Again, is this notion that when one side in a conflict violates international codes of warfare,
then the other side is free to violate the codes at will – is this notion part of international codified norms? If so, please quote and reference.

If not, please admit that this “all bets are off”
notion is just a desperate rationalization of Israeli war-crimes: CONSISTENT TARGETING OF CIVILIAN POPULATION CENTERS, TARGETING OF RED CROSS VEHICLES, TARGETING OF CIVIL DEFENSE CENTERS, MOSQUES, UN PEACEKEEPERS ETC…

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3279175,00.html

From the well known human rights organization B’Tselem of Israel, pristine record of unbiased reporting, want the archive? Now where is your evidence?

Strawwman. I’ve never said such a thing.

My FACTS are that the southern Lebaneese have collaberated with Hezbollah for 6 years, and that they willingly volunteer to be used as human shields for propaganda purposes.

the question of why all this occured has to be asked and it has to be applied.

Sure. But you’re changing the subject b/c you are incapable of disupting the facts I’ve given you.

argue all you want that you won the debate,

I didn’t “win” the debate, you forfeited it b/c your only retort was personal attacks.

It does not matter to me that you are stuck in the Leon Uris era of looking at history in this region (if you even know what I am talking about), the question of why all this occured has to be asked and it has to be applied. You cannot start where you please, that is not reality – your ideology does not count, the question is what are the foundational facts.

Without this your argument is useless, because from this flows all your assumptions – what you embrace as truth does nothing but bolster your tainted presuppositions. So argue all you want that you won the debate, because there was none to start with – we could not get to point one (hence the broad sweep of my previous original response).

And people wonder why the Left is out of ideas….

E. Nough you have picked a good moniker for yourself. Yes, i lived for a period of time in Israel and had the unfortunate experience of seeing eyewitness brutality heapen on the Palestinians. I mean did you people just wake up yesterday? You have no morals as far as I can see, you are an exact match of the ubermench – more power to you (pun).

I am not going to go into a history lesson of Palestine. You are devoid of all factual information and are the equivilent of partisan hacks – that spout convenient values. Go get an education. You have no idea historically who you ape with your comments – Seig Heil! I may speak more to the point on this later, right now I have no time.

No, but the fact that he missed his flight physical in August 1972 and didn’t notify either the Alabama NG or Texas NG when he returned to Texas is far more substantive than any of that Swift Boat bullshit.

Oh, and you will find in the anals of war, kidnapping for ransom or blackmail is the second oldest provocation to war, after a forthright attack. Which we have also seen.

As for pointing out facts, contradictions, etc., it’s a total waste of time. These people are stupid murderous bigots. To understand them, don’t bother attempting to unravel or make sense of their wildly contracictory professed principals; simply look at their perceptions and proposals.

Their one true principle then becomes obvious: Exterminate the Jews and humanity’s trouble will be over. Since that is their only truth, everything else must conform to it. That is why they cannot comprehend what anyone else says, no matter how simple.

Let’s make sure we’re clear: I didn’t say that all civilians lose their protection when one side uses its civilians for that purpose. Israeli civilians don’t lose their entitlement to not be shot, since the Israeli military doesn’t use them for cover. On the other hand, once the Lebanese military — be they the official army or Hezbollah — begin to use Lebanese civilians as human shields, the Israelis are not obligated to avoid shooting Hezbollah just because some civilians may get in the way. (They are still not entitled to deliberately target civilians, but so far no one has presented any evidence that this has happened. Which is not surprising, since unlike Hezbollah, Israelis are not bloodthirsty religious nutballs, and high body counts are neither a goal to them nor a side benefit.)

Such rules have been in place long before the League of Nations or its present-day equivalent was formed. I don’t need to write them — they are clear and have been well-understood by armies since at least the time of Westphalia. If you must have “authority,” perhaps you can review those all-important Geneva Conventions, and see what they say about the use of civilians for tactical advantage. (And the reason it’s called a “Convention,” and all those countries sign it, is that all members are expected to abide by it to benefit from it. The Palestinians and Lebanese have violated the Convention at will, and are therefore no longer entitled to its protections. This is likewise obvious — no sane nation would abide by a pact that the other side disregards. To do so would be to guarantee your own defeat: all your enemy has to do is give each soldier a civilian human shield, and he’s invulnerable.)

Sorry this wasn’t clear at first — I thought anyone capable of opining on this subject would understand the fundamentals first. (Though your constant references to “Israeli atrocities” and the alleged authority of the UN should have alerted me to the contrary.) For future reference, though, trying to compensate for basic shortcomings with arrogant bluster doesn’t impress me, though it does amuse me. Trust me — it doesn’t work for the raging Arabs, so it certainly won’t work for you.

I am a US Marine. And since all you have are adhom attacks, you lose the debate. Thanks for playing.

–maybe you can work with the Israeli military to develop a bad vs. good civilian detector that can be attached to, say, rockets or gun mounts. On second thought, easier just to shoot indiscriminately, and then twist the meaning of the word “terrorism” to apply to other types of civilian slaughter. It’s different, you know. Complicated stuff.

Its not complicated. For 6 years the “civillians” in Southern Lebannon have collaberated with Hezbollah as they built tunnels, bunkers, ambush zones, launch platforms. Hezabollah PAYS RENT to the civillians to keep their missiles in their basements, and when the IDF targets those locations, the “civillians” go on CNN to complain that the IDF blew up their homes.

Its a propaganda ploy to target the weakest link – you and your kind.

When you claim that “…civilians lose all protection” when one side in a conflict uses them for protection, are you citing Israeli military tactics or recognized international norms such as the Geneva Convention or the International Law Commission of the UN?

If the latter, please provide references. If the former, then you are doing no more than attempting to justify atrocities. Perhaps you should codify your own “standards of CIVILIZED WARFARE”. When you publish them,
I would suggest you change your nom de plume from E. Nough to Ox E. Moron.

I won’t bother to answer all your self-serving blather; the term “lightweight” seems to have been rather a compliment on subsequent readings.

But to answer what few points you seem to have made in that pile of verbiage: actually, which side is stronger is not a determinant of who is in the right, or who has the right to destroy whom. A country’s “weakness” is not a moral asset; the obvious response is that if they are so “weak,” perhaps they shouldn’t go around picking fights. It’s not difficult: you realize you are weak, and don’t fight.

I can’t say where Hezbollah stashes its weapons. 75-100 thousand homes seems like a rather absurd figure, but even if true, it proves nothing: once it’s determined that the Lebanese (and Hezbollah are Lebanese) are hiding weapons in civilian homes, all civilian homes lose any protection. It is not the job of Israel to know exactly which homes they choose to use as weapons depots. Hide weapons amongst civilians, and civilians lose protection. Hide weapons in homes, and homes use protection. Use mosques as military HQ, and mosques lose protection. End of story.

Finally, I could care less why it’s the “poor and dispossessed” that allegedly gravitate to terrorism (never mind that this isn’t true — there are far better correlations to what makes a terrorist, with religion being the best predictor). Personally, I don’t care to discuss what motivates scum — I’m happy to just kill the scum. If said scum fights using the rules of decent warfare, terrific. If not, if they prefer to hide amongst their own civilians, then quite frankly the loss of those civilians is acceptable. The choice is entirely theirs, and when they make it, they really shouldn’t gripe about the consequences.

Of course, that’s why they have their “progressive” Western mouthpieces — like you.

“I think the far Left’s central problem in Israeli-Arabic conflict is that when push comes to shove, Americans will back a liberal-democracy against any form of autocracy. Historically, the far Left has either backed the autocracy or adopted a “pox on both your houses” attitude.”

Notice also the exquisite civility and liberality.

I am incapable of ratifying this observation without observing that the Far Left is full of Che-loving sociopaths nostalgic for Soviet missile parades, and that the democratic Left remains unwilling to purge, yes, purge them, any more than they are willing to state in plain English that they will back democracies over autocracies.

“SS, so we should trust the exquisite judgment of the American electorate and most especially that of the leaders of our major parties?

NO , THIS IS STILL A FREE COUNTRY, SO CONSULT YOURSELF AND WHOMEVER AND TRUST HOWEVER YOU PLEASE. I ONLY STATED, AS AN HISTORICALLY, EMPIRICALLY IRREFUTABLE PROPOSITION THAT BOTH MAJOR PARTIES AND THE ELECTORATE AT LARGE SIDE WITH ISRAEL. ALWAYS HAVE.

ANYONE WHO CAN FACE THAT FACT WILL BE FREE TO MAKE ARGUMENTS ON MERIT, WITHOUT RESORTING TO CRYPTO ISRAELI- LOBBY, FALSE- CONCIOUSNESS, VANGUARD- OF-THE-PROLETARIAT INSINUATIONS.

Need I remind you that this is the same crowd that signed on to the now much maligned (even largely in their own opinion) Iraqi enterprise of 3 years ago?”

NOPE. GOT AN ARGUMENT? WHO DOESN’T KNOW WHAT REPUBLICANS SAY AND DO AND THAT THEY KEEP GETTING ELECTED? DO YOU LIVE IN BERKELEY OR ANN ARBOR?