Ol' shoot 'em in the leg

[Mongrel]

Ah, that's good then. I'd say the tl;dr hard facts are:

- He did not withhold the export permit for ammunition sales
- He's been threatening various worst-of-the-worst Israelis with US sanctions (and these are actual meaningful sanctions, insofar as personal sanctions are meaningful, cutting them off from anything which touches US financial system), and has actually imposed sanctions on four notorious settler leaders. Little things, but still unprecedented. But at the time time it's also a clear demonstration of him clinging to "bad apples" beliefs about Israelis.
- I'm not 100% on this, but I'm pretty sure US aid to Israel needs congressional approval to be altered. That said, Biden hasn't mentioned touching Israeli aid at all.
- Defending Israel at the UN with the US veto is absolutely on Biden and the administration. He absolutely could choose to have the US vote against Israel, or at least abstain.
- He's not otherwise using the inherent moral leadership of the US presidency to condemn or constrain Israeli actions. He IS directly complaining to Israelis, but he's still working with them.

I think the big thing in Biden's case would be for him to have the US join the rest of the world in demanding a ceasefire. Other stuff aside, this is 100% absolutely in his power to do, because it's literally just him voicing an opinion, only formally, and then following up by making that the actual US position at the UN. Biden could do these at any time.

He still might, but FFS Joe, "exasperation" is not the correct moral and emotional response to mass murder.

[nosimpleway]

who have supported Biden all along

I'm a little confused by this, are you tellin' me there are actual Biden supporters and not just a bunch of people who vote for him as "eh, good enough, I guess, he's not actively fascist and I've got to settle for that."

[Friday]

They were Bernie supporters (thanks to me) in the 2020 primary. They sort of formed around Biden as a hope thing after he won the primary. I think they just wanted to feel like Biden beating Trump was "good enough" and that maybe he'd do good things. Honestly, it's hard to blame them. People want to feel hope in these times.

The point where I draw the line, though, is enabling genocide. Like, I feel like that's a pretty solid place to draw the line. I mentioned changing the thread title back when I said Biden was doing better than I expected, now I feel like maybe the title should be changed to "Ol' send 'em the bombs so they can kill more children."

Like, even if we go with Biden's belief that the Israelis doing the killing are just "a few bad apples" you are lending military aid directly to the apples. I don't condemn every Israeli civilian the same way I don't condemn every Chinese civilian or Russian civilian, and I know many Israelis, Chinese, and Russians are staunchly and passionately against their government's actions the same way I am staunchly and passionately against what Biden and my government is doing right now.

But I mean, this is pretty easy. Imagine Biden was sending supplies and money to the Chinese so that they could directly build more camps to sterilize and abuse and kill Uyghurs. There's no "bad apple" explanation for that, and there's no "bad apple" explanation for this. The bad apples are in control of Israel. Do not fund them. Do not assist them. At minimum. What Biden should be doing is denouncing the genocide and demanding a cease fire. Instead he is pouring gasoline on the genocide. Maybe his hands are tied to an extent, maybe they aren't. I don't know the precise level of power Biden has or the amount of levers he can directly pull. But it sounds like he does has some level of control and he is not doing shit, and is, in fact, doing bad shit instead.

And guess what? I'm still going to vote for him in November. Crazy world, am I right?

[Friday]

I mean, I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop and for Thad or Paco or Blossom or whoever the fuck to come into this thread and tell me that I'm wrong as fuck and Biden can't do anything and geopolitics blah blah blah. I've been schooled on these boards many times in the past, and I'm fully aware that I'll have many schoolings in front of me. But from where I sit, right now, this is some of the most fucked up shit I have seen a President do.

They are targeting and murdering children. On purpose. Over and over and over and over. And my fucking President and government is sending them money to help them do it more. To say "I am angry about this" is a laughable understatement. I'd set myself on fire in front of somewhere, but, you know, I know it won't do anything because it's already happened twice and our government didn't care.

I've kept off of these boards with these thoughts and feelings because, you know, I tend to get a little intense. But I am REALLY searching for a reason why the fuck any goddamn person with morals would NOT feel very intensely about this.

So come on in, tell me I'm wrong to feel this way. Please. I'd actually love to be proven wrong and not fucking feel this way anymore.

[Mongrel]

And guess what? I'm still going to vote for him in November. Crazy world, am I right?

If it's any consolation, any theoretical LBJ vs Nixon vote would have been the same.

IMO, the comparison really is apt as Biden is very literally the most progressive president, domestically, in terms of actual legislation passed, since actual-LBJ.

For an opposite example, there's always Woodrow Wilson, who had arguably the highest ideals for the international order ever held by a US president and pushed hard for them in terms of real organization and treaty building, while being a near-indescribably vile racist and segregationist.

But WRT Biden specifically, there's no shame or moral culpability in voting for "not-Hitler". In fact this is one of the stumbling blocks people get stuck on, where they eat up the bothsiderism and refuse to vote.

As one of my friends put it a while back in trying to talk to some extreme leftists, let's say you have a choice in an election to vote between literal-Hitler and will-become-literal-Hitler in six months. We actually have a moral obligation to vote for will-become-literal-Hitler in six months in that case! That's six months of not having literal-Hitler! Of a chance to do something to save people! We have a responsibility to vote for the option that at least gives SOME people a chance. This is even true if it's only six days! That's anything BUT a pointless vote, even if it's dark and scary and upsetting!

[Friday]

Don't worry, I got over my feelings about voting for the lesser of two evils a long time ago. I will vote for whoever is the least bad as a matter of course because I understand that not doing so is putting ones personal feelings/principles over actual, real suffering and lives.

One of the first times I ever got schooled on these boards was back when I refused to vote because I hated every politician. I never was a "both sider" in that I was never under any illusion that the left was "just as bad" as the right, but I still let my personal distaste for voting for someone I didn't like make me simply opt out of voting entirely. After being thoroughly and correctly schooled here, I did some reflection for a few years and decided that my own personal feelings don't mean dick to the people whose lives get ruined, or ended. If I can help prevent that, I will, and I don't give a shit how I feel about it.

[Grath]

I mean, I currently live in a super safe blue state, so I will happily throw my vote away on a third party in exchange for someone in a swing state actually voting for Not Literal Hitler. But hopefully by the following presidential election (when Biden will no longer be eligible having served two terms, and Trump will have died in prison) I plan to have moved to a swing state where my vote for president actually matters.

[sei]

Like, even if we go with Biden's belief that the Israelis doing the killing are just "a few bad apples" you are lending military aid directly to the apples. I don't condemn every Israeli civilian the same way I don't condemn every Chinese civilian or Russian civilian, and I know many Israelis, Chinese, and Russians are staunchly and passionately against their government's actions the same way I am staunchly and passionately against what Biden and my government is doing right now.

This type of reasoning justifies cutting off humanitarian aid because some Hamas or Fatah operatives are among the Palestinian civilians. Or because some Palestinian kid may grow up to become a suicide bomber.

They are targeting and murdering children. On purpose. Over and over and over and over.

Is this a "acceptable casualties in pursuit of Hamas" situation or a murdering children or "lol let's have killing kids as a goal and just terrorize the populace" situation?

I try to get my news from a neutral source like Reuters or AP to cut down on spin, lies, and brandwashing organizational propaganda (like irresponsible reporting with the Oct 17 incident, in which AFAIK a failed rocket launch from within Gaza failing was spun as Israel deliberately targeting the hospital as a civilian target). But I admittedly haven't been keeping up in fine detail with the bigger picture over time.

Reuters has an overview from Oct 7 through Jan 14. Is there a good overview somewhere of Jan-15 through now?

Found a more recent Reuters overview (through Feb 27). Leaving the link above as for some reason the latter doesn't cover the Oct 17 incident.

Main thing I'm seeing at the moment is a UN report on food scarcity verging on famine, which definitely affects children (in frankly quite possibly worse ways than shooting some kids, because it's looking like it might fuck 1/6th the population?) but isn't "targeting" them.

[Mongrel]

I try to get my news from a neutral source like Reuters or AP to cut down on spin, lies, and brandwashing organizational propaganda (like irresponsible reporting with the Oct 17 incident, in which AFAIK a failed rocket launch from within Gaza failing was spun as Israel deliberately targeting the hospital as a civilian target). But I admittedly haven't been keeping up in fine detail with the bigger picture over time.

Reuters has an overview from Oct 7 through Jan 14. Is there a good overview somewhere of Jan-15 through now?

Found a more recent Reuters overview (through Feb 27). Leaving the link above as for some reason the latter doesn't cover the Oct 17 incident.

Main thing I'm seeing at the moment is a UN report on food scarcity verging on famine, which definitely affects children, but isn't "targeting" them.

This is by and large what I saw on those as well.

The problem here is asking if, overall, the Gaza war is just short of legal-definition genocide by incompetence or by design.

Normally Hanlon's Razor would be where to look first, but pundits with connections to Bibi, and even some ministers of Bibi's government have literally said things like "We must turn Gaza into Auschwitz." and other language which has not just condoned or demanded genocide, but straight-up echoes actual-Nazi terminology.

Another dimension is asking if it really matters if the suffering meets the highest possible legal-technical bar? Is generic mass murder less bad in a way which is meaningful in this case? And could the war be termed a proportional response in any possible way?

Then there's the practical question of concrete goals and results, where the current Israeli government has literally no stated endgame (not remotely realistic ones anyway) and has so far expressly rejected all outside proposals for any lasting peace, including ones they were previously a party to.

I don't pretend to have the answers.

Anyway, the main thing to watch right now is what happens in and around Rafah.

[beatbandito]

Trying to avoid turning this into a mess. Which I assume is why a lot of people I would have expected to haven't chimed in here.

But I do have one question. After supporting, funding, and arming a genocide: how is Biden "not-Hitler" still?

[Friday]

Main thing I'm seeing at the moment is a UN report on food scarcity verging on famine, which definitely affects children (in frankly quite possibly worse ways than shooting some kids, because it's looking like it might fuck 1/6th the population?) but isn't "targeting" them.

I'll retract my use of the word "targeting" as it's a contentious word. It means different things to different people. For me, any attack on an area that is known to have children in it is "targeting" children, so this would include things like

1. The nuclear bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima by the United States was targeting children
2. The firebombing of Tokyo by the United States was a targeted attack on children
3. What Israel is currently doing is targeting children
4. etc etc, in fact pretty much any attack against civilian targets where children are known to hang out
5. this means that in almost all war, if not all war, period, children are targeted

The general consensus is that in order to count as "targeting" children it must be exclusively, or nearly exclusively, children. Schools and such. Otherwise it's merely unfortunate collateral damage.

I understand that I am in a very small minority when it comes to this way of thinking about things. Basically a minority of one, as I have never found anyone who agrees with me, even. I've known a lot of leftists in my time, but never anyone who thinks that nuking Hiroshima was a "targeted" attack against kids.

Because this "exclusivity" thing matters to pretty much everyone I have ever met, ever, sometimes I forget that I cannot use that word. Obviously I still think I was justified in using it, and that I'm justified in using it whenever an attack on a civilian target occurs where children are known to hang out, but I admit that:

1. Legally speaking, Israel is probably not meeting the definition of the word targeting
2. Morally speaking, Israel is definitely not meeting the definition of the word targeting for almost all people

That obviously doesn't matter to me. I have my own internal reasons for feeling the way I feel. But they are "feelings" and I cannot expect how I feel to influence other people's definitions. If to you, an attack on a building with solely 100 kids in it is targeting children but an attack on a building with 50 men, 50 women, and 50 kids is not, that's fine. It certainly is the prevailing wisdom. Personally I think that's total bullshit, and I won't pretend I don't think that, but I'm not going to call you a cold-hearted bastard or anything. I'd only call you that because of how many gnolls you killed for their wool.

If I have mischaracterized your feelings or intentions here, then I apologize. I honestly can't tell if you're criticizing my use of the word or not, but you put it in quotes so I have proceeded as if you were. Again, this is not intended on an ideological attack on you or anyone else, but merely an attempt to clarify my own position. That being said, I do think that we as a species should update our way of thinking about children and "targeting" them in warfare. Again, I don't even know if you even hold that position, or any position at all. Part of why I dislike talking about serious shit on the internet is because I cannot understand other people's positions in a purely text-medium (though I also have trouble face to face) and end up arguing against ghosts.

[Mongrel]

I think the reason most people think about it the other way is that they're just looking at it from the other side of the coin, that the greater moral and legal distinction isn't between killing children and soldiers, but between killing civilians and soldiers.

If you have 50 men, 50 women, and 50 kids that's not targeting children so much as it is targeting civilians in general, and to describe it is targeting children is inaccurate because it denies or diminishes the value of the 100 adults who were also targeted. So we tend to draw the line about war crimes between non-combatants versus combatants. Targeting non-combatants is basically the definition of terror tactics and most international law covering warfare is more concerned about the protection of civilians in general, without regards to age.

Of course you're not alone in seeing the targeting of places where large numbers of children may be found, like schools, as more morally odious than a more generalized civilian target like an apartment block or market, but that's because we know implicitly that children are on average going to be far more innocent than other subcategories of civilians. But any post-conflict legal consequences are generally the same for both sorts of strikes.

Or as R^2 put it,

"to smithereens" is the worst way to get blown for adults, too

There is however one significant war-related legal norm which is the exception, and that is with regards to child soldiers, individuals who have been forced or convinced to become combatants in spite of their developmental immaturity. Such choices are by definition never freely made by children, which is why we also have broader laws to protect children like the laws against child labour, statutory rape, etc. Naturally, recruiting or employing child soldiers is a very serious war crime not to mention morally fuckin' repugnant.

[Friday]

The problem I have with conventional military/civilian targeting distinctions can be summarized as follows:

Blowing up a building with 100 kids: bad
Blowing up a building with 100 kids, 200 adults: bad, but less bad than the first example

me: ?????????????

I shoot a kid in the face, and then cease fire: I have targeted a child
I spray a machinegun into a crowd I know children are present in: I have not targeted a child

me: ?????????????

I get it, it's a semantic argument. I retracted the word for a reason, people get really, really hung up on it. I just think it's fucking stupid to quibble over whether or not children are being "targeted" when bombs are being dropped on cities and homes. They know the kids are there, the same way the people in the US knew the kids were there in Tokyo, Hiroshima, etc. They went ahead and dropped the bombs anyway.

to describe it is targeting children is inaccurate because it denies or diminishes the value of the 100 adults who were also targeted.

Or, alternatively, it denies and diminishes the value of the 50 kids who were also targeted. Also, you used the word "targeted" unironically when describing the whole of the people in that building. So if the adults were "also targeted" doesn't that mean that the kids were "also targeted" as well? So my use of "targeted" then holds up? According to the word you subconsciously chose when composing that sentence?

[Mongrel]

Blowing up a building with 100 kids: bad
Blowing up a building with 100 kids, 200 adults: bad, but less bad than the first example

me: ?????????????

Going to make dinner for now, but just quickly, I don't think anyone disagrees with this one? We would all be "???????????" at that and so would the laws regarding war crimes. Which is what I thought I was saying?

[Friday]

fucking ghosts, man. This is probably going to just be a conversation between us two, so we should take it to PM. I doubt anyone else wants to read any more of this.

[Mongrel]

fucking ghosts, man. This is probably going to just be a conversation between us two, so we should take it to PM. I doubt anyone else wants to read any more of this.

For that matter, I'm not sure either of us wants to read any more of it either. I mean do either of us really care about the semantics of this all that much? Probably not.

Mercifully, neither you nor I have the misfortune of being a lawyer at The Hague.

[Büge]

This type of reasoning justifies cutting off humanitarian aid because some Hamas or Fatah operatives are among the Palestinian civilians. Or because some Palestinian kid may grow up to become a suicide bomber.

Ah yes, the Moral Cowardice of the Prime Directive

[Grath]

Trying to avoid turning this into a mess. Which I assume is why a lot of people I would have expected to haven't chimed in here.

But I do have one question. After supporting, funding, and arming a genocide: how is Biden "not-Hitler" still?

If your only choices are "Hitler" or "Slightly Less Hitler", voting for "Slightly Less Hitler" is still a moral imperative for the lives that will save (while ideally making efforts to get better choices in the future.)

[beatbandito]

As far as I'm aware only one of them refused to end their material support for an active genocide while in office. And it's the one people are calling "not-Hitler". So what makes someone a hitler? Is it really just about the bad hairstyle?

[nosimpleway]

"Biden's support of intentionally bombing civilians sucks"
"Yeah."
"And he should be taken to task for doing it!"
"You got it."
"So I'm gonna vote for someone else!"
"Makes sense to me."
"And in our two-party system that guarantees Trump, who has always proven reluctant to drop bombs on people or weather phenomena, and whom I am thus ironclad certain would do better in this scenario, a second term!"
"Well, hold on just a second..."