- This topic has 301 replies, 42 voices, and was last updated 13 years, 6 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Dave,
I do not know what targets they are firing at and why. Neither will anyone on here know such information. I do know as a professional army they will not deliberately target civilians and will act on whatever intelligence or evidence they have. Not a nicety that Hezbollah terrorists need worry about.
Are the civilians in Israel legitimate targets for 100 or so missiles a day randomly lobbed in their direction? I think many people forget that terrorist targets are not the people who are directly killed or injured by their actions. The real targets are the world wide audience watching it all on TV.
We see this war though the press and what they want us to see. I think the Israeli strategy was to target and destroy the Hezbollah positions and destroy the Lebanese infrastructure in the south hoping that the Lebanese people would blame Hezbollah for binging all this trouble to a country that was just starting to prosper and regain some normality. Clearly that has not happened and they now appear to be being drawn back into Lebanon. Nihilism is the all that Hezbollah have to offer.<br>
Thanks trackside,
I agree with all you say. I am pobably appearing as if I am on only one side here. That is not the case. Reading through this thread it appeared to be very one sided and anti-Israeli, American & British policy. Just pointing out there is another side to this conflict. Lebanon was nearly there and now Hezbollah have destroyed any chance of peace in the short term.
We can be armchair politicians all we like but we do not have a fraction of the facts that the decision makers have.
War is not a computer game and mistakes happen. I think in the first Iraqi war the Americans killed more British troops than the Iraqis. The technology is getting better but when the Hezbollah hide in amongst the civilain population to fire their weapons civilians will get killed. I blame that on Hezbollah.
Thanks for the chat. Off to bed now.
We can be armchair politicians all we like but we do not have a fraction of the facts that the decision makers have.
Here’s a question: are the western political decision makers responding to the facts?
As I see it, the US government will always support Israel, whether it’s right or wrong.
And Blair will always fall into line with Bush.
And with the US & UK blocking any international response to Israel’s actions, the "facts" or "right and wrong" simply don’t come into it.
Steve
I think that any response to any attack, terrorist or otherwise needs to be proportionate. This conflict was started when Hezbollah captured 2 Israeli soldiers and killed 8. Israel demanded their prisoners be returned and Hezbollah wanted a prison exchange. Israel didn’t want to do a prisoner exchange but wanted their own men returned.
If the French Bandits came through the channel tunnel and killed 8 of our soldiers and took 2 prisoner I would not expect my own government to destroy all of the bridges in the north of France or use 500lb bombs in built up areas. If the French then started firing rockets into Kent (even hundreds of them) I would still not expect Paris to be bombed .. the reason I would not expect this is that I hold human life as being something that is valuable and not to be taken lightly, even if those people are a different skin colour, religious persuasion or just different from me.
I would expect my government to protect me though. I would expect them to pursue the bandits across the border and engage them, especially to stop the rocket attacks. I would want infantry to move into the rocket firing areas and destroy the rockets and apprehend the rocket firers.
In Iraq and Afghanistan nobody knows how many civilians have died, there are only rough estimates. This conflict will be the same and all of the crocodile tears from Blair and propaganda from the killers wont make it right. .. to indiscrimately kill women and children is an act of barbarism, irregardless of which side of the fence you are sitting.
Whilst the Israeli response may be "disproportionate", the media (and surprisingly ITV seem to be even more anti-Israeli than the BBC) seem to give scant mention to the facts that:-<br>a) Hezbollah deliberately site their men and artillery in the civilian sites (near schools/hospitals & the like) that create the most emotive pictures when those spots are hit by the Israelis. Why don’t the on-site journos’ slag Hezbollah off for such cowardly acts?<br>b) Many people in Lebanon (and many in the Lebanese government) wanted no truck with Hezbollah but didn’t have the wherewithal to stop them using their land to pusue their hate campaign against Israel.<br>c) The UN troops did bugger-all to stop Hezbollah’s build up of weaponry in the south.<br>d) Many (perhaps most) of the Arab states are not pro-Hezbollah. Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, despite having their share of towel-headed extremists do not want to see Hezbollah succeed and thus give more impetus to the mad Shias of Syria and especially Iran. These states view Iran (not a true "arab" state) as a bigger threat to their status-quo than Israel.
Although avowedly pro-Israeli, one thing I can’t square is the seeming inability of successive Israeli politicians to draw a parallell between the desperate actions of Palestinian "freedom fighters" blowing up civilians and the Israeli’s own pursuance of such actions when they were trying to oust the UN mandated British force in the 50’s. <br>I don’t know what the answer is – who does? But if there has to be a "winner", it should be the Israelis and the Palestinians. The rest (Syria/Iran/Al-Qaedi/Hezbollah/Hamas etc) deserve nowt.
re your use of the use of terms like ‘towel-headed extremists’. Do you really think that this assists you in terms of promoting your argument
No, it probably doesn’t GH – so I shall refrain from using it in future.<br>Re. Israel targetting Hezbollah sites they know have a civilian presence. What do you expect them to do? <br>If they didn’t target them, that just gives Hezbollah greater licence to fire on – and hit – Israel.<br>It has always been a tragic fact of war (and especially "terrorism" ) that civilians will get killed; London in the blitz, Dresden etc. Enemies no longer line up against one another on a battlefield.<br> Israel has an undeniable right to defend itself and to try to eliminate those who kill its citizens.<br>Ask yourself this. If Hezbollah stopped firing rockets, would Israel stop too?<br>If Israel stopped firing rockets, would Hezbollah stop?<br>This is the simplistic litmus test of who  the real baddies  are.
(Edited by insomniac at 3:12 pm on July 31, 2006)
I think insomniac is spot on.
I cannot understand all this UK/US/Israeli bashing to the extent that criminal actions by terrorist groups are excused and tolerated and they are seen as the good guys. We all live in democracies where we elect politicians to make decisions to represent our national interests. We have the luxury of being able to criticise our governments and vote them out if we disagree with the choices they have made. Spookily enough the interests of UK/US & Israel often coincide against the interests of a number of non democratic countries and terrorist organisations.
Blair & Bush will clearly agree on much. Does that make them wrong? In the case of the Iraq war only the Liberals & SNP were anti-war. I am certain that a conservative PM would probably have had an even cosier relationship with the US and make exactly the same decisions as Blair made based on the evidence they had. Once the US goes to war invariably we will follow whether that is Blair, Cameron or any other Labour/Conservative politician in power. On a global level Russia, China, France etc continually block UN Reponses in the UN. Nothing new there.
I do not think from a strategy perspective that it is in anyone’s interest other than Hezbollah to have a ceasefire. I think it is important that we look to solve the problem i.e. get rid of Hezbollah rather than treating the symptoms. That is what everyone appears to be working towards now. A long term solution. Hezbollah will not like that because they cannot exist in a peaceful Middle East.
In you analogy Dave the reason that the UK would not respond to a French attack in a similar manner is because we are talking about a one off incident. If however the froggies had been doing this for 30 years plus i.e. supporting and arming a terrorist group whose stated aim is the destruction of the UK then I think you would see probably a much bigger response from the UK akin to all out war. However we know that unlike Lebanon the French would not tolerate and nurture the existence of any such group on their territory. Hezbollah are a bunch or heavily armed Militia whose only aim is the destruction of Israel. How do you negotiate with that?
One thing I do agree with you on Dave is “to indiscrimately kill women and children is an act of barbarism, irregardless of which side of the fence you are sittingâ€ÂÂ
 <br>Actually there were only a few rockets today compared with 100s over the previous days. As I said before the Israeli strategy is clearly flawed, but probably only in the short term. In the long term it may have the effect of making the point to the Lebanese people if you allow these terrorists in your country then that is what will happen when they attack Israel in this way.
At least the Israeli’s are trying to minimise civilian casualties whereas Hezbollah are firing randomly in the hope of killing as many innocent civilians as possible.
As a general rule of thumb I do tend to consider terrorists and anyone who deliberately targets innocent civilians’ bad guys
On a global level Russia, China, France etc continually block UN Reponses in the UN. Nothing new there.
Hmmm.
Do you know how many times each of the 5 permanent members have used their vetos in the last 15 years?
Do you want to have a guess which country has used their veto most often?
Do you want to have a guess which country most of those vetos have centred around?
Here’s a clue:
"Between the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the end of 2004, vetoes were exercised on 19 occasions. For that period, usage breaks down as follows:
– the United States used the veto on 13 occasions (11 regarding Israel, 1 Bosnia, 1 Panama)"
(From en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Security_Council_Veto_Power)
And then of course, this pacifying Southern Lebanon isn’t a new thing is it ..
.. the good old days, when nobody targetted innocent civilians, especially not the Isrealis and their Christian Fascist Allies.
Phew!  <br>Where does one begin – think I’ll make myself a cup of coffee before knuckling down to my dose of repetitive strain syndrome induced by the TRF’s middle-east protagonists.
GH<br>
Also, your use of the word ”especially” is a patent nonsense – civilian causalties of conventional war massively outweight those ever caused by ‘terrorism’. ÂÂÂ
<br>Won’t labour the point: of course civilian casualties  in conventional warfare outnumber those of terrorism – I never suggested otherwise.  Although all killing is tragic,  there is no equivalence between the terrorist murder and the "conventional" war death (hence the "especially" ). There is something insidiously ignoble, cowardly and nasty in deaths caused by the terrorist/sucide bomber a la Armagh, 7/7 tube bombings etc. There is no valour in terrorism.
SteveDG.  The use of the veto by the US more than the rest does not in itself mean their veto was used irresponsibly. It might just be that their take on things is right (if one can be as black and white as right and wrong) and the others in the security counsel wrong. Depends upon ones stance on the Israel / Palestine situation I suppose.  I don’t know who has been on the security counsel for the period you quote, but I’m sure they’re all glowing examples of democratic/human-right sensitive/ uncorrupted nations.
Trackside528.  500+ civilian deaths is indeed scant consolation and, as you (and others including me) have pointed out, will surely increase support for Hezbollah (especially if they watch ITV news).  But so long as Hezbollah base their men and ordnance amongst civilians the civilian casualties were bound to high. Hezbollah must share the blame for this (Although not if you work for ITN.)
Regarding the proportionality of Israel’s response to kidnapping of soldiers and rocket attacks on Israeli cities.  Citing deaths as ITN do like a rugby match score (Lebanese 500 v Israel 51) is disingenious: the positioning of Hezbollah missile launchers in populated areas was always going to skew  deaths in this way and (as intended) give the impression of Israeli over-reaction. Hezbollah are no friend to the Lebanese and have shown themselves happy to place innocent Lebanese in the front line to further their aims. Why doesn’t ITN etc emphasise this nasty part of Hezbollah’s strategy and blame them at least in part for civilian deaths? It is naive and cock-eyed to view Lebanese civilian deaths as solely the Israelis’ responsibility.
Unfortunately, Israel was not in a postion to sit back and do nothing even if by taking the military option they also enter a no-win scenario.  Once it decided to respond with force, it had to be as effective as possible. They have seemingly made errors but that doesn’t detract from the rectitude of their actions.
(Edited by insomniac at 7:52 pm on July 31, 2006)<br>
(Edited by insomniac at 7:54 pm on July 31, 2006)
But so long as Hezbollah base their men and ordnance amongst civilians<br> insomniac Posted on 7:51 pm on July 31, 2006
<br>This is propaganda, there are no rockets launched more than 15 miles from the border. Beruit is 100 miles away and that has been extensively bombed, including the International Airport. There were no rockets launched from the UN post either .. !!
I like dealing with facts personally, in between the webs of lies and deciept we know that places are being bombed where we KNOW there are no rockets. They tell us (or ask us to believe) the opposite, some people choose to do that, for reasons best known to themselves.<br>:cool:
OK so the Hezbollah are not firing from civilian houses.
There were not over 100 missiles fired from the locality of the UN base or the Qana tragedy around the time off and in the days prior to them being hit.
Hezbollah are not firing indiscriminately against innocent civilians on the Israeli side of the border.
The Lebanese infrastructure is not being targeted by Israel as part of a long term strategy to oust Hezbollah. It is the Israelis that are just trying to kill as many innocent civilians as they can.
Hezbollah can do what they want because they are the good guys. US, UK & Israel are all baddies.
Think I understand now because these are the "facts".
Think I will get back to horse racing now.<br>
.. oh, you almost forgot .. Hezbollah are firing short range rockets with a range of 7 miles from Beriut. It must be all that praying .. bless em !!
:biggrin:
SteveDG. The use of the veto by the US more than the rest does not in itself mean their veto was used irresponsibly. It might just be that their take on things is right (if one can be as black and white as right and wrong) and the others in the security counsel wrong. Depends upon ones stance on the Israel / Palestine situation I suppose. I don’t know who has been on the security counsel for the period you quote, but I’m sure they’re all glowing examples of democratic/human-right sensitive/ uncorrupted nations.
Insomniac, I quoted those figures in response to Kevin’s claim that:
"Russia, China, France etc continually block UN Reponses in the UN. Nothing new there."
The facts point out that it is simply not the case.
Steve
Just because one side have smart costumes on, doesn’t make it better, alright or acceptable, in my book.
Yeah.
What’s this big thing about people "not coming out and fighting"?
If you were massively overpowered militarily, would you want to fight in an open field?
Particularly if the other side has an airforce and you didn’t have a single plane?
Sounds like shooting fish in a barrell .. and you get to be the fish.
But, because we’re the side with the planes and the big supply of modern weapons, we call that "cowardly".
Except, I’ve got this funny notion that , had the Nazis beaten us in WW2, and destroyed our military, we would have ended up fighting that way too.
And, after sending the Nazis home, we would have remembered our "terrorists" as national heros.
Steve
Bitterly ironic, really. The constant American bleating about cowardly terrorists is both a paradox and a hypocrisy.
Had the fledgling American rag-tag and bobtail collective of puritans, farmers, labourers, local natives and scheming Frenchmen fought in squares, in daylight, with bright red uniforms and on open fields back in the 1760’s, the now bullying superpower would still be playing cricket and drinking tea.
Just a thought.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.