#9 – “After all, the US let Saddam put an Exocet into one of their warships and didn’t do a thing about it.”
As far as I can remember the only state that’s sent rockets into American ships and got a pass on it has been Israel, which shot up the USS Liberty in 1967 as part of an earlier war. Al-quaeda or one of its associates drove a small boat with explosives into the USS Cole – but never Saddam, and never exocets.
OK, back to Australian civilians. Where the political hooraw, if any, won’t come from there being 25,000 Australians in the country now but from the 250,000 Australians who have relatives there.

Then again, the idea of Australia declaring war on Israel isn’t very likely either, so maybe I am not getting some sort of esoteric irony here.

As far as the off-topic discussion goes, I think it illustrates my main point. Once you start stretching, almost anything becomes a legitimate target for almost anyone.

On topic, I think Engels gets my main point (though I’d apply it equally to all sides in this). If the direct participants are entitled to set low thresholds for actions which inevitably cause innocent casualties, so are those indirectly affected. As stated by Robert Mcdougall, the only real barrier is good sense.

Your first quote has no specifics, talking about ‘over the last 25 years’, probably got the facts from your 1999 quote.

After Israel got kicked out of Lebanon, according to Wikipedia:

Israeli aircraft continue to fly over Lebanese territory, eliciting condemnation from the ranking UN representative in Lebanon. Hezbollah’s retaliatory anti-aircraft fire, doubling as small caliber artillery, has on some occasions landed within Israel’s northern border towns, inciting condemnation from the UN Secretary-General.[36] On November 7, 2004, Hezbollah responded to what it described as repeated Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace by flying an Iranian-built unmanned drone aircraft over northern Israel.[37]

Furthermore Hezbollah says Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon proves that the Jewish state only understands the language of resistance. They defend their right to keep their weapons as a deterrent against Israeli attack, to liberate the disputed Shebaa Farms border area, which is occupied by Israel.[38]

I don’t see anything here about any Katyusha rockets. So, where’s the problem that’s supposed to be remedied by destroying Lebanon – airport and all the rest?

“Just find the phrase a little weird: the only airport in Lebanon capable of handling that 747.

You may as well be discussing military effectiveness of raping women in Darfur’s villages as far as I am concerned – that’ll teach them a lesson, right?”

Huh? Iran uses the Beruit airport (in Lebanon) to supply Hezbollah. It uses 747s to transport large quantities of arms/supplies. That (or those) 747s actually and in fact land at the Beruit airport. Israel bombed the Beruit airport runways to stop that easy way of delivering a large amount of supplies. They did not use special munitions to make it difficult to repair when the bombing stops. They did not destroy all (or even many or even so far as I can tell any) of the aiport support buildings. As such they were fulfilling a military objective with a minimum amount of force necessary (proportionality). That civilians (including Australians) were in danger is largely the fault of Hezbollah for using a civilian airfield as a regular supply point. But the danger was minimized as much as possible considering the military objective. It was also better than alternatives like shooting down any 747 from Iran without looking inside, or occupying Beruit so they could inspect each 747 from Iran.

What does that have to do with raping women in the Sudan?

You may as well be discussing military effectiveness of raping women in Darfur’s villages as far as I am concerned – that’ll teach them a lesson, right? You’re simply trolling here, not that anything’s wrong with that.

Maybe the Aussies should threaten Israel with an air assault.

What are you talking about, man, they wouldn’t have a prayer. Israelis have submarines armed with nuclear missiles: boom goes Melbourne, and boom Sydnee; more room for you and more room for me.

Huh? Rockets aren’t the only supplies they get from Iran. Furthermore of course you could supply with single-engine two-passenger Cessnas, but it would take rather a few more flights than one 747. They could get girls with backpacks to bicycle from Tehran too. But that doesn’t mean that resupplying with a 747 (which they have done in the past) isn’t vastly easier.

And I would like to note the quick shift from the “airport couldn’t possibly be a military target because they don’t get supplies from it” to “they can get supplies from other places”. The second argument is true for any indvidual method of supply. In fact so long as the airport was around you could always say “they can get their supplies from the 747 from Iran so why try to deal with the border from Syria”.

Maybe the Aussies should threaten Israel with an air assault.

Is Iran somehow destined to use 747s? Or 107mm Katyusha rockets just won’t fit into any other plane? Weird.

As for the idea that supplying through the Beruit airport is ridiculous, please read:

MSNBC

Beirut Airport has long been key to Iran’s supply of all kinds of material to Hezbollah. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has supplied Hezbollah with more than $1 billion of supplies over the past 25 years, say U.S. intelligence officials, as much as $150 million a year during tense times. The majority of it is flown in on an Iranian 747 cargo jet that unloads at Beirut Airport, where Hezbollah agents pick it up and drive it to the Bekkah valley south of the Lebanese capital. Anti-aircraft batteries, Katyusha rockets, armored vehicles, small arms, anti-tank missiles, etc. have all been sent. Beirut is the only airport in Lebanon capable of handling that 747. The initial deployment was in 1982 with planes bringing in supplies as needed. By the 1990s the flights had fallen to a quarterly routine. With Hezbollah under fire in Israel, now would be a time to resupply.

Middle East Intelligence Bulletin Dated October 1999

According to Israeli military sources, Iran recently began airlifting arms shipments to Hezbollah directly through Beirut International Airport. Previously, these shipments of Katyusha rockets, mortar shells and other weapons were transported by three Boeing 747 cargo jets every month to Damascus, where they were loaded on trucks and transferred overland into Lebanon.1 Syria apparently cut off or severely curtailed this supply route shortly after the election of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in May.

The new direct shipments reportedly include a new weapon previously unused in south Lebanon: the short-range 107mm Katyusha rocket (the standard version commonly used by Hezbollah is the 122mm, which has a range of 21 km). The arrival of the suboptimal 107mm, which has a range of about 8 km, suggests that the group is attempting to stockpile as much weaponry as it can in anticipation of a Syrian move to cut off the arms shipments from Teheran.

Thank you for posting a substantive, relevant comment.

Yes: substantive, relevant and also quite montypythonish, I must say. This is why I love this blog.

Just like with Katrina, a lot of Republicans seem to eagerly write off the lives of their fellow citizens, out of loyalty to Bush, or to Israel.

Why is that?

In ratifying the Charter of the United Nations, Australia undertook to “seek a solution by negotiation . . . or other peaceful means” to “any dispute . . . likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security”, subject to its “inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member”.

An attack on Israel or Lebanon that happens to kill Australians isn’t an attack on Australia, so it doesn’t trigger Australia’s right of individual self-defence. But an attack on Israel or Lebanon does trigger the right of collective self-defence for any country that chooses to consider itself an ally of Israel or Lebanon.

Since armed attacks have occurred against both Israel and Lebanon, Australia already has the right to join in on either side if it cares to. That right isn’t affected by the presence or absence of its nationals.

In practice of course the main safeguard against a “disastrous war of all against all” isn’t black-letter law or Walzerian theory, but self interest. It’d be utterly bloody daft for Australia to start throwing its weight around in this situation, and for most other countries likewise.

I applaud the effort to find new arguments for respecting the rights of non-combatants, but this one doesn’t cut it.