this team of the commando was, apparently, a team specializing in non-lethal takeover -- different teams there have different specializations.
That puts everything in an entirely different light, of course. Just imagine what might have happened if the Israeli had sent amateurs in the art of non-lethal take-over! Why, one of them might have entirely botched the whole maneuver by putting someone's eye out with a bayonet or inadvertently breaking some poor activist girl's nails. Perhaps, in their eagerness to attack the ship in their non-expert way, these hypothetical amateurs in non-lethal take-over might have pushed someone who couldn't swim overboard by mistake!
Good show of them to send some experts, who, I assume, have had expert specialist training in not killing people but taking over ships non-lethally. I am not in any way authorized to speak for all of Turkey, but if I were, I'd extend my most cordial thanks to Israel for treating the whole matter in such a professional manner. It shows that when it comes to knowing where the heart is, Israel is at the top of the chart!
Not that I expect an apology from those who were ranting why Israel sent "killing machine commandoes" instead of people trained in "non-lethal takeovers" now that it turns out that they send precisely such teams. Lying about Israel is never something to apologize about, you know.
Looking back, I agree with you that it seems ironically ludicrous to have claimed that they were killed by trained killers, when they were actually killed by trained non-killers! Isn't it astounding what that small "non-" can do for one's sense of perspective? I am glad this was all cleared up, so that there will be no more false allegations that it was trained killers, rather than trained non-killers, that killed those people.
While not having been part of that ranting crowd, I would nevertheless offer as sincere a set of apologies as circumstances could possible hope to dictate to you and your ideological allies on behalf of several of my friends, who for a variety of reasons are not members of this forum. It was wrong to bedevil the Israeli for sending in vicious killing machines to attack a civilian aid ship. These claims were clearly stepping out of line, and, again on behalf of my friends in the rant crowd, I would like to retract these statements, and will do my best to assure that they are not repeated.
I am sure the families of those killed during Israel's specialist non-lethal take-over will feel a burden lift from their hearts -- or perhaps a veil lifted from their eyes (1)? -- when they learn that their family weren't killed by killing machine commandoes, but by specialists in non-lethal take-over.
But they were attacked with guns and knives and iron bars -- standard equipment in Palestinian "peace activist"'s arsenals, we know -- so, naturally, they shot back. Had they not, they would all have been lynched. So -- as the article says -- nine "civilians" (meaning "activists" in Arabic and "terrorists" in most other languages) were killed.
Oh, man, Skeptic you are the best friend and -- dare I say it? -- mentor I've ever had! They laughed at me when I said that I was in the marines, claiming that this entirely true statement was belied by my spindly frame and pacifist ways, but now you have shown me the light: it is because
they were never in the armed forces! They were born civilians = terrorists, and they will die civilians = terrorists!
Of course these civilians = terrorists would mock me for my non-civilian = non-terrorist background! It all makes so much sense now. Thanks a lot, Skeptic!
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(1) See what I did there? They are MOSLEMS in Turkey, so I thought I'd install a modicum of fun into this otherwise quite sordid discussion by substituting one set expression for having something revealed to you for another, the replacement being one which has cultural connotations for the people referred to! Oh, sometimes I slay myself.