Whatever Sharon is, monster or hero, at least when he went out to fight, he wore a uniform.

Funny thing about Palestinian terrorists, Hamas sheep and other Islamic thugs: when they fight, they don't go out in uniforms. They get their children to throw rocks and Molotovs in their school clothes. (Their textbooks even teach children to hate and fight Israelis. See http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/middleeast/Textbook_Incitement.asp) They get teenaged girls and boys to board Israeli buses in street clothes, wearing plastic explosives. They climb atop rooves and walls wearing their street clothes to fire at Israelis.

And then, when Israeli military convoys (in uniform, and clearly identifiable) show up in the neighborhood and target terrorist attackers, violent anti-Israeli thugs are suddenly "innocent civilians" in front of the cameras. "Look, we're not soldiers! We're just students!" Students of cowardice, maybe? GMAFB.

The juicy benefit to skulking around in your street clothes and killing your neighbors, of course, is that you can never be branded a "war criminal." That title is reserved for combatants who actually have the balls to wear uniforms and declare their objectives. You can just keep calling yourself an "innocent civilian" while you're blowing up women and children in grocery stores and driving car bombs into wedding receptions.

I just don't buy that all the "innocent civilians" and "helpless women and children" supposedly slaughtered by Sharon or any other Israeli commander were innocent. This is an ancient terrorist trick -- taught to the rest of the world by Arabs and Palestinians -- striking under the cover of peasant's garb, and later mugging for sympathy on Al Jazeera after they've had their asses most deservedly kicked.

For the record, I'm not militantly pro-Israel. I support greatly reducing American subsidies for Israel's military, and I would like to see them choose moderate and peace-driven leaders. But neither do I see Palestinians as innocent victims.

Den makes a point about intellectual laziness, me leaving some of the heavy lifting to other more informed posters, but to be honest, I actually thought Sharon's good service to his country a given, and even a cursory glance at various websites proves it to be true: this man, from before the birth of Israel, fought for Israel - left the military and was called back again to fight in 1967. He's been active politically - having started and headed the Likud - and so on and so forth. I'm no fan of Sharon's - he's a conservative Bushie who blundered big on Lebanon. But Den is blind to history: George Washington made his reputation slaughtering Indians - Nelson Mandela headed a group known for killing it's opponents by burning rubber tires over their heads, Kennedy kept us in Vietnam (with all those implications), Clinton dropped bombs and supported the murderous sanctions on Iraq and bombed Africa - his wife supported the so-called illegal war in Iraq and still does. Sharon was a soldier for most of his life - and with all that killing, horrible mistakes were made, and will be made again, I'm sure, by someone else and as I first said, it's easy to sit in judgment, safe in your home, your country made secure and rich by the brutalization of someone somewhere at sometime (particularly if you're European or American) - so I guess, as Den said, I'm a bad person. But I'm an honest bad person who enjoys the fruit of my nation's brutality - while recognizing that brutality - and fair enough and aware enough to separate the Bundys from the Nixons from the Sharons and from the Hitlers.

There really is a distinction between legitimate warfare and atrocity. There's a difference between self defense and acts of murder. Even in war, there are such things as war crimes.

Jeffrey's defense of Sharon is premised on the notion that these differences are meaningless. Thus war crimes are legitimate in war, murder is the same as self defense and atrocities are the same as battles.

The world rejects those standards. Israel rejects those standards. And if, as Jeffrey and everyone else is prepared to concede, Sharon actually committed murders, atrocities and war crimes... then we have no choice but to condemn him as a monster.

>There's nothing to explain, Den, and no convincing to do, because cherry picking history is a waste of time. I'm sure those who know better could match each of Sharon's criminal incidents with one of valor and duty.

That's sort of a telling admission Jeffrey. "Those who know better..." suggests that you are arguing from a position of factual ignorance as well as moral blindness. Your sole defense of Sharon rests in the fact that you can't be bothered to inform yourself. He's innocent because... he 'must' be innocent?

In another respect, there's an awkwardness to your pragmatism. It seems that in your view, evil is redeemed by some balancing act. Rape and murder a woman for kicks, all is forgiven if you kiss enough babies and pat enough dogs heads.

>By your own standards Nelson Mandela was a criminal,

I'm sorry, did Nelson Mandela go out and massacre a village in a foreign country? I don't think so. But then, I'll bet you don't know Mandela's career any better than Sharon's. You equivocate them out of ignorance.

>as was George Washington,

How many prisoners of war did George Washington execute?

>and since Lincoln subverted the constitution, he should be hauled to the dock as well.

Indeed yes. Lincoln deserves legitimate criticism for suspending Habeas Corpus and jailing opponents and critics. Ta. On the other hand, Lincoln's offences fall far short of being war crimes and atrocities. And yet, Lincoln's career is stained with his wrongdoings. I cannot understand why we should have a balanced perspective on Lincoln, and yet you work so hard to whitewash Sharon.

>I don't deny the horror and the violence you refer to,

But you're happy to excuse them.

>but I say soldiers and leaders do horrible and violent things and we often benefit from those actions even if the cold hard truth about our myths are tarnished and stained.

This then is your moral standpoint. You're perfectly willing to justify murder and atrocity so long as you benefit from it. A little mayhem is okay, as long as you make out from it. That's not a moral standpoint at all.

>Den, I live in a country so soaked in blood (USA) that the murder of 49 Egyptian POWs or the destruction of some village in the overall context of the endless Holy Land struggle just doesn't raise my bile as it does yours.

And yet, for all the sins of America, for all its many failures, Americans have never ceased to strive for something better. Americans have never accepted that its sins and failures are a way of life. America accepted slavery, and then fought to free those slaves. America stole its land from the Indians, and even now, is engaged in making restitutions for those thefts. America is a country struggling to redeem its moral balance sheet, and I respect that. The struggle isn't constant, and it isn't easy, and sometimes not successful. But Americans realized Hitler had to be fought, Americans embraced Civil Rights, Women's rights, Gay rights.

Your cavalier attitude tells us far more of your own moral and ethical bankruptcy than it does America's. Your facile cynicism, your selfishness, your dishonest and your easy tolerance of evil tells on you.

>If you can honestly judge Sharon as one of history's great monsters, then judgment is hereby passed.

On you as well, my friend. Accept my regrets. I can only wish that you have it in you to someday become a better person.