a reply to:
JesseVentura
With regard to the situation with the downed Malaysian aircraft, I am in full agreement. The issue with Malaysian Airlines is that they run their
aircraft on one of the tightest budgetary margins of any airline which flies similar distances, and uses similar aircraft. They rarely fly with enough
fuel to accommodate a serious emergency resulting in a significant course change. The harrowing probability, from what I understand having read some
threads and looked into press about them over the last little while, is that the flight path used, was selected because it would have been cheaper
than an alternative route, around the hot zone.
They are, of course, not the only airline flying paths which take the passenger over contested territory, but they have a bad record when it comes to
the lengths to which they will go to save a dollar or pound or two of fuel.
Where the issue with Israel and Gaza is concerned, frankly I am appalled, and although I know that Mr Ventura is a very experienced gentleman in such
matters, I disagree with his dismissal of events there, with statements to the effect that war is always terrible. Yes. It is always terrible. But it
is not always necessary, and neither is the collateral damage ratio in this conflict.
Simply put, if Israel wants to prevent rocket attacks, it needs to kill the people launching the rockets, and it needs to do it silently, invisibly,
and without high explosive smart munitions, tanks, or any person in an IDF uniform. If they were serious about reducing collateral damage, they would
have sent some Mossad hit squad after the real culprits, rather than just demolishing entire districts to get at three or four fundamentalist
halfwits. Also, it has to be said that the pathetic nature of the attack which Israel has been under from these rockets, is LAUGHABLE! They are
utterly puny, unguided, hit nothing more often than not, and are shot down by the Iron Dome system often enough as well!
And that brings me on to ANOTHER issue I have with all this madness. The Iron Dome system could have been perfected to the point where it offered
total coverage, and had the capacity to take down EVERY target presented from nukes to pistol rounds, and I believe that the only reason that those
modifications have not been made, and that the coverage it offers has not yet been made total, is that if it were fully operational it would remove
all Israel's reasons to mistreat its neighbour communities, to bulldoze and steal its land, and do all the other deplorable things it has done to
Gaza for so long, not to mention other places around their borders.
Besides which, everything boils down to this. If some bunch of maniacs took over a local building, took hostages, and used them as human shields,
then local armed police would NOT be authorised to open fire on that building, and hose it down with a liberal dose of lead. That would surely get
innocent people killed, and that is NEVER acceptable. They would be forced to use non lethal means to take down the hostage takers, find more
intelligent ways to strike the target, disorient their foes, and smite them in a controlled manner having crept behind their lines.
There is no difference. The Israeli government needs to treat the innocent people between them and their enemy as their brothers and sisters, needs to
show more humanity toward its neighbours, and use the most surgical and deliberate tactics to take out the real enemies they face. They would not have
killed a third of the people they have, if such care as is necessary to solve anything in the unique tactical environment in the region, was being
taken.