Redbrickbear said:
historian said:
Redbrickbear said:
historian said:
Bad comparison: the US vs Taliban is not the same as Israel vs Hamas.
Uh yea, no one said exactly the same
The point is that long term occupations against Islamic insurgent movements are hard to fight.
Besides killing all the people of Gaza or ethnically cleansing the area.
What does victory look like and how is it to be achieved?
As I made clear, it's not a question of being exactly alike it's about being remotely similar. It's basically apples & oranges or maybe marsupials & fish.
You think Hamas and the Taliban have no similarities?
Nothing that we can compare about the two movements and their fight with larger more powerful Westernized nations?
One big difference is that the US only knew of a small handful of Taliban members. The US had positive ID on a few dozen out of hundreds of thousands of Taliban soldiers & members.
Hamas does not have nearly as many members, and the Israelis and their allies have a lot more of them identified. So even though it would be nearly impossible to destroy them all, it would be possible to destroy a much larger percentage than anything we did in Afghanistan.
Also, the US was under the false belief that the Taliban could be convinced to surrender and become normal people. The Israelis know that there is no redemption for the members of Hamas. They will not try to "win the hearts & minds" of Hamas. The US wasted too much effort & time trying to decide if a Taliban member was one of the bad ones or not... never realizing that there is no such thing as a good Taliban member.
Once someone joins a group like Hamas, Hezbollah, Taliban, Al Queda... they are beyond hope. They must be exterminated immediately. The US will never see that, but the Israelis now see it. They have tried to reason with Hamas leaders in the past, but after Oct 7th, there is no stomach for that anymore. The Israelis want to destroy Hamas, not attempt to convert them into good, decent people. That is a huge difference.
ShooterTX