Slain Hamas Hostage's

[flogger]

Maybe some of those 2 million should take a stand then.

[FoxtArt]

I think it's important to look beyond today.

If we had a cease fire, and Isreal capitulated, a few hundred/thousand would live today. But this insideous conflict will continue until the end of time, unless one side is annihilated.

Isreal as a nation has demonstrated no desire to actually annihalate the palistinians. The converse is not true.

So you could argue that I'm arguing for deaths of x number of people. I'm not. Pragmatically, I accept the reality of the situation on it's face, and accept that there is no difference, ethically speaking, from someone dying today, to someone else dying 10 years from now; both are equivalent.

Do we wait until Iran starts mass producing nukes and gets several devices slipped into Hamas? Do we wait until it's an all out Iran-faction-nuking-isreal war that drags us in with all sorts of NCBE's in play?

Or do we perform the math, and say a lot of lives dying today, is far better ethically, than an order of magnitude over the span of time that this conflict will realistically continue on for.

War is NOT pretty. Innocents get murdered, in every war, because sociopaths serve in every military. Including by the US. In Vietnam, we literally murdered a few villages that had nothing but women and chilren in them. Servicemen literally shot babies.

We have NO moral authority to tell Isreal what the fuck to do with their own future. If they want to fight this war until it is over, THEY HAVE THAT RIGHT.

We fucking NUKED women and children in this country to an order of magnitude above and beyond anything happening over there with FAR less at stake.

I'm tired of the "but the children" strawman. Anyone that throws that out there needs a Trolly vs track scenario with one kid on one side "today" and a thousand on the other side of the switch, but further down the track.

Life sucks. Let them decide their own business. Maybe Isreal doesn't want to have murders and rapists right outside their cities for eternity, until such time as Isreal gets nuked. History is left with nary a memory of thousands of failed societies. I hope Hamas and the society it cultivates gets religated into that pile - with as few as casualties as possible. Realistically though, it needs to be as many as necessary to get the job done in a reasonable timeframe. Future deaths matter too - whether tomorrow, or 90 years from now.

[Mick-Boy]

Clearly a lot of you guys are collectivists. I try very hard to view things through an individualist lens. I'm not responsible for someone else's actions, even if they look like me or where born near where I was born. I'll just skip over the "kill them all and let god sort them out" responses. Whatever side you're on, it's not the side of right. Collectivists rarely are in the end.

I try to take as principled an approach to situations as I can. That means I want my beliefs and stances on a topic to be able to stand up to scrutiny. Applying something like the "shoe on the other foot" test is sometimes a useful tool. If it's okay for me, it's okay for thee. And vice versa.

One principle I believe is that morality should scale. What's right and wrong for one person to do, is also right and wrong for one hundred, or one million people to do.

I think it's important to look beyond today.

If we had a cease fire, and Isreal capitulated, a few hundred/thousand would live today. But this insideous conflict will continue until the end of time, unless one side is annihilated.

Isreal as a nation has demonstrated no desire to actually annihalate the palistinians. The converse is not true.

So you could argue that I'm arguing for deaths of x number of people. I'm not. Pragmatically, I accept the reality of the situation on it's face, and accept that there is no difference, ethically speaking, from someone dying today, to someone else dying 10 years from now; both are equivalent.

Do we wait until Iran starts mass producing nukes and gets several devices slipped into Hamas? Do we wait until it's an all out Iran-faction-nuking-isreal war that drags us in with all sorts of NCBE's in play?

Or do we perform the math, and say a lot of lives dying today, is far better ethically, than an order of magnitude over the span of time that this conflict will realistically continue on for.

War is NOT pretty. Innocents get murdered, in every war, because sociopaths serve in every military. Including by the US. In Vietnam, we literally murdered a few villages that had nothing but women and chilren in them. Servicemen literally shot babies.

We have NO moral authority to tell Isreal what the fuck to do with their own future. If they want to fight this war until it is over, THEY HAVE THAT RIGHT.

We fucking NUKED women and children in this country to an order of magnitude above and beyond anything happening over there with FAR less at stake.

I'm tired of the "but the children" strawman. Anyone that throws that out there needs a Trolly vs track scenario with one kid on one side "today" and a thousand on the other side of the switch, but further down the track.

Life sucks. Let them decide their own business. Maybe Isreal doesn't want to have murders and rapists right outside their cities for eternity, until such time as Isreal gets nuked. History is left with nary a memory of thousands of failed societies. I hope Hamas and the society it cultivates gets religated into that pile - with as few as casualties as possible. Realistically though, it needs to be as many as necessary to get the job done in a reasonable timeframe. Future deaths matter too - whether tomorrow, or 90 years from now.

You can state with certainty that this conflict will go on until the end of time? I wonder what the French and Germans would say about that. Or the English and the Irish. All conflicts end eventually. Ending with the minimal amount of human suffering should be the goal of the leadership. In this case, it clearly isn't from either side.

The argument about time being irrelevant is...frankly absurd. You're going to die someday. So it's ethically the same if someone kills you tomorrow? if a terminal cancer patient is murdered does everyone just shrug because it's ethically the same? Ridiculous.

Netanyahu has been pedaling the "Iran is 3-5 years from developing nukes" for more than 30 years. You'll forgive me if I don't find the case compelling.

Again, you're claiming a knowledge of the future that you just don't have and using it as justification for the killing of 10s of thousands.

I would venture to guess that I have far more and closer experience with war than you do but thank you for that lesson. The US military teaches about My Lai in boot camp as a specific example of failures of leadership and discipline. If anyone doesn't know the story, check out the link. It's horrifying.

As long as we're paying for it, we should have some say. Unfortunately AIPAC has congress by the balls (even most of the, clearly miss-labeled, "America first" types)

We did nuke women and children. We also firebombed cities. According to Robert McNamara, Curtis LeMay stated that he would have been tried as a war criminal if we lost. And maybe he should have been. Either way there's probably a reason that kind of behavior was prohibited(-ish) in the Geneva Conventions.

My dude, concern over civilian life isn't a strawman. It's the responsibility of anyone trying to fight a war, or use violence in general, ethically.

When I say ethically I mean not using civilians as human shields. Not raping prisoners and then rioting when the rapists are taken into custody. Ironic, considering your comments about rapists...

The fact of the matter is that life does suck sometimes. Some people are born into an area of the world that has been under occupation for almost 60 years. They regularly get arrested without charges, beaten, and even killed. In this environment they are told stories like the Deir Yassin massacre during the Nakkba. They're taught about the slaughters at Sabra and Shatila in '82 and how the man in charge was later elected Prime Minister. They're taught about Baruch Goldstein killing 29 and wounding another 125 while they were at prayer. How the Minister of National Security, the man in charge of what is supposed to be your home, kept a picture of Goldstein in his living room and praised him during speeches. They see the Prime Minister who moved a little bit towards peace assassinated by a right wing Israeli, the occupying powerhttps://original.antiwar.com/hacohen...d-and-ignored/ and then they get told their people are the obstacle to peace. Maybe they are even politically opposed to Hamas. Then find out that Israel has been directly and indirectly supplying them with financial support for decades. Then use the actions of the same organization as justification for killing more people.

A person would have to have a Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. level of self control not to get radicalized in an environment like that.

If anyone is interested in the history, Daryl Cooper's podcast Martyr Made had probably the fairest treatment of the pre-1948 history I've every come across in a single source. The degree of empathy he can bring to both sides is impressive.

[eddiememphis]

You can state with certainty that this conflict will go on until the end of time?

End of time? No, not likely.

End of all Jews? Yes, that is the stated goal.

If the Palestinians (and other radical Muslims) laid down their arms, there would be peace.
If the Israelis laid down their arms, there would be slaughter.

There is no bargaining with zealots.

[XJ]

You're using a whole lot of words buddy, not sure why :|


There has never been a Jew who has sworn to slit my throat just for existing

[Clint45]

The "Palestinians" start teaching their children about Jihad around 5.

They begin paramilitary training around 8.

This is undisputed fact. There are no friendly civilians in Gaza. That whole region needs a few dustings of VX as an example to the West Bank. Then we can start negotiating for peace.

[BushMasterBoy]

Islam is a terrorist organization with political aims to institute Sharia law. IT IS NOT A RELIGION.

[flogger]

^^ Amen! ^^