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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

#361

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

everdrive wrote: post #285
softwaredoug wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH The Right in the US has such a structural advantage, that Congress's silence becomes de-facto acceptance. Congress choosing to not do oversight becomes a de-facto repeal of the law. The only other option is to find someone with standing being harmed and sue. And that will take time to wind through the courts, with not great chances at SCOTUS.

You're not wrong, but Congress has been broken for a long, long time. Congress really doesn't do anything except for agree (if they've got a majority with the president) or disagree (if they're in the minority against the president) with the current president. They don't really make laws, they don't hold anyone accountable, they don't fund the government. They don't govern at all, they just try to keep getting re-ele…

They have subpoena power and a jail. They just refuse to exact accountability unless you're something critically important like a baseball player.

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

#362

Post by nradov »

_heimdall wrote: post #345
rehevkor5 wrote: post #310

Earlier 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…

Any large standing military will typically oscillate between a wartime footing where aggression and risk-taking are rewarded versus a peacetime (garrison) footing where avoiding politically embarrassing mistakes is rewarded. The problem is that when the next war starts the careerist officers who were promoted during peacetime produce disastrous results. It then takes several lost battles until they are replaced with competent warfighters.

For better or worse, US leadership is now attempting to place the military on a permanent wartime footing, largely on the theory that a major regional conflict with China is coming at some unpredictable time in the next couple decades. They think they're going to have to fight WWII again with China now playing the role of Japan. Some level of occasional human rights abuses are seen as an acceptable "cost of doing business" to maintain a higher level of readiness and combat effectiveness. (I am not claiming that this is a good policy, just trying to explain the current thinking within the military-industrial complex.)

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

#363

Post by actionfromafar »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #272
softwaredoug wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH The Right in the US has such a structural advantage, that Congress's silence becomes de-facto acceptance. Congress choosing to not do oversight becomes a de-facto repeal of the law. The only other option is to find someone with standing being harmed and sue. And that will take time to wind through the courts, with not great chances at SCOTUS.

We are, it appears now, a country of laws…uits.

We have that, for now.

The talking heads on Fox have started to prepare us for a country without judges and lawsuits. Or at least without any Democratic judges.

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

#364

Post by Dilettante_ »

protoster wrote: post #52
aDyslecticCrow wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a feeling thats exactly how it was used. But that makes its removal even more odd. The hosting cost must be trivial; an email support form connected to a shredder. Defund the organization in charge of checking and follow-ups is one thing, but its complete removal just smell of incompetence or acknowledging of wrongdoing, or some sort of performance. And the response is also baffling. "sorry we migrated it syst…

Vice signalling

Oh I'm using that.

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

#365

Post by rayiner »

klaff wrote: post #335
drob518 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a quibble, but we should only be impeaching Presidents for illegal acts, not mere opinions about job performance, which members of the opposite party will almost always disagree with. The remedy for doing a bad job is the ballot box.

Well that horse left the barn a long time ago - the list of blatantly illegal things is now so long that new ones (like murdering people in boats by remote control) just fly on by.

That’s a category error. “Murder” is a concept of domestic criminal law. It doesn’t apply to state actions against foreigners in international waters. For the same reason it’s not “murder” for the U.S. to drone strike middle eastern weddings or to nuke foreign cities.

Most people do not believe in the religion of humanist universalism.

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

#366

Post by jarofghosts »

itsoktocry wrote: post #308
ryandrake wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious solution to this is to change everything structurally needed to ensure the other side never again takes control, which is clearly also in progress.

> The obvious solution to this is to change everything structurally needed to ensure the other side never again takes control, which is clearly also in progress. - Signed, the side that tried to throw a candidate in prison.

Prison is typically where felons go, yes.

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

#367

Post by sjsdaiuasgdia »

walkabout wrote: post #307
sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Republican party has not existed since 2016. It is the Trump party wearing the Republican party's tattered clothes.

An enormous proportion of Republican voters were already Trumpers as early as the ‘90s, but didn’t have a candidate yet, so had to settle for “vote Republican to keep the democrats from doing all the bad things Rush says they will”. Republican partisan-propaganda media after anti-trust de-fanging (mid ‘70s) and media deregulation (‘80s-‘00s) became huge, and cultivated an electorate that wanted Trump but had to settl…

Yes, the deplorables were always there. There used to be a handful of adults in the room as well.

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

#368

Post by tastyfreeze »

hirvi74 wrote: post #29
excalibur wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When did the US government ever care about human rights? July 4 1776

Educate me. How cruel was the treatment from the British truly? My understanding was things like "no taxation without representation" was unrealistic due to the sheer distance and amount of time required to travel between the US and the UK. We're talking somewhere around 2-4 months one way. To send a rep back and forth with a message like: US sends rep -> Uk and rep interact -> rep goes back to US with UK decision ->…

The colonial grievances that led to war are explicitly stated in the Declaration of Independence.

It can be assumed that the British occupation forces were just as brutal as any other occupying military force in history. The only restraint in those situations is morals and a boss that was across an ocean.

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

#369

Post by watwut »

dagss wrote: post #111
watwut wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> have long asserted that the so-called "conservatives" in the Supreme Court are anything but They are conservatives and push for conservative agenda. Conservatives wanted them on the court so that they can make decisions like this.

I think you and parent comment are just using the word conservative in two different ways. There is conservative values and there is the conservative party, two different things.

I am saying that these are real conservative values. It is not true that these would be just something conservative party does while claiming to believe something else. Instead, if you read what conservative people write and say, in journals, books, talk shows, anywhere ... this is exactly what they believe in.

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

#370

Post by nradov »

impossiblefork wrote: post #255
zippyman55 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That does not allow escaping from international laws.

or civil lawsuits.

Individual federal government employees are generally immune from civil liability for all official acts, even if those acts were illegal.
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