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Andrew Abshier's avatar

I would also add that the Russian campaign of launching missles and drones against civilian targets hasn't broken the will of the Ukrainians. You would think people would learn, but they don't.

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Yehawes (VA)'s avatar

I don't know if anyone here is a hiker, but if you are you know how hard it is to pick your way over and across a boulder field. Even those who could travel twelve or fifteen miles of flat road or trail carrying a pack with minimum survival essentials (or a child) in twenty four hours, could not cover a quarter that over unstable rubble. Now go look at videos of the elderly, lame, injured, pregnant and those burdened with children who are trailing down the roads. In heat. Without water.

Hamas' sickening cruelty and viciousness is unforgivable, but we are making a dreadful mistake if we insist on rhetoric and direct military aid that ties us and our national honor to what fury blinded Israeli troops are about to do in Gaza.

Carriers and a presence designed to suppress initial hot headed impulses to join in are wise and defensible. Humanitarian aid and diplomatic influence toward permitting the exodus of civilians and the recovery of prisoners is wise and defensible and vital. Promising military aid at "whatever it takes" levels to a country that can already squash their neighbor, regardless of how terrible the provocation, is unnecessary... and I very much fear that when the final assessment is made we'll regret having signed our name to what bids to become a deeply shameful level of retaliation which will lessen our moral stance toward war crimes committed by Putin in Ukraine.

One of the IDF leaders was quoted today as basically saying their soldiers were told "no holds" which is absolutely inconsistent with what Biden said we expected of our allies. The current numbers are already far beyond what could be considered a measured response. The targets don't seem to show specific targeting of suspected Hamas locations with the exception of a few neighborhoods.

Biden said he understands the need to render Hamas unable to regroup (like killing the hydra) with an overwhelming attack, but one can't hold off a mad man by threatening his neighbors much less his (in many cases unwilling) servants. It is said that half of the citizens of Gaza are children.

I would willingly applaud the removal of every Hamas terrorist from the face of the earth. As would have at least some of those Palestinians limping toward the south. Maybe tomorrow they will all be either martyrs or ripe for recruitment. And Americans will all be seen as culpable for the worst of it, and Biden's cautionary statements, ignored, as feckless.

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