I just hope that whoever mastermind in the Israeli military picked the UN observation post as a bombing target will be thrown into a prison. The USA didn't want to condemn Israel for the bombing, and I can understand that to some extent (even though I don't agree), because condemning that might also mean condemning the whole affair. But that's only all the more reason for Israel itself to prove justice still prevails over there.
Last edited by Kraco; Thu, 07-27-2006 at 12:18 PM.
@LM: WWII is just a recent/modern tragedy the Jewish people can point to. Your people's whole history from the very beginning has been one of struggling to keep your identity despite incursions from other races. I've recently finished reading most of what Catholics dub the "Historical Books" in the Old Testament (Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Tobit, etc.-- have no idea how all this is worked into the Torah, if it is at all) and man, even back then everyone in the region wanted to get rid of the Jews.
With that being said, I agree with your observations and I'm not surprised at how much emphasis and paranoia the rabbis put on nationalism. And this:
Very aptly put.Originally Posted by Lobstermagnet
so what's Israel's long term plan?
1.5 mile buffer zone inside of Lebanon. Obviously this is a 'limited' invasion. Buffer zones are funny because the nation who establishes it is essentially conquering and invading it, but almost never step in to govern the people with in it.
With Israel's military size a full-scale occupation of all of Lebanon was impossible, so I guess they're just going to stifle Hezbollah's attacking range by setting up this buffer zone.
It's a good idea (from a strictly military/Israeli standpoint), but I wonder how they will handle the Lebanese living there?
Oh, and that article about them saying "the world not calling for a ceasefire means that the world supports our fight" is a load of bullshit. Only two nations opposed the ceasefire, the US and the UK. Trying to justify your actions by saying that the dissent of two countries is the same as the wish of the entire world is pissing on the faces of the rest of the UN nations, especially the other Security Council members.
Humans are different from animals. We must die for a reason. Now is the time for us to regulate ourselves and reclaim our dignity. The one who holds endless potential and displays his strength and kindness to the world. Only mankind has God, a power that allows us to go above and beyond what we are now, a God that we call "possibility".
About what happened with the Israelis shooting the UN buildings and killing 4 innocent people part of the "casques bleus" (forgot how you call that in english) is just plain stupid. This shows that the governement of israel has no idea what he is doing. Worst part is that before their deaths, the UN call the israeli government to stop bombing that place.They have called 10 times in 6 hours.
One of the people who died was a canadian. Before he died, he said on July 18th that they were always bombed directly or undirectly. The closest bombs of around 453 kgs that fell was around 100 meters of their base. So, for sure it wasnt an "accident".
About Al-Qaeda joing the fight, isnt suprising at all. It was just about time. They wanted to make sure that this conflict wasnt going to last less than a week. I bet that we are going to enter another world war with all the allies and stuff. Lebanon allied to the Middle-Eastern countries and other muslims terrorist groups. Israel is allied to the US, UK and Canada (with the current right brainless governement that follows everything that Bush asks him to do.)
In general, what Israel is trying to do (trying to destroy Hezbollah) is quite impossible. Hezbollah is support by the whole Middle-East. If he wants to try to destroy it, he has to wipe out all the muslims in general. Good luck.
@Malathais: First, Israel isn't one person, don't use him/her to describe a nation...that's a big deal in High School Level English. Anyway, I woulnd't tempt 'him', as that utter destruction of the islamic populace could theoretically be done. Ever heard of a neutron bomb? Anyway hundreds of dead civillians....no one (in America and with any authority) seems to care, and the world doesn't seem too wuick to do something about it either.
Also, not everyone in the Middle East supports Hezbollah, I've seen many reports of Egypt and Saudi Arabia denouncing Hezbollah's actions. The Arab world is anything but United (which is one of the goals of Hezbollah, as well as Iran IIRC, a unified, possibly global, theocratic Islamic state)
I personally wonder what the plan is from Israel's perspective though. The only solution that stops what I think Israel seeks to stop is the physical elimination of the large number of people who believe Israel shouldn't exist. If there were less anti-Israeli people then they're wouldn't be so many terrorist attacks against Israel. Obviously not too many people would consider the mass murder this solution would require, but if you think about it, Israel wants to be safe, and doesn't have the power to 'conquer' the Arab world and subjugate it. What other way is there to diminish the anti-Israel sentiment to a level where Israelis wouldn't have to deal with this stuff on so broad a scale.
A friend of mine from work who is Israeli, was chased by lebs through a couple of suburbs around here, for being from Israel.
Fucken stupid cunts, they probably don't know shit except the fact that those countries are in the middle of a war, both have nothing to do with anything. People like this piss me off!
Last edited by kAi; Fri, 07-28-2006 at 10:03 PM.
kAi, you have Israelis and lebs on one street? Damn there must be tension there.
Also I saw that the Hezbollah, recently launched a new missle that they have never launched before, that is the biggest one they have seen launched. Fear strikes everybody.
LaZie made this...a long time ago.
"It was a very depressing time in my life, since I had no money I was unable to screw the rules" -Kaiba
This is impossible. Because with every bom dropped the israel/jew hate grows. so in the end i think they will have more anti-israeli people then they had in the begin.
And i don't think iran is that much involved i think it's just a plan of the US to have a reason to attack iran. They just can't afford to aid the libanese while they are threatened with a war ageanst the US.
So to prevent another holocaust from happening, they must kill everyone that hates them or, in essence, commit the same kind of atrocities on others that they do not wish upon themselves. Wow, what a super selfish way of looking at things. Let us destroy the whole world because they might want to harm us! If a nation with such immense power has beliefs like that, then thats just sad, really sad. Thats far worse than the terrorist philosophy itself. Lets just hope that is not what Israel wants.
This events are deeply saddening. Lebanon was one of those few nations were muslims, christians and people from other religions were actually living in complete harmony with one another without the feeling of resentment or hate. I personally don't understand why Israel decided to pounce on lebanon so suddenly based on one little incident involving two soldiers. I personally believe that this operation itself is something that was pre planned and israel was merely waiting for an something like the soldier abduction to take place so it could launch a full scale invasion. By the way, anyone have any confirmed reports on the circumstances in which the Israeli soldiers were captured? Were they actually 'abducted' from Israeli territory or were they caught in Lebanon. Or are the details of such incidents rather blurry with no clearcut agreement between people on what happened?
What I meant is that Israel cant just drop a bomb and kill every one. There was the killing of the jews in WW2, and now they cant be the one killing all the arabs in the middle east.
Saudi Arabia and Egypt might not support them now, but when their government see that their people are supporting Lebanon, they will change their mind. Its all about politics. If they want to be reelected, they have to follow their peoples point of view. Saudi Arabia might not help Lebanon because they are friends with the Bush administration.
It is true not every middle easterner are supporting Hezbollah. Last night, I was watching an interview with Lebanons prime minister and a canadian journalist. He pointed out that from a serious lebanese newspaper, ~86% of the Lebanese supported Hezbollah. The support grew from before the conflict. My point is, it is true not every one support Hezbollah, but a big majority (75%+) of arabs are supporting them which is enough for them.
Here is a part of the interview.
http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/nation...interview.html
The rulers of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are dictators who are not elected but derive their support from America, and oppress their people with America's blessing. They don't have to bother with unimportant matters such as listening to the people and getting re-elected. It's much easier and quicker just to lock them up and torture them instead. They all serve America's designs on the middle east... there is a reason after all why Egypt is the biggest recipient of US foreign aid after Israel, why that fat monstrosity of a man that is the King of Saudi Arabia gets to waddle down to Bush's ranch in Texas and why Jordan is a real buddy of the US, ever so willing to play the 'honest broker' with the US.
The government of Syria is a dictatorship not supported by America, but it oppresses its people anyway, just as brutally as the above trio, maybe even worse. Funny thing is they are so brutal to their own people yet so cowardly to the rest of the world.
Ironically despite having a theocratic flavour Iran is the only country involved/with a stake in this conflict that has an elections of some sort to elect their President. That's not to say that they are angels, they have blood on their hands from this conflict too... and I'm talking about Lebanese blood.
The population of the Muslim countries is seething, as gr3atfull has correctly identified. It is this that the Prime Minister of Lebanon and Prince Hassan (the uncle of King Abdullah of Jordan) cited as being the most dangerous development of this entire conflict. They both said in much the same words that if this conflict does not stop the forces of Islamic extremism and fundamentalism (read here people who don't want to be ruled by dictators and happen to be Muslim) will gather and gain strength, eventually toppling the governments that currently rule the Muslim world. The Syrians have also been making similar noises.
This is my analysis on the situation so far:
Syria and Iran have picked this fight with Israel, with Hizbullah acting as their proxy. The reason is that they both want international recognition of their regimes and to demonstrate their strength to highlight what they could do in any future conflict. Syria's reason is that it feels it is next on America's radar so it feels insecure, Iran knows that if Syria goes down it will be next. An added reason for Iran is for it strengthen its hand in any negotiations over its nuclear program in the future. The intention of this conflict was to use the Israeli soldiers to free some Lebanese prisoners (of which there are many in Israeli jails which no one seems to care about) and hence flex some muscle. Hizbullah was up for this and went ahead with the operation. The Israeli response was not anticipated to be this brutal, with the Syrians and Iranians hoping international pressure and perhaps even respect for human life and property on the part of the Israel will prevent it from wreaking such bloody havoc as it has done on Lebanon.
Israel for its part seems to have figured this out, and did what was strategically viable for it do, namely pound Lebanon, kill innocent Lebanese and conduct an excercise in collective punishment. Israel knows it cannot defeat Hizbullah proper, so it has decided to punish the people, in this case mostly Shia Muslims from whom Hizbullah derives its support from. The objective was to hit Hizbullah's support base, as this is easier to target and would lead to potentially permanent damage to Hizbullah, with regards to its future and support. The non-Muslims that are being targeted by Israel is in line with the strategy to increase pressure on the Muslims who support Hizbullah.
Infrastructure is being destroyed not only to restrict movement, but also as part of Israel's revenge on the Lebanese people for allowing Hizbullah to exist. Power stations and airports are not Hizbullah property, they are targeted to cause suffering to the people which in turn it is hoped will anger against Hizbullah.
This from the Israeli military stand point seems to make sense. Morally however, it is a travesty and highlights Israel's disregard for the life of others. It has called the bluff of Syria and Iran, and Syria and Iran have been found to be wanting. They are unwilling to escalate the situation because at the end of the day they fear for their own survival. Getting rid of Israel is less important than ensuring that their respect regime's continues to live on. From a military stand point, Israel cannot take out Hizbullah. Hizbullah cannot take out Israel. This is why you are having negotiations now, with Israel dropping the demand for Hizbullah to be disarmed. Israel has even struggled to take a few villages from Hizbullah. In the short term Israel seems to have for now held off the plans against it. Iran, Syria and Hizbullah didn't expect the World Community to be so paralysed in the face of such destruction by Israel, which was their miscalculation. Israel on the other hand did not expect Hizbullah to be as well prepared as they have proven themselves to be. In the long term, Israel has only succeeded in increasing the number of people in the world who don't like it.
But for now, who is the loser in all of this?
Lebanon and its people. They are the ones who have had their country destroyed and the people massacred. The countries directly responsible for this are Israel, the US, the UK, Syria and Iran.
Last edited by DB_Hunter; Sat, 07-29-2006 at 05:03 PM.
I'm going to have to go ahead and disagree with you there, as masa said Islam is a divided religion. It is primarily composed of two sects, with 85%-90% of muslims following the Sunni teachings and 10%-15% the Shi'a, with several smaller sects mixed in. There extremists on all sides and to put it mildly...they don't usually care for one another. The sectarian violence you may have heard about in Iraq is usually Suunis and Shiites trying to kill one another.
For some reference, Saudi Arabia is 98% Sunni, Iran is 91% Shi'a, Iraq is 65% Shi'a 20% Kurd and 15% Sunni, (Sadaam Hussein's party was primarily Sunni, and oppressed the Shi'a and Kurds quite a bit [no one seems to like the Kurds anywhere]), Syria is 85% Sunni 5% other muslims and 10% Christian, Lebannon hasn't had a census for 70 years but it's believed to be only about 60% muslim with a Shi'a majority by numbers but until recently a Sunni dominated governement.
Hezbollah is......drumroll....a Shi'a organization. On of their goals is the creation of an Islamic government similar to the Iranian one. Much of Hezbollah's support within Lebannon came primarily from the peasants and farmers in the countryside, instead of the more 'civillized' people of the urban areas.
::Context Switch::
Some people think that Israel's actions will magically mend all the cracks in the Islamic world and they'll unite into some monstrously powerful juggernaut to destroy the world, however the break goes back about 1300 years and they still fight, so it's probably not going anywhere. The Catholic-Protestant break is only 500 years old and there is still plenty of simmering animosity between them.
Last edited by Yukimura; Sun, 07-30-2006 at 05:23 AM.
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