Israel-Palestine flame thread

[Valmy]

That's true, but it is also true that there are senior figures within the Israeli government that have raised proposals to remove the existing population.  Emotion or no, those statements should be taken seriously.

Anyone who wants to chant that at a protest has my full blessing.

Or they can chant it as plain clothed police pick them up after the protest. Either one.

[Admiral Yi]

Or they can chant it as plain clothed police pick them up after the protest. Either one.

Why not both?  One does not preclude the other.

[Valmy]

Or they can chant it as plain clothed police pick them up after the protest. Either one.

Why not both?  One does not preclude the other.

True.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

The only rockets coming into the US are likely to be ICBMs and I have a feeling we won't wait till they explode to see if they have nukes on them before we respond.

That would depend on how many and whether we could intercept them.  Employment of strategic nuclear weapons is not something that would be undertaken lightly, as it would likely trigger a world-destroying chain reaction if it came from the US.

Anyway my point stands, our current military doctrine involves killing millions of civilians if sufficiently provoked.

Yes, there is a policy that in some cases would do this.  My point is that it would be proportional, as only an attack that would, itself, involve killing millions of civilians would be sufficient to provoke it.  Also, the primary purpose of that policy is to prevent said attack from happening in the first place.  Nuclear weapons are a completely different ball game from anything conventional, and you cannot sensibly equivocate between a nuclear exchange and any sort of conventional attack.

[Jacob]

It's a wonderful counter example.  The Germans didn't flee from bombing toward the advancing Soviet army.  They fled from the Soviets toward the bombing.  The area they vacated was the most habitable part of Germany at the time.

Germans were also ethnically cleansed after the bombing stopped. See: Sudetenland, Pomerania, Upper Silesia, Eastern Brandenburg etc. Wikipedia has the number of deaths ranging from 500,000 to 2.5 million and the number of people displaced between 12 and 14.6 million.

[Razgovory]

The only rockets coming into the US are likely to be ICBMs and I have a feeling we won't wait till they explode to see if they have nukes on them before we respond.

That would depend on how many and whether we could intercept them.  Employment of strategic nuclear weapons is not something that would be undertaken lightly, as it would likely trigger a world-destroying chain reaction if it came from the US.

Anyway my point stands, our current military doctrine involves killing millions of civilians if sufficiently provoked.

Yes, there is a policy that in some cases would do this.  My point is that it would be proportional, as only an attack that would, itself, involve killing millions of civilians would be sufficient to provoke it.  Also, the primary purpose of that policy is to prevent said attack from happening in the first place.  Nuclear weapons are a completely different ball game from anything conventional, and you cannot sensibly equivocate between a nuclear exchange and any sort of conventional attack.

Would it be?  If one nuke, launched by Iran, was launched at a US military in the middle east and killed 1,000 people, do you think the counter attack would be proportional?  Probably not.

The truth is we don't know how the US would respond to rocket attacks on it's civilians.  I doubt it would be proportional, and if they were landing near you, I doubt you would want them to be proportional.  I remember how blood thirsty everyone was right after 9/11.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Would it be?  If one nuke, launched by Iran, was launched at a US military in the middle east and killed 1,000 people, do you think the counter attack would be proportional?  Probably not.

Yes, I think it would.  I think if Iran nuked a single American base in the Middle East, the response would be the systematic conventional destruction of Iran's entire military, followed by occupation.  I also think if this actually happened that the entire rest of the world, save Russia and maybe China, would be on board with this.  Nobody is going to start a nuclear war over use of a single weapon, so long as whomever used that weapon can be taken down and disarmed conventionally.

Again, nuclear weapons are a special case.  Their use in today's world is so dangerous that it cannot be tolerated, including in response to a minor usage.  You can't move the calculus in such a hypothetical to any situation that doesn't involve nuclear weapons.

The truth is we don't know how the US would respond to rocket attacks on it's civilians.  I doubt it would be proportional, and if they were landing near you, I doubt you would want them to be proportional.  I remember how blood thirsty everyone was right after 9/11.

The question of how the US would react is separate from the question of what reaction is appropriate.  In fact, decisions made in anger often are not appropriate responses.  I remember after 9/11 the douchebag assholes like the CEO of Stratfor who implored people to "remember how they felt on September 12th" when judging how to react.  That's the wrong way to do so, and it leads to actions that are wrong.  That they are emotional responses does not justify them.

[Zoupa]

Ukraine is constantly getting hit via missiles on civilian centers. I'm sure you folks have seen the attack on Sumy on Sunday with 34 civilians killed (2 children). Wounded in the hundreds.

Several russian cities like Kursk and Belgorod are well within strike range for retaliation, yet Ukraine doesn't do it. The emotional response would be to hit those cities. I've seen plenty of Ukrainians wishing for it after Sumy, or Mariupol, or Bucha, the list goes on.

Different armies have different morals. The AFU differs from the IDF.

[chipwich]

If Ukraine could flatten Russian cities they would and would be totally justified.

[viper37]

If Ukraine could flatten Russian cities they would and would be totally justified.

They can't flatter Russian cities, but they can do some damage, and they've proven they can in the past.

They chose to exercise restrain.  They also chose not to execute or humiliate Russian prisoners, North Korean prisoners, Chinese prisoners and other foreign nationals they capture, despite the opposite thing happening to their soldiers when they are captured by Russians.

The US had the capacity to flatten all of Iraq cities in retaliation for some of the attacks on their soldiers when they invaded.  They didn't.  The US could have flattened Kandahar and Kabul in Afghanistan after 9/11.  They didn't.  Despite having a gung-ho administration at the helm.

[chipwich]

They can't flatter Russian cities, but they can do some damage, and they've proven they can in the past.

They have more urgent targets than civilian targets. If it becomes in their interest and capacity to bombard Russian cities, they should and will do so.

They also chose not to execute or humiliate Russian prisoners, North Korean prisoners, Chinese prisoners and other foreign nationals they capture, despite the opposite thing happening to their soldiers when they are captured by Russians.

Neither Israel nor Ukraine torture and kill prisoners because it isn't beneficial to do so, it's even counterproductive. Hamas and Russia torture prisoners because they are evil sadists who deserve to be annihilated.

The US had the capacity to flatten all of Iraq cities in retaliation for some of the attacks on their soldiers when they invaded.  They didn't.  The US could have flattened Kandahar and Kabul in Afghanistan after 9/11.  They didn't.  Despite having a gung-ho administration at the helm.

I seem to recall the US bombing a Doctors Without borders hospital and justifying it as being used by the enemy and thus unprotected.

[Razgovory]

The city of Fallujah was flattened, Mosul was destroyed during the war with ISIS, Raqqa was left in ruins.  I think we used WP against human targets in Fallujah.  As for the Ukrainians the town of Russian Sudza was pretty torn up from the fighting.  I don't know if Russia fires missiles at Ukraine from hospitals in Kursk or Belgorod though I doubt it.  And if they did I don't think the Ukrainians have the fire power to effectively counter it.  It's not like they can just fly over there and drop bombs.

[Solmyr]

Neither Israel nor Ukraine torture and kill prisoners because it isn't beneficial to do so, it's even counterproductive. Hamas and Russia torture prisoners because they are evil sadists who deserve to be annihilated.

I'm guessing you haven't seen all the reports of torture and humiliation of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.

[Norgy]

Some very nice selective reading, factual distortions and bias in this thread. Keep it up!

[Razgovory]

Neither Israel nor Ukraine torture and kill prisoners because it isn't beneficial to do so, it's even counterproductive. Hamas and Russia torture prisoners because they are evil sadists who deserve to be annihilated.

I'm guessing you haven't seen all the reports of torture and humiliation of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.

There are reports of Ukrainians torturing and killing Russian POWs as well, you really want to play the "Both sides!" game in Ukraine?