Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 40 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Outrage Doesn’t Change the Outcomes of War
Talk about outrage, I am outraged at the U.S. insistence on labelling the recent bombing that killed humanitarian workers an outrage, not a tragedy, but an outrage. In fact, I am disgusted that the US thinks it needs to condemn Israel for the unintentional killing of humanitarian workers, for other actions that Israel is not even taking (such as slowing humanitarian aid), and for raiding hospitals where Hamas is stationed. The U.S. seems to think that berating Israel will get them to behave themselves or be more careful, as if they were misbehaving children.
In case you haven’t noticed, John Kirby, there’s a war going on.
War is ugly. Bad things happen. Mistakes are committed. But the US has repeatedly spoken out as if Israel is irresponsible, as if Israel is not doing its best to get humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, as if Israel is not trying to avoid killing civilians whenever possible.
There’s a war going on.
Hamas is using its own people as human shields. It is occupying hospitals as military locations. It is holding hostages, most who may be dead. It has no intention of engaging in reasonable negotiations to release those hostages and stop the fighting. And when do you hear the protests of the US against Hamas?
Crickets.
It’s been obvious for a while that the US thinks Israel is not interested in doing anything except wiping out Hamas. The US believes that Israel does not care about civilians dying. Hamas must hope that the Palestinians will starve, because Israel will be blamed and held responsible.
The only reason that the Palestinians are starving is because Hamas will not negotiate a practical peace, and they steal supplies from civilians whenever they can. It wants to keep fighting, even if it means killing the last Palestinian in Gaza.
Where is the outrage for Hamas, President Biden?
Published in Foreign Policy
Yep. That’s what happens to the aid given to Gaza. Hamas takes it first. It doesn’t get to the citizens they think are receiving it. It first goes to the soldiers. This is how it’s always been in the history of warfare.
Hey, you want him to lose Michigan!?
The workers are in a war zone.
Things happen.
This is like being outraged Red Cross workers are killed by accident in Germany in WWII.
It is, at its core, simply being anti Israel.
Hope so. Big time.
Yes. I kept thinking, is there another word they could have used, and it hit me: tragedy. Which is exactly what it was. Thanks, Bryan.
If Slow Joe had wanted peace in the Mideast, he shouldn’t have let the Iranians have that $76 billion that they’ve collected under his watch. Iran funds Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.
Being president is a hard job. It’s harder when you can’t make it past 2:00 in the afternoon without all those pharmaceuticals.
Fortunately Hunter has some good suppliers.
Sorry for the digression, but:
The Democrats have inadvertently revealed what life is like in the White House these days.
In response to this excellent interview on Fox News with RFK, Jr., a couple of days ago, the Democrats responded immediately and forcefully to say that Joe had nothing to do with the attempts to censor RFK, Jr., or the decision not to assign him Secret Service protection. Too funny.
I guess he doesn’t get to make many decisions anymore. :) :)
That was already done before with the classified documents stuff too. “Joe can’t be charged with/put on trial for that, he’s too old, demented, and incompetent!”
I can’t help but be impressed that when the IDF makes a tragedy in targeting, such as hitting the aid party, and earlier when an IDF soldier shot a friendly, they immediately announce it instead of attempting to cover it up or shift the blame (like our current administration does constantly).
I think we can trust the IDF reporting, because they illustrate repeatedly that they are trustworthy.
I’m so glad to hear that, Jim. Thanks.
I am going to say I am not even sure it is a tragedy, at least once caused by the IDF.
Every single death, every one, no matter who, are the fault of Hamas. Just like every single dead person in WWII was the fault of Germany, Japan, Italy and Russia. All of them.
France, Britain, the USA were not the causes of the war.
He’s Schroedinger’s President: simultaneously senile and brilliant.
No kidding. If there is a friendly fire incident involving the IDF, it will be on The Times or Ha’aretz websites within hours if not minutes of the IDF reporting it. This fact reveals all the moral inversion involved in calling the IDF “terrorists” to be the work of deficient or immoral minds. I know, I know. “Why not both?”
Hey, Biden Government: Ever hear of Dresden? Hiroshima? Nagasaki? War is Hell . . .
I am skeptical that there is starvation in the Gaza. There is hunger at certain times and places due to the difficulty of getting the available supplies to the people who need them. This hunger gets solved quickly once the supply chain opens up. I doubt that there are many cases of malnutrition.
Though there is little discussion of it, I think sanitation has been and will be a greater challenge. But this issue does not make good propaganda video for Hamas and its allies across the globe.
Technically correct that this is 100% Hamas’ fault, and they get atrocity credit for the aid workers’ deaths, adding to the true outrage of 7 October, which was like hundreds of 1836 Fort Parker massacres.
But it’s important to at least try to call out the moral chasm between the atrocity of murder/rape/kidnapping and the tragedy of innocent civilians killed in war.
A quick test to tell if you’re civilized is whether you’re more outraged by one innocent kidnapped, an atrocity, or ten innocents killed by an errant bomb or friendly fire, a tragedy. If the death of ten innocents upset you more, then you’re judging by emotion, not reason. It corrupts both elections and jury trials when people more influenced by emotion than reason participate.
That’s one of the biggest problems we have with people making wise decisions in this country. Feelings are primary.
So first of all, the title of the OP doesn’t seem correct to me. Why wouldn’t “outrage” change the outcome of a war? I think that the “outrage” of Americans after Pearl Harbor certainly affected the outcome of WWII.
Factually, I think that there is far more reason to be outraged by the horrific actions of the Israelis than by anything else in this latest round of conflict. Mass slaughter of civilians, including women and children, by the tens of thousands. An open and blatant effort to starve an entire population of over 2 million. The latest Israeli massacre of aid workers certainly works in furtherance of their policy of mass starvation.
So I’m outraged at the Israelis. I’m also outraged, I guess, at apologists for Israel.
Public opinion in the US seems to be shifting in my direction on this one, at last. This may put the Israelis in very, very big trouble. If they lose US support, they’re going to be in a world of hurt.
If that happens, I won’t be sympathetic to the typical claims of Jewish victimhood and anti-Semitism. The Zionists have brought this upon themselves, with a century of conquest and brutality generally, and shocking viciousness over the past 7 months.
They were not innocent victims on October 7. They were invaders, conquerors, brutalizers, and oppressors. Moreover, they were engaged in constant and violent provocations, including escalation at the Al Aqsa compound and the West Bank generally in the preceding year or two, and the decades of maintaining Gaza as an open-air prison.
It is hard to find common ground in the midst of the outrage.
Empirically, I think that is is undeniable that the Israelis are many, many times more murderous than the Palestinians. In prior conflict periods, the kill ratio ran around 20:1. This time, it’s around 25:1 or 30:1, with no end in sight. If the starvation campaign succeeds, it might get a lot worse, in a hurry.
I know we should probably just ignore Jerry, but I cannot let these ridiculous statements stand — statements that come straight from the infernal abyss. Jerry wants us to think that the women and girls raped and murdered in the most horrific fashion are the bad guys.
Hamas gang raped and beheaded women at rave massacre, fresh testimony reveals
Well done, Drew.
Indeed. But we know what Jerry’s likely response is, don’t we?
Your hatred and disgust for the Jews is growing so strong that you are descending into madness, wherein you believe every word that comes from Hamas propaganda. You seem to take great pains to shield your eyes and ears from any suggestion that would contradict the terrorist’s narrative. Regular people have enough sense not to believe terrorists nor their spokespeople.
You must be suffering a great emotional trauma in your life that you find relief by lashing out at Israel. This must be even more disturbing in your case, a professed staunch Christian, in light of Genesis 12, verses 1 – 3.
I believe we killed aid workers in Afghanistan on at least one occasion.
Obama wiped out a wedding party or two.
August 2021. Three adults and seven children. We needed to look tough. We ended up looking incompetent.
I don’t recall Netanyahu publicly calling Biden over this event to ream him out over protecting civilians and threatening to cut off Israeli support if he didn’t stop harming terrorists in Afghanistan.
I’ll reserve judgment until I hear what Biden had to say in his call to Hamas HQ.
Oh, more than that:
https://www.cfr.org/blog/obamas-final-drone-strike-data
And, golly gee, who was O-droner’s Veep? Some doofus from Delaware, I think. Wish I could remember his name. Oh, I know! Francois Mitterand! Or was it President Al-Sisi of Mexico doing a guest spot in as the U.S. VP?
There’s the true outrage of the 7 October massacre/kidnapping/rape pogrom. Far below that is what the Bible considers negligent manslaughter, for which the penalty is exile, or in modern times, reprimands and other punishments. This describes friendly-fire deaths (Pat Tillman, the three shirtless Israeli hostages), and targets misidentified (bombing the aid worker and the wedding in Afghanistan, bombing the Gaza aid convoy). It’s “stuff happens” and it’s not an outrage unless it’s happening more often than one would expect in wartime.