From the BBC today:
Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon “said that in order to prevent casualties among Israeli soldiers battling Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon, villages should be flattened by the Israeli air force before ground troops moved in.
He added that Israel had given the civilians of southern Lebanon ample time to quit the area and therefore anyone still remaining there could be considered a Hezbollah supporter. “All those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah,” Mr Ramon said.
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Ramon made these comments on Israeli Army radio. He was apparently not asked about the IDF’s practice of blowing up the cars full of civilians fleeing south Lebanon.
Ramon has made stark the standards that the Israelis are using, and there is no excuse for any American politician or citizen to continue denying that the Israelis are not intentionally targeting civilians en masse.
A Vietnam-era veteran sent me the following note regarding this entry: “The Israeli policy of assuming that anyone who remains in the area recalls the US relocation program in Vietnam’s central highlands — telling
people that if they didn’t leave their homes and move to a relocation camp
they would be presumed Viet Cong sympathizers didn’t turn out to be the way to win hearts & minds.”
I am curious whether the US military had a similar policy or pronouncement regarding civilians prior to their attack on Fallujah in November 2004.
“I am curious whether the US military had a similar policy or pronouncement regarding civilians prior to their attack on Fallujah in November 2004.”
As I recall, they did have something similar. But they also had a policy of “detaining” any men who tried to flee the city before it was destroyed. Apparently quite a few of them decided to take their chances on staying hidden or just going down fighting instead–and understandably so, as by then it was pretty widely known that being taken alive by Americans was a really bad way to go.
These Rules of Engagement go to the heart of the morality of government action – the U.S., Israel, Uzbekistan, or any country.
I am mystified why people accept that governments are inherently morally superior to private groups when the governments preemptively rubberstamp the killing of civilians.
They are using the same tactics that the Union Army used against the South.
It’s like when General Sherman said “all the people are now guerillas”.
The next thing you know, Ramon will be invoking the name of Lincoln to justify slaughtering civilians.
The NeoCons and their friends have been invoking Lincoln ever since October 2001. He provided the model for combining oppression and and pious rhetoric on liberty.
If memory serves, Bush said that Lincoln is his favorite president.