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Should we start getting worried?

Changleen

Paranoid Member
Jan 9, 2004
14,355
2,466
Pōneke
This is turning into more of a joke everyday. Now Israel are trying to draw Iran in, claiming they were the ones who kidnapped their soldiers, and Bush is pointing fingers at Syria.

Olmert has said it's not stopping 'unil Hezbollah disarm' which is a great unverifiable goal which allows him to continue this as long as he likes. Every Lebanese who picks up a gun will suddenly be Hezbollah the same way every Iraqi who is armed is an Insurgent or AQ.

This is simply naked murderous aggression with a fine layer of PR. I notice as normal the PR spin seems to be somewhat thicker in the US press.
 

Changleen

Paranoid Member
Jan 9, 2004
14,355
2,466
Pōneke
Secret Squirrel said:
After today, the ratio should favor Israel a little more...like say 17:1......
Well, it seems you were right. We've now got 25 Israeli dead as opposed to 24 yesterday (One civilian died as a result of apparantly 700 new rockets fired into Israel) but the Lebanese death toll is now "More than 250" with about 15, a tiny number of actual Hezbollah in that figure.

So as of today it seems that extra 1 Israeli is apparantly worth over 70 Lebanese civilians.

Israel have also started hitting regular Lebanese army barracks because... er well I'm not sure really.

Oh and just so y'all don't forget, the situation in Iraq is looking GREAT! There's been a large rise in civilian deaths in the last two months with over 6000 killed even according to US figures.
 

Silver

find me a tampon
Jul 20, 2002
10,840
1
Orange County, CA
Changleen said:
Oh and just so y'all don't forget, the situation in Iraq is looking GREAT! There's been a large rise in civilian deaths in the last two months with over 6000 killed even according to US figures.
Dude, Iraq is all sorted out. They voted. It's turned back into the garden of Eden. The only reason we still have troops there is that they like it so much they don't want to leave.
 

ALEXIS_DH

Tirelessly Awesome
Jan 30, 2003
6,147
796
Lima, Peru, Peru
rockwool said:
The US bought that peace with tax money. Egypt is the largest beneficiary of US aid bar Israel.
regardless, the sinai return was a cornerpiece for peace.

Actions show different. The apartheid wall is permanent boarders of the future. Settlements stay.
Camp David showed this. It is better explained in thet documentary i've been naging about every body to watch, than I could do with a Minion words.
Please watch it. Its full of facts presented by Jews!
i´d really rather do the reading thing....
i tend to prefer readings from .edu sites, rather than theatrical releases from "Arab Film Distribution is handling the theatrical distribution of Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land.".
 

ALEXIS_DH

Tirelessly Awesome
Jan 30, 2003
6,147
796
Lima, Peru, Peru
rockwool said:
We should allways look back at history to see how things were done then. But if it shows that we haven't progressed in our humanity...we need a kick in the dingding.
a step forwards were the geneva conventions..
2 step backwards is abusing the cover it confers to put barbarism again in the spotlight.


Targets take civillian form? What like when they go home to sleep and visit their families every now and then? So when Israeli soldiers go home on leave they are legitimate targets and the others on the bus colateral damage?
what do you mean by that, that no targets taking civilian form???
what about launching attacks from civilian areas, and engaging in combat while camouflaging among civilians, and flat out use delusive tactics... what about sometimes approaching a target dressed as a civilian and then blowing up in pieces with your pouch of nails???

Spoke to a former Swedish Marines Leutenant I know today. Asked him if he was taught in OCS, that the civilians targets that have been hit in Lebanon was legitimate targets or acceptable colateral damage... If you're not positive they are combatants, don't fire.
thats exactly what am arguing against. of course by current conventions that should not happen.
but thats one of the reasons why guerrilla warfare (aka more deaths) happen and are so favoured.


That is non acceptable. If you know you are going to hit civilians and still fire you are committing a war crime!
When the ball is on the green, use a putter. The drive is for other occations.
thats again, what am arguing against.
what happens when civilians are everywhere?

what happens when human-shields start to become the signature strategy exactly for the same ideal that pushed for their extintion?????
what happens them? is mankind (not israel alone) better off, by having hordes of guerrilla fighters human-shielded???
is that any better than guerilla fighters NOT using those tactics because deterrance once again would be enough (assuming minimally rational actors that is).

You're joking right? You go out bear hunting looking like the terminator and claim that the bears have the upper hand, complain that thay stay in the forrest instead of comming down to the malls parking lot "to fight".
the bear would have the upper hand if he wore a suit made out of 10 month old breathing babies.

If guerilla warfare was such an advatage Israel would be fighting the same way. Anybody would..
THAT IS EXACTLY MY POINT!!!!!

israel CANT, israel does not engage in the same level of guerilla warfare as the arab terrorists.

if israel made it a established policy (pretty much like terrorists), all hell would break loose. (which is a nice twist from the current "i´ll-look-somewhere-else" attitude towards the side who exploits that).

In urban warefare you go knocking, door by door.
Israel has no problem with beeing hindered by legality. 39yrs of bloody occupation has prooven they can't be touched by the UN.
define legality please. and define the legal status of a UN recommendation please.
and remember what happened with resolution 3379....

Convenient lazy bastards they are going out on foot when they can take their equally as big war machine (4th in the world) and fight the Israelis "mano a mano"...
I'm going to petition the UN tho forbit any type of uprising until the weinies get a propper defence. Sweden can sell it to them too (we need the income to spend on more roundabouts).
would make no difference. arabs have been pwn3d fair and square (not so actually, even outnumbering israel by 8 to1) before in 48, 67 and 73...
yet that did not make them abandon guerrilla warfare...

Let me clarify that; we're all worth the same. To the nickle.
(that accounts for US citizens too. :eviltongu )
besides the undeniable relativism (i´m pretty sure you value your wife/mom/son more than some starving ethiopian dying as we type)

are you sure????
who´d you rather see death? civilians or soldiers, regardless of side?



I've noted that you are very acustomed to the law. I'm not, nor do I know what it says in this specific thing. Although, judging from several posts, it seems you would be a lost human beeing without it. There is a right and wrong even if there is no law. Or for that matter someone who can impose it.
There are so many apparent wrongful/uneven/atrocious things going on in this conflict, there should be an alarm ringing in your head.
i dont deny there is a morality besides law, or a morality that superposes law.
in fact, i have an issue with current laws and customary practices, that have enabled a bunchs of psychos to resort to institutionalized practices mankind had long forgotten.
we have placed ourselves in a place where we can no longer deal with those whackos by anything other than asking pretty please. those limitations, well intented, coded in rules of engagement and geneva conventions, contributed to certain groups resorting back to barbarism.
in a very sad way, it calls for violence to end violence, even though is a very cold and nasty thing to say.
 

Silver

find me a tampon
Jul 20, 2002
10,840
1
Orange County, CA
Don't worry. Condi will be over at the end of the week to fix things.

Not sure what she's doing right now...must be something really important. Vital, even.

Colin Powell, why hast thou forsaken us?
 

Transcend

My Nuts Are Flat
Apr 18, 2002
18,040
3
Towing the party line.
Silver said:
Don't worry. Condi will be over at the end of the week to fix things.

Not sure what she's doing right now...must be something really important. Vital, even.
Is she gonna go over and yap at Hizbollah/Israel like the annoying poodle/lap dog that she is?
 

Old Man G Funk

Choir Boy
Nov 21, 2005
2,864
0
In a handbasket
Silver said:
Don't worry. Condi will be over at the end of the week to fix things.

Not sure what she's doing right now...must be something really important. Vital, even.
She's probably shopping for that perfect pair of shoes. You can't end a ME conflict without the perfect shoes.
 

fluff

Monkey Turbo
Sep 8, 2001
5,673
2
Feeling the lag
Qana, southern Lebanon - It was a massacre. Not since Sabra and Chatila had I seen the innocent slaughtered like this. The Lebanese refugee women and children and men lay in heaps, their hands or arms or legs missing, beheaded or disembowelled. There were well over a hundred of them. A baby lay without a head. The Israeli shells had scythed through them as they lay.

In front of a burning building a girl held a corpse in her arms, the body of a grey- haired man whose eyes were staring at her, and she rocked the corpse back and forth in her arms, keening and weeping and crying the same words over and over: "My father, my father." A man stood amid a sea of bodies and, without saying a word, held aloft the body of a headless child.

"The Israelis have just told us they'll stop shelling the area,a re we supposed to thank them?" In the remains of a burning building a pile of corpses was burning. The roof had crashed in flames onto their bodies, cremating them in front of my eyes. When I walked towards them, I slipped on a human hand...

Israel's slaughter of civilians in this terrible 10-day offensive - 206 by last night - has been so cavalier, so ferocious, that not a Lebanese will forgive this massacre. There had been the ambulance attacked on Saturday, the sisters killed in Yohmor the day before, the 2-year-old girl decapitated by an Israeli missile four days ago. And earlier yesterday, the Israelis had slaughtered a family of 12 - the youngest was a four- day-old baby - when Israeli helicopter pilots fired missiles into their home.

Shortly afterwards, three Israeli jets dropped bombs only 250 metres from a convoy on which I was travelling, blasting a house 30 feet into the air in front of my eyes. Travelling back to Beirut to file my report on the massacre to the Independent last night, I found two Israeli gunboats firing at the civilian cars on the river bridge north of Sidon.

Every foreign army comes to grief in Lebanon. The Sabra and Chatila massacre of Palestinians by Israel's militia allies in 1982 doomed Israel's 1982 invasion. Now the Israelis are stained again by the bloodbath at Qana, the scruffy little Lebanese hill town where the Lebanese believe Jesus turned water into wine.

The Israeli Prime Minister may now wish to end this war. But the Hizbollah are not likely to let him. Israel is back in the Lebanese quagmire. Nor will the Arab world forget yesterday'a terrible scenes.

The blood of all the refugees ran quite literally in streams from the shell-smashed restaurant in which the Shiite Muslims from the hill villages of southern Lebanon - who had heeded Israel's order to leave their homes - had pathetically sought shelter.

The US President has allied himself with Israel in its war against "terrorism" and the Lebanese, in their grief, had not forgotten this. Israel's official expression of sorrow was rubbing salt in their wounds. "I would like to be made into a bomb and blow myself up amid the Israelis," one old man said.

As for the Hizbollah, which has repeatedly promised that Israelis will pay for their killing of Lebanese civilians, its revenge cannot be long in coming.
 

rockwool

Turbo Monkey
Apr 19, 2004
2,658
0
Filastin
"Condoleeza Rice is nice, but I prefer O'Rooney, that man on the TV who speaks to the dead, you know that man's a phoney, everybody move to Canada smoke a lots of pot, everybody move to Canada right now, here's how we do it, bum rush the fort and God before He and His dog ever knew it" -Clutch
 

rockwool

Turbo Monkey
Apr 19, 2004
2,658
0
Filastin
Changleen said:
Well, it seems you were right. We've now got 25 Israeli dead as opposed to 24 yesterday (One civilian died as a result of apparantly 700 new rockets fired into Israel) but the Lebanese death toll is now "More than 250" with about 15, a tiny number of actual Hezbollah in that figure.

There's been a large rise in civilian deaths in the last two months with over 6000 killed even according to US figures.
Great, the Vichy government of Iraq is wielding its democratic powers.

Only 1! Israeli civilian killed when a whole 700 MLRS type artillery rockets have been fired into a city? Thats about the luckiest **** I've ever heard of! I don't have a TV but has someone else seen any damage done to Haifa on TV? Pretty big parts of that city must look like Beirut right now..

Changleen said:
This is turning into more of a joke everyday. Now Israel are trying to draw Iran in, claiming they were the ones who kidnapped their soldiers, and Bush is pointing fingers at Syria.

Olmert has said it's not stopping 'unil Hezbollah disarm' which is a great unverifiable goal which allows him to continue this as long as he likes. Every Lebanese who picks up a gun will suddenly be Hezbollah the same way every Iraqi who is armed is an Insurgent or AQ.
This whole kidnapping story will later show to be just an excuse to a story we've just began to read the prologue of..

Silver said:
Dude, Iraq is all sorted out. They voted. It's turned back into the garden of Eden.
A nice tactic the nazis wish they had thought of back in the dayz.
Look what I found in the hand book for evil empires: "For a nice democratic election under occupation, make sure to only allow parties that are "friendlies"."
 

rbx

Monkey
300 lebanese civilians killed so far and like 30 hezbollah soldiers, wtf
if israel wants to destroy hezbollah why dont they just attack them directly.
Blowing up electric generators, gaz reserves whats the purpose!!
And then they ask the lebanese army to dismantle hezbollah that would plunge lebanon into civil war.
hezbollah ounce defended lebanon from invading israel, but now there corrupt and should be removed but what israel is asking of the lebanese gov. is just not realistic.
 

rockwool

Turbo Monkey
Apr 19, 2004
2,658
0
Filastin
ALEXIS_DH said:
regardless, the sinai return was a cornerpiece for peace.

i´d really rather do the reading thing....
i tend to prefer readings from .edu sites, rather than theatrical releases from "Arab Film Distribution is handling the theatrical distribution of Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land.".
Sure it was. But if the aid was that insignificant to peace, the US would hardly still be paying them of after all those years.

It's good that you read. But you watch the news every now and then don't you. Maybe a televised documentary every now and then too? Well I hope you are. I do even though mainstream media is biased towards "the wicked side".
Dismissing a form of medium as somthing that only is suitable for recreational use and uphoding another as better just because its typed, is a conclusion that is too simplified.
What ever your prefered medium of information is, it is imperative that you have different sources of information that have an opposite stand on things, so that you, your selfe, can reflect and later come to a conclussion of your own and not accepting having one handed to you by the "side" you prefer.

I find it remarkable that you, who seem to be an educated person, dismiss something without having heard its content. Imagine a jury not listening to a person because of them beeing judgemental about the way he looks..

If you have a documentary that give facts to your point of view, please share it.
 

ALEXIS_DH

Tirelessly Awesome
Jan 30, 2003
6,147
796
Lima, Peru, Peru
rockwool said:
Sure it was. But if the aid was that insignificant to peace, the US would hardly still be paying them of after all those years.

It's good that you read. But you watch the news every now and then don't you. Maybe a televised documentary every now and then too? Well I hope you are. I do even though mainstream media is biased towards "the wicked side".
Dismissing a form of medium as somthing that only is suitable for recreational use and uphoding another as better just because its typed, is a conclusion that is too simplified.
What ever your prefered medium of information is, it is imperative that you have different sources of information that have an opposite stand on things, so that you, your selfe, can reflect and later come to a conclussion of your own and not accepting having one handed to you by the "side" you prefer.

I find it remarkable that you, who seem to be an educated person, dismiss something without having heard its content. Imagine a jury not listening to a person because of them beeing judgemental about the way he looks..

If you have a documentary that give facts to your point of view, please share it.
about "mainstream media".
i live in peru. i dont watch much local tv/news. it just feeds my misanthropy, and makes me wonder why god wastes so many good lightinings on trees...

the few local news i watch can be considered factual statements reports and impartial or, if anything, a bit pro-arab and anti-us.. (the national median/average being quite towards anti-us, anti-israel, i suspect way more than northern europe). so by my background, you can say people around here hate the US and israel by proxy.

i get most of my news from cnn, the international version for the most (i can say its pro-israel). the spanish version is considerably more symphatetic to the arab perspective. i watch bbc ocassionaly.

but i get the most information by reading, i read the nyt, and the only 2 local papers worth a reading (can say they are pro-us), one of them carries a editorial and world pages from the wsj.
sometimes i read haaretz, lately i´ve been reading a few lebanese newspapers...

about the middle east i´ve read a good chunk of the jewish virtual library (you can say its biased, but at least tends to be factual and well documented). i´ve read a few differente pro-palestinian seemingly serious sites, but besides the sympathy i have for their suffering, most of those sites are appeal to shock and are hardly worth of a read from an educational pov. wikipedia has been a good resource too...
i read a lot... my job gets very slow at times, so reading is a good passtime.

sorry but i dont know any recomendable documentary.
 

Changleen

Paranoid Member
Jan 9, 2004
14,355
2,466
Pōneke
http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/international/ticker/detail/UN_rights_head_sees_possible_Mideast_war_crimes.html?siteSect=143&sid=6907991&cKey=1153357724000

UN rights head sees possible Mideast war crimes

GENEVA (Reuters) - The scale of killing and maiming of civilians in Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territory of Gaza could constitute war crimes, the United Nations human rights chief said on Wednesday.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said international humanitarian law was clear on the need to protect non-combatants in any conflict. "This obligation is also expressed in international criminal law, which defines war crimes and crimes against humanity," she said.

"The scale of the killings in the region, and their predictability, could engage the personal criminal responsibility of those involved, particularly those in a position of command and control," she said, without directly accusing anyone.

In a statement, Arbour expressed "grave concern over the continued killing and maiming of civilians in Lebanon, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory".

Arbour, a former Canadian Supreme Court judge and war crimes prosecutor, said the "indiscriminate shelling" of cities and the bombing of sites where civilians would suffer were unacceptable.

Israeli air strikes have accounted for most of the 293 deaths in Lebanon in the eight-day-old war which began after Hizbollah guerrillas kidnapped two Israeli soldiers.

The Lebanese Shi'ite militia has rained rockets down on northern Israeli towns and villages. Twenty-nine Israelis have died in the violence.

STRETCHED RULES

Israel's offensive in Lebanon has coincided with a three-week-old push into the Gaza Strip to retrieve another soldier, seized by Palestinian militants on June 25.

In a separate statement, the U.N. special envoy on the right to health said Israel's destruction of Gaza's only power station could constitute a war crime and should be investigated.

New Zealander Paul Hunt said lack of power had caused a serious water shortage and affected sewage disposal for tens of thousands of households in the Gaza Strip. Reported cases of diarrhoea had risen 163 percent compared with last year, he added.

As international concern mounted for civilians caught up in the bloodshed, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) suggested that Israel had stretched the agreed rules of war with its air and land operations in Lebanon.

The Swiss-based body, the recognised guardian of the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war, said it had told the Israelis and Hizbollah that both must avoid targeting civilians.

Under the Conventions, first formulated after World War One and expanded after World War Two, countries involved in international conflicts are obliged to observe measure in their response to actions by an opposing side.

"The ICRC reminds the parties to the conflict that the obligation to distinguish between civilians and civilian objects, on the one hand, and military objectives, on the other, is at the core of international humanitarian law and must be complied with at all times," it said in a statement.
Surely most reasonable humans must be finding Israel's actions unnacceptable by now.
 

ALEXIS_DH

Tirelessly Awesome
Jan 30, 2003
6,147
796
Lima, Peru, Peru
changleen..
let put up this scenario.
lets say 10 times more people died, and the infraestructure cost was 10 times higher.
assuming rational actors, from now on, do you think hezbollah will be equally trigger happy? would the general lebanese population be equally sympathetic and permisive towards hezbollah´s trigger happiness? and more importantly, would a new non-extremist lebanese government be equally permisive to hezbollah actions in the south???
what about is the damage was 20-fold??

you can argue it just fuels anger against israel that will eventually turn into violence.
i know is icky, and its pretty sad to talk about stuff like this so coldly, but do you think there is a limit to how much damage inflicted into a population turns into violence against???
is it unlimited? or at some point resignation kicks in???
if you believe such limit exists, is the damage necesary to arrive at that limit justified if it can prevent further damage?? just think of how many people have died there in the last 10 years... we are talking thousands just in 10 years...
so being crude, is the death of 100 justified if it avoids the deaths of 150???
 

ridetoofast

scarred, broken and drunk
Mar 31, 2002
2,095
5
crashing at a trail near you...
for all you frother haters...put this in your pipe and smoke it! its from a 'frother' that you so love to hate...

Where are the Christians?

When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert unleashed his navy and air force on Lebanon, accusing that tiny nation of an "act of war," the last pillar of Bush's Middle East policy collapsed.

First came capitulation on the Bush Doctrine, as Pyongyang and Tehran defied Bush's dictum: The world's worst regimes will not be allowed to acquire the world's worst weapons. Then came suspension of the democracy crusade as Islamic militants exploited free elections to advance to power and office in Egypt, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, Iraq and Iran.


Now, Israel's rampage against a defenseless Lebanon – smashing airport runways, fuel tanks, power plants, gas stations, lighthouses, bridges, roads and the occasional refugee convoy – has exposed Bush's folly in subcontracting U.S. policy out to Tel Aviv, thus making Israel the custodian of our reputation and interests in the Middle East.

The Lebanon that Israel, with Bush's blessing, is smashing up has a pro-American government, heretofore considered a shining example of his democracy crusade. Yet, asked in St. Petersburg if he would urge Israel to use restraint in its airstrikes, Bush sounded less like the leader of the Free World than some bellicose city councilman from Brooklyn Heights.

What Israel is up to was described by its army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, when he threatened to "turn back the clock in Lebanon 20 years."

Olmert seized upon Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers to unleash the IDF in a pre-planned attack to make the Lebanese people suffer until the Lebanese government disarms Hezbollah, a task the Israeli army could not accomplish in 18 years of occupation.

Israel is doing the same to the Palestinians. To punish these people for the crime of electing Hamas, Olmert imposed an economic blockade of Gaza and the West Bank and withheld the $50 million in monthly tax and customs receipts due the Palestinians.

Then, Israel instructed the United States to terminate all aid to the Palestinian Authority, though Bush himself had called for the elections and for the participation of Hamas. Our Crawford cowboy meekly complied.

The predictable result: Fatah and Hamas fell to fratricidal fighting, and Hamas militants began launching Qassam rockets over the fence from Gaza into Israel. Hamas then tunneled into Israel, killed two soldiers, captured one, took him back into Gaza and demanded a prisoner exchange.

Israel's response was to abduct half of the Palestinian cabinet and parliament and blow up a $50 million U.S.-insured power plant. That cut off electricity for half a million Palestinians. Their food spoiled, their water could not be purified, and their families sweltered in the summer heat of the Gaza desert. One family of seven was wiped out on a beach by what the IDF assures us was an errant artillery shell.

Let it be said: Israel has a right to defend herself, a right to counter-attack against Hezbollah and Hamas, a right to clean out bases from which Katyusha or Qassam rockets are being fired and a right to occupy land from which attacks are mounted on her people.

But what Israel is doing is imposing deliberate suffering on civilians, collective punishment on innocent people, to force them to do something they are powerless to do: disarm the gunmen among them. Such a policy violates international law and comports neither with our values nor our interests. It is un-American and un-Christian.

But where are the Christians? Why is Pope Benedict virtually alone among Christian leaders to have spoken out against what is being done to Lebanese Christians and Muslims?

When al-Qaida captured two U.S. soldiers and barbarically butchered them, the U.S. Army did not smash power plants across the Sunni Triangle. Why then is Bush not only silent but openly supportive when Israelis do this?

Democrats attack Bush for crimes of which he is not guilty, including Haditha and Abu Ghraib. Why are they, too, silent when Israel pursues a conscious policy of collective punishment of innocent peoples?

Britain's diplomatic goal in two world wars was to bring the naive cousins in, to "pull their chestnuts out of the fire." Israel and her paid and pro-bono agents here appear determined to expand the Iraq war into Syria and Iran, and have America fight and finish all of Israel's enemies.

That Tel Aviv is maneuvering us to fight its wars is understandable. That Americans are ignorant of, or complicit in this, is deplorable.

Already, Bush is ranting about Syria being behind the Hezbollah capture of the Israeli soldiers. But where is the proof?

Who is whispering in his ear? The same people who told him Iraq was maybe months away from an atom bomb, that an invasion would be a "cakewalk," that he would be Churchill, that U.S. troops would be greeted with candy and flowers, that democracy would break out across the region, that Palestinians and Israelis would then sit down and make peace?

How much must America pay for the education of this man?

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51116
 

BurlyShirley

Rex Grossman Will Rise Again
Jul 4, 2002
19,180
17
TN
ridetoofast said:
for all you frother haters...put this in your pipe and smoke it! its from a 'frother' that you so love to hate...

Where are the Christians?

When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert unleashed his navy and air force on Lebanon, accusing that tiny nation of an "act of war," the last pillar of Bush's Middle East policy collapsed.

First came capitulation on the Bush Doctrine, as Pyongyang and Tehran defied Bush's dictum: The world's worst regimes will not be allowed to acquire the world's worst weapons. Then came suspension of the democracy crusade as Islamic militants exploited free elections to advance to power and office in Egypt, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, Iraq and Iran.


Now, Israel's rampage against a defenseless Lebanon – smashing airport runways, fuel tanks, power plants, gas stations, lighthouses, bridges, roads and the occasional refugee convoy – has exposed Bush's folly in subcontracting U.S. policy out to Tel Aviv, thus making Israel the custodian of our reputation and interests in the Middle East.

The Lebanon that Israel, with Bush's blessing, is smashing up has a pro-American government, heretofore considered a shining example of his democracy crusade. Yet, asked in St. Petersburg if he would urge Israel to use restraint in its airstrikes, Bush sounded less like the leader of the Free World than some bellicose city councilman from Brooklyn Heights.

What Israel is up to was described by its army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, when he threatened to "turn back the clock in Lebanon 20 years."

Olmert seized upon Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers to unleash the IDF in a pre-planned attack to make the Lebanese people suffer until the Lebanese government disarms Hezbollah, a task the Israeli army could not accomplish in 18 years of occupation.

Israel is doing the same to the Palestinians. To punish these people for the crime of electing Hamas, Olmert imposed an economic blockade of Gaza and the West Bank and withheld the $50 million in monthly tax and customs receipts due the Palestinians.

Then, Israel instructed the United States to terminate all aid to the Palestinian Authority, though Bush himself had called for the elections and for the participation of Hamas. Our Crawford cowboy meekly complied.

The predictable result: Fatah and Hamas fell to fratricidal fighting, and Hamas militants began launching Qassam rockets over the fence from Gaza into Israel. Hamas then tunneled into Israel, killed two soldiers, captured one, took him back into Gaza and demanded a prisoner exchange.

Israel's response was to abduct half of the Palestinian cabinet and parliament and blow up a $50 million U.S.-insured power plant. That cut off electricity for half a million Palestinians. Their food spoiled, their water could not be purified, and their families sweltered in the summer heat of the Gaza desert. One family of seven was wiped out on a beach by what the IDF assures us was an errant artillery shell.

Let it be said: Israel has a right to defend herself, a right to counter-attack against Hezbollah and Hamas, a right to clean out bases from which Katyusha or Qassam rockets are being fired and a right to occupy land from which attacks are mounted on her people.

But what Israel is doing is imposing deliberate suffering on civilians, collective punishment on innocent people, to force them to do something they are powerless to do: disarm the gunmen among them. Such a policy violates international law and comports neither with our values nor our interests. It is un-American and un-Christian.

But where are the Christians? Why is Pope Benedict virtually alone among Christian leaders to have spoken out against what is being done to Lebanese Christians and Muslims?

When al-Qaida captured two U.S. soldiers and barbarically butchered them, the U.S. Army did not smash power plants across the Sunni Triangle. Why then is Bush not only silent but openly supportive when Israelis do this?

Democrats attack Bush for crimes of which he is not guilty, including Haditha and Abu Ghraib. Why are they, too, silent when Israel pursues a conscious policy of collective punishment of innocent peoples?

Britain's diplomatic goal in two world wars was to bring the naive cousins in, to "pull their chestnuts out of the fire." Israel and her paid and pro-bono agents here appear determined to expand the Iraq war into Syria and Iran, and have America fight and finish all of Israel's enemies.

That Tel Aviv is maneuvering us to fight its wars is understandable. That Americans are ignorant of, or complicit in this, is deplorable.

Already, Bush is ranting about Syria being behind the Hezbollah capture of the Israeli soldiers. But where is the proof?

Who is whispering in his ear? The same people who told him Iraq was maybe months away from an atom bomb, that an invasion would be a "cakewalk," that he would be Churchill, that U.S. troops would be greeted with candy and flowers, that democracy would break out across the region, that Palestinians and Israelis would then sit down and make peace?

How much must America pay for the education of this man?

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51116
http://www.ridemonkey.com/forums/showthread.php?t=161496
 

N8 v2.0

Not the sharpest tool in the shed
Oct 18, 2002
11,003
149
The Cleft of Venus
ridetoofast said:
for all you frother haters...put this in your pipe and smoke it! its from a 'frother' that you so love to hate...http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51116

He's nuttier than Ross Periot!

:p
 

rockwool

Turbo Monkey
Apr 19, 2004
2,658
0
Filastin
That article ridetoofast and N8 posted earlier, was that by Pat Buchanan?!! I'm speachless.

fluff said:
That incident was in 1996.
I thought he was describing the Shabra and Shatila masacres in 1982...not sure.

Old Man G Funk said:
Dubya = George W. Bush.
Is there a story behind that nick?
 

Secret Squirrel

There is no Justice!
Dec 21, 2004
8,150
1
Up sh*t creek, without a paddle
rockwool said:
That article ridetoofast and N8 posted earlier, was that by Pat Buchanan?!! I'm speachless.



I thought he was describing the Shabra and Shatila masacres in 1982...not sure. First line of the article....Qana, southern Lebanon - It was a massacre. Not since Sabra and Chatila had I seen the innocent slaughtered like this



Is there a story behind that nick?Yes....Vernacular for his middle initial....'W' (Pronounced 'Double U') = Dubya (
:wave: