Theories On How To Conduct War

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
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Dropping leaflets on the city to say, "HEY! We're coming. Get out", was pretty damned decent of Israel.

Hizbollah is doing the same to Haifa, through TV. Would you call them decent too? Even if they are only adressing Israeli Arabs, the Jews can hear the warning too.

If some ******* dropped leaflets on your house saying, "Beat it, we're going to bomb this place to crap!", would you leave ?

[Colonâ„¢]

Originally posted by SlowwHand


Then bow out of the discussion. I asked a specific question.

My viewpoint is, and I've said this before, you need to be able to identify the opposition. If you can't, then all are the opposition.
Dropping leaflets on the city to say, "HEY! We're coming. Get out", was pretty damned decent of Israel.

And subsequently they were pretty damned decent to say they'd shoot any vehicle that moves, which however makes it a bit trickier to follow up on the first warning.

[SlowwHand]

I think I could take off my macho suit long enough to leave if I was forewarned my place was destined to craterization, yes.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
My viewpoint is, and I've said this before, you need to be able to identify the opposition. If you can't, then all are the opposition.

I disagree. Your ability to identify the enemy, or your inability to do so, does not in any way affect the "rightness" of your actions towards civilians, and it certainly doesn't make "all" the opposition. Civilians remain civilians even when indistinguishable from terrorists, and therein lies the difficulty.

Dropping leaflets on the city to say, "HEY! We're coming. Get out", was pretty damned decent of Israel.

But that was a drop of decency compared to the great sea of indecency, which was the act of destroying their homes and communities in the first place. To say that advance notice somehow brought any decency to the situation is pretty laughable when you consider that the advance notice is of the pending destruction of one's home, village, country, and basic infastructure.

I think I could take off my macho suit long enough to leave if I was forewarned my place was destined to craterization, yes.

This interests me. Do you mean your house, or say, Texas? Would you leave the state, abandoning your home and community to destruction, because some foreign power decided to respond to a few Texan terrorists by turning the entire state into a free-fire zone? From what I've read in your posts, it seems like this would be exactly the kind of injustice you would patriotically resist, no?

[Vince278]

[Conan The Barbarian]
Crush all enemies!
Drive them before you!
Hear the lamentations of their women!
[/Conan The Barbarian]

[korn469]

Where's the genocide/ethnic cleansing/final solution choice? Or what about the I reject both of those choices, violence solves nothing option?

[Odin]

NUKE THEN FROM ORBIT!!!

[korn469]

Originally posted by Odin
NUKE THEN FROM ORBIT!!!

it's the only way to be sure

[Chemical Ollie]

I only liked CTP because of the space bombers

[Colonâ„¢]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
I think I could take off my macho suit long enough to leave if I was forewarned my place was destined to craterization, yes.

Not with your SUV atleast, and also not across any rivers.

[dannubis]

Originally posted by Japher
I like Israels way of doing things. While the US says "with us or against us" Israel actually backs those words up with airstrikes. If you, as a society, harbor my enemy than you, as a society, are my enemy too.

In that regard, China, Finland and the other country whose UN soldier was killed are in their full rights to blow israel into oblivion.

[Patroklos]

Unfortunately for the Lebanese civilians, it is pretty much common knowledge that in the south they are willing participants in Hezbollah's activities.

As long as they are not attacking actual houses/schools/hospitals/churches (not being used by the enemy, everyone forgets that part) then any civilians killed in infrastructure attacks, while tragic, were not killed illegally.

Which is why I think so many people really have a problem with the US selling Isreal precision weapons. They allow Israel to restrict their destruction to legitimate targets with less collateral damage while Hezbollah is still chucking spears and praying they hit anything at all. Basically it widens the gap between Israel’s legitimate incursion and strikes into Lebanon with Hezbollah’s obviously illegal strikes into Israel making their criticisms of Israel that much more absurd in light of wartime law.

And as far as Lebanon is concerned, part of being neutral in a conflict is being able to enforce that neutrality within your territory. So if they can't stop a belligerent party like Hezbollah from using their territory, Israel is fully allowed to destroy said belligerents in that territory.

[Blaupanzer]

Pati, the option in the poll was not maximize civilian casualties. If the enemy was Hizbollah, and they built the schools and hospitals, are they then legitimate targets? Note the Israelis went after that hospital they claim was an HQ with ground troops, not bombers. Yes, there is a PR angle to this, and an intelligence one, but slaughtering doctors, nurses and patients is beyond even doctrines attributed to the Israelis.

Everyone is not the enemy in war unless the object is to completely waste the land under attack. Even Attilla the Hun and Genghiz Khan captured and kept some cities. In complete wastage scenarios nukes work best, don't even send in your own troops.