The Israeli Pager attack

[jakee 1,347]

32 minutes ago, kallend said:

OK, so you love terrorists who hide behind human shields, and disparage attempts to eliminate them, we get it.

No, that's a ridiculous and transparent dodge. 

I'm not arguing with you because you think it's justified for Israel to kill children as collateral damage in this attack. That's a judgement call, fine.

You are choosing to argue the plainly absurd position that Israel is not responsible for the children that were killed with their own bombs. The only reason I can think that an intelligent and reasonable person would say something so ridiculous is because you actually don't think that what they did is morally justified but want to find an excuse to support it anyway. Maybe that's right, maybe not. But you sure as hell aren't saying it because you think it's true.

[jakee 1,347]

39 minutes ago, kallend said:

Nonsense.  Israel targeted terrorists' communication devices, obtained by terrorists for their own tactical use.  Israel didn't give to kids stuff that is being used quite purposefully as military hardware.

Israel made them blow up when the kids had them. A pager isn't a dangerous item to leave around children. An Israeli sabotaged explosive pager is. Israel distributed those weapons, Israel killed those children. Every time you try and deny that plain and obvious reality you just strengthen the impression that you really don't think they should have done it.

39 minutes ago, kallend said:

OTOH Hezbollah for years has deliberately targeted civilians, both in Israel and in terrorist attacks elsewhere in the world.

Your attempt at an equivalence is totally bogus.

Illegal Israeli settlers deliberately target civilians in their own homes and villages in terrorist actions in the West Bank with the tacit approval of the IDF. 

As I said, more Palestinian children get been killed in the west bank alone than Israeli civilians in total, so you're right about it being a bogus equivalence.

Edited September 18 by jakee

[gowlerk 2,101]

23 minutes ago, jakee said:

Maybe that's right, maybe not. But you sure as hell aren't saying it because you think it's true.

Unless just perhaps he believes the children of terrorists should be eliminated as prophylaxis. 

[Phil1111 1,081]

1 hour ago, jakee said:

Since 2008 there have been more Palestinian children killed in the West Bank alone than Israeli civilians everywhere, including illegal expansionist settlers. Hezbollah will say exacty what you just said the other way around.

https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties

That is not what your link shows. It shows 423 total of women, boys(358) and "unknown" killed in the west bank. There is no separate listing for female children. The women not listed as children. In the Oct attacks last year by Hamas there were 1139 Israelis killed plus 251 taken hostage in that single attack.

Edited September 18 by Phil1111

[jakee 1,347]

15 minutes ago, Phil1111 said:

That is not what your link shows. It shows 423 total of women, boys(358) and "unknown" killed in the west bank. There is no separate listing for female children. The women not listed as children. In the Oct attacks last year by Hamas there were 1139 Israelis killed plus 251 taken hostage in that single attack.

There is a sliver in the chart for girls, it's too small to see on that particular one. Compare it to the Palestinians everywhere chart and you'll see where it is.

My mistake, I had meant to say 'excluding last year's attacks' (the page makes clear it doesn't count those or anything in Gaza since then as it's all too unclear) but I forgot. But then of course you can expand out to Palestinian children killed across the region prior to the current Gaza conflict being more than Israeli civilians of all ages killed in total including last years attacks. 

If you consider that there are people in the USA so zealous about this conflict that they deny that Israel is responsible for the casualties resulting from their own bombs, imagine how that makes the people living there feel.

Edited September 18 by jakee

[kallend 1,826]

39 minutes ago, jakee said:

Israel made them blow up when the kids had them. A pager isn't a dangerous item to leave around children.  

Are you now claiming that Israel deliberately waited for terrorists to give their comm devices to kids so they could blow them up?  Really?

If they'd dropped poisoned candy over schools you'd have a point.  But you don't.

Your arguments get sillier and sillier.

[jakee 1,347]

22 minutes ago, kallend said:

Are you now claiming that Israel deliberately waited for terrorists to give their comm devices to kids so they could blow them up?  Really?

No. I'm simply stating the sequence of events, not making an accusation of intent. Israel sent the command to detonate the bombs they planted while some of those bombs were in the possession of children. That is what happened.

But you are claiming that someone can give an item with a hidden bomb in it to another person, detonate it later when they have no idea where it is or who is in possession of it at that time, and it's not their fault if it kills someone else. I don't even have to tell you how insane that is, because I know that you know. So why are you saying it?

Edited September 18 by jakee

[kallend 1,826]

Misrepresenting what happened is silly.  The pagers were bought by terrorists to be tactical comm devices for terrorists doing the things that terrorists wanted to keep secret, like firing rockets at Israeli civilians or carrying out terrorist attacks against civilians worldwide (including stockpiles of ammonium nitrate in London and Greece), as well as the well documented use of human shields.

These aren't the innocents you'd have us believe.

[JoeWeber 2,569]

8 minutes ago, kallend said:

Misrepresenting what happened is silly.  The pagers were bought by terrorists to be tactical comm devices for terrorists doing the things that terrorists wanted to keep secret, like firing rockets at Israeli civilians or carrying out terrorist attacks against civilians worldwide (including stockpiles of ammonium nitrate in London and Greece), as well as the well documented use of human shields.

These aren't the innocents you'd have us believe.

John, in your opinion what gave those folks the inspiration to commit those acts? 

[jakee 1,347]

18 minutes ago, kallend said:

Misrepresenting what happened is silly.  

Then stop doing it. 

18 minutes ago, kallend said:

These aren't the innocents you'd have us believe.

The ten year old kids are.

18 minutes ago, kallend said:

The pagers were bought by terrorists to be tactical comm devices for terrorists doing the things that terrorists wanted to keep secret, like firing rockets at Israeli civilians or carrying out terrorist attacks against civilians worldwide (including stockpiles of ammonium nitrate in London and Greece), as well as the well documented use of human shields.

That's an argument that the attack by Israel was justified. I'm not arguing against that. I'm disputing your statement that Israel aren't even responsible for the deaths of the children caught up in it. That's looking glass land logic.

If you give a bunch of random people on the bus some hidden explosive devices, detonate them a week later and some of their kids are killed, you are responsible for that. If you give a bunch of terrorists some hidden explosive devices, detonate them a week later and some of their kids are killed, you are responsible for that. Your ability to justify your actions may be very different, your responsibility for the consequences of your actions is identical.

Deciding that you can simply drop the effects of the things you do into Room 101 and pretend they don't even exist because the other people are terrorists... well I'm sure you'd get on famously with Cheney and GWB. I'd imagine they've been looking for a third Musketeer ever since Rumsfeld popped his clogs.

Edited September 18 by jakee

[JerryBaumchen 1,271]

27 minutes ago, JoeWeber said:

John, in your opinion what gave those folks the inspiration to commit those acts? 

Hi Joe,

How many peace accords have the Palestinians agreed to & kept to?

Jerry Baumchen

[JoeWeber 2,569]

12 minutes ago, JerryBaumchen said:

Hi Joe,

How many peace accords have the Palestinians agreed to & kept to?

Jerry Baumchen

And the Israeli track record is spotless? Do you happen to recall how much the nation of Israel paid for the land they now occupy and to whom? 

[nigel99 296]

3 hours ago, JoeWeber said:

Intractable doesn't begin to describe the problem. I'm not opposed to killing bad actors who have it coming. Far from it. But I just don't think this sort of attack is helpful. The reality is that the killings will just go on and on until the parties of God no longer have a say in the outcome and our opinions here will matter as much then.

 

Question: if Israel somehow managed to booby trap or tamper with the rockets so that when they are fired they explode killing the person triggering it. Would that be ok? And if it was terrorist take your child to work day when it happened and the child was also killed, would that be ok?

[nigel99 296]

2 hours ago, jakee said:

No. I'm simply stating the sequence of events, not making an accusation of intent. Israel sent the command to detonate the bombs they planted while some of those bombs were in the possession of children. That is what happened.

But you are claiming that someone can give an item with a hidden bomb in it to another person, detonate it later when they have no idea where it is or who is in possession of it at that time, and it's not their fault if it kills someone else. I don't even have to tell you how insane that is, because I know that you know. So why are you saying it?

Landmines are truly indiscriminate, so are rockets fired blindly into civilian areas. As John says these were terrorist communications devices. 
Israel is responsible for the innocent casualties, of course they are. But the real question is did they make reasonable efforts to minimise killing innocent people? In my opinion they did - it was terrorist equipment with a small amount of explosives limiting the radius. 

Edited September 18 by nigel99

[winsor 224]

2 hours ago, gowlerk said:

Unless just perhaps he believes the children of terrorists should be eliminated as prophylaxis. 

"Nits breed lice."

Gen'l Phil Sheridan, IIRC.

[JoeWeber 2,569]

17 minutes ago, nigel99 said:

Question: if Israel somehow managed to booby trap or tamper with the rockets so that when they are fired they explode killing the person triggering it. Would that be ok? And if it was terrorist take your child to work day when it happened and the child was also killed, would that be ok?

Yes. I don't think anyone is arguing that collateral damage is unacceptable in every situation. In your example the rocket fired would have potentially killed or injured innocents and the terrorist was in the act of attempting to do just that. They'd be fair game, certainly, and tough luck for the kid. Maybe I'm too much of a namby pamby but I don't see that as equivalent to blindly detonating a bomb not having any guess who might be in the vicinity. 

[JerryBaumchen 1,271]

14 minutes ago, JoeWeber said:

Yes. I don't think anyone is arguing that collateral damage is unacceptable in every situation. In your example the rocket fired would have potentially killed or injured innocents and the terrorist was in the act of attempting to do just that. They'd be fair game, certainly, and tough luck for the kid. Maybe I'm too much of a namby pamby but I don't see that as equivalent to blindly detonating a bomb not having any guess who might be in the vicinity. 

Hi Joe,

As compared to the 7 Oct attack by Hamas that killed women, children & babies?  They were not collateral damage.

I support Israel in these matters because I believe that they do what they can to only kill the bad guys.

Jerry Baumchen

[jakee 1,347]

31 minutes ago, nigel99 said:

Landmines are truly indiscriminate, so are rockets fired blindly into civilian areas. As John says these were terrorist communications devices. 
Israel is responsible for the innocent casualties, of course they are. But the real question is did they make reasonable efforts to minimise killing innocent people? In my opinion they did - it was terrorist equipment with a small amount of explosives limiting the radius. 

Fine - I have not disputed this. John disagrees with you though.

[jakee 1,347]

2 minutes ago, JerryBaumchen said:

I support Israel in these matters because I believe that they do what they can to only kill the bad guys.

And yet the numbers are overwhelmingly one sided. What is it exactly that makes you think they really are trying everything they can?

[gowlerk 2,101]

11 minutes ago, jakee said:

And yet the numbers are overwhelmingly one sided. What is it exactly that makes you think they really are trying everything they can?

They are trying to come as close as they can get away with to committing ethnic cleansing. They have good reason to consider it to be the only answer to an existential problem. The last chance Israel had to find peace was killed along with Rabin nearly 30 years ago. This conflict is going to drag on until one side or the other ends it in a nuclear war. 

[nigel99 296]

19 minutes ago, jakee said:

And yet the numbers are overwhelmingly one sided. What is it exactly that makes you think they really are trying everything they can?

Not being facetious, I’m genuinely interested to know, what do you think they should be doing?

[JoeWeber 2,569]

41 minutes ago, JerryBaumchen said:

Hi Joe,

As compared to the 7 Oct attack by Hamas that killed women, children & babies?  They were not collateral damage.

I support Israel in these matters because I believe that they do what they can to only kill the bad guys.

Jerry Baumchen

What Hamas did was horrific and defies understanding by civilized people. I suppose the citizens of Gaza should have known that Hamas would cause them to pay a terrible price eventually. Maybe flattening Gaza will have some good outcome beyond simple vengeance but I don't see it. In any case Israel had no choice but to respond militarily or sue for peace and that will never happen. Today another round of device explosions happened in Lebanon. Maybe we will shortly see if this softening of Hezbollah communications presages something bigger. 

[nigel99 296]

Speakers corner has changed a lot over the years. Not one person has suggested nuking the Middle East as the solution recently (I strongly disagree with this to be clear).

 

[billvon 2,739]

2 hours ago, jakee said:

And yet the numbers are overwhelmingly one sided. What is it exactly that makes you think they really are trying everything they can?

Well, the fact that they tried this, for example.  Preferable to carpet bombing (IMO.)

[JoeWeber 2,569]

20 minutes ago, billvon said:

Well, the fact that they tried this, for example.  Preferable to carpet bombing (IMO.)

It's not that I don't get your point and maybe fighting terrorism with terrorism is the solution. Also, it's well known that battles between armies involve weapons that maim, not kill, as they take additional soldiers off the field. But from what I have heard the pagers didn't just go off at the hip. Many wounds were in the face and eyes and included the loss of fingers or a hand. That implies a buzz and then time to see the number. If true, that is unnecessarily cruel, I think.