feh...
Posted on 11/15/2012 1:48:54 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
MOSCOW: Russia on Thursday condemned Israel's "disproportionate" use of force in air strikes on the Gaza Strip while calling on Palestinian militants to halt firing rockets at the Jewish state.
"Attacks on the south of Israel and the disproportionate strikes on Gaza -- especially when civilians are killed on both sides -- are completely unacceptable," foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich told reporters.
The Russian official stressed that the violence was especially dangerous because it came against the backdrop of existing regional instability linked to the conflict in Syria and last year's war in Libya.
Lukashevich said Israel and the Palestinians were now pursuing a course that could lead to still further bloodshed between them while threatening to degenerate into a broader conflict.
"We strongly appeal on all the involved parties to immediately end their armed confrontation and to keep the conflict from resulting in still further bloodshed," the Russian spokesman told a weekly briefing.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailystar.com.lb ...
feh...
“what you call ‘overkill’ is what wins wars”
It is not all that wins wars, and never what wins them in a civilized manner. We were offered basically the same terms before and after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They are justified usually by comparison with a theoretical alternative invasion. But no invasion was necessary. Or it was only necessary because of our bloodlust or a stubborn and irrational insistence on winning in no way but one of our absolute and autonomous choosing.
It is commonly accepted nowadays that the WWI settlement led directly to WWII. No doubt you’d say there’s no peace without total victory, or something, and that had there been firebombings and occupation in 1918 there would’ve been no 1939. However, though the earth was not salted, the men killed and the women and children enslaved, nor the population relocated to Antarctica, Germany was starved into surrender by the blockade, did give up its monarchy for a feckless sham republic, and was burdened by various onerous punishments. Yet somehow this humiliation didn’t put them in their place.
Fastforward to round two. Thus time Churchill especially but the other allies also plan according ti the delusion that the European crisis was caused by some defect in the German soul, and that the German war-starting gene had to be excised from the heart of Europe for peace to return. This despite one if the allies being demonstrably evil and having joined in the exact action of Germany’s which started the war, i. e. invading Poland. They won in popular overkill fashion, then came absurdly close to ensuring future peace by forcibly returning Germany ti a pastoral agricultural economy, thereby killing untold millions.
We got peace, at least. No, not really. We got 50 years of the second-worse thing to war. Tell me why we wouldn’t want an independent Germany standing between Western Europe and the Evil Empire, because I’m at a loss. Oh, right, because war was all about how malevolent was Germany. That’s the ticket.
I often think we weren’t beaten on Vietnam, not really. Though the other side won the war it’s a crime against common sense to say they really won, if you know what I mean. Not compared to how we won WWII, for instance. Because Vietnam wasn’t a war like WWII. It’s apples and oranges. The former was a “limited war.” We placed rather severe restrictions on ourselves. They had to inflict a fraction of the damage on us as we on them to win.
Does that mean we should have gone all out? Invaded the north, bombed cities, occupied neighborng countries? No. Because there were good reasons it was a limited war. We shouldn’t have fought at all, or not at that level of engagement. Tipping the other way might’ve been worse than losing.
“Measured, ‘proportionate’ responses make them drag on and on”
I don’t like the word “proportionate,” as it denotes equality. That truly would lead to stalemate. But that doesn’t mean there are no limits. Responses must be “measured,” at least so that you don’t cause more trouble than you prevent or become an international pariah. Not that the world is fair to Israel; they have to shock the world merely to exist. There’s international opinion and there’s international opinion, if you know what I mean.
Our cognitive dissonance between shooting civilians on the ground and bombing them from the air tricks many into thinking My Mai is worse than Hiroshima. Which is of course ridiculous. Likewise Israel is under a microscope and terrorists have a relatively free hand. It’s not fair. But that doesn’t mean they can respond however they want and remain civilized.
“If you’re going to fight, hit hard enough to win quickly. If you don’t intend to win, don’t fight.”
That’s easy to say; it’s sorta the definition of smart warfare to apply as much force as possible to win and win with the least effort necessary. But then again winning isn’t everything. I’m one of those old fuddyduddies who believes on international law. Nit binding law, mind you, nor a body to e.force it. But various gentlemen’s agreements as to what constitutes civilized warfare.
Not that Israel is violating them, or any more than we and every other modern army habitually does. It’s hard to know how to go back to how it was before the past century-plus of wholesale civilian slaughter. It’s just that I can’t stomach supposed conservatives piling on anyone who proposes a standard other than mere victory. Total war is not dignified, nor so effective as contended.
Disproportionate?
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha !
Let's talk about Russia's little 9-year sojourn into Afghanistan and the huge numbers of Mi-24 Hind gunships used against the local population, which wasn't lobbing hundreds of rockets into the Soviet Union... for decades.
Putin is the master of “disproportionate”. Think Chechenya, Daghestan and Georgia.
Remember Grozny: http://youtu.be/GaFrCy9HTOM
If only Israel did that to Gaza to emulate Putin...
Everyone is entitled to believe whatever they wish.
But in the real world, "international law" which is not observed by all participants is a suicidal sham and a charade.
Please feel free to engage it on a personal level.
Senility?
“in the real world, ‘international law’ which is not observed by all participants is a suicidal sham and a charade”
Easy to say in a country that forces its kids to memorize a nonsensical speech about government by the people, etc., perishing from the earth written when nothing whatsoever of the kind was at stake. I can see the argument for, say, China, France, and Russia during WWII. But somehow the US would’ve died had ot we deliberately targeted civilians, forcibly transferred populations, and executed soldiers for the crime of being on the losing side? Is that a serious assertion? You might as well argue Obama should have unlimited dictatorial powers in an emergency to “save capitalism from itself” on the off chance communist revolutionaries beat us to the punch. (Don’t scoff; respected intellectuals have argued the exact same thing for FDR.)
We haven’t been in an existential war since 1812, and even that wasn’t purely defensively as it was halfway a war of conquest on our part.
out of proportion to WHAT?
Well obviously Lincoln’s screed was lamenting the loss of what was trying to walk out on it. If such a land ends up occupying a phone booth, is that squat?
Granted, many of the territorial wars do not mean nearly as much in hindsight as they did “when.” It would have been far better if McCarthy’s folks had kept their stuff up than for the US to get into the Vietnam War. Because the war of memes in the end is what mattered the most.
If you don’t like revision at least ruminate on the counterfactuals and come up with an answer for how Nazis and Commies killing eachother by the tens of millions wasn’t better—from a purely strategic standpoint—than the West standing against Russia alone. Then tell my why Total War against the Nazis was so dammed necessary.
“out of proportion to WHAT?”
I don’t know why this was posted to me, given how I already said how little I esteem the proportion argument. But to answer your question, out of proportion to the initial attack.
A lament it was, but we shouldn’t ignore the faulty logic because of the genuine emotion behind it. Because speeches like that are intended to create new emotions wand though it didn’t name much if a difference then its importance for our collective historical understanding is difficult to underestimate. Though the average citizen will be hard pressed to delineate the causes leafing up to the war—besides a flat assertion of “slavery”—nor how the war was fought, nor what came after, they can probably quote a few words at least from the Address. Those people might be tricked into believing representative democratic republicanism, or whatever you call our system of government, was in danger. Which is a lie.
Fault some hyperbole, but Lincoln was saying “Look at it shrink, unless we stop that.” And to tell the truth, most of the reconquered areas, SANS slavery now for 150 years, are the greatest boon to that ideal today!
Sorry for all the typos.
I agree about McCarthy. Our hindsight view of his downfall has been a more perfect victory by libs than any of Alexander the Great’s battles. The book title “Blacklisted By History” captures it perfectly. Perhaps this was unavoidable, given the ideological disposition of the MSM, Washington, academia, etc. There wasn’t even any Bill O’Reilly back then—not that I want to give Baxter any credit, let alone Rush or the Internet. Perhaps it was inevitable that McCarthy would end up a raving, drunken, Stalin wannabe and Whittaker Chambers a crazy pumpkin farming Lewinsky forerunner (for holding onto things, not for being a slut).
Then again, there were more important fights than how many spies were in the state dept.
But even if you look at it like a slippery slope argument, it wasn’t shrinking. Because it’s not as if the Confederacy was a communist dictatorship. (It turned into a sorta dictatorship as Billy Yank killed it, but then again so did the North without the excuse of fighting for its existence.) Had they remained split there would’ve been just as much government by the people as before, only in two instead of one country.
Actually, a better argument could be made that Lincoln was fighting against government by the people in forcing Southerners back into the union against their will.
Well hey, you could say Abe was looking down the years of the future and saying, hey we’re going to go to pot while the good part has just walked away :-)
The US Constitution never defined any kind of statehood recission procedure. That doesn’t sound like an oopsie to me....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.