Israel and West Bank Settlements

[PizzaSnake]

Where are the anti-Hamas protests in America?

there aren't. that's a critical point. the hamas/palestinian supporters are anti-israel. the israeli supporters are pro-israel. that heart of this issue isn't A against B and B against A. the heart of this issue is whether israel has the right to exist.

A "right to exist" regardless of the price paid by other humans? Is that what you are saying? Carte blanche? Ends justify the means?

That's a "no" from me, dog.

[Kismet]

On November 5, 2023, an Ohio-class submarine arrived in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. BIG Move - very unusual for DoD to disclose this type of deployment - they mean BUSINESS.

"The Ohio-class submarine is a class of nuclear-powered submarines used by the United States Navy. They are primarily designed for strategic deterrence and have multiple roles:

1. Strategic Nuclear Deterrence: These submarines are equipped with ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads. Their main role is to provide a second-strike capability, ensuring that the U.S. maintains a credible nuclear deterrent.

2. Versatility: Ohio-class submarines can carry up to 24 Trident II D5 nuclear missiles, but they can also be reconfigured to carry conventional Tomahawk cruise missiles for non-nuclear missions.

3. Stealth: They are known for their stealth and ability to operate quietly beneath the ocean’s surface, making them difficult to detect by adversaries.

4. Long Patrols: These submarines can remain submerged for extended periods, allowing them to patrol and maintain a continuous presence in strategic areas.

5. Central Command Area of Responsibility: When an Ohio-class submarine arrives in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, it could be part of a broader U.S. military strategy in the region, which may involve deterrence, surveillance, or support for national security objectives.

Ohio-class submarines play a crucial role in the U.S. nuclear triad and can serve various strategic and tactical missions to protect national security interests. Their arrival in a specific area of responsibility may be part of broader military planning and objectives."

[a fan]

Where are the anti-Hamas protests in America?

there aren't. that's a critical point. the hamas/palestinian supporters are anti-israel. the israeli supporters are pro-israel. that heart of this issue isn't A against B and B against A. the heart of this issue is whether israel has the right to exist.

A "right to exist" regardless of the price paid by other humans? Is that what you are saying? Carte blanche? Ends justify the means?

That's a "no" from me, dog.

You understand the problem here, though, right?

Only Israel has these constraints. Look at what Putin is doing....hitting hospitals, civilian targets, power stations in winter, etc.---and the EU and even the US is still trading with Russia, no?

We're all hypocrites here. How many civilians have US Forces killed in the last few decades? And most of the time? It ain't because we were attacked...it's over some nebulous goal like cheap oil.


Edit to add: even I have forgotten that Hamas has a few hundred hostages still. Why are the Palestinians allowed to do that? Why aren't we saying "do the ends justify the means" to the Palestinians here?

[jhu72]

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/10/ ... -the-west/

Anti-Israel Demonstrators Hate the West

By RICH LOWRY, October 27, 2023

The cataract of anti-Israel sentiment on college campuses has been shocking, but it shouldn’t be surprising.

It is the poisoned fruit of teaching a generation of college students to despise their own civilization.

Jesse Jackson famously led a chant at Stanford University in 1987, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Civ has got to go.” He was talking about the college course, but he might as well have been talking about the thing itself.

Jackson and his allies had extraordinary success in extinguishing the teaching of Western Civ. Not only have we largely stopped transmitting the story of our own civilization, we have substituted an alternative narrative that the West is reducible to racism, imperialism, and colonialism.

It is in this context that the current outburst of anti-Zionism has to be understood. Yes, it has been fed by anti-Israel agitation on campus over the decades, and yes, students are susceptible to witless radicalism in the best of circumstances. Yet the loathing of Israel is particularly intense because it is viewed as an outpost of Western civilization and all its alleged ills.

The hatred of Israel is tainted by, and in some cases driven by, antisemitism. Another way to look at it, though, is that it’s not so much about hatred of “the other,” as progressives put it, as hatred of ourselves and all our works.

It is, on one level, incorrect to consider Israel exclusively an artifact of the West. The Jews are indigenous to the region going back to Abraham, with their story caught up in the story of the land. A large proportion of the current population traces its origins from the Middle East and North Africa rather than Europe.

But there is no doubt that Israel is a Western society — in its political system, in its respect for rights, in its innovative economy, in its mores. Someone sitting in a coffee shop in Tel Aviv could easily think they were in any thriving coastal society in the West.

From any rational perspective, this would be something to celebrate. Many legitimate criticisms can be made of Israel, and indeed are a feature of the Israeli domestic debate itself, but there’s no doubt that it is a flourishing society.

If Gaza were equally Westernized, it would be worrying about whether it’s overbuilding seaside real estate rather than having to get water and electricity from the neighboring country its governing authority — a savage terror group — is trying to destroy.

Yet this is the society that anti-Western opinion holds up and wants to sweep all before it. This point of view loves Gaza for its failure and hates Israel for its success; loves Gaza for its terror and hates Israel for its self-defense; loves Gaza for its vicious anti-Western sponsors and hates Israel for its Western allies, especially the United States.

If this seems perverse, it’s what you’d expect of students and young people who have absorbed the premises of Michel Foucault, Howard Zinn, Edward Said, and their imitators. Even if students have never heard of them, these men and their thought suffuse higher education.

But what about the violence? How can these kids look past it, or implicitly endorse it?

Violence is part of the radical anti-Western vision. The anti-colonial bible, The Wretched of the Earth, written by Frantz Fanon in 1961, is widely taught on campus. Fanon sketched out a woke worldview before anyone used that term, arguing that, as a New Yorker essay put it, “the Western bourgeoisie was ‘fundamentally racist’ and its ‘bourgeois ideology’ of equality and dignity was merely a cover for capitalist-imperialist rapacity.”

Fanon wrote that “decolonization is always a violent phenomenon,” and in a preface to the book, the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre declared that the wretched of the earth “become men” through “mad fury.”

By this standard, Hamas is a good and worthy anti-colonial organization, and there’s no wonder it has found supporters and useful idiots among the West’s self-loathing radicals.

This is an almost laughably simplistic screed about a constituency that resists nuance and balance, which is acquired, history and our own lives tell us, over the course of time and experience. College campuses aren't -- when we are talking generally about the student population -- about deep thoughts; we are talking about drama, fitting in, learning and experimenting, etc. But suggesting that a bunch of fracas on campus translates directly into, or is the result of, "the radical anti-Western vision" is just stupid. But you seem to like adults who traffic in this sort of black and white "journalism" and opinion.

None of us should shed a tear for a dead Hamas fighter or leader. We can rejoice it. But the situation on the ground -- murdered Israeli citizens, and displaced and dead Gazan Palestinians, with likely more of both to come -- is itself the result of decades and decades of stupidity and venality. It's complicated. So it is little wonder that college students are not yet well equipped to process it, digest, assimilate and synthesize all of the varied threads that go into and resulted in today. Indicting whole institutions because of these young people's reactions is just f*cking stupid.

Why not write about something obvious but important. If there was a military solution to this, we would have had this solved long ago. Through little fault of their own, Palestinians are stuck living among a leadership that knows nothing other than war, nothing other than the credo of death. Israelis have the right to peace, prosperity and safety. The answer is building rather than blasting. Israel will not be able to neutralize the threat, within the confines of military doctrine. They can reduce supplies; eliminate, for now, weapons supplies and ordnance; temporarily decapitate the leadership; but Hamas will always come back. Its Arab paymasters will help it reconstitute. So the aim has to be to free Palestinians from the disaster of living side by side with their own cruel and soulless leadership.

Why not write about something like that from the pulpit of a formerly well-regarded conservative media outlet? Nope: it's easier and more "popular" to make "traitors" of kids, and traitor-manufacturers out of the colleges and universities where they stop for four years in the course of a long lifetime. You read and post this sh*t because it feeds your narrative, not because it has any deep meaning.

Were any of this opiners ( and I include Bill Maher in this group) on a college campus in the 1960s-early 70s? There was much more violence and rhetoric. 4 students were essentially murdered on a college campus at Kent State by National Guardsmen in 1970.

In the current situation, I think some are trying to differentiate terrorists from Palestinians which can be a difference very difficult to discern to many folks - especially the usual clueless crowd. For the Israelis, this is also a problem as the bad guys routinely mingle with the civilian population as a matter of strategy.

Speaking of Bill Maher and the nonsense of Western Civ.... : https://x.com/LarryOConnor/status/17208 ... 93465?s=20

I think he is speaking to people like MDlax, and not intended as a jab.

... what bullsh*t, OConnor's and Mahers.

[jhu72]

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/10/ ... -the-west/

Anti-Israel Demonstrators Hate the West

By RICH LOWRY, October 27, 2023

The cataract of anti-Israel sentiment on college campuses has been shocking, but it shouldn’t be surprising.

It is the poisoned fruit of teaching a generation of college students to despise their own civilization.

Jesse Jackson famously led a chant at Stanford University in 1987, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Civ has got to go.” He was talking about the college course, but he might as well have been talking about the thing itself.

Jackson and his allies had extraordinary success in extinguishing the teaching of Western Civ. Not only have we largely stopped transmitting the story of our own civilization, we have substituted an alternative narrative that the West is reducible to racism, imperialism, and colonialism.

It is in this context that the current outburst of anti-Zionism has to be understood. Yes, it has been fed by anti-Israel agitation on campus over the decades, and yes, students are susceptible to witless radicalism in the best of circumstances. Yet the loathing of Israel is particularly intense because it is viewed as an outpost of Western civilization and all its alleged ills.

The hatred of Israel is tainted by, and in some cases driven by, antisemitism. Another way to look at it, though, is that it’s not so much about hatred of “the other,” as progressives put it, as hatred of ourselves and all our works.

It is, on one level, incorrect to consider Israel exclusively an artifact of the West. The Jews are indigenous to the region going back to Abraham, with their story caught up in the story of the land. A large proportion of the current population traces its origins from the Middle East and North Africa rather than Europe.

But there is no doubt that Israel is a Western society — in its political system, in its respect for rights, in its innovative economy, in its mores. Someone sitting in a coffee shop in Tel Aviv could easily think they were in any thriving coastal society in the West.

From any rational perspective, this would be something to celebrate. Many legitimate criticisms can be made of Israel, and indeed are a feature of the Israeli domestic debate itself, but there’s no doubt that it is a flourishing society.

If Gaza were equally Westernized, it would be worrying about whether it’s overbuilding seaside real estate rather than having to get water and electricity from the neighboring country its governing authority — a savage terror group — is trying to destroy.

Yet this is the society that anti-Western opinion holds up and wants to sweep all before it. This point of view loves Gaza for its failure and hates Israel for its success; loves Gaza for its terror and hates Israel for its self-defense; loves Gaza for its vicious anti-Western sponsors and hates Israel for its Western allies, especially the United States.

If this seems perverse, it’s what you’d expect of students and young people who have absorbed the premises of Michel Foucault, Howard Zinn, Edward Said, and their imitators. Even if students have never heard of them, these men and their thought suffuse higher education.

But what about the violence? How can these kids look past it, or implicitly endorse it?

Violence is part of the radical anti-Western vision. The anti-colonial bible, The Wretched of the Earth, written by Frantz Fanon in 1961, is widely taught on campus. Fanon sketched out a woke worldview before anyone used that term, arguing that, as a New Yorker essay put it, “the Western bourgeoisie was ‘fundamentally racist’ and its ‘bourgeois ideology’ of equality and dignity was merely a cover for capitalist-imperialist rapacity.”

Fanon wrote that “decolonization is always a violent phenomenon,” and in a preface to the book, the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre declared that the wretched of the earth “become men” through “mad fury.”

By this standard, Hamas is a good and worthy anti-colonial organization, and there’s no wonder it has found supporters and useful idiots among the West’s self-loathing radicals.

This is an almost laughably simplistic screed about a constituency that resists nuance and balance, which is acquired, history and our own lives tell us, over the course of time and experience. College campuses aren't -- when we are talking generally about the student population -- about deep thoughts; we are talking about drama, fitting in, learning and experimenting, etc. But suggesting that a bunch of fracas on campus translates directly into, or is the result of, "the radical anti-Western vision" is just stupid. But you seem to like adults who traffic in this sort of black and white "journalism" and opinion.

None of us should shed a tear for a dead Hamas fighter or leader. We can rejoice it. But the situation on the ground -- murdered Israeli citizens, and displaced and dead Gazan Palestinians, with likely more of both to come -- is itself the result of decades and decades of stupidity and venality. It's complicated. So it is little wonder that college students are not yet well equipped to process it, digest, assimilate and synthesize all of the varied threads that go into and resulted in today. Indicting whole institutions because of these young people's reactions is just f*cking stupid.

Why not write about something obvious but important. If there was a military solution to this, we would have had this solved long ago. Through little fault of their own, Palestinians are stuck living among a leadership that knows nothing other than war, nothing other than the credo of death. Israelis have the right to peace, prosperity and safety. The answer is building rather than blasting. Israel will not be able to neutralize the threat, within the confines of military doctrine. They can reduce supplies; eliminate, for now, weapons supplies and ordnance; temporarily decapitate the leadership; but Hamas will always come back. Its Arab paymasters will help it reconstitute. So the aim has to be to free Palestinians from the disaster of living side by side with their own cruel and soulless leadership.

Why not write about something like that from the pulpit of a formerly well-regarded conservative media outlet? Nope: it's easier and more "popular" to make "traitors" of kids, and traitor-manufacturers out of the colleges and universities where they stop for four years in the course of a long lifetime. You read and post this sh*t because it feeds your narrative, not because it has any deep meaning.

Were any of this opiners ( and I include Bill Maher in this group) on a college campus in the 1960s-early 70s? There was much more violence and rhetoric. 4 students were essentially murdered on a college campus at Kent State by National Guardsmen in 1970.

In the current situation, I think some are trying to differentiate terrorists from Palestinians which can be a difference very difficult to discern to many folks - especially the usual clueless crowd. For the Israelis, this is also a problem as the bad guys routinely mingle with the civilian population as a matter of strategy.

Speaking of Bill Maher and the nonsense of Western Civ.... : https://x.com/LarryOConnor/status/17208 ... 93465?s=20

I think he is speaking to people like MDlax, and not intended as a jab.

... what bullsh*t, OConnor's and Mahers.

[jhu72]

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/10/ ... -the-west/

Anti-Israel Demonstrators Hate the West

By RICH LOWRY, October 27, 2023

The cataract of anti-Israel sentiment on college campuses has been shocking, but it shouldn’t be surprising.

It is the poisoned fruit of teaching a generation of college students to despise their own civilization.

Jesse Jackson famously led a chant at Stanford University in 1987, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Civ has got to go.” He was talking about the college course, but he might as well have been talking about the thing itself.

Jackson and his allies had extraordinary success in extinguishing the teaching of Western Civ. Not only have we largely stopped transmitting the story of our own civilization, we have substituted an alternative narrative that the West is reducible to racism, imperialism, and colonialism.

It is in this context that the current outburst of anti-Zionism has to be understood. Yes, it has been fed by anti-Israel agitation on campus over the decades, and yes, students are susceptible to witless radicalism in the best of circumstances. Yet the loathing of Israel is particularly intense because it is viewed as an outpost of Western civilization and all its alleged ills.

The hatred of Israel is tainted by, and in some cases driven by, antisemitism. Another way to look at it, though, is that it’s not so much about hatred of “the other,” as progressives put it, as hatred of ourselves and all our works.

It is, on one level, incorrect to consider Israel exclusively an artifact of the West. The Jews are indigenous to the region going back to Abraham, with their story caught up in the story of the land. A large proportion of the current population traces its origins from the Middle East and North Africa rather than Europe.

But there is no doubt that Israel is a Western society — in its political system, in its respect for rights, in its innovative economy, in its mores. Someone sitting in a coffee shop in Tel Aviv could easily think they were in any thriving coastal society in the West.

From any rational perspective, this would be something to celebrate. Many legitimate criticisms can be made of Israel, and indeed are a feature of the Israeli domestic debate itself, but there’s no doubt that it is a flourishing society.

If Gaza were equally Westernized, it would be worrying about whether it’s overbuilding seaside real estate rather than having to get water and electricity from the neighboring country its governing authority — a savage terror group — is trying to destroy.

Yet this is the society that anti-Western opinion holds up and wants to sweep all before it. This point of view loves Gaza for its failure and hates Israel for its success; loves Gaza for its terror and hates Israel for its self-defense; loves Gaza for its vicious anti-Western sponsors and hates Israel for its Western allies, especially the United States.

If this seems perverse, it’s what you’d expect of students and young people who have absorbed the premises of Michel Foucault, Howard Zinn, Edward Said, and their imitators. Even if students have never heard of them, these men and their thought suffuse higher education.

But what about the violence? How can these kids look past it, or implicitly endorse it?

Violence is part of the radical anti-Western vision. The anti-colonial bible, The Wretched of the Earth, written by Frantz Fanon in 1961, is widely taught on campus. Fanon sketched out a woke worldview before anyone used that term, arguing that, as a New Yorker essay put it, “the Western bourgeoisie was ‘fundamentally racist’ and its ‘bourgeois ideology’ of equality and dignity was merely a cover for capitalist-imperialist rapacity.”

Fanon wrote that “decolonization is always a violent phenomenon,” and in a preface to the book, the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre declared that the wretched of the earth “become men” through “mad fury.”

By this standard, Hamas is a good and worthy anti-colonial organization, and there’s no wonder it has found supporters and useful idiots among the West’s self-loathing radicals.

This is an almost laughably simplistic screed about a constituency that resists nuance and balance, which is acquired, history and our own lives tell us, over the course of time and experience. College campuses aren't -- when we are talking generally about the student population -- about deep thoughts; we are talking about drama, fitting in, learning and experimenting, etc. But suggesting that a bunch of fracas on campus translates directly into, or is the result of, "the radical anti-Western vision" is just stupid. But you seem to like adults who traffic in this sort of black and white "journalism" and opinion.

None of us should shed a tear for a dead Hamas fighter or leader. We can rejoice it. But the situation on the ground -- murdered Israeli citizens, and displaced and dead Gazan Palestinians, with likely more of both to come -- is itself the result of decades and decades of stupidity and venality. It's complicated. So it is little wonder that college students are not yet well equipped to process it, digest, assimilate and synthesize all of the varied threads that go into and resulted in today. Indicting whole institutions because of these young people's reactions is just f*cking stupid.

Why not write about something obvious but important. If there was a military solution to this, we would have had this solved long ago. Through little fault of their own, Palestinians are stuck living among a leadership that knows nothing other than war, nothing other than the credo of death. Israelis have the right to peace, prosperity and safety. The answer is building rather than blasting. Israel will not be able to neutralize the threat, within the confines of military doctrine. They can reduce supplies; eliminate, for now, weapons supplies and ordnance; temporarily decapitate the leadership; but Hamas will always come back. Its Arab paymasters will help it reconstitute. So the aim has to be to free Palestinians from the disaster of living side by side with their own cruel and soulless leadership.

Why not write about something like that from the pulpit of a formerly well-regarded conservative media outlet? Nope: it's easier and more "popular" to make "traitors" of kids, and traitor-manufacturers out of the colleges and universities where they stop for four years in the course of a long lifetime. You read and post this sh*t because it feeds your narrative, not because it has any deep meaning.

Were any of this opiners ( and I include Bill Maher in this group) on a college campus in the 1960s-early 70s? There was much more violence and rhetoric. 4 students were essentially murdered on a college campus at Kent State by National Guardsmen in 1970.

In the current situation, I think some are trying to differentiate terrorists from Palestinians which can be a difference very difficult to discern to many folks - especially the usual clueless crowd. For the Israelis, this is also a problem as the bad guys routinely mingle with the civilian population as a matter of strategy.

Speaking of Bill Maher and the nonsense of Western Civ.... : https://x.com/LarryOConnor/status/17208 ... 93465?s=20

I think he is speaking to people like MDlax, and not intended as a jab.

Bill Maher makes the same, tired, boring mistake that right wing media feeds on: when he hears about "student at XYZ school protest Israel", he assumes that the handful of kids that are a part of a protest means that all of the 10,000 kids on a campus think the same way that 20 kids do.

Newsflash, Bill: since the 60's? America has ALWAYS had radical lefties and righties on campus. Always. Every year. Stop falling for clickbait, Boomer.

We had Pro-Palestinian nutjobs protesting on Campus and around Ann Arbor for every year I was there. This is NOT new. And their numbers (duh) grow every time a war flares up in Israel. In other news, water is wet.

But those few that are protesting do not represent every student and professor's views on campus any more than Hannity represents Rachel Maddow's views.

When did Maher get this stupid? He used to be able to see past low brow interpretations like this.

... in my observation, Trump de-balled Maher. Maher has gone down hill since 2016. Never watch him, haven't since 2018. If YA is now paying attention to Maher, my decision would seen to be a good one.

[old salt]

On November 5, 2023, an Ohio-class submarine arrived in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. BIG Move - very unusual for DoD to disclose this type of deployment - they mean BUSINESS.

"The Ohio-class submarine is a class of nuclear-powered submarines used by the United States Navy. They are primarily designed for strategic deterrence and have multiple roles:

1. Strategic Nuclear Deterrence: These submarines are equipped with ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads. Their main role is to provide a second-strike capability, ensuring that the U.S. maintains a credible nuclear deterrent.

2. Versatility: Ohio-class submarines can carry up to 24 Trident II D5 nuclear missiles, but they can also be reconfigured to carry conventional Tomahawk cruise missiles for non-nuclear missions.

3. Stealth: They are known for their stealth and ability to operate quietly beneath the ocean’s surface, making them difficult to detect by adversaries.

4. Long Patrols: These submarines can remain submerged for extended periods, allowing them to patrol and maintain a continuous presence in strategic areas.

5. Central Command Area of Responsibility: When an Ohio-class submarine arrives in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, it could be part of a broader U.S. military strategy in the region, which may involve deterrence, surveillance, or support for national security objectives.

Ohio-class submarines play a crucial role in the U.S. nuclear triad and can serve various strategic and tactical missions to protect national security interests. Their arrival in a specific area of responsibility may be part of broader military planning and objectives."

It's not that unusual if it's one of the four SSGN's (converted "boomers" with cruise missiles replacing ICBM's).
Their presence & even port visits to trouble spots are publicized when it's a useful warning signal.
The failure to distinguish in the release between SSN, SSBN & SSGN is unusual. The sub's name is usually included.
Most likely it's one of the four SSGN's. We would not want to indicate the presence of a SSBN or SSN.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/11/asia/uss ... index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/21/politics ... index.html
https://news.usni.org/2023/06/16/guided ... outh-korea
https://news.usni.org/2023/04/08/navy-a ... iddle-east
https://www.c7f.navy.mil/Media/News/Dis ... rtnership/

[Farfromgeneva]

Where are the anti-Hamas protests in America?

there aren't. that's a critical point. the hamas/palestinian supporters are anti-israel. the israeli supporters are pro-israel. that heart of this issue isn't A against B and B against A. the heart of this issue is whether israel has the right to exist.

A "right to exist" regardless of the price paid by other humans? Is that what you are saying? Carte blanche? Ends justify the means?

That's a "no" from me, dog.

The problem which is pretty much unresolvable is managing creep of scope by Israeli leadership while allowing them some latitude given the circumstances. Not like one can create a “box” of rules that’s completely rigid and balance isn’t exactly “equal” weighting of action/reaction given the history and circumstances. But once you fall outside a hard rule set I can’t imagine many human beings that wouldn’t slide towards draconian behavior towards antagonists.

It’s like a complete policies and procedures with “risk limits” to actions and forced compliance when falling outside policy is the only way to do it but at that point we are completely their daddy and may as well treat them like Puerto Rico.

[Kismet]

On November 5, 2023, an Ohio-class submarine arrived in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. BIG Move - very unusual for DoD to disclose this type of deployment - they mean BUSINESS.

"The Ohio-class submarine is a class of nuclear-powered submarines used by the United States Navy. They are primarily designed for strategic deterrence and have multiple roles:

1. Strategic Nuclear Deterrence: These submarines are equipped with ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads. Their main role is to provide a second-strike capability, ensuring that the U.S. maintains a credible nuclear deterrent.

2. Versatility: Ohio-class submarines can carry up to 24 Trident II D5 nuclear missiles, but they can also be reconfigured to carry conventional Tomahawk cruise missiles for non-nuclear missions.

3. Stealth: They are known for their stealth and ability to operate quietly beneath the ocean’s surface, making them difficult to detect by adversaries.

4. Long Patrols: These submarines can remain submerged for extended periods, allowing them to patrol and maintain a continuous presence in strategic areas.

5. Central Command Area of Responsibility: When an Ohio-class submarine arrives in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, it could be part of a broader U.S. military strategy in the region, which may involve deterrence, surveillance, or support for national security objectives.

Ohio-class submarines play a crucial role in the U.S. nuclear triad and can serve various strategic and tactical missions to protect national security interests. Their arrival in a specific area of responsibility may be part of broader military planning and objectives."

It's not that unusual if it's one of the four SSGN's (converted "boomers" with cruise missiles replacing ICBM's).
Their presence & even port visits to trouble spots are publicized when it's a useful warning signal.
The failure to distinguish in the release between SSN, SSBN & SSGN is unusual. The sub's name is usually included.
Most likely it's one of the four SSGN's. We would not want to indicate the presence of a SSBN or SSN.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/11/asia/uss ... index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/21/politics ... index.html
https://news.usni.org/2023/06/16/guided ... outh-korea
https://news.usni.org/2023/04/08/navy-a ... iddle-east
https://www.c7f.navy.mil/Media/News/Dis ... rtnership/

More information...Centcom released a photo of the sub traversing the Suez Canal on the surface. Now identified as USS Florida. Expectation is that perhaps the Ike strike group will follow in the coming days. Vinson strike Group departed San Diego two weeks ago for deployment to the Indo-Pacific. Reagan strike Group is in port in South Korea. In addition, photos released of U.S. Air Force B-1 bomber with attached sniper pod was flying over Saudi Arabia Sunday when the cruise missile submarine USS Florida transited the Suez Canal. The B-1 carries the largest conventional bomb payload in the Air Force’s inventory.

The social media post did not name the sub, but the US Navy has four Ohio-class guided missile submarines, or SSGNs, which are former ballistic missile subs converted to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles rather than nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles.

Each SSGN can carry 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles, 50% more than US guided-missile destroyers pack and almost four times what the US Navy’s newest attack subs are armed with. Each Tomahawk can carry up to a 1,000-pound high-explosive warhead.

[MDlaxfan76]

Where are the anti-Hamas protests in America?

there aren't. that's a critical point. the hamas/palestinian supporters are anti-israel. the israeli supporters are pro-israel. that heart of this issue isn't A against B and B against A. the heart of this issue is whether israel has the right to exist.

A "right to exist" regardless of the price paid by other humans? Is that what you are saying? Carte blanche? Ends justify the means?

That's a "no" from me, dog.

Short posts tend to be easily misunderstood for what they don't say or don't say clearly.

Are you asking whether Baducchi acknowledges that there's a 'cost' to defending Israel's existence? Presumably he does. Is he asking for that "cost" to be unlimited? Maybe, if the alternative is actually existential. One could certainly argue that if one should be willing to pay any cost if the alternative is existential for oneself, one's loved ones, community, nation.

Or are you suggesting that no "cost to other human beings" is worth Israel's "right to exist", Jews right to exist in their own state, free of terrorism or military aggression from neighbors?

It's more complicated, right?

I'm guessing that neither of you is advocating maximizing the cost to others in order to achieve benefit to oneself, one's own people's benefit.

[youthathletics]

Where are the anti-Hamas protests in America?

there aren't. that's a critical point. the hamas/palestinian supporters are anti-israel. the israeli supporters are pro-israel. that heart of this issue isn't A against B and B against A. the heart of this issue is whether israel has the right to exist.

A "right to exist" regardless of the price paid by other humans? Is that what you are saying? Carte blanche? Ends justify the means?

That's a "no" from me, dog.

Short posts tend to be easily misunderstood for what they don't say or don't say clearly.

Are you asking whether Baducchi acknowledges that there's a 'cost' to defending Israel's existence? Presumably he does. Is he asking for that "cost" to be unlimited? Maybe, if the alternative is actually existential. One could certainly argue that if one should be willing to pay any cost if the alternative is existential for oneself, one's loved ones, community, nation.

Or are you suggesting that no "cost to other human beings" is worth Israel's "right to exist", Jews right to exist in their own state, free of terrorism or military aggression from neighbors?

It's more complicated, right?

I'm guessing that neither of you is advocating maximizing the cost to others in order to achieve benefit to oneself, one's own people's benefit.

I think you are over complicating it. afans comment is really easy to understand....can you answer it, ignoring Baducci's rebuttal?

[Farfromgeneva]

Where are the anti-Hamas protests in America?

there aren't. that's a critical point. the hamas/palestinian supporters are anti-israel. the israeli supporters are pro-israel. that heart of this issue isn't A against B and B against A. the heart of this issue is whether israel has the right to exist.

A "right to exist" regardless of the price paid by other humans? Is that what you are saying? Carte blanche? Ends justify the means?

That's a "no" from me, dog.

Short posts tend to be easily misunderstood for what they don't say or don't say clearly.

Are you asking whether Baducchi acknowledges that there's a 'cost' to defending Israel's existence? Presumably he does. Is he asking for that "cost" to be unlimited? Maybe, if the alternative is actually existential. One could certainly argue that if one should be willing to pay any cost if the alternative is existential for oneself, one's loved ones, community, nation.

Or are you suggesting that no "cost to other human beings" is worth Israel's "right to exist", Jews right to exist in their own state, free of terrorism or military aggression from neighbors?

It's more complicated, right?

I'm guessing that neither of you is advocating maximizing the cost to others in order to achieve benefit to oneself, one's own people's benefit.

I think you are over complicating it. afans comment is really easy to understand....can you answer it, ignoring Baducci's rebuttal?

Here’s the anti Hamas protest.

https://ofac.treasury.gov/sanctions-pro ... -authority

But more effective than fat old people arguing the sky isn’t blue while looking up because they’re god told them it was a different color.

[youthathletics]

Where are the anti-Hamas protests in America?

there aren't. that's a critical point. the hamas/palestinian supporters are anti-israel. the israeli supporters are pro-israel. that heart of this issue isn't A against B and B against A. the heart of this issue is whether israel has the right to exist.

A "right to exist" regardless of the price paid by other humans? Is that what you are saying? Carte blanche? Ends justify the means?

That's a "no" from me, dog.

Short posts tend to be easily misunderstood for what they don't say or don't say clearly.

Are you asking whether Baducchi acknowledges that there's a 'cost' to defending Israel's existence? Presumably he does. Is he asking for that "cost" to be unlimited? Maybe, if the alternative is actually existential. One could certainly argue that if one should be willing to pay any cost if the alternative is existential for oneself, one's loved ones, community, nation.

Or are you suggesting that no "cost to other human beings" is worth Israel's "right to exist", Jews right to exist in their own state, free of terrorism or military aggression from neighbors?

It's more complicated, right?

I'm guessing that neither of you is advocating maximizing the cost to others in order to achieve benefit to oneself, one's own people's benefit.

I think you are over complicating it. afans comment is really easy to understand....can you answer it, ignoring Baducci's rebuttal?

Here’s the anti Hamas protest.

https://ofac.treasury.gov/sanctions-pro ... -authority

But more effective than fat old people arguing the sky isn’t blue while looking up because they’re god told them it was a different color.

their

[MDlaxfan76]

Where are the anti-Hamas protests in America?

there aren't. that's a critical point. the hamas/palestinian supporters are anti-israel. the israeli supporters are pro-israel. that heart of this issue isn't A against B and B against A. the heart of this issue is whether israel has the right to exist.

A "right to exist" regardless of the price paid by other humans? Is that what you are saying? Carte blanche? Ends justify the means?

That's a "no" from me, dog.

Short posts tend to be easily misunderstood for what they don't say or don't say clearly.

Are you asking whether Baducchi acknowledges that there's a 'cost' to defending Israel's existence? Presumably he does. Is he asking for that "cost" to be unlimited? Maybe, if the alternative is actually existential. One could certainly argue that if one should be willing to pay any cost if the alternative is existential for oneself, one's loved ones, community, nation.

Or are you suggesting that no "cost to other human beings" is worth Israel's "right to exist", Jews right to exist in their own state, free of terrorism or military aggression from neighbors?

It's more complicated, right?

I'm guessing that neither of you is advocating maximizing the cost to others in order to achieve benefit to oneself, one's own people's benefit.

I think you are over complicating it. afans comment is really easy to understand....can you answer it, ignoring Baducci's rebuttal?

Actually, I don't think I'm "over-complicating" anything. As my multiple posts on this topic should have made clear, I think acknowledging and addressing the complexity is essential for any hope of resolution, any potential for an end to the cycle of horrific violence.

As to a fan's question, I'd need to go back and check for any additional context, but in it's simplest form, I'd say there was an immediate and overwhelming sense of shock and revulsion at the horror of the Hamas terrorists' acts from most of the American populace and a swift response from President Biden calling those acts reprehensible. No equivocation. And then an evolving concern was added to the official responses, from Biden, Blinken, and others about Israel's right and duty (note the second, duty as voiced by Biden and Blinken) to defend itself, supporting the goal of removing the threat of Hamas completely...and yet with concern over the 'how', a concern about civilian life, and then further evolution to begin to set the current actions in a context of a vision of future hope for a peaceful two-state solution.

As the majority view of Americans, and the current government, is that Israel has a right (and duty) to defend itself, including with great force, I'm not sure what there is to protest from a pro-Israel, anti-Hamas point of view. The Israeli government is carrying out a brutal response to the terrorist acts of Hamas, with more than 10,000 Palestinians dead already...we don't know how many of those are Hamas fighters or supporters, but a large portion is likely not to be. Many are children, half of all dead estimated to be under 18. Who is thinking that there needs to be a protest in support of killing more Palestinians, given that's already underway?

However, in contrast to the general American populace, and the government's policy, a majority of younger Americans see the situation less about the existential rights of Jews to live in peace in Israel and more about the apartheid treatment of Palestinians by the current generation of Israelis in power. They have opposed the US government's ongoing support of this right-wing Israeli government, and now oppose the overwhelming force being used. Indeed, Israel has been fractured along these lines as well. Thus, Pro-Palestinian protests in countries in which protests are allowed.... Many in those protests simply want humanitarian concerns to be addressed without further bloodshed, others are more virulently opposed to right-wing Israeli policies and even some find justification of extreme actions against the 'oppressor'. Young, hot-headed, but not without valid concerns.

And then we have our MAGA House which wants to tie funding for Israel (which they say they support strongly) with defunding the IRS, leading to increases in the deficit as fewer hyper wealthy people can be audited...and oh yeah, that typical taxpayers have a harder time getting answers from fewer IRS customer service reps. No new technology upgrades. Brilliant.

So, you want less complexity?

[OCanada]

Alon Ben-Meir

Excerpted;

He sees this catatrophr as an opportunity to break the impasse bcs there is not returning to the status quo ante bellum as after the Yom Kippur war. Netanyahu has been a high profile opponent of the Oslo accords.


Gorenberg further stated that “In 2019, for instance, Netanyahu explained why he allowed the Hamas regime in Gaza to be propped up with cash from Qatar rather than have it depend on a financial umbilical cord to the West Bank. He told Likud lawmakers that “whoever is against a Palestinian state should be for’ the Qatari funding…”
Yuval Diskin, head of Shin Bet from 2005-2011, stated in January 2013 that “If we look at it over the years, one of the main people contributing to Hamas’s strengthening has been Bibi Netanyahu, since his first term as prime minister.” And, in a more telling statement from someone who has been deeply immersed in Israeli politics and governance, Ehud Barak stated in August 2019, “His strategy is to keep Hamas alive and kicking… even at the price of abandoning the citizens [of the south] … in order to weaken the PA in Ramallah…”

[a fan]

As to a fan's question, I'd need to go back and check for any additional context, but in it's simplest form, I'd say there was an immediate and overwhelming sense of shock and revulsion at the horror of the Hamas terrorists' acts from most of the American populace and a swift response from President Biden calling those acts reprehensible. No equivocation.

Sure. But....where are the long term, weeks long protests?

They're holding a couple hundred hostages RIGHT NOW....ongoing, just like what the Israelis are doing. Where are the protests, MDLax? Where are the demands that the hostages be returned? And that the Palestinians (not hamas) be held accountable for what happens with their people. Hamas is made up of Palestinians. Because of course they are.

This speaks volumes to me. No one is holding Palestine accountable. No one. So they keep lobbing rockets and kidnapping people, and the world doesn't even notice it.

However, in contrast to the general American populace, and the government's policy, a majority of younger Americans see the situation less about the existential rights of Jews to live in peace in Israel and more about the apartheid treatment of Palestinians by the current generation of Israelis in power. They have opposed the US government's ongoing support of this right-wing Israeli government, and now oppose the overwhelming force being used. Indeed, Israel has been fractured along these lines as well. Thus, Pro-Palestinian protests in countries in which protests are allowed.... Many in those protests simply want humanitarian concerns to be addressed without further bloodshed, others are more virulently opposed to right-wing Israeli policies and even some find justification of extreme actions against the 'oppressor'. Young, hot-headed, but not without valid concerns.

Let's play this out: what happens if Israel feels cut off? You really want to back that fully nuclear bear in a corner, with the entire world against them?\


Further, when aid goes to Palestine----it also goes to Hamas. That's a problem that I don't know how to fix outside of UN Troops entering Gaza...speaking of which, why don't we do that?


I cut your posts to address specific thoughts of yours with clarity.

[Farfromgeneva]

Where are the anti-Hamas protests in America?

there aren't. that's a critical point. the hamas/palestinian supporters are anti-israel. the israeli supporters are pro-israel. that heart of this issue isn't A against B and B against A. the heart of this issue is whether israel has the right to exist.

A "right to exist" regardless of the price paid by other humans? Is that what you are saying? Carte blanche? Ends justify the means?

That's a "no" from me, dog.

Short posts tend to be easily misunderstood for what they don't say or don't say clearly.

Are you asking whether Baducchi acknowledges that there's a 'cost' to defending Israel's existence? Presumably he does. Is he asking for that "cost" to be unlimited? Maybe, if the alternative is actually existential. One could certainly argue that if one should be willing to pay any cost if the alternative is existential for oneself, one's loved ones, community, nation.

Or are you suggesting that no "cost to other human beings" is worth Israel's "right to exist", Jews right to exist in their own state, free of terrorism or military aggression from neighbors?

It's more complicated, right?

I'm guessing that neither of you is advocating maximizing the cost to others in order to achieve benefit to oneself, one's own people's benefit.

I think you are over complicating it. afans comment is really easy to understand....can you answer it, ignoring Baducci's rebuttal?

Here’s the anti Hamas protest.

https://ofac.treasury.gov/sanctions-pro ... -authority

But more effective than fat old people arguing the sky isn’t blue while looking up because they’re god told them it was a different color.

their

Sure. And? Is the goal to point out a misspelling out of the many I make and ignore the content or attempt to critique my intellect which would be akin to Cradle calling people dumb if you get what I’m saying.

[youthathletics]

I think you are over complicating it. afans comment is really easy to understand....can you answer it, ignoring Baducci's rebuttal?

Actually, I don't think I'm "over-complicating" anything. As my multiple posts on this topic should have made clear, I think acknowledging and addressing the complexity is essential for any hope of resolution, any potential for an end to the cycle of horrific violence.

As to a fan's question, I'd need to go back and check for any additional context, but in it's simplest form, I'd say there was an immediate and overwhelming sense of shock and revulsion at the horror of the Hamas terrorists' acts from most of the American populace and a swift response from President Biden calling those acts reprehensible. No equivocation. And then an evolving concern was added to the official responses, from Biden, Blinken, and others about Israel's right and duty (note the second, duty as voiced by Biden and Blinken) to defend itself, supporting the goal of removing the threat of Hamas completely...and yet with concern over the 'how', a concern about civilian life, and then further evolution to begin to set the current actions in a context of a vision of future hope for a peaceful two-state solution.

As the majority view of Americans, and the current government, is that Israel has a right (and duty) to defend itself, including with great force, I'm not sure what there is to protest from a pro-Israel, anti-Hamas point of view. The Israeli government is carrying out a brutal response to the terrorist acts of Hamas, with more than 10,000 Palestinians dead already...we don't know how many of those are Hamas fighters or supporters, but a large portion is likely not to be. Many are children, half of all dead estimated to be under 18. Who is thinking that there needs to be a protest in support of killing more Palestinians, given that's already underway?

However, in contrast to the general American populace, and the government's policy, a majority of younger Americans see the situation less about the existential rights of Jews to live in peace in Israel and more about the apartheid treatment of Palestinians by the current generation of Israelis in power. They have opposed the US government's ongoing support of this right-wing Israeli government, and now oppose the overwhelming force being used. Indeed, Israel has been fractured along these lines as well. Thus, Pro-Palestinian protests in countries in which protests are allowed.... Many in those protests simply want humanitarian concerns to be addressed without further bloodshed, others are more virulently opposed to right-wing Israeli policies and even some find justification of extreme actions against the 'oppressor'. Young, hot-headed, but not without valid concerns.

And then we have our MAGA House which wants to tie funding for Israel (which they say they support strongly) with defunding the IRS, leading to increases in the deficit as fewer hyper wealthy people can be audited...and oh yeah, that typical taxpayers have a harder time getting answers from fewer IRS customer service reps. No new technology upgrades. Brilliant.

So, you want less complexity?

Thank you for the thoughtful cliffs notes version of the recent past. But, you completely avoided the the question....where are the protests against Hamas/Palestine, and why are there none? I think you do not want to say the quite part out loud....and I seriously doubt you believe this, but the mere fact Israel has to defend itself ( practically daily for so long)and is one of the worlds most powerful military speaks volumes. ,....is a clue as to what the otherside wants.

[youthathletics]

I think you are over complicating it. afans comment is really easy to understand....can you answer it, ignoring Baducci's rebuttal?

Here’s the anti Hamas protest.

https://ofac.treasury.gov/sanctions-pro ... -authority

But more effective than fat old people arguing the sky isn’t blue while looking up because they’re god told them it was a different color.

their

Sure. And? Is the goal to point out a misspelling out of the many I make and ignore the content or attempt to critique my intellect which would be akin to Cradle calling people dumb if you get what I’m saying.

Just giving you a hard time.....I think we are trying to figure out why the general population is silent in protest against Hamas/Palestine.

[Brooklyn]

Uncle Sam Doesn’t Have One Thin Dime for Joe Biden’s $106 Billion War Package


https://original.antiwar.com/David_Stoc ... r-package/


Written by CONSERVATIVE David Stockman.


When you are faced with an existential threat to your very national survival, this is what you do. You mobilize your economy for all-out struggle and impose heavy-duty “War Taxes” to pay for a dramatic build-up of military capabilities ...

There is a whole lot of lobbying going on – but it’s not in the Knesset. Instead, it’s on behalf of a largely symbolic $14 billion Israel aid package from the war finance capital of the world on the Potomac.

But in the great scheme of things that’s a false comfort to the Israelis and an unaffordable virtue signal for the Washington pols. The fact is, Uncle Sam is flat-out broke. Washington cannot afford a single dime of the $106 billion package that Biden is trying to shove down the collective throats of America’s hapless legislators. That especially includes the utter waste of another $61 billion for Washington’s insane proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and the $14 billion for Israel, as well.

Israel has not yet even begun to tighten its own economic belt to pay for the war policy that its militaristic and religious extremist government insists upon. Indeed, the pending US aid package amounts to only 2.5% of Israel’s GDP and comes on the back of Netanyahu’s ceaseless decades-long campaign for a Garrison State national security policy, but one funded on the cheap via a quasi-pacifist defense spending level.

That’s right. Israel’s military expenditures had plunged from more than 20% of GDP at the time of the last existential crisis during the Yom Kippur War of 1973 to just 5% of GDP on the eve of the October 7 attacks. In effect, Netanyahu falsely told Israeli voters that they didn’t have to take the risks and make the territorial concessions implicit in a two-state and diplomatically-based solution to the Palestine problem. But at the same time, they could also avoid having to be taxed to the gills to pay for the alternative – a costly, heavily militarized Garrison State.

The wink and nod underlying this false solution, of course, was a pitiless willingness to keep Hamas in check by “mowing the grass” every few years in Gaza, as a desperate Israeli government is now doing once again to the horror of much of the civilized world.

So even more than the failure of Israel’s vaunted intelligence operations in the run-up to the October 7th massacres, the real deep policy failure is the flaccid blue line below, slouching toward 5.0% of GDP defense spending after the Netanyahu coalition came to dominate policy in the 1990s. You simply can’t have a Garrison State policy – no negotiations with the Palestinians, no two-state solution, no continuation of the Oslo or other international negotiations process and the quarantine of 2.3 million largely destitute Palestinians in a congested dysfunctional strip of land cheek-by-jowl with the Mediterranean Sea – on a 5% of GDP war budget.

srael’s $25 billion defense budget is a pittance compared to its booming, technologically advanced and robust $550 billion national economy. The latter, in turn, is 20X larger than what had been the $28 billion that passes for an economy in the shambles of Gaza – a whisp of GDP mainly funded by foreign philanthropists and malign actors alike. And even that will soon virtually cease to exist.

Even if you count the aid from the so-called malign actors – a few hundred million per year from Iran and others – that flows through Qatar to Hamas, there is simply no contest. Israel is an economic Goliath relative to the thin resources of the Hamas terrorist apparatus and does not need any virtue signaling hand-outs from the politicians of the bankrupt state domiciled on the Potomac in order to handle its own security. They just need to either –

return to the international negotiating table for a two-state solution based on the pre-1967 borders and the re-unification of Gaza and the West Bank under an internationally accountable and guaranteed authority.
or, in the alternative, shackle their voters with heavy-duty War Taxes to fund the full military might their current rejectionist policies require.
Needless to say, Bibi Netanyahu and his coalition of rightwing religious parties would have likely never stayed in power with their “rejectionist front” against an internationally brokered and superintended two-state arrangement had they leveled with the public about the immense increase in military spending and taxes these policies required.

But even that is not the half of it. The truth is, Netanyahu is a megalomaniacal madman who has had the reckless audacity to pursue an utterly dangerous Machiavellian strategy of promoting and funding Hamas in order to kill dead as a doornail any prospect whatever of a two-state arrangement.

The public record makes absolutely clear that this is what Netanyahu clearly has done, even as he failed to tell the Israel’s public that this policy, in turn, necessitated a full-bodied Garrison State with crushing taxes to keep his Frankenstein monster contained inside the Gaza prison walls.

And we do mean crushing. To spend another $25 billion or even $50 billion on a Garrison State approach to national security, as would be needed, would amount to 5% to 10% of GDP in higher taxes. Yet according to the World Bank, the Israeli tax burden has been falling since the turn of the century when Netanyahu’s one-state policy came to dominate Israel’s national security posture.

... In an interview with the Ynet news website on May 5, 2019, Netanyahu associate Gershon Hacohen, a major general in reserves, said, “We need to tell the truth. Netanyahu’s strategy is to prevent the option of two states, so he is turning Hamas into his closest partner. Openly Hamas is an enemy. Covertly, it’s an ally.”


... Israel’s governing faction of religious extremists, militarists, messianic settlers and Eretz Yisrael ideologues have chosen, instead, to live in a Garrison State and to be periodically compelled to “mow the grass” in the Gaza outdoor prison. Yet if its rightwing governments want to operate a modern-day Sparta, they need to tap their own taxpayers first.

In the meanwhile, Washington needs to truly sober up. Uncle Sam’s checking account is massively overdrawn. Now is not the time to fund wars which do nothing for America’s homeland security (Ukraine) or to provide purely symbolic aid to an ally that has more than enough resources to fund the unwise war policies it insists on pursuing.





Conservative Stockman is saying what I've said all along: for too long now we have been paying for Israel's wars (as well as its universal health care coverage) while tens of thousands of Americans die every year from lack of health care [recall that I have previously included Afghanistan & Iraq in my past criticism on this matter]. Right wingers on this forum fret about the Israelis while ignoring the fate of tens of thousands of their own fellow Americans. These unpatriotic types ignore those needless deaths, the crumbling infrastructure, the ever increasing national debt, and other problems that lead to social division within our borders. Somehow to these delusionals, what goes on overseas is of greater significance than what Americans needlessly have to endure on a daily basis. Do these impoverished Americans have a right to live? Not to these unAmerican delusionals. It is only too obvious that they profit from the Garrison state's military industrial complex so that this is why they argue in favor of wasting more money on these needless wars.