On 31-Dec-2008, at 18:20, Kevin Callahan wrote:
> a) the Israeli's didn't have their facts correct (they acted on bad
> intelligence or no intelligence ?) - the boat was not a military
> threat, we know that.
> b) they attacked a boat in international waters
OK, I've read a couple of things on this, and you're way off base here.
McKinney's ship attempted to run a blockade. It is a well known and
well marked MILITARY blockade (not only on charts, but with buoys and
radio alerts), and they knew it was there. The Israeli navy showed
great restraint in
1) not blowing the ship out of the water at range
2) sending *ELEVEN* ships to intercept the blockade runner
3) not blowing the ship out of the water at close range
4) firing multiple warning shots
5) not blowing the ship out of the water after the warning shots were
ignored.
Imagine you are driving down the road and 11 police cars surround you,
force you off the road, and a cop on a bullhorn tells you to get out
of the car slowly with you hands up and lie down on the asphalt/tarmac/
pavement. Are you going to make a run for the trees? Are you going
to argue about how you didn't do anything wrong and you're not going
to pull over and try to force your way through the blockade of police
cars?
Because even a good police department (and $DEITY knows there are few
enough of those in the US) is going to, quite justifiably, shoot you
dead if you do not comply exactly with their orders. You get to argue
about it later on. NOT. THEN. If you try to run a military
checkpoint, the military has the right -- I'd argue the DUTY -- to use
lethal force if necessary to stop you. And a blockade is not much
different.
If you want to argue about the legality of the blockade, then see
above. You do not argue about it whilst trying to RUN IT.
--
The older you get the more you need the people you knew when you
were young.
_______________________________________________
OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected]
http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters
List hosted at http://cat5.org/
