"You dont win a war by dying for your country.  You win a war by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country!"

General George S. Patton.

Then smart people will think twice about attacking you, right?  And the stupid ones wont live anyway.

I will add to my above response, that in Maudlin's world (and those crying over the deaths by Israelis DEFENDING their women and children) that any future war should always be won by China, followed by India.  They have the most people to lose after all.

And the worst war crimes of all time were committed not by Tojo or the Third Reich, but by King Leonidas for daring to take on 10,000 persians with only 300 Spartans.  How dare he not just kill 300 and then die!

That's probably what they need to do.  That's war.  What do you think happened at Hiroshima?  Nagasaki?   The bloodshed stopped didn't it?   In order for war to stop, one has to completely overpower the other and be done with it. 

No what I'm saying is we need to stop telling Israel how to fight their war.  It's their war, not ours.  We don't live in the streets of Israel.   It's not our towns being bombed and our children fearful at night.  We were not the ones being bombed.

It would be like other countries telling us to sit down and have a diplomatic dinner party for those behind the 9-11 attacks instead of going after them.  Who are they to tell us how to handle our problem? 

maudlin, I'm going to make a quote here:

"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."--Barry Goldwater

As I said....Israel would happily live in peaceful co-existence with their neighbors, but that can't be. Their neighbors want to kill them, thereby removing their "liberty", and in the worst way imaginable.

Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.

Amen.

Where's maudlin?

Your point being? If you want to extend the timeframe for deaths, make sure you do it for both rather than just one if you're just comparing death figures, unless you want to start comparing how many years of Israelis deaths you have to look at just to achieve a similar number as the amount of palestinian civilians killed within only a few weeks!

Oh do tell how all those little children killed by the Israelis connived together before they were born to start this mess! It's shocking just how low a value seems to be placed on a palestinian child's life compared to an Israeli's by you.

I didn't realise I had to specifically, since it was implicit in my post. Of course I think the use of human shields is wrong, just as I think the deliberate targetting of Israeli civilians by Hamas is wrong, and you won't have seen me argue otherwise anywhere. However that does not excuse Israel for stooping to similar levels by failing to take a bit more care over causing civilian deaths. Again, the % (and number) of children thought to be killed speaks for itself.

300 military combatants fighting 10,000 military combatants. No innocent civilians being murdered amongst them. No ~1/3 of deaths in the battle being children. That you would equate innocent civilian deaths with those of soldiers is very troubling - to me there is a clear difference.

What extremism, the extremism of hamas in defence of their liberty, or the extremism of Israel in defence of theirs? (good quote for shooting yourself in the proverbial foot btw)

After only 1 day? Talk about needy...

In that case I recommend you never watch Palestinian television or look at Hamas posters. The shock might kill you.

Those people celebrate death.

Hamas kills at least 90% innocent civilians and yet you complain about the 33% from Israel?

I agree the percentages speak for themselves.

Hrmmm Isreal protects its citizens....

Hamas used citizens for meat sheilds.

I wonder who I will side with.

The palestinian women and men are never civilians?!

An interesting question. Lets say you have a mass murderer, and a murderer. Which would you side with? (hint: it's a trick question). I prefer to side with the innocents myself, most of whom many of you seem to care almost nothing for. The hundreds of children (and other innocents) killed by the Israelis, as well as the handful of Israeli's killed by Hamas. Just a shame that so many of you not only dismiss the innocent palestinian deaths, but attack me for believing that they are worth something. Even worse, some of you would support Israel committing genocide against the palestinians. Believing Israel has a right to defend themselves, and a right to attack Hamas is one thing. Believing they shouldn't care about how many innocents get caught in the crossfire and shouldn't try to reduce the number of innocents killed is another thing altogether.

I see it as more of an offender and a defender.  It's been clear that Hamas took the offense right from the beginning and Israel had to defend herself. 

who says they don't care?  What do you think the whole ground troops idea is for?  Israel has to put her own soldiers at risk while they try to avoid as many civilian casualties as possible.  They could quite easily go in there and wipe out the whole area in a matter of hours if they wanted to.  Hamas is no match for a well armed Israeli army. 

Really?  That is just waht the Greeks said.  The persians aid that there was thousands of innocent women and children.  and we have to believe them, right?  they would not lie about that now would they?

~1/3 of dead thought to be children suggests that no, they don't care enough (if at all).

Well--and this is just an aside--you know, Abraham (a man, of course, whom Jews, Christians and Muslims, all three consider their common ancestor) was asked by (the Judeo-Christian) God for a sacrifice; to kill Issac as a test of faith. However, he was stopped, by God Himself, at the last second. How many people (including children younger than Issac was supposed to have been) has Allah asked his people to sacrifice? Just an observation, for what it's worth.

Look at the methods involved, maudlin; the Israelis have a disciplined, well-supplied, state-of-the-art military which, truth be told, mostly seems to prefer surgical strikes over more general attacks, versus a bunch of 10th century savages whose main weapons of choice often seem to be suicide attacks and rocks, thrown by people (including children) thoroughly brainwashed to hate, and to die violently for their bloodstained pagan god. Israel's weapons are much, much more lethal; therefore, they can kill more people! Understand?                                                                                                                                                                

In fact, if Israel wanted to imitate the Nazis, and methodically kill every last person in the enemy camp, they likely could. Yet, for 6 decades of unreasoning hate, unrest and mostly unprovoked violence, they've resisted that temptation. What does that level of restraint say for them, as opposed to their lesser enemies?

The Palestinian Jew-haters, on the other hand, have no actual "army" as Israel does; only (well-disicplined, I admit) groups of (again, brainwashed) men (and children) who'll run at Israeli tanks and troops (and innocent civilians) holding only a gun and a grenade or Molotov cocktail; or better yet, gleefully wrap themsevles in a nail-packed TNT vest and walk into a crowded restaurant full of innocent people.

Hamas has no real air support, for example, that I've ever heard of (forgive me if I'm wrong here, though), and only weapons often provided by other Jew-hating Arab nations who, in fact, don't like them any more than they like the Israelis. The Israelis rarely (if ever) attack their poor, displaced (still, after 60 years, right? Suuure; the last generation that was considered "displaced" is likely in its 70s or 80s by now, and living for years in houses and neighborhoods, instead of tents and prefab emergency structures, as the words "displaced refugees" would suggest) neighbors utterly without provocation, and even take much more abuse than they should before responding in kind.

This snide crap isn't really even worth a comment. But.....the Israelis aren't the ones using people for shileds against enemy fire. They clearly value human life infinitely more than their Muslim enemies, as befits their faith, as opposed to the Muslim paganism. Besides, if you really want to go back "before they were born", they're all descended from the same peoples; their ancestors, really, were all there together. the jews have just as much historical right to the area as the Palestinians who refuse to admit or allow this.

Gotta go for now; got furniture to move around, including this desk. Be back later.