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Posted on 03/10/2004 9:37:27 PM PST by malakhi
| Statesmen may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue. - John Adams |
Do you hear banjos? Mack must really love us.
SD
OK. What does that mean in practical terms? Kill everyone you suspect might be somewhat involved or potentially involved in terrorist activity?
That would probably include the entire male population of the occupied areas.
SD
Get off your high horse, Dave. The only difference between what the Israelis are doing against Palestinian terrorists, and what we are doing in Iraq and in Afghanistan, is that Iraq and Afghanistan are not right in our backyard. I don't recall Bush asking for, or the senate approving, a formal declaration of war.
Is Palestine an active war zone or part of a civilized nation?
Well, its certainly not the latter.
Unlike the Palestinians, the Israelis really do try to avoid noncombatant casualties. And this despite the concerted efforts of Palestinian terrorists to embed themselves as much as possible among the noncombatant population.
If a known terrorist was hiding out in an apartment building in Detroit, would we send in a SWAT team to get him or simply fire rockets at the building?
What if the residents of the building were actively collaborating with the terrorist, providing him "cover", shelter, and security? And what if you made every possible effort to minimize noncombatant casualties? And what if you went in with a SWAT team, and the building was boobytrapped? How many of your own men's lives are you willing to lose?
What's your solution, Dave? Declare a "limited police action"?
You are correct. We should have a formal declaration of war.
Unlike the Palestinians, the Israelis really do try to avoid noncombatant casualties. And this despite the concerted efforts of Palestinian terrorists to embed themselves as much as possible among the noncombatant population.
I understand who the good guys are and what difficulties there are. I just think there are lines which can be crossed. In general I support Israeli activities. But I can see where others might question them. That's all I'm saying.
To question the activities of a civilized nation is seperate from the question of whether terrorists are correct or whether the civilized combatant is the evil party.
What if the residents of the building were actively collaborating with the terrorist, providing him "cover", shelter, and security? And what if you made every possible effort to minimize noncombatant casualties? And what if you went in with a SWAT team, and the building was boobytrapped? How many of your own men's lives are you willing to lose?
Point taken, and I generally agree. But didn't they kill this guy out on the street? Couldn't he have been taken captive?
SD
A great deal of settlement occured in precisely this fashion.
What happened to the people whos families lived there for generations and were moved to the West Bank?
You mean the ones who voluntarily left, in hopes of seizing the property of their Jewish neighbors after the Arab armies drove the Jews into the sea? Those people?
Nate, up until the 1967 war, the West Bank was part of Jordan. Its people were Jordanian citizens.
Your lament for the poor, displaced Palestinian refugees fails to mention the 800,000 Jews who fled or were expelled from Muslim countries after 1948, most of them with nothing but the shirts on their backs. Israel took them in. The Arabs made no effort to similarly accommodate the Palestinians.
None of us have a solution. That's my point. Simply saying "let's let the hounds loose." is simplistic. There have been people who did not have any moral qualms about simply slaughtering everyone in a captured territory. The Greeks and Romans, for example.
We don't do that now. And the question of how to handle informal terrorists is a difficult one. It would be satisfying to simply erase Mecca, for example, from the map the next time Muslim terror occurs.
The question is "what is that 'satisfying' in me?"
SD
When they know Israel shows they are willing to take their LAST man thats when it will be over with.
BigMack
To what purpose? And at the cost of how many lives?
Nope. I guess I shouldn't?
SD
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