Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
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Notes -
I don't see where this is relevant to the comment I made or the comment I'm replying to.
I think it's notable, as I've stated upwards in this comment chain, that Iran has only reported a total of 200-400 civilian casualties, showing that the USA has shown a great deal of concern for civilian casualties during this war, and an extraordinary ability to prevent them. For all the talk about the girls' school, it's basically been that and some spare change.
But the DoW leadership has hammered repeatedly on the message that the focus of the military is on "lethality, not legality." They have no concern for legal technicalities.
I'm pointing out that "marked unconcern for legal niceties" isn't really accurate, something like "as usual legal niceties become a bit fuzzier during war time" or "the U.S. usually does a better job than most at maintaining legal niceties, however..." would be more accurate.
Your word choice implies that the U.S.'s approach is worthy of criticism and perhaps is worse than others.
If you feel that way, I think it should be explicit.
This is superficially a small matter of language but given the amount of criticism for certain actions taken by Israel and the U.S. and lack of criticism and even forgiveness for actions taken by the other side that are ten times worse....I think the loaded language needs to be pointed out.
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