But you'd be living under German Nazi rule right now if some 50 or more millions of civilians hadn't been killed uprooting the Germans from everywhere in Europe they had embedded themselves, to stop them from invading Scotland. I think there's a word for when you're living the benefits of something (that was necessary, though regrettable), then you turn around and hold someone else to a completely different standard. Millions of civilians died to protect you from invasion. If it you don't think it was correct, or worth it, feel free to give your house to a right wing skinhead. Because you wouldn't be there now. They would.
Two footnotes for you. (a) My father served during WW2 and I'm of Jewish descent: don't lecture me about Hitler. (b) I still think "Bomber" Harris should have stood trial at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity. Standards are universal, or they're not standards.
@shekinahcancook@cstross
I think you need to dive a bit deeper in WW2 military history.
The invasion was off the cards well before the big bombing raids got under way. Once Stalingrad happened and the siege of Leningrad was broken the fate of Germany was sealed. It was just a case of how long. While the massed bombing raids hastened the end of the war they were never instrumental. Germany never had the manpower or resources to win unless it could deal with it's enemies one at a time and quickly.
@Steveg58@shekinahcancook Also: Hitler effectively sealed his doom on December 8th, 1941, by declaring war on the United States. Yes, Japan had attacked the USA and the British Empire, and Japan was part of the Axis, but the Pacific theatre was sufficiently decoupled from Europe that Hitler didn't stand to benefit directly by goading the US out of isolationism. But in the short term, this opened a floodgate of American material for Russia and the UK, and in the longer term …
@sickmatter I think there probably is an IDF policy of targeting aid organizations. And journalists. And any non-Palestinians who might be helping the civilian victims of a humanitarian catastrophe.
That's how colonialist armies work when they're enforcing collective punishment (I think the IDF probably learned it from the British back in the 1940s) ...
@sickmatter@cstross the IDF has been quite transparently murdering journalists and field medics for years. They just shoot them as though they're combatants.
@cstross gawds this whole thing is making me sick.
Civilians.
Pacifists.
Aid workers.
Not just like, aid workers specialized in war zone/rescue/evacuation/medics- who, purportedly, have some training and risk awareness.
WCK FFS. They just seem to be the most innocent and fundamental of the dedicated aid orgs, they get food into bellies, that’s ALL.
Netanyahu has lost the plot completely, that government has abandoned everything it stood for and it looks like the IDF has gone rogue.
@Johannab That "government" is basically Netanyahu—a criminal grifter—making any desperate deal he can to avoid being kicked out of office and standing trial on corruption charges. Result: a hard right coalition propped up by the Israeli equivalent of Nazis.
This is a preview of 2025 in the USA if Trump is re-elected. Or 2025 in the UK if the Conservatives get back in (luckily that's almost impossible).
@zdl I disagree, but I’m never a fan of putting a whole group of people into one bucket. No group is a monolith, except maybe the MAGA cultists who drank the Koolaid and seem impossible to reach.
I know some Israelis are furious with Netanyahu and have voted against him. I sure wouldn’t want to be counted as someone who supported US wartime atrocities just because I was born here.
You have a lot of flags in your profile. Are you loyal to everything those governments do?
@KatM@racingdaily Nope. Identifying in sequence (from the left) my citizenship, my birthplace, and my nation of residence.
And I'm certain some—indeed many!—in Israel support neither Netanyahu nor genocide. These many have not stopped the nation of Israel from COMMITTING MOTHERFUCKING GENOCIDE, however.
Until that genocide stops and serious reparations are made, Israel should be a pariah ... for the same reason that, say, North Korea is.
@zdl We can have a discussion without being snarky - "whataboutism." I'm not what-abouting anything. I simply noted that not all Israelis are aligned with Netanyahu or the IDF.
I would like to see the people of Israel hold both responsible and end their reign of terror on Gaza. I would like to see the people of the US hold our Congress, courts and justice system accountable for prosecuting Trump & Co's treason.
@cstross
The inconvenient truth is missing from the discussion: who provides full political support and the weapons to Netanyahu to commit war crimes?
It's the same Biden administ. everyone supports against the nightmare of a 2nd Trump presidency. Their handling of the conflict has been equally disastrous with that of Netanyahu, if we believe that there was indeed some intention to reduce casualties and war crimes, and those 'concerns' r not just pretext to appease voters in the Nov elections
@cstross Netanyahu's been doing a lot of that lately. Funny how the deaths of foreign aid workers are a major scandal, but targeted hits on Palestinian doctors, scholars, and journalists have been universally shrugged off.
@rst@cstross The way it works in Poland is Palestinians are foreigners, so it's someone else's problem, but one of those aid workers was Polish, so it's our problem now, and there's an uproar.
It could actually cause people to care about Palestinian civilians more, but we're going to have to wait and see.
(the fact that it's the last week of the local elections campaign isn't helping)
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