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Author Topic: Israeli attacks in Gaza
natural_mystic
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quote:
Originally posted by Lisa:
There's nothing ambiguous about the malice of the Arabs in Gaza.

More accurately: there's nothing ambiguous about the malice of some of the Arabs in Gaza.
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Blayne Bradley
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what do you mean "some" most is more likely.
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natural_mystic
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quote:
Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:
what do you mean "some" most is more likely.

By 'some' I mean 'a subset'.
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Juxtapose
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quote:
Originally posted by Lisa:
And Juxtapose, why would you expect ambiguity? There's nothing ambiguous about the malice of the Arabs in Gaza.

Sorry, my tongue was in my cheek and it probably didn't make it through the tubes.

The phrase seems to conflate Iran's nuclear development and backing of Hamas to suggest that Iran has or will arm Hamas with nuclear weapons. In fact there's so little reason to bring up Iran's nuclear ambitions in this particular discussion that I can only infer that the ambiguity is intended.

The organization in general has an axe to grind. Which is fine, I just wanted to mention it.

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Lisa
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quote:
Originally posted by natural_mystic:
quote:
Originally posted by Lisa:
There's nothing ambiguous about the malice of the Arabs in Gaza.

More accurately: there's nothing ambiguous about the malice of some of the Arabs in Gaza.
True. There've been some sane ones there. They've mostly been killed as collaboraters.
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natural_mystic
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quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:
I've already had this discussion in this thread, but to recap: The Germans, in 1945, stopped with something like 7% casualties. (More if you just count males of fighting age, of course.) That is, they did not merely stop the current round of fighting as they had done in 1918, but really renounced the goal of becoming Europe's dominant power. The Russians, likewise, stopped in 1917 after taking something like 5 or 6 percent casualties - not merely suing for peace and saying "We'll get you later when we've built up our strength again", but literally millions of Russians throwing down their guns and saying "Sod this for a game of soldiers, I'm going home". The French came very, very close to the same thing, and the Italian army never delivered another effective attack after the 10th battle of the Izonso. (Or 11th, or 13th, whichever. They were fighting for that river forever.) It is possible to make people give up, if you whack them hard enough, and 'hard enough' is not equal to genocide.

Revisiting the 'whack them hard enough (WTHE)' thesis, what do you make of the fact that the Soviet Union suffered worse losses that Nazi Germany in WWII, but did not give up? The point being that depopulation rates are only one aspect of whacking hard (though, presumably, when it gets high enough, its importance increases). I wonder if the other strategic goals necessary to WTHE without resorting to massive depopulation can be met. Given that much of the Hamas leadership is reportedly based in Syria I'm not optimistic.
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Blayne Bradley
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Russia however won WWII, got their revenge and everything and had a significantly higher reserve of manpower the entire time, the moment Moscow was saved and Stalingrad won the war turned rapidly in their favour oh sure, Germans could have won desively at Kursk but that would what, delay the way for a small while?
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Lyrhawn
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Would have made a bigger difference if they'd won the Battle of the Bulge in the Western theater. They might have been able to shift enough troops over to protect Fortress Germany, but two fronts was one too many for them.
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King of Men
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I don't see how the Ardennes Offensive is supposed to help them with that.

Getting back to the Russians, as Blayne says, they won. Moreover, their country, while badly damaged, was not levelled with the Earth in the way that Germany was. War damage is not measured in casualties alone, bad as those were. Further, at that time the Russians really did believe in Communism, and it was not discredited with defeat in battle as happened to Nazism; if some utter miracle had saved the Germans after the Russian armies had crossed the Oder, Nazism would have recovered as well. And finally, the existence of some threshold of casualties which makes people give up does not imply that this threshold is the same everywhere.

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natural_mystic
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quote:
Originally posted by King of Men:

Getting back to the Russians, as Blayne says, they won. Moreover, their country, while badly damaged, was not levelled with the Earth in the way that Germany was.

This was my point. To reiterate: it's all very well making ex post facto remarks about the level of depopulation that occurs when a country has been whacked hard enough, but in the Soviet Union we have an example of a country that was whacked extremely hard (at least insofar as depopulation is a measure of this), but they continued fighting. The moral is: simple depopulation reaching the level experienced by the Soviets might not be sufficient to WTHE in the absence of other factors. Returning to the current conflict, I am not these other factors can be met. I have not heard that Israel is bombing Damascus, where apparently much of Hamas' leadership is. Decimating people in the hope that they turn against Hamas, I think, is a long shot - hoping that, say, someone who loses their child who has never even met an Israeli to an Israeli bomb will blame Hamas instead of the Israelis is not so likely. Destroying the rocket launchers is a worthy goal, but a very temporary measure in the greater scheme of things, as it would require incredibly well-manned borders to prevent their replenishment.

At the end of the day I worry that this conflict will have accomplished nothing more than the further destruction of the already rundown Gazan infrastructure, a significant loss of life in Gaza, some Israeli losses and a rise in al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah etc. recruitment in the Middle East.

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Blayne Bradley
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quote:
Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
Would have made a bigger difference if they'd won the Battle of the Bulge in the Western theater. They might have been able to shift enough troops over to protect Fortress Germany, but two fronts was one too many for them.

by 1944 the war was already over Lytharn, heck it was over even before D-Day. Operation Bagration broke the back of the Germany army within days of D-Day and Germany redeployed what? 9 understrengthed under equiped exhausted divisions to the western threatre when the Soviets had even before then outnumbered the germans heavily in every category? All Ardennes would have accomplished is allowing Russia to occupy more of Germany.

WWII was decided on the eastern front, 80% of German casualties were in the east, it was the Red Army that crushed the Germans (Lend Lease helped considerably). What would have 100,000 troops from France effectively done in the Eastern front when Russia had a million or two more then germany, thousands of tanks and guns more, tens of thousands of planes more then germany? I think in some cases the Russians had 150 Artillery peices per square mile to Germany's 3.

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rivka
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The CNN Strategy
quote:
They forget the usual rules of morality and law. For example, when a murderer takes a hostage and fires from behind his human shield, and a policeman, in an effort to stop the shooting accidentally kills the hostage, the law of every country holds the hostage taker guilty of murder even though the policeman fired the fatal shot.

The same is true of the law of war. The use of human shields, in the way Hamas uses the civilian population of Gaza, is a war crime -- as is its firing of rockets at Israeli civilians. Every human shield that is killed by Israeli self-defence measures is the responsibility of Hamas, but you wouldn't know that from watching the media coverage.

The CNN strategy seems to work better, at least in some parts of the world, against Israel that it would against other nations. There is much more protest -- and fury -- directed against Israel when it inadvertently kills approximately 100 civilians in a just war of self-defence, than against Arab and Muslim nations and groups that deliberately kill far more civilians for no legitimate reason.


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Lyrhawn
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Brayne Bladley -

Well we'll never know for sure, but without Hitler micromanaging them into defeat, and with enough men and material to keep the war machine going (like for example, not losing the oil fields in Romania to American forces advancing from Italy), they could have turned the eastern front into enough of a war of attrition to stall or halt Russian advances to at least hold onto Germany. It was American fighters and bombers that broke Germany's industrial core and secured air superiority over Germany itself. Without that, Germany might have been able to forestall the end of the war long enough to take advantage of late in the war technological advances. Seemingly small things can have tremendous ripple effects.

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Lisa
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quote:
Originally posted by rivka:
The CNN Strategy
quote:
They forget the usual rules of morality and law. For example, when a murderer takes a hostage and fires from behind his human shield, and a policeman, in an effort to stop the shooting accidentally kills the hostage, the law of every country holds the hostage taker guilty of murder even though the policeman fired the fatal shot.

The same is true of the law of war. The use of human shields, in the way Hamas uses the civilian population of Gaza, is a war crime -- as is its firing of rockets at Israeli civilians. Every human shield that is killed by Israeli self-defence measures is the responsibility of Hamas, but you wouldn't know that from watching the media coverage.

The CNN strategy seems to work better, at least in some parts of the world, against Israel that it would against other nations. There is much more protest -- and fury -- directed against Israel when it inadvertently kills approximately 100 civilians in a just war of self-defence, than against Arab and Muslim nations and groups that deliberately kill far more civilians for no legitimate reason.


QFT. Thanks, Rivka.
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rivka
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I'm not a huge Dershowitz fan, but sometimes he's right on the money.
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natural_mystic
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quote:
Originally posted by rivka:

They forget the usual rules of morality and law. For example, when a murderer takes a hostage and fires from behind his human shield, and a policeman, in an effort to stop the shooting accidentally kills the hostage, the law of every country holds the hostage taker guilty of murder even though the policeman fired the fatal shot.

The same is true of the law of war. The use of human shields, in the way Hamas uses the civilian population of Gaza, is a war crime -- as is its firing of rockets at Israeli civilians. Every human shield that is killed by Israeli self-defence measures is the responsibility of Hamas, but you wouldn't know that from watching the media coverage.


This is overly simplistic for two reasons:
1) To most, it is immaterial who is responsible for the civilians' deaths, only that these deaths are occurring. Even if Hamas is 100% morally culpable, without Israel's action the deaths would not occur.

2) Numbers matter. In the policemen scenario, suppose instead of a hostage, the murderer held a remote control with the button compressed such that if decompressed (as would happen if the murderer were fatally shot) would trigger the remote control which in turn would set off an explosive that would kill 100 hostages in an unknown location. The policeman might not be morally culpable for their deaths, but maybe he shouldn't return fire and risk causing them.

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King of Men
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If you wave your hands and say

a) Hitler does no micromanagement
b) Romania is somehow held
c) They gain a large influx of men and machinery
d) The Western Allies stop bombing the Ruhr

then sure, you might be able to cobble together some sort of German victory. But to get all this from the Ardennes offensive is not possible in the real world of actual men and machinery.

And apart from that, where do you get this bizarre idea that Romania was lost to American troops from Italy? This makes no sense whatsoever. The Allied forces in Italy never advanced any further north than Rome, and Romania is nowhere near Italy anyway; it's on the other side of the Balkans! Romania was occupied by Russian troops in the course of their advance.

Edit: I see my recollection was wrong, the Italian armies did get north of Rome eventually, reaching Venice in early 1945. But when the Russians were occupying Romania around September 1944 they were still no more than halfway from Rome to Venice, and stuck on the Gothic line. By the time of the Ardennes offensive Romania was completely occupied by the Red Army.

[ January 09, 2009, 03:23 PM: Message edited by: King of Men ]

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Mucus
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quote:
The same is true of the law of war. The use of human shields, in the way Hamas uses the civilian population of Gaza, is a war crime -- as is its firing of rockets at Israeli civilians ...
I'm going to deliberately not comment on the Israeli-Gaza war in this case or on the morality of the situation, but militarily this is a very old dynamic.

While the global media spin is new, this is a very old story about how you conduct guerilla warfare. Of course you hide amongst a supportive civilian population, of course you don't engage like a normal conventional army, and obviously you kill civilian collaborators.

This is pretty standard stuff whether you're fighting Imperial Japan, Nazis, or the colonial British and whether its considered a war crime, well that rather depends on who wins and gets to write the history.

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Lyrhawn
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KoM -

I never said the US Army occupied Romania. I was talking about the Army Air Corps bombing the infrastructure, distrubution centers and oil supplies into uselessness. For example, the oil refineries and storage tanks at Ploesti.

And there's no way of knowing the effect that those supplies being cut off before the Red Army actually occupied the country had on Nazi forces.

You're really no fun at all.

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King of Men
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quote:
losing the oil fields in Romania to American forces advancing from Italy
This is not a good way to describe bombers operating out of Italian airfields. Also, 'uselessness' is a bit of an exaggeration. The oilfields were damaged, certainly, but they kept on producing. In any case, how does a better performance in the Ardennes Offensive - fought in December 1944 - have any effect on this bombing, which began in August 1943, and ended presumably in October-ish of 1944, when the Russians occupied Romania?
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Blayne Bradley
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The German army was clearly defeated by Ardennes, Ardennes was simply its last dying breath. Bagration had a few months prior destroyed the ad hoc remains of army group center and during the ardennes (during) the Red army swarmed over the vistula and swept away the remains like a rags wiping away dust. The Germans had one tough last stand at the Sadlow Hieghts outside Berlin but the war was clearly lost.

It is rather inconcievable that after Stalingrad and Kursk where the Germans lost some of their finest corps of men and officers and their irreplaceable AFV's respectively could the Germans "won" the war, they were outnumbered 10 to 1 in the Ukraine, the Red army bested them in every single category, aircraft, tanks, guns, manpower reserves it was simply a matter of redirecting their attacks once the Germans committed their reserves. The germans had fought not one offencive battle in the eastern front after kursk making it inconcievable that some victory in France would have done anything more then bought them time as they clearly lacked the reosurces to regarrison France to keep the Allies from slowly building up their strength there and clearly lacked the resources even if they threw every single corps, division and army on the rhine to the east it would not have been enough they were falling back and getting encircled on every front the russians advanced on. The Germans only effective resistence was in fortified urban centers the countryside the Germans were easily brushed aside.

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Lyrhawn
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quote:
This is not a good way to describe bombers operating out of Italian airfields.
Well I could have been more specific, but it's not incorrect. They, the oil refineries and storage tanks, were lost (destroyed), in Romania (in Romania) to American forces (the Army Air Corps operating out of captured air bases) from Italy (the air bases were in Italy).

I'm not responsible for your assumptions.

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The Rabbit
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Here is an excellent article written by Jimmy Carter on the history behind the current conflict. It is definitely worth reading.


An Unnecessary War

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Samprimary
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ANTICIPATED RESPONSE BY AN AS-YET UNNAMED DEMOGRAPHIC

[quote]ugh jimmy carter augh ugh hiss boo[/url]

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Flaming Toad on a Stick
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Said unnamed demographic doesn't usually mess up their quote code.
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King of Men
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quote:
Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
quote:
This is not a good way to describe bombers operating out of Italian airfields.
Well I could have been more specific, but it's not incorrect. They, the oil refineries and storage tanks, were lost (destroyed), in Romania (in Romania) to American forces (the Army Air Corps operating out of captured air bases) from Italy (the air bases were in Italy).

I'm not responsible for your assumptions.

*Snort* You know, at some point you should just admit you screwed up and get on with your life. What happened to that rather key word, 'advancing' (from Italy)?

In any case, none of this explains how the Ardennes offensive is going to save either Romania or Germany.

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Lisa
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quote:
Originally posted by The Rabbit:
Here is an excellent article written by Jimmy Carter on the history behind the current conflict. It is definitely worth reading.

An Unnecessary War

Jimmy Carter has shown himself to be horribly biased about the Middle East, labeling Israel as an apartheid regime. I'd be shocked if he didn't condemn Israel.
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Blayne Bradley
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im fairly certain that the damage done to the romanian oil fields had only a relatively minor effect on the war, 1943 yes? Surely didn't stop Kursk from happening and even if it happened afterwards the Germans completely lacked the troops, the reserves or the vehicals to mount any operations aside from "tactical" corps sized counter attacks against Russian breaches and the redployment of said remaining reserves to meet them.

It also surely didnt effect Ardennes yes, they lacked fuel but it didnt stop them from concievably stockpiling enough to make the offencive, they just made the mistake of leaving them on the wrong side of the rhine. But by this time they're usage/demand of oil so outweighed supply even counting romania that it hardly mattered. and I am also fairly certain that BY the Ardennes as KoM pointed out Romania was already occupied by the Soviet Union.

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TomDavidson
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quote:
Jimmy Carter has shown himself to be horribly biased about the Middle East, labeling Israel as an apartheid regime.
Not that I fully agree with him, mind you, but didn't Israel treat Palestinian Arabs as second-class citizens for decades? And now, as a result of political compromise, doesn't have to treat them like citizens at all?
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Lisa
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Not at all. The Arabs living in Judea, Samaria and Gaza were never citizens at all. Israel didn't annex the territories precisely because they would have felt obligated to offer them all citizenship, as they did to the Arabs within the 1949 armistice lines.

They very stupidly decided to hold onto the territories and not annex them, in hopes that they'd be able to trade them for a peace agreement. But even when Ehud Barak offered Arafat virtually all of that land (plus some within the armistice lines to make up for some that we're never giving them), Arafat not only refused, but started a new war (the "second intifada") against Israel.

This is what happens when we offer them concessions. They take it as a sign of weakness and redouble their efforts to get everything.

If it were up to me, I'd annex Judea, Samaria and Gaza, and simply walk the Arabs currently living there to the nearest border, be it Jordan or Egypt, and wish them a bon voyage. I'd even be willing to stake them. As I've posted here before, we could give every single Arab family now living in the territories a quarter of a million dollars to make a start elsewhere, and it wouldn't cost us any more than the projected military budget for the next 10 years. It'd be more than worth it.

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Lyrhawn
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quote:
and simply walk the Arabs currently living there to the nearest border
Were your plan to be enacted word for word, what do you think the chances are that this would actually happen as you describe it?

What you should have said was round them up, throw them in the back of trucks, and them dump them at the border. Historically the world responds pretty badly to one group rounding up another and putting them in camps. Hundreds of thousands or millions of Palestinians already live in camps, but this is a step further.

And yet, if you don't do something like that, demographically Jews will be a minority in Israel in a couple decades. Birth rates are working against you and in the Arabs' favor.

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rivka
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I have some relatives who are working on that angle.
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Lisa
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quote:
Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
quote:
and simply walk the Arabs currently living there to the nearest border
Were your plan to be enacted word for word, what do you think the chances are that this would actually happen as you describe it?

What you should have said was round them up, throw them in the back of trucks, and them dump them at the border. Historically the world responds pretty badly to one group rounding up another and putting them in camps. Hundreds of thousands or millions of Palestinians already live in camps, but this is a step further.

And yet, if you don't do something like that, demographically Jews will be a minority in Israel in a couple decades. Birth rates are working against you and in the Arabs' favor.

Even if we do, the birthrate of Arab citizens is the same kind of timebomb, which means that the outrage will be even worse. <shrug> So what do we do, pack up and move everyone to Poland? Or Uganda? Or Sitka? If "Palestinian" Arabs who have never lived in the Middle East (because the UN has defined a Palestinian refugee as anyone descended from anyone claiming Palestinian ancestry) have more of a right to the land than Israelis who are 4th and 5th generation there, then Jews who all descend from people who lived there must surely trump that.
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Lisa
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quote:
Originally posted by rivka:
I have some relatives who are working on that angle.

Heh.
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Lisa
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Two must-read articles:

In Israel, a Consensus That Gaza War Is a Just One (Ethan Bronner, New York Times)(link)

Israel goes it alone (Jerusalem Post editorial)(link)

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Sterling
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I'm of two minds on the subject of "human shields".

On one hand, of course the person who hides behind the human shield is morally culpable, at least if he continues shooting (rather than simply using the hostage as a shield for his own life.)

And I also understand that a weak response to a "human shields" situation, much like paying a ransom to a kidnapper, risks exacerbating the situation by suggesting to others who might use such tactics that they work.

But on the other hand, metaphorically speaking, retaining the true moral high ground demands if the side opposing the shield-user has superior force, they use it not to respond with overwhelming power but to use any tactical or technological advantage available to assure that the minimum harm to civilians is incurred.

Again, metaphorically speaking, if the SWAT sniper isn't able to get off a clean shot, then you take heart that at least you tried (and prevented the original shooter from doing more damage.) But you don't arm your response team with rocket launchers and then say, "Oops."

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Lisa
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We don't just say "oops". We'd definitely prefer not to kill civilians, and we regret their deaths. But we're going to protect ourselves even at the cost of their lives.
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Corwin
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From Lisa's first article:

quote:
‘Imagine,’ I tell a French reporter, ‘that every two days a missile falls in the Champs-Élysées and only the glass windows of the shops break and five people suffer from shock,’ ” Mr. Yehoshua told a reporter from Yediot Aharonot, a Tel Aviv newspaper. “ ‘What would you say? Wouldn’t you be angry? Wouldn’t you send missiles at Belgium if it were responsible for missiles on your grand boulevard?’
I bet pretty much every country would react with force at this. Which is why I should be a bit puzzled by the European reaction to this, but unfortunately I've long given up on Europe acting in any reasonable way.
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aspectre
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http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/01/13/article-1113862-030ADFFC000005DC-98_468x303_popup.jpg
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Lisa
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Your point being...?
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Blayne Bradley
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new vin diesel movie.

"Hes back in Gaza and Hes Pissed Off"

or

"Terrorists Beware for VinDesiel is Here"

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Lyrhawn
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quote:
Originally posted by Corwin:
From Lisa's first article:

quote:
‘Imagine,’ I tell a French reporter, ‘that every two days a missile falls in the Champs-Élysées and only the glass windows of the shops break and five people suffer from shock,’ ” Mr. Yehoshua told a reporter from Yediot Aharonot, a Tel Aviv newspaper. “ ‘What would you say? Wouldn’t you be angry? Wouldn’t you send missiles at Belgium if it were responsible for missiles on your grand boulevard?’
I bet pretty much every country would react with force at this. Which is why I should be a bit puzzled by the European reaction to this, but unfortunately I've long given up on Europe acting in any reasonable way.
I think they have the right plan of action but the wrong reasons. It would seem that Europeans protesting really do think that Israel should just stand by and do nothing...but the truth of the matter is that Israel's actions here are really doing them a lot more long term harm than good. Europe should be making the argument of long term self interest rather than wagging a finger at them for morality reasons. Morally I think they have right on their side for the moment, mostly. But strategically, I think their plan of action is flawed.
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Mucus
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quote:
Originally posted by Corwin:
... I bet pretty much every country would react with force at this. Which is why I should be a bit puzzled by the European reaction to this ...

Don't really need to bet on it, there's a long and sordid history of European countries over-reacting to much smaller provocations.

They're being hypocritical for sure, it remains to be determined if they're wrong.

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Lisa
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It isn't only Europe, either. Condi is staunchly pro-Hamas. And don't get me started on CNN.

Yesterday, CNN put up a poll: Israel vs Palestinians. But they rigged it and got caught. If you voted for Israel, about 8 times out of 10, you'd get a "server busy" screen. But if you tried voting for the Palestinians, it went right through. It was confirmed by multiple sources.

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Minerva
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Lisa, do you have a source for the biased poll?
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Lisa
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Link.

Language advisory.

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Mucus
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The poll that it refers to as "CNN is running a poll (here)", does that look like a CNN poll to you?
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Sterling
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quote:
Originally posted by Lisa:
We don't just say "oops". We'd definitely prefer not to kill civilians, and we regret their deaths. But we're going to protect ourselves even at the cost of their lives.

Again, speaking metaphorically.

I'm certainly not an expert on urban warfare (any experts out there, please feel free to raise your hands) but what I see is this.

The problem with dealing with rockets and mortars is that they're extremely mobile. If it takes too long to respond to one, the perpetrator may be long gone from the source of the attack.

Some of the responses to these attacks- air-strikes, especially from drones- have the benefit of bringing in a counter-attack very quickly, and are thus more likely to actually hit the attacker before he relocates. But the nature of these attacks also make it more likely that places like schools that lead to a high number of innocent civilian casualties will be hit.

I hope that the increased infantry presence in Gaza means that these attacks can be dealt with more efficiently without having to respond with excessive force in order to respond effectively. But it also strikes me that what Israel really needs is not so much to strike the individual attackers- which may lead to civilian deaths and increases the bad PR for Israel- but to strike the places where munitions are hidden, as those stores are likely far less mobile than the men who use them.

Again, I'm no expert, but this seems like it might be an advantage to a short cease-fire. It could be good for Israels image, allow time for humanitarian aid to get in (and possibly non-combatant refugees to get out) and if it's short enough that the tunnels can't be rebuilt, it might give intelligence a better chance to locate where such stores are located to make future strikes more surgical and effective.

[ January 13, 2009, 06:05 PM: Message edited by: Sterling ]

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kmbboots
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quote:
Originally posted by Mucus:
The poll that it refers to as "CNN is running a poll (here)", does that look like a CNN poll to you?

It doesn't look like a CNN poll to me. I was able to vote for Israel the first time with no problem. The second time, I got an error message before I voted for either. The third time, I tried to vote for Palestine and got the same error message.

I don't think it is a conspiracy; I just don't think it was put together very well.

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fugu13
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That isn't a CNN poll in the least, whatever its other qualities.
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