Two Israeli soldiers found guilty of using human shields

Now, what's their punishment going to be?

forcing the nine-year-old boy to check suspected booby-traps.

WHAT. Seriously, what?

Humans Are Bastards and all that...
So imho not surprising that it happens, but it's a good sign that Israel found those two guilty.

They should be thrown in jail and never allowed to see the light of day again... a fate too merciful for my tastes, but I'm not a fan for the death penalty. If I was I'd go for death by crushing, or maybe order a swordsman to give them the thousand cuts treatment. I have reasons for opposing the death penalty, and mercy doesn't enter into it. I'm just worried about the number of poor bastards they catch by accident.

I'm deadly serious by the way.

EDIT: Ok, no. I'm not for torturing people to death. Not when I'm not enraged anyway. But I do still think they should be locked up for life!

edited 3rd Oct '10 11:14:24 AM by GameChainsaw

When do the members of Hamas get the same treatment? Or is there another Double Standard in play yet again over the region?

Well, to serve justice on the leaders of Hamas, they would first have to capture them, then put them on trial, and I'm sure that the leaders of Hamas are smart enough to lay low, and avoid capture

^ Yet people all over the world refuse to allow Israel to act on Gaza and capture those people.

Double Standard in play much?

@Tom: Some of us are getting tired of being expected to pick a side when both sides keep on pushing themselves into sick, sick territory.

I'd suggest throwing the terrorists behind bars too, but you have to catch them first.

EDIT: These are individuals in a wider conflict. You can't paint an entire side black for their actions.

edited 3rd Oct '10 1:27:50 PM by GameChainsaw

^^^

Yes, Double Standard, because one is a terrorist organization and the other is a democratic state. Nobody ever expects the Hamas to do everything else but terroristic acts that go against Human Rights. If the Israelis let this one slip, the lose all credibility as a state that is merely defending itself against terroristic attacks and becomes a bunch of racist assholes. Some would say that they already are.

edited 3rd Oct '10 1:36:56 PM by eX

Hence why you don't paint an entire side by the actions of two individuals.

edited 3rd Oct '10 2:32:32 PM by GameChainsaw

Hey, that's a way better policy if you want traps to stop. Make their own people check for booby traps laid by their own people.

I wouldn't quite call that a human shield.

I disagree with the entire Palestine-Israel issue in the first place, but I'll admit I find it an acceptable tactic to dealing with an insurgency where booby traps are a major threat.

edited 3rd Oct '10 5:30:05 PM by Barkey

You only say that because of the mistaken belief that Hamas and other 'insurgencies' think in the same way you or I do.

^^

You realize they were using a child?

edited 3rd Oct '10 6:04:27 PM by eX

We could use the same trick that was used during the civil war. Have the prisoners check.

^^

Ever grown completely spiteful of a local populace because they keep laying traps for you and those traps have blown up your friends, and you know that if those traps will only blow up their own people then they would either stop using them or be declared callous murderers?

If they are willing to lay traps they know might blow up their children, then that's their fault. You don't like my line of logic, but I think in terms of how to win a war, not what is politically correct.

And that's not even necessarily a "total war" concept, if I thought like that I would slaughter every village we were ever attacked in until either no villages were left, or we stopped being attacked.

That or I'd nuke the whole place and pave over the crater.

There isn't a concept of fairness in war. If someone says it isn't fair to not give them the opportunity to fight back, I say it isn't fair that they get to blow up my friends. That leads my side and the enemy to be at an impasse, and whoever is the most ruthless effectively wins. The greater power always has the more ruthless options available to them, using them or not is the question.

edited 3rd Oct '10 6:59:24 PM by Barkey

^ I assume whichever comes first for the whole destroying-villages-until-either-you-stop-getting-attacked-or-there-are-no-more-villages?

Pretty much. If no more attacks happened, it means you either killed all of the resistance or destroyed their will to fight, or you killed everyone.

The only thing keeping a major occupying power from achieving victory in a captured populace is their resolve and ability to do things that are utterly ruthless.

If someone invaded my country with the same moral limitations, I would fully and utterly exploit them until they either toughened up, or lost resolve and left my country.

War is about actions and reactions, both open warfare and insurgencies. The locals ambush with small arms fire and grenades? All convoys have air cover to get rid of that problem. They start using booby traps and roadside bombs? We send their own people on point to trip those traps. If they don't cease as an action to our reaction, then they lose face for killing their own people, or they stop. Either way your own troops quit dying to bombs, which is the entire aim of that reaction.

edited 3rd Oct '10 7:06:31 PM by Barkey

If a country invaded the US, I personally would see to it that every last son-of-a-bitch who sets foot on US soil gets sent home in a body bag, preferably in chunks or a fine puree.

^^
Aren't you assuming that the resistance is a single entitiy, i.e. that you are using THEIR children instead of just children who happen to live in proximity.
To give an example:
"Oh well, we have those occupiers, but live isn't really worse than before, I even got a better job. If only those stupid insurgents would stop their fighting..." *Son gets killed by using the child to disarm booby traps* "DIE BITCHES"

Would be a really good job discouraging them from fighting.
Being brutal sometimes works, if there are figurative "trenches" that are prevening it from escalating like a fire. Judging this is, of course, not the speciality of soldiers. You could wonderfully argue wether adopting a practice of complete brutality will pacify the area in the long term, but because of the stuff you guys said it seemed to me like you missed some of the possible consequences.

Barkey, you argumentation leaves only to possibilities in any given conflict, regardless of how minor it might be, victory or total annihilation, so the Hamas can't stop their attacks either. Neither could al'quida, for that matter. Not a very efficient way of problem solving, since it would only devolve into mass murder in the end. You also did took into account that the Hamas doesn't speak or have the support of all the Palestinian people.

Tom, applying Barkey's ideas in your scenario, your actions would only lead to the death of countless American civilians.

edited 3rd Oct '10 7:52:50 PM by eX

The amusing thing is that Barkey and Major Tom's thought processes are remarkably similar to those driving Hamas. Hamas also feels their land has been invaded, and they also want to send people home in body bags. Hamas has probably calculated whether they think it's worse for a child to be used as a booby trap guinea pig by the IDF, or for that same child to grow up under Israeli occupation, and they know which outcome they think is worse; and as such, by their logic, they view the child's death as preferable. Asymmetrical wars are such because in them, the two sides don't play by the same rules. Hamas doesn't have to deal with international pressure. They don't have PR problems.

edited 3rd Oct '10 8:05:45 PM by BonSequitur

No, there is only submission, or total annihilation.

It's the most up-front and efficient way to end an insurgency. But it's also a politically incorrect and absolutely ruthless way.

So you might get towns that decide to fight to the death, but other towns who think of their own families might decide "NO WE AREN'T GOING TO FIGHT ANYMORE DAMNIT!" and rat out all their own insurgents who are in hiding in order to save themselves or their families.

It makes things very simple.

^

I'm not saying I endorse those practices, but merely saying from a perspective of profession that they are the most efficient way to win a war in someone elses land. He who is most ruthless wins, or he who gives the locals the most incentive wins. Floundering in between is how you lose.

That's why Iraq wasn't led by tribal warlords or religious rule until we got there. Saddam was the most ruthless son of a bitch in the country, willing to do absolutely anything to ensure his own rule. End of story. I can empathize with the enemy by knowing what I would feel like if my home were invaded, and that I would do the things that they would do. But at the same time I can also professionally detach from that empathy when I'm the invader. It's a matter of efficiency.

edited 3rd Oct '10 8:06:16 PM by Barkey

But that's a stupid fucking way to approach your profession. The most efficient way to win a case is to falsify evidence. The most efficient way to make a documentary is to make shit up. The most efficient way to make children's toys is with lead-based paint. There are considerations beyond efficiency to take. Your profession is emphatically not to ditch everything else and think 'right, how do I win this thing?' It is to figure out how to win this thing within the practical, ethical, human and moral constraints.

within the practical, ethical, human and moral constraints

Of whom? The softies in Europe? The signatories of the Geneva Convention who blatantly violated its provisions at every turn like Vietnam? The idiotic politicians pandering to the activist groups in the US Congress?

War is a simple matter of "how do I win this thing?", the smart and competent commanders plan a route for victory, not survival or looking good in the eyes of thin-skinned folks.