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Stringent posted: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. Covering his rear end from who? The only people he’s ultimately held accountable by for international issues is the US populace. Which, as claimed by the poster I responded to: rscott posted:he would be supporting Israel's genocidal campaign even if it was incredibly unpopular PT6A posted: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. Oh yea, I pretty much agree with that Kalit fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Jan 9, 2024 |
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Jan 9, 2024 03:44
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PT6A posted: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. Institutional Zionism
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Jan 9, 2024 04:21
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Kalit posted:Oh yea, I pretty much agree with that And I can't say I don't give him a tiny amount of respect for that, because while I hate the position he's taken, at least he holds a consistent position, whereas I get the feeling my own wonderful leader, the Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, and several other western leaders, are basically turning the genocide knob back and forth and trying to figure out at which point the yelling gets quietest in a bid to piss as few people off as possible while taking no strong position. Now, the real issue is that, apart from South Africa, Bolivia and on a good day, Ireland, there's no country willing to hold a principled pro-Palestinian position in counterbalance. The other thing I find interesting is that all the "pragmatists" are primarily concerned with their own domestic political fortunes, and none seem particularly concerned about how we might reach a painful but necessary compromise, as in South Africa, as in Ireland, etc. The very idea of an unconditional ceasefire -- a prerequisite to a peace process -- is viewed as somehow ideologically slanted.
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Jan 9, 2024 04:28
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Kalit posted: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. The mealy-mouthed admonishments by American officials, from Biden on down don't even amount to a strongly worded letter. By all accounts from insiders, Biden is running the show when it comes to the United States foreign policy on I/P and in terms of actions, it's full speed ahead on ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Even the pushback on the blatantly genocidal rhetoric from Ben Gvir and the like has been couched in terms of "forceable population transfers", which completely ignores the fact that Israel is deliberately making Gaza uninhabitable to drive the population out. E: pretending like Biden doesn't have the courage of his convictions is frankly naive and doing him a disservice in my opinion! And as far as the, "he would even do it if it was incredibly unpopular" idea, it's borne out by the very unpopular decision to pull the troops out of Afghanistan. If Biden really wanted to put a muzzle on the supposedly uncontrollable Israelis there are a myriad of options at his disposal. rscott fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Jan 9, 2024 |
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Jan 9, 2024 04:39
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rscott posted:The mealy-mouthed admonishments by American officials, from Biden on down don't even amount to a strongly worded letter. By all accounts from insiders, Biden is running the show when it comes to the United States foreign policy on I/P and in terms of actions, it's full speed ahead on ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Even the pushback on the blatantly genocidal rhetoric from Ben Gvir and the like has been couched in terms of "forceable population transfers", which completely ignores the fact that Israel is deliberately making Gaza uninhabitable to drive the population out. But why is he even telling Israel to show any restraint at all? Especially if he doesn't care about the opinion of the US population?
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Jan 9, 2024 04:42
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Per Barak Ravid with Axios, the Israeli government is going to tell the US National Security Advisor that they will not allow Palestinians to return to the northern part of the Gaza Strip unless Hamas agrees to release more hostages. There is also some serious denial or ignoring of the actual conditions of the Northern part of Gaza among US officials quote:Zoom out: Blinken said on Sunday that the IDF's transition to a lower-intensity phase of its military operation will allow the UN to evaluate what needs to be done to allow displaced Palestinians to return to the north. https://www.axios.com/2024/01/08/israel-hamas-gaza-hostages-blinken-palestinians
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Jan 9, 2024 04:47
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That doesn’t seem like it will go over very well. I’m sure the “kill ‘em all” crowd will like it but good luck with anyone on the fence.
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Jan 9, 2024 04:58
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Kalit posted:But why is he even telling Israel to show any restraint at all? Especially if he doesn't care about the opinion of the US population? Is he? From here it seems he's just giving them cover by deciding that whatever they do is proportionate and humane, even as israeli soldiers post tiktoks going "Woo hoo, brigade 3025 just burned our 4th village! On to the next!" Just because Biden is still enough of a politician to talk in smiling platitutes instead of baying for blood openly so he doesn't needlessly offend average liberals, doesn't mean he really gives a toss. I mean, as others pointed out, sending arms to Israel would likely sail easily through Congress. He could even wash his hands of the deal, go "Yeah, really sad, wish the bombing would stop but Congress calls the shots, really sucks", but he really -cares- about this. Just not in the direction those giving him the benefit of the doubt think.
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Jan 9, 2024 05:05
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Sephyr posted:Is he? From here it seems he's just giving them cover by deciding that whatever they do is proportionate and humane, even as israeli soldiers post tiktoks going "Woo hoo, brigade 3025 just burned our 4th village! On to the next!" Of course he is. I stated specific examples in my previous post: Kalit posted:Why is he trying to tell Israel/Netenyahu to murder less civilians/not take over Gaza/etc? If you need sources, here are a couple, for both murdering less civilians and having the PA govern Gaza
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Jan 9, 2024 05:12
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rscott posted:And as far as the, "he would even do it if it was incredibly unpopular" idea, it's borne out by the very unpopular decision to pull the troops out of Afghanistan. If Biden really wanted to put a muzzle on the supposedly uncontrollable Israelis there are a myriad of options at his disposal. For what it's worth, I feel like this was pure PR/post-hoc justification. Biden didn't withdraw the troops, they were effectively forced out; their options were a managed exit then, or reigniting a war in which the opposing force is literally already in the city & have already bribed your compradors. If the appetite for losing the Afghanistan War looked small, the appetite for returning to full force in Afghanistan was nonexistent. Neurolimal fucked around with this message at 06:24 on Jan 9, 2024 |
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Jan 9, 2024 06:10
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Kalit posted:But why is he even telling Israel to show any restraint at all? Especially if he doesn't care about the opinion of the US population? Because, I think, unlike Kissinger, he's legitimately uncomfortable with the means that are being justified by his desired end. Not enough to actually do anything about it, but I think he does actually care in some tiny amount. I think he does want to do what is right, and his calculation of what is right is just wildly, wildly loving inaccurate to the point of lunacy. This is superior to a character like Netanyahu, who wants to do what is wrong to serve his own ends and doesn't lose the faintest bit of sleep over any part of it.
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Jan 9, 2024 06:11
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Kalit posted:But why is he even telling Israel to show any restraint at all? Especially if he doesn't care about the opinion of the US population? Does it matter why? He's going out of his way to give them all the weapons they need to kill as many Palestinians as they want, so why does it matter if he's telling them not to kill quite so many? Actions speak louder than words. To go back to my previous analogy, if someone asks you for a gun so they can go shoot up a mall, and you say "OK, but don't kill too many people", then you're still guilty of helping them kill people.
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Jan 9, 2024 06:28
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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 supports the destruction of Hamas by military means, and while he would really prefer for there to be fewer civilian deaths, as a longtime senior government figure he's well aware that a fuckton of dead civilians is just how the anti-insurgency cookie crumbles in Western military doctrine. The bodycounts Israel has racked up in Gaza are certainly excessive compared to Western wars, but given his position it shouldn't be hard for him to remember various incidents in which American troops just blatantly massacred civilians on purpose as revenge for previous attacks, as well as the heavily urban nature of the combat, so it's easy for him to make excuses for it. Biden's preferred course of events here would probably be "the war continues, but with a much better ratio of enemy combatants killed to civilians killed". He supports Israel bombing poo poo until Hamas collapses, no matter how many thousands of bombs they have to drop. He just wishes they'd be a bit more careful about avoiding civilian deaths, because he believes that the Israeli goal is "to destroy Hamas" and not "to ethnically cleanse Gaza". I suspect he'd really just prefer if Israel followed the current American tactic of firing "precision" missiles into apartment buildings so that they only murder a few innocent families per bomb, instead of the current Israeli tactic of giving a few minutes warning and then leveling the entire building. Biden's ideal result, I think, would be something like this: Israeli forces locating a Hamas secret supervillain headquarters underground and bombing the poo poo of it, killing all of Hamas' leadership and causing a collapse of organized Hamas activity, at which point Israel would temporarily occupy the Gaza Strip to clean up remaining militant remnants before allowing the Gazan refugees to return and inviting in the PA to take over governance of the Gaza Strip. With Gazan militancy crushed, Israel would lift the blockade on Gaza, which would enter a new era of freedom and prosperity under PA rule with heavy Israeli and American Of course, most of that borders on fairy-tale thinking, but it's more or less in line with what Clinton, Bush, Obama, and their senior diplomatic staffs honestly thought the future would be for Palestine. Not just their public-facing stances, either - there's been enough leaks from US-Israeli-Palestinian negotiation sessions to show that American negotiators were downright mystified that actual reality didn't follow those old-timey liberal scripts about freedom and democracy and economic prosperity chasing out the evils of militancy. It's probably safe to assume that Biden, who's been exposed to pretty much the same foreign policy upbringing, has similar hopes for the future of Palestine. Yeah, this does basically boil down to "the American foreign policy experts are loving delusional". But is that really that shocking? It wasn't that long ago that the US invaded Iraq with absolutely no plan for pacifying the populace, because the president and his top advisers were absolutely convinced the population would treat the invading army as heroic liberators and enthusiastically support the American conquest and occupation of their own country.
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Jan 9, 2024 08:01
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Kalit posted:But why is he even telling Israel to show any restraint at all? Especially if he doesn't care about the opinion of the US population? Because he is lying which is why he should be judged on his deeds and not his words.
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Jan 9, 2024 08:23
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I think Biden has been applying the same kind of pressure that previous presidents have on Israel, it's just that Israel is a lot more hellbent on carrying out Swords of Iron than it has been on any previous campaign. There's been a lot of press conferences where Israel has contradicted US officials trying to say that the campaign is reducing in intensity or winding down imminently. Ultimately the idea that Biden will bomb or significantly sanction a nuclear power that 75% of his electorate loves is absurd (even if we assume that Biden is not himself an ardent zionist) so Israel can just call his bluff.
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Jan 9, 2024 08:55
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Timmy Age 6 posted:Politico has a piece with some of the views from Washington on dealing with Israel. If the US withdrew military aid *and* levelled a bunch of national and personal sanctions, it wouldn't just be the genocide in Gaza that ends tomorrow, it would be the entire conflict. What do I mean by personal sanctions? - Travel bans on any illegal settler and Israeli politician - Freezing the finances of Israeli politicians, settlers and maybe all citizens - Complete freeze on companies doing business with Israel Bunch of other things but as soon as the US starts treating Israel like Iran, or even hints at it, it will fold over pretty much anything. The issue is that for some bizarre reason (j/k, lobby power and eminently broken and corrupt US politics) people think that the most extreme action the US can take is to look away.
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Jan 9, 2024 10:02
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Irony Be My Shield posted:I think Biden has been applying the same kind of pressure that previous presidents have on Israel, it's just that Israel is a lot more hellbent on carrying out Swords of Iron than it has been on any previous campaign. There's been a lot of press conferences where Israel has contradicted US officials trying to say that the campaign is reducing in intensity or winding down imminently. Ultimately the idea that Biden will bomb or significantly sanction a nuclear power that 75% of his electorate loves is absurd (even if we assume that Biden is not himself an ardent zionist) so Israel can just call his bluff. Obviously it's unrealistic to expect Biden to bomb (seriously?) or formally sanction Israel. But there's a range of options between "bomb" and "give billions of dollars worth of weapons (which are being used to carry out a genocide) to Israel for free, while bypassing congressional review procedures, lying about Palestinian deaths, refusing to even acknowledge the war crimes (etc)". Only ~62% of his electorate (and only ~55% of the people who might conceivably vote for him) - at most - "loves" Israel. (I think it's quite likely that a large number of the "just the right amount of support" responses are tuned-out democrats who would give the same answer so long as Biden is president, but that's just a suspicion.) A ceasefire is extremely popular amongst his entire electorate, especially the portion that conceivably might vote for him. I don't think the assumption that the American electorate is rabidly pro-Israel, to the point where it would turn on Biden for exerting some modest leverage to Israel (e.g. ensuring that weapons go through the normal review process) is backed up by polling data. The data hints that, if he had the inclination, he could do more than he is doing and not expect to lose significant support. It is by no means absurd, nor is it an invitation to political suicide, to imagine a Democratic president doing significantly more than Biden has (i.e. nothing). That Biden chooses to do nothing demonstrates his utter indifference to Palestinian lives and enthusiastic support of a genocidal regime. The notion that Biden secretly cares/wants to do more/etc, which inexplicably recurs throughout this thread, is ridiculous. Israel's actions in Gaza are clearly obscenely barbaric even by the standards of US counter-insurgency tactics - the US delayed offensives, paused fighting, attempted to evacuate civilians, at least tried to avoid hospitals/Mosques/schools/etc. The death toll relative to the time frame is exponentially higher than the nearest analogues involving the US (at least in this century). Biden knows this because he helped plan and direct those US military actions. He is accepting a level of brutality from the Israelis the he would never accept from a US military operation. I do not know how any rational human being could fail to conclude that Joe Biden is deeply ideologically committed to facilitating and denying an ongoing genocide.
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Jan 9, 2024 10:06
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Stringent posted: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. Watching US jets shoot down Israeli jets and take out Israeli AA would have been..... something....
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Jan 9, 2024 12:21
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ummel posted:Watching US jets shoot down Israeli jets and take out Israeli AA would have been..... something.... As a combat flight simulator nerd, seeing an irl matchup between US Navy and US Air Force hardware (Israel is primarily using USAF planes) would have been a dream come true for me, ignoring all of the political ramifications.
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Jan 9, 2024 13:37
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Kalit posted:But why is he even telling Israel to show any restraint at all? Especially if he doesn't care about the opinion of the US population? Because he is facing a lot of criticism from portions of the Democratic base and wants them to pipe down, as we saw demonstrated yesterday during his rally at the AME church in Charleston.
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Jan 9, 2024 14:09
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Stringent posted: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. A "no-fly zone" implies that US jets would have to be willing to shoot down Israeli jets. That is obviously insane.
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Jan 9, 2024 15:48
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It's not insane, it's politically impossible. The fact that it's politically impossible is what's insane.
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Jan 9, 2024 15:58
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Gnumonic posted:Obviously it's unrealistic to expect Biden to bomb (seriously?) or formally sanction Israel. But there's a range of options between "bomb" and "give billions of dollars worth of weapons (which are being used to carry out a genocide) to Israel for free, while bypassing congressional review procedures, lying about Palestinian deaths, refusing to even acknowledge the war crimes (etc)". I don't know... looking at that Gallup poll, it looks like a pretty complicated mix of beliefs at work in the American electorate. It's not all about "loving" Israel either. quote:Partisans differ in their assessments of U.S. support for Israel and the Palestinians, mainly in the percentage who think each is supported too much versus too little. Four in 10 Democrats and independents say the U.S. provides too much support for Israel, compared with 26% of Republicans. Meanwhile, Republicans (37%) are much more likely than Democrats (15%) and independents (22%) to think the U.S. is not assisting Israel enough.
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Jan 9, 2024 16:07
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Halloween Jack posted:It's not insane, it's politically impossible. The fact that it's politically impossible is what's insane. The hypothetical I'm proposing here is ignoring that it's insane that Israel is such a close ally in the first place given historical behavior. Let's pretend that tomorrow, Biden realizes the true horror of what they're doing to Gaza and decides to do something about it. Are there any historical examples where disturbing revelations about a long standing geopolitical ally's behavior against third parties has resulted in former allies taking swift and decisive military action against them? I'm on the side of a no fly zone being the clear ethical choice but it would be a historic turnaround.
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Jan 9, 2024 18:23
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If we're unwilling to sanction a country, or even stop sending them military aid, a no-fly zone ain't gonna happen. Let's be entirely honest, there's a billion small steps that might be taken to curb Israel's behaviour before there's any chance of military conflict between the US and Israel, and none of those steps have been taken, and pessimistically I don't think any of those steps will be taken. I mean the US refuses to allow a security council resolution to pass which says "stop bombing civilians please" so I think any discussion of the US entering any form of military conflict with Israel is as fanciful and ultimately stupid as discussing the possibility of giving Ukraine nuclear weapons.
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Jan 9, 2024 18:39
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Obviously nobody thinks the USA is going to institute a no fly zone over Gaza. His point was to say that if Israel was any other nation, we already would have done so.
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Jan 9, 2024 18:43
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Fidelitious posted:A "no-fly zone" implies that US jets would have to be willing to shoot down Israeli jets. It was the morally correct thing to do. There's 30,000 dead civilians because it wasn't done.
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Jan 9, 2024 18:52
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Stringent posted:It was the morally correct thing to do. There's 30,000 dead civilians because it wasn't done. Again: why would the US start with what is essentially an act of war instead of starting with some sanctions or at least saying "we won't ship you any more poo poo, or give you money unless you do as we say, and we say you can't level Gaza"? I don't think it would've been morally correct to engage in a military conflict without exhausting at least a few other options first -- none of which have been used to this day!
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Jan 9, 2024 18:56
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PT6A posted:Again: why would the US start with what is essentially an act of war instead of starting with some sanctions or at least saying "we won't ship you any more poo poo, or give you money unless you do as we say, and we say you can't level Gaza"? Those other options are the things you do so you can, after the killing is over, point back and say "I tried to stop it, it's not my fault".
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Jan 9, 2024 19:02
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OctaMurk posted:Obviously nobody thinks the USA is going to institute a no fly zone over Gaza. His point was to say that if Israel was any other nation, we already would have done so. Given what other recent examples? Have we set up one in Sudan, Myanmar, or Ukraine? The world as a whole does a fairly terrible job of stopping genocides to begin with.
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Jan 9, 2024 19:05
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OctaMurk posted:Obviously nobody thinks the USA is going to institute a no fly zone over Gaza. His point was to say that if Israel was any other nation, we already would have done so. I'm pretty sure we would let the UK assault Scotland or Wales for quite a long time before we imposed a no fly zone and we aren't doing anything major to stop other ongoing genocides. It took basically a year of obvious civilian slaughter even amid pretty broad international consensus that action was required in the Balkans to actually do anything substantial about the issue.
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Jan 9, 2024 19:05
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Stringent posted:It was the morally correct thing to do. There's 30,000 dead civilians because it wasn't done. Yes? That doesn't mean it's anywhere within the realm of possibility.
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Jan 9, 2024 19:25
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https://x.com/msf_usa/status/1744833031003631626?s=46&t=ARI_L-v32Oind1-d9B3a3Q Sometimes, you just have to sit back and go 'yes, this is what my country supports'. I really don't think we've wrapped our brains around how radicalising this whole horrorshow is going to end up being.
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Jan 10, 2024 02:25
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Darth Walrus posted:https://x.com/msf_usa/status/1744833031003631626?s=46&t=ARI_L-v32Oind1-d9B3a3Q At this point, Israel is pretty much doubling down on the "if we don't kill every last one of them, they are going to come for us in our sleep" plan. Fully expect Bibi to run on "You all let me start this and now if you don't let me finish it, you're going down with me."
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Jan 10, 2024 02:29
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A relevant recent example would be the Yemeni genocide, which again, the US armed, encouraged, and facilitated.
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Jan 10, 2024 03:36
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When everyone in this thread gets the opportunity, y'all should watch the ICJ South African arguments. They're incredibly well-constructed and heartbreaking.
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Jan 11, 2024 10:53
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youcallthatatwist posted:When everyone in this thread gets the opportunity, y'all should watch the ICJ South African arguments. They're incredibly well-constructed and heartbreaking. Stream here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCNeDWCI0vo
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Jan 11, 2024 11:13
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2JQIJA_fSU Just the proceedings in the ICJ itself
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Jan 11, 2024 11:47
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sebzilla posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2JQIJA_fSU Oops, my mistake, i linked the AJ front page link, thanks for posting the correct one.
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Jan 11, 2024 11:52
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youcallthatatwist posted:When everyone in this thread gets the opportunity, y'all should watch the ICJ South African arguments. They're incredibly well-constructed and heartbreaking. An excellent summary from a guy who decided to livetweet it, if you prefer text: https://x.com/altymcaltalt3/status/1745387268322296045?s=46&t=ARI_L-v32Oind1-d9B3a3Q
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Jan 11, 2024 14:03
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