Middle East conflict

[southsideirish71]

So, in other words, it's ok for Israel to level ANYONE's backyard, because Hezbollah is making use of some people's back yards.

 

so what is your suggestion to take care of this. We have a terrorist organization launching missles from the saftey and cover of a neighborhood. Negotiations. Sure nothing like negotiating with terrorists. Maybe after 9/11 we should of sat down and asked Al Queda for a peace treaty, and never bombed Afganistan. Maybe Haifa should just get used to the weapons raining down on them. The bomb shelter people could make a killing.

 

If this was happneing in the US and these missles were raining down on your home or your families home, I doubt if you would be sitting here asking for restraint.

[southsider2k5]

So, in other words, it's ok for Israel to level ANYONE's backyard, because Hezbollah is making use of some people's back yards.

 

If they are allowing their backyard to be used as a mechanism for launching missiles into Israel, I think that makes a little bit of difference. It doesn't really make them a civilian anymore, no matter how hard they try to deny it.

[Balta1701]

If they are allowing their backyard to be used as a mechanism for launching missiles into Israel, I think that makes a little bit of difference. It doesn't really make them a civilian anymore, no matter how hard they try to deny it.

I'm not disagreeing on that point. However, the HRW piece makes a strong case that Israel is doing far more than just targeting the folks who are actually launching missiles, they've repeatedly targeted civilian installations and people with no connection to Hezbollah itself.

 

so what is your suggestion to take care of this. We have a terrorist organization launching missles from the saftey and cover of a neighborhood. Negotiations. Sure nothing like negotiating with terrorists. Maybe after 9/11 we should of sat down and asked Al Queda for a peace treaty, and never bombed Afganistan. Maybe Haifa should just get used to the weapons raining down on them. The bomb shelter people could make a killing.

 

If this was happneing in the US and these missles were raining down on your home or your families home, I doubt if you would be sitting here asking for restraint.

See, here's the fundamental problem with this statement...I see no reason thus far to believe that anything Israel has done militarily has actually worked. They certainly have not broken Hezbollah's back, they have massively increased the support for Hezbollah throughout the region in both Sunni and Shia communities, they've made the Lebanese government into a puppet of Hezbollah, they've done about $2 billion in damage that will take years to rebuild and will provide a fertile recruiting ground for Hezbollah, and they've proven to both Iran and Syria that their army is less effective against these groups than one might have thought.

 

So, you ask what my suggestion is. Yes, I would have suggested something like negotiations and trying to rebuild the Lebanese government. Do I have confidence it will work? Hardly. But I have no confidence at all in the alternative.

 

But here's my question to you; Israel spent 18 years with its army occupying significant chunks of Lebanon, and it couldn't even scratch Hezbollah. So why exactly do you think that more invasions, more troops, and more bombing are going to make any difference now, when it couldn't do so for 2 decades?

[southsider2k5]

I'm not disagreeing on that point. However, the HRW piece makes a strong case that Israel is doing far more than just targeting the folks who are actually launching missiles, they've repeatedly targeted civilian installations and people with no connection to Hezbollah itself.

 

There are also enough holes in this report to drive a mack truck through it.

 

They repeatedly state that they interview villagers and other people in the area to ask if there was a legitimate reason for Israel to be targeting the affected area. If the government of Lebanon is impotent to stop Hezbollah, do you really think Joe Muhammed is going to speak out and say yes, indeed my neighbors are really firing missiles into Israel. #1 they know if they are found out, that they are dead, and #2, why would they ever make a statement that made Israel look good as the expense of their own people, when they hate Israel in the first place? #3 You see all of the time that people live next door to a serial killer for 20 years and don't know it, they always have an interview with a mass killers mom, and the first thing they say is that my boy couldn't have done, when they in fact did do it. People don't always know who their neighbors are, and what their politics are. Just because a human rights group walks into a village and asks questions during a war, it doesn't mean they are going to get truthful or even accurate answers. Plenty of photographic, film, and circumstancial evidence indicates that it is indeed the method of Hezbollah to hide amongst civilians and then use their deaths as a PR bonus to their side. There have already been instances in these very battles where casualties were lied about, exaggerated, and changed to make Israel look worse.

[Balta1701]

The counterpoint from the report is in the methodology page. 2 key paragraphs which at least strongly suggest to me that they did not base this report solely on the eyewitness accounts, but they did in fact in almost all cases work hard to cross check those accounts with other witnesses or with their own ey es.

 

This report is based primarily on investigations by Human Rights Watch researchers, who have been in Beirut since the onset of the conflict and traveled for two days to Lebanon’s South. The team focused on interviewing witnesses and survivors of Israeli strikes inside Lebanon, gathering detailed testimony from these individuals, and carefully corroborating and cross-checking their accounts with international aid workers, international and local journalists, medical professionals, local officials, as well as information from the IDF.

 

...

As noted, in the cases documented in this report, witnesses consistently told Human Rights Watch that neither Hezbollah fighters nor other legitimate military targets were in the area that the IDF attacked. However, Human Rights Watch did document cases in which the IDF hit legitimate military targets, and, with limited exceptions, witnesses were generally willing to discuss the presence and activity of Hezbollah. At the sites visited by Human Rights Watch—Qana, Srifa, Tyre, and the southern suburbs of Beirut—on-site investigations did not identify any signs of military activity in the area attacked, such as trenches, destroyed rocket launchers, other military equipment, or dead or wounded fighters. International and local journalists, rescue workers, and international observers also did not produce evidence to contradict the statements of witnesses interviewed for this report.

[WCSox]

so what is your suggestion to take care of this. We have a terrorist organization launching missles from the saftey and cover of a neighborhood. Negotiations. Sure nothing like negotiating with terrorists. Maybe after 9/11 we should of sat down and asked Al Queda for a peace treaty, and never bombed Afganistan. Maybe Haifa should just get used to the weapons raining down on them. The bomb shelter people could make a killing.

 

If this was happneing in the US and these missles were raining down on your home or your families home, I doubt if you would be sitting here asking for restraint.

 

 

Hezbollah also uses hospitals as headquarters. That's about as despicable as it gets.

[samclemens]

Ah, so finally I get you guys to start admitting it...you don't think that any of the rules of war should exist.

 

So here's my question to anyone who agrees with him...why exactly do you think Saddam Hussein should be in prison? He was facing possible insurrections that threatened the lives of his army, the people in his regime, and his regime itself. He responded to that with whatever force he had available to him, whether it was collective punishment against large civilian populations, torture, random imprisonments, etc.

 

You guys are sitting here arguing to me that Israel should have the right to do whatever it wants in fighting a campaign against folks you label terrorists, rules of war be damned. So why does that not apply to Hussein? Why did that not apply to Milosevic?

 

are you seriously comparing the state of israel defending itself against terrorist attacks to ethnic cleansing by milosivic and, say, the systematic elimination of northern iraqi kurds? the comparison is so flawed that i wont even address it. your argument is getting rediculous.

 

and for the record, i do not think that there should be no rules of war. i am saying that israel isnt violating them, and hezbollah is.

[WCSox]

But here's my question to you; Israel spent 18 years with its army occupying significant chunks of Lebanon, and it couldn't even scratch Hezbollah. So why exactly do you think that more invasions, more troops, and more bombing are going to make any difference now, when it couldn't do so for 2 decades?

 

If Israel can go into Southern Lebanon, cripple Hezbollah forces there, and allow the international community to set up some sort of a buffer zone between the two nations, less people in Northern Israel will be murdered. That's reason enough for me.

[samclemens]

So, you ask what my suggestion is. Yes, I would have suggested something like negotiations and trying to rebuild the Lebanese government. Do I have confidence it will work? Hardly. But I have no confidence at all in the alternative.

 

But here's my question to you; Israel spent 18 years with its army occupying significant chunks of Lebanon, and it couldn't even scratch Hezbollah. So why exactly do you think that more invasions, more troops, and more bombing are going to make any difference now, when it couldn't do so for 2 decades?

 

sorry man, your argument just sucks. hezbollah has made numerous PR statements saying they are not open to a diplomatic solution.

 

why dont you examine the reason WHY israel was occupying the lebanese territory in the first place? let me know what you find once you actually research the basis for your opinion.

[Jenksismyhero]

Ah, so finally I get you guys to start admitting it...you don't think that any of the rules of war should exist.

 

So here's my question to anyone who agrees with him...why exactly do you think Saddam Hussein should be in prison? He was facing possible insurrections that threatened the lives of his army, the people in his regime, and his regime itself. He responded to that with whatever force he had available to him, whether it was collective punishment against large civilian populations, torture, random imprisonments, etc.

 

You guys are sitting here arguing to me that Israel should have the right to do whatever it wants in fighting a campaign against folks you label terrorists, rules of war be damned. So why does that not apply to Hussein? Why did that not apply to Milosevic?

 

 

"folks you label terrorists"--so are you saying Hezbollah aren't terrorists? The same group who strap bombs on themselves and blow up city buses/markets?? I'd like to know what you think of the people "we" labeled terrorists on 9/11. Are they simply "freedom fighters?"

 

Saddam is, hopefully, put to death because he threw BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS at POOR CIVILIANS (among other criminals acts to "his" people). There is no comparison between poor Shiites (prisoners of a tyranny) throwing rocks at Saddams troops to Hezbollah KIDNAPPING AND BOMBING AND MURDERING Israeli troops and citizens for DECADES.

 

No one is arguing that Israel is justified in throwing biological weapons at Lebanon if the want too. They are, however, justified in doing whatever is necessary to protect themselves within the confines of the rules of war (which begs the question whether such rules apply in a non-state to state engagement). I think most people would agree that they need to be as careful as possible and they need to limit civilian casualties as much as possible. BUT, at the end of they day it's Israeli's versus terrorists and they have, and should, use all means necessary to protect their lives. If this wasn't a "right" or "exception" to the rules of war, the "rules" would abolish wars all together.

 

I sympathize with your opinions, but at the same time you can't take 21st century reasoning and apply it to ass-backwards people still stuck in 1000 AD. It just doesn't work. The sooner people realize that the faster this "problem" of terrorism can be resolved.

[Balta1701]

 

Hezbollah also uses hospitals as headquarters. That's about as despicable as it gets.

Haaretz paints a very different picture of that raid, just so you know. They suggest that the Israelis went into the hospital, which is actually funded by groups linked to Hezbollah, looking for a leader of that group, not that it was being used as a headquarters of any sort.

[samclemens]

Haaretz paints a very different picture of that raid, just so you know. They suggest that the Israelis went into the hospital, which is actually funded by groups linked to Hezbollah, looking for a leader of that group, not that it was being used as a headquarters of any sort.

 

its really pitiful how you just flat out ignore the questions people present to your arguments and continue to be a terrorist apologist when its convenient.

 

are you even going to respond to any of the responses to your posts? or do you not have an answer, and you concede those points?

 

and please, stop using garbage sources to support pro-terrorist claims.

[WCSox]

Haaretz paints a very different picture of that raid, just so you know. They suggest that the Israelis went into the hospital, which is actually funded by groups linked to Hezbollah, looking for a leader of that group, not that it was being used as a headquarters of any sort.

 

If it wasn't a headquarters, why was the leader of the group suspected to be there? The IDF wouldn't have raided a hospital and risked a PR nightmare if they didn't have substantial intelligence suggesting that it was a Hezbollah stronghold. And why were Hezbollah guerillas there? Why were some captured, but others were killed? (Suggesting that the guerillas fired on the Israelis.)

[Balta1701]

its really pitiful how you just flat out ignore the questions people present to your arguments and continue to be a terrorist apologist when its convenient.

 

are you even going to respond to any of the responses to your posts? or do you not have an answer, and you concede those points?

 

and please, stop using garbage sources to support pro-terrorist claims.

Haaretz is a garbage source? are you kidding me?

 

And secondly, I'm sorry, I can only reply to so many posts at once. I am trying to get other things done here, and it's really hard to debate 4-5 people all at the same time.

 

If it wasn't a headquarters, why was the leader of the group suspected to be there? The IDF wouldn't have raided a hospital and risked a PR nightmare if they didn't have substantial intelligence suggesting that it was a Hezbollah stronghold. And why were Hezbollah guerillas there? Why were some captured, but others were killed? (Suggesting that the guerillas fired on the Israelis.)

Injury?

[WCSox]

its really pitiful how you just flat out ignore the questions people present to your arguments and continue to be a terrorist apologist when its convenient.

 

are you even going to respond to any of the responses to your posts? or do you not have an answer, and you concede those points?

 

and please, stop using garbage sources to support pro-terrorist claims.

 

Haaretz is a Jewish publication, but doesn't support his argument.

 

Balta, I've asked you this before, but I don't believe that you've responded: What would YOU have done if you were in Israel's situation?

 

Injury?

 

So, the "injured" Hezbollah guerillas were apparently healthy enough to fire on the IDF. :rolleyes

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

Injury?

 

 

Does it make him any less of a target if he's getting treated? To me thats the best time to hit him, when he's hurt and vulnerable.

[Balta1701]

Does it make him any less of a target if he's getting treated? To me thats the best time to hit him, when he's hurt and vulnerable.

No, he is still a target, the only trouble is...he wasn't there.

[Soxbadger]

Balta,

 

There are a lot of problems with why Saddam should be in prison.

 

For the greater part of human history, what Saddam did not only would not have been something he could have been imprisoned for, the world community would have thought it completely unbeliavable that a sovereign could be held accountable for actions done purely within the sphere of their own power.

 

But unfortunately for Saddam we are living in a post WWII era. Now anyone who "committs a crime" regardless of status in their country may be held accountable on the world stage. Had Saddam handled his "insurgents" in a way that was more palatable to the west, aka putting them in prisons, hiding them away, etc, instead of using chemical weapons on them, he probably would not be on trial right now.

 

And another problem for him is that his country was really weak with a vast amount of the worlds most prescious resource. China gets away with all sorts of spiff, but then again who is going to do anything to China?

 

Might makes right.

[Cknolls]

Haaretz paints a very different picture of that raid, just so you know. They suggest that the Israelis went into the hospital, which is actually funded by groups linked to Hezbollah, looking for a leader of that group, not that it was being used as a headquarters of any sort.

 

So all the computer files and records were ..............health records of Hizbollah freedom fighters?

[southsideirish71]

Maybe the UN can ask Hezbollah from executing civilians

 

18 civilians killed. Oddly if this was an Israelie bomb that tore through a house, every news outlet would have it. But when Hezbollah kills 18 people, its just internal cleanup.

Edited August 4, 2006 by southsideirish71

[samclemens]

iran now admits supplying hezbollah.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...icle%2FShowFull

[NUKE_CLEVELAND]

iran now admits supplying hezbollah.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...icle%2FShowFull

 

 

This isin't news to anybody.

[Balta1701]

U.N. draft agreement on a cease fire plan. Calls for everything you'd expect, Israeli withdrawal, buffer zone monitored by international forces, disarmament of Hezbollah, prevention of weapons shipments to anyone in Lebanon except the government.

[EvilMonkey]

U.N. draft agreement on a cease fire plan. Calls for everything you'd expect, Israeli withdrawal, buffer zone monitored by international forces, disarmament of Hezbollah, prevention of weapons shipments to anyone in Lebanon except the government.

I wonder how long it would take for the government weapons to wind up in the hands of the Hezbollah?

[Balta1701]

I wonder how long it would take for the government weapons to wind up in the hands of the Hezbollah?

Considering that the Israeli attack has basically turned that government into a pawn of Hezbollah, probably about 15 seconds.