General News

[MPH]

1 hour ago, SecretPro said:

Lots of Western help, lots of Western finance and munitions, the development of Iron Dome and an instance by Major Western powers that Israel can basically do what they want, when they want and that invading several countries and territories in the space of a year, plus assassinating people in several other countries is not in any way provocation. (Let alone wiping 45,000 women and children off the map and subjecting an entire population to illegal and increasing occupation for 70 years).

you’re right about the Iron dome, but they had western help and money and munitions in 2006 also. 
 

However, I’m not sure why you felt it necessary to add all the other stuff, unless you mistook my post  as unequivocal support for Israel’s actions, which  it  certainly isn’t.

Edited 3 October 2024 by MPH

[SecretPro]

6 minutes ago, MPH said:

you’re right about the Iron dome, but they had western help and money and munitions in 2006 also. 
 

However, I’m not sure why you felt it necessary to add all the other stuff, unless you mistook my post  as unequivocal support for Israel’s actions, which  it  certainly isn’t.

Not at all, just highlighting the reasons why Israel can now literally please themselves and get away with stuff they definitely shouldn't. 

[MPH]

Just now, SecretPro said:

Not at all, just highlighting the reasons why Israel can now literally please themselves and get away with stuff they definitely shouldn't. 

 

but still none of that applies to why they have been more successful in a straight up fight with Hezbollah.

[SecretPro]

Just now, MPH said:

 

but still none of that applies to why they have been more successful in a straight up fight with Hezbollah.

Got to remember, those Pagers and Walkie Talkies mamed about 1000 Hezbollah members, probably high-ups responsible for logistics and communications. That will definitely have an impact on front line fighters.

[MPH]

1 minute ago, SecretPro said:

Got to remember, those Pagers and Walkie Talkies mamed about 1000 Hezbollah members, probably high-ups responsible for logistics and communications. That will definitely have an impact on front line fighters.

 

as much as I have found many of Israel’s actions to be outright repulsive, I think you touched on a good point.. they have become very smart.. Mossad in particular have long since developed a reputation for their ingenuity but whoever thought of that will probably go down  in war folklore as a master.  Espionage and skullduggery have often been a part of war but I think it brings it back to the forefront. Many will think of ideas like that but the planning and pulling it off takes it to a different level. I do believe it  was originally intended to be executed on the day of a ground invasion,  I believe every military around the world let out a “Wow” when that happened.

[Trav Le Bleu]

2 hours ago, MPH said:

So I’m a little confused as to how/why in 2006 Israel seemed to struggle with Hezbollah and their ‘confrontation’ pretty much ended in a stalemate. Yet here we are 18 years later  and despite some moderate damage by missiles from them, it appears the Israelis been able to cut through them  ( Hezbollah) like a hot knife through butter.. There is not a stalemate right now, just Israel making advances and scoring some victories. 

 

Iran must be seething.  In the Conext of change, their billions have bore no fruit for either Hamas/Palestine/Hezbollah. 
 

 if I was Iranian, I’d feel highly embarrassed with how badly things have gone for them since Hamas’ initial attack.  And if I was Hamas, I’d be raging at Iran for  egging them on to do that and with how it’s effected their country at the moment. I would also wonder if Iran even cared about the Palestians at all…

Maybe last time they tried to avoid civilian casualties? No giving a damn, in the knowledge they'll not be held accountable makes it far easier to unleash hell.

[st albans fox]

3 hours ago, SecretPro said:

 (Let alone wiping 45,000 women and children off the map ).

I feel bad correcting you because it’s  probably somewhere between 10/15k - tough to defend that on any level though.

 

@mph - they haven’t really started fighting on the ground. Up until yesterday the IDF were no more than 400m into Lebanese territory and some reports said that they hadn’t stayed there but returned. In 2006 they went in with less caution and paid heavily for it. Hezbollah are a formidable ground fighting force in the south where there are extensive tunnel structures for them to hide in.

Israel had a lot of success in destroying hezbollah missiles from the air before they could be launched in 2006.  Hezbollah learned from this which is why they developed the incredible tactic of paying locals sympathetic to their cause to house such weaponry.  Videos from the last week often show many secondary explosions in what appear to be civilian structures. 
 

Israel made a lot of miscalculations in 2006 - they were clearly preoccupied in recovering half a dozen soldiers that had been taken hostage (which effectively kicked off the month long war). 

As @SecretPro posted, the pagers etc were a very effective way to destroy the enemy’s comms structure and also take out more than a thousand senior military personnel from the fight.  I expect if Israel gets more involved on the ground in s Lebanon that they will take a lot more casualties than they have in Gaza. 

 

 

 

 

 

[SecretPro]

1 hour ago, st albans fox said:

I feel bad correcting you because it’s  probably somewhere between 10/15k - tough to defend that on any level though.

 

@mph - they haven’t really started fighting on the ground. Up until yesterday the IDF were no more than 400m into Lebanese territory and some reports said that they hadn’t stayed there but returned. In 2006 they went in with less caution and paid heavily for it. Hezbollah are a formidable ground fighting force in the south where there are extensive tunnel structures for them to hide in.

Israel had a lot of success in destroying hezbollah missiles from the air before they could be launched in 2006.  Hezbollah learned from this which is why they developed the incredible tactic of paying locals sympathetic to their cause to house such weaponry.  Videos from the last week often show many secondary explosions in what appear to be civilian structures. 
 

Israel made a lot of miscalculations in 2006 - they were clearly preoccupied in recovering half a dozen soldiers that had been taken hostage (which effectively kicked off the month long war). 

As @SecretPro posted, the pagers etc were a very effective way to destroy the enemy’s comms structure and also take out more than a thousand senior military personnel from the fight.  I expect if Israel gets more involved on the ground in s Lebanon that they will take a lot more casualties than they have in Gaza. 

 

 

 

 

 

Where are those figures from? Certainly not UN figures which are broadly in line with Gaza's own calculations? 

 

EDIT: Sorry, I thought I put men, women and children in my original post.

Edited 3 October 2024 by SecretPro

[MPH]

1 hour ago, st albans fox said:

I feel bad correcting you because it’s  probably somewhere between 10/15k - tough to defend that on any level though.

 

@mph - they haven’t really started fighting on the ground. Up until yesterday the IDF were no more than 400m into Lebanese territory and some reports said that they hadn’t stayed there but returned. In 2006 they went in with less caution and paid heavily for it. Hezbollah are a formidable ground fighting force in the south where there are extensive tunnel structures for them to hide in.

Israel had a lot of success in destroying hezbollah missiles from the air before they could be launched in 2006.  Hezbollah learned from this which is why they developed the incredible tactic of paying locals sympathetic to their cause to house such weaponry.  Videos from the last week often show many secondary explosions in what appear to be civilian structures. 
 

Israel made a lot of miscalculations in 2006 - they were clearly preoccupied in recovering half a dozen soldiers that had been taken hostage (which effectively kicked off the month long war). 

As @SecretPro posted, the pagers etc were a very effective way to destroy the enemy’s comms structure and also take out more than a thousand senior military personnel from the fight.  I expect if Israel gets more involved on the ground in s Lebanon that they will take a lot more casualties than they have in Gaza. 

 

 

 

 

 

They’ve been in a couple of days now and on the first day faced no opposition from Hamas… but I think it was something like 10 Israeli soldiers were killed in Lebanon so there is now some level of fighting going on…

[MPH]

15 minutes ago, SecretPro said:

Where are those figures from? Certainly not UN figures which are broadly in line with Gaza's own calculations? 

 

EDIT: Sorry, I thought I put men, women and children in my original post.

 

I think people killed and civilians killed is not a separation Gaza Health officials make..

[MPH]

2 hours ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

Maybe last time they tried to avoid civilian casualties? No giving a damn, in the knowledge they'll not be held accountable makes it far easier to unleash hell.

please don’t take this next comment as defending what they are doing.

 

what they are doing is no different to What Americans did in Afghanistan, Russians are doing in Ukraine and I imagine many other modern day wars.  when Hamas and Hezbollah soldiers engage in warfare and then retreat back into civilian  areas, or possibly fire those rockets from civilian  areas, then they have to shoulder some of the blame for the civilian casualties.

Edited 3 October 2024 by MPH

[leicsmac]

6 minutes ago, MPH said:

 

I think people killed and civilians killed is not a separation Gaza Health officials make..

 

22 minutes ago, SecretPro said:

Where are those figures from? Certainly not UN figures which are broadly in line with Gaza's own calculations? 

 

EDIT: Sorry, I thought I put men, women and children in my original post.

To be honest, I think at this stage and knowing something about the numbers it's a semantic discussion anyway - the truth is that there is a vastly disproportionate level of civilian casualties on each side in this particular matter since it began, of the order of at least 10:1.

[leicsmac]

11 minutes ago, MPH said:

please don’t take this next comment as defending what they are doing.

 

what they are doing is no different to What Americans did in Afghanistan, Russians are doing in Ukraine and I imagine many other modern day wars.  when Hamas and Hezbollah soldiers engage in warfare and then retreat back into civilian  areas, or possibly fire those rockets from civilian  areas, then they have to shoulder some of the blame for the civilian casualties.

Yeah, this is the reality of a total and of an asymmetric war.

 

I can't speak for anyone else, but for me it's the lie being sold across differing forms of media that what is happening is "clean" and in some twisted way compassionate towards the civilians on the other side, and the total absolution of any kind of responsibility for those civilian bodies, that sticks in the craw the most. The sheer lack of honesty of purpose is staggering.

 

But then, "The first casualty of war is the truth" and all that.

Edited 3 October 2024 by leicsmac

[MPH]

30 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Yeah, this is the reality of a total and of an asymmetric war.

 

I can't speak for anyone else, but for me it's the lie being sold across differing forms of media that what is happening is "clean" and in some twisted way compassionate towards the civilians on the other side, and the total absolution of any kind of responsibility for those civilian bodies, that sticks in the craw the most. The sheer lack of honesty of purpose is staggering.

 

But then, "The first casualty of war is the truth" and all that.

I think how Israel justify it as being ‘clean’ is by claiming they are giving out warnings to civilians to evacuate the areas. They are targeting. 
 

But there’s so much more to it than that.. you can’t displace 1m people at 6 hrs notice  and expect them to use the infrastructure that 20k people might usually use in a day. You can’t expect hospitals schools and nursing  homes to relocate with 6hrs notice let alone prepare the sick and infern for evacuation. And where do all these people go to? Where is the  infrastructure going to come from at such short notice and I don’t blame people for one minute I’m not wanting to leave everything behind because they don’t know where there next meal will come from if they do.

 

I do still hold Hezbollah and Hamas somewhat partly  responsible   For operating out of civilian areas but to pretend there’s anything good about  modern war doesn’t sit well with me either. Naively, I think  It’s a shame that the days of meeting in a field are over.

Edited 3 October 2024 by MPH

[SecretPro]

1 hour ago, MPH said:

 

I think people killed and civilians killed is not a separation Gaza Health officials make..

True enough, but at least 45,000 Palestinians have been killed. Israel could kill every single member of Hamas and it would still amount to less than half of that figure. There are probably between 10 and 15,000 Hamas fighters in existence (and thats at their strongest point). Its by no means an 'Army'. So even in BEST case scenario (and, frankly, that's a ridiculous notion), to every Hamas fighter killed, 2 civilians also lose their lives. That's a level of 'collateral' that Is beyond horrifying, let alone reasonable.

Edited 3 October 2024 by SecretPro

[Fox in the North]

I do enjoy a good community note. Cleverly not living up to his surname again.

 

 

[leicsmac]

16 minutes ago, Fox in the North said:

I do enjoy a good community note. Cleverly not living up to his surname again.

 

 

Tbf the UK shouldn't be holding on to the Chagos Islands and having it used as a CIA deniable funhouse anyway.

[st albans fox]

1 hour ago, SecretPro said:

True enough, but at least 45,000 Palestinians have been killed. Israel could kill every single member of Hamas and it would still amount to less than half of that figure. There are probably between 10 and 15,000 Hamas fighters in existence (and thats at their strongest point). Its by no means an 'Army'. So even in BEST case scenario (and, frankly, that's a ridiculous notion), to every Hamas fighter killed, 2 civilians also lose their lives. That's a level of 'collateral' that Is beyond horrifying, let alone reasonable.

Urban warfare is ugly 

israel estimated the numbers of Hamas fighters killed in mid July at 17k. You’d assume by now that’s over 20k.  If you’re prepared to accept Hamas numbers then you should also accept IDF ones - then that’s approx 1:1.  If you think that 2:1 is horrific then don’t look up what was done to clear ISIS fighters by forces inc NATO. 
 

there was a Haaretz (not known for their sympathetic approach to govt) article early sept which pointed out that Hamas had barely admitted any casualties of its fighters since last October ( in contrast to Hamas in the West Bank and Hezbollah who usually announced combat deaths on telegram).  This is apparently done to drive sympathy in the west to their plight - admitting x number of fighters killed affects that. On that subject, I have noted over the last few days that Hezbollah are no longer announcing its casualties. we have total numbers from the Lebanese govt (should be more reliable than Hamas) but we don’t know how many are Hezbollah fighters.  I saw a figure of 6.5% children as a percentage of deaths recorded up to today.  I can’t find women numbers but I thought I’d seen was around 200 which would be around 10%.. 
 

hamas should have surrendered ages ago. Their only hope is that Harris wins and they’ve managed to stumble through to January.  I believe that she will force through a deal. 

[Paninistickers]

2 hours ago, MPH said:

Naively, I think  It’s a shame that the days of meeting in a field are over

Ended, at least in modern times, in WWII. Total war. We bombed the Dutch, the french, Norwegians and of course , caroet bombed German cities and it's citizens when they lost air defences. + yanks nuked Japanese children and grandmas. 

 

The only 'credit' I can give Israel is that they recognise you can't have war-lite. Or acceptable war. You are either in or out. 

[Paninistickers]

Interesting that correspondents seem to be leaning towards Iran (regime) having to face up to an existential threat. Iran's bluff will be well and truly called. And it may turn inwards to protect what it's got. 

 

Interesting if the Iranian public see a chance to rise up when they realise the emperor has no clothes. 

[st albans fox]

4 minutes ago, Paninistickers said:

Interesting that correspondents seem to be leaning towards Iran (regime) having to face up to an existential threat. Iran's bluff will be well and truly called. And it may turn inwards to protect what it's got. 

 

Interesting if the Iranian public see a chance to rise up when they realise the emperor has no clothes. 

We couldn’t possibly become involved in regime change ……. Well not overtly 

[Paninistickers]

1 minute ago, st albans fox said:

We couldn’t possibly become involved in regime change ……. Well not overtly 

 might be an unintended consequence, but seems those in the know think Iran won't risk being seen (at home) to have 'no clothes' 

[leicsmac]

2 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Tbf the UK shouldn't be holding on to the Chagos Islands and having it used as a CIA deniable funhouse anyway.

On this topic:

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98ynejg4l5o

 

Looks like a bit of both here then: the UK lets go of the islands generally, but the CIA keeps its "enhanced interrogation" site.

[SecretPro]

56 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

Urban warfare is ugly 

israel estimated the numbers of Hamas fighters killed in mid July at 17k. You’d assume by now that’s over 20k.  If you’re prepared to accept Hamas numbers then you should also accept IDF ones - then that’s approx 1:1.  If you think that 2:1 is horrific then don’t look up what was done to clear ISIS fighters by forces inc NATO. 
 

there was a Haaretz (not known for their sympathetic approach to govt) article early sept which pointed out that Hamas had barely admitted any casualties of its fighters since last October ( in contrast to Hamas in the West Bank and Hezbollah who usually announced combat deaths on telegram).  This is apparently done to drive sympathy in the west to their plight - admitting x number of fighters killed affects that. On that subject, I have noted over the last few days that Hezbollah are no longer announcing its casualties. we have total numbers from the Lebanese govt (should be more reliable than Hamas) but we don’t know how many are Hezbollah fighters.  I saw a figure of 6.5% children as a percentage of deaths recorded up to today.  I can’t find women numbers but I thought I’d seen was around 200 which would be around 10%.. 
 

hamas should have surrendered ages ago. Their only hope is that Harris wins and they’ve managed to stumble through to January.  I believe that she will force through a deal. 

No thanks, I'll accept UN numbers, backed by UN nations. There's plenty of lies and manipulation on both sides, but I will not trust Netanyahu. Ever. He is despicable in every way. Hes literally waging war to extend his own appointment at this point, and I've seen plenty of evidence of despicable behaviour from an apparently 'civilised' and 'Professional' IDF (in comparison to the barbaric Hamas terrorists)

 

US intelligence said in June Hamas had between 9000 and 12000 militants remaining - half the number they existed prior to the most recent war, a total of 24,000 at the higher end. You are vastly overestimating how many Hamas fighters have actually ever existed. 

 

We both know we are never going to agree, as you are extremely pro-israel (despite constantly proclaiming you aren't) and I am openly anti-zionist. 

Edited 3 October 2024 by SecretPro

[Foxdiamond]

49 minutes ago, Paninistickers said:

Ended, at least in modern times, in WWII. Total war. We bombed the Dutch, the french, Norwegians and of course , caroet bombed German cities and it's citizens when they lost air defences. + yanks nuked Japanese children and grandmas. 

 

The only 'credit' I can give Israel is that they recognise you can't have war-lite. Or acceptable war. You are either in or out. 

Yes, no easy way to fight a war. Mind I wonder what alternative way the allies had to fight ww2