Bruce J. Richman wrote:
Lionel wrote:



Schizoid Man wrote:

The US veto of the condemnation of the assassination of Ahmed Yassin. Like
John Negroponte correctly said: "It (the assassination) has to be looked at
in context".

I find it hypocritical that nations like Algeria are always ready to

condemn

Israel's actions, but never ready to condemn suicide bombings by Hamas (at
least, not be name anyway).

If it's not an assassination it's an act of war because an execution
would have requiered at least a minimum judgment. Right ?
So if we are in a logic of war this fully justify all suicide bombings
by Hamas.









There's some faulty logic involved here. Israel's policy of targeted
assassinations is directed towards specific military personnel, or in the case
of Yassin, a leading Hamas suicide bombing advocate and planner.

This is where you are faulting Bruce, you are trying to find a *logic*
weakness in my above comment about US veto and your argument is really
weaker than my "faulty logic". If my english was better we could debate
a long time about that, but... I remember you that since the begining of
the second intifada there is approximatively 2 Palestinian deaths for 1
Israelian, are you sure that all Palestinian deaths were precisely
targeted assassinations ?
I just want to demonstrate to "Schizoid man" that, as soon as you are
*partisan* in a conflict you cannot have an interesting or better a
*usefull* opinion.

By contrast, Hamas' suicide bombings are directed at innocent civilians for the most part.
It requires quite a leap of the imagination to try and compare Hamas militants
and Israeli school children et al. riding in a commuter bus.

The answer to the above remains the same. I'm not sure that a country
who has murdered so much innocents in Nagasaki and Hiroshima is really
in a good position to give such lesson moreover when the so-called
country is managing a colonial war in an Arab country. Not necessary to
remember you that this war is based on the most laughable "official"
justification.

The danger in the precise case is to "officialize" the state of war. As
ScottW remembered us yesterday there is no *clean* way to make a war. In
a logic of war suicide bombings are not better or worst than nuclear
bombs, phosphor, napalm, agent orange... :-(

You are in a good position to know that all the conflicts continuation
is always based on such "leap of the imagination". You perfectly know
that all conflicts have their own continuation logic and that the only
way to stop a conflict is to break this logic by the introduction of a
logic of concession.
In this context I don't thing that Yassin assassination was opportune
nor the American veto.
Far from me to justify suicide bombing.

Lionel