I don’t think your implied analogy with Israel re: proportionality is apt. Here is a better one, I think: the growling guy who came onto the train to intimidate people is one of a number of such men who have been repeatedly harassing this group of passengers and sometimes violently attack them (let’s say this has been going on since at least the early 1900s, give or take). When the brave passenger pushes the attacker outside the car, he then notices the attacker’s comrades are also outside waiting for their turn. The brave passenger then pulverizes the downed attacker both to permanently disable him from future attacks and also to send a clear message to his gang that they will suffer the same fate if they try to do so themselves.
I often "pull my punches" when I write, leaving to the reader the pleasure of connecting the dots. In writing this wee essay, however, I intended to defend the principle of proportionality, rather than its application to a particular event. Indeed, while the publication of this article follows the posting of my most recent piece about Gaza, and was prompted by comments appended to it, the desire to use the scene I saw in the Métro to illustrate proportionality predates 7 October 2023 by several years.
Perhaps he needs to be discouraged from returning to the Metro… or bothering people..
——Meanwhile in War——
But what really happened was the Kabul gate. In fact the Kabul gate is the standard for about 2 decades. The subordinate made the mistake, which clearly haunts him, which always will, of not taking the shot.
Instead he asked his chain for permission to shoot the positively identified suicide bomber. The answer from a named LTC USMC was “I can’t make that decision.”
“Who can?”
“I don’t know, let me get back to you.”
BOOM.
13 US KIA.
One can tell the USMC SGT will be haunted.
I doubt the USMC LTC will.
I’ve seen this happen with a less tragic ending. Repeatedly.
Luck of the draw.
Also, people didn’t freeze.
Well, not everyone.
No. They acted.
Now you are a man of good heart and character. An Honest Man. So the below doesn’t apply to you >>>
>> But what perhaps should concern not you, but some of the readers, is that… people who want to be able to face the mirror, people who don’t want to let others down, and yes want to live- will stop asking permission.
Or begging forgiveness.
… or subordinating themselves to gaslighting, aka training, aka JAG briefs, aka … LoAC. So far such people are ignored, or stared down. But that may not remain an option longer.
The ones who act are now and for a generation not only the leaders, but the ones in charge. The ones with the power, because they’re trusted. The Gaslighters aren’t.<<<
To return to Honest Men.
It’s FIGHT
FLIGHT
Or if Gaslit by Rules of Engagement, LoAC, the rest..
FREEZE. Freeze is as likely this entire century as Fight.
It’s the worst possible choice, because it’s not a choice.
Confusion to our enemies.
Confusion to our…soldiers?
= FREEZE
The end result of all this is Confusion, of course in reality the rules change daily, this is IF they ever made sense… is confusion to our soldiers- so doing nothing is the default.
“I don’t want to go to jail.”
I have heard repeatedly.
Don’t blame them.
Now this can be gotten away with when it’s the small, colonial outpost, although it’s rough on the marines and soldiers there…
Under pressure, anything near peer conflict it’s collapse.
So the results so far are FREEZE, although I’m hearing of Flight.
Entire elite groups, BTW. Freezing, or extracting.
But it’s worse. This horrific error wasn’t made by honest men safe from harm,
>>>it was made by people who knew better and don’t care. They know.
We know they knew, they know.
They know that we know they knowingly sold us out.
So we’re looking at each other<<
And now the rest of you know.
Again I have the greatest respect and regard for you.
But be aware ~ you’re becoming confused. An honest confusion.
I suppose the first question is, did you or anyone else intervene with the hero turned bully? I’m not making a moral judgement, I’m simply curious. The bystander effect is a powerful one.
I agree that most people who talk about proportional responses have no understanding of that concept as defined under the Laws of Armed Conflict. Particularly egregious is the continuing misuse throughout most of the media which has now had decades to inform itself.
Relevant also to the equation is the not insignificant matter of training. Presumably the man in the subway had none, whereas a police officer would have (at least that’s the expectation). I would also expect those members of Western armed forces are so instructed and it is clear, from reporting on training, that the members of the IDF are.
So whereas the subway incident showed a man overcome by his emotions and incapable of controlling his violent impulses, the response of someone trained for combat would be expected to be different and the penalty for his misconduct all the greater for his lack of discipline.
The whole incident began, and ended, in the (very short) time it took the train in question to discharge old passengers and take on new ones. Thus, I no one had much time to intervene. As for me, I was on the far side of a set of subway tracks, with a clear view of what was happening, but no clear path to the site of the encounter.
It's very difficult, and maybe even impossible, to limit force once it has been initiated against you, until the opposing threat has been ended in some form. This is why war and violence are so destructive of civil society in any form. Once you have a demonstrated threat of force or have been attacked in some way... does the attacker have weapons concealed on them? Does your enemy have weapons they have not deployed yet that make preventive escalation necessary?
Speech, growling, even loud and threatening speech is not necessarily violent. Before the physical act, the actual crossing of the use of force, there is a gray area between intentionality, means, and the context whether a preemptive use of force is justified. But once the fight is on, and it is a clear case of self defense, as I believe IS the case with Israel-Hamas, it is very difficult to place limits on the use of force short of the actual attainment of victory and the ending of the threat i.e. total defeat of Hamas.
When we're talking about a case of self defense, when the enemy has started a war and has not renounced the ideas that prompted its aggression, it would be immoral to stop short of ending both Hamas and the ideology that drives it. Did we stop short of ending slavery when it meant burning farms and cities in the US Civil War? Did we stop short of doing the exact same thing in defeating both the Nazis and Imperial Japan in World War 2? That these were actions implicit in the actual fighting and necessary for victory suggests what is needed to defeat totalitarian evil. WE struggle against this because we are good, we value life. Our enemy does not. As Hamas itself says, "You value life, we love death". If it's a fact that the only way to win is total war, then that's what has to happen, unless the Good itself is willing to surrender and leave an enemy to endlessly threaten it. Look at Germany and Japan today - do we have Nazi insurgents or Japanese guerillas who worship the Emperor? You can, in fact, kill an idea when people realize that it will lead to nothing except death and destruction and it's goals are completely unattainable. That is the kind of victory that must be won over Hamas and Islamic fundamentalism everywhere it exists.
This ties in aptly to "limited war," a concept that seems to have been relegated to the pages of history, alongside competent statesmen and realist foreign policy.
A great deal about WW2 in Europe was explained for me when I learned that the Wehrmacht army manual written before the war specifically recommended taking hostages when dealing with an uncooperative civilian population.
I don’t think your implied analogy with Israel re: proportionality is apt. Here is a better one, I think: the growling guy who came onto the train to intimidate people is one of a number of such men who have been repeatedly harassing this group of passengers and sometimes violently attack them (let’s say this has been going on since at least the early 1900s, give or take). When the brave passenger pushes the attacker outside the car, he then notices the attacker’s comrades are also outside waiting for their turn. The brave passenger then pulverizes the downed attacker both to permanently disable him from future attacks and also to send a clear message to his gang that they will suffer the same fate if they try to do so themselves.
I often "pull my punches" when I write, leaving to the reader the pleasure of connecting the dots. In writing this wee essay, however, I intended to defend the principle of proportionality, rather than its application to a particular event. Indeed, while the publication of this article follows the posting of my most recent piece about Gaza, and was prompted by comments appended to it, the desire to use the scene I saw in the Métro to illustrate proportionality predates 7 October 2023 by several years.
Got it— then in a general sense (not related to Israel) I think the analogy is a good one, and also sad to see a good deed turn so ugly.
Sir.
With respect and regards,
—- The Subway——
If the growling man gets back up..
or
Perhaps he needs to be discouraged from returning to the Metro… or bothering people..
——Meanwhile in War——
But what really happened was the Kabul gate. In fact the Kabul gate is the standard for about 2 decades. The subordinate made the mistake, which clearly haunts him, which always will, of not taking the shot.
Instead he asked his chain for permission to shoot the positively identified suicide bomber. The answer from a named LTC USMC was “I can’t make that decision.”
“Who can?”
“I don’t know, let me get back to you.”
BOOM.
13 US KIA.
One can tell the USMC SGT will be haunted.
I doubt the USMC LTC will.
I’ve seen this happen with a less tragic ending. Repeatedly.
Luck of the draw.
Also, people didn’t freeze.
Well, not everyone.
No. They acted.
Now you are a man of good heart and character. An Honest Man. So the below doesn’t apply to you >>>
>> But what perhaps should concern not you, but some of the readers, is that… people who want to be able to face the mirror, people who don’t want to let others down, and yes want to live- will stop asking permission.
Or begging forgiveness.
… or subordinating themselves to gaslighting, aka training, aka JAG briefs, aka … LoAC. So far such people are ignored, or stared down. But that may not remain an option longer.
The ones who act are now and for a generation not only the leaders, but the ones in charge. The ones with the power, because they’re trusted. The Gaslighters aren’t.<<<
To return to Honest Men.
It’s FIGHT
FLIGHT
Or if Gaslit by Rules of Engagement, LoAC, the rest..
FREEZE. Freeze is as likely this entire century as Fight.
It’s the worst possible choice, because it’s not a choice.
Confusion to our enemies.
Confusion to our…soldiers?
= FREEZE
The end result of all this is Confusion, of course in reality the rules change daily, this is IF they ever made sense… is confusion to our soldiers- so doing nothing is the default.
“I don’t want to go to jail.”
I have heard repeatedly.
Don’t blame them.
Now this can be gotten away with when it’s the small, colonial outpost, although it’s rough on the marines and soldiers there…
Under pressure, anything near peer conflict it’s collapse.
So the results so far are FREEZE, although I’m hearing of Flight.
Entire elite groups, BTW. Freezing, or extracting.
But it’s worse. This horrific error wasn’t made by honest men safe from harm,
>>>it was made by people who knew better and don’t care. They know.
We know they knew, they know.
They know that we know they knowingly sold us out.
So we’re looking at each other<<
And now the rest of you know.
Again I have the greatest respect and regard for you.
But be aware ~ you’re becoming confused. An honest confusion.
You are an honest man.
But confusion is the deadliest enemy.
I suppose the first question is, did you or anyone else intervene with the hero turned bully? I’m not making a moral judgement, I’m simply curious. The bystander effect is a powerful one.
I agree that most people who talk about proportional responses have no understanding of that concept as defined under the Laws of Armed Conflict. Particularly egregious is the continuing misuse throughout most of the media which has now had decades to inform itself.
Relevant also to the equation is the not insignificant matter of training. Presumably the man in the subway had none, whereas a police officer would have (at least that’s the expectation). I would also expect those members of Western armed forces are so instructed and it is clear, from reporting on training, that the members of the IDF are.
So whereas the subway incident showed a man overcome by his emotions and incapable of controlling his violent impulses, the response of someone trained for combat would be expected to be different and the penalty for his misconduct all the greater for his lack of discipline.
The whole incident began, and ended, in the (very short) time it took the train in question to discharge old passengers and take on new ones. Thus, I no one had much time to intervene. As for me, I was on the far side of a set of subway tracks, with a clear view of what was happening, but no clear path to the site of the encounter.
It's very difficult, and maybe even impossible, to limit force once it has been initiated against you, until the opposing threat has been ended in some form. This is why war and violence are so destructive of civil society in any form. Once you have a demonstrated threat of force or have been attacked in some way... does the attacker have weapons concealed on them? Does your enemy have weapons they have not deployed yet that make preventive escalation necessary?
Speech, growling, even loud and threatening speech is not necessarily violent. Before the physical act, the actual crossing of the use of force, there is a gray area between intentionality, means, and the context whether a preemptive use of force is justified. But once the fight is on, and it is a clear case of self defense, as I believe IS the case with Israel-Hamas, it is very difficult to place limits on the use of force short of the actual attainment of victory and the ending of the threat i.e. total defeat of Hamas.
When we're talking about a case of self defense, when the enemy has started a war and has not renounced the ideas that prompted its aggression, it would be immoral to stop short of ending both Hamas and the ideology that drives it. Did we stop short of ending slavery when it meant burning farms and cities in the US Civil War? Did we stop short of doing the exact same thing in defeating both the Nazis and Imperial Japan in World War 2? That these were actions implicit in the actual fighting and necessary for victory suggests what is needed to defeat totalitarian evil. WE struggle against this because we are good, we value life. Our enemy does not. As Hamas itself says, "You value life, we love death". If it's a fact that the only way to win is total war, then that's what has to happen, unless the Good itself is willing to surrender and leave an enemy to endlessly threaten it. Look at Germany and Japan today - do we have Nazi insurgents or Japanese guerillas who worship the Emperor? You can, in fact, kill an idea when people realize that it will lead to nothing except death and destruction and it's goals are completely unattainable. That is the kind of victory that must be won over Hamas and Islamic fundamentalism everywhere it exists.
Dynamite article! Closing paragraph should be read as an oath by every senior leader (Col and above) in military service.
This ties in aptly to "limited war," a concept that seems to have been relegated to the pages of history, alongside competent statesmen and realist foreign policy.
A great deal about WW2 in Europe was explained for me when I learned that the Wehrmacht army manual written before the war specifically recommended taking hostages when dealing with an uncooperative civilian population.