volleyball (u/volleyball)

volleyball commented on Why does a fire truck cost $2m thehustle.co/originals/wh... · Posted by u/Guid_NewGuid

Tbh, there's a non zero chance it would've been successful if not for insane policies like de baathification.

volleyball · a month ago

As i mentioned in another post, if you measure success as creating a strong, prosperous, independent, viable democracy - then Iraq was an utter failure and so was Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Jordan, Egypt and Iran. Which begs the question why does the US pursue the same failed policies over and over again. It turns out we were asking the wrong questions in 2005. If you measure success from the purview of the Yinon plan to establish Israeli hegemony over the entire middle-east then everything aforementioned - including all the death, terrorism, suffering, sectarian and religious strife, massacres and genocides, refugees crises, the rise of ISIS, the recent Al Qaeeda takeover of Syria - everything, was a resounding success.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yinon_Plan

volleyball commented on Why does a fire truck cost $2m thehustle.co/originals/wh... · Posted by u/Guid_NewGuid

rayiner · a month ago

The U.S. didn't even get the oil! The Chinese got the oil. The whole thing was because George W. Bush's heart was bigger than his brain: he thought the U.S. could create a functioning democracy from the Iraqi population.

volleyball · a month ago

edit : I forgot to mention that as of 2024, the US still controlled all oil revenue transactions in Iraq. - thecradle.co/articles-id/27007

>George W. Bush's heart was bigger than his brain: he thought the U.S. could create a functioning democracy from the Iraqi population.

George Bush probably knew what he was doing in Iraq because his VP, Dick Cheney could have told him way back in 1994[1] what would happen if we overthrew Saddam :

  > "Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein’s government, then what are you going to put in its place? That’s a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it — eastern Iraq — the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you’ve got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.

  > It’s a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.

  > The other thing was casualties [...] was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth? Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right."

"Spreading freedom and democracy" was just another propaganda spin like the "WMDs". The question still remains, why did America spend thousands of lives (tens of thousands, if one counts contracters, veteran suicides, chronic conditions, etc. ) and 2 trillion dollars and counting to overthrow Saddam. Why did they continue to make the same "mistake" in Syria, Libya, Yemen , Sudan, Somalia and Iran[2] causing millions of deaths, millions of refugees, spreading death and destruction across the entire region. By 2025 the picture has become a lot clearer as only theory continues to stand the test of time - that America invaded and intervened to overthrow and destabilize the entire region to clear a path for Israel to invade and expand into "Greater Israel"[3] and become the regional hegemon. How any of this actually serves America's strategic interest is an untenable case to make at which point one will have to consider the notion that when it comes to Israeli-American relations, the tail wags the dog.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YENbElb5-xY

[2]- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNt7s_Wed_4

[3]- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Israel#Proposed_inclus...

volleyball commented on Felix Baumgartner, who jumped from stratosphere, dies in Italy theinternational.at/felix... · Posted by u/signa11

inglor_cz · a month ago

I remember Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize not even a year into his first term, with no concrete peace-related achievements under his belt. There are also Kissinger, Abiy Ahmed and Yasser Arafat on the list of laureates. Overall, it might be the weakest of the Prizes, in the "too dependent on momental popularity and political pressure" sense.

The scientific Nobels + Literature are usually awarded with a decent time gap after the relevant achievement, which helps. Maybe the Nobel Peace Prize should only be awarded to professionally retired people over 70. That would prevent it from being too politicized.

volleyball · a month ago

(Shimon Peres too in list of questionable peace laureates)

volleyball commented on IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites haaretz.com/israel-news/2... · Posted by u/ahmetcadirci25

JumpCrisscross · 2 months ago

> People were already living there when settlers came to create an ethno-state for themselves

Including a sizeable Jewish minority.

The ethnic cleansing/settler-colonialist paradigm is easy for outsiders to project on the region. But it’s a continuation of outsiders (in particular Westerners, though the Iranians also bought this settler-colonialist nonsense which led to their recent miscalculations) with no connection to the land drawing up broad moral claims for how the Middle East should be divided up.

volleyball · 2 months ago

In 1920 (the year when British took over Palestine from the Ottomans) the jewish population was less than 10% Jewish and represented less than 1% of global Jewry. By 1948, after the British flooded in Jewish migrants mainly from Europe and the Americas, the population became about ~65% + arab and 35+% Jewish. Zionism was always predicated on Ethnic cleansing from the start and the founders of zionists were always aware of that fact.

“We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country.” - Theodore Herzl , Father of Zionism in 1895.

"With compulsory transfer we [would] have a vast area [for settlement]. I support compulsory transfer. I don't see anything immoral in it." - David Ben Gurion, Father of Israel.

"the world has become accustomed to the idea of mass migrations and has become fond of them. … Hitler – as odious as he is to us – has given this idea a good name in the world." - Ze’ev Jabotinsky, Founder of Revisionist Zionism, 1940.

Zionism is textbook settler-colonialism. I dont see it worth even arguing the point.

volleyball commented on IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites haaretz.com/israel-news/2... · Posted by u/ahmetcadirci25

volleyball · 2 months ago

I guess the Israeli government's original plan to arm and support drug gangs and literally ISIS (euphemistically called 'clans') as "aid security" wasn't working out? Especially after it was revealed said "security" was stealing and reselling the food aid under the protection of IDF while the Israeli govt. and media blamed the looting on Hamas.

And after the Israeli opposition leader exposed the whole charade and Netanyahu defended it saying “On the advice of security officials, we activated clans in Gaza that oppose Hamas. What’s wrong with that? It only saves the lives of Israeli solders, and publicising this only benefits Hamas.”

[1] - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/06/netanyahu-defe...

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasser_Abu_Shabab

[3] - https://archive.is/20250606144357/https://www.ynetnews.com/a...

volleyball commented on Hate Radio (2011) rwandanstories.org/genoci... · Posted by u/thomassmith65

madaxe_again · 3 months ago

I find the whole premise for the situation mind-boggling. Tutsi and Hutu were basically just categories for “someone who has cattle” and “someone who does not have cattle”. One could become the other quite readily.

Then the Belgians came along, measured skulls, pronounced the Tutsis a separate (and superior) race, and the rest is… absolutely idiotic history.

volleyball · 3 months ago

Major, minor or imagined differences between populations being exacerbated causing them to turn against each other wasn't a byproduct of some poorly conceived policy. It was the whole point and was (and continues to be) a keystone to colonial power over faraway lands.

volleyball commented on Hate Radio (2011) rwandanstories.org/genoci... · Posted by u/thomassmith65

galacticaactual · 3 months ago

Really? Reference 9/11, Bataclan, Ariana Grande concert, various car ramming episodes, and - at minimum - they have destroyed our spirit as a stable society.

volleyball · 3 months ago

Afghanistan , Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Palestine, Sudan, Somalia.

15000 children (at least) killed in gaza alone since October 7. Thats like an Ariana Grande concert everyday for the last 2 years.

volleyball commented on Hate Radio (2011) rwandanstories.org/genoci... · Posted by u/thomassmith65

volleyball · 3 months ago

Middle eastern media is a fart in the wind compared to western media. Except in the latter case it is phrasing is along the lines of "spreading freedom and democracy" or similar.

volleyball commented on Accountability Sinks 250bpm.substack.com/p/acc... · Posted by u/msustrik

ethbr1 · 4 months ago

The acute guilt levied wasn't about following orders and exterminating the ground squirrels...

... but using an industrial shredder to do it. (on 440 of them)

For reference, this is an industrial shredder: https://m.youtube.com/shorts/I15kCJyl6po

Anyone who did that to a live animal deserves to be in prison, orders or no. There are innumerable compassionate, humane ways to kill animals, if it's necessary.

volleyball · 4 months ago

Is that the type of shredder they used though? It seems too slow especially when considering live squirrels. I imagine it would be more like the one used to kill male hatchlings in the poultry industry[1]. Quicker and bit more humane.

[1] -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udSiluTAOaQ (warning : potentially disturbing footage)

volleyball commented on Wiz's $32B GTM Playbook cybersecuritypulse.net/p/... · Posted by u/baxtr

DeathArrow · 5 months ago

He forgot to mention that founders are all veterans of Unit 8200, the signals intelligence division of the Israeli military.

volleyball · 5 months ago

Someone explain to me how this works?

Big Tech acquires companies founded and run by literal foreign spies and recruits said agents into critical positions with their departments. Meanwhile their alumni buddies down the street over at proscribed companies like NSO and Candiru hack into the products and services of these very same companies and use it to target citizens (including journalists, activists, politicians, diplomats) of America and its allies? And no one thinks there is a conflict of interest or threat to national security here?