Even if. If things progress to a point where I conclude that your death is necessary to my long-term safety, I will move in physically and engage you. I will protect your “human shields” to the best of my ability. If you wish to be a monster and use your children as human shields, that’s on you. I will not be a monster and slaughter children.
Yes, and I just cited all the situations where the GC specifically says action can be taken even if it means hitting military targets surrounded by protected persons or interning protected persons for the security of the occupying state. And it also says specifically that collective punishment is not allowed.
So obviously, all of those are specifically not collective punishment under the GC.
Thank you for proving my point.
Do tricks like that generally work for you? Were you hoping I just wouldn’t read your link or something?
First off, it’s not the study under discussion. A good clue would be that it was conducted in 2002 and the one we’ve been discussing is from 2008.
It also doesn’t even make the “71%” claim, so it’s rather less than effective to pretend that a totally different study is the one we’re talking about.
Did you think I wouldn’t notice your switcheroo?
This is the actual study.
And they state quite clearly on page 30 of the complete PDF that their method for the survey of Americans was “Internet”. If you want to pretend that an internet based study of American attitudes is a valid methodological tool, you might as well join Dio in pretending that launching rockets isn’t an attack and that bombing rocket launchers isn’t a military objective.
There’s also the fact that they didn’t define what they meant by “even handed”. That makes a huge difference. The vast majority of people want to be reasonable and fair. What you consider to be reasonable and fair, however, is what you’re painting onto the very generic “yeah, sure, even handed” answer.
And, of course, the dodge of attempting to refute only a few other studies with flawed methodology does not prove that this flawed methodology is at all correct. Who cares what Fox News polls do if Maryland’s poll is also fucked?
And no, it’s totally contrary to the findings of more nuanced polls. A long history of 'em.
Sorry, gonna fight that hypothetical, [del]even though[/del] particularly because it’s not really the same as what I said was my position. It’s not a realistic scenario anyway.
Tell you what. If it ever comes up, I’ll let you know how I handled it.
Yes, but evidently saying that Israelis don’t deserve to live if they can’t find a magical means of stopping Hamas’ rockets without doing collateral damage is quite realistic. Yours is an interesting argument for the acceptability of the genocide of the Israelis, of course. But not particularly palatable due to it requiring magic to work out to anything other than “Israelis don’t deserve to live.”
I forget though, do Israeli mages have access to Magic Missile? You might have a point if the IDF has their mages under orders to memorize Burning Hands instead of Magic Missile each night…
Ah but that is indeed the hypothetical that most resembles the real circumstance that Israel is placed in. Its citizens are its children. Hamas is gunning for Israel’s kids and using its civilians as a shield. Should Israel just wait until its metaphoric children are killed? Do Israelis not “deserve” to live because its government is willing to protect them the same way I would protect my children (even if you are not so sure that you would protect yours)?
Assuming you mean ‘do you have any support for your position that the word attack means to attack someone’ then I’d have to go with ‘yes’ as the answer there.
As far as the other it’s a stupid analogy. If some foreign power tossed rockets at Minnesota then this would certainly be construed (by most reasonable people) as an attack. Hamas isn’t kicking the dirt in Israel…they are firing weapons with the express purpose of killing Israeli civilians.
No, we are using the commonly accepted definition of the term. It’s you who is trying to make up your own wild ass definitions of what ‘attack’ means…and then inconsistently, since it seems to depend on what you THINK it means depending on any given situation.
You are probably right though…there is no point in you continuing this line of, er, reasoning, since no one but you is buying your definition. You should probably back peddle and try something else at this point. The sad thing is there are points you COULD be making, but you are totally bogged down in this silly pissing match about trying to parse out what Hamas has done in terms only you seem to take seriously.
:rolleyes: Sort of like trying to say that assassinating Kennedy was an attack on the US…and trying to twist this to mean…gods know what. You have gone from inane to pointless.
-XT
I don’t understand any of it. The part in quotes are empty words that are absolutely devoid of content to me. I don’t understand what action you expect anyone to take or not take based on the judgment you have made. In other words, what the hell are you talking about exactly?
You do NOT accept that civilians die in war? What does that even mean? Seriously, WTH are you talking about? This is a war. Israel doesn’t want to destroy Gaza but Hamas wants to destroy Israel. Hamas is actively bombing Israel. They make civilian locations their military base and training camp.
The PEOPLE of Palestine voted for this. They chose to back a terrorist organization on a political basis knowing that Hamas would use civilian locations as a means to wage war.
Huh? Is it just me or does the title of this thread say the exact opposite of this? This thread has me going nuts, like I can’t trust myself to read words and grasp their meaning. It’s like fucking Joyce in here with the hitting, hitting, hitting, and . . . bedtime!
You know, Vice President Cheney, I realize you’re looking for something to do after your term, but technically it doesn’t end until January 20, and you might want to attend to the duties of your office until then.
Can you give us some kind of objective cite for this statement? If not, we’ll just chalk this up as some eccentric opinion that you happen to hold.
If it makes things easier, let’s not called launching a missile an “attack.” It’s a surprise ordnance delivery.
So, it comes down to who has a bigger gun?
To extend the logic, you really don’t care who “wins” as long as the basic rule above is applied and works as a clock.
Does this mean then, if one day the other side has a bigger gun, you will still stick to the rule?
Nope. Just they need to engage with ground assault, not airstrikes.
I don’t know what “rule” you’re inferring from his post, especially since the message is pretty straightforward: don’t provoke someone bigger than you unless you’re prepared for the consequences. This isn’t a rule - it’s Sociology 101.
Well, if the other side has a bigger gun, maybe Clothahump’s smart enough not to shoot first. He’s not talking about morality, he’s talking about reality.
Israel is not wrong because they have better weapons. An honest question; if they’re not allowed to use the Israeli Defense Force to deal with attacks (here I am using the word “attack” in the sense that 99.99% of sane English-speaking people mean it, and the sense in every dictionary of English ever published, as opposed to Diogenes B. Cheney’s definition) what are they supposed to do? Just accept that it’s okay for their neighbours to bomb them?
Ha! Next thing we know, it’ll be getting reported as only a few hundred bottle rockets.
Israel wasn’t being bombed. Being bombed requires a targeted explosion at their seat of government. What was really happening was random insertions of concussive energy.
The unsafe and unauthorized release of unguided ordnance into a civilian area. This is certainly a crime and I think Israel would be justified in sending in it’s police in order to apprehend those responsible and bring them to justice…probably get 5-10 with no parole.
Well, that may be too harsh. Ok…maybe the possibility of parole after 4 years plus time served. And ice cream.
-XT
newcomer, can we take a look at the church web site you posted it on? And do you plan to amend parts of it? Starting with: