Aesthetics, plus the seductive appeal that pre-modern, pre-liberal-democratic societies (when the governments were authoritarian, the women were submissive, and the men “were men”) have for reactionaries, incels, and cryptofacists.

I think by “support” they mean “send billions of dollars in US military hardware, which both funds the military-industrial complex and furthers wars and conflicts on the other side of the world”. Not everyone thinks that is a good idea.

And what is dropping this wikipedia link supposed to prove?

Does it contradict the scholarly article I cited which supports everything I said?

P.S. who is “you people”?

Gaddafi literally funded terrorist attacks on the US in the 80s, which led to about 15-20 years of political disruptions between the two countries.

According to the Regan administration perhaps, but not according to intelligence agencies from several European countries. There was a concerted effort to link Gaddafi to individual terrorist attacks, like the Lockerbie bombing, although there was no hard evidence to support that.

It seems we’re largely in agreement then - that 1) NATO did, in fact, make a move on Gaddafi and 2) the West supported him when it was beneficial but turned on a dime the minute he stopped cooperating.

That also overlooks all the times western powers were friendly with Gaddafi. They didn’t mind him following his ascent to power, nor in the post 9-11 period when the U.S. and European countries restored diplomatic ties with Libya, and Western oil companies re-entered the Libyan oil sector.

In 2007, the UK’s Tony Blair visited Libya to strike up energy deals, and France’s Sarkozy met with Gaddafi for military and economic agreements.

Was Gaddafi a supervillain then too, or did he only become one when his interests were no longer aligned with the Western powers?

He certainly played up to the role, presumably for egotistical reasons, but most of it was sabre rattling bravado. He wasn’t seen as a genuine threat by Western intelligence agencies.

Also, NATO forces didn’t have to kill Gaddafi directly in order to be instrumental to his deposition. Their air strikes were highly effective in destabilizing the regime and empowering opposition forces within Libya. Besides, you only have to look at the history of US intervention in Latin America for many examples of how regime change can be carried out via proxies and rebel groups.

Except there is strong evidence that Western powers (predominantly France, the UK and US) created the fiction of Gaddafi being a global supervillain and then used NATO forces to enact regime change in Libya, under the pretext of “preventing civilian casualties”. In fact, the real objective was to secure Libyan oil reserves and open the country up to western markets.

NATO is often used an extension of Western foreign policy. To pretend it is solely a benevolent peace keeper is just as simplistic and naïve as saying that everything the West does is pure evil.

All true, but that doesn’t disprove my point. The risk was non-zero, so it was still worth investigating.

Yes but the difference is that there were reasonable grounds to suspect that prolonged exposure to RF waves might possibly cause some harmful effects. The WHO didn’t categorize radio frequency radiation as a potential carcinogen based on no evidence at all:

https://www.iarc.who.int/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/pr208_E.pdf

The possibility of there being a link was not absurd, per se.

To be fair, the evidence about a link between cell phone radiation and cancer has been inconclusive for quite some time. After all, a series of inconclusive or null results doesn’t mean there is categorically no link – it could equally mean that more research is needed.

That said, I do agree that if there were a casual link in this case then it would have made itself apparent by now, given the huge increase in cell phone usage over the past few decades.

Oh, I agree. I think the last six months have really disabused me of the notion that working to effect meaningful change within the US system as it currently stands is even remotely possible.

Yeah, fair play. I’ve been something of an apologist for AOC for some time, but her full transformation to mainstream Democrat is disappointing.

A translation of the top caption says

The last Iron Swords survey was conducted between the dates 07-11.8.24 led by the data collection and analysis desk at the Institute for National Security Studies. The fieldwork was carried out by the “iPanel” Institute, during which 772 men and women were interviewed on the Internet and by telephone in the Hebrew language and 200 in the Arabic language, which constitute a representative sample of the adult Israeli population in Israel aged 18 and over. The maximum sampling error for the entire sample is 3.5% ± at a 95% confidence level.

He won’t need to nix anything - Hamas will not agree to a deal that does not actually hold Israel to a lasting ceasefire:

“After being briefed by the mediators about what happened in the last round of talks in Doha, we once again came to the conclusion that Netanyahu is still putting obstacles in the way of reaching an agreement, and is setting new conditions and demands with the aim of undermining the mediators’ efforts and prolonging the war,” Hamas said.

More specifically, Hamas objects to the fact that the proposal doesn’t include a permanent ceasefire or comprehensive Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Source

All this talk of a ceasefire deal is a PR stunt that allows the US to pretend like it’s trying to make progress while still funneling weapons to Israel.

Based on what evidence? That claim was just an attempt to smear her campaign on social media.

Yes, God forbid that people vote for parties that actually represent their values rather than always picking the lesser of two evils

An irony that 100% of Christian Nationalists will never appreciate.

Yup. Decades of Cold War propaganda, an incompetent news media, and a binary, two-party duopoly that positions itself as “the right” versus “the left” have all worked together on this one.

More bullshit from the DNC. Luckily the judge appears to have dismissed the complaint, which means the Greens are still on the ballot in Wisconsin.

The DNC has subsequently filed a lawsuit in response. The author of the complaint, David Strange, says the Greens should not be on the ballot because

the Green Party can’t nominate presidential electors in Wisconsin because no one in the party is a state officer, defined as legislators, judges and others. Without any presidential electors, the party can’t have a presidential candidate on the ballot

All this pretty rich coming from the party that is allegedly out to “save democracy”.