Biden Says He Told Nigeria to Kill Fewer Civilians — but Nigeria Keeps Killing Lots of Civilians

theintercept.com Biden Says He Told Nigeria to Kill Fewer Civilians — but Nigeria Keeps Killing Lots of Civilians

Nigeria has gotten billions of dollars in U.S. security assistance, even as its counterterrorism campaign has a massive civilian death toll.

Nigeria has gotten billions of dollars in U.S. security assistance, even as its counterterrorism campaign has a massive civilian death toll.

Archived version: https://archive.ph/axqD7

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Almost like for the last 6 months Biden has been showing the world that he's a fucking doormat when it comes to genocide.
trump and Biden both make our country a joke, just in different ways.
- This is pretty interesting. Americans seem to be convinced that their president is the king of earth and they can, with a wave of their finger change anything. This is total bullshit
  Presidential power inside the country is extremely limited by the constitution and they rarely have an opportunity to “just do what they said they were going to do”.
  Outside our borders… it’s so fucking complicated that no one person really understands the global web of power and influence. At the bottom of the pyramid though, always force of arms. If America is willing to fight you, then you do what they say.
  So… should we start a war in every place on earth that genocide is occurring? Really channel our inner dick Cheney and waste life and treasure in regime changes? Should we really cede all power in the Middle East to Iran so that we can stop our (fucking asshole of an) ally Israel from using those weapons on a highly immoral war? Should we start WWIII with china to save the Uighurs? How many African nations should we currently be bombing?
  Which of those wars do you want to fight? Have you enlisted yet? What are you waiting for?
  
  We just want the US to stop giving Israel money and weapons. How is that so fucking hard to understand?
  
  We also want it to stop obsessively protecting it from the UN and international law.
  The US is currently trying to lobby the ICC in Netanyahu's favour.
  
  Me too. Shame is that doing that would empower Iran, which isn’t great. It’s all tough choices and I’m pretty tired of listening to idiots pretend they have all the answers.
  
  No one is saying Iran needs zero foils to counter and control them, you assuming dingdong.
  We just want the US funded foil to not also be committing a genocide. The fact you conflate, "no genocide" with "eliminate Israel" shows that you are not capable of honestly engaging on this topic.
  
  Americans seem to be convinced that their president is the king of earth and they can, with a wave of their finger change anything.
  We can just stop giving Israel money and weapons...
  Ronald Reagan did it when Israel wouldn't stop seizing their neighbors land, what's changed?
  Like, you're acting like the only recourse is fighting a war with Israel.
  We can just stop funding their genocide, or Israel will drag us into a war anyways
  
  How fucked are we that we can point to Reagan and say "do what this guy did"
  
  It's the natural result of decades of the only standard being "I like the letter by their name".
  Shitty people will always win in a race where cheating is legal. And as the DNC loves to point out: primaries aren't real elections and they can just ignore results if they want, so cheating is fine.
  They stopped short of saying "only an idiot would think primaries matter" but unfortunately I don't think we're that far away from it.
  
  Why does that bullshit about Reagan keep popping up?
  That occurred prior to the start of the Israel-Iran proxy conflict in 1985, when Reagan set the precedent of support in the same conflict that you’re protesting right now.
  When he cut back foreign aid to Israel, prior to the conflict, Reagan then provided military aid under the express agreement that they use it to attack Lebanon.
  He wasn’t “being tough” on Israel. He was telling them where to point their weapons.
  https://history.state.gov/milestones/1981-1988/lebanon
  
  Uh... Biden can stop the mess in Israel with a phone call. Reagan did it.
  Should we really cede all power in the Middle East to Iran so that we can stop our (fucking asshole of an) ally Israel from using those weapons on a highly immoral war?
  I'm not sure why that's the dichotomy here, but literally yes. The US has no business staying in the middle east as long as it has. Also it's a genocide, not just "immoral war".
  
  Yeah, like I dont understand how someone can't not get that geopolitics and allies change...
  The US was the reason the Taliban gained power, it's not like 9/11 happened and people said we couldn't be mad at Osama bin Laden because just a few decades ago we gave him a bunch of money, weapons, and training.
  
  So… should we start a war in every place on earth that genocide is occurring? Really channel our inner dick Cheney and waste life and treasure in regime changes?
  No one here is advocating for that. “Stop funding genocide” is a far cry for “Channel your inner Dick Cheney”
  
  I'm not American and I'm not asking them to stop Israel's genocide. I'm asking them to:
  stop funding it
  stop supplying it with weapons
  stop vetoing UN measures against it
  stop lobbying the ICC and other international bodies in support of it
  
  At least in the case of Gaza the US are literally funding it to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. Unless there's some mystical magical procedure I'm not aware of, Biden could veto anything that supports Israel that comes out of Congress. A literal unused one person choke point that keeps passing weapons to Israel. The frustrating thing about Gaza is how simple it would be to stop it. Stop the flow of weapons. The US has threatened it before, and gotten results.
  Please stop pretending the US can't wield power that isn't an invasion force.
  Yeah, this article is also about funding...sooooo....
  
  Sending weapons to Israel is part of a very old US strategy to check Iranian power. You can argue that we should stop trying to check Iranian power, I could probably be convinced of that. Being an enemy of Iran has led us to some of our shittiest “allies”. Remember when US presidents shook hands with Sadam Hussein? That shit happened!
  We can stop sending them weapons and money. We should. We should try to make those shipments conditional on changes to the Gaza war strategy. But letting Iran run wild is not going to be super great for US interests and is going to be VERY unpopular with US citizens. It’s not that I like the way everything is happening, it’s that it isn’t simple. Iranian troops in Israel, SA and Iraq isn’t an outcome we can handle so taking our foot off the pedal almost certainly leads to a hot war with Iran. That sucks a lot.
  
  It’s not Americans. It’s just the far left brats that in one breath suggest the president have less authority, and then in the next- assume he has the authority to end wars in foreign countries.
  
  Found the genocide supporter
  
  Found the Trump supporter.
- We're all doormats unless we actually want to get involved militarily. No country wants to put its military on the ground in any of these places. Nobody gives enough of a shit to help the Armenians. Nobody gave enough of a shit to help the people of Hong Kong. Nobody gives enough of the shit to help the Kurds. Nobody gives enough of a shit to help basically anyone. There's frankly not enough money in it for corporations and not enough public support of it for politicians. So it ain't going to happen.

46 comments