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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 6, 2025

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The international rule of law and American, Israeli, warmongering, and hegemony is something quite different.

You cannot stretch the first to encompass the later. Toppling countries for the sake of dominating them or increasing your or Israel hegemony counts obviously as a violation of international rule of law. But also the USA gave the go ahead to Turkey and Israel to commit aggressive war in Syria and expand their territory.

The USA does not obey the international court of justice on its declaration of Israel's genocide and Netanyahou arrest warrant. It threatened it in regards to the Iraq war.

So it is disingenuous for your neocon take to be presented as a defense of international rule of law. The neocons are against the international rule of law but for using it as an excuse.

Moreover, obviously countless wars of aggression are started by painting the other side as aggressors, wannabee imperialists, oppressors of minorities, etc, etc. The rhetoric about everyone being Hitler is used to do just that.

The destruction of Syria, Libya, Iraq, the countless color revolutions, even the Ukraine episode that involved the shelling of Russian areas, is not. Color revolutions and subversion of countries through your intelligence services, is also a form of aggression, imperialism. Since you create puppets and expand your circles of influence and hegemony.

I actually wouldn't mind if the USA was a dissuading power against China and Russia from screwing over other countries. But the American conduct isn't to protect the weak and not intervene in other countries except to protect.

I actually like the idea of international rule of law in combination with some dose of realism which combines a general idea of such law and to be used by powers against others. So the norm is strong and powers have the ability to use it to dissuade each other. Then an understanding of red lines and trying to find a modus vivendi and compromise to the level that aggressive war is avoided.

For example, Ukraine should not have made moves against Russian language and been ruled in 2010s in a manner that was inclusive of Russian speakers. Just one example. Another reason to encourage compromise by various powers is to avoid escalation.

USA defying international rule of law while pretending otherwise, and allowing other countries to do as well, will lead to antagonistic countries to the USA that are powerful to do so likewise.

The general narrative about the good Israel and the good USA and bad never ending Hitlers and antisemites, is a narrative that tries to excuse enormous war crimes, aggressive conduct, and to ensure that in an orwelian manner International law is doubly violated. Both violated in practice, but while claiming to be fulfilled which is another violation.

WW2 = good wasn't about the Holocaust at the time - we didn't know about the Holocaust at the time the key wartime propaganda was being made (Casablanca is still a great movie, but at a technical level so was Triumph of the Will). It was about Hitler being a madman bent on world domination through aggressive war.

Hitler wanted imperialist expansion but wasn't a madman who was bent on world domination and the USA and USSR also were motivated by imperialist expansion. Hitler was also motivated by crushing Bolshevism and Jewish influence to communism and the enormous threat of the soviet army. If you removed the German army from the picture in the 1930s, you would get Europe conquered by the soviets. Especially if there is no American intervention against the Soviets. The USA during WW2 also wasn't just motivated by geopolitical interests but also by the fact that its goverment was infiltrated by plenty of communist agents.

Which doesn't mean that Hitler wasn't an imperialist and even willing to do plenty of attrocities and treat the conquered peoples cruelly. The USA on the long term has shown an ideology that is very hostile to the survival of european peoples but on the short term its hegemony was of a less cruel nature. But you presented a caricature. You can present Hitler in a negative way without exaggeration.

Stalin too was an imperialist but not ONLY motivated by that, but also by a fear of the German army.

Both Hitler and Stalin made war in Europe for dominance over it inevitable. I would consider Stalin along with Hitler the two leaders most responsible for widespread destructive war in Europe during ww2. They are also blamewothy for cruel conduct. Howver much of the rhetoric here washes way too much American attrocities including complicity with soviet conduct. Anyway both Stalin and Hitler were definitely motivated not just by imperialist designs but by reasonable fear of each other power.

Stalin attacked various countries too before the invasion of the Soviet Union and planned his own invasion. That Hitler attacked the Soviet Union first does not mean that the Soviet Union isn't also significantly to blame for World War 2. The USA then also wanted world war 2, and was pretty firmly on the soviet side. But one can understand even such figures without making them complete caricatures.

Also, in regards the whole Jews and communist question. The Jews were very overepresented among political comisars and of course American communists and among some of the worst mass murderers of modernity have been Jewish communists who were active in the first half of 20th century. East Europeans who turned against Soviet Union during WW2 including some who fought along with Germans had experienced a genuine murderous oppression. Jews in the USSR had played a disproportionate role in oppressing them and in atrocities. Germans commited of course plenty of their own attrocities against east europeans and their has been an east european versus German violence too at end of ww2.

There has even been a mutual genocide between Polish and Ukrainians, which I also add here to provide some more nuance.

This is to say that WW2 does not fit into the narrative of the avenging oppressed Jew who is only oppressed and justifiably must do violence against his insane conspiracy theorist amalek evil ethnic group enemies that must be destroyed. But I wouldn't consider all ethnic groups as equally bad behaving neither. I see the Germans as more blameworthy during ww2 when they were on top and consider the morality that they adopted under Nazi Germany to be of a more ultranationalist character. I consider the Jews a group very willing to abuse their power to harm others when they are on top, and to have retained an extreme nationalist mentality, and not only something that came and passed. Although during the theater of WW2 were of course targeted for violence by the Nazis, were therefore more mistreated during this historical episode. Although they had their own share even during ww2 of violence as political comisars or as influence through their influence in the USA. And obviously prior and of course strongly pushing the ethnic destruction and replacement and minoritarization of european countries, and not just Germany after ww2. Including attacking the very legitimacy of european ethnic identities and their survival.

But WW2 is so focused because it provides helpful cherry picking, in combination of course with exaggerated un nuanced one sided narratives even regarding WW2. Since of course it is morally absurd to forget the enormous mass murders that happened prior to WW2 and the strong participation of Jewish figures as some of the biggest protagonists. Especially as part of Communist movement.

East Europeans I see as also not people who have unbloody hands (including as part of USSR, it doesn't make sense to pin all of its crimes on Jews or on Stalin as only central figure and everyone else as automatons, or on supposedly ethnic-less amorphous communists, especially since some of the Soviet conduct had an ethnic revenge angle towards the Germans. But the Soviet union also targeted various ethnic groups not just Germans, and it targeted Germans even before 1939 too) but I wouldn't treat them as equally cruel and sadistic as German mentality under Nazis or Jewish mentality. And they have been targeted more than they targeted. And less (but not entirely, it would one sided and caricature to say this is 100%) the ones who started at least in regards to certain scale of atrocities. So I sympathize more with them, even though to an extend it doesn't make sense to put different non Jewish east Europeans in the same category.

And the fact that I am willing to acknowledge the more predatory nature of others is not an endorsement of any atrocity. While some of the behavior and violence have been of a more imperialist, predatory form. Or particularly disproportionate, it would be erroneous understanding of WW2 to forego the elements of violence that follows previous violence (that sometimes follows previous violence). But also plenty of violence that isn't about any revenge but targeting a weaker group.

Since avoiding an end point where different ethnic groups trying to kill each other is one of the lessons to get from WW2 and you don't learn this lesson through the caricatured picture of ww2. Even the biased wikipedia has some examples of Soviet genocides after ww2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes.

And so, it isn't as clear case of good triumphing in WW2, now is it?

Some interesting blog posts in regards to some of the issues I mentioned:

https://jottopohl.substack.com/p/title

https://jottopohl.substack.com/p/a-short-statistical-view-of-jews

I will repeat once again that remove Wehrmacht and the bigger and more mobilized soviet army that was going to defeat the Germans if the Germans didn't attack first while it was within mobilization, was going to conquer whole of Europe (unless a nuclear USA was to stop them). And of course the Soviets stopped the Germans not only from conquering the Soviet Union but remaining in a much stronger position in other parts of Europe. This undermines the pro soviet narrative although only to a degree. Still you shouldn't thank people who are against your enemy who are also your enemy and oppressor. It is true that without soviet blood and army the Germans control Europe, unless the USA starts throwing nukes. But I wouldn't thank neither, and even the American "help" although helped against an immediate great oppressive evil, has come with an enormous price for Europe on the long term. And during WW2 although not as much as Germany or Soviet Union, the USA did have some of its own atrocities. (Morthenthau plan, its firebombings and more). Including in collaboration with the soviet union, deporting people who moved from the soviet union to the west, back to the Soviet Union to be mass murdered. This atrocity involved more than a million people IIRC.

Never in its history has the USA been on the level of morally good that fits the picture you are presenting here, including during WW2, of course the cold war, and in the 21st century it has probably been the power that caused most life loss both through war, sanctions, color revolutions, creating power vacuums, supporting Jihadist rebels, and giving the go ahead to other badly motivated powers (not sure how to apportion American responsibility for harm done by allies in conduct that it supports and collaborates and even supplies). Learning about things like Yinon plan and Israel's plan to increase hegemony through destabilization of neighboring Arab countries, provides better understanding of middle east policy than convenient false narrative about never ending Hitlers justifying such disastrous conduct.

This brings in mind a certain parable. There is a bad Samaritan who claims to be a good Samaritan who likes to go and find people who have been in motorcycle accidents and remove their helmet, in an attempt to help them, he always says. However this doesn't work and the people die. And he keeps doing it. At some point, one should question his great intentions even if he constantly claims to be a good Samaritan and that only bad people would ever insinuate otherwise.

If the people having such plans were doing so with the best intentions as if any foreign policy establishment has a goal to save the world from evil, then they will be pretty stupid to catastrophically bring immoral ends time and time again. They aren't that stupid but are willing to promote a fake moralistic narrative.

It would be preferable if the USA was to behave more in line with the international rule of law. Trump's bullying of Denmark, would of course also deviate from that.

The USA does not obey the international court of justice on its declaration of Israel's genocide and Netanyahou arrest warrant. It threatened it in regards to the Iraq war.

You confused your international law bodies and what they did.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is part of the UN, did not issue an arrest warrant on Netanyahu.

The ICJ did issue provisional measures to 'prevent genocide'- but did not make a finding that genocide had occurred. (That is the point on ongoing litigation that is the geopolitical football being used for domestic politics by various countries- whether efforts by the Israelis (and/or US) are sufficient enough to meet the bar.) While there are certain elements of the ongoing litigation that might raise some eyebrows- such as accuser efforts to substitute expanded definitions of genocide in lieu of more restrictive standards, the reliance on Hamas-provided casualty figures that regularly fail analytic scrutiny to justify civilian death toll claims, or the lack by any accuser to provide a baseline estimate of militant-to-civilian casualties that might be used to judge Israel's impact against civilians in an ongoing urban conflict zone compared to contemporary urban warfare examples that were not genocidal- they are ultimately not relevant until the ICJ makes a further determination.

Until such time as the ICJ makes a further determination, there is no further element for the US or Israel to 'obey' beyond what they are already claim they are doing- not commit genocide.

The International Criminal Court (ICC), which is not part of the UN, was the body that issued the arrest warrant for Netanyahu.

While the ICJ did kindly issue an arrest warrant for already-dead Hamas leader Sinwar in a show of balance, the ICC warrant- by the nature of the ICC-being a Treaty-based institution rather than a UN body- faces significant jurisdictional challenges. While the ICC did graciously grant itself jurisdiction over the Gaza Strip despite no ICC member having ever held territorial control or jurisdiction of the Gaza strip while a party to the ICC, that does not change that the ICC's treaty limits its applicability to ICC-treaty members and their territory... of which about half the world, including the Israelis and Americans, are not. It is the internal law legal duty of court members- notably every European Union country due to the EU's policy of making ICC membership a requirement- to honor such warrants, but not non-members. While there are certainly grounds to protest the objections of the French, the Poles, the Germans, and so on for resisting that, those are other people.

Until such time that the US and the Israelis are members of the ICC, there are no internal law obligations on them to obey the ICC.