What's all this talk of disproportionate response?

[theblitz]

All this talk of disproportionate response seems rather weird too me.
Talking about proportionate or disproportionate response only applies to action and retaliation. For example, some guy beats up your kid so you go and beat him up.

What we are talking about here is a fully fledged war. Since when do you count the number of casualties in a war? do you say: Well we have killed twice as many as they have so we should stop now until they catch up?
In war you do anything to stop the other side killing your citizens. If this means killing 500 of them to stop them killing 1 of you then that's what will happen. On the flip side, if you can kill one of them to stop the whole thing then do that.

Consider this: You are walking down the street and a band of thugs start to attack you and a friend. Your friend is down and out. Do you fight until you have taken out one of their's and then call it quits or do you fight on until you have taken them all out in order to make sure it doesn't happen again?

[DVaut1]

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All this talk of disproportionate response seems rather weird too me. Talking about proportionate or disproportionate response only applies to action and retaliation. For example, some guy beats up your kid so you go and beat him up.

What we are talking about here is a fully fledged war.

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Consider this: You are walking down the street and a band of thugs start to attack you and a friend. Your friend is down and out. Do you fight until you have taken out one of their's and then call it quits or do you fight on until you have taken them all out in order to make sure it doesn't happen again?

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But, in your analogy that you ask us to consider, we aren't talking about a 'fully fledged war', which is what you (ostensibly) think is an important distinction to make; so, you think all this talk about proportionate/disproportionate response is silly in the context of a fully fledged war -- and to prove Israel is legitimate in their response in the midst of this fully fledged war -- you ask us to consider an analogy that is decidedly not a fully fledged war.

[kickabuck]

A poster in one of the myriad Israel threads posited how Israel would be only too happy to use the neutron bomb in the occupied teritories, but did not because of the world's reaction. Whether it is neutron bomb or carpet bombing or firestorm in Gaza, take your pick, Israel for whatever reason chooses not to. Despite the howling of Israel's critics on this forum and elsewhere of the injustice of Israel today and in the past, they do not seem to be interested in genocide, for certainly they have the capability.

[jman220]

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A poster in one of the myriad Israel threads posited how Israel would be only too happy to use the neutron bomb in the occupied teritories, but did not because of the world's reaction.

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This is absurd, even absent world reaction, Israel would never do such a thing. Ian on the other hand...

[Chris Alger]

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All this talk of disproportionate response seems rather weird too me. . . . Since when do you count the number of casualties in a war?

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The dispute over proportional response isn't about the number of casualties Israel has inflicted, but on Israel's concentrated shelling of civilians in order to pressure Lebanon to do Israel's bidding. This is an old Israeli tactic, essentially a replay of Operations Grapes of Wrath (1996) and Accountability (1993). Of course, if one, like so many on this forum, is a tribalist, this is reasonable. But tribalists tacitly admit that the victims of 9/11 were also fair game by virtue of being Americans. The utterly logical extension of this view is that Jewish victims on 9/11 were even more fairly attacked, which is really sick. On the other hand, it receives mainstream credence from TV commentators and U.S. officials who line up to praise yet another blatant example of Israeli terrorism. Ambassador John Bolton, for example, who said tonight on CNN that Israel is doing nothing more than what any "responsible government" would do, training its guns on civilians in order to terrorize them to accomplish political objectives.

[BluffTHIS!]

Chris,

Regardless of what Israel may or may not have done in the past, or what types or reprisals are in accord with certain viewpoints, the burden is on you to show that in the present conflict Israel is indeed intentionally shelling civilians for you to make that statement. In your reply please also tell us what types of uniforms Hezbollah terrorists wear to stand out from the civilian population.

[primetime32]

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Chris,

Regardless of what Israel may or may not have done in the past, or what types or reprisals are in accord with certain viewpoints, the burden is on you to show that in the present conflict Israel is indeed intentionally shelling civilians for you to make that statement. In your reply please also tell us what types of uniforms Hezbollah terrorists wear to stand out from the civilian population.

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as many hezbollah backers have tried to point out, hezbollah is not a terrorist orgnanization, they are an a part of the lebanese government. Accordingly, israel was indeed attacked by lebanon in an act of war.

[Chris Alger]

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"the burden is on you to show that in the present conflict Israel is indeed intentionally shelling civilians for you to make that statement."

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Not where I'm from: when we kill people, we have to prove it was justified or they throw you in jail. Conclusory statements of "self-defense" don't suffice. In the U.S. media, of course, Isreal gets to play by other rules.

But Israel's targeting of civilian areas this time is too glaring to dispute. This is why you're seeing the discussions over "proportional response," a standard rarely applied to Israel by the U.S. press, now if only by euphemism. (Another reason is that the victims are Lebanese, not long-demonized Palestinians).

To the evidence, none of which is subject to serious dispute:

1. Israel's current goals and are similar to those behind its prior terror operations against Lebanese civilians.

Apart from Israeli aggressions against Lebanon in the late 1970's and early 1980's, which targeted hospitals, refugee camps and apartment buildings as a matter of course, Israel has also launched operations specifically targeting Lebanese civilians in order to put pressure on the Lebanese government. Details are in the links cited by me above.

In the current action, one of Israel's specific "conditions" for stopping the slaughter, according to former Isreali PM Ehud Barak, is that the Lebanese government deploy its units to the south. That can only be accomplished by attacking not Hizbollah but what really matters to the Lebanese government, namely its national infrustructure and economy.

2. Israel has intentionally targeted civilian infrastructure.

"According to Lebanese police, at least 42 bridges have been destroyed and 38 roads cut in an aerial onslaught that has also targeted communications equipment and factories. Runways and fuel depots at Beirut airport have been hit repeatedly.

Israeli jets have bombed two smaller airports, as well as the main ports of Beirut and Tripoli in the north. Petrol stations and fuel tanks at power stations have been set ablaze." "Israel's Lebanon Campaign Goes Beyond Hizbollah," Reuters, 7/18/06. "Israel intensified its bombardment of Lebanon's infrastructure over the weekend, striking power stations and the fuel depots that feed them. Israel also targeted Beirut's seaport and lighthouse, the Northern port of Tripoli and the port in the predominantly Christian city of Jounieh. Israel's bombing of Lebanon's roads, bridges, ports, airports and Hizbullah targets for the fifth straight day was the most destructive onslaught since its 1982 invasion of the country." The Daily Star (Beruit), 7/17/06.

3. Israel has intentionally targeted civilian economic centers.

Also from the The Daily Star, 7/19/06: <ul type="square">Israel switched gears in its military campaign against Lebanon Monday and Tuesday, launching a series of debilitating air strikes against privately owned factories throughout the country and dealing a devastating blow to an economy already paralyzed by a week of hits on residential areas and crucial infrastructure.

The production facilities of at least five companies in key industrial sectors - including the country's largest dairy farm, Liban Lait; a paper mill; a packaging firm and a pharmaceutical plant - have been disabled or completely destroyed. Industry insiders say the losses will cripple the economy for decades to come.

"I think the picture will be much worse than we can possible imagine when the whole thing ends, but the direct damage from yesterday's attacks to the industrial sector alone will take years to recover from," said Wajid al-Bisri, the vice-president of the Lebanese Association of Industrialists (LAI).

"So many of these factories were barely functioning before," he added, "because of local obstacles to production like high energy costs and labor."

Due to broken lines of communication to the affected areas, the full extent of the material and human damage was still unknown when The Daily Star went to press. However, up to 15 factories have been hit, according to some estimates.

Bisri confirmed that a plastics factory in Tyre, a tissue paper factory in Sidon, a paper mill and a medical supply company in Beirut's southern suburbs and Liban Lait in the Bekaa were all almost completely destroyed.[/list]4. 89% of Lebanese killed by Israel have been civilians.

Although the Hizbollah raid that started this latest round targeted only soldiers, Lebanese civilians constitute the "overwhelming majority" of Israel's victims, according to today's NY Times. That's an understatement, according to the Reuters article cited above(also today): "At least 230 people, all but 26 of them civilians, have been killed in Lebanon." This is comparable to the percentage of Israeli civilians killed by Palestinian terrorists in Israel during the most recent intifada (84%, according to B'Tselem).

A hospital director in Tyre compared the current casualties to Israel's "Grapes of Wrath" terrorist operation in 1996: "It's incomparable, incomparable. In 1996 the majority [of casualties] were fighters. This time we have yet to receive any fighters." Guardian Unlimited, 7/18/06.

[Chris Alger]

Hardly. The kidnapping of Israeli soldiers was neither authorized by the Lebanese government nor carried out by their personnel or facilities. It would be more accurrate to say that the militia of a Lebanese political party carried out the kidnappings. Of course, by this logic, the Israeli settler terrorism would constitute an "act of war" by Israel against the Palestinians and would make Israeli civilians fair game.

[jman220]

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Not where I'm from: when we kill people, we have to prove it was justified or they throw you in jail.

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You come from a country where every civilian casualty in a war results in a homicide investigation?