Pointing fingers in conflicts, Israel/Gaza, and Iran raises political passions but miisses a bigger issue.

 Pointing fingers in conflicts raises passions, but misses a bigger issue. Immediately, I  predict that this post heading sounds like I am about to address the Gaza issue that the Democratic Socialists support: Hamas over Israel.  Wrong.  So am I a partisan of Netanyahu's reducing Gaza to rubble and the death of women and children by starvation or bombing? No. Do I think we can bomb Iran to force it to change direction? What we lose sight of is a bigger issue. commission of war crimes. The recent conflict's political and military leadership do not care a whit about the fate of those who are the victims, regardless of the regime or politics they support. They then use their suffering and death as propaganda tools to gain support for the actions of their leaders.   In recent times, we have seen this at play not only in Gaza/Israel but in Iran, as well.   The focus of our condemnation should be directed at the leadership if we profess to care about the innocents, the women and children. The evil forces at play in those related conflicts are the leadership of those on "either side" who care more about their power and military success than their concern about humanity and commit war crimes. It does not stop with Israel/GazaIran. We in the US have a political leadership who wants the freedom from accountability to commit war crimes, too.

The plight of women and children in Gaza in Israel's campaign and the raped and murdered victims of Oct. 7 of Hamas is the fault of their leaders who do not care or and later who see playing on the rest of the world's care for victims of such violence used as a propaganda tool. At the same time, the Trump administration has learned, or should have learned, that making the everyday people of Iran the victims of a bombing campaign has been ineffective because the  Iranian leadership, clerics, and IRG do not care about the suffering of non-combatants, women, children, and men, either.  Iran, it has appeared, had anticipated that the US would attack, but slaughtering as many demonstrators against the regime as they could. The death toll of those mowed down in Iran is at least in the thousands, though. 

  I have not forgotten Oct. 7 and Hamas beginning the conflict in that horrific rape and massacre of young Israelis attending, of all things, a concert in support of peace.  I have not forgotten that Hamas leadership in effect used their own women and children as human shields by refusing to give them access to their tunnels as refuge from Israel's attempt to bomb Gaza to rubble.  We do not have access to the total suffering of the Iranian civilians, but there is a stand-in icon for that: the horrible killing of over 150 school girls (whether it was a mistake or not) in Iran. 

The rest of us who are observers, if not partisans, of these conflicts still have the responsibility to raise our voices against such crimes against humanity, to try to bring those who commit them to justice in world court tribunals, and to provide aid and compassion for the victims.  We also should take the personal responsibility to realize and to condemn leaders who use the suffering of their own people, suffering their policies caused, as a propaganda weapon.   Instead of pointing fingers at who is the worst war criminal, we should not fall for such messages that abuse the reports of the suffering of their own people to convince others of their rectitude.  Instead,. we need to support institutions that enforce the law and hold accountable those who commit crimes against humanity, regardless of the "side" involved.  

The establishment of the UN (providing a forum for talking is better than military fighting) and the World Court of Justice were founded after World War II's air and bombing with modern weapons that wiped out millions of non-combatants. Rules were devised  inthe Geneva Convention for combatants to take care of civilians., War crimes were defined. And now we have our own president who no longer wants our armed forces to abide by the Geneva Conventions and wants to do away with the world court tribunals. We are not members but want it ended, anyway.  It sounds like Trump wants to commit war crimes without any accountability or shame.  Trump is constantly threatening to bomb Iranian infrastructure to bring more pain and suffering to non-combatant civilians, even though he should understand that would not change the behavior of the IRG and clerical leadership. (They have not suffered enough, he opines)  . That, for the sake of humanity, needs to be nipped in the bud, and that is what we at home can and should stop now. 

https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2026/04/trump-advocating-war-crime-t-when-hague.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/31/donald-trump-geneva-conventions-the-problem-military-foreign-policy

Trump and Rubio proposing dismantling the world courts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjGcWLFmTnk

see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjGcWLFmTnk.  Why the world court tribunals?

Is there a place for moral outrage in politics?

 An attribute of Biden's character that gets overlooked is his moral clarity. There is obvious evil in this world, and it needs to be called out, but is there a place for it in politics? Yes, if the evidence justifies it.  Nowhere has moral clarity been expressed more obviously than his outrage at the atrocities committed by Russian troops in Ukraine and his accusing Putin of being a war criminal for targeting civilians as part of a war strategy.  Six weeks into Russia's invasion of Ukraine videos of intentional targeting of civilians cannot be ignored, whether it was a clearly marked as a refuge for children in Mariupol or streets strewn with civilian corpses in Bucha with video evidence it occurred during Russian occupation. There is a pattern of hospitals being frequent Russian targets. Patterns of behavior are evidence in criminal trials. It will take years before who gave the orders, and their accountability will become formalized by international tribunals. In the meantime, moral outrage is more than justified.  International tribunals are already motivated by such accusations and are actively investigating already, .  The US Department of Justice head, Attorney General  Merrick Garland. announced today the DOJ will continue to assist the tribunal investigations.  Post-World War II and the Nuremberg trials, the most recent example of how tribunals act in the face of war crime accusations is in the 1991-1995 Balkan war atrocities like the Srebrenica massacre .and the Hague tribunal. See my recent post on the subject. 

 This is in stark contrast with someone like Donald Trump who abuses or ignores the moral element. He still will not criticize Putin and even dares ask Putin for a political favor last month as convincing evidence of atrocities by Russian invaders Ukraine were reported. Trump had no shame or concern about  morality in pursuit of his political objective.  From the beginning of his 2016 campaign, Trump touted his advantages of being transactional in his dealings because of his business success. Over the years, we now know what being transactional is about.  Transactional to Trump has meant he will do what benefits him politically or it will benefit those supporting him.  Morality is not a criteria for what is a successful transaction. Lying to explain failures is simply a strategy, not a moral no-no. Example number one  is knowingly lying about his loss in 2020 yet claiming his loss was because 'Democrats stole the election, even though courts and his own attorney general told him otherwise. He still sings that same tune, though after a year and a half of audits, all kinds of investigative journalism, still no evidence has emerged that there was enough hanky panky in the election to prove it was stolen. However, Trump persists to this day and his followers echo him. Both are still a large force in the Republican party. .  

Another strategy of Donald Trump is to paint his opponents with immorality while he himself is under investigation, and court rulings of his own corrupt practices have come to public light. His abuse of his charitable foundation funds for his benefit and a university found fraudulent are a few cases in point  where Trump himself was found culpable by courts. He is in danger of being accused of fraud in tax and loan applications by over or undervaluing property to benefit him.. His role in January 6 is still a question mark. This abuse of the moral issue is his way of deflecting criticism of his own practices by charging his opponents as being  either equally corrupt or flawed as well, even if it a false equivalency or an unproved theory. He knows that while he himself places no value in being moral, others do, and are willing and eager to join him  in calling the kettle black, even if there is no evidence.  Top of that list one is the Hunter Biden saga. It is classic Trump: "if you think my family and I are corrupt or criminals, just let me show Biden and his son are too".   The dishonesty of the right wing supporters of Trump is claiming his father, Joe Biden, benefited or helped  his son when there is no  evidence of that. The alleged events took place when Joe Biden was neither in office or a candidate, and there is no proof he pocketed any money from any of Hunter's ventures or that he helped Hunter.    The dishonesty of the right is an old propaganda technique,  to refer to the" Biden crime family", hoping the phrase is enough proof in itself it is true if it is repeated enough. 

The long list of legal cases against Donald Trump | Donald Trump | The Guardian