Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[laughing dog]

2. Rules of Warfare: there should be rules and there are, but why is Israel the only one held to account for those rules?

We supply weapons to Israel. We don't supply weapons to Hamas. What do you expect us to do make Hamas accountable to those rules?

Supply more weapons to Israel.

At this point, Ukraine needs them much more.

 

[TomC]

Why do you keep confusing Gazans with Hamas?

Let me know when you can distinguish between Gazans and Hamas.

I don't think you can.
Tom

I think any Gazan under the age of 5 is not Hamas for sure.

But if their parents are Hamas supporters, those children will be human shields as much as any other people.
Tom

 

[laughing dog]

Why do you keep confusing Gazans with Hamas?

Let me know when you can distinguish between Gazans and Hamas.

I don't think you can.
Tom

I think any Gazan under the age of 5 is not Hamas for sure.

But if their parents are Hamas supporters, those children will be human shields as much as any other people.
Tom

It is obvious you don’t care if there is a difference between a Gazan and Hamas. But it is possible to make a distinction in same instances.

 

[ZiprHead]

2. Rules of Warfare: there should be rules and there are, but why is Israel the only one held to account for those rules?

We supply weapons to Israel. We don't supply weapons to Hamas. What do you expect us to do make Hamas accountable to those rules?

Supply more weapons to Israel.

At this point, Ukraine needs them much more.

Yup. We should send as much as we can before the administrations change.

 

[ZiprHead]

Ground combat causes a lot more civilian casualties than what Israel was doing from the air.

I'd like to see some confirmation of that other than just a dry statement.

Just do some reading about combat instead of listening to sound bites.

Apparently you already have so you should easily be able to find some cites.

Still waiting for those cites, Loren.

In the meantime, I suggest you read this:

The dilemma of ‘prophylactic high explosive’​

A recurring observation throughout urban warfare literature is that lessons have to be relearned time after time - at a cost of blood - because they aren’t enshrined in doctrine and training. In 1968, the Vietnam War saw the US Marine Corps deployed with no urban warfare training. The consequences were felt during the battle for Hue City when leaders were left to scrabble through footlockers looking for World War II field manuals to help guide military actions.

In Part 1 of this series, we reviewed a data analysis conducted by the Dupuy Institute that compared World War II urban actions with non-urban actions. The study found that attacking cities was no bloodier than other attacks, and perhaps less brutal. The same study also found that, in an urban environment, the defence was, on average, more costly than the attack.

This means that cities do not advantage the defender but cost more to fight from. From a Western point of view then, cities were not a negative - less casualties in attack (and Western forces were the attackers) and more attritive in defence (and the defenders were the enemy). It is no surprise then that post-World War II doctrine had no great cause to focus on urban warfare. Memories of the US army, suffering through the Hurtgen forest, the Australians bleeding on the Kokoda trail, the Canadians bogged down on the Dieppe beach, the British/Indian army wading through Burma and the Marines slaughtered on Okinawa - all had a firm place in military mythology and post-war reminiscences. There was no reason for the steady, decisive allied victories such as the US battle that cleared the German city of Aachen to stand out. The experience of World War II gave Western armies no reason to think of city fighting as anything special amongst the horrors of combat.

In Part 1, we introduced a paradigm that has featured within urban warfare literature over the last 30 years – namely, extreme bloodiness and defender advantage. Yet, the Allied experience of 1940s warfare leaves quite the opposite impression. When did the switch happen? Why was the paradigm inverted?

Urban Myths? Exploring assumptions in the literature of urban Warfare: Part 2

 

[Tigers!]

2. Rules of Warfare: there should be rules and there are, but why is Israel the only one held to account for those rules?

We supply weapons to Israel. We don't supply weapons to Hamas. What do you expect us to do make Hamas accountable to those rules?

Give Israel the go ahead to do what needs done.

Israel doesn't need that from us. All they want are the weapons.

Protect Israelis from violent Muslim authoritarians by whatever means necessary.

This disaster wouldn't have been so bad if Gazans had returned the Israelis they kidnapped a year ago. But no, we can't expect Muslims to have any ethics or be held to "international laws". They're way too special for such niceties. From the UN to the ICC, violent Muslim extremists can't be held accountable for anything.

So Israel has to do their own self protection on their own.
Tom

Why do you keep confusing Gazans with Hamas?

Bit like the conflatation of Hitler with Germans in WW2 I suppose for example

 

[TomC]

Bit like the conflatation of Hitler with Germans in WW2 I suppose for example

Or, more precisely, conflating Nazis with Germans.
When the leadership is authoritarian and violence prone you won't see much pushback from the folks just trying to get along.
Tom

 

[Shadowy Man]

Bit like the conflatation of Hitler with Germans in WW2 I suppose for example

Or, more precisely, conflating Nazis with Germans.
When the leadership is authoritarian and violence prone you won't see much pushback from the folks just trying to get along.
Tom

So, in your mind, Germans, as a whole, invaded Poland and committed the holocaust because the volks just trying to get along didn’t push back against Hitler?

And that would justify the allied forces attacking any and all Germans in the war? Which they did. Dresden is a great example among many others.

 

[TomC]

So, in your mind, Germans, as a whole, invaded Poland and committed the holocaust because the volks just trying to get along didn’t push back against Hitler?

So, in your mind, Allies like GB and the Yankees are guilty of mass murders because they didn't distinguish between German civilians and the leadership?
Tom

 

[Tigers!]

Bit like the conflatation of Hitler with Germans in WW2 I suppose for example

Or, more precisely, conflating Nazis with Germans.
When the leadership is authoritarian and violence prone you won't see much pushback from the folks just trying to get along.
Tom

So, in your mind, Germans, as a whole, invaded Poland and committed the holocaust because the volks just trying to get along didn’t push back against Hitler?

Yes they did. I.5 million soldiers invaded Poland, not just one Adolf Hitler. They did not have to do it. They had moral agency. There were some who realised what was to come and protested as they could. Ludwig Beck resigned his general's commission to protest against the annexation of Czechoslovakia. Niemoller and Bonhoeffer et al protested and paid the price.

And that would justify the allied forces attacking any and all Germans in the war? Which they did. Dresden is a great example among many others.

Well GB and the Commonwealth could have laid back and thought of England but I'd think you'd agree it was good they did not.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Hamas purposely set out to kill Israeli civilians so what can reasonably be expected in return?

I already said what should be a reasonably expected return.

No. Your position has been one of shall-not's. You persist in thinking there's a better answer is just the evil Jews would look for it.

There is a better answer and it's already required by international law.

What better answer? You're simply deciding one exists because you don't like the current result.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I don't know how to use the quote system, it always goes wrong for me, so I'll address some of the responses others have made to my post here.

It can be picky. Be very cautious about any delete that isn't at the same level top and bottom. If you want to quote multiple messages you hit +Quote button on each message you want to quot.e.

1. During the urban combat training I went through, we got massacred the first time, but did get better each subsequent time. HOWEVER, a laser engagement system can only duplicate small arms fired. What it cannot duplicate are grenades, claymore mines and other types of anti-personnel mines. It can't duplicate RPGs or smaller mortar fire, nor can it duplicate homemade devices like molotov cocktails. So, given all that, calling in an artillery and/or airstrike is exactly what military leadership should do. Are you really going to tell a young soldier's family, "Hey, at least he got killed in a way that third party liberals thought was right!"

Exactly--and when you factor in explosives things are even more in favor of the defenders.

I think they could make a system for simulating some explosives--things like claymores could contain an unfocused pulsed laser, a narrow enough frequency band it could still be bright enough. (You see a slight variation in energy repeating at the frequency of the emitter, call it a hit.) But thrown weapons would be problematic to avoid hurting people with them.

2. Rules of Warfare: there should be rules and there are, but why is Israel the only one held to account for those rules? Also, on a practical level, the rules with respect to direct combat aren't realistic and never have been. Warfare is ghastly, and should be avoided to the greatest extent possible. However, when it's unavoidable, the job is to decimate the enemy and destroy their fighting capability in order to end the war (fundamentally speaking).

Not murdering troops that have surrendered or are in the process of surrendering and not murdering and torturing POWs is realistic and doable. Not purposefully attacking purely civilian targets is realistic and doable. So again, why isn't Hamas held to this standard?

Finally, why does Islamic fundamentalism find so much sympathy among liberals, especially atheists? This will never cease to puzzle me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Christian fundamentalism is fucking awful, so why doesn't the same apply to a religion that subjugates and murders women, non-believers, and those not of that faith?

Because the side with the power is always in the wrong. That's a given, you only need to figure out why they are in the wrong.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Ground combat causes a lot more civilian casualties than what Israel was doing from the air.

I'd like to see some confirmation of that other than just a dry statement.

I'm aware of only one incident that might reasonably be described as a city block full of people dying--and it was from indiscriminate shooting by Hamas. The Israeli troops were disguised, they couldn't have been carrying heavy weapons.

Another dry statement that doesn't provide the confirmation I asked for.

Unfortunately, Google isn't good at specialized but basic information.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Most of the buildings are still standing. That's actually a better than expected outcome. And note that most of those buildings were empty. In the earlier part of the war we had counts of weapons dropped. And we had Hamas claims of the dead. Even if you take Hamas' data at face value (at least 10% is known to be fake) Israel was averaging less than one dead per bomb dropped. Israel is incredibly good at getting the civilians out of the way.

and when the war is over and Hamas completely defeated the Gazan civilians can simply move back into the houses that weren’t destroyed and live a merry life of freedom from tyranny and terrorism.

Will the Gazans ever allow the war to end?
70 years of history suggest that Gazans, as a whole, prefer violence and ethnic cleansing over peace and prosperity.
Tom

Gaza doesn't have a choice. The war exists because of the terror money. Stop that, you end the war. Don't stop that, the war will not end.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Taking civilians into account is required by international law.

Yes, but not to the degree that you are demanding.

Where have I specified a degree?

You consider anything that's happened excessive.

Urban warfare and violence

Urban warfare endangers the lives of civilians and the infrastructure they depend on, while its humanitarian consequences persist years after the fighting ends.

www.icrc.org

1. In order to better safeguard civilians and civilian infrastructure, parties to armed conflicts must rigorously apply and better comply with existing international humanitarian law, which is adapted to the major trends in warfare. The underlying principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution are critical in protecting civilians against the effects of hostilities in urban areas.
2. They must also urgently reassess their approach to operations in urban environments, including by reviewing urban warfare doctrines, training and planning procedures, tactics and choice of weapons. Protecting civilians must be made a strategic priority in the planning and conduct of military operations, as warring parties remain obliged to take all feasible precautions to avoid incidental harm to civilians.
3. Most importantly, they must avoid using heavy explosive weapons at all costs. Such weapons are designed to deliver large explosive force from a distance and over wide areas, which causes indiscriminate damage and makes them ill-adapted for use in urban and other population centres. They should not be used unless sufficient mitigation measures are taken to limit their wide-area effects and the subsequent risk for civilians.

Points 1 and 2 don't say what you think they say.

What do you think they say?

They say you be as careful as you reasonably can. They do not say you can't do what's needed to get the enemy.

And you're missing what happened with the bombs. They are exploding underground. That makes a huge difference in their effect.

Earlier in the war we had multiple videos of bombs going off--you could see the blast zone and you could see the secondary effects of the tunnels collapsing well beyond the primary blast area. So long as the tunnel collapse range exceeds the blast range it's better to use the bigger booms.

‘Not seen since Vietnam’: Israel dropped hundreds of 2,000-pound bombs on Gaza, analysis shows

So? That's a reporter. Eyeballs are enough to figure it out--all the big booms are exploding underground. Absent confinement a bomb will explode in all directions. When you see a substantial deviation from this it means something blocked part of the blast. Watch what happens when they use a big boom--things go up. If the bomb had exploded above ground things would go flying outward. To get it basically going up the horizontal must be blocked in all directions--that is, underground. (You would get the same thing if it exploded in a pit, but you would see it was a pit.)

And we have video out of Lebanon that I have mentioned before. A bunch of people standing around filming themselves in front of a Hezbollah building that's about to go boom. They sure don't look scared and they sure don't look like anybody's making them be there. That means they must be sufficiently confident of the precision of the Israeli strike and that the boom would not be in a position to yeet things everywhere. I've seen other video without the selfies that likewise shows that the bombs are clearly exploding underneath the target--the buildings blow up, not out.

You have no idea about what those people were thinking.

Yes, I do. You don't get a bunch of people going into high danger for selfies. Thus a bunch of people taking selfies means they do not perceive it as dangerous. And a building getting blown up is a pretty energetic event--if people are willing to be anywhere nearby it means they have a lot of confidence about how the building will blow up.

If they were warned the building was about to be bombed why wouldn't Hezbollah leave too?

People can leave. When Israel calls ahead on such strikes it's because they're after stuff that can't run out the door, not people.

Or look at that video you posted of Israel destroying part of a Lebanese village. The charges were in the tunnels underneath. It's not Israel's fault that there are civilian buildings literally on top of military structures and the laws of war do not protect such structures.

This I agree with. But the village was evacuated and it was ground troops that that wired the tunnels for destruction.

The point is you presented it as evidence of Israel doing wrong. In hindsight it was a precision action against an unquestionably military target. Basically as clean and perfect as a military action can be.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

This disaster wouldn't have been so bad if Gazans had returned the Israelis they kidnapped a year ago. But no, we can't expect Muslims to have any ethics or be held to "international laws". They're way too special for such niceties. From the UN to the ICC, violent Muslim extremists can't be held accountable for anything.

The problem isn't Muslims. The problem is radical Islam and the terror money.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Israel is a democracy. It provides rights and protections for all of its citizens. While same sex couples cannot get married in Israel, they can go to a country that does, come back to Israel, and the marriage will be recognized. Anyone wanna compare that to Iran, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, etc.?

And note that this is just a quirk of how Israeli law works, not a prohibition on gay marriage.

Israel doesn't do marriages at all. You want to get married, you go to your church/temple/mosque, not to the government. They're the ones not doing gay marriage.

Israel will recognize a marriage from anywhere.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

2. Rules of Warfare: there should be rules and there are, but why is Israel the only one held to account for those rules?

We supply weapons to Israel. We don't supply weapons to Hamas. What do you expect us to do make Hamas accountable to those rules?

Supply more weapons to Israel.

At this point, Ukraine needs them much more.

Disagree--there's little overlap between what Israel uses and what Ukraine can use.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Urban Myths? Exploring assumptions in the literature of urban Warfare: Part 2

????

In 1994, the Russians were invading a city with a high ethnic Russian population, so, while they bombarded, they refrained from advancing behind the curtain of explosives (which historically had such a proven protective effect). And the Somalis simply didn’t own the ordnance. In its absence they both suffered fearsome casualties. The Russians returned to Chechnya in 1999 and reverted to the proven formula, effectively destroying the city of Grozny - and were condemned for doing so by the international community.

They claim urban warfare isn't particularly bloody, yet they aren't finding examples of it other than where the city has already been smashed from the skies. Of course it's not that bloody if you're just mopping up.

 

[ZiprHead]

Hamas purposely set out to kill Israeli civilians so what can reasonably be expected in return?

I already said what should be a reasonably expected return.

No. Your position has been one of shall-not's. You persist in thinking there's a better answer is just the evil Jews would look for it.

There is a better answer and it's already required by international law.

What better answer? You're simply deciding one exists because you don't like the current result.

Yes, because it is a better answer.