Let me repeat myself up front in case any readers have missed this previously. John Mearsheimer, the eminent University of Chicago based student of international affairs in the realist school, is well known to readers here and all across the internet for his incisive critiques of the American Empire’s misguided and provocative policy with regarding Russia, dating back to the end of the Cold War. However, Mearsheimer is perhaps best known as the lead author (with Stephen Walt) of the 2007 book
No dog in this fight....I speak only as a spectator... but IL has (in)advertantly created a whole new class of people who'll become their worst enemy in the times to come.
Exactly. As well as uniting Sunnis and Shiites against them. I thought Biden uniting China and Russia was some achievement, but Netanyahu has outdone him. The Israeli policy in Gaza is not going to make Israel a safer place.
So far as I can remember, the US started the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, didn't we? I believe these wars have been characterized as wars of aggression. We prosecuted those wars for over a decade. According to the Watson Institute of International & Public Affairs at Brown University, here's the death toll (just for our Middle East wars):
940,000 people have died due to direct war violence, including armed forces on all sides of the conflicts, contractors, civilians, journalists, and humanitarian workers; over 432,000 civilians have been killed in direct violence by all parties to these conflicts; and an estimated 3.6-3.8 million people have died indirectly in post-9/11 war zones, bringing the total death toll to at least 4,500,000-4,700,000 and counting.
And yet it is widely agreed that some actions by war participants are 'criminal'. I guess the distinction depends to some extent upon who wins the war and who can be subjected to prosecution.
There's a difference between bad things happening--which they do--and setting out with the deliberate intent to commit bad things. Einsatzgruppen, for example. The Allies did commit war crimes, but in general the military was not structured for the commission of war crimes. Nor was the overall doctrine or strategy predicated on the commission of war crimes.
As Mearsheimer and Crooke make very clear, that is exactly the case with Israel, and has been from the get go. The Israeli doctrine of deterrence is predicated on a strategy of massive, indiscriminate killing of civilians.
True, I'd forgotten some of those things. Wasn't there a difference in strategy between the Brits and the US re the strategic bombing. Wasn't the the US idea to go for actual strategic targets (industry) rather than terror bombing?
There have been some interesting comparisons of civilian casualties in Gaza v. Ukraine.
Kind of amusing, Nixon and Mearsheimer doing comedy routines. It's about morality, Zhou luvs Israel, etc.
Biden's absolute commitment to Israel was a blind spot for me.
But then again.....
My father's best friend was a Congressman from Florida for close to 30 years.
(They grew up together in Chevy Chase, DC in the 1940s an1950s)
He was a "True Conservative."
Back in the early 2000's he told my dad that if he said one negative thing about Israel that "AIPAC would be up my ass in 5 seconds and I'd be out."
Completely cut off from all fundraising and possibly face financial ruin.
That was 20 years ago and from where I am sitting it's worse now.
No dog in this fight....I speak only as a spectator... but IL has (in)advertantly created a whole new class of people who'll become their worst enemy in the times to come.
The Children.
Exactly. As well as uniting Sunnis and Shiites against them. I thought Biden uniting China and Russia was some achievement, but Netanyahu has outdone him. The Israeli policy in Gaza is not going to make Israel a safer place.
@Pete
So far as I can remember, the US started the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, didn't we? I believe these wars have been characterized as wars of aggression. We prosecuted those wars for over a decade. According to the Watson Institute of International & Public Affairs at Brown University, here's the death toll (just for our Middle East wars):
940,000 people have died due to direct war violence, including armed forces on all sides of the conflicts, contractors, civilians, journalists, and humanitarian workers; over 432,000 civilians have been killed in direct violence by all parties to these conflicts; and an estimated 3.6-3.8 million people have died indirectly in post-9/11 war zones, bringing the total death toll to at least 4,500,000-4,700,000 and counting.
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/summary
And so is George W Bush a war criminal?
https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/7763224
Decide for yourself.
And yet it is widely agreed that some actions by war participants are 'criminal'. I guess the distinction depends to some extent upon who wins the war and who can be subjected to prosecution.
FWIW, it is thought that the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
There's a difference between bad things happening--which they do--and setting out with the deliberate intent to commit bad things. Einsatzgruppen, for example. The Allies did commit war crimes, but in general the military was not structured for the commission of war crimes. Nor was the overall doctrine or strategy predicated on the commission of war crimes.
As Mearsheimer and Crooke make very clear, that is exactly the case with Israel, and has been from the get go. The Israeli doctrine of deterrence is predicated on a strategy of massive, indiscriminate killing of civilians.
True, I'd forgotten some of those things. Wasn't there a difference in strategy between the Brits and the US re the strategic bombing. Wasn't the the US idea to go for actual strategic targets (industry) rather than terror bombing?
There have been some interesting comparisons of civilian casualties in Gaza v. Ukraine.
Propaganda free zone.