War crimes

Israel prepares to defend its soldiers from war crimes tribunals. I have a better way for Israel to defend its soldiers from war crimes: Simply quit ordering their soldiers to commit war crimes. But that'd be too simple, I guess.

I hear two big talking points from Israeli apologists:

1. The U.S. and Israel have a unique relationship that explains why the U.S. has such lockstep support for Israel.
2. Where was the world when Hamas goons were firing rockets at Israel?

Okay, on #1: Yeah, Israel is Unique alright. It is Unique in that it is the only U.S. “ally” that a) has attacked and killed U.S. military personnel in a U.S. ship flying the U.S. flag, b) refuses to allow the U.S. to have basing rights, c) refuses to share intelligence with the United States even though the U.S. shares intelligence with Israel (thereby causing the deaths of several U.S. airmen over Lebanon in the early 1980's), and d) brags about controlling U.S. foreign policy for the Middle East.

On #2: The world was decrying the fact that Hamas goons were firing rockets at Israel, that's where the world was. Nobody is shedding a tear for any Hamas criminals killed in this recent action. If the IDF had gone after the Hamas goons firing rockets, there would be no outcry. Instead, they apparently decided that Hamas goons firing rockets were too hard a target, and started bombing and shelling civilian and U.N. facilities such as hospitals, schools, and U.N. food warehouses, under the belief that killing people who were NOT criminals would somehow make the criminals stop being, err, criminals. Which is utter bullshit. Criminals don’t give a shit about civilians, and killing civilians never stops criminals, whether said criminals are Hamas criminals or otherwise.

There is one rule that civilized nations use when criminals are hiding behind civilian hostages, and that one rule is, DON’T KILL THE HOSTAGES. The IDF willingly violated that rule and thereby proved that Israel is not a civilized nation. There is no (zero) excuse for deliberately targetting civilian and U.N. facilities, even if there were criminals hiding in the vicinity. That’s called a HOSTAGE SITUATION, and civilized nations (as vs. Israel) know what to do there — surround the criminals and their hostages, make sure the criminals know they’re outnumbered, outgunned, and not going to get away, and NEGOTIATE with the criminals to get their surrender peacefully, while preparing to rush and kill the criminals if they start killing the hostages. And try to get your own snipers into position to take out the criminals without loss of hostage life if possible, but if you can’t, so be it.

But that’s what happens in civilized nations, which Israel has proven it is not. So it goes. As thou sow, thus shalt thou reap.

-- Badtux the Old School penguin