this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2024
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[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

Ok, so... (in no particular order)

  • Hamas murdered hundreds of Israelis
  • Israel's defence force is currently flattening most of Gaza and thousands of its people
  • Hezbollah fired missiles into Israel from Lebanon
  • Iranian-backed Houtis in Yemen are launching missile strikes on ships in the Red Sea
  • The US and UK launched missile attacks on the Houtis
  • Iran fired missiles into Pakistan
  • Iran fired missiles into Iraq
  • Iran fired missiles into Syria
  • India and Pakistan are in a near-constant state of nuclear-backed tension
  • Turkey attacks Kurds in Syria and Iraq

Added 18 Jan:

  • Pakistan fires missiles into Iran
  • Jordan fires missiles into Syria

Anything else? (Loads, obviously)

What a fucking mess :-(

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I woke up this morning, saw the news about Iran's attacks, and went straight down a rabbit hole of looking up how to try and survive nuclear fallout. Short story is I'm probably fucked. But I'm legit getting a bad feeling about where we are heading.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

If you really want to scare/depress yourself, check out the BBC TV movie Threads. It's bleak as hell. Very good though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Is there any chance all of this circus ends peacefully soon?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Sadly, it seems unlikely - my concern is that right now it seems to be growing arms and legs, with various smaller disputes and conflicts all becoming intermingled. And given the second last point, that's a pretty scary prospect.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago
  • Pakistan housed a terrorist organization on its own soil (and not the first time, either)
[–] [email protected] -2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Can you guess what's common in them?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Probably lots of things - what did you have in mind?

[–] [email protected] -5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

I don't give damn being judged for telling the truth, so it's obviously Islam which is common in most of the cases mentioned above (not the actual religion but the political Islamic idiology which has been innovated surrounding it). It's just .. why even is it there and why is so much violence around it ?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

It's probably not unrelated to the fact that most of the people living in those countries happen to be Muslim.

Whereas in countries where a majority are Christians, conflicts tend to be fought mostly by... Christians. Eg Russia/Ukraine, many South American countries, even the events of the US Capitol on 6 Jan. Doubt there was a majority of Muslims "fighting like hell" that day. Not to mention both of the World Wars in the last century and a bit.

Meanwhile, there's places like Myanmar where, I'd feel fairly safe in betting that the majority of combatants in recent conflicts are Buddhists. As were those in Cambodia in the 70s. You could also even double up and consider the Vietnam war where Buddists and Christians were the actors.

So maybe it's just religion generally? Probably not though, since China's population is majority atheist, but that didn't help the students in Tiananmen Square any more than it helped Hong Kong.

The point is, humans in general have a seemingly neverending thirst for conflict, and not all of it can be lazily attributed to which religion they happen to be.

Perhaps right now there is more conflict in Islamic countries, but it wasn't always so and it won't always be so either. Snidely hinting that Islam is the problem is not helpful.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It’s not Islam that’s the problem. Rather the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and the partition of India were decisions made by western governments, primarily the British. It was a classic colonial tactic to set the interests of various ethnic and religious groups against each other in order to maintain colonial domination. The British were experts at it.

They no longer had the capacity to maintain an empire after WW2 but they still wanted to maintain some level of economic domination over their former colonies. As such, they made sure to draw borders and empower certain ethnic groups in such a way that it would almost guarantee future conflict. The US inherited this strategy and has been deploying it ever since.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Indeed - as Yes Prime Minister put it...

"Normally we partition the place. It's what we did in Ireland, Cyprus, India and Palestine. It always worked."

"Doesn't partitioning always lead to civil war? It did in Ireland, Cyprus, India and Palestine."

"Yes, but it kept them busy, and instead of fighting us they fought each other."

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Don't worry it won't escalate because Pakistan's COAS is too busy chugging whisky and using his IMF funds to shoot journalists.

India "accidentally" sent a nuclear capable BrahMos missile in 2022 and the army didn't even bat an eye.