Report: Israel attacks flotilla, 10 die

Tribesman,

just answer the question:

Have I ever stated that?...... No.

How does that relate to what you wrote? ...It doesn't

So what is the purpose of your question?.... You are just trying to dodge the issue ain't you.

Don't take it so hard just because you screwed up initially with your claim.

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Have I ever stated that?...... No.

so you were wrong and I was right.

just stay out of my face in the future if you have nothing constructive to add.

[CaptainHaplo]

You said "constructive to add" in a sentence about Tribesman!

[tomfon]

Originally Posted by Skybird

The result you criticise, is a result they make on basis of their numerical findings. The found a correlation between strength of faith, and record of criminal/violent behavior, saying the stronger the christian faith of the subject is, the more peaceful it showed to be, whith the muslim juvenile showing the more crimianl/aggressive behavior the stronger the role Muslim religion played in his life. they also said that this is because of the typical macho-culture Muslim male juveniles grow up with and that islamic culture educate them in: that that creates a male role model that educates them to behave like that. These differences in behavior they xclaim to be typical for muslim male juveniles, I see cionfirmed almost every ime I walk in town. Groups of men of Muslim foreign origin definetly behave different than similiar groups of asian, western europeans or Africans - they are much more "macho" indeed. I go as far as saying that "machismo" is one of the most typical characteristics of men from various ME countries, even more so with the young ones.

Earlier studies have found this: that the offsprings of the original migrants coming to germany, the now third generation, are much more religious and conservative than even their grandparents ever where. Somehow, this integration thing goes 180° at the wrong direction.

I then linked this to what I repeatedly have said in the past: that a Christian for wanting to behave violent and aggressive, he must explicitly violate the teachings of Jesus (Christ-->Christian, I do not talk of the church and it's politics), where for a Muslim behaving vilent towards others (women, infidels), he must explicitly follow the teachings of Muhammad (Quran). Jesus and muhammad's teachings are lightyears apart, one could almost say the one is the anti-thesis to the other. I can only lauch out loud when "tolerant" Christians and priests think they must try to ennoble themselves when wanting to compare Muhammad and Jesus and claim that they were preaching the same things. They were not. One could as well claim that Stalin compares to Ghandi.

Hello Skybird. I tried to find the publication of the study you mentioned the other day but to no avail. I searched through the pages of the English edition of Der Spiegel but i couldn't find it. Anyway.

I believe that the study involves a certain degree of exaggeration. Even if we accept that all Muslims obey to this male-role-model then it shouldn't necessarily mean that this behaviour corresponds to some kind of aggressiveness. I mean, how do you measure aggressiveness? Do these people have criminal records or is there any proof of them participating in acts of violence? If yes, then the correlation between degree of faith and aggressive male behaviour may be true. Still, this ought to be true for a large number of Muslims so that the claims of the survey be verifiable. In my opinion, until this is proved we can't say much. Also, we can't conclude that they are aggressive simply because we don't like the view when we look at their faces... Sometimes, the problem with such surveys is that instead of liberating people from xenophobic stereotypes they just expand these stereotypes. I'm a little bit sceptical about this study and/or similar ones because, in the end, the only thing they might prove is that we don't know much about Muslims. On the other hand, they might as well be a clue that the differences between West and East or the differences between the Western type of man and the Eastern type of man are very difficult to be bridged. After all, maybe they shouldn't. I sense that the problem doesn't lie here. I'm only afraid that both worlds can't cope with these differences: the West tries tries to defend its civilization against the "barbaric" nations while the "barbaric" nations struggle to find an identity and a place in this world often through fundamentalism - God forbid.

[DarkFish]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

You said "constructive to add" in a sentence about Tribesman!

lol

May I recommend the ignore list? Will make it a little easier to get him to "stay out of your face".

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by tomfon

I believe that the study involves a certain degree of exaggeration.

How is that - if you even do not know it, as you just admitted?

The authors explcitly said that the more relgious Muslim juveniles are, the easier they use their fists and get engaged in violent crimes, while the more believing christian juveniles are, the less likely it is they use their fists or get engaged with violent crime. they said that they conclude this very carefully, and even if they substract factors like social status and integration status their data still shows this trend very clearly.

The study meanwhile has been mentione din TV news as well. It has also become known meanwhile that it is known to political officials since half a year - and that they tried hard to hide it from the public completely, locking it away.

However. Google shows many links to German newspapers covering it.

http://www.google.de/search?as_q=stu...s=&safe=images

The full german version of the study's text meanwhile is available online, too:
http://www.kfn.de/versions/kfn/assets/fob109.pdf

The homepage of the Kriminologisches Forschungsinstitut Niedersachsen (Criminological Research Institute Lower-Saxony). they work in close cooperation with the German police.
http://www.kfn.de/home.htm

the chief of the project also is no nobody in Germany, and often is on TV for numeric background analysis and information about crime statistics.

They are very hesitent to formulate the clear conclusions they now step forward this, but their data, they say, leaves them no other choice, due to it's unquestionable statistic validity and reliability.

And honstely said, to me the findings are no suzrprise. To many policemen, detectives and schoolteachers they are no surprise as well. finally, this is not the first study showing such politically incorrect results. Several studies in germany over the past years showed comparable results, by trend. Regarding yourth crime as well as violent behaviour, no other social group in germany (including native germans) give the police as much worries, as muslim male migrants.

The study now showed something else, too - that migrants not submitting to any religious belief and considering themselves as atheists or areligious, are showing the smallest, almost no problem at all to assimilate in new cultural and social settings (even lesser problems than Christian immigrants), and were the best integrated group of all migration groups. It seems that the less religion is involved, the fewer walls individuals build around them to stay separate from those outside of their religion.

So says the same study.

so you were wrong and I was right.

You really do have reading and comprehension problems don't you.
Attacking something I never claimed in the first place doesn't miraculously make your mistakes correct.
You were asked top review what you had written and my response as you appeared to have completely lost track of yourself.
Instead you came up with unrelated rubbish which indicates you are the one with nothing constructive to add.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Breaking a blockade is breaking a blockade. By your logic a force breaking a blockade could be demanded to be allowed success if only it does not shoot at those opposing forces enforcing the blockade. That is absurd. It does not matter whether the blockade runner is armed and doe snot use its weapons, or has no weapons. The frigate running a blockade is the same like a trader running a blockade.

Without getting into whether it should be "allowed success", I see that you have silenced yourself on the point of it being "military aggression".

Can't comment, don't know the details of that incident.

At risk of oversimplifying, in a nutshell. The Soviet interpretation of the term "innocent passage" is that it applies only to merchants, and they have to follow the navigational regime of the nation who owns the territorial waters (makes sense to me). The American interpretation allows for warships & merchantmen, and they can be allowed to do almost anything short of opening fire (technically, the American position does not allow surveillance, but let's get real, in these days of electronic steered, radome-covered devices how can you easily tell, and even a active radar can easily be covered in the name of "navigational safety" while conveniently recording down intelligence).

Anyway, the Americans decided to assert their position in their "Freedom of Navigation" program (which in this case is more a "Freedom to be an *sshole" program IMO) and sent Yorktown and Caron to loiter in Soviet Black Sea waters. The Soviets eventually sent two frigates to bump (literally) them away. The Americans bawled - they argue that even if there was a violation it should be handled in court...

So, if we accept that a running a blockade is military aggression, by extension so would this little violation (especially since Yorktown and Caron are after all, very modern large warships) of national waters - thus they may be legitimately sunk. It is quite clear regardless of the legal specifics, if they were sunk, it would have been a incident instigated by America. Yet I just don't see NATO not standing by America if this scenario did come to pass...

See above. Abloackade is a blockade. It has a purpose, that is to prevent, limit or control the flow of goods to an enemy one is at war at. Any effort trying to counter that prevention or control of goods transports, is breaking the blockade. So is smuggling.

The blockade by Israel is legal, was supoported actively by Egypt, and tolerated by many araba states.

The legality is disputable, I think Egypt is bailing ship now they fully understand what this blockade means, and tolerance is no endorsement.

Now will you finally please spend some time on trying to understand what purpose a blockade has and what it tries to acchieve. It's becoming a bit boring that time and again I must point out and explain the very obvious. the Israeli blockade to Gaza is not even a total one, but one that is about inspections and just filtering out certain items that can be of military use for Hamas.

And there you go - it was supposed to let humanitarian items through, and we have commandos.

Civilians voluntarily lining up with combatants - become combatants themselves that way, because they have chosen one combatant side to line up with. Civilians in Israel that get terroised by randomly aimed missiles do not do that, nor does the Israeli military confuse the situation by hiding in civilian crowds like Hamas and Hezbollah does.

That's the distinction you picked, hmm? What the Israeli military does is a non sequitur in this case - if Turkey tried to disguise its warship as merchantmen there might be something to it...

As for civilians, for one thing, it is very highly disputable as to whether a civilian becomes a combatant just for running a blockade. I guess the Lusitania just never knew its death was perfectly legitimate and it was actually a military aggressor on the mere grounds it was running a German sub blockade.

In another point, we get into a bunch of horny questions over how close the alignment has to be b/f it is valid to shoot them. After all, the average Israeli citizen is a conscript and reservist (even the women though they IIRC have shorter programs), and in any case they all pay taxes contributing to a Apache firing into the Gaza.

In a third point, if some Israeli civilian runs across the street to help, for example, some Israeli wounded soldier or to bring him some food, will you really feel nothing as some Hamas fella guns him down (knowing he's a civvie) on grounds that he just "voluntarily lined up" with the IDF, that he knew what was coming ... etc?

The activists on those ships, on the other hand, voluntarily joined blockade runners and knew what they were doing and said that that was what they wanted and what they were doing. they have chosen sides in a conflict they knew they were heading into. That's what made them no neutral civilians but blockde runners. And since running through a blockade is an act of conflict in itself, they were combatants even if they were just sitting on the deck.

Choosing sides, in most people's books, does not equate to becoming combatants...

No. you just mess up the meaning of war and think there is a way war could be fought in a civilised way, like a sports event. It isn'T. It's neither fair nor just. It's only a war either needed, or a war not needed. The first you fight, the second you better stay away from.

That may be your position. The average guy in the West thinks differently however, or they'll be total hypocrites as they cry out against terrorists. And Israel is not willing to pay the political price to use your definition.

And if you believe there is no civility in war, again, there is nothing left to condemn a terrorist with.

[Castout]

Originally Posted by Kazuaki Shimazaki II

And if you believe there is no civility in war, again, there is nothing left to condemn a terrorist with.

One of the brightest quote I ever read on Subsim! Coming from Kazuaki Shimazaki it's no wonder I must say but I just love that quote. Mind if I quote it some time in other forum?

On the matter to elicit some anger [again] from some people let me reiterate this I still love Israel despite this! . Now whoever you are if you get angry by this I've made my case. Now you go piss yourself would you Sir.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Kazuaki Shimazaki II

Without getting into whether it should be "allowed success", I see that you have silenced yourself on the point of it being "military aggression".

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".

At risk of oversimplifying, in a nutshell. The Soviet interpretation of the term "innocent passage" is that it applies only to merchants, and they have to follow the navigational regime of the nation who owns the territorial waters (makes sense to me). The American interpretation allows for warships & merchantmen, and they can be allowed to do almost anything short of opening fire (technically, the American position does not allow surveillance, but let's get real, in these days of electronic steered, radome-covered devices how can you easily tell, and even a active radar can easily be covered in the name of "navigational safety" while conveniently recording down intelligence).

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. you have to announce where it is, from when to when it lasts, the precise area, and you have to be at war with the side you are hitting with the blockade. Shortly summarised. There are total blockades, and blockades that filter, inspect and limit the flow of goods. Gaza is the latter. 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.

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.

Anyway, the Americans decided to assert their position in their "Freedom of Navigation" program (which in this case is more a "Freedom to be an *sshole" program IMO) and sent Yorktown and Caron to loiter in Soviet Black Sea waters. The Soviets eventually sent two frigates to bump (literally) them away. The Americans bawled - they argue that even if there was a violation it should be handled in court...

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.

So, if we accept that a running a blockade is military aggression, by extension so would this little violation (especially since Yorktown and Caron are after all, very modern large warships) of national waters - thus they may be legitimately sunk. It is quite clear regardless of the legal specifics, if they were sunk, it would have been a incident instigated by America. Yet I just don't see NATO not standing by America if this scenario did come to pass...

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

And there you go - it was supposed to let humanitarian items through, and we have commandos.

Purpose of this blockade is to inspect that it is humanitarian items indeed. they need to interdict naval smuggling, like they have smuggling at the Egyptian border in those many tunnels the dig over there (and which they occasionally bomb when they know their locations).

That's the distinction you picked, hmm? What the Israeli military does is a non sequitur in this case - if Turkey tried to disguise its warship as merchantmen there might be something to it...

I wonder what is so difficult in understanding that once you have choosen a side that fights, and line up with it, you are no longer a neutral party yourself, but are attached to that side even if you do not pick up a weapon yourself. You actively contribute your share to that side'S militarily relevant success. The disguising of warships as merchantmen - I wonder again why now this you bring up. It does have no importance for the simple fact I just described: if you choose a side, you are not to be considered neutral anymore. Neutral you are if you refuse to be linked to any side, and do not help any side to gain it's objectives. In order to be considered a non-combatant, it is inevitably a precondition that you refuse to support the fighting of any side, and refuse to dirctly or indirectly assist the ambitions the engaged sides are fighting for. Since you can contribute to the acchieving of military or terrorist goal without needing to fire a weapon yourself (by just boarding a blockade runner, for example, in a bid that your presence makes it untouchable), by that passive contribution to that fighting'S goal you neverthelss "fight" - just that you do not do it with a weapon. the controller in an AWAYCS, the radio operatore in a C3I network also does not fire a weapon, but he sure as hell is a combatant, and a valid military target - due to hwat he does (additionally to the fact that he wears a uniform). 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 for civilians, for one thing, it is very highly disputable as to whether a civilian becomes a combatant just for running a blockade. I guess the Lusitania just never knew its death was perfectly legitimate and it was actually a military aggressor on the mere grounds it was running a German sub blockade.

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.

In another point, we get into a bunch of horny questions over how close the alignment has to be b/f it is valid to shoot them. After all, the average Israeli citizen is a conscript and reservist (even the women though they IIRC have shorter programs), and in any case they all pay taxes contributing to a Apache firing into the Gaza.

Because they are the intended targets to be killed by Hamas. Israelis are not neutral in this, they cannot be, because they are as a nationality, ethnicity, social group, nationl community, the intended target of Hamas that they favour over any other. Hamas does not fight for limited goals and does not only fire against military installations. It tries to kill and destroy everyone and everything Israeli, because the ultimate destruction of Israel itself and the killing of chasing away of it's inhabitants are its goal.

Now tell me in how far Israel has declared war against Henning Mankel's Sweden, or against the Germany the half a dozen communist members of parliament and SED sympathesizers were coming from...? It's even better: german TV investigation report some days ago confronted them with new information that there were even rightwing extremists onboard these ships. These useful left idiots claimed to trust in the humanitarian ambition of the mission - but fell silent before the camera when being confronted with evidence that European rightwing radicals had lined up with the fleet - and that the turkish IHH (linked to fundamentalist fanatic organisations itself, and to the so-called Grey Wolves) and the heads of the AKP knew it.

http://www.swr.de/report/-/id=233454...6iy/index.html

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 !

In a third point, if some Israeli civilian runs across the street to help, for example, some Israeli wounded soldier or to bring him some food, will you really feel nothing as some Hamas fella guns him down (knowing he's a civvie) on grounds that he just "voluntarily lined up" with the IDF, that he knew what was coming ... etc?

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).

Choosing sides, in most people's books, does not equate to becoming combatants...

it depends on active versus passive engagement. I refuse to be neutral in this conflict, I do not hide that I sympathise with the Israelis here. that is my opinion, but that does not make me a combatant. A combatant I become the moment I go over there and join an Israeli military unit - or board a ship that is set to break a blockde announced by Hamas (what Hamas legally cannot do, but you just take the picture). so, being combatant or not is linked to being actively engaged or not on the scene of action. If you collect money for Israel or Hamas in europe, that does not make you a combatant, but you are no neutral anymore, and depending on your authority and importance for the one or the other side's inner network, eventually you nevertheless can be a valid target to be eliminated. Not becausue you collected money in the street, but maybe because you are a big number in whitewashing money for Hamas, or organising weapon deals.

That may be your position. The average guy in the West thinks differently however, or they'll be total hypocrites as they cry out against terrorists. And Israel is not willing to pay the political price to use your definition.

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.

My ideas about war may not be nice, but they express in the end nothing but recognition of the bitter reality. The more humane a war appears to be, the more liekly war becomes, the more acceptable it appears, the more often all sides engaged get surprised by how nasty it actually becomes. The reality is that war is never just (it's always also innocents suffering), never civilised, and is never an order that could be described by categories from peacetime, but that it is the explicit absence of such order - it's the incarnation of chaos and destruction. War is never just, but always unfair, that is part of its nature and definition. I only differ between wars of need/necessity, and wars of choice and desire. I strongly recommend to stay away from the latter at all costs.

Very likely that the wars "I would fight" would be much more dirty and brutal than the wars you have on mind. But I promise you I would have a lot of a wars less than we have in the present due to our civilised self-restraints and confused ideas about "just wars". I am not about being brutal as a self-quality. I am about unwavering, focussed, uncompromised determination to destroy the enemy as fast and as complete as possible. what is done because it is needed to acchieve that, must be done. What gets done although it is not needed for achieving that goal, must not be done.

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.

And if you believe there is no civility in war, again, there is nothing left to condemn a terrorist with.

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. 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. I think of some of the war crimes of the Russians in Chechnya, where great atrocities had been committed, intentionally targetting the civil population that could not escape the presence of russia's enemies, or did not actively support them. But that does not compare to the general procedures and ways the British or Amerikans have established in Iraq or Afghanistan.

If the civilian population does not assist my enemy's fighting force (by giving food, joining forces by night, tracking radio comms, intel activity, sabotage or voluntarily giving enemy fighters a hiding), there is no need for me to intentionally target and kill these civilians, for they have no military relevance for me and thus I do not see a valid military target in them.

However, if there is this bunker with weapon storages under their village's school, or a SAM site on the roof of their hospital, or that important bridge behind the market place that allows the enemy faster supply, then I will aim at these three objects and destroy them. That is not intentionally targetting civilians, but targetting a target of military relevance that is considered to be high enough so that the presence of civiliance will not hinder me to go after these targets nevertheless. If possible without risk to mission success or increased security risks to my own troops, I can delay the action until the number of civilians in the target vicinity has reduced. but priority has the destruction of the military target. civilian casualties in this scenario are called collateral damage. they are not wanted, but are accpeted in the meaning that they cannot be avoided.

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.

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Purpose of this blockade is to control that it is humanitarian items indeed.

Sorry to be a smart ass again but since I've seen you writing this now a couple of times in this thread I thought I might clarify this.
I believe this is again one of those "false friends".
I guess you wanted to translate the German "kontrollieren" (im Sinne von Überprüfen). The English control however means "steuern, lenken" and yes, also "kontrollieren" but only in a sense of having something under control.
"Kontrollieren" in the sense of "Überprüfen" would be "to check, to examine, to inspect" etc.

But apart from that I agree with you.

[Skybird]

Control vs. inspection : thanks for clearing that, I indeed was not fully aware of that difference.

I now have corrected it in the above post of mine (if I haven't overseen one case)

[CaptainHaplo]

The civility lies in the standards by which somebody decides whether or not to go to war.

Well said!

[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.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Kazuaki Shimazaki II

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.

If police sees through a ruling, for exmaple banning a "demosntration", resisting that order is still a form of violating the state'S auhtority and the resitsnc ei rated to be a passive form of viollance. but violence it is. So is intentionally breaking a blockade an act of aggression/fighting/violence. It may be active aggression in case of the thugs using stabs and knifes, and passive aggression in case of those sitting on the deck, but aggression it is.

So are territorial waters.

And laws on marriage and laws for crime punishment both are laws. Still they are two toitally different things. Blockade, quarantine, embargo and national sovereignity are four totally different things.

So it has a defined location - no different here.

And laws on marriage and laws for crime punishment both are laws. Still they are two toitally different things. Blockade, quarantine, embargo and national sovereignity are four totally different things.

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

And laws on marriage and laws for crime punishment both are laws. Still they are two toitally different things. Blockade, quarantine, embargo and national sovereignity are four totally different things.

See location.

See where I said

Originally Posted by Skybird

And laws on marriage and laws for crime punishment both are laws. Still they are two toitally different things. Blockade, quarantine, embargo and national sovereignity are four totally different things.

If you have enough of turning in place while chasing your tail, tell me.

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.

Hamas says it is at war with Israel and will finght until it's ultimate destruction. Israel saysit is at war with Hamas. That is good enough to serve as a description of "war". whether oyu agree with that from some thousand miles away, does not really matter. What matters is the opinion of people liviung in the middle of the w... hm, mess...

In Germany politicians tell us since 8 years that there is no war in Afghanistan. They remind me of you.

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

And I say and many others who are more capable to point at international law say it is legal. Additonally, it is an issue of self-defence.

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

Most cement, meidcations and foods is allowed in by the Israeli - after inspections. that the propserous donators sent old medication only becasue more the Palestinians are not worth to them is not Israel's fault. Israel, btw delivers medications by itself too. New ones.

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.

Your attempt to form a parallal between the national water thing and a naval bloackade, lacks any substance, no matter how often you repeat it. It is a question of preset defintions. you are about national soveriegnity inside national borders in peace times, I am about a bloakcde of a fighting enemy in wartimes. International laws treats both totally different. Enforcing you soveriegnity ans national authority over a piece of land or water belonging to your terriotry, is not the same like blocking the supplies to an enemy in war.

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.

I adressed that when I said

Originally Posted by Skybird

(Israelis) are the intended targets to be killed by Hamas. Israelis are not neutral in this, they cannot be, because they are as a nationality, ethnicity, social group, nationl community, the intended target of Hamas that they favour over any other. Hamas does not fight for limited goals and does not only fire against military installations. It tries to kill and destroy everyone and everything Israeli, because the ultimate destruction of Israel itself and the killing of chasing away of it's inhabitants are its goal.

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?

I imply, in general, that a ship violating a blockade runs certains risks, no matter whether it knows about the blockade or not. It is up to the blocking force to decide whether or not that violation is touching upon militarily relevant goals, or not, and to decide for according consequences.

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

That's why laws today can be turned this or that way so very often.

(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.

That is bad, and definitely speaks against your position. these people, and many of their sympathisers, act by deliberate double standards and sentiments that are decisevly anti-semitic (the whole party of theirs is, btw.). when you say you see no need to judge their moral standards which makes them assessing the situation and deciding to do what they do, then this is no compliment for you.

Nevertheless, they followed the rules in this case of the civilized nations, so the law must protect them and condemn Israel.

You can claim as often that you want that Israel is violating laws when enforcing that blockade. It does not chnage a thing in that it remains to be your and some other people's claims only. they knew there was a blackade, of which many say it is formally correctly implemented and legal, and they knew they were running into confrotnation when they challenged that blockade. Of course they are free to decide to do that.And Israel is free to decide to not alolow them succeeeding. and the laws, as I see it and many others, is on side of Israel.

And a principal thing: the violence errupted on one of six boats, and was started by that mob that boarded the ships with the clear and declared intention to become martyrs and make tings as worse as possible. Laws, anyone? Legality, maybe?

Once knifes start cutting through flesh and bullets fly through the air, it is survival yes or no only. You fight, you don't talk. Talk was before, and may be afterwards again - or not.

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).

If you mean that distortion of laws serious, then this must necessarily be the end of debate, because I refuse to continue when defined terms all of a sudden shall not have any communicative meaning anymore.