Gamblor
10-09-2003, 03:16 PM
My first few weeks with the Tsahal (IDF) brought an interesting situation that I thought might shed some light on this problem.
Before you are permitted to touch a gun, you must undergo training. Specifically, you are, with your unit, led into a room with candles and darkened lights and carpetted floors.
Various questions are asked of recruits: Do guns kill people? Or is it people who kill people? Can a gun be pure (in the context of "good")? Are guns evil? Or is it the people that use them? etc. etc. Questions like that we all got together and answered to each other.
But this story (true, in fact) is the most interesting relative to your poll, Chris.
A Golani unit was patrolling one day and came across a cave. One of the soldiers hears an old lady whimpering from the cave. He and 2 others go in to check it out. Suddenly, three gunshots were fired out of the cave, and the three soldiers are killed. Two Arabs run out of the shadows towards the opening but the remaining soldiers open fire and kill them before they leave. The woman is an old Arab woman, in there now alone, and the soldiers must decide what to do with her.
Now for those of you who don't realize, you spend every day with the other soldiers in your unit, and for the most part they are your best friends in the world - you live by them, and you die by them. So you learn to place your life in their hands and theirs in yours. When someone causes the death of a best friend, it is not an easy thing to deal with objectively.
Now, there are two possibilities:
1) The Arab woman was an innocent bystander who was forced into luring the soldiers in by the Arab men.
2) The Arab woman was working with her friends to lure Israeli soldiers to their deaths.
Now, your choices are:
1) If you let her go, she is liable to be held hostage again, or she will collaborate with Hamas terrorists again, but she will cause the deaths of many more of your friends - intentional or otherwise.
2) Arrest her. The government will have to release her when negotiating with Hizbullah or the PA, and will be back again in a month, causing the deaths of many more of your friends - intentional or otherwise.
3) Shoot her. You are killing an potentially innocent woman but she can no longer cause the deaths of other soldiers - intentional or otherwise.
Compound this all by the fact that there is no real way to determine if she was in fact supporting the terrorists or was being held hostage. Further compounding this is the fact that 3 of your best friends in the world are lying dead on the ground next to you.
Discuss.
Before you are permitted to touch a gun, you must undergo training. Specifically, you are, with your unit, led into a room with candles and darkened lights and carpetted floors.
Various questions are asked of recruits: Do guns kill people? Or is it people who kill people? Can a gun be pure (in the context of "good")? Are guns evil? Or is it the people that use them? etc. etc. Questions like that we all got together and answered to each other.
But this story (true, in fact) is the most interesting relative to your poll, Chris.
A Golani unit was patrolling one day and came across a cave. One of the soldiers hears an old lady whimpering from the cave. He and 2 others go in to check it out. Suddenly, three gunshots were fired out of the cave, and the three soldiers are killed. Two Arabs run out of the shadows towards the opening but the remaining soldiers open fire and kill them before they leave. The woman is an old Arab woman, in there now alone, and the soldiers must decide what to do with her.
Now for those of you who don't realize, you spend every day with the other soldiers in your unit, and for the most part they are your best friends in the world - you live by them, and you die by them. So you learn to place your life in their hands and theirs in yours. When someone causes the death of a best friend, it is not an easy thing to deal with objectively.
Now, there are two possibilities:
1) The Arab woman was an innocent bystander who was forced into luring the soldiers in by the Arab men.
2) The Arab woman was working with her friends to lure Israeli soldiers to their deaths.
Now, your choices are:
1) If you let her go, she is liable to be held hostage again, or she will collaborate with Hamas terrorists again, but she will cause the deaths of many more of your friends - intentional or otherwise.
2) Arrest her. The government will have to release her when negotiating with Hizbullah or the PA, and will be back again in a month, causing the deaths of many more of your friends - intentional or otherwise.
3) Shoot her. You are killing an potentially innocent woman but she can no longer cause the deaths of other soldiers - intentional or otherwise.
Compound this all by the fact that there is no real way to determine if she was in fact supporting the terrorists or was being held hostage. Further compounding this is the fact that 3 of your best friends in the world are lying dead on the ground next to you.
Discuss.