Current Israeli/Lebanese conflict

[greenvalley]

If you want to look at really good idea of what is going on Robert Fisk is the reporter that I think has the best take on things there. He works for the Independant in London, he is based in Lebanon.

Here is an article which spells out his take on things

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14006.htm

To it looks perfectly like the syrians are playing the Isrealis and they are responding perfectly. The Syrians will be back into Lebanon like never before.

Soon we will have the Isreali's crying to the US to come clean up their mess. The Syrians are back, now go fight them and the Iranians. Hope you guys south can avoid it, but can you feel a draft starting to stir?

 

[westwoody]

Although rockets and suicide bombings have killed Israel’s children for years, we are unable to publish such pictures. You must understand that it is only the Arab and Islamic tragedies that our people are interested in.

So there have never been pictures of Israeli bomb victims on TV or in newspapers? That's not just a lie, but it is such a load of crap that it is insulting to my intelligence.

The only good Jew is a dead Jew they will say.

There's a broken record for you, any criticism of Israel is countered with the old accusations of anti-semitism.
Buddy, my dad visited Dachau a few hours after the Americans found it and he has a shoebox of black and white photos of the place that would make you puke, so don't go crying about being the only one who has seen pictures of hurt Jews.

 

[westwoody]

this is the same iran that fought iraq to a stand still for eight years that it took the u.s to go through is 3 days?

Neither Iraq or Iran have much in common with the way they were during the eighties.If the US had tried to go through Iraq in that era it would have taken a lot longer than three days.
FWIW, the latest invasion of Iraq made a lot of errors militarily, such as not securing flanks, not eliminating areas of resistance behind your advance-there are obviously still areas which are not under US control, or revert to insurgent control as soon as the US troops drive away-and the famous error of not securing large dumps of Iraqi army ammunition and weapons.

the iranians dont want a direct conflict with the u.s or isreal because the clerics are basically cowards, theyll send other people to die but not them.

Remind you of anyone? Have you seen Bush,Cheney, Rummy or Condi doing a tour of front-line duty, going anywhere they might get shot at?

They have been robbing the treasury for years

The upswing in oil prices has probably been a disaster for the Bush family finances. Is Halliburton making any money these days?

 

[Rain Man]

So there have never been pictures of Israeli bomb victims on TV or in newspapers? That's not just a lie, but it is such a load of crap that it is insulting to my intelligence.

Suggest you look at the front pages of newspapers in the last week. And refer to the intial post by gauntlet99

There's a broken record for you, any criticism of Israel is countered with the old accusations of anti-semitism.

You saying the Arabs aren't anti-semite?

Buddy, my dad visited Auschwitz a few hours after the Americans found it and he has a shoebox of black and white photos of the place that would make you puke, so don't go crying about being the only one who has seen pictures of hurt Jews.

Try the Red Army liberated Auschwitz...not the Americans. Maybe your dad can help you with your facts.

 

[westwoody]

You saying the Arabs aren't anti-semite?

You missed my point, which was that an all too frequent response to ANY criticism of Israel is that the critic is anti-semitic. Instead of debating the issue at hand-the actions of the Israeli government-the debate is shifted to how the critic is an anti-semite.
"Arabs" aren't necessarily anti-semitic, there have been many periods when Arabs and Jews have lived together in peace. In Israel itself there are Arab citizens who live beside their Jewish neighbours in harmony.

Try the Red Army liberated Auschwitz...not the Americans. Maybe your dad can help you with your facts.

Yeah, that was pretty embarassing, I've corrected it. I hope he doesn't read perb.

 

[dittman]

DD I agree with most everything you said, I beleave Bush is an idiot, but the scary thing about that is that the people that want his job are as big if not bigger idiots.

fftrue it is time to give up the thing about the crusades. I dont know if it is a good thing, but one of north americans biggest personality flaw ot one of their best traits is that we have such short memories, whereas most other cuktures remember things that happened 2-3 thousand years ago and who was at fault.

Nobody evwer trashed the purple heart. People try to forget that most of the swift boaters had just as many medals as john kerry, what was at question was how he got those medals. as bob dole said 3 purple hearts and he didnt even bleed. all kerry had to do was release his medical file and he could have shut everyone up, but he didnt which tells me is that he has something to hide.

what bush, cheny rumsfeld and condi did during rhwe war is irrelevant. no where is there a law nor in our constitution. Im against the war, was at the beginning, for personal reasons, i have always said that but what i thought would happen is starting to happen but with that being said the difference between this war and all of our other wars is that this is an all volenteer military, nice little statistic that doesnt get much headlines, is that the military is blowing the hell out of their quotas as far as reenlistments are concerned and it is mostly in the acombat arms, infantry, artillery, armor.

as far as yelling anti semitisim, you can disagree with isreali policy without being an anti semite. on this i am with isreal but in my case it is more of a guilt thing then anything else.

 

[rollerboy]

You are so right RollerBoy. I forgot that in these times, yer either with us or against us: its all black and white. I need an attitude adjustment. I will watch more CNN.

Be well.

Your words are just as much rhetoric as what you claim to detest.

Innocent blood fuels the cycle of violence, fulfilling a principle objective of terrorism. They incite the very chaos and destruction which they fight against. Your words could have been spoken by any Imam calling for death to Israel. Discussion ending, enraged words of blame.

But the difference between you and the Palestinians, Israelis, and Lebanese, is that they've had to bury the bodies of their slain children.

The crisis in the Middle East cannot be solved with emotionally explosive rhetoric. This war does not lack rage for slaughtered children. That is constant.

 

[rollerboy]

Neither Iraq or Iran have much in common with the way they were during the eighties.If the US had tried to go through Iraq in that era it would have taken a lot longer than three days.

By the end of the Iran-Iraq war, 1988, Iraq had grown far stronger militarily than it was at during early stages of the war. Reportedly, Iraq ended the war with military superiority.

In the years between the Iran-Iraq war, and the Gulf War in '91, Saddam continued to build his military apparatus. The Iraqi military which US forces dismanted in '91 was, if anything, stronger than the one faced by the Iranians.

Iran also had advanced weapons such as F14's, Hawk missiles, Chieftain tanks, which were either expended fighting Iraq, or long since cannibalized for parts. Iranian military power, outside of WMD's and ballistic missiles, has probably regressed.

http://www.milnet.com/Iranian-Military.html

The hardline government has likely shifted much of the resurgent oil wealth to military modernization. Yet even with complete modernization of its air force, I don't see any way that Iran could avoid losing control of its airspace. After that, sustained aerial bombardment would paralyze and degrade its ground forces. WMD's are their only serious threat in a full fledged war.

 

[georgebushmoron]

Anyways, haven't you heard? Hamas has WMDs so that's a good reason for Israel to go in and wipe out Lebanon, especially bridges and hospitals! Damn you just never know where you're gonna find a terrorist, they just camp out with the population, blend right in if you know what I mean. Take out a school or two, those terrorist fuckers will come right out. Fuck those guys are the real heat score, anyone near 'em oughta get blasted! Anyhow I don't know why you guys are busy criticizing Bush, you'll find just about any excuse to. This is Israel not the USA doing it, so lay off already. It's not like Bush called up some Jew guy in one of those funny turban hat things and said "go get Hamas". Next up should be Syria, watch out!

 

[rollerboy]

Anyways, haven't you heard? Hamas has WMDs so that's a good reason for Israel to go in and wipe out Lebanon, especially bridges and hospitals! Damn you just never know where you're gonna find a terrorist, they just camp out with the population, blend right in if you know what I mean. Take out a school or two, those terrorist fuckers will come right out. Fuck those guys are the real heat score, anyone near 'em oughta get blasted! Anyhow I don't know why you guys are busy criticizing Bush, you'll find just about any excuse to. This is Israel not the USA doing it, so lay off already. It's not like Bush called up some Jew guy in one of those funny turban hat things and said "go get Hamas". Next up should be Syria, watch out!

As usual, the calming voice of reason.

Hey, weren't you complaining recently about anti-Asian slurs? The Jew baiting might not be so karmically neutral.

 

[Randy Whorewald]

No trying to excuse Israeli behaviour but these Hezbollah blokes are hiding their weapons / rockets at places like hospitals, businesses, shops etc. So Israel feels justified at going after anything that moves.

 

[rollerboy]

No trying to excuse Israeli behaviour but these Hezbollah blokes are hiding their weapons / rockets at places like hospitals, businesses, shops etc. So Israel feels justified at going after anything that moves.

Excellent observation.

I don't understand the willingness of Islamic militants to stage rockets, artillery, weapons caches and bomb making facilities, in densely populated civilian areas. In the siege of Basra, we saw the Feydeen Saddam literally use Iraqi women and children as human shields.

In order for this tactic to work, they must assume that the enemy shrinks from massacring civilians.

 

[rollerboy]

Precedents

Say, rather than just rip on each other, are there any precedents for lasting solutions to conflicts like the Israeli-Palestinian?

Yugoslavia appeared to have been successfully integrated for fifty years, before it ripped itself apart. Tamil Tigers, Khurdish separatists in Turkey, so many examples of failure...

I guess the English successfully integrated Britain, after about a thousand years or so.

 

[The Lizard King]

on this i am with isreal but in my case it is more of a guilt thing then anything else.

Guilt? Did you roll a Jew for lunch money as a kid or is their constant screaming of "Holocaust! Auschwitz! Anti-Semite!!" every time something goes wrong for them or doesn't go their way wearing you down?

 

[Rain Man]

You missed my point, which was that an all too frequent response to ANY criticism of Israel is that the critic is anti-semitic.

And I guess you missed my point. I mentioned the countries around Israel. Again, are you stating that Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt are not anti-semitic?

Instead of debating the issue at hand-the actions of the Israeli government-the debate is shifted to how the critic is an anti-semite. .

I thought the debate was on the current situation not the actions of the Israeli government alone. If we are just going to talk about the evils of Israel, I guess I wouldn’t call that a debate.

"Arabs" aren't necessarily anti-semitic, there have been many periods when Arabs and Jews have lived together in peace. In Israel itself there are Arab citizens who live beside their Jewish neighbours in harmony. .

You are correct there. I have a question for you. How many Jews live in Arab countries in harmony?

as far as yelling anti semitisim, you can disagree with Israeli policy without being an anti-semite.

Yes but let’s not make them out as the only cause of the problems.

Say, rather than just rip on each other, are there any precedents for lasting solutions to conflicts like the Israeli-Palestinian?….

Rule of law, equal rights for men/women, education, democracy, economic opportunity and development…….that would probably do it

Why didn't they carve out a chunk of Germany and put Israel there? .

Are you serious? Maybe they could have settled the Jews in Madagascar, there’s an option.

Yes, I know the answer, it's the classic give them 99% of what they ask for and they whine about the other 1% until the UN got tired of arguing about it. .

Sorry but you just don’t know what you are talking about

Something which I'm not sure has been mentioned on this thread is that the UN security council has voted almost unanimously (except for the US) in favour of a half dozen different sanctions against Israel behaviour, but every single time the US vetos it. .

The UN has lost all moral and objective authority it had a long time ago. Did you notice how the UN committee on Human Rights is being run by countries that are dictatorships?

Might be interesting to stick Russian UN peacekeeping troops in Lebanon and then when (not if) the Israelis bomb some of them see how far the holocaust card gets them with the Russians... .

Let me think….will the Russians attack Israel?, kidnap their soldiers?, attack them with rockets? The whole point of this conflict is the security of the Israeli state. If there were peace, the conflict would not occur.

Funny thing is, if not for all the oil, the entire region would have been turned into a sheet of glass years ago.

I don’t find that funny or plausible.

 

[rollerboy]

Rule of law, equal rights for men/women, education, democracy, economic opportunity and development…….that would probably do it

Lebanon had all of those things, except equal rights for women (still far ahead of the rest of the region, granting women's suffrage in '53), before it collapsed into Civil War in '75. Prior to the war, Lebanon was a progressive, prosperous modern state.

Besides, that's five wishes, and the rules stipulate we keep it under three.

 

[dittman]

Guilt? Did you roll a Jew for lunch money as a kid or is their constant screaming of "Holocaust! Auschwitz! Anti-Semite!!" every time something goes wrong for them or doesn't go their way wearing you down?

yeah that plus when ever there is a crisis especially pre world war 2 the first people to get blamed were the jews, then you have this nut case for a president in iran saying that isreal should be wiped off the face of the earth, everybody and their brother knows that iran is pushing hezbullahs buttons, so yeah i can understand where isreal is coming from.

But that brings up another question, Iran and syria are pushing hezgullahs buttons(sp) they knew there would be retaliation on the isrealis side but not this massive and broad in scope. The only analogy that i can acome up with is TET 68. the nva decides on a joint operation with the viet cong which was tet 68, and thanks to walter cronkite everyone says it is a defeat for the u.s., but upon further reflection it was a massive defeat for the nva and vc. so massive in scope that the vc ceased to be an effective fighting force. could the same thing happen here that maybe iran and syria pushed it a little to hard and that the isrealis are pissed enough that hezbullah will cease being an effective fighting force?

 

[Torvaald]

I just hope the following weather report proves FALSE:

Forecast for the Middle East on August 6th, 2006:

Sunrise 3:00 AM Tehran Local Time
Temperature: 1500 degrees F
Winds: Gusting in every direction @ 1000 MPH
UV Index: 1,000,000

 

[dittman]

ouch, in that part of the world anything is possible. there all nuts driven by 2000 years of history

 

[JustAGuy]

Yugoslavia appeared to have been successfully integrated for fifty years, before it ripped itself apart.

"Appeared" is the operative word in that sentence, rollerboy. Marshall Tito kept Yugoslavia from ripping itself apart through force, terror and whatever else it took. That's what strongmen dictators can do. Within a few years of his death, all the ethnic hatreds that had been simmering just below the surface for decades began to boil over and it wasn't too long before the "cleansing" began. The Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and others in the region began to assert their long suppressed nationalistic tendencies.

Much the same was true in Iraq before the Americans "liberated" it. I'm not an apologist for Saddam Hussein. He was a man who did many monstrous things to his own people. But he did not permit the centuries old hatreds harbored by the Sunni Muslims for the Shi'a Muslims and vice versa to manifest while he was running the show. He ruthlessly but efficiently prevented that from happening. And while Saddam was in control of Iraq, a person could go to a cafe for a meal or a coffee with a reasonable (i.e. 100%) expectation that the cafe was not going to be blown to smithereens. The same cannot be said of Iraq today. Bless those American neo-cons for bringing "democracy" to Iraq. Now everyone in the country is free to blow up their neighbor or be blown up by their neighbor.