Violence Begat Violence II
The following post is courtesy of my friend Said.
I had planned to watch the comments in reply to my post on 24th of July, as I was curious to see the feedback it would generate. The closing statement of “pro_israel” made me reconsider my plans. I do not want to get into point by point response, I will try to address some of the concerns raised and answer as generally as possible.
Having read the first few comments I was taken aback by the rigidity of the approach and the myopic point of view expressed within. Somehow, somewhere we are missing the big picture. We are so inconsequential in respect to time, yet we find the strength to pass judgment upon ourselves and others from the comfort of our homes and chairs *be it close to the fighting or not*. The fact remains that it is us, the people, who are dying day in and day out. I have met people from the other side and was glad to portray the image that truly represents the people. We are regular Shlomo, Tony and Afeef (Tom, Dick and Harry) going about their daily struggle for the daily bread of life.
Who started? When? How Many? Where? Why?
You fired first… NO you fired first…
You have been firing for 6 years!!!! You have been firing for 30 years!!!!
IN THE END… does it matter? Death is death, and blood is blood and the more the not so merrier.
We either give in to the common belief that Man is violent by nature and thrives on killing man and taking spoils, or agree that man is a more intelligent than that and can learn to live in a group, in a manner that is somewhat more civilized than big-fish, small-fish scenarios.
If we ALL stop killing today, then maybe we can have peace in a few hundred years.
Lies we are all being told, every time we wake it is SSDD (Same Shit Different Day) or even worse SSSD (Same Shit Same Day). But within this porridge of lies that we consume everyday we are still unable to cut through the skin and see the real stories behind the lies and analytical mumbo-jumbo.
Guys: we cannot “end” you… and anyone who thinks he can is definitely dreaming, but you need to acknowledge the fact that you cannot end us *don’t you agree??*. By the same token, you should not expect that you can control our destiny, as we should not expect to control yours.
EdoRiver… you are a lousy pacifist…I LOVE YOU. How can we get other to think like this en-mass? I have seen too many bodies, visited too many ground-zeros, and listened to so much lying that I am now saturated. I think your comment should have brought this debate to a close; alas the younger generation never listen to the elders.
I do not write to cleanse myself… My post is raised to all those who want peace in the future.
In any conflict, arbiters will normally assess victim vs. assailant based on the amount of damage inflicted…
VICTIMS are usually hurt more, and they have to live with their hurt for the term of their natural life. Assailants on the other hand will argue along the lines of why they did what they did and the things the victim did to provoke the attack.
My position is very simple really… hundreds of thousands of people are living under the knife, and I want that to stop. Let the politicians fight it out in the hands of combatants who chose to live and die under the knife. I did not choose the knife path and I don’t want it and I don’t want it imposed upon me!!! I stand to walk away from the killing field… if you all want the killing field to continue… TAKE IT with my BLESSINGS.
Said
posted by lifeflaw @ 11:37 PM
6 Comments:
Ahmad, I too will walk away from the killing field.
Said - peace will only truly come when Israel's neighbors can refer to it as the state of Israel without feeling the need to put the word state in quotes.
Until that day, there will always be both those who actively work for the destruction of Israel and those who support the former with words and money and arms.
And as long as those people are around, Israel will justifiably maintain a highly militarized society that treats every attack on it as a possible existential threat.
People who want peace must come to terms with the existence of those they want peace with.
sorry, but one more point. Assessing victim and assailant on the basis of sheer quantity of pain suffered is morally unjustifiable and practically counterproductive.
"uterly twisted logic, pure orwell. do you actually believe this nonsense?"
well, that is a well thought out, logical attack on my POV. Wait, actually, no it isn't.
What is so hard to understand about this?
1) State 1 attacks state 2 without just cause, killing 100 citizens and threatening far more.
If state 2, in responding to the attack, kills 101 citizens in state 1, who is the aggressor? By the logic you are defending, State 2 is the aggressor, since they killed more people. How about if they kill 102? 120?
does that make any sense at all? "aggressor" is a well defined term, both in the English language and international law.
Most importantly, in international law the aggressor is the state which first provides causus belli an act of war that grants the offended state the legal right to engage in war in response.
2) Lets look at the practical consequences of a quantity based definition, shall we?
First, it allows the true aggressor - the one that initiates the conflict by providing causus belli - to dictate the terms of battle. Are you a populous state facing a much smaller state? Then engage in a war of attrition - you kill five of theirs, they kill five of yours. In the end, sheer numbers will mean you win the battle, because if they ever react in proportion to the threat you pose, rather than the raw numbers you kill at any one time, they become the "aggressor".
Are you a small terror organization with a dispersed base of operatives? Kill a few civillians at a time and your target state can never defeat you without being labeled the "aggressor".
Are you a state that would love to destroy your neighbor but aren't sure who would win an all out war? Begin with small, probing attacks, secure in the knowledge that the state you are attacking will only be able to reply with similarly small responses, until you are sure that you have the advantage. Then, once you've gotten a sense of the other state's capabilities and know you have the advantage, engage in an all out attack.
In other words, the incentive you create by adopting a raw numbers standard for determining who is the "aggressor" is an incentive to engage in unceasing low-intensity conflict, with the true victims never able to respond in a way that will prevent future attacks or definitively defeat its enemies.
And that, PRD, ultimately leads to more casualties, more death, more injuries, more horror, over the long term.
PRD:
Well, that post was more logical than the prior one. No, wait, it wasn't. If you want an echo chamber repeating your delusional view of the world, stay off the internet and stay tuned to al-Manar. I won't repeat your obscenities to you, but I won't pay attention to them either.
deal with it.
Sol:
There are a couple of problems with your response:
"They who kill, regardless who is the targets, -wether it is children, aged people or soldiers- are called the agressor. And they who counter strike what the agressor did is called the avenger."
So since Hezbollah began the attack, by killing Israeli soldiers on Israeli territory and firing rockets at civillian villages to provide cover for their attack, they are the aggressors? And Israel is the "avenger"?
Or do Hezbollah's actions not count in determining who acted first? That's an argument commonly known as "it all started when he hit me back."
"and their precisely guided missile and their target finder satellite is OBVIOUSLY IN PURPOSE targetted innocent civilians!!"
This is a sad misconception that accounts for much of the vitriol against Israel. Israel cannot guide missiles to avoid civillians and hit only Hezbollah fighters when Hezbollah fighters do their fighting from the middle of a group of civillians, when Hezbollah fires rockets from civillian villages, and stores rockets in civillian homes.
"Not Hizbullah, not the katysushas, neither the Libanesse warfare that must be seen in their hi tech satellite"
first, that argument *might* make sense if some - even one - missile had landed on a single military installation. Or if Hezbollah hadn't announced to the world that they would target Israeli cities. Do you really believe that every single missile fired by Hezbollah has mistakenly landed only in civillian areas? Were the missiles accidentally filled with ball bearings and shrapnel that can only damage civillians, not military installations? (oops, we meant to put explosives in there, but accidentally filled it with a weapon to maximize civillian casualties - again and again and again. Our mistake). Do you actually believe that after Nasrallah said "we will hit Haifa" they hit Haifa by mistake? How about Nasrallah's apologies for killing Arab Israelis - "we're sorry, we didn't mean it"? Doesn't that tell you that they *did* mean it when it came to killing jews?
Stop and think about it for a second - you'll see I'm right.
"n additional they signed their laser-guided missile with very sweet signature from their cute children that said "from Israeli Kids to Libanesse kids with love"!!"
again, you simply have it wrong.
1) those are not missiles, they are artillery shells.
2) they don't say "to lebanese kids with love" but "to Nasrallah with love".
Was it an idiotic thing for the parents to let the kids do? Of course. But why did the kids do it? Because they had just spent days in a bomb shelter, huddled in terror, and had been told that they had to stay there because a man named "Nasrallah" was trying to kill them. And they were told that these shells were a weapon against Nasrallah. Do you think these kids made the mental connection to dead lebanese civillians? Of course not - they were simply dealing with their own trauma in a way that didn't hurt anybody at all (until it was photographed and spread around the web in a distorting game of "propaganda telephone")
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