Just imagine if this was an Iranian drone strike on a Western nation

[bilby]

"most" <> "all"

Most is still an unsupported assertion.

Sure. Maybe it's "many". Or "some". In the absence of investigation, who knows?

Given the massive complexity of war, it's very reasonable to presume that it's not "none", or "all". So investigations in each case are assuredly warranted. It's unacceptable to simply declare that civilian deaths are automatically justified in the pursuit of a just war aim. Beating the Nazis neither required nor justified the bombing of Dresden, for example. And to say that it did is to follow the same path of inhumanity that the Nazis themselves took, wherein every means can be justified in pursuit of what they had pre-judged to be a noble end.

Nazis (and for that matter, the archetects of South African apartheid) weren't evil people; They were boring disciplinarians, who could see that the only path to a well ordered society of people who obeyed the rules was through the elimination or segregation from society of those elements that they believed to hold collective guilt for the majority of disorder. By dismissing as a necessary evil any transgressions against the enemies of their utopian objective, they created evil ex-nihilo.

And you are following in their footsteps by airily dismissing the deaths of civilians as an unfortunate but unavoidable consequence of achieving your desired outcomes.

When you start to treat people as things, you are very quickly committing atrocities in the name of your noble goals, and the allies in WWII provide many examples of this behaviour. The losers got investigated, tried, and in many cases, executed. The winners typically did not (particularly at the higher ranks) - but that doesn't imply that they were blameless, no matter how important it was that they prevail. The crimes of the allies were the exception, rather than the rule. But they existed, and pretending that they didn't, or that if they did that they shouldn't be investigated and punished, is a very dangerous position to take.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Given the massive complexity of war, it's very reasonable to presume that it's not "none", or "all". So investigations in each case are assuredly warranted. It's unacceptable to simply declare that civilian deaths are automatically justified in the pursuit of a just war aim. Beating the Nazis neither required nor justified the bombing of Dresden, for example. And to say that it did is to follow the same path of inhumanity that the Nazis themselves took, wherein every means can be justified in pursuit of what they had pre-judged to be a noble end.

In other words, decision paralysis.

In practice you do not have infinite resources for investigation and in war it's unlikely you can investigate adequately anyway. We see what happens with the Palestinians, the "investigation" sees the Palestinian propaganda, not the truth. Anyone who dares tell the truth certainly won't be allowed to investigate any more.

 

[laughing dog]

Given the massive complexity of war, it's very reasonable to presume that it's not "none", or "all". So investigations in each case are assuredly warranted. It's unacceptable to simply declare that civilian deaths are automatically justified in the pursuit of a just war aim. Beating the Nazis neither required nor justified the bombing of Dresden, for example. And to say that it did is to follow the same path of inhumanity that the Nazis themselves took, wherein every means can be justified in pursuit of what they had pre-judged to be a noble end.

In other words, decision paralysis.

Logic fail. Investigation comes after the action, not before.

In practice you do not have infinite resources for investigation and in war it's unlikely you can investigate adequately anyway. We see what happens with the Palestinians, the "investigation" sees the Palestinian propaganda, not the truth. Anyone who dares tell the truth certainly won't be allowed to investigate any more.

Handwaved apologia.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Logic fail. Investigation comes after the action, not before.

But it will interfere with taking future actions.

In practice you do not have infinite resources for investigation and in war it's unlikely you can investigate adequately anyway. We see what happens with the Palestinians, the "investigation" sees the Palestinian propaganda, not the truth. Anyone who dares tell the truth certainly won't be allowed to investigate any more.

Handwaved apologia.

Then how are you supposed to conduct an adequate investigation in an area under enemy control?

 

[laughing dog]

But it will interfere with taking future actions.

Why?

Then how are you supposed to conduct an adequate investigation in an area under enemy control?

Either carefully or wait until it is not under enemy control or get a neutral party.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But it will interfere with taking future actions.

Why?

Then how are you supposed to conduct an adequate investigation in an area under enemy control?

Either carefully or wait until it is not under enemy control or get a neutral party.

The neutral third party will still only see the show that's presented to them.

Consider the Jenin "massacre"--Israel was fine with a third party investigation so long as it was people competent to investigate the sort of things terrorists do. The Palestinians wanted human rights types that would fall for the story. In the end it never happened because the story of the supposed massacre didn't hold up, even without an investigation the world figured out Israel's depiction of the events was basically correct.

 

[laughing dog]

Why?


Either carefully or wait until it is not under enemy control or get a neutral party.

The neutral third party will still only see the show that's presented to them.

BS

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Why?


Either carefully or wait until it is not under enemy control or get a neutral party.

The neutral third party will still only see the show that's presented to them.

BS

That's not a rebuttal. Just look at what happens in Gaza. Anyone who comes to investigate sees only what Hamas shows them. With an escort nobody would dare talk to them to tell them the truth.

 

[laughing dog]

BS

That's not a rebuttal. Just look at what happens in Gaza. Anyone who comes to investigate sees only what Hamas shows them. With an escort nobody would dare talk to them to tell them the truth.

You don't know what a rebuttal is.

Your claim is handwaved bs. Your example about the Jenin massacre omitted the part that the gov't of Israel vetoed the UN investigative team. It is possible that the gov't of Israel vetoed the investigation because they did not want an independent investigation.

Your example about Gaza is bs because you have no clue what investigators will actually see or whom they will actually talk to or how they will make their report.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

No, they attacked a Norwegian and a Japanese tanker, downed a US drone and bombed a Saudi oil processing plant. I know, it's difficult to keep it straight given the sheer amount of recent belligerent actions by the Iranian regime.

So their only act of aggression against the US itself was to down a US drone that had invaded their airspace? Don't you think the US would do the same to an Iranian drone flying over the mainland USA? It takes some twisting of logic to make the US the good guys in any of this. Iran hasn't invaded Mexico and Canada to surround the USA and threaten military action against them should they speak ill of Iran.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

BS

That's not a rebuttal. Just look at what happens in Gaza. Anyone who comes to investigate sees only what Hamas shows them. With an escort nobody would dare talk to them to tell them the truth.

You don't know what a rebuttal is.

Your claim is handwaved bs. Your example about the Jenin massacre omitted the part that the gov't of Israel vetoed the UN investigative team. It is possible that the gov't of Israel vetoed the investigation because they did not want an independent investigation.

Your example about Gaza is bs because you have no clue what investigators will actually see or whom they will actually talk to or how they will make their report.

You missed what I said about the inspection team.

Israel vetoed the originally proposed team because they were political rather than competent to actually do the investigation. They said what sort of team would be acceptable, the left didn't want a competent investigation so they didn't agree.

 

[laughing dog]

You missed what I said about the inspection team....

I did not. I do not accept your assertions as truth (i.e. they are bs) because you have long posting history of uncritically accepting and defending anything the gov't of Israel does.

Your rejection of the neutral investigations is based solely on fear that the results will disagree with your preconceived ideologically-driven conclusions.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You missed what I said about the inspection team....

I did not. I do not accept your assertions as truth (i.e. they are bs) because you have long posting history of uncritically accepting and defending anything the gov't of Israel does.

Your rejection of the neutral investigations is based solely on fear that the results will disagree with your preconceived ideologically-driven conclusions.

Israel wanted competent, not merely neutral. A team that would see they were being lied to.

 

[laughing dog]

You missed what I said about the inspection team....

I did not. I do not accept your assertions as truth (i.e. they are bs) because you have long posting history of uncritically accepting and defending anything the gov't of Israel does.

Your rejection of the neutral investigations is based solely on fear that the results will disagree with your preconceived ideologically-driven conclusions.

Israel wanted competent, not merely neutral. A team that would see they were being lied to.

I repeat - I do not accept your assertions as truth (i.e. they are bs) because you have long posting history of uncritically accepting and defending anything the gov't of Israel does.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Israel wanted competent, not merely neutral. A team that would see they were being lied to.

I repeat - I do not accept your assertions as truth (i.e. they are bs) because you have long posting history of uncritically accepting and defending anything the gov't of Israel does.

Do some reading about what Israel wanted, then. My access to Google is very limited right now, I can't dig.

 

[laughing dog]

Israel wanted competent, not merely neutral. A team that would see they were being lied to.

I repeat - I do not accept your assertions as truth (i.e. they are bs) because you have long posting history of uncritically accepting and defending anything the gov't of Israel does.

Do some reading about what Israel wanted, then. My access to Google is very limited right now, I can't dig.

The gov’t of Israel denied access of a neutral UN team using the bs fears you give instead if letting it play out snd seeing the results. In otherwords, they assumed a bad outcome.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Do some reading about what Israel wanted, then. My access to Google is very limited right now, I can't dig.

The gov’t of Israel denied access of a neutral UN team using the bs fears you give instead if letting it play out snd seeing the results. In otherwords, they assumed a bad outcome.

You keep focusing on "neutral".

1) UN teams are likely not neutral.

2) The big thing: Neutral doesn't mean skilled. Israel insisted on a team that could actually understand what they were seeing.

 

[laughing dog]

Do some reading about what Israel wanted, then. My access to Google is very limited right now, I can't dig.

The gov’t of Israel denied access of a neutral UN team using the bs fears you give instead if letting it play out snd seeing the results. In otherwords, they assumed a bad outcome.

You keep focusing on "neutral".

1) UN teams are likely not neutral.

2) The big thing: Neutral doesn't mean skilled. Israel insisted on a team that could actually understand what they were seeing.

You keep focusing on your apologia driven by the underlying assumption of a bad outcome from an investigation to justify your assumption that there is no better solution than killing civilians,

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You keep focusing on "neutral".

1) UN teams are likely not neutral.

2) The big thing: Neutral doesn't mean skilled. Israel insisted on a team that could actually understand what they were seeing.

You keep focusing on your apologia driven by the underlying assumption of a bad outcome from an investigation to justify your assumption that there is no better solution than killing civilians,

You're still ignoring the competence issue.

Remember that the issue got dropped because the Palestinian lies fell apart, the world saw Israel's claims about what happened were basically correct and thus no investigation was needed.

 

[laughing dog]

You keep focusing on "neutral".

1) UN teams are likely not neutral.

2) The big thing: Neutral doesn't mean skilled. Israel insisted on a team that could actually understand what they were seeing.

You keep focusing on your apologia driven by the underlying assumption of a bad outcome from an investigation to justify your assumption that there is no better solution than killing civilians,

You're still ignoring the competence issue.

Competence is in the eye of the beholder.

Remember that the issue got dropped because the Palestinian lies fell apart, the world saw Israel's claims about what happened were basically correct and thus no investigation was needed.

You realize you are rebutting yourself. If the lies were that easy to spot, a neutral investigation would have spotted them. And that assumes your apologia is accurate.