And you expected deaths in a war to be anything other than gruesome?
I think the point here is that a military action against people who have boobytrapped buildings with piles and piles of explosives, and boobytrapped themselves with explosives in an effort to kill others do create disturbing pictures of death, but that there is a difference between casualties in combat (and lets face it, a bomb is a weapon whether weilded by a man, woman, 12 year old or 90 year old) is a different animal than the outright execution of people who were never tried for any crime nor accused in any formal proceeding.
War is horrible, but it is sometimes necessary, and the casualties that come with it are, though tragic, understandable as a consequence of the necessity of war. These are casualties in battle, and neither side wants to see their own become casualties.
The objection here is to the outright murder of Palestinians by Palestinians outside the context of formal battle or a legal system. Executing someone in the street who never had the opportunity to face formal charge and was not an active combatant in a battle (legal or not) is above and beyond what is acceptable, even in war.
If I were a soldier (or militia) fighting in a war and I killed an enemy fighter in battle, that would be a gruesome thing indeed. But if I were to execute a neighbor on sight for believing he sympathized with the enemy, that would be a tragedy.
Are the Palestinians supplied with the explosives for their attacks by the United States?
Do the Palestinians get $3 billion in aid annually so they can manufacture or import tanks and helicopter gunships to carry out their attacks?
Are the Palestinians powerful enough to box Ariel Sharon into one single room of his headquarters without water, heat, electricity, with only a cell phone for contact with the outside world?
Suicide bombing is a nasty tactic. There are better ways of fighting back. But if you were a Palestinian father and you found your child on the slab at a morgue with the cap of her skull cradled in the crook of her shoulder, can you honestly say you would not condsier such a thing for revenge?
There is the violence of the oppressor, and there is the violence of the oppressed. The two cannot be equated. Israel is, and has been since before 1948, the oppressor, and the Palestinians are the oppressed. I firmly and fully support the Palestinians in their fight against Israeli oppression, no matter what form it takes.
So you’re saying that you know for a fact all the Palestinians in those pictures were suicide bombers, rather than, say, crushed under the rubble of their house when an Israeli tank drove through the wall?
What makes this war necessary, then? What are the conditions that drove each side to this war?
efrem brought up the point of lynching here in the States. Was it enough that some of those who were lynched were taken from a jailhouse to make it acceptable? While it is likely that such acts haven’t been committed by Israelis on other Israelie, do you find it completely impossible that Israelis have done such things to Palestinians? Or is every Palestinian death justified because of the battles in the West Bank?
Now, let me know if you’re going to start up with “but there was a trial; the convicts just weren’t advised to appear at it.”
You know, to heck with it and you. You’re refusing to understand the facts many others have pointed out to you. Say “hi” to everyone else in Coventry. **
[/QUOTE]
“to heck with me?” I have never disputed that those people died without juctise, in fact I have been very vocal on this issue.
Why are you making up words to confuse people? You might not be doing this on purpose, but I do suggest you read my posts before condemming me.
Actually, Olentzero, since you brought the matter up, I would consider it incumbent upon you to demonstrate to us that those killed were noncombatants.
…So you’re saying that you know for a fact all the Palestinians in those pictures were suicide bombers, rather than, say, crushed under the rubble of their house when an Israeli tank drove through the wall?
I’d say a tank probably crushed them. If you don’t want tanks rolling through your wall, you probably shouldn’t chose armed conflict as your way out of being subjugated by an overwhelmingly superior (militarily, not morally) foe.
“Or is every Palestinian death justified because of the battles in the West Bank?”
Nope, it’s just the logical outcome of the kind of campaign the Palestinian’s have decided to implement.
It’s simple logic:
If you push button “A” then “B” will happen. We are not dealing with the law of unintended consequences anymore. The Palestinians know exactly what to expect if they attack. I’m not saying they shouldn’t take up arms against oppressors, just don’t play these silly propaganda games when the other side pushed back.
I think the best I can do is to provide you with the link where IndyMedia got the photos from and let you decide for yourself. To me, it’s sufficient evidence that they’re not. YMMV.
So let me get this straight. They can take up arms against someone who oppresses them, but they shouldn’t decry further oppression after they do so?
Yes. They get funds, what can do with them, they do.
Don’t know the exact number, but I can find out.
Thank goodness, no. For if they were, there would have been no Israel long ago. And if they did “drive the Jews into the sea”, then they (Jews) would be back to being the victims, just as you would prefer. That’s when you defend Jews.
Actually, just turn this around now to a Jewish parent, and what have you achieved? There is a group of parents who have lost children in the fighting who have been working for peace, not revenge. They are to be admired. Your blind support for any “form it takes” is most definately to be comdemned.
I beg to differ. And we have been around this one before, but you have in no way shown Israel to be the oppressor. In fact they have had to fight off enemies to stay alive in multiple wars, wars in which the Palestinians sided with Israel’s enemies. After finding themselves (Palestinians) on the losing side, they have been shouting “injustice” ever since. Fine, injustice to be sure, but at their own hands.
Yes, you believe their cause is noble. I believe they (leaders) have condemned their people to misery, living in refugee camps, not accepted anywhere because of the trouble they (leaders) have created anywhere they have gone. Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, not just Israel. Let’s hear how goddam awful the King of Jordan was for putting down that rebellion. It was quite bloody you know, and after Arafat signed several agreements he continued his killings in Jordan as well. I’m sure you supported that.
I’m saying they can make any decision they want, but they have to bear the consequences of their actions!
To repeat:
By engaging militarily with Israel, the Palestinians are bringing the military response upon themselves.
If they don’t want a military response, don’t blow people up.
Is that hard to understand? It’s pretty clear to me. Stop the suicide bombers and you have all the room in the world to complain about tanks rolling through your bedroom wall.
Y’see, I simply cannot accept as impartial an organization which seeks to combat “the inhuman practices . . .perpretrated by the USA” and which depicts burning US and Israeli flags on its main web page. Just glancing at the site reveals to me several half-truths, heavily-spun deceptions, and outright falsehoods. It is a propoganda site, nothing more, and a sensationalistic and gratuitously disgusting one at that.
I am somewhat startled that anyone would consider this a valid support for an argument here in GD. I’m sure I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am nonetheless.
Then take it apart. Where are the half-truths? Where are the deceptions? Where are the outright falsehoods?
Just out of curiosity. do you honestly find a computer-generated image of a burning American flag more disturbing than the images of war that page displays?
Well for starters on that little red ticker thing on this page http://www.ummah.net/unity/index0.html it describes Israel’s actions as ethnic cleansing which we should all be able to agree their intentions aren’t as such.
Second it mentions that we’ve killed 500,000 Iraqi children. I’d love to see where they got numbers for that. I’m kinda inclined to believe they just made them up. They mention that the WHO says that 200 children under 5 die a day due to malnutrition (I’m not even going to touch on whose fault that is) since 1991. Doing some quick math, that gives a total of over 800,000 so thats not their source. I think they just needed a quick round number.
I don’t deny the site’s bias - it’s trying to make a case for the Palestinian side. But is it unfairly biased? There is a difference. Not all bias is unfair.
On page 2 of this thread I posted a collection of quotes from some of Israel’s founding fathers. I think it makes an excellent case that ethnic cleansing is on the agenda.
Well, more than likely they based their assertion on “The Health Conditions of the Population in Iraq Since the Gulf Crisis”, a WHO report issued in March 1996. They only give mortality rates for children under 5 from select causes (on p. 6), excluding 3 northern governances. Those numbers alone give 100 under-5 deaths a day from 1990 to 1994. It’s therefore not hard to imagine that, if we expanded the range to 12 and under, in all governances of Iraq, even while keeping the number of causes limited there would be 200 children a day dying in Iraq.
Now, a quick calculation shows that it would take 7 years for 500,000 children to die at the rate of 200 a day. Which puts us somewhere around 1997. Given that the latest pictures on the Iraq portion of the Unty site are from 1998, I think it likely that the only thing the web designers are guilty of in this case is not updating the site banner.
As for whose fault that is, the report’s conclusion makes for some interesting reading.
Let’s see…That ummah website has graphics of people burning American and Israeli flags, choppy grammar, calls its failures due to Zionist pressure, and has a bad layout. This does not credible journalism make. Furthermore, the pictures are curio…There’s nothing to prove they’re from Jenin. Reporters haven’t been allowed in Jenin and the elecrticity is off there. How could they have gotten so many clear photos out of there and online?
And here lay Ummah’s flaws: the sanctions are not imposed by the US. They have been upheld twice by the UN Security Council which consists of 13 other nations besides the US.
Secondly, it’s not the UN’s fault if Iraqi children die. It’s Saddam’s. In the oil-for-food program, he has the ability to nurture his population. However, he likes to spend it for personal pleasures…