“There’s no incentive to investigate if the president and the White House themselves have announced that aid is unconditional,” said Brian Finucane, who worked for a decade in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the State Department advising on arms transfers and the laws of war.

“That means they don’t want to hear inconvenient legal conclusions,” he told The Independent.

Mr Finucane said senior administration officials he had spoken to had been met with a “shrug” by the US intelligence community when they quizzed them about mass civilian casualty incidents caused by Israeli bombing, “because it’s no one’s job in the US intelligence community, apparently, to actually investigate these things.”

  • Rentlar
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    7 months ago

    This is precisely how the US State Department can make statements like we did not find any international lawbreaking on Israel’s part.

    They are actively avoiding any investigation into it.

  • @[email protected]
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    57 months ago

    I’m very disappointed in Biden’s support of Israel currently, but there’s no way in hell I’m going to let that dissuade me from voting for him over Trump.

    • @Fredselfish
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      17 months ago

      Why the fuck are they hugging? They shit never makes since to me? Fucking shack hands. Good thing I’m not president I punch him in the mouth.

    • @LinkerbaanOP
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      -87 months ago

      Trump and Biden aren’t the only people in existence.

      • @[email protected]
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        47 months ago

        They’re the only people in existence that have any chance of being elected in the coming presidential election, and anyone claiming otherwise is trying to dissuade people from voting for a specific candidate, indirectly helping the competing candidate win the presidency.

        So might I ask, why do you want Trump to be president?

        • @LinkerbaanOP
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          -87 months ago

          I want Joe Biden not to become president while he is supporting Genocide.

          I do not want Donald Trump to be president.

          So go vote for third party which is neither of them.

            • @go_go_gadget
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              07 months ago

              It won’t be thrown away. It’ll give everyone a chance to add up the numbers and see “oh. Biden could have won if he had done his job as a politician.”

              • @[email protected]
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                07 months ago

                “Oh we voted in Trump, good thing we stuck it to Biden! That’ll show him! Now where did I put my government mandated “I love the Trump dictatorship” badge and hat?…”

                • @go_go_gadget
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                  07 months ago

                  If you want a different outcome figure out how to get Biden to behave differently.

          • @[email protected]
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            -17 months ago

            I’ll also thank you for helping to take away my partners rights (bodily autonomy) by allowing Trump to win. Go be acedemic all you want but we’re going to actually lose a lot if trump wins.

              • @[email protected]
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                07 months ago

                No, I’ll thank you. You want to use one bad decision to justify another bad decision. And people in this country will suffer for it. And Palestinians will also suffer even more for it. Trump wants to nuke them, so have fun with that choice.

                • @go_go_gadget
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                  7 months ago

                  And people in this country will suffer for it.

                  People in this country are already suffering due in no small part to this country’s focus on weapons exports. Are you not aware of that?

  • AutoTL;DRB
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    37 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Investigations into potential Israeli war crimes and violations of international law are being undermined by President Joe Biden’s insistence on providing his close ally with billions of dollars in unconditional military support, several former State Department and Pentagon officials told The Independent.

    The former officials say the president’s decades-long and deeply held personal connection to Israel renders US laws and regulations concerning US arms sales essentially toothless.

    Charles Blaha, former director of the State Department’s Office of Security and Human Rights, which regulates weapons transfers, said investigations into breaches of humanitarian law in the Gaza conflict — if they are taking place at all — are likely not being taken seriously.

    On Wednesday, just one day after the killings, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby tersely rejected the notion that the US should reconsider sending weapons to Israel while it is potentially breaching international humanitarian law.

    “Civil society and the media can keep pointing out that Israel is violating the law or that its conduct of operations requires certain actions by the US government to cut assistance; but at the end of the day, what’s driving the entire process is the ideological and political perspective of the president,” Sarah Harrison, a former Pentagon attorney in the Office of General Counsel between 2017 and 2021, serving the Secretary of Defense, told The Independent.

    However, Mr Kirby, the White House spokesperson, made clear on Wednesday morning that the Biden administration would continue supporting Israel despite the international uproar.


    The original article contains 1,277 words, the summary contains 248 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!