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US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces

bbc.com

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Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces

#231

Post by some_random »

FridayoLeary wrote: post #114
docdeek wrote: post #64

This seems like a bad decision to me. Not only does it seem not to be in the spirit of the law (you can still report but not as easily now) but it's not clear why they shut it down at all. Cost? Inefficiency? Just wasn't getting used much? They have a better solution? On the other hand, the US seems so partisan now that had the current administration told the world they were taking huma' rights abuse reporting seriou…

[flagged]

First off even if it was 99% unfounded Israel complaints, that's not a reason to axe it, that's just a reason to add a filter in an excel spreadsheet. But more importantly, we are absolutely responsible for making sure that our military aid is used in a way that supports our interests and values.

Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces

#232

Post by gigatexal »

mikeyouse wrote: post #5

> Tim Rieser, former senior aide to Senator Leahy who wrote the 2011 amendment mandating information gathering, told the BBC the gateway's removal meant the State Department was "clearly ignoring the law". We're in a really bad place... with a servile congress, it turns out there aren't really any laws constraining the executive branch. When everything relies on "independent IGs" for law enforcement inside executive…

A very, very bad place indeed.

Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces

#233

Post by bigyabai »

FridayoLeary wrote: post #158
speakfreely wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trump truly has no vision for anything we do on the world stage It confuses me how anyone could look at what's happening in the world and see a lack of a plan. Trump administration seems to actually be unusually focused on foreign policy in this term and using geopolitical statecraft to upend the arrangements that were not working in favor of the US. The tariffs to force countries to choose US or China, putting the…

He's got a very comprehensive plan and he knows exactly what he's doing. He's also consolidated his base so he has people who are as committed as he is to carrying out his vision. He's doing everything he said he would do successfully. All his opponents are desperate for him to fail but that simply is not happening, i wonder why? This website runs opposite to his vision of MAGA, it's basically make america criminals,…

> He's doing everything he said he would do successfully.

I seem to remember him promising that he would release the Epstein Files the moment they were available.

That one's been taking a loooong time. All the ties that Ghislaine and Robert Maxwell have to Israel probably isn't super great for PR either.

Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces

#235

Post by tastyfreeze »

ModernMech wrote: post #174
theptip wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now we are talking. And the dynamic that makes political parties so toxic IMO is “first past the post” voting. If it’s your team or the “worse” team, you tolerate any flaw in your team. If there was a pressure valve where another party can simply take over (for example see Reform vs Conservative parties in the UK, not that I am thrilled with the underlying direction) then there is an alternative: cut bait and condemn…

> If there was a pressure valve where another party can simply take over That's exactly what happened though -- the MAGA party took over. Conservatives "cut bait" with traditional Republicans, condemned them (see how they talk about Liz and Dick Cheney or even GWB, Mitt Romney, and John McCain, their own presidential nominees), and started a new party within the rotting corpse of the old GOP. There's still some "Repu…

Unfortunately taking over a dominant party was the easiest way to have a "different" party that could actually win. Both parties have built a mountain of obstacles to prevent a third party from ever getting close to challenging them.

Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces

#236

Post by harrall »

mikeyouse wrote: post #5

> Tim Rieser, former senior aide to Senator Leahy who wrote the 2011 amendment mandating information gathering, told the BBC the gateway's removal meant the State Department was "clearly ignoring the law". We're in a really bad place... with a servile congress, it turns out there aren't really any laws constraining the executive branch. When everything relies on "independent IGs" for law enforcement inside executive…

Laws can’t fix this problem. The branches check each other but citizens are supposed to check the branches. “Can’t fix a non-engineering problem with engineering.”

But your average citizen is consuming news sources like Fox News that present a rosy picture. In their world, things are going well (and all problems are due to one party).

That’s why dysfunction in the branches can go so far. The basis of American governance, and probably any kind of governance to be honest, is vigilance. If everyone was fully informed on what was happening everyday and behind closed doors, everyone would vote differently.

Instead we vote based often on out-of-context bits that we hear, and surprisingly we all get completely sets of bits. The system — voting, checks and balances — is still solid but the input into it is not great.

The founding fathers did not anticipate the modern media world.

Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces

#238

Post by alexashka »

mikeyouse wrote: post #5

> Tim Rieser, former senior aide to Senator Leahy who wrote the 2011 amendment mandating information gathering, told the BBC the gateway's removal meant the State Department was "clearly ignoring the law". We're in a really bad place... with a servile congress, it turns out there aren't really any laws constraining the executive branch. When everything relies on "independent IGs" for law enforcement inside executive…

It will always boil down to people.

This fantasy of free markets, laws, branches or anything else solving what Plato wrote about in The Republic thousands of years ago is pure folly.

If it is of any comfort - it's always been this way and it's not going to get any better :) We have technological progress, not progress in wisdom. People are better behaved because well fed humans behave better than hungry humans - everything else is as it's always been.

Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces

#239

Post by Consultant32452 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #226
Consultant32452 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how anything has changed in a meaningful way. George Bush "tortured some folks" and Obama assassinated US citizens abroad. The status quo is literal evil and Trump is behaving in accordance with the status quo.

If you don't see any distinctions beyond “there is some evil” vs. “there is no evil”, all of human history must seem to be a flat, undifferentiated blob to you.

There's no moral equivalency between the US directly torturing prisoners of war/assassinating its own citizens and a website being taken down.
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