Explain to me the difference between the two. I don’t see any.
Dio, you have, in the past, said that:
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](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=5726467&postcount=39)
It’s not all that surprising that you can’t tell the diference here, either.
Just to be clear, I’m not saying attacks on Israeli or American civilians are justified, I’m saying that attacks on Palestinian civilians are equally UNjustified. I’m rejecting the logic that it’s ok to kill babies if you don’t like their parents. Asserting that every Palestinian is equally evil and deserving of death is just fucking stupid.
If you want to be pedantic about it, change “genocide” to “mass murder.” Same fucking difference.
Big difference, and still wrong. But analagous to the inability to tell the difference between a terrorist and someone who believes in cowboy diplomacy.
And you say that attacks on Israel are not justified, but what response do you leave them? What response does any country take, what response should any country take, when their civilians are being targeted and murdered?
Amazingly, I didn’t.
I guess you missed that part. Would you please take off your blinders every once in a while and think rather than simply reacting indignantly to stuff that you read?
Nope. Not wrong at all. If ivading another country without just cause and massacring its citizens by the thousands is not mass murder, what is?
The only difference I see is the headgear.
You think I have the answer to the Mideast problem? Why don’t you just ask me to figure out cold fusion while you’re at it.
All I know is that killing innocent people is wrong.
But allowing innocent civilians to be killed is right?
You can’t have it both ways. If you want to condemn Israel for defending themselves, you have to offer an alternative.
This is one of the problems with much of the American Left’s response to Israel. No action except laying down for the slaughter is allowed. Any military reaction is demonized, and yet, every country on earth has a right to retaliate against acts of war. Except Israel, it seems.
If someone commits a crime, you find out who did it. You don’t just mindlessly retaliate against people who had nothing to do with it. That’s not defensive, it’s just misdirected vengence.
And if the people who commited the crime are being sheltered by state sponsors, and defended by other terrorists?
And if, for instance, country A’s military forces attack country B, is country B prohibited from responding if some civilians will be harmed in the retailation? Defensive wars are never justified?
On the other hand, if invading that country and losing thousands of civilians (to the attacks from the evil fucks already there) to stop a totalitarian that has killed tens or hundreds of thousand of civilians, while grooming his exponentialy more sadistic son to take over, isn’t some attempt to stop mass murder, I don’t know what is.
This reminds me of something an old friend’s BIL once said during the breakup of Yugoslavia. He said as bad as Tito was, at least he kept everyone in line. That’s about the best thing Saddam had going for him. What seems to be a problem is the way he kept control.
http://www.regiments.org/wars/18thcent/39jenkin.htm
Wars have been fought over less.
Except if the “criminals” are inside the Gaza Strip, outside Israel’s control. Then, we have some problems:
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Capability - You can’t carry out a criminal investigation in a place where you can’t physically go, and you can’t arrest people by telephone.
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Jurisdiction - Israel can’t exactly serve search or arrest warrents in a place it has no jurisdiction.
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Responsibility - crimes carried out from Palestinian lands, and criminals hiding out there, are the sole responsibility of the Palestinian authoriti=es and no-one else.
So you see, you’re asking Israel to carry out a criminal investigation in a place where it cannot do that physically, legally or ethically. Only the Palestinians can do that. However, Israel has the right - the obligation - to demand that the Palestinians do their jobs, and has the right according to international law to make sure that they do it, even by applying force. Because otherwise, what else caqn they do?
Baloney. That is nowhere near to a fair representation of Hamas policy. At it’s nearest Hamas proposes the end of a seperate the political entity “Israel” in much the same way that East Germany ceased to be. Still lots of East Germans around though.
ahh yes. The infamous Zionist Entity. Also in the official Hamas charter is references to the true and infallible Protocols of Elders giving proof the Jews are out to control the world.
Here’s more from the Hamas charter:
No Jew hatred there. Just ordinary upstanding fellows that want the Zionist Entity, so they can live in peace and harmony with their Jewish neighbors for all eternity.
Rune, with all respect, DNFTT.
That’s kind of unintelligible Rune. However, I slapped asterion around GD for a while with this same question and I’m not bricker - lurking for in wait for the unwary to snare themselves. Poke around for that thread if you are interested.
Suffice to say yes to Hamas hostility, no to genocide.
There’s plenty of justification for killing innocents. If a major military or geopolitical objective can only be achieved with some incidental “innocent” deaths, then so be it.
I don’t mind that some civilians were killed in Germany during WWII. Many Germans were not Nazis, nor even favorable towards the Nazi party, and of course many of them were children, too. But they just had the unfortunate luck of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. One can’t expect other states to avoid taking necessary action simply because a little bit of blood might be spilled.
Also just for general information purposes, genocide is something with a very specific definition.
Mass murder, also, has a fairly specific definition. The U.S. cannot be said to be engaging in genocide unless you have evidence we are seeking to bring about the eradication of an ethnic group.
You can’t say we are engaging in mass murder unless you can provide evidence that we are trying to engage in organized, systemic, and wide scale illegal killings. Just pointing to a lot of dead bodies in Iraq won’t cut it. You have to show that those dead bodies were people who had been murdered. Being killed as collateral damage != being murdered. Murder typically requires intent, and no normal human being holds that any non-military persons who die in an area where a military campaign is being conducted were all “murdered.”
Oh, and, Rune, my apologies if I came off a bit harsh of junior-moddish.
I’ve just seen this troll in action for far too long.
For those, interested in Hamas’ actual position, this is a good place to start.