7 ms·

> The only military option to stop the attacks are drone / bomber incursions into Yemen After they withstood years of war with Saudis? Those sandal-and-skirt g

by f6v 3y ago

> The only military option to stop the attacks are drone / bomber incursions into Yemen After they withstood years of war with Saudis? Those sandal-and-skirt guys are much tougher than people think.

logicchains 3y ago
[flagged]
- miguelazo 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - logicchains 3y ago
    It's not racist; the Taliban and the Houthis are Muslims, and most Muslims believe that martyrdom leads directly to heaven, since the Qur'an explicitly states so. "Those who leave their homes in the cause of Allah, and are then slain or die,- On them will Allah bestow verily a goodly Provision: Truly Allah is He Who bestows the best provision. Verily He will admit them to a place with which they shall be well pleased: for Allah is All-Knowing, Most Forbearing." - Quran 22:58–59 Many Muslims take pride in the fact, hence the popularity of the "I have bought you men who love death as much as you love life" quote from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_ibn_al-Walid https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_ibn_al-Walid to the Persian governor. Plus the Houthis and the Afghanistanis aren't even the same race, since the Houthis are Arabs and the majority of Afghanistanis are not.
    - cma 3y ago
      Like saying Christians are hard to beat because everyone will donate all life savings to a religious war effort because of the one camel/needle line.
    - pazimzadeh 3y ago
      Meh, it's not like Islam has a monopoly on martyrdom. Religion is a multiplier for politics, not the other way around. > it's hard to defeat people who believe dying in battle is a ticket to paradise How about it's hard to defeat people in their homeland, when they are fighting guerilla-style and not fighting head-on. i.e. Vietnam.
    - threeseed 3y ago
      You keep talking about many/most Muslims without evidence. If it's anything like Christianity most Muslims could well be practising but not devout and fully committed to everything written in the Quran.
  - zilti 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - anon4242 3y ago
    How could it ever be racist? Muslims aren't a race, anyone can become a Muslim.
  - postsantum 3y ago
    Muslim is not a race, just FYI
    - miguelazo 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - throw10920 3y ago
        This reply perfectly illustrates the mentality of SJWs: terms like "racist" are just weapons to be used against political opponents, divorced from any actual meaning of the word.
        miguelazo 3y ago
        The point was that the comment was based on prejudice. It was deleted and the user reprimanded, so clearly not just an “SJW” jab (itself a ridiculous cliche to invoke in this context). Whether the comment was purely based on religious affiliation, or as commonly happens, conflated with race, doesn’t really matter.
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  It's hard to beat people on their own land who are fighting with conviction, which of course they are if you have invaded their land. I am not convinced the religious reason you propose is the actual differentiator but if you're an expert on the role of islam in armed conflict I am listening. Otherwise we've seen insurgencies effectively resist much stronger forces in vietnam, ukraine, and at one point the united states itself, without any particular unifying theology that I'm aware of.
  - logicchains 3y ago
    I didn't say only people with strong religious convictions can resist conquest by stronger forces, I just said that it's hard to conquer people with strong religious convictions.
    - giraffe_lady 3y ago
      To say what you're saying responsibly you need to establish that their religious conviction is the reason why. Given that we see it elsewhere and across religions it seems much more likely to me that simply being invaded by a more powerful state is a strong enough source of this conviction. Aside from that the "they're happy to die because their religion says they get virgins" is something I remember my second most racist uncle saying after sept 11. It's not even really true? It's a very narrow reading of a particular passage, that, yes, extremists have gotten a lot of mileage out of. But from my lay understanding of islam does not feature heavily in the personal religious experience of most muslims. Again unless you have some particularly insight or expertise about the role of islam in motivating individuals in conflict I think you should reflect on where you got this idea and what you were trying to communicate by using it here.
      - logicchains 3y ago
        The Qur'an explicitly states that martyrs will die in heaven, and most Muslims believe this. "Those who leave their homes in the cause of Allah, and are then slain or die,- On them will Allah bestow verily a goodly Provision: Truly Allah is He Who bestows the best provision. Verily He will admit them to a place with which they shall be well pleased: for Allah is All-Knowing, Most Forbearing." - Quran 22:58–59 The virgins part on the other hand is a lot more iffy. And Muslims generally believe it's not acceptable to kill a single innocent, since the Qur'an says so, so only a very small minority support suicide bombing like 9/11 (on the argument that since US citizens fund the military, they count as soldiers, not non-combatants). Muslims themselves have claimed not fearing death to be a reason for past military success. For instance the quote "I have bought you men who love death as much as you love life" from one of the early Muslim generals https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_ibn_al-Walid https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_ibn_al-Walid . He said it to the Persians, whom the Muslim armies eventually defeated.
- dang 3y ago
  You started and then fueled a religious flamewar here. That's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. We have to ban accounts that post like this, so please don't post like this. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
LargeTomato 3y ago
Conventional military wisdom is that you cannot win a war from the air. Case in point: Vietnam. You have to put boots on the ground to secure the area and the Saudis aren't about to do that and the American people would never support dying for a Saudi war.
- TylerE 3y ago
  You don't need to a win a war here, just make life sufficiently hard that most of the fighters give up.
  - logicchains 3y ago
    It's Yemen, have you checked their GDP per capita recently? Life there is already hard enough that it's difficult to make it significantly worse.
    - TylerE 3y ago
      If harboring pirates gets your village bombed, villages will stop harboring pirates.
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > harboring pirates gets your village bombed, villages will stop harboring pirates The history of area bombardment is it strengthens civilian resolve. Think: the Battle of Britain, Vietnam and America’s wars in the Middle East.
        eastbound 3y ago
        Aren’t there counterexamples? How would Dresden be considered?
        ceejayoz 3y ago
        Nazi Germany was already fundamentally beaten by the time of Dresden.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> After they withstood years of war with Saudis? Different aims. Riyadh sought to remove them from power. That’s a boots-on-the-ground operation they attempted from the air. Egypt would just need to degrade their coastal capabilities. Taking out vessels, helicopters and arms stores could do that from the air.
- sudosysgen 3y ago
  Saudi Arabia also attempted to stop the Houthis from bombing Saudi industry, and failed. It's difficult to bomb guided missiles, because they are typically only stored 1-4 at a time in a highly mobile and disguised manner, for example inside a truck, and are only going to be exposed as they're being fired. It's a really difficult task, unfortunately. As far as I known it's never been successfully done without a ground invasion.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > it's never been successfully done without a ground invasion Counter-battery fire is tremendously precedented and always done at standoff. You can also start hitting arms stores, port infrastructure, training and C3 facilities. The beauty of this is it’s cruelly win-win-win. The Houthis can use the bombing to strengthen their domestic image, maybe even boost recruitment. Iran can piggyback on that. And America can claim it cleared the Strait. As long as everyone stays in their lane (literally), it’s a stable conclusion.
    - sudosysgen 3y ago
      Counter battery fire simply does not work. These missiles are not stored nor fired in central locations, there are only a couple at a time. You can fire at the launch spot all you want, there's going to be no one and nothing of value there. It's the same tactics the US itself copied for the HIMARS, and despite thousand of airstrikes Russia hasn't been able to destroy them. Training and top level command is most likely not even in Yemen. You could hit the ports, that wouldn't stop the import of these missiles - they are shipped in small boats as a kit, assembled wherever, and then kept in a cave somewhere or in a car, ready to be fired. No port or infrastructure needed. These tactics have been used since the 80s, and no solution short of a ground invasion can stop them. Israel couldn't even stop Hamas and the PIJ from firing guided rockets from Gaza - at the end of the day when the IDF bomb houses that rockets were fired from, it's just theater: they never store more than a dozen munitions, and by the time counter battery fire arrives, they've likely fired all munitions already. This is a tiny 2.4sqm strip fully blockaded, I don't see how you can stop it in Yemen.

by f6v 3y ago

> The only military option to stop the attacks are drone / bomber incursions into Yemen After they withstood years of war with Saudis? Those sandal-and-skirt guys are much tougher than people think.

logicchains 3y ago

[flagged]

miguelazo 3y ago
[flagged]
- logicchains 3y ago
  It's not racist; the Taliban and the Houthis are Muslims, and most Muslims believe that martyrdom leads directly to heaven, since the Qur'an explicitly states so. "Those who leave their homes in the cause of Allah, and are then slain or die,- On them will Allah bestow verily a goodly Provision: Truly Allah is He Who bestows the best provision. Verily He will admit them to a place with which they shall be well pleased: for Allah is All-Knowing, Most Forbearing." - Quran 22:58–59 Many Muslims take pride in the fact, hence the popularity of the "I have bought you men who love death as much as you love life" quote from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_ibn_al-Walid https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_ibn_al-Walid to the Persian governor. Plus the Houthis and the Afghanistanis aren't even the same race, since the Houthis are Arabs and the majority of Afghanistanis are not.
  - cma 3y ago
    Like saying Christians are hard to beat because everyone will donate all life savings to a religious war effort because of the one camel/needle line.
  - pazimzadeh 3y ago
    Meh, it's not like Islam has a monopoly on martyrdom. Religion is a multiplier for politics, not the other way around. > it's hard to defeat people who believe dying in battle is a ticket to paradise How about it's hard to defeat people in their homeland, when they are fighting guerilla-style and not fighting head-on. i.e. Vietnam.
  - threeseed 3y ago
    You keep talking about many/most Muslims without evidence. If it's anything like Christianity most Muslims could well be practising but not devout and fully committed to everything written in the Quran.
- zilti 3y ago
  [flagged]
- anon4242 3y ago
  How could it ever be racist? Muslims aren't a race, anyone can become a Muslim.
- postsantum 3y ago
  Muslim is not a race, just FYI
  - miguelazo 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - throw10920 3y ago
      This reply perfectly illustrates the mentality of SJWs: terms like "racist" are just weapons to be used against political opponents, divorced from any actual meaning of the word.
      - miguelazo 3y ago
        The point was that the comment was based on prejudice. It was deleted and the user reprimanded, so clearly not just an “SJW” jab (itself a ridiculous cliche to invoke in this context). Whether the comment was purely based on religious affiliation, or as commonly happens, conflated with race, doesn’t really matter.
giraffe_lady 3y ago
It's hard to beat people on their own land who are fighting with conviction, which of course they are if you have invaded their land. I am not convinced the religious reason you propose is the actual differentiator but if you're an expert on the role of islam in armed conflict I am listening. Otherwise we've seen insurgencies effectively resist much stronger forces in vietnam, ukraine, and at one point the united states itself, without any particular unifying theology that I'm aware of.
- logicchains 3y ago
  I didn't say only people with strong religious convictions can resist conquest by stronger forces, I just said that it's hard to conquer people with strong religious convictions.
  - giraffe_lady 3y ago
    To say what you're saying responsibly you need to establish that their religious conviction is the reason why. Given that we see it elsewhere and across religions it seems much more likely to me that simply being invaded by a more powerful state is a strong enough source of this conviction. Aside from that the "they're happy to die because their religion says they get virgins" is something I remember my second most racist uncle saying after sept 11. It's not even really true? It's a very narrow reading of a particular passage, that, yes, extremists have gotten a lot of mileage out of. But from my lay understanding of islam does not feature heavily in the personal religious experience of most muslims. Again unless you have some particularly insight or expertise about the role of islam in motivating individuals in conflict I think you should reflect on where you got this idea and what you were trying to communicate by using it here.
    - logicchains 3y ago
      The Qur'an explicitly states that martyrs will die in heaven, and most Muslims believe this. "Those who leave their homes in the cause of Allah, and are then slain or die,- On them will Allah bestow verily a goodly Provision: Truly Allah is He Who bestows the best provision. Verily He will admit them to a place with which they shall be well pleased: for Allah is All-Knowing, Most Forbearing." - Quran 22:58–59 The virgins part on the other hand is a lot more iffy. And Muslims generally believe it's not acceptable to kill a single innocent, since the Qur'an says so, so only a very small minority support suicide bombing like 9/11 (on the argument that since US citizens fund the military, they count as soldiers, not non-combatants). Muslims themselves have claimed not fearing death to be a reason for past military success. For instance the quote "I have bought you men who love death as much as you love life" from one of the early Muslim generals https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_ibn_al-Walid https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_ibn_al-Walid . He said it to the Persians, whom the Muslim armies eventually defeated.
dang 3y ago
You started and then fueled a religious flamewar here. That's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. We have to ban accounts that post like this, so please don't post like this. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

LargeTomato 3y ago

Conventional military wisdom is that you cannot win a war from the air. Case in point: Vietnam. You have to put boots on the ground to secure the area and the Saudis aren't about to do that and the American people would never support dying for a Saudi war.

TylerE 3y ago
You don't need to a win a war here, just make life sufficiently hard that most of the fighters give up.
- logicchains 3y ago
  It's Yemen, have you checked their GDP per capita recently? Life there is already hard enough that it's difficult to make it significantly worse.
  - TylerE 3y ago
    If harboring pirates gets your village bombed, villages will stop harboring pirates.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > harboring pirates gets your village bombed, villages will stop harboring pirates The history of area bombardment is it strengthens civilian resolve. Think: the Battle of Britain, Vietnam and America’s wars in the Middle East.
      - eastbound 3y ago
        Aren’t there counterexamples? How would Dresden be considered?
        ceejayoz 3y ago
        Nazi Germany was already fundamentally beaten by the time of Dresden.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> After they withstood years of war with Saudis? Different aims. Riyadh sought to remove them from power. That’s a boots-on-the-ground operation they attempted from the air. Egypt would just need to degrade their coastal capabilities. Taking out vessels, helicopters and arms stores could do that from the air.

sudosysgen 3y ago
Saudi Arabia also attempted to stop the Houthis from bombing Saudi industry, and failed. It's difficult to bomb guided missiles, because they are typically only stored 1-4 at a time in a highly mobile and disguised manner, for example inside a truck, and are only going to be exposed as they're being fired. It's a really difficult task, unfortunately. As far as I known it's never been successfully done without a ground invasion.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > it's never been successfully done without a ground invasion Counter-battery fire is tremendously precedented and always done at standoff. You can also start hitting arms stores, port infrastructure, training and C3 facilities. The beauty of this is it’s cruelly win-win-win. The Houthis can use the bombing to strengthen their domestic image, maybe even boost recruitment. Iran can piggyback on that. And America can claim it cleared the Strait. As long as everyone stays in their lane (literally), it’s a stable conclusion.
  - sudosysgen 3y ago
    Counter battery fire simply does not work. These missiles are not stored nor fired in central locations, there are only a couple at a time. You can fire at the launch spot all you want, there's going to be no one and nothing of value there. It's the same tactics the US itself copied for the HIMARS, and despite thousand of airstrikes Russia hasn't been able to destroy them. Training and top level command is most likely not even in Yemen. You could hit the ports, that wouldn't stop the import of these missiles - they are shipped in small boats as a kit, assembled wherever, and then kept in a cave somewhere or in a car, ready to be fired. No port or infrastructure needed. These tactics have been used since the 80s, and no solution short of a ground invasion can stop them. Israel couldn't even stop Hamas and the PIJ from firing guided rockets from Gaza - at the end of the day when the IDF bomb houses that rockets were fired from, it's just theater: they never store more than a dozen munitions, and by the time counter battery fire arrives, they've likely fired all munitions already. This is a tiny 2.4sqm strip fully blockaded, I don't see how you can stop it in Yemen.