On shooting unarmed students

1) Shooting unarmed students is a bad thing.

2) A country that puts soldiers on trial for shooting unarmed students is better than one which doesn’t.

3) However, a country where army snipers don’t shoot unarmed students is better than one where they do.

4) Similar points apply to countries where soldiers deliberately run unarmed students over with bulldozers.

5) If you seek to justify the murder of unarmed students, then you’re vicious, filthy scum.

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25 thoughts on “On shooting unarmed students

  1. Or if you’re a unarmed student wandering about in the middle of what is effectively a war zone, deliberately putting yourself in harms way, you get no fucking sympathy from me. It’s the same with war reporters, everyone sobs when one gets smoked and conveniently forget about the 300 other poor local souls who’ll need to pay the ferry man that day.

    Rank hypocrisy always pisses me off, if it’s worth the Guardian’s time kicking up a stink for a silver spoon in orifice London lad, then it’s worth kicking up a fuss every single fucking day for Abdul, Allan, Hussain and the countless others who have actually left behind dependents without a breadwinner. Grrrr

  2. It always puzzles me that people who earnestly believe that the Israelis are Nazis bent on genocide who deliberately target small children and defenseless civilians think that, if only I, a white middle-class Westerner, go and act as a human shield, that’ll stop them.

  3. S2 – it makes sense, as long as you also believe that developed-world media and politics are parochial and racist.

    "The Israelis are killing Arab children and nobody cares. But if I, a middle-class white westerner, were to be killed, then I’d be on the front pages of all the newspapers and the Israelis would feel obliged to put the person who shot me in jail. Therefore, an Israeli soldier is much less likely to shoot me than they would be to shoot an Arab child."

    (looking at the coverage that this case has received compared to cases of dead Palestinian children, it strikes me that someone holding that belief may not be /entirely/ incorrect…)

  4. It’s not that the media and politics are parochial and racist – it is that Palestinian kids die every day (as do Jewish kids, I’m sure), so it aint news. When an over-educated, but sadly lacking in common sense intelligence, middle-class, wears-his-heart-on-his-wristband, unthinking-prejudiced-lefty-politics-straight-from-his-journalism-lecturer-wielding idiot gets himself shot, it’s novel.

    Although the fact that I can effectively (or not) parody him suggests it isn’t quite that novel…

  5. 1 and 2, I can agree with.
    3 and 4 – Defining the ‘goodness’ of a country based on actions commited by criminals who are citizens of that country is ridicilous. According to your logic, a country where murderers don’t beat teenagers to death with a baseball bat is better than one where they do.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/4619157.stm (Just for example).

    5) If you seek to justify the murder of unarmed students, then you’re vicious, filthy scum.

    From LGF post:
    Israeli Soldier Guilty in ISM Manslaughter
    The Israeli Arab soldier who shot British ISM terror enabler Tom Hurndall in 2003 has been convicted of manslaughter by an Israeli military court:
    <quote from Yahoo article>
    This, of course, is not good enough for the anti-Israel side.
    <cont. quote>
    Can anyone remember the last time a Palestinian terrorist was convicted of murder by a PA court, and sentenced to 20 years in prison?
    Anyone?
    <cricket chirps>

    Where exactly the filthy scum justifies the murder?

  6. According to your logic, a country where murderers don’t beat teenagers to death with a baseball bat is better than one where they do.

    I know I’d prefer the former country, all else being equal.

    Where exactly the filthy scum justifies the murder?

    How about:

    #20 jfromfolsomca 6/27/2005 12:28PM PDT

    Any "political activits" that places themselves in harms way (like the middle of a war or some such, deserves exactly what they get.

    —-

    #25 Murqtaad 6/27/2005 12:36PM PDT

    I question what one thinks will happen to oneself when going to be a human sheild. This man commited suicide, and was an enabler of terrorists. Taysir did a public service.

    #60 Andy in Agoura Hills 6/27/2005 02:21PM PDT

    [in reply to]#55 Dom 6/27/2005 02:08PM PDT

    STFU and STFD. Hurndall was an arrogant privledged fuck that got what he deserved.

    [snip…]

    BTW, the sniper should be sentenced to 1 day in prison. That’ll really put a bunch in Sophie’s knickers.

    Looks like justification to me, Max.

  7. When an over-educated, but sadly lacking in common sense intelligence, middle-class, wears-his-heart-on-his-wristband, unthinking-prejudiced-lefty-politics-straight-from-his-journalism-lecturer-wielding idiot

    How do you think anything gets done in this world, mate?

  8. How do you think anything gets done in this world, mate?

    The world seems to tick along quite nicely without anyone having to go into an effective war-zone without protection. If you mean ‘How do you think anything gets changed in this world?’, that’s slightly different.

  9. Not quite sure what you’re trying to prove with that link: it doesn’t refer to Hurndall at all; rather, it shows that Corrie’s mum wants to hurt the company who sold the machine that killed her daughter.

    That hardly strikes me as top-level political moonbattery – it’s no different from the Paynes railing about how paedos should all have their balls chopped off, or train crash survivors trying to make the government waste huge amounts of money on pointless safety kit.

  10. You’re right. Probably not the best example. My point was that Rachel and Tom came from families who had radical political views long before their children joined ISM. Accordingly I wonder how far the families should look to their own roles in producing the conditions that led to these tragedies (not taking any blame from the IDF soldiers). It is clear that some ISM activists put themselves recklessly in real danger, so we should be careful about who we blame when bad things actually happen.

    I would also like to know how many Palestinians who have murdered Israelis have been tried and convicted by Palestinian courts.

  11. > It is clear that some ISM activists put themselves recklessly in real danger

    > Everyone I know, when they refer to "ISM", means this. Which makes these discussions seem a little odd to me.

  12. Yes, it is. Turns out that the only reasons these discussions seem odd is that I’m thick, have had too little sleep for weeks, and can’t even get my bloody italics right.

  13. "Corrie’s mum wants to hurt the company who sold the machine that killed her daughter"

    And that doesn’t sound like ‘top-level political moonbattery’..? That a company should be held responsible for what their machine (which has many legitimate uses) is used for?

    Right, off to mow down some pedestrians! Chrysler can pay their families compensation….

  14. And "train crash survivors trying to make the government waste huge amounts of money on pointless safety kit"…??!!

    Where did this come from? Are you seriously suggesting that train companies (whose lax safety & repair work has led to a crash) SHOULDN’T be forced to install safety kit to prevent a recurrence?

  15. For as long as railways are at least an order of magnitude safer than cars (which those in the UK are), of course they shouldn’t.

    The extra £N billion to add extra safety kit has to come from somewhere, and it would save more lives if it were spent on either improving the safety of things that were dangerous to start with (eg cars), on cutting rail fares to encourage people to switch to safer modes of transport, etc.

    I agree the anti-Caterpillar thing isn’t sensible, but it’s something that has become the fashion among bereaved relatives – hence not top-range moonbattery (merely regrettable).

  16. A million spent on roads saves about ten times as many lives as a million spent on railways, doesn’t it? Or is it even more? I forget.

  17. "things that were dangerous to start with (eg cars)"

    In what way is a car (if taken as an inanimate object empty of driver) inherently more dangerous than a train (if taqken as an inanimate object empty of driver)?

  18. Still not sure that the fact that more people die in car accidents than train accidents (as a pure numbers game) excuses train companies making their trains as safe as possible, particularly if they hope to persuade more people onto them.

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