Thanks for the link to the Vargas interview at the Florida Student Philosophy Blog.

isn't the haphazard launching of rockets into israeli territory a kind of "collective punishment?"

From watch out for your doctor:

diagnostic expert systems based upon statistics rather than heuristics might well outperform human diagnosticians, yet doctors and patients both would refuse to use them.

It's not a matter of whether or not they will work better than doctors. They do, at least in all the tests they throw at them. I would be perfectly willing to be diagnosed by an expert system...can't do any worse than my doctors have so far.

RE zoe's "collective punishment" as justification for a long and demoralizing occupation:

Some things just never cease to amaze me. The simplified, one-sided thinking of theists and their related political ideologues that claim grievous injury and continuing justification for aggression from but a thorn or two, all the while blithely ignoring the bramble-bush of harm and suffering that they and their adherents inflict ...

"zoe" is either yankin' our collective chain, or he is saying: "yes, I guess that a couple of crudely constructed fire-cracker-type rockets lobbed into Israel with the guidance akin to a dizzy four year old's first swing at a piñata; that meted "collective punishment" must surely equate to and give justification for the well detailed ravages of occupation and subjugation by the mightier and bigger stick wielding neighbour."

Why yes indeed.

Theism and tribal-based ideologies are just plain silly and deserve continued ridicule.

actually i'm an atheist. but i'll forgive your hypocritical simplified thinking on that one.

i agree that tribal-based ideologies are silly and need to be mocked. if i had my way, the entire region would be made secular.

i'm merely questioning who is being collectively punished and when.

It isn't that I don't feel sorry for the Palestinians, but at this point, they're like a bunch of kids who keep throwing rocks at the house of a psychotic man, who keeps coming out of the house and beating the living bejeebus out of them.

Yeah, the psycho stole their house and kicked them out -- so we should feel sorry for the kids. But if the entire neighborhood is made up of relatives of these kids, and they haven't managed to resolve the situation after almost 60 years -- yer doing it wrong.

I dunno about the rest of the country, but California's two senators have the same top five contributors: law firms, medical/insurance industry, RIAA/MIAA -- can't remember all five, but Israel were amongst them, for both.

Now, if the Arab states -- with their immense wealth -- had gone this route, maybe they'd manage to achieve something (like wonderful stuff like world peace and happiness -- by pushing the Jews into the ocean and erasing Israel from the map etc.) but they're spending their money encouraging suicide bombers.

Go figure.

actually i'm an atheist. but i'll forgive your hypocritical simplified thinking on that one

zoe - thanks for your leniency & forgiveness.

A alternate rhetorical post might have queried as to whether the Geneva Convention prohibits any form of "collective punishment" (I believe that most know it does).

isn't the haphazard launching of rockets into israeli territory a kind of "collective punishment?"

Your statement rather misses the point. Whether the launching of rockets is or is not collective punishment, Two wrongs don't make a right. Pointing out that someone else commits a crime doesn't make it okay for you to do it too.

Two wrongs don't make a right, but what would the alternative be in this case? Should they just consider random rocket attacks a normal part of their daily routine?

If one nation lobs a rocket at another nation, it's considered an act of war.

Two wrongs don't make a right, but what would the alternative be in this case? Should they just consider random rocket attacks a normal part of their daily routine?

There is no but, two wrongs don't make a right end of discussion. But to answer the question they go after the individuals that make the attacks not engage in collective punishment. If they consider it an act of war they certainly are within their rights to declare war, but the rule about collective punishment applies in war too. It's a violation of the Geneva convention and one that Israel has engaged in many times.

By collective punishment, the drafters of the Geneva Conventions had in mind the reprisal killings of World Wars I and II. In the First World War, Germans executed Belgian villagers in mass retribution for resistance activity. In World War II, Nazis carried out a form of collective punishment to suppress resistance. Entire villages or towns or districts were held responsible for any resistance activity that took place there. The conventions, to counter this, reiterated the principle of individual responsibility. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Commentary to the conventions states that parties to a conflict often would resort to "intimidatory measures to terrorize the population" in hopes of preventing hostile acts, but such practices "strike at guilty and innocent alike. They are opposed to all principles based on humanity and justice."

I hate to agree with Norm again here (hehe), but by Dzw's logic, America's water supply should be shut off for the "collective punishment" during "Shock and Awe" of Iraq. We killed a lot of innocent people in the persuit of the "bad guys". Maybe we should just shut off Dzwonka's water in leiu of punishment for the bombing of Iraq.

A country that is attacked should be able to fight back against whoever attacks them, it's their way of life they are trying to protect, but to stop an essential need to Gaza, come the ** on.