@BitconnectCarlos maybe hearing it from others will open a crack for you to listen and understand what I've been saying: https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/resource/zionism/

Zero. There has been no cases where IDF soldiers and/or Israeli civilians went house to house murdering, raping, and torturing Palestinians in a manner comparable to 10/7. — BitconnectCarlos

Apart from the 40,000+ Palestinians killed, many of whom were tortured and raped by the IDF. But if you happen to disagree I invite you to go to Gaza yourself and tell them all that.

Personally, I think it is self-evident that the US action is guided by a geopolitical strategy. The idea that a nation achieves, maintains and defends hegemony 'by accident' is just not a very convincing argument to me. I also think there is plenty of historical and contemporary evidence to suggest that the US follows deliberate geopolitical strategies. — Tzeentch

Not sure where you're getting this from, but nowhere did I say the process imperial expansion is an accident.

What I explained is that empires tend to grow in response to an external threat where imperial expansion is perceived to be needed to deal with that threat. Certainly at least initially with other, especially later, phases of expansion having profit and prestige as also a main motivator, though "enemies out there" is generally a constant theme.

Point being, the perception of a serious external adversary that really could destroy your society drives meritocracy and competence among elites.

In an imperial ascendency phase you find competent, smart and honest people doing their best to advance the interests of the empire and other, even far more powerful on an individual basis, elites subordinating themselves to the needs of the empire as determined by a consolidated imperial custodianship.

Of course, when an empire expands elites benefit generally speaking, so there's not only the pressure from external threat but there's also a continuous flow of new empirical capital that eases inter-elite negotiations. There's a carrot and stick incentive structure driving competence, coherence and cooperation. What Chomsky refers to as (pretty sure Chomsky though maybe he didn't coin it) refers to as elite "war communism".

So definitely to build an empire you need really astute strategy, governing competence at all levels, and low levels of corruption (or then what corruption there is nominal corruption while actually serving to resolve elite conflicts; corrupt to de-corrupt as it were).

The problem that arises in the Imperial life cycle is that once external threat goes away (because enemies have been defeated for example) then elites lose focus on imperial maintenance. Elites ask themselves the question "what's it all for" and the answer is usually "to get me gold and sex slaves".

There's no longer the stick of the threat of external conquest that disciplines elites to subordinate their desires and personal ambitions to the needs of empire.

Reaching the apex, or then post an apex, of imperial expansion there's also no longer an inflow of the fruits of conquest that can be used to terminate inter-elite negotiations, so there is also no longer the carrots that the imperial custodian core can offer troublesome elites to follow their strategy.

The era of war communism comes to an end and elites lose the discipline to compete coherently with an external adversary and start competing between each other.

"Imperial strategy" doesn't go away per se, but becomes subordinated to factions of elite personal interest to extract capital from the empire, rather than the other way around, elites subordinated to imperial strategy, that was needed to build the empire in the first place. For example, faced with the threat of not only competing empires but competing ideologies that could potentially result in revolution at home, American elites tolerated a 90% top percentile tax rate, which wasn't so much to raise lots of taxes that way (as no rational person pays themselves to the extent of the taxes becoming 90%) but rather to discipline the elite class into reinvesting into expanding the capital base (or then the government anyways takes basically all the money and does it anyways). America was not dominated by socialists during this time, but rather American elites subordinated themselves to the needs of empire during the phase of imperial expansion (where they're going to access more markets, control more resources, so also had reason to reinvest all their capital rather than take it out of the production system and waste it on hookers and blow and lavish elaborate sex parties where "dark whims" can be indulged to better viscerally feel one's elite power; i.e. the stick of the threat of global communist revolution and the carrot of globalization goes away and other more personal priorities emerge).

As the threat of the Soviet Union seemed dealt with militarily and in particular the anxiety of communist revolution at home ebbed away (which was very real in the Great Depression), long story short, elites started to corrupt the system as their perception started to change from strategic alignment with imperial expansion and maintenance to extracting imperial wealth being the best strategy for personal aggrandizement of whatever form they are into. I.e. elite cooperation maximizes elite personal power during imperial ascendency as the benefits of being an elite running an empire far exceeds the power of maximizing relative power with other elites in a not-empire, but once empire reaches an apex then extracting wealth from the empire, to its long term detriment, is what maximizes personal power.

All of which is to say that the US is in such a corrupt decline and imperial strategy is subordinated to individual elite interest and the dominant factions they able to form on any particular issue. They'll of course continue to nominally express their actions as the result of some intelligible imperial plan; obviously people don't just come out and say "we're doing this war to make mad profits and build bunkers in Switzerland and New Zealand that we can hide in once the system collapses" but they pretend it's part of some actual plan. To begin with there's a compromise between elite interests and honest and clever imperial custodians but over time that process of compromise with smart people is a liability and they're replaced with useful idiots and corrupt sycophants and that's when things become rapidly stupid.

We've seen a rapid decline in US power and prestige over a short period of time; this is due to corrupt idiocy and not some 5D chess moves happening.

For example, to the extent the Ukraine war is for the geopolitical purpose of harming the European economy to put down a geopolitical competitor and in particular a competitor to the USD ... well the need to harm your own allies is only a situation that arises due to corrupt imperial mismanagement and the Euro threatening the position of the dollar as reserve currency is likewise only a problem in the first place due to disastrous fiscal mismanagement (debts taken on to directly transfer massive sums of money to the elites).

As for the matter at hand, the idea the US needs Israel to commit a genocide for "geopolitical reasons" is simply laughable. Israel needs to commit a genocide in order to carry out a genocide and can extract US Imperial capital of various forms in order to do so because a Zionist US elite coalition has managed to put themselves in charge of the issue through decades of systemic corruption.

I think you're grossly underestimating the power of the United States.

Of course it has various domestic issues, and corruption is undoubtedly one of them.

However, settling on 'incompetence' as an explanation for US behavior is, as I said previously, not something I find convincing - not as long as there are clearly discernable patterns that betray a strategy like the ones I have pointed out.

Calling this '5D chess' is a bit ridiculous. The US has always behaved according to the tenants of realism, and used elaborate schemes to outmanoeuvre - often successfully - geopolitical rivals and unfortunate assets.

Your view is in line with the image the US tries to export of itself, namely that of a 'benign hegemon,' that only does ill out of incompetence and clumsiness. One glance at history, even recent history, however, betrays Washington's utterly Machiavellian disposition, and I see no indication that this has changed in recent years.

the idea the US needs Israel to commit a genocide for "geopolitical reasons" is simply laughable — boethius

This is a strawman that I rejected in the very post you replied to.

The Israeli government clearly believes a genocide is in its best interests. The US may tacitly accept that and let the Israelis carry it out.

And it is not hard to see why the Israelis believe that. I've given you the reasons.

↪boethius I think you're grossly underestimating the power of the United States.

Of course it has various domestic issues, and corruption is undoubtedly one of them. — Tzeentch

Power to do what though?

Defend their own borders? Nuke the world? Bomb a few weaker states into a internal chaos. Sure.

The US has no where near the power it did even a decades ago, let alone 2 decades or 3 deuces ago. It's in imperial decline.

We could of course discuss exactly what the US power status is at the moment, but my point here is not to argue that the US does not have a lot of power. Indeed, it is precisely because the US build up such a large amount of power that it can withstand such incredible levels of corruption without collapsing yet. However, the waste is very evident wherever one looks.

But perhaps that would be best to discuss in a new thread.

This is a strawman that I rejected in the very post you replied to. — Tzeentch

Unless your position has changed, I don't view my portrayal as a strawman.

That's the reason the US may tacitly approve of Israel's genocidal actions, since, if successful, it gets rid of a critical vulnerability of their Middle-Eastern proxy. — Tzeentch

Is the main point I'm responding to, which I feel is fair to assess as the US needing Israel to commit a genocide for "strategic reasons", those reasons being solidifying Israel's position (which also the genocide is unlikely to accomplish).

If you're objection is the use of the word "need" in the sense of some sort of categorical need, then I agree that's not what you're saying, but in this case I'm using need in the sense of "need for these strategic reasons" and those reasons being strengthening Israel's position through genocide. My intention was not to connote that you were suggesting the genocide was some sort of US strategic imperative.

My argument is that the US empire is not benefiting at all from the genocide and is in fact greatly harmed by it in various ways. If the US benefits from chaos in the Middle-East generally speaking, which I also disagree with, that is easily achieved without a genocide.

I.e. if your theory was true then it would make sense to say "The US needed Israel to commit a genocide to better secure the latter's borders and so the strategic position of it's proxy would be improved to more optimally contribute to further Imperial machinations".

By 5D chess is a pretty usual lingo to refer to theorizing secret cleverness to what seems like an obvious blunder.

And various Ds of chess is not meant to dismiss such theories as intrinsically ridiculous but rather to stress that if the theory is true then there's really advanced cleverness and subterfuge going on.

Of course where we agree is that the US tacitly approves of the genocide, where we disagree is on this serving US imperial interests or simply Zionist stakeholders within the US elite.

Power to do what though?

Defend their own borders? Nuke the world? Bomb a few weaker states into a internal chaos. Sure.

The US has no where near the power it did even a decades ago, let alone 2 decades or 3 deuces ago. It's in imperial decline.

We could of course discuss exactly what the US power status is at the moment, but my point here is not to argue that the US does not have a lot of power. Indeed, it is precisely because the US build up such a large amount of power that it can withstand such incredible levels of corruption without collapsing yet. However, the waste is very evident wherever one looks.

But perhaps that would be best to discuss in a new thread. — boethius

:up:

Is the main point I'm responding to, which I feel is fair to assess as the US needing Israel to commit a genocide for "strategic reasons", those reasons being solidifying Israel's position (which also the genocide is unlikely to accomplish).

If you're objection is the use of the word "need" in the sense of some sort of categorical need, then I agree that's not what you're saying, but in this case I'm using need in the sense of "need for these strategic reasons" and those reasons being strengthening Israel's position through genocide. My intention was not to connote that you were suggesting the genocide was some sort of US strategic imperative.

My argument is that the US empire is not benefiting at all from the genocide and is in fact greatly harmed by it in various ways. If the US benefits from chaos in the Middle-East generally speaking, which I also disagree with, that is easily achieved without a genocide.

I.e. if your theory was true then it would make sense to say "The US needed Israel to commit a genocide to better secure the latter's borders and so the strategic position of it's proxy would be improved to more optimally contribute to further Imperial machinations". — boethius

If Washington wants to sow chaos in the Middle-East, a nuclear-armed Israel that fully embraces violent ultranationalism is the perfect vessel to do so.

Genocide and ethnic cleansing, while dooming the Israelis in the long run, are critical steps towards its short-to-medium-term survival as an ultranationalist nation. Since, if it goes down the ultranationalist path (as increasingly seems to be the case) it will soon be at war with various neighbors, at which point the housing millions of possible partisans within their borders would become a critical strategic vulnerability.

In other words, Washington doesn't need Israel to commit a genocide, but it doesn't exactly have a reason to stop it either. If anything it means they might get more use out of their proxy before it eventually kicks the bucket.

Damage to US reputation/prestige is the price to pay, but if we are entering the prelude to global conflict, that really isn't all that significant.


PS: I would be exceedingly careful with ascribing the label "obvious blunder" to the actions of great powers.

People incorrectly interpret the actions of great powers all the time, as was for example the case with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which many must have deemed 'an obvious blunder' at the time.

The great powers' chess game is vastly superior to ours.

My litmus test for this is whether or not the great power in question shows signs of backtracking, or instead continues to double down. In the case of the US we see them continuously double down on 'obvious blunders' - in my view a clear indicator that they may not be blunders after all.

If Washington wants to sow chaos in the Middle-East, a nuclear-armed Israel that fully embraces violent ultranationalism is the perfect vessel to do so. — Tzeentch

But again, Israel committing a genocide isn't needed for this. There's plenty of ultra-violent groups in the Middle East already completely willing and able to cause further chaos for the right price, training, equipment and a large amount of intelligence.

Even if the US plan is to completely collapse the Middle-East and stop the flow of oil to harm all its competition (except for Russia ... that was imperative to defeat literally a monty ago) genocide doesn't help.

Indeed, it would be far easier to escalate to a regional war without the genocide. Currently Israel's retaliation planning against Iran is frustrated precisely because of the genocide their would-be-Arab-allies against Iran are making their position clear that their airspace and US hosted bases can't be used in strikes against Iran ... which considering Israel has no other option than to fly over Arab countries to strike Iran that's really not convenient (of course they can fly over anyways, but it's still not convenient if this causes further diplomatic tensions of violating sovereignty of would-be-allies).

Without the genocide the pathway to war with Iran would be far clearer: battle Hamas, escalate with Hezbollah, play the victim far better, claim Iran's behind everything and trying to destroy Israel and is going for nuclear weapon and therefore needs to be attacked. Without the genocide that would be a powerful narrative, but with the genocide it's simply not believable (and a bit of real genuine belief in your imperial wars goes a long way).

Genocide and ethnic cleansing, while dooming the Israelis in the long run, are critical steps towards its short-to-medium-term survival as an ultranationalist nation. Since, if it goes down the ultranationalist path (as increasingly seems to be the case) it will soon be at war with various neighbors, at which point the housing millions of possible partisans within their borders would become a critical strategic vulnerability.

In other words, Washington doesn't need Israel to commit a genocide, but it doesn't exactly have a reason to stop it either. If anything it means they might get more use out of their proxy before it eventually kicks the bucket. — Tzeentch

I just don't see how this argument works mainly for the reason above that supporting Israel's wars is far easier without the genocide and the genocide doesn't improve any actual strategic conditions.

Had Israel not genocided and instead let food in and avoided blowing up hospitals and schools and mass civilian casualties, the wars it would be so much incredibly easier to support diplomatically within the Arab world and Europe (and also everyone else).

Therefore, if America actually wanted to get into a big war in the Middle-East and wanted Israel to escalate things until the US had to intervene and attack Iran, then a deal would be struck pretty quickly that Israel play its part in this US plan (which Israel would be completely over the moon over). A key part of such a plan would be to "play by the rules" so that the US can easily portray the Israelis as the victims in need of saving. The Israelis could obviously carry out their genocide at a later date.

Now, if the US only wants Israel to escalate but doesn't intend to intervene with a big war ... well what exactly does this accomplish? Is throwing Lebanon into even greater crisis some major accomplishment?

Damage to US reputation/prestige is the price to pay, but if we are entering the prelude to global conflict, that really isn't all that significant. — Tzeentch

I disagree, even more reason to ensure Israel doesn't commit a genocide if some actual global conflict is about to erupt. The genocide places significant pressure on US alliances which you do actually need when going into a global conflict.

But on that issue we also disagree.

I just don't see the pathway to boot up a legit WW3 in a way that makes sense for America.

They can't actually defeat the other great powers and trying to shutdown global trade entirely just doesn't make any sense. As you've explained many times, the big advantage of the US is in its Navy to control global trade, but in order to leverage that to its advantage global trade must be happening.

Countries wouldn't all totally collapse but would figure out how best to survive in a US global trade embargo, and then figure out how to trade and it's not clear to me how the US could maintain such a global trade embargo. US and China can already trade over land and such an overtly aggressive move would bring countries together to deal with it.

Then there's the effect of such a global trade embargo in the US. How does this move get sold to the US?

There's of course intensifying competition between the great powers and I that will continue, but my point here is I don't see how it can get so extreme as for the genocide not to matter, diplomacy in the Middle-East simply not matter, neither public opinion in Europe and elsewhere.

PS: I would be exceedingly careful with ascribing the label "obvious blunder" to the actions of great powers.

People incorrectly interpret the actions of great powers all the time, as was for example the case with Russia's invasion of Ukrain, which many must have deemed 'an obvious blunder' at the time.

The great powers' chess game is vastly superior to ours.

My litmus test for this is whether or not the great power in question shows signs of backtracking, or instead continues to double down. In the case of the US we see them continuously double down on 'obvious blunders' - in my view a clear indicator that they may not be blunders after all. — Tzeentch

Again, this is where we disagree.

Supporting a genocide in today's world is an obvious strategic blunder in terms of geopolitics.

Likewise escalating the war in Ukraine was an obvious blunder.

Likewise getting into long wars in the Middle-East.

Likewise destroying the empires finances.

Likewise offshoring critical production.

Likewise a lot of things are obvious blunders in terms of geopolitical strategy.

As I've spent sometime explaining, elites cohere and are disciplined in the ascendancy of empire but once corruption sets in then incompetence reigns supreme (from imperial maintenance point of view and of course not transferring trillions of dollars of public money to private hands points of view).

Lastly, if the US did actually instigate some sort of global trade collapse on the theory that it will be the strongest party standing, countries would be forced to fight back against this embargo and start sinking US ships. Again, just not clear how this is supposed to strategically work ... and then what's the end game? To just maintain this global trade embargo indefinitely?

For, getting back to the Middle-East, the region is already super fragmented and nowhere close to some sort of regional integration to act as a land-trade-corridor, so the only purpose of increasing the chaos even further would be to collapse the entire Middle East oil economy as a move in some global war.

Again, don't need genocide to do that, but if that's the objective exactly how long is this global economic collapse supposed to last and why would the US expect to come out the victor? Seems more probable that the world would react by everyone agreeing they need to get the US out of their affairs.

And I ask these questions as I'm genuinely curious.

I also have zero problem believing that US neocons would want to do exactly such a thing, I just don't see the pathway; just as they've wanted to attack Iran for decades but just never found the actual pathway, so if there was an actual pathway available then that would be persuasive, I just don't see one. What's step 2 after embargo China?

Looks like the IDF got Sinwar :fire: :fire: :fire:

Lived like a rat, died like a rat.

Now that Sinwar passed away—who was the main objective of Israel since October 7th—Netanyahu would like to stop killing civilians in Gaza and Lebanon, right?

If Israel fully embraces the ultranationalist path, genocide/ethnic cleansing is not necessarily desirable to the US, it is inevitable. In the case of Israel, and indeed most ultranationalist endeavors, crimes against humanity are par for the course.

I'm sure the US has made peace with that fact decades ago, which is why US support for Israel remains unchanged no matter how many American bombs fall on hospitals and refugee camps.

There's plenty of ultra-violent groups in the Middle East already completely willing and able to cause further chaos for the right price, training, equipment and a large amount of intelligence. — boethius

That isn't necessarily true.

Iran is the target here, and there is no other proxy that could destabilize Iran.

Therefore, if America actually wanted to get into a big war in the Middle-East [...] — boethius

The Americans are not going to get directly involved in this war if they can help it. They are going to stay on the sideline and have the Israelis do their dirty work, just like they use the Ukrainians to fight the Russians.

The genocide places significant pressure on US alliances which you do actually need when going into a global conflict. — boethius

Does it?

I'm seeing some hand-wringing, strongly-worded letters, etc.

Is there any chance of alliances dissolving over US support for Israel? I see no sign of that, to be honest. As far as I can tell, they're getting away with it.

Likewise escalating the war in Ukraine was an obvious blunder.

Likewise getting into long wars in the Middle-East.

Likewise destroying the empires finances.

Likewise offshoring critical production.

Likewise a lot of things are obvious blunders in terms of geopolitical strategy. — boethius

You may view these as 'obvious blunders', but to me they are not obvious at all.

The US is doing quite well, all things considered. The ones who are paying the price are the Ukrainians, the Europeans, soon it will be the Israelis too, but the Americans are safe on their island, with their economy doing largely fine.


Finally, I believe it is the US that has a vested interest in pressing the issue when it comes to global conflict.

With Russia, China and Iran in an alliance with each other, the Eurasian continent is dangerously united. This creates an economic base that the US simply cannot compete with in the long run.

In other words, the status quo favors BRICS, so it is basically up to the US to throw a wrench in the wheel which most-likely will be in the form of global, large-scale conflict.

Release the people who were stolen from Israel and Bibi will stop.

I was expecting a reply like that. Do you seriously believe that Bibi will stop the massacre after releasing the hostages? Sinwar was a big prize; now they will keep their expansion plan until leading Gaza to ashes.

Yes if Hamas were to release the hostages I'd expect there to be a ceasefire. Gaza is not really that historically important to the Jews,

↪boethius If Israel fully embraces the ultranationalist path, genocide/ethnic cleansing is not necessarily desirable to the US, it is inevitable. In the case of Israel, and indeed most ultranationalist endeavors, crimes against humanity are par for the course.

I'm sure the US has made peace with that fact decades ago, which is why US support for Israel remains unchanged no matter how many American bombs fall on hospitals and refugee camps. — Tzeentch

But then you'd want to negotiate with the ultranationalists to delay their genocide the time to attack whoever needs to be attacked.

There is no strategic path in which genocide is necessary nor conducive.

That isn't necessarily true.

Iran is the target here, and there is no other proxy that could destabilize Iran. — Tzeentch

Your argument has been premised on the US imperial goal being avoiding regional integration and so becoming a land corridor, attacking Iran is not necessary to avoid this regional integration.

Furthermore, Israel isn't destabilizing Iran either and can't really wage war on Iran. It could nuke Iran as we've already discussed but that doesn't require a genocide and you're position on Israel using nukes is that would be too high a diplomatic cost (but not for genocide?).

As far as attacking Iran goes, as mentioned we've been hearing the neocon reasons for this being important for decades but no actual pathway has ever been presented for how you actually go about attacking Iran.

Does it?

I'm seeing some hand-wringing, strongly-worded letters, etc.

Is there any chance of alliances dissolving over US support for Israel? I see no sign of that, to be honest. As far as I can tell, they're getting away with it. — Tzeentch

It definitely does. This genocide is broadcast to the entire world and the muslim world in particular which has some 2 billion people.

The whole "soft power" thing is actually pretty important to conduct imperial business, as it's only soft power that actually scales globally, whereas actually using hard power "unscales" global power to focus it on a particular spot, which can definitely then get destroyed but there's a limit to how many wars can be waged simultaneously.

As for alliances dissolving, this can definitely happen in the Middle-East, Türkiye, but diplomatic costs are more just making things more difficult to negotiate across the globe. The whole prestige thing really does matter a lot.

Now, Israel will "get away" with the genocide to the extent that no one can intervene due to the US protecting Israel, but this is at a massive diplomatic cost to the US and not really the world shrugging off the genocide. People are pretty mad about it, including as mentioned nearly 2 billion muslims.

Already this has had some pretty notable effects such as Houthis effectively controlling the Red Sea (and willing to be bombed due to their actions supporting Palestine).

You may view these as 'obvious blunders', but to me they are not obvious at all.

The US is doing quite well, all things considered. The ones who are paying the price are the Ukrainians, the Europeans, soon it will be the Israelis too, but the Americans are safe on their island, with their economy doing largely fine. — Tzeentch

We're talking about the US empire, which is its hegemonic influence outside its borders.

Now, if the grand strategy you're talking about at the end of the day is just the US spoiling as much of the rest of the global economy as it retreats into isolationism on their island as you say, that's simply accepting US imperial decline.

If you're argument is the US can essentially burn all it's imperial clout overseas on really stupid policies like fomenting a proxy war in Ukraine, then losing, and going on to enable a genocide in Gaza, after decades of fruitless wars in the Middle-East ... only to come back in with a bang?? and those aren't blunders because the US can withdraw from the whole empire business, there would of course be a lot to discuss on how exactly the US can withdraw (and if US elites are really actually doing that), but all those decisions that lead to imperial withdrawal are anyways clearly blunders as far as the empire goes.

Yes, Ukraine paid far higher a price than America for the war with Russia ... but the important question is what did the US gain? It's not a case here that the US cynically used a proxy to accomplish something. As the RAND paper informs us, the war in Ukraine escalating and the Ukraine's losing would be a setback for US policy and a loss of prestige. Likewise, Europe is supposed to be America's closest allies and harm to your allies harms your empire. Most notably, you don't mention how the Russians (the US rival of concern in the situation, at least nominally) are themselves harmed.

You seem to be basically accepting that all these decisions are blunders, just pointing out that they aren't immediately fatal (which I agree we're not discussing anything that is likely to completely collapse America in the short term, just significant harms to US imperial power) and also pointing out that the US could withdraw to simply being a somewhat normal nation station and still do quite well.

Neither points I'm arguing against. Israel committing a genocide harms US interests but is unlikely to collapse the American empire overnight, much less America as a nation state. As for normal Americans, that they are "doing quite well" is debatable but normal Americans don't benefit much from maintaining the US empire anyways so the empire could go away completely and normal Americans not even really notice in their individuals lives for the most part.

The problem, however, in US imperial decline is that there isn't so obvious a way for US elites to simply give-up the empire, such as Britain giving up on its empire, without severe dislocations at home, mainly due to the finance structure depending on the dollar being an fiat reserve currency, a lot of production being oversees, and a lot of US "real wealth" being in brands that require global market access to be valuable.

Yes if Hamas were to release the hostages I'd expect there to be a ceasefire. — BitconnectCarlos

Whatever. I admire your innocence, Carlos. :smile:

Gaza is not really that historically important to the Jews, — BitconnectCarlos

Yeah, the conflict has been there for around eighty years, and 42K innocent people have died since the last year, but Gaza is not historically important to the Jews. Fine. It is important to me and a lot of people—fortunately—and we will not let this reality be distorted by narratives and fictional films. 

Whatever. I admire your innocence, Carlos. — javi2541997

I don't think Israel specifically wants to annex Gaza. I can't imagine Hamas staying in power though. It would be like al-Qaeda ruling a region on the US's border and being allowed to stay in power after 9/11.

If Hamas were to release the hostages it would signal a fundamental change in their approach though.

42K innocent people — javi2541997

This number includes Hamas fighters. We'll never know the true breakdown but I've heard some ~80% of that are Hamas/Hamas associates.

It is important to me and a lot of people — javi2541997

It's important to me to since within Gaza there are hostages and they keep killing Jews. Israel has also been conducting polio vaccinations in Gaza.

But then you'd want to negotiate with the ultranationalists to delay their genocide the time to attack whoever needs to be attacked.

There is no strategic path in which genocide is necessary nor conducive. — boethius

Whatever the case, the Israelis disagree and the Americans don't feel called upon to correct them.

Your argument has been premised on the US imperial goal being avoiding regional integration and so becoming a land corridor, attacking Iran is not necessary to avoid this regional integration.

Furthermore, Israel isn't destabilizing Iran either and can't really wage war on Iran. It could nuke Iran as we've already discussed but that doesn't require a genocide and you're position on Israel using nukes is that would be too high a diplomatic cost (but not for genocide?).

As far as attacking Iran goes, as mentioned we've been hearing the neocon reasons for this being important for decades but no actual pathway has ever been presented for how you actually go about attacking Iran. — boethius

Israel has proven capable of assassinating high-profile targets within Iran, and it's likely they are holding back various means at their disposal for when shit truly hits the fan.

So personally I would not underestimate Israel's capability to hurt and/or destabilize Iran in significant ways, even without the nuclear option.

If things were to come to global conflict, I believe Israel may use nuclear weapons on Iran.

Now, Israel will "get away" with the genocide to the extent that no one can intervene due to the US protecting Israel, but this is at a massive diplomatic cost to the US and not really the world shrugging off the genocide. — boethius

I think the onus is on you to provide clear indications of this diplomatic cost.

So far, I'm not seeing it.

When countries start putting their money where their mouth is, and impose tangible costs on Israel or the United States, I might change my mind.

People are pretty mad about it, including as mentioned nearly 2 billion muslims. — boethius

This is true, but I think the signal from Israel is that they are definitively abandoning rapprochement (and thus embracing conflict - as good ultranationalists do) - probably because they now believe it was never feasible to begin with.

Without a solution to the Palestinian problem, no rapprochement. And any real solution to the Palestinian problem (either a Palestinian state or an end to the apartheid) would be anathema to the Israeli hardliners.

We're talking about the US empire, which is its hegemonic influence outside its borders.

Now, if the grand strategy you're talking about at the end of the day is just the US spoiling as much of the rest of the global economy as it retreats into isolationism on their island as you say, that's simply accepting US imperial decline. — boethius

The US still has Europe, the Anglosphere and several East-Asian nations like Japan and South-Korea in the palm of its hand.

I think one shouldn't exaggerate the decline of the US empire.

Yes, Ukraine paid far higher a price than America for the war with Russia ... but the important question is what did the US gain? — boethius

Eastern Europe is a vital bottleneck that connects China, via Russia, to Europe over land. (Iran is the other one, remember?)

What the US has done is economically decouple Europe and Russia, and created long-lasting conflict with fertile soil for further escalation.

A forever war in Ukraine is the goal, and it's what they're getting.

In the case of the anticipated global conflict (which may be instigated by the US, or simply turn out to be an inevitability), this serves two purposes: it denies China overland access to European markets, and it involves two potential US rivals, Russia and Europe, in a war with each other.

I don't think Israel specifically wants to annex Gaza. If Hamas were to release the hostages it would signal a fundamental change in their approach though. — BitconnectCarlos

If only Netanyahu would dare to think like you...

This number includes Hamas fighters. We'll never know the true breakdown but I've heard some ~80% of that are Hamas/Hamas associates. — BitconnectCarlos

I agree that the 42K deaths also include Hamas members. But I think it is disproportionate to bomb them because a large number are Hamas friendly. Imagine if we ever bombed the Basque Country because there were sympathizers who voted for the political party. I think it is important to distinguish the targets: Hamas terrorists and then Hamas political members that defend some ideas, but they might not do terrorism.

Apart from that, what about the 20% left? That's 8,400 deaths. Are they just collateral victims who had bad luck and were in the worst place?

It's important to me to since within Gaza there are hostages and they keep killing Jews. — BitconnectCarlos

I think it is relevant to both sides of this terrible conflict, but I don't know to what extent Gaza is not historically important to Israeli.

Imagine if we ever bombed the Basque Country because there were sympathizers who voted for the political party. — javi2541997

A better comparison would be if there was a hardline Islamist party in a province of Spain that sought to conquer Madrid and impose hardline Islamic rule on Spain. In their charter, Hamas insists on capturing Jerusalem and making the land muslim. Hamas leadership repeatedly affirms that all of modern day Israel is "occupied Palestine" -- Muslim land. It all comes down to religion and control. The muslims feel aggrieved because the land was once theirs, but before it was theirs it was the Jewish homeland and the land where Jewish identity was born. And Jerusalem is the Jews most important holy site. (I believe Jerusalem is #3 for the muslims.) Hamas demands what is non-negotiable.

edit: Some muslims have come to terms with Israel's existence and accept it, but many, especially palestinians, do not. I can understand how it's a slight for them though.

Apart from that, what about the 20% left? That's 8,400 deaths. Are they just collateral victims who had bad luck and were in the worst place? — javi2541997

Their loss is tragic but the US killed many more in Afghanistan. Such things happen in war. It is unfortunate that Hamas does not allow civilians into their bomb shelters and hordes supplies.

Now that Sinwar passed away—who was the main objective of Israel since October 7th—Netanyahu would like to stop killing civilians in Gaza and Lebanon, right? — javi2541997

Apparently Bibi is now saying the war isn't yet over because they have to get the hostages out, which is why he is continuing to reject a ceasefire deal that does both at the same time.

@BitconnectCarlos

And now if HAMAS kills all of the remainimg hostages in retaliation for taking out the terrorist Sinwar, do you expect the war criminal Netanyahu to agree to an immediate ceasefire in Gaza? :shade:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9-_nvSbEo8 - New Bibi speech today on Sinwar's death.

tldw two conditions for peace
i) return of hostages.
ii) Hamas lays down its arms and stops fighting.

Apparently Bibi is now saying the war isn't yet over because they have to get the hostages out, which is why he is continuing to reject a ceasefire deal that does both at the same time. — Mr Bee

Fine. Afterwards, he would say that war is not yet over because Lebanon and Gaza are a threat to their security standards; Iran is 'funding' them, and they have to do something because they are surrounded by evil enemies. I can't see an end to this conflict.

He'll surely come up with some excuse as long as he sees this war as key to his political survival. For sure Sinwar was a terrible person who was a major obstacle to a ceasefire deal but I am kind of surprised that he was taken out since Netanyahu and him were partners relying on each other in keeping this bloody conflict going as much as Iran and the US were partners in keeping it from escalating any further. From what I can gather it wasn't a targeted assassination like Nasrallah or Haniyeh so I'm guessing Bibi screwed up and accidentally reopened the Gaza ceasefire talks again, something he really doesn't want.

That's been on the table since December.

Whatever the case, the Israelis disagree and the Americans don't feel called upon to correct them. — Tzeentch

Well that's exactly my point, genocide against the Palestinians is an Zionist-Israeli interest, not a US imperial interest (not to say US imperial custodians wouldn't commit genocide if they thought it was in US interest to do so, and I would say they have done so on many occasions), and Israel is not giving anything to the US in exchange for cover for the genocide ... but it's the US that is paying Israel for the privilege of being party to genocide!

The theory that these events are best explained by some cryptic geopolitical strategic calculations no one has ever heard about is certainly "possible" but has no evidence for it.

The theory that these events are explained by Zionists being a major faction of US imperial primary beneficiaries and have the leverage to control US policy on this policy point has extremely well documented evidence supporting it.

Israel has proven capable of assassinating high-profile targets within Iran, and it's likely they are holding back various means at their disposal for when shit truly hits the fan.

So personally I would not underestimate Israel's capability to hurt and/or destabilize Iran in significant ways, even without the nuclear option.

If things were to come to global conflict, I believe Israel may use nuclear weapons on Iran. — Tzeentch

There's no evidence that high profile assassinations are of any help, that's why the world mostly abandoned the practice (if it "worked" we'd see way more of it) with mostly just the US and Israel continuing it, and not because there's any evidence that it helps but I would argue it is mostly just ego service to those in power: i.e. it is withdrawing US imperial capital to make US imperial primary beneficiaries "feel good".

But we do now agree that nuclear weapons will likely be used.

However, again, if the US wanted Israel to nuke Iran they would quickly strike a deal with Israel to follow a CIA script to build up to nuking Iran, and my main point here is that we are not witnessing some US imperial lead plan, which is another indication in itself of US imperial decline.

Israel is flexing its ability to commit genocide, commit terrorism, assassinate the leaders of its enemies, and flexing its influence over US policy to be paid handsomely to do so. This all makes the US empire look more weak and hypocritical and untrustworthy than it already did while stoking immense animosity.

If you believe it's only Israel that's clever enough to commit terrorism at scale we'll just have to wait and see.

This is true, but I think the signal from Israel is that they are definitively abandoning rapprochement (and thus embracing conflict - as good ultranationalists do) - probably because they now believe it was never feasible to begin with.

Without a solution to the Palestinian problem, no rapprochement. And any real solution to the Palestinian problem (either a Palestinian state or an end to the apartheid) would be anathema to the Israeli hardliners. — Tzeentch

Definitely true, but becoming despised by 2 billion people (in addition to significant anger in the rest of the world) and validating what their most extreme voices have been saying all along (... because it turns out those extreme views were 100% correct all along) is not good long term strategy.

Seems to me more prophecy based delusion (and helping Netanyahu' personally) than the result of any sort of rational strategic planning process.

The US still has Europe, the Anglosphere and several East-Asian nations like Japan and South-Korea in the palm of its hand.

I think one shouldn't exaggerate the decline of the US empire. — Tzeentch

"Has them" to do what?

And how exactly does it "have them"?

When I have time I'll make a new thread detailing my theory of US imperial decline, within a more general theory of imperial decline generally speaking, but defining feature and also the whole point of empire is to extract value from a periphery into an imperial core, but to make a few brief points perhaps worth considering:

Countries do not need to turn hostile to the US in order to stop transferring de facto tribute in one form or another.

The cost of maintaining the Empire must be less than the value of the mentioned tribute for the empire to be sustainable.

These resource flows "are the empire" not the imperial military.

The imperial military can do little in the face of imperial fiscal mismanagement which is what takes down most empires and is a process usually driven by corruption due to the interests of imperial primary beneficiaries falling out of alignment with the interest of the empire as such.

The effect on a small scale is when criminals cooperate to pull off a heist but then turn on each other the moment the loot is boosted. Their interests align in the phase of wealth accumulation but then diverge once wealth accumulation reaches an apex, after which the benefits of competition with ones fellow thieves for the available resources outweighs the benefits of further collaboration.

Trump v Harris represents this phenomenon on a large scale of different imperial elite coalitions competing for control of the imperial financial and resource flows.

The "civil" era people opine for when politicians were "friends at the end of the day" and could "work together" and so on represented the situation where thieves collaborate to organize and pull off the heist.

You're basic error in evaluation, if I may (which I definitely will), is in considering the US imperial power in static absolute terms: it's still very high and so you are not worried.

Of course, power in absolute static terms is of course very relevant, but what is also relevant in the direction things are going.

The dynamics of a complex system in decline are usually non-linear (and by "usual" one can read near infinitely likely), meaning: effects can be small at first and then rapidly accelerate, point-of-no-returns can be hidden and impossible to find regardless of the amount of information you could possibly collect on the system, and processes pushed beyond a threshold of stability tend to interact with other processes and amplify one another in unpredictable ways.

Perhaps consider you are too focused on a static analysis of the situation that extracts geopolitical strategy from real political situations and dynamics (such as corruption so "baked in" it is essentially impossible to reverse without a catastrophic collapse event).

I.e. your analysis is accurate to taking the geopolitical situation and transposing it to a game with each player controlling a country, in which case the US is in a quite good position and can do many things to manage Russia and China. This point of view is easy to fall into as the usual way of talking about geopolitics is "US declared this" and "China wants to do that" which implies some sort of unitary agency to entire countries.

However, I believe a famous person once said that a house divided against itself is a bungalow. Keep doing that and eventually what you have is a hotel for rats.

US elites could get their act together and make plenty of rational moves but the reality is that they won't. People (especially Western people) often place as weird confidence in corruption in that corrupt people will of course maintain the system from which they extract value (basically pushing the myth of profit maximization implying asset care, which is not true, to an absurd even less true limit), but the reality is that the more a system starts to degrade the more corrupt parties focus on extracting as much value from it before it collapses as possible. Someone thieving in a building that catches on fire simply hurries up their thieving rather than fight the fire to thieve it better later.

Eastern Europe is a vital bottleneck that connects China, via Russia, to Europe over land. (Iran is the other one, remember?)

What the US has done is economically decouple Europe and Russia, and created long-lasting conflict with fertile soil for further escalation.

A forever war in Ukraine is the goal, and it's what they're getting. — Tzeentch

As the RAND paper explains, it only works if Russia doesn't simply win ... which they are likely to do as the RAND paper explains.

We can continue this in the other thread, but a forever war is only sustainable against an insurgency and I would argue not sustainable in high intensity conventional warfare that exists in Ukraine currently.

In the case of the anticipated global conflict (which may be instigated by the US, or simply turn out to be an inevitability), this serves two purposes: it denies China overland access to European markets, and it involves two potential US rivals, Russia and Europe, in a war with each other. — Tzeentch

Now, unlike this Israeli genocide, I agree that Ukraine is born from some basic strategic framework, but the primary motivation is not that framework but rather selling weapons and gas to Europe, private interest in buying Ukrainian land on the cheap, deflecting from failure in Afghanistan and from US high level corruption in Ukraine and short term propaganda wins generally speaking, mixed in with general neocon delusional psychopathy.

It is not a "good move" if Ukraine collapses and the whole thing becomes quite clearly a Western debacle, that the US is not "for as long as it takes" and "whatever it takes" in supporting its "friends", that Russian weaponry was perfectly adequate if not superior, the West has no information or technological superiority that translates to determining battlefield gains, massive drain on arm stocks, and so on. A result that was predictable, and predicted by the US's own imperial analysts, before the war started.

The Russians winning means "Russia beat the West" and the Russians can go around credibly asserting that if parties join up with them and China that they "know how to deal with the Americans".

Before this war, people would need to include far more uncertainty in dealing with America as the military, information, covert and economic (i.e. sanctions) capabilities were not exactly clear (what they were exactly and if they could be dealt with). People will reasonably conclude that if the Americans had some super capability to deal with Russian air power, deal with Russian armour, deal with Russian intelligence, deal with Russian electronic warfare, deal with Russian sanctions proofing/skirting, then certainly they would have.

So the result is that you have Russia that can credibly say they are able to "deal with those Americans" partnered with China that can credibly say they have the finance and industrial capacity, all in a system that is already proven to be immune to sanctions, and this lowers the threshold considerably for countries joining in a Russian and China system and reducing tribute to the US in whatever forms they were accustomed to doing.

This global effect on changing the leverage and incentive positions of a large proportion of international actors far outweighs the control or disruption of specific trade roots. Countries that want to will find a way to trade with each other and that can't be disrupted or prevented over the long term (without conquering those countries, which the US is not in a position to go around doing on a global scale: for every Ukraine or Afghanistan or Lybia that becomes a focus of Imperial aggression, there are dozens of other countries in the system, either paying tribute to the US or then going and doing something else).

To summarize my rebuttal:

I'm saying "this plane is definitely going down" and your reply is "well we still have a lot of fuel so can't be that bad".

I'm saying "this plane is definitely going down" and your reply is "well we still have a lot of fuel so can't be that bad". — boethius

We actually agree that the plane is definitely going down, however I think a better representation of our arguments is "Plan vs. No plan", and to that end I've tried to repeatedly point out that there is clear continuity in US policy over the course of decades, both with regards to Ukraine and Iran.

A continuity that is in line with geopolitical theories like for example Heartland theory by Mackinder and Geographical Pivot theory by Brzezinski.

I view that continuity as a clear indicator of a wider strategy, and the idea that the US has operated on the basis of complex geopolitical strategies is not a difficult argument to make considering its history of achieving, maintaining and defending hegemony, and continuously outmanoeuvring geopolitical rivals and unfortunate assets.

Though I did read it, I don't have the time nor energy to respond to your full post. If we could narrow the discussion down to one or two subjects that would be neat.




... And neither do Americans.

We actually agree that the plane is definitely going down, however I think a better representation of our arguments is "Plan vs. No plan", and to that end I've tried to repeatedly point out that there is clear continuity in US policy over the course of decades, both with regards to Ukraine and Iran.

A continuity that is in line with geopolitical theories like for example Heartland theory by Mackinder and Geographical Pivot theory by Brzezinski. — Tzeentch

In this case, we are pretty close in overall position.

However, my view is simply "there is a plan" is too strong wording. I think more accurate terminology is there is a framework for discussing plans that derives from dry geopolitical analysis of the kind you mention.

My position is that what plans actually get implemented, what decisions and policies the US government actually makes, are heavily affected by corruption as to make the moves incoherent on closer inspection. This incoherence is due to the primary motivation of various moves being extracting value from the Empire rather than trying to maintain it.

These other priorities of elite decision makes will be mediated through discussions nominally just about "geopolitics as usual" and "serious analysis" but without genuine engagement with any long term coherent thought process concerning what the interests of the US empire actually are.

For example, we go from abandoning Afghanistan and "fighting for democracy" there to a discourse of fighting for democracy in Ukraine as the most important thing to ever happen and Putin is literally Hitler and a genocidal maniac ... to supporting an actual genocide in Gaza!?

... and then escalate to regional war with Iran ... which the whole point of abandoning Afghanistan was that Iran was no longer such a big priority and the region generally, time to pivot to East-Asa.

All in the span of 3 years.

Add into that blowing up critical infrastructure of key allies, going from decades of the war on terror to now conducting state terrorism openly is ok and actually super clever if you kill some enemies in their living rooms with their families, running low of ammunition after decades of outspending essentially the rest of the world on the military for decades (where'd the money go??) and so on.

Yes, there is a planning framework that decisions and policies are hung on, but the incoherence is best explained by corruption: Afghanistan was about transferring wealth to military contractors and only nominally about something about Iran, and Ukraine about deflecting from the Afghanistan disaster while continuing to transfer a large amount of wealth to military contractors (and get blackjack in there and burry Biden family corruption in Ukraine by literally destroying the country), and then Zionists are further taking advantage of a weak Imperial centre to conduct a genocide which they've always wanted to do and perhaps feel now or never in reading the same tea leaves we are reading.

I.e. the characteristic feature of an empire in decline is elites transferring Imperial wealth to themselves, poor decision making and other misuses of the empire for elite personal aspirations (toxic elite "infighting" of one form or another).

... And neither do Americans. — Tzeentch

Sure, everyone has a plan.

The main point I'm trying to make is we're in a phase where the top elites, what I refer to as the Imperial primary beneficiaries, have personal plans that are more important to them than the interests of the empire.

Which is exactly what your reference strikes at the heart of, that individuals can have plans widely at odds with whatever official plans exist.

When an empire is on the ascendency there is strategic alignment between a dominant majority of Imperial elites, due to both external threats and the prospect of imperial booty of one form or another.

A near universal feature of imperial decline is strategic misalignment between Imperial elites and the interests of the empire, which leads to corruption and elite conflict.

The continuity of policy can represent the continuity of strategic thinking, as you say, but it can also represent the continuity of elite interests who only dress the policies up as serving some strategic purpose.

Corruption usually goes to some length to dress itself up as legitimate.

For example, we go from abandoning Afghanistan and "fighting for democracy" there to a discourse of fighting for democracy in Ukraine as the most important thing to ever happen and Putin is literally Hitler and a genocidal maniac ... to supporting an actual genocide in Gaza!? — boethius

Who would believe that bullshit, right? Well, as it turns out a lot of people continue to believe that bullshit. Propaganda is a powerful thing.

And if we're honest, how is Gaza any different from the de facto and actual genocides the US has perpetrated and supported, like those in Vietnam, East-Timor and the Middle-East, with casualty figures running into the millions?

It's crazy, but they continue to get away with it. I can't blame the Americans for thinking they'll get away with it again.

I'm open to the possibility that they won't - times are changing - but that will require US assets from putting their money where their mouth is. No sign of that so far. Just "Oooh"ing and "Aaah"ing.

... and then escalate to regional war with Iran ... which the whole point of abandoning Afghanistan was that Iran was no longer such a big priority and the region generally, time to pivot to East-Asa. — boethius

Iran and Afghanistan are part of the same geographical region, so in my opinion this is not so strange.

Afghanistan has been wrecked, while Iran is now threatening to jump the gun on US intervention.

So the switch makes sense, and again I see continuity.

I would also point out that Ukraine and Iran both play vital roles in that they connect China to the rest of the world - they may very well be part of the 'pivot to Asia', in that they directly relate to US strategy vis-á-vis China.

Add into that blowing up critical infrastructure of key allies, going from decades of the war on terror to now conducting state terrorism openly is ok and actually super clever if you kill some enemies in their living rooms with their families, running low of ammunition after deuces of outspending essentially the rest of the world on the military for decades (where'd the money go??) and so on. — boethius

Yep. It's all bullshit.

I'm as surprised as you are that people keep falling for this shit, but alas here we are.

By bombing Nord Stream the US has rolled out a plan that has been in place since at least 2014, of transfering European energy dependency from Russia to the US.

And the US has succeeded. Germany and the rest of Europe took it like a bitch. The US reaps the benefits.

The main point I'm trying to make is we're in a phase where the top elites, what I refer to as the Imperial primary beneficiaries, have personal plans that are more important to them than the interests of the empire. — boethius

Maybe this is true, but I will believe it only when the US empire is definitively put in the trashbin of history. Until that happens, history shows they're way too dangerous to underestimate.