“We are heading for a wider war”
We who watched Iraq invade Kuwait in 1990 and the Trade Towers fall in 2001 have seen war fever take hold. The fever is not just a product of justified outrage nor of the “fog” of sketchy information, but also of active propaganda. Google: Nayirah and Office of Special Plans. Approach with caution.
Here is CNN’s tumbnail sketch of where things stand this morning:
At least 1,200 people were killed in Israel in Hamas’ October 7 onslaught when armed militants poured over the border into Israel, raiding homes, rampaging through communities and taking as many as 150 hostages back to Gaza. In retaliation for the atrocities, Israeli jets have been pounding Gaza — the densely inhabited coastal strip that Hamas controls — with hundreds of airstrikes, reducing neighborhoods to rubble. Officials say a “complete siege” has trapped residents, cutting them off from food, electricity and resources. Many survivors are in critical condition and struggling with an overwhelming emotional toll as a humanitarian crisis swiftly unfolds in the region.
When wars break out anywhere in this world, innocents die. If we cannot muster the compassion for the foreign dead and their families or restrain the urge for collective punishment, remember this: When wars break out anywhere in this world, Americans die too. Wherever the lines of battle are drawn, Americans find themselves trapped on both sides of them. That fact is also lost in the fog.
Post by @cnnView on Threads
We mourn for the slaughtered. We pray for the survivors. We call for justice. And people lose their minds. Watching that happen in real time just down the street is almost as horrifying as the carnage in Israel. And in Gaza.
Kat Abu of Media Matters responds to Americans in New York City calling for razing Gaza:
I’ve been seeing straight-up calls for Palestinian genocide on my TL for the past 48 hours.
If you’re someone who carries this view, join me on a livestream so you can describe exactly how my family and I should be annihilated to my face.
She apparently found takers.
This will get worse. Body bags will be in short supply in both Israel and in Gaza.
“Pure panic everywhere you look.”
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) October 10, 2023
Inside the Gaza siege – a resident’s eyewitness report by Yousef Hammash. pic.twitter.com/NLhKHPWa0X
Lauren Windsor of The Undercurrent tweets, “I just wept reading the beautiful words of a rabbi mourning the dead of both his Israeli family and the Palestinians. A brief respite from the past few days, so fkng soul crushing, reeling from the sheer brutality against innocents. I’m horrified that the worst is yet to come.”
“We are heading for a wider war,” NBC’s Richard Engel reports.
“We are now preparing for a ground war here.”
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) October 11, 2023
NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel reports from near the Gaza border in Israel. pic.twitter.com/fSfpnup0dt
No one gets out of this with their hands undirtied.
This conflict for me has always been about morality.
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) October 8, 2023
Morally, you cannot justify the killing of Palestinian civilians, even if you say it’s fighting terrorism.
But morally, you also cannot justify the killing of Israeli civilians, even if you say you’re fighting occupation.
The “rules-based world order” is on the verge of breaking down, Anne Applebaum warns. “Open brutality has again become celebrated in international conflicts, and a long time may pass before anything else replaces it.”