Middle East stuff?

[Mozz]

I heard some shit got blowns up



:birthday:

 

[Roses Ablaze]

I just heard about it yesterday. Isn't that sad?

Anyways, scary stuff. I wonder why the world sucks so much right now, but pretty much every generation has been saying that for the last 85 years, haven't they?

 

[Fig]

Hezbollah lacks any sort of human decency. Israel lacks any sort of self-restraint and common sense (clue : If blowing them back to the stone age didn't work last time, it probably won'T this time either), although an agravated urge to hit *something* is probably understandable after the Hamas elections. Both sides are operating under the principles of "Head for an eye" (A few soldiers killed = Bombing of Southern Lebannon = Rocket shooting = Targeting Lebanesse Cities = More Rockets = What?), which is a scary escalation considering that, last I checked, Israel DOES have the ability to go very, very, very far in the escalation contest ("Nukular", as a certain twit would say).

I don't see the Israeli using those yet, admitedly, but I have no problem imagining these two sides pushing each others up until the Hezbollah or Hamas does something so horrible (think 9-11 and worse) that Israel figures their little mushroom clouds are the only appropriate answer left.

Either way, and regardless of what Israel calls it, make no mistake. This isn't police action ; it's open warfare.

In other news, Turkey seems to think that if Israel can act against the Hezbollah in Lebannon, then they can do the same in Northern Iraq against the Kurds.

And, meanwhile, Afghanistan has recently worked on laws to restore the old council of the faith or whatever the muslims called it, to tell people what is right and wrong within Islam. You know, the old Taliban Thought Police?

Iran is still up to the same no good it's been up to these past few years, and the rest of the world is still in no position to do anything about it - especially with Israel busy with Hezbollah and Hamas, Iraq not pacified the least, Turkey messing things up in their single-mindedness to never give the Kurds anything, etc.

Can we call Bush's adventure in the Middle East a total failure yet?

 

[Surgo]

Israel lacks any sort of self-restraint and common sense

Two of Israel's soldiers are captured. Israel has the following choices:
A) Israel sits there and takes it. The same situation repeats until every Israeli is dead or captured. Israel obviously does not manage to rescue its two captive soldiers.
B) Israel negotiates, possibly surrenders some territory. We all know how well that one worked out with the Gaza Strip...
C) Israel increases its security. The world is outraged at the omg Israeli repression of Hamas, Hezbollah, etc., which love to play the victims. Israel still doesn't manage to rescue its two captive soldiers.
D) Israel responds militarily.

I think we can see the obvious choice here.

 

[Dark Fire]

Kinda getting scary down there. One of those Hezzbollah rockets hit the apartement my uncle used to live in X_x.

But yeah, Isreal has been known for it's uber military and especially their Air Force, so it makes perfect sense for them to just blow the shit out of southern Lebannon. Only thing about that is, if they aggrivate the Lebanese enough who knows who might join the war effort. Syria and Jordan have both had "wars" against Isreal ever since it became a country 60 years back.

Guess we sit and wait. Hopefully it'll get sorted out for the sake of poor Isreal. For a piece of land that small war makes almost no sense. Damn the religious mumbo jumbo. *Shakes fist*

 

[The Big Al]

Two of Israel's soldiers are captured. Israel has the following choices:
A) Israel sits there and takes it. The same situation repeats until every Israeli is dead or captured. Israel obviously does not manage to rescue its two captive soldiers.
B) Israel negotiates, possibly surrenders some territory. We all know how well that one worked out with the Gaza Strip...
C) Israel increases its security. The world is outraged at the omg Israeli repression of Hamas, Hezbollah, etc., which love to play the victims. Israel still doesn't manage to rescue its two captive soldiers.
D) Israel responds militarily.

I think we can see the obvious choice here.

Hezbollah wants the Israelis to release the women and children they are holding in their prisons.

And I'm sorry, but you do not blockade a country and proceed to bomb it back into the Stone Age over two soldiers. You work it out diplomatically. Hundres of dead on both sides for two soldiers is insane and unreasonable. And this does is prove whackos like Bin Laden right, Israel is dangerous. And then Bush isn't helping by basically giving Israel a blessing to continue in this manner when it isn't needed and American Nationals are trapped in this fire fight and forced to pay to leave this killing zone. It's inhuman.

If it was just bombing Hezbollah's rocket launchers in the south I could understand. But they've targeted the infastructure, the air port is unusuable, the roads are in tatters, power is scarce, water is scarce. And then the Israeli Prime Minister says he'll send them back 20 years. Why? Because this specter of Syrian control is remains these people are guilty by association? They deserve to be killed by the scores? They aren't the ones attacking you for crying out loud. How many Hezbollah fighters have been actually killed compared to the total losses?

Okay, moving on.

Still don't see why we can't redeploy. I don't see how staying there will help anything. The fact that whenever the Iraqis' feet are held to the fire they got things done tells us we should. If the held general went to the Iraqi government as said "We're leaving. We've done what we've had to do. Fight whatever civil war you must and make your country work." they would make it work. They have a working government and a constitution. There's not much more we can do and as long as they know they can use our military as a crutch and target, nothing will change there.

I still say Bush should have agreed there were no WMD's. Without his trump card, the Shiites would have come for Huessen. The Kurds would have broken away to form Kurdistan. And there would likely still be a civil war but it wouldn't be agrevated by Al Qaeda and Americans would not have to die. Likely by now Iraq would already be what it will be. When you get right down to it, it's the Iraqi who will decide what Iraq will be not the U.S. or the terrorists.

Afganistan and the Taliban is just depressing. Taliban raiders are taking the country back one square kilometer at a time. They're killing and torturing teachers who teach girls and women, they're doing this and that the laughable peace keeping force left is getting its ass kicked. The Republicans talk about not cutting and running but that's what they did here and these people will pay for it.

What is being passed off as the "War on Terror" isn't helping to destroy terrorism. It's helping to propogate it. Terror acts are on the rise throughout the world. And before anyone says the U.S. has yet to be attacked, there were eight years between the first attack on the World Trade Center and 9/11. They're not going to do it while we're watching. they'll wait until our guard is down and hit us.

Speaking of guard, that's what we should be doing. Instead of spending money attacking countries we should be securing our infastructure. And not just from terrorism but also from acts of God and the random "Oh shit".

We should be increasing our fudning for first responders, strengthening our infastructure, actually working on our defense and security. We can't fight them over there and expect themt o never come here. We must be prepared. That's the best way to prevent terrorism.

And we also shouldn't infringe on people's personal liberties to fight terrorism either. As Ben Franklin said "those who are willing to pay a penny of liberty for a penny of security will eventually have neither". You want to monitor someone, you get a warrent. You want to monitor bank transactions you get a warrent. And you be open about it. So Al Qaeda knows we're monitoring calls and bank transactions, that might actually be a good thing. It would scare them off. It's not like Al Qaeda has some super phone that can't be traced (they tend to use disposable cell phones anyway) and don't have a special secret bank that can avoid detection. And if it's open, it can be made sure it's not being used inappropriately. And if we give up our liberties out of fear, the terrorists win. The terrorists want to destroy what we have and that's freedom and liberty. That what we should be ready to protect with our very lives.

 

[evkl]

The "women and children" are not necessarily innocents, Al. You have to realize that after Israel caught on to the early-20's age suicide bombers, Hizbollah resorted to using children and females in the fight. They're combatants--and what, females and males shouldn't have an equal opportunity for war? If they're both involved, they get detained equally. I don't see much of a problem with that. Are a few wrongful convicts in there? Naturally. That happens in most prison systems. But nobody is going nuts over it here in America, so it's no big deal there, either. It's not like they're torturing or beheading the captives.

Now, as for the scope of Israel's reaction, if that was my brother who was captured, I would bomb the shit out of the group that did it until he was returned. If Israel does not retaliate on a massive scale, they send the message that it's okay to abduct our soldiers, at least to a point. That is totally unacceptable.

Lebanon, in my eyes, is a party to this, and therefore, they're a justified target--ON SOME LEVELS. Let's take a look at some facts. Iran sent in "passanger liners" full of weapons for Hizbollah via the airport. Syria has been driving convoys of weapons through the north of Lebanon. Israel has no choice but to wage this kind of warfare if it wants to defeat Hizbollah, which is a fully noble cause. If you're going to do it, you must, MUST, go all the way.

You also have to understand the scope of Hizbollah. While it is concentrated in the south of Lebanon, it has influence everywhere, and the Lebanese government isn't very willing to help out the Israelis in stopping the Hizbollah. They have rocket launch sites from civillian houses. You can't deal with a war like this and completely exclude civillian casualties. When this many civillians support a terrorist group--don't you say it's time to be a good neighbor and bail if the guy next door has a massive rocket in his garage or master bedroom, aimed at Israel?

I don't know where you went with most of that tangent towards the end, but the War on Terror and this war, while loosely connected, are really not the same thing. This has been going on since before 1948, before Israeli independence. There really isn't any American issues at hand here, not yet--America isn't getting militarily involved, and it certainly isn't the War on Terror that overthrew the Shah and put in place Khomeini in Iran, that was another foolish foriegn policy blunder.

We're not talking about America here. We're talking about a soverign nation that is actually beset on a few sides by people who want to anihilate it. That isn't America, we have to reach halfway around the globe to find people like that. It's Israel's front and backyard. They have a soverign right to defend themselves, and if they neglect to exercise that right, they are doing a disservice to their citizens.

 

[The Big Al]

The "women and children" are not necessarily innocents, Al. You have to realize that after Israel caught on to the early-20's age suicide bombers, Hizbollah resorted to using children and females in the fight. They're combatants--and what, females and males shouldn't have an equal opportunity for war? If they're both involved, they get detained equally. I don't see much of a problem with that. Are a few wrongful convicts in there? Naturally. That happens in most prison systems. But nobody is going nuts over it here in America, so it's no big deal there, either. It's not like they're torturing or beheading the captives.

There's this little thing called diplomacy. It's a process by which two parties with unreasonable demands work out an agreement that usually does not result in blood shed.

I'm not saying just letting them all go. I'm saying it was a situation that still had a diplomatic solution. Both sides could have worked out an agreement in which some prisoners were freed in return of the troops. And I believe the Israeli prisons are more like Gitmo than our state prisons with people just rounded up because of the possiblity they could be terrorists. Israel could have even say they want to choose who is released.

Now, as for the scope of Israel's reaction, if that was my brother who was captured, I would bomb the shit out of the group that did it until he was returned. If Israel does not retaliate on a massive scale, they send the message that it's okay to abduct our soldiers, at least to a point. That is totally unacceptable.

They're not bombing Hezbollah. That's the problem. They're blowing up bridges and airports and fuel dumps and bombing an innocent country back into the stone age. Hezbollah in the mean time are the only ones in Lebanon attack the Israelis but it's so hard to tract them down, they're just going throw munitions into the nation to make it look like they're doing something. If they were bombing the living daylights out of Hezbollah I'd be cheering them on. Right now I'm mad watching pointless destruction which will get them nowhere.

Lebanon, in my eyes, is a party to this, and therefore, they're a justified target--ON SOME LEVELS. Let's take a look at some facts. Iran sent in "passanger liners" full of weapons for Hizbollah via the airport. Syria has been driving convoys of weapons through the north of Lebanon. Israel has no choice but to wage this kind of warfare if it wants to defeat Hizbollah, which is a fully noble cause. If you're going to do it, you must, MUST, go all the way.

Lebanon had finally gotten out from under Syria. But the Hezbollah goons who had had free run of the country under them are still there. And there's not much Lebanon can do to top Syria or Hezbollah or heaven forbid Iran. In a matter of days Israel has bombed them to the point of ineffectness, think of what Iran's military could do to it (fortunately that doesn't include nukes).

You also have to understand the scope of Hizbollah. While it is concentrated in the south of Lebanon, it has influence everywhere, and the Lebanese government isn't very willing to help out the Israelis in stopping the Hizbollah. They have rocket launch sites from civillian houses. You can't deal with a war like this and completely exclude civillian casualties. When this many civillians support a terrorist group--don't you say it's time to be a good neighbor and bail if the guy next door has a massive rocket in his garage or master bedroom, aimed at Israel?

You think Lebanon can do something about this? As I said Syria and Iran would march in and install a puppet government like they had. Hezbollah has powerful friends and Lebanon does not. It'd be like throwing out an unwanted house guest only to get brained by goons with baseball bats. It's the lesser two evils.

I don't know where you went with most of that tangent towards the end, but the War on Terror and this war, while loosely connected, are really not the same thing. This has been going on since before 1948, before Israeli independence. There really isn't any American issues at hand here, not yet--America isn't getting militarily involved, and it certainly isn't the War on Terror that overthrew the Shah and put in place Khomeini in Iran, that was another foolish foriegn policy blunder.

I was getting on a rant tangent. But I think all this crap going on in the Middle East is the result of the poor execution of the War on Terror. And the fact Bush is justifying this attack on the basis of fighting terror.

We're not talking about America here. We're talking about a soverign nation that is actually beset on a few sides by people who want to anihilate it. That isn't America, we have to reach halfway around the globe to find people like that. It's Israel's front and backyard. They have a soverign right to defend themselves, and if they neglect to exercise that right, they are doing a disservice to their citizens.

Get them before they get us. The mantra of the paranoid. Diplomacy has been usurped by the mindset of he with the biggest gun rules and everyone else can go jack off.

I'm sorry but watching this has made me mad. Would the United States like to be bombed out of existance. We can sit here, the most powerful country in the world and not care about what happens to others. Sorry for having empathy to people whose only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

[evkl]

I'm not saying just letting them all go. I'm saying it was a situation that still had a diplomatic solution. Both sides could have worked out an agreement in which some prisoners were freed in return of the troops. And I believe the Israeli prisons are more like Gitmo than our state prisons with people just rounded up because of the possiblity they could be terrorists. Israel could have even say they want to choose who is released.

Of course they could say who they wanted released, but I don't think you have a full historical understanding of this conflict. Whenever the Israelis make a good-faith pledge, the terrorist groups--PLO, Hamas, Hizbollah, all of them, sign the treaty and then renege on the terms at a later date. Always. Oslo accords? Check. Treaties which ended the Six-Day War? Check. Look at what the Palestinians did when Israel UNILATERALLY gave back the Gaza strip; they abduct an Israeli soldier from an army post. They do not DO this sort of negotiation thing. Plus, haven't you ever heard of "we do not negotiate with terrorists?"

They're not bombing Hezbollah. That's the problem. They're blowing up bridges and airports and fuel dumps and bombing an innocent country back into the stone age. Hezbollah in the mean time are the only ones in Lebanon attack the Israelis but it's so hard to tract them down, they're just going throw munitions into the nation to make it look like they're doing something. If they were bombing the living daylights out of Hezbollah I'd be cheering them on. Right now I'm mad watching pointless destruction which will get them nowhere.

Didn't you read what I said? Hizbollah and the Lebanese infrastructure are one and the same. Hizbollah utilizes the Lebanese infrastructure to arm itself. Is Israel supposed to allow the roads and airports and fuel dumps to stay open, permitting Hizbollah to continue a vicious war of terror against its citizens? Lebanon has an army. Lebanon is afraid to use its army because of internal consequences. If it's afraid of those, it should be truly fearful of external consequences, which amount to its anihilation. It doesn't support Hizbollah, of course. But by doing nothing to eradicate it, we have a double problem--the downside of democracy, and the issue of an ineffective national union.

Lebanon had finally gotten out from under Syria. But the Hezbollah goons who had had free run of the country under them are still there. And there's not much Lebanon can do to top Syria or Hezbollah or heaven forbid Iran. In a matter of days Israel has bombed them to the point of ineffectness, think of what Iran's military could do to it (fortunately that doesn't include nukes).

I'm not saying that Lebanon should launch into war with Syria or Iran, but it certainly has a responsibility to police its own borders and enforce its own weapons laws, which I'm pretty sure do NOT permit LAUNCHPADS FOR ROCKETS IN CIVILIAN HOMES. Everyone MUST be a target to Israel, because there is no realistic way of distinguishing between combatants and civilians. And, as I said, if this sucks--well, too bad, because Lebanon and the Lebanese citizens supported or did not take action against Hizbollah for entirely too long. Marcus Aurelius--"And one can also do a great evil by doing nothing," precisely what the Lebanese are guilty of. They assumed it would all blow over, or never come to a head. They were wrong.

You think Lebanon can do something about this?

Yes, I do.

As I said Syria and Iran would march in and install a puppet government like they had. Hezbollah has powerful friends and Lebanon does not. It'd be like throwing out an unwanted house guest only to get brained by goons with baseball bats. It's the lesser two evils.

So you do the bad thing, because it means ultimately more in the way of personal gain. If I were the Lebanese PM, or President, I'm not sure which--I would fight Hizbollah. And I would go to the UN, and the US, and Israel, and my Arab neighbors, and I'd say "listen, guys, I'm about to be in real trouble. I'd really appreciate it if you had my back." And Bush would be all "SPREAD OF DEMOCRACY! WAR ON TERROR! HURRAH!" and that would happen. And the Arab countries hate Hizbollah and Iran and Syria--all three, Shiia nations. The rest of the Arab world is Sunni, and those two factions can't get enough of beating the crap out of each other. You can stand up for what's right--I would much rather make a stand then roll over for terrorists.

Get them before they get us. The mantra of the paranoid. Diplomacy has been usurped by the mindset of he with the biggest gun rules and everyone else can go jack off.

Excuse me, they "got" Israel by kidnapping two soldiers before Israel "got" them. There isn't too much paranoia in play here. Diplomacy doesn't always work. Look at the diplomacy of the pre-World-War-II era. Appeasement. Peace in our time. It's not always that rosy. Sometimes, blood needs to be shed for a righteous cause.[/quote][/quote][/quote][/quote][/quote][/quote]

 

[GrnMarvl14]

First off, let's remember who the REAL victim is here: Lebanon. FORMERLY one of the safest countries in the Middle East (as evidenced by the MASSIVE number of vacationers needing to be evacuated, who all felt safe until this). Are they completely innocent? Probably not. But were they even given an option in this entire thing (I'm genuinely asking. A lot of crap's been going on, and I'm sure I've missed stuff)?

If Israel does not retaliate on a massive scale, they send the message that it's okay to abduct our soldiers, at least to a point.

...I STILL fail to see how that logic works. And I love how the American media didn't even mention the bombing of a Palestinian beach by the Israeli navy that resulted in the deaths of several innocent Palestinians, including children. And then the Israelis denied doing it. Then later admitted doing it, but never admitted any blame. So, for that...shouldn't the Palestinians blow up a major Israeli town? I mean, if they don't, the Israelis will think that it's okay to use Palestinian land for target practice.

Lebanon, in my eyes, is a party to this, and therefore, they're a justified target--ON SOME LEVELS. Let's take a look at some facts. Iran sent in "passanger liners" full of weapons for Hizbollah via the airport. Syria has been driving convoys of weapons through the north of Lebanon. Israel has no choice but to wage this kind of warfare if it wants to defeat Hizbollah, which is a fully noble cause. If you're going to do it, you must, MUST, go all the way.

As opposed to attacking Iran or Syria...where the problem is ACTUALLY coming from? Listen, I get that Lebanon isn't completely innocent, but you could bomb it into a crater and not change a damned thing.

You also have to understand the scope of Hizbollah.

And you also have to understand the ORIGIN. They formed after Israel originally invaded Lebanon. How will Israel invading Lebanon end a group that started because Israel invaded Lebanon. I believe that's called a circle.

They have a soverign right to defend themselves, and if they neglect to exercise that right, they are doing a disservice to their citizens

The Israelis have EVERY right to defend themselves. But Israel has a LONG history of doing FAR more than just defending themselves. Maybe if the founding of Israel had actually been done with some...diplomacy on teh part of the UN, we wouldn't have these problems. But who knows.

 

[evkl]

First off, let's remember who the REAL victim is here: Lebanon. FORMERLY one of the safest countries in the Middle East (as evidenced by the MASSIVE number of vacationers needing to be evacuated, who all felt safe until this). Are they completely innocent? Probably not. But were they even given an option in this entire thing (I'm genuinely asking. A lot of crap's been going on, and I'm sure I've missed stuff)?

No, Lebanon is not the 'real' victim. Lebanon and Israel both are victims.

...I STILL fail to see how that logic works. And I love how the American media didn't even mention the bombing of a Palestinian beach by the Israeli navy that resulted in the deaths of several innocent Palestinians, including children. And then the Israelis denied doing it. Then later admitted doing it, but never admitted any blame. So, for that...shouldn't the Palestinians blow up a major Israeli town? I mean, if they don't, the Israelis will think that it's okay to use Palestinian land for target practice.

Do you want to know why the American media never mentioned that? Because it wasn't an Israeli shell. An after-action examination by the Israeli military determined the location of every shell that was fired. Odds are, the detonation on the beach was a suicide bomb gone awry. They know that for a fact. That didn't make the media, either, unless you follow things closely.

As opposed to attacking Iran or Syria...where the problem is ACTUALLY coming from? Listen, I get that Lebanon isn't completely innocent, but you could bomb it into a crater and not change a damned thing.

Hizbollah isn't attacking from Iran or Syria, now, is it? What's this about only hurting the guilty?

And you also have to understand the ORIGIN. They formed after Israel originally invaded Lebanon. How will Israel invading Lebanon end a group that started because Israel invaded Lebanon. I believe that's called a circle.

Israel invaded Lebanon because...let's see...oh, yes, there were artillery attacks coming from southern Lebanon. I don't think you realize that these Arab extremist groups do not want Israel to exist, period. And do you also realize that the vast majority of Lebanese welcomed the Israelis to southern Lebanon, which had been overrun by militias?

The Israelis have EVERY right to defend themselves. But Israel has a LONG history of doing FAR more than just defending themselves. Maybe if the founding of Israel had actually been done with some...diplomacy on teh part of the UN, we wouldn't have these problems. But who knows.

The UN is ineffective, and many of its member states are anti-Semitic. There are myriad human rights violations in Darfur, and the UN has passed resolutions, and nothing has happened. It isn't just ineffective when it comes to the topic of Israel--but it is especially ineffective with respect to Israel due to the fact that it's practically run by anti-Semites. You do realize that there was diplomacy on the part of the UN in founding Israel, but the Palestinians didn't want a Jewish state at all, and were unwilling to concede anything but the most barren of land to the Jews. I'm interested to hear your long history of far-more-than-defending itself. Its major wars--Independence, Six-Day, Yom Kippur, and Lebanese--were all justified by either a serious impending threat or surprise attacks.[/quote][/quote][/quote][/quote][/quote]

 

[The Big Al]

"An eye for an eye only leaves people blind." -Martin Luther King Jr.

Israel is attacking Lebanon because they know they can win. They don't know if they could win against Syria and know victory against Iran is nearly impossible.

Another major problem here is the Bush Administration is unwilling to seperate Hezbollah and Lebanon in their mindset. They are two different entities. The Lebanon government does not support Hezbollah. However they on't have the resources to combat them and definately doesn't have the resource to deal with the external consequences of combating them.

Look at Lebanon on a map. It's tiny and had Syria looming large right over it. It borders only Israel and Syria. They're stuck. Israel demands they ttake out Hezbollah but is unwilling to provide the manpower to deal with them the right way (which is finding these people and arresting them). Syria just sits there and does nothing to stop Hezbollah when they have much more influence.

You're acting like Lebanon has a magic bullet that will make all this go away. Unless the United States and Israel got serious about destroying Hezbollah, Lebanon is out of luck. Now their being attack and have been found guilty by association. That's not right.

 

[GrnMarvl14]

Do you want to know why the American media never mentioned that? Because it wasn't an Israeli shell. An after-action examination by the Israeli military determined the location of every shell that was fired. Odds are, the detonation on the beach was a suicide bomb gone awry. They know that for a fact. That didn't make the media, either, unless you follow things closely.

No. Those were what the initial ISRAELI reports said. They then amended them to say that they HAD fired shells on that beach. And the idea that you're firing shells on a beach and a "suicide bomb gone awry" killed them is just stupid. Since when do suicide bombers visit Palestinian beaches? Modeling the new line of explosive thongs? I'm not saying it's impossible, but let's go with the odds. ANY other place, I could believe suicide bomber. But a beach? A beach FULL of Palestinians?

A former Pentagon battlefield analyst said that the shrapnel and craters he found at the scene of the explosion were consistent with shelling by Israelis, as were the wounds suffered by survivors.

They listed the source as The Guardian.

Hizbollah isn't attacking from Iran or Syria, now, is it? What's this about only hurting the guilty?

It's about cutting off the head. If these countries ARE funding them like I keep hearing, then it's asinine to ignore them. ESPECIALLY since that's only the tip of the iceberg. And, besides, if Al-Qaeda struck at us through Canada, does that mean we should invade Canada? How about MS-13, they're coming up through Mexico. Does that mean we should invade Mexico? They're not a terrorist group, but they're certainly responsible for enough deaths.

Israel invaded Lebanon because...let's see...oh, yes, there were artillery attacks coming from southern Lebanon. I don't think you realize that these Arab extremist groups do not want Israel to exist, period. And do you also realize that the vast majority of Lebanese welcomed the Israelis to southern Lebanon, which had been overrun by militias?

But WHY did they start the shelling? NO country just blatantly attacks another. Even the faux reasoning has to be sufficient. And keep in mind HOW Israel came into existence. Not why, but how. Why is good, how is bad. That's the major origin for the anger. And, yeah, there are people who are just insane xenophobes, but that kinda ties in. Besides, Britain's the one that set up the situation then fled. But I like to blame them for everything. Just easier.

The UN is ineffective, and many of its member states are anti-Semitic.

I'm not debating the current state of the UN. I'm referring to the state it was in post-WWII during the founding of Israel.

You do realize that there was diplomacy on the part of the UN in founding Israel, but the Palestinians didn't want a Jewish state at all, and were unwilling to concede anything but the most barren of land to the Jews.

Imagine of a large group of immigrants suddenly wanted land where you lived. Imagine if there was a long history of violence between the two groups. Would YOU just turn over whatever land you had available? Wouldn't you want to keep the best land for yourself?

I'm interested to hear your long history of far-more-than-defending itself.

Any time you take and keep land, you're doing more than just defending yourself. Were they always in the wrong to do so? No. But lately they seem to like using BIG missiles to handle small problems. They're wrapped up in forced responses out of fear that NO response would make them seem weak. You don't bomb an entire block because one Israeli was killed. Of course, they should do SOMETHING, but I thought the Israeli government had an extremely good intelligence operation at one time. My advice? USE IT and take down the people who are actual threats, and NOT with big bombs. Bombs don't help anything. If they did, there would be no war.

 

[Fig]

1 L "Lack of self-restraint" : Israel is, as I said, applying "An head for an eye" as its principle. If this had any chance of increasing security, it might be acceptable, but see #2. Luther's line is bad, but An head for an eye doesn't make the world blind, it makes it friggin dead (or post-nuclear headless zombies).

2 : "Lack of common sense" : When was the LAST time bombing the crap out of the jihadists bought Israel anything useful (note : I said Jihadists. Yes, we're all aware already that airbombing was useful against the Arab armies during the various wars)? Airpower and artillery are nigh-useless against terrorists, except for bombing training camps if you luck out in finding them.

So Israel's current answer is neither utilitarian (it doesn't buy Israel anything useful), nor proportionate (no, two kidnapped soldiers and some dead ones do not warrant what amounts to full-fledged open war. Sorry to their families.).

Hence lack of self-restraint and common sense. Which, as I ALSO said, is understandable given recent events. I'd want to hit something hard if I was part of the Israeli government, too. It's just that I'm majorly alarmed to note that THEIR answer to the kidnapping of a few soldiers (bomb the crap out of Lebannon) is sensibly equivalent to the American reaction to several thousands dead in a single attack (bomb the crap out of Afghanistan).

If THIS is Israel's proper answer to two kidnapped soldiers, Evan, what would be Israel's proper answer should the Hezbollah ever crash an airliner in Tel-Aviv killing thousands?

This sort of escalation might as well be called what it is : MAD.

You know, as in "Mutually Assured Destruction"

And, while I couldn't care less if the Hizbollah and Hamas got mutually destroyed (Palestinians and Lebanesse, that's another story), the problem with MAD is that Israel goes down too. And I happen to have something against that.

 

[Surgo]

Oh God, talk about ridiculous alarmism.

If THIS is Israel's proper answer to two kidnapped soldiers, Evan, what would be Israel's proper answer should the Hezbollah ever crash an airliner in Tel-Aviv killing thousands?

This sort of escalation might as well be called what it is : MAD.

This kind of statement is entirely unfounded and nonsensical. There's every reason to believe that the reaction from a hijacked airliner crash in Tel Aviv would be the same as it is today: military action against the source. The United States has taken military action when some of its soldiers and civilians have been captured, too (Grenada).

And I believe the Israeli prisons are more like Gitmo than our state prisons with people just rounded up because of the possiblity they could be terrorists.

Sources, please. Let's not make statements like this over "I believe".

Also, please realize that in a war civilians get killed. These civilans include children. They also include women. And *gasp* men. It's an unfortunate side-effect of having a war. And everyone loves to blame Israel over these civilian deaths, but at the same time no one seems to remember the placement of things like rocket launchers in civilian homes that are the real cause for these civilian deaths. Put at least some of the blame where it's due.

 

[evkl]

An eye for an eye means that somebody took out your eye first. By not going eye-for-an-eye, that means you're left blind, and the other person is still on the offensive.

 

[The Big Al]

The fact remains you can't bomb another nation because a few terrorists kidnapped your soldiers. If Israel wants Hezbollah destroyed they should work with the Lebanon government to destroy them.

Instead Israel has this problem of bombing people and expecting them to do something. Yeah, they'll be able to do anything when they're being bombed out of existance. The time for diplomacy is NOW!

 

[GrnMarvl14]

The United States has taken military action when some of its soldiers and civilians have been captured, too (Grenada).

COMPLETELY different.

1. It was a government, not a terrorist organization.
2. It was about 2 dozen innocent students, not two trained soldiers. Life is still life, but in this world, bigger numbers mean more.
3. It was a COMMUNIST government during the COLD WAR. Means more.
4. Despite Cuba interfering, we did NOT invade Cuba.
5. The entire thing started after the Communist leader was killed, leaving a power vacuum and chaos.

An eye for an eye means that somebody took out your eye first. By not going eye-for-an-eye, that means you're left blind, and the other person is still on the offensive.

Or you've stopped the violence from escalating and proved you're above them. It's a moralistic view, so I guess it doesn't apply in the world today.

 

[Surgo]

The fact remains you can't bomb another nation because a few terrorists kidnapped your soldiers. If Israel wants Hezbollah destroyed they should work with the Lebanon government to destroy them.

Yes, because the Lebanon government has been doing such a great and enthusiastic job up until this point.

1. It was a government, not a terrorist organization.
Hezbolleh is certainly a part of the government here.

2. It was about 2 dozen innocent students, not two trained soldiers. Life is still life, but in this world, bigger numbers mean more.
24 may be bigger than two, but it's still a whole lot less than the thousands that were being thrown around earlier in this thread. I also take issue with "innocent students". Considering how Israel has mandatory military service, I don't see how the soldiers could not have been as "innocent" as the students.

3. It was a COMMUNIST government during the COLD WAR. Means more.
Not really seeing how this means more.

4. Despite Cuba interfering, we did NOT invade Cuba.
Irrelevent; Cuba was not the source, where Lebanon is.

5. The entire thing started after the Communist leader was killed, leaving a power vacuum and chaos.
This entire thing started when the Lebanon government couldn't even control their own country, leaving chaos.

 

[GrnMarvl14]

Yes, because the Lebanon government has been doing such a great and enthusiastic job up until this point.

They've been kind busy lately. What with freeing themselves from the oppression of the Syrians and setting up a democracy. They're the ONLY Middle Eastern country since the invasion of Iraq to do so WITHOUT outside aid, I might add.

Hezbolleh is certainly a part of the government here.

As much as the Reform Party is a part of the American government. If THEY kidnapped Canadian soldiers, would you be for Canada's assault on America?

24 may be bigger than two, but it's still a whole lot less than the thousands that were being thrown around earlier in this thread. I also take issue with "innocent students". Considering how Israel has mandatory military service, I don't see how the soldiers could not have been as "innocent" as the students.

"Innocent" as in not trained in military operations. "Innocent" as in not carrying weapons. The Israeli soldiers did nothing wrong, but it's a VERY different thing. If you can KILL your captor, you're not on the same level as someone who CAN'T.

Not really seeing how this means more.

First off, that was meant as a throw-away comment. Second...wtf?

Irrelevent; Cuba was not the source, where Lebanon is.

How is it irrelevant? Cuba got involved because of past issues, and outright attacked US soldiers. Lebanon didn't do a thing until bombs started falling all around them.

This entire thing started when the Lebanon government couldn't even control their own country, leaving chaos.

This isn't a government issue beyond the Lebanese not being more responsible for their extremists. Hell, AMERICA can't control their extremists either. Only difference is that AMERICAN extremists focus their attacks on the US. And, again...it's kinda hard to control a populace this shortly after setting up a new democratic government. I point to the Whiskey Rebellion or Texas' "war for independence" against Mexico as evidence of similar mishaps in American history. Or...Iraq...at almost any point. Or when Pakistan and India split.