just because Israel and Bush believe doesn't make it true, but I guess they need to think this way to get through the night. I'm hoping there is a special place in hell for apologists.

...here.

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

objectively pro-Osama then, eh? As I said above, this is the same argument he makes about American civilians. So, which is it? Are civilians protected or not? Simple question, requiring a simple yes or no answer.

The last time someone tried to explain to me that a complex decision was really rather simple and required just a yes or no answer I ended up buying a house above market prices. No thanks SP. If you're asking me if I believe that those Little Eichmanns who worked in the WTC had it coming on 9/11, well of course I do. They were supporting a capitalist and imperialist monster that devalued the lives of non-white people and saw the world as one big wal-mart and gas station. If you're getting paid by the man, you're going to pay with the man. Just like all those mommies eating pizza in Tel Aviv. Don't like getting blown up? Well, then don't live in a country whose government occupies and oppresses others. Don't like having your train bombed, well then stop living in a country that occupies Kashmir and rips down mosques. So yes, in my book civillians are not protected one bit. If someone were to drop a bomb on Philadelphia today and I were to be a casualty of that bombing, well I had it coming, despite never voting for Bush or any other Republican candidate. Heck, dying for a good cause (the downfall of the imperalist monster we call the USA), is a great honor.

You're right SP, it is a simple question.

OK, Sully... if you had a child playing in a park (or wherever) in Philadelphia, and was killed by a bomb, you are saying he had it coming? Yes or No

Was the child given the option to move out of the city/state/country? Yes or No

"OK, Sully... if you had a child playing in a park (or wherever) in Philadelphia, and was killed by a bomb, you are saying he had it coming? Yes or No"

No. But what if there were some circumstances that made it slightly more complex. I realize grey ambiguity is a much less preferred option to black and white moral certainty, but stay with me for a minute. What if I had been given warning by the Maryland State Government, who we were at war with because the Eagles (our football team) had blown up some buildings in downtown Baltimore, to leave Philadelphia because the Maryland army was going to wipe out the Eagles and they wanted to avoid civillian deaths. What if I was a big supporter of the Eagles and their hateful agenda (to wipe out all of Maryland) and I decided to stay in Philly with my family and give aide to the Eagles? Would that make me in any way different from a neighbor who did not support the Eagles, but was unable to leave their home due to an illness? What if I not only gave funds to the Eagles to buy weapons, but also invited the Eagles to set up missle siloes in my yard that were used to shell Baltimore. And what if my wife made food for the Eagles to keep them strong in the battle against Maryland? What if I hid the Eagles in my cellar when the battle began? Would any of that make me any less of a civillian? What if my child was 15-years old and supported me in supporting the Eagles in any way possible, including running errands for the Eagles. Would that make him any less of a civillian.

If the Marylanders were to drop a bomb on our home in order to take out the missle siloes planted there and kill me in the process, as well as my daugher, would it be a war crime? Would it be a war crime of the same magnitude if the Marylanders bombed my apartment building even though I had nothing to do with the Eagles and my building was not being used by them as a launch pad? What if the missle launchers were in operation and not firing on my house would mean a house in Baltimore would take a direct hit. Would it still be a war crime if the pilot had fired on us and killed me and/or my son?
I find these questions to be a tad bit more complex.

be able to know all of that at 15,000 feet?

That is why civilians have protections. Precisely to not have to make distinctions like that because they will always lead to mistakes.

It's also why people get immunized. To prevent disease. But some people in modern America are so stupid that they prevent thir children from getting immunized because, "well, we don't have those diseases in America."

We don't have them because we protect against them. We protect against them becasue it is in our best long-term interests to do so.

It's why we are supposed to give POWs POW status, to prevent our soldiers from being abused the way we abused Iraqis at Abu Ghraib.

It's not a complex argument. The argument you are making is one political witch-doctors want you to make, it makes you useful to them, you make it easier for them to justify to the rest of us these things done in our name.

Get a clue. This isn't about Lebanon, or Israel it is about us. It's about preventing a repeat of 9/11. We are supposed to be the good guys, remember? The one's who actually have restraint, and are civilized and act that way, the one's who do not stoop to the level of bad actors like Osama and his ilk.

But, I guess that is too complex and argument for you, eh?

Actually SP, it is a complex argument. You deciding it isn't doesn't make it so, even if I wish it were too. I thought the point of Agonist.org is to agonize over these types of complexities. Or is this Fox News for Lefties. We tell you how to think and you get in lock step.

Good guy, bad guy. I wish it were that simple.
Let me frame it up for you on personal terms. If you and your wife were being shot at on the highway by some nutjob in an SUV that also happened to be carrying his family, who were aghast at his violent outburst towards you, would you shoot back or run him off the road if it meant there was a good chance you would harm his family along with him? Assume that he is a religious conservative and he will stop at nothing to kill you and your wife. For the sake of argument assume that any evasive maneuver you make will be responded to with more violence by this nutjob. Would your decision on how to react be any different if this nutjob's family was supportive of his assault on you?

Or how about this scenario - You are a fighter pilot at 15,000 feet and you see that there are missle silos in the back yard of an apartment building that are firing missles at your town. Through the gift of prophecy you know that one of those missles will hit your home and kill your entire family, if you don't take out the silo first. Taking out the silo will likely result in some civillian deaths. Your enemy has purposefully positioned the missle silo in this civillian area because they know that you want to show restraint and avoid civillian deaths no matter what the cost to you. They know that you don't want to be a bad actor like Osama and his ilk. What do you do?
Would your decision be any different if you knew that the civillians in the apartment building had been informed that it was a war zone and urged to leave? Would your decision be affected by knowledge that the civillians living in the apartment building were supporters of the extremist movement you are fighting and had willingly given shelter and aid to the fighters you were battling. If you were accused of war crimes for killing civillians do you think that any of this criteria should be considered in your trial?

Now I realize that one can pretty much rationalize anything with such scenarios, and the reason we have rules of combat is to establish boundaries, but under what conditions can you imagine at the very least finding your decision requiring more than just a reference to your combat rules of order?

I personally don't want to see any civillian deaths, period, in any conflict. But knowing that your opponent will attempt to use your moral inclination to their advantage, I'd at least want to think through the complexity inherent in any decision.

insofar as transference of responsibility renders civilian casualties amongst us (ie within our sphere of self-identification) acceptable to you, transference of responsibility renders causing civilian casualties to you equally acceptable

- corollary is:

insofar as transference of responsibility should not render civilian casualties amongst us (ie within our sphere of self-identification) acceptable to you, transference of responsibility equally should not render our causing civilian casualties to you acceptable to us

Osama bin Laden, October 2004:

...We never thought of hitting the towers. But after we were so fed up, and we saw the oppression of the American Israeli coalition of our people in Palestine and Lebanon, it came to my mind and the incidents that really touched me directly goes back to 1982 and the following incidents when the US permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon with the assistance of the 6th fleet. In these hard moments, it occurred to me so many meanings I can’t explain but it resulted in a general feeling of rejecting oppression and gave me a hard determination to punish the oppressors. While I was looking at the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it came to my mind to punish the oppressor the same way and destroy towers in the US to get a taste of what others tasted, and quit killing our children and women.

(edit for clarity and to add link)

Or how about this scenario - You are a fighter pilot at 15,000 feet and you see that there are missle silos in the back yard of an apartment building that are firing missles at your town. Through the gift of prophecy you know that one of those missles will hit your home and kill your entire family, if you don't take out the silo first. Taking out the silo will likely result in some civillian deaths. Your enemy has purposefully positioned the missle silo in this civillian area because they know that you want to show restraint and avoid civillian deaths no matter what the cost to you. They know that you don't want to be a bad actor like Osama and his ilk. What do you do?

The whole point of Dershowitz' article, and why it's so poisonous, is that this isn't about your scenario - it's not about "collatoral damage" where it's known that civilians will be harmed or killed in hitting a valid military target, but that the level of harm to the civilian population is proportionate to the military gain in hitting the target. Dershowitz' article is all about eroding that, about making it more acceptable to do things like hit civilian vehicles that could, maybe, be carrying rockets for Hezbollah - identified as such because they are simply large enough to contain such weapons and are present in an area that civilians have been told to vacate.

Under the established principle of proportionality it doesn't matter what's in the heart of a man or why they are present in the impact zone, it's enough to know that they are not combattants - under Dershowitz' scenario, why they are there is absolutely central and it is used as the thin end of the wedge, not just to justify higher casualties per given unit of military gain, but to shift things to such an extent that the military gain doesn't even need to be definite or reasonably forseeable. I hit a minivan - if the individuals inside are civilians who are "less civilian" because of their alignment with Hizbollah, heck, does it matter whether there were weapons in the minivan in the first place? That's where this argument leads.

This is the intellectual equivalent of a search contravening the fourth ammendment - it's fruit of a poisonous tree, pure and simple.

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

That was useful.
(The greatest compliment one could get in a forum).

the complexity of killing fleeing people you told to leave or the complexity of destroying milk factories?

yawn on the innuendo. Heres a complex thought, one can support Israel and at the same time feel total distaste for their recent actions and rationalizations.

Used to be a time when I understood the moral perspective on the use of force that governed Tzahal, and it was one that I admired - now, I see actions that leave me wondering what happened to that perspective. 'Ein brera' is not enough - it governs why one keeps fighting and sacrificing of oneself, not what one is willing to do to the innocent.

"We declared war on terror, it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui." - Jon Stewart.

Obviously the intentional killing of a fleeing people in a minivan is immoral. Same with milk factories. I can't know what is the minds of the IDF soldiers and commanders, but I would assume that they are not intentionally trying to kill civiliians or wantonly destroy infrastructure. It seems that the spin masters immediately attribute those types of actions to a callous evil intent. Perhaps they are right. There are other alternative explanations for such behavior as well:
1) The IDF was given incorrect information the inhabitants of the car were Hezbollah leaders or fighters. The milk factory was being used to house silos and weapons.
2) They were aiming at something else, missed, and hit a civillian target.
3) Individual sociopathic soldiers acting on their own and against orders

While it may not be any of these reasons, I find it hard to fathom the IDF is truly that stupid. But I've been wrong before. And I agree with you that one can be supportive of Israel's right to defend herself and critical of her methods, just as one can be supportive of Palestinians' rights to fight for their own independent state, and be critical of their methods.

The IDF learnt a lesson from Fallujah, where civilians were advised to leave but then males of a certain age were prevented from doing so and thus their civilian status was "adjusted" and treated accordingly.

i appreciate very much your engaging this discourse,KDG.

when we are on the slippery slope, the complex questions come down in some instances to asking:
[to answer Sully's arguments]

Do we err on the side of sparing the possibly "guilty", thus saving the possibly innocent? which is more "bad" [oops, immoral if you will]: killing innocents or letting the guilty go?

to me, it's killing innocents. in the case of the guilty, there are quite possibly other ways than killing to extinguish their power.

but once the innocent are dead, it's all over. sparing human life. valuing human life. all life. not just mine or my friends'

in the famous "case for torture" of the "absolutely known" knower of the ticking time-bomb aimed at innocents...

the answer is, for the sake of their lives, we were unwilling to resort to evil. period.

yes, evil. there are some things that decent people do not do. regardless. and those same people are doing everything anyway to eliminate the need/desire for a "ticking time bomb".

but then some people believe that no matter what anyone says, there are people out there who want to get you, no reasoning, no negotiating, no matter WHAT. they hate and want to kill you. all of you. always. yes, there are. they are called sociopaths. and according to my information, there's not that many of them.

"who would Jesus bomb?"

we actually are asking ourselves "what do we believe?" with a frequency and intensity I frankly have never seen in my life. As a culture, we are asking terrifically hard questions and we sincerely seem interested in the answer.

America is an extremely young culture - a bright, ambitious, arrogant, cocksure and successful stripling, convinced that simply because at 23 it makes more money than its parents it knows everything about everything for everyone - and was trolling along complacently when, as often happens, something monstrous and earthshattering comes along that makes you question many of your values and prejudices.

This may actually be the single redeeming feature of the Bush Administration - it may have wiped the "I know everything" off America's face and replaced it with this need to re-examine its values.

The "values Administration" may be judged by history to have been exactly that - although not in the sense they intended it. They are a shattering thing that has happened to America, a thing that has rendered America - recipient of the world's good will after 9/11 - a pariah nation in five years.

I doubt many of the Administration's values will outlast its term in office, and I have a strong suspicion that the new - or reaffirmed and stronger - values of America will be formed in significant part out of rejection of theirs, on issues ranging from torture, pre-emptive war, the role of the executive, foreign policy, the role of money in politics...

this is part of the silver lining i see in this horror, believe it or not...that the level of degradation is so great, so horrendous, so in your face and malevolent, that the mind is shocked...all who value decency in any form are uncomprehending...and therefore the complacent have been brought up to attention. And are saying WTF...??? or somethimg similar. heh.

i see it everywhere. mostly in young people, like 20's and teens.

they will be the ones to take over for their denial protection mechanisim is NON-EXISTANT, irrelevant, not having responsiblity in any way, as we assuredly do.

thanks.

"who would Jesus bomb?"