Really under disused how the logic of the GWOT has steadily erased all distinction between civilian leadership and militant in the kinds of operations that the US and Israel engage in. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Clinton and Bush both condemned Israeli assassination attempts of Hamas leaders.
Now there is a barely a peep about the Prime Minister of the de facto government of Yemen being assassinated, a man who was not formally a part of Ansarallah leadership
Under discussed
Would any member of the US Congress today be willing to say what Bush said about Ahmed Yassin's assassination, but for even a journalist? It is hard to imagine it. The US has truly become worse.
Is this the new way? Are all politicians on the menu? #AFAF
Under disused? Not disused enough? Under discussed?
Discussed lol yeah
I'm sorry. I was a copy editor in another life and these things jump off the screen at me. LOL
something i used to think about a lot was how the conventional rule of capturing the enemy king rather than killing him became codified in chess
The biggest problem with GWOT is that we decided that if we didn't like an entity, and didn't recognize it, it wasn't a state.
Pre 10/7 Hamas was absolutely behaving as a state (though not a super sophisticated one). The challenge here is that Hamas on 10/7 didn't obey Geneva Convention norms on the treatment of non-combatants in wartime. Israel was never big on that either, and 10/7 just led to a "you started it"
TBH, I think the interesting thing is actually that it took this long. Like, even now, people question why we didn't just decap-strike Assad. Or do similar to Putin and Lukashenko. The breakdown is most notable in the ME. But it is a lot broader now. I'm not certain of the valence. But it is new.
Yeah I mean the main reasons you don't do that are 1) they'll try and do it back and 2) makes it harder to actually resolve a conflict. In the case of MENA though they're wildly arrogant on point 1 and want the opposite on point 2.
For example the goal in Iran is not regime change but permanent state collapse
Not even Iran specifically, I feel like
The fundamental reasons are innately tied to *valuing leadership* and I think a lot of the reason for this is a general disconnect between leaders and the people they nominally serve and rule. Though, in the MENA case, a large portion is also devaluing the people they rule.
Like, we have this model that if only we kill that one evil dude, things will be better. And that's not really true, because the system and discontent and a multitude of other things that produced them is still there. Tojo was no longer in charge in August 1944. He didn't matter.
Killing leaders is rational if you intend to either fully genocide the enemy, or to occupy and set up your own political structures, like we did in Germany and Japan after WW2. If there is to be a negotiation, killing leaders is irrational.
Killing leaders also reduces (or rather changes) competencies within any organization. There's a reason that armies have *long* targeted officers. Now, you can do the same for militants. But it has rather... dark outcomes. (Selects for paranoia and usually intransigence)
Pardon my ignorance, MENA = Middle East - North Africa I believe
Iirc we tried to decap strike Saddam at the beginning of the Iraq war and weren't successful
As for Putin I have made my feelings about being much more "bombs away" on Russia known in other places
The beepers are now a meme among Americans and Israelis
The fascinating part is that people seem to genuinely believe there will be no blowback on this ever
Seemingly endless military success tends to breed pride and overconfidence.
One thing which Spielberg got shit for with Munich was comparing the Munich Massacre to the assassinations of PLO political officers
lol I didn't know that
Did he ever. Goddamn near came to blows with one of my Hebrew High teachers over it, she kept ranting about how he was an antisemite.
Granted as someone who’d been onboard for one of the 70’s PLO hijackings (While pregnant), she was never going to be the most open-minded about any of the relevant issues but it was…illuminating