Middle East erupts

[tw]

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:

Before Attack, Mixed Messages on Convoy’s Right to Go
More than a thousand Lebanese civilians from several southern villages were driving bumper-to-bumper down a road near the wine-making village Kefraya when the missiles hit around 9 p.m., said Ronitte Daher, a newspaper reporter from the village of Qlayah.

The people were fleeing villages that Israeli troops had recently occupied, and believed they had permission from the Israeli military to pass.

The Israeli Army, in a statement, denied it had granted permission, and said it had acted on the mistaken suspicion that Hezbollah guerrillas were smuggling weapons in the vehicles. It reiterated that it had banned the movement of cars south of the Litani River, though the convoy was hit well north of it [itallics added].

“We saw the light and the sound of the bomb,” said Ms. Daher, who was traveling in the convoy with her sister. “I got out of the car and heard voices of people crying and shouting.”

Between two and three missiles hit the convoy, eyewitnesses and officials said. Among the dead were a Lebanese Army soldier, a baker and a Red Cross emergency worker. A Lebanese Army unit had traveled with the convoy, leaving a base the Israelis recently occupied.

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?

[JayMcGee]

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

[9th Engineer]

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.

[JayMcGee]

and you're comfortable with this?

[9th Engineer]

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.

[tw]

Originally Posted by 9th Engineer

Sure. These people had no problem with Hezbollah killing Israelies,

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.

[zippyt]

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 !!!!!!!"

[xoxoxoBruce]

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.

[zippyt]

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 !!!!!!

[tw]

Originally Posted by zippyt

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.

[tw]

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

It is sometimes no bad thing to end with a draw. Lopsided victories, like the ones Israel won in 1948 and 1967, can leave a residue of hubris on one side and shattered pride on the other that block peacemaking for decades. By contrast, the war of 1973, which both Israel and Egypt claimed to have won, restored Egyptian honour and persuaded Israel that it was worth exchanging the Sinai peninsula for peace with its strongest neighbour. The Palestinian intifada of the late 1980s also ended in a draw of sorts. The Palestinians could not push Israel out of the West Bank and Gaza but nor could Israel suppress the Palestinian fever for an end to occupation. This was one of the things that helped convince Yitzhak Rabin of the need to give Yasser Arafat the embryo of what should have become an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza. ...

Despite the hundreds of dead, most of them Lebanese civilians, this has not yet been one of the more lethal regional wars. Yet it has already added disproportionately to the brimming pot of hatred. ...

These two countries do not in fact have much to quarrel about. There is between them no painful land-for-peace deal that has to be made, of the sort that Israel made with Egypt and must one day make with the Palestinians. (The “disputed” scrap of land known as the Shebaa Farms is at most a pretext Hizbullah uses to justify its fighting.) Indeed, a case can be made that this particular conflict is not primarily between Israel and Lebanon at all so much as it is between Israel and Iran, Hizbullah's mentor—and between America and Iran. That makes it much harder to resolve, not least because the superpower, so far from being a mediator, is in effect a protagonist, [boldface added] competing with Iran for domination of the post-Saddam Middle East, and to some extent tempted in this war to use Israel as a proxy.

This is a dreadful new turn. The century-long conflict between Zionism and the Arabs of Palestine has been hard enough to settle on its own, without additional global and regional rivalries superimposed.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

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.

[Ibby]

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!"

[Urbane Guerrilla]

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.

[WabUfvot5]

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.