You may recall earlier this year when the United Nations charged a U.S.-led coalition with humanitarian law violations, due to airstrikes on a school that killed 150 civilians.
Basically U.S.-led coalition forces were formally called out because they “failed to take proper precautions” before launch of airstrikes.
Families were known for years to be seeking shelter from harm in that school. While the military said it feared militants were present, it instead killed innocent civilians and then failed to produce any evidence of an actual threat.
Russia was accused of having a similarly careless policy as the U.S.-led coalition, murdering civilians indiscriminately:
Pinheiro, commenting on the Russian strike, said that under international humanitarian law, using certain weapons in civilian areas automatically amounts to the war crime of launching indiscriminate attacks because of the nature of the weapons used.
And three U.S.-led coalition strikes on a school near Raqqa in March 2017 killed 150 residents – roughly five times the toll acknowledged by the Pentagon, which said at the time that dozens of militants and not civilians were killed.
The U.N. investigators found no evidence that Islamic State fighters were at the school and said the U.S.-led coalition had violated international law by failing in its duty to protect displaced civilians known to be sheltered there since 2012.
The above tragedy and charges of humanitarian law violations now seems like foreshadowing. In today’s news the U.S. regime leader has called upon the military to begin firing indiscriminately into unarmed crowds of civilians:
…he wants the military to treat anyone doing that as if they are armed with a deadly weapon.
“When they throw rocks, consider it a rifle”
To be fair, this is an old talking point of extremist groups around the world who have long said whites only can survive if guns are used indiscriminately as a means to maintain white nationalist power over non-white civilians.
These extremist groups were upset recently when evidence collected about U.S. Border Patrol excessive use of force had led to reports showing that rocks and bottles rarely ever justify armed response.
Eight people have been killed by agents in rock throwing incidents since 2010, according to the ACLU. According the IG report, there were 185 rock assaults in the 2012 budget year, and agents responded with gunfire 12 percent of the time.
The studies were initiated, in part, because of cases like the Rojas death in 2013 when a large group of U.S. enforcement officers basically physically tortured a man in front of many witnesses, yet avoided any charges of wrongdoing. That case was settled last year with $1M paid to Rojas’ family due to Rojas’ inhumane treatment.
Naturally the outcome was “a government-commissioned internal review that recommended to end the practice of shooting people who throw rocks and bottles at agents”. And naturally the Border Patrol ignored the review.
That’s where politics as usual was sitting on a 12%-of-the-time issue that needed serious consideration. Only the white nationalists believed strongly in excessive use of force as a natural (god given, genetic) right. Others argued things like 12% meant they couldn’t rule out shooting in defense, or looked for ways to get the 12% number down to something else.
What seems to just have happened is the U.S. publicly declared gunfire should be used 100% of the time a civilian could be judged as hostile; 100% of the time that someone carrying something that looks like a rock or even just carrying a bottle, they should be targeted with lethal force.
Considering someone a target for a rifle when they carry anything that looks like a rock, is the language of…guess what? That is white nationalist policy.
It is a radical, extreme, abrupt change to U.S. policy to openly call for murdering foreign civilians. Nevermind the nuance of data/reports since Rojas’ death or the settlement, and the U.N. charges earlier this year. The latest news of the U.S. regime leader is that he is declaring himself a “nationalist” leader of the U.S. military who doesn’t care about indiscriminate civilian death.
“Trump’s ‘I’m a Nationalist’ comment will likely represent the biggest boon for white supremacist recruitment since the film Birth of a Nation glorified the Klan in 1915 and gained the KKK 4 million members by 1925,” tweeted reformed neo-Nazi Christian Picciolini.
What kind of nationalist wants to shoot unarmed civilians of foreign countries 100% of the time?
It’s fairly obvious the association, based on who has applauded loudest at his use of that term alongside extremist xenophobic doctrines
The effort to plant the seeds of white nationalism in the political mainstream, where they might blossom into pro-white political coalitions that appeal to a broader swath of Caucasian voters, will not be easy, according to the chairman of the American Nazi Party.
But Rocky Suhayda thinks there is one political figure who presents a “real opportunity” to lessen the load.
Who is it? Donald Trump
I mention all this mostly because it proves my earlier blog post true, that there is no way under the current regime that their brand new statement “US offensive cyberattacks will not target civilian infrastructure” can be true.
If a water treatment plant has rocks in or around it, or an energy plant is used to make bottles, what really prevents a “nationalist” leader from dictating cyberattacks commence regardless of humanitarian laws or logic?
This departure from logic is truly a dangerous turn away from what should be a carefully constructed decision-tree. Allowing someone to hold a rifle when they are told to see every rock as an imminent threat is a certain recipe for disaster.
It also has very important implications in terms of automation and big data technology such as driverless cars (urban missiles). Will the person working on an algorithm to control all the cars on the border of the U.S. identify anyone holding a bottle as an imminent threat to “nationalist” power?
Perhaps we also should consider how sending 7,000 soldiers and associated equipment to the border is to transfer lethal equipment to white nationalist terror cells, who more egregiously and readily want to violate humanitarian law, given how troops are preparing for militias stealing their gear.
There are many good counter-examples to this U.S. shift towards ignorance and highly insecure logical fallacies (again, the U.S. regime is claiming that anyone with a bottle is equivalent threat to an American soldier with a rifle, which is as stupid as it sounds).
To see what other models have been used, and should be explored in our immediate driverless future, look at historic discussions of grey areas, small percentages, tight timelines and attempts at precise targeting.
Here’s just one such exploration of avoiding putting targets on innocent civilians:
Tension was heightening. The minutes dragged on.
And then, five minutes before 5 o’clock, 25 minutes after the fighters took off, a phone jangled in Canary. It was the secure line that connected directly to Mossad headquarters. “Doubts have arisen,” said the voice on the line…
