956 has lost his fucking mind. Sad to see. I would bet that there is some personal aspect of this that he is not sharing with us that drives his posting.
It has always been interesting to me to see how people react to tens or hundreds or thousands of people being killed - and then losing their minds because of that. Don’t get me wrong, how can any decent human not be affected by that? But it is fascinating that the deaths of other people on other “teams” - or who die in manners less spectacularly evil than having a throat cut are deaths that do not matter as much. Those other dead peeps might beg to differ.
I have asthma. It used to be pretty fucking horrific, actually, so thank you evil big pharma for helping me be alive - because it was a close call there for a while. I remember when several Republican administrations changed the EPA policy on how much pollution and particulates could be allowed in the air. Meaning they let far more of it into the air. I remember talking to someone who is losing their brain because of Benghazi and a couple American deaths, and I asked how come he wasn’t upset when the best estimates of United States government scientists said that 100,000 people a year more would die because of the change in environmental pollution standards the GOP implemented. I mean, 100,000 is more than 5 or 10. Naturally, I was told that 100,000 people figure is bullshit. All I could tell him is that’s what the United States government scientists said. Let’s say they had an agenda and it was only half that amount. Fuck it. Let’s say it was a BIG agenda and only 10% of those people who would die because of the changed regulations died. That would be 10,000 more dead people in America a year. Nobody gave a shit.
Unless someone is drinking the right wing Kool-Aid, you would have to admit that our attack on Iraq killed 200,000 to 600,000 civilians when water treatment plants, lack electricity to hospitals and water treatment and medicines - and related bombings - led to a health crisis in Iraq. So I might be cynical, but I raise an eyebrow when we are losing our minds over hundreds or even 1000 people killed, when our collective American souls had not one fucking problem with hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens dying. Or tens of thousands more Americans dying of pollution. A year. But Saddam‘s kids raped some people, and he allegedly tried to kill W’s daddy, so that’s OK.<cue Lee Greenwood song>
And, like I said, before, if anyone is keeping score, the IDF has killed far more Palestinian civilians than Hamas killed Israeli citizens in their rocket attacks and terrorist acts. When I say this do I condone Hamas slaughtering people? No. Do I condone terrorist attacks? No. Am I crying at the evil and incomprehensible acts of brutality against the innocent Israeli civilians that affect their families for the rest of their lives? Yes. Do I want all persons responsible for this dead? God damn right.
But some of you motherfuckers need to get off picking one side on this issue in a simplistic version akin to “turning the sand to glass” shit the right said in past Iraqi wars. Because if there was ever an issue that needed objective restraint, it is this issue. Because bombing the fuck out of one of the most densely populated areas in the fucking world and killing thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians is NOT going to lead to peace. It is going to lead to attacks on the 75th fucking anniversary of the Yom Kippur war. Because if you’re killing Israeli families, their family wants to kill you. And if you kill a Palestinian family, their family wants to kill the Israelis who killed them. And if those Israelis kill them…
So, as I watch our president talk about the horror of the atrocities against the Israelis, I have to agree. When his rhetoric seems to paint them as these monsters who are evil beyond comprehension, I think of the hundreds of thousands of civilians we killed in Iraq, and all the families enjoying a wedding that we fucking killed in a drone strike. And there is indeed a vast galactic width difference between drone killing a wedding party by mistaken intel and cutting babies throats. But the families of loved ones killed by the drone strike do not care if we are monsters - or air force fuckups who made a mistake and only joined because they wanted some money for college. They care about dead innocent family members.
I guess what I’m saying is you can have hatred for the Hamas assholes who committed the terrorist acts all you want. You likely aren’t hating them enough. I co-sign. But I have issues with folks lumping all the Palestinians (who don’t have guns who aren’t armed, and who are caught between a bunch of terrorist madmen with guns and the IDF with guns) in one pile. Those people are living in fear, with no choice, and now with no food or water or electricity. I suggest you spend a moment to look at your own spirituality, and whatever religion you practice, and tamp down the hate on ALL the people in Gaza a bit because it will get us exactly fucking nowhere.