Children As Decoys

[leonardcohen]

The point is,we're not trying to kill children,

in both cases the children die, but there is a world of difference

between accidently killing someone and deliberately killing

someone.

Try to understand that.

Try to understand that there's none. Or, if there was real serious intent to not have them killed, there wouldn't be so many killed already - as direct result of their actions.

If you can not see between the difference in people hating you so much

that they're willing to throw

away the most precious of their legacies, their own children

to kill you, the enemy, and run away like a coward themselves,

and accidently killing the enemy because they hide behind civilians,then yes,

i concede the point, because there is really no point arguing with someone

who can not or will not see that.

[BubberMiley]

Well an interesting thing about legal issues is that they actually have to be documented in law. Simply skipping along and announcing that something is illegal and that everyone else agrees with you doesn't quite make it so.

Kofi Annan said it was illegal, and I trust his judgement better than loonie, anonymous internet forum contributors.

[guyser]

Kofi Annan said it was illegal, and I trust his judgement better than loonie, anonymous internet forum contributors.

To be fair Bubber, Koffi had to be coerced into saying it. He always maintained that it was not UNSC approved . The BBC (IIRC) reporter then asked him "if not approved , it is then illegal?" Koffi could not get out of that one.

Up to that point , and after, Koffi for the most part went back to saying it was not sanctioned.

Lastly, you better grab some popcorn and a drink as the koffi bashers will be along in 5..4..3..

[ScottSA]

Well an interesting thing about legal issues is that they actually have to be documented in law. Simply skipping along and announcing that something is illegal and that everyone else agrees with you doesn't quite make it so.

Kofi Annan said it was illegal, and I trust his judgement better than loonie, anonymous internet forum contributors.

He actually didn't say that, and he is a figurehead...no wait...he was a figurehead. His "judgement" is irrelevant even if he did say it and he didn't. Next?

[guyser]

He actually didn't say that, and he is a figurehead...no wait...he was a figurehead. His "judgement" is irrelevant even if he did say it and he didn't. Next?

Yea...he did say it.

BBC interview. September 2004.

[ScottSA]

Annan is not in a position to rule on the legality. He was the UN's butler

[Canadian Blue]

No, Annan was the Secretary General of the United Nations, from what I hear that's an important position.

[guyser]

Annan is not in a position to rule on the legality. He was the UN's butler

Here you go...You're just working yourself into a perfect tizzy, aren't you? Look, you were wrong, you got caught, and then instead of admitting it like a man, you refused to.

[ScottSA]

Annan is not in a position to rule on the legality. He was the UN's butler

Here you go...You're just working yourself into a perfect tizzy, aren't you? Look, you were wrong, you got caught, and then instead of admitting it like a man, you refused to.

What was I wrong about?

[Canadian Blue]

ScottSA, be a man. Don't you know what being a man is all about, if you don't admit that Kofi Annan held an important position in the United Nations I'm going to have to call your manhood to question.

PS: When I do question it, you'll need to watch Top Gun and 300 24/7 in order to regain your masculinity.

[myata]

..

to kill you, the enemy, and run away like a coward themselves,

and accidently killing the enemy because they hide behind civilians,then yes,

i concede the point, because there is really no point arguing with someone

who can not or will not see that.

Thanks for admitting that one way of killing people is no better than another.

Now it's just a matter of terminology. Like calling dropping a bomb into a populated city "accidental killing".

[ScottSA]

ScottSA, be a man. Don't you know what being a man is all about, if you don't admit that Kofi Annan held an important position in the United Nations I'm going to have to call your manhood to question.

PS: When I do question it, you'll need to watch Top Gun and 300 24/7 in order to regain your masculinity.

I think you're in the wrong thread...are you ok?

[guyser]

What was I wrong about?

Are you truely asking ?

[Rue]

"Thanks for admitting that one way of killing people is no better than another... it's just a matter of terminology. Like calling dropping a bomb into a populated city "accidental killing".

"

Myata I must confess I have reacted to some of your comments very strongly and I will try control myself but the above comment with due respect about sums up why I get so exasperated with you and some of the other posters.

For you to make a statement that suggests all killings are the same and should be judegd the same is absurd.

This is precisely why we have criminal codes, internationall laws, international conventions, war crimes.

How can you make such a comment after you have in your life witnessed massacres in Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, Biafra, Cambodia, Kurd-Iraq, Serbia.

Are you oblivious to what happens when people in the name of political will terrorize and kill people?

Are you oblivious to the fact there is a difference between self-defence and pre-meditated murder?

Are you oblivious to the fact there is something seriously wrong when yout ake children and use them as a military weapon?

What has happened to you that you would make such a statement knowing that using innocent people as weapons or as shields is not morally equivalent to self-defence?

if you can't understand that then my God man, its time you sit down with a victim of the holocaust, someone who survived Rwanda and Burundi or Sudan, someone who escaped political torture.

You Myata are everything I absolutely loath in humans when they discuss such things.

You try rationalize terrorism as a morally acceptable action. For that you disgust me. sorry but you do. You have lost the most basic value of life-that life is precious and we don't exploit the innocent and snuff their lives out because we think its a legitimate way to express ourselves.

I am shocked I even have to write this.

[M.Dancer]

No, Annan was the Secretary General of the United Nations, from what I hear that's an important position.

Never the less, the position doesn't give him autocratic or judicial powers. His pronoucement have the same legal force as someone here calling the US criminal.

[myata]

You Myata are everything I absolutely loath in humans when they discuss such things.

You try rationalize terrorism as a morally acceptable action. For that you disgust me. sorry but you do. You have lost the most basic value of life-that life is precious and we don't exploit the innocent and snuff their lives out because we think its a legitimate way to express ourselves...

Ah, what an excellent example of ... trying to find a gentlier, milder equivalent to s-word... whatever. I gather, you aren't expecting a response to that?

[White Doors]

Don't bother myata. Any sane person can see your posts for what they are.

You aren't convincing anybody.

You are firmly entrenched in the lunatic fringe.

Congratulations.

[myata]

Wow, another gem of invincible logic here. Are you striving to surpass Rue? It's gonna be tough, but keep trying.

[ScottSA]

myata, do you see any difference at all between and intentional attack on innocents (say a suicide bomber in a crowded marketplace) and a military attack on an active rocket launcher hidden in a house full of civilians?

I'm not looking for a long apologia, just a yes or no. Are they morally equivalent in your opinion or not?

[myata]

You see, it can't be judged out of context, because they are all different moral situations. Rocket launcher where? Why is it where it is? Did it really have to be destroyed at the expense of almost certain loss of innocent life? Crowded market where? Why are there people ready to blow themselves to pieces (along with dozens of others)? Did something happen to drive them into that condition?

Generally, a life lost is a life lost. The best one can do is to prevent it from happening, to the extent of possible.

If it was possible to avoid casualties, and it didn't happen, I don't see much (i.e. any) value in professing on moral virtues from a pile of dead bodies.

[White Doors]

Generally, a life lost is a life lost

Does it matter that all western criminal law considers WHY and HOW the life was taken?

You know, the difference between murder, manslaughter, self defence, suicide?

Do you care? Do you also know that the Geneva convention explicity says that hiding active military units behind the cover of civilians is a war crime?

Of course, you do not care as that would bring your fragile western hating world crashing down.

Go ahead, you keep trying to convince yourself. We'll all read and enjoy your ramblings.

LOL

you should go over the the 9/11 thread and give us some more of your 'insight' over there.

Thanks!

[DogOnPorch]

You see, it can't be judged out of context, because they are all different moral situations. Rocket launcher where? Why is it where it is? Did it really have to be destroyed at the expense of almost certain loss of innocent life?

While letting this rocket launcher continue to shoot does the same thing...just to other "innocent people"? Don't plan on a future as an officer in the infantry...lol.

Crowded market where? Why are there people ready to blow themselves to pieces (along with dozens of others)? Did something happen to drive them into that condition?

Yes. It is because of a heavy devotion to Islam in some circles which promises glory in the afterlife for those who die in the service of Alah. The only other thing even remotely like it is the Bushido Code which which had Japanese diving into aircraft carriers and conducting suicide charges into machine guns. If desperate conditions alone were the reason for suicide bombers, history would have recorded them at numerous other desperate times and places. Warsaw...Dien Bien Phu...Bataan/Corregidor...Stalingrad...Leningrad...Appomattox...Hong Kong...Singapore...etc, etc, etc.

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After the first day of marching, without food or water, men began to drop out of column. Japanese guards would rush up, shouting commands in Japanese to get back in the group. When that approach failed, shots rang, out killing those who would not or could not rise. Many of those failing to obey the order to march were beheaded by sword wielding-Japanese guards, usually officers and non-coms.

---Maj Richard Gordon

[myata]

Does it matter that all western criminal law considers WHY and HOW the life was taken?

You know, the difference between murder, manslaughter, self defence, suicide?

Do you care? Do you also know that the Geneva convention explicity says that hiding active military units behind the cover of civilians is a war crime?

Yeah, right. Why and how did you barge into a country thousands miles away, without any clue about what's going on, or any valid reasons to start a war. Killing thousands of innocents, destroying power structure that all but unleashed a full blown civil war with thousands more casualties. Is that what you meant?

Of course, you do not care as that would bring your fragile western hating world crashing down.

Go ahead, you keep trying to convince yourself. We'll all read and enjoy your ramblings.

and so on ....

I gather this is the best alternative to a meaningful argument you can come up with.

[ScottSA]

Yes. It is because of a heavy devotion to Islam in some circles which promises glory in the afterlife for those who die in the service of Alah. The only other thing even remotely like it is the Bushido Code which which had Japanese diving into aircraft carriers and conducting suicide charges into machine guns. If desperate conditions alone were the reason for suicide bombers, history would have recorded them at numerous other desperate times and places. Warsaw...Dien Bien Phu...Bataan/Corregidor...Stalingrad...Leningrad...Appomattox...Hong Kong...Singapore...etc, etc, etc.

Ah, but according to the Law of Lefty Counterexample, one single counterexample negates everything. If an abortion clinic was bombed once by some fringe Christian anti-abortion group, obviously this entirely negates 1000s of daily killings, beheadings and riotings on a global scale by Islam. So here it is! The Charge of the Light Brigade! The British were driven to desperation by the Russians brutally defending Sevas....no wait...they were driven to desperation because they were fighting the occupiers of their....no wait...the brutal Russian winter...no...the damned Turks made them do i...

[DogOnPorch]

Ah, but according to the Law of Lefty Counterexample, one single counterexample negates everything. If an abortion clinic was bombed once by some fringe Christian anti-abortion group, obviously this entirely negates 1000s of daily killings, beheadings and riotings on a global scale by Islam. So here it is! The Charge of the Light Brigade! The British were driven to desperation by the Russians brutally defending Sevas....no wait...they were driven to desperation because they were fighting the occupiers of their....no wait...the brutal Russian winter...no...the damned Turks made them do i...

Most folks have such a poor sense of history. But it is one of the few things that make us human...recording or past. Too bad it is no longer taught with any seriousness outside of university or West Point et al.

What we have going on is a general revision of what happened over the last 100 years or so in some circles. It's pretty freaky to hear some folks describing things like the Bomber Offensive against Germany as American aggression. Another point that bothers me is selective history...much like talking about the 1948 War without mentioning the Grand Mufti of Jersusalem or the Jewish Stern/Irgun gangs. Or the 6 Day War without mentioning Nasser's attitude at the time. Or refering to Syria, Jordan and Egypt without the footnote that they were more or less on the Soviet/Warsaw Pact side during the Cold War. Not to forget the Holocaust denial so common these days from some quarters.

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These Muslim volunteer units under Haj Amin al-Husseini, called Hanjar (sword), were put in Waffen-SS units, fought Yugoslav partisans in Bosnia and carried out police and security duties in Hungary. They participated in the massacre of civilians in Bosnia and volunteered to join in the hunt for Jews in Croatia..."

-- Encyclopedia of the Holocaust