jfruser:
Excusing evil or limiting the response to evil because the evildoers are not particularly good at their evil acts is worthy of ridicule.
Seenterman:
I belive in an appropriate sized responce to an attack, not a full scale invasion if 3 civillians are killed.
jfruser:
Well, when you are attacked by a knife-wielding criminal assailant, feel free to limit yourself to a knife. I, OTOH, will draw a firearm (if practicable) and shoot until the knife-wielder is no longer a threat.
Proportionality in a life or death struggle is for fools.
jfruser:
Negotiating with a government because in some how or some way it is considered "legitimate" shows ignorance of the entire purpose of negotiation.
Seenterman:
I think you might be ignorant of the concept of negotiation.
Definition: Negotiation is a dialogue intended to resolve disputes, to produce an agreement upon courses of action, to bargain for individual or collective advantage, or to craft outcomes to satisfy various interests. It is the primary method of alternative dispute resolution.
Ok explain why negotiating with a legitimate government shows ignorance, IMO it just looks stuborn when you refuse to negotiate. And theres no need for the "" around legitimate, Hamas won 76/132 seats in Parliment thanks to Democratic elections. That's akin to denying Obama is now our legitimate President because he's a radical lefty or whatever.
jfruser:
Might want to quote me in full:
Negotiating with a government because in some how or some way it is considered "legitimate" shows ignorance of the entire purpose of negotiation. Legitimacy has nothing to do with it. One engages in negotiations because one determines that it might be to one's advantage or further some goal.
In this particular case, negotiation for a truce was tried and failed, given the 6000+ rockets that were shot at Israel.
Now, the use of force comes to the fore, as negotiation has been fruitless and ignoring Hamas is no longer tolerable (politically or otherwise). In its attack on Hamas, Israel is using force to further some policy goal. They ought to continue until Hamas and the Gaza population is hurting enough to change their course of action to something more acceptable to Israel.
I am very comfortable with my understanding of negotiation,
especially since your chosen defiition echoes what I wrote.Legitimacy is, for the most part, irrelevant. If the "legitimate" gov't can not deliver or has nothing to offer, there is no use wasting one's time negotiating with them. Might as well negotiate with a "legitimate" Yorkshire Terrier, for all the good it will do you.
jfruser:
The quickest way to resolve the Gaza problem would be to withdraw every penny of aid to Gaza, forcing the inhabitants to either earn their daily bread, go elsewhere to do so, or starve.
Seenterman:
Great your just a moral as Hamas! You would rather see millions of people starve to death, because of the actions of a few radicals, so that a one more Israli wont be killed. Thats not genocide, or what Hamas would do in the inverse.
jfruser:
No, I am much more moral than Hamas (or UNRWA, or any other org that tosses tax dollars at Gaza), thank you very much.
The Palis in Gaza have no moral claim on the fruit of anyone else's labor. EU countries and the USA provide roughly 90% of the aid that goes into Gaza. Those monies are tax monies, taken from taxpayers (ultimately) by threat of violence.
That aid money is the only thing that allows the Palis in Gaza to stay in place and waste their lives. It would be a kindness to stop that cash akin to forcing multi-generational welfare moochers off the welfare rolls and forcing them to provide for temselves. Also, working 18 hours a day to keep the wolf from the door leaves very little time to spend on murderous plans for your neighbor.
Stop the monies. Get them off the dole. Make them earn their way in the world, even if they have to displace to do it. Welcome to the 21st century and adult responsibilities.
jfruser:
If the heroes of Hamas would stop hiding behind women, children, and "antenatal" clinics; using hospitals as terrorist HQs; and using ambulances to transport both terrorists and ordnance; the IDF would have no cause to blow the crap outta such places. Given the evidence that Hamas does such things, they have forfeited the usual consideration.
Seenterman:
Ok so your enemy is a war criminal so does that means you must stoop to his level and start bombing Hospitals, Ambulances, and U.N. Compounds? (The UN thing happened today) No. That just makes you a war criminal too, just because your enemy does dispicable things does not give you a pass to do so. Oh and their is no "forfeited the usual consideration" claus in the Geneva Convention if someone else violates the Conventions, and dont tell me Hamas in not a signitor, I know that already but Isreal is and it is bound to abide by the Treaty in respects to civilians. Which makes it illegal to target hospitals.
jfruser:
You have no understanding of the Laws of War or the various agreements. Zilch, bupkis, nada. Reading your response is not just unhelpful, it actually destroys understanding with mis/disinformation. The question then becomes, "Does Seenterman sew mis/disinformation out of ignorance or malevolence?"
FWIW, the criminal act is using the agreed-upon no-go artifacts for war: hospitals, religious sites, school buses full of hemophiliac nuns, etc. Such acts are called out in the various conventions as illegal acts and are part of the definition of what constitutes and unlawful combatant.
Once they are used for war, they are legitimate targets. Even the bus full of hemophiliac nuns. There is no "home base" where from attacks can be made with impunity.
Oh, do bust out maps.google.com and take a gander at Gaza and the various "Refugee Camps" and "UN Compounds." There is no practical difference between them and Gaza City proper. The name, "Al-Wherever Refugee Camp" is akin to the name used to identify any particular neighborhood.
George Orwell addressed a similar situation where a civilized society was in existential conflict with a barbarous society bent on destruction:
"You cannot be objective about an aerial torpedo. And the horror we feel of these things has led to this conclusion: if someone drops a bomb on your mother, go and drop two bombs on his mother. The only apparent alternatives are to smash dwelling houses to powder, blow out human entrails and burn holes in children with thermite, or to be enslaved by people who are more ready to do these things than you are yourself; as yet no one has suggested a practicable way out."
----George Orwell, reviewing Arthur Koestler's Spanish Testament for the magazine Time and Tide, Feb. 5, 1938