[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Split hairs if you want, I again point to two media sources I already referred to earlier, where the authors said it in right these words that international law would rate the breaking of a blockade as a military agressive act, an act of military aggression. And I agree with that and I say it makes no reasonable sense to argue different. It simply ignores the definition of "blockade" and "braking a blockade".

I've yet to re-locate your other author to be honest, but your man Clemens von Wergin asserts (w/o any substantiation either by referencing, logic or precedence BTW) that the breaking of a blockade is a militarily aggressive act, but only tries to imply that running a blockade is equivalent to breaking it, which is as dubious an assertion as equating an "evasion" to an "attack", and leads to cans of worms in the history of blockade.

And what has this to do with declaring a blockade? A Sea blockade is an act that is formally regulated and accepted by international laws.

So are territorial waters.

you have to announce where it is,

So it has a defined location - no different here.

[quote]from when to when it lasts,[/;quote]

It has a duration - no different here - the duration of territorial waters would be the lifetime of the country.

the precise area,

See location.

and you have to be at war with the side you are hitting with the blockade.

A difference but not exactly a plus point, since it is not even clear a nation can actually be in war in a conventional sense with Hamas.

And where there is a blockade announced under the above conditions, it is a legal thing to enforce that blockade. If a ship is allowed to ignore it, then it would not be a blockade.

Yet the blockade in itself is defensibly illegal. It is not "legal" to enforce an illegal thing.

But all this is academic. For Israel it is a thing of vital, existential importance to try to interrupt military deliveries to it'S enemies who are at war with it.

Bags of cement, old medication, food are "military deliveries?"

USSR and USA were not at war. So, the Russians could not have declared a formal blockade under the above terms. So while I learn what the Yorktown incident was - thanks for the explanation, btw. - it nevertheless has nothing to do with the situation at Gaza, therefore, and I wonder why you even need to bring it up.

Yes, but you just said it yourself: the Yorktown thing was about "national waters" - not formally announced sea blockades against a war party.

IIRC, in this part we were discussing the responsibility of NATO towards military aggression by one of its own members. Surely, whether the whole national waters business is analogous to blockade (and above I point out the similarities), it would be clear in the scenario the Americans were the aggressors, yet as I said I just don't see NATO abandoning America. Thus, even if you are right that running a blockade with civilian ships (which are not even chartered by the government) is "military aggression", it seems dubious to say NATO is thus justified to break with Turkey.

If you give one side an advantage by manning one of it'S boats in order to make it "untouchable" by your presence, you already are not a neutral anymore, and since breaking a blockade is an aggressive act, that makes the former neutral person now a non-neutral part of it. Or a combatant, in other words.

As previously mentioned, the assertion that running a blockade is a "aggressive" act is enormously dubious, sufficiently so that at least one of your own authors apparently shies from stating it. In any case, I can agree that you are non-neutral once you help a side, but it doesn't mean that you are combatant - lest all Israelis turn into combatants from being part of the taxpaying population that helps arms the IDF.

Violating a blockade and not knowing it, and knowingly trying to break a blockade, are two different things, and i would recommend different procedures for the side enforcing the blockade. Which does not mean that the unknowing violator should not be stopped and controlled. the blockade is in place, whether the violator knows it or not. Part of the blockade is that you do not just trust in something or just beleive anything or just make assumptions - but that you control what's going in and out.

Do you wish to imply that Lusitania had no idea that Britain and Germany were in something of a war, or that they were completely in the dark that the Germans are instituting a blockade against Britain?

German commies and SED-sympathisers, rightwing extremists and Turkish Islamists in one boat - what a great mixture, glued together by their common sentiment of anti-semitism! FAN-TAS-TIC !

So they may not be the greatest human specimens. Law, however, is intended to avoid such judgments.

(I think I've mentioned in my first post in thread that this is a setup for Israel, so I make no defense on the moralities of the boaters involved. Nevertheless, they followed the rules in this case of the civilized nations, so the law must protect them and condemn Israel.

I think of the whole incident as broadly equivalent of a bunch of thugs confronting a bunch of police, and ending up with the police shooting them up. The thugs might have been *sses and they may have been provocative, but they followed the laws, and so the police were wrong in shooting them).

Do you know what the neutrality of the Red Cross in war bases on? That it has no associations with any of the fighting sides, and treats wounded from both, no matter their side. If such a neutrality would demand the intended target of Hamas terrorism - the civilian Israeli i this case - to sit still while being fired upon, then I think this is hardly soemthing one could seriously exoect them to do. But right this is what the international community tells Israel time and again to do whenever it gets hit by rockets - to do nothing and suffer in quiteness. probably a demand of piety to not kill the well-meant illusions about the peace that is there to come (if only those damn Jews would accept to not defend themselves).

Should I take this long diatribe to mean yes you would feel nothing if Hamas shot the Israeli?

That's why they failed in gaza and lebanon, and got a bloody nose especially in lebanon. the unwillingness to fight the war as is needed to fight it - and that means to kill the enemy at all costs, everyhwere - has led to the failures in Iraq and Afghanistan. It refuses to recognise that Pakistan is no ally but an enemy trying to protect the Taliban for several imoportant reasons. While writing this, they still try to extinguish the fires on those 140 vehicles in that NATO convoy - Not at the Afghan border, but in the heart of Pakistan, right outside of Islamabadh... there are so many military ambitions that failed because of self-restraint based on this idea that war and civilised order to be brought into conformity. The UN's military missions also failed for the vast majority of them, for this reason. Having good intentions - is just not enough.

I can definitely agree one will probably be more militarily effective if he abandons the current rules of war. But then, the Soviets had been rather brutal in Afghanistan, and the Russians in Chechenya, and it didn't seem to be bringing them success.

either you decide to fight a war, then make sure you can stay with your motives for accepting that decision: be sure, damn sure, of your reasons. Or you decide not to fight a war. just this madness of having just a bit of war, but not too much, and have a little bit of peace in it as well, and a little hope, and a little human quality, and a bit of this and a bit of that, and never too much blood - this idiotic back-and-forth that espeically amongst politicians is so very popular - does not help to limit wars and make them less harmful, but it prolongs them and makes them affecting more people in the long run, and increases the suffering of those affected.

The civility lies in the standards by which somebody decides whether or not to go to war. In other words: the main part of civility is BEFORE the war is declared or not declared.

If civility is in the standards and causes that somebody goes to war over, Hamas may actually have a better standard than Israel. Israel is defending its existence, and Hamas on destroying it. Until one remembers how Israel is actually a forced state installed to the wishes of a minority, then while undeniably brave and clever, are artificially kept in existence (by the US in particular) against what are almost natural forces seeking to eradicate the "bump".

Starting from this, you don't have to be Islamic or Palestinian to see how the continued existence of Israel is a huge wrong to the Palestinians with every second it passes, and asking them to accept less is a bit like asking you to accept the permanent residence of this crumb who wound up taking over 90% of your home - you don't even really want 50-50; you want him OUT!

Also, in war, the military and the terrorist have different target priorities. And here again lies a massive difference between both. the more the military degenerates to the "target acceptance levels" of a terrorist - intentionally targetting the civilian poulation - , the more it goes in loss of any claims for being more civilised than the terrorist, here you would be right.

In which case, modern terrorists may be little less civilised than the world standard in the 40s. By the way, it is amazing how first you say "civility is BEFORE the war", and now you try and set up some standards for after the war starts as well.

If, however, I do not limit my targetting to targets of military relevance, but intend genocide, or intentionally target the civilians themselves and in the first, making not military targets but civilian population the delcared target of my killing action, then this is what qualifies as terrorism.

In short, if it is not too inconvenient for you, you will refrain from killing civilians, but if you perceive a need, you will do so.