Middle East thread continued

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


It's an intolerable situation that a non-governmental organization is acquiring weapons to attack the IDF navy.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
I wonder... plenty of weapons came from New England ports to the IRA, through Irish ports. Would the UK be justified in obliterating the Port Authority of NY & NJ or Ports in Ireland as a result of an attack on the IRA?

yes

[DinoDoc]

I'm curious about what a proportionate response actually is. The US had an attack that lasted about 2 hours give or take and the response was to take over a country halfway around the world. Is that proportionate?

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I'm curious about what a proportionate response actually is. The US had an attack that lasted about 2 hours give or take and the response was to take over a country halfway around the world. Is that proportionate?

duration of attack can be of trivial importance. A cold war era fullscale nuclear first strike would likely last much less than 2 hours and yet the proportionate response would be considerably larger than the operations we saw in afghanistan.

[DinoDoc]

That doesn't really answer the question of what is and isn't proportionate.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
That doesn't really answer the question of what is and isn't proportionate.

I don't really think proportionate response necessarily equates to appropriate response but I suppose in terms of civilian casualities inflicted the operation might be regarded as proportionate.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I'm curious about what a proportionate response actually is.

No, I don't think you really are.

[Kuciwalker]

He's merely leading you into the trap of actually explaining your argument rather than using nice-sounding words.

[DinoDoc]

Actually I am. Well at least a little bit. It's a term I don't know the meaning of. It's getting bandied around quite a bit without anyone actually giving a clue about what it means so I thought it might be good for me to expand my knowledge base a bit.

[chequita guevara]

Ya think?

[GePap]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I'm curious about what a proportionate response actually is. The US had an attack that lasted about 2 hours give or take and the response was to take over a country halfway around the world. Is that proportionate?

When you phrase things so badly, its easy to try to make a point.

It would be (FAR MORE) correct to state that:

After a non-governmental transnational group with international political aims carried out a massive criminal attack against the UNited States that killed thousands of its citizens, the US demanded that a regime not recognized as valid by the international community hosting this group surrender them to US custody or face being attacked. That reigme refused to hand over the leaders of the group or end the group's activity in the lands under their control. Therefore the United States attacked that regime, and with the help of local forces, including those of the internationally recognized legitimate regime of the country (partly) drove both the criminal organization and the hosting group from power and into the hills. The US then attempted (with limited success) to help the victorious forces to set up a democratically legitimate government.

Under that far more correct statement of things, Yes, the US response was proportionate, as can be seen by the widespread international approval of the actions and the blessing and backing of the international community and its support in this action.

(the Iraq war is another thing all of its own, and not a valid repsonse to 9/11 in anyway)

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by Qilue


This might be influenced by the fact that Israel's nominal ally has a significant military presence in the blue shaded area on this map.

(Original image from http://www.worldatlas.com/)

Probably has more to do with the fact that they don't have to do a thing beyond send money and watch Lebanon and Gaza take the brunt of the Israelie wrath. Syria being a bit closer seems to take a less agressive stance. So the Iranians can afford to taunt and talk about holy war when they don't have to actually bear the actual price of one. So far the only real winner of this is Iran.

Originally posted by Spiffor I would say that the guerillas are also doing something.

I ment doing something constructive.

[Kuciwalker]

Israel seems to be targeting the Lebanese army now.

Israel has extended its air campaign to northernmost Lebanon, killing at least seven Lebanese soldiers at a military post in the port of Abdeh near Tripoli.

[Kuciwalker]

I don't have any idea if that was isolated or not - the article goes on to talk about the conflict generally.

[GePap]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Actually I am. Well at least a little bit. It's a term I don't know the meaning of. It's getting bandied around quite a bit without anyone actually giving a clue about what it means so I thought it might be good for me to expand my knowledge base a bit.

There is no exact definition. The simplest thing to do is use an analogy.

I slap you. If you slap me, obviously that is a proportionate response. Possibly a punch might even be considered proportionate. If you take out a gun and shoot me, obviously totally disproportionate use of force in response to the action.

In this case, Hizbullah militants attacked an IDF patrol while they fired rockets as a diversion.

An attack by Israeli forces against the military positons in the South from which those rockets attacks came, in additon to militant positions would be a proportionate response.

Carrying out widespread attacks far from the front lines, specially attacks mean to enforce a blockade of the country: those are disproportionate to the initial act.

Of course, given that Israel took the initial act as simply a causus belli to implement pre-existing plans of how to try to destroy Hizbullah, the disproportionate nature of the response is obvious.