mikeymikec
Lifer
- May 19, 2011
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The difference is one of intent.
An attack specifically targeting an infant is one thing.
An attack on a Hamas rocket team that is fleeing down the stairwell of a residential tower they just fired from is another thing entirely. Both are going to result in a dead infant.
But the intent of the two attacks are entirely different.
I think you're being quite naive, though perhaps that logic will work for some soldiers who are still very new to the horrors of war and will probably at least temporarily need to insulate themselves from their actions, but if you're using an explosive you ought to have an realistic idea of what effect it will have if you use it near or in an apartment block.
Whether the intent is to kill babies or the user of such weaponry is indifferent to killing babies is such a thin distinctive line that as far as I'm concerned it doesn't exist.
Who is the one committing the war crime?
The Hamas rocket team launching off a top of a civilian residential tower at a civilian target?
or the Israel pilot trying to stop said rocket team from being able to get another launch off?
The laws of war say the rocket team is a valid military target.
Uh, they both are crimes. The Israeli pilot knows perfectly well that their weaponry cannot possibly target just the rocket team and if they fire a missile or tear up the place with a cannon, there is going to be collateral damage. There is also the question of what happens if the ordnance goes off course.
How are you defining war crimes? I have heard that term being thrown around a lot in this thread.
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/war-crimes.shtml
Read point 2.iv and tell me that's not an argument absolutely riddled with loopholes.
According to the Israeli government and the likes of Hamas, this war is 100% necessary. The problem is, their both fighting in their own back yards; there's no no-man's land except that with which they create by eradicating civilian communities. Many "valid military targets" are neatly and purposefully wrapped in civilian resources, and both sides are convinced that targeting them is a valid means to an end even though there is at least one alternative.
Any practical definition of a war crime is mostly relative to the conditions of the war and what political will there is to pursue the crime, and is probably by several orders of magnitude the most poorly enforced crime in existence.
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