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Sunday, April 7, 2024

Moral Midgets Cook Up a War Crime

 Just days ago, NSC spokesman John Kirby assured the world of the administration’s “unwavering support” for Israel in its fight for survival. President Biden authorized an arms transfer to Israel, including 1,800 MK-84 2,000-pound bombs, 500 MK-82 500-pound bombs, and 25 F-35A fighter jets. Days later, following tragic drone strikes in which seven World Central Kitchen ("WCK") workers perished, the president 

...made clear the need for Israel to announce and implement a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers," according to a White House readout of the call. "He made clear that U.S. policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel's immediate action on these steps. 

Citing fake casualty reports generated by Hamas and lies about restricted aid into Gaza, Nancy Pelosi and 37 leftist Democrat Congress members signed a letter to the president and Secretary of State Antony Blinken stating, “we believe it is unjustifiable to approve these weapon transfers until the investigation into the airstrike is concluded … And we again urge you to ensure that any future military assistance to Israel, including already authorized transfers, is subject to conditions to ensure it is used in compliance with U.S. and international law.” 

All this is pretext by an administration that has released billions to Iran, the country that funds the proxy war from Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen against Israel, and which has done everything it can to hamstring Israeli forces from responding. 

The unfortunate death of the WCK team is hardly rare. The Israeli government responded more quickly and completely than we have during similar incidents, and it doesn’t take a genius to see the Democrats playing to that significant portion of their base, which has revealed itself as deeply antisemitic.

War is Hell

The investigation of the incident revealed that a gunman was seen atop a WCK vehicle earlier, and another was suspected nearby. (It appears that this is normal going with Hamas-posted gunmen at food depot drops.) The logos on the WCK vans were invisible by night to infrared monitoring, and the officers in charge did not follow procedures, procedures set by a military that successfully has done everything possible to minimize incidental civilian casualties in circumstances where the enemy’s cynical plan is to use those civilians as shields. 

Khaled H. Zakariah, a native Egyptian with 14 years of experience in national security and counter-terrorism, points out a significant number of accidental killings of civilians by militaries, including ours, and notes that, if the U.K. and U.S. stopped selling arms to countries responsible, “we would stop manufacturing or buying arms for OUR OWN military, which has repeatedly killed civilians by mistake in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and elsewhere.”

Here’s his list of similar war zone accidents:

  • Khair Khana wedding Afghanistan, 2008 – 47 civilians, including women and children
  • Al-Adaala Camp Bombing Sudan 1998 -- (number of civilians killed unknown)
  • Al-Majalah Airstrike, Yemen 2009 -- 41 civilians, including women and children
  • Bola Boluk Airstrike, Afghanistan 2009 -- 27 civilians
  • Sanaa Funeral Hall Strike, Yemen 2016 -- at least 140 people were killed and more than 500 injured
  • Mansoura Airstrike, Syria 2017 -- deaths of at least 150 civilians, 
  • Amran Airstrike, Yemen 2015 -- at least 30 civilians killed
  • Ghaziabad, Afghanistan, 2008 -- deaths of at least 90 civilians

Most recently, under the Biden administration, in 2021, a U.S. drone strike in Kabul killed as many as 10 civilians, including seven children. The U.S. responded that it was a “tragic mistake” and no one responsible was punished.

 By contrast, Israel has achieved the lowest ratio of civilian casualties in the history of urban warfare. Israeli Defense Force chief Herzi Halevi reprimanded the head of IDF Southern Command, the Division 162 commander, and the Nahal Brigade commander. He also fired the Nahal Brigade commander’s chief of staff. 

Martha MacCallum asked John Kirby why the U.S. was treating the WCK incident so much differently than it did the Kabul casualties and got back the response of a professional weasel:

Kirby answered, “Well, look, these are events that happened three years apart, two different geographic locations, two different countries, two different sets of circumstances, two different types of threat[s] that were being evaluated, and [two completely] different militaries that were involved, with two different chains of command. So, I think we’ve got to be careful comparing both events too closely. We, too, had an independent investigation, Martha, of that incident, and that independent investigator found that there was no need for personal accountability to be had, but did find that the U.S. military needed to make some systemic changes, procedural changes in how we looked at intelligence and acted on that intelligence. The Israelis, similarly, have said the same thing about this event this week with the WCK strike, that they’re going to make some systemic changes. Now, we’re glad to hear that and we’re going to be watching to see what those changes are and how they can put them into effect. But these are two different events.”

MacCallum then cut in to say, “They’re not that different though, John… This was a trigger moment, it appears, for the White House, because, obviously, the momentum has been building to take a harder line against Israel and their tactics, but this was the event that really pushed things over the edge. And so, why is it so different, in terms of what Israel carried out, in the midst of war -- and these aid workers, and my heart breaks for them, as it does for the seven children who were with this man underneath this Hellfire missile -- but the aid workers know that they are in a war zone and that they are taking a tremendous risk, at risk of their own safety.”

Kirby responded, “Yeah, well, first, again, two different incidents. I understand that there [are] similarities here. But it would be, I think, imprudent to try to compare two things that happened three years apart in two different conflicts. That said, the Israelis have said that they made a mistake here. They have come clean about what happened, and we’re going to be looking at their report to see what we think of it as well. And they said that they’re going to improve. They need to improve the de-confliction processes with the aid workers, and that’s going to be important going forward.”

Here are some differences Kirby missed -- Kabul is thousands of miles away from us; Gaza is next door to Israel. Gazans just engaged in the most brutal deliberate attacks on Israeli civilians, and Hamas, the instigator of those attacks, is widely supported by the civilians there. Hamas has indicated great joy at Biden’s remarks, continues to state it will not relent on attacking Israel, and, in fact, after Biden’s remarks, resumed missile attacks on Israel from Gaza.

After the administration’s untoward criticism and the Democrat congressional letter, Hamas turned down yet another Israeli ceasefire offer, and Israel found and retrieved yet another Hamas hostage who had been killed while in captivity.

Words are insufficient to convey my utter disgust at Biden, Kirby, Pelosi, the Squad, and those media that publish Hamas propaganda -- moral midgets all.


https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/04/moral_midgets_cook_up_a_war_crime.html

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