238
Trump threatens to destroy all of Iran’s power, oil and water facilities as ‘retribution’
(www.mediaite.com)
this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2026
238 points (98.4% liked)
World News
55122 readers
3553 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF OCTOBER 19 2025
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
So genocide? You want to start a genocide? I mean at this point you could just say that and still remain President. I'm sure Mike Johnson already has an excuse locked and loaded.
He's not aware of it.
We've been sponsoring or engaged in genocide in the Middle East since the Nakba of '48. Trump's just doing it badly.
I feel like there needs to be a word for intentionally killing mass numbers of civilians that captures the gravity of the crime, without resorting to using the word genocide. Genocide should be reserved for actual attempts to remove certain genetic lines from the gene pool, which includes going after the diaspora, the way the Nazis did with Jews in WW2.
So what was the real death toll for the Nazi Jewish genocide? Because while some Jewish groups have distinct genetic lines, many don't. And Jewish people who were simply ethnic Germans also got sent to the camps. Do they not get counted as part of the Holocaust, as they were only targeted for their religion, not their genetics?
In practice, because human beings tend to marry and have kids at much higher rates within their religious and cultural groups than without, a genocide against a religious group is indistinguishable from a genocide against a genetic lineage. Also, your definition allows for a lot of genocide apologia. Those who want to downplay a genocide can simply say that an ethnic group was merely targeted for some action among that ethnic group. "They weren't killed for their race. We just made it a capital offense to listen to the music most commonly listened to by members of that race. They were killed for their musical taste, not their race. So it's not a genocide."
The original comment we are threaded under is claiming that the Trump administration, by committing the clear war crime of targeting civilian infrastructure in Iran, would also be committing genocide. Do you agree with this assessment? Do we need to lump all evil acts under the definition of genocide or risk being guilty of “apologia”?
If someone rounded you, your family and all your extended family up and put you in captivity. Sterilized you but otherwise took care of everyone feeding and even providing them medical access when needed. Even without murdering a single person that's genocide.
Cultural genocide which is just as serious. Is something that the Chinese government is heavily invested in with their one China policy. Purposely targeting any group with the goal of its elimination whether it's the Jews the Muslims the First Nations peoples, the blacks the Indians, Israel's genocide of Palestinians that has been going for more than a half a century. It doesn't matter how large the group is if you target them or their cultures with the intent of eliminating them that is genocide. Murder is not required.
Exactly. The word is getting used interchangeably with mass murder now, which isn’t correct. I think the reason for this is that the word genocide has a nastier connotation than any of the alternatives, and people want to use the most viscerally impactful word they can to attack the mass murderers.
There is unfortunately a lot of overlap. When it comes to genocide, groups tend to be rather large. Even a bit of a mass. And most don't have the time, patience or resources to terminate them without murder. So it is understandable.
When it comes to Trump and American conservatives. They are genocidal. If you're a Democrat they want to target and eliminate you. Even if they don't murder you. Gay? They want you gone. Trans? Ditto. Black? Ahyup. Muslim? You betcha. Jew that isn't financing or enabling them? Get to safety.
What trump is doing in Iran might technically not be genocide, yet. But we do have some good words for it. War crimes.
What you mention with the way the Trump administration treats minorities, attempting to shunt them out of society without directly killing them for the most part, is another category that maybe needs a more appropriately visceral word so as not to be lumped in with the more literal genocide described in your previous comment.
Just because something isn’t genocide doesn’t mean it isn’t a horrible crime. It doesn’t even mean it’s not as bad as genocide. But we don’t have other words that sound as bad, so we use the wrong word and muddy the issues.
Shunting or excluding is a fairly sanitizing term. If you want to exclude/eliminate people from a society they depend on to survive. Simply based on who they are. Even if you ignorantly never think about that or the logistics of it. Just wanting them gone. It's effectively genocide all the same.
Bigotry is having prejudiced thoughts against a group as an individual. Genocide is when you act on those thoughts as a society.
I disagree with this. Redefining genocide as “acting on bigoted thoughts as a society” is a redefinition of the word. It’s also very broad, to the point of almost meaninglessness.
Obviously, words only mean anything to the extent that use them, so genocide may come to mean exactly what you describe. But when that comes to pass, the word genocide will necessarily have lost its bite, which will ironically defeat the purpose of its redefinition.
It's broad. But not to the point of meaninglessness. To the point of inclusiveness. And that's meaningful.
I'm definitely coming at this from a more Anarchist/libertarian mindset so others not quite understanding is completely understandable. But ask yourself this. How did all the things we commonly accept as genocides, Nazi Germany's treatment of the Jews, Israel's treatment of Palestinians. How did it start?
What made them genocides. Was it the speed, was it the brutality? Or was it simply that these groups were targeted to be excluded and eliminated from society? How slowly must one strangle a culture or group for it to be acceptable? Germany did theirs in only a few years. Israel has been at theirs for decades. So does that make Israel's acceptable? Because they're going slower with it overall. Granted they've greatly increased their Pace in the last couple years. But the genocide didn't even start in this last decade. It was always a genocide.
I don’t disagree that bigotry and marginalization can and do lead to genocide. But they are not themselves genocide. It’s just a semantic thing, not a way to excuse bigotry. To the extent that this argument appears to excuse bigotry, it just underscores my point that the broadening of the definition of genocide stems from a desire to find appropriately strident language to describe bigotry and murder that is not genocide by the original definition.
Genocides that don’t include an attempt to exterminate a genetic line are not genocide. They’re something else; maybe something just as bad, maybe something worse, but something else.
I'd say we agree more than we disagree. But that we should probably agree to disagree on this point. The legal definition, which is what people are largely going to go by. Only lists specific categories. Fair enough. I'm going to stick by the categories not being absolute. That the targeting of people just for who they are, for persecution and elimination is the important part. Whether or not they're in one of the predefined categories, doesn't change that for me. And that does not dilute downplay or minimize what genocide is. Because genocide isn't the categories listed there, it's the actions that have historically taken against those categories in the past.