More than two sides to a war
Prof. Juan Cole writes about the Christians of Jounieh while Josh Micah Marshall writes about the US need for a Palestinian state.
Prof. Juan Cole writes about the Christians of Jounieh while Josh Micah Marshall writes about the US need for a Palestinian state.
August 9th, 2006 at 4:34 am
i liked juan cole’s article very much. before the pollution and christian economy balance sheet, he should mention the death toll and its equivilancy in american terms like he did for the homeless people. israel is ploughing lebanon with bombs and we are harvesting dead people.
as for the other dude, he is very quick to point out the hizballah point missiles at civilians everytime. im reading detailed hourly news reports each day. actually, HA has killed more soldiers than civilians and hit a lot of military installations inside israel. also, HA faces a lot of pressure inside lebanon to hit military not civilian targets. this you can read in the lebanese arabic press.
here’s a question.
sunday 12 israeli soldiers were killed by a rocket and they announced on CNN they were killed at a kibbutz. if it was a kibbutz, why were there soldiers there?
its just weird to me when people mention zionism in abstract terms as if its a harmless gas floating around, not the death and theft and denial machine arabs have known it to be since 1948.
and why don’t they mention arab civilian lives lost now? deliberately targeted because israel has no idea what else to do. the IAF squarely targets civilians. in masna3 12 people were killed by a bomb and when other people came to help the f-16s came back and bombed them leaving 34 dead. the force behind this should not be talked about in abstract terms. or “finer points” as that abstraction is politely termed by the writer.
August 9th, 2006 at 6:36 am
amahl, i think you’re letting your moral indignation at the overwhelming absurdity and horror of this war overtake your own arguments. the very fact that there is widespread discussion of a possible civil war in Lebanon implies that it is well known that Hizballah is not operating in a vacuum. there are pressures on all sides to do all sorts of horrible things.
that Israel has been able to get a free pass on collective punishment and extortion, on taking a nation hostage – as Egypt has with its own criminal regime, as Saudi Arabia has with its own, etc. – is another story. that the people running the show in Israel right now are clueless is another story I have read elsewhere and cited repeatedly. does this lead to wanton killing? no one is denying this on the blog posts I’ve cited.
moreover, you should review the last 10 posts on this subject on TalkingPointsMemo. there was nothing “quick to point out” about that comment. it is my opinion that both sides are in the wrong. that one has more lethal weapons does not alter that equivalence. that one or the other has committed previous crimes does not alter that equivalence. or should criminals be tortured and those who kill with a knife receive a lighter penalty than those who kill with a gun? i have been discussing both politics and morality but they are not one and the same.
i think there is more outrage than reason in your phrasing: “arabs have known.” i am not surprised because i have been reading your blog but i, personally, don’t think I speak for Cubans or men or people with white skin. I know what I know – and that’s not very much, at all. my opinions, and my opinions alone, are above.
August 9th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
I squarely reject the idea that both sides are in the wrong. Ok, let’s stay away from the vacuous “I only express my view” charade (who ever denied that?) and stick to something we all have subscribed to, by extension: international laws and conventions regulating the use of force and the conduct of war. Let’s see how these folks have been doing on that. Combatants are required to avoid, to the extent possible, any harm to civilians given the means and information available to them. When it comes to infrastructure or physical assets, there needs to be proof that these assets have some military use (and not that they could eventually have military use).
First on the provocation (or the classic “who started it”): http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1839281,00.html
Now let’s ignore George Monbiot’s article linked above. Then the July 12th “provocation” is, again, legitimate under the laws of war (we are, after all, at war with Israel, and we still have a list of very clear grievances: land, prisoners, land mines and respect for international border) since they constitute an aggression against SOLDIERS. COMBATTANTS are legitimate targets under the international rules of war. The Israeli response from the very outset was, by their own description (shelling Hizballah positions AND civilian infrastructure) in violation of the international rules and conventions governing the laws of war. On Hizballah targeting Israeli civilians: the death toll so far shows a ratio of civilian to combatant deaths somewhere around 2:3. The ratio for Lebanese deaths from Israel is around 9:1. Now add that to the fact that Israel has “smart” bombs, aerial access, precision guided munitions, which, statistically speaking, should make it BETTER able to avoid civilian deaths, while Hizballah has antiquated weapons that are far less precise. They are even MORE guilty than the ratios indicate, when the clause “given the means available to them” is taken into account.
On Hizballah exposing Lebanese civilians:
A. There are A LOT of civilians who have perished while the IDF targets civilian infrastructure (bridges, highways, overpasses, ports) in areas that are not Hizballah strongholds (so no argument can be made about these vehicles or individuals being infiltrated by combattants).
B. This is to say nothing of the deliberate targeting of grain silos, food factories, custom houses, customs houses, hospitals, ambulances, fleeing families, UN bases, refugee camps, Lebanese army positions in ALL of Lebanon and not in the areas that are supposedly under Hizballah’s influence.
C. It’s a myth that fighters “hide” behind civilians:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14252.htm (on the myth of exposing civilians)
http://www.irishantiwar.org/news/item.tcl?news_item_id=102570 (on Qana and elsewhere)
On other war crimes:
http://hrw.org/reports/2006/lebanon0806/
Israel is, in addition, committing a slew of other war crimes by targeting civilians in their homes, civilians fleeing following IDF directives, waving white flags, civilians burying their dead, (900 civilians, 300 children are NOT colateral damage by any stretch of the imagination), using weapons that lead to a lot more destruction than is militarily called for (including cluster munitions, vacuum bombs, and phosphorus bombs –see HRW report), openly targeting civilian infrastructure (how do grain silos and milk factories have dual civilian/military use?), targeting rescue workers (UN, red cross, ambulances, hospitals), and, according to the ICRC, impeding rescue efforts (this according to the ICRC and Jim Clancey from CNN).
August 9th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
and i wasn’t trying to jerk tears by citing these particular examples.
August 12th, 2006 at 10:50 pm
this is from your blog, right?
OK. imagine if I were to post a list of all the criminal things Arab leaders and/or Arab armed forces and/or Arab militias have done — in the past 20 years, alone. That would be a really counter productive thing to do, right? i would be a coward to bring up such a list given the subject – Israeli war crimes past and present. And, yet, that list is out there, isn’t it. it’s a race to the bottom. but, if you believe everything would be right if Israel would “move away,” so be it. I linked to what I think is a sensible response for Americans to endorse: