From: Adam 

George Sherwood wrote:
> On Sun, 17 Sep 2006 10:49:23 -0400, Rich Gauszka wrote:
>
>> The AI report on Israel doesn't seem that unclear to me. I would say that
>> both sides in this conflict were guilty of war crimes. Israel did have the
>> much greater weaponry though and their targeting of the civilian
>> infrastructure was an abomination. I suspect Hezbollah would have done
>> something similar had they the Israeli firepower so I would just say - Hang
>> em all!
>>
>
> There is no law of proportionality in war.

Yes there is. This was established at Nuremberg wrt German anti-partisan
actions & the "1 soldier killed by partisans/terrorists/resistance
> shoot 50 civies" directives.


> Meaning that Israel is not
> automatically guilty because they were able to inflict more damage.

Depends on the aim of the damage. If the aim of the damage is to "take
down the system" then it would appear that that is now a war crime.

>  As
> much as some would like you to believe, unfortunately collateral damage is
> a part of war and is not a war crime.

Targeting civilian infrastructure as part of systemic war is not collateral
damage, it is the aim.


> Indiscriminately firing any type of
> weapons at civilians falls directly into the war crime category.  This is
> what you are seeing here.
>

Much like say the Linebacker raids on Hanoi you mean? How about the
shelling etc of entire towns such as Fallujah? You are on very thin ice on
this.

> You may say that both sides are guilty but you are looking at it from a
> proportionality view that is not part of the Law of War.  While you may
> think that civilians were targeted by Israel this is not even close to
> being proved.

Yes it is. They systematically targeted civilian areas &
infrastructure. Giving a warning of impending destruction is not a valid
excuse. Hamas warned Israelis to leave haifa & northern Israel so....

> Targeting of infrastructure is also not directly a war
> crime.  You can feel it was an abomination, but that doesn't make it so
> under the Law of War.
>

Depends. This is the fun area between civie support for the mil (inc taxes,
logistics etc) & the mil itself. E.g. Civies in gov are....targets as
part of the C3 but does that just means civie CiC & defence ministry
ppl or is it the entire cabinet e.g. is the transportation minister a
target?

Equally taxes support the mil ergo destroying the economy is a valid mil
target.....if that argument is taken then there is little which is not a
valid mil target inc domestic housing. i..e issuing a "leave your
homes coz we're going to wipe out the city" will create many refugees
which cripples the mil logistics & civie econ & thus smashing the
sh*t out of say Beirut & Haifa is fine.

Adam

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