This is the ultimate point IMHO. Saying that U.S. citizens are “legitimate targets” or “shouldn’t be surprised if attacked” are absolutely contentless statements.
yes
Possibly (indeed, likely) an overstated summary of his position.
If you have, in fact, overstated his position, this does not follow.
(v) should retributive death from Hamas rain down upon him or his, he would not be supportive of it being characterized and responded to as a terrorist act.
Right, meaning he feels that the death would be deserved. If he feels that he is deserving of death, why delay execution of sentence?
(And again, I’m trying to make a point here. newscrasher, I specifically wish and hope that you live to be a thousand.)
WTF? Handle your own strawmen.
I promote justice in the world by…promoting justice in the world. It is my hope that I, and all others, are spared bombs, bullets, congenitive heart failure, ricin, fucking Tourrett’s and any thing that brings death. In this wee hour we have alive, I hope we can work towards peace and justice for all people.
I am pro Israel
I am pro Palestine
We have got to start thinking differently about this conflict. Our collective imagination has somehow been stifled. We have dug in our heels and are resistant to anything idea that suggests our side is wrong. Until we find a way for the people of Israle to live in peace and security in a way that allows the Palestinians to live with dignity and security, we are only going to be throwing bodies on the fire from both sides for the foreseeable future.
A better worls is possible, but it must contain justice and dignity for all people. I am just tryin to look at this situation from new angles.
So please answer this in one sentence: what does it mean to say that U.S. citizens are “legitimate targets” and “should not be surprised if attacked”?
No, it doesn’t mean that. It means that he will have considered himself to be a legitimate combat casualty of a legitimate military action. And if it doesn’t happen, he does not ascribe it to his not being a legitimate target; he ascribes it to his good fortune in escaping deadly military action.
Otherwise, you’re skating very close to Der Trihs’s position that Americans killed in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan (and indeed, in any war) were deserving of death. I honestly don’t think that’s where you want to be.
Leaving that in so you don’t think I wish to deprive you of the credit for it.
I’m not following the fine distinction you are making (and I fully admit this could be my fault and not yours). If Country A engages in a “legitimate miliary action” against Country B, then within this paradigm, and by the very nature of thsuch military action being legitimate, isn’t anything Country B does to oppose that action “illegitimate”? Doesn’t the fact that the military action is legitimate mean that Country B deserves what’s coming to it? If the above is wrong, then what do you mean by “legitimate military action”? A concrete example might be nice here.
I still would like newscrasher’s answer to my question above.
Again amazingly enough the ones using the knee-jerk black/white oversimplification here are not those disputing the op but the other side, especially you. You are, if I believe what I just read, consistently posting things that you do not believe, “mirroring” some behavior not occurring in this thread and rarely on these boards, in order to cause some kind of reaction. Is that an accurate description?
newscrasher rationalizing the intentional targeting of civilians, be they my family, your friends, or others, with incomplete and somewhat false information, seems like a poor way to promote justice in the world.
If I can hide among a group of civilians while I fire the .22 at you, I could get positive PR if any of those civilians got hurt while you tried to stop me and my .22. That might be one reason.
That’s nice. Could you please describe how Israel should have responded to the rocket attacks of the last few months? Please be specific.
Regards,
Shodan
This question, I’ve observed, has an asked-to-answered ratio of about eight thousand.
I don’t honestly think I can provide one. I think the OP’s position is: “This is a war that should not be being fought. I don’t view the military actions of either side as being any more or less legitimate than those of their opponent. My death in this war does not make me a murder victim any more or less than the guy with the RPG launcher hit by sniper fire, or the tank driver whose tank was blown up is a victim of murder. We are all casualties of a war that should not have been fought.”
Your way is good too, though. Whenever two states disagree to the point where military action is inevitable, a neutral third party should decide who is right and who is wrong. The people of the state in the wrong should all peacefully present themselves for extermination.
I like that even better. I’ll let newcrasher explain himself from here on out. 
I honestly don’t know if you are being serious there or are intentionally hyperbolizing what you believe my position to be. I think my irony/sarcasm meter may be broken by spending too much time on the Dope in the last few days (been sick and sitting around the house alot).
In any event, my position is that a third party’s judgment of one country’s military action against another country as legitimate or not doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. Countries fight each other sometimes, and it can be hard to tell who started it (witness Russia and Georgia recently). If another country wants to get involved, then they can, and they will no doubt get involved on the side they believe to have the legitimate cause (which is a post facto judgment made to make it OK to get involved on that side). Anyone else’s disagreement with the third country’s judgment also doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.
I offer up my answer once again: two or three days of very targeted bombing on rocket launching sites and tunnels as done then stop with a unilateral declaration of a ceasefire and wait. That would have been enough to at least marginally degrade the ability to launch increasingly longer range rockets, given enough of a shot across the bow to demonstrate that continued rocket attacks will be handled like the acts of war they are, possibly motivated a return to cease fire conditions, and without giving Hamas any more of the civilian deaths they need to reverse their slide into insignificance. If Hamas attacked again then Israel would have had no choice but to ramp up but moderate forces across the Arab world and the EU would have more of a free path to condemn and further marginalize Hamas. Instead Israel is gifting Hamas exactly the PR it needs.
Retaliation was justified but Israel’s over-reaching attempt to totally destroy the infrastructure of Hamas has past the point of diminishing returns.
Maybe Hamas intentionally provoked Israel to renew waning political support in Gaza. The conflict has become completely irrational on both sides.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/392461/israel_revives_hamas
What part do you not understand?
I will be back tomorrow to discuss this further. Bear in mind I am not trying to necessarily win the argument. I am trying to promote some discussion. I am willing to concede some points and hope others will be willing to examine their own positions.
Although I have been around here long enough to know the odds.
And Israel has to respond to demands by their own public to ‘do something!’ about attacks on their civilian population. Hamas knows this and so periodically prods Israel to draw out that response.
Things only seem irrational from an outsiders perspective. Given their own internal ‘logic’ both attack and response makes a certain kind of sense. Of course, understanding why both sides do what they do doesn’t really help in figuring out how to stop the endless cycle of violence.
-XT
I don’t think it’s irrational from the viewpoint of a Hamas true believer. Even if he gets blown up by the IDF, he’s a glorious martyr for the cause, guaranteed a place in paradise. War isn’t a problem, it’s an opportunity.
I was hyperbolizing. It sounded like you were saying that it’s impossible for both sides’ military actions to be legitimate. I’m not sure I can wrap my head around that.
And as Alessan points out