Re: Israel and its neightbors are at it again
I think we failed to understand each other's claims. I believe I said that Hamas cannot be considered to be fighting a legitimate conflict because of the terms under which they exist, as well as strike.
Then your choice of diction has indeed confounded me, for that I can agree entirely. Even if we accept the notion of Palestinians fighting what is rightfully theirs (the concept of property right has long gone out the window there in this sense), and even if we grant them the notion of nationhood, their choice of methods immediately makes their fighting illegitimate.
I meant, why are you changing what I thought you were trying to argue.
I don't recall changing anything. I have constantly been arguing that international community recognises the concept of intranational warfare, and intranational conflict. It has seemed to me you disagree with such a notion.
Oh, just stop. I don't have the time (or permission) to research properly at work, and when I produce a gem like the Iraqi expat blogger you've nothing but scorn.
I thought he was Iranian.
Please tell me you aren't failing to differentiate between a nation trying to avoid war crimes and even civilian casualties, and a mafia-style terrorist gang who deliberately and repeatedly do so?
The other one is not trying hard enough (to avoid civilian casualities), the other one is trying too much (to achieve civilian casualities). I have no doubt of which act is morally more reprehensible.
Also bear in mind, though, that the scale of the former might make it equally or even more destructive than the latter in spite of the possible good intention.
I still don't get how condemning, say, wounding the three UNWRA guys, takes any steam off from saying the Hamas should put their guns down. Oh, I forgot, the UNWRA were the bad guys, it's OK to shoot at them tacitly.
Well, yes, I've found at least three examples of Hamas killing civilians, apart from what I mentioned (and none of them are personal anecdote). I just can't find them now.
I can spare the time. In spite of my chiding of your links, that one would be an interesting read.
When you are willing to accept the worst imaginable about the civilized combatant, yet demand an impossible standard of evidence regarding the uncivilized villain, then yes, I suspect you do cheer for dead Israelis. Again, the UN <quietly sanctions> anti-Israeli aggression, by way of only enforcing their mission against the civilized Jewish side.
How is it impossible? To require the word of someone who isn't waist-deep in the conflict already? Reporters have never been on a war-zone, have they?
And why is it believing the worst they're not trying their worst? Oh believe me, I can do a lot worse than that. If I started thinking of them in anything even like terms of the Soviets, who fought a relatively clean conflict with us (with the exception of ??????????), I'd already assume a whole lot more.
I'm not saying that I can't understand it, since much like all the other liberal hand-wringers' causes, leftist screams of proportionality and human rights don't fall on the ears of sub-humans (and they're quite likely to slaughter the leftie in the bargain). I'm just saying that uni-directional enforcement against the civilized is abhorrent - it encourages the sub-human behavior and gives it succor.
The uni-directionality owes a great deal not only to the nature of UN - weak and divided in decision-making, often making proper decisions moot because someone influential is dragging the process down - but also to the idea you've been toting in the earlier parts of the post - that only nations with countries are parties that need addressing. This often leads to the rebel/insurgent/whatever side getting away with less pressure, and interventions in general favouring a turning of tide and change in status quo.
I totally agree UN isn't crushing Hamas' balls hard enough. Might be because they haven't found them yet, I assume they're on the small size.
Childhood friends are hardly "newly-found". I'd admit that as forced ex-pats whose parents probably lost a bundle in the flight from Iran, they weren't a particularly tolerant bunch. As to Islam, it has a metastasizing cancer at its core (as I've argued against Rikstaker and others) - until
Wahabists no longer call the shots, I don't expect much on the positive side.
I did not mean to belittle the genuine nature of your friendship bonds, but rather to implicate you're finding new friends in quick succession if you accept anyone with dislike for radical Islam (or indeed, Islam in general) as your friend.
I apologise for the unfitting wording - one thing I do not assume you to be is definintely an untrue and a unscrupulous friend.
Oh, come on. Turning a retard into a human weapon isn't massively worse than letting them play with their boogers in a padded room?
That question essentially boils down to whether a society that condemns a guiltless persons en masse into life in custody and forced labour is better than one that kills a few of them. It's a toss-up, really.
I'd take the one without the bomb in my back if it had to be me, but if it was 20 guys (contra one guy blown up) next to me in stead of me? I really don't know, and I hold the whole thou shalt not kill even too dear.
No, I mean that <I> and a couple of other soldiers experienced these things, not an Israeli.
I realise that, but I saw you not describe what you experienced, just refer that experiences that you and your comrades-in-arms shared were similiar to those of Israeli. As I knew not what the Israeli had witnessed, I asked for clarification.
Bah, just forget the sidetrack and tell me what you saw. Sorry bout that tangle.
Interesting - then it is similar to the term, "camel jockey" (of which there are examples, though they are properly 'herdsmen' and judging by the one I encountered are in quite a lucrative trade).
Yes, both are associated with livelihood, and sort of simplify their lives by making it the only determining factor in their life. While camel jockey is gives me some snickers (thinking the guy with a red jacket and that silly helm on a camel is worth a few), the mental image of a guy romping the desert of dates as far as eye can see gets me giddy. Don't know what it is about it, perhaps the fact I like dates.
I think that they could and do - not all of them have
'learned' the hate from encounters (as you might be inferring that I have), but rather have it instilled with them like mothers' milk. A good example is the personal story of Brigitte Gabriel, a Lebanese Christian and now one of the right-wingers who is so hated. Her epiphany occurred when seeking Jewish medical help, as many from Hamas and the PA do. Another is apparently Mosab Hassan Yousef, who would now be under the Islamist death penalty since he has converted to Christianity... I say apparently because I didn't manage to TiVo the interview.
Like I said, I assumed many to grow into culture of violence, vengeance and hatred as well. Those stories are always sad, it's good to see even a few get pulled out. Even if they go to the wrong side of the political spectrum, they're better off. :jig:
There always is suffering where the war is.
My CO kept asking why the guys he was training wanted to "maximise their misery". While your comment isn't about maggots not doing what they're told, it doesn't make me any less ponderous on the clear disregard for the minimisation of misery.
