the Mitchell and Webb "are we the baddies" sketch certainly comes to mind here
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US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces
351–360 of 453 posts
Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces
#352[flagged]
That's basically what happened, we're heading that way fast. The fact that leaving the country crosses my mind is a good sign
Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces
#353Is this the greatness I was promised?
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Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
a giant 147000 square mile space like Montana with 1.1 M people, 2.8% the size of California's population, gets 2 Senators regardless. That is, the Senate gives representation to empty land. That's pretty structural !
how does that favor one side?
there's a very basic reason, you really don't know what it could be?
Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces
#355The Leahy Law requires the U.S. government to facilitate receipt of information about alleged abuses by U.S. supported forces. The State Department confirms it no longer operates the HRG, but says it is still receiving reports through other direct channels. I couldn't find any requirement in the law that requires a public website. NGOs can still submit information through established contacts or by email. I would thi…
> I would think email is a lot easier than a webform. why
Not sure about you, but when I submit a “contact us” form, I am about 10% sure someone will actually read it.
When I send an email that isn’t bounced back, or better yet, get an auto reply with a ticket number, I’m a lot more certain it’s going to get read.
Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces
#356Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I would think email is a lot easier than a webform. why
Not sure about you, but when I submit a “contact us” form, I am about 10% sure someone will actually read it. When I send an email that isn’t bounced back, or better yet, get an auto reply with a ticket number, I’m a lot more certain it’s going to get read.
Sounds like a characteristic of the responder system more so than the input system.
Whereas what’s clearly a distinct advantage of a web form is that you can find it on the web.
Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
a giant 147000 square mile space like Montana with 1.1 M people, 2.8% the size of California's population, gets 2 Senators regardless. That is, the Senate gives representation to empty land. That's pretty structural !
Vermont has fewer people than Montana. How does that impact your structural analysis?
The 5 smallest states by population are:
- Wyoming
- Vermont
- Alaska
- North Dakota
- South Dakota
4 of these 5 are consistently "red". 1 is consistently "blue".
The 5 largest states by population are:
- California
- Texas
- Florida
- New York
- Illinois
3 of these are consistently "blue". 1 is consistently "red", and 1 is "purple" (though appears to be skewing "red" in the most recent elections)
Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces
#358This 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…
Hegseth is publicly just a huge fan of war crimes and this is probably the main reason he got the job he has now. The big thing he's been signaling, and not really even in a sly or dogwhistly way, is that war crimes are ok to do now. If your goal is to do war crimes and enable others to do war crimes then removing the war crime reporting tool may not directly benefit you much but it certainly doesn't hurt you. And th…
The most polite thing i can say about Pete is that he's the dimmest bulb among them, trying to imitate much more capable people. And everyone can see it.
He's broken the Peter Principle by shooting far above the level of his incompetence.
Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces
#359Re: US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems to be an extension of aspects that he talked about in his speech https://www.war.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/4318... Specifically: > allow me a few words to talk about toxic leaders. > The definition of toxic has been turned upside down, and we're correcting that. That's why today, at my direction we're undertaking a full review of the department's definitions of so-called toxic leadership, bully…
To be fair (ignoring whether Hegseth really deserves that), what he describes is a very common view of military leadership during war time. "War time" is the key there though. The US is not a nation at war. We have allies at war and the executive branch has taken it upon itself to take warlike actions without Congress, but we aren't st war - especially not a war the scale of which is seen as existential and leads to…
If the war is prolonged, you can't go around treating people like eggshells to be crushed, or morale will suffer.
Unless your target image is how Russia conducts war. Beats (their own) soldiers, puts them in cages, ties them to trees for days, and so on. In Ukraine we see the difference in practice. If the cause is just, you don't have push your soldiers at gunpoint into the fray, like Russia does.
And if the war is not prolonged, what's even the excuse to do that in the first place?