I wonder if we are "normalising" war.

I have linked to the article, but again it is Robert Fisk, who has strong views in whatever language you wish to read it.

However, can I make one proviso, due to certain recent events, can we avoid reference, if you care to comment, on Israel/Palestine, there are other situations, or events that are just as relevant.

Link

Moss

With the opening two paragraphs of the article showing such political bias, I didn't read any further. If the author had a serious message, why did he remove all credibility from it by commencing his article with a rant? Moss, you say that we should not comment on the Isreal/Palestine situation, but that is what Fisk uses in his opening rant. To ignore something is tantamount to giving tacit approval or acceptance, and I do not accept that Israel is necessarily the evil party/aggressor in that theatre - certainly not to the extent as portrayed by the usual Kumbaya choir.

E:T

Not sure if I should comment on the topic, the article, the author of the article or all the comments below that article !

He does make small mention of other instances (like Kosovo and Iraq), but they are significantly less than his Israeli parts. I'd definitely say he has an agenda in that article.

Are we becoming inured to civilian casualties in wars these days ? Or has it always been there, just never thought of as much as nowadays ? Think Hitler's bombing of English cities, Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki. Civilians have often been the innocent casualties of wars throughout the ages. We have instituted a great number of "ideals" designed to protect civilians, but most of them are just that. "Ideals". Pieces of paper that don't hold much weight when the bullets are flying and the bombs are bursting.

Credit to most of the "Western" powers, that try at least to develop weapons and tactics to avoid civilian casualties. Yes, mistakes still do happen. Yes, we still end up with "collateral damage" when trying to specifically target bad guys with "smart" weapons, but in the vast majority of cases, it's not done purposely. And when the bad guys deliberately hide amongst their civilian populations like little girls hiding behind their mommy's skirts, innocent casualties are likely to occur.

With the wealth of information we are bombarded with these days through the internet, news, TV, etc, and the large number of incidents that are continually happening around the world, I think people are simply becoming saturated with news about civilian deaths.

Eventually the brain just goes "oh, just another story about innocent civilians being killed. What's that, the 3rd, 4th one this morning ? Never mind, what else is happening ?"

I noticed yesterday a small, short article about the UN being concerned about the number of children injured/killed in the recent battles in Sri Lanka. Just one little article, didn't garner much attention, quickly forgotten. I had the cynical thought that whoever put out the article was a little peeved (i.e. pissed off), because a previous one mentioning concern over "civilian casualties" in the same conflict also received little attention from the world.

So if mentioning "civilian casualties" doesn't draw attention, change it to concern over "child casualties" and see if that gets you more air time, or attention, or funding (like I said, a cynical thought, perhaps drawn from years and years of seeing/reading/hearing about similar stories).

Finally. I glanced at the comments to the article linked in the OP. Makes me glad that we have moderators on TV ! Can you imagine what TV would be like if we allowed those kinds of comments in threads here !

It is definitely a touchy subject, with a lot of ardent supporters on both sides of the issue.

I had trouble reading the article because of the T/ shirt ad next to it.

I notice no mention was made of Rwanda, Darfur, Ethhiopia or Somalia. Wonder why?

I slogged all the way through the editorial. He finally blamed the US.

Nothing new or exciting here.

I'd definitely say he has an agenda in that article.

I concur. I didn't bother reading past the second paragraph. I might have rewad further if he had mentioned all the injured and dead children, instead of "It's not just that Israel has yet again got away with the killing of hundreds of children in Gaza". That sentence alone, tells me which angle he is coming from and i think his angle is off at a tangent.

He does make small mention of other instances (like Kosovo and Iraq), but they are significantly less than his Israeli parts. I'd definitely say he has an agenda in that article.

Are we becoming inured to civilian casualties in wars these days ? Or has it always been there, just never thought of as much as nowadays ? Think Hitler's bombing of English cities, Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki. Civilians have often been the innocent casualties of wars throughout the ages. We have instituted a great number of "ideals" designed to protect civilians, but most of them are just that. "Ideals". Pieces of paper that don't hold much weight when the bullets are flying and the bombs are bursting.

Killing civilians is wrong, but the truth is that killing almost anyone is wrong - many soldiers are drafted or forced to fight - yet we still solve our problems this way. War is terrible and war sucks, but we continue to have them and civilians are nearly always killed.

As pretty much everyone has admitted, the article that is linked is an opinion piece that is an excuse to bash Israel and of little consequence. His premise that "the Israeli Defence Force is as much a rabble as all the other armies in the region", is utterly laughable.

Welcome back UG

Thanks much!

Moss, you say that we should not comment on the Isreal/Palestine situation, but that is what Fisk uses in his opening rant. To ignore something is tantamount to giving tacit approval or acceptance, and I do not accept that Israel is necessarily the evil party/aggressor in that theatre - certainly not to the extent as portrayed by the usual Kumbaya choir.

E:T

The reason I said to not reference Israel/Palestine was because of a series of threads recently which could not be conducted civilly, not because of any other reason. I also stated that Fisk has strong views, although undoubtedly jaundiced when he recalls Israel, so I did not want to go down that route.

You are assuming, because I requested no reference to a particular theatre, that I am giving tacit approval to the rest of the article, but assumption is a dangerous game and you have it completely wrong.

Finally. I glanced at the comments to the article linked in the OP. Makes me glad that we have moderators on TV ! Can you imagine what TV would be like if we allowed those kinds of comments in threads here !

It is definitely a touchy subject, with a lot of ardent supporters on both sides of the issue.

I read the hard copy, so have not looked at the on-line comments, I guess I wont bother now either.

got away with the killing of hundreds of children in Gaza".

Which is why I tried to veer away from that particular element, the more Fisk bangs the drum, the more people will switch off.

What I should have done, was copy the article and edit out the Israel/Palestine elements, but then that would have been wrong also.

I see only Chuckd and OC got through it without mentioning Israel or Palestine, I wonder what could be read into that and still death and destruction will be normalised and I will continue to sing Kumbybloodyya.

In the land of the deaf, the one eared man is king.

Moss

No Moss, I did not assume your approval. What were you saying about assumption?

The problem with this article is that Fisk is so biased that he turns away people from any message he might have. Iraqi soldiers being buried in trenches, for example , has nothing to do with the title of the piece. Soldiers, by the very definition, are not civilians, and combatants who are killed when they are bombed (whether it is shrapnel or their trenched collasping on them) are not innocent bystanders. They just happen to be on the losing end of the dirty game of war.

Fisk does a very poor job at it, but the overlying idea expressed in th title is probably pretty valid. We are innured to civialian casualties. We glance over a CNN link for a story about 31 people killed in a suicide bombing and go right to the latest footbal scores.

On the other hand, we also have much more information about civilian casualties now that we have had throughout history. Did decent Roman citizens hear about the millions of civilians in Gaul slaughtered by Caesar? Did the British populace really understand how many Indians were killed in various incidents? While the newspapers around the world had maps of the moving trenchlines in France during WWI, did they really report on entire villages being wiped out?

We are in a time of vast information being available, and this has done much to let the world know of civilians casualties, even if we don't do much about it sometimes (Burundi, anyone?)