This is the reality of what Israel is doing (part 4)

[Eyesopenwideawake]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/07/09/israel-gaza-hamas-hospitals/

I see the old thread is sadly almost full. I wonder how many of these I will start? 😢

There is no rule in warfare that states that if you start a war you can then complain about disproportionately losing more lives than the other side.

And the reality is that Hamas is the governing entity of Gaza, although I am sure that there are many Gazans who quietly dislike Hamas.

The USA lost 2,300 military and civilian lives in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. The resulting war against Japan then cost between 2.6 and 3.1 million Japanese lives. Does this mean that the USA was in the wrong in this conflict because the retaliation was disproportionate? And if so what would you suggest they did instead?

Equally the reality at that time was that military dictatorship in Japan at the time was the governing entity, although I am again sure there were many Japanese who quietly disliked them.

Allied bombing of Japan and Germany was absolutely disproportionate.

@Daftasabroom

"Allied bombing of Japan and Germany was absolutely disproportionate"

Thank you for a clear and perfectly reasonable point of view.

But what would you suggest the USA should have done instead. Sanctions?

Also how would it ever be possible to conduct a war or avoid a war in future when one side knows that it can attack a much stronger adversary and rely on the fact that if they retaliate then it would only be proportionate.

It removes the deterrence that if a smaller side starts a war then they could end up being annihilated.

It's a bit like walking up to a heavy weight boxer punching them feebly (well in my case feebly) on the nose and then complaining about proportionality when they punch me back, knocking me clean out.

I have to question how many 'command and control' centres there can possibly be. Hamas were about 1% of the population of Gaza, they have destroyed about 70% of buildings, they have killed according to them about 2/3rds of Hamas, that leaves 10,000 terrorists. How if your strikes are so targeted have you managed to destroy 70% of the place using 'intelligence' to find 1% of the population yet you are blowing up more 'command centres' everyday in a place that you have cut off from the world? Like I know the line Hamas embed themselves in civilian infrastructure but surely they would have to be magicians for 1% of the population to embed themselves in 70% of buildings, well actually given they have only found 2/3rds of Hamas the numbers would surely mean that 1% of the population have managed to embed themselves in 100% of civillian infrastructure?! How are they managing to move around so freely and set up these 'control centres' pretty much everywhere when you have so much 'intelligence', have people herded wherever you want them and drones everywhere? Maybe I am missing something but the numbers don't seem to be adding up to me?

There is no rule that allows committing war crimes

@EasterIssland

"There is no rule that allows committing war crimes"

Oh there absolutely are rules regarding war crimes but these tend to be implemented by the winning side. For example the Soviet Union military committed way more war crimes against the German military but none of the Soviet military were ever prosecuted because they were on the winning side.

In any event the point I am discussing is proportionality in warfare and not war crimes.

@1dayatatime
The rules defining war crimes and porportionality were all legislated after WWII so your WWII examples are disingenuous. If we were to retrospectively apply the law on war crimes, then yes the US was the biggest war criminal of all for dropping nuclear bombs in two major Japanese cities.

It removes the deterrence that if a smaller side starts a war then they could end up being annihilated.

The policy of responding to aggression with overwhelming and disporportionate force being a deterrence is crutch. It has never stopped independence revolutions or resistence movements anywhere or anywhen. It guarantees future war by creating more justification for those fighting the larger power.

Also how would it ever be possible to conduct a war or avoid a war in future when one side knows that it can attack a much stronger adversary and rely on the fact that if they retaliate then it would only be proportionate.

If you can conduct a war with overwhelming disporportionate force, then you can turn down the force and conduct a war that is within the rules of war. It’s not impossible to adjust the force used.

The way to avoid wars and end wars is through political and diplomatic solutions. War is failure by the involved parties to work things out like responsible adults.

I wanted to clarify, that my biggest war criminal of all comment is out of your three examples of Japan, Soviet Union and USA, not all of WWII.

@1dayatatime the mass bombing philosophies that developed during the interwar has been incredibly well documented. The allied bombing of Germany was questioned in Parliament during the war.

The British and Americans inflicted massive damage on the German population for relatively small tactical gains. Note that when the allies did want precision tactical strikes they didn't use heavy bombers.

@ToBeDetermined

"If we were to retrospectively apply the law on war crimes, then yes the US was the biggest war criminal of all for dropping nuclear bombs in two major Japanese cities."

Firstly thank you for engaging in a rational logical debate rather than whataboutery or buzz word bingo.

Regarding the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan what would you prefer to have happened?

The Japanese were never going to surrender and taking Japan conventionally would have seen massive US casualties.

@ToBeDetermined

"The policy of responding to aggression with overwhelming and disporportionate force being a deterrence is crutch. It has never stopped independence revolutions or resistence movements anywhere or anywhen. It guarantees future war by creating more justification for those fighting the larger power. "

Whilst I agree that responding to aggression with overwhelming or disproportionate force hasn't always stopped independence or resistance movements, there have been many examples of where it has.

For example in N Ireland the UK military was definitely the overwhelming force. Peace came about by a combination of a military defeat of the IRA and a majority desire by the population both sides of the border for peace and economic prosperity that cut away the support for the republicans.

The UK used disproportionate force against Argentina in the Falklands war - would you see that as wrong?

The UK used overwhelming and disproportionate force in the wars in the Malay revolution and also the Omani civil war - would you also see that as wrong.

In the case of Israel both Hamas and Hezbollah want the destruction of the entire Israeli State - how do you respond to that other than removing Hamas and Hezbollah from power or agreeing to end of Israel as a Jewish state?

Are you claiming that the British forces conflicts with the IRA and Argentina are comparable with Israeli response to the Hamas attacks, initially in Gaza now in Lebanon?

@Daftasabroom

"Are you claiming that the British forces conflicts with the IRA and Argentina are comparable with Israeli response to the Hamas attacks, initially in Gaza now in Lebanon?"

Not at all and sorry for any confusion I have caused you.

I was having an intellectual discussion with @ToBeDetermined which might not have understood on whether or not disproportionate response is or ever has been acceptable in a war.

How would you define disproportionate?

Defining disproportionate is simple- you drop one 500kg bomb and in return I drop ten 500kg bombs or I suffer 100 casualties and my retaliation results in 1000 casualties.

The question is what place proportionality has in conflict if any and what is the relevance if any the relative strength of the two parties.

So to repeat an earlier example, if I feebly punched a professional boxer in the face with the intent to hurt but then knocked out in return, then am I a victim or am I simply getting just desserts?

Regarding the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan what would you prefer to have happened?

Now that we know what happened, there is no way it would be ok to prefer it to have happened than not have happened.

@1dayatatime I'm guessing English isn't your first language but either way I think your examples don't really match they're all non sequiturs.

The British Army didn't defeat the IRA.

The WW2 examples are much closer but those were deliberate bombing of civilians.

Your analogies don't work as they are combatant v combatant. The vast majority of casualties inflicted by both the Israelis and Hamas are non-combatants.

@Daftasabroom

"The British Army didn't defeat the IRA"

That is fair comment.

A more accurate description would be that both sides knew that they could never win and that from the Republican viewpoint more progress could be made for their cause politically than through violence.

@Daftasabroom

"The WW2 examples are much closer but those were deliberate bombing of civilians.

Your analogies don't work as they are combatant v combatant. The vast majority of casualties inflicted by both the Israelis and Hamas are non-combatants."

I don't see how the analogies don't work. Just as in WW2 there are combatants namely Israel vs Hamas et al and just as in WW2 the majority of casualties are civilians.

It is somewhat difficult to determine civilian casualties in Gaza as Hamas in their casualty figures from their health ministry do not distinguish between civilian deaths and Hamas deaths.

There was an element of that but it was way more complex.

Development of the EU kind of bypassed some of the Republican dogma. It became more of a stalemate, a gradual de escalation, quite the opposite to recent events in the ME.

@1dayatatime the Falklands, troubles and boxing analogies don't work.

@ScrollingLeaves

"Regarding the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan what would you prefer to have happened?

Now that we know what happened, there is no way it would be ok to prefer it to have happened than not have happened."

I don't see your logic . Yes we know that the number of deaths from the two atomic bombs were between 200k and 250k - because the bombs were dropped.

What we don't know is how many deaths would have happened if there was a ground invasion of Japan or if the Allies had tried to starve Japan into surrender or if they had used conventional bombings on a larger scale etc etc.

So it is entirely possible that the deaths from these alternative actions may have resulted in many more deaths than from the atomic bombs. In which case it could be argued that the atomic bombs were the lesser evil.

Either way we will never know for sure because the war ended largely because of the two atomic bombs.

Why - could you expand on this?

@Daftasabroom

"There was an element of that but it was way more complex."

I read a great theory that the end of the troubles was in part due to petrol prices and Tesco's. Bear with me...

The theory goes that numbers of people from the north would head south for cheaper petrol and numbers from the south headed north for cheaper groceries. This meant that regular people began to realise that those from the other side were pretty much the same as them and that the conflict didn't benefit anyone and what was more important than lofty political ideals was cheaper petrol and cheaper groceries.