Moderator: Global Moderator
Well obviously certain dems are going to campaign for president in 2020. Luckily Republicans also have that option as we prosecute war-criminals of this admin and those-past...
"Starting" a war isn't the only criminal offense. How one chooses to execute a war (expanding our murderous drone campaign, for instance) is also obviously a candidate as well.Libertarian666 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2019 5:29 pmOf course I'd be in favor of the US withdrawing from all the wars that we are involved in, no matter which President started them.moda0306 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 23, 2019 4:51 pm http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/ ... yemen.html
We finally get congress and even the Senate to vote for a resolution to remove our support for the genocide in Yemen, and Trump vetoes it.As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump repeatedly suggested that Saudi Arabia had orchestrated the 9/11 attacks — and that the United States should stop wasting resources on bloody Middle Eastern wars that have no real connection to our national interest.
As president, Trump just vetoed a congressional resolution that would have ended U.S. support for a Saudi war in Yemen that has likely claimed the lives of more than 85,000 children under 5 years old, and triggered the worst humanitarian crisis on planet Earth — so as to defend America’s vital interest in ensuring that the Middle East’s poorest country is ruled by a puppet of Sunni Islamists, instead of Shia ones.
The idea that he is an "enemy of the deep state" is ludicrous. He's just another tool of Pompeo, Bolton, Israel, the M-I Complex, etc.
Forget about impeachment or criminal charges for "collusion" or "obstruction"... why don't we start talking about stringing Trump up on war crimes? I'd be curious for anyone who claims to be a libertarian or anarchist to defend Trump at this point. He had the perfect opportunity to withdraw murderous aid and material support without having to burn a ton of political capital, and he didn't even take that.
But tell me, which wars have been started by Trump?
As soon as all previous Presidents are tried and convicted of war crimes, for wars they started, let's talk about this.
"American" intellectual property? Or global capital class (the ones who own it) intellectual property?
Well if this is regards to Trump's Yemen decision (and other related militarist ones), then you can attack it from other angles, such as hypocrisy of him (or more-so his supporters' assertions of him being 'anti-establishment' or against the 'deep-state'), foreign policy in-general, etc.
You don't recall correctly. Literally less than a minute of research will help you...Kriegsspiel wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2019 9:32 am Didn't we go over this in another thread? IIRC you were accusing Trump of war crimes because an American company sold a bomb to Saudi Arabia that they dropped on a school bus. That's not Trump committing a war crime.
Kriegsspiel wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2019 9:32 am Didn't we go over this in another thread? IIRC you were accusing Trump of war crimes because an American company sold a bomb to Saudi Arabia that they dropped on a school bus. That's not Trump committing a war crime.
I think what moda usually says is that Trump is "supporting (Saudi) genocide" in Yemen. You might be thinking of the following:moda0306 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2019 10:01 am You don't recall correctly. Literally less than a minute of research will help you...
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... rikes.html
When looking for that one, I saw PointedStick had posted a thread that linked to this Politico article where members of the Obama administration were worrying about being accused of abetting war crimes that Saudi Arabia was committing.Kriegsspiel wrote: ↑Fri Sep 07, 2018 4:25 pmLOL... bro, I go to his site, and the first headline I see is "Bear Witness To American War Crimes". It's an article about a Saudi Arabian airstrike in Yemen. How is it an American war crime? Because the Saudis use American-made bombsmoda0306 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 07, 2018 3:27 pm Yemen he's helping the U.S. participate in a terrible genocide. Afghanistan. Some in Syria though it appears to have died down a bit for now. Continuing to expand the empire into Africa.
I'll also add the ridiculous retrenchment with Iran, though sanctions aren't outright war.
I'd recommend following "Scott Horton" on anti-war stuff if you want the best version of that argument. He's no lefty (claims to be an ancap but rarely focuses on economics).. Give me a break. His other stuff might be ok, but didn't you think you should put his best foot forward? In fact, I didn't see anything that indicated Trump has started bombing Yemen.
A cursory search for Trump and Afghanistan turned up an Economist article saying that Trump authorized deploying 3,500 and relaxed restrictions on air support and on what we used to call Military Transition Teams, or MITTs/MIT teams, and a Brookings article that added that he's maintaining a presence there still. Although I don't think that's a good idea, it doesn't really sound like war mongering to me.
"Trump Syria" kinda tells me that he's kept up the bombing, but is only leaving 3,000 military personnel on the ground. One article saidAgain, doesn't sound like war mongering. Drop links if you've already waded through this shit.He has ended support for anti-regime rebels. And he talks of recalling US forces assisting pro-western Kurds.
Trump’s objectives in Syria, in so far as he has a defined policy, are twofold. Firstly, to kill or catch remaining terrorists belonging to Islamic State. Secondly, to curb Iran’s influence by forcing the withdrawal of Revolutionary Guards units and Tehran-controlled Shia militias, as demanded by Israel.
Which would be the applicable law, not (AFAICT) international criminal law (or UCMJ), which prosecutes war crimes.Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended: Section 620M “Limitation on Assistance to
Security Forces”
“(a) IN GENERAL. – No assistance shall be furnished under this Act or the Arms Export
Control Act to any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of
State has credible information that such unit has committed a gross violation of
human rights.
(b) EXCEPTION. –The prohibition in subsection (a) shall not apply if the Secretary
determines and reports to the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, the
Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives, and the Committees
on Appropriations that the government of such country is taking effective steps to
bring responsible members to justice.
(c) DUTY TO INFORM. – In the event that funds are withheld from any unit pursuant to
this section, the Secretary of State shall promptly inform the foreign government of
the basis for such action and shall, to the maximum extent practicable, assist the
foreign government in taking effective measures to bring the responsible members of
the security forces to justice.
Did you also notice that your assertion that Saudi's were simply using American-manufactured bombs was incorrect?Kriegsspiel wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2019 11:10 am Nothing in that article suggests Trump has committed a war crime. Also it's from when Obama was in office (OCT 2016), not Trump. EDIT: just re-read it and saw the part about drone strikes.
BTW I found the post I was referencing here. You said war-mongering not war-criming (Scott Horton did).
When looking for that one, I saw PointedStick had posted a thread that linked to this Politico article where members of the Obama administration were worrying about being accused of abetting war crimes that Saudi Arabia was committing.Kriegsspiel wrote: ↑Fri Sep 07, 2018 4:25 pmLOL... bro, I go to his site, and the first headline I see is "Bear Witness To American War Crimes". It's an article about a Saudi Arabian airstrike in Yemen. How is it an American war crime? Because the Saudis use American-made bombsmoda0306 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 07, 2018 3:27 pm Yemen he's helping the U.S. participate in a terrible genocide. Afghanistan. Some in Syria though it appears to have died down a bit for now. Continuing to expand the empire into Africa.
I'll also add the ridiculous retrenchment with Iran, though sanctions aren't outright war.
I'd recommend following "Scott Horton" on anti-war stuff if you want the best version of that argument. He's no lefty (claims to be an ancap but rarely focuses on economics).
A cursory search for Trump and Afghanistan turned up an Economist article saying that Trump authorized deploying 3,500 and relaxed restrictions on air support and on what we used to call Military Transition Teams, or MITTs/MIT teams, and a Brookings article that added that he's maintaining a presence there still. Although I don't think that's a good idea, it doesn't really sound like war mongering to me.
"Trump Syria" kinda tells me that he's kept up the bombing, but is only leaving 3,000 military personnel on the ground. One article saidAgain, doesn't sound like war mongering. Drop links if you've already waded through this shit.He has ended support for anti-regime rebels. And he talks of recalling US forces assisting pro-western Kurds.
Trump’s objectives in Syria, in so far as he has a defined policy, are twofold. Firstly, to kill or catch remaining terrorists belonging to Islamic State. Secondly, to curb Iran’s influence by forcing the withdrawal of Revolutionary Guards units and Tehran-controlled Shia militias, as demanded by Israel.
Following the links from that Politico story, I see that they were referring to this memory-holed page that describes a US law:
Which would be the applicable law, not (AFAICT) international criminal law (or UCMJ), which prosecutes war crimes.Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended: Section 620M “Limitation on Assistance to
Security Forces”
“(a) IN GENERAL. – No assistance shall be furnished under this Act or the Arms Export
Control Act to any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of
State has credible information that such unit has committed a gross violation of
human rights.
(b) EXCEPTION. –The prohibition in subsection (a) shall not apply if the Secretary
determines and reports to the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, the
Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives, and the Committees
on Appropriations that the government of such country is taking effective steps to
bring responsible members to justice.
(c) DUTY TO INFORM. – In the event that funds are withheld from any unit pursuant to
this section, the Secretary of State shall promptly inform the foreign government of
the basis for such action and shall, to the maximum extent practicable, assist the
foreign government in taking effective measures to bring the responsible members of
the security forces to justice.
Words of wisdom.MangoMan wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2019 11:35 am And you would save yourself a whole bunch of stress if you just accept the fact that corporate interests and the elites are not going away no matter who you vote for, so just be at peace with what you can not change, and try and use the system (legally) to your best benefit while simulaneously giving back to society what is important to you.
It may not seem like it, but I'm at peace with the systems I can't control. These systems cause me personally little/no stress. In-fact, my analysis of these systems helps me come to the (perhaps incorrect but useful) conclusion that most people are balls of social proof and insecurity that have no idea what they're talking about, and I don't have to worry about their inconsistent ramblings about politics or life decisions (or investing... sort of what brought me here almost a decade ago).MangoMan wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2019 11:35 amI'm not sure if it's just me, but trying to decipher your posts through all the metaphors and side-speak to get the context is drudgery. Anyway, I completely disagree with the bolded part. Not sure why you draw the connection/conclusion that you did, but regardless, I have way more wealth than my parents did (as do my siblings) and I fully expect that my kids will have more than me at the same age. This country offers exceptional opportunities for all of its residents who are willing to work hard and not make stupid life choices. The problem is that most people are not willing to do the work and can't avoid making poor choices. That's on them. People are their own worst enemies.moda0306 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2019 8:12 am
But that's the majority of what these "Trade Deals" have really been. They're not about trading coconuts for corn (well not completely). They're about securing foreign corporate & investor property rights insulated from public response in the communities they exist. To the degree you support this but abhor human migration across artificial borders, you're pretty much a folding chair to global capital, and shouldn't wonder why you seem to have less than your parents, or why your kids will have less than you. By "you" I mean people in general...
And you would save yourself a whole bunch of stress if you just accept the fact that corporate interests and the elites are not going away no matter who you vote for, so just be at peace with what you can not change, and try and use the system (legally) to your best benefit while simulaneously giving back to society what is important to you.
If we are defining a "good job" as (for example) "advancing the interests of the whole of your population," then yeah probably, but they usually did so while also being war-criminals and having some massive flaws. The easiest ones to name would probably have to be American as I'm simply more familiar. I think Teddy Roosevelt is one. Probably the single best, though I'd sing a different tune if he'd have been president during WWI, as he was pretty disgustingly pro-war/Imperialism.dualstow wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2019 11:59 amWords of wisdom.MangoMan wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2019 11:35 am And you would save yourself a whole bunch of stress if you just accept the fact that corporate interests and the elites are not going away no matter who you vote for, so just be at peace with what you can not change, and try and use the system (legally) to your best benefit while simulaneously giving back to society what is important to you.
Moda, just to satisfy my curiosity: are there any world leaders whom you think did a good job overall? Separately, any U.S. Presidents?
I hope you don't take offense, but I think you have an incorrect view of yourself. Sure we've moved left on some issues, but right now taxes on businesses, corporations and capital gains are INSANELY low historically for the last century, and unions are INSANELY weak, as are median real wages. We've been able to export "capital interest farms" to "COMMUNIST" countries like China for plutocrats to harvest at minimal tax/tariff rates. Ideas like Universal Healthcare were pushed (and popular) as early as the mid-1940's, yet I hear you decry any involvement by the government in healthcare.MangoMan wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2019 1:00 pm I can't speak for others here, but I have no problem with Conservatives or Liberals, my qualm is with Leftists which are the ever growing wing of the Democratic Party. And you sure can do something about that: vote the nutjobs out.
I have always been a centrist. Socially liberal and fiscally conservative. But the conservatives are no longer fiscally conservative and the social fabric here has moved so far left, there is nowhere to hide. I tend to lean a little more to the right these days only because they seem to be a bit less crazy.
pug,MangoMan wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2019 2:34 pmHahaha, no offense taken. The women in my life always tell me I'm wrong about everything so why shouldn't you ?moda0306 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2019 1:21 pmI hope you don't take offense, but I think you have an incorrect view of yourself. Sure we've moved left on some issues, but right now taxes on businesses, corporations and capital gains are INSANELY low historically for the last century, and unions are INSANELY weak, as are median real wages. We've been able to export "capital interest farms" to "COMMUNIST" countries like China for plutocrats to harvest at minimal tax/tariff rates. Ideas like Universal Healthcare were pushed (and popular) as early as the mid-1940's, yet I hear you decry any involvement by the government in healthcare.MangoMan wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2019 1:00 pm I can't speak for others here, but I have no problem with Conservatives or Liberals, my qualm is with Leftists which are the ever growing wing of the Democratic Party. And you sure can do something about that: vote the nutjobs out.
I have always been a centrist. Socially liberal and fiscally conservative. But the conservatives are no longer fiscally conservative and the social fabric here has moved so far left, there is nowhere to hide. I tend to lean a little more to the right these days only because they seem to be a bit less crazy.
What issue would you consider yourself most liberal on? And would you flesh that out a bit?
You seem to have "a problem" with anything that isn't at least "center-right." I mean there was NOBODY here (on the PP forum) defending Hillary Clinton (a center-left corporatist dem), but I have a sneaking suspicion if I'd pushed a pro-Hillary stance you would have had some lively debate directed at me... am I incorrect in that assumption? Were you as supportive of Hillary as say a Marco Rubio candidacy? Who was your ideal candidate on the Republican primary stage?
Taxes on business: Compared to what? We had one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world until recently, plus stockholders get taxed on the dividends and capital gains, too.
Unions: Don't get me started. Since I am not a socialist, I don't see why unionized workers, particularly ones that work for the taxpayers, should have better benefits than everyone else and wages that are out of line with their training and education. We can debate this forever, but you will never change my view on this.
The government has proven time and again that anything it gets involved with ends up being an inefficient, expensive clusterf*ck. What makes you think health care would be any different? They've already done irreparable damage without even having full control.
I am not as right wing as you think, but since you are pretty far to the left, I probably seem that way to you. I am pro-choice, pro-separation of church and state, and pro-LGBTQ right up until the pronoun nonsense and feminization of men / masculinization of women insanity.
I saw that. I would be willing to bet money that the US military guys in the targeting cell are not sitting there telling the Saudis "See this, that's a wedding ceremony with a bunch of happy people. We want you guys to go bomb that. When you're done, there is a large force of children playing soccer over here..." But whatever you think, when you're dropping bombs from aircraft, and when the enemy is in populated areas, there will be collateral. But as I've said before, I don't like the idea of drone strikes based on intelligence sources, I suspect they're the cause of a lot of civilian casualties. I think there should be a person on the ground calling it in.moda0306 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2019 11:15 am "Support" can be a misleading term. It's not "moral support." It's not selling weapons or allowing the sale of weapons. It's literal military support...
"The Americans are providing targeting intelligence and refueling Saudi warplanes involved in bombing rebel positions."
Seems pretty successful, I think the last ISIS stronghold recently surrendered. Was it worth it? I dunno.https://merip.org/2018/02/trumps-drone-surge/
In one respect, President Trump has no doubt kept his word. Trump promised during the campaign to “bomb the shit” out of ISIS and it appears to be one of the few promises he has kept. Trump inherited from Obama an escalating war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, but both conventional bombing and drone strikes have significantly increased under Trump as a result of his new ISIS battle plan, whose strategy Defense Secretary James Mattis defines as “annihilation tactics.” According to Newsweek, the United States under Trump has dropped a record number of bombs on the Middle East, roughly 10 percent more than under his predecessors. Trump also loosened rules of engagement that protect civilians and, unsurprisingly, civilian casualties from the US-led war against ISIS will, at this pace, double under Trump.
No. But I wasn't asserting that, I was referring to the Horton article where HE was asserting that because a US bomb was dropped on a school bus, the US was guilty of war crimes. At least that's what I remember it saying, I can't find it on his site anymore.
You keep saying various Presidents are or have been committing war crimes by virtue of their policies instead of by doing specific things. So by extension, the military is committing war crimes when it does normal military things to execute the policies. There are some things everyone would agree are heinous: My Lai, Mahmudiya, Serbian soldiers killing civilians with sledgehammers. But if a soldier manning a howitzer kills civilians when he fires on coordinates he gets on a radio, or a pilot providing close air support, it's not a war crime, that's what happens in modern warfare. But it's hard to figure out what aspect from them you think are war crimes. For instance, I went through the NPR article about AFRICOM and clicked through a couple links from it and I still can't tell what you are referring to from them. Might be an Overton Window issue.As far as the jurisdictional and legalese aspects of war-crime prosecution, I've got to dig into my sources for that. I've heard folks like Chomsky, Greenwald, Horton and a few others go into the actual various layers of legal precedent and procedural machinations of war crime prosecution, but they're not at my fingertips and it's been a while. It's also a bit difficult to suss out actual accusations of war crimes vs digging into the legal machinations of how they would/could/should be prosecuted.
Well, I'm no expert. But speculating, it's going to be more common, one of the downsides of urbanization and weapons' technological advancement.MangoMan wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2019 7:24 pmKriegs, you seem to be pretty well informed on this stuff, so can you clarify: Is that more common in general or only with Islamists? If the latter, do you think Israel is getting a bad rap for the way they are trying to deal with this?Kriegsspiel wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2019 7:11 pm
This was probably because ISIS was digging in around and travelling with civilian human-shields so that we would kill civilians when dropping ordinance. This has become a common tactic over the last several decades (and is one of the reasons, along with increased use of aerial bombing, that 4GW will involve more civilian deaths than one would expect given our level of "technological sophistication"). This is what COL Murray was referring to later in the article, and the whole thing makes this point. Even if their guys all get killed, they can win a psyop battle by emphasizing how many civilians were killed too.
