It is fitting that we resume activity on July 5th, the day after the birth of our nation. Today's post, however, will focus on a region of the world other than the United States.
One of today's headlines in The Jerusalem Post was an Associated Press article titled "Rights group calls for soldiers' release". The end of the article featured the folllowing announcement made by Human Rights Watch: "Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli towns and IDF artillery strikes near populated areas in northern Gaza constituted serious violations of the rules of war and said both sides showed "insufficient regard for civilian life."
Well yes Human Rights Watch how enlightened of you to come to the conclusion that firing missiles into Israeli cities purely for the purpose of mass murder is a violation of sovereignty. Of course a HRW statement placing value on the life of Israelis has to be qualified by a complementary statement reprimanding Israel.
The abovementioned HRW decree equates terrorism with collateral damage in saying that both "constitute violations of the rules of war", in the same breath mind you, without further elaboration. Regardless of the factions involved, the belief that deliberate targeting of civillian life is the same as striking military installations in the midst of civillians is a completely errouneous one. Obviously the loss of even one innocent life is always a tragedy, but civillian death as the unintended consequence of an attack on an armed combatant is distincly different from an attack with the sole purpose of killing innocents. To not realize this basic fact of armed conflict when one's job is dealing with wartime human rights issues is to be completely incompetent and/or completely biased. In the case of HRW it is probably both.
Further telling of the abilities and views of the HRW is the fact that they consider any collateral damage sustained during military operations the fault of the party attacking armed combatants and not the combatants who operate out of civilian areas with the intent of causing collateral damage to their own populations. The fact that organizations such as HRW prostheltyze their relativist view of the the Israeli Palestinian Conflict, makes the terrorist strategy of imbedding military assets within residential areas all the more effective. How noble of a human rights organization to facilitate the loss of innocent life.
**Many of the assertions in this post were inspired by the work of Edward Greenspan Esq. For a more definitive work on this subject please look into his writings.**
Further telling of the abilities and views of the HRW is the fact that they consider any collateral damage sustained during military operations the fault of the party attacking armed combatants and not the combatants who operate out of civilian areas with the intent of causing collateral damage to their own populations. The fact that organizations such as HRW prostheltyze their relativist view of the the Israeli Palestinian Conflict, makes the terrorist strategy of imbedding military assets within residential areas all the more effective. How noble of a human rights organization to facilitate the loss of innocent life.
**Many of the assertions in this post were inspired by the work of Edward Greenspan Esq. For a more definitive work on this subject please look into his writings.**