israel does not exist in a vacuum....

[pelsar]

lets try again.....the UK has shot an innocent person due to mistaken identity in broad daylight....and now the headlines in yahoo read:

"UK police say more innocents could die in bomb hunt

LONDON (Reuters) - British police say more members of the public could be shot in error as they escalate their battle against terrorism and hunt for four men who tried to set off explosions on London's transport system last week."

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050725/ts_nm/security_britain_dc

but I cant say I've ever read such a headline in israel....saying before an operation..well we might kill some innocents..buts its OK.....(btw its called the "ticking bomb" syndrom)

I do not by any means wish bad upon English Citizens....and I hope they get those 'criminals er militants er (whats the PC word used in England?)" but for all the lambasting the IDF gets for its various mistakes....and my impression is that its "always guilty".....a comparison is inevitable.

specifically the shooting of the two britiish citizens in Gaza.....am I not allowed to compare the shooters?..the young 19yr old IDF soldier killing the ISM volunteer vs the more experienced london squad killing the innocent brazillian...may we conclude that it was an intentional hit and not a mistaken identity? Didnt they follow him for quite sometime? anybody here from England?

If anybody here has an open mind and is willing to compare, the IDF comes out in the relative world of fighting terrorism as being balanced.

but then the only way to honestly look at that is through comparison: comparing to the French responses (shooting from helicopters in to crowds)
the US using artillary in faluja
the brits?....shooting at close range an innocent civilian (after only 8 bombs!)

I cant say that deep (ok not too deep) there is a feeling of "ok now lets see how "you guys like it and lets see how you fight terrorism within your population)....lets see how many civil rights your "bulldoze over".

and of the different environments?.....fighting terrorism is about exactly that, the environment is constantly changing, hence one can still compare...

[Behind the Aegis]

1. What I don't get...

I was appalled by the number of people, right after the killer bombings in London, that issued justifications for it (the war in Iraq being number 1). A few had "ho-hum" or "well, didn't you expect this?" attitudes. There was also no shortage of just plainly offensive and disrespectful comments. It was as if they were making excuses for it. Then, two authors wrote separate pieces about people being apologists and a few people here (at DU) went nuts..."it is not apologizing, it is explaining it or understanding why it happened!"

Then, the British police kill this innocent man and, suddenly, everyone is allover the British police. I had to pretend I "understood" why they did this. I basically took a side I didn't believe in and posted as if it was my real views. Deceptive, but it did prove a few points. When I would post things like, "well, the police were on-edge, isn't this understandable mistakes will happen?" (besides having to keep from vomiting) people jumped all over my posts (and others similar) to it! The very same arguments some had used, in my opinion, to 'excuse' the bombing, they were tearing apart now as "indefensible, and apologetic." To me, it exposed much hypocrisy in a few posters. Killing innocents, no matter the killer's "reasons," should ever be excused (except maybe self-defense....but that can get tricky too).

As for what you posted, it has been interesting how the Israeli angle has been brought into the situation from day one. "Israel knew and warned SY." "Israeli officials were notified before the attacks." "Israeli officials were warned minutes after the attacks and British citizens weren't." "The attacks were because of I/P." "The police were trained by Israeli police and it is why they acted the way they did." It was unbelievable! For a country as small and young as Israel is, it never ceases to amaze me how many people hate Israel.

[pelsar]

2. the silver lining....

as i read those comments...and i also noticed how terrorists can be "understood" for targeting civilians and the police are "hung" for killing by mistake......

at least i know its not just "us" in israel....it actually encompases the entire western world (the "arab world" is in another dimension). But what i'm very very interested in hearing are not those on the far left that are confused, but those who are protective of england....those that defend the English police for their mistake..and then lambast israel for precisely the same kind of mistake.....

me?....if we killed the British ISM activist intentionally then i sure have to believe that the British police who followed that guy from house to subway obviously waited for the most grotesque moment to execute him in front of so many..obviously to make a point to all english citizens.... yes sir, not just a targeted killing of a civilian but in front of many civilians just to make a point...i would say thats far more grotesque than shooting a civilan in a war zone

[eyl]

3. Good point, bad example

The soldier who shot Hurndall, by his own accounting of the events, at the very least showed reckless disregard by grossly violating IDF procedures.

It's not like there is any lack of other examples, though.

Unfortunately, terrorism - at least this kind - cannot usually be adequately be confronted within the standard law-enforcement paradigm.

In any society, there's a trade-off between public safety and individual rights (and by extension safety)*. Various countries, depending on their particular cultures and circumstances, are on different parts of that spectrum, with democracies being at various points towards the "individual rights" end. One of the parameters for determining the point of the trade-off is the balance between the damage criminals can do and individual rights.

For the most part, criminals do relatively minor damage (as far as killing is concerned, at least). Few criminals will just go on a random killing spree (since they want to enjoy the fruit of their crimes, if for no other reason); their murders are usually derive from their "business", and are not an end in themselves. The ones who do are usually few in number - and don't operate in a group - and are either easily contained (e.g., someone who shoots up a shooting mall) or their disorder/need for stealth limits the rate of their killings (e.g. serial killers)**.

Terrorists***, OTOH, deliberately attempt to maximize the casualties of their attacks. Furthermore, being ideologically driven, they will be more willing than your average criminal to die in pursuit of their "cause", making them even more dangerous. Besides that, since their ultimate target is the State itself, they directly inflict damage on the public well-being, rather than individuals (while criminals may damage the public as a whole, that's an incidental result, rarely an intended one). Because of that, the stakes when fighting them are greater. So in any fight against them, the means will necessarily tilt away from "individual rights" towards "public safety" (relative to the norm of the society in question). That is inevitable and necessary. The challenge is to avoid tilting too far.

Unfortunately, part of that involves using more lethal weapons and procedures against them than normal. If you fail to arrest the common criminal, he may, murder one or two people; fail to stop a bomber, and dozens may be killed - and arresting the bomber can be more dificult, because a fanaic won't hesitate to take you with him.

Unfortunately, under these circumstances, it's inevitable that mistakes will be made. Police - and soldiers - are just as human as the rest of us, and they must sometimes make decisions in a split-second with limited information. I don't know, in this particular case, if the British police acted properly or not - there are one or two points that I don't have enough information to determine that - but one thing that disturbed me about many of the condemnations on left-leaning sites was the amount of commentators who expected the police to be clairvoyant.

*For purposes of this discussion, I'm leaving out dictatorships where the well-being of the ruler/ruling class is the only consideration.
**The most "prolific" serial killer (some guy in the Soviet Union) I'm aware of killed 50-odd people, IIRC - more people died in the recent attack in Egypt.
***There are some groups for which this is not true. Eco-terrorists, for example, while sometimes showing reckless disregard, have not, to my knowledge, ever deliberately tried to kill. Groups such as the IRA and ETA have, at least sometimes, tried to mitigate the casualties of their attacks by, e.g., phoning in warning. To my knowledge, however, none of the Islamic groups we're discussing here have over done something of the kind.

[pelsar]

4. in a nut shell

"..Unfortunately, under these circumstances, it's inevitable that mistakes will be made. Police - and soldiers - are just as human as the rest of us, and they must sometimes make decisions in a split-second with limited information. I don't know, in this particular case, if the British police acted properly or not - there are one or two points that I don't have enough information to determine that - but one thing that disturbed me about many of the condemnations on left-leaning sites was the amount of commentators who expected the police to be clairvoyant."


and thats whats its all about....making decisions in seconds that will or will not have lethal consequences without having all the information.....its my worst nightmare (and i've never been in that kind of position and hope to never be...i've been lucky)


my point with the IDF soldier was the way he was condemed and "lynched" here...sort of as a "default"

[IndianaGreen]

5. What if this shooting had taken place in the US?

The Latino community would be in an uproar with charges of racial profiling flying in every direction. In one of my posts to the shooting story in LBN I asked if the British security services were under the command of Frank Rizzo, the late Philadelphia mayor and chief of police who made his mark by defending several racially motivated shootings.

I am reminded of the words of Benjamin Franklin who cautioned that those that surrendered their liberties for the sake of security would get neither.

As to the OP, had this shooting taken place in Tel Aviv, I doubt that we would be hearing the same defense of the shoot-at-anyone-with-brown-skin orders that we got from Chief of Police Blair (any relation to the poodle?).

[eyl]

6. That the charges would be made

does not mean they would be accurate.

As for the Franklin quote, isn't it "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security."?

Regarding your last comment, I'm not sure what statement of (Ian) Blair's you're referring to. But bear this in mind - when you're on the lookout for terrorism by a group identified with a certain ethnicity (Islam is not an ethnicity, and there are of course white Muslims as well, but at least in Britain my understanding is that most Muslims are of Middle Eastern/Asian descent), then someone of that ethnicity, behaving in a suspicious fashion, will draw more attention than someone not of that ethnicity. Or should the police shoot a few Caucasians just to keep things even?

[Coastie for Truth]

7. What if this had taken place in the US

In NY when "Rudi" was Mayor and "Bernie" was "Da'Chief" the shooters would have been given Detective Gold Shields and/or Sergeant Chevrons.

And the Liberals (including Al Sharpton and Charlie Rangel and Jerry Nadler and Steve Schumer and the Reform Jews and the ACLU) would have flustered and blustered - and gotten the "Bird" from "Rudi" and "Bernie."

And if it happend in the Dinkins' Administration - Dinkins would have done nothing because the PBA would have mass picketed City Hall.

My MSW-SDS wife is from NYC - and she says I called it right.

[Lithos]

8. Locking per I/P guidelines

Title does not match story article.