Saturday, 18 November 2023

From the news on: the war in West Asia [Content Warning - links to reports on bigotry/hate, violence including SA & CSA/abuse/war, genocide, language. Reader discretion is advised]

Note: CONTENT WARNING - some of this content is about upsetting, disturbing or triggering events & attitudes. Seek competent help - including professional - if you need it. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that linked articles may contains names and/or images of deceased people. READER CAUTION IS RECOMMENDED! For anyone distressed by anything in this post, or for any other reason considering seeking support, resources are available in Australia here, here, and here. In other nations, you will have to do an Internet search using terms such as “mental health support - <your nation>” (which, for instance, may lead to this, this, and this, in the USA, or this, this, and this, in France [biased towards English-language - my apologies]), or perhaps try https://www.befrienders.org/. 

Note: in my “from the news” posts, quotes are shown italicised and blue, my comments are in a different shade of blue, and “good” items are shown in green. I have loosely grouped the posts where such seemed reasonable, but that is subjective (i.e., my opinion - others are free to disagree), and challenging, as some posts belong in multiple “groups”.

Reporting on recent and currently ongoing tragic events in West Asia, in Israel, Gaza, and adjoining nations, includes the following:

  • “voices from scientists on the front lines”   https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03550-0   in a further blow to Israel’s credibility (see my comments below about a Pyrrhic victory), the article includes   “In an 11 October press statement and accompanying video, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the country’s military, confirmed that it had attacked the IUG. According to the statement, the university was being used as “a training camp for military intelligence operatives, as well as for the development and production of weapons” and conferences were being used to “raise funds for terrorism”.”   



As a final comment, I wrote to my local MP early this week expressing concern that Israel may win a Pyrrhic  victory in Gaza. 

However, the casualties of Israel's response to those events are not only Palestinians:

the casualties also include public support for Israel in and by other nations, which is a lesson the USA has learned in multiple conflicts, including most recently in Iraq

When a building is destroyed to kill a violent extremist (allegedly - someone other than Israel and the USA must assess the evidence to confirm the presence of that violent extremist, if Israel's claims are to be believed), it also kills others - including innocent children. These additional casualties - the human lives often trivialised by the militaries of the world as "collateral damage" - are, in turn, causing other collateral damage - namely, the aforementioned erosion of support for Israel.

This is unlikely to be of any significant, immediate import to Israel (not even Iran's latest nonsense - see https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/12/gulf-states-fend-off-call-from-iran-to-arm-palestinians-at-riyadh-summit, which is being ignored by Arab nations), but at some future date, the USA may be hard pressed by other issues (e.g., actions by China on the Indian border or in the South China Sea) or completely immersed in some other action (e.g., if China did attack Taiwan, or Putin uses battlefield nuclear weapons), and, at that time, Israel will need friends beyond the USA ... and risks finding none ...

At that time, Israel may find it has won a Pyrrhic victory now, at the expense of a future war - caused by Israel's own goal amongst its (former) supporters through its lack of proportionality in Gaza.



Note: as with other mass murderers, violent extremists crave publicity, so I refuse to give that to them - I will avoid using their names (which is a policy adopted by good law enforcement and media for other mass murderers), and I will not give them the satisfaction of being described with the T word. 

Note also that the genocidal intent of the VEs I refuse to name is clear, according to this from experts in that topic.

 

Assumptions / basis 

In writing this, I have assumed / started from the following: 

  • this blog states quite clearly that it is about political and human rights matters, including lived experience of problems, and thus I will assume readers are reasonable people who have noted the content warning in the post header;

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:

  • there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”; 
  • I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.

 

If they are of any use of interest, the activism information links from my former news posts are available in this post. 

 

If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below.

Remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing, and all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk.


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