Messages

31

Off Topic / RE: Election 2024, the Squeaquel

« on: July 14, 2024, 02:06:46 AM »

loving just won Annoying Orange the election smdh

like even if he succeeded, there is no way this ends well for anyone goddamn

32

Off Topic / Re: The IOF's invasion of Gaza

« on: July 08, 2024, 04:01:32 PM »

I apologize that this post ended up being edited, I had to troubleshoot the forget out of this to figure out why it wasn't letting me post, and I guess it had something to do with certain words possibly using alternate characters but when I retyped them it fixed them? Idfk


So Israeli media agency, Haaretz, recently disclosed that during the attacks on October 7th, Israel's military was ordered to follow the "Hannibal Directive".

The directive was created by the Israeli military in the 1980s as an operating procedure designed to prevent the kidnap of soldiers by whatever means necessary, even if that comes at the expense of the lives of civilian hostages.

It has previously been blamed for possible war crimes, encouraging excessive or indiscriminate fire, and was formally discontinued in 2016.

A southern command source told the paper: "Everyone knew by then that such vehicles could be carrying kidnapped civilians or soldiers ... Everyone knew what it meant to not let any vehicles return to Gaza."

In what was initially reported as Friendly Fire Incidents, which is usually used to explain accidental self-inflicted casualties, are now confirmed to be the direct orders of the Israeli military to fire on vehicles that they knew contained civilian and military hostages.

A couple more links in case you don't want to sign up for a Haaretz account:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-gaza-hamas-attack-hannibal-haaretz-b2575744.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/07/israel-idf-hannibal-protocol-hamas-attack-haaretz

Imagine if in the US we had someone holding people hostage in a bank or something and the police response was to just to blow the whole thing up to make sure we killed the kidnappers.

I don't know what else to say. I don't really have any comments to attach to this, its not really something worthy of debate as much as it is just a stuffty thing that has happened.


Meanwhile, Israel refuses to end fighting until all their war goals are met. Now of course i'm not a politician myself, but "We will only accept a treaty after we have killed everyone on the other side." isn't really how ceasefire negotiations are supposed to go iirc.
Hamas has even dropped their demand that the ceasefire be permanent, which was one of the previous key sticking points that Israel wouldn't accept, and are accepting a six-week hold while further negotiations are underway. I guess we'll have to see if Israel will accept the deal now that they are given permission to resume their attacks after the six weeks.

33

Off Topic / Re: The IOF's invasion of Gaza

« on: July 06, 2024, 02:47:35 PM »

Considering that I am a whole legal adult older than I was when I joined the forums, I hope most of my posts these days aren't stuffpost fish spamming.

34

Off Topic / Re: The IOF's invasion of Gaza

« on: July 04, 2024, 10:18:48 PM »

So after Israel rejected 10 ceasefire deals, they are finally coming to the table to discuss an exchange of prisoners on each side.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-weighs-hamas-response-gaza-ceasefire-proposal-2024-07-04/

Many of Netanyahu's senior staff have threatened to quit the government, however, if this current invasion ends without all of Hamas eradicated.
This does put Netanyahu in a tough position as he is at this point only supported by the far-right, and without his supporters, this will likely be his last term in office, especially as Israeli elections draw close, and more and more Israeli civillians wish to see an end to hostilities and attempts to rebuild relations with their Palestinian neighbors.
Like I've said before, this war is completely unnecessary, and its main supporters are politicians who are trying to use it to hold onto their positions.

I guess we'll see if Netanyahu has finally grown tired of this charade and will actually do something effective to bring the hostages home.

35

Off Topic / Re: The IOF's invasion of Gaza

« on: July 01, 2024, 01:20:13 AM »

Where, then, should congress get information on how many wounded Gazans need medical care, starving Gazans, need food, sick Gazans need medicine? Who else has the information that can help them make an decision besides the actual medical professionals currently doing their best to take care of this populace?

[edit]Sorry for the edit, but this thought just occured to me. This whole argument about death toll is loving irrelevant. You were right. The information that 23-29 thousand non-combatants out of 35 thousand people killed make no difference to the amount of aid provided. What this bill does do, is deprive us of our primary resource on how many people are still alive and need help, and what kind of help they need.

36

Off Topic / Re: The IOF's invasion of Gaza

« on: July 01, 2024, 01:06:54 AM »

If I'm understanding correctly the bill is for things like childhood cancer and female genital mutilation and you're mad they're not allowed to cite deaths inflated by Hamas terrorists?I don't even think this blocks them from citing the GHM in other context.
Honestly though digging into bills/acts is a bit over my head.

There's also the provisions on funding wildlife diversity programs, wanna link that too?

The way bills work is that one bill doesnt cover only one topic, it usually covers a bunch of things all clumped together. Part of this big chunk of funding is allocating relief to civillians due to a war we are complicit in. They are saying they want to ignore the numbers that indicate how much damage has been caused, even when they have full ability to account for any discrepancies in the numbers with the information they have. This will mean that they do not account for just how many people are being injured there if they are using the numbers Israel is putting out instead.
As another person brought up before, third party UN evaluators have found that the Gaza Health Ministries numbers are more accurate than those put forth by the US's allys.

The only two possible reasons for not using those numbers are either because we actually don't want to provide more relief, or because we don't want to acknowledge those numbers validity. Not acknowledging them doesn't make them not accurate.

37

Off Topic / Re: The IOF's invasion of Gaza

« on: June 30, 2024, 11:29:39 PM »

You sure like to obsess over one part of a statement rather than take into account the broader picture because you think you have some sort of "gotcha".

I know you are trying to lead to a "yeah, of course including the number of combatants in the overall count means that we cannot use the information" but it is a really weird sentence to make, which requires us to assume that the governments using this information are too inept to make this assessment themselves. Are you assuming that those in charge of sending aid are too unintelligent to, say, subtract the unmodified number of reported dead by the amount of combatants they estimate have been killed, and adjust appropriately?

You seem to be missing the point, but you're right, maybe I shouldn't assume malice on your part. Maybe there is just a communication error. So, lets try out three premises.

1:
Gvmt has been using these numbers for years, without investigating their authenticity.
Protests against the Gvmt's complicity start.
Silmultaneously, the Gvmt realizes that these numbers arent accurate and spontaneously decide to not use them.

2:
Gvmt has been using these numbers for years, has investigated them and deemed them completely unreliable.
Still continue to use them anyways without taking into account the knowledge they are innacurate.
Protests against the Gvmt's complicity start.
Gvmt suddenly realizes that they shouldn't be using inaccurate numbers and there is no way to adjust based on other information they have.

3:
Gvmt has been using these numbers for years, has investigated them and deemed them reliable enough to inform policy decision.
Protests against the Gvmt's complicity start.
Gvmt realizes it is not a good look that they are continuing their actions while acknowledging the at least 23,000 innocent civillians killed after subtracting the maximum presumed combatants killed, 12k, from the total reported by the Gazan Health Ministry, 35k.


True, though, maybe our government is just that disorganized that this completely flew above everyone's heads, and the correct situation is 1 or 2?

38

Off Topic / Re: The IOF's invasion of Gaza

« on: June 30, 2024, 04:58:36 PM »

Of the 35000 Gazans killed it is estimated that 9-12k of them have been combatants according to the US's interpretation of the numbers. Hamas itself claims that they have only lost 6k combatants.
That is still 2-3 innocent civilians killed for every combatant if you are going by the higher US estimates.
And that doesn't even go into civilians who have been wounded and permanently disabled as a result of US-aided assaults on tent encampments.

These numbers are used to inform all sorts of policy decisions outside of just aid being given, including military expenditures like how many more bombs and ammo we are supplying, peace agreement proposals, and more. I had only focused on humanitarian aid aspect because I stupidly thought that you would care that innocent people will be receiving less support.
My mistake.

39

Off Topic / Re: The IOF's invasion of Gaza

« on: June 30, 2024, 12:15:38 PM »

You have to be loving trolling at this point.

"These are the statistics the government has been using to inform their decisions"
"Ok"
"Why would they use these statistics if they are misleading"
"idk lol"

Do you think that the goverment is really that stupid that they would just trust misleading figures like this? OR is it more likely that by acknowledging these figures they are ackowledging the disproportionate response of Israel, which they do not want to do because t makes them complicit.

40

Off Topic / Re: The IOF's invasion of Gaza

« on: June 30, 2024, 01:27:09 AM »

If the numbers are intentionally misleading then why has the US Govenrment been using those same numbers for over twenty years?

41

Off Topic / Re: The IOF's invasion of Gaza

« on: June 28, 2024, 03:33:26 PM »

the gaza ministry of health's numbers have fallen extremely close to the number the UN eventually settles on. israeli and US intelligence have been relying on their data for 2 decades

Soukuw wont have to worry about this anymore though.

The government just announced a ban on using the death toll figures from the Gaza Health Ministry.

So despite this being a source that even the US has used previously to give us up-to-date information about the situation in Palestine, we will no longer be allowed to consider this information in making budgetary decisions about providing aid and resources to the people experiencing a genocide anymore.

This is a legal order, by our own government, to ignore the facts of what is happening.

Some more articles, (I'll even skip referring to Al-Jazeera on this post too)
https://theintercept.com/2024/06/27/congress-gaza-death-toll-democrats/
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/06/27/us-house-votes-to-suppress-gaza-death-toll/
https://www.livenowfox.com/video/1477610
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4744241-house-amendment-gaza-death-toll/
https://sg.news.yahoo.com/house-votes-ban-state-department-235126257.html
https://www.jezebel.com/rashida-tlaib-lone-palestinian-american-in-congress-rebukes-colleagues-for-trying-to-erase-gaza-death-toll

42

Off Topic / Re: Biden/Annoying Orange Debate

« on: June 28, 2024, 01:59:55 AM »

and omfg that stupid bickering "oh i could hit a golfball better than you" "no, i bet you couldnt even carry your bags through" "oh yeah I challenged you to golf and you backed out" "well lets go play golf, ill totally beat you bro"

like you asshats are supposed to be making the case for Who Will Run The loving Country. Who will be responsible for the lives of a third of a billion people, more even when you consider the US's influence on the global stage. And you're arguing about golf. come on

43

Off Topic / Re: Biden/Annoying Orange Debate

« on: June 27, 2024, 11:24:35 PM »

So like Biden did manage to actually answer the questions that the debate moderators put forth, but some of those answers, like how only Hamas wants the war in Gaza to continue (which is wrong), and that we must continue to help Israel, were awful. But at least he wasn't going with Annoying Orange's "No, we need to let them finish off the Palestinians completely."

Meanwhile Annoying Orange literally did not answer a single question put forth to him (unless cornered after being asked 3+ times). When asked about the opioid epidemic he goes on a two minute rant about Russia and Biden in Ukraine? Like does he not understand the English language? He could not give any specific policy. When finally cornered into answering about the climate crCIA he went on to say that he supported all forms of clean energy and water despite having specifically made it a goal in his presidency and now in his campaigning that he wants to completely divest from green energy and eliminate all environmental oversight.

But everyone is just going to obsess (not without justification) on how loving old Biden looked and sounded through the whole thing.
I'm hearing that some dems are saying we need to replace him on the ballot.

This whole thing is depressing.

44

Off Topic / Election 2024, the Squeaquel, Chapter 2: A New Challenger Approaches

« on: June 27, 2024, 10:50:35 PM »

Major Update: Biden No Longer In Race, Endorses Kamala Harris

Dear god why are these two idiots the only options for most Americans.

Thank goodness I live in a state where I can safely vote green and my vote wont matter because we throw out over 2.5mil votes every election due to the electoral college.

People are saying so and so won.
I feel like everyone lost.

Give your opinions I guess?


Interstitial update, Biden's mistakingly calling Putin the president of Ukraine, followed by calling his vice president Annoying Orange, and saying that he answers to the commander and chief, is so depressing that Biden has lost $90mil in funding from donors. At this point the only way to reclaim those funds is if Kamala Harris is officially swapped into the nominatory position, due to the legalities of campaign finance.

But that wont happen because Biden is worried it would be "a bad look" if he dropped out now.


loving some dumbass just shot at Annoying Orange so now we got a goddamn photop of him raising a fist infront of a flag.
Topic change I guess:

Will this assassination attempt really change anyone's votes? Dems still wont vote for him, reps already were going to, people on the fence who aren't going to use their vote sensibly to support a third party, has this changed your opinion?

Update 7/15, because the 24hr news cycle just keeps churning, and a mass shooting will probably become irrelevant by next week:
Annoying Orange finally found someone who was willing to put up with being his VP, Ohio Senator JD Vance.

7/16 Video of Phone call shows collusion between Libertarian candidate with worm in his brain and Republican candidate with a new potentially intentional ear piercing.

President of Teamster's Union speaking at your RNC? It's more likely than you may think!


7/21 Biden officially steps down (on like the last possible day before electors begin the pledging process)


7/22 Republican candidate, Nikki Haley's PAC comes out in support of Kamala Harris

7/23 GOP is losing their stuff after their entire platform is derailed from change of opponent, Annoying Orange is trying to get a refund for his wasted money on the RNC

7/24 Republicans vote to defund cancer research. Also, JD Vance is so unpopular, his appointment as VP actually lowered Republican approval for this first time in history after a VP appointment.


8/6 Harris has chosen her running mate: Tim Walz

45

Off Topic / Re: Wondered what it'd be like to live in the Capitol during the Hunger Games?

« on: June 25, 2024, 02:07:11 AM »

Well it's been a while, since my last update. There is still no headway on an end to this conflict.
Netanyahu continues to reject and permanant cease-fires, saying that he wont agree to any deal that ends the war in Gaza.
The goal, as I have stated before, is not rescuing the hostages, but the complete subjugation of the Palestinian people.

I realize I hadn't finished compiling the TLDR for the link Soukuw had left. Really it distracts from the point of this whole thread that there continues to be widespread attrocities included Imposed famine, as reported by the UN

The most basic summary would say that Al Jazeera does have a pro-islamist and pro-qatar stance. Obviously they are going to be more inclined to report on these attrocities than, say, the American or Israeli Media which has a direct stake in making this genocide seem justified. But, if linking to that source is going to cause such consternation, (even when I backup these posts with like 8 other sources from other media) I will limit Al Jazeera links to no more than one per post.

In this post particularly, you will find that there is nothing that links to this

propaganda news source

Which I hope satisfies you because obviously any news source with controversies is completely unreliable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBS_News_controversies_and_criticism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN_controversies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSNBC_controversies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_controversies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_New_York_Times_controversies