New Hamas leader killed

Do you mean in the last fifty years, or before? Say, 1953 or so?

 

Well if my story is wrong, please straighten it out...

 

At this rate, all both sides will have left is peanut butter.

 

It's a difficult question, and largely academic. I, too, am against the targeting of innocent civilians. I can perhaps understand people considering themselves in a state of war, and attacking Israeli/US/British/whatever military targets, but even when at wartargeting civilians is a war crime...

Of course, everyone does it. In WWII the Allies bombed the hell out of civilian targets, and had the Germans won, many Allied commanders would have justifiably been charged with war crimes. We dropped two nuclear bombs on Japanese civilian cites, and we ahem our way to excusing those actions today, either by citing a theory that it saved lives ( it did; ours.) and because they started it. In Vietnam we often attacked targets we KNEW held civilians because we SUSPECTED it held enemy troops. We used Napalm ( which would classify as a WMD, although not as much as Little Boy, etc.)..

The winners not only write the history books, but the resumtive winners define right and wrong according to convenience. In the American Revolution we were thoe ones attacking civilians, and generally using tactics and methods which were equated with what would today be called terrorism. But we excuse it, because it was so long ago ( !?!?), or because it was out of necessity.

This last is THE point...it is convenient for those of us resting comfortably behind the nukes and tanks in a position of the enpowered to say that everyone should fight according to our conventional definition of acceptable actions, but what if there is no alternative. Suppose, for a second, that you were a Palestinain, or a northern Irishman, etc. WHat are your options? Conventional military means...ie complete and fruitless suicide, Gandhiesque passive resistance, or a version of what they are currently doing.

The first was tried, result, as expected, military faiulure...when you're fighting a bear with a pee shooter, that's what's gonna happen. The second garnered no attention, as the powers that be were only interested in assuaging collective post Holocaust guilt...so is it surprising that they have gone to door nbumber 3? Does the fact that it's their only realistic way of fighting for what they believe in make them innocents? Not at all..but I am at a loss to offer them realistic alternatives.


The Western World has a series of excpetions we hjave allowed to what we consider acceptable warfare...the British bombing of the French fleet in WWII, Nagasaki, Agent Orange, etc. Moreover, the US has directly and indirectly used or supported terrorists actions at lenght during the Cold War, in places like Haiti, the Phillapenes, etc. When those actions were used by people we liked who were in power we called it putting down rebels, when they were used to overthrow governments we called them freedom fighters, but ultimately we allowed our end to justify our means.

Do we ever, ever allow the same to those who stand on the other side of the fence? Is the right or wrong of an action based on the action itself, and a definition of right and wrong, or merely on whether or not the action benefits us or those we support?

 

It is obviously not a perfect analogy. The police rarely use Hellfire missiles and Hydra rockets to go after gangbangers. The point of the post (and I think that you are a smart enough guy to have understood it) was that you keep a safe distance away from trouble. And yes, it is possible to keep away from the terrorists. Those who don't support terrorists could tell the Israelis where they are hiding, they could band together to force out the bad element (like a neighborhood watch), they could go after the terrorists themselves or report them to the Palestinian authorities (if the Palestinian authorities and the terrorists weren't the same thing, anyway). There are always alternatives. It is a copout to say that the Palestinians are forced into close quarters with the terrorists, only slightly less so than saying that the Palestinians are FORCED to attack innocent civilians. No one can make you strap on a bomb and go blow up innocent people.

 

I'm not an authority on sharon, but you might look up El Burj and Qibiya. Granted, it was during a period of horrible tit-for-tat, where civilians on both sides were targeted. Not sure if that really is a sufficient excuse ... course it wasn't that long after we nuked 2 cities, so maybe I should keep my mouth shut. ramble ramble ramble...

 

I don't think you realize how jam-packed these cities are. Go look at a map of Gaza that has miles/kilometers in scale... we're talking about hundreds of thousands of "noncombatants" in a very small area. And your suggestion is unrealistic in the extreme, in my opinion. With hundreds of thousands trying to live their daily existence, they're supposed to know who's in every car? Who might be driving through their neighborhood? Just who these people are? The Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad (hope I spelled that right), has one hell of a time figuring that out and they are one of the world's best.

It ain't that simple, StupidMoniker.

 

Let me just state it simply. It is cowardly and grossly inhumane to walk into a crowd of innocent civilians and detonate a bomb because you seek to destroy Israel.

However, I would justify the bombing of Dresden and the Japanese cities horribly fire-bombed because those folks worked in factories just like our Rosie the Riveters. They built weapons and supplies our enemies needed-therefore-they were legitimate targets. Was that a morally correct decision? You know my answer: war is hell. War today is not as it was in the middle ages when kings got their lords to fight at the side. It is total war, the total committment of a entire nation's resources and population to the war effort, be it crewing a merchant ship, firing a machine gun, growing vegetables in a victory garden, flying a P-51, storming a beach or dipping machine parts in chrome (like my dad's mother did during WWII). So does that make the home front a legit target. By that rationale, if they are actively assisting in the overall war effort as those German and Japanese citizens were, you betcha. Kill them and wipe out their factories and you win the war. Simple as that.

Now as for that French Fleet thing, the Brits had to do it. Besides, they offered the stupid French the chance to join them!!!!!! If the Frogs were too stupid to do that, fire away. Sink their silly ships and deny them to Hitler and his minions. If those ships had fallen into the hands of the Axis, it would have tipped the scales of seaborne supremacy into the hands of the enemy.

So, by that rationale, Israeli civilians are not legitimate targets. I know the "Palestinians" are outnumbered and outgunned, but I can't have a bit of sympathy when they engage in such cowardly and dishonorable tactics. And add to the mix the fact the Israelis nearly gave them everything they claimed to want (and they rejected it!), it wouldn't bother me a wit to see them shipped over the border to Jordan and the rest of the Arab states where they belong. In one swoop, you end terrorism there, forever.

 

Dresden was did not have any major war manufacturing factories, or support industry.

 

It is not possible. You don't know what route the terrorists will be driving that day. If you happen to be near by when one drives by and the ISraelis missle the place then you are a goner, through no fault of your own. The missle that took out the apt. building and the neighboring ones is a similar situation. I live in an apt. building, and I don't know what every single person in my apts is doing, let alone the apartment complex next door to mine. I'm in 108C, and if the Israelis decide to bombe this place to take out someone in 216B I'm not in anyway responsible for that.

Also you are asking Palestinians to protect the occupying army that enforces policies of discrimination on them. It's never happened in history to my knowledge and it won't happen now. Because one family oppressed by a bigoted Israeli policy doesn't go out and turn in everyone they suspect might be fighting against Israel doesn't mean they deserve to die. It's ridiculous to expect that they will somehow go out of their way to protect their occupiers and oppressors.

 

Proof, please. If it had any factory that even supplied food to the German troops or made sleeping bags or tires, it was a legitimate target.

 

Exactly like I said: We rationalize ours by saying 'it was necessary', but when others do it, well, it's just bad, m'kay.

 

Hypocrite in extreme. So you define what a "war" is, how some activities constitute "aiding to a war machine", etc, etc, all at the same time?

That is not to say, what Palestinians did was right.

 

Okay boneheads, last time. Destroying a military's means of supply (i.e. the factory workers who build and grow everything needed by an army) is legitimate. Killing civilians for the priviledge of 72 virgins in paradise is abominable. No hypocrisy there. There is a clear distinction and I thought I made that plain. Oh, that's right, the knee jerk reaction just kicked in for you to any one of my posts. Sure.

 

No, it was just another time. It was 50 years ago. We no laonger target civilians. At some point in the not too distant future, I think even 'collateral' civilian deaths will become entirely unacceptable.

 

Uh, in WWII we killed a lot more than 'supply'. We didn't drop nukes to destroy factories.


But it was a diffferent era and a World War. Any analysis must consider the environment.

 

Right, comparing WW2 with today's battles is hard. In WW2, it was entire populace against entire populace, with the outcome affecting every citizen of every country involved.

 

IF your life depended on it, you might get to know your neighbors a little better, especially with curfews that limit your movement at times. When I lived in an apartment, I didn't know the people right next to me, but if there was a reasonable chance that I would be blown up for living next to someone, then you better believe that I would find out who my neighbors were.

I am not asking them to protect the occupying army. Nor am I asking them to go out of their way. I am suggesting that they can save themselves by turning in the murderers of innocent people who have done nothing to them. They don't have to rat out the kids throwing rocks at the Israeli soldiers, just the one's planning on blowing up a school bus.