194
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 11 May 2024
194 points (94.1% liked)
World News
38936 readers
1800 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
People often bring this up without noting that such a ratio would not be unusual in urban warfare against a well-prepared enemy even when the attacking army is doing what it reasonably can to reduce civilian casualties. Compare it to Mariupol, an example of what happens of the attacking army is unconcerned about civilian casualties: 25/26 of Ukrainians killed were civilians according to Ukrainian estimates. (8/9 were civilians if we use the Ukrainian numbers for how many of their soldiers were killed but the more conservative Human Rights Watch numbers for civilian deaths.)
Even if that is true, which is certainly isn't when it comes to children, why does that make it justified?
If you trust the casualty numbers that the UN Is using, then they imply approximately 3.7 civilians killed for every combatant (with the assumptions that children make up half the population and that children are never combatants). I don't trust those numbers but I admit that if I did, I would think they didn't look good for Israel. I suppose we'll have a better idea of what the truth is years from now when historians reach a consensus, but until then I'm going to reluctantly trust Biden's judgement because the US government probably has secret information unavailable to the public. (Biden is biased by his need to be re-elected, but I don't get reports from the CIA so that's the best I can do.)
As for justification: Israel should make reasonable efforts to minimize civilian casualties while accomplishing its legitimate military objectives, but Israel should not sacrifice its ability to accomplish those objectives in order to protect civilians. In other words, Hamas doesn't get to hold Palestinian civilians as hostages against Israel. If they try, then they are to blame for the resulting civilian casualties. The alternative is simply unworkable in practice, because the ability of Hamas to put Palestinian civilians at risk is almost total.
What is the maximum number of children that it acceptable for Israel to kill in order to accomplish its objectives? Is there no ceiling? Any number of children is acceptable as long as Hamas is wiped out?
If you present me with a trolley problem in which the only way to destroy Hamas also kills a million children, I won't know what the right answer is. I suppose it would depend on what would happen to Israel if Hamas wasn't destroyed.
However, the moral calculus for nations is not the same as it is for individuals. The standard established the last time the Western world fought a war it took seriously does seem to be "as many as it takes" and I suspect that this would still be the standard if such a war happened again. (All those nuclear missiles we have ready aren't precise weapons...) In that context, demanding that Israel should show restraint that other countries haven't and wouldn't seems like hypocrisy.
Seriously? You don't know?
Because I would say most people on this planet would say don't kill the million children.
It's easy to act self-righteous when that has no consequences, but in practice most people on this planet live in countries (including democratic countries) that probably would actually kill the children in an analogous scenario.
Okay? But this was about you, not the governments that run those countries. You said you wouldn't know what the right answer is.
The right answer is obviously don't kill a million children and the fact that you don't realize that it's obvious is highly disturbing to say the least.