• BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
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    5 months ago

    If you kill 60% civilians and children, and the population is 75% civilians and children and the enemy is literally using them as human shields, you’re showing that you’re doing at least something to minimize the harm. Anyone with a heart should be furious that this is the way that Hamas has decided to fight. Anyone with a heart should be furious that they attacked over a thousand civilians to pop off this latest round of violence. It sure made the Israelis furious, that’s why they’re retaliating.

    There’s no such thing as a war with 0 civilian casualties anymore. This isn’t the 1600s where people lined up for battles in nice lines. So every war is a genocide by your definition. Unfortunately they’re still going to happen because the world isn’t all rainbows and unicorns.

    Civilian casualties are both real people and statistics. Again, the world isn’t all rainbows.

    • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      If someone invades my home, 75% of people in my home are my family including the invader. So if in response, I only kill 50% of my family, by your logic I would have done very well.

      The fact that they are killing a percentage of civilians that’s less than the overall percentage of civilians in a region is irrelevant to determining how effectively civilian harm is being minimised, it just means they are doing slightly better than killing people completely at random. I think you’d agree that’s quite a low bar you’re setting there.

      • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
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        5 months ago

        Except that’s not a good analogy.

        How many people would you be willing to have the military kill to get your child back if they had been taken hostage?

        If the kidnappers were hiding behind their own family, with their family knowing they’ve done an evil thing, would that change your answer?

        I know I wouldn’t care how many they had to take out, my child is worth worth more to me than terrorists (and their supporters) lives.

        Would I prefer they don’t take out women and children while getting my child back? Of course, but the whole point of using human shields is to make it difficult to do just that.

        The Israelis got 4 hostages back today, and it looks like there were around 200 Palestinian casualties to do so. Too bad for them.