Boo!

jeeeeeeeeezzzzzuuus,. man, why ya'do that.... nowe I's gone and pressed that big red button ..... oh., Lordy man, says your prayers.....

It does my heart good to see the mood lighten in this thread ..... slightly. :)

As a person that sees this issue with Network news eyes and lack of immediate personal connection, I view this thread with wonder while watching obviously intelligent gents and ladies lob verbal grenades at one another in hopes that the other's wits will be distracted briefly in order for their well informed point of view to inflict the fatal blow. I am impressed (absolutely no sarcasm) at each of your abilities at avoidance of each others salient points, but I am really, really interested in seeing if some one can solve this.

I appreciate the comments that the first step, "an honest broker", is not immediately apparent. Can we get further in a discussion if we go in reverse ? What if we start at the solution and work backward?

Let's say we start with our objective: A Lasting Peace between both Parties!
What is the step immediately before that? For the sake of discussion, I would offer the following general concept , but expect the experts to fill in the actual facts.

Goal: A lasting Peace between both parties.
Step 298: Each party agrees the other is not an insufferable bastard that is intent ONLY on annihilating the other.
step 297: Each part agrees the other is POSSIBLY not an insufferable bastard that is intent ONLY on annihilating the other.
step 296. etc...

Don't be silly, we can't solve anything. Even if we could come up with a viable solution, nobody would listen to us anyway.
The people who wield the power, the ones that can have meaningful influence on the situation, all have their own axes to grind, their own positions to defend.

They don't even care if we have a viable solution and may not even care if we have an opinion. I may be wrong on the opinion part, considering how Hezbollah has cranked up the spin machine to feed the media. Much better than the IDF has. :(

I would love to see the Magnificent Brits take over. They are so cultured, so fair, so very superior...one might even say they are the Master Race! It is glaringly apparent that a Brit, and ONLY a Brit (and I mean the REAL Brits, not the nasty, brutish Irish or silly Scots) can solve the worlds problems. Let's forget the fact that most of Africa's problems were caused by them via slicing up the continent to suit them and France, or that they had that little experiment with allowing Ireland to starve tp death and many, many more little, insignificant things. I'm sure they'll get right on it.


Right after tea, eh? You'll get right on fixing the world? Right?

I'll just sit back and wait for the Mighty British to come to their senses and SAVE the earth.

erm...Check your history. Didn't they have their turn already?

OH! But they are REfreshed! They are sooo ready to right the wrongs! Be the Morally Superior among us! Show the World the WAY!!!


or, haven't you read JAYMCGEE's posts?

Foul!
Condemning all Brits for the statements of a few is exactly what they were doing to us, that got your panties in a bunch in the first place.

Don't stoop to their level.
Chin up, chest out (Hmmm, my favorite part), now go forth unsullied and proud. :us:

well...only coz it's you, bruce...

You had your chance, brianna.....

if you''d paid the tea tax, you coluld still have been a brit....

*Fucked* up.
 

Israeli children signing missiles to be dropped on Lebanon as a gift.

No, I don't have an attribution, it arrived in my email yesterday.

:mad: :( :worried: :evil3: :thepain: :angry: :cry:

Yeah, I can understand the rage and anger, but it's still very sad. Especially since, more than in any conventional war, some of these shells may be landing on other children.

It's like some bizarre party game. Instead of Coke and Pepsi, let's play artillery and missiles!:headshake

Aw, let 'em play. they could be dead tomorrow.:mad:

Hell, if someone had handed me a marker and a stack of shells after 911 I'd be writing till my hand cramped

"Brit" wouldn't be a status extended to Colonials...even though they were still HM's subjects.

Unless of course they were colonials of Brittania.

Would you have taken your children and had them autograph them too? I will consider your answer carefully.

It's probably better than fitting them for toy suicide bomber vests.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/grap...29/wmid29.jpeg

Haven't seen many blonde suicide bombers. :rolleyes:

That's the first time I've seen the Reuters tag on that photo. Did they fall for the joke, too?

How many suicide bombers have you seen? You wouldn't be doing racial profiling now, would you?

Maybe blondes tend to filter themselves out early. ("Is *this* the right button?")

Or, considering how kiddie-porned up the pic is, maybe the child isn't as blonde as the pic is.

No, not profiling. I've seen quite a few pictures of the remains. The heads are usually more intact than the rest of them. :greenface

"A party where they dressed the cutest baby as a suicide bomber..."

What the fuck is WRONG with these people?:mad:

Same thing that's wrong with this guy, I think. :confused:

Moral equivalance? I think not.

I have considered your answer carefully, and I disagree. Both are reprehensible. Especially considering that the vest is almost certainly fake, and the artillery shells are almost certainly real. Additionally, I imagine what message is being sent to the children in each situation. For the "baby-bomber" it is no more than another dress-up, and certainly all the meaning is in the mind of the adult(s). For the kids signing the shells, at best they're being lied to, at worst they're being taught to hate. The baby is not being taught to hate, but those laughing at the unfunny joke have plenty of it.

My point is that it is wrong, in the worst possible way, to teach children to hate.

Really? They were both simply joking.

The hell sie isn't. Even if the lessons have begun before they can be completely understood, they surely will continue (at brainwashing intensity) throughout that baby's childhood. In fact, it's quite likely that baby will be issued a working suicide vest before the lessons can be completely understood.

Unless the whole area craters in the next 10 years.

The toy vest is reminicent of the cap-and-gown graduations they run for preschoolers these days. The diplomas aren't real working degrees, but they represent aspirations.

I weep for the victims of baby brainwashing. These kids all died of liver disease by age three.

I'll bite, MaggieL.

Tell me what you think the baby's learning from what you can glean from that picture, please.

Now tell me what you think the two young girls in the previous picture are learning, please.

Now compare those two learning experiences. I will concede that a baby that age in proximity of adults stoopid enough to create such a photo will be surrounded by hate and learn accordingly. But I wasn't hypothesing about the future of the subjects of the pictures, I was talking about what's happening during the snapshot.

Feel free to brandish your "moral equivalence" crutch if you're not afraid to have it kicked out from underneath you. I'll repeat: Both are reprehensible. When you say "but not as bad as this..." you sound like a child justifying their part in some petty quarrel. [whine]But he hit me *first*! waah waah waah...[/whine].

They're **both** fucked up. If you can't acknowledge that, you have earned my disdain. If you can't understand that, you have earned my pity.

One word: madrassas.

I spoke of the child's entire trajectory until being issued a real vest. That he (if he is as is implied by the vest, male) will be groomed as a jihadi. doesn't take amazing insight.

I understand your position, I just think you're full of poop. And if you don't think you're leaning hard on "moral equivlance" with this line of yours, you don't earn my pity, because your blindness is wilful.

That's pretty amazing, considering how "intact" the heads must have been before detonating.

Would I take my child to sign artillery shells Bruce? Not if they were as young as the girls in the photo, I wouldn't ask my children no matter what age. But if I had a 16 or 17 year old that was suffering the same as I was and losing people they cared about, I would just quietly let them do as they wished. Those girls have been raised in a country haunted by bombings and terrorist killings, I'd imagine those girls know exactly what they want done with those shells and arn't afraid to make their sentiments known. Think of what it would be like if New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and other cities in the US were having buses blown up like what happens in Israel? How long do you think it would take the kids in those cities to go from wondering why it was happening, to wondering why people would do that, to hating the people responsible, to wanting them dead.

Can you imagine what it must be like to have to add a talk about "why did those men kill mommy/daddy/my best friend's dad/my best friend's mom" to the list of parental turning points?? I doubt you would give them a lecture on the history of Middle Eastern conflict. "They want us all dead dear" would be just as accurate.

Now, if I had to guess they probably aren't addressing those shells to the Lebonese in general. Israeli children by this point are probably savy enough to know their terrorist organizations by heart.:thepain:

You know, I did wonder why the hands off attitude towards the Middle East until it hit a flashpoint? Did Iraq use all of our diplomatic resources?

An ABCNEWS video report makes me wonder. Could large numbers of people really want a Mideast conflict and WWIII as a path to Heaven?

Whoa, man..... BigV asked that question, not me. :headshake

err, sorry about that little mixup:redface:

Considering that within a year they might be *firing* those shells.

Our what? What year are you living in, man?

I think it's fairly safe to say that children who have been born into the sort of horror so many of these children have would unfortunately have had their innocence stolen from them many years before their time. So, I'd say that yeah, they know what they're doing. They've been taught that if you don't get them first, they'll get you soon. If that's hate then that's what they've been taught. I'd hazard a guess and say it's probably more likely a case of self preservation which is innate in most human beings.

Either way it's heart wrenching no matter which way you look at it. Arguing about it on a stupid website doesn't help and it's definitely not going to stop it happening.

The other pictures are just stupid set ups and the parents are simply brainless to think anything like that could be funny. What morons...

I think what the children are being taught is fear. The hate that just naturally follows the fear, doesn't have to be taught. :(

Check this out ...

http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=1...ghlight=beirut

Check this out ...
 

Check this out ...

http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=1...ghlight=beirut

Post an opinion tjauh. We all know that most of the picks out of Lebanon are real.

tjauh has an agenda, not an opinion.

Apparently the last one for this planet.:right:

Thousands of civilians are fleeing the war northbound. The Israelis said this was Hezbollah transporting weapons into battle? The war is not about Hezbollah. It has exposed a racist and 'disproportionate' aggression unique to Israel. From the New York Times of 12 Aug 2006: An honest and moral Israeli army would have doubted cars headed north are Hezbollah weapons headed south. But this is a war where anything Arab is evil. Anyone fleeing the war must be the enemy. Even the Red Cross is often attacked only because it might be Hezbollah. 90% of innocent Lebanese are justifiable targets - even in the most northern town of Tripoli.

Moral Israelis that some here routinely assume are the good guys?

Indeed.

If it's moving. it's Hezbollah fighters re-deploying..

If it's not moving, it's Hezbollah fighters digging in...

send in the clowns^h^h^h^h^h^h^h bombers

Hez is the target, and anything Arab believes Israel is evil. Remember that Hezbollah is a political party in Lebanon and operates with official status, so Israelies probably don't see the Lebanese and Hezbollah as two completely separate groups. I think that the many of them don't draw much of a line between the two at all, much as if Canada invaded the US and said they were going after republicans. It's a war between Israel and Lebanon, Lebanese are going to die.

and you're comfortable with this?

Sure. These people had no problem with Hezbollah killing Israelies, they gave them legitimate status and became complicit in the party's actions. If Hezbollah was ruling the nation under martial law and the Lebanese were protesting the terrorist attacks against Israel, then it would be inappropriate to involve them.

Now learn perspective. Hezbollah and Israel were slapping each others face. It was that normal and that irrelevant. How many times did you learn about Hezbollah kidnapping Israeli soldiers only to have them exchanged for prisoners? 5? I will bet you did not even know this occurred repeatedly without any military action. So why did you not know this? Because killing a few on the other side is routine. Why did you not know this? Why suddenly do you have veins hanging from your teeth with each post? Maybe the local extremists have you all emotional. That would be the accurate answer.

Posted elsewhere were some basic questions that you knew every answer to ... if you had basic knowledge of the region.

Instead you have this 'they want to kill everyone' attitude - which is exactly what Cheney and Limbaugh want you to believe.

The honest interpretation is both Israelis and Hezbollah deserve to suffer deaths because neither is good. And the Lebanese people are 100% victims.

Why did Lebanon break down into civil war last time? Because Israel invaded with no reason - no justification. Why did those we now call Hezbollah welcome Israelis with flowers and rice? And most important, why did you not know this ... but somehow know who is good and who is evil.

We know one fact. Those 90% of Lebanese are 100% victims of Israel. Israel has no problem killing anyone who is not Israeli or Jews. Just ask the crew of the USS Liberty. Oh, that too was an accident? Just ask the people of Lebanon about accidents all the way up to Tripoli. Or maybe you forget this same nation took the world closest ever to nuclear holocaust - even closer than the Cuban Missile crisis? Oh. You don't know that fact either? Do you forget history or do you just automatically know who is good and who is evil?

9th Engineer - you are, I assume 18. Therefore you entire knowledge of the world is only two years. Suddenly you know who is good and who is evil? A convoy of thousands moving north and north of the Latani river is attacked by Israel - because they thought this was Hezbollah weapons moving south. These are repeatedly not accidents.

As a maint Man said recently
" Fuck-em and feed em fish heads !!!!!
Those stupid bastardes have been killin each other off for centerurys ,
and even if we can take ALL their weapons away from them they will be killing each other off with rocks and sticks !!!!!!!"

There's a war going on over there. People die in wars...always.
Remember when the Marines rolled into Iraq....we killed a whole bunch of Marines by mistake....2nd company if I remember correctly.

Occam's Razor.... Never blame an evil plan when plain snafu is likely. ;)

C'mon Zippy, let us know how you feel about Arabs.

Fuck-em !!!!!!!!
" Fuck-em and feed em fish heads !!!!!
Those stupid bastardes have been killin each other off for centerurys ,
and even if we can take ALL their weapons away from them they will be killing each other off with rocks and sticks !!!!!!!"
Same shit different dialect !!!!
It is as STUPID as if the Cathlics and the Babtist were killing each other off over their own spin on religion !!!
There IS a God , weather his ( or Her ) name in Jesus , Allah , Budda , or Oden !!!
They NEED to understand that every body sees things differently , but it it ALL the same when you break it down to the BASICS !!!!!!

This attitude has merit. If American and European bombers bombed each side so that Israeli and Arab deaths were equally proportional, then all would sue for peace. In such conflicts, human life has no value. Until the underlying principles are solved (addressed), humans will continue to die uselessly and anyway.

Massive death rates on all sides means centrists - the intelligent people - are driven from the ranks of extremists. Only then can peace happen. It solved the Balkans quickly when suddenly Serbians were dying in numbers equal to or higher than Croatians. It forced centrists to rise up and expell extremists from power. It solved the problem.

There is merit to what zippyt posts. However do we have the balls to attempt it? No. Because there is this other fact - our future relations with all those parties.

As so often happens, The Economist again provided another perspective. From The Economist of 5 Aug 2006 entitled "The war beyond the war":

Once again, tw is unable to support the democracy that's in the battle, and sides with the anti-democracy, by what seems to be emotional preference. Commie much? Definitely scummy.

tw has information, facts, statistics to back up what he's saying.

YOU have... McCarthian anti-leftism? "He's leaning towards the left! He must be a commie!"

Ibram, you'll find that his notions of what is fact, and what is righteous, are heavily influenced by his documentably communist beliefs. They are all over his writings, and evident in what he opposes and in what he supports. He makes no denial of being a communist -- he knows I've got his number too well.

He can't spell or edit. He particularly cannot get foreign terms correct. He handles written English like someone not born to it, as is particularly evidenced in the absence of articles. This is not someone to respect.

It's not that he leans towards the left so far as to be horizontal; it's that communists are going to fight with me anyway. They don't want to answer for the butcher's bill their habitual genocides have run up over the past ninety years. Between forty-one million and upwards of one hundred million folks killed off that don't seem to have particularly done anything to make them need killing tells me I'm right to tell tw where to get off and stay off. Check out the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership sometime -- they can give good information on the lethal habits of the un-democracies.

Sen. McCarthy had a brain tumor. I don't.

Just for the sake of making a good argument UG, if tw is so wrong you should be able to debunk him easier without insinuating anything about communism whatsoever.