The Cellar - View Single Post - Human Rights Watch and the demand for honest facts

Undertoad · 05-08-2002, 09:30 AM

I didn't cite it as "accurate fact". It's a data point. It's information: here some fairly unbiased people went in and asked questions.

I'm sure some war crimes occurred. It's war; it's a messy process and both sides have clearly undertaken some wretched tactics. Both sides are immensely pissed off.

I'm not sure why you trust the UN to be a perfect animal when entire nations can "turn bad". The UN is more political than nations, not less, and in this case it clearly has its own interests to protect. Since their first shot at "investigation" was to send in dignitaries, and not military experts, isn't that kinda telling? I'm not sure why you think they would be good final arbiters of truth.

And you don't, anyway. After I reported here that the first UN envoy went in to survey what happened, and came out to say that it was disgusting and appalling but that there was no evidence of massacre, you continued to shout massacre. In fact, you continued to shout it after I'd seen the Palestinians themselves come up with a number of dead that was in line with everyone else's numbers.

I was going to point that out, but in your emotional reaction to the whole thing, it turns out that you've decided I'm hopelessly biased too.

The Palestinian claims were off by a power of ten. Now the claim is down to they ran over a guy in a wheelchair even though his chair had a white flag on it. Disgusting and appalling? Absolutely! But in the big picture, it's an individual shitty act perpetrated by a single murderous soldier. This stuff happens in time of war. It's relevant, but not "big picture"-relevant. Especially since the story relies on Israel taking seriously a convention of war (the white flag) when the terrorists have not only ignored but abused every convention of war. Nobody is playing by the rules.

And anyway, you need to catch up. The new Palestinian position on Jenin is that it was a Palestinian victory. They killed a lot of Jewish soldiers and really gave 'em the business.

05-08-2002, 09:30 AM	#10
Undertoad Radical Centrist Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Cottage of Prussia Posts: 31,423	I didn't cite it as "accurate fact". It's a data point. It's information: here some fairly unbiased people went in and asked questions. I'm sure some war crimes occurred. It's war; it's a messy process and both sides have clearly undertaken some wretched tactics. Both sides are immensely pissed off. I'm not sure why you trust the UN to be a perfect animal when entire nations can "turn bad". The UN is more political than nations, not less, and in this case it clearly has its own interests to protect. Since their first shot at "investigation" was to send in dignitaries, and not military experts, isn't that kinda telling? I'm not sure why you think they would be good final arbiters of truth. And you don't, anyway. After I reported here that the first UN envoy went in to survey what happened, and came out to say that it was disgusting and appalling but that there was no evidence of massacre, you continued to shout massacre. In fact, you continued to shout it after I'd seen the Palestinians themselves come up with a number of dead that was in line with everyone else's numbers. I was going to point that out, but in your emotional reaction to the whole thing, it turns out that you've decided I'm hopelessly biased too. The Palestinian claims were off by a power of ten. Now the claim is down to they ran over a guy in a wheelchair even though his chair had a white flag on it. Disgusting and appalling? Absolutely! But in the big picture, it's an individual shitty act perpetrated by a single murderous soldier. This stuff happens in time of war. It's relevant, but not "big picture"-relevant. Especially since the story relies on Israel taking seriously a convention of war (the white flag) when the terrorists have not only ignored but abused every convention of war. Nobody is playing by the rules. And anyway, you need to catch up. The new Palestinian position on Jenin is that it was a Palestinian victory. They killed a lot of Jewish soldiers and really gave 'em the business.