Israel has inflicted a massively disproportional attack on Gaza. Apologists for the Israeli government and military are quick to proclaim that Israel doesn't target innocent Gazans, that it doesn't intentionally kill innocents.
Bullshit. Utterly vile, rotten bullshit.
As I've written so often, we're all deemed to intend the logical and foreseeable consequences of our acts. If I knowingly ignore a red light and drive my car into a busy intersection, hitting another car and injuring or killing the occupants of that car is both a logical and foreseeable consequence of my act. I don't get to say "whoopsie, accident!"
When you use weapons like these bombs, you unquestionably intend to cause the deaths and injuries sustained by everyone unfortunate enough to be within the lethality range of these weapons. You may wish that didn't include innocent women and children but that's no excuse. You didn't let your wishes override your decision to kill them anyway.
Some times the bluntest examples are best. Did the United States intend the deaths of every man, woman and child within the lethal range of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Of course they did. At least they had the courage not to try to hide behind excuses about unintended, collateral damage.
Let's be honest here. These bombing strikes weren't military operations, they were assassinations. The bombs that were used, weapons that cause entire wings of university buildings to collapse or that make entire houses disintegrate and destroy every surrounding house for good measure, are anything but surgical.
Our military uses these bombs when our soldiers are in dire straits, under attack. What Israeli soldiers were under attack from the police stations that were bombed or from the homes of Hamas leaders? You might as well ask yourself how many Israeli soldiers suffered so much as a hangnail during this bombing campaign? There was no military necessity to use area bombing as a means of assassination.
Aerial bombardment is sanitized war, bordering on cowardly. How many jets have we lost in Afghanistan, how many has Israel lost over Gaza. These poor sods don't even have anything that can pass for air defences. They're helpless to fight back and that makes the use of bombing campaigns so attractive to pols wishing for a "bloodless" war (at least on their side).
What we do in Afghanistan is bad enough and it certainly operates as an effective recruiting tool for the insurgency. But at least we do it when we're in combat and our troops need it for their safety. At least we have some thin excuse to claim we don't intend the suffering of innocents we inflict.
Bullshit. Utterly vile, rotten bullshit.
As I've written so often, we're all deemed to intend the logical and foreseeable consequences of our acts. If I knowingly ignore a red light and drive my car into a busy intersection, hitting another car and injuring or killing the occupants of that car is both a logical and foreseeable consequence of my act. I don't get to say "whoopsie, accident!"
When you use weapons like these bombs, you unquestionably intend to cause the deaths and injuries sustained by everyone unfortunate enough to be within the lethality range of these weapons. You may wish that didn't include innocent women and children but that's no excuse. You didn't let your wishes override your decision to kill them anyway.
Some times the bluntest examples are best. Did the United States intend the deaths of every man, woman and child within the lethal range of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Of course they did. At least they had the courage not to try to hide behind excuses about unintended, collateral damage.
Let's be honest here. These bombing strikes weren't military operations, they were assassinations. The bombs that were used, weapons that cause entire wings of university buildings to collapse or that make entire houses disintegrate and destroy every surrounding house for good measure, are anything but surgical.
Our military uses these bombs when our soldiers are in dire straits, under attack. What Israeli soldiers were under attack from the police stations that were bombed or from the homes of Hamas leaders? You might as well ask yourself how many Israeli soldiers suffered so much as a hangnail during this bombing campaign? There was no military necessity to use area bombing as a means of assassination.
Aerial bombardment is sanitized war, bordering on cowardly. How many jets have we lost in Afghanistan, how many has Israel lost over Gaza. These poor sods don't even have anything that can pass for air defences. They're helpless to fight back and that makes the use of bombing campaigns so attractive to pols wishing for a "bloodless" war (at least on their side).
What we do in Afghanistan is bad enough and it certainly operates as an effective recruiting tool for the insurgency. But at least we do it when we're in combat and our troops need it for their safety. At least we have some thin excuse to claim we don't intend the suffering of innocents we inflict.
