[Nettime-bold] Re: Suicide Bombers

["Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>]

It is very tricky to defend Milosevic's action in Kosovo, while trying 
to expose Sharon's action in West Bank. Because, Sharon also 
claims that he is just after the armed and 'uniformed' members of 
well defined and named terrorist/paramilitary Palestinian formations 
- Albanian paramilitaries (KLA) that Milosevic was after even have 
the same letter "L" in the middle of their name just like PLO does, 
hinting that they had the same objective: LIBERATION.

"The government force was appropriate to the nature of target,
terrain and the objective." - we hear that all the time from 
aggressors around the world, don't we? It doesn't matter whether 
their name is Milosevic or Sharon. And Milosevic, indeed, did not 
use F16s and Apaches in Kosovo - but not out of his humane 
restraint: he didn't use them because he didn't have them. He had 
Drenica levelled to the ground just as Sharon had done it to 
Ramallah, killing one terrorist in fifty dead civilians or so.

True, Albanians did not blow up themselves in Belgrade on 
Orthodox Easter - now, in retrospect, maybe that would get some 
attention of Belgrade intelligentsia to their decade-long suffering 
under the martial-law - but that is because their local struggle 
worked well. KLA was much better matched to the Yugoslav Army 
than PLO is to the Israeli Army. KLA did not have to fight against 
the latest military technology available to the Israeli Army, which 
made their fight more fair - they did never have to resort to the most 
desperate of weapons, the suicide bomber.

That's where US responsibility comes in: because it is the US that 
armed the Israelis with this hi-tech weapons. It is also worth to 
note that ALL US administrations insisted legally that Israelis can 
use that weapons only in the defense from an external attack, as 
former President Carter already publicly pointed out. The use of 
those weapons against Palestinian refugee camps is a clear 
violation of the US law that allowed Israelis to purchase those 
weapons in the first place. I am appalled tha this breach of contract 
issue did not already prompt US Congress to call for sanctions 
against Israel, at least an arms embargo would be in order...

ivo

Date sent:      	Sat, 27 Apr 2002 13:47:41 -0400
Send reply to:  	International Justice Watch Discussion List
             	<JUSTWATCH-L@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU>
From:           	Miroslav Visic <visic@PIPELINE.COM>
Organization:   	New World Disorder
Subject:        	Re: Suicide Bombers
To:             	JUSTWATCH-L@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU

The difference between (suspected) war criminal Milosevic and (suspected) war
criminal Sharon is that Milosevic sent military and police to chase well defined
terrorist paramilitary organization (KLA) whose members were armed and who wore
the uniforms. The Albanian terrorists were in rural, scarcely populated or
unpopulated areas. The government force was appropriate to the nature of target,
terrain and the objective. It doesn't matter, if they attacked pizza parlor or
not, the point is what appropriate response was.

Sharon sent heavy armor, tanks and artillery, Apache helicopters and F-16
fighter jets to attack civilian population with understanding that 1 out of 50
or 200 people might be terrorist. I am surprised that some people, including
Steve, support it. When did you see any civilized country do the same? When "Red
Brigades" operated in Italy, Italians didn't send tanks and helicopters, they
used their elite anti-terrorist police.

But I am really concerned with the following kind of thinking:

MV: "Are they (terrorists) targeting us because they are envious of our life
style? Suicide bombers - why do they hate life?"

Steve: "Well, Miroslav, I really don't know, nor quite frankly do I care."

I think Steve, like most apologists of Israel's occupation, fail to recognize
the fact that as a result of ethnic cleansing, the sizable amount of land was
stolen from Palestinians. The policy of our government is to support the country
that stole that land, the country that runs apartheid style society. At the same
time, our governments are denying Palestinians UN recognized universal right to
self defense.

As a result of such policy, myself and other people of dignity and decency, are
also potential targets because of stand of our government. I don't want to be
target just because Bush and some powerful lobbies support Israel. Israel does
nothing for me, except, as right now, making me a more likely target of people
who, in their desperate search for freedom, resort to all means they may have at
their disposal.

However, the latest crisis opened a crucial question - more and more people are
asking is it in our best interest to support Israel? Do we really have strategic
interest in it? Do we buy oil from Israel? When did we last time use their soil
to enhance our interests in the Middle east? Why they spy on us if we are
friends? Or this importance altogether a bogus concept, as a result of lobbying
of our corrupt politicians?

I think 9/11 and the position that all world (except  couple of Australian
tabloids) are taken, should teach us a lesson. As for Israelis, if they want
peace, they know what they need to do: return the land that's not theirs.


Steve Albert wrote:

> I particularly like these lines from MIroslav's post :
>
> Who sends tanks and F-16s to "fight
> terrorism" in urban areas densely populated by civilians?
>
> I wonder whether I should repost some of  Mirolslav's remarks about how
> Serbian troops were fighting Kosovar terrorism.
>
> Maybe my memory is failing me but I don't seem to remember Kosovars blowing
> themselves up in pizza parlors in Belgrade, or during celebrations of the
> Orthodox Easter.
>
>  How should we regard the activity of the suicide bombers?
>
> Miroslav answers this question by asking another question:
>
> Are they(terrorists) targeting us because they are envious of our life
> style? Suicide bombers - why do they hate life?
>
> Well, Miroslav, I realy don't know, nor quite frankly do I care.
>
> For two reasons:
>
> 1)Making the targeting of civilians one's principal (not to say only)
> method of warfare is wrong. Period. Sept 11 has shown us where the logic of
> this kind of actions will lead.
>
> 2) The first reason should suffice.
>
> However, leaving aside all consideration of morality,this tactic is sure
> fire way to guarentee that the Palestinians never have a homeland.
>
> Before this Intifada began, Israel had a government that favored leaving the
> occupied territories. Poll after  poll showed that a majority of Israelis
> favored ending the settlements, if that was the price of peace.
>
> Even if this were not the case, Israel would eventually have had to do so.In
> our modern era, no nation can occupy the territory and control the lives of
> another people against their will for ever.
>
> That being said,the suicide bombings don't take place in the occupied
> territories.They take place in Israel proper.
>
> No matter how many times one hears  that the goal of the Paletinians is to
> see resolution 242 enforced, who would believe them ? What guarantee is
> there that if Israel withdrew from all of the land it conquered in 1967 this
> stuff would stop? What would keep terrorists from using a newly free
> Palestine as a platform for further attacks? Without the assurance that
> withdrawal will bring peace,what incentive does Israel have to pull out of
> the territories?
>
> Secondly,as even the members of this list would have to admit,only the US
> can broker a settlement between the Israel and the Palestinians. Who can
> anyone  believe that the US will really have any interest in doing so as
> long as the Palestinians don't clearly renounce the favored  tactic of Osama
> Bin Laden?
>
> Given all that, I do not think that anybody does the Palestinians a good
> service by trying to "understand suicide bombers" In fact, it might even be
> a greater act of friendship for the allies of the Palestinians in Europe and
> elsewhere to try to explain to them that this kind of action makes it almost
> inevitable that they will never will be able to acheive their legitimate
> aspirations.
>
> One last thing about this:Here is a standard line one hears after a suicide
> bombing,whether it be from Saudi diplomats, or idiots like Robert Fisk:
>
> Look how desperate a 16 year old must be to blow themselves up in this way.
>
> Really.
>
> What about the Colombine killers? What about the child warrriors in Sierre
> Leone. What about Tamil Tiger suicide bombers?
>
>  Why don't we have a little 'understanding' for their causes as well?
>
> Young people can do some pretty horrid things,and some of them don't even
> need to live under occupation to do so (witness yesterday's massacre in a
> school yard in Germany).
>
> In this particular case ,however,(and in the case of Sierre Leone and the
> actions of Tamil Tigers who,I believe invented this horrid tactic), the
> young people didn't carry out their action on their own. Somebody built the
> bomb.Somebody planned the action. And the adults who did so should know
> better than to believe that these actions will lead to anybody's liberation.
>
> The same should also be true for all those who tell us that these bombing
> help us understand how oppressed the Palestinians are. This is a hell of a
> price to pay for a sociology lesson,especially one that does nothing to
> bring the Palestinains closer to freedom.
>
> Steve

--
__________________________________________________________________________
"Of course I lie to people. But I lie altruistically -- for our mutual good."


_______________________________________________
Nettime-bold mailing list
Nettime-bold@nettime.org
http://amsterdam.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold