#moral equivalency

[qaraxuanzenith]

on moral equivalency

I've seen a lot of comments, most recently from one of the most well-intentioned people, listing hamas and hezbollah and the Israeli military all in one sentence as parts of the problem, and here is why that is not remotely okay or acceptable:

hamas and hezbollah are terrorist organizations that actively invaded civilians homes to torture, assault, murder, and abduct; who beheaded babies and paraded mutilated bodies through the streets and actively celebrate these atrocities.

the israeli military is the military of a sovereign country acting in what is a war situation, to counteract the threat of atrocities and war crimes being actively perpetrated by terrorist organizations, in order to restore safety to the citizenry.

and whether one is a pacifist who disagrees with the existence of militaries in general, or whether one disagrees with specific choices taken by the israeli military in particular, it is devastatingly misleading and unacceptable to phrase a sentence that makes it seem like accountability here is evenly divided between the israeli military, and the terrorists actively perpetrating AND CELEBRATING atrocities and war crimes against civilians.

and, with respect*, no matter anyone's perspective on the israeli government's attitude and actions toward palestinians, by no stretch of the imagination can those attitude and actions be described as war crimes, let alone gleeful celebration of war crimes.

there is a difference between "this is negative and i don't like it" and "these people are actively celebrating the mutilation of bodies, the torture of disabled, elderly, and children, the murder of hundreds including slaughtering an entire cohort of teens enjoying a concert as a holiday."

i respect not liking war and not liking militaries in general

but it's naive to be like "i don't like war and therefore the military that is responding in self-defense to the slaughter of hundreds of citizens and the wounding and abduction of hundreds more is also in the wrong."

there is doubtless nuance to every situation, but in this SPECIFIC case, statements that equate the two sides are misleading, insulting, and frankly dangerous inasmuch as they seem to offer some measure of justification to the actual war crimes being perpetrated and glorified on one side

all the things i alluded to are things that hamas has actually done, AND PUBLICIZED, in the past 72 hours.

right now, hundreds of people have literally been murdered in their homes by hamas, and hundreds of people have been literally dragged from their homes by hamas, assaulted, paraded through the streets, and abducted

including a good friend of my uncle, who is still missing.

i hope she returns home safely. i hope she is able to return to doing peace activist work.

but the israeli military ATTEMPTING TO ENSURE HER SAFE RETURN HOME is not part of the problem in this specific scenario.

in fact, when the IDF does operations to take out hamas targets, they actually notify the area through several methods in advance, and ask all civilians to go somewhere else where they will be safe.

whereas hamas has been known to store weapons in the basements of schools and to shoot rockets from hospitals, and to prevent civilians from leaving

*with respect to the very well-intentioned if naive person whose comment initially sparked me saying that; no respect at all to people who definitely know better and are still trying to frame this in moral equivalency terms on purpose

[kforourke]

Charlie Foxtrot

The last few news cycles have been packed, so it's understandable if you missed the Biden administration's recent decision to send cluster munitions—also known as cluster bombs—to Ukraine.

I'm not alone in disagreeing with this decision; The New York Times editorial board noted that cluster munitions are not "a weapon that a nation with the power and influence of the United States should be spreading."

What, then, are these things? And why are some people (myself included!) so opposed to the use of cluster munitions?

Briefly, cluster munitions are "any of a number of weapons systems which ... deliver clusters of smaller explosive submunitions onto a target," according to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. They have a "propensity to leave behind large numbers of unexploded remnants which exact an even greater indiscriminate toll amongst civilians."

The weapons we're sending to Ukraine contain 88 "bomblets" in each round, and each "bomblet has a lethal range of about 10 square meters, so a single canister can cover an area up to 30,000 square meters (about 7.5 acres), depending upon the height it releases the bomblets."

This is obviously bound to cause harm after the war is over. How much harm is the question—tracking mine and cluster-munition injuries is difficult, and the data are poor.

The Global Burden of Disease doesn't include separate causes for mine or munition-related injuries/deaths (they're lumped under "conflict and terrorism"), and the ICD-10 doesn't even include a code relating specifically to cluster munitions; Y36.81, "explosion of mine placed during war operations but exploding after cessation of hostilities," comes closest.

Nonetheless, even if the data are poorly classified and/or underreported, land mines, cluster munitions, and other "explosive remnants of war" (ERW) clearly constitute an ongoing threat.

Stats: during the Vietnam War, the US military dropped more than 250 million cluster munitions, of which 9 to 27 million unexploded submunitions remain. And according to the Landmine & Cluster Munition Monitor, "since global tracking began in 1999 the Monitor has recorded more than 122,000" casualties due to land mines and/or ERW.

Here, from the same organization, is a map showing current (2018) cluster munition "contamination" around the world. Red and dark red = bad.

To put the harm cluster munitions cause in more human terms, here's a picture of farmers from Vietnam who were injured by leftover bomblets.

Of course, not everyone agrees that the US shouldn't send Ukraine cluster munitions.

Turkiye began sending Ukraine cluster munitions earlier this year, and Russia has been using them against Ukraine for some time, as the Washington Post's Max Boot points out:

Boot's use of the term moral equivalence—even if he's denying that there is one in this case—brings to mind Noam Chomsky's characteristically forceful take on the phrase:

"Moral equivalence is a term of propaganda that was invented to try to prevent us from looking at what the acts for which we are responsible ... I reject that reasoning."

Perhaps a simpler way to look at this whole clusterfuck is: two wrongs don't make a right. Take it away, Barrett Strong.

...

Header image via Wikimedia Commons.

Cluster bomb victims' hands also via Wikimedia Commons.

Etymology bonus: the term "clusterfuck," in the sense of "bungled or confused undertaking" or "fuckup," arose as military slang during the Vietnam War.

When referring to a clusterfuck over the radio, or in the presence of parties they'd rather not curse in front of, members of the military would instead refer to something as a "Charlie Foxtrot," hence the title of this piece.

[lgbtlunaverse]

The thing we have to remember about MXTX calling wangxian "ideal characters" in a moral sense in an interview is that her previous work was scum villain. And in comparison... *looks at Bingqiu*

Yeah, wangxian have never done anything wrong in their life.

[ghost-bxrd]

Prompt:

Duke doesn’t know what’s going on with the crime lord that sometimes is, and then again isn’t allowed at the cave.

All he knows is that the mood of the entire manor takes a nose dive each and every time there‘s an altercation with him, and everybody goes out of their way to NOT explain anything to Duke.

So, as the only one in the manor with more than one brain cell dedicated to proper human interaction, he decides to take the easiest route and just ask Red Hood himself. Considering he‘s the only one the guy hasn’t tried to maim at least once.

[charmwasjess]

Whatever you do, don’t think about how happy Sifo-Dyas must have been that last time with Dooku on Serenno. He’d been fired as a Seeker, lost his seat on the Jedi Council, had the worst rounds of visions of his life, and finally, finally, someone is listening to him, someone believes him, someone gets it.

He’s back with his best friend who promised to help him save the galaxy, like the two of them were made to do together. Like they always knew they were going to do.

[dreamerdrop]

holding garak responsible for his behaviour on empok nor is kinda ridiculous for a number of reasons, one of which is obviously the fantastical nature of specifically what happened there in the first place, but. i gotta say.

if someone was slowly induced into a state of psychosis, dosed with utterly absurd amounts of basically amphetamines against their will, and then placed into a situation that involved them being encouraged to murder at least two people in the name of self defense, if they went ahead and flipped out and tried to kill everyone else present at the time, well—

i think i would forgive a real world human for that too, honestly. i do not think that would be their fault. i would think that situation was fucked up and they (and everyone else) were gonna need therapy forever and ever but that was not their fuckin’ fault.

[skelecentral]

Wasn’t gonna post this because it’s only semi-UT related, but. I really wanted to lmaooo— here’s my faeu self insert (post-turned-fae!)

Faeu is by @/antlered-prince

[probablyaparadox]

Shanks’ crew is really out here taking out every punk aesthetic pirate they see what did the punks ever do to you dress better than you???

[yakitori-queen]

all the advice on moral ocd ive been trying to find online is like "well you cant ever know for sure if youre a good or bad person you just gotta learn to live with the uncertainty" like yea thats the point brother. you nailed the exact thing i dont know how to do

[starscreamingg]

Detroit Become Human and why does this game decide that the problem in society is individual people treating androids poorly because those androids are choking them out of the workforce and NOT the corporations and governments who deliberately designed the androids to do this

[greensaplinggrace]

the darkling says “fine, make me your villain” because he is. what’s not clicking

[khanumshahrzad]

<3

[astranauticus]

inspired by this tweet that fuckin sent me for some reason

[darkfoxkirin]

Dracula Miguel and villager Miles!

Miles' mother is gravely ill and the only way for Miles to get the money she needs for her medical bills is to agree to become the vampire lord's thrall and resident blood bag.

[tarisilmarwen]

Right, so if you’re gonna equivocate Ezra siccing the purrgils on the Seventh Fleet (a very valid military target) with anything Thrawn did in service to the Empire, you don’t get to have an opinion on anything.

[ratnix]

Something that I think is really funny is that the word Anaklysmos (Riptide) doesn't even exist, it's just a combination of a suffix that means above and the verb κλύζω which means to ripple😭 [Help, even my Greek keyboard doesn't even recognize the word]

I read these books when I was 12 and as a native Greek speaker that also studied ancient Greek for 6 years, I fully thought this was an actual word because it sounds Greek but it's not 😭 Mf Rick Riordan gaslit me in my own language. Apparently he asked an ancient Greek professor and told him that this was the closest word he could use but like, my question is why😭? There are so many already existing words that are related to the sea and even if they don't directly translate to 'Riptide', just pick a Greek word and paraphrase it when translating it to English like it's not hard 😭