I think providing a nationstate bombs and missiles (as aid) is so distinct from a police department purchasing guns from a foreign company that the comparison can’t even be taken seriously
Not to mention at all the obsurdity of comparing targeted police brutality against POC and an apartheid state systematically killing and forcibly relocating 5.04 million Palestinians from their home.
Bombs and guns are both capable of killing. I don’t see why the US should be responsible for Palestinians killed with US made bombs if Austria is not responsible for Americans killed with Austrian made guns.
Do you think moral responsibility depends on the size of the explosion? That’s hard to take seriously. So if the US only provided guns to Israel, that would be OK?
I don’t see why the US should be responsible for Palestinians killed with US made bombs if Austria is not responsible for Americans killed with Austrian made guns.
Because the US is gifting those weapons for no other reason than for Israel to use them, be it against Hamas or Palestinians writ-large. Austria is simply the origin of a private company selling weapons to american pigs, but Austria could not be said to be “providing lethal aid” by any stretch of meaning.
There’s a legitimate discussion for the culpability of arms manufacturers in the use of their products for murder and terror under a capitalist system, but it is of a fundamentally different scale and nature of a Nationstate providing arms at no cost to another for the use in an internationally recognized genocide. A private company could be said to be acting purely in their financial self-interest by selling arms to law enforcement, but a nation spending their own money to give weapons to another for the use in a genocide has not even the slightest excuse of detached financial self-interest. They gain nothing from gifting those weapons except for what is gained through their active use, and for that the US bears an unbelievable burden of guilt.
The US is responsible for the death of Palestinians because it’s not getting paid for its weapons?? That’s the moral theory? Insufficient profit?
absolutely not; as I said, there is a legitimate discussion to have about for-profit activities conducted under a compulsory capitalist system.
The US does not even have financial self-interest as an excuse, and moreover their motivation for providing lethal aid is only satisfied through the use of those weapons. An arms manufacturer (rife with moral conflict as they are) gains nothing from the use of their weapons, only in selling them. The US’s foreign policy is dictated through their judicious use of force on comparatively defenseless foreign powers - they gain benefit from killing, mutilating, and genociding populations at their behest abroad.
No the military industries still get paid. The difference between aid and sales is that aid is paid for by US taxpayer money while sales is paid by the country receiving the weapons
Since much of the donor class, lobbyists, and politicians in America own stock in those military companies, they still get a paycheck at the end of the day. It’s the regular American citizens that foot the bill
Sure they do, but that’s immaterial to the US state department who views Israel’s dominance in the ME essential to their own control over the region (at the expense of the US taxpayer and, ya know, all of the lives killed and destroyed from endless armed conflict).
The point is that the primary benefit to the US arming pretty much any group in the world is realized through the use of those weapons on innocent people the world over, whether it’s the Taliban, Hezbollah, or Israel. Whereas the primary benefit to a company like Glock from selling weapons to American cops is realized from the sale itself - they don’t benefit from POC being killed by overzealous cops… at least, not through any way the public can reasonably see.
Yeah I agree. Besides the military contractor aspect, the MIC is used to destabilize the world for the benefit of US corporations via Neo-colonialism in order to extract resources from foreign countries and establish a global hegemonic force
I think providing a nationstate bombs and missiles (as aid) is so distinct from a police department purchasing guns from a foreign company that the comparison can’t even be taken seriously
Not to mention at all the obsurdity of comparing targeted police brutality against POC and an apartheid state systematically killing and forcibly relocating 5.04 million Palestinians from their home.
Bombs and guns are both capable of killing. I don’t see why the US should be responsible for Palestinians killed with US made bombs if Austria is not responsible for Americans killed with Austrian made guns.
Do you think moral responsibility depends on the size of the explosion? That’s hard to take seriously. So if the US only provided guns to Israel, that would be OK?
Because the US is gifting those weapons for no other reason than for Israel to use them, be it against Hamas or Palestinians writ-large. Austria is simply the origin of a private company selling weapons to american pigs, but Austria could not be said to be “providing lethal aid” by any stretch of meaning.
There’s a legitimate discussion for the culpability of arms manufacturers in the use of their products for murder and terror under a capitalist system, but it is of a fundamentally different scale and nature of a Nationstate providing arms at no cost to another for the use in an internationally recognized genocide. A private company could be said to be acting purely in their financial self-interest by selling arms to law enforcement, but a nation spending their own money to give weapons to another for the use in a genocide has not even the slightest excuse of detached financial self-interest. They gain nothing from gifting those weapons except for what is gained through their active use, and for that the US bears an unbelievable burden of guilt.
The US is responsible for the death of Palestinians because it’s not getting paid for its weapons?? That’s the moral theory? Insufficient profit?
So all Biden has to do is announce that Israel is going to start paying for those bombs, and it’s all good? Or at least, as good as Austria?
Does the payment have to be in dollars? What if the US were somehow advancing its own national interests in the region by providing weapons?
After all the US has all the dollars it needs. But maybe other countries could pay in blood? Maybe America has enemies it wants someone else to fight?
What if I told you that US foreign policy is fundamentally selfish, and in fact the US has never acted altruistically?
absolutely not; as I said, there is a legitimate discussion to have about for-profit activities conducted under a compulsory capitalist system.
The US does not even have financial self-interest as an excuse, and moreover their motivation for providing lethal aid is only satisfied through the use of those weapons. An arms manufacturer (rife with moral conflict as they are) gains nothing from the use of their weapons, only in selling them. The US’s foreign policy is dictated through their judicious use of force on comparatively defenseless foreign powers - they gain benefit from killing, mutilating, and genociding populations at their behest abroad.
No the military industries still get paid. The difference between aid and sales is that aid is paid for by US taxpayer money while sales is paid by the country receiving the weapons
Since much of the donor class, lobbyists, and politicians in America own stock in those military companies, they still get a paycheck at the end of the day. It’s the regular American citizens that foot the bill
Sure they do, but that’s immaterial to the US state department who views Israel’s dominance in the ME essential to their own control over the region (at the expense of the US taxpayer and, ya know, all of the lives killed and destroyed from endless armed conflict).
The point is that the primary benefit to the US arming pretty much any group in the world is realized through the use of those weapons on innocent people the world over, whether it’s the Taliban, Hezbollah, or Israel. Whereas the primary benefit to a company like Glock from selling weapons to American cops is realized from the sale itself - they don’t benefit from POC being killed by overzealous cops… at least, not through any way the public can reasonably see.
Yeah I agree. Besides the military contractor aspect, the MIC is used to destabilize the world for the benefit of US corporations via Neo-colonialism in order to extract resources from foreign countries and establish a global hegemonic force