Thread: Shooting the Hostage.

They're using white phosphorus? Oh boy.... definitely not good.
I read about the effects of white phosphorous in Stephen Ambrose's book Citizen Soldiers, basically it's flaming snow. White particles that float to the ground slowly, basically burrowing into skin slowly, burning through clothes... In other words, if you get caught in it, you're screwed, and you're screwed slowly. I can't believe the military ever used it in Iraq.

Yeah. In Iraq, after denying using it at all, Washington then said they were using it to "Illuminate the battlefield" at night...this was later found out to be untrue, and that they were using it as an offensive weapon to flush out the enemy. I'm not sure how many, if any, civilians were harmed by the phosphorus in Iraq, but CNN was just running a story showing some of the burn victims in Lebanon...it wasn't pretty.

They were talking to someone speaking for Israel, taking an investigative tone with him and grilling him about the "severe burn marks" that the civilians were coming into the hospitals with. Before he answered, I remembered reading about the US quick-shipping weapons to Israel in the passed couple of days, so I said allowed to the TV. ".......Phosphorus." Then the reporter was like "Are you telling me the accusations that Israel is using Phosphorus are untrue?" And the speaker was like "all of the weapons Israel is using are within acceptance of the international community," effectively dodging the question and more-or-less confirming that that's exactly what they are using.

You never shoot the hostage, thats horrible. At worst you shoot the person without a clear shot which may cause you to hit the hostage. And thats only accetable if the person is leaving with the hostage. You never let the person leave with a hostage because they will almost always kill the hostage.

As for the Lebanon thing, your assuming they are targeting the "terrorist" and there are people caught in the crossfire. Thats not true at all. Their goal seems to be to level the towns not kill the terrorist. Its not collateral damage when your trying to kill them.

Originally Posted by Alric

You never shoot the hostage, thats horrible. At worst you shoot the person without a clear shot which may cause you to hit the hostage. And thats only accetable if the person is leaving with the hostage. You never let the person leave with a hostage because they will almost always kill the hostage. [/b]

Exactly. That was the way I always saw it. But it seems, in Iraq, commanding officers had been giving their subs clearance to "shoot the human sheilds" that Al Qeida (sp) were using if there was no other choice, which is why I used that analogy. (which may of course be a misinterpretation by the media of the order that was actually given) When I get home I'll search around and see if I have the article saved on my comp. I thought it was pretty horrible, myself.

Originally Posted by Alric

As for the Lebanon thing, your assuming they are targeting the "terrorist" and there are people caught in the crossfire. Thats not true at all. Their goal seems to be to level the towns not kill the terrorist. Its not collateral damage when your trying to kill them.
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Hmm. Interesting point. But mine logic was less of an assumption, and more of what we (I) are being told through the media. Israel was also defending itself by mentioning all the leaflets they were sending out telling those that wanted to leave, to leave, and they are constantly expressing sympathy for the civilians that are being "caught in the crossfire." "Collateral Damage" has been a term the Israelis have been using in the media since the shelling began. But of course I see your point. That could very well just be propaganda and public relations. It does seem, to me also, that they care much less about the civilian population than they do about crushing Hezbollah (or using the guise of crushing Hezbollah to just destroy the Lebanon.)
I think it really shows the two-facedness of the US to be supporting Israel while it carries out its agenda in such a barbaric manner, and then spew our rhetoric of "Peace and Righteousness" to the world, as we do every day, knowing full well that we've been guilty of the same sort of strong-arm tactics.

You mean the leaflets they dropped AFTER they blew up the airports and all the roads and bridges out of the town? Yea some help they are when they made it impossible for people to leave. To make it worse they are tagetting all cars in the area. So even if you want to take your car off road and find a way out their going to activily target you.

They are already driving their armored bulldozers into lebanon to knock peoples homes over, theres been reports of that for almost a week. It should be obvious to everyone they want to clear out a huge area in south lebanon, most likely to claim for themself. They say they want to make a buffer but just wait, they will claim it and set up settlements. The only way to do that is to either drive out or kill everyone in the area. Which is what they are doing. It has nothing to do with terrorist, its a land grab.

Originally Posted by Alric

You mean the leaflets they dropped AFTER they blew up the airports and all the roads and bridges out of the town? Yea some help they are when they made it impossible for people to leave. To make it worse they are tagetting all cars in the area. So even if you want to take your car off road and find a way out their going to activily target you.
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THAT's wtf didn't add up.

As much as I wanted to give Israel the benefit of doubt because I am only going off of the heresay (hearsay?) coming through the media, I did notice that I didn't hear one thing about leaflets until after the shelling had began.
There was footage of this one "checkpoint" where Lebanese women were trying to get out through a certain road and the Israelis were turning them away, telling them to take a route that was miles and miles away. When the women were pleading that they didn't have the kind of money to take that route, the Israeli soldier was like "Go work. Make money."

It's kinda hard to discern truth from afar when lies and misdirection come from all sides. I agree with you about the landgrab assessment, though. Nothing else that's been said from the "democratic front" has made any sort of sense. I guess using the guise of "having to regretfully shoot the hostages" would make the perfect defense for using such excessive offensive force for a landgrab. And after the invasion of Iraq, it gives a lot more clarity as to why the US is in Israel's corner, despite the cost of civilian life - which is that, when all's said and done, it is helping to accomplish the US's goal of "spreading democracy" (aka claiming more land) throughout the middle east and, eventually, who knows where else?

Even while being someone that's forever interested in the behind-the-scenes atrocities that our "oh-so-benevolent" governments commit, you never really want to believe it until you realize just how illogical all of the official stories are.

I saw that footage, thats not in lebanon though. Its footage of some place in the gaza strip. You know the land israel invaded last time where they have an illegal occupation? Israel has been saying how hezbollah has illegal rockets in lebanon and is going against the UN but at the same time they are going against the UN by illegally occupying gaza strip plus they have been setting up illegal settlements in another country for years. Israel has had something like 100 UN sanctions against them.

Just look at the vote they had in the UN. Almost every country in the world voted that israel should stop but then the US vetoed it. Do you really believe the entire world is soft on terrorist or maybe there is something else going on?

By the way there are reports now that israel has been targetting people in the red cross who where going in to try and help people in southern lebanon.

Was that Gaza? I must have missed that part. I was playing the guitar and watching out of the corner of my eye. Heh.

Originally Posted by Alric

Just look at the vote they had in the UN. Almost every country in the world voted that israel should stop but then the US vetoed it. Do you really believe the entire world is soft on terrorist or maybe there is something else going on?
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Oh absolutely. Has it not been a recent Washington trend to go against popular consensus and continue on with what they dictate as the "right thing to do," despite widespread (both national and international) condemnation? Call me paranoid but I think there is almost always two sides of every political story: the PR campaign, and the Truth.

Thats why we defend them, because we would do the exact same thing. We had people in government who said we can torture children and stuff if we wanted to. No reason to act like we are any better. Just look at all the countries we want to invade, and we call it self defense too, even though they are not even remotely a threat.

If I had no other choice, I would try and shoot the hostage in a non-vital area to get her out the way. but if there was no other choice and it was to save a lot of other peoples lives I would have to sacrafice the women.

This was a good topic so I rated it. The US and Israeli foreign policy has been all about shooting the hostage. Let's take the US foreign policy and apply it to... say a bank robbery.

Okay, so this guy robs a bank right? He's got a bunch of hostages. If we were following US foreign policy in about an hour the cops would have killed everyone inside using chemical warfare. For those that survived, depleted uranium gives them cancer later that they die from. Oh yeah, and also the cops solds the robbers the weapons not long ago. Also, the cops then went to an adjacent bank and started chemical warfare against that bank that has no bank robbers inside because they don't like the manager.

I mean honestly, the shit they're getting away with today is disgraceful.

Typically the Americans and the Israelis say the same thing, that "the enemy is using human shields" and they blame the casualties on them.

But just a few days ago I heard that the Israelis had shackled Lebanese women and children around one of their gun implacements. Now whose fault would it be if those women and children had been shot by incoming fire?

One of the most morally shocking things that I have heard concerned the first days of Battle of Bagdad. American Gunship Helicopters were slaughtering anybody in a Uniform. This one Battalion of Iraqis dropped their weapons in the street and threw up their hands. The American Gunship kept firing. So the Iraqis solders ran, and the American Gunship kept machine gunning. The Solders ran into a crowd of civilians that were also running in terror, and the American kept shooting...blaming the civilian casualties on the Solders who would not stand still to be shot dead.


Also there is the issue of calling EVERYBODY a Terrorist. First they were "Terrorists" because they would target Civilians and because they would act like spies, going about without a uniform, dressed like a non-combatant. But the Fighters for Hamas, and the Hezbulah THEY ARE WEARING UNIFORMS, AND THEY HAVE TARGETTED SOLDERS -- MILITARY TARGETS. So why are they still being called "terrorists"?

If killing Civilians qualifies one as a terrorist, well America and Israel have racked up a far greater score there then anything any small Arab Militia has been able to accomplish.

Oh, another reason they are so focussed on calling everybody a "terrorist" is so every adult male encoutered on patrol can be simply gunned down, and counted as one of those "terrorists". We need to wonder how many innocent civilians are being gunned down while the six o'clock News insists upon designating them as 'terrorists'? It reminds me of Vietnam where the Captain wouild say "If we killed them, then that makes them 'Charlie' (Viet Cong)". Oh, that reminds me of a bitter sweet story. I was visiting a Reunion of Vietnam Veterans, and one of the Vietnamese Auxillary guys had shown up. Everyone was talking about their kids and showing around photos. Well, the Vietnamese Guy starts talking about his son... "What's his name?". "CHARLES". All of the Americans get this odd look on their faces and their eyes dot around. Over 20 years after the fact they still reach to the designation "Charlie". And they could hardly believe it that a Vietnamese person would dream of naming a son "Charlie". Well, that's Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome doing its job... overtime.

I admit I've skimmed much of this topic, so this something like this might have been mentioned before. The reality is, America heavily supports Israel. Israel recieves much more of our money than it needs, because the politicians are afraid that if they stop they'll lose support, basically monetary, from the Jewish community. Israel doesn't care at all about the Lebanese civilians. They're trying to make themselves look strong in the eyes of the Arab nations, especially Syria and Iran. The U.S. killed civilians for oil, so obviously the U.S. isn't going to care about it and is going to continue to support Israel. This remins me of something sarcastic that my friend said. The federal government created shows like American Idol to keep us citizens good and ignorant. That makes sense when you think that more citizens eligible to vote voted for American Idol than the presidential race. Think about it, Iraq (cough oil), torturing of prisoners, illegal wire tapping, all the crap that Bush gets away with like saying that leaking that CIA agent's name (whose husband was against the Bush administration's policy in Iraq) was "a very serious matter" and "a criminal action", when he himself authorized it.
http://newsmine.org/archive/cabal-elite/w-...a-identity-leak.
The point is, most citizens don't know or care about all this, and that is why it continues.

Heck they call US civilians terrorist now. Clearly someone needs to buy a dictionary. A terrorist isn't a "person who disagrees with you".

Originally Posted by Leo

If killing Civilians qualifies one as a terrorist, well America and Israel have racked up a far greater score there then anything any small Arab Militia has been able to accomplish.
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So True.

There was a debate on, yesterday. I forget which network, but I think it was on Paula Zahn, so it was probably CNN. Anyway, a representative from Israel was debating with a representative of Lebanon and they were getting into a pretty heated "Israel is Defending itself" vs "Israel is being excessive and killing way too many civilians" battle.
The rep from Lebanon kept trying to squeeze the question "How many civilians have to die?! How many?!" in between the shouts of the Israeli rep saying "We regret any civilian casualty, whether Lebanese or Israeli." But finally, after the other guy kept shouting the same question over and over, demanding an answer, the Israeli rep, frustrated into an outburst, blurted out "I WILL KILL AS MANY PEOPLE AS IT TAKES TO DESTROY HIZBOLLAH!"

A very telling moment, I think.

If this is the logic behind the superpower community, (whether regional like Israel or international, like the US) the civilians of the world are in a whoooole lot of trouble.

If I understand the analogy, I think the SWAT team should just turn their backs to the terrorists and walk away.

What choice does it give the terrorists? If they shoot the hostage, then they are vulnerable. What do the terrorists want? If it's protection, then we can just leave them alone and they won't need protection, and won't need the hostage.

But the whole point of the matter is in most cases they are trying to accomplish something very bad and are using hostages to keep people from shooting them long enough for them to accomplish this task. Whether it be escaping with bank money, they committed a crime and are about to be arrested, whatever. There's a very thin line between being a citizen and a criminal in this country, and usually you get shot either way.

To bring the matter to the middle-east conflict, well, Israel is conquering people, all this stuff about ti being the Lebanese's fault for using human shields and all this PR on CNN and Fox news is just... frankly... PR and anyone in the media that buys this bullshit they spew and reports it as truth to the American public is a propaganda spokesman, because if you look at the facts they are viciously murdering people, soldiers and civillians a like, with no regard for whose lives they are taking.

I agree that america is the true terrorist of the world. (And isreal)

The above two countries just 'kill the hostages' without there being direct need for it. For instance it Is ok to shoot a hostage if the person using the hostage as a living shield is going to blow himself and a lot more people up anyway the next few seconds.

However, allways do aim for the bad guy. But in some cases collateral damage is morally acceptable.

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Ironicly, Isreal and America bombing the shit out of the 'hostages' (civilians) to kill a few (alledged) terrorist just creates more hate and thus terrorism against american and isreal.

i just wonder.... if this is an american board full of americans...



i just wonder.... if this is an american board full of americans... and if there is not a statistic relation between dreams and political view... (or may it be with better intelligence )

WHO THE HELL MADE THAT F***ING BUSH GO TO WHITE HOUSE?!?!?!?!?

(where were you all at vote time? )

Originally Posted by italianmonkey

(where were you all at vote time? )
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I, for one, was torn between Dumbfuck and Dumberfuck. I thought both canidates sucked, and decided not to vote.

Won't be making that mistake this time, though.

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

I, for one, was torn between Dumbfuck and Dumberfuck. I thought both canidates sucked, and decided not to vote.

Won't be making that mistake this time, though.
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I made that same mistake except I actually voted for one of them. I won't be doing that again either.

Originally Posted by italianmonkey

i just wonder.... if this is an american board full of americans...
i just wonder.... if this is an american board full of americans... and if there is not a statistic relation between dreams and political view... (or may it be with better intelligence )

WHO THE HELL MADE THAT F***ING BUSH GO TO WHITE HOUSE?!?!?!?!?

(where were you all at vote time? )
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I am quite sure that most republicans are WAY to close minded to even consider LDing...

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And allso, yeah, From bumb to smart: Bush-voters, kerry/gore-voters, neighter-voters. The last group just realises america doesn't have a democracy anyway. Ask youself, howmany americans could imagen a better person then the 2 to choose from. I think alot of americans could, yet such a person isn't in their 'democracy'.

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