I really can’t believe that this has to be repeated, endlessly, and even then some folks can’t grasp it - ThreadSky

newmethos.bsky.social • 455 days ago

I really can’t believe that this has to be repeated, endlessly, and even then some folks can’t grasp it

Even if Hamas did 100% of what Israelis say they did, that's not justification to bomb and starve a civilian population for weeks on end.

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newmethos.bsky.social•455 days ago

I’m sorry but the last 60 years of US military interventions alone should fucking demonstrate that you cannot bomb your way to victory over an insurgency and anyone who insists otherwise is either a fool or a villain

newmethos.bsky.social•455 days ago

And so, here we are again, staring at an atrocity occurring in plain sight and some folks are losing focus because the cause is just, even though the atrocity does nothing for the cause

newmethos.bsky.social•455 days ago

“We’re protecting the country!” Effectiveness of that was debatable even in the moment, but in hindsight torture was neither particularly useful nor was it good for the soul of the body politic

newmethos.bsky.social•455 days ago

The number of times people insisted that activities the Soviets routinely engaged in to oppress their population in the Gulag were suddenly either NOT torture or somehow the acceptable kind of torture

newmethos.bsky.social•455 days ago

And then there is the global War on Terror. My gosh, did we fucking lose our (kinda already broken) moral compass in the US

newmethos.bsky.social•455 days ago

Nazis? Still the baddies, not everything you do to fight the baddies is justified! (Cf Slaughterhouse Five)

newmethos.bsky.social•455 days ago

Them’s war crimes under just about any definition of war crime. It was not proportional, it was not militarily justified, it was explicitly about terrorizing civilian populations. It was BAD.

newmethos.bsky.social•455 days ago

Just to cherry pick two examples, one from each front, the firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo were completely unnecessary, vast wastes of human life operating under a very flawed theory of total war

newmethos.bsky.social•455 days ago

The popular understanding of WWII: we were the good guys! We won! Everything we did to win was therefore necessary to win. Which is . . . Not. True.

newmethos.bsky.social•455 days ago

There are two long running ethical issues in American culture that are part of the problem: 1. Incredibly poor understanding of the nature of victory in WWII 2. The utter failure to grasp the ethical failures of the War on Terror

ankylodad.bsky.social•455 days ago

This is such an obvious and morally clear point that I sometimes think people are arguing against strawmen, but then I go and see someone actually earnestly making the case for collective punishment and smh. Can’t believe where we are in 2023.

sensualkazoo.bsky.social•455 days ago

I'm increasingly wondering how much of the deranged pro Israel shit on twitter is astroturfed.

kja.bsky.social•455 days ago

And their campaign doesn't seem to be all that effective at countering Hamas!

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