Thursday, July 31, 2014

Lets talk civilian casualties in the Israeli vs. Hamas conflict.


You're a LCpl in the USMC.

You're on patrol in some Middle Eastern country.  You don't care about the politics or the controversy.  The only thing you care about is getting home alive (hopefully in one piece) and making sure all of your buddies do too.

Suddenly out of nowhere you start taking fire from one of the few Christian churches in the region.

Do you.....

A.  Return fire, assured in the fact that senior leadership will have your back because the enemy chose to make a place of worship a fortification and a legitamite target? Or....

B.  Sit there and do nothing while your buddies die all around you...because its a place of worship?

Expand that to a "nation state".  What do you do when the enemy has militarized every Mosque, hospital, school, UN facility, residence etc....

THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HAMAS HAS DONE!

Check out the image above.  How do you target only military installations when the entire area they control has been converted into a military installation?  You accept the reality of the situation and act accordingly.  Hamas has chosen to place its people in harms way.

The Israeli's have accepted another cease fire.  That's unfortunate.  How do you lower civilian casualties in this war?  You finish the job as rapidly as possible.  The cease fire works against that.

Well that didn't last long.

Israel accepts a ceasefire (the same one I was railing against) and what does Hamas do?  They launch an ambush and kidnap/kill Israeli soldiers.  AMAZING!  How can they get so slack in their force protection measures?  This is not the Israeli military that I know!