The Middle East Continues...

[Sikander]

Originally posted by dannubis
maybe reasonable for you from the other side of the world...

but certainly not so reasonable for those people who had no love for israel in the first place and whose house is very reasonable being destroyed... not to mention family and friends that are very reasonably being killed

Israel may have succeeded in diminishing the shi'ites capacity to wage war, but they sure bought themselves another decade of terrorism.

Funny, but they seemed pretty damned happy when Hizb. crossed the border and killed Israelis. They were celebrating, passing out candy etc. Perhaps they'll have the proper respect for an act of war being committed in their name now.

[Edan]

More people speaking out against Hezbollah

[muxec]

UN is just a bunch of oil-whores. No one really cares about their resolutions. Everyone sober enough to think can see that United Nations is trying to increase the tentions and the number of casualties while declaring the opposite.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Sikander


I find all of that quite reasonable. None of it should be considered war crimes. Proportionality? What a joke. Attacking transportation infrastructure, fuel supplies, food supplies, destroying shelter? As old as war itself, and completely reasonable.

Mass murder is as old as war itself. NO, mass and indiscriminate attacks against civilian infrastructure are NOT "reasonable." And the international community, in writting the Geneva Conventiona and agreeing to it itself has already stated that it is NOT reasonable.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Sikander


Funny, but they seemed pretty damned happy when Hizb. crossed the border and killed Israelis. They were celebrating, passing out candy etc. Perhaps they'll have the proper respect for an act of war being committed in their name now.

What does that have to do with the leaders of said war acting criminally?

I know. NOTHING.

[Zevico]

Israel may have succeeded in diminishing the shi'ites capacity to wage war, but they sure bought themselves another decade of terrorism.

Really? Here I was thinking Iran had bought itself as many decades as it likes.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by GePap

NO, mass and indiscriminate attacks against civilian infrastructure are NOT "reasonable." And the international community, in writting the Geneva Conventiona and agreeing to it itself has already stated that it is NOT reasonable.

The Geneva convention is not a suicide pact. Non-state actors like Hizb. are not parties to it, and state actors are not bound by any enforcement mechanism. It's basicly a set of guidelines that it is hoped can be followed. M.A.D. is a violation of of the Geneva convention, yet it has been a surprisingly useul tool in the nuclear age.

Hizb. has little to no military infrastructure. It's infrastructure is the civilian infrastructure, by design. Israel is not obliged to allow artillery fire and armed incursions into its territory just because Hizb. doesn't give a damn about international law. Rules of war have always applied to both sides, or neither.

If the Israelis were attempting to ethnically cleanse part or all of Lebanon in a war of conquest I would completely agree that they should be sanctioned heavily by the international community. But they are simply robustly sending a message that there is a price to pay for allowing your territory to be used as a staging ground for non-state military aggression. It is an act of war to allow such a thing, and perhaps the most common causus belli in the world today.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by GePap

What does that have to do with the leaders of said war acting criminally?

I know. NOTHING.

Thankfully no one needs your permission or approval to post whatever they want here, whether it is directed to you or in this case to someone else. Dannubis wasn't talking about war crimes, but instead the effectiveness or rather the lack thereof of Israel's policy decisions. I responded in kind. What does this have to do with the price of Ganja in Amsterdam? Absolutely nothing, but it would be a great waste of everyone's time it you continue to list the things posts do not address. So let's just skip it.

[dannubis]

Originally posted by Zevico

Really? Here I was thinking Iran had bought itself as many decades as it likes.

Ah yes, the big bad arab boogy man... tell me, after you finished bombing that country into oblivion, who would you pick then ?

EDIT: Sounded more harsh than i intended to so removed

[dannubis]

Originally posted by Sikander


Funny, but they seemed pretty damned happy when Hizb. crossed the border and killed Israelis. They were celebrating, passing out candy etc. Perhaps they'll have the proper respect for an act of war being committed in their name now.

If you know that all dead lebanese were doing this you might have a point. However, there is no way of knowing this.

And you make it sound like it should be all about revenge and payback. If this is the case, why would you have less of a problem with three housing blocks being destroyed than a bus that is shredded ?

[Jaakko]

Originally posted by Sikander
rying to seperate the fighters from the civilian population that they hide behind is reasonable, even if it means effectively depopulating the area of operations.

No, that's called ethnic cleansing.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by dannubis

If you know that all dead lebanese were doing this you might have a point. However, there is no way of knowing this.

And you make it sound like it should be all about revenge and payback. If this is the case, why would you have less of a problem with three housing blocks being destroyed than a bus that is shredded ?

It's about consequences for (in)action. When you allow (happily or not) your territory to be used to attack another state there can be consequences. For those who naively cheered the opening of hostilities the lesson is especially important. Being too physically close to a combatant can be costly. Wars have to be consensus affairs for states.

Israel knows that it isn't going to win a popularity contest in Lebanon. If you asked people in Lebanon who they like better in a fight, Israel or Hizb. even before the war Hizb. would win hands down. Israel's ability to persuade is therefore extremely limited. They have to rely instead on their ability to dissuade. Arabs don't generally don't want to live in peace with Israel, they would see it destroyed if the cost to them personally are low. Israel has to keep that cost as high as possible.

This isn't killing for killing's sake, or it certainly shouldn't be so. If there were cases where Israel knowingly attacked civilians who weren't part of Hizb. they should pay for that. If they launched rockets or artillery shells willy nilly into populated areas with no particular military target in mind they should pay for that. If they destroyed infrastructure which in no way was used or could have reasonably been used by the enemy they should pay for that.

Their actions (from what I can see from here) are a far cry from talking a disturbed teenager to make the ultimate act of his tragically truncated life the murder or a busload of civilians. If the Israelis made their objective the same as the terrorists, to kill as many as possible without regard to whether they are military or civilians I have no doubt that the casualty figures would have been an order of magnitude higher.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Jaakko

No, that's called ethnic cleansing.

No, ethnic cleansing has as its goal the permanent removal of the population, typically so that another population can claim the area. The U.S. evacuated almost all the civilians from Falluja in order to reduce the casualties as it moved against the guerillas and terrorists who hid amongst the civilian population. It was not ethnic cleansing, as its goal wasn't the permanent ceding of territory from one ethnic group to another.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Sikander
If the Israelis made their objective the same as the terrorists, to kill as many as possible without regard to whether they are military or civilians I have no doubt that the casualty figures would have been an order of magnitude higher.

If Hezbollah's goal had been to kill as many civilians as possible, I expect the death toll in Israel would have been considerably greater. They fired their rockets all around Northern Israel, mostly into farming areas. They could have sent everything screaming towards Haifa.

[Jaakko]

Originally posted by Sikander


No, ethnic cleansing has as its goal the permanent removal of the population, typically so that another population can claim the area. The U.S. evacuated almost all the civilians from Falluja in order to reduce the casualties as it moved against the guerillas and terrorists who hid amongst the civilian population. It was not ethnic cleansing, as its goal wasn't the permanent ceding of territory from one ethnic group to another.

Evacuate? Israel "evacuating" Lebanese civilians? Try more like "get the **** out of town or we'll kill you too". Expand that to your pet concept of depopulation, and it's functionally indistinguishable from ethnic cleansing.

Yes, even if you allow any survivors to return once you've killed the rest.