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Your parents are, presumably, not important members of the US state apparatus. It's sad but understandable that people who are not connected to this ongoing genocide would think "oh its such a shame but these things happen" vs a person with more information and a direct state of interest in it. Also I was reading in the ICJ filing that more journalists have been killed thus far in the conflict than in the entirety of WW2. Considering the scale of this I think that any claims about not targeting journalists should be treated with suspicion.
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Jan 8, 2024 08:01
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Yeah that’s exactly my point. It’s boomer logic but any professional diplomat or intelligence guy should be more informed and self aware. I’m not a mind reader either but ineffectual statements along with making public appearances in a plate carrier etc. comes across as out of touch. e: you don’t have to apologize! I’m sorry my post wasn’t more clear. not a value-add fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Jan 8, 2024 |
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Jan 8, 2024 08:19
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not a value-add posted:Yeah that’s exactly my point. It’s boomer logic but any professional diplomat or intelligence guy should be more informed and self aware. I’m not a mind reader either but ineffectual statements along with making public appearances in a plate carrier etc. comes across as out of touch. Oh I am sorry for misunderstanding! Thanks for letting me know!
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Jan 8, 2024 09:50
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Main Paineframe posted:It's easy for American officials to write off a few dozen dead journalists as the inevitable chaos of war, especially when they consider that several hundred journalists were killed in the Iraq War, a good chunk of whom were killed by coalition forces. This includes airstrikes on Al-Jazeera's Baghdad office, firing a tank shell into the hotel where most of the foreign journalists were staying, as well as a number of other incidents (for example, the infamous Collateral Murder video showed American helicopter pilots gunning down a group of Iraqi reporters whose camera had been mistaken for a rocket launcher). And it's not widely believed that all of that was on purpose as part of a deliberate campaign to target and assassinate journalists. About 300 journalists have been killed in Iraq over the last 20 years. The bulk of them have been killed by various armed groups (including US proxies like the Iraqi govt). While there were definitely dodgy incidents there hasn't been a single period in Iraq where the US killed anything like the number of journalists that Israel has. It should also be noted that the journalists murdered by Israel also are routinely murdered with their families. Blinken's not an idiot. Even with ideological blinders on, he can see that dozens of journalists being killed with their families over a period of three months is either a deliberate pattern or the IDF is so woefully incompetent that it shouldn't be operating at all.
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Jan 8, 2024 10:25
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Hong XiuQuan posted:Blinken's not an idiot. Even with ideological blinders on, he can see that dozens of journalists being killed with their families over a period of three months is either a deliberate pattern or the IDF is so woefully incompetent that it shouldn't be operating at all. After some observation, I think israel under likud has managed some inelegant combination of both in the IDF. Murderous both by intent and by competence decay, so there's no off switch.
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Jan 8, 2024 10:42
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The claim that in all of World War 2 a total of 69 journalists were killed seems based on a very narrow definition of what a journalist is. Germany regularly executed the entire staff of underground newspaper that were discovered or sent them to a death camp, hundreds in each occupied country. Do the couriers count? The typesetter and the one refilling paper into the printing press? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_media_in_German-occupied_Europe
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Jan 8, 2024 11:53
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Well as long as they're using the same definition for both counts I don't think it really matters. The same relatively low count seems to be presented for Vietnam also. Or you can compare to the still-ongoing Russia-Ukraine war (17). However you count and compare the end result seems to be a much higher rate of media deaths than anything else I've found referenced.
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Jan 8, 2024 15:01
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Josef bugman posted:Also I was reading in the ICJ filing that more journalists have been killed thus far in the conflict than in the entirety of WW2. Considering the scale of this I think that any claims about not targeting journalists should be treated with suspicion. It's not nearly as suspicious as you'd think. Compared to later wars, WWII battlefields were relatively safe for journalists. In the first place, they typically weren't permitted near the front lines in WWII, and WWII's nature as a wholly conventional war meant that there were nice clearly defined frontlines that they could mostly be kept away from, and not really a whole ton of urban combat in populated civilian areas. And most of the civilian deaths in WWII came off the battlefield, after the occupation forces had secured complete control of the area. Later wars of a more anti-insurgency nature, such as Vietnam and Iraq, tend to be much more deadly for journalists. Modern media and communication technology made reporters much more eager to be close to the action where they could get exciting TV footage. On the Western side, the military was far more willing to allow journalists to get close to combat operations, in hopes that a happy media would help maintain public support for the war. On the defending side, the insurgency is mixed into civilian areas and often doesn't have the ability to prevent journalists from watching them fight. And on both sides, there's heavy use of largely-indiscriminate firepower that makes it rather difficult for either side to selectively not kill people. Plus the journalists themselves don't have any clear idea of what's safe, since there's no clearly defined frontline and either side can potentially strike just about anywhere with zero notice. It makes for a much more dangerous environment for journalists than old-timey setpiece battles. Of course, one confounding factor in this comparison is that the list of dead journalists in WWII is far from complete. Apparently, no one was actually counting at the time, and as far as I can tell, the lists were built up later from American and British military records of war correspondents killed while covering their military operations. In fact, the higher amount of attention paid to journalist deaths today appears to be largely a product of the proliferation of insurgencies and the corresponding substantial increase in danger to noncombatants in war.
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Jan 8, 2024 15:17
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I mean I think it's just that nobody has ever seriously attempted to count the total journalists killed during World War 2. Like I can tell you the 69 figure is bullshit immediately because 113 employees from a single newspaper were killed at Hiroshima, and I have no doubt that other journalists were among the 100,000 people who were killed by the a-bombs, as well as the many other mass casualty events that occurred during the war due to indiscriminate conventional bombing of civilian targets.
Irony Be My Shield fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Jan 8, 2024 |
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Jan 8, 2024 15:47
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On the topic of journalists, how come Israel doesn’t do embedded journalists? Speaking of boomer logic, people seemed to love photos that came from the embedded photographers in Iraq. Especially that one of the marine that got shot inside the house and came out with blood all over his pants holding a pistol. Lots of look at how hard our boys are fighting god bless the usa sentiment and you would think Israel would jump at the opportunity to produce the same. I gotta be honest, I think there’s more to them shooting all the journalists than just how urban combat is. If you buy the whole “we are trying our best to protect civilians and not to just shoot everything that moves but it’s just too hard” argument then yeah I guess you can make the same assumption about all the journalists. But I have a hard time believing either one. not a value-add fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Jan 8, 2024 |
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Jan 8, 2024 15:47
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Fidelitious posted:Well as long as they're using the same definition for both counts I don't think it really matters. The same relatively low count seems to be presented for Vietnam also. If you're trying to figure out the relative level of journalist casualties in one conflict vs another, it obviously matters a lot that if the figures are obvious undercounts. There's no reason to assume the real value is just 2 or 3 times the estimated value, so that comparing the estimates yields the real ratio of deaths even if the estimates themselves are way off. It's very possible that whatever causes the undercount is exacerbated by conditions in one conflict, dampened by conditions in another. This is just a point about how to use statistics. On the practical level, the massacre of journalists in Palestine is one reason among millions that Israel's campaign must be halted immediately.
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Jan 8, 2024 15:47
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not a value-add posted:On the topic of journalists, how come Israel doesn’t do embedded journalists? Speaking of boomer logic, people seemed to love photos that came from the embedded photographers in Iraq. Especially that one of the marine that got shot inside the house and came out with blood all over his pants holding a pistol. Lots of look at how hard our boys are fighting god bless the usa sentiment and you would think Israel would jump at the opportunity to produce the same. Assuming that you're getting friendly "journalists" embedded with your troops, I think any fallout that might come from those pre-approved journalists dying is a risk you probably don't want to take, especially if you are trying to sell the war to your own people as a controlled, winning venture run by the most militarily competent people on Earth. I'm not sure what the Netanyahu government has been trying to portray to its domestic audience, but what Israel has been taking on from a military standpoint seems way different than anything the US has had to deal with.
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Jan 8, 2024 15:57
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Hmm that’s an interesting thought. It kind of runs in parallel to the issue of being casualty-averse among the actual military personnel as well. I’m not very well versed on what the various Iraqi insurgent groups were armed with. Everything I have is from personal accounts but they definitely faced off against Dushkas, RPGs, and some very nasty IEDs. It was bad enough that you’d be stupid to go out without support from a heavier vehicle because they could just roast the humvees. It would be interesting to see a more academic breakdown. What does seem different to me is the amount of dismounted infantry. Does Israel just not have the numbers? They’re conspicuously absent in most of the videos I’ve seen. The guys I’ve talked to on the US side fought backed up by Abrams and Brads. The Israelis seem to almost do the opposite.
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Jan 8, 2024 16:16
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I think if I was a teenager in Gaza right now, I'd just be thinking about how do I set off a nuke in Tel Aviv? Like, as a kid going through this, how do you not see Israel as a purely existential threat to everything you know and love?
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Jan 8, 2024 16:48
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not a value-add posted:On the topic of journalists, how come Israel doesn’t do embedded journalists? Speaking of boomer logic, people seemed to love photos that came from the embedded photographers in Iraq. Especially that one of the marine that got shot inside the house and came out with blood all over his pants holding a pistol. Lots of look at how hard our boys are fighting god bless the usa sentiment and you would think Israel would jump at the opportunity to produce the same. Israel does do embedded journalists, quite famously. In fact it's the only form of non-Palestinian journalists they allow to operate in Gaza and this has been the case for the last 15-20 years. Ostensibly for safety concerns. https://newrepublic.com/article/176919/cnn-abc-nbc-reporters-embedding-israeli-military-gaza The problem the IDF stumbled across when doing it this year is that the sheer volume of viral imagery and videos coming out of Gaza from Gazan journalists (including those working for Al-Jaz) made the embedded journalists managed by Israel look so obviously like propaganda pawns, they've effectively been sidelined. And again it's the IDF fudging its own work. Issues included: - Several cases of journalists trying to manufacture scary war scenes by pretending that they were in the midst of severe rocket barages (TAKE COVER!) while other people were wandering around unaffected - Several cases of replaying blatant and falsified IDF propaganda, which I think probably hit its zenith with the "Look at this chart of terrorist responsibilities!" while pointing to an Arabic calendar - Realising that it was causing severe credibility problems because all they had was lame footage of "tunnel entrances" and tanks while kids were getting their homes, bodies and lives shattered
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Jan 8, 2024 16:54
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Oh those are actually really good examples. I’ve seen some of those videos but I assumed they came from whatever the IDFs equivalent of a public affairs officer was, not an nominally independent media person because they seemed so hamfisted. I wonder why they don’t just photograph soldiers and marines doing soldier things like setting up behind cover, sleeping in a big pile, being dirty, being sweaty, trying to flip off the camera, there’s lots of material to work with.
not a value-add fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Jan 8, 2024 |
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Jan 8, 2024 17:46
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Remember that Israel has constant, active and overt media censorship regarding military affairs, which it requires even foreign media like CNN to cooperate with. Freedom of the press is very much subordinate to the requirements of propaganda there, unlike in the US, where while the press tends to align with state interests, it's more of a negotiated partnership with two-way influence.
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Jan 8, 2024 17:59
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Politico has a piece with some of the views from Washington on dealing with Israel.Politico: The US Is Dealing With an Israeli Leader Who’s Losing Control posted:U.S. officials have to work with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as they try to contain the Israel-Hamas war, but some are starting to wonder if he’s really in charge. I'm inclined to think that there's a lot more pressure the US and Biden could apply (halting weapons shipments would be an obvious one) but I don't think it's likely that even that would actually cause the Israeli government as currently formulated to stop leveling Gaza... but it sure could reduce the number of available explosives.
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Jan 8, 2024 18:32
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It's hard for me not to view that article as apologia for both Netanyahu and Biden, even if meant sincerely. It argues that there's nothing Biden can do to reign in Netanyahu and dismisses the idea of ending military funding as "politically explosive" (why?), and even then it frames Netanyahu as a victim of the Israeli far right, rather than an active participant. It also repeatedly emphasizes the 10/7 and only slips in the number of Palestinian civilian deaths in one paragraph towards the end; Hamas is presented as a "major obstacle to a two-state solution", but on the Israeli side only Netanyahu is presented as opposing "the very idea of a Palestinian state," and in a context that... implies the US is in favor?
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Jan 8, 2024 19:27
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Biden is advancing weapons shipments to Israel without congressional review or even the state departments normal internal reviews. He doesnt have his hands tied or something, he is an active participant in support of Israel's assault.
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Jan 8, 2024 20:10
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youcallthatatwist posted:It's hard for me not to view that article as apologia for both Netanyahu and Biden, even if meant sincerely. It argues that there's nothing Biden can do to reign in Netanyahu and dismisses the idea of ending military funding as "politically explosive" (why?), and even then it frames Netanyahu as a victim of the Israeli far right, rather than an active participant. It also repeatedly emphasizes the 10/7 and only slips in the number of Palestinian civilian deaths in one paragraph towards the end; Hamas is presented as a "major obstacle to a two-state solution", but on the Israeli side only Netanyahu is presented as opposing "the very idea of a Palestinian state," and in a context that... implies the US is in favor? Most of what's in that article looks broadly accurate. There probably isn't much Biden can do to actually reign in Netanyahu, who is in fact at the mercy of the far right currently. The problem is that for the last couple of years, Netanyahu's domestic political position has become increasingly tenuous, and the only way he's been able to avoid the end of his political career (possibly followed by a trip to prison) is by cozying up to increasingly extreme segments of the Israeli far right. That's dragged Netanyahu well to the right of where he personally stands politically (and he honestly doesn't do a great job of hiding his dislike), but he places his own personal political survival over everything else, so he's just had to put up with teaming up with a bunch of insane people who constantly demand all sorts of ridiculous bullshit that he doesn't really care about. That means that he's actually quite limited in what he can do politically, because his new bedfellows on the far right have absolutely zero loyalty toward him and will drop him the instant they feel he's no longer useful. It also means that it's quite difficult for the Biden administration to pressure him, because they lack useful carrots (they can't offer him any real political benefits to doing what they want) and sticks are dangerous and unpredictable (too much pressure will make Netanyahu's coalition collapse, and the US doesn't really want to be the cause of that). Ending military funding to Israel would be "politically explosive" because support for Israel has remained a widely bipartisan and popular stance in the US for about half a century now, and abruptly ending it would be a considerable political issue even if the US wasn't currently hyper-polarized. It's presenting things from the perspective of Israeli politicians because it's an article about Israeli politics, what Israeli politicians are likely to do, and what political considerations are seen as affecting Israeli politicians' stances and actions. The events of 10/7 are a whole lot more important to domestic Israeli politics than the Palestinian civilian death toll is. The US has consistently been in favor of the establishment of a Palestinian state for decades, yes. It's just that the Americans, who tend to sympathize more with Israeli positions and demands, have generally been unable to cut a fair two-state solution, despite their honest efforts to do so. For example, American peace negotiators would tend to be quite sensitive to the domestic political considerations of the Israeli government, while discounting or ignoring the domestic political circumstances of Palestinian negotiators. Meanwhile, Netanyahu long opposed the two-state solution, and while in recent years he occasionally suggests that he's open to it, he doesn't exactly seem too enthusiastic about it. Hamas long opposed a two-state solution as well, and while they've expressed openness to it in recent years, they're just as unenthusiastic about the idea as Netanyahu is. And Hamas' existence still poses a number of difficult practical obstacles to actually negotiating one, like "who would govern said Palestinian state?".
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Jan 8, 2024 20:39
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The ray of hope is that there are still a range of futures where at some point Netanyahu goes to prison, his allies are tainted by association, and Israeli politics stabilises around the centre right. Yeah I know, but that's the reasonable best case scenario here.
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Jan 8, 2024 21:29
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So basically you're saying there is in fact a whole lot the US could do to end the genocide, but also it would be hard and they absolutely don't want to.
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Jan 8, 2024 21:35
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See, Eisenhower got the UK, France and Israel to stop being shits in Egypt over a weekend of phone calls and the US was not even the sole hyperpower then, and even Reagan managed to rein in israeli butchery after having a brain fart and thinking he was in a movie, but it's unthinkable to imagine Biden could affect one iota of influence, the smol bean.
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Jan 8, 2024 21:40
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Breathtaking how little power the American President really has, really feel for the guy.
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Jan 8, 2024 21:49
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Your Brain on Hugs posted:So basically you're saying there is in fact a whole lot the US could do to end the genocide, but also it would be hard and they absolutely don't want to. Don't you see that we must accept as fait accompli the capture of our foreign policy by the Israel lobby? That the US must give unconditional support to Israel is a natural law that Biden is compelled to obey and has no power to change. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jan 8, 2024 22:01
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Your Brain on Hugs posted:So basically you're saying there is in fact a whole lot the US could do to end the genocide, but also it would be hard and they absolutely don't want to. No, I'm saying there's a lot the US could do to cause the fall of the current coalition. Causing new elections while the Israeli populace is still in the midst of a massive wave of anger and hatred toward Palestinians isn't especially likely to stop the genocide. Current polls suggest the left and center are lined up to lose a bunch of seats to the right-wing parties. While Likud itself is likely to lose big in new elections, pretty much all the seats they're losing are going to other right-wing parties...and on top of that, Labor and Yesh Atid are also expected to lose a bunch of seats to the right-wing parties. There's no telling exactly how the coalition negotiations would shake out in a post-Netanyahu world, but when Labor and Meretz combined are expected to get fewer seats than Otzma Yehudit, I wouldn't expect a mid-war election to improve things.
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Jan 8, 2024 22:05
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Seems like the right pattern to follow would be Operation Deliberate Force, but the US isn't ever going to intervene on the side of the Palestinians.
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Jan 8, 2024 22:44
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Main Paineframe posted:No, I'm saying there's a lot the US could do to cause the fall of the current coalition. Causing new elections while the Israeli populace is still in the midst of a massive wave of anger and hatred toward Palestinians isn't especially likely to stop the genocide. Current polls suggest the left and center are lined up to lose a bunch of seats to the right-wing parties. While Likud itself is likely to lose big in new elections, pretty much all the seats they're losing are going to other right-wing parties...and on top of that, Labor and Yesh Atid are also expected to lose a bunch of seats to the right-wing parties. There's a lot the US can do right now, but instead we live in the reality where Biden supports the genocide and is going out of his way to give as many extra weapons as he can to Israel.
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Jan 8, 2024 22:52
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Mischievous Mink posted:There's a lot the US can do right now, but instead we live in the reality where Biden supports the genocide and is going out of his way to give as many extra weapons as he can to Israel. I would suggest that Biden doesn't support the genocide per se. If he thought he could flip a switch and end it with no side effects he almost certainly would, but he's also a long time high level US politician, so he'll keep funding the sacking of Gaza to avoid rocking the boat.
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Jan 8, 2024 23:03
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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suck my woke dick posted:I would suggest that Biden doesn't support the genocide per se. If he thought he could flip a switch and end it with no side effects he almost certainly would, but he's also a long time high level US politician, so he'll keep funding the sacking of Gaza to avoid rocking the boat. He keeps bypassing Congress to send extra weapons. That's going above and beyond the call of duty.
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Jan 8, 2024 23:07
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suck my woke dick posted:I would suggest that Biden doesn't support the genocide per se. If he thought he could flip a switch and end it with no side effects he almost certainly would, but he's also a long time high level US politician, so he'll keep funding the sacking of Gaza to avoid rocking the boat. Joe Biden is an unabashed self proclaimed Zionist, he would be supporting Israel's genocidal campaign even if it was incredibly unpopular because he thinks it's the right thing to do.
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Jan 8, 2024 23:11
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https://twitter.com/IsaacDovere/status/1744416934458691723?s=20 Don't say it so loud  anyway this has been my impression of the Biden administration's current dominant factions (ie, pro israel but not especially happy with their current strategy and trying limply to get them to back off for everyone's benefit) , but i haven't been impressed with their effectiveness to date
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Jan 9, 2024 01:21
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suck my woke dick posted:I would suggest that Biden doesn't support the genocide per se.
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Jan 9, 2024 01:52
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We support what we allow. All western nations support Israeli genocide, it's just the simple fact of the matter. When Russia invaded Ukraine under similarly bullshit pretenses, we saw just how quickly they could move to institute sanctions and expel diplomats and every other thing they could manage, and now we're happy when some nations don't explicitly support Israel with rhetoric and military aid? That's the world's lowest loving bar to clear, to be sure.
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Jan 9, 2024 02:08
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rscott posted:Joe Biden is an unabashed self proclaimed Zionist, he would be supporting Israel's genocidal campaign even if it was incredibly unpopular because he thinks it's the right thing to do. Why is he trying to tell Israel/Netenyahu to murder less civilians/not take over Gaza/etc? I can’t imagine him doing any of that if he fully supported Israel’s genocidal campaign, regardless of public opinion. Kalit fucked around with this message at 03:15 on Jan 9, 2024 |
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Jan 9, 2024 03:12
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I don't think he does want the genocidal campaign to continue at full speed and/or as it's currently being executed, but I also think if he didn't support the genocide in a more general sense, he would take action to actually put pressure on Israel apart from flapping his useless loving gums. He's used executive action to send more arms to Israel. His administration has repeatedly been vetoing any UNSC resolutions against what Israel is doing, no matter how milquetoast. Do these sound like the actions of a man who is upset at what Israel is presently doing with the arms they already have? Use a bit of common sense here.
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Jan 9, 2024 03:17
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PT6A posted:I don't think he does want the genocidal campaign to continue at full speed and/or as it's currently being executed, but I also think if he didn't support the genocide in a more general sense, he would take action to actually put pressure on Israel apart from flapping his useless loving gums. He's used executive action to send more arms to Israel. His administration has repeatedly been vetoing any UNSC resolutions against what Israel is doing, no matter how milquetoast. Do these sound like the actions of a man who is upset at what Israel is presently doing with the arms they already have? The poster I was responding to stated Biden would support the genocidal campaign even if it was incredibly unpopular among the US populace. Why would he feign restraint, to any degree, if he truly supported the genocidal campaign?
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Jan 9, 2024 03:32
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Kalit posted:The poster I was responding to stated Biden would support the genocidal campaign even if it was incredibly unpopular among the US populace. Why would he feign restraint, to any degree, if he truly supported the genocidal campaign? I think the technical term for this is, "covering your rear end". My personal view is that the two carrier groups should have been employed to enforce a no fly zone over Gaza from the first day they were on station.
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Jan 9, 2024 03:34
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Kalit posted:The poster I was responding to stated Biden would support the genocidal campaign even if it was incredibly unpopular among the US populace. Why would he feign restraint, to any degree, if he truly supported the genocidal campaign? Fair enough, I apologize for the misunderstanding. I would say that the poster you're referring to is positing an absurd counterfactual because there's no world in which Israel is unpopular with Americans in general but popular with Biden specifically. He's pro-Israel precisely because that's been the historical American position on the issue -- that's not to suggest he doesn't feel strongly about it, but he feels strongly about it for the same reason most Americans do, which is propaganda driven by realpolitik.
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Jan 9, 2024 03:43
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