So, as you guys know, I follow a leftist commentators, but I tend to be falling out with a lot of them over this Israel Palestine thing. It appears Israel is gearing up for something big involving invading Gaza, and whatever is gonna happen, it's not gonna be pretty. But of course, a lot of the lefties are moralizing over civilian casualties and how most palestinians are younger than 18, and how many of them are gonna die in this upcoming invasion and our innocent, and I feel mixed on this.
In an ideal world, I would agree with the left. Only the guilty should be punished, the innocent should not be, and the only people who would die in response to whatever backlash Gaza is gonna get over their attacks on Israel would be those who are guilty. I get that.
But....war isn't really clear cut. And civilians die, and collateral damage, and it sucks, I get that. When you're fighting an asymmetrical war where one side is an established army, and the other side are terrorists who exists among civilians, this is bound to happen. And this is the kind of enemy Israel is fighting here.
Hamas is using Gaza's residents as human shields. They exist everywhere, but they exist nowhere. They're ready to strike at any moment, but at the same time, it's hard to strike them, without also hitting civilians.
And this is where the anti war left is strongly against actions like the the ones Israel is about to take, and America took in the war on terror. They often lack the stomach for these kinds of actions. They would back down in the face of such an enemy who hides in the shadows, for fear of innocent people suffering. This morality based on the "care" principle is honorable, sure, but if you do that, you're gonna lose. Because evil, no matter the form, doesn't care. it will use your own ethics against you, because all it cares about is winning, no matter the cost.
Hamas doesnt give a flying fudge about civilian casualties. They murdered babies in Israel, and they'll use Palestinian babies as human shields, and then western leftists will find some level of moral equivalence between the two. I admit the outcome is the same, civilians dead, but I do think the obvious issue is that one side at least tries to be a bit more human and ethical than the other. I mean as we speak, Israel is warning civilians to get out of gaza. yes, I know that's functionally impossible and hence why this is gonna be a slaughter, but at least they're trying to give some sort of warning. Hamas didn't do that to the people they killed. And Hamas is fine turning people against Israel by using their own humanity against them.
Hamas is like a cancer. Cancers are hard to kill, because cancers live among healthy cells. When we use chemo on a cancer, we're hoping it kills the cancer before it kills you. And meanwhile the hyper moral leftists are like DONT TRY TO KILL THE CANCER, HEALTHY CELLS WILL DIE! Well, healthy cells are dying because Hamas is, in fact, a cancer.
It's the same with the War on Terror. And for the sake of things, let me give my real thoughts on the war on terror. I was in middle school when the towers were hit. It was my first real introduction to politics, and I was at that age where teens start developing their first political views. And of course, I was very pro war at the time. Everyone was. We were attacked. The bad guys lived over there. They were being protected by governments it seemed at the time, and the logic was we had to attack the countries and their governments to get at Al Qaeda and Bin Laden. We invaded Afghanistan in 2001, and got bogged down in war there. We didn't get bin laden until 2011. We invaded Iraq in 2003 under false pretenses. We deposed of saddam, but we ended up occupying the nations for a long period of time trying to root out al qaeda and restore order, and we largely failed, because nation building is hard, if the government we set up isnt willing to fight for its own existence, it's gonna fail, and we were basically propping the whole thing up on the taxpayer dime, and the lives of our soldiers.
And that's ultimately why I turned against it. It wasn't primarily omg what about the poor afghanis and iraqis, I mean, I knew we were killing civilians, and that sucks, but to some extent, that's war. It's not like we wanted to. We seemed to have rules of engagement, we tried to follow it, but these things get messy. But yeah, my issue with the war on terror is we went in, and we didnt have an exit plan. We ended up getting bogged down in the conflicts of the region for 8 years in iraq and 20 years in afghanistan, and outside of killing bin laden and saddam, as well as dismantling a good chunk of al qaeda, we barely accomplished anything. War is good at breaking things, but it isn't good at rebuilding them.
Note how my own criticisms are different than the moralists on the left. They hand wring over the civilian casualties. They mean well, but I kinda understand war is messy, and I have to ask, what else could we have done? Just let them attack us again and again? Al Qaeda didnt start at 9/11. They bombed our embassies, they attacked our ships, and THEN they did 9/11 after escalating it to insane levels. We did what made sense at the time. In some ways i regret the war on terror, but primarily because we had no exit plan. And while it killed thousands of locals, it also killed many of our own soldiers. And wasted trillions in tax payer dollars. We did try to color within the lines. All of those drone strikes and smart bombs and surgical strikes were supposed to minimize civilian casualties, it's just that mistakes are often made. There is no perfect war.
The same is true of WWII. THe left loves to still hand wring over the fire bombing of cities like Dresden and Tokyo, and the nuclear attacks of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Uh...if you dont realize it, we were at war, we had a war to win. We were trying to cripple their industrial base. And with Japan, we were trying to force a surrender as fast as possible before the Soviets invaded and turned the area into Korea or Germany. Yes, thousands of civilians died. But it was war. And we were in it to win it.
The left tends to let their empathy get the better of them and lacks the stomach to do what sometimes has to be done to accomplish objectives. Sometimes to get at the people you need to get to to win a war, you end up having to go through some civilians. It sucks, it's regrettable. I believe in minimizing civilian casualties as much as possible. BUT...what are we supposed to do if we don't attack? Were were not support to attack Germany? Japan? We were not supposed to have any response to 9/11? I admit there, we could've been smarter, been more surgical and diplomatic, been less "shock and awe". But other than that, what are we supposed to do?
And what is Israel supposed to do here? Everyone on the left just seems to expect Israel to be the bigger side and not respond to them. But what can they do? Sure, Hamas isnt supported by everyone in Gaza. But they are the functioning government there, and they have clear genocidal intent toward Israel. As long as civilian casualties are minimized as much as is reasonably possible given the circumstances, I can't fault Israel for what they try to do.
Basically, as long as you TRY to minimize collateral damage, I'm not gonna crap on you, even if collateral damage still happens. Zero collateral damage is the ideal. Some collateral damage is the reality. If Israel does not respond, the attacks will continue. And quite frankly, they've been dealing with this crap for decades. They won already. In 1967 they won it all. And yet they're still dealing with terrorism from the people who haven't gotten the memo that Palestine is NOT going to control the entire land area and that the Jews aren't going away.
Ultimately, I do think Israel, despite its flaws, is the more ethical side of the conflict. I think they have the moral high ground. I think that, much like after 9/11, what they are doing may be a mistake, and let's face it, it's gonna suck majorly for the people of palestine. But I have to ask, if not this, then what? I know I watched Cenk Uygur talking about some sort of peace deal, but I say, based on my own analysis of history and the intentions of the parties involved, that Hamas is not interested in peace. They're like that alien from independence day. Peace? No peace. What do you want us to do? Die. How can you negotiate with these people? And that's my beef with this. If the Palestinians were reasonable and came to the bargaining table in good faith, fine. But history shows they either reject every deal and declare war on israel not soon after, or they accept it with fingers crossed and then commit acts of terror wanting the whole thing.
Honestly, until Palestine gets some decent people in charge with more moderate inclinations, I don't see how things are gonna change. The cycle of violence is just going to continue, and I don't see a solution to this conflict.
War is hell. What can I say? I wish there was an easy solution to this conflict, but there isn't. The lesser evil is definitely Israel in my opinion. And while their upcoming actions are gonna SUCK, I'm not sure what people expect them to do instead that's actually REALISTIC. Keep in mind you can hop up and down about how you want a cease fire and peace and blah blah blah. But Hamas doesnt want peace. Israel doesn't want peace. A conflict is gonna happen. It's gonna be nasty, it's gonna be brutal, but I kinda consider it unavoidable and resign myself to the fact that it's gonna happen here.
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