“The truth is that from a legal perspective, these resolutions are not complicated,” Sanders said during a press conference Tuesday, alongside Sens. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.; Peter Welch, D-Vt.; and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore. “They are cut and dry. The United States government is currently in violation of the law, and every member of the Senate who believes in the rule of law should vote for these resolutions.”
Despite aid groups reporting that Israel has continued to block humanitarian aid into Gaza, the White House overlooked the blown deadline last week, saying that it will continue to provide weapons to Israel. The decision stands in direct violation of existing U.S. law preventing the government from sending weapons to countries that block U.S.-backed humanitarian assistance.
With the Biden administration unwilling to act and legislation targeting pro-Palestinian nonprofits still advancing, pro-Palestinian advocates and their allies in Congress argue that passing the joint resolutions is likely the last real opportunity for Democrats to address the crisis in Gaza before Republicans take control in January.
Despite Democrats’ unwillingness to vote for conditioning military aid to Israel in the past, Araabi hopes that at least some of the lame-duck senators who won’t be returning in January will take this opportunity to cement an anti-genocide record.
Their answers depend entirely on how much Lockheed Martin pays them.
Their corporate paymasters in the arms industry say no.
Do you want the short answer or the long answer?
Well just to prevent me from having to come back to answer
Short Answer: No
Long Answer: Lol, no
Any Democrat that sits on this, instead of voting in line with Sanders and other voices of conscience, is supporting Trump at this point.
The party line that Trump will be worse for Palestine will no longer work. And I will be writing the Democrat from my state to let them know as much.
Biden is lobbying against Sanders, even now. The guy has essentially King’s powers and he’s using them be a doddering, feckless war criminal.
Yeah, I saw that this morning. Biden has gone full mask off at this point. Old and nothing to lose but his pride.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Biden WANTED Trump to win
There’s been a lot of speculation claiming exactly that. I think it’s a stretch.
But, if your actions are causing people to make that type of speculation, a normal person would at least take some time for self reflection.
Whether true or not, it’s a bad look.
Whatever legacy Biden hoped to leave is irrevocably trashed IMHO.
If the Duopoly works together to stay in power it’s a pretty effective way of preventing any real opposition from forming.
Most people still think it’s red vs blue, when for the last 50 years in the US it’s been rich vs poor.
Did you forget that democrats supported the attack on gaza?
Jfc have some self awareness and realize both sides are doing this bullshit.
To be fair, an attack on Gaza was perfectly justified by Oct 7. The ongoing genocide was not.
I’m quite aware.
Which was the point of my post had you bothered to look past your own knee-jerk reaction.
He didnt forget, he just doesnt care. Most dems dont care at all about browns in other countries. They occassionally pretend to, for whatever reason, but they are well aware that some bad stuff happen to keep the wheels of the empire oiled.
Fuck the personal attacks you don’t know me.
Which is obvious because you just misgendered me.
If I didn’t care why did I even bother saying anything or seeing how my senator is going to vote on this yesterday?
Are you doing shit other than sitting on your hands saying oh I guess it’s over?
Don’t even bother responding I’ve already blocked.
Youre giving the same vibes as OP youre not any better buddy. Do you notice the similarity? Both of you attack each side and associate each other with bad decisions when the decisions are shared by both parties.
If anything i hope you are able to see that rather than get a knee jerk response and block people
oh no, bad vibes is it. I run the risk of not being “any better”? You seem to think its all about perceived superiority in this trashheap of a party and election outcome that we are all sitting in together.
Did it maybe occurr to you that I’m giving off the same vibes as OP because I agree with OP?
Dems could have come out en masse for “uncommitted” in the primary and most of them chose not to. It would have cost them nothing, Biden still would have won but he’d have received a message against genocide sent pretty loudly, but nope, anyone who suggested it was shouted down by their fellow dems. Seems to prove that most of them wont lift a finger for their principles even if its completely free. So that proves what I said about Dems pretending to care about the genocide.
and so what if I block people? How does that affect you in any way? It doesnt.
Well shit that explains it. To be fair it is all about perceived superiority with people who complain about parties, people who like to generalize people in a group into the same couple of categories.
If people stopped bitching less about parties and actually complained together on certain issues we would have a less divisive and focused society. Instead all i hear is constant blaming and it does nothing but rile you guys up with nothing to do with that energy.
Yes i agree certain dems in power are part of the problem but the same goes with the rep. There we got that established. Instead of continuously repeating that same fact in different conversations what are YOU gonna do about it?
Blocking me only brings me a good chuckle, as for you, blocking everyone you dont agree with only keeps you closed minded and fragile which is not what we want, right?
blocking everyone you dont agree with only keeps you closed minded and fragile
I dont block everyone, I block the dumbest and the worst trolls who derail and degrade the comment flow.
It’s only because this Senate session is under Democratic control that this is being voted on in the first place. After the new year, and new session, it will be under Republican control, and something like this will never make it to the floor. So yeah, penalize those that will allow a vote versus those that won’t. Same thought process that gives you President Trump.
Writing my senator isn’t penalizing anyone. Nice straw man though.
You are penalizing yourself, so have at it.
Well since I’m penalizing myself by talking to you, since you don’t seem to have any intellectual honesty, I guess I will just block you.
Thanks for pointing it out.
So now you’re a coward
Spoiler alert: no.
Probably not. US international relations is heavily driven by an amoral power calculus.
Israel is a major foil to Iran. Iran is an ally of Russia and China and a threat to US interests in the region. Barring an extreme amount of pressure from constituents, which has not reached that threshold as far as I can tell, most US politicians will tolerate almost any human rights abuse from Israel.
This is superficial. Neither Russia nor China are particularly antagonistic to Israel or the Gulf states, even if they see the US as a foe in their own region. Russia for example is very careful about balancing its relations with the Gulf, Israel and Iran. China, views Iran as a potential foothold to the region, but China actually benefits from the US presence, it is far more energy import dependent than the US and has no desire to fuel instability by helping Iran pursue offensive goals.
The actual reason that Iran and the USA are enemies has to do with the US’ sectarian alignment with Sunni powers and Jewish nationalism, and more complicated reasons relating to politicial and religious struggles in the entire region that Iran happens to be one side of (i.e anti-monarchism, clericism, etc). And an institutional (and not necessarily rational) hatred of Iran in the US top brass due to its role in helping Iraqis and Lebanese fight American soldiers.
You cannot talk about this issue in terms of “Russia-China-Iran” balancing without mentioning the deeper and much more relevant issues that make US-Israel relationship exceptional on a globsl level: post-Holocaust philosemetism, anti-Islamism, anti-Arabism and (very underreported) Christian piety that actually motivates US-Israel policy. And the Israel lobby, which is so deeply engrained that Israel is treated more or less like the 51st state.
Politics goes far beyond amoral power calculus. You could have justified a ceasefire and even an embargo on Israeli arm transfers in accordance to amoral power calculus, but for Biden, Blinken and the rest, this is a moral question relating to a transcendent moral and religious cause, steeped in centuries of historical memory.
I have zero doubt that Joe Biden believes that by helping murderous racist Netanyahu slaughter and expel the people of Gaza, he has placed himself in the company of Cyrus the Great and other deliverers of Jews rather than Idi Amin and Radovan Karadzic. The GOP puts such things in explicitly religious terms and thus appear less rational or calculating. But it’s not even that well-hidden in the case of Biden and Blinken given what we know of their careers and lives.
That’s a great analysis. Do you have any books or articles to share on the subject?
If the logic is “selling these is causing war crimes” they’d have to defined the entire US military. The US regularly breaks the same laws.
Can you give an example from, say, the last decade? Just one example will do.
Not this decade, but during the battles of Fallujah we gave the civilians there 24 hours to evacuate, and then after that the official rules of engagement were pretty damn close to “everyone left is presumed to be an Al Qaeda militant.” They were allowed to shoot people with phones or radios in their hands on sight. We also bombed the fuck out of that city, including with white phosphorous. We know WP was used because there was a recorded friendly fire incident with it.
And all of this was basically reprisal for the killings of those four Blackwater mercenaries.
The reason white phosphorus was used in Fallujah. If you’ve ever been to an Arab city, you’ll note that sometimes in markets, cloth is hung over the streets. This cloth provides shade to shoppers. Fallujah had more of that than usual, it masked movement from sight overhead. So, to get rid of it, they dropped white phosphorus to burn it away.
A logical and strategic justification. Still a literal warcrime.
Nope. Wrong on the law.
Protocol on incendiary weapons states that using them in civilian area, such as in a marketplace in an urban area that was not properly evacuated, is prohibited.
And we actually signed that one, which is surprising considering how many protocols and treaties we are not party to.
It was used as flares not as an incendiary.
Not really. White phosphorus is used for many things, mostly making smoke. It only becomes a crime when you use it against people.
And, blocked user. You have yourself a nice day now “rapidcreek”
Sorry if the truth offends you.
Well, let’s see what Chuck Schumer probably thinks…
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary?cycle=All&ind=Q05&recipdetail=S
Number 7 on one of the few bipartisan lists in DC, nestled right between hos buddies Mitch McTurtle and Rafael “Ted” Cruz…
One of the few areas Biden is really head and shoulders above the rest though.
But Israel pays way too much money to both parties for either party’s leaders to actually do what’s best for America.
They’re gonna do what’s best for their campaign donations.
Edit:
Since some people may be surprised number 2 doesn’t sound familiar, it’s this guy:
One of the most corrupt Dems to ever be held accountable (technically the trial is still happening).
He was Hillary’s co-campaign chair in 07 when she lost to Obama, and then Obama made him chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for some fucking reason. He was indicted shortly after in 2018, but charges were then dropped for 5 years till 2023 when he was committing crimes and accepting bribes from foreign government with a legitimately trumpian level of skill at hiding his crimes.
Like, at one point I remember him trying to argue that storing gold bars inside of the suits in his closet was a totally normal thing and not related to him googling how to smuggle gold bars into America while he was in Qatar and just accepted gold bars as bribe…
What’s best for America is containing Iran.
So… Not sure what your going on about. It would be grossly negligent for a US president to break or alliance with Israel and let Iran run the middle east for the next century. You think human rights are under threat now, but you think we should let Iran run things. Seems either ignorant or hypocritical.
The actual conviction that a fucking shia state is going to create a hegemony without a belligerent Israel to counterbalance them is laughable. The only reason they get as much support as they do now is because everyone fucking hates us more. Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia are plenty to counterbalance Iran when push comes to shove. Though I don’t consider the Saudis much better. Pan Arabisim specifically discounts Persians and they will react to Iran being a significant threat, even if Turkey and Egypt play nice right now.
The only thing Israel will give the US is a causus beli to go to war with Iran, which is a war the US certainly does not have the conviction to win.
With hundreds of millions of lives on the line, nobody should count on religious fanatics to be rational. They aren’t rational.
A hedgemony without Isreal is laughable, I agree. I’m not sure what you’re getting at though because Israel, and it’s nuclear armament, isn’t going anywhere. That’s the worry: that Iran, with the power of God on its side, will think it could actually defeat Israel and decide to shoot its shot. They cannot beat Israel. It’s not a successful pan-islamic caliphate seated in Tehran that I’m worried about.
I’m worried about the aspiring caliphate that wants to destroy Israel and thinks its ordained to do so. It’s great that Egypt and Saudi Arabia will resist Iran, but it won’t be before at least tens or even hundreds of millions of war refugees flee the area. Where are they going to go? They’re going to head to North Africa, the Mediterranean Coast, eastern Europe, central Africa, south western Asia. What’s going to happen to those economies and governments? Maybe not all of the surrounding states will collapse, but some of them will for sure. And then what will happen to all the people that live in these collapsing countries, not to mention Iran itself?
You’re trying to downplay the seriousness of the threat posed by a fanatic government in Iran because it believes in a model of government that we, as rational people know cannot sustain from its geopolitical position.
What I’m saying is that it will cost tens of millions of lives for Iran to learn that lesson. Tens of millions of more people will be victims of strained economies and governments, many of whom will likely fall permanently into nation-states of Islamic fascism. The strategy of the western world in the middle east needs to be one based on helping Iran understand that it will not win a war against Israel, despite Iran’s sincere conviction that it has God in its side.
America absolutely has the conviction to make sure Iran is not successful. Every president in modern memory has said in no uncertain terms that Iran will not develop nuclear weapons while they are in office. The Pentagon’s war plans for a war between Iran and Israel calls for millions of American troops on the ground in Israel.
In any event, the 50,000 dead in Gaza will be a forgettable drop in the bucket compared to the casualties that start tallying up if Iran declares war. It would be pretty stupid for America to change its Middle East policy because Israel went ham on 50,000 people when a change in America’s policy is likely to prompt a war that will kill millions of people and displace possibly hundreds of millions. It took a year for 50,000 people to die in Gaza; try to imagine what it would be like when 50,000 people are dying everyday before lunchtime.
So let’s just be clear that anyone saying that America should pull its support for Israel is not saying so because of any sincere desire to save lives or preserve human rights.
You speak with both sides of your mouth. Somehow America is preventing Iran from invading Israel while also Iran is a loose cannon that will invade anyway. It’s horseshit. The one who’s going to start a war is Israel. They’re the ones committing genocide and they’re the ones who actually put boots on the ground in other countries while flagrantly violating the Geneva convention. That’s the powder keg the US has enabled and will continue to enable by giving full support to fascist governments. It won’t provide stability or security. All it provides is an absolute liability. And you’re beyond delusional if you think Americans will accede to the Pentagon’s war plans once the bodies start flying in.
You speak with both sides of your mouth. Somehow America is preventing Iran from invading Israel while also Iran is a loose cannon that will invade anyway.
It’s horseshit. The one who’s going to start a war is Israel. They’re the ones committing genocide and they’re the ones who actually put boots on the ground in other countries while flagrantly violating the Geneva convention. That’s the powder keg the US has enabled and will continue to enable by giving full support to fascist governments. It won’t provide stability or security. All it provides is an absolute liability. And you’re beyond delusional if you thinkAmericans will accede to the Pentagon’s war plans once the bodies start flying in.Hmm okay, your strong feelings aside, no, Iran is not likely to invade Israel if we maintain the existing defensive posture, which we will, and which includes the threat of American air support and ground troops, and which, brace yourself, has been working very effectively.
The Supreme Leader can throw the hardliners a few “crumbs” such as October 7 to say “see look how hard our boys are fighting the infidels, hang in there were gonna win this thing” and they will keep the immamate in power, keep relative peace in downtown Tehran, mask on. The problem is the supreme leader, being as he is a human, might have faculties that start to deteriorate and the seat of his power might start being exercised irrationally.
I’m going to assume now that since you suppose to know what Americans will accede to you are American. Your general opinion as to Gaza aren’t shared by virtually anyone in Washington, DC. And obviously you know, rhetoric aside, you live in a liberal democracy for which you are pretty thankful. You can do the math, which is objective, but you must know that your description of Israel as anything other than a flawed, young liberal democracy, is not taken as anything more than hyperbole. Obviously Israel is not a fascist government, nor is the US government, as long as our liberal democratic institutions stand. Hamas, the Iranian immamate, the Qatari royal family, on the other hand, whose general rhetoric as to Gaza you agree with, are actually fascists: no trial by jury, no due process, no electoral oversight, no judicial oversight, laws can be changed at the whim of church muckity mucks, any rights granted can be as instantly taken, religious police, with summary executions, are an actual thing in Iran, in Qatar, in Gaza. Ya know, for-real fascism, no rhetoric.
So you should at least ask why you are siding with actual for-real fascists against the virtually unanimous opinions of your own liberal democratic government’s leadership, and not even with their TV news rhetoric, but with their actual votes in Congress. Do you have any sense of dissonance here? If you think they are all wrong, that I’m wrong, and that you have it all figured out, maybe you can offer some explanation for the fact that despite the horrific “fully fascist” genocide, going on more than a year, 99% of everyone in Gaza is still alive. Seems like you’re the one who’s talking out of both sides of your mouth.
Oh of course, who ever heard of a neoliberal state going off the rails and planning delusional foreign policy. I’m obviously some way off base nutjob for suggesting such a thing. Since you want to deny the genocide that’s happening, though, I don’t really see the point in continuing.
One of the few areas Biden is really head and shoulders above the rest though.
You get that result if you set the filter to “all” election cycles, but not if you set it to one of the more recent ones. The “all” figure is influenced by the fact that Biden is old and has been through many election cycles.
The “all” figure is influenced by the fact that Biden is old and has been through many election cycles.
Compared to all the sprin chickens on the list like Mitch McConnell?
