Freedom Flotilla hijacked

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To your question, a question. Why do you not believe that putting events in their proper perspective and trying to draw as fair and honest a conclusion about what happened, how it happened and, just as importantly, why it happened as we possibly can is important? If we can't even be bothered to do that, why bother talking about it at all?

How this and other such events get interpreted will have a lasting effect on international policy towards Israel, Turkey, Palestine, and the entire Islamic world. Shouldn't "getting it right" be an important priority? Shouldn't the crazy narratives drawn from this event and put forth by both sides of the issue in order to push forward virulent public policy or foment anger and instability be countered and countered with prejudice?

 

I admitted it was a theory I was putting together but it relies on points that I and others brought up earlier.

1. That the primary weapon of many of the boarding soldiers was a paintball gun-generally something nonlethal.

2. That a one of the organizations involved in funding the flotilla was arguably linked with extremists.

3. That the people on board had armed themselves-if I get pulled over by a cop my first response isn't to reach for a weapon (in larger scale this is what was happening).

4. That the injuries were not on one side. If the soldiers came in shooting then the fight would have been one sided as people armed with knives (if they didn't have hidden gunmen in their midst) would have likely been mowed down.

Also the idea that the Israeli soldiers shot first, that is they attacked, is theory crafting of its own.

If someone provided video footage of the entire boarding from beginning to end (to avoid creative/selective editing) that could help solve the question of who shot, or stabbed, first. In the mean time we are each guessing about this incident.

No it isn't, but that doesn't mean it isn't a possibility for some of them.

Err..... ever heard of a suicide bomber? They are told their are martyrs, being hyped up on ideology, anger (justified or not), and perhaps emotional issues may be better descriptions of it but there are people that connect being a martyr with killing other individuals too. These people aren't thinking along the lines Ghandi or MLK advocated but, perhaps unfortunately, they may not care.

Totally different incident. Combine that with the point that the other "side" (if you generalize this into 2 sides) was willing to support using missiles and suicide bombings on people who were simply just walking down street in the "other's" cities and you have proof of my earlier point that you have people on each "side" who are willing to disregard human life.

One "side" unjustifiably killing a passive resister doesn't mean the other isn't capable of being just as murderous.

I'm not saying you are advocating more violence. I'm just taking a look at this incident and saying it is possible the Israeli soldiers didn't shoot first in this particular case.

So we agree on that. The Israeli government has been just a big a harda*s at times as Hamas. And that they/it may still be looking to land grab continues to cause problems and is not justifiable in itself.

I was pretty clear in that I thought the peace protesters were not the people I was blaming for the violence in this incident. I think they may have been used as cover and that some may even wanted them to be the victims (so that the blame on Israeli government would be stronger) but not that the peace protesters themselves wanted violence.

Part of my point from the beginning has been that there may have more than just peace protestors on board. If there are people hiding amongst the peace protesters who want to create violence I blame that on the people using the protesters as cover and/or unknowing human shields, not on the protesters themselves.

 

I read an article a week or so again that has stuck with me -- and it brings up my favorite ethical technique -- reversal. Some say it's straw man, but I don't buy that. Here goes:

If the Israeli's for some reason sent a flotilla of "aid" to the Kurds in Turkey*, and there was a good chance that said "aid" included non-food or clothing items that could be used in a military fashion, would the Turkish military just stand their and do nothing? YOu can bet your hiney they wouldn't. They would see the "aid flotilla" as what it really was -- an effort to subvert Turkish authority. And they would take steps -- violent ones. And they wouldn't feel guilty about enforcing their power over their sphere of authority. Why should Israel?

*Given the Turkish treatment of the Kurds, it's really hard for me to take their high horse "humanitarian" position seriously.

 

That's what NOG posted and it's a very biased view of things as we're definitely not talking about an intervention by the police. Do we have to go over this one more time? Please, check my answer to NOG or Drew's previous posts (Drew picked up on NOG's allegory and wrote a very good response).

The fact that they were storming the ship is relevant (but you choose to discard it nevertheless). I don't know much about boarding procedures (I've already quoted T2Bruno's post earlier on that point), but I would expect a boat to be boarded in a less confrontational manner.

Also, regarding paintball guns, it was probably impossible for the people on the ships to tell the difference.

That may be beside the point but people who claim that tear gas bombs are non lethal overlook the fact that in certain circumstances they may still cause serious injuries.

As long as force is used there can be dire consequences (and that is the case with other non lethal weapons like tasers and the like).

On the subject of hands being weapons, I'd like to point out that a rolled up newspaper can be a lethal weapon in the hands of an expert.

Look at the part of my post that you've quoted: "(and that applies to everyone)" it means just that, everyone.

The major flaw in your reasoning is that you put people like peace protesters and non violent activists with suicide bombers.

You're definitely generalizing.

People who believe in non violence and get involved in demonstrations to shield civilians are not on the side of people who advocate violence and bombings.

Going by your rationale the fact that non violent protesters are trying to defend Palestinian civilians makes it ok for Israeli forces to kill these protesters because suicide bombers are on "their side" -that's a very confused way to approach the issue and no wonder people get confused if they liken peace protesters to suicide bombers.

 

Like Chuck Norris?

 

Anybody who read that and then didn't immediately envision Chuck Norris should not be on these boards!

 

I don't understand why you keep doing the same. Really. I know you keep saying you are just "curious," which is another rhetorical device and just a deflection in itself. You keep speaking of "weapons," which for me don't exist in this situation. So, given the opinion that there were no weapons, at least from my PoV, your question appears just rhetorical.

There were not any weapons. Once attacked the activists attemped to use whatever they had on hand to defend themselves. The objects in question were not designed to be used as weapons, hence they had little success.

If I asked you for a screwdriver and you said, I don't have one but I've got a dime in my pocket you can try to use it as one," it would be similar to how I see this situation regarding "weapons." A dime is not a "screwdriver" but it can function as one given the right situation (with limited results, like the activists discovered). But that does not make a dime a "screwdriver." If it didn't work, it would be easy to disparage it because it may not work; it's not the right item for the purpose. But then it's dime not a screwdriver. It's not designed, marketed, and sold to be one, much like a kitchen knife that is not sold as a weapon either.

 

You mean defend? That implies intent and that seems to be the crux of the issue. Still, I would disparage the use of a kitchen knife as a weapon, because it really isn't one. Against a real weapon it will be mostly ineffective. As I asked you, would it be on your list of desired "weapons" in the same situation?

 

It is not a biased of way looking at it as police are armed figures of authority with procedures they are supposed to follow and the soldiers boarding the ship were likely following a procedure as well-in this case not one of outright engagement combat unless forced to in defense. As a matter of fact they may not have been armed differently from police are.

I haven't followed every comment but I went back and looked at what NOG and Drew said. NOG responded to Drew's comment with a fair reply which went unanswered on the comparison to police-its possible you missed that as I missed NOG's first comparison.

Moreover Drew was wrong. If police come to your house with a search warrant and it turns out they are in the wrong home (even if they send the SWAT team and break down your door) it is probably considered your fault if you grab a gun to confront them and any resulting death and/or injury is placed on you rather than the police. They may have to buy a new door (not sure about that one since they never had a warrant for your house) but that you pulled a weapon on them makes resulting violence a result of your actions.

If the soldiers boarding the boat were shot and/or stabbed first then the confrontational manner, that is the actual initiation of violence, was due to people on the boat, not the soldiers.

If the people on the boat could not tell the difference that does not excuse them shooting at or stabbing the soldiers first.

It may be possible that they could. But the point is it that they weren't designed to be nonlethal and, this is a guess, I suspect they weren't used until after the soldiers were attack.

Then tell that to the person(s) that initiated use of violence in this situation. At this time some of the people on the ship are quite possibly/likely the ones who did.

I'm not (and I made of point of doing so) saying peace activists started the violence. I made of point of saying they may not have been the only ones on the boat.

Moreover that they may have been used as a cover and/or human shields by those who did initiate the violence.

I can copy and paste from my old comment to demonstrate how I already had marked a difference between peace activists and those who seek violence.

Problem here is that they were not shielding civilians if it turns out the people on the boat attack first and initiated violence.

No that is inserting/making up a rationale because it is easier to criticize rather than acknowledging my own.

In my own comments, focusing on this incident, I am arguing that it seems quite possible, even likely that people on the boat started the violence.

If this is true and they claimed to nonviolent peace activists then they were lying because they both started and used violence.

If they were on the boat with peace activists then you should acknowledge that there were more than just peace activists on the boat and that this 2nd group of people could have started the violence.

 

Looks like I'm being paged. Pplr, I didn't personally answer NOG's critique because I felt that others answered to it for me quite well already, but since you seem to be of the opinion that the only person that can answer to a critique of one of my posts is me, I'll happily indulge you.

The Israelis announced themselves at night -- it was a big ship with a lot of people (some of whom would have been sleeping), and this would have added to their confusion. They used tear gas before landing -- this would have added even more to the confusion. Many weren't on deck when the first shots were fired -- more confusion. The first shots may have been from paintball guns -- except it was dark out. Do I need to point out the reason that "realistic" toy guns are no longer manufactured or sold in the USA? If trained police officers couldn't tell the difference between a laser tag gun and a pistol from 50 feet in broad daylight, what would make you think that these untrained activists -- after being gassed, no less -- would be able to tell the difference between paint-balls and live fire in the middle of the night? It doesn't strain credulity in the slightest to believe that, in their confusion, the activists thought they were being subjected to live fire.

Whether or not you like my allegory, it doesn't much matter. My larger argument is that the numbers of Israeli injured and dead vs the number of Palestinian injured and dead lays plain the fact that the Israeli commandos responded to this situation with excessive force. You can't blame them for it, though -- they responded the way they're trained to respond. The situation spiraled out of control. The use of force on the part of Israel, in the context of what happened after the boarding, was completely understandable. Nevertheless, the force employed was still excessive -- not because the commandos screwed up (but in all fairness, they probably did), but because they were sent in the first place -- in the middle of the night, in international waters, well outside of the blockade zone, to board a ship that had yet to violate the blockade zone. Israel sent in a proverbial SWAT team to deal with an unarmed pot smoker who hadn't even bought his weed yet.

Actually, it isn't -- I was directly alluding to several real, honest-to-goodness events we've been discussing in another thread. SWAT teams aren't in the habit of knocking before they enter, and when they announce themselves, the announcement is generally followed immediately by breaking down the door, flash grenades, gas etc. Confusion is a frequent result and "collateral damage" and unintended casualties are all too common in such situations. The police department was most assuredly considered "at fault" for most of the incidents in question, not because the SWAT team screwed up, but because they were deployed in the first place.

 

pplr, you take as a basis your supposition that the people on the boat started it. It's hard without any evidence to maintain such a claim. You maintain that the soldiers acted in self defence and that there were armed terrorists on board (no evidence support that).

Regarding the police comparison, If Drew's arguments or mine don't convince you, let me quote one of T2Bruno's posts:

I'm definitely not an expert on the subject of boarding ships but looking at T2Bruno's posts -and I assume you'll agree that he knows what he is talking about:

If we recognize that the boarding was an assault (or a rather offensive boarding -if you object to the use of the term assault) rather than an ordinary boarding, it seems hard to claim self defence in favour of the military.

 

Alright, I served for seven years on active duty in the US Navy -- we boarded ships (I should say we had teams that boarded ships, my role was generally to navigate the ship to prevent escape of the vessel of interest). In my 14 years in the Naval Reserves I served on three flag staffs where these issues came up (most especially in reference to Bosnia and keeping the gun smugglers out).

This was a botched boarding. They hit it with similar tactics a Marine or SEAL team would use to take a ship back from terrorists -- not the tactics used to board a vessel for inspection. Entirely too much force was used in the landing of the commandos (not surprising considering we're talking about the Israelis). However, once the commandos were onboard and under attack it was self-defense for them.

 

I'm getting really concerned here. Did you watch the videos on page 1? We see the soldiers coming down the ropes from the helicopter and they are being attacked by people with metal poles. It doesn't matter if you want to call them terroists or just plain idiots they are attacking soldiers and that is never a good idea as you will always end up on the losing end of that fight.

I'll play devil's advocate. Let's assume that Israel has heavily doctored the footage and maybe this is a second helicopter with a second wave of troops. Maybe the first wave of troops committed heinous atrocities to the crew and passengers and that is why they were assaulting the second wave. If any of that were true (and I don't believe any of it for a second) I believe the burden of proof is on you to show that the troops were not acting in self defense when the overwhelming ponderance of evidence shows they are being attacked.

To persist in arguing that it was a sneak attack (with a helicopter) and that the soldiers were not under assault even before they landed on the deck is delusional. If that doesn't meet the definition of self defense, I do not know what does.

 

It demonstrates intent to resist. The use of knives demonstrates the use of lethal force.

I'm arguing that they should have handled the creation better, if they did it at all, should have lived up to their stated responsabilites concerning it, and should have prepared for the palestinian refugees. What, did they think the people would just happily move out? Since then, the UN has blustered, blown, objected, and resolved, but not actually done anything concerning either side.

You don't consider knives to be weapon? Or maybe you could just look at the blood in the photos or the hospitalized soldiers with stab wounds and broken bones for proof of weapons. Beyond that, define 'weapons' for us, because you're obviously using a different definition than we are. And the State of Virginia. And Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, New York, the FAA, the Secret Service...

First they're pocket knives, then they're utility knives? No, they were combat knives. More to the point, though, I'm not using the presence of knives to prove the intent to resist. The passing out of poles proves the intent to resist, lethally or not. The use of knives proves that that became lethal, whether they intended it to or not. At that point, the Israelis were justified in using lethal force in response.

I don't think you can really argue the Israelis boarded with lethal intent. If they had, they wouln't have taken paint ball guns and there wouldn't have been only nine deaths.

... I just wanted to emphasize the irony of those sentences following each other. Tear gas canisers can cause injury and tasing someone is potentially deadly, but stabbing them and beating them with metal poles (the actual weapons involved in the incident) isn't a serious attack?

No, it doesn't. Excessive force is determined by what's needed to contain the situation, not what will 'equate the number of dead and injured' or something. The Israelis were surrounded by dozens of violent (at that point, undeniably) protesters, at least some with knives and the rest with metal poles (and a few with guns). At least two of the Israelis had already disappeared under the crowd, their conditions unknown, another had been thrown overboard, and a couple more had been forced to jump overboard. Opening fire with pistols at that point isn't excessive force.

Of course, one critical statistic that would be useful in better defining this would be how many of the injured or killed activists were actively involved in the violence and how many, if any, were peaceful bystanders. From the limited video shown, it looks like everyone on the decks was involved with the melee, but a few innocents may have been sheltered in a stairwell or something.

I think this may be a critical and telling point. I think it may be the key to understanding what most likely happened. It's obvious that the activists intended to mount a resistance, violent or no. It's obvious the Israelis came on board in a stance ready for that resistance. My guess is the activists were ready to drive the Israelis off, maybe toss a few in the water, but then some in the back heard what sounded like silenced weapons fire and saw people in front of them falling to the ground. I say that because, from the limited and cheap video available, I can see large paintball canisters on top of the guns. These were no lookalikes, but they certainly sounded like paintball guns. The people in back then ready whatever they had and charge. I still don't know why 'peaceful' activists would have combat knives (which is what those were, kitchen knives don't have black blades), but they may have been for utilitarian uses. Regardless, blood ensues on one side, and then the other.

All in all, though, I still lay the blame on the activists. They knew they would be boarded, they were informed that the bounds had been extended, they were warned to stop repeatedly, they heard the chopper and boats used in the boarding, and they still chose to resist.

Let me ask you, then, from your experience, what are the differences between boarding a ship that's actively running from you and boarding one that's complying with you?

 

You don't [board a running ship]. You stop them first. A 5" warning shot across the bow of a ship has an amazing affect on the ship's crew.

 

Kind of makes me nostalgic for the days of the 16" guns on battleships. If a 5" has an affect, a 16" must not leave a single clean pair of underwear.

 

I've already explained this. But just for you....

It depends on the knife. I would not consider that a "kitchen" knife is desgined, or sold as a weapon. It can be used as a weapon (see Norman Bates), as we have established that anything can be used as a weapon, even your puke (see the post above for further explaination if you are unsure).

That doesn't prove anything. As we have seen both sides have engaged in endless propaganda, and yes, pictures can lie. So I no longer believe what either side wants to distribute to the careless media as "evidence."

Who is/are us? Are you more than one person now? Or do you belong to some organization?

They attacked the boat with gas. They are the agrressors in this instance and were not justified in anything. They could have boarded the boat peacefully and conducted their business in a legal and morally Just manner. Instead they chose not to and the result is that they murdered innocent, but confused people, in cold blood for no good reason. It's shameful.