Do you support Iraqis coming over and bombing us?

[Zhade]

See, if one argues that it's okay to bomb Lebanon because Hezbollah, which has attacked/responded to attacks from Israel, is in Lebanon, then surely one must recognize the inescapable conclusion (if one is intellectually honest enough to admit it) that Iraqis have every right to come bomb us here as a response to our government illegally and brutally invading their nation, bombing their civilians, raping and torturing and napalming them with white phosphorous. Hezbollah kidnapped some IDF? Hell, how many souls has the U.S. military spirited away to Abu Ghraib?

If you DON'T acknowledge that clear parallel, you're probably 1) not thinking hard enough, letting your (good! right!) desire to protect the Jewish people and the home they've grown used to cloud your thinking, 2) you're a True Believer, or possibly badly ignorant of the situation, or 3) a fucking racist freeper (in which case, please go lock yourself in a closet for 30 years).

Think really carefully on this one: to assert that Israel can ravage Lebanon due to Hezbollah's (largely unwanted by the Lebanese people and government) location there, civilians be damned, is to assert that an attacked party can consider innocents of the attacker's country "collateral damage".

If you support Israel's attack on Lebanon, you also must recognize that Iraqis would be justified (NOT THAT I HOPE FOR IT, HELL NO) in attacking us and considering your dead mom, or aunt, or grandfather, or baby girl, "what happens in war".

Otherwise, you're a hypocrite.

[wake.up.america]

1. Anybody asking these questions at press briefings?

[UndertheOcean]

2. Bravo!!

you nailed it !

[Behind the Aegis]

3. Flase analogy.

[jonnyblitz]

6. of course you don't explain why. nt

[Behind the Aegis]

7. Do you want an explanation?

I find it tedious to always type out a rebuttal, especially when it falls on deaf ears.

[DoYouEverWonder]

11. Doesn't Iraq have a right to exist?

Don't the Iraqi people have a right to defend themselves against aggression?

Don't the Iraqi people have as much of a right as the Israeli's to defend themselves and retaliated in any way they deem appropriate?

[Lerkfish]

22. in a just world, yes. In a neocon world, no.

any middle east country is only allowed to exist if they recognize America's "global leadership".

[Lerkfish]

21. well, you didn't find it tedious to type "flase analogy". The OP is right.

I think the OP has a salient point. Moral outrage should be consistently applied or not at all.
If its not consistently applied, then an explanation or justification for the difference is not out of line to request.

I can address it myself, to an extent: Human creatures avail themselves of morals only when it best serves them. When it serves their enemies they conveniently ignore them, because no one wants to think of themselves as immoral, even if they are. Therefore they must set up this dichotomy in their heads that permits them to act badly but still be highly outraged at the same behaviour from those they don't like.

mature? no. Just? no. Logical? no. Human? unfortunately, yes.

[Laotra]

25. Well said

It seems that posters who consistently deliver content-free oneliners against arguments about moral consistency do it to protect their own moral inconsistency (which is linked to very emotional partisan commitments and self-identities) against rational thinking.

[Zhade]

31. Actually, it's not.

You must fall into the #1 camp.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

4. Would make a good poll question...

...going by the standard the U.S. and Israel both set (all morality aside), Iraq would be wholly justified.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

5. Only if they were doing it to prevent us from attacking their

nation... and only if they used smart bombs that could differentiate between good civilians and bad civilians.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

8. The more noble standard you suggest would be...

...a departure from the standard the U.S. used. I took the question to mean, would they be justified, assuming they follow the same standard the U.S. set in invading and occupying Iraq. We used WMD as a pretext to invade without reasonable verification, and have recklessly killed thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians in this illegal invasion/occupation.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

9. We used WMD as a pretext to invade

We used WMD as we invaded and massacred.... but then, that's just one of the double standard hypocritical behaviors we use to grow more terrorists.

[Laughing Mirror]

10. I don't "support" anybody bombing anybody anywhere

But if Iraqis were to come over and start bombing US as US has done to them, it's certainly justifiable, yes.

[DoYouEverWonder]

12. I don't think I was call it justifiable

but I certainly have enough empathy for other humans to understand why they would.

[Laughing Mirror]

27. If somebody punches me they better watch out

I'm gonna punch back.

[DoYouEverWonder]

28. Fine

but does that mean that you then go and hunt down their family and plow down their home regardess of whether or not anyone is still inside?

[Laughing Mirror]

29. That's US & Israel policy, not mine

And they are the ones with the force and zero morals apparently. They are not the weak ones fighting back.

I lend my strength, as long as I have strength, not to the strong ones but to the weak ones fighting back.

[malaise]

13. Careful

Only certain nations have this right. Great post.

[ShaneGR]

14. Comparison makes no sense....

Israel is a country surrounded on their border by enemies of their state. The US is a couple thousand miles away from Iraq.

[KAZ]

15. Um, the last time I checked...

... we are occupying Iraq. But my memory could be a little foggy, since I haven't heard anything about the dang place since the latest war de jour started.

[H2O Man]

17. We had to.

No choice, really. Couldn't allow the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud. An attack could easily have wiped 151 American cities off the roadmap to peace within :45 minutes. Yellow cake. Tubes.

[ProfessorGAC]

18. Oh Yeah!

Thanks for reminding me. I forgot that we HAD to. Boy, i must have forgotten 9/11 or something, as well.
The Professor

[H2O Man]

19. And "rape rooms."

The President absolutely enjoyed the rolling of those two words from his tongue.

[sweetheart]

23. There is no distance

both states are inside each other's minds.

[cali]

16. I don't support Israel bombing Lebanon

but I still think your analogy is a poor one.

[mmonk]

20. Good post.

[Tsiyu]

24. This is why we had no business attacking that nation

we set ourselves up as the aggressors, and in the world view, they do have every right to attack us back, though they do not have the strength at present.

But the world is surpassing the good ole US OF A. When you're the only guy on the street with a knife, you can rape and pillage and murder at will. Who can harm you? When everyone else gets a knife, your goose is cooked.

Fuck it. I think there are just so many idiots who want us all bombed into oblivion, that whether Iraq invades us some day or not is moot. The Sonsofbitches who are in love with their missiles are going to be the death of all of us. And I am really disgusted by it all.

What the hell? If death intrigues Bush and Nasrallah and Blair and every other fucknut leader so much, why don't they just give death as a gift to themselves and leave the rest of us out of their sickness?

[Joe Fields]

26. Iraq probably has more of a right to do just that, considering that

our invasion of their country was totally unprovoked. Thank god they aren't sharing any border with us.

Having said that, Israel also has the right to invade Lebanon, in order to root out a sworn enemy, whose stated purpose is the destruction of Israel.

The U.S., as well as the rest of the international community fiddled, while Iran and Syria helped to build up the PLO, Hamas and Hezbollah, funneling guns and money, which has put us where we are today. Israel had been the only power to keep them in check, but the United States and the rest of the world coerced them to adopt a position of appeasement. That turned out to be the wrong approach, as we can now all see. Appeasement let Hamas control Palestine. It allowed Iran and Syria to step up their not so clandestine support of Hezbollah, to the point of where Hezbollah controls nearly half of a democratically governed country. The rest of the world turned a blind eye to this. Lebanon did not ask for any help from its Arab neighbors in dealing with Hezbollah. They did not ask the rest of the world for help. They allowed this to happen. The United States allowed this to happen. No one, except Israel was willing to put a stop to this. If anyone is looking to blame anyone here, try pointing the finger at the U.S., Syria, Iran, Lebanon and the moderate Arab nations who could have kept these organizations in check, but didn't.

If not Israel, then who?

[Scriptor Ignotus]

30. don't worry, they will attack us at some point

in our lifetime or maybe our childrens, a group of Iraqis will pull off another 9/11 style attack, killing thousands of innocent Americans. They will use the W's war as justification. It's pretty much inevitable.

Debating about what is and is not justified in the context of war is somewhat pointless. In this day and age, war should never be accepted, but of course it is. War is rationalized, justified and romanticized every day, in all countries, for a variety of reasons. This is the world we live in. This is how it is and how it always has been.

What you should think about with regards to the US invading Iraq and Israel invading (or about to) Lebannon is that in both cases, the invading armies have superior firepower. There is little chance of retaliation. This is part of the reason that the invasions happened in the first place. Maybe you've noticed that we didn't invade North Korea or Iran...(IMO we will never invade Iran, for a whole list of reasons)

[treestar]

32. True, the Iraqis have a "right to defend themselves"

presumably, just like the US and Israel have the right to "defend" themselves by attacking anyone else.

It appears that the "right to defend itself" is limited to the US and Israel.:sarcasm:

[Ignoramus]

33. Hurray for empathy

Let him who has not collectively punished punish the first collective.

Forgive forgive forgive. Etc. etc.

[Moderator]

34. locking....

This is flamebait.