Comment by bitcurious | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bitcurious | Hacker News Reader

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>I’m not aware of any such ratio used by the IDF.

The IDF has a robust decision making process, in excess of a single “ratio” approach. Here is an article that talks about an aspect of this:

http://law-disrupted.fm/idf-lawyer-advises-war-gaza-military...

>> They also discuss the three cardinal principles of targeting: distinction (which prohibits intentionally targeting civilians or civilian objects), precautions (which requires taking all feasible measures to mitigate civilian harm), and proportionality (which for each individual attack requires balancing the anticipated military advantage against the expected civilian harm) and the rules, procedures, and policies the IDF has in place to follow these principles in every attack.

> Given that Israel also does not seem to acknowledge the 30,000+ lower bound on total deaths from IDF attacks in Gaza, it's entirely possible that Israel's ratio could be as low as 2 civilians per combatant in aggregate. But it’s worth noting that this would still be much higher than anything used by any “Western” military

The most comparable recent US engagement was destroying ISIS in Mosul. The US had a 2.5:1 civilian combatant casualty ratio. Source: https://twitter.com/SpencerGuard/status/1786612914117349769#

> The most comparable recent US engagement was destroying ISIS in Mosul.

My point wasn't that the US is better. My point was that there were widespread protests opposing the US's "collateral damage" in their wars after 9/11 and Israel is doing worse.

The number you're citing is also the effective ratio based on the reported deaths, not an official or leaked guideline and this wasn't "the US" but "the US-led Iraqi Security Forces" (not a Western military, even if it is in practice US-led). The tweet you cite also references a Pacific battle between the US and Japan in WW2 (when the US infamously dehumanized the Japanese to an uncomfortable degree - surely the nuclear bombs trump that battle in terms of civilian casualties) and a battle that was part of the "Korean War" which in retrospect has become infamous for its war crimes, mostly committed by the US.

These are battles of infamy. You don't get a medal for being better than that, those are the table stakes if you want to shout about being the "most humane military".

Also, the reason I called 30,000+ the "lower bound" is because the process used by the "Hamas-run health ministry" is extremely conservative (it's not just a tally - the "fake deaths at hospital parking lot" story everyone ran with was a translation error into English that conflated "injured" and "deceased") and seems to have broken down earlier this year along with the remaining infrastructure in Gaza.

> The IDF has a robust decision making process, in excess of a single “ratio” approach.

That's a no then unless you think other militaries don't have decision making processes.

I'm not going to engage with you further as we seem to have either fundamentally opposed value systems or fundamentally opposed perceptions of reality.

If you want to end a comment with "I'm not going to engage with you further," better to not make that post.

Getting the last say in an argument by fiat isn't healthy.

Don't want others opinions? Don't offer your own.

I don't have to engage with every single person on HN to any extent just because I post on HN. I can also decide to engage with a post without having to commit to engaging with everything else that posters wants to add. I think it provides useful context if I clarify in advance WHY a follow-up might not receive a reply from me. In fact, most discussions on HN aren't back-and-forths between two people and arguably benefit from that.

But what is their definition of “combatant”? The IDF massacred a group of escaped Israeli hostages because the IDF didn’t realize they were Israeli before too late. The escaped hostages had stripped down to thir underwear to show they where unarmed. Neverthless the IDF said the “felt threatend” by them. Presumably these victims would be considered “combatants” if they had not turned out to be be israeli.

No one should be surprised by what happened to those hostages.

The soldiers were told they were fighting "human animals", and acted accordingly.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/defense-ministe...

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