This, though, is not simply about Trump’s erratic behaviour or the latest Iran news. There is a deeper ideological logic at work here, which is neoliberalism. Neoliberal economics reduces human beings to units in a system, economic cogs with conditional worth. When civilians are treated as expendable targets in a war in Iran, that is not aberration. That is the neoliberal system working as designed.
Stalin was so careful with civilian casualties, wasn’t he?
But then I suppose Stalin’s a neoliberal by now. And Mao.
Letting people decide for themselves is dishuman. Having the government decide for all ia human. Logical!
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” (Part 1, Chapter 7, 1984, G. Orwell)
Spud is one of many who have not developed beyond this particular stage…
I’d like to see his evidence that that is happening in Iran.
America has gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid civilian casualties in all recent wars, often to the detriment of its own servicemen.
Stanley McChrystal’s ‘courageous restraint’ policy in Afghanistan for instance involved soldiers putting themselves on offer to any nearby Taliban, and forbade returning fire if the enemy put down his weapon.
They could literally have an AK magazine emptied at them, and see the bloke doing it, but if he then dropped the empty weapon and walked away whistling, and they shot him, that was a ‘war crime’.
Indirect fire and air strikes could only basically be called in if the enemy were on top of you.
It infected British forces, too – there were cases where British soldiers were shot dead, and their mates couldn’t legally return fire even though they could see the gunman.
It’s like Plod being sacked for “bringing the Service into disrepute” when not saying “Excuse me Sir” when disarming a bloke withe a knife trying to kill you. So often, you have to go back a few hundred years to see life as it really is without all the bullshit. A criminal was an outlaw, because he’d chosen to live outside the law and didn’t have recourse to the normal niceties that law abiding people give to each other…
When civilians are treated as expendable targets
He’s not wrong, you know. Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah building military facilities in civilian areas such as primary schools next to IRGC compounds, tunnels and HQs under hospitals, etc. etc. Child suicide bombers, and child “soldiers” used as a meatwave in the Iran-Iraq war, among others. Oh, and the many, many millions killed by Uncle Joe, Mao, Pol Pot and the others. They made Adolf look a fumbling amateur.
Yes there is one side treating civilians as expendable targets. But it’s not the side he’s talking about.
This is what you get when you fight a war that you don’t have to win. No-one gives that much of a shit about winning. How the war looks matters, and the bureaucracy takes over.
Searched for Mao Zedong (or other variations) and the search field doesn’t cover the comments as one of my ‘noms de plumes’ – ‘Zhou Enlai’ appeared a few times beneath the lines but only found one reference to Mao.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Zhou-Enlai
This is Murphy in response to a Congressional resolution taken at the time the ISIS agent Zohran Mamdani was elected to the New York mayoralty condemning Socialism – apparently, it wasn’t real socialism
Have none of the lessons of McCarthyism been learned?
Have none of these people read a book, including the Bible of which so many of them claim themselves to be so fond?
Have none read their own constitution?
Do any of them know what socialism actually is?
It would appear not.
The thing is, I don’t think Trump is that much of a neoliberal. He’s a lot about autarky, protectionism and getting access to resources by force. And if you look at the fascists, that’s what they were into.
Problem is, he’s taken the bits of fascism that the Left also like (“autarky, protectionism”), and not the spiffy uniforms.
Hugo Boss did some great work there.
Zack is on it…
‘Neoliberal’ is anything spud doesn’t like.
Spud doesn’t like Trump, therefore Trump is neoliberal.
“Neoliberal economics reduces human beings to units in a system, economic cogs with conditional worth.”
This one’s rich….. because last time I checked it is exactly Communism/Socialism that treats human beings as faceless “economic units”.
Quite famously so….
Even the rawest form of unadulterated Capitalism at least recognises that each human being has his/her own desires and strives to achieve them.
Socialism barely acknowledges this, and hates it. Communism doesn’t even *allow* it…
“Neoliberal economics reduces human beings to units in a system, economic cogs with conditional worth”
Sounds more like socialism to me……..
‘Cept under communism, they have NO worth.
.
Donald Trump has signalled his intention to attack Iran’s civilian infrastructure, power stations and desalination plants, and that is a war crime under international law. The law is unambiguous: military gain does not justify targeting civilian populations and the infrastructure they depend upon, and pre-announcing an attack does not reduce culpability
Ritchie is like the guy who sees a policeman chasing a burglar (I know), and trips the policeman.
Where’s the cries of war crimes when Iran bombs hotels, residential areas and desalination plants?
Whence comes this asinine idea that wars have “laws” anyway? The law is whatever the victor says it is. What would Hadrian do?
Murphy is in many ways the equivalent of a robber – his economic plans involve confiscation of all private assets for his pet scheme so he would be the one tripping the policeman.
I am reminded of the Garak quote from the DS9 episode ‘Rocks and Shoals’:
Correction. Humans have rules in war. Rules that tend to make victory a little harder to achieve, in my opinion
The desire to regulate war dates back to the Code of Hammurabi (c.1750bc) then via Christianity…but colour me sceptical about the current ‘laws’ [1949 Geneva convention?] as applied to modern warfare, because, as I see it:
[1] implementing complex legal rules is extremely difficult in war, leading to frequent alleged violations, which in turn lead to military inhibition and military ineffectiveness.
[2] The distinction between combatants and non-combatants is often not clear. A raving Mullah or a desalination plant worker are indirectly supporting Iran. Likewise, non-combatants surely lose their protected status if they support combatants in combat scenarios. And the current ‘laws’ would ‘outlaw’ the UK/US bombing of Germany in WW2…
[3] In asymmetric warfare – an Iranian speciality – non-state armed groups ignore international war ‘law’ to gain an advantage against superior state forces, while the ‘laws’ put states at a disadvantage against such groups.
It’s bollocks basically. Is there any war since it was created where both sides adhered to it?
There are reasons for having good conduct in war. You shouldn’t be sadistic, murder, rob and rape civilians out of vengeance or hatred. But destroying civilian facilities can impede the enemy. If you destroy a hospital, resources have to be put into building a new one.
“What would Hadrian do?”
Build a bloody great wall. Seems Trump is a Hadrian fan.
“Stalin’s a neoliberal by now. And Mao.”
So I guess that means that Deng Xiaoping was Tim Worstall with Chinese Characteristics?