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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> wild to me how many people here use the "it's war, bad things happen" to justify the situation

The point is to distinguish this war from how others have been fought. A lot of accusations against the IDF's conduct have been baseless. Not wrong in that they're factually incorrect. Just wrong in that it's how everyone else fights wars when they go to war.

This is different. America didn't trigger a famine in Iraq or Afghanistan, and it's not like we fought those wars honorably. That is where it's worth answering the question, is this just war or is this worse.

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The US-led sanctions regime against Iraq in the 90s did lead to high rates of malnutrition and excess deaths, with Madeleine Albright publicly insisting that half a million dead children would be 'worth it'.

Two things: She wrote, "I had fallen into a trap and said something I did not mean", in her memoir. https://archive.org/details/madamsecretary00albr_0 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_Albright#Sanctions_a...

Tangentially related: On the other hand, several later surveys conducted during the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq (2003–2011) "all put the U5MR in Iraq during 1995–2000 in the vicinity of 40 per 1000," suggesting that "there was no major rise in child mortality in Iraq after 1990 and during the period of the sanctions." from same link above.

She made a mistake by saying it, but she meant it for sure. "Saddam Hussein could have prevented any child from suffering simply by meeting his obligations."

I struggle to believe that cessation of food imports, medicines, medical equipment etc would have no impact on a country reliant on them, and can't see why these sanctions would be enacted in the first place if they were thought to have no effect.

I see no moral justification for using food as a weapon.

Not really. Very very early on we knew (verifiable objective fact) that Israel used very different math on combatant:civilian casualty ratios than coalition forces in OEF and OIF.

This isn't "they're waging a more intense war and accidentally killing more people" -- it is that their actual decision framework was to authorize killings with several multiples higher ratios of civilian deaths than the US authorized in the Middle East.

The US military math for calculating combatant:civilian casualty ratios was, to quote:

every boy 15 and over killed in drone strikes now is automatically listed as an enemy combatant

This math is why the civilian casualty numbers from US military shows almost zero deaths for drone strikes.

The New York Times reported in the 29 May 2012 article Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will:

    Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.*

By the Obama administration's counting, they killed 64 to 117 civillians in airstrikes. Independent estimates, which do not use the "any military age male" definition, put the number at 380 to 801. These higher, independent estimates still put the fraction of civillian or unknown casualties at around 15%. That is what a military that wants to avoid civilian casualties but sometimes makes mistakes looks like.

For comparison, the Israeli government claims that a mere 53% of fatalities are civilians, substantially below independent estimates.

No, a lot of the accusations were not baseless; you’re using a different definition.

The accusations of them deliberately shooting children in the head and targeting journalists have been proven unfortunately accurate time and time again.

We must be precise in our language when describing war crimes. No wiggle room.

You're asking for certitude when there can never be certitude.

Just as an example, if a Hamas soldier dons a PRESS vest, is he automatically immune?

I’m not sure if the logic on that statement checks out - there are already proven cases of what I’m describing (affirming the consequent here maybe?).

In other words, so what if Hamas dons a press vest? We know the IDF have committed war crimes. They seem aware of it, too -

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-army-set-hide-sol...

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