re doing the same, and I don’t really see any point in continuing this conversation. Take that as you will.
Ah, now I see who you are. You embody the liberal ideal that dying nonviolently is nobler than violent resistance. So useful to have “military capacity” and not use it while your people are slaughtered and yours lands stolen, eh?
So that’s a no then? I thought you said that armed resistance to Israeli violence was the job of the PLO. Now you dodge and call it bloodlust to understand the impulse to resist occupation.
Is the PLO offering any armed resistance to the genocide occurring right now? Does it offer any armed resistance to Israeli occupation generally? I cannot find any evidence that it is, but I would be happy to read anything that says otherwise.
I’m glad to hear you say that. Intend to see the Republican view be more generally carceral. I think your ideas are fine, and in fact there’s a lot of basically that happening around the state. Ever since the pandemic, California has been converting hotels (along with some new construction) to ‘transitional’ housing. Part of this program is working with counselors and DHHS to help people with some of their underlying needs. I think this is pretty good, but needs a lot more funding, especially for the supportive services.
Unfortunately, homelessness is a huge and growing issue both inside and outside of California. There are a lot of systemic issues that contribute to the cycle of addiction and childhood trauma which I believe are at the heart of most of it. Add in poor job prospects and high cost of living (especially housing), and we have a ton of work to do to reverse this trend.
Hamas and the variety of militias comprise the Palestinian armed resistance to Israeli occupation. They are made up mostly of orphans. They are not “the big bad”, they are Palestinians. I’m not going to justify everything they do, but neither will I condemn them. What is Palestine’s alternative?
I’m not saying they are all “just as bad” as one another. I’m trying to move us beyond the word “terrorism”. IDF is worse than Hamas because of the context. IDF is an occupying force.
The CIA is often in charge of designating drone targets.
Not everyone who is targeted is an “insurgent commander”
Even “insurgent commanders” have families who might not have much choice about their proximity.
US military prisons like Abu Ghraib and Gitmo were famously filled with victims of grudges and bounties. Basically the US pays informants for targets, and informants just point at whoever they want. Military “intelligence” has a lot of holes in it to rely on it as an authority on who lives or dies-- and that’s before we even get into “collateral”.
Speaking of “collateral”, yes that is a weasel word, much like “terrorist”. Don’t allow the perpetrator to define the terms for you. If there was one US general in the twin towers, would that have made the other 3k victims “collateral damage”?
I agree that the California liberal establishment is not tackling the serious issues we have here, particularly with housing, but what kind of “forced intervention” are you hoping for from Republicans?
I think you’ve absorbed too many American movies. The idea that “Afghans learned that” is so fucked up for at least two reasons. One, are you saying it was terrorism until the civvies learned to avoid US targets? Two, how the fuck are rural Afghanis supposed to know who’s on the CIA kill list? The idea that they learned anything from being drone struck, besides what it feels like to have PTSD every time you go outside, is pretty silly.
The US military, much like most if not all other militaries will absolutely murder civilians if the objective requires it. You can’t just take their word for what the objective is either. And is the US military really handing out court martials over civilian casualties? Given that the vast majority of US caused civilian deaths have resulted from ATG ordnance, we should expect a lot of court martials of pilots and drone operators, no? I’d love to see an example of that if you have one!
I think it’s a matter of propaganda and aesthetics. If you kill civilians with an air force, that’s “collateral damage”. If you kill them with a truck bomb, that’s “terrorism”. After 9/11 there was at least a conversation about how squishy a word like ‘terrorism’ is, and how it was going to end up applied to anyone we needed it to.
Thanks for the links. There’s some new information in there that I’ll have to look further into. For one, I’ve never heard of security concerns about 5G versus 4G.
I also wasn’t aware of the TMSI at all. I still don’t fully understand some things about it which would be important considerations:
How is this randomized number assigned/correlated to the IMSI? Is it done by the tower?
It seems like the carrier can request the actual IMSI at any time. Can these CSS also do that? TMSI is supposed to protect against ‘eavesdroppers’ but these industrial a grade CSS might have greater capabilities than passive eavesdropping.
I am unsure if or how disabling roaming would protect you from CSS. For one, the spoofing might make your device think it isn’t roaming. Secondly, the CSS might still be aware of your device anyway, even if it doesn’t establish an open connection to it. The phone and the tower need some minimum communication to even determine if you’re roaming or not.
I don’t see a practical difference between targeting civilians directly, and a blatant disregard for civilian casualties. Like, if you drop a bomb on a wedding, because you’re trying to kill one non-civilian target, but you obviously know that 100 civilians will die-- then how is that any different than suicide bombing the same wedding? Are the civilian victims less dead? Do their families feel differently?