Damn straight.
Well, the bit you quoted may have applied to Yassin in the wheelchair, but it doesn’t matter because both were protected by Article 4:
Israel’s the Occupying Power.
Doesn’t matter much, because pretty much anything you say is slam-dunk for whoever is answering you.
Once again, the Al-Reading Comprehension Martyrs Brigade has launched an attack on Desmo’s post! Note how he conveniently misses a rather important bit in his own cite:
So either Desmo is arguing that Ramisi was in fact being held captive by Hamas (in whose ‘hands’ he was when the Hellfire took him out), or he doesn’t understand what he quoted. Hmmm…
But lets do this logically. Lets form a ‘baseline’ to work from. I will list some things I see as factual and indisputable.
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At the time of their deaths, both Ramisi and Yassin were in the company of Hamas. Neither were in the custody of Israel at the time. True?
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Both held high-ranking positions in Hamas; Ramisi as the leader, and Yassin as the ‘spiritual leader’. True?
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Israel is in a defacto war with Hamas. True?
Let me get this straight. You think there’s a country called “Hamas”? Is that right?
would you agree with Hamas launching a helicopter and rocket attack on Sharon? would it be called an Act of Terrorism or an Act of War?
Damn the reading comprehension, and full speed ahead!
Ya, and we invaded Al Queda. It’s just west of Paskistan. :rolleyes:
You know, if you want to hide your weak argument behind the GC, at least have the damned courtesy to read them. You can snipe and make inane remarks all day, but you are not addressing the matter at hand, now are you?
Brutus - dont forget that also at Israeli law, extrajudical killing is illegal. So is the death penalty.
Sure. And America law prevents the Army from putting a Apache over my house and lighting me up. But I am an American citizen. I am not fighting a war against America. I am entitled to the legal protections that a America citizen receives. But if I were in Afghanistan, and I joined up with Al Queda or the Taliban, then I would be fair game for that Apache.
Those two Hamas assholes were not Israeli citizens. They were not entitled to the same protections under the law that an Israeli citizen would recieve. And they did, in fact, declare war on Israel. Fair game.
Can’t help but feel if the US supplied both sides with first generation helicopters and rockets, these escalations wouldn’t happen – it seems a product of disproportional capability. Presumably that’s US policy.
All it’s going to do is increase the number of people willing to become suicide bombers, and embed the hatred a little more deeply among the general population of Palestinians.
Besides that, what else did it achieve ?
You seem to have some fundamental ignorance or wilful misunderstanding.
Israel doesn’t recognize Palestine as an independent country, nor does it afford “Palestinians” the protection of Israel’s own laws. But the crack that Palestine falls into, i.e. “occupied territory” is clearly catered for in the Geneva Convention.
Sure. If you will read each word that I wrote, and that you went through the trouble of quoting, you will note that I said the same thing. The trick here is to figure out why you think that takes Hamas leadership off the shitlist.
Sure, you say stuff. I don’t think you actually understand what you say.
You asked a fairly simple question, i.e. “To those saying that the assassination of whathisnutz was ‘illegal’, what law in particular is purportedly being violated?”. Your fairly simple question was easily answered. None of your hand wringing nor moaning negates the answer provided.
Nobody answered my ‘simple’ question, yourself included. All I got was seemingly random quote of the GC from you, which actually actually disproves your case. Only by arguing that the head of Hamas, a terrorist organization, is somehow a ‘protected person’ (which, of course, the above cited GC shows that he is not), can you say that the killings were illegal. I suppose if Bin Laden is killed, you will also find that to be ‘illegal’? Pathetic. :rolleyes:
Who cares whether you think the question has been answered to your satisfaction? Refute in some sort of sensible way the answer that’s been given or shut the fuck up.
Brutus’s point is the the Hamas leaders are not protected as civilians - they are combatants.
While Israel may indeed be raping various points of the Geneva Convention on being an Occupying Power, the law here gets very fuzzy.
In effect, Israel is taking the position on one hand, that it is an Occupying Power, and on the other, that this is a civil war. This is why the situation is so murky. Technically, if Israel were the Occupying Power, they can’t off anyone except in a military strike (which is why they prefer to level an apartment complex instead of a more covert form of killing). Also, they are not allowed to execute anyone without a trial. As an aside, they also, technically, have to provide for religious broadcast in Palestine. Then, Israel turns around and claims that they aren’t an Occupying Power, and that Palestine is not a nation bound by the Geneva Convention.
It all gets very confusing, and there is no doubt that Israel has broken many parts of the Convention - the debate is, which parts apply to be broken.
In any case, the most the international community can do is express their outrage, and maybe exert some embargos. However, America is Israel’s prime supporter, so that kind of action doesn’t do much, and no Western power is about to up and invade Israel for war crimes.
So, that debate is a dead end. “Legally,” Israel can’t be doing some of the stuff it does. On the other hand, application of international law is still a very fuzzy area, and no one is quite sure how to enforce it short of invasion. At this point, the UN is a toothless lion.
May I remind everyone that the OP is about whether or not it is a good strategy to continue offing Hamas leaders, not whether it is ethical or legal.
Actually, yes. There is a reason that Clinton never went after bin Laden - he didn’t feel that there was enough evidence for a conviction. Operative word in that sentence is conviction. Regardless of what they have or have not done, you cannot just randomly invade countries and kill selected people. That is what, surprise, terrorists, do.
While you may see an ideal solution to the situation being a cruise missile landing on ObL’s lap, that puts the US on shaky legal ground (as if we weren’t on enough already).
I don’t see how any act deprives someone of a fair trial. The Nazi concentration camp authorities were given (arguably) fair trials. McVeigh was given a fair trial. Fact is, there is no magical number of people killed that makes it OK to skip the whole trial part of the equation - and just because someone is an international citizen does not mean they are deprived of that right (in the past, under moral grounds, in the present, under international law).
I think you overestimate it. No Hamas leader has ever engaged in a suicide bombing himself, nor has he sent his son to do so, nor do the leaders or their children tend to be the ones hurt or killed in action inside the territories, whether they be armed conflict, demonstration or otherwise.
They were bribing people when they were getting the cash to do it from Saddam Hussein, then they turned to children and retarded people. There aren’t any Che Gueveras among the Hamas. Israel killing Hamas leaders is a good idea and the only defensible moral action in the short run, as we’ve seen, and in the long run. Among other things, it is the only way a Palestinian state will ever exist, as the Palestinians have proved themselves incapable of taking care of their terrorism problem on their own and any State that can’t do that has no business existing.
I think a better strategy would be if Israel just pulled out their settlements from the West Bank and Gaza.
But hey, maybe this could work too.
Bit of a logical pre-emptive strike there, Manny. If the non-existent Palistinian state cannot function to your approval, the non-existent state has no right to exist?
Further, all this fooforaw about whether or not some sort of legal justification can be found is just plain silly. Israel already tossed such considerations out the window with an expressed willingness to chop up innocent bystanders as well as targets with arguable legitimacy. Whether this is a legal action is a pedantic excercise, it cannot be anything but morally repugnant. Whether or not they are citizens of a state, either theoretical or actual, they are human beings, with the fundamental right to keep breathing. A state that does not recognize that has no “legitimacy” worthy of discussion.
If an assassin, uniformed or not, can carry out a hit specific to a criminal target, there might well be room for debate. When military means are applied on a public street where we can rightly assume innocent passersby are at risk, no such applies.
I cannot peer into Mr. Sharon’s mind and assess his motives. But his actions are those of a man who wants to bring matters “to a head”, that is, to provoke a situation where Isreal’s military superiority can assure a position to dictate terms to a prostrate Palestine. This is nothing more than high-tech savagery.
Isreal has, of course, a right to exist and a right to defend herself. But no one has the right to regard the innocent as expendable.
This is the issue isn’t it. Sharon asserts through his government of Israel that it possesses this very right.
Or if not explicitly, the assertion is made in a way that travesties concepts of guilt and innocence.