this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2024
1394 points (94.6% liked)
Memes
45180 readers
1574 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
We have stopped sending weapons to Ukraine but have continued sending weapons to Israel.
Nothing about what you describe as is cut and dry as you are describing it. The easiest way to protect global trade from pirates would be to stop using global trade to arm psychopaths.
So your solution is just to do whatever the psychopath Houthis tell us to do?
Neville Chamberlain tried a policy of appeasement, it didn't work. And when you're thinking that psychopaths that attack civilians working on a commercial cargo ship are the good guys, your world view is really messed up.
If attacking civilians is the mark of psychopathology then the US does a good job of arming such nations. What the Houthis are doing is not happening in a vacuum. They have a history of resisting regimes propped up by the US. Does that make them saints? No. But we're not any better.
I agree, it's not happening in a vacuum. The Houthis are doing the old fascist plot of blaming the Jews to gain power. We've seen it all before. This is what the biggest losers in history do again and again.
A movement under a flag of "Death to America, Death to Israel, A Curse Upon the Jews", is a movement based on hate and it's destruction is inevitable. Attacking global shipping is just them speeding up the timetable, but the end result was always going to be the same.
A lot of antisemitism mixed with a feeling of religious exceptionalism has resulted in hate movement in Yemen that thinks they won't go the same way as similar movements in the past. They're wrong.
The guys trying to stop a genocide are the good guys. I do have some criticisms of them, but any actions that decrease the ability to carry out genocide is a net positive.
Is your point that the outcome justifies the means? I feel the need to point out that this statement is dangerous, and statements like it have been used to justify evil acts.
You know what else is dangerous? Giving a genocidal state more weapons.
What the fuck?
Nowhere in my statement did I defend giving Israel weapons, this is a position I am strongly against.
My point in writing that comment was to point out that using fascist rhetoric is bad, no matter who is saying it. I support the Palestinians, but I would not support dropping nukes on Israel. Stating that any means would be justified gives the other side ammunition to attack you (and others with similar views as you) with.
"Any means" is the same reasoning the USA used when nuking Japan. And it's the same reasoning that is currently being used to kill innocent civilians in the Gaza strip.
There's no fascist rhetoric, we're all capable of understanding context.
What is your support of the Palestinians worth?
You are justifying actions against the people who are making a material impact at stopping a genocide. Even though those actions largely consist of bombing yemeni civilians, and wouldn't be justified anyway as they're being performed in service of a genocide.
Once again you have prescribed a position to me that I do not have. I haven't defended the actions of either the US or Israel, merely pointed out that YOU are using bad arguments.
I have donated a small amount (I still need to pay rent) to the Palestinian relief fund. Is my contribution not valid because the value is only $200? Is that really what we are dogging on people for now?
I have not defended the US bombings in Yemen, and have personally participated in two protests of these attacks (One at my state capital and one at my local university.)
I need you to understand that people will look at statements like "the ends justify the means" as justification to keep killing Palestinians. You are actively making my job as a progressive harder by saying things like this.
I'm honestly not sure if you aren't looking at names or if you are just arguing in bad faith here. The original comment I responded to was a response to an even worse take that was not made by me. Stop prescribing people positions that they don't have, have not stated, and have actively been against.
I'm not against the Palestinians or Yemeni population, I am against rhetoric that can be used to justify genocides. You can support these groups just as well by saying things other than "any action against Israel is justified"
An ethnic cleansing of the Israeli population would reduce their capability of genocide, but is still an evil that I could not support.
Apologies, I didn't notice that you weren't the original guy responded to, who was condemning the Houthi's actions.
In the context of the US, condemning the Houthi's anti-genocide actions is equivalent to supporting the genocide, in the same way that Americans and Israelis criticizing LGBT rights within Palestine or Iran or Russia; while the criticism may be valid within a vacuum, in the context of America, those criticisms only serve to justify imperialism.