MY question is why do people always zero in on one thing and try to demonize it. This is a war and people are being blown up on both sides. Yet they only thing you hear about is white phosphorus being evil. It totally reminds me of people trying to say how terrible semi-auto rifles are when the majority of people are being killed by other means.
I accepted your argument. As long as there's no proof of intent, any claims that its illegal according to law are speculative. States that have sufficient weaponry and political pull can get away with a lot when they have laws like that to fall back on. I imagine that's why it was written that way. Sucks for the rest. Forgetting about the law for a moment, morally speaking intent does matter, but its not all that matters. You tell me which act is more evil: (1) A bully who punches a kid after school with intent of hurting him, or (2) A man who decides to shoot another man with a newly purchased fire arm for target practice. Suppose there's no "intent" to harm in (2), but any injury or death resulting from the shooting is purely incidental to the main purpose which is target practice. Morally, does it matter? Do we judge the people in (1) and (2) according to their intent, or the predictable consequences of their actions (some bruises in the first case, serious injury or death in the other)?
Not really. What matters is if they were using flares and smoke or huge bombs full of stuff trying to burn down buildings. What I mean to say is even if they used a bunch of flares or smoke its gotta be OK to do that for intimidation or misdirection.
Israel needs to do whatever it can to minimize casualties. Any use of artillery against heavily populated civilian areas does not do that.
White phosphorous certainly isn't the only thing being talked about. It just happens to be the topic of this thread.
Honestly, I didn't notice. I've criticized Israel a lot, and its the first time I've even brought it up.
Absolutely. If you think what Israel did was immoral, I can understand that judgment. The thread, however, is "Israel illegally used White Phosphorous". The legal argument should result in a clear verdict. In this case, obviously I think the legal judgement favors Israel. But IMO, moral arguments are necessarily more ambiguous. In general, if two people decide to fight, both sides agree on the battlefield. There are obvious limitations; neither side could have withdrawn to Antarctica, for instance, but both sides did choose where to fight. As an example, there is a very wide open tract of land where Bedolah used to be. Hamas could have lined up and built ramparts and trenches and duked it out with Israel. This would have resulted in a much higher death toll for Hamas, but would have cut by 99.99% the amount of civilian damage. Alternately, Israel could have chosen to use no smoke to obscure its movements or heavy weapons and artillery to attack Hamas from a distance and instead sent in infantry to clear every building in Gaza. This would have resulted in a much higher death toll for the IDF, but would have cut by 99.99% the amount of civilian damage. Both sides choose to primarily care first about the lives of their soldiers, and care about other things secondarily. For me, this makes logical sense. If I was Hamas, I would do the same. If I was the IDF, I would do the same. This also screws the people of Gaza. I have mixed feelings about how much of that is indicative of immorality by combatants and how much is just crappy luck for the innocents. In practical terms, I think the tactical decisions by both sides would be shared by most military people in the abstract. The IDF made the sound tactical decisions from the military point of view; both Armies are more concerned with protecting their fighters than safeguarding the civilians. The smoke was used by the IDF in pursuit of self-protection. As an institution, the IDF wasn’t just lobbing WP for fun. Perhaps there are individual cases where it was misused. I think there is pretty good evidence that there were small unit elements of the IDF who went, “off the reservation” so to speak and violated their own rules. This may include individual crimes. But as an organization, the IDF policy was designed for protection of IDF forces while moving. Other common tactics for cover include preceding movement with artillery barrages, which would obviously have been worse. In that sense, there were military decisions which could have been much worse for the population of Gaza. I do think this is where the "target practice vs. bully" argument breaks down. In those situations, the bully or the shooter derive no tangible gain from their actions. In a way, it is like a homeowner owning a handgun; they choose to place the wellbeing of their family over a general wellbeing of all mankind. Probably, total deaths are increased by gun ownership, but most of this increase is born by the burglar. My guess is the danger to families in a break-in goes way down. This is a decision, obviously, to which different people have different opinions. My guess is that most of the people who reject handgun ownership on the grounds of concern about the lives of the burglars wouldn’t join the military in the first place. But obviously, if you say handgun ownership/protecting your family from intruders violates your moral framework, I can't say "no, you are wrong".
so if there isn't a clear verdict, you can't make a legal argument? what law school did you graduate from, pray tell.
Should [rquoter] Should can describe an ideal behaviour or occurrence and imparts a normative meaning to the sentence; for example, "You should never lie" means roughly, "If you always behaved perfectly, you would never lie"; and "If this works, you should not feel a thing" means roughly, "I hope this will work. If it does, you will not feel a thing." [/rquoter] Acquaint yourself with this word. Learn it. Know it. It is very useful. In fact, acquaint yourself with all of the modal verbs of the English language and their subtle differences. The only problem with them is that apparently self-righteous ideologues sometimes have trouble comprehending the nuances of their use.
Apparently we disagree here, but I think there's a moral responsibility in any military operation, actually any policy in general including sanctions or blockades, to take into account how civilians will be impacted. You can't separate it and call it "crappy luck", unless its an actual accident. In this case, it is not. Both sides know that what they're doing will endanger thousands of civilians. Hamas has been willing to endanger their own population in order to retain political power in Gaza and force the removal of the blockade. Israel is willing to endanger their population in order to overthrow or severely weaken Hamas. They have to accept responsibility for that. I think if we just zero in on individual tactical decisions, we lose sight of the bigger picture. Given the military objectives, perhaps the tactics were calculated in such a way as to minimize cost to their soldiers. From their military's perspective, that makes sense. But, stepping back, decisions were being made that will still put many civilian at risk of being blown to bits or chemically burned, and for what? How many Israelis were saved by this? Hamas hasn't changed their position, and they're still in power. What has happened, predictably, is countless people have been displaced and thousands killed. That's how I'm looking at it. There's no good way to lay siege on heavily populated urban areas. It's going to be ugly, and that's why there has to be a very solid reason to do so. A handful of home made rockets that have hardly resulted in any casualties over a several month period is not enough. I don't agree with that analogy. Who's the burglar? Israel is the one preventing needed goods from entering and leaving Gaza. They are the ones illegally stealing land in the West Bank. They are the ones that invaded Gaza's airspace and rained down hell fury on them. It's strange to me that you compare the Israel military to the homeowner, and innocent civilians cowering on the ground in their own homes to the burglars. Also, the shooter in my example does gain something tangible. Target practice. Gun training. He doesn't have to spend time driving to the gun range, or to a hunting ground. Perhaps he thinks that with that extra gun training, he'll be better prepared to defend himself if he ever gets attacked. Or maybe he thinks others will think twice before they attack him, given his established proficiency at using fire arms. We could ask what tangible things Israel has gained from their siege. Yes, they obtained their military objective, but clearly that's not enough. We have to ask ourselves, to what end? Did it improve Israel's security? Many think it did not, but who really knows. They don't. There were some advantages in terms of winning seats in the elections. Saber rattling is always a nice way to achieve that.
After reading this thread and thinking about it awhile, I've decided that using white phosphorus shells is less of an atrocity than using explosive shells. If I had to choose which one to be hit by, I'd probably pick the phosphorus. So, looking at the war in its whole, I will reproach Israel primarily for its disregard for human life in firing explosive shells and not worry so much about the disregard shown in its use of white phosphorus.
Holy crap. I'm glad I live in a place where I can safely sit back and judge over which party is right and wrong or who is excessive or not....
You subscribe to the two wrongs make a right theory? If we are going to allow a wrong to excuse another wrong, then Hamas is excused from using terrorism, because the Palestinians are discriminated against and have been for years. If we allow a wrong to excuse another wrong, then Hamas is free to steal supplies meant for the people of Gaza, because they were wronged by Israel's failure to live up to the initial cease fire. So you can "Oh Please" and rolley eyes all you want, but it's a silly path to take.
What Israel has been doing is nothing short of terrorism. There is a reason why they try their best to block reporters and such. A rare documentary from our media exposing some of what they do over there... We have written Israel a blank check on terrorism and they are taking full advantage of it. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/iiWu13AaKLg&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/iiWu13AaKLg&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ALpiW6R_Z9A&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ALpiW6R_Z9A&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
