• SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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            9 months ago

            That’s a common assumption that’s based in “they’re all the same over there” style of racism.

            The group the US backed in the 80s was the mujaheddin, which went to form the government which the Taliban (a separate group) all but overthrew. The last remnants of the pre-Taliban Afghanistan government was called the Northern Alliance, which was allied with the US when fighting the Taliban.

            It was politically convenient for the left to along with a racist narrative to score cheap political points against Dubya, Cheney, Rumsfeld etcl. And yeah, fuck those guys for sure, but it was wrong to go along with a racist narrative to do so. Because of the “they’re all the same over there” kind of racism in both the left and right of the US, there wasn’t much chance for any kind of success in defeating the Taliban.

            • Krono@lemmy.today
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              8 months ago

              It’s not racist to be aware of the fact that the US supported the Taliban after the fall of the Mujaheddin.

            • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              The only difference is time IMO. Same people. Same views. Just changed their name and fought against different people for different reasons. They will all still stone you to death for teaching math to women, they just disagree on who should be the caliph.

              • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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                8 months ago

                Yes that “they’re all the same over there” is a common opinion.

                Can’t win a war when you can’t tell the difference between friend or foe. Which is why the US lost to the Taliban.

          • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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            8 months ago

            Yeah, so? There are many assholes in the world, you know. Pointing at some other group of assholes doesn’t make the Taliban not assholes.

      • bostonbananarama@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        it’s not a great approach in most cases

        Any cases.

        Do you think a death penalty for netanyahu unfair, in fact not giving a death penalty is unfair to all the children and women and everyone else he has killed

        Fair? What does fair mean? Does an execution un-kill the victims? What a ridiculous notion that any sort of punishment for a perpetrator could be “fair” for the victims.

        The death penalty is an abject failure. It has no benefits and numerous issues. Practicing barbarism can never be justice.

          • bostonbananarama@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            it definitely will make other people think twice before they do the same thing

            There is absolutely no evidence to support that assertion.

            There is no proof that the death penalty deters criminals. According to the National Academy of Sciences, “Research on the deterrent effect of capital punishment is uninformative about whether capital punishment increases, decreases, or has no effect on homicide rates.”

            US Department of Justice

              • otp@sh.itjust.works
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                9 months ago

                I believe that most developed countries have gotten rid of the death penalty, and a big part of that is because it doesn’t work as a deterrent.

                Very few people decide whether or not to commit a crime based on the punishment. Most criminals think they won’t get caught at all, or if they do, they think they’ll get away with it in court.

                • FatCrab@lemmy.one
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                  8 months ago

                  This slightly misses the mark. The majority of crimes, including violent ones, are not committed by people performing a risk calculus. They’re done with minimal thought and more often than not in the heat of the moment. Effectively, they are not crimes that you can deter because for a crime to be deterred, the potential criminal has to assess whether it makes sense to commit the crime. This works in cases of like financial fraud and white collar crime. Someone shooting another person during an altercation, not so much.

                  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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                    8 months ago

                    Yeah there’s a way to deter crimes and it’s increasing the certainty of punishment. Overly severe punishment actually has an unwanted effect of increasing the severity of crimes. If a rapist is going to die if caught that incentivizes murdering the victim who is inherently a witness.

                  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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                    8 months ago

                    And what level of certainty do you need? Keep in mind uncertainty means innocents are murdered by the state and 100% certainty is difficult enough that it will generally put you into the anti capital punishment camp.

                    Also it sounds like you have a failure of understanding how the rich get out of punishment. Yes sometimes it’s like Brock Turner where it’s blatant. But other times it’s because they can afford the means to hide evidence and sow doubts. And when all else fails they’re more likely to have ins with judges or the ability to flee preemptively.

              • bostonbananarama@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                we don’t even need evidence to know

                No matter what follows this…yes, we do. You should need evidence to believe anything; understanding of course that the more extraordinary the claim, the more extraordinary the evidence needed.

                giving them merely some jailtime is not working either, but whatever

                Then imprison them for life. Guess what, life imprisonment is cheaper than the death penalty, and can be overturned if there’s an error.

                  • FatCrab@lemmy.one
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                    8 months ago

                    Yes, we should also be addressing the failings of our penal system(s). Unfortunately, many around the world, and clearly yourself included, are more interested in retributive “justice” than habilitative functions.

          • Immersive_Matthew@sh.itjust.works
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            8 months ago

            That is the same thinking that those who own hand guns think. They think they will be safer, yet all the stats indicate other wise including all the children accidentally firing a gun and killing a family member. If risk of death was a deterrent, the USA would be among the safest place in the world.

            • ???@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              Do you really have a degree in criminology? What kind of lawyer are you exactly?

                • ???@lemmy.world
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                  8 months ago

                  I used the search functionality, they have a degree in criminology, history, and law. I don’t know how common that combo is, neither do I want to cast doubt on this person’s comments… but it doesn’t help that the majority of them defy logic at every turn.

                  Just yesterday, @JustZ@lemmy.world told me they know more than South Africa about apartheid, and thus Israel cannot be an undemocratic apartheid state. They also told me that when America didn’t allow women and black people to vote, it was “still a democracy”. But they also said that an apartheid rule is when a minority has control over a majority (this is the only definition they offered)… that would mean, by @JustZ@lemmy.world’s own definition, that America before suffrage for women and black people was an apartheid state.

                  • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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                    8 months ago

                    Youre a moron and have no idea what you’re talking about. Please stop tagging me. I don’t care what you have to say any longer.

                    You post irrelevant links constantly, you lie about what they say, you lie about what you think I said, and it’s exhausting to try and correct you. I’m not your dad or your teacher so kindly fuck off and leave me alone. Do you understand?

      • thesporkeffect@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I will admit that part of my mind would support making a public example of any fascist leader, but any public execution or punishment serves only to normalize that violence.

        Would I condemn anyone involved with the death of Mussolini? Absolutely not. Best of luck to any Israeli anti fascists in the right time and place.

          • otp@sh.itjust.works
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            9 months ago

            you instill a feeling of fear in the public about what would happen if you do such a serious crime

            Do you think the members of the general public are often considering committing those kinds of crimes?

            “Gee whiz, I sure wish I could be a serial killer. Too bad they publicly executed that last serial killer, though! I’d better move to the US, where executions are done in private!”