The Gaza War

[Motown Bombers]

If Egypt opened their border, I would demand the US and Canada provide aid to Egypt and other Arab countries who take in refugees and take refuges themselves. Put them in Tliab's district before Trump bans them. 

[1984Echoes]

I have no problems with that whatsoever.

[oblong]

The other Arab countries are afraid of bringing the fight to them.  It's such a tribal culture as well.  They don't hate Hamas as much as we do because in their heart they feel some sympathy to them.  Yeah I said it.

[ben9753]

1 hour ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

First off, comparing what Hamas did, as brutal and barbaric as it was, to the scale of what Hitler did is not comparable. I do believe Hamas should be stopped and I don't want them to exist. But October 7th and the holocaust are not on scale with one another. Hitler was out to exterminate an entire ethnic and religious group of people. The United States and allied forces had to stop the holocaust and the civilian lives lost there were terrible, but it was done in the name of saving millions of people from being erased from the Earth. You can point out that's what Hamas wants to do to Israel and that is true. But the response have to involve some level of proportionality to the war crime committed.

As an aside, the Allies didn't fight the Germans to stop the Holocaust, read "FDR and the Holocaust". 

He refused to bomb the tracks to the camps or the camps themselves to slow their killing operations, and really didn't make saving Jews any priority.

[1984Echoes]

2 hours ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

First off, comparing what Hamas did, as brutal and barbaric as it was, to the scale of .... But the response have to involve some level of proportionality to the war crime committed.

Second...

Scale doesn't count.

What was our response to 3K dead on 9/11? A Global War on Terror? And...?

 

The rest of it is... you going down some rabbit holes.

I'm not trying to be mean... it's just that you're going into what you believe we should/ should not have done, you'd do things differently, were we justified or not, etc., etc.

I'm taking a much simpler approach: If my country is subjected to a terrorist attack, I am going to respond. If it entails a military response to the inclusion of an invasion, civilian casualty count is not the primary concern. I'm not saying that it's NOT a concern, it is, hence measures to mitigate civilian casualties. But the PRIMARY concern is to eliminate the threat.

I brought in Hitler and Japan only for that point. Obviously, the scale of the threat as well as the scale of casualties were exponentially higher. But the simple matter was to stop them, regardless of casualty counts. Am I right? Same with Bin Laden, regardless of whether we took over Afghanistan or sent search & destroy teams... the PRIMARY concern is to stop the threat, no matter what it takes. The firebombing of Tokyo? Estimated 100K dead. Was that justified as a proportional response? How many dead in the fire bombing of Dresden? These aren't even nuclear attacks, which you mentioned with Japan... right?

But let's not go down a rabbit hole again.

The simple answers are: Israel is justified in responding to Hamas's terrorist attack. That came from GAZA. And Hamas (in Gaza) is made up of 100 (99?) % GAZANS. So GAZA made a terrorist attack against Israel. And... despite all the upset over Gazan civilian casualties... it's war. The NUMBER of casualties is NOT the primary concern. Israel protecting itself from further terrorist attacks from GAZANS IS the primary concern. And Israel HAS taken measures to reduce casualties, and open up humanitarian corridors, and a temporary ceasefire to allow in humanitarian aid... even if it was from US pressure... And... there are TWO simple and EASY remedies to reducing Gazan civilian casualties: (1) Hamas unconditional surrender. Or (2) Egypt opening up its border to Gazan refugees.

Which would HAVE to be TEMPORARY in that Israel must complete it's military goals and then the international community needs to step up and rebuild Gaza, allow all the refugees to return, and then some governmental form needs to be implemented that allows Gazans to live normal lives, without being blockaded (I don't believe this is truly realizable... there will still be Gazan/ Hamas (or otherwise) terrorists and it's not just Israel... Egypt is just as reluctant to open its border to Gaza specifically because of this) AND Israel must get some guarantee or control (their demand) that terrorism will not be supported (by the government in Gaza specifically) or exported to Israel again. This obviously complicates things a lot. But if Gazans would just quit with the terrorism... Doesn't that open them up to more international relationships/ trading/ etc. then if Hamas is actively planning a terrorist attack against Israel? Isn't that planning the reason for a fence at the border with Israel/ a closed border with Israel/ etc.?

That last part is very simple, at least it is to me anyways, as well: Stop terrorizing Israel = lead an independent and normal life in Gaza.

In other words: Hamas blew it.

I think I just went down some rabbit holes there...

[gehringer_2]

33 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

Scale doesn't count.

What was our response to 3K dead on 9/11? A Global War on Terror? And...?

Agree that WWII is the pacific is actually the apt parallel. 2400 people were killed at Pearl Harbor. so WWII in the Pacific was anything but 'proportional' to that. But what Japan did on Dec 7 is like what Hamas did on Oct 7 in that it demonstrated that a nation was facing a hostile malignant power that had to be ended, not just 'responded' to. 

Edited December 13, 2023 by gehringer_2

[1984Echoes]

3 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

Agree that WWII is the pacific is actually the apt parallel. 2400 people were killed at Pearl Harbor. so WWII in the Pacific was anything but 'proportional' to that. But what Japan did on Dec 7 is like what Hamas did on Oct 7 in that it demonstrated that a nation was facing a hostile malignant power that had to be ended, not just 'responded' to. 

Excellent point on proportionality!

[pfife]

Regarding 9/11 and proportionality, this website says that since 2001, there were estimated 70,000 Afghan and Pakistani civilian casualties.   If we use the 10k civilian casualties estimates in gaza at face value, there were almost 14% of the deaths of the 22 year response to 9/11 in about 1.5 months.

If we project the current rate to 22 years, assuming 10k per month, that would be 10,000*22*12 which would be 2.64 million.   

Math seems to suggest the response to 9/11 was much less in terms of civilian casualties than the response to 10/7 if we take current casualty estimates at face value.

https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/afghan#:~:text=As of March 2023%2C more,massive increase in civilian casualties.

[1984Echoes]

49 minutes ago, pfife said:

Regarding 9/11 and proportionality, this website says ...

On the other hand...

If you use Pearl Harbor and the US Military response:

There were 2,403 military and civilian (68) deaths at Pearl Harbor, and an estimated 500K to 1 Million Japanese civilian casualties, basically in response. Plus 2.1Mill Japanese military casualties.

How does that proportionality work out...?

[pfife]

48 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

On the other hand...

If you use Pearl Harbor and the US Military response:

There were 2,403 military and civilian (68) deaths at Pearl Harbor, and an estimated 500K to 1 Million Japanese civilian casualties, basically in response. Plus 2.1Mill Japanese military casualties.

How does that proportionality work out...?

It would be much higher than 9/11 or 10/7.   

[gehringer_2]

I don't want to put too fine a point on it, the situation in Gaza is intolerable, but the point remains that it's very easy for a bystander nations to have 'serious' reservations about what other countries see as their vital interests. The problem for Israel is that it has worked hard to squander much of the West's willingness to accept what they are doing by being beastly to all the Palestinians they have not been at war with for the last 20 yrs. I have to believe if the Israeli public had ever voted in a government that was even remotely interested in working toward some solution in the West Bank other than the Likud 'solution' of somehow just eventually pushing all the Palestinians out of the West Bank, their international diplomatic leeway  after the Hamas attacks would be greater.

But now it is what it is. You have an Israeli government that deserves little sympathy, led by one of the 21st century's new blow dried wanabe-fascists on one side, and a group of completely malignant killers on the other. There is no question which side the Western choice ultimately has to fall, but that doesn't mean anyone has to like the choice.

And how do Egypt and Jordan skate by the condemnation they should be under for keeping the Palestinian civilian population trapped in Gaza with Hamas? That is a piece of this equation that is missing. When the US was going after ISIS, the civilian populations were often able to flee the scene and leave the battlefield to the armed contestants. The Gazan civilians are caught in the middle by the choice of their supposed friends.

Edited December 14, 2023 by gehringer_2

[pfife]

Regarding the comparison to Pearl Harbor and the reaction, my understanding from history education is that the argument for dropping 2 hydrogen bombs on two cities in Japan was that it would end the war quicker and result in less civilian casualties and military casualties than not dropping the hydrogen bombs and trying to defeat Japan through a more traditional ground invasion.   

If we are drawing a comparison with Pearl Harbor and Oct 7, is there then an argument to be made that Israel should drop hydrogen bombs to limit civilian and military casualties?   

[gehringer_2]

32 minutes ago, pfife said:

dropping 2 hydrogen bombs on two cities in Japan

Probably too fine a distinction for anyone who was a victim, but 'FatMan' and 'LittleBoy' were 'Atomic' bombs (~250kT), not 'Hydrogen' (aka "thermonuclear") which are a whole 2nd class of weapons developed later (not likely to get a good movie about Edward Teller - though his character does appear in 'Oppenheimer' with the idea already in mind) and are an order of magnitude  or more more powerful (~10mT) than the WWII 'atomics'.

The difference is that the first atomics were fission devices in which heavy elements such a uranium are split, the 'H' bomb is a fusion device in which heavy hydrogen is fused. The 2nd depended on the invention of the 1st because it requires a small atomic bomb in the payload to detonate the fusion part of the bomb.

Edited December 14, 2023 by gehringer_2

[gehringer_2]

30 minutes ago, pfife said:

and result in less civilian casualties and military casualties

TBH, the focus was on US military casualties, not Japanese civilians. Concern expressed for the later is post historical gloss even if it may be true to an unknown degree. No-one really knows what Tojo and/or  the Emperor could/would have driven Japanesse civilians to do.

Edited December 14, 2023 by gehringer_2

[pfife]

4 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Probably too fine a distinction for anyone who was a victim, but 'FatMan' and 'LittleBoy' were 'Atomic' bombs (~250kT), not 'Hydrogen' (aka "thermonuclear") which are whole 2nd class of weapons developed later (not likely to get a good movie about Edward Teller - though his character does appear in 'Oppenhiemer' with the idea already in mind) and are an order of magnitude  or more more powerful (~10mT) than the WWII 'atomics'.

The difference is that the first atomics were fission devices in which heavy elements such a uranium are split, the 'H' bomb is a fusion device in which heavy hydrogen is fused. The 2nd depended on the invention of the 1st because it requires a small atomic bomb in the payload to detonate the fusion part of the bomb.

Thanks for the correction.

[pfife]

6 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

TBH, the focus was on US military casualties, not Japanese civilians. Concern expressed for the later is post historical gloss even if it may be true to an unknown degree. No-one really knows what Tojo and/or  the Emperor could/would have driven Japanesse civilians to do.

OK, following.   Thus, if the comparison of Pearl Harbor to 10/7 is apt, does that mean Israel is currently not considering Gaza civilian casualties, as you state was the case with US response to PH?

If the comparison is apt, does that mean Israel is not doing what it can do to limit it's own military casualties?   

Edited December 14, 2023 by pfife

[pfife]

To answer my own questions:

1) I do think Israel is doing some things to limit Gaza casualties, but not a lot.   I think that means the comparison is not apt.

2) I am not sure the answer regarding it's own military casualties using the Pearl Harbor rationale.   But assuming the comparison is apt, is it really preferrable for the US to send unconditional money to a military that is making decisions that are not minimizing it's own casualties?

[gehringer_2]

27 minutes ago, pfife said:

To answer my own questions:

1) I do think Israel is doing some things to limit Gaza casualties, but not a lot. 

 

FWIW, I would guess the Israeli generals are telling the political side that they can't exhaust their supply of their best weapons in Gaza because of the cost and because it would make them more vulnerable to an attack on a second front as Iran is still a dangerous presence in Syria/Lebanon. Despite all the fine video released, most of what we used in Iraq/Afgh was dumb stuff for the same reason, and the odds of us facing a second front war at the time was probably lower.

But another tough question for Israel is 'what is enough?' A simple political statement like "we have to destroy Hamas" is easy to announce, but what does it mean in practice? They will never get every last fighter, so they have to have some kind of end game for what is enough and what to do the day after. It they don't manage that part, they will also deserve plenty of criticism. Again - the US lesson from Iraq.

Edited December 14, 2023 by gehringer_2

[gehringer_2]

Also - to correct myself - Tojo had been removed from office before the end of the war.

[ewsieg]

I believe I remember reading that Israel had a list of 5 or so top leaders, along with a percentage of mid level leaders and felt capturing or killing them would kill Hamas.  Even if true though, what if they get a couple of top leaders and before they can reach all 5 or that percentage and some new leaders get too popular, do you just add them to the list and just have the goalposts keep moving?

[pfife]

Side question, G2 you mentioned Oppenheimer movie - what were your thoughts on it?   
 

I wouldn't consider myself someone who was looking at it from a perspective of historical accuracy, I was looking more to be entertained by the historical story, and I loved the movie.   It's one of the best I've seen I think.  

[1984Echoes]

54 minutes ago, pfife said:

To answer my own questions:

1) I do think Israel is doing some things to limit Gaza casualties, but not a lot.   I think that means the comparison is not apt.

2) I am not sure the answer regarding it's own military casualties using the Pearl Harbor rationale.   But assuming the comparison is apt, is it really preferrable for the US to send unconditional money to a military that is making decisions that are not minimizing it's own casualties?

???

What's with the "not apt"? Are you trying to get an EXACT MATCH of one war to another? Because that's just not possible. The criteria should not be "exact", it should be "most closely resembles".

You're even trying to bring in "an argument to be made that Israel should drop hydrogen bombs to limit civilian and military casualties?"... atomic bombs... seriously?

The "most closely resembles" matches are a sneak attack with a certain number of casualties in the low 1,000's. A major war effort follows, with nothing but "unconditional surrender of the enemy" as the goal. These two match Dec. 7th and Oct. 7th. A disproportional response. Match. A large number of civilian casualties disproportional to the original sneak attack casualties (and despite Tater's efforts to list 20,000+ casualties as a top end acceptable number... the CURRENT 18,000 includes around 8,000 Hamas terrorists, not just civilians only (since Hamas refuses to delineate between the two as it is a propaganda victory using the higher number... even though the higher number DOES include a significant number of militants deaths...)). Match. Efforts to reduce civilian casualties. Match. (Even with G2's point that the atomic bombs were to reduce US military casualties estimated to be around 5 mill to conquer the Japanese main islands... I'm stealing this one). But I'll go to my earlier point which is, civilian casualties are NOT the main concern. Match for both. Elimination of the enemy threat IS the Primary Goal. Match.

And even though different methods were used - Israel is NOT going to use an atomic bomb... they would basically be bombing THEMSELVES... and they are not that stupid - this alone does not say that these too are so dissimilar that the comparison is "not apt".

IMO: quit searching for an "exact match". That just does not exist.

 

[1984Echoes]

PS: I thought Oppenheimer was great. Very complex matching the complex ideas inside Oppenheimer's mind. I bought the Blu Ray so I can watch it whenever I want... I'm up to 4 times so far... I love this movie. Very difficult story.

[pfife]

6 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

???

What's with the "not apt"? Are you trying to get an EXACT MATCH of one war to another? Because that's just not possible. The criteria should not be "exact", it should be "most closely resembles".

 

 

Others stated the comparison was apt (it was literally stated that it was apt - that was the word used). I'm arguing the comparison not apt and presented multiple reasons why it is not apt. 

You liked this post arguing it was an apt parallel.

 

Edited December 14, 2023 by pfife

[pfife]

5 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

PS: I thought Oppenheimer was great. Very complex matching the complex ideas inside Oppenheimer's mind. I bought the Blu Ray so I can watch it whenever I want... I'm up to 4 times so far... I love this movie. Very difficult story.

Yeah, I only saw it once in the theater so far but want to acquire it to watch a few more times, I'm sure there's a ton I didn't pick up in the initial viewing.