The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Instead of arguing about Goldstone

    By Flavius on Mon, 04/04/2011 - 9:37pm |

    check out  bitterlemons.http://www.bitterlemons.net/

    You can read the opinions of a Hamas leader which may or may not confirm what you already think. And those of a settler , ditto.

    Frequently there are 4 views on an issue. A leftish former assistant to Barack:a settler or some one who voices their views; a Palestinian university president; and someone who voices the views of Palestinians who are not university presidents.

    I'm not peddling a subliminal message that of course " they can all get along".

    My up front message is that every army  contains someone who at least in the stress of  battle will kill a civilian, And the next day can advocate for  peace. Israeli soldiers , sure. American soldiers,sure.Gazan militia, sure.Gerry Adams, sure And as for advocating for  peace the Good Friday Agreement couldn't have been signed until it was endorsed by IRA members in jail for murder.

    Unlike a large % of the comments to  bslev's Goldstone blog I suspect that ,neither the IDF soldiers or the Palestinian terrorists are irredeemably evil or admirably good.

    Nor are the ones who give them orders.

    But at least consider that either command structure -or both-believes that the only possible strategy is to to terrify the other side's civilian ?  Oh my goodness. That would be a War Crime..

    Shocking

    Unlike  "Bomber" Harris'  WW2 "saturation bombing"  of the workers' district of Hamburg with bombers that would have been vastly more help to Overloard if they'd targetted Schweinfurt's ball bearings factories?. ( While Hamburg's output increased since the Gast Hausen had been destroyed so there was no alternative to the factory.They should have been dropping barrels of beer instead of incendiaries) 

    And Hiroshima.?

    If the IDF weren't trying to terrify and kill Gazan civilians they were delinquent in their duties. If the Gazan terrorists aren't trying to blow up restaurants filled with retirees celebrating a holiday, Ditto. The supreme test either commander should apply is : will this cause the other side to give up? If that means they'd better not change planes in Madrid, give them another battle ribbon.

    Prick a Hamas(or IDF)  commander. Doth he not bleed? Or better Oderint dum metuant. 

    I pass over the question of War Crimes.Just suggesting you read Bitterlemons

    Comments

    If we're going back to WWII, we also see the Germans' expectation of total civilian capitulation, or mass reprisals. 

    Around 1942, a few paratrooped-in Czechs killed Heydrich, in charge of the Czechoslovak occupation and Chairman of the Wannsee Conference,  and the Germans simply picked 2 villages, killed everyone in them, and razed them to the ground.

    I guess the Czechs were wrong to resist, should have accepted the German Weltschau. We all share in guilt. When occupied, should just do as we're told until the Americans come rescue us.


    by Desider on Mon, 04/04/2011 - 11:30pm

    Lidice was one of the Czech towns..

    Then and in WW1 German Army doctrine was based on Clausewitz' dictum that  every policy  must be strictly designed to win the war. With respect to civilians  if they did not impede the military they could be ignored. But if they did  they made themselves eligible to be treated in whatever way advanced the Army's objectives..

    In "The Guns of August", Barbara Tuchman describes a German retaliation in August 1914 after some opposition. The inhabitants of an entire Belgian town - 600 people, mostly women , children and the aged - were ordered to stand in 2 lines on either side of a plaza where they waited for hours. At sunset German troops filed between them, stood back to back facing outward and at a signal shot them. A poster was printed and distributed throughout Belgium describing the incident. Pour encourager les autres.

    Ironically rather than advancing the interests of the Central Powers in accordance with Clausewitz, the massacre eroded the initially pro-German sympathies of the US.

    UN resolutions to the contrary my guess is that when push comes to shove Clausewitz would feel right at home in any military today. 


    by Flavius on Tue, 04/05/2011 - 8:20am

    "Clausewitz' dictum that  every policy  must be strictly designed to win the war"

    "Ironically  rather than advancing the interests of the Central Powers  in accordance with Clausewitz , the massacre  eroded the  initially pro german sympathies of the US."

    "my guess is that when push comes  to shove  Clausewitz would feel right at home in any military today."

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    Obviously #3 doesn't follow from #1, does it? Nor does #2. "War is nothing but the continuation of politics by other means." So properly, you would just finish off the business through politics if it achieved your aims efficiently. 

    Getting distracted by molesting citizens for petty non-military purposes would probably not interest Clausewitz. Nor would a war that achieved military objectives but none of the political ones.


    by Desider on Tue, 04/05/2011 - 8:33am

    Obviously #3 doesn't follow from #1, does it?

    If there's a conflict between Clausewitz and a  UN resolution my money's on Clausewitz.

    Nor does #2

    That's why it's ironic. 

    I agree with your final paragraph


    by Flavius on Tue, 04/05/2011 - 10:16am

    Look, after the last time when you sent me to lemonparty (or was that someone else?), I most certainly ain't checking out bitterlemons. Fool me once shame on you, fool me a second time… the thing is you shouldn't have fooled me.

    by Verified Atheist on Tue, 04/05/2011 - 6:51am

    Sorry about that.


    by Flavius on Tue, 04/05/2011 - 6:58am