Comment by rendall
Comment by rendall 8 days ago
[flagged]
Comment by rendall 8 days ago
[flagged]
Valuing Palestinian lives is not supporting terrorism.
Sure, hopefully we all value Palestinian lives. I certainly do. Where the consensus breaks down is what does that mean in practice? Should Israel be allowed to attack terrorist organizations in Palestine? If so, is there an "acceptable" level of civilian casualties (collateral damage)? Does that level change if the terrorists intentionally use civilians as human shields, for example by using a hospital as an operating base or launching rockets from civilian residential neighborhoods?
To be clear I am not attempting to defend war crimes or terrorist activity or anything like that. I'm just pointing out that simply valuing Palestinian lives is rather meaningless and empty unless it translates into action.
I don't normally get into this type of political debate but ...
>Should Israel be allowed to attack terrorist organizations in Palestine?
yes. I think actual terrorists should be eligible for being attacked anywhere. The real question you didn't ask is who gets to label what is and is not a terrorist? Black Panthers were considered terrorists in the US in the 60s and 70s but heros to the Black community now. In the US, again, our founding fathers were all considered terrorists by Britain.
>If so, is there an "acceptable" level of civilian casualties (collateral damage)?
The "acceptable" level of civilian casualties or collateral damage is zero. With the understanding that accidents happen, but all plans should be for zero.
>Does that level change if the terrorists intentionally use civilians as human shields
No. This routinely happens in the US over the years where criminals or even terrorists take hostages on a plane, bank, school, hospital, or other place with innocent people. We do not drop bombs on the building killing all the innocents to get at the evil-doers. Have you noticed that no country in the Western civilized world would even consider that? Modern military should be able to go in and do surgical strikes or a surrender. Hell, in the US, we have small towns with volunteer SWAT teams that do this routinely with basically 100% success rate.
I think the biggest problem, which is covered in most war-time conventions, is that you should treat civilians and innocent people the same as you would treat your own innocent civilians. This is somehow being argued that it does not apply in the middle East or Ukraine or Russia where people just remotely drop bombs and blame "human shields".
Not too long ago the US would be ashamed to admit it even did something like this, because it seems like incompetence or cowardice, but now we support it somehow?
That is such an unrealistic and out of touch comment that I barely know where to begin. The USA (and its allies) killed millions of enemy civilians in WWII. This was not an accident; military leaders knew exactly what they were doing and were proud of it. Strategic bombing campaigns leveled cities. Submarine forces sank unarmed merchant vessels with all hands. This was considered acceptable to win the war. Should we now hold other countries to a different standard?
Hamas is a terrorist organization. There can be no possible debate about that point.
Real life is not like what you see in the movies. Modern militaries are in no way able to consistently do surgical strikes with no collateral damage. That is magical thinking.
Your comparison with civilian law enforcement is so specious that I suspect you're not even commenting in good faith. There no "volunteer SWAT teams", that's not a real thing (the officers on those teams do volunteer for the duty but they get paid). SWAT teams aren't tasked with fighting their way through hundreds of terrorists to capture a suspect; they're generally up against no more than a few criminals armed with small arms. And it's unfortunately fairly common for law enforcement to accidentally shoot innocent bystanders or hostages.
It's cheap easy to criticize and claim the moral high ground when you don't have to make hard choices or deal with the consequences. Again I'm not attempting to justify war crimes but the decisions get a lot messier when you step away from your computer and operate in the real world.
> Strongly agree. The problem is that Hamas represents them (illegitimately IMHO)
Thats a dangerous line of argument to make. Zionists work VERY hard to promote the idea that they represent all jews. I for one would take great offense to the idea that all jews are land stealing colonialist savages. Its just as dangerous to normalize the idea that hammas represents palestinians
Even if you hold those views (with which we'd all, I hope, vigorously disagree), America is _still_ your jam, up to and until they mutate into crimes / criminal attempts / incitements to crime etc. The ways this administration has persued removal either violate that boundary, or require stretching the boundary around the right-hand side to its absolute limit.
Popper and "the paradox of tolerance" to the rescue. You can, and should, tolerate anything but intolerance.
There are US citizens who want to shoot gays, kill people different in creed or heritage, and bomb people for religious reasons. We had the gay panic defense (the legal defense to kill gay people just because you found out they were gay, and the shock justified you killing them). We had people shooting sikhs assuming they're muslim. We had folks bombing abortion clinics. There are US citizens who have done far more, and far worse, than writing an op-ed or taking over a building.
So, frankly, why not treat these people the same we treated like these other folk-- a trial and then appropriate punishment proven in the court of law. If an immigrant is violating the terms of their visa, the US gov't can prove it in their own courts and then deport them appropriately.
Those situations aren't comparable. While I oppose bigoted behavior by US citizens, for better or worse they have an absolute and inviolable right to remain in this country. Aliens generally have no such right. Entering and remaining in the country is a privilege. I oppose arbitrary arrests and deportations conducted without due process, but in principle there's nothing wrong with holding aliens to a different standard than citizens.
From a political standpoint, why should US citizens pay taxes to educate people who are apparently hostile to our fundamental values?
> why should US citizens pay taxes to educate people who are apparently hostile to our fundamental values?
Because that's where Americans come from - the educated and acculturated sons and daughters of immigrants who came bearing all manner of prejudice.
Are “freedom of speech” and “due process” not American fundamental values? It seems to me that the people hostile to fundamental values are the masked ICE officers kidnapping random, harmless people from the street and moving them to a different state before the judge had the chance to order them to not do that.
Or did Trump add “disregard for human decency” and “imposing widespread fear through arbitrary state violence” to the list of fundamental values with one of his executive decisions?
What about is always a bad answer. It comes of a defensive.
Indeed, I agree with you. There are US citizens who want to do reprehensible things, and I still say: maybe the US is not their jam. No, I'm not advocating exile or illegal detention. Just stating a fact.
the whole "not your jam" thing seems to be you retreating to meaninglessness. this isn't a debate about how a person should feel, it's a debate about how a government should act.
When you're talking about due process, "what about these other people who got due process?" is a reasonable response.
Whataboutism would be something like, "what about Nazi Germany, where even more people got sent to foreign prison camps without due process: look, the US isn't so bad!".
What are you conflicted about? The op-eds written by these international students contained none of the things you mentioned that are supposedly not compatible with the US.
On the other hand, while the US is bombing civilians in Yemen, revoking womens' rights and moving towards persecuting lgbt people, it would seem that ironically the the US is exactly the jam for that. A perfect fit.