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? 😢

Hezbollah have fired more missiles into Israel's biggest northern city tonight. Should it be shrugged off.

Israel have fired more missiles into Beirut city tonight. Should it be shrugged off.

Except of course many Lebanese civilians have been killed. You seem to shrug this off.

There have been more deaths in Gaza. You shrug this off.

No deaths should be shrugged off.

You didn't have to put in a goady post yourself you know?

What you say is very logical but to me unbearable.

It makes me think that on that basis there is the inevitability that there will be the next atomic bomb, where the same perfectly logical principles ( or possibly the same apparent excuse) will apply again.

@ScrollingLeaves

"What you say is very logical but to me unbearable.

It makes me think that on that basis there is the inevitability that there will be the next atomic bomb, where the same perfectly logical principles ( or possibly the same apparent excuse) will apply again."

I totally agree it's a horrible concept to examine - the heart says in a perfect world no lives should be lost at all, whereas the head says it's not a perfect world so it's better to lose ten lives than lose a hundred.

On your point of the inevitability of another atomic bomb I think that brings us back to the concept of disproportionate retaliation. For example I genuinely think that if Putin knew he could drop one small nuclear bomb on Kiev and only receive one proportionate small nuclear bomb in retaliation then I think he would definitely take that option.

However what is stopping him is the strong possibility that the retaliation would be disproportionate and be 100 nuclear bombs. So in this example the belief in a disproportionate response actually helps avoid such an attack.

The problem in Gaza is that Hamas actually want a disproportionate retaliation and are quite willing to accept a high civilian death toll because they can then play the victim .

Unfortunately there are many in the west including the western media who's metric of good guys or bad guys is based on which side is the stronger- with the stronger side always being the bad side regardless of the cause of the conflict.

Of course the who loses out most here is always the innocent civilians.

What stops nuclear war is MAD- Mutual Assured Destruction. It isn’t fear of a disproportionate counter attack that keeps anyone from using nukes again, it is the fact that everyone can detect when one of those is launched and everyone with nukes has sworn if even one is launched, all nukes are launched before the first one even lands and that is the end of the human species. Armageddon.

Your example is no example at all.

Thank you for agreeing with my post.

MAD is based on a disproportionate response or as you put it "everyone with nukes has sworn if even one is launched, all nukes are launched before the first one even lands".

As a result no one wants to risk using just one nuke because of the fear of a disproportionate response of multiple nukes.

However if a country genuinely believed there would be a proportionate response whereby if they used just one nuke then the worst they would receive is just one nuke in return then i genuinely believe that there would be a greater chance of this happening.

In this way the fear of a disproportionate response reduces the likelihood of such an attack.

New thread - https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/conflict-in-the-middle-east/5181402-this-is-the-reality-of-what-israel-is-doing-part-5

I am not agreeing with you. MAD isn’t fear of a disproportionate response such that you lose and the enemy wins and takes all.

It is fear of a nuclear apocalypse that will end all civilisation, kill all humans on the planet, most animals and collapse the environment under a centuries long nuclear winter worse than any Ice Age.

I don’t agree with your logic at all that believing you’d get a proportionate response makes you more likely to send off a nuke.

If anything, the fear of disproportionate response makes you go in hard and do a pre-emptive strike- as in attack them first and with all you got so the enemy is on the back foot and the war is on his ground from the start.

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?

What about the heavy weight boxer getting into a rage, putting iron weights in his gloves and then beating you to a pulp, and in fact killing you?

And when he had never been very nice to you or your family either in the first place.

And not even like that
a boxer kicks a heavy weight boxer. The boxer replies back but instead of hitting the boxer hits those that have gone to see the match , and those in the nearby streets , and nearby towns and kills 5% of them regardless if they were boxers or not. And also tortures some of them and rapes some others , kills them directly to their heads and then apologises because that was a mistake. And in the meantime denies any aid to any of these people that had nothing to do with the match but because they had the same nationality as the boxer they deserve punishment