Israel-Hamas War 2023

[grumbler]

(snip) The truth is we didn't care.  We felt the cause was good enough so we looked the other way.

The fact that you believe that the ends justify the means doesn't signify anything for anyone but you.

And don't argue that your statement doesn't equal "the ends justify the means," because that argument will just make you look like a cowardly weasel.

Okay, why did you look the other way?  I don't remember one post on this forum about the concern that the Iraqis killed too many civilians taking Mosul.  Nobody said we need to stop bombing of Raqqa, out of concern for civilian casualties.  Every poster here can post why they didn't feel it wasn't important to object to humanitarian catastrophe we were contributing to in the war against ISIS.

I didn't look the other way.  You get to say that you looked away.  You don't get to say that I looked away. What you do or don't remember about what was said is irrelevant. I don't live on this forum and don't talk that much about military affairs here. I've got other fra that focus on those sorts of things.

And, in any case, the civilian losses in Mosul caused by Coalition forces pale compared to those inflicted by the Israelis in Gaza.  Mosul had a population of 1.5 million compared to Gaza's 2.1 million, and suffered a bit less than 10,000 deaths, a thorough AP investigation noted.  Further,

Of the nearly 10,000 deaths the AP found, around a third of the casualties died in bombardments by the U.S.-led coalition or Iraqi forces, the AP analysis found. Another third of the dead were killed in the Islamic State group's final frenzy of violence. And it could not be determined which side was responsible for the deaths of the remainder, who were cowering in neighborhoods battered by airstrikes, IS explosives and mortar rounds from all sides.

Mosul is a graveyard: Final IS battle kills 9,000 civilians

The report gives a number of examples of the concern Coalition forces had for civilian casualties:

Reports of civilian deaths began to dominate military planning meetings in Baghdad in February and early March, according to a senior Western diplomat who was present but not authorized to speak on the record.

After a single coalition strike killed more than 100 civilians in Mosul's al-Jadidah neighborhood on March 17, the entire fight was put on hold for three weeks. Under intense international pressure, the coalition sent a team into the city to investigate.

Iraq's special forces units were instructed that they were no longer allowed to call in strikes on buildings. Instead, the forces were told to call in airstrikes on gardens and roads adjacent to IS group targets.

Not all of those measures were followed by everyone, but the effort to avoid excessive casualties is clear, and the result is clear: less than 10,000 killed as comparted to more than 39,000 killed in Gaza. Roughly 1-1 civilian to enemy military deaths, as opposed to roughly 4-1 in Gaza.

The evidence refutes your entire argument.

[Razgovory]

We don't know the real death toll in Gaza and we don't know combatants vs non combatant deaths. Filming dead fighters is a good way to get shot by Hamas.  We don't know the real death toll of Mosul, but the Kurds put it at 40k even your article admits it is incomplete.  In fact it goes so far as to say  Your quoting is fairly selective:

Iraq's special forces units were instructed that they were no longer allowed to call in strikes on buildings. Instead, the forces were told to call in airstrikes on gardens and roads adjacent to IS group targets.

A WhatsApp group shared by coalition advisers and Iraqi forces coordinating airstrikes previously named "killing daesh 24/7" was wryly renamed "scaring daesh 24/7."

"It was clear that the whole strategy in western Mosul had to be reconfigured," said the Western diplomat.

But on the ground, Iraqi special forces officers said after the operational pause, they returned to the fight just as before.

You skipped the important part.

Also this

The Pentagon investigation into the March strike concluded that a U.S. bomb resulted in the deaths of 105 civilians but ultimately blamed secondary explosions from IS-laid bombs.

The 500-pound (227-kilogram) bomb, the investigation concluded, "appropriately balanced the military necessity of neutralizing (two IS) snipers." Witnesses and survivors told the AP that IS had not set any explosives in the house that was hit. The house was packed with families sheltering from the fighting.

And finally

"It is simply irresponsible to focus criticism on inadvertent casualties caused by the Coalition's war to defeat ISIS," Col. Thomas Veale, a coalition spokesman, told the AP in response to questions about civilian deaths.

So, not that different than the Israelis.  If there are fewer civilian casualties it would probably be because difference in geography (Palestinians have fewer places to flee too), and the widespread use of human shields.

[grumbler]

We don't know the real death toll in Gaza and we don't know combatants vs non combatant deaths. Filming dead fighters is a good way to get shot by Hamas.  We don't know the real death toll of Mosul, but the Kurds put it at 40k even your article admits it is incomplete.  In fact it goes so far as to say  Your quoting is fairly selective:

Iraq's special forces units were instructed that they were no longer allowed to call in strikes on buildings. Instead, the forces were told to call in airstrikes on gardens and roads adjacent to IS group targets.

A WhatsApp group shared by coalition advisers and Iraqi forces coordinating airstrikes previously named "killing daesh 24/7" was wryly renamed "scaring daesh 24/7."

"It was clear that the whole strategy in western Mosul had to be reconfigured," said the Western diplomat.

But on the ground, Iraqi special forces officers said after the operational pause, they returned to the fight just as before.

You skipped the important part.

Your poor reading comprehension caused you to miss the fact that I didn't "skip the most important part" and in act noted that "Not all of those measures were followed by everyone."

Also this

(snip of irrelevant quote)

And finally

"It is simply irresponsible to focus criticism on inadvertent casualties caused by the Coalition's war to defeat ISIS," Col. Thomas Veale, a coalition spokesman, told the AP in response to questions about civilian deaths.

So, not that different than the Israelis.  If there are fewer civilian casualties it would probably be because difference in geography (Palestinians have fewer places to flee too), and the widespread use of human shields.

So not at all like the Israelis.  The Israelis killed far more civilians per thousand inhabitants and far more per enemy killed. You are equating oranges to basketballs.

[Razgovory]

"Yes, not all the measures were followed by everyone" means quickly ignored by everyone. So yes, fewer people died in Mosul than Gaza and the the rate of civilian casualties compared to combatants are unequal if we ignore the fact we don't know how many died in either Gaza or Mosul and we don't know the civilian to combatant ratio for either.  In Mosul we fought 7-13 thousand ISIS fighters.  Compare this to over 35,000 suspected Hamas fighters an unknown number are still alive.

We dropped 500lb bombs on two snipers killing well over 100 people, stalled our offensive because of it, and then went back to business as usual.  This is your example of of a much more moral battle.

On only one occasion during the period under review does it appear that pro-government forces did change tactics in west Mosul: the US-led coalition temporarily halted air strikes in response to the 17 March bombing in Mosul al-Jadida and reportedly reconsidered tactics. Amnesty International has been informed that a decision was made to lighten payloads as a result of the attack, although the Pentagon statement released on 25 May 2017 made no mention of this.127 Otherwise, Amnesty International found no evidence that tactics had been changed, as pro-government forces continued their reliance on artillery, mortars and IRAMs, all of which are less precise than air strikes using precision-guided munitions and are likely to have killed and injured far more people. 

So nobody seems to have actually changed tactics in response to the oopsie with the 500lb bomb.

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/MDE1466102017ENGLISH.pdf

Amnesty describes the coalition attacks as Indiscriminate, Disproportioned and Unlawful.

If, as Col Veale claimed, it is irresponsible to focus civilian casualties in the war against ISIS why are similar civilian casualties in Palestine worthy of so much more responsible focus?  Are Iraqi and Syrian civilians less valuable than Palestinian ones?  Or, as I suspect, the hand that killed the Palestinians less favored than the one that kills Iraqi and Syrians?

[Solmyr]

Israel is democratic, sure, but at this point Bibi is doing his best to turn it fascist. I like Israel and support its existence, but I don't want it to become what it is fighting.