Israel Has Fought a Morally & Militarily Lazy War

[leftchick]

Which has cost the lives of hundreds of innocents....

<snip>

And this is my problem with Israel's war on Lebanon. The Olmert government wants to clean Hizbullah's katyusha rocket emplacements out of the area above its northern border with Israel. That may or may not be a realistic goal. Larry Cohler-Esses at the Jewish Week reports that a lot of military experts think Israel's military plan is impossible to accomplish. But it is legitimate for the Israeli government to fight Hizbullah and to attempt to destroy the missiles, once Hizbullah showered Israel with missiles (and even thought the missiles have mostly failed to hit anything).

But the Israeli military from the beginning of this conflict did not limit itself to fighting Hizbullah or to hitting its arsenal. The Israeli air force bombed Beirut airport (and bombed it again on Wednesday), and bombed the sea ports of Tripoli, Jounieh, Beirut, Sidon and Tyre. It bombed civilian neighborhoods and villages and killed whole families.

That kind of broad gauge approach is not allowed by the modern laws of warfare. If you have good reason to think that a truck is carrying weaponry to Hizbullah, you can bomb it. But just bombing any old civilian truck is a war crime.

<snip>

Israel has fought a lazy war, both morally lazy and militarily lazy. It is work to surveil enemy shipments. So, you just blow up the airport and the ports and roads and bridges, regardless of whether you have reason to believe that any of them is used by Hizbullah for their war effort. Just in case. It is a just in case war. You bomb Shiite villages intensively, just in case they have military significance to Hizbullah. Maybe they don't, and you've just blown up a civilian neighborhood and killed whole families. Where blowing up things has no immediate and legitimate military purpose and harms innocent civilians, it is a crime. It can be prosecuted, especially in Europe.

http://www.juancole.com/

[wtmusic]

1. Not unlike our morally lazy assault on Fallujah

and scores of other targets in Iraq.

[magellan]

5. It's easy to do, when you've got far superior firepower

As the US and Israel do.

Oppressed people will eventually fight, even if it means picking up rocks and bottles against guns and tanks.

On the other hand, if Iraq and Lebanon (and the Palestinians) had proper militaries to rival ours and Israel's, I wonder if we and Israel would be messing as we have been in those places....

[wtmusic]

6. Exactly

Peace is always the responsibility of the powerful.

:thumbsup:

[ugarte]

2. The military doctrine of "any Arab will do"...nt

[ixion]

3. lazy is being too nice, IMO... criminal

is more the order of the day. :grr:

[BillZBubb]

4. You need to add ultimately self-defeating.

All of the above is true, but another tragedy is that this will only prolong the already deep antipathy towards Israel in the region. Hezbollah will get stronger, not weaker. Iran will get more influential, not less.

Demographics are against Israel. Time is against Israel. Only they are too enamored of their current power to realize it.

[Minnesota Libra]

7. I'm wondering how an Army avoids killing innocent people when.............

.....terrorist groups like Hamas/Hizbullah/PLO/?? pulls off bombings and other acts of violence and then purposely goes back to mingle among the general populace.

BTW, shouldn't those "innocent" civilians in Lebanon be held responsible at some point for "aiding and abetting" terrorists.

With that having been said, I think Israel could use loud speakers, flyers, the media to communicate to innocent people that harboring terrorists carries a very heavy price. Then, in these "communications" a method should be given to "inform" or "give up" the identity of terrorists. That way Israel would be going out of their way to give "innocents" a way to stay neutral.

[Mandate My Ass]

11. since when is the burden on civilians of one country

to perform as spies for another country with the penalty for noncompliance, either by commission or omission, being death?

The fact that terrorists allegedly hide among civilians is no case whatsoever for "guilt by association."

[Minnesota Libra]

13. Excuse you??? Throughout history people from almost any country..........

....around the world have been held responsible in one way or another for their associations with those the world did approve of and especially those the world didn't approve of. It's happened since the beginning of time and it's not going to end now.

Innocent German had to pay a heavy price for their Nazi associations.

The French people who sided with the Nazis paid a heavy price for their love of Hitler.

It happened before WW II and it's definitely happened since. It will be that way until the end of time - my not be to our liking - but it happens none the less.

[acmavm]

14. So because it has been done before makes it okay with you

I guess.

Lovely.

[Minnesota Libra]

15. I don't and never have said that innocent people having to......

....pay the price for what the guilty among them do is necessarily fair, I just said that's the way life is. For every action there is a reaction. Everything we do in life has a cost - not necessarily in monetary form - but a cost none the less. What goes around comes around. You play with the devil you get treated like the devil. Pick the way you want to say it - it all boils down to this...........

What's happening now in the Middle East is payback for what went on in the past decades. What Hezbillah/Hamas/Lebanon/Israel is doing right now will have a cost many decades into the future. In other words Hezbillah/Hamas/Lebanon/Palestinians can not get away with suicide bombings inside Israel forever. On the other hand, Israel will pay a dear price for what they are doing to Lebanon right now. There will NEVER BE ANY WINNERS. It's not the fault of just one side - BOTH SIDES carry more than their fair share of blame. I don't find one side better than the other.

So in closing, I guess I'm never going to be able to convince you that Hezbillah/Hamas/Lebanon/Palestinians/etc carries some blame for what is presently happening to them. And, I can pretty much guarantee you will never convince me that Israel is 100% guilty and the above mentioned Arabs/Muslims are 100% innocent.

And now I'm pretty much typed out.

[David__77]

8. Israeli society has a great malaise.

It reminds me of certain other countries before monumental change. I hope that enlightened people come to power there to usher in a new state order.

[michaelvail]

9. Israel is trying to wipe out that region including the civilians

The enemy of my enemy: Israel's ties to the birth of Hamas
"The PLO under the leadership of Mohammed Abdel-Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini was run much like a western organization. Arafat was viewed as a freedom fighter and was loved by the Palestinians. He was a threat to the very existence of Isreal. Arafat amassed a fortune through Arab charities and many shady deals including drug trafficing. He was almost Machiavellian in his tactics. In the media he looked like a shy, mousy fearful leader who was desperately trying to hold off this super state named Israel. This made him a darling in the eyes of the media."
http://www.thought-criminal.org/2006/07/19/the-enemy-of-my-enemy-israels-ties-to-the-birth-of-hamas/

[malaise]

10. Israel has picked up

several tips from the US in Iraq. Might is apparently right.

[tabasco]

12. By any civilized standard ...

a 15 to 1 civilian to combatant killed ratio is not only lazy but rightly considered a war crime.