- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politicalmemes@lemmy.world
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Perfect meme usage! Bravo!
Israel sells and donates weapons as we speak. It dosn’t need any help. Their industrial capacity allows them to produce more weaponry than they use in Gaza.
It dosn’t need any help. Their industrial capacity allows them to produce more
Arguably one of the reasons Israel gets so much aid is because it ensures that the Israeli defense industry can’t compete, functions as a subsidy for the US defense industry (and the millions employed by it), and serves US strategic interests. Relevant article:
Ie. US aid to Israel isn’t charity.
Similar story in Europe, despite Trump’s complaints. As Ukraine illustrates, Europe currently lacks the industrial base to support Ukraine on its own, arguably also due to an over-reliance on the US and its defense industry. Luckily Trump, and more recently republicans blocking Ukraine aid, are likely to accelerate a pivot away from the US and towards increasing self-reliance.
The fediverse is often very left wing, but I get the idea that this is a huge blind spot for a lot of people here. US foreign policy starts to make far more sense, when you realise the US defense industry is sizeable, employs a lot of people, and the US administration defends that industry accordingly.
Certainly makes far more sense than this idea that the US is somehow beholden to a tiny little country like Israel, chooses to give it billions in military aid because pro-Israeli pressure groups are somehow incredibly powerful, or that politicians support Israel out of idealism, while almost entirely ignoring the fact that a lot of them are backed or lobbied by the defense industry. Certainly no one goes around complaining about the pro-Taiwan lobby, when discussing US military aid to Taiwan.
This, this right here. The military-industrial complex is the reason we are so fast to invade countries in the Middle East but slow to withdraw. Eisenhower warned us about it, but we have not heeded those warnings in the modern era.
This was very informative, thank you. Seems like I’ve got more reading to do.
Seconded
Should we? Sure. But the whole point of Russia opening up this front was to divert weapons away from Ukraine. And Republicans will make it so.
We should also just divert republicans to an air drop in Russia.
Since they’re so patriotically Russian, and all.
Melt them down, liquidate the arms industry and move all their talent to aerospace.
We could have had a Startram for that money. We could have skipped fueling a few proxy wars and gone to Mars instead.
Ukraine isnt a proxy war, its Russian imperialism with an end goal of genocide.
Stopping that is mire important than Mars.
Then force the new aerospace talent to develop WH40K bolt guns which happen to be guns that shoot rocket powered projectiles.
Just send me through space in an unshielded craft please. I’ll just give myself up to the space ghosts.
Coast to coast?
Yeah, war is a gigantic waste of human effort and resources. I’m not sure going to mars should be our next goal either, maybe we could decarbonize our power grids or start reversing desertification first.
Those are much larger and complex ideas though, this meme is just about changing the delivery address on the stuff that’s already being shipped.
Bottom of the ocean. Better yet, recycling plant.
I mention the space industry because there’s a lot of overlap between that and the defense industrial complex in engineering terms. NRO had a couple hubble-sized telescopes laying around they built and didn’t use. USAF has their own space shuttle. They’re currently planning to update all of our ICBMs. They could move other payloads to orbit. We don’t even need ICBMs, with submarine-launched missiles, even the new ones will be obsolete bulls-eyes for nukes in the midwest.
The society that unilaterally decides it’s not interested in war gets conquered by the ones that don’t follow along. It’s an unfortunate reality, but history is full of civilizations that were largely peaceful and reaped the rewards that come with it, and were predated by other civilizations who kept the hard edge.
Si vis pacem, para bellum (If you want peace, prepare for war)
If you aren’t ready for war, you get conquered by a war monger. If you want to be at peace, you must be ready for war against those who want to conquer.
Are you implying a country whose economy depends on arms sales wants peace?
No, I’m saying that a nation that wants peace still needs to be ready for war, or they end up like Ukraine and are invaded. Ukraine is lucky that there are nations who supported them, because they gave up a lot of their defence for nothing. I didn’t mention any specific nation.
Anthony Blinken said “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”. The US sure lives by the law of the jungle in international relations. Although this has been the case for centuries, this style of foreign policy really got going with WWII. Our country’s war materiel production was behind what was necessary at the time to participate in a 2-front global war. Soldiers were training with cardboard weapons, but because we hadn’t outsourced our production offshore, we created an economy based on war that was so lucrative for business that that economy has lasted to this day. Such is it that a war economy itself can conquer a nation. Eisenhower warned about this in his farewell address.
There’s protecting a country from invasion, and then there’s basing a country’s whole economy on a continuation of arms sales. The latter provides a perverse incentive to destabilize regions in order to maintain demand for the American arms industry. In the case of defense of the US against invasion, are you honestly suggesting that the country with the highest private gun ownership rate in the world has that to fear in any scenario? Even if we did need a military at all, one that could appropriately be called a department of “defense” would be a tenth of its current size.
I wouldn’t suggest that the US is a happy medium for militarism, but the idea that you can melt down all the weapons and somehow maintain your peace in a world where there are characters like Putin is really dangerous.
The US foreign policy serves to create a demand for their arms industry. It’s counterproductive to maintaining peace. Drastic changes would need to take place for this to be a possibility. I’m in favor of those changes. The American military industrial complex is a bigger threat to Americans than Putin is. It’s certainly a bigger threat to other countries. The US has had no need to be involved in a conflict it’s been in for almost 80 years. The military has literally done us no good since Arpanet.
WE DEMAND THAT THE WEAPONS OF WAR ARE MANUFACTURED NO MORE DEMILITARISE
WE DEMAND THAT WE HAVE IN ITS PLACE A MEANS TO UNITE AND COLONISE SPACE
Google that if you like awesome weird music
Love that you think Israel and Ukraine are opposite sides. Who exactly is backing Palestine? Supplying them with weapons? Iran and Russia…
They are two different countries. The weapons would do a lot more good helping Ukraine repel the Russian invasion.
A single F35-L2 could completely dominate the nearest 300 kilometers of airspace uncontested. The best trained Ukrainian pilot would take, at the shortest, half a decade of practical training and years on multi-million dollar simulators to fly one. Not enough time to retake Ukraine from the pieces of Russian shit military. Meanwhile Israel have been training on F35s for the past 20 years.
Woah woah woah, hold on. This is LEMMY! We don’t appreciate rational thought around here!
Love that you seem to be defending a 60% civilian casualty rate in Gaza at the hands of the IDF.
There’s another poster here who is hinting that Russia are the good guys, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this person were hinting at that also rather than trying to say Palestinians are evil.
I wholeheartedly disagree with that sentiment, but it’s what some of the people in this thread are saying.
That thought never even crossed my mind, and is similarly absurd
Removed by mod
They’re doing a shit job all things considered
Maybe, just maybe, it’s not a coincidence that we’re supporting Israel, but that we actually might be the bad guys other places as well? Just a thought, since your post is titled after the slogan of genocidal nazis and our role in the lead up to the Russian invasion https://youtu.be/LL4eNy4FCs8
lemmy.ml home of Russian disinformation bots.
Thought about it. In 1939 the nazis used the same justifications to take czechoslovakia as the Russians are using today.
Interesting. Which ones, specifically?
“You are oppressing germans, your laws punishing german speakers is enough”
“You are trying to encircle us with defensive alliances”
"Czechcoslovakia doesn’t have any legitimacy "
“The rebellion in your territory is proof that your land should be ours”
“Germans and Czechs are basically the same people anyway, it’s those of you in the west who turned them against us”
“Without those mountains in the sudetenland how could germany protect ourselves”
All things the nazis said about the czechs, and all things I’ve heard from russia regarding ukraine
Ethno nationalist rhetoric and irredentism, the fascism wombo combo.
.ml indeed
Russia has killed over 30,000 civilians during their invasion. How can you justify that volume of carnage?
I believe the Ukrainian people have a right to their land, and to defend themselves against foreign occupation.
Russia is the aggressor, they need to stop this war and remove their military from Ukraine.
Who is justifying it? To be clear, I’m a pacifist and against all wars. I too believe in the self sovereignty of people. One can be against the Russian invasion, and for the peace treaty that was about to be signed spring 2022 before Boris Johnson came and put a stop to it. Diplomacy over bombs I say, but our leaders see it as economical to fund a war against Russia, so that Ukrainians can fight it instead of our guys. I think that’s inhumane and unwise.
I am also against war. I guess I was confused when you implied the US are the bad guys in the invasion of Ukraine.
There is only one country that can stop this war, and that’s Russia. To me that makes it pretty clear that if anyone were considered the ‘bad guys’ of the situation it would be them.
It doesn’t help that you’re repeating a lot of ugly propaganda; “Slava Ukraini” has been a popular phrase since the Ukrainian war for independence in 1917, it’s not a Nazi expression, it predates the existence of Nazis. It’s a symbol of Ukrainian sovereignty and resistance to foreign aggression.
since your post is titled after the slogan of genocidal nazis
It is. But I believe this war is stealing the slogan from them and eventually this will mean nothing.
Fuck Israel
Big brain idea, give the weapons to the Houthis, indigenous peoples of Canada, and random kids in SE Asia.
We’ll be like Santa Clause.
YOU GET A GUN. AND YOU GET A GUN. EVERYBODY GETS A GUUUUUUNNNN
-Oprah
I see someone got the joke. 😂
Here’s some bombs. Don’t blow them all in one place kid.
I don’t think we should bombing Yemen, or helping Saudi Arabia do it, but when you suggest giving guns to a group that calls for genocide in its motto you’re going to get pushback even as a “joke.”
We’re already giving guns to Israel, and arming a group calling for genocide has never bothered the US before.
I would go far enough to say it’s the American way. Manifest destiny and 2A for everyone! 😂
Anyway, we shouldn’t be arming anyone. Dumping lots of weapons doesn’t lead to great outcomes, and all it does is fuel violence. If not now, later.
