quote:
Originally posted by cannon_fodder
Again, Israel is not in the right. Hamas is not in the right. In choosing between the two wrongs I choose the one that at very least pretends to avoid killing women and children over the one that exalts in and proclaims a desire to kill as many women and children as possible.
Hamas isn't necessarily "a side." It's 1/3rd of a side, maybe. It's a political party with rockets. Point being that, while Hamas certainly isn't in the right, they're not entirely representative of the people (700ish in the last couple of weeks?) being killed.
Guerrilla warfare offers a glaring but insoluble double standard. You can't bring your standing army in to clear cut an opposing population to get at the guerrilla fighters. It doesn't matter how successful the guerrilla guys are against you. As soon as you go against a civilian population, you've lost your moral standing. Challenge: name a conflict where doing what the Israelis have done has succeeded in ending a guerrilla challenge and/or gone forward with international aplomb.
And in a broader sense, this battle has been fought before. This is that perfect cycle of violence that has just enough internal equilibrium to perpetuate itself indefinitely. Why we're not trying to use our international standing to knock the gyroscope off course is beyond me. (The not so secret secret of this offensive is that the Isrealis are getting it in before Obama takes office. Bush will allow this brand of "self-defense" because it squares with his own conception of how to war with terrorists, while Obama will almost definitely not).