So unless the MSM can provide other evidence that Gaza's population is over 2 million , they need to report this accordingly.
If they cant keep themselves in line then people will.
@AkomoCombine I was just about to ask about this because I read 2 million with half of them being children.
I wondered if numbers were inflated and I wondered why they wouldn’t get their children out of there when warned if safety is only 20 miles away.
This is an info graph from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), updated September 2023.
There are 2.2 million, give or take. This info graph focuses on poverty & mobility. Other UN data measures the population as 40% under 15, around 50% under 19.
Video & on-the-ground reports show civilians terrified because they don't know if IDF can be trusted. There *are* civilians hit while evacuating. None of this is as easy as it looks.
@IrelandTorin @MLClark We've yet to see what the Israeli response will be, so we shall see. The war against terror became an unrecognized Crime Against Humanity, but I hope that is not what happens in Gaza.
It's never apples-to-apples, but it bears remembering that the US didn't go after al-Qaeda directly. It went after the Taliban - a state, governance structure - with an express desire to root out all possible training enclaves for future terrorism in one go. It was the Taliban, as Afghanistan's leaders, that the US started bombing on October 7, 2001.
So, not the same - but that doesn't mean we can't still pay attention to our history, and keep its lessons in mind.
@MLClark @IrelandTorin The Taliban are scum, and likely impervious to education/rehabilitation. I wonder how many innocent Afghan's died during that "war." NOTHING was gained from it. It did, however, provide fuel for Terrorism, as will Israel's attack on Gaza, if not measured. Also, the 9-11 attack was mostly carried out by Saudi's, who somehow, despite MBS being a murderer, is somehow considered an ally
There's a lot of analysis looking back on that era. US intelligence didn't realize at the time, but attacking the Taliban drove al-Qaeda into other spaces where it could rebuild, unfortunately.
The war yielded around 243,000 casualties, including 70,000 Afghan and Pakistani civilians, and many military and police forces from US allies. Afghan citizens who survived were left in a state of abject poverty - and, of course, the Taliban returned.
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/afghan
@MLClark @IrelandTorin Thanks for the facts. No fault of us, but I most feel for Afghan women and girls who are denied education and opportunity. It's so sad
That's the big take-away, I think.
It's okay to just sit with how sad and awful it all is.
The push to rationalize that awfulness away doesn't help much - and can definitely make things worse, by diminishing active pain.
The simple fact is:
We're all in pain right now--for good reason, if differently.
And that pain, at least, reminds us that what makes us human is still alive.
Small comfort, some days, but still... a precious gift.
Thanks for grieving with me.
@EdgeOErin @MLClark Part of me has always sorta wondered if it might not be possible to weaken [or even destroy] regimes like the Taliban by a) find a way to help oppressed women undo the brainwashing & get murderously angry about their predicament, then b) find a way to covertly arm them [eg: like the Allies did by dropping Liberator pistols in occupied France, but ideally much less noticeable].
Hard to find a better assassin than the target's spouse. Now imagine if they all acted at once...
@MLClark @EdgeOErin I think the problem there was that trying to get to al-Qaeda via the Taliban... was like carpet-bombing an area trying to hit one hay bale.
IMO it's not really feasible to root out all possible training enclaves for future terrorism, especially at once... you'd need to annihilate basically every theocratic & ultranationalist state on Earth, not to mention at least a few neo-Nazi/cult compounds in the US/Canada & elsewhere.
Trying would cause unimaginable collateral damage.
@MLClark @EdgeOErin I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to the idea of dropping the hammer on neo-Nazi/cult compounds (would probably prevent a lot of suffering in the long run), but the rest... would be way too much for even the US to tackle, and that's not even factoring in the geopolitical ramifications.
There are way too many theocratic and ultranationalist states for a military solution to work. Instead... mass psyops to try to weaken the *ideas* causing terrorism are a better bet.
@EdgeOErin @MLClark There's a huge difference: Hamas is essentially a state - a government unto itself - whereas al-Qaeda was/is, to the best of my knowledge, pretty much purely a clandestine terrorist organization (in many ways similar to organized crime gangs).
Hamas, from what I gather, is much larger (in terms of manpower/resources) and more organized than al-Qaeda ever was.
Comparing the Israeli response to these attacks with the US response to 9/11 is not an apples-to-apples comparison.