How is the US able to instantly stop an attack from Iran but powerless when Israel attacks hospitals?

submitted by AbsoluteChicagoDog edited

I'm missing something here. Admittedly, I'm making the assumption that blowing up hospitals is a bad thing to do.

Log in to comment

22 Comments

OutsizedWalrus

Well, for one, the Iranian attack was a missile attack that could be taken down by anti air missile.

Two, USA isn’t exactly irans ally

MyPornViewingAccount

You get *hours* to plot trajectories and line up a shot on an incoming missile or drone from those rsnges.

For a bomb dropped from an aircraft theres 15 - 30 seconds from release to impact.

Ziggurat

Politics. US is ally with Israel but notxwith Iran, US isn't the world police but a country defending their interests which includes their allies.

I somehow hope, that this slow drone attack is also some political theatre like, *we shoot some drones to protest our embassy bombing, but we won't go further*

nadram , edited

US politicians are unfortunate hostages to their bigger sponsors / financiers. Most of the players on both sides of the US political spectrum have been funded by israeli or pro-israeli contributors. We call Israel an ally, and that's a nice coat of shiny paint to hide the Stockholm syndrome.

morphballganon

Alliances like NATO or the EU come with non-aggression stipulations. You can't engage in warfare with an ally. If that ally happens to be bombing their own people, that would only allow for intervention if it was written into the accords signed by the nations in the alliance (hint: it's not).

Now, if Israel started bombing Italy, for example, that would not only allow for an intervention; it would require one.

jet

What everyone else said, but also Iran probably informed the US through an intermediary when they are going to launch from where they're going to launch and what the trajectories were going to be.

This would allow them to have their proportional response, but also de-escalate with the US, allowing them to shoot it all down, and at least from the US's perspective prevent upward escalation

PhlubbaDubba

If that's true that's actually fucking hilarious

"Look man we gotta make this look legit or else my wife is gonna be SO MAD at me."

Shardikprime

That's what MAD was about all this time

snack_pack_rodriguez

you have no idea how much that happens with foreign policy. it's not about right or wrong when it comes to foreign policy. countries don't have friends or morals they have interests both international and domestic. That can change on a dime.

FuglyDuck

There’s two answers that are both legitimate.

The first is that we don’t have any sort of defensive weapons between Israel and Gaza. To intercept missiles/bombs/whatever

Stuff like the Phalanx and RIM-116 at sea; or C-RAM (technically it’s the “land based phalanx system”…. But there are some critical difference in radar and the munitions it uses.

The second answer is that the US navy hasn’t been ordered to. They haven’t been ordered to because their civilian leadership is 100% okay with Israel bombing the fuck out of Gaza. Yes, that includes Biden.

trxxruraxvr

They're not powerless, but unwilling to use their power against an ally.

magnetosphere

Nations are perhaps the best example of “do as I say, not as I do.” The ethics you and I live our lives by have no place in international politics.

Modern_medicine_isnt

I think you know exactly why.

JayTreeman

The US needs an extreme clean up in the government. Unfortunately, it's going to be harder to do every election that it doesn't happen

CerealKiller01

The wrong assumption you're making is that Israel is blowing up hospitals.

You're probably thinking about the blast in Al-Ahli Hospital in October, that was ruled by both the US and most news agencies as a failed Islamic Jihad launch.

aleph , edited

Two volunteer doctors working with Doctors Without Borders were killed by a direct hit from an Israeli airstrike on Al Awda hospital back in November, so that's at least one example.

https://www.msf.ie/article/msf-doctors-killed-strike-al-awda-hospital-northern-gaza

FuglyDuck

Nope. Israel is targeting hospitals

They really don’t care

The justification is that there targeting Hamas and that Hamas is using every hospital, school, mosque and other typical safe-haven as bases of operations.

(Boy does Hamas have a lot of bases!)

nadram

You're right about that specific hospital, but it's not the only one that was involved in the conflict.

Thorny_Insight

Why would US give Hamas more reasons to use hospitals as military bases?

vind

There are no more hospitals in Gaza (because Israel destroyed every single one). And they have yet to show any evidence of Hamas using the hospitals as military bases.

PhlubbaDubba

It might have actually encouraged the use of hospital resources for millitary aims, because now that the hospitals can't use them, it's come out that Hamas is moving the hostages in commandeered ambulances.

Israel literally incentivized and made more possible the war crime they claimed they were trying to punish Hamas for committing in the first place.

mannycalavera

Oh ho ho, you innocent child you. Sit down and allow me to tell you a story. It starts many decades ago and involves a Prince, some angry free thinkers, JFK, Anna Nicole Smith, and a smaaaaall aubergine 🍆.