[Archived] Ashamed

[Jeru tha Damaja]

It's not easy for Palestinians to stay away from rocket launch sites when they are next to their home or workplace. The absolute best way to limit casualties is, as I said, to launch attacks at night, but for some reason that common sense measure has not been taken. What is happening is similar to a firework landing in my garden, then me retaliating by shooting the nearest teenager. Given the potency of Qassam rockets and the standard Israeli response to them, it's a pretty accurate comparison.

If Israel was any less restrained we'd be looking at genocide. The next step from what they are doing is to indiscriminately bomb all of Gaza and then send in a land invasion to finish the job. It's funny how the views of people like Tony Benn, Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter, etc. are all ignored when they highlight what goes on in Israel.

What nation in the world would allow its neighbour to build a fence on its territory? What nation would sit idle as its neighbour restricts the import of food and water? What nation would say nothing as its land is stolen, its people dispersed into surrounding countries and its aggressive neighbour builds settlements on stolen land? What nation would allow its neighbour to bulldoze the homes of its citizens? It does, however, amaze me that so many countries failed to take meaningful action when our own citizens were killed or arrested for simply trying to deliver food and medicine to Gaza, so maybe people will tolerate more than I thought. All things considered, maybe Hamas has been pretty reserved.

The problem is that Palestine doesn't have the technology to strike Israel's military installations, so they use the weapons they do have to try and hit whatever targets fall within range. Then Israel responds, killing civilians and generating more sympathy for Hamas and thus perpetuating the whole sorry cycle.

The numbers of civilian deaths in Gaza are hard to judge because Israel reports all males between 14 and 60 as militants. As Jewish MP Gerald Kaufman pointed out, the Nazis probably would have said the same of Jews fighting for their survival in the Warsaw ghettos.

And how much does Israel really want peace? The only thing asked of them is that they freeze the building of settlements in the West Bank while negotiations take place. Not much of a demand considering that the settlements are illegal in the first place. But still Israel won't return to the table, because they won't negotiate until a two-state solution becomes an impossibility.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

The Zionists don't want to negotiate, why should they when the rest of the World looks the other way. Until they are treated as the pariahs they are, ie as the previous rascist South African regime was, nothing will change.

[old darwen blue]

Edit

[Amo]

^ Glad you retracted that.

The Bombing of Dresden was completely unnecessary. The unmitigated destruction of a defenceless city that killed tens of thousands of people, inc. German civilians, POWs & refugees. All in the name of terror... which never worked, it should be noted.

It's okay, though. Because we were the "good guys".

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

I agree - Brave guys can do bad things, that doesn't make them good things.

[jim mk2]

Dresden wasn't a "defenceless" city. Like all German cities it was a key industrial and transport hub and a legitimate target for the Allies. The controversy over Dresden was the timing of the raid in the final months of the war.

[Amo]

Dresden wasn't a "defenceless" city. Like all German cities it was a key industrial and transport hub and a legitimate target for the Allies. The controversy over Dresden was the timing of the raid in the final months of the war.

Dresden was not a legitimate military target and ironically the bombings missed the railyards. It was the heart of the city that got firebombed to hell. The most gratuitous and horrific of war crimes committed during WW2. That won't stop Allied apologists trying to debate otherwise.

[Mike Graham]

The Zionists don't want to negotiate, why should they when the rest of the World looks the other way. Until they are treated as the pariahs they are, ie as the previous rascist South African regime was, nothing will change.

So I am a "pariah". A race that had been murdered, pilloried and attacked for centuries. Israel is surrounded by those ( except Jordan) who would like to wipe out every Jew. What do you expect when Hamas fires their rockets......sit back and take it.

And yes I have been to Gaza, Nablus, Jenin and East Jerusalem as well as a number of Arab countries, I have seen people shot and murdered. I have also spent much time in Tel Aviv, Elait and Jerusalem. Israel is fighting for survival.....survival of a belief that many want wiped out.

[BuckyRover]

Some fantastic posts in this thread, Jeru tha Damaja in particular.

I really don't understand how someone can be so blind to something so obvious. The West isn't just and fair, it just tells us that it is.

[jim mk2]

Dresden was not a legitimate military target and ironically the bombings missed the railyards. It was the heart of the city that got firebombed to hell. The most gratuitous and horrific of war crimes committed during WW2. That won't stop Allied apologists trying to debate otherwise.

Dresden was Germany's seventh-largest city (about the same size as Manchester) and,allied intelligence described it as "one of the foremost industrial locations of the Reich. It had 127 medium-to-large factories and workshops that were supplying the army and 50,000 workers in the city supporting the German war effort at the time of the raidincluding aircraft components factories and a poison gas factory.

If you want to get into a debate about the relative merits of strategic and area bombing I'm ready.

Calm down.

[thenodrog]

Dresden was not a legitimate military target and ironically the bombings missed the railyards. It was the heart of the city that got firebombed to hell. The most gratuitous and horrific of war crimes committed during WW2. That won't stop Allied apologists trying to debate otherwise.

6 million+ killed were there? I think you are getting carried away somewhat Topman. Dresden suffered horiffically without a doubt but was it as bad as Hiroshima and Negasaki? How about the German siege of Leningrad? Rem also at the time the completely indiscriminate doodlebugs were zeroing in on Londan in what was effectively psychological warfare designed to destroy the morale and resistence of the civilian poulation.

Rem the old saying.... "All's fair in love and war". When a feared opponent is on the floor stick the boot in and don't let up.

[thenodrog]

So I am a "pariah". A race that had been murdered, pilloried and attacked for centuries. Israel is surrounded by those ( except Jordan) who would like to wipe out every Jew. What do you expect when Hamas fires their rockets......sit back and take it.

Exactly. If Israel gets it wrong just once it will cease to exist. It only exists now because of it's military strength. The Arab nations would destroy it if they could without a second thought.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

So I am a "pariah". A race that had been murdered, pilloried and attacked for centuries. Israel is surrounded by those ( except Jordan) who would like to wipe out every Jew. What do you expect when Hamas fires their rockets......sit back and take it.

And yes I have been to Gaza, Nablus, Jenin and East Jerusalem as well as a number of Arab countries, I have seen people shot and murdered. I have also spent much time in Tel Aviv, Elait and Jerusalem. Israel is fighting for survival.....survival of a belief that many want wiped out.

There's an old Lancashire saying Preston Blue - " If the cap fits, wear it ! " You can be a Jew and not be a Zionist, plenty are. Nobody likes a bully. Israel reminds me of the little kid that used to go around bullying people at school because they had a big brother in the top form. If the U.S. withdrew financial and military support as it ought to Israel would soon have to see sense and negotiate.

[Jeru tha Damaja]

You can try to justify Dresden because we didn't really have a choice. Our air force was incapable of hitting specific military targets, so aiming for an entire city was the only option. However, doesn't that argument kind of apply to the situation that Gaza now faces?

Comparison between the Blitz and Dresden isn't really favourable towards Britain. The bombing of London caused substantial damage to infrastructure, but only claimed 40-50,000 lives. The raid on Dresden even considered refugees to be legitimate targets, it would now be illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention and cost around 22,000 lives in three days.

Even Churchill (morally ambiguous as he often was) questioned the tactic of bombing German cities simply to "increase terror", and he later tried to shirk responsibility for Dresden.

As for Gaza, anyone who believes that Gaza poses and existential threat to Israel is delusional. Fajr-5 rockets are mostly intercepted and it would only be a slight exaggeration to call Qassam rockets fireworks, they rarely hit anything and almost never cause any injuries. So how big a threat is Hamas really?

Other Arab nations? Jordan, Syria and Egypt are not in a position to fight wars in other countries considering their domestic situations. Iraq won't be in shape for a war for a long time and for all the talk Iran doesn't have enough weapons to compete with Israel. The Saudis would never dream of upsetting their US paymasters, and then we've pretty much run out of Arab armies.

Maintaining military strength is one thing, but that is assured by the billions in military aid that Israel receives from America each year. However, please don't pretend that Israel has to build illegal settlements and continually strangle Palestine in order to survive.

[Mike Graham]

There's an old Lancashire saying Preston Blue - " If the cap fits, wear it ! " You can be a Jew and not be a Zionist, plenty are. Nobody likes a bully. Israel reminds me of the little kid that used to go around bullying people at school because they had a big brother in the top form. If the U.S. withdrew financial and military support as it ought to Israel would soon have to see sense and negotiate.

Of course, negotiate with those who wish destruction upon Israel.

[T.J.Newton]

cant believe certain people are comparing anything done to defend our country during WW2 to the acts of these backward racist religious nut-jobs.

[Jeru tha Damaja]

Of course, negotiate with those who wish destruction upon Israel.

Who has done more destroying in the past 40 years?

That, of course, is the difference; the Arabs talk about destruction, Israel just quietly gets on with it.

cant believe certain people are comparing anything done to defend our country during WW2 to the acts of these backward racist religious nut-jobs.

Is that the Israelis or the Palestinians?

Anyway, the comparison presents itself pretty readily, except that Hamas is on a much smaller scale and is far less effective. We can't exempt WWII Britain from criticism because we feel the cause was just.

[T.J.Newton]

Who has done more destroying in the past 40 years?

That, of course, is the difference; the Arabs talk about destruction, Israel just quietly gets on with it.

Is that the Israelis or the Palestinians?

Anyway, the comparison presents itself pretty readily, except that Hamas is on a much smaller scale and is far less effective. We can't exempt WWII Britain from criticism because we feel the cause was just.

1.either/both, not that religion is their true motivation for killing each other, religions just another excuse(racism, hatred, jealousy and revenge is usually the real motivation behind these kind of nutballs).

2. well i can.

[Stuart]

1.either/both, not that religion is their true motivation for killing each other, religions just another excuse(racism, hatred, jealousy and revenge is usually the real motivation behind these kind of nutballs).

Land, and in particular oil, is usually the real reason.

[Jeru tha Damaja]

1.either/both, not that religion is their true motivation for killing each other, religions just another excuse(racism, hatred, jealousy and revenge is usually the real motivation behind these kind of nutballs).

2. well i can.

Ok then, but once you say something is ok as long as your cause is justified then you create a problem that you can never put back in the box. Palestinians are essentially fighting against an occupying force, which makes their cause hard to argue against, so logic dictates that they should escape criticism for using similar methods.

Even David Ben Gurion acknowledged the problem that, for anyone who doesn't accept the Biblical narrative, the Jews had stolen Palestinian land and that they would fight to take it back. And anyone who does accept the claim that Israel was promised to the Jews by God could perhaps fill in the gap and explain why He allowed them to be expelled from Jerusalem by the Christians (not Muslims).

[Jeru tha Damaja]

If Steve Moss is still checking in on this thread, look at the picture of little Ranan Arafat and then tell me how you feel knowing that your tax dollars have paid for this girl's death. Would you be ok with that happening to your daughter just because you live in a neighbourhood where someone has placed a rocket launcher? If not, then why is it ok to pay for it to happen to someone else's daughter?

http://inagist.com/all/269030706049601536/

Israel's interior minister says the goal is to "send Gaza back to the middle ages". That sort of tone is sickeningly reminiscent of Ahmadinejad's comments about Israel, no? Bottom line, Israel is no different to its enemies, their savagery is just a little more sophisticated.

How many rockets had been launched at Israel before the assassination of Ahmed al-Jabari? Jerusalem hadn't seen a rocket since 1970 and Tel-Aviv hadn't been under any significant attack since the Iraqis in 1991.

Al-Jabari was most likely killed to boost support for Netanyahu's government before their elections and now it has escalated into Cast Lead II. That isn't the fault of the Gazans.

Israeli soldier talks about the torture of Palestinian prisoners:

http://morallowground.com/2012/11/16/former-israeli-soldier-yuval-lev-reveals-medieval-torture-of-palestinian-prisoners/

What would Israel's reaction have been if Gilad Shalit had been subjected to such treatment? Somehow Israel manages to take the moral high-ground while limboing under the moral standards of their enemy. If the roles were reversed there would be outcry, so where is the moral anguish now? Where is the international condemnation? Where is the support for a people suffering oppression?

Amazing that people can wonder why society is violent when we conduct and condone violence internationally every day. US, Britain, Israel, just gangster nations. "Do what we say, or else!" If we don't like your politics then you're a terrorist and your life is disposable, and that's not the legacy of 9/11, it has been the same story for a long, long time. Put a gun in the hands of an Israeli soldier and it's ok, but put a gun in the hands of a Palestinian and you're funding terrorism. The hypocrisy is absolutely absurd.

America stands behind Israel's every move. Both houses of Congress have passed resolutions giving unconditional support to Israel and Obama has given his full backing. Hard to think that this could be the same country that was doing business with the Nazis during the Holocaust, even to the point that George W's granddaddy was laundering money for them, Rockefeller's Standard Oil produced a derivative that was essential to the Luftwaffe and IBM's logistics were central to the administration of concentration camps.

Terrorism: The systematic use of violent or destructive acts, such as bombing, committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government. Does it not seem that Netanyahu and Barak fit that profile at least as well as the leaders of Hamas?

[BuckyRover]

I'm haunted by that picture

[Amo]

Dresden was Germany's seventh-largest city (about the same size as Manchester) and,allied intelligence described it as "one of the foremost industrial locations of the Reich. It had 127 medium-to-large factories and workshops that were supplying the army and 50,000 workers in the city supporting the German war effort at the time of the raidincluding aircraft components factories and a poison gas factory.

Dresden's lack of military presence would suggest otherwise and doesn't really tally up with your version of events. If it was such a crucial resource to the Nazi war effort, you would at least expect it to be equipped with antiaircraft weaponry or military defense of some kind.

Also, the industrial targets were largely hit n' miss, the railyards untouched, and yet the heart of the old city got firebombed to smithereens.

6 million+ killed were there?

Right question, wrong subject.

I think you are getting carried away somewhat Topman. Dresden suffered horiffically without a doubt but was it as bad as Hiroshima and Negasaki?

You're right. The Allies outdone themselves there.

How about the German siege of Leningrad? Rem also at the time the completely indiscriminate doodlebugs were zeroing in on Londan in what was effectively psychological warfare designed to destroy the morale and resistence of the civilian poulation.

Do we at least agree that Britain's incendiary bombings were no less heinous than Nazi Germany's? Or we are going to maintain the flagrant double-standards applied to WW2?

Rem the old saying.... "All's fair in love and war". When a feared opponent is on the floor stick the boot in and don't let up.

“The end cannot justify the means, for the simple and obvious reason that the means employed determine the nature of the ends produced.” - Aldous Huxley

[jim mk2]

The air force that was "incapable of hitting military specific military targets" somehow managed to smash the Mohne and Edesee dams while specialist units such as 617 squadron achieved remarkable precision, such as the bombing of the Michelin factor at Clermont-Ferrand, where they destroyed the workshops but left the canteen next to them standing. By the end of the second world war unguided RAF bombs could be delivered within 25 yardsof a target from 15,000 ft and precisely on it from low level.

The legality of area bombing and raids such as Dresden in the modern context is irrelevant. During the second world war there was no agreement, treaty, convention or any other instrument governing the protection of the civilian population or civilian property, as the conventions then in force dealt only with the protection of the wounded and the sick on the battlefield and in naval warfare, hospital ships, the laws and customs of war and the protection of prisoners of war.

[Jeru tha Damaja]

Do we at least agree that Britain's incendiary bombings were no less heinous than Nazi Germany's? Or we are going to maintain the flagrant double-standards applied to WW2?

Given the respective casualties and the damage inflicted, the Nazis were actually more restrained. There's plenty of other things to criticise them for, but the Blitz, for all the talk about it since, was actually not that bad compared to what ordinary Germans suffered during our bombing campaign.

The air force that was "incapable of hitting military specific military targets" somehow managed to smash the Mohne and Edesee dams while specialist units such as 617 squadron achieved remarkable precision, such as the bombing of the Michelin factor at Clermont-Ferrand, where they destroyed the workshops but left the canteen next to them standing. By the end of the second world war unguided RAF bombs could be delivered within 25 yardsof a target from 15,000 ft and precisely on it from low level.

The legality of area bombing and raids such as Dresden in the modern context is irrelevant. During the second world war there was no agreement, treaty, convention or any other instrument governing the protection of the civilian population or civilian property, as the conventions then in force dealt only with the protection of the wounded and the sick on the battlefield and in naval warfare, hospital ships, the laws and customs of war and the protection of prisoners of war.

The bombing of dams was a pretty specialised area. General bombing for the first half of the war was not an exact science, and on a cloudy day it was more about educated guesses than precision strikes. Even as the war progressed the accuracy tended to be +/-100 yards, which is a pretty large margin for error.

In the case of Dresden it was probably never about whether or not the bombing could be accurate since the only things worth destroying would have been the roads and railway, but if the RAF was able to strike with such accuracy then it only makes the raids against Dresden all the more deplorable.

Ok, right and wrong only started to exist in 1945, my mistake.