OK, you've got an opinion? Let's see if it holds water.

Originally posted by Gools
Until people in this region decide to address each other's grievances, the bloodlust will continue. Seems many around the world are happy picking sides and cheering for their team. Hoo-rah!

Dead on, Gools.

What is happening in Lebanon and Israel is a tragedy of obscene proportions...

I think Intrepid unintentionally narrows the question. Blame lies with all in the Middle East...and the United States...and Europe....and Russia...I'm sure there are others.

My only hope at this stage is that when this current crisis ends (at least let's hope it ends before others are brought into the conflict) the international community does everything in its bloody power to rebuild Lebanon! If we miss that opportunity, then Israel will have only succeeded in building the next generation of terrorists whose loyalty will lie with the Hezbollah of the future....


[edit on 20-7-2006 by loam]

Originally posted by intrepid
I think I was pretty clear on how this could have been handled differently so that innocent people wouldn't be harmed. Do you have a problem on a smaller body count?

Absolutely not. However in order to defeat Hezbollah (diplomancy has already been tried and failed, remember that) you must destroy all of their infrastructure. Not just some of it. I wish Hezbollah would start putting on uniforms and fighting out in the open like a respectable military does, but they don't. They wear civilian clothes, man civilian infrastructure, and use the innocent as human shields.

Blame Hezbollah for their inhumane philosophy and tactics, not Israel.

Originally posted by marg6043

First they allow hezbollah get stronger in Lebanon and now is to much to let it go any bigger.

Who is the they? I'm Confused. Lebanon, Israel, Syria, the UN?

While I see all the negative propaganda coming from the media about what Iran say or no say about Israel rights to live as a nation . . .

Exactly what "negative propaganda, quoting the Iranian President from speeches he gives?


Back to topic,

I think Israel attacks have targeted a couple of things. First of all they are targeting Hezbollah wherever the see the opportunity. They mean to clear southern Lebanon of any major concentrations of Hezbollah.

Second they targeted the airport and bridges and roads and ports not to prevent civilians from escaping, but to prevent Hezbollah from moving the soldiers out of country. A very nice second benefit from this is that Hezbollah will be trapped in southern Lebanon without much hope of reinforcements. Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon will be picked apart piecemeal until they try and vanish in the civilian population, however the civilians will have already fled for the most part by the time Israel goes after Hezbollah on the ground.

Hezbollah is trapped and must either abandon it's base of operations and weapons in southern Lebanon or face destruction from Israel. Either way, Israel gets what it wants, Hezbollah for the most part out of southern Lebanon and a chance for the Lebanese government to extend it's control back to southern Lebanon.

Yes, civilians have been displaced and killed. As much as people would like to think otherwise, that happens in wars and military conflicts.

Are Israel intentionally targeting civilians, I don't think so. There are errors and mistaken targets in war. For example in Christian East Beriut a truck that drills water wells started to do exactly that. Unfortunately for the people around the truck and the operators of it, that piece of equipment looks much like a Missile launcher truck, the drilling rig looking very much like a launcher arm. Water Drilling Rig
Missile Launcher

I'm not very good putting images in posts yet, did I do it correctly?

Guess what, the rig popped up ready to start drilling. Israel saw it and targeted it, thinking it was a launcher getting ready to fire. Those things happen all the time in the heat of war and civilians pay the price for it.

Hezbollah for it's part with it's rocket attacks don't even aim at military targets or potential military targets for the most part. When those rockets land they kill innocents all the time, pretty much what they intended to do with them.

From what I gather, Hezbollah had a place in the lebanese government.
If your in power in the government, your working FOR THE PEOPLE.

When you are told to release to Foreing hostages, or the people & your elected officials will be targetd, clearly the time comes to decide wether
you are there FOR the people, or FOR your own cause.

They chose the later.

If they are intent on FREEING there men from israel,
why not DENOUNCE the attacks on Israel,
why not accept that israel ARE THERE,

Why do they need to send missles, rockets, suicide bombers to Kill isareli's?
that will not win them release.

It will win them a reply of the same susbtance, only in much larger degree's.

So clearly, Hezbollah have no interest in saving there people, there only interest is to INSIGHT war.
They send missles into populated AREAS in Israel, random 'pot' shots at who ever happens to be there.
Israel ADVISE people to leave, target hezbollah safe houses, under the thinking
If your in a hezbollah safe house, then you must KNOW its a hezbollah safe house.
Your either involved within the safe house, or you chose to IGNORE there activities and accept these murderous men operate the murder of israelis within your presence, therefor you must accept it

I believe the civilian deaths to be very innacurate.
What constitutes a plain clothed civilian, compared to a plain clothed militia man?
He was found lying next to an AK47, in his night robe.. must be a militia
He was found lying in his night robe, not near a ak47. Must be a civilian.

Im sure some people have seen hezbollah with these captives.. yet not informed anyone? maybe they too accept the kidnapping to be complete fine.

Logically, if you want something from someone, you have to accept there terms.
You do not bully them thinking they will give up this posession.

With all this said,

Agree'd that Israel are doing the right thing in working to EXTERMINATE the threat to there civilisation, would there be a threat if in the begining they accepted they were on SOMEONE elses land, instead of rounding them up, putting them into squaller camps, moving to erect TALL concrete wlals to keep them out?
Would all the sympathizers from the Palestinians cause be here today, firering missles at an israel, that accepted it was palestinians land?

this is truley a battle of religions.
Its a war like no other ( as nostradamous said )
It is within the range of the supposid place of armageddon
and the great evil that the roots for all this finatism come from are getting closer to obtaninig the 'bomb', with promises to remove israel.

This is it
They are marching, as to war!



[edit on 20-7-2006 by Agit8dChop]

First off, if we don't get away from the "he started it" mentality of justification the region will be in the same state in another 2000 years as it has been for the last 2000. There is always prior cause, always an earlier incident, always honour waiting to be settled. Sometimes the bravest act in a conflict is for someone to say "let's draw a line under what went before and try something new". If it hadn't cost Anwar Sadat his life you could ask him to confirm that.

As I have written somewhere else it would be easier to understand Israel's actions if they would share their motivation with the World. I'm not saying I would approve or agree with them but at least I could respect their honesty. This "war" has nothing to do with three kidnapped soldiers they are no more than flimsy excuses for Israel's actions, patsies if you like and until they come clean I can do no more than judge on the basis of what I see no matter how absurd that appears.

So for what it's worth, is there a better resolution to a situation where three men are held hostage than to kill hundreds of innocents, displace hundreds of thousands more and shatter an emerging democracy's infrastructure and all chance it has of taking anything more than the first tentative steps on a path to stability and peace? Well, if anyone else can think of a worse way I fear that they have a pretty grim imagination.

Who was it said "truth is the first casualty of war"?

[edit on 21-7-2006 by timeless test]

Israel will fight to the death. If the Arabs wish to destroy her, they must do so in an absolute way, likely nuclear, annhilate the whole of Israel. Interesting this is EXACTLY what some Arab leaders publicly state is their aim.

Keeping in mind that Hezbollah is supported by those who wish to annhilate Israel, it is not surprising that she has responded in such manner, as she has done so in the past.

When Arab/Israeli war is fought on Arab terms the world makes little note, HOWEVER, when the war is fought on Israeli terms, the world shudders......

Israel has every right as a nation to secure her borders, to rid the region of those who continue to menace her, and is in the preliminary phase of doing so even as I type these words.

Let this current military action serve notice to those who wish to destroy her that she will stop at nothing to protect herself.

Hez is more than just a group of militants.
To many people in that region it is an idealology.
You can't just bomb and bomb and after what you see is gone "claim victory."
The idealology will remain along with the influx of angered innocent loved ones that will produce the new wave of extremist.
I'm sure Israels government knows this already.
I'm sure their government knows you dont make converts at the end of a bomb.
So, what is the real reason here...
Doesnt it suprise anyone that the campain that Israel has conducted against Hezbollah only took 2 days of planning after the inital capture?

Its a strange situation over there...

If we set aside

- religious disputes
- historical disputes
- border disputes
- nationality disputes
- "holy" land and justification disputes
- honour disputes
- (enter your favourite type of) disputes

we can compress this in two simple segments.

1. Mentality.
Everybody wants this land and they want it just for themselves. So firstly all sides should drop the spoiled little child act and learn how to share.

2. Quality of the land and occupying population.
This area in not grade one type of land. There are limited water sources and acreage of fertile soil. This limited resources cannot support such population. And birthrate is high on all sides.

So we have limited space, limited resources, too many people with a hard-on. What do you think it's gonna happen or why is this happening?

[edit on 21-7-2006 by yanchek]

Originally posted by intrepid
Could the Lebenese army contain Hez? Appearently not.

No, they could not. But if the Lebanese gov't were truly serious about following 1559, they would have asked for help from the world community. Did they? Not that I can remember. They gave tacit approval to Hezbollah to set up shop among the citizenry.

Could Israel have done things differently to handle this situation? DAMN STRAIGHT!

Yes, they could have asked the UN to issue another toothless resloution.

I did a Mapquest search on Syria/Lebenon and there were unoccupied areas that could have been bombed, stopping those routes from rearming Hez. NOT areas that were inhabitted.

What's the point of doing that? You may disrupt the re-stocking of armamnents from Syria and Iran, but you also disrupt the stocking of food and medicince and normal commerce.

Bombing the airport? Hell the Israeli airforce could knock out any Syrian aircraft that was trying to give aid to Hez.

My only guess is that they just wanted to make sure the airport was not used against them.

So, Israel has killed infrastructure that the civillians could use to get the hell out of the Dodge, leaving them at the wiles of the competing sides. I wonder WHY?

My guess is that it was a lesson to the Lebanese gov't that they should have not created the atmosphere that made it possible for Hezbollah to lob rockets into Israel. And it was also a warning to Syria and Iran that Israel was finally putting a stake in the ground that said, enough talk, you've gone too far.

If you allow a group to indiscriminately commit acts of aggression against you, and to randomly kidnap your civilians and soldiers, execute your civilians, and do not retaliate, then you do not deserve to be called a nation. You are a patsy. Israel is no patsy.

I have heard mention here several times that Israel is creating the next generation of terrorists. Imo, falling for this line of thinking is to be the ultimate victim of terrorism. To be frightened into inaction because you may stir things up and create more terrorists is pure cowardice. They were never going to be your friend anyway. Giving them the green light to terrorize your citizens because you are afraid of the consequences is exactly what they want to happen.

from 12m It would almost seem that third-party "desires" are or have been at the helm, per se. ?

Yes, on both sides of the fence. Iran and Syria get to wage a war by proxy. And the West gets to see Hezbollah wiped out (hopefully).

Originally posted by Gools
Until people in this region decide to address each other's grievances, the bloodlust will continue.

Let's take Arafat, for example. When did he ever agree to and stick with terms of peace?

Hezbollah is not interested in peace. They want to wipe Israel out, to "push them into the sea".

Try getting Ahmadinejead and Assad to sit down and negotiate in good faith. After all, they have the power to rein in Hezbollah. Why haven't they?

I notice that in many posts people seem to think that the government of Israel is ignorant of the possible consequences of what they have done. I find this unlikely. These are well educted, experienced people who are far more informed on the situation than any of us. They clearly weighed and understood the risks of what they were about to do and decided the risks were outweighed by not acting. Back in June Hamas announced that they had fired a chemical tipped rocket into Israel and had 20 biological weapons.

Reuters

Although seeing the destruction of Lebanon is truly heartbreaking, should Israel have waited until Hamas/Hezbollah was better armed or had developed even more robust support systems? The Italy/mafia analogy is wonderful. But rest assured, if the mafia was routinely attacking and making escalating threats against a neighboring country and the Italian government refused or was incapable of stopping them, that country would take matters into their own hands eventually. The Lebanese government had an obligation to its people to contain Hezbollah's activities. If it found itself incapable of controlling Hezbollah it had a moral obligation to ask for help. It may very well be that Israel looks to have overstepped what we all believe to be reasonable measures. But I don't think any of us are in possession of all the facts in this case.

Originally posted by timeless test
First off, if we don't get away from the "he started it" mentality of justification the region will be in the same state in another 2000 years as it has been for the last 2000. There is always prior cause, always an earlier incident, always honour waiting to be settled.

Yes, but these incidents are merely for public consumption anyway. You have to look at them with a large grain of salt. They are very rarely the sole or root cause of the current conflict.

Sometimes they are nothing more than an excuse, as when the riots broke out over the cartoons of Mohammed. Any port in a storm, any excuse in a conflict.

As I have written somewhere else it would be easier to understand Israel's actions if they would share their motivation with the World. I'm not saying I would approve or agree with them but at least I could respect their honesty. This "war" has nothing to do with three kidnapped soldiers they are no more than flimsy excuses for Israel's actions, patsies if you like and until they come clean I can do no more than judge on the basis of what I see no matter how absurd that appears.

If you do not know the true cause, or motivation of, Israel's actions, how can you judge their reaction?

For all we know, they may have found an unexploded chemical warhead that had been lobbed into Israel last month. Rather than publicly admit to an intelligence failure, they decide to punish those who lobbed the warhead.

Originally posted by intrepid
Could the Lebenese army contain Hez? Appearently not.

Since Hez is a political organization as much as it is military, and they do so much to maintain infrastructure, I think its impossible for the Lebanese military to not have Hez in it. I don't think that it means they control it, but the national govt there is in struggle with Hez for political control, and for Hez to not take advantage of infiltrating or converting part of the standing army is ignoring a valuable asset. So I think they are there, just because it is a typical thing for the opposition to do, no matter what country.

Could the average Achmed do anything without retaliation to him and his family by Hez? I seriously doubt it.

I doubt it too. Interestingly enough, Israel does have dissenters protesting inside Israel, which is something you wouldn't be able to find in Lebanon, Syria, or Iran.

Could Israel have done things differently to handle this situation? DAMN STRAIGHT!

Sure they could have. There are always options. But it depends on what the goal is. If their goal was to protract an unstable peace, they could have done nothing, or next to nothing. But I don't look at this as it being just Hez. Hez and Hammas acted in conjunction, and I believe Iran is pulling the strings. The pres of Iran wants Israel off the map, and they heavily fund both groups. Plus this takes pressure off of Iran for its nuclear ambitions. Israel is striking Hez and Ham, but more importantly, I think they see themselves as striking agents of Iran, which they, Hez and Ham, partly are, and therefore taking away military assets from Iran.

I did a Mapquest search on Syria/Lebenon and there were unoccupied areas that could have been bombed, stopping those routes from rearming Hez. NOT areas that were inhabitted.

The poblem with bombing unpopulated areas, is that destroying a road doesn't necessarily provide a choke point. If there are no natural or man made obstacles, then you just drive around the crater. Blow up a road at a bridge or near buildings, it is much harder to move through. Not healthy for the population, but for a military operation it is very practical.

Bombing the airport? Hell the Israeli airforce could knock out any Syrian aircraft that was trying to give aid to Hez.

If the goal is to stop material from coming in to Lebanon by air, this is the only way to do it without shooting down an airplane. No airport, no air traffic. What if Syria packs a bunch of civilians on a cargo plane full of ammo? If Israel shoots it down, its looked at as a massacre. If they don't, Hez has been resupplied. This way, Israel doesn't have to take such a politically dangerous risk.

So, Israel has killed infrastructure that the civillians could use to get the hell out of the Dodge, leaving them at the wiles of the competing sides. I wonder WHY?

The popluation is moving out of the combat zone. There are 500,000 displaced, moving north, so they aren't stuck in the combat zone per se, though this is causing much concern for the looming humanitarian crisis that will inevitably occur from just dealing with such a mass of people. But the majority of Hez will go with them. Hez just can't slug it out with Israel, especially without politically sensitive targets to tie Israels hands, such as hiding amongst civilians. Before you say that it hasn't stopped Israel so far, to have dropped as much ordinance and have so few civilian casualties is fairly remarkable. Also remember that the trend is to list all casualties as civilian. Its the trend in the ME, and also a legitimate propiganda weapon for them to use. I've accepted that's what they do and see its value. I don't understand why others don't see it at all. So most of Hez goes north, can't take their gear because Israel is watching from the skies, Israel goes in and desroys hardware left behind, or better yet finds new hardware supplied by Syria and Iran.

Good topic.

-----------------------
...Doesnt it suprise anyone that the campain that Israel has conducted against Hezbollah only took 2 days of planning after the inital capture?...
-----------------------

It doesn't and shouldn't.

Countries Constantly make contingency plans.

Israel Knows damn good and well that Syria has been arming Hezbolah.

Hezbolah has a long history of attacking Israel.

Why would ANYBODY expect Israel to NOT have plans ready to go?

here is an exerpt from United Nations Security Council Resolution #1680 from May of 2006:

…Noting with concern the conclusion of the Secretary-General’s report
(S/2006/248) that there had been movements of arms into Lebanese territory for
militias over the last six months,…

What do you think these Arms moving into Leanese territory for Militias were going to be used for?

Maybe they were going to a factory used to make baby food.

hlesterjerome

Good post!

Nobody has been mentioning the UN except to trumpet Kofi's call for a ceasefire. (Not on this thread). Seems to me that if the UN had been enforcing the resolutions that it was supposed to, this wouldn't have happened. So it also seems to me that this is the UN's fault.

Originally posted by intrepid

Rocket attacks and other such have been occuring for the last 6 years.

Links please? It has been a tired arguement, without substance.

There is a great deal of fault by the ‘press’ on this issue.
Concerning an AP article (one instance):

Perhaps most surprising is that the word "Katyusha" is not mentioned even once on the timeline. The thousands of Katyusha rockets fired at Israel from Lebanon, which for years terrified and traumatized residents of northern Israel forced to spend their days in bomb shelters, are certainly a key part of the Lebanon-Israel conflict and vital to understanding Israel's retaliations/invasions/attacks. CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in Ameriaca)

Good source for errors and corrections (which often go unread) and points to bias in media coverage through a fairly systematic/thorough approach. Such as:

After similarly erring on the stipulations of 242, newspapers such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and Washington Times have all published corrections emphasizing that Resolution 242 does not call for Israel to withdraw to the 1967 lines. However, the AP did not run a correction.
Source

Reading through some sites/organizations/bias that deal with media corrections, retractions and errors shows a differing light on many, many reports coming from the ME (and elsewhere). I read a number of reports on this site that are later corrected by the paper or pointed out as errors by media accountability organizations, such as the one mentioned above.

mg


mg

missed_gear,



When opportunity arrives, I'm going to link to your post on other threads, with your permission. You just hit the nail on the freakin' head.

Id have to agree with you on this, intrepid. Israel's response is certainly overkill. And I have my suspicions on the "kidnapping". But Hezbollah also behaved irresponsibly. For example, they should have known damn well what kind of response Israel would provide after it kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. They knew damn well they were going to put the whole country at risk of conflict with Israel, and given Israel's track record involving military action and noncombatants, they knew damn well that Israel would tear ass all over the place and blast the hell out of anything that moved. Hezbollahs actions seem provocative, as if they wanted to provoke this kind of reaction to get people blindly supporting them.

The above opinions are given with the assumption that all is as it seems and is reported, and that no conspiracies exist. Which I honestly doubt is the case.

But theres my opinion.

Perhaps the control is from both sides?? The global elite have sponsored both sides of the first two world wars to enforce their agenda's of eventual world domination, so why not this one?

Originally posted by hogtie
[Since Hez is a political organization as much as it is military, and they do so much to maintain infrastructure, I think its impossible for the Lebanese military to not have Hez in it.

Back in March of 2006, the UN was putting some pressure on Hezbollah to disarm (again) when what you have mentioned was somewhat being discussed. Terje Roed-Larsen (UN Envoy) suggested that Lebanon integrate the militia into its’ military to gain some control.

The thought is that Hezbollah could not forcibly be disarmed (most notably by Lebanon alone...politically or militarily) and part of a capitulatory option was that of integration. The Lebanese military going after Hezbollah (even with limited international help and peacekeepers) would have caused a full scale civil war where civilian casualties would have been absolutely astronomical. Lebanon simply would have had to have asked for her own invasion of course at the very real risk of becoming a pariah in the ME.

Imo both Hezbollah and Israel have both recently expressed their opinions of this particular suggestion/offer.



mg

There is no negotiting with those whose only wish and desire is to see you DEAD, and wiped from the face of the earth; that is what the Arabs want from Isreal/the Jews. Nothing more, nothing less, and Iran, Syria et-al care little, themselves, about civilians as lond as their desires are fulfilled.

As I mentioned in another thread, my point is this: Hezbubble is not a nation or state; they are terrorists occupying Lebanese neighborhoods. Many say they want Isreal to end it's response. If you compare that with, say, a group of gangmembers in a house, and they are in a firefight with police, you do everything possible to bring an end to "the bad guys", not call a truce and have a discussion.

As sound as Intrepid's idea is, Hezbubble will never move to a place where they will stand alone and fight; they are cowards, and prefer civilian casualties because of the response it will bring against Isreal; plain and simple. They learned that concept well from the Palestinian/Isreali battles.

I'd like to see the Reagan response.... it worked well with Syria years ago: one smart missile each into the homes of the leaders: Ahmadenijad, Hamas, and Hezbubble. It has a remarkable way of bringing people to the table for talks; at least for a few years.