Little Green Footballs

Monday, December 29, 2008

No pity in LA this Christmas

The attack on Gaza is a bit like a Rorschach test. People's reaction tells you a lot about what kind of person they are.

Take Charles Johnson of littlegreenfootballs.com :

More than 300 people have died since Friday, the vast majority of them Palestinians. Some were armed militants, some were police and other municipal workers, some were civilians.

What's striking is that Charles Johnson's reaction to this is: they probably deserved it. All of them. Indiscriminately.

He doesn't say: well, maybe the Israeli response to the rocket attack was a little over-the-top

He doesn't say: surely a highly-trained and ethical army such as the IDF can do better than mirror the Palestinian militants by firing into densely packed areas full of civilians.

No, he says, quote: "At some point, though, don’t we need to ask, 'How innocent are those ordinary Gazan civilians, anyway?'"

You see, that's a rhetorical question. For obviously, in Charles Johnson's mind the answer is clear: the civilians aren't innocent. By virtue of the fact that they live in Gaza, where the majority voted for Hamas, they are guilty, and therefore we shouldn't shed a tear if they are killed. Man. Woman. Child. All of them.

That's the kind of person Charles Johnson is.

7 comments:

The Sphinx said...

By the same virtue, all Americans should be considered guilty for voting for Bush twice in a row, the man that caused quite a lot of destruction and misery in the Middle East.

Let's see how he likes that line of thinking now.

The Sphinx said...

Oh this one's rich:

======
#71 Charles

I'd appreciate it if we don't have discussions about carpet bombing. My post above is not intended to be an open door to start discussing indiscriminate bombing.

Please note: Israel is doing the exact opposite of carpet bombing. They're launching highly targeted surgical strikes trying to minimize civilian casualties.

======

Well they're not exactly successful in minimizing civilian casualties. Over 60 dead civilians (according to the UN) already in only 3 days. So either Chuckles is wrong and they're not trying their best to minimize civilian deaths, or they are but are too incompetent to do so.

I'll leave those options standing..

V said...

From what I've seen at LGF and elsewhere in the conservosphere over the years, I think that a 10:1 kill ratio is considered the bare minimum -- although in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, the ratio is currently more like 100:1 and rising.

In other words, in the world according to Charles & Co., the life of an innocent child in Gaza is worth approximately 10% that of an innocent child in Sderot or wherever.

Anonymous said...

Great post.
This is exactly what I thought when I read this on little green footballs; the guy that runs it has the mind set of a terrorist.
Which is ironic for someone that claims to be so against terrorism.

Keep up the good work here.

Anonymous said...

"So either Chuckles is wrong and they're not trying their best to minimize civilian deaths, or they are but are too incompetent to do so."

Come on, that is totally unfair. Given that Hamas has its military operations mixed in with residences, churches, hospitals, etc., in a very densely populated area, avoiding collateral damage is going to be very difficult to do. Wanting to but being unable to avoid some such damage is therefore not "incompetence".

Anonymous said...

I've thought about this for a week now.

It's his "screw them" moment.

A complete show of insensitivity that lays bare his feelings on palestinians as a whole.

The Sphinx said...

"Wanting to but being unable to avoid some such damage is therefore not 'incompetence'."

Right now it's rather hard to believe that Israel did not want to shoot at and kill UN aid workers, seeing that Israel knew exactly where they were operating.

It's even harder to believe that Israeli forces didn't want to shell a civilian shelter that THEY set up themselves a day earlier.

Explain that.