I kept an eye on it because it’s cool to know what the buzz is with the more mainstream memes about wars and whatever. Weapons systems I haven’t heard of, military secrets being leaked on gaming forums, I wouldn’t post or comment there but monitoring it isn’t stupid if I’m browsing All. A little crass about people dying but I thought it’s all an in-joke.
When things started escalating here in Lebanon I was absolutely baffled how the average poster there had zero nuance or interest in questioning whatever they considered to be the status quo. I saw people arguing and getting banned in the comments over “supporting terrorism” while I was out dealing with the very civilian damage we are experiencing. You can check my post history for more on that, my comments detailing the situation feel like screams into the void and I’m less and less motivated to write about my experience.
I never posted or commented anything in NCD because how could I possibly say “Whether you consider this person a terrorist leader or not, their tactics were more pragmatic than potential successors and this will likely lead to prolonged conflict” on a page like that. A message that ostensibly should be very clear on a conflict discussion board.
I think it’s mostly Europeans and Americans fetishizing their fancy weapons, never having been on the receiving end of them. But I have, and therefore my opinion doesn’t matter, because I must be a terrorist.
That was precisely the turning point honestly. It’s been a bit hit or miss on Palestine (like most English-language anything online), but I remember commenters defending that attack as “pinpoint precision” or whatever they’ve convinced themselves.
Doctors have had to pull damaged eyes out of children. People with compromised devices were out on the roads, a few blew up in public buses. Imagine driving down the road and driver in the car in front of you loses half his skull and smashes into a shop. Not so cute huh
Still what happened that day, terrorizing as it was, was easier to live with than what’s happening now.
The human shield narrative is a whole other level of mental gymnastics for me. Is there something in the water preventing people from understanding militants are people and people live in houses and houses are typically built next to other houses?
Just to be clear, these groups are (politically) in the way of a lot of internal progress. I’ve been personally threatened and intimidated by them for some political stuff I’ve done in the past. And even I feel compelled to explain how the situation is more complicated than it looks. Fighting for the right thing often involves putting aside differences, even major differences, for the greater good, so that we may live to fight another day. Yes their internal, extremely regressive politics are very dangerous. The diplomatic quagmire they worsen is also a massive problem. But these conversations are complicated and they require a lot of preamble, and they’re for us to have.