• FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    A missile strike is a legitimate casus belli. If you’re not a pacifist, that means it justifies force to achieve a military objective, which necessarily justifies killing civilians.

    Whether that’s “countless” or a few depends on the objective.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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      5 months ago

      Yes, I get that you think that as long as it fits the military goal, killing any amount of children is justified.

      And I’m telling you that position is disgusting and abhorrent.

      • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        There is no military goal that justifies killing “any amount” of civilians. All of them have limits, which are based on military capabilities.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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          5 months ago

          Okay, what is the limit of children the IDF should be able to kill before it is no longer justified? Give me a number.

          • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            In general, civilian-combatant casualty ratios range from 1:1 to 5:1. They tend to be higher in urban settings like Gaza. The Chechen wars were closer to 7-10:1

            The US estimates 15,000 combatants have been killed in Gaza. If so, we would consider 15,000 to 75,000 civilian deaths to be normal at this point.

            • livus@kbin.social
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              5 months ago

              Anyone reading along in this thread should probably check the veracity of these claimed ratios. Wikipedia has an okay overview.

              It’s also worth noting that the Russian wars in Chechnya were particularly notable for their brutal war crimes.

              @FlyingSquid

              • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                I’ll save you the effort:

                • Mexican American War, 1:1
                • WW1, 1:1
                • WW2, between 3:2 and 2:1
                • Korean War, 3:1
                • Vietnam War, between 1:3 and 2:1
                • Lebanon War, between 4:1 and 6:1
                • Chechen Wars, 10:1 (first), 4:1 (second), 7.6:1 (overall)
                • Yugoslav War: between 1:10 and 10:1
                • Iraq War: between 1:2 and 3:1
                • Mosul: between 0.7:1 and 1.5:1

                If there are 15,000 combatants among the 35,000 dead in Gaza, then this war stands at 1.3:1

              • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                I consider all civilians to be equal, so I’m not going to separate children for the same reason I’m not going to separate Palestinian Christians, mothers, teachers, or retirees.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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                  5 months ago

                  Okay, let me put it this way- are you so firm in your conviction that all the child deaths in Gaza so far have been justified that you would be willing to say that to the parents of a dead child? Because I’m willing to find some so that you can tell them that yourself. I bet they’d even be willing to get on video chat with you so you can tell them, to their faces, that their child’s death was justifiable.

                  So, are you willing to do that? Tell grieving parents that their child’s death was justifiable because Israel is accomplishing its military objectives?

                  • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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                    5 months ago

                    Believing something is true does not mean that you should tell someone, especially someone in grief.

                    If someone’s husband just died, would you be willing to say, “You should know that he was cheating on you for years”?

                    If someone’s mother just died, would you be willing to say, “I really think you should have spent more time with her in her final days”?

                    If someone’s child commits suicide, would you be willing to say, “You could have prevented this if you had bothered to pay attention to the warning signs”?

                    Even if all these things are 100% true, I think it would be monstrous to blurt them out.

                    Sometimes compassion means respecting that people are not always ready to hear the truth.

            • Natanael@slrpnk.net
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              5 months ago

              Israel themselves said they would accept 15 dead civilians for low level Hamas staff and 100+ for higher ranking ones.

              And they overshoot hard.

              IDF count every male above 16 as Hamas by default. You’re gonna get a lot of false positives that way