I never said anything at all about Afghanistan.

You posted a meme about the current leadership of Afghanistan.

I think it’s terrible the state if affairs.

Then why would you post a meme smugly extolling the virtues of the current state of affairs? You can’t have it both ways.

I find this meme to be absolutely vile.

The good people of Afghanistan have been under violent US occupation for decades, and as their final move, the US looted the central banking reserves.

This effectively drained the savings of everyday Afghanis. They no longer have access to their bank accounts. The US stole all the money.

I often wonder, would the good people of Afghanistan be able to overthrow the evil leadership of the Taliban? I wish they could, but overthrowing the Taliban is much less likely when the US has left you in a state of devastation, poverty, and famine.

Then those same western chauvinists can post memes like this, delighting in the Afghan people’s suffering after causing so much of it. Disgusting.

If we “all agree” and do a moonshot construction plan we could have electricity in 8 years. This is a fantasy, tho.

Best case scenario in the real world is operational in 12 years.

In the capitalist hellscape here in the US, a reasonable expectation would be 18-20 years.

20 years also happens to be the lifespan of our wind turbines. In 20 years, all of the currently running wind turbine blades will be in a landfill and new ones will need to be manufactured to replace them.

No reasonable person is suggesting nuclear as a short-term option. It’s a long term investment.

Are solar and wind really “clean” energy? Everyone in this thread seems to ignore the costs of these methods.

Every modern wind turbine requires 60 gallons of highly synthetic oil to function, and it needs to be changed every 6 months. That’s a lot of fossil fuel use.

Lithium mining for batteries is extremely destructive to the environment.

Production of solar panels burns lots of fuel and produces many heavy metals. Just like with nuclear waste, improper disposal of these toxic elements can be devastating to the environment.

Of course, solar and wind are a big improvement over coal and natural gas. I dont want the perfect to be the enemy of the good, I just want to be realistic about the downfalls of these methods.

I believe, with our current technology, that nuclear is our cleanest and greenest option.

Accurate representation of US veterans.

Yes I think we have the same general thesis here, readers should think critically always.

Look at the context here, my unsourced internet comment was in response to xep’s unsourced internet comment.

Xep made 3 claims, and I believe all 3 are incorrect.

Oh, you’re too kind! I would like to take credit but in reality I was inspired by people like Chris Jeffries, the writer of this Medium article.

His confident writing style and utter lack of sources was truly an inspiration.

Sorry I didn’t want to write an essay, but you’re right, I should have provided more.

I think it’s obvious the Medium article is poorly sourced- there are no links, no quotes, and no attribution whatsoever. Compare it to a write up like Hamas Recycling Unexploded Ordinance in Gaza, which tells the exact same story but it comes with links and quotes, and it names the source as Michael Cardash, the former deputy head of the Israeli National Police Bomb Disposal Division.

As for the Iranian connection, I know I’m going against popular opinion, but I made my claims clear and anyone can try to disprove me.

A quick Google search shows many articles on the bomb disposal unit and tactics inside Gaza dating back to at least 2012. The Inevitable Rearmament of Hamas (2021) gives a good analysis. An even better source for this is the al-Qassam Brigade’s youtube, they post raw war footage including bomb disposal. Unfortunately I dont speak Arabic so I wasnt able to find a specific video.

This Medium article is poorly sourced.

The NYT article is from 2021.

The oft-repeated idea that Iran supplies the majority of Hamas weapons is also poorly sourced. It is usually attributed to the CIA’s World Factbook or former US generals who now are talking heads for think tanks. These sources are highly biased.

But one thing that has been well documented is the Hamas unexploded ordinance team. They have over a decade of experience disarming and retrieving Israeli bombs from Gazan homes and businesses.

A huge round of layoffs as he pushes for a $56 billion dollar pay package is no surprise.

Theres this conflict of interest when a person only gets paid in giant stock options. His job isn’t to make cars or manage a profitable business, his job is stock market manipulation.

And the pro-business, deregulatory financial hellscape we all inhabit makes his job very easy.