But but people here told me they’re just freedom fighters!
What do you think freedom fighters are? The fact that they are fighting for freedom does not inherently mean that they support Western values. The West does not have a monopoly on freedom.
Hamas is a terrorist organization plain and simple. Trying to call them “Freedom Fighters” is like trying to polish a turd.
Is the IDF also a terrorist organization? How about the US military? I struggle to see any justifiable reason why Hamas should wear that label while the other two should not.
IDF, yes. US military, no. One is deliberately targetting civilians, the other fails to give sufficient fuck about avoiding civilian casualties, those two things are not the same. The US is not saying “let’s kill civilians so they become scared and do what we tell them”, they’re saying “huh why are they suddenly angry at us”? There’s a naive innocence to it, you have to judge the US military using juvenile law.
I don’t see a practical difference between targeting civilians directly, and a blatant disregard for civilian casualties. Like, if you drop a bomb on a wedding, because you’re trying to kill one non-civilian target, but you obviously know that 100 civilians will die-- then how is that any different than suicide bombing the same wedding? Are the civilian victims less dead? Do their families feel differently?
Are the civilian victims less dead? Do their families feel differently?
No, and no. But intent still matters. Afghans learned that when you stand next to the wrong type of person, you could be hit, that if you stumbled across the wrong spot, like a hidden US observation post while herding your sheep, you could be hit.
There’s at least a plausible connection to military necessity. The US approach helps them fuck all when it comes to winning hearts and minds, and you’re still breeding resistance by eliminating that shepherd who stumbled across your position instead of calling a chopper to evacuate and relocate, but the people overall don’t feel like they’re being exterminated – because they aren’t. Because in the end, the US does have restraint, sometimes even to the degree that they’re willing to lose a battle over it, that was the case in Afghanistan for Taliban etc. holed up in Mosques.
That is, there’s insufficient regard for the civilian population on the US side, they’re prioritising tactical military goals too much – but not completely. The IDF doesn’t even know what regard for civilians is. The US is court marshalling soldiers left and right when they misbehave, Israel is applying military law to 10yold Palestinians who lobbed a stone at a tank, dishing out decade-long sentences. US soldiers carry sweets to hand out to kids. Those two attitudes are not the same, and if you think they are, you’re trivialising genocide.
I think you’ve absorbed too many American movies. The idea that “Afghans learned that” is so fucked up for at least two reasons. One, are you saying it was terrorism until the civvies learned to avoid US targets? Two, how the fuck are rural Afghanis supposed to know who’s on the CIA kill list? The idea that they learned anything from being drone struck, besides what it feels like to have PTSD every time you go outside, is pretty silly.
The US military, much like most if not all other militaries will absolutely murder civilians if the objective requires it. You can’t just take their word for what the objective is either. And is the US military really handing out court martials over civilian casualties? Given that the vast majority of US caused civilian deaths have resulted from ATG ordnance, we should expect a lot of court martials of pilots and drone operators, no? I’d love to see an example of that if you have one!
I think it’s a matter of propaganda and aesthetics. If you kill civilians with an air force, that’s “collateral damage”. If you kill them with a truck bomb, that’s “terrorism”. After 9/11 there was at least a conversation about how squishy a word like ‘terrorism’ is, and how it was going to end up applied to anyone we needed it to.
Pro Palestinian march…waving hamas flags? Sounds like you’re pro hamas really.
The two people waving the two flags? Yeah, seems like it. But you’re painting a whole march based on two people. Which seems super disingenuous and shitty. Which is exactly what this outlet is doing here.
If I went to a march and saw someone waving a flag of a group that committed genocide, I’d like to think I’d be brave enough to confront those people and tell them they’re just making us all look bad and they aren’t helping.
But realistically I’d probably just go home.
Either way I wouldn’t associate myself with that kind of thing. The march would be a waste of time anyway, it’s not going to influence anyone to join a cause that’s for the genocide of the people they hate while claiming their people are victims of genocide. And if pretty much everyone went home when someone breaks out these kinds of flags, they’d soon get the point that they are hurting the movement even if no one confronted them about it.
At any rate everyone that went to this march accomplished exactly nothing because these people brought these flags. Probably worse than nothing… they likely lost support because of this.
If you care about Palestinians you should be willing to confront these people that are hurting your movement. If not, it’s just a get-together to hang out with people that support the genocide of Jews.
I’m genuinely curious though. How did you feel about this tactic being used by the media to discredit and write off the BLM demonstrations? Because this is the same thing being applied to a different situation: the worst or most misguided among an otherwise positive movement being shone a spotlight on in order to derail the conversation and wreck the momentum of the movement. That’s exactly what’s happening here, it’s what happened in 2020. So where do you stand on that
American right-wing media Freedom New TV (FNTV) and according to several videos of the rally published by the organizers on the social networks.
Meaning that we could be talking about one or two flags shown through a distorted media lens.
That said, it should be on the demonstrators to ensure people waving such flags get put at the margins and I hope that is what is happening.
This is the standard that was applied when a few nazi flags showed up at convoy rallies. You either need to reclaim the cause for your protest, or admit that it actually stands for something else and then ask yourself if you want to be part of that.
Did the convoy involve a genocide?
Some of the people in that movement thought so. From things they read on the internet, they were led to believe that covid was part of a plan to kill millions of people.
Don’t believe everything you read on the internet, kids. It may lead you to get so emotional over genocide claims that you end up being associated with some actual genocidal groups.
Thinking there is a genocide because of stupidity is not the same as an actual genocide. Which is what is going on.
People claim abortion is genocide too. It is also not genocide. Just because you claim something is genocide, it doesn’t mean it is. Experts tend to have to weigh in. And they have in the case of Gaza and have determined it is a genocide.
So maybe don’t conflate the two, unless you are one of those kooks who believe COVID was a genocide, something not a single expert believes.
So… was COVID a genocide? Do you think those stupid unJesusy scientifimagicians are wrong and the Queen of Canada is right or is this a totally different situation?
No, but I’m also not sure where you are going with that question. I suppose hezbollah flags directly have something to do with the Palestine protests, whereas nazi flags didn’t really have anything to do with the convoy, so maybe it’s more understandable to have hezbollah/hamas flags there. But they are still terrorists, right? Or are we OK with them now? I’m just not sure what you mean.
See, the difference is that the people at the convoy were given a chance to disavow the Nazis as the media talks to the organizers. The people at these protests are called Hamas sympathizers and the organizers are not even contacted by the media.
But the organizers at these anti-genocide protests seem never to be interviewed by the media. Do you think it’s because they’re hiding?
“A couple of dudes amongst widespread protests across the country have done one reprehensible thing. This means the whole protest is illegitimate. Stop complaining about genocide and go back to work.”
Do other people at the protest say “hey buddy, that’s not what we’re about”?
Or do they look the other way?
There have been movements in the past where a minority of the movement was antisemitic while the majority of the movement just looked the other way on the antisemitism from the others. It didn’t go well for anyone.
The paradox of tolerance. If you tolerate the intolerant in your movement, you’re part of an intolerant movement.
I wonder who paid them to do that.
