Dutchman returns Holocaust medal after family deaths in Gaza

[Strontium Dog]

Yeah, right, killing any number of civilians, including nonfighting females and children is alright so long as at least one valid target is gotten. Udderly and todally jusdified...

Well, at least you've moved from denying there was any military target in the first place, so my job is done.

Moral of the story is that you have no morals. Civilians are never "legitimate" military targets. Only in fascist land.

I wonder how you square this with the millions of civilians we killed in World War 2.

But of course, back to present day reality, and it's clear that civilians weren't targeted here, just the terrorist they were harbouring.

Debate the rights and wrongs of collateral damage, by all means, but please don't ascribe opinions to me that I don't hold, thanks.

Yeah. Not that we needed any further verification, but the fact that he calls himself a liberal and a proponent of freedom makes him a joke of the highest order.

Again demonstrating the charm and grace that you're rightly famous for, I see.

[klr]

Harbouring people obviously runs in the family: he harboured a Jewish refugee, and his grand-niece's family harboured a member of the Al Qassam Brigades.

And they deserved to die for it, yes? Fuckwit.

You are human strychnine. Fuck off.

The moral of the story, naturally, is that harbouring terrorists makes you a legitimate mlitary target.

This is a reminder to both of you to play nice. Would it be too much to ask to keep this argument half-way civil?

[Hermit]

Moral of the story is that you have no morals. Civilians are never "legitimate" military targets. Only in fascist land.

Bremen ... Dresden ... Hiroshima ... Nagasaki ... My Lai ...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... ssacre.jpg

[JimC]

There's a big difference between blowing up an actual rocket launching sight, with shrapnel causing some civilian casualties, to blowing up a house full of civilians because intelligence suggests a possible terrorist is inside...

[Hermit]

There's a big difference between blowing up an actual rocket launching sight, with shrapnel causing some civilian casualties, to blowing up a house full of civilians because intelligence suggests a possible terrorist is inside...

There's a callous strategy behind doing the latter. Killing the people who are harbouring the freedom fighter terrorist is supposed to discourage other people from harbouring freedom fighters terrorists. It's been going on for millennia, and sometimes involved destroying entire cities and massacring its population to serve as a lesson for neighbouring cities.

[JimC]

Yes, I think you are right. For PR reasons, Israel can't state its policies quite so bluntly as others have in the past, but its actions speak for it...

[pErvinalia]

Moral of the story is that you have no morals. Civilians are never "legitimate" military targets. Only in fascist land.

Bremen ... Dresden ... Hiroshima ... Nagasaki ... My Lai ...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... ssacre.jpg

As I said, civilians are never legitimate military targets. If you think they are, then you have no morality.

[Hermit]

Moral of the story is that you have no morals. Civilians are never "legitimate" military targets. Only in fascist land.

Bremen ... Dresden ... Hiroshima ... Nagasaki ... My Lai ...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... ssacre.jpg

As I said, civilians are never legitimate military targets. If you think they are, then you have no morality.

I can assure you that nothing is further from my mind than attempting to fabricate any moral justification for systematically and intentionally killing civilians. Not even in the case of the nuclear bombs that destroyed two cities and their inhabitants. You may recall that people have sought to justify those wholesale massacres by claiming that the net effect was to shorten the war and actually save lives.

Same reasoning stood behind the strategy pursued by Bomber Harris. Greetings, Bremen and Dresden. Even the minor town (approximate population of 90,000 in 1944) I was born in was bombed 35 times. Most of those bombings were diversionary raids to lure the German fighters away from the actually intended targets, but on three occasions, the town was the prime target. During one of these, 10,000 civilians were killed in 20 minutes and the same carpet bombing left two thirds of the population homeless. In not a single occasion were the three obvious targets of military significance (two chemical factories, one rail head) hit by as much as a single bomb, although they were right on the edges of town and easy to spot on the reconnaissance aerial photographs. They were large, easy to spot and not difficult to hit, at least occasionally, if they were ever actually targeted. They manifestly never were.

What I did want to do was to draw attention to the fact that actually aiming at exclusively civilian targets has always been part of warfare and all sides have done that at all times. Israel's actions in Gaza are inhumane and reprehensible, but Israel is not some sole pariah. The Geneva conventions have been largely ineffectual in regard to the intentional targeting of civilians. Few people have been successfully prosecuted at the International Court of The Hague and even fewer that perpetrated war crimes on behalf of the sides that are regarded as "the good side".

There are no possible excuses, let alone justifications, but those are the facts.

[pErvinalia]

Of course, but the prevailing morality of liberal society changes over time, even 50 years. I haven't heard any other contemporary account that has a western liberal power so blatantly kill citizens as nonchalantly as Israel does against the Palestinians. Perhaps the Yanks and coalition did in Iraq, I don't know. But the ratio of citizens to "terrorists" in Palestinian territories is frighteningly callous.

[Svartalf]

Moral of the story is that you have no morals. Civilians are never "legitimate" military targets. Only in fascist land.

Bremen ... Dresden ... Hiroshima ... Nagasaki ... My Lai ...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... ssacre.jpg

As I said, civilians are never legitimate military targets. If you think they are, then you have no morality.

The israelis have mitzvot, they don't need no morality.

[cronus]

It's not the size of atrocity that counts these days but keeping the cameras out. According to that Lancet report half a million died in Iraq. And trade scanctions there after the first gulf war caused mass starvation in the hundreds of thousands, never got camera footage, in the hope that a half starved people would overthrow a brutal dictator. Blood on all hands but only a uproar when cameras are present.

[Hermit]

Of course, but the prevailing morality of liberal society changes over time, even 50 years. I haven't heard any other contemporary account that has a western liberal power so blatantly kill citizens as nonchalantly as Israel does against the Palestinians. Perhaps the Yanks and coalition did in Iraq, I don't know. But the ratio of citizens to "terrorists" in Palestinian territories is frighteningly callous.

Dream on. You know what the first casualty of war is, don't you? "Oh, so sorry for blowing up that wedding party. Unfortunate mistake, that." Other killings of civilians by US troops have been handwaved out of the way by describing them as unfortunate and unavoidable instances of collateral damage. "Well,shit happens." Drones are no less indiscriminate with whom they kill and what they destroy than Israeli bombs, and the American military is fucking well aware of that. Yet it persists in their use, especially after the "Mission Accomplished" banner adorned the warship on which the US president announced the end of the Iraqi war. The number of civilian deaths is the prime reason Iraqi sentiment turned against their liberators. I don't know how the use of drones differs qualitatively from Israeli bombing in Gaza. Both bloody well know that there will be civilians killed, yet both persist with their actions. From a pragmatic point of view there is no fine line between saying "oh well, collateral damage is inevitable" and "let's kill us some sandniggers" and I don't know if it even matters on moral grounds.

The Iraqi situation is further buried in mud by the fact that the extent of civilian deaths by US forces is impossible to determine. For instance, when they retook Fallujah in 2004 none of the Iraqis they killed were categorised as civilians. Yeah. A likely story.

Be it as it may, for "technical" or "moral" reasons the situation for civilians has been worsening in the long run. In World War I one civilian died for every nine soldiers. In the wars fought since the middle of the last century that ratio has totally flipped. Ten civilians have died for each soldier. I also surrounded "technical" and "moral" with quote marks because I don't see how you can possibly ascertain the underlying reason for civilian deaths in either Iraq or the Gaza Strip, although it is a bit more obvious in other wars. You think wars conducted by liberal governments are less morally reprehensible because you swallow their lies and obfuscations.

[JimC]

Drones are no less indiscriminate with whom they kill and what they destroy than Israeli bombs, and the American military is fucking well aware of that.

Actually, I think you are wrong there, in the main. US missiles launched from drones are, at least potentially, much more precise than Israeli artillery shells and bombs. The US may well go beyond the ethical pale with a decision to destroy a single house containing a terrorist cell, plus some civilians, but they often do stuff like taking out a single car containing Taliban cadres, for example... The Israeli strikes on Gaza have been an order of magnitude less discriminating than a single Maverick missile. Of course, old-fashioned WW2 carpet bombing was another order of magnitude less discriminating than even the Israeli Gaza strikes. Having said that, the Hamas rocket attacks are purely random attempts to kill Israeli civilians...

[mistermack]

Without a link to a reliable source, I have to assume that SD is bullshitting.
It wouldn't be the first time. Nor the second.

Coming from you, that's pretty funny.

You're the joke. That crap you posted contains nothing that even hints that the family were harbouring a terrorist.
Fail.

[Strontium Dog]

Without a link to a reliable source, I have to assume that SD is bullshitting.
It wouldn't be the first time. Nor the second.

Coming from you, that's pretty funny.

You're the joke. That crap you posted contains nothing that even hints that the family were harbouring a terrorist.
Fail.

Yes, I'm fully acquainted with your propensity to ignore the evidence.

Presumably the Hamas militant killed in the bombed house was selling cookies door to door.