foe

There is a diffrence between using badly organized fanatics to blow up military instillations etc and using fanatics to blow up women and children

mic

International law is a joke. US cross this law some many times and nothing happen

Pathfinder

What the US military has done, more than once, is punish our own for violations of the rules of War.

Can you account for a single time that this has happened with a member of the Israeli military.

One recent event comes to mind; when an Israeli Tank Commander gunned down civilians, because he mistakenly thought a curfew was still in place. It would be immaterial if a curfew was in place or not. It is a War Crime to intentionally shoot unarmed civilians.

Has the Israeli military Court Martialed this Tank Commander? Will he be put in Prison when he is courtmartialed.

It is true that we will not allow our military to be tried in an International Court, and this is as it should be (because of multiple reasons), but we do Court Martial and imprison our own, when we learn of a War Crime.

foe

Actually they have inquired into the mistake and court marcialed him..

But you are a past soldier you have to admit that despite how careful you are mistakes do happen and innocent people get killed.... But surely you cannot tell me that its the same thing as targeting civilians on purpose

FATPad

How do you tell who's an unarmed civilian and who's a nutcase coming to try and kill you over there?

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mic

In Latin America too or Vietnam, Laos, Kamboja?

jammyjenkins

no probs

can't change my language though ... it's the way my mother raised me <img src="images/icons/1bluewinky.gif">

Pathfinder

Unintentional deaths occur in any conflict. As I understand the event; this Tank Commander did not make a mistake. He intentionally fired upon unarmed civilians (as I recall killing one or more children) in broad daylight, because he thought a curfew was still in place (it may have been), but curfew or not, this is a clear cut case of a War Crime and if the men under his command fired also, they too are guilty of a War Crime.

Maybe you can find out for me what punishment he received? In this country he would be confined to our military prison for a large number of years.

I forgot...are you not in the USA?

foe

Please link me to an article... What I remember was that the commender thought the curfew was not lifted as you said, but that he saw a group of people approaching his position.. When a hostline enemy (as he thought) approaches you, you fire. As you know often its not easy to tell if someone is a militant or a child, palestinian gunmen do not wear uniforms have been known to shoot behidn groups of civilians etc.

mic

What punisment received this B-52 pilots who attack civilian targets and kill a lot of people with napalm in Vietnam, I think only appolgy from Macknamara recently.

CDSmith

My question would be Why are unarmed civilians approaching a tank?? It leads me to believe that some people over there are brain dead. Really, as an unarmed civilian in that region I am 100% sure I would stay the hell at home rather than walking up to tanks.

In light of that, as the tank commander I would wonder what these brain-dead civilians were doing walking up to my tank. Are they going to toss a grenade down my hatch? How close should I let them get?

Solution: Unarmed innocent bystanders should stay away from tanks in a war zone.

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foe

Maybe, maybe they misunderstood, however I know that the Israilies fired several shots into the air first before firing once into the croud to disperce them

CDSmith

Interesting.
I don't see where a court marial would be warranted then. I simply can not figure out why average joe citizen would be out walking around and risking this kind of incident when they could just as easily stay at home and tend the chores, mind the kids, screw the wife etc. Doesn't make sense.

If more people stayed at home in that region there would be far less violence occuring.
Stay the fuck at home.

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falafel

mic, why going that far to Vietnam ?
Only a couple of weeks ago, an American plane bombarded and killed dozens of Afghans who were attending a wedding.
Is this right ? No !
Was it a war crime ? No, it wasn't.
I'm very sorry for those who died, I really do, but I have no doubt in my mind that the pilot did not mean to kill those people.

Israel NEVER sends its troops to kill Palestinian intentionally.
NEVER HAPPENED - NEVER WILL.
I wish all the terrorists lived in Terrorville and not in the middle of civilian population.
That could have prevented a lot of deaths.
The Palestinian terrorists use the civilians as a shield and don't have the guts to face the army face to face, knowing they will defeated instantly.
They only have the guts to brainwash young teenager, poison their minds and send them to kill woman & children.

Pathfinder

Well...I do not know any thing about this specific incident.

I can tell you that it is estimated that millions of South Vietnamese civilians (a bigger loss than North Vietnamese civilians) lost their lives during the Vietnam War.

Non combatants are always killed in war, intentionally and unintentionally. This was a full blown war with the military of conflicting Nations engaged in battle.

In this kind of war civilians often become intentional targets and we targeted civilians in some instances in both Vietnam and Korea on a far lesser scale, than we did during the Second World War.

I can also tell you that I personally know that many of our soldiers were Court Martialed for War Crimes, ranging from rape, murder, killing detainees, and POW's and etc.

mic

What I said before - International Law is a joke. US are main violator of this law. US use it only when they need something. They kill thousands civilians and bystanders in recent years and nothing happen. (Latin America, Yugoslavia, Asia, Middle East)

foe

Intentionally and Unintentionally makes all the diffrence in my opinion

falafel

Of course it makes all the difference.
Intentional killings of innocent people = immoral war crimes, plain murder.
Unintentional killings of innocent people = tragedy, but it's not a war crime.

Pathfinder

They had been under curfew for several days. They were out getting water, food, etc., the necessities for life.

There were literally hundreds of people outside shopping in open markets. As I recall the incident; the ones that the Tank Commander fired upon and killed were all members of the same family. A father and his children, I cannot recall if the mother was present or not. Whether or not they came to close to the Tank Commaner's tank, I do not know, but the excuse given at the time was that the Tank Commander thought the curfew was still in effect is the reason he opened fire. The Israel military admitted the Tank Commander was in the wrong.

In other words, the way I recall the incident is this: It was broad daylight, hundreds of people were out shopping, but this particular Tank was around the corner from the main area of shopping, this Palestinian family came out to do some shopping and the Tank Commander fired upon them because he thought the curfew was still in place.

If someone can find a link with the specifics of the event please post it.

Pathfinder

I did a search and this is what I came up with.

This is a report by by CNN's Christiane Amanpour:

Not very informative.

There was video of the incident on CNN at the time (which I saw at the time), but the video only showed the people shopping in an open market. The tank was out of sight and around a corner on a different street, but you could hear the Tank fire, and see people on the street that were shopping, ducking and scattering, although they were not in the line of fire from the Tank.

I found this from a Palestinian soucrce.

Pathfinder

Just FYI B-52's are not used to drop Napalm bombs.

One_post_only

.

Krome

Latest News

Is this a joke? Israel wanting to improve Palestinian life style?

One_post_only

Krome, what are the roots of British anti semitism?

Krome

Dont ask me I am as thick as pig shit. Educate me..

mic

Ok, my mistake B-52 was used for carpet bombing, for napalm attack it was US F-100 Super Sabre.

This one from Russel report :
One of the important targets aimed at by the American planes is the medical network - up to 31 August 1967, they have destroyed 127 hospitals and clinics. In Hanoi, during a raid on 21 August 1967, US planes fired an aerosol missile against a hospital situated in the heart of the city right alongside the city?s big cathedral, and during a raid on 17 November 1967 the Bach Mai central hospital, with 1,000 beds, the biggest in the country, was hit with two 750-lb. bombs and a large quantity of pellet bombs. The centre for the treatment and study of leprosy at Quynh Lap, situated on a beach, far away from any other populated area, has been attacked thirty-nine times; the Quang Binh provincial hospital thirteen times and that of Ha Tinh, seventeen times. . .
In Quang Binh province, the small fishing commune of Ngu Thuy with less than 3,000 inhabitants (visited by several Japanese and French investigation teams) has been attacked over 1,150 times in two years Five hundred and sixty-one schools have been bombed, 170 of them during the first six months of this year; 230 churches, three seminaries and twenty-three pagodas have been destroyed up to 30 June 1967. On 27 September 1967 at 7.30 A.M., the day after classes reopened following the summer recess, four US jets, swooping in from the sea, fired rockets and dropped four CBUS (about 2,400 pellet bombs) on the first and second degree schools of Ha Fu (Ha Trung district of Thanh Hoa province) killing thirty-three pupils from eight to twelve years and wounding thirty more, including two teachers.
According to American estimates (the Pepper Report) there have been 250,000 children killed

How about International law?
Another good one :International Tribunal

Pathfinder

And your point is?

If your point is that the US kills civilians. This is nothing new. I have stated that in war, civilians are sometimes unintentionally killed, and are sometimes intentionally targeted as policy.

mic

The same as before:
International Law is a joke. US are main violator of this law. US use it only when they need something. They kill thousands civilians and bystanders in recent years and nothing happen.

Pathfinder

I have already stated that the US will not allow its military to be submitted too any international tribunal. I have also stated that this is policy for a variety of good reasons.

mic

"Good reasons" for whom? For US military criminals?
In this case US suppose to never mention other countries as war criminals, as you did in Israel case.

Do not mention International law - there is no such a law and never been.

Pathfinder

Let me see if I can narrow it down for you.

In Vietnam we were fighting against a nation which had military forces, land, sea, and air.

Even though we could have bombed Hanoi into rubble with just the use of conventional weapons, and although in the later days of the war we did some intense bombing, we still chose not to bomb them into rubble. We still were slective in our targeting. The Rusell report is basically misinformation: We did not intentionally target hospitals and schools, they were collateral damage.

If we would have chose to turn Hanoi into rubble, as we did many German and Japanese cities, it would have been a technical violation of the Geneva convention.

In Vietnam, at one point in time there were "Free Fire Zones". In effect this meant that anyone in these zones were considered to be armed combatants, or sympathizers of armed combatants (enablers).

To provide you with an extreme example:

During the Son My operation, of which My Lai and LT Calley became infamous, the area had several villiages that was a known stronghold for the 48th VC Local Force (LF) Battalion. The non-combatants (civilians) were suspected to be VC sympathizers.

On the day of this operation, several villages in the My Son AO (area of operation) came under attack, by Task Force (TF) Barker, which was a battalion-size unit of the Americal Division.

Prior to inserting troops into the AO, it was "prepped" with artillery fire and Helicopter Gunships. There of course were a number of civilians killed during the "prepping".

When the troops were inserted into the AO, LT Calley's 1st Platoon, C Company entered the village dubbed My Lai (4). He and several of his troops executed a large number of civilians.

He was Court Martialed and was convicted for killing civilians.

Now the subtelties of what is considered to be a war crime and what isn't comes into play and is often a very fine line.

Some may ask why isn't it considered to be a war crime when villages known to contain civilians are targeted by artillery and Gun Ships. Well it may actually be a war crime under the rules of the Geneva convention, but it is also SOP for inserting troops. This is an "impersonal" use of fire power, just as carpet bombing is.

Why then would LT Calley be guilty of a war crime? Because he at a "personal" level made the decision to kill unarmed people.

When the Tank Commander made the "personal" decision to kill unarmed people, how is it a different scenario than that of LT Calley?

Actually I empathized with LT Calley and I empathize with the Tank Commander, but at the time I fully understood why LT Calley was, and should have been, Court Martialed.

I have stated time and again that war is criminal in and of itself, and is a dirty affair, beyond the understanding of those that have never participated.

Paul Markham

It is simple. The land was originally the home of the Palestinians, jews and a few christians.

The Jews started a mass exodus of Europeans and started a war of terrorism against the British. For land that did not belong to them. But they were prepared to kill anyone who was in their way, by any means they could. Mostly terrorism.

When the British had had enough of PALESTINE. The Jews were the most organised and managed to hang on to it. They have since then made heroes and Prime Ministers out of ex terrorists.

Now they do nothing but complain when they are hit back by terrorist.

The answer is simple, you want it to stop?

GIVE THEM BACK THEIR LAND AND STOP STEALING IT BY MOVING PALESTINAINS OUT AND PUTTING UP JEWISH SETTLEMANTS.

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mic

Napalm and claster bombs never was conventional weapons according Geneva convention

How do you know this - from fucking CNN reports?
Only one country do not recognize Russel report - US ,and everybody undestand why: US intensionaly target hospital and schools, populated areas, you may find many sources regarding this - not only Russel report

mic

Did you forgot UN resolution from 1949? It suppose to be two countries, but Arabs decide attack Israel and lost.

Pathfinder

I spent more than thirty years in the Army, part of those years, I was an officer. Also I spent three tours in Vietnam, so I have a certain personal insite as to what we target, how we target, and when we target.

Not at anytime have I ever stated that we abide in full by the Geneva Convention. Not at anytime have I ever stated that we are always morally right.

I have stated and others have stated, we do what we think is in the best interests to the US. Sometimes other Nations/Peoples benefit from this, sometimes they suffer from this.

Just to cut to the chase we are the biggest, baddest dog on the block, and as long as we are in that position, the world will have to suffer with whatever perceptions of us they have.

We in turn do not have that concern.

Pathfinder

In addition; to intentionally target hospitals and schools, would not be a cost effective expenditure of munitions, would not serve any military or polictical purpose and would not be in persuance of the ending of conflict.

Thus the report is misleading information.

mic

This is good a start. I have nothing personal against US solders who fight this war - they were just fresh meat. Let say, I am also have some personal knowledge about this dirty affair, but this war was start by greedy US government and they suppose to admit this for now officially, but instead they try to teach again other nations International law.

mic

Not true, - intentional civilian trageting always serve military and political purpose - look at history books regarding any war

Pathfinder

I don't know why you say this is a good start. That has been my expressed position on this board and most of my adult life, only the young, or naive, think any differently.

The rest of your post I do not understand what you are talking about.

Pathfinder

I did not say any different. Read the post and in that I am correct. I know that hospital and schools would not be selected as intentional targets for the stated reasons.

Pathfinder

I have not directly answered the original question in the topic of this thread.

No I would not like to see Israel take a beating.

Having said that: I am tired of the tactics being used by Israel and I for one would vote to withdraw military and financial support, if it isn't stopped.

The Israeli government has the right to continue in stupidity, but I would prefer that they do it without our weapons and our money.

Why do I think the tactics are stupid? Because they exacerbate instead of eliminate the problem. The tactics are hate oriented more than they are results oriented.

I have posted my propsed solution to the problem, more than once, so I will not repeat it here. I am satisfied that it is not the perfect solution, but it is one that I believe would get the desired results.

As I have stated multiple times the wheel continues to turn and will for, at the least, the rest of my lifetime.

As for the tactics, political and military, of the USA; I will just cut to the chase. We do whatever we choose to do, be it percieved to be right, or not, by the rest of the world, whatever we consider to be in our best interests, and as long as we are the biggest and baddest, the world will just have to deal with it.

Enough said.

Pathfinder

mic:

I had not checked your profile before now. It says Toronto; are you Jewish?

mic

No, but I worked in Israel for almost 3 years in the 90s and have great sympathies for this country after.

falafel

Mic, where did you work here ? what did you do ?
where did you live ?
Spill it...

mic

I worked in Jerusalem - US based company Electric Fuel LTD and lived in Kiriat-Gat, I worked as a chemistry P.H.D.

falafel

I see, cool.
How did you adjust to Kiriat-Gat ?
It's a working class city pouplated mostly by "blue collar" people, although Intel has a huge center there.

7 months ago I was in Kiriat-Gat.
I was working for a web development company and I met people at a company called Shalon.
They are world leaders in gas masks and ABC equipment.
It was right after 9/11 and they were working in 3 shifts around the clock.

You've made quite a u turn: from a chemistry P.H.D. to the adult world ?
Pretty rare

mic

Intel was not even in project yet at the time I left K.G. Regarding chemistry - I am also have master in Computer Science and worked in mainstream web development for the long time in US and Canada.

gaby

is this the largest poll ever?

notjoe

They shouldnt have sold it to begin with. Not their land anymore.

Pathfinder

English clearly is not your first lanquage. What is?