He also can’t. Proclamations of war are made by the legislature. (Congress). If the President sends troops in a supposed emergency they can go without legislative consent for 90 days and must be recalled at that time without the legislature’s approval. It’s stupid, because 90 days into a conflict we have troops on the ground and an immediate evacuation only hurts us economically and global appearance some worry about. Not to mention the troops lost/injured, casualties left with those attacked and Congress not agreeing to keep them there is an admission that it was wrong, so not paying restitution would hurt international relations as well.

To me it comes to, if he orders troops on the ground, an immediate Congressional impeachment would be needed, and the Senate to remove him, or they will vote in favor of staying in the fight to “save face” and not care how many innocent lives die or are thrown into poverty, starve, are raped, wrongly imprisoned, tortured, and the damages it will cause to the mental health of a whole new generation of our soilders and people of other counties around the world.

tell that to all the civilians in Guantanamo and Gaza.

if the first aggressor doesn’t give a fuck about rule of war, it can’t complain about them

In the history of the world, it has only been a very short window during the late 20th/ early 21 st century that civilians were not considered fair game in war, although they get slaughtered anyway. Even with civilians being off limits, as recently as WW2, Korea, Vietnam, and the Middle East, civilians have been targets either by design, by atrocity, or by proximity.

If there’s a war, don’t think you’re getting off the hook just because you’re a civilian. During war, the old adage “If your not with us, you’re against us” becomes weaponized.

Well, it used to be that they were too. Have you heard of all the cities in Europe that were effectively destroyed during WWII?

It comes and goes, usually whenever it’s useful. It sucks, but war is horrible. If civilians don’t want to be targets they should pressure their governments to not be in them. Yes, sometimes it’s worth fighting, but sometimes it isn’t.

Americans have only ever pretended to care about non-combatants when it’s convenient. President Obama even invented the term ‘enemy combatant’ so he could pretend his drone strikes were killing fewer civilians.

After we’ve droned some of their people. I wouldn’t put money on that.

Folks have tried a couple of times, unfortunately it never seems to sink in that it generally isn’t worth the trouble.

Our government is exceptional at dealing in violence but inept at handling threats that it can’t beat, shoot, or bomb into submission.

The societal response and government handling of COVID was not at all reassuring. To the point that I let go of any last remaining shred of hope I had for us to turn this ship around on several metrics (e.g. climate change). And unfortunately I think it has gotten even worse, e.g. with the (at least apparent) increase in anti-vaxxers.

Release Ebola or some such thing in America, and the MAGAs will make sure no laws or mandates are passed to prevent it’s spread. 50% of the population will be gone within a year, destroying our society without firing a shot.

Iran would not do that, but you raise an important point about how insanely vulnerable the US is to actual biological attacks.

Could you imagine the US government trying to get Americans to get an anthrax vaccine after a weapon attack?

The stronger-than-ever Taliban?

Oh yeah America really taught them a lesson by, checks notes, giving Taliban control of Afghanistan, after pouring millions of dollars and ending the lives of thousands of Afghani and Americans

By 2000 more Americans had died of AIDS than any war but the civil war. Though I will admit I was surprised we still didn’t care when it wasn’t just undesirables dying. Turns out we’re able to be ablist enough to declare anyone who dies of disease basically already dead beforehand

there’s still time to get those numbers up

While I don’t recommend believing them non-conditionally, Haaretz has generally been opposed to Netanyahu and hid actions, especially after he picked a fight with them earlier this year.