Hezbollah night-vision gear manufactured in Britain
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/20/MNGK9KLVH41.DTL
The war on drugs and war on terror collide again. The UN comes down in favor of
do whatever the fuck you like and we'll give it cover of legitimacy. Fuck the UN.
Israeli intelligence officials have complained to Britain and the United States that sensitive night-vision equipment recovered from Hezbollah fighters during the war in Lebanon had been exported by Britain to Iran. British officials said the equipment had been intended for use in a U.N. anti-narcotics campaign.
Israeli officials say they believe the state-of-the-art equipment, found in Hezbollah command-and-control headquarters in southern Lebanon during the just-concluded war, was part of a British government-approved shipment of 250 pieces of night-vision equipment sent to Iran in 2003.
Israeli military intelligence confirmed that one of the pieces of equipment is a Thermo-vision 1000 LR tactical night-vision system, serial No. 155010, part No. 193960, manufactured by Agema, a high-tech equipment company with branches in Bedfordshire, England, and San Diego. A spokesman for Agema in San Diego denied all knowledge of the system.
The equipment, which needed special export-license approval from the British government, was passed to the Iranians through a program run and administered by the U.N. Drug Control Program. The equipment uses infrared imaging to provide nighttime surveillance that allows the user to detect people and vehicles moving in the dark at a range of several miles.
Yeah well, we're fairly annoyed with this :
British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett has protested to the US about its use of Prestwick Airport in western Scotland to transport bombs to Israel.
Amid the Lebanon crisis, she said it seemed the US was ignoring procedure, and she registered her concerns with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
SNP leader Alex Salmond claimed the UK government must decide whether to "be an aircraft carrier" for the US.
The Lib Dems suggested the Americans were taking the UK for granted.
Mrs Beckett was asked about the controversy after discussing the Middle East crisis with fellow foreign ministers in Rome.
"We have already let the United States know that this is an issue that appears to be seriously at fault, and we will be making a formal protest if it appears that that is what has happened," she said.
Opposition parties have reacted angrily to a report in the Daily Telegraph newspaper that two chartered Airbus A310 cargo planes filled with laser-guided bombs landed at Prestwick en-route to Israel from the US.
The Israelis have requested the munitions to attack bunkers being used by Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.
'Special relationship'
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell called for the UK government to respond.
"If these reports are true, it is particularly provocative for the United States to have acted in this way," he said.
"It can only reinforce the belief of many that Britain is taken for granted in the so-called special relationship.
"Who knows how many of these munitions may be used to cause the kind of damage to Lebanon which the prime minister of that country described in Rome as cutting his country to pieces."
I find being made unwittingly complicit in Israel's slaughterfest far more worrying than Nightvision goggles finding their way to Hizb'allah
Yeah well, we're fairly annoyed with this :
And the relevance of that to this thread would be...what?
I swear to fucking god, who, for one minute, thinks you can give someone any kind of technology and expect them to use it for just the things you want them to?
"I'm shocked to discover gambling in this establishment."
If people had any moral scruples, I doubt there'd be a war. In the meantime, why act shocked when people start shooting at you with guns that they were asked not to use when they were purchased?
There are a lot of good excuses, but "you were asked not to use your whopping expensive, highly regulated night vision goggles" isn't one of them.
If I was at war with someone, (for the record I am not) I'd use everything in my arsenal to conquer my adversary. Maybe especially more so if you asked me not to.
But then, I'm just a wee bit hot and tired and sticky right now.
Nightvision goggles arrive with one side of this conflict......bombs are sent to the other. I find it very difficult to be outraged about the nightvision goggles.
Nightvision goggles arrive with one side of this conflict......bombs are sent to the other.
Who did the UN send bombs to?
America sent bombs to Israel via Britain. Britain made the night-vision goggles which have ended up in hizb'alla's possession.
America sent bombs to Israel via Britain. Britain made the night-vision goggles which have ended up in hizb'alla's possession.
Yes, and Iran sent missles to Hezbullah too. Along with the night-vision stuff.
But the UN sent the NV gear to Iran. They're supposed to be supervising the ceasefire.
This sort of situation really, really infuriates me. This is slightly out of context but on topic - has anyone seen the film No Man's Land? It's a film set during the Bosnian conflict of the early 90s; it's brilliant and i thoroughly recommend it. Anyway, during this film (i won't give anything away) a soldier comes across one of the enemy's equipment crates. In this area he finds a number of undeployed mines which he appears ecstactic about; not because they are mines, but for the fact that inscribed into the base is, "Made in E.U.".
When I first saw this film, I knew very little about the arms trade, but to this day the circumstance of sending in peacekeepers to prevent civilians, paramilitants and soldiers for dying from exposure to Western equipment confounds me as blatant failure of logic for the bodies that oversee the arms trade. I know it's not quite as simple as, "The UK (and others) are only going to permit the construction of arms for national use, not for export" due to the usual economy ( see
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5262120.stm), politics and even potential moral obligation, but surely there must be a way?
Would it be anti-democratic to not allow sales (for example) of UK produced weapons outside of the commonwealth or the EU? :confused: Sigh... there's no easy answer to a situation like this I guess.
Would it be anti-democratic to not allow sales (for example) of UK produced weapons outside of the commonwealth or the EU?
I'd be totally up for that as long as long as others (like the US) followed the same strictures.
People who intend evil will find weapons or make them. I guess somebody had to sub for the Russians, who got caught supplying NVG to Saddam. But then apparently the Russians are also supplying Hezbollah with missles through Iran and Syria.
But when the UN providing Iran with dual-use military equipment, it's either naive or disingenuous to expect them to supervise a ceasefire and disarm Hezbullah. They didn't follow through on what was in the last resolution, why would they do it on this one?
It's the usual shell-game...
Frankly, I'd love it if every industrialized nation on earth kept their military equipment strictly to themselves. You don't need an modern industrial base to create a military force anymore. Just buy, beg or steal what you need off the bloated world arms market. If you're on the right side we'll even give them away to you. Sure would make wars a lot harder to wage in the Third World if there wasn't a huge surplus pool of AK-47s and RPGs and other toys floating about.
Needless to say. Too late now.
People who intend evil will find weapons or make them. I guess somebody had to sub for the Russians, who got caught supplying NVG to Saddam. But then apparently the Russians are also supplying Hezbollah with missles through Iran and Syria.
The US is also supplying weaponry for this conflict.
The US is also supplying weaponry for this conflict.
"This conflict" is a nice neutral way to put it.
Look, I'm weary of the moral equivalance spiel. Israel is trying to defend itself against a militia in civilian camoflage, puppets of Syria and Iran, who has sworn to wipe them off the face of the planet. When they try to do this, the liberals of the world rise up in unison Greek chorus about how awful it is. How long can you expect them to turn the other cheek and be good sports about this?
Do you beleive Israel has a right to exist at all? Because clearly this won't stop until Iran is satisfied, and they've stated what they want quite plainly. If you just want to see them overrun, be honest enough to say so openly.
[CENTER]
[SIZE="4"]When someone states that they intend to kill you, you would be wise to believe them. [/SIZE][/CENTER]
If you just want to see them overrun, be honest enough to say so openly.
I have no desire to see Israel overrun. I do however see Israel as the primary aggressor in that region. I do not believe that Israel should be destroyed. I do however, believe they should cease their illegal occupation of and consistant human rights abuses within Palestine. I also believe that if that were to occur, most of the aggression from other states, sympathetic to the Palestinian cause would die out. Hizb'allah is intrinsically linked to Palestine, they are of the same origin. Whilst it can be argued that Hizb'allah started this particular round of fighting with israel, it`can also be argued that their actions were in direct response to the aggression of Israel in Palestine.
Yes, I see them as an equivalence. No that does not mean I think Israel should be destroyed. Much of what is said relating to the 'total destruction' of Israel is empty rhetoric. Israel is far too powerful and well armed for Hez'bollah to do more than graze their edges. As indeed has been seen in this recent conflict. Meanwhile, Israel has launched such a devastation on the Lebanon that it's hard not to see it in terms of 'collective punishment'.
As I said earlier, weapons are being sent to both sides of this conflict.
I have no desire to see Israel overrun. I do however see Israel as the primary aggressor in that region. I do not believe that Israel should be destroyed. I do however, believe they should cease their illegal occupation of and consistant human rights abuses within Palestine.
"Palestine" is another pseudonational entity that has sworn their destruction. Transjordan was supposed to be the original "Palestinian homeland", and now they're back for yet another slice. And another, and another...they won't stop until Israel is gone, they've *said* so repeatedly.
Israel was sucessfully withdrawing from the West Bank and Gaza, but that was intolerable to generations of foreign-funded professional terrorists, who would have nobody left to kill but each other. So it was tunnels, missles and kidnapping, and the "primary agressor, moral equivalance" Greek chorus fires up yet again whenever Israel tried to stop it.
"Primary agressor" is meaningless here, unless you simply mean they are militarily stronger than any one individual identifiable group in the whole "kill the Jews" shell game. But what good is that if their hands are tied from defending themselves?
There's no "human rights abuse" like having a Semtex-n-shrapnel vest go off next to you on the bus or in the pizza shop. How'd you like to have somebody "grazing the edges" of Halifax with random missiles and suicide bombers? If you wouldn't tolerate that, why should Israel?
There's no "human rights abuse" like having a Semtex-n-shrapnel vest go off next to you on the bus or in the pizza shop
How about having your home demolished whilst you are still inside it? Orhaving your child shot at by snipers as they walk to school?
I would not like Halifax to experience what Israel is experiencing. But I would also be appalled if my Government and military were acting the way Israel is.
I think this is one of those issues on which we are never going to find even the tiniest little piece of common ground.
During the 60s and 70's , Israel wa fighting for its survival via the 6-days war, the constant PLO hi-jackings et al. Most of us rooted for them in those days. Occupy the West Bank and the Golan Heights, turn them into buffer zones.... sure , wise move that.
And then the settlers moved in...... and now Israel is no longer protecting it's homeland but the illegal setttlements as well.
I would not like Halifax to experience what Israel is experiencing. But I would also be appalled if my Government and military were acting the way Israel is.
What would you have them do?
Just smile, turn yet another cheek and be "tolerant and understanding of the plight of their adversaries"? Turn over yet more land? They've already said they won't rest until they have it all and the Jews are gone. At least when appeasing Hitler there was an
excuse for beleiving he'd be satisfied with each next demand he made. Here there is not even that.
The Israelis just want to be
left the hell alone, but that isn't in the cards; their very existence is overt anathema to their enemies. They are "non-competitive states" in the sense of
Ralph Peters essay. Israel's enemies are devoted to outdated cultures that simply do not function--by any objective measure you can name--and it is unnecessary to "understand them fully" to see this. So their response is to pronounce both Israel and those in the West (cultures I feel certain
they do not "understand fully") evil and condemn us to death in fatwas.
Perhaps we shall never find common ground on this; that much seems likely. i And perhaps suicide murders and random jihadist violence in the country towns nestled in the hills around Hallifax may remain only a disturbing hypothetical that you can push off the stage and into the back of your mind. In "
A View From The Eye Of The Storm", Haim Harari writes
If part of the public supports it, others tolerate it, many are afraid of it and some try to explain it away by poverty or by a miserable childhood, organized crime will thrive and so will terrorism. The United States understands this now, after September 11. Russia is beginning to understand it. Turkey understands it well. I am very much afraid that most of Europe still does not understand it. Unfortunately, it seems that Europe will understand it only after suicide murders arrive in Europe in a big way. In my humble opinion, this will definitely happen. The Spanish trains and the Istanbul bombings are only the beginning. The unity of the Civilized World in fighting this horror is absolutely indispensable. Until Europe wakes up, this unity will not be achieved.
But to most places in Israel these murders are not hypothetical. Nor on the streets of Manhattan. Nor the London Underground. I don't think blaming those victims is a viable strategy.
It's fairly clear that both sides of this conflict are guilty of criminal activity. Both sides are at fault.
The other thing that's pretty clear is that Israel is supported by some states and Lebanon et el are not simply on the basis of religion.
That is criminal.
There must be a better answer than this!
It's fairly clear that both sides of this conflict are guilty of criminal activity. Both sides are at fault.
That's the "moral equivalance" argument again, and I say it's bullshit. There's no equivalance here.
I would say that the UN is in no position to tell either side what to do untill it can manage to secure the region militarily. It's like two people who refuse to keep punching each other, even if one of them wants to stop they know that doing so will only mean getting an even more severe beating.
I've been wanting to scream this for a while so I'm going to get it off my chest:
WHY THE HELL DO WE THINK THE U.N. IS STILL CAPABLE OF DOING THEIR JOB IF THEY CAN'T EVEN SEND 20,000 TROOPS TO SECURE A SMALLISH AMOUNT OF LAND!!!!
They make the current administration here look like a bunch of Cambridge scholors for pete's sake!:rar:
9th Engineer summed up exactly why I refuse to commit to a side in this conflict. I'll defend either side just as readily as I'll denounce them, because both sides are EQUALLY in the wrong. Neither side can stop until the other does, and neither side will stop first. It's just a vicious cycle of destruction. I don't give a flea's fart about "moral equivalance", whatever the fuck that actually means. Both sides are in the wrong. This has been going on too long to even try to determine who started it or whos fault it is or who is in the right, but it is possible to determine that both sides should have stopped by now. I blame both of them.
That's the "moral equivalance" argument again, and I say it's bullshit. There's no equivalance here.
That's right. One side is innocent and the other is not. One side has killed no civillians and the other has. One side has always acted in a 'christian' manner. The other has not. One side is better than the other...more worthy...more honest.
That's a bigger load of BULLSHIT if you ask me.
This is one of the central flaws of liberalism. Faced with violence, enacting their core psychodramas lead them to be driven by a need to become visibly and dramatically verklempt with "compassion for a victim". Unfortunately this somehow robs them of the ability to be dispassionate long enough to reason out who is actually responsible for the violence.
When Hezbollah kills civilians by hiding among them after an attack, it's the Israelis who are to blame rather than Hezbollah, who has turned their homes into missile emplacements and mosques into armories and munitions magazines. When a teenager is killed helping a drug dealer commit a burglary, it's the farmer defending his home and property who is somehow at fault, rather than the career felon corrupting the morals of a child.
When the absurdity of the outcomes of this political correctness becomes unsupportable, they trot out the last line of defense: the "everyone is to blame/equally at fault" moral equivalance song.
More complicated it gets with this situation. US supplied Stingers to the Mujaheddeen to get rid of the USSR helicopters, this turned the war in Afghanistan around. Currently 1500 Stingers are still in the possession of the (Muslim) Mujaheddeen and some have been used against El Al airplanes (Africa). How about that, MaggieL?
Bush Sr channelled $ 5 Bio through CIA´s Chile contacts to sponsor Saddams arms supplies.
War needs suppliers and it´s utterly hypocrite to condemn one side.
War needs suppliers and it´s utterly hypocrite to condemn one side.
But the UN isn't supposed to be "one side". They were supposed to be monitoring the peace while Lebanon disarmed Hezbollah. Now they're supposed to be doing it
again, and already France and Lebanon are wimping out, since Hebollah got what *they* wanted.
What was supposed to be "no weapons" has somehow morphed into "no
visible weapons"; i.e. Hebollah will still be armed, but we'll play another "don't ask don't tell" game.
Untll Iran needs another distraction, anyway. That should be in about 30-60 days, I'd guess.
I just don't consider contravening multiple UNSC resolutions to arm a terrorist militia surrogate of a third party nation, concealing itself in a civilian population to be the "moral equivalant" of directly selling arms to a legitimate government for its own defense.
You lost me here Maggie. What has the UN to do with the British manufactured goggles? Maybe you need a disctraction too?
BTW Aug.22nd is very important to Iran re the 12th Imam
Currently 1500 Stingers are still in the possession of the (Muslim) Mujaheddeen and some have been used against El Al airplanes (Africa). How about that, MaggieL?
Well, it's a shame. But the Stingers were supplied to the Mujahedeen in hopes they could defend their homeland from Soviet invasion. I'm sure OBL has a bunch of them by now. It would have required quite a crystal ball to forsee those turns of events over that timespan.
But this NVG was given to Iran by the UN three years ago...just as the stink was rising about the Russians supplying the same kind of military tech to Saddam. That's not not the same thing at all; on that timesacle this outcome is a lot more obvious.
You lost me here Maggie. What has the UN to do with the British manufactured goggles? Maybe you need a disctraction too?
Maybe you need to read TFA.
"This conflict" is a nice neutral way to put it.
Look, I'm weary of the moral equivalance spiel. Israel is trying to defend itself against a militia in civilian camoflage, puppets of Syria and Iran, who has sworn to wipe them off the face of the planet. When they try to do this, the liberals of the world rise up in unison Greek chorus about how awful it is. How long can you expect them to turn the other cheek and be good sports about this?
Do you beleive Israel has a right to exist at all? Because clearly this won't stop until Iran is satisfied, and they've stated what they want quite plainly. If you just want to see them overrun, be honest enough to say so openly.
[CENTER][SIZE="4"]When someone states that they intend to kill you, you would be wise to believe them. [/SIZE][/CENTER]
Exactly... my mother always had an issue with the fact that when someone said "I'm going to kick your ass" I immediately hit them, usually knocking them out. I never pulled a punch in my life. Self defense is just that, keeping someone from hurting you and yours when you know that they will do so.
If they
say it, you have no choice but to believe them... always.
Waiting for them to hit you first is for idiots.
They have no reason to say it other than backing it up.
When the absurdity of the outcomes of this political correctness becomes unsupportable, they trot out the last line of defense: the "everyone is to blame/equally at fault" moral equivalance song.
Now wait just one cotton-pickin' second here... I'm not trying to use that as a 'last line of defense' or as moral equivalance or anything like that. I think that Israel is totally in the right
in this partucular scuffle. Hisballah IS totally wrong to do what they are doing, I completely agree. But in the more general "everyone in the area VS. Israel" game, I think both sides need to shut up and stop.
Are you understanding my argument at all now?
Now wait just one cotton-pickin' second here... I'm not trying to use that as a 'last line of defense' or as moral equivalance or anything like that.
That comment wasn't directed particularly at you.
But it certainly seems to me that the outcome of "both sides need to do ${X}" pronouncements is that Israel, being a nation, gets enormous international pressure to do ${X} and its enemies continue to do pretty much exactly what they please, because there is just about zero accountability for them...they're all operating as militias or terrorist cells or surrogates or factions or quasi-political-parties.
Hezbollah is a perfect example of this. When somebody knocks at their door for accountability, nobody's home, because they're not a nation. But turn around and everybody's telling you how "legitimate" they are because they have elected members in Lebanon's parliament. But when Israel respond to their military attacks, suddenly it's cast as an "unprovoked attack on Lebanon". It's just part of the same old shell game; high-stakes three-card monty.
It is worth taking into account that Iran is a very major conduit for heroin to the west and to their credit, the Iranians have been working hard to combat that and have lost quite a lot of troops in the process fighting well armed and organised drug-running groups.
Well if that wasnt really directed at me I retract any indignancy from that post.
And I agree that its hard to pressure an entity about as solid as jello, but my idealist "both sides need to just STOP" is just that, idealism, and ideally, the militant groups would decide to stop on their own because it's the best thing to do.
...Yeah, and ideally, I'd be a legal adult and could move back to the states without getting arrested.
...to their credit, the Iranians have been working hard to combat that ...
And on the other side of the ledger is giving away the equipment they were given for exactly that effort to their surrogates attacking Israel.
It would have required quite a crystal ball to forsee those turns of events over that timespan.
Not really. Even Stevie Wonder can see the trail of former allies turned enemy the US leaved behind the last 50 years, Saddam being one of them. Saddam´s Russian (and French) military supplies were mainly financed by Bush Sr´s Chile connection as you can read in the
Teicher Affidavit. As usual the world around you is bit more complicated than you think.
To accuse the UN that they knew 3 years ago that the night goggles would arrive with Hezbollah is simply proposterous.
US donates Israel $9.000.000.000 annually in funds and military supply, Hezbollah gets its supply from Iran, that´s how it goes in war, for centuries. Israel destroys Lebanon and Bush pays for it ($250 mio), how nice to have a sugar daddy around...:right:
Yes, but it's not like the equipment was given without good reason, or was given with that use in mind.
To accuse the UN that they knew 3 years ago that the night goggles would arrive with Hezbollah is simply proposterous.
They knew that the stuff was highly sensitive military equipment you can't just buy at the local Cop Shop.
Is it that big a stretch to think they'd give it to
their own milita surrogates? It's one thing to say "over 50 years many of the US allies have turned against the US, they should have known", but how hard is it to know that Hezbollah was
created by Iran?
No "turning" needed there...
As I recall, Saddam's major equipment we went up against in both wars was pretty much all Russian-supplied...so much so that the street value of Russian arrnor took a nosedive after Gulf War I. Whatever he got from us was mostly used up on the Iranians, either in combat or (in the case of combat aircraft, later) flown to their airbases as some kind of strange gift.
Hizbollah was created because of the Israeli occupation in Lebanon. The US and Israel should know by now that you cannot invade a country without repercussions.
Yes, Saddam used most of it against Iran and the Kurds as we know. Rumsfeld visit to Saddam was to emphasize that fact. That´s why Saddam´s removal was a major geopolitical strategic blunder by the Bush guvmint allowing Iran to become the regions most poweful nation. Bush Sr knew that geopolitical fact and left him in power. Bush Jr as we know has a mission from God and the neocons kidnapped his foreign policy with disastrous consequenses.
So, US supplies Israel, Iran supplies Hezbollah, what else is new? Whole industries depend on it. Read Pres. Eisenhowers Military Industrial Complex Speech:
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
Who was it that proposed we just increase the death toll to 30% on all sides? It may be disturbing, but we're comming down to the choice of either doing something like that or just forgetting the entire thing is going on. That is, unless the UN decides to do their job and act as an impartial military buffer, if the US does it we'll be screamed at for acting unilaterally again. Tell me, who polices the UN when gross negligence on their part allows this sort of situation to go on and on?
Hizbollah was created because of the Israeli occupation in Lebanon.
Beware the passive voice. It was created
by Iran as a surrogate; it didn't spring from the brow of Zeus.
Tell me, who polices the UN when gross negligence on their part allows this sort of situation to go on and on?
Nobody.
The whole situation sprung from the Zionist movement in the late 19th century.
Beware the passive voice. It was created by Iran as a surrogate; it didn't spring from the brow of Zeus.
MaggieL cannot acknowledge reality: Hezbollah was created by Lebanese in response to Israel's invasion followed by aggressive abuse of Lebanese civilians. Those same Lebanese first welcomed the Israelis with flowers and rice. Even the details - ‘flowers and rice’ - were reported in history. MaggieL must forget that detail. As Israeli soldiers abused Lebanese, then Hezbollah was created to defend Lebanon from Israel.
Why did Israel withdraw from Lebanon? Too many Israeli deaths as Hezbollah drove Israel from Lebanon. More details that MaggieL must forget when using a perspective of a world in black and white. Clearly Israelis wear white and Hezbollah wears black. Clearly the world is not about perspectives.
Then return to reality. When Israel and the 'abused victims in Lebanon' finally start negotiating, then Hezbollah will need not shop the world for tools to defend Lebanon.
Instead MaggieL says - in the great tradition of Gen Westmoreland - that all Hezbollah must be murdered so that peace will break out. That must be her conclusion when the world is about 'good verses evil'. She offers no other solution. Her world denies that Israel violence against Lebanese civilians that created Hezbollah.
MaggieL even forgets who arranged the massacre of 5000 Palestinian women and children. Clearly it must have been Hezbollah who wear black. White clad Israelis would never massacre those 5000 refugees? Not in MaggieL's world.
MaggieL must invent another boogey man: Iran created Hezbollah. So Iran also massacred those 5000 women and children? Of course. Color of clothes proves it.
Fashion sense to define evil just does not work. Hezbollah was create by Israel that invaded Lebanon (illegally) and then abused Lebanese civilians (justified by 'they are arabs; therefore they are niggers' attitude).
Notice, unlike MaggieL, I also define a solution: When Israel and the 'abused victims in Lebanon' finally start negotiating, then Hezbollah will need not shop the world for tools to defend Lebanon. But then I am not blinded by the colors 'black and white'. I am biased by reality and a world chock full of perspectives.
Dude, can you just address the issue instead of just saying that your opponents are delutional? Misquoting and personal attacks do nothing either.
Who was it that proposed we just increase the death toll to 30% on all sides? It may be disturbing, but we're comming down to the choice of either doing something like that or just forgetting the entire thing is going on. That is, unless the UN decides to do their job and act as an impartial military buffer, ...
Who also noted that a UN buffer force between two sides not yet ready for peace is foolhardy? Since no attitude yet exists among Hezbollah or Israelis, then a UN buffer force will only be victims. Notice why the UN cannot get 15,000 troops. The world is not stupid. That UN resolution does not even mention reasons for the violence: prisoners held by Israel without due process, almost zero kidnapped Israeli soldiers, Sheeba Farms, the reason for so much instability in Lebanon (Israel), or even who was killing UNFIL soldiers. Peace will break out when reasons for the violence were not even address? Who would be so naive as to believe that?
Only peace force that can work on that Lebanon border is one that numbers in the hundreds of thousands including aircraft with free reign to shoot down any Lebanon or Israeli planes that cross that border. Why so aggressive? Why is a Chapter 7 force required? Because both side do not yet want peace. This made worse because no honest broker exists in the region. And the reasons for violence were even ignored in UN resolutions - the US running interference for the seventh Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
Anyone with minimal intelligence would not send his soldiers into that peace mission. Conflicted parties have not yet even acknowledged they want peace. And a UN resolution for that peace force is based in political myths - if we just ignore the reasons for violence, then they will not exist.
Hezbollah was "not created by Iran" like Communist Cuba was "not created by the USSR." Without its sponsor it would be a booger in the nose of history.
via
...the formation of Hizbullah was clearly tied to the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon in June 1982, and the introduction of the Multi-National Forces (MNF). Further, the dispatch of 1,500 Iranian Revolutionary Guards to the Syrian-controlled Biqa' region in the summer of 1982, under the pretext of fighting Israel, brought Iran into Lebanon.2
It was then that Hizbullah was secretly formed under the sponsorship of Iran. The Syrian-Iranian agreement on stationing the Iranian Revolutionary Guards contributed to consolidating the emergence of Hizbullah, which further enhanced its power in Lebanon. At the same time, Sayyid Husayn al-Musawi protesting the participation of Amal's leader Nabih Berri along with Bashir Gemayel and others in the Salvation Committee--formed by President Ilyas Sarkis in June 1982 to face the repercussions of the Israeli invasion--decided to resign from Amal movement and announced from Ba'albek the birth of his own organisation, Islamic Amal.3
Working secretly under Iranian sponsorship, however, Hizbullah waited until 1984 to declare its own birth publicly through a communiqué, on the second anniversary of Sabra and Shatilla's massacre, promising 'to continue the march for the liberation of Palestine'.4
Both Hizbullah and Islamic Amal have utilised the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as an instrument for recruitment, training and indoctrination. From 1984 onwards, Islamic Amal was to become embodied in 'Ummat' Hizbullah according to al-Musawi.5
Thus, the Israeli invasion of June 1982 provided the key ingredient of crisis that accorded Hizbullah a combat organ, the Islamic Resistance (al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyyah) for its subsequent military activities.
Beware the passive voice. It was created by Iran as a surrogate; it didn't spring from the brow of Zeus.
MaggieL, I may not know much, but I'm pretty sure the passive voice wasn't created by Iran. They, Persia at least, do have a very long history, but the English language was really created in Europe. Iran had nothing to do with it.
Dude, can you just address the issue instead of just saying that your opponents are delutional? Misquoting and personal attacks do nothing either.
I can only assume 9th Engineer is posting to me. Nobody was misquoted as demonstrated by all the 9th Engineer specific examples. There are no personal attacks. MaggieL predicates her reasoning in myths - such as Iran created Hezbollah.
MaggieL makes a claim that Hezbollah was created by Iran. She provides no evidence. Facts posted contradict her assumptions; such as "Rice and Flowers". Abuse of Lebanese civilians. Those same "rice and flowers" people turned on Israelis for good reason - and created Hezbollah.
A most damning fact. Who drove Israel from Lebanon? Hezbollah - the only militia that has successfully protected Lebanon as defined by the reason that Hezbollah was created.
Show me this "personal attack". Where is a single example? Where is the logic to support that claim of "personal attack"? MaggieL does not even define a reasonable solution to this Hezbollah Israeli conflict other than by using Gen William Westmoreland logic. No insult there.
And no insult here either: when 9th Engineer also ignored the facts in that post. 9th Engineer: post reasons or examples of why my post was a personal insult. You did not. Instead, you posted a classic Rush Limbaugh decree. You made accusations and posted way too short - no supporting facts or examples. Only Rush Limbaugh types do that.
Meanwhile - which person also posted a solution? Solutions exist when a world is viewed in perspectives (not in black and white). Solutions can only exist when violence is replaced by negotiation. That is reality and even defined by the 'purpose of war'. None of that was a personal attack. MaggieL's only solution is to wipe out Hezbollah - as if that also worked in Vietnam.
Do you have a solution, Dude? I did not read one in a post of sound bytes.
MaggieL, I may not know much, but I'm pretty sure the passive voice wasn't created by Iran. They, Persia at least, do have a very long history, but the English language was really created in Europe. Iran had nothing to do with it.
OK, -10 points for unclear antecedant.
Hezbollah was "not created by Iran" like Communist Cuba was "not created by the USSR." Without its sponsor it would be a booger in the nose of history.
Sponsors are available most everywhere. You are using same reasoing that says "Because innovation needs capital to exist, then capital creates innovation." It is also a lie. "Because principles that liberated Cuba from Batista existed, then financial support for Cuba must have created those principles".
Again, UT, you must also say that the US created the IRA. To what purpose? To overthrow a UK government? To liberate Northern Ireland? Accoring to UT logic, the US created the IRA. Why do you repeatedly ignore this parallel example and still make claims that Iran creates Hezbollah? Its called a double standard.
The world is chock full of sponsors. Reasons for the movement - its strategic objective - create those movements. Hezbollah was created because Israelis attacked and abused Lebanese civilians. Israelis even made enemies of those who welcomed the Israeli invasion because Israel was that abusive of Lebanese civilians. Isreal created the reasons for Hezbollah. Only way around that fact is to deny reality in supporting facts.
Isreal created the reasons for Hezbollah. Only way around that fact is to deny reality in supporting facts.
Exactly, ever since the pre-emptive war doctrine of Bush (excluding ANY diplomacy), which Israel has now adopted, including it's disastrous results, the ME situation has deteriorated.
The worst scenario now is that, instead of making peace with it's neighbours, a strong man in Israel (like Netanyahu) will stand up, calling for a real solution, read total destruction of Lebanon and Syria, resulting in an Armageddon in the ME probably eventually resulting in a global meltdown. Maybe we can watch here the 1920-30's in the ME. There's a general consensus in Israel that the war was stopped too soon, which in fact is total bullshite and repressing the thruth.
As I mentioned before Israel wants a "Sieg bis zum Tode" a victory until death.
Israel needs to make peace, one way or another. Otherwise it will destroy itself, sooner or later.
As I mentioned before Israel wants a "Sieg bis zum Tode" a victory until death.
I am decisively announcing to the whole world that if the world-devourers wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against their whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all them. Either we all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom which is martyrdom. Either we shake one another's hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are ours.
mmmm....Maggie, just how different is that quote from 'if you ain't for us, you're against us'?
apart from being somewhat more flowery, of course.....
Just wondering, has Maggie an opinion of her own? Or just reproducing what she reads/hears?
you're in for it now...
...
...
...*hides somewhere with a good view*
mmmm....Maggie, just how different is that quote from 'if you ain't for us, you're against us'?
It's closer to "kill 'em all and let Allah sort 'em out"--which is also sometimes rendered as "Allah will know his own". . The difference being that it's the head of government (and religion, of course) in a high-school textbook.
Just wondering, has Maggie an opinion of her own? Or just reproducing what she reads/hears?
All my opinions are my own. I do occasionally listen to sources other than NPR, CNN, CBS, the NYT, MoveOn.org, Dailykos and DemocraticUnderground.
There are people whose opinions and comments I admire, and I'm not alone in being willing to use attributed quotes from relevant sources; if this impugns the independance of my opinions then that's tough. When something is well-said by another I'd prefer to quote them with credit than paraphrase and call it my own; agreeing with Pierre Bayle that “[t]here is no less invention in aptly applying a thought found in a book, than in being the first author of the thought.”
I've also found that being both queer and pro gun-rights does actually require a certain independance of mind.
All my opinions are my own.
Then why all these "quotes" in your above messages? Didn't you forgot Faux News in your reference list?
Then why all these "quotes" in your above messages? Didn't you forgot Faux News in your reference list?
No, I didn't forgot anything; if I were to quote Fox News I'd attribute it.
VBulletin provides quote markeup that essentially wraps the HTML blockquote tag, although the formatting is actually accomplished though CSS rather than <blockquote>. I use quotes when I'm quoting...are those scare quotes you've put around the word "quotes"? If so, why?
Then why all these "quotes" in your above messages? Didn't you forgot Faux News in your reference list?
Hip, you're being an ass. Drop it. You're attacking Maggie, rather than the arguments that she's making.
Neither side 'caused' this particular flareup. Hezbollah kidnapped some Israeli soldiers. Israel didn't negotiate this time. You could argue that they didn't because the Bush administration pushed them not to, but that's out of the realm of what I want to get into in this post. Both sides of this are f'ups. Hezbollah for being militant a'holes. Israel for being stupid enough to be bated into military action by this nonsense.
Rmemeber: this conflict has literally been raging for thousands of years. What do you think the Old Testament is about? One particluar tribe (the Jews) in the region that goes around getting its ass kicked or kicking ass, depending on which side of the Universe YHWH woke up on that day. None of it is going to make any damn sense.
Did I hit a nerve Head? I'm just asking for arguments, not quotes.
The Jews are claiming a piece of land because of the 80 years of the David Kingdom in the last 2500 years, some claim...
Did I hit a nerve Head? I'm just asking for arguments, not quotes.
The Jews are claiming a piece of land because of the 80 years of the David Kingdom in the last 2500 years, some claim...
You were, and are, resorting to ad hominem attacks and outright dismissal of an opposing viewpoint without providing a counter-argument.
No, you didn't ask for arguments, you complained about the style in which Maggie responded to you. You
implied that you were looking for a rational argument, but couched it in personally attacking terms. The stupidest part is, you completely missed the point of the quote. It, in and of itself, was an argument and then you were an dick about being ignorant.
So, in direct reponse to your question: Yes. You hit a nerve. I hate it when people argue like you just have. In counterpoint: do you have a problem with me calling :bs: when I see it?
Back on topic: yeah, that's the claim. Deal with it. Conversely, the state of Israel has to deal with the fact that there will/be is a Palestinian state, otherwise everyone's going to die.
I'm just asking for arguments, not quotes.
The quotes support the arguments. It's not my fault if you feel disadvantaged by that.
Seems to me that by erecting walls and withdrawing behind them, Israel was accepting the existance of a Palestinian state. In fact, they'd been collecting taxes for them. (But when a party took power that has the annihilation of Israel as a platform plank, they stopped providing that service. Boo hoo.)
The PA may not have been happy with the de facto boundaries...but even Arabs don't get to dictate terms after they've been defeated. It's just amazing to watch them time after time attack, get pushed back, and then when they've lost enough ground, suddenly the bazzar opens, the rug-merchantry starts, and it's time for the
other side to back up to the status quo ante, and then start making concessions to soothe the wounded Arab egos.
Then, having negotated something vaguely resembling peace, the attacks start again, this time perhaps from the new splinter group du jour. If peace ever were to be achieved, it would probably have to include welfare payments to all the poor unfortunate unemployed terrorists who must find new careers.
You were, and are, resorting to ad hominem attacks and outright dismissal of an opposing viewpoint without providing a counter-argument.
No, you didn't ask for arguments, you complained about the style in which Maggie responded to you. You implied that you were looking for a rational argument, but couched it in personally attacking terms. The stupidest part is, you completely missed the point of the quote. It, in and of itself, was an argument and then you were an dick about being ignorant.
So, in direct reponse to your question: Yes. You hit a nerve. I hate it when people argue like you just have. In counterpoint: do you have a problem with me calling when I see it?
Take 2 Prozac and call me in the morning. Again there were no viewpoints, only quotes. Go back and read. In the meantime Maggie has made her point as you can see.
Conversely, the state of Israel has to deal with the fact that there will/be is a Palestinian state, otherwise everyone's going to die.
I agree with you on this point.
I don't think Israel has ever espoused the goal of totally annihilating Palestine. They are vicious when provoked, but if no one is waging war on them they've never been conquerors.
The problem could maybe be solved by making Israel, with the West Bank, and Jordan a single political entity again, but no involved party is interested, and neither is any external party.
I don't think Israel has ever espoused the goal of totally annihilating Palestine.
So they just take over most all the good land in the West Bank, put up wall to claim land that they would otherwise not get, and call that fair? No different from the bully in a parking lot taking purses from old ladies. At least the old ladies leave with most of what they came with. Therefore that is fair. And that is MaggieL's agrument which is found mostly in extremist sources.
All depends on which Israel you are looking at. If looking at centrists, then no, they did not espouse the goal of totally annihilating Palestine. However if calling Israel the Likud Zionists, then yes, the purpose of every Israeli action is Pax Israel (annihilation of the Palestinians). Accoring to this latter group, all Arabs should go back to where they came from.
It is why Areil Sharon's attitude change after Arafat was gone made him persona non-grata in Likud Israel. His agenda was no longer the conquest of the West Bank and Gaza.
Maggie would have you believe that Israel would permit Palestines capital to be in East Jerusalem. That is why the wall is so many tens of miles inside the West Bank - to drive the Palestinians out of more land. That is the agenda of Likud extremists. Pax Israel - no matter how many myths and half truths MaggieL may post. Israelis don't wear white as MaggieL's sources would have us all believe.
Maggie would have you believe...
Nice straw man you have there.
No, I don't think Israel would give half of Jerusalem to the PA. Nor do I think they should. And it's too bad that the PA doesn't like where the wall is...but the wall is to keep terrorists out of Israel; if they were actually willing to allow Israel to exist (they aren't, remeber?), the wall would be unnecessary.
I think I have a pretty good idea of where the Palestinians would draw the borders if they were in control. But they aren't; the withdrawal was a unilateral action because negotiating with the Palestinians has proven a futile and pointless shell game for decades.
Israel is systematically destructing any prospects for a viable Palestinian existence as it annexes valuable land and major resources (water particularly), leaving the shrinking territories assigned to Palestinians as unviable cantons, largely separated from one another and from whatever little bit of Jerusalem is to be left to Palestinians, and completely imprisoned as Israel takes over the Jordan valley (and of course controls air space, etc.). Less than 11% of original Palestine land after 1967 is left over for the Palestinians and these are mostly separated from each other.
The "Hinkansut" or withdrawal (how cynic) is of course completely illegal, in violation of Security Council resolutions and the unanimous decision of the World Court (including the dissenting statement of US Justice Buergenthal).
The cantons are very much like the bantustans in S-Africa inflicted by the SA Apartheid regime which all the world hated. No wonder Mandela fully condems the Israeli Apartheid system.
I wonder what MaggieL would say if complete strangers would take over her house claiming their family lived there 150 years ago, exiled her to the backyard shed and even there has to give up half of that living space. Would she say: "It's too bad"?
Maggie wouldnt wait for them to get past the word 'family', she'd have 'both guns drawn' and firing. Well, drawn at least.
Maggie wouldnt wait for them to get past the word 'family', she'd have 'both guns drawn' and firing. Well, drawn at least.
Maybe in that case they would have to build a wall?
Your little analogy is flawed. Allow me to correct.
"complete strangers" - the Jews were already there and a substantial majority
"would take over her house" - have the UN partition the area previously partitioned by everyone else because it was useless and unwanted
"exiled her to the backyard shed" - because she refuses to share the area peacefully
"and even there has to give up half of that living space" - after she unilaterally attacks them from her area scores of times and loses
And let me finish your story with the words you keep leaving off the end of every post you write:
"...and that's why international terrorism is justified."
Can somone offer a plausible description of an end state to all of this that:
1) would be acceptable to Israel's enemies, and would not be followed by further terroristic attacks to see what further could be gained, and
2) leaves something recognizable as Israel in existence?
I remain unconvinced there is such a thing. Certainly Iran + surrogates seem to preclude such a possibility.
Actually, I do think that's possible. Look at Lebanon in the past five years (I mean besides the past 5 weeks): they'd managed to almost completely rebuild the city and start to make it a major metropolitan center again.
So, where is the actual problem?
Lack of REAL US interest in the region. Specifically, this Administration's complete lack of involvement in anything that isn't killing people and blowing shit up. Progress was being made betweent the Palestinian's and the Israeli's before 2001. And then, *POOF!* no more US involvement (anyone remember the Roadmap for Peace? Where'd that go?). America might have not been everyone's favorite country, but at least we were respected enough for warring factions to listen to us when we sat them down at a table like the Camp David Accords.
So, could I tell you what the plan would actually be? I could give you a general idea: more aid to countries where terrorist groups with domestic political wings are thriving. Co-opt the domestic wing through direct, low-interest loans (since the domestic and foreign policies of these groups are often wildly different, Hamas and Hezbollah are great examples) and you'll tame the wilder, more militant foreign wing by undercutting their base of support.
Take 2 Prozac and call me in the morning.
You're still an ass. I'm not sure if English isn't your first language or what, but I really wish you'd actually read what other people write before responding to it.
Maggie wouldnt wait for them to get past the word 'family', she'd have 'both guns drawn' and firing. Well, drawn at least.
Probably not even to the word "family".
Of course the analogy is false in multiple dimensions, as UT has enumerated.
stupidity on my part...feel free to ignore.
So, could I tell you what the plan would actually be? I could give you a general idea: more aid to countries where terrorist groups with domestic political wings are thriving. Co-opt the domestic wing through direct, low-interest loans (since the domestic and foreign policies of these groups are often wildly different, Hamas and Hezbollah are great examples) and you'll tame the wilder, more militant foreign wing by undercutting their base of support.
Ah...so that would be the "give them enough US money and maybe they'll stop attacking Israel" plan? It's not clear to me that there's any amount of money that the enemies of Israel would take in return for abandoning their principles. Which apparently can be summarized as "Death to The Great Satan and The Little Satan".
But I wasn't asking for a "plan to make things better" (which always somehow seems to involve giving US money away)...I referred specifically to an end state meeting two criteria. Because if there is no such end state, all the rest of this is just political masturbation.
I do think the fact that you'd rather describe
a plan to get somewhere rather than describing
the actual destination is telling. "It's not the destination, it's the journey", of course...and it's no coincidence that every leg of the journey ( you know, the one that used to be called "the peace
process") seem to have toll booths where the players get paid off on a regular basis.
So don't tell me how to get there (and how we haven't gotten there yet because not enough people have been paid off yet). Just describe the destination in a way that might convince me that there is such a place.
Good point, figure out where you want to go before you chose a map.:idea:
Islamic moderates are either very weak (in the sense of ability to retain, control and direct political power) or very cowardly. The only way they can have any influence is if we fund the payrole of their country??? We already pay for half the hellhole dumps in the world so that the incompetant (must be)
moderates there don't get replaced by psychopaths. I suppose this is nothing supprising after watching all the peace loving Islamic institutions in the US balk at calling the 'fringe extremists' what they are. I want to see these people show some backbone before I'll give them any respect.
"complete strangers" - the Jews were already there and a substantial majority
Interesting how the Zionist propaganda can distort reality. There was no majority of Jews in Palestine when Herzl started the Zionist movement in 1896 with his book “Der Judenstaat”. During that time less than 5% of the population in Palestine was Jewish.
"would take over her house" - have the UN partition the area previously partitioned by everyone else because it was useless and unwanted
It certainly was not useless and unwanted for the people who lived there originally and see their land being giving away to strangers because of some improper feel of guilty.
"exiled her to the backyard shed" - because she refuses to share the area peacefully
What would you do if your land and house was taken away by strangers?
"and even there has to give up half of that living space" - after she unilaterally attacks them
Again, sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. You cannot invade and occupy land without risking action from the opposite party. But I understand that’s difficult to grasp for people whos land has never been occupied.
Zionist propaganda never stops to point out that the Arabs want to destroy the State of Israel using this as a tool to establish the Greater State of Israel.
Fact is that
if Israel wants peace with its Arab neighbours then it can achieve it.
In 2003, Iran offered to negotiate all outstanding issues with the US, including nuclear issues and a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. The offer was made by the moderate Khatami government, with the support of the hard-line "supreme leader" Ayatollah Khamenei. The Bush administration response was to censure the Swiss diplomat who brought the offer.
In June 2006, Khamenei issued an official declaration stating that Iran agrees with the Arab countries on the issue of Palestine, meaning that it accepts the 2002 Arab League call for full normalization of relations with Israel in a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus. The timing suggests that this might have been a reprimand to his subordinate Ahmadenijad, whose inflammatory statements are given wide publicity in the West, unlike the far more important declaration by his superior Khamenei. Just a few days ago, former Iranian diplomat Saddagh Kharazzi "reaffirmed that Iran would back a two-state solution if the Palestinians accepted" (Financial Times, July 26, 2006).
Peace can be achieved in the ME if Israel really wants. They and US are calling the shots but instead use every excuse to inflame the situation (Lebanon) even when it means that it foolishly hurt their own position.
This is what Israeli Zeev Maoz (Ha'aretz, July 24) wrote, the "wall-to-wall consensus in Israel that the war against the Hezbollah in Lebanon is a just and moral waris based on selective and short-term memory, on an introverted world view, and on double standards." The reasons include the Israeli practice of kidnapping and the almost daily violations of the Lebanese border for surveillance: "a border violation is a border violation." The reasons also include the historical record: the four earlier Israeli invasions since 1978, and their grim consequences for Lebanese. And we should also not forget the pretexts. The 1982 invasion was carried out after a year in which Israel repeatedly carried out bombing and other provocations in Lebanon, apparently trying to elicit some PLO violation of the 1981 truce, and when it failed, attacked anyway, on the pretext of the assassination attempt against Ambassador Argov (by Abu Nidal, who was at war with the PLO). The invasion was clearly intended, as virtually conceded, to end the embarrassing PLO initiatives for negotiation, a "veritable catastrophe" for Israel as Yehoshua Porat pointed out. It was, as described at the time, a "war for the West Bank." The later invasions also had shameful pretexts. In 1993, Hezbollah had violated "the rules of the game," Yitzhak Rabin announced: these Israeli rules permitted Israel to carry out terrorist attacks north of its illegally-held "security zone," but did not permit retaliation within Israel. Peres's 1996 invasion had no more credible pretexts. It is convenient to forget all of this, or to concoct tales about shelling of the Galilee in 1981, but it is not an attractive practice, nor a wise one.
Zionists always complains about violence, in the meantime being guilty of constant provocation, violence, brutalilty, racism and surpression themselves.
Clearly the two sides each have their own propiganda...I mean...versions of the history. No agreement will ever be reached on who are truly the aggrieved parties.
But again we're describing a desired process ("...if Israel really wants it...negotiation of all outstanding issues...stop inflaming the situation...") rather than that end state. And I think it's because there isn't one; there must always be an excuse to come back for yet another slice of the salami in 18-36 months.
And the purpose of "the process" seems to be "Tell us what tangible adavantage you will give us in return for finely-crafted words with escape clauses of equal workmanship? We promise absolutely the next group that attacks you will have a completely different name; after all, we cannot control the righteous anger of these people who have been wronged; they are acting on their own and we don't control them..." The shell game again....including "don't listen to Ahmadenijad, Khamenei is actually in charge".
Tell me...does that "full normalization" include "recognition of the right to exist"? If it does, why doesn't it say so? How about "two-state solution"? (two-states side by side with one bombing the other is not a "solution", no matter who you think "started it this time"...another shell game). Also "agreement with the Arab nations" or "international consensus"? Those include *everybody* leaving Israel in peace?
After you sell the same rug twenty or thirty times, everybody in the bazzar has seen it...
Interesting how the Zionist propaganda can distort reality. There was no majority of Jews in Palestine when Herzl started the Zionist movement in 1896 with his book “Der Judenstaat”. During that time less than 5% of the population in Palestine was Jewish.
And by 1947, a large majority.
Now gee. Where did all those Jews come from? I can't remember - was there some reason, during the first half of the last century, for Jews to leave their various countries and find someplace to live?
Care to tell us which European country you're from, H-kos?
Oh yes and you forgot your endline again
"...and that is why international terrorism is justified."
I don't know what country he's from but obviously living in Amsterdam...cheap, plentiful and legal. :eyebrow:
The Jews, throughout history, have had some problems in Rome, Greece, Persia, Iberia, Russia, Poland, lots of places, for whatever reasons. Most likely, just being different was enough.
So after WWII, it sounded like a good idea to give them some worthless desert in the middle of nowhere. Out of sight, out of mind and out of everyone's hair.
Unfortunately, there probably isn't a worse place they could have created the Jewish State..... in the midst of the most unreasonable, intolerant, backward, oppressive, savages on Earth. A people that had obliterated their once thriving, prosperous civilization and wants to destroy everyone else's too.
The Jews would have been better off living among the cannibal headhunters in the South Pacific.
Ah, 20-20 hindsight...too late now, they are where they are and I doubt they would move willingly even of they had a place to move to.
How will it play out?
Will they be able to negotiate a true, live and let live, peace settlement ?
Will they reach a stalemate across a heavily guarded DMZ, like Korea?
Will it require the UN (or equivalent) to keep them apart permanently.
Will one side win, ie, eliminate the opposition?
Will it keep festering and spreading until the world is two armed camps?
Will this lead to the elimination of civilization, as we know it?
Should I hit on Joe's wife before the end comes?
The ones you started, or just the ones you regularly visit?
So, history starts in 1947? Before that it's a black hole? Even in 1947 the Jews were in minority (third of the population).
Now gee. Where did all those Jews come from? I can't remember - was there some reason, during the first half of the last century, for Jews to leave their various countries and find someplace to live?
Now gee, the Jews want their own country, lets steal it from somebody else. I wanna live your house UT, you let me? The planning of colonisation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine originated already before the Holocaust. Herzl and the "Der Judenstat", remember?
Care to tell us which European country you're from, H-kos?
A completely superfluous question UT and a nice way to divert the discussion. As a board owner you know perfectly well that I'm from the Netherlands, so we know how it is to be occupied.
"...and that is why international terrorism is justified."
NO terrorism is justified, from nobody, inc Israel. Soeme say one's freedom fighter ist the other's terrorist. Most of Israel's PM's started their carreer as terrorist.
Maggie, again, Israel can have perfectly peace if it wants to. But that means concessions and it don't want to give in a single square inch. Like in 1948, they want Pax Israel, putting the Palestians in bantustans deprived from every land source and governed by the politician Israel chooses. Would YOU accept that?
I don't know what country he's from but obviously living in Amsterdam...cheap, plentiful and legal.
Wow what an argument, resorting to your guts again, Brucey? Any relation with the Israel/Palestine conflict?
So after WWII, it sounded like a good idea to give them some worthless desert in the middle of nowhere. Out of sight, out of mind and out of everyone's hair.
Another victim of the Zionist propaganda. This was not a white spot on the map, people lived there, for centuries.
I dont know what I believe is the ideal solution, I honestly don't know enough about the situation (I know a lot, but I dont know if ANYONE knows enough to say), but I think the practical solution at this point is for Palestine to give up and just move to Jordan or Lebanon or somewhere nearby. They wont like it, but they dont like it now anyway, eh?
...but I think the practical solution at this point is for Palestine to give up and just move to Jordan...
Weren't they supposed to have done that before?
Maggie, again, Israel can have perfectly peace if it wants to. But that means concessions...
Again.
The price of peace is always "just a few concessions"...and then there's another war, with the next shell in the game.
Lather, Rinse, Repeat...
I never said "just a few consessions".
Israel has never made any serious attempt to make peace, except for Rabin, who was subsequently murdered by a religious Jewish fanatic, go figure...
I never said "a few consessions".
Oh...so then it's actually "many concessions"?
What are they? What is that end state?
Is it possible you don't really beleive in it either?
Is it possible you don't really beleive in it either?
Reverting to straw man tactics yourself now, Maggie?
I believe peace is possible, as much as it was possible in N-Irleand. Basically it all reverts to 1967.
Basically it all reverts to 1967.
So...1967 wasn't OK in 1967, but it's OK now?
It was a
causus belli then.
So, history starts in 1947? Before that it's a black hole? Even in 1947 the Jews were in minority (third of the population).
The Jews were in the majority of the land partitioned to Israel by the UN.
The official UN estimate was 538,000 Jews and 397,000 Arabs (a number that included Christians, Bedouins, Druze, and others).
The planning of colonisation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine originated already before the Holocaust. Herzl and the "Der Judenstat", remember?
I'm sorry, when you say "Palestine", are you referring to British land which they intended as a Jewish homeland?
Foreign Office
November 2nd, 1917
Dear Lord Rothschild,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.
"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.
Yours sincerely,
Arthur James Balfour
Sure, in hindsight, one might say that was a huge mistake. Personally, I think it would have been a better outcome if ALL the European Jews decided to move there in 1917. See, if they had only done that, they would still have a chance at being alive in 1947. Unfortunately they faced pogroms in Palestine so I'm sure many Jews weren't convinced it was safe.
People might compare your map with this one. This map is 1947, yours begins in 1948. The difference was a war, in which the side that started the war lost.
People might notice how the orange areas coincide with the blue areas on your map.
Does history begin in 1947? No it sure doesn't; nor in 1917, nor 1948, nor 1967. We can go back further to how the whole concept of colonization no longer worked in the 20th century, and how the world had to wreak havoc for a while to settle on what it is now, and how this is the last vestage of that old problem.
But the best thing for all concerned would be if they would just sit down and shut the fuck up. All the land Israel has gained since the orange areas on that map are due to initially-defensive wars. The land Israel has gained has been the land from which they were attacked. If the Arabs would have sat down and shut up in 1947, they would have not only a state but a huge and great one. Instead they have been used, over and over again.
Basically, the British screwed up in Israel and
Kashmir by leaving things half-done. The UN had to finish up in Palestine. The India/
Pakistan split worked out much better, and occurred a few months before the Palestine partition.
The Arab League had the chance to accept the partition at that time, and had the example of Pakistan, but decided to refuse.
The Jews were in the majority of the land partitioned to Israel by the UN.
The official UN estimate was 538,000 Jews and 397,000 Arabs (a number that included Christians, Bedouins, Druze, and others).
Palestine was inhabited by 2/3 Arabs and 1/3 Jews at the time of the division. Which btw was rejected by the Brits. Israel has declared the State of Israel unilaterally as it has always imposed all new borders, unilaterally.
I'm sorry, when you say "Palestine", are you referring to British land which they intended as a Jewish homeland?
The Zionist movement knew where to concentrate their lobby Weizmann having close ties to Lloyd George and Balfour. Given this context then, the Balfour Declaration of 1917 can be seen as an effective tool for Britain to serve multiple ends. Seen through British eyes and from the perspective of late 1917, it would serve as a powerful propaganda tool aimed at the world’s Jewish community in hopes of securing additional financial support – cash contributions, loans, grants - to fill the depleted coffers of the Allied governments. Secondly, it would effectively preempt Germany’s ongoing efforts to enlist both informal and formal support from the Zionist movement. In a very real sense whichever side issued such a declaration first would effectively preclude any positive impact of the other side's efforts.
Unfortunately they faced pogroms in Palestine so I'm sure many Jews weren't convinced it was safe.
Palestine was not safe for nobody. Jews were never shy to use terrorism to obtain their goal. Neither Brits nor Arabs were save for their terrorism. Google on Irgun, Hagganah, Stern Gang and you'll find some interesting names.
Whatever year is used, fact is that hundreds of thousands Palestines whos families lived there were ethnic cleansed, exiled, prisoned and live in reservates with no future, just for living here.
If the Arabs would have sat down and shut up in 1947,
I asked before and I ask again, would YOU have shut up if your house was confiscated?
I think Hippikos gets his internet access at work. I wonder if he's paid for his propagandizing online? If so, I hope he's not paid for answering my last question, because he didn't.
ah...Maggie... mother of innuendo. As usual your response only adresses the messenger and not the message.
I have internet access both at work and at home and wished I got paid for my writings. Maybe you can make me an offer I can't refuse?
As for your question; pls try to read my messages instead of only looking at it, your answer was responded to.
Have a nice day!
Palestine was inhabited by 2/3 Arabs and 1/3 Jews at the time of the division.
And again, the portion allotted to Israel was majority Jews.
Israel has declared the State of Israel unilaterally as it has always imposed all new borders, unilaterally.
Where "unilaterally" means "for defensive purposes, took the land via which they were attacked in a war, without asking the attackers their preference."
The withdrawl from Gaza was unilateral in the more traditional sense of the term. Unilateral Israeli withdrawl? That REALLY doesn't match your worldview, so you can't even see it, can you?
I asked before and I ask again, would YOU have shut up if your house was confiscated?
"...and that's why international terrorism is justified."
Where "unilaterally" means "for defensive purposes, took the land via which they were attacked in a war, without asking the attackers their preference."
Defensive...really...
"I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to The Sinai would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive war. He knew it and we knew it." Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's Chief of Staff in 1967, in Le Monde, 2/28/68
"Moshe Dayan, the celebrated commander who, as Defense Minister in 1967, gave the order to conquer the Golan...[said] many of the firefights with the Syrians were deliberately provoked by Israel, and the kibbutz residents who pressed the Government to take the Golan Heights did so less for security than for the farmland...[Dayan stated] 'They didn't even try to hide their greed for the land...We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot.
And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was...The Syrians, on the fourth day of the war, were not a threat to us.'" The New York Times, May 11, 1997.
Israel has a legacy of provocations in order to excuse their expensionism. In Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharatt's personal diaries, there is an excerpt from May of 1955 in which he quotes Moshe Dayan as follows: "[Israel] must see the sword as the main, if not the only, instrument with which to keep its morale high and to retain its moral tension. Toward this end it may, no - it must - invent dangers, and to do this it must adopt the method of provocation-and-revenge...And above all - let us hope for a new war with the Arab countries, so that we may finally get rid of our troubles and acquire our space." Quoted in Livia Rokach, "Israel's Sacred Terrorism."
And not to forget the bombing of US Liberty in order to provocate US into war with Egypt.
"...and that's why international terrorism is justified."
That's no answer, that's an evasion.
As for your question; pls try to read my messages instead of only looking at it, your answer was responded to.
Perhaps you can point out where. Assuming you're reading rather than only looking at it.
Perhaps you can point out where. Assuming you're reading rather than only looking at it.
Are we looking at the same thread, Maggie?
I believe peace is possible, as much as it was possible in N-Irleand. Basically it all reverts to 1967.
Yes, the only way you can paint the 67 war as offensive is to cherry-pick quotes here and there.
That's no answer, that's an evasion.
Evasion answer to an evasion question.
Are we looking at the same thread, Maggie?
Maybe not. The one I'm talking about includes:
So...1967 wasn't OK in 1967, but it's OK now?
It was a causus belli then.
But then if you're "just looking at it" you might have missed it.
Yes, the only way you can paint the 67 war as offensive is to cherry-pick quotes here and there.
Now it's cherry picking quotes suddenly? Does that mean they didn't say it or doesn't these quotes fit your world view?
Evasion answer to an evasion question.
It was a direct question and you're still evasing it.
MaggieL; again, it all goes back to the 1967 borders. It has been stated by all parties concerned that these borders are acceptable to all. Which means peace in the area. But, I have to repeat myself in your case; that means concessions from Israel and we know that they don't negotiate, they impose actions unilaterally.
Their "unilateral" withdrawal from Gaza (in which they're back again) was a well calculated strategy to increase their territory on the West Bank. 7000 settlers at the end were impossible to protect without collossal efforts and costs. Just a matter of cost and balances.
MaggieL; again, it all goes back to the 1967 borders. It has been stated by all parties concerned that these borders are acceptable to all.
And that would be the end of the salami game? It was reason enough for war in 1967, but now it's suddenly OK. You'll have pardon me if I'm skeptical.
I'm also envisioning a slot machine as designed by an anti-Israelite (there's too much shell game to use a more precise label than that).
You put a coin in and launch an attack...I mean...you pull the lever. If you win something, you get to keep it. If you don't, the UN imposes a cease-fire, you get your coin back and try again in five years.
You know what? I'm not really evading that question at all. To show you what I mean, I'll answer it.
WHAT WOULD I DO IF MY HOME WAS CONFISCATED.
If my home was confiscated, I'd be really, really steaming mad.
I'd start by bringing my grievances to the governments involved, the local government and the federal government. I'd both question the legitimacy of the UN and demand to speak to the UN to try to reverse the situation. I would use every bit of power I could find. Up to, and not including, taking up arms to kill people.
I'd ask Jacquelita if I could move in with her. If her house was confiscated, I'd suggest that we move to our mom's houses, if our moms were agreeable. If that didn't fly, I'd call my friends in California and ask if we could hang for a while until we got jobs.
After a while, the reality of moving on with my life would overwhelm the anger at being uprooted. I would get a job, get productive. I'd watch comedies. I would still work to affect the politics that led to the situation, which is to say I would try to end the UN, and ask for some level of reparations from the new owner. I would still try to use every bit of power I could find. Up to, and not including, taking up arms to kill people.
After a number of years, I would simply try to make the most of my life, because it makes no sense to harbor such anger. If I had children, I would tell them that those people took our house, which made life tough for a while; but I would also tell them that a lingering, resentful anger is unproductive. I'd tell them that it is far more important to bring about a culture of respect for property and people. And that to bring about such a culture is the ultimate revenge and the sensible response to what has happened.
In teaching my children, I would point to the highest moral examples, such as Gandhi, and if I were Christian I'd use the example of Jesus, to show how sometimes there is a greater value in turning the other cheek to our adversaries.
Now, the question right back at you. I've answered, so you please answer. What would YOU do if your home was confiscated?
Would you kill the confiscators?
Would you kill their grandchildren?
"...and that's why international terrorism is justified." Now you see how I came to that reply.
When they start putting my children in camps, keeping me from jobs to feed them, keeping us from having equal medical supplies for them, then killing them in retaliation for something someone else did... yup, after a while... I may want to kill em' all. I may want them to feel just like I do in hopes that they would stop. If they know what it feels like they may stop. It would be my only weapon.
I hope that it would not be my reaction, but if it was all I know... yes, it probably would be & a rational one.
If my home was confiscated, I'd be really, really steaming mad.
Well, there ya go UT, starting to feel what Palestines felt.
I'd start by bringing my grievances to the governments involved, the local government and the federal government. I'd both question the legitimacy of the UN and demand to speak to the UN to try to reverse the situation. I would use every bit of power I could find. Up to, and not including, taking up arms to kill people.
Well there ya go again UT. Numerous UN motions have been accepted on that issue which Israel has not implicated.
I'd ask Jacquelita if I could move in with her. If her house was confiscated, I'd suggest that we move to our mom's houses, if our moms were agreeable. If that didn't fly, I'd call my friends in California and ask if we could hang for a while until we got jobs.
After a while, the reality of moving on with my life would overwhelm the anger at being uprooted. I would get a job, get productive. I'd watch comedies. I would still work to affect the politics that led to the situation, which is to say I would try to end the UN, and ask for some level of reparations from the new owner. I would still try to use every bit of power I could find. Up to, and not including, taking up arms to kill people.
After a number of years, I would simply try to make the most of my life, because it makes no sense to harbor such anger. If I had children, I would tell them that those people took our house, which made life tough for a while; but I would also tell them that a lingering, resentful anger is unproductive. I'd tell them that it is far more important to bring about a culture of respect for property and people. And that to bring about such a culture is the ultimate revenge and the sensible response to what has happened.
In teaching my children, I would point to the highest moral examples, such as Gandhi, and if I were Christian I'd use the example of Jesus, to show how sometimes there is a greater value in turning the other cheek to our adversaries.
Thank you for an insight in your life philosophy. I believe your forgot to mention how you would react on the fact that the intruders, whilst robbing your place have murdered some of your relatives, respectively have separated you from them. I even accept that you would turn your other cheek in that case and move on with your life by watching comedies whilst living with your mother.
Now, the question right back at you. I've answered, so you please answer. What would YOU do if your home was confiscated?
Most likely I would do what certainly most Americans would do (helped by their right to bear arms) and would blast the hell outta them if they had the guts to steal my house and start killing my relatives. I’m pretty sure the majority of all people would react that way.
Would you kill their grandchildren?
Absolutely not. But I can’t say what my grandchildren would do if they were in the same situation as I was, probably the same.
"...and that's why international terrorism is justified." Now you see how I came to that reply.
This was my answer in post #86, probably you overlooked it. “NO terrorism is justified, from nobody, inc Israel. Some say one's freedom fighter ist the other's terrorist. Most of Israel's PM's started their carreer as terrorist.”
A must read website from within the Jewish community is The Forward with a very interesting
editorial with a 1973 analogy. Like I've always said, Israel needs to make peace with its neighbours to survive. But where is the new Kissinger?
"As it happens, every one of the target nations has sent urgent signals to Israel in recent weeks, making it clear that they want to do business. Israelis must now ask themselves what price they would have to pay to join the game, and what role they need their American ally to play to make it work."
"That is the challenge for Israel’s friends right now. Bush has been convinced by self-appointed spokesmen for Israel and the Jewish community that endless war is in Israel’s interest. He needs to hear in no uncertain terms that Israel is ready for dialogue, that the alternative — endless jihad — is unthinkable. Now is time to change the tune."
But I can’t say what my grandchildren would do if they were in the same situation as I was, probably the same.
Really? Would they kill Gal?
Gal Aizenman, 5 years old. Killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber at a bus station.
Would you kill her yourself? Would you look in her eyes and push the button, knowing that hundreds of pieces of red-hot shrapnel coated in rat poison would enter her body?
Your grandchildren would kill her. Your grandchildren are a bunch of losers. Mine would be in California working as developers. They'd be working to build a bigger and better world, for themselves and for everyone else.
Israel has developers... lots of 'em. Palestine doesn't have any. They have an entire university there, An-Najah; and instead of studying something useful, millions in international funds have gone into figuring out how to make bigger and better bombs.
After a rather successful suicide bombing, at a
Jerusalem Sbarro restaurant in 2001, the students of An-Najah University created a room-sized reenactment display.
There go your theoretical grandchildren. So beautiful as they go around celebrating a culture of death. If you really get your wish, one of them will blow themselves up. That's your glorious vision for them. The blood on the walls, they love it. They eat that shit up.
Did I mention mine are developers?
Our entire argument boils down to progress and civilization versus stupid blood-cult racist/religious claptrap hatred. Do you think these people are the only ones who have had a greivance in the world? The rest of them got on with their lives; these people have developed a stupid death cult because people like you have encouraged it. Well fucking done.
Ghandi would smile at you, no?
And that's how international terrorism is justified.UT, everyone here knows Hippikos is an anti-Semite. Maybe if we ignore him he'll go away.
Anti-Semite, I wish. Hip is a standard-issue European citizen.
Would you kill her yourself? Would you look in her eyes and push the button, knowing that hundreds of pieces of red-hot shrapnel coated in rat poison would enter her body?
My response was already given in the above message (Absolutely not) which you conveniently prefer to ignore.
For each pic you post I can post the same from the other side:
Here's the grim reality you wish to ignore:
Since September 28, 2000:
* 383 Palestinian children (under the age of 18) have been killed by the Israeli army and Israeli settlers, i.e. almost 19% of the total Palestinians killed (figure at 21 November 2002);
* Approximately 36% of total Palestinians injured (estimated at more than 41,000) are children;
* 86 of these children were under the age of ten;
* 21 infants under the age of 12 months have been killed;
* 500 Palestinian children have been permanently disabled due to Israeli attacks.
Of course Brianna would call these statistics antisemitic, wouldn't she?
If my grandchildren were ethnic cleansed, deprived from basic daily needs, education, relatives killed, houses destroyed, without any hope of a better future I cannot stand what they do. Because unlike you thy wouldn't live in a developed 1st world country with relatives in a comfortable house with aircon where you can watch sitcoms whilst zipping a coke with ice.
All I want is peace for all parties. You, Brianna and Maggie insist on seeing the world in blacks and whites and are willing to keep fighting to the last Israeli or Palestinian. Now why don't you go and read the above editorial from Jewish people who think about a future peace and try to solve the situation instead of inflaming it. You're just the same as the Islam fanatics preaching the endless jihad.
UT, everyone here knows Hippikos is an anti-Semite. Maybe if we ignore him he'll go away.
Yep, that's the usual response to people who show the other side of the moon... :rolleyes:
TW is a communist and I'm an antisemitic, how convenient :right:
The pic you can't post is the one where the Israeli soldier saw the child's eyes.
The pic you can't post is the one at the Israeli University celebrating the massacre.
The pic you can't post is the one Photoshopped or brazenly set up.
The pic you can't post is of the Israeli gloriously showing his blood-soaked hands to the cheering crowd after lynching a Palestinian. Your grandchild:
The pic you can't post is people in Berlin celebrating that event in the name of "peace". Your child:
The pic you can't post is the one of the IDF hanging "conspirators" from a crane.
Our entire argument boils down to progress and civilization versus stupid blood-cult racist/religious claptrap hatred.
UT, everyone here knows Hippikos is an anti-Semite. Maybe if we ignore him he'll go away.
Hippikos has simply posted facts too often lost when one only understands sound bytes and the Daily News (assuming she even reads a newspaper). Reading so selectively as directed by your emotions is a prerequisite for promoting hate, Brianna. No wonder you also post hate against Hippikos - who only posts facts that are not just soundbytes.
Gal is a perfect example of who must die when politicians do not do their job. Her head belongs in Likud's trophy room. Ironic that people such as Gal were assured of life when Israel was negotiating. And then Likud extremists did everything necessary to destroy that peace - to intentionally restart the intafada. Quite intentional for Likud to destroy the Oslo Accords so that West Bank lands could be confiscated - this time with a new trick - the wall.
And so Gal must die to the greater glory of Zionism and Likud. Likud whose objective is extremist Zionism: annexation even of the West Bank and Gaza.
UT forgot to include that reality in his spin. UT posted Gal not for logical thought. He posted Gal for emotional - classic Rush Limbaugh - propaganda value. He does this with more frequency. UT forgets why violence restarted and why negotiations failed - when Likud extremists intentionally did everything necessary to restart the intafada.
The Economist also writes more of what UT ignores:
Since the 1980s at least two prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak, gave their all in the search for peace. The first paid with his life and the second with his job. ...
This is not to say that Israel is blameless. ... This war was probably just that: a mistake after a provocation and not a plot cooked up either by Israel and America against Iran, or by Iran against Israel and America, as the rival conspiracy theories go. It followed a bigger blunder: Israel's failure after Yasser Arafat's death to work seriously with his moderate successor, Mahmoud Abbas.
The Economist does not post irrelevant pictures of Gal for propaganda value. Nor does it somehow know reality by selective reading based upon personal biases. Such biases that eventually lead to hate (a warning to Brianna who already automatically knows what is right and wrong - who need not confuse issues by learning of other perspectives). Ignorance and resulting bias makes her a perfect recruit for the 'army of hate'. Sound byte intelligence is alive and well - including that picture of Gal only for emotional bias.
The pic you can't post is the one where the Israeli soldier saw the child's eyes.
The pic you can't post is the one at the Israeli University celebrating the massacre.
The pic you can't post is the one Photoshopped or brazenly set up.
All has no relevance because it is only for emotion. Emotion - the reason for all these deaths. Emotion - the reason why those such as Brianna cannot first learn facts - cannot read Hippikos posts nor mine. Emotion - the only reason UT is posting these pictures.
Even the Iwo Jima picture was staged. Does it matter? UT will take the tiniest and most irrelevant detail to hype it as if the big picture. It is called propaganda. It works on those who cannot see his pictures for what they are. He is promoting hate by posting for emotion response.
Photoshopped pictures are only curious details. Dead Gal whose head hangs in Likud's trophy room is only a curious detail. And yet hyping those details is how emotional radical extremists get more trophy heads. They even have UT and Brianna doing their job.
UT dude, with your last message you show you really lost the plot, sharing your website co-owner Bruce's emotional reasoning.
Some more facts you wish to ignore:
The Israeli army’s widespread destruction of schools, the forced closure of educational institutes, the ever- present danger to school children and staff attempting to continue normal education, together demonstrate the Israeli government’s complete violation of the right of Palestinian children to an education. For example:
* Since September 2000:
→ 2,610 pupils have been wounded on their way to or from school;
→ 245 Palestinian students and school children have been killed and 166 students and 75 teachers have been arrested
* Between January and July 2002, Israeli military forces occupied 18 schools in the West Bank, converting them to military bases or prisons;
* In Hebron alone, four schools have been converted to military bases, with three still under Israeli control (as of December 2002), denying 1,920 students access to their schools;
* Between January and June 2002, 24 schools were heavily shelled by the Israeli military;
* Since 29 March 2002, the education process has been completely paralyzed in 850 schools;
* Since September 2000, 197 schools have been damaged, 11 schools completely destroyed and 9 vandalized;
* From 29 March to 1 May 2002: 1,289 schools were closed, 45,000 tawjihi students supposed to take the general exam in June were prevented from accessing their schools, and 54,730 teaching sessions per day were lost due to complete cessation of classes in major West Bank towns during Israeli military operations.
I have dozens of equally grim statistics about health situation, prisons etc. But I hope you get the message.
Ghandi would smile at you, no?
Read this from the Israelian Haaretz:
Ghandi Ridux by Meron Rapaport
UT dude, with your last message you show you really lost the plot, sharing your website co-owner Bruce's emotional reasoning.
Obviously yet another Zionist Conspiracy to Suppress the Truth.
All we need, really, is one picture celebrating those events.
Certainly you can find one image of insanely happy Israelis celebrating the destruction of their enemies' school.
It's emotional, yes, but it demonstrates the mind-set and shows who wanted that kind of thing to happen.
By the way, the idea of a school being destroyed is an emotional one. Because you think of a school as being kinda like the place where you went to school, right?
The international community has given billions for those schools. But by 2001, it was tired of them teaching nothing but hate.
Canada:
[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=2][COLOR=#202020]"According to 58 new textbooks and two teachers' guides for grades 1, 2, 6, 7 and 11 published in the past two years by the Palestinian Authority," Mr. Kalman reports, "Israel does not exist -- nor does the concept of peace… Children are encouraged from the earliest school age to hate Israelis, glorify 'martyrs' and seek the 'liberation' of all of Palestine, including Israel.
"The analysis of the textbooks… reveals the Palestinian Authority… curriculum does not teach the acceptance of Israel's existence, and instead of working to erase hateful stereotypes, it is instilling them into the next generation's consciousness…"
Since 1993, Canada has contributed $165-million in direct aid to Palestinian development programs, including education, plus a further $10-million annually to United Nations Relief & Works Agency (UNRWA).
An additional grant of $5-million, announced by you in May, is about to be distributed through the World Bank to a series of projects, including new schools and libraries, the report states.
The offensive textbook material has been included despite commitments made by the Palestinian Authority in the 1994 Cairo Agreement, where both parties undertook to "ensure that their educational systems contribute to the peace between Israel and the Palestinian people."
...
A similar report a year ago on 360 textbooks used in Israeli schools found dozens of examples where Israeli children are taught to recognize Palestinian claims and problems, and where an effort is made "to prepare the younger generation for openness and peace.
"No (Israeli text-)book calls for violence or war. Many books express the yearning for peace between Israel and the Arab countries," said that report.[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=2][COLOR=#202020]
[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]So, at the demand of the international community,
did they change?
The new Palestinian School Books teach that the 1st Zionist Congress at Basel fostered the Zionist State based on a secret decision of what came came to be known as the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion". (p. 13) (Tarikh al-'Alam al-Hadith wal Mu-'asir (History of the News Modern World), 10th grade textbook, pp. 60-64).
The new Palestinian School books teach that the only ancient inhabitants of Israel were Arabs, ignoring any ancient Jewish presence. "Concentrated...in the land of Al-Sham {Greater Syria}...was the culture of the Canaanite and Aramaic peoples who migrated there from the Arab peninsula" (p.14-15) (Tarikh al-Hadarat al-Qadima (History of Ancient Civilizations), 5th grade textbook, Foreward).
The new Palestinian school books teach that Palestinians must use war and violence to accomplish their goals, especially martyrdom. (p.18) The heroic mother, "who incessantly presents one sacrifice [fida'] after another" (Lughatuna al-Jamila (Our Beautiful Language), Vol 2, 5th grade textbook, p. 31). The warrior goes to war faced with one of the good options: victory or martyrdom in battle for the sake of Allah. (Ibid. Vol. 1, 5th grade textbook, p. 70). (p.19) "Allah designated the people of this land (Al-Sham and Palestine) to an important task: they must stand on the forefront of the Muslim campaign against their enemies, and only if they fulfill their duy to their religion, nation, and land will they be rewarded as stated in the scriptures." (Al-Tarbiya al-Islamiyyah (Islamic Education), Vol 2, 10th grade textbook, p. 50).
The new Palestinian school books feature children with names such as Jihad (holy war) and Nidal (struggle). (p.22) (Tarikh al-Hadarat al-Qadima (History of Ancient Civilizations), 5th grade textbook, p.6).
Oh dear, the poor Palestinian children can't get to school. I'm all like emotional about it.
Your grandchildren are being educated to hate. Mine are developers.
These, mostly Jordanian schoolbooks didn't stand in the way to make peace with Jordan. Egypt had and still has lotsa antisemitic papers, still there's an active peace between Israel and Egypt.
This should be a good indication that once there is intention on both sides and partners to attain peace, the textbooks cannot stand in the way. The Israeli occupation authority used the Jordanian textbooks for 30 years, and they claim that they removed the “hate education” from them before reprinting them. Unfortunately, some of the things they removed had nothing to do with hate. Displacing the word “Palestine” wherever it occurred in the textbooks by the word “Israel” no matter in what context or period in time, was so ridiculous that it became a laughing matter amongst students and teachers alike, (as an example, in the History textbook of the ninth grade about the crusades, the text “When the Crusades came to Palestine in the 11th century “ became “ when the Crusades came to Israel”). Other displacements were more subtle but dangerous. Learning such values as “valor”, “ love of one’s land”, “sacrifice”, and similar values in reading books is important for children, and they cannot be described as “hate material”, yet many statements and poems with such values were removed. If anything, they indicated bad intentions on the part of Israel in mis-educating Palestinian children.
Mine are developers.
Yours? Anywayz I thought they called them
"Settlers"?Obviously yet another Zionist Conspiracy to Suppress the Truth.
Which is MaggieL acknowledging (but not admitting) that she knows the propaganda and did not know facts from other perspectives.
The international community has given billions for those schools. But by 2001, it was tired of them teaching nothing but hate. Canada:
So you quote a Canadian Christian hate promoting organization as proof?
Which is MaggieL acknowledging (but not admitting) that she knows the propaganda and did not know facts from other perspectives.
Which is actually MaggieL finding 'Kos slagging Bruce for being a "co-owner" hysterically funny.
By the way, "facts" that have heavy perspective dependencies have little claim on actually being facts as opposed to interpretations.
Er, good point, I hadn't noticed that.
Which is actually MaggieL finding 'Kos slagging Bruce for being a "co-owner" hysterically funny.
Er... not slagging, just observing.
By the way, "facts" that have heavy perspective dependencies have little claim on actually being facts as opposed to interpretations.
Funny, I already predicted this answer in my earlier message, albeit from her sista Brianna:
"Of course Brianna would call these statistics antisemitic, wouldn't she?".
Let me see if I can get this straight...
The Palestinians are both the innocent victims of Israeli aggression and terrorists who kill Israeli civilians.
The Israeli's are trying to defend their homeland from people who blow themselves up in markets by dropping using full-blown military incursions into sovereign territory.
And who again are the people that are 'right' and 'good' in this situation?
Funny, I already predicted this answer in my earlier message, albeit from her sista Brianna: "Of course Brianna would call these statistics antisemitic, wouldn't she?".
That's quite a stretch from what I actually said to claiming that your prediction is fulfilled.
As you note I'm not Brianna, furthermore I'm not her sista in any sense (that's another howler, there) and I didn't call anything anti-Semitic; I simply pointed out that something that is highly dependant on perspective isn't a fact, it's an interpretation. Of course, other than that you're batting 1.000.
Facts don't come from perspectives. tw is very fond of referring to his opinons as "facts", perhaps in the hope it will spare them close inspection. You know he's entered 100% incoherent mode when he starts foaming about "these are the facts".
Er... not slagging, just observing.
Bruce was recently elected co-moderator mostly because he seemed to be one of the least loony users who was willing to do the job. Wolf was the other, as I recall. If you really want to find my "sista" here, wolf would be one good candidate.
If you really want to find my "sista" here, wolf would be one good candidate.
That is quite touching!! Thanks! :)
Er... not slagging, just observing.
Then you're not being very observant, as it happens.
When it comes down to it, nobody "owns" The Cellar. Well, okay, UT is the owner/operator/sysadmin in the sense that it's his stuff ... but the real ownership of The Cellar is in the hands of the people who participate, lurk, or visit occasionally here.
Well, okay, UT is the owner/operator/sysadmin in the sense that it's his stuff ...
It's probably worth mentioning in this context that in something like a dozen years of being here, I have
never known UT to take advantage of his sysop privs to bias a discussion. In fact, I seem to recall that one reason he called for election of additional moderators (other than to share the routine work of spamkilling) was to reduce the mere
appearance that being the current owner of the Cellar gave him any kind of a special halo as a Cellar
user.
I PM'd H-kos - I strongly suspected he was European, and I cheated and looked at his IP address which verified it. I don't know if that qualifies as using privs to bias the discussion, but it was bad karma anyway, and I apologized to him.
mmmm...... Eurpean is the new black, UT?
mmmm...... Eurpean is the new black, UT?
European is the new hippie, actually.
Hippies longed to be black in many ways--think of them as '60s era
Wiggers and you'll be close. So not actually black, but black wannabes. That would make Europeans wannabe wannabes. Tragic, but what can you do?
But Europe doesn't have enough have enough grown-ups, and
the demographic situation is deteriorating as we speak. A little appreciated fact about being hippies is that they actually need a parent culture and economy to provide their ecological niches. But the new "Yurop" is having it's best niches saturated with immigrants. Since it would be uncool and politically incorrect to reject them, the whole business is headed for the abyss.
It's just not a viable business model...
but viable enough to attract US trade sanctions on everything from Whiskey to steel. What are you afraid of?
What are you afraid of?
Duh. Whiskey and steel, of course. :p
The Israeli's are trying to defend their homeland from people who blow themselves up in markets by dropping using full-blown military incursions into sovereign territory.
And who again are the people that are 'right' and 'good' in this situation?
It's not defend, make that "extend". I thought I made that clear by several quotes from Israelian politician and military.
The right and the good people are those who pursue peace, from both sides.
That's quite a stretch from what I actually said to claiming that your prediction is fulfilled.
As you note I'm not Brianna, furthermore I'm not her sista in any sense (that's another howler, there) and I didn't call anything anti-Semitic; I simply pointed out that something that is highly dependant on perspective isn't a fact, it's an interpretation. Of course, other than that you're batting 1.000.
Facts don't come from perspectives. tw is very fond of referring to his opinons as "facts", perhaps in the hope it will spare them close inspection. You know he's entered 100% incoherent mode when he starts foaming about "these are the facts".
Facts are facts, numbers in a certain order of a certain magnitude. These are not opinions, or presumptions, these are simple facts. It's you who take the perspective of ignoring it.
Then you're not being very observant, as it happens.
When it comes down to it, nobody "owns" The Cellar. Well, okay, UT is the owner/operator/sysadmin in the sense that it's his stuff ... but the real ownership of The Cellar is in the hands of the people who participate, lurk, or visit occasionally here.
Observant enough to notice that both had the authorisation to use my personal information like IP adress. Using this in an open discussion is just not done, especially when one is a moderator, don't you think?
Personally I don't really care, as it's not important. But I can't see why for the usual supects it's important in a discussion what my origin is. You may have noticed that I strictly confine myself to the actual discussion whithout referring to the other like antisemitic, communist, or worse.... European...
But the new "Yurop" is having it's best niches saturated with immigrants
Funny to hear from someone who lives in a country which literally was founded by immigrant descendants (from Europe...). And what about the Mexicans immigrating to the US currently?
Immigration is a worldwide fact, nothing wrong with that.
And Hippies don't exist anymore, they're being called Baby Boomers now.
Oh my....I'm a hippie now? I love the way it all boils down to a personal attack in the end. Our view of the Middle east situation is what it is because we're just too young and stupid and full of silly idealism to know better.
Brilliant.
And what's that crap about our best niches being saturated by immigrants? We're a continent....we have populations shifting about. We attract immigrants and we lose emigres at a similar rate. I don't see how that's saturation. It's just a shifting picture, a society in flux. No bad thing if you ask me. Pretty much the way it's always been. The only real difference now, is that our population shifts come from peacable migration and the odd band of refugees rather than wholescale marauding, invasion and streams of dispossessed.
Incidentally, the figures for Europe as a whole may show a young population, but Britain has an aging one. WE need a little immigration else we're going to be in trouble in a few years.
Oh my....I'm a hippie now? I love the way it all boils down to a personal attack in the end. Our view of the Middle east situation is what it is because we're just too young and stupid and full of silly idealism to know better.
Brilliant.
And what's that crap about our best niches being saturated by immigrants? We're a continent....we have populations shifting about. We attract immigrants and we lose emigres at a similar rate...
Incidentally, the figures for Europe as a whole may show a young population, but Britain has an aging one. WE need a little immigration else we're going to be in trouble in a few years.
Read the link I posted. The demographic issue isn't "too many young people", in fact, it's quite the opposite. Do you really think the economic contribution gained from your immigrants and birth rate exceeds that lost by emigration and aging? Some authors disagree. In a socialist system you'd better hope so, because somebody has to pay for it all; an increasing number of takers balanced on the back of a shrinking population of makers is very bad news.
Hipppies don't particularly have to be either young or stupid...and "Hippie" is a personal attack only if you hate hippies and choose to take it as such. I can speak with some knowlege about hippies; I used to be one, a long, long time ago. The original hippie culture was an incredible font of creativity, if not of industriousness. Computing technology was particular was profoundly influenced by the counterculture of the '60s.
But someone doesn't become a wannabe because they're overloaded with creativity and originality.
*Chuckles* I am sorry. I didn't read the link I just made assumptions based on the context.
I don't find hippie to be an insult. I've done my share of Glastonbury festivals, complete with a painted ambulance and psycotropic drugs. Did that make me a wannabe? Probably. Nothing wrong with a 19 year old wanting to be something that they admire.
I do find the idea that you deem our continent 'wannabes' a tad insulting. I also don't see that having high immigration leads to an abundance of takers and a lack of makers. Most immigrants contribute a great deal to the country they settle in. We have many businesses started by immigrants and they traditionally pay a higher amount of taxes than the native population over the span of their lives. Whether that holds true for continental europe I am not sure, but it's certainly the case in Britain.
I do find the idea that you deem our continent 'wannabes' a tad insulting...Whether that holds true for continental europe I am not sure, but it's certainly the case in Britain.
Interesting juxtaposition there--reflecting the congitive dissonance I think a lot of Britons feel about the EU. You refer to "our continent" and a few sentences later refer to "contenental Europe" as distinct from the UK.
My sense is that many UK folks are of two minds as to whether this whole EU thing is really A Good Idea. That there's still a separate UK currency is one sign. Blair's resistance to subsidizing "continental" agriculture is likely another.
Not to worry about deeming the continent to be "wannabes" though. We've got a metric assload of hippie wannabes here in "Murika", too.
And some of them have Cellar usernames...:-)
It would be fair to observe that the original hippies themselves were not only wannabe blacks, but also wannabe beatniks. So the phenomenon is both cutural and generational. I couldn't resist mocking 'Kos's wanting to cast himself as one of the "New Blacks", though.
but viable enough to attract US trade sanctions on everything from Whiskey to steel. What are you afraid of?
You want to play the "Our trade barriers are lower than yours" game? You'll have to find someone who's interested. I don't have the attention span to follow EU trade regulations. I'm sure you'll find fellowship with tw on this topic.
We do our part; our household drinks Glen Morangie and Bailey's in decided preference to US whiskies. We just don't drink that much of either.
As for steel, we prefer
Gerber,
Kimber,
Kel-Tec and
Kershaw. Tough.
I'm not a hippie... I prefer the term "bohemian". :D
By the way, the steel tariff lasted about a year and is dead now. It was entirely a political play by the administration, to get votes in certain swing states that fancy themselves to be steel producers. The EU said WTF and the admin dropped the tariff, having gotten the bump they wanted.
It's not defend, make that "extend". I thought I made that clear by several quotes from Israelian politician and military.
The right and the good people are those who pursue peace, from both sides.
The point is that neither side is in the right. Both sides commit acts that are unacceptable.
MaggieL: how large is a metric assload? And, since it must be some sort of dual hemispherical shape, do you include the crevice in your measurement? :D
I'm not a hippie... I prefer the term "bohemian". :D
That confirms my "beatnik wannabe" theory, I'd say.
MaggieL: how large is a metric assload?
It's an industry term.
Vinny Gambini: [Vinny hears a drip in the background] Did you use the faucet?
Lisa: Yeah.
Vinny Gambini: Why didn't you turn it off?
Lisa: I DID turn it off!
Vinny Gambini: Well if you turned it off, why am I listening to it?
Lisa: Did it ever occur to you it could be turned off AND drip at the same time?
Vinny Gambini: No! Because if you'd turn it off, it wouldn't drip!
Lisa: Maybe it's broken.
Vinny Gambini: Is that what you say? It's broken?
Lisa: Yeah. That's it, it's broken.
Vinny Gambini: You sure?
Lisa: I'm positive.
Vinny Gambini: Maybe you didn't twist it hard enough.
Lisa: I twisted it just right.
Vinny Gambini: How could you be so sure?
Lisa: [sighs] You will look in the manual, you will see that this particular model faucet requires a range of 10 to 16 foot-pounds of torque. I routinely twisted the maximum allowable torquage.
Vinny Gambini: How could you be sure you used 16 foot-pounds of torque?
Lisa: Because I used a Crafstman model 1019 Laboratory Edition Signature Series torque wrench. The kind used by Caltech high energy physicists. And NASA engineers.
Vinny Gambini: Well, in that case, how can you be sure THAT's accurate?
Lisa: Because a split second before the torque wrench was applied to the faucet handle, it had been calibrated by top members of the state AND federal Department of Weights and Measures... to be dead on balls accurate! Here's the certificate of validation.
Vinny Gambini: Dead on balls accurate?
Lisa: It's an industry term.
Vinny Gambini: [tosses paper away] I guess the fucking thing is broken.
The point is that neither side is in the right. Both sides commit acts that are unacceptable.
"Moral equivalance".
I guess the only way to avoid the trap of "moral equivalence" is to go with "Israel can do no wrong."
I guess the only way to avoid the trap of "moral equivalence" is to go with "Israel can do no wrong."
Are you able to compare scalars? Or is your world completely boolean?
I'd ask the same of you, given your reaction to "neither side is in the right. Both sides commit acts that are unacceptable."
The result of scalar comparisons is ternary. Boolean comparison only returns true/false.
By the way, the steel tariff lasted about a year and is dead now. It was entirely a political play by the administration, to get votes in certain swing states that fancy themselves to be steel producers. The EU said WTF and the admin dropped the tariff, having gotten the bump they wanted.
Besides, trade barriers do limit the urge to be competitive, resulting in ineffective, uncompetitive industries. Clearly visible with the US steel factories which are one of the oldest and most ineffective in the world.
US and EU trade barriers are the main source of poverty in the 3rd World.
What thread drift?
This is one area that tw has watched, and one in which he and you and I are all in agreement :shock:
The result of scalar comparisons is ternary. Boolean comparison only returns true/false.
And once you've done your scalar math, you calculate point values, and the winner is 100% innocent, and the loser is 100% guilty. You might as well be using boolean in the first place.
We do our part; our household drinks Glen Morangie and Bailey's in decided preference to US whiskies. We just don't drink that much of either.
As for steel, we prefer Gerber, Kimber, Kel-Tec and Kershaw. Tough.
See, we are sistas. Although I'm not so big on the Bailey's as I like to actually taste my liquor ... I'd rather have some Jack in the Black. I did just buy a brand new ticket to the Valley of Tranquility during my last visit to the State Store.
My steel list would invovle a
European import, though.
Interesting juxtaposition there--reflecting the congitive dissonance I think a lot of Britons feel about the EU. You refer to "our continent" and a few sentences later refer to "contenental Europe" as distinct from the UK.
My sense is that many UK folks are of two minds as to whether this whole EU thing is really A Good Idea. That there's still a separate UK currency is one sign. Blair's resistance to subsidizing "continental" agriculture is likely another.
I used the term Continental Europe to differentiate between two different localities and cultures. Britain is both separate from and part of Europe. It comes from being an Island. We are cultural brethren in many ways and are of the same stock. We are also different in many ways because of the geographical break and the branching off of cultural development.
I don't personally have any problem with being both separate and part of at the same time. I don't see them as conflicting. I recognise and love the difference, I also feel very much of Europe. I am wholly supportive of Britain playing its full and natural role within the greater whole. I would be very happy if we took on the Euro currency and a European constitution.
But yes, a lot of Brits don't see themselves as 'European' in the political sense. I think most still see Britain as a European nation but not part of a European body politic in the federal sense.
I used the term Continental Europe to differentiate between two different localities and cultures. Britain is both separate from and part of Europe. It comes from being an Island. We are cultural brethren in many ways and are of the same stock. We are also different in many ways because of the geographical break and the branching off of cultural development.
Yes, I understood how you meant each usage...and of course geography has been a powerful force in shaping that. The differences and commonalities are fascinating...and the same is true in contrasting the UK and US as well.
"Two nations divided by a common language" is one humorous take on that situation. But I've never felt like I had trouble understanding the various flavors of British speech. Certainly there's 'Murican dialects that I find more troublesome, but usually intellegible. My boss (Australian citizen, but raised in the midwest US) tell me I do have a Philadelphian (pardon me; we call it "Fluffian" :-) ) accent, but of course *I* can't hear it.
As time goes on I think geography will be less important and languge/culture more so. Certainly many of us here (not everyone, of course) love television from the UK. What gets here is usually quite good. I hope you're getting some of our best, because our worst is utter rubbish.
Certainly many of us here (not everyone, of course) love television from the UK. What gets here is usually quite good. I hope you're getting some of our best, because our worst is utter rubbish.
Unfortunately, we get the Bush sound-bites too....
hehehhe yes we do get those soundbites:P
Most of the tv that gets here from over the pond is of a fairly high standard. We get the odd really bad show but that's usually on cable rather than mainstream tv. In particular I think you guys do comedy and sci-fi very well. Though some of your 'drama' is pretty good too. Six Feet Under was stunning.
Personally I think The Sopranos was the best TV series ever...
Sci Fi Channel has been both boon and bane. I expected
Battlestar Galactica to be crap and in fact it's a gem. Don't know if you're getting
Eureka over there yet but it's worthwhile. I miss
Farscape but at least Ben Bowder and Claudia Black crossed over to
Stargate SG-1...which is in it's last season.
Stargate Atlantis will soldier on in it's endless struggle to not become
Deep Space Nine. Speaking of DS-9,
Babylon 5 (where the DS-9 concept was Rodenberried from; he saw a series treatement of B5 before it started production) was awesome, and we're promised some B5 new stories soon (although B5 wasn't a Scf Fi channel production).
BUt I won't forgive SciFi Channel for it's apparent inability to recognize that horror and suspense isn't science fiction.
Across the pond,
Dr Who is consistantly worth watching..although I find it more than a little jarring for Dr Who to have detailed plots, character development and high production values, having become accustomed to the seedier Tom Baker/Tristam Farnham style...(erm, I mean, Peter Davisson).
Never seen
The Sopranos...we don't pay for premium cable. Although enough of it has seeped into our culture that the Flintstones/Sopranos parody on
Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law was hysterical anyway.
And never say there is no justice:
Serenity (the Firefly movie)
just won a Hugo. Of course, Dr Who did too...
I lurve battlestar. Very good. I particularly like what they've done with the Dr Gaius character. Much more subtle than the original uber villain :)
I didn't really get into Babylon5, except for the epsiode 'Eyes' because Jeffrey Combs was guest starring :P I was however a DS9 fan *grins* and I don't care that it was a lifted idea it was still good sci fi drama:P Haven't seen Eureka yet but it's showing on Sky1 which means we'll get it on Freeview soon enough. I am very impressed with the 4400s though.
I'm a huge Doctor Who fan. I stopped watching as a kid once Tom Baker and K9 werent in it:P But I watched the film with Paul McGann (I am a fan of his) and thought it showed promise. BUt the new Doctor Who has been a real gem. Russell T Davies has totally rescued the franchise. Have you guys got the new doctor yet? (David Tennant) or are you still on the 9th doctor? (Chris Eccleston)
I was gutted when Chris revealed he would only do the one series, but David Tennant is awesome. Mind you he is awesome in everything he appears in. ( Like 'Casanova' also by Russel T Davies and 'Blackpool' ) I do like it when stage trained actors bring their talent to the screen. You can so tell the ones who have that experience. You could see it in Chris too.
Now this is what I call topic drift *big grin*
Have you guys got the new doctor yet? (David Tennant) or are you still on the 9th doctor? (Chris Eccleston)
We're not on either one at the moment. 9th has been over for months, but 10th hasn't started yet.
"Moral equivalance".
No. Moral equivalence says that no one can be wrong when they commit horrible acts. I'm saying that everyone is wrong.
No. Moral equivalence says that no one can be wrong when they commit horrible acts. I'm saying that everyone is wrong.
"Moral equivalance" says that someone using deadly force to defend themselves from an attack is "just as bad" as the attacker; i.e. "everyone is wrong".
It's bullshit, of course.
"Moral equivalance" says that someone using deadly force to defend themselves from an attack is "just as bad" as the attacker; i.e. "everyone is wrong".
Moral equivalence
It isn't bullshit at all.
An analogy: my neighbor and I have been fighting over a property line for years. His son comes over and attacks my daughter. Now, I would certainly be justified in beating the crap out of him or even potentially killing him
while he was in the middle of the attack. However, there is NO WAY that I'd be justified in shooting my neighbor's
other son two days later. That isn't defense, it's retribution.
It's an analogy, so I know it doesn't describe the situation properly; so let's take a step back and remove the morality of Israeli responses from the situation because we aren't going to convince each other that we're right.
Are Israeli responses
effective in reducing the number of people who wish harm on them? Isn't that the ultimate test of whether an response is worth continuing?
Now, I would certainly be justified in beating the crap out of him or even potentially killing him while he was in the middle of the attack.
It still is "in the middle of the attack". It's no longer "in the middle of the attack" when the attacks stop.
Which they haven't.
Are Israeli responses effective in reducing the number of people who wish harm on them?
They are effective in eliminating the individuals who have been caught at it. That they breed quickly (there are thousands of schools devoted to turning children into new career terrorists) isn't exactly a reason to quit.
Damn, that's the worst case of "blame the victim" I've ever seen: "I don't think your defense is effective, so you should give up."
ah, suddenly it clicks......
All along, there was me thinking maggiel was argueing the polictics of this one...
"That they breed quickly (there are thousands of schools devoted to turning children into new career terrorists) isn't exactly a reason to quit. "
and all the time it was mere racism.....
Actually, as often as I disagree with Maggie, she's got a very valid point on this one... they DO indoctrinate their children and train them as the next generation of suicide-murderers.
ah, suddenly it clicks......
and all the time it was mere racism.....
Oh, it's the liberal "racism" card.
Again. What a load of hooey.
Do you think that herring of yours is red enough to distract from the terrorist indoctrination those kids get from the time they're old enough to have a toy suicide bomber vest put on them? (After all, why wait until they're in a madrassa?)
And when it's considered Hezbollah's entire strategy consisted of nothing but crimes against humanity, their moral bankruptcy becomes starkly clear, and the Israelis start looking angelic. It's not frightfully good strategy to show you value Lebanese lives at seven cents apiece, the price of one burlap sandbag. Polymer sandbags come even cheaper, at three cents per. Yet we can expect nothing else of substance from the anti-zionist/-semite hotheads of the Arab world. Massed bigots tend to reinforce each other. In the name of a decent world, reduce that mass.
and the Israelis start looking angelic.
Yeah right, even the US is now investigating the use of their cluster bombs by Israel in the latest phase of the war when talks of a cease fire was in the final stages. Which of course is the mother of hypocrisy, for what other purpose do you use cluster bombs as to harm the population?
Matthew 7:3 "And why do you look at the splinter in your brother's eye, and not notice the beam which is in your own eye?"
Matthew 7:3 "And why do you look at the splinter in your brother's eye, and not notice the beam which is in your own eye?"
Because I can tell the difference between a splinter and a beam, and am able to discern which is in whose eye.
Which is more than I can say for some people.
Because I can tell the difference between a splinter and a beam, and am able to discern which is in whose eye.
Which is more than I can say for some people.
I presume you refer to UG, who mentioned "angelic"?
How is it that I got turned into an anti-Semite? Oh right. By pointing out how they're part of the continuing the cycle of violence.
Neither side are victims in this stupid little play. The Islamists and Israelis both actively take measures to provoke each other, like to two siblings riding in the car on vaca.
I presume you refer to UG, who mentioned "angelic"?
You can presume quite a bit. You might consider quoting the entire sentence, even though one word out of context suits your purpose better.
It's just funny to hear the verse from Matthew quoted by the moral equivilance experts. I guess once you take the plunge, it's not a big leap from moral
equivalance to moral
inversion: the terrorists are not only no worse than their victims, they're actually morally superior.
for what other purpose do you use cluster bombs as to harm the population?
The BLU-97/B Combined Effects Bomb (CEB), effective against armor, personnel and material...
I think we can consider rocket launchers aimed randomly into civilian populations to be "material".
I just ran into this from
Kung-fu monkey:
Law of Modern Warfare #001: When you bomb people for their own good, they never, ever get your point in the way you hope.
I think that pretty much sums up my position really, really, really well.
I just ran into this from Kung-fu monkey:
Law of Modern Warfare #001: When you bomb people for their own good, they never, ever get your point in the way you hope.
I think that pretty much sums up my position really, really, really well.
Well, it *sounds* good, of course. But then I don't think anybody in this conflict is claiming they are "bombing somebody for their own good". The closest you get was Israel saying "It would really be better if you civilians didn't stand next to Hezbollah while we bomb them. And those Hezbollah fortifications adjacent to the UN OPs are problematic too."
There are laws of war, and it's pretty clear to me who's doing a better job of trying to observe them. You know: splinter, beam, etc.
Really? I thought part of the purpose of dropping large bombs in civilian populations was to remind the civvies that they shouldn't support 'terrorists.' Conversely, the purpose of exploding large human/car bombs in civilian populations was to try and convince civvies that they shouldn't support the government's policies vis a vis the 'occupation' of Lebanon/Palestine.
Were was that moral equivalence argument again? Oh yeah...back that a ways.
And laws of war are applicable between two states, not between a state and a non-state actor. Unfortunately, we enter into a whole world of legal fuzziness when combat like this occurs. What is, or is not, permissible within the rules when one side tosses the rules out the window by not even being within the conventions describing the major actors? They aren't like a militia or combat irregulars, because they aren't that organized.
The best description I've read is
fourth generation warfare, wherein the application of military force must be extremely judicious, as the 'enemy' invariably will use overzealousness in said action as a propaganda point, increasing sympathy/support internally and/or externally.
I ask the question again: which side 'won' this little bout of assininity?
I ask the question again: which side 'won' this little bout of assininity?
You just got done telling us that the conventional rules "don't apply". So what makes you think "won" means anything?
I think evaluating the outcome is premature, because we're still finding out which elements of the UNSC resolution will actually be implemented and which parts were meaningless bullshit signed by nations who had no intention of actually implementing them. Again.
Kinda like the Iranian uranium enrichment resolution.
But then these two issues aren't exactly unrelated.Don't mischaraterize what I said. I said the rules of war are not applicable to a conflict between a state and non-state actor (i.e., the definitions of acceptable behavior by the state military are blurred). That has nothing do with defining the potential risks/rewards as well as the goals of entering into combat.
It's just funny to hear the verse from Matthew quoted by the moral equivilance experts. I guess once you take the plunge, it's not a big leap from moral equivalance to moral inversion: the terrorists are not only no worse than their victims, they're actually morally superior.
Well, let´s leave it then to the moral equivilance expert here, you, to decide which side has the moral highground to bomb indiscriminately on civillian population. Which btw happen before in 1982 when the US halted delivery of cluster bombs to Israel, for a short while.
I think we can consider rocket launchers aimed randomly into civilian populations to be "material".
It should be, if it was there instead of playing children. Oops... I forgot you´re the moral expert here :rolleyes:
I think we can consider rocket launchers aimed randomly into civilian populations to be "material".
And then we apply reality. Those air attacks occurred long after the unguided (mostly irrelevant) rocket was launched AND long after the launchers had left. Second, Israeli pilots (asking that their identities not be included) noted how they could not see a rocket launcher even with a rocket on it. They were simply attacking (bombing) in the area that a rocket was reported launched (obvious another example of ineffective air power without boots on the ground). So they dropped cluster bombs in a large civilian area. No problem. They are all Arabs and therefore must be evil.
MaggieL forgets the reality. Pilots could not attack those rocket launchers. So the idea was to attach Lebanese civilians - including those in the most northern Lebanon province of Akkar. Clearly that also would stop rocket launching.
Cluster bombs can be used on military targets if Hezbollah had tanks and artillery. Obviously Hezbollah provides almost no useful targets for cluster bombs - " a matter of “consciousness”. " Cluster bombs were civilian terrorist weapons. Civilians attacked even in northern Akkar and south of the Latani River for same reasons.
The Economist defined why cluster bombs would be advocated against innocent civilians by a 'them is evil' general staff:
Victory is not a matter of seizing territory, Dan Halutz once explained. It is a matter of “consciousness”. ...
the seductive idea that air power can provide swift victory with light casualties has been around almost as long as the aeroplane itself. ...
And as others besides the Israelis have found, trying to wage an air campaign against irregular forces is especially vulnerable to the backlash that invariably arises as civilian casualties mount.
So why bomb innocent Lebanese even in most northern Akkar province? Why use cluster bombs when targets just don't exist? " a matter of “consciousness”. " As if cluster bombs would cause Lebanese to blame Hezbollah. As predictable, the reverse has occurred. Cluster bombs on civilian did not cause Lebanese to rise up against Hezbollah.
Well, let´s leave it then to the moral equivilance expert here, you, to decide which side has the moral highground to bomb indiscriminately on civillian population.
Hezbollah apparently belived they did, since that's what they were doing. That's the great thing about being "the party of God", wnhatever you want to do is OK. Almost "angelic".
You can
claim that Israel bombed indiscriminately, but that's not actually the case. You seem to be having a problem with meaning of the word "indiscriminate". Its meaning doesn't include "attempting to avoid collateral damage" or "operating under restrictions as to their use".
However, launching missiles with high-explosive shrapnel warheads and primitive or no guidance systems into a city
does qualify as "indiscriminate".
MaggieL forgets the reality.
This is another example of that element of tw's style I referred to earlier. HIs opinions are "facts", and his interpretation is "reality". I'm sure those killed by the Hezbollah bombardment will be comforted by the fact that they died in an attack that was "mostly irrelevant".
We'll have to get tw a t-shirt with that Adam Savage quote on it. I was so disppointed to learn Adam didn't originate it though.
I ask the question again: which side 'won' this little bout of assininity?
From the Economist of 19 Aug 2006 and this really was not difficult to see long ago. It was entitled "Nasrallah wins the war":
Israel's prime minister set himself an absurd aim - the complete demolition of Hizbullah's power in Lebanon - and failed to achieve it. The shrewder Mr Nasrallah said victory would consist merely of surviving, and Hizbullah, however battered, did survive. On the last day, it was not just standing, it also fired a record 246 rockets into Israel. ...
Israel being what it is, Mr Olmert's political foes lost no time denouncing the prime minister's failings as Israelis sank into a collective despond about the disappointing showing of their army and the blunting of their country's long-term deterrent power.
... the likelihood of the Lebanese army or a UN force trying to disarm Hizbullah against its will is zero. ...
Mr Olmert has no interest in concessions that reinforce the idea that he led his warrior nation to defeat. Israelis feel they dare not let their country look weak. And now come ominous signs that it does.
Meanwhile an almost irrelevant initial problem still exists. Two kidnapped Israeli soldiers remain kidnapped. What has changed? Israel is no longer demanding loudly that those soldiers be released. Just another fact from Israel's own actions that says Israel lost.
MaggieL still forgot reality to post that cluster bombs on civilians is justified; because a rocket launcher was once somewhere within miles of those innocent civilians. That is what she wants everyone to believe once we include facts she forgetst to mention. She *assumes* pilots could see and attack rocket launchers. She forgets reality. So now she will solve her logic with a tee shirt.
When those airplanes came to attack, the rocket launchers were long gone. That is reality. However maybe MaggieL will then claim the Israeli Air Force killed Hezbollah three times over. Its air power. It must have killed the enemy. Blessed be the foolish pilots who assume a big bomb only means combatants die. Then they won't feel guilty.
Next she will tell us that Israel won the war - reality be damned.
It was entitled "Nasrallah wins the war":
That's not exactly a unanimous opinion, see the link I posted a while back. There's a bigger struggle playing out here, and it's *far* from over.
That's not exactly a unanimous opinion, see the link I posted a while back. There's a bigger struggle playing out here, and it's *far* from over.
Yes the war is far from over. But this battle - which is we call a war and that was really nothing more than Israel's seventh invasion of Lebanon - goes to Hezbollah. Hezbollah that exists only because Israel invades Lebanon and because Israel even made enemies of their Shi'ite friends in Lebanon. Hezbollah that exists because the protagonists will not even negotiate - a 'them is evil' attitude that only means more battles - which we will then call wars.
The victor this year is Hezbollah. A victory was so obvious that the Olmert government may fall early to Likud.
That's not exactly a unanimous opinion, see the link I posted a while back.
Your cited editorial is in direct contradiction to what BBC reporters in those Lebanese towns reported. People with whole towns destroyed blamed Israel and praised Hezbollah. It rather surprised those BBC reporters and it in direct contradiction to what you editorial is based on. Your cited editorial says the innocent Lebanese blamed Hezbollah. Yes, BBC did find some with the opinion. But most all praise Hezbollah - in direct contradiction to a fundamental assumption in your cited editorial.
Meanwhile your editorial also has another problem. It assumes the classic propaganda that Iran had a big part in that Israel / Hezbollah battle. They did not. That Iranian connection is hyped only by US and Israeli propagandists. Just another assumption in that editorial that exposes it as misguided and more typical of someone's propaganda.
Once the report implies all kinds of Iranian government control and intervention, then it is obviously propaganda. Iran is nothing more than a supplier - as Nigeria is a major oil provider for the US.
I'm supprised that Israel hasn't just snapped and issued an ultimatum to Lebanon to the tune of 'unless you immediately disarm and disband Hizbollah we will concider you complicit in their actions. If you refuse to cooperate we will be forced to declare war on the Lebanese state itself". At least then they can do this like a normal war. Does anyone have any idea as to WHY Lebanon would not at least demand that Hizbollah change their objective to something that can actually be accomplished like "the removal of Israeli citizens and forces from all post-1947 Lebanese territory". Israel is NOT GOING ANYWHERE, so as long as anyone is dedicated to their complete destruction this is never going to end.
Nor is there anything particularly nasty, as weaponry goes, about cluster bombs and bomblets, Hippikos. Only those of little experience of war are going to get extra-specially wound up about this weapon or that being used and on whomever.
Even on Fox News, I noticed rather a lot of that going on, even among newsies who seemed old enough to know better.
The weapons all still blast you, get you all bloody, smack you around, and hurt a lot. A good many of them are deafeningly loud as well. I also don't particularly expect rationality about deciding whether it's napalm or phosgene that is beyond the martial pale.
Your cited editorial is in direct contradiction to what BBC reporters in those Lebanese towns reported.
Oh, now
there's a big fucking surprise. BBC, eh...how authoritative and unbiased.
Did you perhaps notice who wrote the editorial in question?
Oh, now there's a big fucking surprise. BBC, eh...how authoritative and unbiased.
Did you perhaps notice who wrote the editorial in question?
Well the Economist is so honest and so confident in their statements as to not use 'fucking'. You use that word for nothing but an emotional response. It says much about your grasp of reality - and therefore getting emotional. MaggieL - you have a Gen Curtis LeMay attitude. You see things biased in a right wing perspective. Get over it. Then you will not have to be so emotional as to use 'fucking' when your biases overwhelm the facts.
Does anyone have any idea as to WHY Lebanon would not at least demand that Hizbollah change their objective to something that can actually be accomplished like "the removal of Israeli citizens and forces from all post-1947 Lebanese territory".
That is what Israel was trying to accomplish in its seventh invasion; where the Israeli Air Force attacked innocent targets such as Beirut Airport and even northern cities in Akkar province. Israel cannot do as you have suggested because of what happened in their sixth invasion of Lebanon. People are too opposed to what is the ultimate and classic right wing extremist solution to problems.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah is not a significant problem to justify an eight invasion. Hezbollah drove Israel out of Lebanon to end the sixth invasion. Enough intelligent people remember that fact.
Hezbollah's hyped objectives are negotiation points. All sides have extremist rhetoric. Once Israel decides to return to a mentality that permitted the Oslo Accords, then we will all be 'surprised' at how quickly all that rhetoric changes. Since Israel does not talk to Hezbollah and since the US is also so right wing wacko now, then we will continue to hear propaganda type rhetoric about the destruction of Israel and evil Arabs. Unfortunately not enough people are dying so extremist right wing wacko solutions (air force bombing of all Lebanon) are still advocated.
Your post suffers too much from what Peter Jennings worried about. Americans get too much 'one sided' reporting amplified by AIPAC propaganda. Too many confuse pictures and proclamations, stated only for propaganda purposes, with real world intent. You somehow think force will solve things? That is the wacko right wing agenda.
Until negotiations break out, we will continue to hear how evil the other side is. Propaganda. Nothing more. Meanwhile, the UN can barely find troops for a ceasefire because neither Israel nor Hezbollah yet wants to negotiate. A situation so volatile that troops are only entering under a UN Chapter Six mandate - which is an admission that those troops are toothless. A UN admission that neither side wants peace yet. A situation that means not enough people have died. The death numbers must be higher and equal on both sides for negotiations to break out. Currently, death rates are nothing more than death rates on highways - trivial.
Without negotiations, then advocate massive deaths as an only solution. The disagreement is trivial; made only worse because right wing extremists on both sides always see solutions only in war and not in negotiations.
God fucking dammit, tw, what the hell do you fucking have against cussing and shit? I mean fuck, man, are you like, a total son of a motherfucking bitch, you damn bastard?
..Kidding, of course. Before you freak out at me. I know you regard emotion as an unwanted malfunction.
EDIT: wow, 'wacko' used a buncha times...
Your use of the word 'wacko' shows that you are going for an emotional response... Emotions baaaaad! Bad tw. Go sit in the corner and think about what you've done.
Well the Economist is so honest and so confident in their statements as to not use 'fucking'. You use that word for nothing but an emotional response. It says much about your grasp of reality - and therefore getting emotional. MaggieL - you have a Gen Curtis LeMay attitude. You see things biased in a right wing perspective. Get over it. Then you will not have to be so emotional as to use 'fucking' when your biases overwhelm the facts.
I want to see tw implement a moratorium on his use of the words "reality", "bias" and "facts" until he's able to demonstrate he knows what they mean.
As for "fucking", "get over it" is my reaction exactly. BBC really doesn't have much credibilty with me anymore; sorry if you're still sopping it up. Kind of funny considering how much you mock other news outlets.
So...now...about the author of that editorial...you really think he has less cred on Lebanon issues than the BBC stringers?
Why?
Hezbollah apparently belived they did, since that's what they were doing. That's the great thing about being "the party of God", wnhatever you want to do is OK. Almost "angelic".
You can claim that Israel bombed indiscriminately, but that's not actually the case. You seem to be having a problem with meaning of the word "indiscriminate". Its meaning doesn't include "attempting to avoid collateral damage" or "operating under restrictions as to their use".
However, launching missiles with high-explosive shrapnel warheads and primitive or no guidance systems into a city does qualify as "indiscriminate".
Both sides claim their right on religeous grounds. Most settlers are orthodox Jews claiming religious reasons for their territory.
Cluster bombs are indiscriminate weapons. The fact that they were used proof the fact. It is not my claim, just the simple fact they used it.
Both sides use indiscriminate weapons, albeit Israel on a much larger scale and that's what I meant with the splinter and the beam.
Did you perhaps notice who wrote the editorial in question?
It is wrong because it doesn't fit your high moral world view?
Nor is there anything particularly nasty, as weaponry goes, about cluster bombs and bomblets, Hippikos. Only those of little experience of war are going to get extra-specially wound up about this weapon or that being used and on whomever.
All tough talk from your comfy EZ chair, UG. Come back to me when you find them in your room and back garden. And tell Maggie when she goes bezerk again about these nasty Katushas...
I want to see tw implement a moratorium on his use of the words "reality", "bias" and "facts" until he's able to demonstrate he knows what they mean.
But MaggieL? How then would I categorize each of your conclusions? One thing I can count on. If it is what Gen Curtis LeMay would have said, then MaggieL will probably post same.
Centrist news sources just don't have credibility with MaggieL. Fox News and Rush Limbaugh are considered legitimate fact sources. Same news sources that insisted Saddam had WMDs - no doubts? Same 'biased' news sources that refused to report 'facts' that the George Jr administration knew they were lying when they lied. And that is 'reality'. Same news sources that even condemned the Jersey Girls. Things that BBC, instead, reported honestly and correctly.
Oh my gosh. I just cited 'history' again. Maybe I should also be banned from citing 'history' because 'history' also exposes a right wing "Curtis LeMay" political agenda. That is the problem with facts, reality, bias, and history. Without those words, then MaggieL could constantly post a Curtis LeMay agenda unchallenged.
It is wrong because it doesn't fit your high moral world view?
I was actually addressing tw, who would still rather call me names rather than respond to the question. I think I'll go back to ignoring him now (since he's actually ignoring me); it's a fitting punishment. Far be it from me to continue to try to convince him that he might listen to a Lebanese national rather that his "centrist" (now there's a howler...pardon me, a fucking howler) BBC.
(I guess refusing to use the word "terrorist" at all might look "centrist" next to those who call the Israelis "terrorists". But I think that's a funny place to put your "center". )
There's a difference between using an area weapon and indescriminate bombing. An area weapon targets an area rather than just a point, but in the case of a cluster bomb the area is precicely determined because the weapon is precicely guided to a selected target.
A shrapnel-fiilled high-explosive warhead with no guidance system is indiscriminate; the person firing it has very little idea of or control over who it kills.
Of course, a nail-studden Semtex vest detonated in a pizza shop is an area weapon, but also indiscriminate; even though the human bomb is much more *capable* of controlling who is killed than a Hezbollah rocket artilleryman, he or she simply doesn't care; after all, Allah knows his own.
There's a difference between using an area weapon and indescriminate bombing. An area weapon targets an area rather than just a point, but in the case of a cluster bomb the area is precicely determined because the weapon is precicely guided to a selected target.
Maggie, do you have any idea what utter nonsense you're excreting? Although mines are banneed under the Ottawa Treatment, cluster bombs have caused more civilian casualties in Kosovo and Iraq than mines. UN experts found at least 100,000 unexploded bomblets at over 300 sites in Lebanon. Do you really think cluster bombs are precisely guided? The area affected by a single cluster munition, also known as the footprint, can be as large as two or three football fields. Again, you call this precisely? Israel knows exactly what damage cluster bombs do to civillian population. But maybe that's allowed from your moral point of view?
(since he's actually ignoring me)
I see a message from TW just above yours, do you have a selective sight?
I see a message from TW just above yours, do you have a selective sight?
When I put a question in a discussion, my sight becomes rather selective in searching for an actual response. "Messages" there are plenty of, but the noise level is extremely high. In fact, if there's one thing tw is good at, it's noise generation.
An area weapon can cover a large area. But
which area that is is controlled.
You can't say the same for what are essentially WW II era antipersonnel rockets, they fly off, and end up somewhere miles away vaguely in the direction it is pointed. There is no way to use them other than indiscriminately. While the area covered by a cluster bomb can be adjusted to be up to the size of football fields, the center and size of that area is controlled.
With Hezbollah's rockets, they can't even control the point of impact within several football fields, nor do they particularly care, as long as it hits something.
Although mines are banneed under the Ottawa Treatment, cluster bombs have caused more civilian casualties in Kosovo and Iraq than mines.
If mines are banned, then it's hardly surpising that cluster bombs are more common, is it?
Both sides claim their right on religeous grounds. Most settlers are orthodox Jews claiming religious reasons for their territory.
With some archaelogical support, unless you try and dismiss the
Biblical Archaeological Review as a monthly fantasy magazine or something. As for Moslem religious claims, they have a heavy flavor of Muhammed-come-lately to them. No way would they have primacy. Also no particular reason to call for throwing them out, either.
Cluster bombs are indiscriminate weapons. The fact that they were used proof the fact. It is not my claim, just the simple fact they used it.
Both sides use indiscriminate weapons, albeit Israel on a much larger scale and that's what I meant with the splinter and the beam.
Bombs, period, are indiscriminate. I cannot get more worked up about cluster munitions vs. Mk 84 2000-pound GP free-fall bombs in any rational way, for reasons seen above. And any unexploded ordnance of any description is still trouble, and the way to bet is it's trouble on a hair trigger. They're still losing farmers around Mons, Verdun, and the Somme to stuff that landed there ninety years ago.
All tough talk from your comfy EZ chair, UG. Come back to me when you find them in your room and back garden. And tell Maggie when she goes bezerk again about these nasty Katushas...
If you are currently active in EOD work, Hippikos, then and only then may you talk shit to me about UXO. Unless you are currently active in EOD work, you've got no call to kick. Nor would it hurt to spell "berserk" or "Katyusha" right [stress the first syllable, btw, KAHT-yusha... can't tell you why the Russians called a bombardment rocket "Kathie," but they did]. If you're going to piss people off, don't do it stupidly -- we tend to put your balls in the Osterizer and hit "pulse."
Once the report implies all kinds of Iranian government control and intervention, then it is obviously propaganda. Iran is nothing more than a supplier - as Nigeria is a major oil provider for the US.
Ah....your sources are facts, any that contradict must be propiganda. Your reasoning is logic, other's reasoning is hysteria.
Can you tell the difference between a supplier/customer relationship and belligerent/surrogate one?
We pay Nigeria for oil....that makes us a customer. Hezbollah gets their weapons (and crews for them) from Iran, for free, with a cash subsidy besides. And then is expected to use them when and where Iran directs.
Like when Iran wants a distraction from their nuclear program. Or when Iran wants a credible capability to retaliate against a strike on the facilities that make up that program. How nice to be able to hold Haifa hostage, if you're going to thumb your nose at UNSCR 1696 as you did at 1559.
A victory was so obvious that the Olmert government may fall early to Likud.
We'll see. A lot of that may depend on how much spine is shown in the coming weeks and months to resist any one-sided implementation of the ceasefire resolutions.
With some archaelogical support, unless you try and dismiss the Biblical Archaeological Review as a monthly fantasy magazine or something.
Heh, you probably could. But even if you accept the Bible as a history book, it's about the Israelites invading and taking the land from those who lived there. There's no original claim there.
How nice to be able to hold Haifa hostage, if you're going to thumb your nose at UNSCR 1696 as you did at 1559.
Which again ignores the bottom line. United States announced intent to unilaterally attack Iraq, Iran, and N Korea. Why would those countries listen to the UN when the UN would not even stop US 'Pearl Harbor' attacks? All this nonsense about Iran uranium enrichment ignores the bottom line fact. They must build every weapon necessary to defend themselves. The United Stated right wing extremists intend to attack Iran as soon as forces can be made available.
Want to stop proliferation? Start with the number one reason why proliferation is necessary. It is called pre-emption. A concept advocated by ‘big dic’ mentalities. A unilateral attack of anyone who might later become a threat. No, not an attack due to a smoking gun. Not even an attack due to a threat. An attack because they *might* become a threat. Therefore N Korea and Iran have excellent reasons to build weapons ASAP.
It was called containment. It worked well for 50 years - when used by every president - at stopping such problems. Containment also permits the one thing that stops all wars: negotiation. What is not possible when a 'big dic' mentality creates American foreign policy? Negotiation. And so the world is again on a road to inevitable war. We won't even talk to Iran and N Korea - and both are begging for talks with the US. The difference is that America is and wants to be the aggressor.
BTW, if so worried about Iran uranium, then why would we sell nuclear material to another nation that does not abide by the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty - India? In classic George Jr style - the Cheney doctrine - we will undermine another international treaty - Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty - by selling nuclear materials to India. This is for world peace?
Do you worry about details or do you first view a big picture? If Haifa becomes a victim, it is a victim of those who are working for Armageddon. Pre-emption, destruction of international agreements and treaties (Anti-Ballistic Missile, Oslo Accords, Nuclear Non-proliferation, even promises to Russia), and unjustified 'Pearl Harbor' invasions all only mean more war, death, and destruction. Armageddon is what George Jr's supporters want. No wonder they cannot be bothered to go after bin Laden. An alive bin Laden is but another excuse for more 'big dic' actions.
I don't thumb my nose at solutions. I confront perspectives that are so dangerous. Let us not forget that if Gen Curtis LeMay - another 'big dic' mentality - had his way, then the Cellar would not exist. Bottom line: a 'big dic' mentality is the most dangerous concept we face today. Far more dangerous than UN resolutions routinely ignored by Iran and israel. The ‘big dic’ is advocated by the person who tells George Jr what to do - VP Cheney.
Which again ignores the bottom line.
Ah, "the bottom line" has now replaced "facts" and "reality". I suppose that's progress.
United States announced intent to unilaterally attack Iraq, Iran, and N Korea
I must have been out that day. Unless you meant this:
States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.
Calling that "announcing intent to attack unilaterally" is a stretch, even for you.
I don't thumb my nose at solutions.
As much as it may disappoint you, I wasn't talking about you, I was talking about Iran.
United States announced intent to unilaterally attack Iraq, Iran, and N Korea.
I must have been out that day.
You heard George Jr announce his intents in his 2002 State of the Union address. George Jr defined the axis of evil (as if united in their intentions to attack the US - a total myth).
Funny. This president is still preaching a naive and outrightly stupid idea of a mythical and united terrorism network. He is preaching to those who share Cheney's 'big dic' mentality. An intelligent centrist should have seen through this lying president long ago when Bremmer and George Jr created the Iraqi insurgency by firing the army and police (in direct violation even of Military Science 101 principles).
Neocons also wanted to put Syria on that 'evil' list. But Syria was a quiet ally of the US - doing much of American spying in Iraq.
When neocons wish for enemies hiding everywhere, then they create such enemies. Welcome to Iraq. Saddam was doing everything possible to remain on America's good side. Saddam had zero intention to attack the US or harm Americans - a fact that everyone should now acknowledge. So neocons preached to those easily enticed by 'big dic' biases - to spin Saddam into some kind of world threat. Neocons lied to those too biased to see otherwise.
Those who repeatedly believed the lying George Jr will never understand their biases. A 'big dic' mentality needs enemies to justify their existence. Those with a Gen Curtis LeMay view of a world in 'black and white' need enemies.
George Jr gave us the list of countries he intended to 'fix'. This for numerous reason originally defined by 'Project for a New American Century’ including a demand that we 'secure OUR oil'. Whose oil? Our oil - part of the 'big dic' mentality. This also accomplished by imposing democracy on others whether they wanted it or not.
George Jr listed countries he (Cheney) intended to fix: the axis of evil. It is basic to the dangerous and ignorant policy called pre-emption. Those with 'big dic' mentalities somehow assume Iran is a threat to the US. We get the enemies we want. A policy that 'big dic' mentalities love with its hype of military solutions.
MaggieL conveniently forgets what put the death knife into the back of an Iranian reform movement. That 'axis of evil' speech. She forgets this to promote a 'big dic' solution - to see enemies everywhere - to ignore that George Jr list of countries the US intends to 'Pearl Harbor'. No wonder American popularity plummeted from above 70% approval to below 20%. 'Big dic' Cheney mentality is alive and well with a desire to promote Armageddon - especially in PA's Senator Santorum.
You heard George Jr announce his intents in his 2002 State of the Union address.
That's exactly what I quoted. And then I said...
Calling that "announcing intent to attack unilaterally" is a stretch, even for you.
Are you ignoring that what you're referring to is exactly what I quoted because you're trying to distract attention from what a huge leap your interpretation is, and the claim holds up better if your readers don't actually have the words in front of them?
Or is it because you're so blinded by your tunnel-vision hatred of Bush that you didn't even recognize the very speech you're referring to?
With some archaelogical support, unless you try and dismiss the Biblical Archaeological Review as a monthly fantasy magazine or something. As for Moslem religious claims, they have a heavy flavor of Muhammed-come-lately to them. No way would they have primacy. Also no particular reason to call for throwing them out, either.
My archaelogical support is that the population in Palestine (jews and arabs) lived there peacefully for centuries, while the Zionists base their claim on the 80 years Kingdom of David and Solomon, 3000 years ago. The US has to return a lot of territory to the Indians with your logic, maybe even where you live right now?
Bombs, period, are indiscriminate.
Duh...that's what I'm trying to tell MaggieL all time...
If you are currently active in EOD work, Hippikos, then and only then may you talk shit to me about UXO. Unless you are currently active in EOD work, you've got no call to kick. Nor would it hurt to spell "berserk" or "Katyusha" right [stress the first syllable, btw, KAHT-yusha... can't tell you why the Russians called a bombardment rocket "Kathie," but they did]. If you're going to piss people off, don't do it stupidly -- we tend to put your balls in the Osterizer and hit "pulse."
Are you so desperate that you have to resort to spelling nitpicking and keyboard warrier tough talk now, Professor UG? Is that all you've got left to discuss? The only thing that's in the Osterizer is your credibillity.
Bombs, period, are indiscriminate.
Duh...that's what I'm trying to tell MaggieL all time...
Again we fail to distinguish the distinguishable when the confusion benefits trying to establish moral equivalance where in fact there is none.
Even UG's gravity bomb can be fairly precicely targeted, when compared with an unguided or crudely guided rocket warhead Since we're talking WW II-era tech in the case of what Iran gives to Hezbollah, compare UG's 500-pounder delivered from, say, an altitude of 2,000 feet using a Norden bombsight with the
Vergeltungswaffe-I (no accident they're called
vengance weapons) or
-II. This *is* rocket science, you know...and to use anything less primitive than the most random weapons Iran had to provide Hezbollah with crews as well as the weapons and launchers themselves. But it's still a total crapshoot...just at a longer range.
An unguided rocket is vastly more indiscriminate than an aimed gravity bomb, which is itself more indiscriminate than, say, a sniper firing from concealment with a match-grade .30-06 and a 10x scope, who can drop one selected target while leaving five others standing around him. I think what UG meant to say is that once you're standing next to one, the effects of most UXO losing their "U" status are similar.
I'm refrring to the amount of discrimination
used in the attack. A suicide bomber can walk right into a selected pizza shop befoire detonating (assuming he doesn't panic and push the button at a security checkpoint). He *can* discriminate, he just doesn't give a shit; all Israelis are his targets, and any one will do. The same is true of Hezbollah.
A typical liberal will try to distract you by painting a picture of how powerful a
weapon is to prevent you from contemplating how horrible the
intent of an assailant is. That's as true in this case as it is in gun confiscation debates here in the US...a liberal will take away your legal handgun while leaving the criminals armed, just as Kofi Annan insists the Israelis withdraw and drop their blockade without demanding anything like compliance from Iran, Syria and their Hezbollah henchmen.
A typical liberal will try to distract you by painting a picture of how powerful a weapon is to prevent you from contemplating how horrible the intent of an assailant is.
And the intent of a cluster bomb is to render a large area uninhabitable by civilians or the enemy until cleared, placing not only the enemy who are immediately occupying the area at risk, but returning civilians after the conflict is over.
This makes the use of the weapon more a matter of collective punishment than purely tactical.
And the intent of a cluster bomb is to render a large area uninhabitable by civilians or the enemy until cleared,...
Not all "cluster bombs" are the same, so you can't attribute the same intent to them all.
Can you cite a credible reference that indicates that the Israelis have used delay-fused submunitions against an arguably-civillian target in this conflict?
Not all "cluster bombs" are the same, so you can't attribute the same intent to them all.
Can you cite a credible reference that indicates that the Israelis have used delay-fused submunitions against an arguably-civillian target in this conflict?
From
CNN.
Since a U.N.-brokered cease-fire took hold August 14, eight Lebanese have been killed by exploding ordnance, including two children, and 38 people have been wounded, according to a U.N. count.
"A lot of them are in civilian areas, on farmland and in people's homes. We're finding a lot at the entrances to houses, on balconies and roofs," Farran said. "Sometimes windows are broken, and they get inside the houses."
Maybe they mistook the garden gnome for a Hezbollah militant?
MaggieL is going out of her way and twisting in the most impossible turns to prove that cluster bombs are justified because they have a precision of 3 football fields instead of one village.
In order to use your phraseology; The Israeli doesn't give a shit that civil population will be harmed by the cluster bombs, because they had absolutely no clue where the ka-ty-ushas were being launched when they dropped the cluster bombs.
From Iraq experience we and Israel knew that at least 50% of the bomblets will not explode on impact but in a later stage when picked up or stumbled upon.
And why do you think US State Department will investigate the use of their cluster bombs?
Or is it because you're so blinded by your tunnel-vision hatred of Bush that you didn't even recognize the very speech you're referring to?
The man lies repeatedly and you still support his anti-Americans actions. He promotes torture and you have no problem with that. He unilaterally 'Pearl Harbors' a sovereign nation knowing justifications were fictional. MaggieL approves. It's not about hate. It is about those who do so hate America as to keep promoting a lying president's extremist agenda.
MaggieL - pre-emption is how things adverse to all mankind are promoted. Promoting religion through politics and laws is classic anti-American. What in this president do you so love? To deflect an embarrassing question, you now attack the messenger.
George Jr listed countries he intended to fix - the axis of evil. Those remaining countries are now desperately building defensive weapons AND both are begging for negotiation - what all good nations do. Only a mental midget would proclaim with biblical confidence that he does not negotiate with evil. Only the naive could defend that logic.
No hate. The man is that defective, that dangerous, that poorly educated, that manipulated by his right wing extremist handlers, blindly believes he is doing what god has told him, undermining the national wealth and military strength of America, destroying American science, makes Americans a target of terrorists, and has earned for America a devastated international approval rating. Those are facts that apply to scumbag presidents such a Richard Nixon and George Jr. Only a person just as anti-American would support such crap.
Let's face facts, MaggieL. You love a scumbag president who does not even read his memos. Who sees enemies everywhere. Who is told, "America is under attack", does nothing for 15 minutes, then gets on a plane and does nothing to defend America all day. Or did you forget to read the 9/11 Commission report. This president is begged by Brownie to cut red tape to save the people of New Orleans. Instead this president goes to CA for a campaign fund raiser and to AZ for McCain's birthday. MaggieL says this is good? This president promotes pre-emption with religious zeal. MaggieL will support that failed agenda until Armageddon? It is the Curtis LeMay attitude. MaggieL has an extremist bias that somehow can overlook facts.
Only a fool would name his war "Mission Accomplished". Only an anti-American would let bin Laden go free. That is the mental midget. No hate. Just facts. He is that dumb as to even proclaim a world wide terror network. To proclaim what is happening in Iraq as THE most critical event in the 21st Century - and then dispatch too few troops. Troops even had to embarrass the Sec of Defense with a blunt and public question to get armored Humvees - and MaggieL approves? Only the logically naive would believe his lies. Why do you do that, MaggieL? But then one of us read his book to have opinions based on facts. The other only makes false accusations quoted above. The man spends money like a drunk - just like another lying president did during Vietnam. MaggieL has no problem with - well, MaggieL even finds torture acceptable.
Every lurker - these are damning facts. And yet that is only the short list.
It is an old Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove technique. Attack me because MaggieL cannot defend her extremist anti-American president. We should be talking about impeachment. Better to attack tw as Rush and Karl teach. It is your Curtis LeMay attitude complete with 'attack the messenger'. Facts say those who support this lying president (in a Richard Nixon tradition) are only lying to themselves. But then we go back to those lies about WMDs. One repeatedly insisted WMDs exist. The other instead used logic to say no such evidence exists. Long time Cellar dwellers will remember those marathon exchanges five years ago. Which one of us was so honest and correct as to also compare this president to another anti-American one - Nixon? And be so bluntly honest as to make others angry at the tone of that honesty. MaggieL - you make false accusations. You get back your repeated history of blindly supporting the lies of extremists. Attacking me does not change your bias that supports a presidential liar.
I would have thought you learned when the president made you a liar about WMDs. "Fool me once, shame on you ..."
Are you so desperate that you have to resort to spelling nitpicking and keyboard warrier tough talk now, Professor UG?
IOW, you're not in EOD. You've lost this one; now have the grace to shut the fuck up and sit down. However tough you think you are, I'm probably tougher, likely wiser, probably older and more experienced, and I spell like someone who's paying attention. I'm simply saying I'm not putting up with nonsense from you. There's no shame in that for either of us.
Turning to tw's arguments, such as they are -- they still all boil down to "I hate the Republicans to an irrational degree because they won't bow to the Communist International or something" -- he's spinning, trying with all his might to get this war with unfreedom's minions lost as soon as may be. Therefore, no one should take his advice, or believe what he tells them.
Maybe they mistook the garden gnome for a Hezbollah militant?
So that would be a "no" then. You have accused the Israelis of
intending to use cluster bombs as mines. But you have no evidence that these casualties were caused by delay-fused weapon, which is what it would take to prove that intent. That there are unexploded munitions on the battlefield is not surprising; a fair number of Hezbollah rockets were duds too.
The difference is: indiscriminate intent is demonstrated by
using those rockets at all;
there is no other way to use them.
I see tw is back to lecturing on what "the facts" are...I didn't think he could hold off for long. (He's also admitted he's actually sermonizing to the lurkers. :-) )
And like every thread tw posts in, it's eventually All About Bush. I'm going for the "too blinded by hate to recognize his own reference" theory. I know It's just so tough to be this far into hurricane season with no storm to blame on him, and--gosh darn it--that Armitage thing was such a disappointment too, but cheer up: maybe something else awful will happen.
MaggieL is going out of her way and twisting in the most impossible turns to prove that cluster bombs are justified because they have a precision of 3 football fields instead of one village.
So we're up to *three* football fields now? It was two last time. Will it be four on the next round? Since you're so jiggy with the effective radius, what's the CEP on one of these delivered from an F-16?
And for comparison, a typical Hezbollah rocket?
(Hint, the first is measured in meters, the second in kilometers)
From Iraq experience we and Israel knew that at least 50% of the bomblets will not explode on impact but in a later stage when picked up or stumbled upon.
The actual number is more like 5%.
Where are you getting your numbers?
And why do you think US State Department will investigate the use of their cluster bombs?
Because there have been complaints thet they've been misused....not exactly surprising.
And who will investigate what Hezbollah has been doing? Oh...that's right...
mmmm.... as I understand the situation, Hezbollah rockets are fired at a pretty much random pattern into Northern Israel. They land, explode and unfortunatly have killed some tens of Israeli citizens.
The IDF, perhaps rightly so, think this is not a good thing, and bombard Lebannon with mucho macho munitions. Of which a good proportion are designed not to explode on impact but to go *bang* (ha-ha - got you - now go break a leg (if you still have a leg)) when overt hostilities are over.
Not true Jay, they're not designed to not to explode on impact, they are all supposed to go off. It's a problem they would like to address, because usually the first people in the area after we drop them, are our troops. ;)
An internal fuse tells each submunition when to detonate--either "above ground, at impact, or in a delayed mode." (35)
So really, there is no way to prove intent without knowing if the fuses were set to delayed mode or impact.
One measure would be comparing total expended with total unexploded found.
IOW, you're not in EOD. You've lost this one; now have the grace to shut the fuck up and sit down. However tough you think you are, I'm probably tougher, likely wiser, probably older and more experienced, and I spell like someone who's paying attention. I'm simply saying I'm not putting up with nonsense from you. There's no shame in that for either of us.
Ah...more tough talk from our keyboard warrior. What has the EOD got to do with this all? What I said was that it's easy to be tough from an EZ chair in an airconditioned room and that you would talk differently having clusterbombs in your back garden.
My spelling may have room for improvement, but that's because English is not my first language. But we could continue this discussion in Dutch, French or German if you like, maybe your spelling in these languages is also better than mine, n'est-ce-pas?
As for your experience, I have no doubt that you have more experience selling patatoe cutters than me.
So we're up to *three* football fields now? It was two last time. Will it be four on the next round? Since you're so jiggy with the effective radius, what's the CEP on one of these delivered from an F-16?
This is what I wrote:
“…can be as large as two or three football fields” try to keep up with reality for once, MaggieL.
Cluster bombs are delivered either by aircraft, rocket or by artillerie. Since we are talking numbers, less than 50 Israelian civillians died, over a 1000 Lebanese civillians died. Does that mean Israel did a better job with a more effective radius?
The actual number is more like 5%. Where are you getting your numbers?
Here:
“We're finding strikes that are in people's houses, in the middle of the street, around hospitals," said Chris Clark, program manager of the UN Mine Action Co-ordination Center in southern Lebanon. Approximately 250,000 Lebanese of the one million displaced cannot move back into their homes, many because of unexploded munitions.
An unusual number of cluster bombs used in the war did not detonate on impact, possibly because they were old, Mr Egeland said. Usually 10-15 per cent of the bomblets fail to explode immediately. According to some estimates, up to 70 per cent of the Israeli bomblets failed to explode initially. Civilians returning to their homes in southern Lebanon are experiencing "massive problems," as a result of these unexploded munitions, Mr Egeland said.”
(Times Online)
Usually between 20 and 30% are duds, but it seem Israel has used old cluster bombs resulting in a higher number of unexploded bomblets. UN says it was 70%, I kept it a little more conservative.
Cluster bombs disperse widely and are difficult to target precisely, they are especially dangerous when used near civilian areas. In addition, they are prone to failure: if the container opens at the wrong height, or the bomblets don't fuse properly, or their descent is broken by trees, or they land on soft ground - they may not detonate. This risk is known to the military who ordered to use it.
And who will investigate what Hezbollah has been doing? Oh...that's right...
You see, MaggieL, contrary what you do with Israel, I never whitewashed what Hezbollah did. I accuse both sides of atrocities against civillians, albeit Israel on a MUCH larger scale.
You see, MaggieL, contrary what you do with Israel, I never whitewashed what Hezbollah did. I accuse both sides of atrocities against civillians, albeit Israel on a MUCH larger scale.
The thing is, Israel never MEANT to... Hezbollah did.
Since we are talking numbers, less than 50 Israelian civillians died, over a 1000 Lebanese civillians died. Does that mean Israel did a better job with a more effective radius?
No, it means that Israel keeps its civilians away from combat as much as possble, whereas Hezbollah considers siting their weapons and personel among Lebanese civilians and adjacent to UN position to be a political propiganda advantage. So people like you will blame the Israelis for the result.
There's only two reasons you haven't seen huge Hezbollah antipersonel weapons detonating in downtown Tel Aviv: they don't have them and can't deliver them there. They
brag about the larger Russian and Chineese-designed missles thev've managed to drop randomly on civilians in Haifa...much of the remainder of which missles have now been destroyed on the ground by the same Israeli airstrikes you condem. (Replacements are on the way, of course.)
They're clearly not constrained by any moral or legal considerations; it's all a matter of capabilities; we know what their intentions are. So one can hardly wait for the Iranians to have nukes.
You can bandy scary words about how much area a cluster bomb can cover, but in fact that can be controlled. How much area
actually was covered by each of the weapons you're complaining about?
You don't know. You don't know how many were dropped, or what kind, or where (except in the vaguest terms). You certainly don't know
why.--what military target they were being amed at when they were released; you can be certain that any evidence of that will be removed before the press and UN are brought in. All you do know is it makes a just dandy excuse to pillory the Israelis.
I don't need to whitewash the Israelis...all the credible evidence I've seen so far suggests they have been doing no more than defending themselves from attack.
No, it means that Israel keeps its civilians away from combat as much as possble, whereas Hezbollah considers siting their weapons and personel among Lebanese civilians and adjacent to UN position to be a political propiganda advantage. So people like you will blame the Israelis for the result.
Israel already killed 52 Lebanon civillians the first day (including 15 children) before any rockets has been launched by Hizbollah, more than Israelian civillians the whole 33 day war.
There's only two reasons you haven't seen huge Hezbollah antipersonel weapons detonating in downtown Tel Aviv: they don't have them and can't deliver them there. They brag about the larger Russian and Chineese-designed missles thev've managed to drop randomly on civilians in Haifa...much of the remainder of which missles have now been destroyed on the ground by the same Israeli airstrikes you condem. (Replacements are on the way, of course.)
Hizbollah has Iranian missiles that can hit Tel-Aviv. Most likely Tehran has forbid Hizbollah to use them, for now.
They're clearly not constrained by any moral or legal considerations; it's all a matter of capabilities; we know what their intentions are.
Neither has Israel, as been shown in the Gaza strip, the West Bank and Lebanon the last 50 years.
So one can hardly wait for the Iranians to have nukes.
And then? Israel has them for decades, without signing any proliferation treaty. Pakistan has them, one can hardly wait for Musharraf being replaced.
You don't know. You don't know how many were dropped, or what kind, or where (except in the vaguest terms). You certainly don't know why.--what military target they were being amed at when they were released; you can be certain that any evidence of that will be removed before the press and UN are brought in. All you do know is it makes a just dandy excuse to pillory the Israelis.
Three types of artillery-delivered cluster bombs were used by Israel in Lebanon -- two U.S.-made (M42 and M77) and one Israeli (M85)
So far, the United Nations has found 400 strike sites where cluster bombs were used -- "a lot of them U.S.-manufactured"
U.N. demining teams, who have destroyed 2,900 sub-munitions so far, predict it would take 12 to 15 months to clean up the cluster bombs. (Source: Reuters)
I don't need to whitewash the Israelis...
You are doing your very best the last 16 pages of this thread...
No, it means that Israel keeps its civilians away from combat as much as possble, whereas Hezbollah considers siting their weapons and personel among Lebanese civilians and adjacent to UN position to be a political propiganda advantage. So people like you will blame the Israelis for the result.
MarjayounMarjayoun
I think we can safely place Fisk in that category too. There's other less biased coverage of the "untold story" online; I recommend Google.
Three types of artillery-delivered cluster bombs were used by Israel in Lebanon -- two U.S.-made (M42 and M77) and one Israeli (M85)
And how many of those were delay fused? Artillery shells aren't your "three football field" aerial bombs. A little bit of retroactive Googling such as you've obviously done isn't going to be sufficient here.
Also some support for your claim that Hezbollah has large missiles that can strike Tel Aviv would be nice. Of course
Iran has them, but you're claiming they've been delivered in Lebanon, and survived?
Or are they (and their crews) simply waiting to cross the Syrian border disguised as humanitarian relief?
His bias is an open mind. Sometimes it gets him in trouble because he prints stories as they develop but, he is better than most and actually understands the interplay of factions.
His bias is an open mind.
Oh, please. Look at the history of his publications and tell me again how open his mind is. This is the fellow who along with George Galloway is praised by Adam Gadahn in Al-Queda's latest video.
He has said that journalistic neutrality is "no longer relevant" to the Middle East and that instead journalists are "morally bound ... to show eloquent compassion to the victims." And Fisk’s reporting makes all too clear whom he anoints as the "victims" in the Israeli-Arab conflict.
[SIZE="2"]http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=6&x_article=1062[/SIZE]
Suprisingly, we can't kill all the Arabs. If "we" insist on getting caught up in regional politics in the mid-east, we ought to know how our bullshit plays on the Arab street. Guys like Fisk will tell us, but if you prefer to ignore that part of the picture have at, your President is with you on that.
...we ought to know how our bullshit plays on the Arab street. Guys like Fisk will tell us, but if you prefer to ignore that part of the picture...
:"Guys like Fisk" aren't in the business of "telling us part of the picture". He's clearly not a journalist, he's an advocate and an activist: yet another combatant in the Infowar.
Fascinating attitude. That is exactly what the Democrats need to run against if they want to win in 2008. So far, they have not shown that they understand the world any better than the order imposing Bush, but the opportunity is there.
And how many of those were delay fused?
I never mentioned anything about delay fused (show me). I said US and Israel military knew about the high rate of duds when using cluster bombs. Stop mudding water for once, MaggieL.
Artillery shells aren't your "three football field" aerial bombs. A little bit of retroactive Googling such as you've obviously done isn't going to be sufficient here.
Artillery and rockets are even less accurate than other form of delivery.
Also some support for your claim that Hezbollah has large missiles that can strike Tel Aviv would be nice. Of course Iran has them, but you're claiming they've been delivered in Lebanon, and survived?
Such a pitty you never seem to believe me MaggieL, maybe you believe
The Jerusalem Post?
Or are they (and their crews) simply waiting to cross the Syrian border disguised as humanitarian relief?
Probably they're waiting for the US humanitarian relief to Israel.
I never mentioned anything about delay fused.
Rich was, when he equated cluster bombs to a minefield. Cluster bombs, and clustered artillery shells aren't implicit evident of indiscriminate intent. Crudely guided missiles are; variations in thrust and more succeptibilty to wind make them a lot less accurate. Artillery shells aren't implicitly less accurate than a gravity bomb. But they do dispense differently and cover less area. Effective area and accuracy (measured as CEP) aren't even close to being the same thing.
Speaking of CEP, a Zelzal-2 might be fired in the general direction of Tel Aviv. But where would it land?
doesn't matter where it lands - it will explode on impact and thus constitute no further danger to future visitors to that area.
OTH, the IDF are much more precise about where their munitions land, but are somewhat less sanguine about the immediate damage. A furtherance of their 'interdiction' policy, perhaps....
Rich was, when he equated cluster bombs to a minefield. Cluster bombs, and clustered artillery shells aren't implicit evident of indiscriminate intent.
Well that just mocks the intelligence of everyone here. Since no Hezbollah were where those cluster bombs were dropped, then that is a legal target? Remember, even if the plane lucked out - dropped a cluster bomb where an unguided rocket was launched 20 minutes earlier, still, no enemy left to bomb. Just civilians or civilian property to target. AND pilots only had a general region - a wild guess - of where most rockets were launched. Pilots had no ground spotters - and MaggieL knows ground spotters were necessary to accurately target. Pilots could see neither a rocket launcher nor Hezbollah. Pilot often picked a general area - a likely target - and cluster bombed it. This even from Israeli pilots quoted by the BBC. MaggieL thinks everyone is so stupid as to call that accurate targeting. To be more indiscriminate, they must also bombing Israel.
Bombing was so indiscriminate as to even bomb cities in most northern Lebanon cities in Akkar province. Israeli pilots attacked Hezbollah hiding in cities in every Lebanese province. Clearly that also was not indiscriminate.
Israel leaders would then blame civilians for 'letting Hezbollah use their homes as rocket launching sites'. Tell us what a homeowner would do when armed troops arrived to launch a rocket anywhere towards Israel. And yet Israel justification for random cluster bombs was that civilians were supporting Hezbollah; letting Hezbollah use their neighborhoods as launching pad. That alone means bombing was targeted; not indiscriminate? MaggieL - do you love to insult everyone's intelligence with that reasoning? This post is that strongly worded because your claims do that much mock basic intelligence. You actually believe pilots could identify targets? Then you mock everyone.
MagggieL's soundbyte reasoning is bull once we add facts she routinely forgets. Clearly, in MaggieL's world, those pilots could see rocket launchers and those Hezbollah soldiers remaining for 20 minutes so that Israeli planes could attack them. World according to MaggieL - when only Likud Israeli extremists wear white hats.
Chinese soldiers are now removing cluster bombs from Lebanese civilian areas. Unexploded cluster bombs in fields and towns like a minefield. Officially it is not a minefield. Reality - no difference.
So, tw, what would YOU propose that Israel do, instead?
Nice ploy, Ibram, but.....
the onus is still on Israel to justify the OTT reaction to a common-place kidnapping of Israeli troops. (Forget the rockets - they happened later).
Dou you play chess? When you move kings' pawn forward in the standard opening, do you then overturn the board when your opponent refuses the standard reply?
That's what the IDF did - kicked over the chess-board.
Ah, but this isn't chess. Israel's response WAS disproportionate, but what incentive did they have to be proportionate?
Ah, but this isn't chess. Israel's response WAS disproportionate, but what incentive did they have to be proportionate?
what? I'll blow the shit out of them because I can?
was that a serious question? why should they be proportionate?
your logic leads to Armageddon.
.
It's not MY logic, it's theirs. I'm all for proportion -- or even better, not getting in the fight in the first place. I argue both sides because I think both are wrong.
I think of this kind of like... a tough, streetwise stray dog getting his food dish taken by a trained attack dog, then picking a fight to get it back. Yes, the stray shouldnt've picked the fight, but he did, and the attack dog shouldnt tear the throat out of the stray, but he probably will. It's simply what they do.
So you keep walking by, stepping on my toes each time, and you think it would be disproportionate of me to jump up and beat the shit out of you?
I suggest you be more careful walking because you're in for a big disproportionate surprise. :rolleyes:
So, tw, what would YOU propose that Israel do, instead?
Israel had numerous and more intelligent options. For example, Israel could have done what so many previous and far more militant Prime Ministers have done: negotiate for release of two kidnapped soldiers. Problem solved. That was all anyone expected.
Or Israel could have done a complete opposite - move in with massive military force in that limited region south of the Latani River.
Israel did neither. Israel instead did what only the military naive would do. They attacked all Lebanese people in some silly (literally perverted) belief that if they attacked all of Lebanon, then the Lebanese army would attack Hezbollah.
As posted repeatedly, Israeli Air Force did indiscriminate attacks on anyone - including unjustified, numerous attacks on Beirut Airport - as if that too were a Hezbollah stronghold. They routinely attacked even well marked Red Cross and Red Crescent convoys - even attacked innocent civilians north and moving north of the Latani River. That fact is not deniable (although I expect UT to deny it).
Israel's own general was again promoting a failed agenda that did not work in Somaliland, WWII, or Vietnam.
Bush's Shrinking Safety Zone
Victory is not a matter of seizing territory, ... It is a matter of “consciousness”.
And so Israel - without even ground controllers - attacked targets all over Lebanon to somehow change Lebanese consciousness. Innocent civilians get attacked near where Hezbollah once was? Good. Change of consciousness. Attack cities in every Lebanese province - even most northern cities. Good. Change of consciousness. That is not how a logical and honest military man achieves strategic or tactical victory. And that is why Israel lost in a seventh invasion of Lebanon. Israel had plenty of options and yet took a most stupid military action. Isreal did not even get their two soliers back.
In direct contradiction to what MaggieL posts - and she knows better - Israeli warplane were not just attacking missile launchers. Freely using cluster bombs maybe in direct violation of conditions upon which the US provides those bombs. Israel was attacking unseen and estimated targets to 'change consciousness'. Killing Lebanese civilians even in most northern Akkar was justified because they were not attacking an enemy. Target was 'change consciousness' which means indiscriminate attacks on civilians is not only justified. It is necessary.
Even Sharon did not do anything so stupid and therefore got back his kidnapped soldiers. Sharon traded prisoners for soldiers. No problem. A well proven solution so easy, without pain, and involving no retaliatory attacks. Instead Israel still does not have their soldiers and has now recruited massive numbers of future terrorists to hate both Israel and the United States. Who was the dummy? Same military that thought 'changing consciousness' with air attacks would somehow win a war?
Ibram - the stupidity of Israel's actions should be obvious to everyone here. It should be obvious to everyone - and MaggieL even knows this - that Israel warplane could not tell innocent people from rocket launchers. Their orders were don't care. Even their targets all over Lebanon were 'change consciousness'. If Israel wanted a military solution, then Israel should have moved in full force, many infantry divisions, and been ready for about 1000 casualties. Military solutions are necessary because Israel will not even negotiate with an adversary - classic 'big dic' thinking. However, same mindset should also accept massive Israel dead because only the objective matters. Instead it was so much easier to attack Lebanese civilians to 'change consciousness'. Attack Arabs since they are all niggers anyway. Don't fool yourself. That attitude - encouraged by George Jr’s administration and by Christian extremist Zionists - is why more wars are necessary despite smarter options.
Ibram - not only do I provide multiple and far more intelligent options. I also defined the consequences of a pathetically stupid Israeli invasion - complete with no soldiers returned and recruiting of more smart people into the ranks of extremist. You tell me what was accomplished by indiscriminate bombing.
doesn't matter where it lands
So...that would be indisciminate, then.
It *does* matter where it lands, if it misses Tel Aviv, then it hasn't "reached the city". ..and with a CEP measured in miles, that's what will happen.
If there are any Zelzal-2s left intact in Lebanon (if there were any to begin with, and there's considerable dispute about that) they were probably what the cluster bombs were used on; anti-materiel/anti-armor is what they're best at. Assuming first that they did ever cross the border and second weren't destroyed by the IDF, they still aren't available to Hezbollah apparently because they're dual-keyed, and can only be launched on command from the Iranian crews (of whom there aren't any in Lebanon, right?). It's the most implausible "plausible deniability" I've ever seen...the old shell game again: Hezbollah "has" missles but can't launch them...but if they *are* launched Iran will blame Hezbollah.
The Iranians won't launch now because if they did manage to hit anywhere near Tel Aviv, they'd trigger exactly the responses they're trying to deter in the first place: massive Israeli response directly aganst military targets in Iran, very likely including strikes against their nuclear facilities.
To deter a strike against the nuke facilities until Iran has weapons ready to go (and nobody really knows exactly how long that will actually be, including the Iranians), the Iranians want to keep that pistol to the head of Israel...if they even still have any Zelzal-2s in Lebanon, which is doubtful at best.
So Hezbollah
doesn't have control of a weapon that would hit Tel Aviv...because if they did they'd use it. Which is why they're dual-keyed. It's not a matter of their intent, they just don't actually have the capability.
If North Korea manages to pull off a sucessful underground test of their design, I'd expect one or two of them to be covertly sold to Iran very quickly; NK needs the cash desparately and Iran has it. Iran's not dumb enough to buy warheads that have never been tested.
tw seems to think airports aren't military targets.
Stuff like this is why they are. Been thinking about the original for some time &... well..so what?
Bet they have some shoes made in China too.
If there are any Zelzal-2s left intact in Lebanon (if there were any to begin with, and there's considerable dispute about that) they were probably what the cluster bombs were used on; anti-materiel/anti-armor is what they're best at. Assuming first that they did ever cross the border and second weren't destroyed by the IDF, they still aren't available to Hezbollah apparently because they're dual-keyed, and can only be launched on command from the Iranian crews (of whom there aren't any in Lebanon, right?). It's the most implausible "plausible deniability" I've ever seen...the old shell game again: Hezbollah "has" missles but can't launch them...but if they *are* launched Iran will blame Hezbollah.
You don't even believe when Iran admits itself? Usually you blame the Iranians for everything, this must be the mother of implausible plausible deniabilities...
Probably it'll never reach your with zionist propaganda infested mind, but Hezbollah does have a great deal of autonomy, just as Israel does not everything for the US.
It might occur to you, although I don't think you have ever thought of that, that the Zelzal2's (and there are more) will be used in case Israel has the disastrous idea of bombing Iran. In that case Hezbollah will use these missiles as retaliation. Iran and Hezbollah are allies, same like US and Israel. That's how the world goes around MaggieL, like in the days of the Cold War, when the USSR and the USA divided the world in blocks.
Yep, NKorea is working with Iran together. It is already for years. They were both used in the "Axis of Evil" speach of Junior. You can hardly expect that they will sit back and relax. Khatami/Khamenei have repeatedly offered to negotiate in 2002 and 2003, even to share important al-Qaeda information, but Bush, blinded by the "Mission Accomplished" syndrom, did not accept any contact. Too bad, the situation would be much better now.
You don't even believe when Iran admits itself?
Is it that actually an admission against interest, or is it mere bragging for residual propeganda value after the missiles have been destroyed?
There's no way to know...but either way it appears certain that Hezbollah did not have control over any Zelzal-2s, so they can hardly be given credit for not launching them. That Iran won't give them control supports the notion that they would use them if they could...which is what I said originally.
Iran's forbearance is only so as to not start a direct war with Israel prematurely: i.e. before they have nukes. I have to wonder if the Iranian U enrichment program at this point isn't mostly to give NK deniability if Iran detonates a nuke bought from NK in Israel. (Or as a back up if Kim Il Sung finds some way to self-destruct.)
Iran could probably deliver it in a rental truck. This has the virtue of not being rocket science; it's embarassing to lose a nuke because your rocket went haywire. And imagine the honor of being the first nuclear suicide bomber! I wonder how many virgins you get for that?
Obviously this is all Bush's fault; he's already been told all he has to do is have everybody convert to Islam and we'll all live in peace under the New Caliphate. What a stubborn fool.
I highly doubt Iran will start any war against Israel, despite Ahminejihad's rethorics. They, you(?) and me know that any attack on Israel will trigger severe retaliation from the US, most likely nuclear.
Currently an attack on Iran is much more realistic and therefore the Iranians are taking precautions to defend themselves.
Yes, Bush is stubborn fool. All he achieved is a much weakened position in the ME, allowing Iran to increase their influence in the ME, thanking the US for removing their arch-enemy Saddam and sinking into the Iraq quigmire. Tell me of any success Bush achieved in the ME.
And this Caliphate Myth is just as serious as White Power Nazis becoming the occupants of the White House.
The only thing that matters in war is victory, everything else is semantics. Look at the U.S. in our revolutionary war, we pissed the hell out of the British by 'cheating' (not standing in straight lines waiting to take a cannon shot). And we won, end of story. Every action in war only needs to be decided based on whether it does more damage to the enemy than to yourself, and you absolutely need to take Economics Politics and Society into account. That's why the Israeli attack failed, the social and political impact did more damage to them then the bombs did to Hezbollah.
Only fight battles you can win, and of those, only fight the ones that will push you closer to your goal.
I highly doubt Iran will start any war against Israel, despite Ahminejihad's rethorics...And this Caliphate Myth is just as serious as White Power Nazis becoming the occupants of the White House.
Well, you beleive what you find plausible and I'll do the same.
You want me to
disbelieve of Ahminejihad what he
has said (presumably including his Holocaust denial; he's currently purging the universities of anybody not following *that* party line) and
believe of Bush things he
hasn't said.
I know who I find more credible.
And imagine the honor of being the first nuclear suicide bomber! I wonder how many virgins you get for that?
Was not what the Beatles had in mind when they wrote Imagine.
Was not what the Beatles had in mind when they wrote Imagine.
The Beatles didn't write "Imagine".
Give Ireland back to the Irish,
Give Lapland back to the Laps.
Give China Back to the Chinese,
And give Yoko back to the Japs.
Oh give the man a break, I think that's the first time I've seen tw try to crack a joke. We should be encouraging him (to a point). ;)
Theme song for an Islamic Suicide Bomber?
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people Sharing all the world
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one ... with virigns.
Oh give the man a break, I think that's the first time I've seen tw try to crack a joke.
I think he'll have to try harder...at least until the joke is recognisable as such. "Imagine there's no heaven..." doesn't sound very Quranically correct to me.
I know who I find more credible.
You don't mean to say that you find Bush.....credible???
You don't mean to say that you find Bush.....credible???
It's a relative thing. Still, the people who hammer on this "Bush is a liar" mantra never seem to actually be able to actually prove it...there's this point at which the discourse kinda trails off and then falls back on name-calling, because the argument doesn't actually have any substance.
There's a
vast difference between making a statement based on available intelligence info that turns out to not appear to have been true at the time it was made, and telling a lie. But "Bush is a liar" is just such a convenient shortcut...and it's an article of faith amongst his political opposition. It has the advantage of creating a warm feeling of fellowship and superiority amongst those espousing it, without actually demanding that they formulate (and agree upon! tricky...) effective policies that would replace what Bush is doing.
The core problem is: having as a political platform "Bush is Evil" is awfully shallow; it just doesn't represent a sound basis for policymaking. Furthermore, it crumbles utterly as a strategy when Bush retires.
I really don't like very much having to support Bush; I only agree with his policies somewhere about 60-70% of the time...or less. That's barely a pasing grade. But his opposition is currently scoring at the 5-8% level with me, so regretfully it's an easy call to make.
here's a vast difference between making a statement based on available intelligence info that turns out to not appear to have been true at the time it was made, and telling a lie. But "Bush is a liar" is just such a convenient shortcut...and it's an article of faith amongst his political opposition.
A real statesman like Harry Truman, had a sign on his desk; "The Buck Stops Here".
"The President--whoever he is--has to decide. He can't pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him. That's his job."
Blaming the intelligence is exactly a thing what an intelligent lightweight, a US president unworthy, would do. Intelligence which btw was cherry picked and offered by a biased, special by Cheney created Intelligence Dept.
Still, the people who hammer on this "Bush is a liar" mantra never seem to actually be able to actually prove it
I give you some hints; special CIA offshore prisons.
Bush proclaimed that a report by leading economists concluded that the economy would grow by 3.3 percent in 2003 if his tax cut proposals were adopted. No such report exists.
On April 26,2003 President Bush said in his weekly radio address, "My jobs and growth plan would reduce tax rates for everyone who pays income tax."
Bush promised to pull out American troops after the Iraqi government was elected, fact is that there are more troops in Iraq as ever.
And I can go on and on and on.
60-70% eh? Really...
And I can go on and on and on.
Yes, and that's the problem with Bush-bashers. They go on and on...
If you're a cult member it creates a warm fuzzy feeling of belonging. Otherwise it's just tedious.
Yes, and that's the problem with Bush-bashers. They go on and on...
If you're a cult member it creates a warm fuzzy feeling of belonging. Otherwise it's just tedious.
Unbeliever! You'll burn in Hell!
Or you might, you know, be arrested for being you. Whatever.
If you're a cult member it creates a warm fuzzy feeling of belonging. Otherwise it's just tedious.
Being one of the 35% Bush lovers left, it's more likely that you begin to be member of a cult club...
It's official now:
There's no evidence Saddam Hussein had a relationship with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his Al-Qaida associates, according to a
Senate Report (page 70) on prewar intelligence on Iraq.
I heard Mr Bush on the news saying that 'it doesn't matter what we believe...ummmm...errr...our enemies believed it and that was enough'.
I'm just wondering if all wars are started because of what the enemy believes?
More examples of lying as normal from the George Jr administration. From the NY Times of 8 September 2006:
C.I.A. Said to Find No Hussein Link to Terror Chief
The Central Intelligence Agency last fall repudiated the claim that there were prewar ties between Saddam Hussein’s government and an operative of Al Qaeda, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to a report issued Friday by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The disclosure undercuts continuing assertions by the Bush administration that such ties existed, and that they provided evidence of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The Republican-controlled committee, in a second report, also sharply criticized the administration for its reliance on the Iraqi National Congress during the prelude to the war in Iraq.
Who is calling the George Jr administation liars? A Republican dominated committee. But then it did not take a genius to know that this George Jr administration lies persistently. So frequently that only an extremist addicted to blind bias could deny it.
But then it did not take a genius to know that this George Jr administration lies persistently. So frequently that only an extremist addicted to blind bias could deny it.
To be fair, in the runup to war when these lies were told, people still believed Bush. Absent clear proof, you have to take your President at their word. It's only with a few years of hindsight that we have more than just an uneasy gut feeling that he's a liar.
Being one of the 35% Bush lovers left, it's more likely that you begin to be member of a cult club...
Cults are not characterized by minority status, they are characterized by the memetics of the belief system. For example, Nazism is a cult, but in Germany in 1940 it wasn't a minority.
That's because Adolf modeled a fer us or agin us climate, copied by Saddam and attempted by Bush Jr. :(
That's because Adolf modeled a fer us or agin us climate, copied by Saddam and attempted by Bush Jr. :(
There's much more to cult memetics than that...one reason your attempt to tar Bush with that brush is flawed. Or would you apply it to FDR too?
To be fair, in the runup to war when these lies were told, people still believed Bush. Absent clear proof, you have to take your President at their word.
Then why was I posting so many citations and concepts that repeatedly suggested George Jr was lying back then? I did not enter 2001 with this much contempt for him. He has earned this contempt as, starting in 2001, we witnessed lie after lie. It is apparently why someone in the German Chancellery leaked notes of that first Bush/Schmidt meeting in 2001. It is why the foreign minister of Norway suggested that George Jr would destroy the Oslo accords. Even the need for a strategic defense missile system was promoted on lies - when no enemy existed AND when this nation's top most experts said the system would not be effective.
My god - even George Carlin the comedian saw through those George Jr lies when he defined two terrorist in a row boat paddling into New York harbor, throwing a suitcase on the dock, and rowing out.
Let’s see. George Jr said no one expected terrorists to highjack airplanes and fly them into buildings. That is a first chapter in a best selling Tom Clancy novel because those who come from where the work gets done feared same more than five years previously. That is exactly what terrorists tried to do in Paris to destroy the Eiffel Tower. Even George Jr's own PDB suggested a same scenario. So George Jr lied again. When your president lies persistently, how do you take his word for it?
Ok - I lived through Vietnam and made sure I understood why Vietnam happened. Leaders that lie. So maybe I am more sensitive to when presidents lie frequently. We now have a history lesson. Learn what scumbag leaders do. See what George Jr did in 2001, 2002, and 2003. Appreciate why I accurately smelled an extremist rat so early. Don’t let the president in 2030 do it again. I saw this lying with Nixon. Perfect example complete with a president who sees enemies lurking everywhere. I wonder what they call George Jr’s enemies list?
Even John Lennon could get on Nixon's enemy's list - just another symptom of a president who lies. All he said was, "Give peace a chance." That made Lennon an enemy to extremists.
I wonder what they call George Jr’s enemies list?
"moveon.org"
I wonder what they call George Jr’s enemies list?
"moveon.org"
From what I have seen, Moveon.org is its own worst enemy. Are they reliable enought to even create a list?
From what I have seen, Moveon.org is its own worst enemy. Are they reliable enought to even create a list?
They're apparently able to send out spam, and to spend George Soros' money. I actually used to be on their list, back in the day when Clinton was thought to be a cute widdle wascal.
...back in the day when Clinton was thought to be a cute widdle wascal.
Oh for the good old days when presidents only lied about things we all lie about - sex. Today we lie to murder 98,000+ Iraqis, to torture, to kidnap people all over the world (extraoridinary renditions), to claim loots was not ongoing, wiretap Americans without judicial review, to fly to John McCain's birthday party as New Orleans was drowning, call arsenic in the drinking water acceptable, pervert science for the glory of religion, corporate welfare to anti-American steel and big pharma, and blame it all on a mythical network of world wide terrorists. Oh for the good old days when presidents were honest and there was no reason for 'moveon' to exist.
Oh for the good old days when presidents were honest and there was no reason for 'moveon' to exist.
Like Kennedy? Of course, he had the excuse that nobody asked...
Perhaps "everybody lies about sex" (I don't think that's true either), but we don't all have the opportunity to do so under oath. That being the original "reason for Movon.org to exist".
Perhaps "everybody lies about sex" (I don't think that's true either), but we don't all have the opportunity to do so under oath.
Why is lying under oath about sex only equivalent to a president that kidnaps people all over the world, hides them in secret prisons, and has no problem with torture? It says something about extremists. Extraordinary rendition and torture is just as evil as lying about sex? No wonder I have so little respect for left and right wing extremists who see enemies everywhere. In a world of perspectives, extremists see lying about sex as more evil than torture. No wonder extremists so desperately want Armageddon.
Geez...I'm glad I never lied about sex!
Why is lying under oath about sex only equivalent to a president that kidnaps people all over the world, hides them in secret prisons, and has no problem with torture? It says something about extremists.
Did I say they were "equivalant"? Not that I buy into your breathless demonic characterization.
There's a clear difference between Bush and Clinton on the "lying" front. Bill Clinton is an admitted liar, and everybody knows it, including Clinton; none of the relevant facts are in dispute. Furthermore, he ruined his cred for something as trivial as a bit of illicit nookie...a
mess of pottage if ever there was one.
Even if I were to buy into your characterization of Bush (I don't), at least Bush got something done with it policywise. And he still is a more effective Chief Executive than any potential candidate on the other side.
C'mon, tw...who do you support for President in '08? Or are you just a slagmeister?
[Bush is] still is a more effective Chief Executive than any potential candidate on the other side.
Effective at what?
Effective at what?
As the construction would suggest, effective at being Chief Executive.
OK, this is where you express disbelief and mock horror, and imply that no right-thinking person would feel that way. As I've said here before, I voted for Gore first time around becvause he seemed brighter than Bush. But when the shit hit the fan on 9/11/01, I was glad he hadn't been elected.
I still feel that way. None of the last two Democratic candidates, nor the last two Democratic presidents, nor any viable Democratic candidate in '08 strikes me as being a capable POTUS in the current situation. The post-cold-war era is turning out to be 'way different from how most people expected it to be.
As I've said here before, I voted for Gore first time around becvause he seemed brighter than Bush. But when the shit hit the fan on 9/11/01, I was glad he hadn't been elected.
So in times of crisis, you think a dimwitted brute makes a better leader?
Do you think Gore would have gotten us into the Iraq quagmire?
Do you think Gore would have polarized the world, emboldening Iran and Venezuala, for example?
Do you think Gore would have chipped away at our civil liberties like this?
What good has Bush done regarding 9/11 that you think Gore wouldn't have done?
As the construction would suggest, effective at being Chief Executive.
He certainly is. No previous president ever got us into two wars and then lose both ... by even violating simplest principles taught in Military Science 101.
So, too, it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them.
Instead the mental midget president destroyed both army and police. He even left the country in looting and did nothing. According to MaggieL, this is an intelligent president. Extremism is alive and well.
Situation Called Dire in West Iraq
Anbar Is Lost Politically, Marine Analyst Says
Extremists must deny this reality.
So in times of crisis, you think a dimwitted brute makes a better leader?
I think Gore would have done what Clinton and Carter did, and what Kerry promised to do: pretty much nothing.
I don't have to buy into
your characterization either. In fact, sometimes the smartest people make really crappy leaders.
He certainly is. No previous president ever got us into two wars and then lose both ...
Ignoring the "who do you support" question, eh? OK, we'll put you down for "slagmeister" then. You just enjoy the namecalling too much.
There's all kinds of extremists...because there's so many ways to be extreme.
In fact, sometimes the smartest people make really crappy leaders.
Repeatedly, crappiest leaders have MBA degrees. This one is just another classic example of MBA educated leaders. Oh. Extremists don't like facts? Let's see. America was not kidnapping and torturing people in secret prisons all over the world. And since American leaders lied about it, then that too is good and acceptable. Wow. This is how democracies get destroyed. Extremists deny all reality, promote hate, and get into power.
Let's see. Israeli planes could clearly see who were innocent civilians and could clearly see Hezbollah rocket launchers to attack. That also was classic extremist rhetoric posted in direct contradiction to obvious reality. Why are you lately posting outright and obvious lies like this? Just from my tone in that last discussion, you were caught boldface lying about what Israeli warplanes attacked. Now you call George Jr effective? Where was he when New Orleans most needed his help? Where did he go after Brownie all but begged on his knees for presidential assistance? George Jr did a campaign fund raiser in CA when New Orleans so desperately needed him. That is effective leadership? Only a super biased extremist would say so.
"A second plane has just struck the World Trade Center. America is under attack." Clearly an effective leader would just sit there reading a child’s book - and not ask even one question for 15 minutes. Clearly this is a genius. He can do everything that a most incompetent leader does – and MaggieL calls him effective.
I think Gore would have done what Clinton and Carter did, and what Kerry promised to do: pretty much nothing.
I agree. And I think we'd be in much better shape if Bush had done pretty much nothing after 9/11. He has failed miserably in the war in Afghanistan, where the Taliban controls most of the country again; in the war in Iraq, where the US soldiers don't control much but the airport; and in the war against terror, where Osama is still free and nobody is cooperating with us any more. Bush is making more terrorists than he's killing.
Ignoring the "who do you support" question, eh?
I don't avoid honesty. You know that MaggieL. You know that quite well having been caught doing what I have so much contempt for - outright and intentional lying. Let's never forget how those Israeli pilots were clearly and carefully targeting only Hezbollah ... all the way up to Lebanon's most northern Akkar province.
Your love of this mental midget has demonstrated lately how extremist bias overwhelms logical thought. He lied about extraordinary rendition and torture. And MaggieL praises him for it. He so fears American decency as to now call for laws that ban the Supreme Court for forcing him to be a decent man Well, the drug addict Rush Limbaugh also tells his listeners to rationalize same lies. It occurs too frequently. When Rush decrees something, MaggieL says same.
Extremists are alive and well - and are now causing us to lose two wars simultaneously. Do we have 20,000 permanently disabled Americans yet do to George Jr's religious crusades? After all, god told him to do it. If god talks to him, then George Jr must be an effective leader - on the road to hell.
tw, who do you support for President in 2008?
in the war in Iraq, where the US soldiers don't control much but the airport;
Hell. Take away extremist rhetoric and the US never even controlled the road between Baghdad and Baghdad's airport. With too few troops and leaders that lie, we could not even control that five mile road three years ago. And yet extremists were telling us how "the war against terror is being won". Amazing how after so many lies even about WMDs, that most Cellar dwellers (American and from other nations) don't rise up and condemn these extremists.
During "The Road to 9/11", I expected so many here to notice how often foreigners, at great risk to themselves, came to and warned Americans of threats. Notice how that does not happen today. Somehow bin Laden can most about freely and America has not received a single tip in two years as to where he might have been. But then extremist leaders make more than just enemies of centrists who demand honesty. American approval rating was once 70%. Tips on terrorist attacks flowed in freely. Now that the scumbag president has put the approval rating at 15%, why would anyone help Americans? They are not. No one wants to help a country lead by scumbags.
85% of all problems are directly traceable to top management - even if god talks to them.
tw, who do you support for President in 2008?
No one. There are insufficient facts to make such decisions. And historically, we rarely know who really leadership material is until a last six months.
Currently on my favorites list is McCain. In the face of extremist and other liars (Christian zionist extremists), McCain has stood his ground. I have little respect for either party. But honesty and other leadership values are extremely important to me.
Notice when my tone towards MaggieL because most acidic. She was lying and she obviously knew she was lying about Israeli warplanes. She was not even honest to herself.
Would I vote for someone like Rumsfeld or Rice? Based upon simplest requirements for leadership - ability to grasp problems, desire to do a job, etc. Then yes. But Rumsfeld is so attached to a political agenda as to not even listen when he is proven wrong - ie Iraq. And Rice somehow supported erroneous political agenda rather than do her job as National Security Advisor. Her tenure at NSA demonstrates lack of integrity - a political agenda and blind loyalty is more important than the purpose of her job.
Two examples of how a presidential candidate loses my support quickly. How two people with potential for great leadership abilities so undermine their own credibility.
Notice when my tone towards MaggieL because most acidic. She was lying and she obviously knew she was lying about Israeli warplanes. She was not even honest to herself.
Whatsamatter, nobody fighting with you lately? Need to pick a new fiight?
No one...Two examples of how a presidential candidate loses my support quickly. How two people with potential for great leadership abilities so undermine their own credibility.
Slagmeister, indeed.
Someday you may actually have to support someone publically, and then you'll soon feel *so* betrayed by how they "lied" to you.
Fortunately you're the arbiter of "reality", "logic" and "reason".
McCain has "stood his ground" so well with "Christian Zionists" lately that he's been playing kissy-face with Pat Robertson and Bob Jones University...so you might want to start preparing your catchphrases, epithets and denunciations now; wouldn't want to be rushed during the convention season.
As the construction would suggest, effective at being Chief Executive.
Thanks for telling me my response, so I know how not to respond. You rock.
I can see why people would think that he's an effective Chief Executive. Of course, my immediate response is: Show me something, anything, in his WHOLE career as president that he's done correctly.
Thanks for telling me my response, so I know how not to respond. You rock.
I can see why people would think that he's an effective Chief Executive. Of course, my immediate response is: Show me something, anything, in his WHOLE career as president that he's done correctly.
My point being that Bush Bashers as a group are tiresomely predictable. There's little point in discuissing what he's done well, because it's an article of faith for you that he's never done anything well...as the framing of your challenge indicates.
So who's
your favorite for '08? More specific than "Anybody But Bush", now; you can't fall back on that this time around.
I agree. And I think we'd be in much better shape if Bush had done pretty much nothing after 9/11....Osama is still free...
OBL is one hell of a lot less free than he would have been following your proposed strategy. Nor do I believe for one second that "being nice" would result in there being fewer terrorists.
I understand that it's tiresome to hear the same complaints, time after time after time after time. I get tired of making them when the same shit happens on a different day. I've never had anyone answer my question, even unsatisfactorily: what's this Administration done right?
NOTE: I didn't ask what he's done well, I asked what he's done CORRECTLY. I realize that's, potentially extremely subjective. So, let me lay out a specific, and I hope non-biased, definition: correctly: set out a policy with a specific set of goals that he's acheived 85% of, without any mitigating statements.
'08? Are you serious? We're not even done with the '06 cycle, yet.
To hijack your hijackery (probably in poor taste today, but I'm told I taste bad, so...): I'm really hoping the Democrats get control of the Senate and the House. I'm a huge believer in oppositional control of the various branches of government. Also, I'd like to see some accountability from the White House, because, IMNSHO...this Administration has gotten away with a LOT of BS that wouldn't have happened if he were a Democratic president (the getting away with part, not necessarily the attempts).
OBL is one hell of a lot less free than he would have been following your proposed strategy. Nor do I believe for one second that "being nice" would result in there being fewer terrorists.
No, it probably wouldn't. But, not being dickheads to countries who offered us help would have been useful (e.g., Iran, which had intelligence about OBL, but we refused to talk to them).
We need a president who favors indirect methods over frontal assaults. Our spy web was neatly dismanted during the Clinton administration and we need to double it from what it was before that. The scale of the human intelligence network we should have in the field now dwarfs what we had even during the Cold War peak. We don't need carpet bombing, we need to orchistrate scandals within the Iranian government. We don't need tank columns, we need black-ops and poison experts. We don't need public executions, we need silent disappearences.
I've said this before, and so long as it's trendy to quote Sun Tzu in this thread "in war, one must find what the enemy treasures most and attack it". The enemy puts blind faith in its religious leaders, do not kill them, discredit and humiliate them. Then the mobs and fanatics will have no one to direct their blind energy and can be disposed of quietly.
Nor do I believe for one second that "being nice" would result in there being fewer terrorists.
We are losing the war or terror. There are more terrorists today than there were 5 years ago, and we created them with our wars.
Terrorism is hatred. You can't fight hatred with bombs. It's more complicated than that.
Our spy web was neatly dismanted during the Clinton administration and we need to double it from what it was before that.
Yeah. All those spies in Moscow would have helped us a lot in catching OBL. [/sarcasm]
But you are right. We need a mutipronged approach toward defeating terrorism. Swinging a big stick around isn't going to do it. You are just turning more people to terrorism.
We need an approach like 9th engineer suggests, but not just the cloak and dagger shit. We need that, but we also need simple diplomacy. Cooperation with moderate governments. We also need to listen to the tree huggers, and reduce our dependence on arab oil so we can reduce our military presence in the Arab world. They don't like our bases in the shadow of Mecca, and a lot of Americans simply don't understand that, and are unwilling to make personal sacrifices like giving up SUVs. If we do come across a situation where war is the only option, we need to listen to our generals so we win that war.
Simply put, we are losing the war on terror, and we need to do things differently.
We are losing the war or terror. There are more terrorists today than there were 5 years ago, and we created them with our wars.
Terrorism is hatred. You can't fight hatred with bombs. It's more complicated than that.
Terrorism is *caused* by hatred; the two are not identical. I suspect the hatred can't be fought; it's an emotion, and emotions are the responsibilty of the people having them.
We didn't "create terrorists with our wars". (That's blaming the victim.) The terrorists existed before the wars. The terrorists *started* the wars. Our sin in their eyes is that we didn't recognize the error of our ways and convert to Islam. There's no form of "being nice" or "tolerant" or "not racist" that will appease them; there's only "destroy Israel and impose Sharia law world-wide"; that's their clearly stated objective.
Four airliners weren't hijacked five years ago today because we "failed to be nice enough". And we've not avoided more of the same by "learning to be nice". Or tolerant. Or nuanced.
No, it probably wouldn't. But, not being dickheads to countries who offered us help would have been useful (e.g., Iran, which had intelligence about OBL, but we refused to talk to them).
Iran was considered to be untrustworthy. Gee, I wonder why? And "not being dickheads" is just a code phrase for "being nice".
NOTE: I didn't ask what he's done well, I asked what he's done CORRECTLY. I realize that's, potentially extremely subjective.
Which is why it's pointless to discuss it with you. And leave out "potentially".
I'm really hoping the Democrats get control of the Senate and the House.
Imagine my shock and surprise. No, really.
I just love the way you yanks bring the whole issue of the midde east, the war on terror, hezbollah and Hamas down to the parochial level of 'who you going to vote for next time?'......
Why are you so surprised when the rest of the world laughs at your grasp of polictical reality?
Jay provides us an important lesson.
The current strain of European anti-Americanism is not due to, and will not end with, Bush's time in office.
Jay, the reason that question is so vexed is the current context of events: the Republican Party, now in power, is actually trying to fight the war. It may have been helpful to formally declare that a the US is in a state of war, which would have had the effect of obligating these parties to put all differences aside and concentrate on pulling together, but it seemed out of proportion, disjunct, at the time -- and it still does. The Democratic Party, by contrast, has no plan whatsoever to fight the war, none to win it better than the Republicans might, an inclination to carp about it in the most irresponsible, soft-on-antidemocracies manner that gave the Soviets such a free hand to work their will to make life suck internationally and not just domestically, and generally indulge in the most foolish acts of party empire-building I've ever seen in my country. The national leadership of the Democratic Party has completely forfeited my trust for the foreseeable future by this exhibition, this following of the far-left lunatic fringe.
We've got two kinds of people: those who know the Islamo-fascists are our enemy, self-made and self-declared, and those who couldn't correctly identify our real enemy on a multiple-choice question. Most of the senior leadership of the Democratic Party takes actions that say they believe the true enemy is the Republican Administration. What fools! What addlepated, ninnyhammered, scrotum-knotted invertebrates!
mmmm....... UG answers within the context of US internal polictics.....
like I care........
.... and UT is right......almost....
It's not anti-americanism as such.......but we do truely believe that you are heading down the wrong path. Each of your actions makes more enemies and reduces the numbers of your friends.
Our spy web was neatly dismanted during the Clinton administration and we need to double it from what it was before that.
Then you were not following the news in 2000, 2001, etc. You did not even pay attention to details in ABCs "The Path to 9/11" In Clinton's time, even the Syrians were providing the US with intelligence. Even Libya was a source of American intelligence. When a nation is so responsible as to have a 70% approval rating, then people do want to help. People volunteer intelligence which is why Ramsey Yousef was even caught.
America's government today has so much disdain that not a single useful tip on bin Laden has been received in two years. Even the bin Laden task force was shutdown due to total lack of information. That loss of intelligence (and allies) is directly traceable to the George Jr administration and people like MaggieL that somehow just know from a political agenda - facts and the little people who do the work be damned. This George Jr need first to restart the cold war so as to even shutdown all pre- 11 September investigations. Same cold war mentality even demonstrated by a large monolithic chart of Al Qaeda everywhere.
I've seen their terrorist network chart. Chart includes names such as Ali Hussein, Al Sistani, Abdul Qasim, Muqtada Al Sadr, Saddam Hussein and his sons, Abu Musah al-Zarqawi, Tariq Aziz, Ahmad Chalabi, Iman Abbas, Muhammad Sadr, and Ahmad Hashim. Some represent various wings of Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda wanna-bes (better known as Muslim Brotherhood). Some are or could have been American allies. And yet on administration charts, all are part of a united terrorist network. It’s the 'them and us' mentality that will only confirm two American defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan. Same mentality that does not understand why intelligence sources no longer walk into American embassies with information.
We will be bled to death by a government that does not even try to get bin Laden. This because no one more destroyed our intelligence sources more than George Jr and his extremist agenda.
The intelligence network dries up when our leaders lie. We have never seen so much lying since Nixon.
We didn't "create terrorists with our wars". (That's blaming the victim.) The terrorists existed before the wars. The terrorists *started* the wars.
And they also had no gripes with America. MaggieL repeatedly forgets details to post that quote.
Our extremists failed to do their jobs. Middle East was Muslim Brotherhood verses their enemies - secular governments. A bin Laden greatest enemy was Saddam. America had no camel in that fight. Islamic extremists had no gripes with America. American extremists who failed to understand this and therefore got us into this mess, now rewrite history. Only a political extremist would say 'evil' was always coming to get us.
We rescued Kuwait and promised to leave. We did not leave. Some political leaders whose job was to be planning for the peace long before the Kuwait rescue, instead, failed to do their job. They failed their boss, George Sr. They undermined that tremendous military victory by not doing their job. These people who were supposed to be planning for the peace, instead, drank champagne. Having not done their job, we ended up occupying Islam's most holy country. And so the world changed after 1 Aug 1990. And so we made ourselves part of a religious war that otherwise would have completely ignored us.
Same American extremists preached that Saddam was coming to get us. Extremist American government leaders (in the image of Gen Curtis LeMay) saw everything in terms of enemies like Saddam (whose threat did not exist) rather than the Muslim Brotherhood. Muslim Brotherhood saw Americans desecrating Islam's holiest lands. And yet still people like Condi Rice and Dick Cheney denied this and stifled American anti-terrorist activities. Due to a political agenda, they saw Saddam as the enemy. Their extremist agendas made it impossible to understand where obvious threats were coming from.
It was no accident that one of Condi Rice's first job was to demote the CounterTerrorism Security Group - even removing it from the White House. They hope you never learn why anti-terrorist investigations were quashed repeatedly. This administration was going to fix the world, instead, by attacking America's enemies - Saddam. It was the new cold war that would get hot using pre-emption: the final solution.
Even long after bombing of two African embassies, American anti-terrorist experts and FBI Investigators were repeatedly stifled by George Jr administration officials who refused to acknowledge the threat. You saw what you always should have known in that ABC movie.
No. We did not create the terrorists. MaggieL has that part right. We stuck our nose into things that did not involve us. Our leaders then refused to acknowledge the enemy we created. Notice the two completely different uses of the word 'created'.
Our extremist leaders did the opposite of what Clinton did. Our MaggieL type leaders stifled all investigations that would have stopped 11 September. Why? Such attacks did not conform to their political agenda and therefore did not exist.
Look again at that above MaggieL quote. She lies but again. She lies because her political agenda makes it impossible for her to acknowledge reality. We did not create the terrorist. But we created an enemy that otherwise would have never bothered the US. Extremists whose political agenda caused these failures then spin facts. You saw it on the ABC movie. Right wing extremists in the American government stifled attempt after attempt to stop terrorism. John O'Neill was only one example of what happens to patriotic American who confront George Jr's political agenda with reality.
Meanwhile look at that MaggieL quote. Notice how she spins reality into a George Jr agenda.
We didn't "create terrorists with our wars" ... The terrorists existed before the wars.
It's good to know that there's absolutely nothing we could do to inspire people to attack us. It certainly frees up a lot of actions for us. As long as terrorists exist, we can't create them!
...but we do truely believe that you are heading down the wrong path. Each of your actions makes more enemies and reduces the numbers of your friends.
May I ask, which three actions are the most offending?
It's good to know that there's absolutely nothing we could do to inspire people to attack us.
I didn't say that we couldn't.
What I'm saying is we didn't.
Of course, if your politics are driven by the belief that the proper state of affairs is world-wide imposition of Sharia law, mere failure to comply is sufficient "inspiration to attack". It's called "jihad"...although some beleve that's a deep perversion of the original meaning of that word.
Western civilization and culture is pretty much antithetical to Sharia law as interpreted by these people. I don't think we should give it up just because somebody finds it "offensive" or "infidel". Perhaps it doesn't mean much to you, and you'd just as soon live their way.
If so, I do hope not too many agree with you...or I'll be seeing you in the 12th century.
I didn't say that we couldn't.
What I'm saying is we didn't.
So nobody who becomes a terrorist does it for any reason other than hating our freedom?
So nobody who becomes a terrorist does it for any reason other than hating our freedom?
They certainly do it because they hate the successes of our culture and the failures of their own. I think it's a reasonable supposition that our success is by and large due to our freedom. Of course, there are
other
theories about that.
Have you read the paper
"Spotting the Losers: Seven Signs of Non-Competitive States" by Peters, already cited in several other threads here?
Four airliners weren't hijacked five years ago today because we "failed to be nice enough". And we've not avoided more of the same by "learning to be nice". Or tolerant. Or nuanced.
Osama Bin Laden told us why he ordered 9/11. He ordered it because we based our troops on 'holy' Saudi soil. The highjackers were virtually all Saudis who were pissed that we were defiling their holy lands.
I'm not saying we have to kiss terrorist ass. I'm saying we shouldn't be surprised to be stung when we go up to a hornet's nest and start poking it with a stick.
Osama Bin Laden told us why he ordered 9/11. He ordered it because we based our troops on 'holy' Saudi soil.
Indeed the *title* of the fatwa was "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places". But *read* the fatwa--he demands much more than "no US troops in Saudi"; such a withdrawal wouldn't be enough to appease him. He has a much larger agenda than that.
They certainly do it because they hate the successes of our culture and the failures of their own.
And none of them do it for political reasons?
They certainly do it because they hate the successes of our culture and the failures of their own. I think it's a reasonable supposition that our success is by and large due to our freedom. ~snip
I'll buy that's one of the prime motivating factors for the leaders but I doubt it causes many rank and file terrorists/homicide bombers to sign up. :tinfoil:
I've also heard that, besides the american troops on holy land (i.e., a return to the Crusades, and if you don't think they remember that, you're deluding yourself), the Towers were specifically targeted because they were symbolic of American economic tyranny (e.g., the World Bank and IMF's restructuring 3rd world countries' economies).
And none of them do it for political reasons?
Those
are political reasons.
If you say so. How about:
And none of them do it for reasons based on US (and other) foreign policy in the Middle East?
I'll buy that's one of the prime motivating factors for the leaders but I doubt it causes many rank and file terrorists/homicide bombers to sign up.
I think you underestimate the effect of cultural globalization and what a powerful force it is.
Look at what lengths Indian culture goes to to simultaneously adopt(offshoring) and resist(Bollywood, Pepsi) western culture, for example...and in that case there not even as significant a religious dissonance or language barrier, although admittedly there still is something of a language barrier.
If you say so. How about:
And none of them do it for reasons based on US (and other) foreign policy in the Middle East?
Which is a codeword for "supporting Israel". Which brings us back to "jihad" again.
I don't think we should give any group veto power over our foriegn policy just because they're willing to become terrorists. Once you pay the Danegeld, you'll never be rid of the Dane.
Which is a codeword for "supporting Israel".
No. Israel policy is a big part, but it's far from the only one. The Middle East has been a political laboratory for various western powers for decades.
Indeed the *title* of the fatwa was "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places". But *read* the fatwa--he demands much more than "no US troops in Saudi";
MaggieL conveniently forgets to list those demands. Make a proclamation and don't bother with details. Radio Moscow did exact same thing on shortwave. MaggieL posts right wing (Rush Limbaugh) propaganda.
US was not a target of Muslim Brotherhood extremists until America did what offended them. We promised to leave after rescuing Kuwait - and we did not as detailed accurately in another post that MaggieL would rather not respond to. We promised to leave Saudi Arabia and we did not. Offended Islamic extremists, in the name of Allah, took revenge. Only an American extremist would ignore that fact to proclaim the world in 'black and white'. Only an extremist would claim other reasons exist and not list those reasons. MaggieL posts soundbytes because she cannot defend her political agenda. MaggieL even approves of extraordinary rendition and torture - as if that also makes America safe.
MaggieL conveniently forgets to list those demands.
Not at all. When I quote things
you've referenced you don't even recognize them anyway, so that's pointless.
Go read them for yourself.
By the way, I'm not bound to respond
every time you feel lonely and ignored enough to chain-post another 20k of calumny in hopes that if it's a personal-enough attack I'll respond to it. I have a job, a family and other activities that place higher-priority demands on my time than chasing you around the bush yet another time.
From the Horse´s mouth, MaggieL:
"In Lebanon, we covered entire villages with cluster bombs, what we did there was crazy and monstrous," testifies a commander in the Israel Defense Forces' MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System) unit. Quoting his battalion commander, he said the IDF fired some 1,800 cluster rockets on Lebanon during the war and they contained over 1.2 million cluster bombs. The IDF also used cluster shells fired by 155 mm artillery cannons, so the number of cluster bombs fired on Lebanon is even higher. At the same time, soldiers in the artillery corps testified that the IDF used phosphorous shells, which many experts say is prohibited by international law. According to the claims, the overwhelming majority of the weapons mentioned were fired during the last ten days of the war.
The commander asserted that there was massive use of MLRS rockets despite the fact that they are known to be very inaccurate - the rockets' deviation from the target reaches to around 1,200 meters - and that a substantial percentage do not explode and become mines. Due to these facts, most experts view cluster ammunitions as a "non-discerning" weapon that is prohibited for use in a civilian environment. The percentage of duds among the rockets fired by the U.S. army in Iraq reached 30 percent and the United Nations' land mine removal team in Lebanon claims that the percentage of duds among the rockets fired by the IDF reaches some 40 percent. In light of these figures, the number of duds left behind by the Israeli cluster rockets in Lebanon is likely to reach half a million.
According to the commander, in order to compensate for the rockets' imprecision, the order was to "flood" the area with them. "We have no option of striking an isolated target, and the commanders know this very well," he said. He also stated that the reserve soldiers were surprised by the use of MLRS rockets, because during their regular army service, they were told these are the IDF's "judgment day weapons" and intended for use in a full-scale war.
The commander also said that at least in one case, they were asked to fire cluster rockets toward "a village's outskirts" in the early morning: "They told us that this is a good time because people are coming out of the mosques and the rockets would deter them." In other cases, they fired the rockets at a range of less than 15 kilometers, even though the manufacturer's guidelines state that firing at this range considerably increases the number of duds. The commander further related that during IDF training exercises hardly any live rockets are fired, for fear that they would leave duds behind and fill the IDF's firing grounds with mines.
"
More here...Hippikos, I deleted the duplicate post.;)
From the Horse´s mouth...
An unattributed, anonymous quote isn't exactly "the horses mouth". And a Google search of Meron Rappaport's work casts serious doubt on his objectivity.
An unattributed, anonymous quote isn't exactly "the horses mouth". And a Google search of Meron Rappaport's work casts serious doubt on his objectivity.
Your reference to objectivity makes me laugh. And as usual you're attacking the writer and not the article itself. Haaretz is a respected long lasting paper. What has been written connects seamlessly with what has been found in Lebanon, or do you deny cluster bombs have been found?
[QUOTE=Hippikos]And as usual you're attacking the writer and not the article itself. QUOTE]Pointing out that the quote is anonymous is about *the article*...and this makes the writer's motivations germane. That cluster munitions were used is not in dispute...the dispute is *how*--for which we have only Rappaport's anonymous source along with the source's hearsay about what his superior said.
That cluster munitions were used doesn't make the quote from Rappaport's anonymous source "fit seamlessly". If the anonymous source claimed an IDF soldier executed a pregnant 14-year old Lebanese girl with a point-blank pistol shot to the head, would you then say that charge "fit seamlessly" with the fact that IDF troops carry pistols?
You can laugh if you like, but I think objectivity is important in a journalist. You may be more interested in the political usefulness of sources like Rappaport and Fisk, who seem to beleve their job is enforcing their morality rather than reporting facts.
...but we do truely believe that you are heading down the wrong path. Each of your actions makes more enemies and reduces the numbers of your friends.
May I ask, which three actions are the most offending?
Didn't get an answer to this Jay?
So MaggieL, all you did was googling on Meron Rapaport in order to confirm your own bias against all news that was negative against Israel and the IDF. Indeed you found that Rapaport has written more information about Israel and the IDF that was negative and immediately decided that he was making the story up. You know as much as I do how military who bring out this kind of information are being treated.
Dragging a pregnant 14 yeat old Lebanese girl into the discussion is useless and only mudding the water.
Finally, it became hilarious seeing you accusing Rapaport and Fisk about enforcing their morality. Isn't that exactly what you did all these pages? Do you have the exclusivity for enforcing morality?
You know as much as I do how military who bring out this kind of information are being treated.
Of course I do. But you claimed it was "the horse's mouth"; I was pointing out we have only the reporter's assurance that it was in fact a horse, much less his mouth.
Dragging a pregnant 14 yeat old Lebanese girl into the discussion is useless and only mudding the water.
Not at all, it points out what a logically bankrupt move it is to say "IDF had this weapon, therefore it supports the claim that it must have been used in the heineous way described by an anonymous source". That's called "
affrirming the consequent".
Finally, it became hilarious seeing you accusing Rapaport and Fisk about enforcing their morality. Isn't that exactly what you did all these pages? Do you have the exclusivity for enforcing morality?
But you see, I'm not a journalist, tasked with objectively reporting the facts. If I were, I'd have an obligation to
be objective. Although Fisk has already discliamed that; he unblushingly admits he's an advocate...and Rappaport's reporting seems to me to speak for itself on that score as well.
So when one advocate simply quotes another advocate, it's a circular argument. It's not evidence.
Sorry for the delay, UT, but.....
I'm not going to say which are the three most offending - there is no benefit to be gained in such unrealistic ranking. But Guntanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition, the natwest three all point to a country that seems to want to alienate its long time friends.
Having been take to a field full of cluster bombs, MaggieL still denies they are there - or this is not Lebanon - or that Hezbollah planted them - or the Chinese are not really removing them. And we are also winning the "Mission Accomplished" war. So clearly the press lies again?
Saddam never had to do this. From the NY Times of 15 Sept 2006:
Iraqis Plan to Ring Baghdad With Trenches
The Iraqi government plans to seal off Baghdad within weeks by ringing it with a series of trenches and setting up dozens of traffic checkpoints to control movement in and out of the violent city of seven million people, an Interior Ministry spokesman said Friday.
The effort is one of the most ambitious security projects this year, with cars expected to be funneled through 28 checkpoints along the main arteries snaking out from the capital. Smaller roads would be closed. The trenches would run across farmland or other open areas to prevent cars from evading checkpoints, said the ministry spokesman, Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf.
Americans even transfered a whole Striker battalion where it was desperately needed in Anbar and extended duty tours by four months, to reduce Baghdad violence. Once latest 'corrections' were released, Baghdad violence over the past three months, even with a mass American military concentration in Baghdad, did not decrease.
The Baghdad morgue has reported that at least 1,535 Iraqi civilians died violently in the capital in August, a 17 percent drop from July but still much higher than virtually all other months. ...
American commanders have made securing Baghdad their top priority. They have shifted troops to Baghdad to try to contain the sectarian conflict raging in the capital, which threatens to plunge Iraq into all-out civil war. A security plan promoted in June by American officials and Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki involved setting up traffic checkpoints throughout Baghdad, but failed to quell the Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence, which reached a peak in July.
"Mission Accomplished". George Jr does not lie. Just ask MaggieL.
Mission Accomplished was neither a lie nor exaggeration.
When the military finished what W had planned to do, and had asked them to do, the mission was indeed accomplished.
Unfortunately, the only thing he planned, was knocking Saddam out of his throne, and only that (mission) was accomplished. When he made that statement he probably still didn't realize what had been overlooked, in his rush to get Saddam.
He forgot, after they hit the ball you have to tell them to run the bases and in what order. Not that the military is stupid, they need authority, they need a goal and they need supply, all of which takes planning.
Of course I do. But you claimed it was "the horse's mouth"; I was pointing out we have only the reporter's assurance that it was in fact a horse, much less his mouth.
It came from those who used the cluster bombs, therefore it was from the Horses Mouth.
Not at all, it points out what a logically bankrupt move it is to say "IDF had this weapon, therefore it supports the claim that it must have been used in the heineous way described by an anonymous source". That's called "affrirming the consequent".
Not only had the IDF this weapon, it also used it, especially in the last 72 hours (out of frustration?). Cluster bombs are heinious, especially in civil areas, whatever Wikipedia pages you produce.
But you see, I'm not a journalist, tasked with objectively reporting the facts. If I were, I'd have an obligation to be objective. Although Fisk has already discliamed that; he unblushingly admits he's an advocate...and Rappaport's reporting seems to me to speak for itself on that score as well.
So when one advocate simply quotes another advocate, it's a circular argument. It's not evidence.
Fisk is in the area for decades and reports what he sees. Haved you been there lately?
As for Rapaport, he quotes this anonymous source, which apparently you don't believe because it doesn't fit your worldview and therefore call it a hoax.
It came from those who used the cluster bombs...
That's begging the question again. As I said, we have only Rappaport's word that this is an accurate quote from an actual source. It's totally unsupported; the claim that it's accurate can't serve as evidence of its accuracy. A circular argument...just like "Fisk reports what he sees". Fisk tells us that "reporting" that serves his propaganda objectives is a higher purpose than "reporting what he sees".
Don't you have any better evidence than this? Because there's a boatload of evidence for Hezbollah's actions; they are not in dispute.
So we have a lot of handwaving in support of a moral equivalance argument. Already a lot of "evidence" offered up to support this argument has turned out to be manufactured and totally bogus, but it was believed widely enough for long enough to serve its intended psyops function: to create pressure on Israel.
Not only had the IDF this weapon, it also used it, especially in the last 72 hours (out of frustration?).
A trained military doesn't waste valuable munitions "out of frustration". Soldiers are trained to shoot but also trained to always know how many rounds are left. Whatever they did was a tactic.
Best guess - they knew at that point that they were not going to put more boots on the ground, yet they wanted to kill as many Hezb as possible before the cease-fire.
Best guess - they knew at that point that they were not going to put more boots on the ground, yet they wanted to kill as many Hezb as possible before the cease-fire.
mmmm.....I've heard of 'smart bombs' , now we have smart cluster bombs?
what do they do - check the DNA of the foot descending on them? O, that's an arab so it must be Hezbolah - time to go 'bang'?
Sort of like cluster arguments - just throw enough crap out there and figure enough of it will stick.
que?
are you reading this thread, or is it just another 'write only' ?
Cluster bombs DO NOT EQUAL mines. They aren't used as such. They are meant to hit, explode multiple times, then thats the end of it. However, it's an unfortunate fact that they don't always do so. However, they are no more mines than any other bomb. But when you have multiple thingies that go BANG and a less-than-average chance of actually going BANG, you end up with duds. Simple statistics.
Cluster bombs DO NOT EQUAL mines. They aren't used as such.
Actually, some cluster munitions *can* be used that way. But I've not seen any evidence that they have been used that way in this case. Or much evidence at all from the "IDF are terrorists (too)" side of this discussion that holds much water at all, frankly.
Cluster munitions, either artillery or gravity bombs, are pretty much standard for any modern military these days...which makes them a standard propaganda target in asymmetric warfare. Since the terrorist side doesn't have them, wave a bloody shirt about how inherently immoral they must be; since most liberals--oh...excuse me..."progressives"--don't actually know dick about weapons (after all, posessing such knowlege is clear evidence that you're evil) it's an easy sell. It's vastly easier to distract such people with horror porn about
weapons when it's
how they are used that's actually important.
UT makes that point, the tactic is: throw around a bunch of wild accusations, posted as widely as possible, supported by "evidence" that examined closely would convince only the choir you're preaching to, and hope something sticks long enough to achieve your propaganda objective. Accuse anybody who questions it of being a "zionist", a "zionist dupe" or a "racist".
UT makes that point, the tactic is: throw around a bunch of wild accusations, posted as widely as possible, supported by "evidence" that examined closely would convince only the choir you're preaching to, and hope something sticks long enough to achieve your propaganda objective. Accuse anybody who questions it of being a "zionist", a "zionist dupe" or a "racist".
MaggieL constantly tries to minimize the effect of the cluster bombs as if they're candy thrown to the children. The only tactic throwing here were the cluster bombs in the last 3 days of the 33 days war. Cluster bombs are the last resort if nothing else helps without boots on the ground. Compare it with you're tired of chasing the mosquito and fill the whole room with anti mosquito spray. Very bad for whatever else lives there, but it might kill the mosquito.
Accuse anybody who questions it of being a "zionist", a "zionist dupe" or a "racist".
And here we go again, the Zionist card is drawn again, if nothing else helps. I am waiting for the ultimate "anti-semitic" ace to be thrown on the table. That always seems to work for MaggieL.
If it was according MaggieL, all these pinkocommielibs should s.t.f.u. about these cute little bomblets and let the IDF do their work. Let's complain about are these nasty ka-ty-usha's. These are the real killers.
A trained military doesn't waste valuable munitions "out of frustration". Soldiers are trained to shoot but also trained to always know how many rounds are left. Whatever they did was a tactic.
You keep living in your ideal world, UT, where only trained military don't waste their ammunition. In the real world the frustration ran high in the IDF because Olmert and Peretz refused to extend the ground invasion and, according to brigade commanders, the lack of movement put the forces on the defensive and gave the upper hand to Hizbullah fighters. Read any Israelian online paper and you'll read the frustration of the military.
MaggieL constantly tries to minimize the effect of the cluster bombs as if they're candy thrown to the children.
Not at all. Deadly weapons are in fact
deadly; that is inherent in their design.
But use of cluster munitions isn't
prima facie evidence of an "indiscriminate" assault, and an argument for moral equivalance, which is how you and others have been trying to spin it.
If it was according MaggieL, all these pinkocommielibs should s.t.f.u. about these cute little bomblets and let the IDF do their work. Let's complain about are these nasty ka-ty-usha's. These are the real killers.
While I don't
agree as such, that is a completely valid point that I can easily see the sense of. Hezbollah IS indiscriminately firing the rockets; Israel is trying to hit the rockets. Failing to hit the target and firing indiscriminately are two completely different things.
Hezbollah IS indiscriminately firing the rockets; Israel is trying to hit the rockets. Failing to hit the target and firing indiscriminately are two completely different things.
That might be true. Having missed their targets, Israel managed to strike ten cities in Lebanon's most northern province of Akkar. Clearly that was not indiscriminate.
Trying to take out rockets that could not be seen and that could be anywhere within a five mile attack area - that too is not indiscriminate. Clearly they were targeting a rocket launcher somewhere within five miles. A field of cluster bombs spread out within that area was definitely targeting the launcher. A launcher that pilots could not see but must have been targeting all the way to Akkar.
Not only had the IDF this weapon, it also used it, especially in the last 72 hours
Maybe they were trying to create a no-mans-land? :confused:
That might be true. Having missed their targets, Israel managed to strike ten cities in Lebanon's most northern province of Akkar. Clearly that was not indiscriminate.
Trying to take out rockets that could not be seen and that could be anywhere within a five mile attack area - that too is not indiscriminate. Clearly they were targeting a rocket launcher somewhere within five miles. A field of cluster bombs spread out within that area was definitely targeting the launcher. A launcher that pilots could not see but must have been targeting all the way to Akkar.
Mentioning Akkar over and over makes it no less wrong and no less of a red herring. Hezbollah operate all across the country.
I never said that Israel's tactics were right or well-executed. However, they
try to hit their targets, which are Hezbollah weapons or bases, people fighting against them, trying to kill them. You can't say the same for Hezbollah, whose targets are simply any Israeli anywhere. Hezbollah didn't fire the rockets at Israeli bases or convoys or troops, they fired them at cities.
Of course, Israel struck cities too, right?
The difference: Hezbollah HIDES in the cities, surrounding themselves with civillians so that people like YOU go "look! Israel are bad guys, not hezbollah! theyre killing civillians!" Israel DOES kill civillians. They do NOT
target civillians.
Lets say I shoot at you and your friends, killing a couple and wounding a couple more, then I grab an innocent bystander and hold him in front of me as a meatshield. How much could YOU be faulted for hitting him, and how much would be MY fault?
Mentioning Akkar over and over makes it no less wrong and no less of a red herring. Hezbollah operate all across the country.
Your first mistake was to pretend Akkar did not happen. Why? Are you that extremist as to hate people, or did you just not know basic realities? Akkar is but another example of a fact. We all but know what Israel’s reason was to attack all Lebanese. It is a matter of “consciousness”. Some immorally believe that each dead Phoenician would cause Lebanese to drive out Hezbollah. This Israeli government was that embarrassingly stupid as to even believe their air force general's theory of "consciousness".
Well maybe we could find some Hezbollah checks in an Akkar financial institution. That justifies attacks on Druze and Marinates in Akkar? Give me a break. Akkar is mentioned when reasoning is that bankrupt. Why need I repeat the obvious? Why are you that much in denial? Akkar says Israel attacked all Lebanese - intentionally.
Pilots at 10,000 and 20,000 feet could see and attack Hezbollah? Only when myths justify an extremist agenda. Pilots even at lower altitudes could not find these tiny rockets. Hell. US military with a massive effort, using satellite and heat seeking sensors, could not find even one Scud missile – a target tens of time larger and in open desert. Are you so foolish or so brainwashed by extremists to worship nonsense - that Israeli pilots could see their targets? Ibram. I will assume you have no idea what pilots could do and were telling reporters. Unlike MaggieL, I will assume you just have no grasp of what pilots can see. You have no idea why a ground spotter is essential for ground attack. I will assume your post was due to simple ignorance that left you easily recruited to extremist rhetoric.
Israeli pilots were attacking anything in Lebanon so that Lebanese would rise up and drive out Hezbollah. Israeli leadership is that immoral - and appears to have inherited George Jr intelligence. Israelis even attacked Red Cross and Red Crescent ambulances. Even attack a convoy of hundreds of innocents, well north of the Latani River and traveling north. Mistake? Of course not. That was the strategy of 'consciousness'. It was both intentional and part of Israel's strategic object as advocated by Isreal's Dan Halutz. You call these people moral?
Akkar. Will that word mean Ibram is lying again? Or will it mean Ibram did not know what Israel’s objectives really were? Akkar means Israel was attacking indiscriminately. Akkar means you have posted as an extremist hater of humanity, or you are that ignorant of basic news.
Every dead Phoenician meant the Lebanese were one step closer to driving out Hezbollah - if one loves people like Milosevic. Israeli leaders intentionally attacked Alawites, Catholics, Copts, Druze, Shi'ites, Orthodox, and Assyrians in an objective called 'consciousness'. An illusion rationalized in a braindead believe that Hezbollah is somehow Iranian or Syrian. Israel attacked indiscriminately because pilots could not see any targets. Akkar repeated as long as one posts such myths. Stop posting likes and Akkar is no longer mentioned.
Posted is that pilots could only attack indiscriminately. Posted are reasons why Israelis intentionally attacked and killed Lebanese of all ethnicities. Posted is but another example of Israeli 'niger hate' of Arabs. Akkar repeated with each direct contradiction to reality. Extremist who control Israel - even intentionally murdered a Prime Minister of peace - are little different from other lovers of genocide such as Milosevic. 5000 massacred Palestinian woman and children was no accident that night. Israel has no problem being lead by mass murders. You like such people? Israel intentionally attacked all Lebanese. It was their strategic objective. Akkar attacks otherwise would not exist. Indiscriminate murder was Israel's objective - as if that would eliminate Hezbollah.
A launcher that pilots could not see but must have been targeting ...
If targeting something the weapon operator can't see is indiscriminate, then any use of artillery and rocketry (with range beyond that of an RPG) is indiscriminate.
What a crock of BS. The lengths to which some folks will go to try to create an erzatz moral equivalance betwen IDF and Hezbollah is tragicomic.
If targeting something the weapon operator can't see is indiscriminate, then any use of artillery and rocketry (with range beyond that of an RPG) is indiscriminate.
Artillery uses ground spotters so that shells are not wasted on empty land or kill friendly forces. MaggieL should know this instead of using her extremism for rationalization. Air power requires ground spotters so that munitions are not scattered everywhere uselessly. Even Tora Bora happened only because CIA agents - without orders - went into Tora Bora to find bin Laden and to be ground spotters.
Crock of BS is again what MaggieL posts. If she really was an honest American, then she posts as any military man knows. Those planes indiscriminately attacked anything in a five mile area because Hezbollah rockets could not be identified. For same reasons, even Akkar province was bombed. Attack the innocents and they will drive out Hezbollah? More right wing extremist rationalization that killed innocent Lebanese.
MaggieL, this crock of BS is directly attributed to an extremist and therefore irrational mindset. You are smarter than that. Why do you mock the intelligence of the Cellar with proclamations that only the mental midget president could believe? You, MaggieL, know quite well that air power could not and could never target Hezbollah rockets and rocket launchers without ground spotters. You know that and your extremism will not let you be honest. Why do you outrightly lie to all in the Cellar? You are smarter than that.
How were Scud missiles finally located and destroyed? British SAS were dispatched to successfully find Scuds in the Scud box. Why? Air power alone could not find even one large Scud missiles in a desert. MaggieL thinks everyone in the Cellar is so dumb as to believe air planes without ground spotters could find tiny Hezbollah rockets in rough terrain when air power could not even find one tens of times larger Scud in open desert.
Crock of BS from MaggieL is so similar to what the radical American extremists kept saying to sacrifice so many of my generation in Vietnam. Reasons provided by a political agenda - whether it be from Curtis LeMay or MaggieL - is that irrational and dangerous. Notice how she even lies about indiscriminate air attacks by the IDF. Notice how she denies ground spotters - by pretending such functions do not even exist. Wacko extremists also run the White House. Notice how we are winning the war against a world wide terrorist network in Iraq and Afghanistan. Vietnam Deja Vue complete with MaggieL playing the part of a 1970 right wing extremist.
What I find funny is that tw somehow managed to call me an extremist...
I'm at least as far left as him, most of the time, but on this issue I think both sides are wrong so I can argue both sides.
What I find funny is that tw somehow managed to call me an extremist...
I did no such thing. I defined two options. Either you are an extremist, or you are misinformed as to what air power can do - how it works. Why do you take option one when two options were provided?
MaggieL quite well knows that air power without ground spotters cannot target. Others may have only heard extremist propaganda and assumed air power without ground spotters can accurately target concealed military equipment and troops. But MaggieL knows better. Therefore her conclusion only comes from option one - extremist.
Meanwhile, Ibram, provided were previous examples of useless and indiscriminate artillery and air power without ground spotters. Did you know those examples before agreeing with the extremist MaggieL? You have a choice. Either join the ranks of those who know using a political agenda, or acknowledge what the IDF did without ground spotters. IDF airplanes indiscriminately attacked anything that moved south of the Latani River AND intentionally attacked innocent Lebanese. IDF objective was to change / create "consciousness". IDF indiscriminately attacked all Lebanese in direct contradiction to lies from MaggieL. And she did lie knowing full well she was lying.
Which option do you choose? One - extremist. Two - you did not know that ground spotters are so essential for accurate targeting.
MaggieL quite well knows that air power without ground spotters cannot target.
Sir, the day you
become me will be the day when you can make wild claims about what I know.
Especially when what you claim I know is
false. There are any number of remote sensor systems that can be used to target modern weapons, many of which do not involve ground spotters. (We know some of them were in use by IDF. We don't know everything they used because they're
smart enough not to tell us.)
If you're going to be that wrong, kindly attribute your claims to yourself, not to me. I'm sorry if that makes it harder for you to call me a liar, but times are tough all over. Suck it up.
There are any number of remote sensor systems that can be used to target modern weapons, many of which do not involve ground spotters.
So Rush Limbaugh logic has returned. 'Saddam has WMDs only because he must' is logically acceptable again?
If these “any number of” targeting systems exist, then what are they? Where are they? What technology are they based on? Why does Rush Limbaugh logic routinely avoid such facts? Do these targeting systems exist in a fiction novel right next to Saddam’s WMDs?
How effective are these mythical targeting systems? Even bin Laden could not be found until six CIA agents, without orders, went into Tora Bora to find bin Laden and hundreds of armed supporters. Where was this “any number of” advanced targeting hardware? It required boots on the ground - ground spotters. Welcome back to reality.
Instead, MaggieL has now invented a targeting system that can find Hezbollah rockets. Then how did Hezbollah transport, setup, and fire so many rockets from so many locations? Apparently IDF waited for Hezbollah to fire those rockets – to first prove mal intent - before IDF attacked? Right. Even Rush is not so stupid as to make that claim.
This targeting system that MaggieL says exists: fiction. It could not find thousands of Hezbollah unused and transported rockets. Clearly Israelis were too moral to attack unused munitions.
What are these "any number of remote sensor systems"? Obviously they don't work until after a rocket is fired and after its launchers are long gone. Welcome back to reality that MaggieL knew and conveniently forgot to mention. Rush Limbaugh logic that also proved Saddam had WMDs does not prove “any number of remote sensor systems” either. MaggieL hopes we fail to expose her intentional fabrication. IDF planes were attacking indiscriminately – defined by an objective of their air force general – “consciousness”. Attack even innocent Lebanese and those victims will drive out Hezbollah? More fiction. It was indiscriminate attacks as MaggieL refuses to admit. So she invents these “any number of” targeting systems – too secret for Cellar Dweller to learn of. Also called Rush Limbaugh propaganda.
Spotters don't have to be on the ground for air attacks or artillery. They can be airborne, usually in propeller driven small planes, or helicopters.
The use of spy drones(UAVs) has been used extensively in Iraq. Spotting the target and filming the attack and the result, after the attacking planes have left.
I don't know what the IDF was using, just saying it is done. :cool:
You forgot about one rule of logic: if tw doesn't know about it, it doesn't exist.
Silly me. :redface:
Actually the first UAVs were developed here but then the military said , that's nice, go away. So they were never developed to potential. Israel, however, took those designs and developed them, just in case. The UAVs are what allowed them to beat Egypt. They flew them ahead and drew fire from anti-aircraft sites so they could be targeted by the air force. Very effective ploy.
Welcome back to reality that MaggieL knew and conveniently forgot to mention.
Ah, tw is lecturing us on "reality" again. Joy.
Current "reality" includes GPS, RPVs, and digital combat information systems. Moden CIS relay targeting information in realtime. Read up on things like
J-STARS, for example, before you overstrain your military expertese, which has aparently not been updated since Vietnam. Perhaps you could divert some of the brain cells you currently use for name-calling and trolling for the purpose.
Spotters don't have to be on the ground for air attacks or artillery. They can be airborne, usually in propeller driven small planes, or helicopters.
Airborne spotters were used - even in Vietnam. How effective? Spotters must be low, have limited spotting range when low, can only spot when targets are moving exposed, and must wait for air power to arrive. Target has sufficient time to hide, or to launch a rocket and disappear.
UAVs (drone) are another technology, expensive, few, and again effective when target is moving and exposed. Unlike low and slow airplanes, UAV are silent. But again must wait for those airplanes.
Why are ground spotters so necessary? Concealed, rockets can only be located by ground spotters. When being launched, airborne surveillance usually provides insufficient time to attack and remains 'too few'. History and reality that MaggieL quite well knew when she lied: airborne surveillance can rarely find and destroy a rocket.
Others did what MaggieL did not. They posted honestly with examples of how spotting could occur. But those solutions remained ineffective as in Vietnam, Tora Bora, and Iraq. In each case, airborne solutions could not obsolete a ground spotter. A long list of examples proves that point.
Airborne surveillance rarely provides sufficient time to locate and destroy a Hezbollah rocket launch. If the technology is so good, then why did six CIA agents do what all that airborne technology could not? Airborne surveillance does not find concealed munitions - as MaggieL well knew. The response after a rocket launch is also too late - as MaggieL also well knew. Slow response time was a problem in Vietnam making long range patrols necessary. It remains a problem in Iraq and Afghanistan as Anbar province and half of Afghanistan falls to adversaries. Why are Taliban even ten miles outside Kabul and yet not spotted by airborne surveillance? It was the problem with Scuds even when satellites and A-10s were concentrated only to find Scuds – and found none. Again, airborne solutions proved useless; requiring SAS - boots on the ground. The world's best airborne technology - America's - could not find bin Laden until six CIA agents arrived. World’s best airborne surveillance, when concentrated for war, still could not even find Saddam – ie Shock and Awe. Why? There is no replacement for ground spotters even for a nation with the best airborne solutions. MaggieL knew that.
Surveillance rarely found Hezbollah rockets until after launching. No problem. The objective was “consciousness”. Attack anyone in the area. Indiscriminate attacks were the objective. Make residents rise up and drive Hezbollah out. Where is the morality in Israel’s objective? MaggieL, who somehow knows Israel is always moral, instead denies Israel’s objective and must deny even bombing in Akkar. She was lying and she knew she was lying.
No sense lecturing MaggieL. She uses a political agenda to rationalize. This is a warning to others about what an extermist will do when their political bias is challenged.
(JSTARs find a Hezbollah rocket before launching? Guess again. That rocket looks just like a household appliance. But then you, MaggieL, knew that when posting to deceive.)
Now that was low, tw. What happened to 'emotion is a weakness' or whatever it is you usually say?
Now that was low, tw. What happened to 'emotion is a weakness' or whatever it is you usually say?
What was low? That MaggieL lied about indiscriminate bombing in Lebanon? Or that she lies again even about JSTAR identifying a Hezbollah rocket from a household appliance? Either way, she lied, knew she was lying, and did so for an extremist agenda. Is it low to identify lying when it happens?
Oh, real smooth, edit the post to remove the bit you knew i was referring to.
For all you who missed it, it was a bunch of stuff about maggie being a brainwashed, superconservative, violent, paranoid bitch, ending with something about 'no wonder you need concealed weapons'
And tw's gonna deny all of it, I'm sure
(ps, obviously i dont believe all that, i love maggie dear, even if she is a bit different from me polit... well, okay, 180 degrees opposite me politically. Er, fine, 175.)
And tw's gonna deny all of it, I'm sure
MaggieL might. So why do you think I am MaggieL? My post originally responded with an insult equivalent to crap that MaggieL had posted multiple times; that I repeatedly ignored. With a first text edit, it made no sense responding to her 'brain cell' insult. So I deleted what was irrelevant to this fact: MaggieL was caught lying.
I make no apologies for catching MaggieL lying. She assumes we are ignorant of JSTARS. (Does Israel even have a JSTARS?) She claims JSTARS can tell the difference between a Hezbollah rocket and an abandoned appliance. She hoped you did not know this so as to claim Israelis were somehow moral. Meanwhile those bombs in most northern Akkar province also targeted Hezbollah - according to MaggieL. Is there a legal limit for lying?
MaggieL now claims JSTARS could tell the difference between a Hezbollah rocket and a tin shelter for now homeless Lebanese. This because MaggieL refuses to acknowledge reality - an Israeli strategic objective that demands indiscriminate bombing. Somehow JSTARS can tell the difference between good Lebanese and bad Lebanese? MaggieL again desperately trying to prove moral Israelis would only target Hezbollah rockets. Not possible without ground spotters to find concealed munitions. This time she lied about JSTARS.
MaggieL - your best strategy is to admit no side was moral and admit to Israel's failed strategy. Stop posting in defense of Israel. In this war, Israel has no defense for their actions. They were as immoral as Hezbollah. Stop trying to fight reality. You just keep getting caught lying.
tw, I think thats the first time youve even come close to calling Hezbollah immoral...
M So why do you think I am MaggieL?
Probably because you keep telling everybody what I know. :-)
Or at least your version of it. Maybe you should stick to what
you know.
Oh dear, that won't work either.
(If you think any rocket bigger than, say, an RPG can't be identified from an airborne sensor even before it's launched, you're smoking crack. Some of the rockets enroute to Hez were identified while
they were still in on the ramp in Iran, and still crated. )
MaggieL might....MaggieL was caught lying...I make no apologies for catching MaggieL lying...Is there a legal limit for lying?...MaggieL refuses to acknowledge reality...This time she lied about JSTARS....Stop trying to fight reality. You just keep getting caught lying.
Has it occured to you that every time you tie yourself in knots to call me a liar, that it vitiates the credibility of your claim that Bush is a liar?
I didn't think so.
[SIZE="1"](By the way, I didn't say "IDF has JSTARS". I offered it as an example of the sort of thing you claimed didn't exist, to prove I was "lying again". I don't know what IDF has along these lines; they're smart enough not to brag about it. But I do know they have F-16s...and at the bottom of the JSTARS page you see the little hand-held console a JSTARS operator can use to transfer targeting information directly to the computer in an F-16. I have enough F-16 sim time to know roughly what capabilities the tactical avionics have.)[/SIZE]
mmmm.... I too do wonde about the IDF's wonderful spotting systems......
there does seem to a be sudden dearth of lorry-mounted cranes, cement-trucks and skip-trucks in south Lebanon..
Whether they can target rockets and whether they do target rockets are two different things.
Nobody but Hezbollah can be blamed if Israel hits where they think a rocket is, and hit only civillians, because thats exactly what Hezbollah wants. They want people to think exactly like you do, tw. They want people to think that Israel attacks civillans too. That is wrong. Israel tries to hit Hezbollah, who use anyone and everyone else as meatshields.
Now, I dont think it's right that Israel seems more than willing to level the entire country to get at Hezbollah, but only Hezbollah can be blamed for the deaths of the civillians. If they would fight fair and openly, the civillians wouldnt die. Of course, they would lose badly, and there is no incentive for them to do so, of course, but... its still their fault.
[Hezbollah] want people to think exactly like you do, tw. They want people to think that Israel attacks civillans too. That is wrong. Israel tries to hit Hezbollah, who use anyone and everyone else as meatshields.
You don't have a clue, do you? Your meatshield is classic Rush Limbaugh 'emotion laden' logic. But again references to Akkar - those cities that were chock full of Hezbollah rockets targeting Israel? But again, Akkar is the most northern province, devoid of Hezbollah, and too far to launch any rockets. Why do you routinely forget that fact? Why must reality be reposted time and time again? Why did Israel attack every Lebanese province and even Beirut Airport? To attack even innocent Lebanese civilians - as Dan Halutz decreed - "consciousness". You claim Israel was not targeting innocent people? Akkar. Word is damning - the smoking gun that says what you must ignore to defend personal biases from reality attacks.
Again, I still say you have not a clue and have not yet fully defined the point. Your extremely one sided bias made this (your) post inevitable:
tw, I think thats the first time youve even come close to calling Hezbollah immoral...
We have been discussing your (and others) biases. Biases that made it impossible for you to see your post was not true. Did you understand this major point, and why so much time was spent addressing this problem?
A Pew Global Attitudes survey taken between March and May found that 48% of Americans said that their sympathies lay with the Israelis; only 13% were sympathetic towards the Palestinians. By contrast, in Spain for example, 9% sympathised with the Israelis and 32% with the Palestinians. ...
Ibram, you are so classic of that bias as to not understand what I had posted repeatedly. Originally from zippyt:
Middle East erupts
Therein lays much of my opinion. But since others were so busy promoting half truths, lies, and an extremist pro-Israel agenda, then little opportunity remained to explore the facts.
Bush's Shrinking Safety Zone Israelis are about as dishonest and immoral as their Arab neighbors. History demonstrates that fact. Only personal biases would deny it.
Did you see that post? Or did bias cause you to only see it only as an attack on Israel? Apparently you did not see that and similar posts - symptoms of too much bias and too little grasping for reality.
Not for one minute am I politically correct - because that means lying. Blunt reality: this war was started by Israel - for many reasons provided previously. Israel could have and should have (if they had humane, responsible, decent, and moral leaders) avoided the whole thing. Israel knew damn well what Hezbollah's response would be. Meanwhile, Hezbollah's very predictable response was just as deplorable.
We are just damn lucky, again, that it did not bring down the entire region since Israel is as contemptible as Hezbollah. And if you were not so pro-Israeli fanatical, then you could have seen (and explored more about) that reality.
Most damning is this fact. Israel was so reprehensible as to also attack innocent Lebanese - the 'bomb them back to the stone age' mindset of current Israeli leaders and their agenda of "consciousness". But again: Akkar. A bias would make that reality unpalatable. Akkar is a reality you would rather not confront. Anyone decent spoke out against the Israeli 'big dics' who would have dragged the entire region into war by attacking an innocent Lebanese nation. Apparently you found as acceptable this completely avoidable war. There was nothing decent about what Israel did.
Meanwhile death rates among Israelis should have been equal to those of Arabs combatants - and many times higher. I have so little respect for both parties as to have no problem seeing thousands die on both sides - as long as death rates are proportionally equal and especially if deaths were most gruesome. However, too many innocents - such as most every Lebanese citizen - would also be victims. Even one innocent death is unacceptable. Also unfortunately, such a desirable event - rivers of Israeli and Hezbollah blood - might create what Christian Zionist extremists so desperately want - Armageddon. Just another reason why a constructive event - a field of death - instead might be detrimental.
The difference between you and me, Ibram. I have contempt for the Israel that Lukid, et al has perverted. Ask yourself, then, why a fan of Rabin's and Begin's Israel has so much contempt for today's (Sharon's) Israel. Since you don't see it, then you are not yet ready to stand up for something far more important - the human race.
Your "I think thats the first time youve even come close" comment comes from being excessively pro-Israeli. Therefore you never saw previous posts AND could never see nor comprehend a perspective that was completely different - pro-humanity.
Setting up a mobile Katyusha launching platform requires 5-10 mins for an experienced crew. Spotters noticing this activity would be highly accidentally. The real challenge is the bug-out after the launch. The IDF knows that there ain't no target there within about 15-30 seconds of launch, time taken by an experienced crew to bug out. The Hizbollah is well aware that the launch is monitored and triangulared by the IDF and that they have maps of the surrounding roads which they might use to escape. Evidently the crew is trying to hide within the next 5-10 mins., being within the vicinity of 4-5 kms.
I'd be willing to bet that the IDF is firing at targets by guess and by bad intel. and is using cluster bombs in order to cover a wide area, hoping to strike a mobile launcher. Better to have some kind of target than no target at all.
It's ludicrous to call in an airstrike with the expectation to hit a mobile launcher. It was a war crime back in Vietnam and it is now to hit a civillian town or village when it's known that the enemy has bugged out.
The difference between you and me, Ibram. I have contempt for the Israel that Lukid, et al has perverted. Ask yourself, then, why a fan of Rabin's and Begin's Israel has so much contempt for today's (Sharon's) Israel. Since you don't see it, then you are not yet ready to stand up for something far more important - the human race.
Your "I think thats the first time youve even come close" comment comes from being excessively pro-Israeli. Therefore you never saw previous posts AND could never see nor comprehend a perspective that was completely different - pro-humanity.
If YOU'd read any of MY posts on the matter, I have just as much contempt for Israel as Hezbollah. I am far from being pro-Israel. However, since I am no more pro-hezbollah than pro-israel, I can argue both sides. At the moment, I'm arguing anti-hezbollah, because they are in the wrong. I have previously and will probably in the future argue anti-israel, because they are in the wrong.
Setting up a mobile Katyusha launching platform requires 5-10 mins for an experienced crew. Spotters noticing this activity would be highly accidentally.
Or skillful. Siting a rocket launcher isn't exactly a random activity. Moving vehicles have a huge IR signature. And UAVs can cover a large area, loiter a *long* time. It's amazing how much you can see at low altitudes, even without good optics and FLIR. How much time have you spent flying below 2,000 feet? I've got 400 hours.
I'd be willing to bet that the IDF is firing at targets by guess and by bad intel.
Fortunately what you're willing to bet on isn't of much consequence.
It was a war crime back in Vietnam and it is now to hit a civillian town or village when it's known that the enemy has bugged out.
So...your story is it's totally impossible to spot them, but totally obvious when they're gone. Gotcha.
Or skillful. Siting a rocket launcher isn't exactly a random activity. Moving vehicles have a huge IR signature. And UAVs can cover a large area, loiter a *long* time. It's amazing how much you can see at low altitudes, even without good optics and FLIR. How much time have you spent flying below 2,000 feet? I've got 400 hours.
Pure speculation from military nerds. There are plenty of vehicles which did not contain any mobile launchers but got hit because it
could contain launchers. Your constant theoretical juggling with military abberations looks interesting, but is total useless crap. The majority of the IDF bombings is randomly in the hope to hit a mobile launcher, therefore the collateral damage is huge. Figures are 1 Hizbollah fighter against 10 Lebanese civillian deaths. Whereas Israeli causalties were 3 soldiers against 1 civillian death.
Fortunately what you're willing to bet on isn't of much consequence.
My bet is confirmed by facts, see above. Your bet is just military air balloons googled on the internet.
So...your story is it's totally impossible to spot them, but totally obvious when they're gone. Gotcha.
I'm afraid all your got is air, MaggieL. Go back to my message and read again. They know they're in the area of a vicinity of 5 kms but don't know where they really are. Do you call that totally obvious? See now why they use cluster bombs to cover a big area as possible.
I've got 400 hours.
In Lebanon?
Or skillful. Siting a rocket launcher isn't exactly a random activity. Moving vehicles have a huge IR signature. And UAVs can cover a large area, loiter a *long* time. It's amazing how much you can see at low altitudes, even without good optics and FLIR.
A-10s also have long loiter times. Scud missiles are tens of times larger, require large trucks to transport and launch, and were located in open desert. And still, not one Scud missile was destroyed ... until SAS put boots on the ground. Once boots were in the Scud box - once those A-10s had ground spotters - not one Scud got out of the Scud box.
Attacking tiny missiles with only planes - without ground spotters - and in terrain that makes concealment so much easier? Those air attacks were indiscriminate. MaggieL well understood how and why those A-10s could not find massive Scuds in open desert. But then the objective in Lebanon was defined by Israel's government. "Consciousness" - attack anyone - even innocent citizens in Akkar province. In order to claim Israelis are the good guys, MaggieL must ignore facts that she damn well knew.
Planes with long loitering over open desert could not even find one massive Scud. How then was the IDF expected to find tiny Katyusha rockets in rough terrain? They were not as even IDF pilots reported. The objective was "consciousness" which meant indiscriminate attacks on all Lebanese even in Akkar province.
Mentioning Akkar over and over makes it no less wrong and no less of a red herring.
If you google "hezbollah akkar" this thread is the #1 result.
If you google "hezbollah akkar" this thread is the #1 result.
I'm more proud of "erect nipples." Even if that thread's not as high.
A-10s also have long loiter times.
First reference ~ combat radius 620 miles on a deep strike mission or 288 miles on a close air support mission with a 1.7 hour loiter Performance.
second reference ~ Operational radius: close air support and escort, 2 h loiter, 20 min reserves: 288 miles; deep strike: 620 miles.
It is able to fly at a relatively slow speed of 200 mph (320 km/h), which gives it an advantage in the ground-attack role, where fast fighter-bombers often have difficulty pursuing small and slow-moving ground targets.
At 200 mph, watching a particular spot, especially if it's not visible for 360 degrees, might be difficult.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
UAV loiter times;
Darkstar = 8hr
Global Hawk = 42hr
Gnat 750 = 48hr
Hunter = 12hr
Model 410 = 12hr
Outrider = 4hr
Pioneer = 5.5hr
Predator = HR
Loiter airspeed is typically 100 to 120 mph, and some have a stall speed as low as 60 mph.
;)
First reference ~ combat radius 620 miles on a deep strike mission or 288 miles on a close air support mission with a 1.7 hour loiter Performance. ...
A-10s would fly up to 4 hours covering a downed pilot. A-10s would fly up to 8 hours on a sorte. There is no airborne machine a soldier wants more - A-10s. They are that damn good at ground attack. Nothing is better.
A-10s could not find even one massive Scud missile in open desert. A-10s and UAVs could not find whole divisions of Serbian armor in Bosnia. xoxoxoBruce - are you saying lesser Israeli UAVs could therefore find concealed and tiny rockets in rough terrain? Only if you believe military propaganda and fiction novels - or MaggieL. No matter how many speculation and numbers are posted, it has never happened.
Do you really think recon aircraft monitor one spot? Recon aircraft must look everywhere, continuously moving, to get lucky; to find a single target. Do you really think they monitor one spot all day looking for a rocket launched only from that spot? That is what you posted and that is not how air power searches for an enemy.
Very few UAVs exist even in the American military. If a UAV gets lucky; sees a fired rocket, then what? An attack aircraft takes many minutes to arrive, then figure out what the UAV was looking at, and then maneuver to fire. Meanwhile rocket and enemy are long gone. Attacks must be on a wide and indiscriminate area. Your post also assumes UAVs are as common as rocks in a quarry. UAV numbers remain few.
Name just one war where air power could accurately attack any concealed military in the past 30 years. Name one? You cannot. In every case, ground spotters were required OR the enemy was already flushed out by ground forces into open terrain. Massive NATO attacks on Serbs in Bosnia with weapons the Israelis only wish they had. Where was all that damage? Near zero. Why? No ground spotters. MaggieL knew this when she posted lies. A classic Rush Limbaugh trick. Post a lie and move on hoping others will not see the lie.
Akkar. Israel's intent to attack even innocent Lebanese in a province farthest from war - Akkar. You did not deny Akkar which is the irrefutible fact. Akkar and MaggieL’s intentional lying is the topic. A list of UAVs says nothing relevant.
MaggieL was wrong AND she knew she was wrong. It's that one sided. She posted those biased pro-Israeli lies anyway. Where is a single war that demonstrates otherwise? None. Zero. Does not exist. She lied knowing full well that she was lying.
If Israel could do as MaggieL claimed, then all we need do is send the US Air Force to Darfur – problem solved. Even the US military cannot do that in the wide open and flat lands of Darfur – without ground forces. MaggieL lied. Israeli air attacks were clearly indiscriminate. MaggieL – tell us how air power could also solve Darfur? She cannot for the same reason she lied about Israel in Lebanon.
A-10s also have long loiter times. Scud missiles are tens of times larger, require large trucks to transport...
An A-10 has a loiter time that compares favorably with an F-16. It does *not* compare favorably with any UAV.
Now please compare the number of Scuds vs. the number of rockets used by Hez, and the relative land areas of the Scud box and Lebanon below the Litani. Calcuate the number of targets per unit area in each case. Adjust sensor perfromance for a decade and a half of technology improvement. Then factor in that the IDF has been surveilling that area from just across the border for about as long as Hez has been fortifying it, as opposed to your Desert Storm scenario.
A-10s would fly up to 4 hours covering a downed pilot. A-10s would fly up to 8 hours on a sorte. There is no airborne machine a soldier wants more - A-10s. They are that damn good at ground attack. Nothing is better.
It's a shame were down to 200 of them, patching them back together with spit and baling wire, while building fighters that cost hundreds of millions and are rarely used to their potential.
A-10s could not find even one massive Scud missile in open desert. A-10s and UAVs could not find whole divisions of Serbian armor in Bosnia. xoxoxoBruce - are you saying lesser Israeli UAVs could therefore find concealed and tiny rockets in rough terrain? Only if you believe military propaganda and fiction novels - or MaggieL. No matter how many speculation and numbers are posted, it has never happened.
I don't know what the Israelis have in their bag of tricks, they were far ahead of anyone in the development of UAVs. Our UAVs, however, can spot a man at night, unless he's in a cave or building. I have a film clip of a predator spotting some Iraqis burying an IED in the road and waiting on station until the fighters came and dropped a 500 lb bomb on them....all on film. OK, not film...bits.
Do you really think recon aircraft monitor one spot? Recon aircraft must look everywhere, continuously moving, to get lucky; to find a single target. Do you really think they monitor one spot all day looking for a rocket launched only from that spot? That is what you posted and that is not how air power searches for an enemy.
You don't know how UAVs work, do you? If a UAV saw the rocket launched, it would follow the the launcher sending constant position feedback until the fighters caught up with them, in our military. Again, I don't know how the Israelis work or what they have.
Very few UAVs exist even in the American military. If a UAV gets lucky; sees a fired rocket, then what? An attack aircraft takes many minutes to arrive, then figure out what the UAV was looking at, and then maneuver to fire. Meanwhile rocket and enemy are long gone. Attacks must be on a wide and indiscriminate area. Your post also assumes UAVs are as common as rocks in a quarry. UAV numbers remain few.
Don't tell me what I assume..... you can't even get what I actually posted straight.
You said targets can't be spotted from the air, which is total bullshit. You're not up to speed with the available technology. I didn't claim the Israelis did or didn't do, anything. I don't know. I only know that we can...... or all the clips of them working in Iraq were filmed in the same studio as the moon landing.
Oh, and the example I gave above of the Predator finding the guys burying an IED, the guy controlling the Predator was in the USA.
Name just one war where air power could accurately attack any concealed military in the past 30 years. Name one? You cannot. In every case, ground spotters were required OR the enemy was already flushed out by ground forces into open terrain. Massive NATO attacks on Serbs in Bosnia with weapons the Israelis only wish they had. Where was all that damage? Near zero. Why? No ground spotters. MaggieL knew this when she posted lies. A classic Rush Limbaugh trick. Post a lie and move on hoping others will not see the lie..
Concealed, nope. But if they stay concealed, they're not a problem, are they? It's when they come out to play, they're a problem and they can be spotted from the air. Spotting from the air, spotters on the ground, spies in the enemy camp, nothing is 100% foolproof because you have to get information to the people that can use it, in real time.
Akkar. Israel's intent to attack even innocent Lebanese in a province farthest from war - Akkar. You did not deny Akkar which is the irrefutible fact. Akkar and MaggieL’s intentional lying is the topic. A list of UAVs says nothing relevant.
MaggieL was wrong AND she knew she was wrong. It's that one sided. She posted those biased pro-Israeli lies anyway. Where is a single war that demonstrates otherwise? None. Zero. Does not exist. She lied knowing full well that she was lying.
If Israel could do as MaggieL claimed, then all we need do is send the US Air Force to Darfur – problem solved. Even the US military cannot do that in the wide open and flat lands of Darfur – without ground forces. MaggieL lied. Israeli air attacks were clearly indiscriminate. MaggieL – tell us how air power could also solve Darfur? She cannot for the same reason she lied about Israel in Lebanon.
I'll leave you kids to your discussion, play nice.:rolleyes:
It's a shame were down to 200 of them, patching them back together with spit and baling wire, while building fighters that cost hundreds of millions and are rarely used to their potential.
Agree with you there; the A-10 is a fine aircraft and of incredible tactical utility. It suffers from not having the testosterone appeal of a pure fighter. But it has the feel of a classic, like the DC-3, the B-52 or the F-15.
They just retired the last Tomcats, by the way.
If I was miliitarily inclined, and had to pick a plane to fly, I'd go A-10 all the way.
If I was miliitarily inclined, and had to pick a plane to fly, I'd go A-10 all the way.
SR-71 for me. Closest thing to being an astronaut.
The A-10 is a red headed step child because the Air Force wanted bigger badder supersonic fighters. The A-10 was proposed by the Army for ground support but the Air Force insisted the ground war was dead. They insisted that ICBMs and air war was the future.
The Army had enough clout to get the A-10 built and the Air Force will never forgive them. Especially since they were right.
Not only ground support, but clearing landing zones for the choppers.
I love this tidbit. When that 30mm Gatling gun is kicking out 3,900 rounds per minute, the recoil is exactly equal to the thrust of one of it's engines. Good thing it has two engines. :smack:
The A-10 is a red headed step child because the Air Force wanted bigger badder supersonic fighters. The A-10 was proposed by the Army for ground support but the Air Force insisted the ground war was dead. They insisted that ICBMs and air war was the future.
Members of A-10 squadrons tell me the A-10 is a creation of a West German General (and WWII fighter pilot) who so hated Russians.
Air Force generals - as demonstrated even by Israelis in their seventh invasion of Lebanon - still refuse to admit their purpose and abilities. The A-10 is probably the world's best airplane. All other Air Force planes are support functions to their best plane - the A10. The A-10 is for the #1 job - support the boots.
This fact demonstrated but again and again - in Kuwait, in Iraq, in Afghanistan (British troops in a leaked analysis don't want their own airplanes - they want A-10s). They don't want UAVs which are not as effective, are largely experimental, and cannot respond fast enough. A-10 is the only Air Force plane designed specifically for the Air Force's #1 task - support the boots. Why? There is still no replacement for boots on the ground; other than negotiations. Those boots need effective air support. In the Air Force, that is an A-10.
SR-71 for me. Closest thing to being an astronaut.
Better hope you find somebody to buy the JP-7 for you. Especially since SR-71 tanks leak like a sieve on the ground...gotta leave room for the titanium to expand when the skin heats up in cruise.
Let's see...12,219 gallons. DoD says they buy it at $3/gal, which is pretty amazing considering 100LL AvGas cost me $3.80/gal on Friday. Of course DoD gets theirs for $1.14/gal.
So...at DoD prices a fill up costs something north of $36,600. And then there's the triethylborane for the afterburner and air-starts. It adds up...
Cheaper to wait for VSS Enterprise, the first Virgin Galactic ship.
If I was miliitarily inclined, and had to pick a plane to fly, I'd go A-10 all the way.
Fucking A.
If I was miliitarily inclined, and had to pick a plane to fly, I'd go A-10 all the way.
There's a lot to be said for armor when people are shooting at you.
There's also some advantage to being elsewhere at Mach 2.
I second the motion of being elsewhere at Mach 2 when people are shooting at me.
That doesn't help the people you're supporting, though. :rolleyes:
I second the motion of being elsewhere at Mach 2 when people are shooting at me.
Beyond Bruce's observation, being elsewhere at Mach 2 is fine as long as you decided to be elsewhere *before* the people shooting at you got their first hit. If I must take fire, I'd rather take it in a Warthog than an Eagle any day.
If I must take fire, I'd rather take it in a Warthog than an Eagle any day.
Were you ever a combat pilot, or just an avid reader of Jane's?
In the A-10, the pilot sits in a titanium tub that will stop shots up to 29mm.
There was an IOtD of an A-10, shot to hell, hydraulics gone, and the pilot (woman) brought it home....incredible. :smack:
Were you ever a combat pilot, or just an avid reader of Jane's?
I'm a private pilot with 400 hours in-command logged; I have never flown in combat. Many years ago I was in an enlisted specialty that was aircrew for a combat aircraft; specifically a land-based naval patrol aircraft.
And your qualifications are?
a curious mind.
That would follow....it's certainly produced some curious thinking. :-)
I'm a private pilot with 400 hours in-command logged
I have a drivers license, does that make me an expert on race cars?
To an audience of 12-year-old bicyclists, yes.
I have a drivers license, does that make me an expert on race cars?
No, but it might betoken an interest in matters automotive. Or it might not; a drivers licence is trivial to get compared to a pilot's licence. Certainly someone who can't drive at all (and is unlikely ever to gain that skill) knows less about what driving a race car entails than someone who has.
Jay asked if I'd ever been pilot-in-command in combat, and in fact I have not...thank goodness. But given that I am an active licenced pilot, a licenced amateur radio operator (experienced with airborne mobile and space operations, both low-earth orbit and Molniya) and a professional software engineer, I actually do know a thing or two about aviation, aircraft systems, sensor platforms and systems and avionics. There's likely a few others on the Cellar with even more direct relevant experience, but they haven't weighed in yet.
But given the choice of flying an F-16 at low altitude just before you realize you're being shot at and flying an A-10 in the same situation, I'd prefer the A-10. As Bruce points out, it's got a metric assload of armor. F-16 are nice but considerably more fragile; they're also not as maneuverable. They do have the advantage of being able to leave the area very, very quickly, but that doesn't count when the *first* shot is fired.
F-16s are a lot tougher than youre giving them credit for, methinks... they can actually fly with a whole damn wing knocked off.
However, the A-10 is the airborne equivalent of a tank. Maybe not fast, maybe not fancy, but you dont want one pointed at you, and if one is theres not much you can do about it.
No, but it might betoken an interest in matters automotive. Or it might not; a drivers licence is trivial to get compared to a pilot's licence. Certainly someone who can't drive at all (and is unlikely ever to gain that skill) knows less about what driving a race car entails than someone who has.
Jay asked if I'd ever been pilot-in-command in combat, and in fact I have not...thank goodness. But given that I am an active licenced pilot, a licenced amateur radio operator (experienced with airborne mobile and space operations, both low-earth orbit and Molniya) and a professional software engineer, I actually do know a thing or two about aviation, aircraft systems, sensor platforms and systems and avionics. There's likely a few others on the Cellar with even more direct relevant experience, but they haven't weighed in yet.
But given the choice of flying an F-16 at low altitude just before you realize you're being shot at and flying an A-10 in the same situation, I'd prefer the A-10. As Bruce points out, it's got a metric assload of armor. F-16 are nice but considerably more fragile; they're also not as maneuverable. They do have the advantage of being able to leave the area very, very quickly, but that doesn't count when the *first* shot is fired.
Having a PPL is a far cry from being allowed to fly a Hog or F16, especially in combat situations.
My question was not random. I do have a drivers license and a racing license. Having raced from the early 80's I can tell you, racing on the limit is in a total different league and can be achieved only by experience (and a little talent, perhaps).
Hippikos in his Pony:
A Ford...I should have known. :p
Yeah... I know what you mean. But this is a 289 HiPo... ;)
Having a PPL is a far cry from being allowed to fly a Hog or F16, especially in combat situations.
Very few people get to fly combat aircraft who aren't fully qualified and currently trained to fly them in combat; they're just too damned expensive to fly for the hell of it.
That doesn't mean that knowlege of the systems involved isn't available to those with the background. Most of what I know about the details of F-16 systems comes from an extremely detailed sim (and accompanying documentation) written by MicroProse way back when the F-16 was (relatively) new. And a few friends who were involved in the avionics design.
But then, most of what I know about the new Garmin GNS430 in my panel comes from the very detailed sim written by Garmin, because you don't want to learn
that system in a live cockpit, either.
F-16s are a lot tougher than youre giving them credit for, methinks... they can actually fly with a whole damn wing knocked off.
Yes, but only as long as ballistic thrust is available...and you can't be choosy about direction of flight. :-)
Seriously, I have trouble beliving "a whole damn wing knocked off" leaves a Falcon in flyable condition. Significant battle damage, perhaps...but the wings are necessary.
[QUOTE=Ibram]F-16s are a lot tougher than youre giving them credit for, methinks... they can actually fly with a whole damn wing knocked off. [QUOTE] F-16s use super-critical wings. Lose electronics - computers must constantly correct the wings - and an F-16 cannot fly. F-16s are not tough enough for ground support. Why were A-10s so damn successful in ground support and F-16s not? F-16s tend to stay about the bullets because gunfire does so much more damage to an F-16 - or F-15, or F-22.
Lose part of an F-16 wing - computers can no longer maintain the wing. Lose half a wing on an A-10 and pilot can even fly without hydraulics. F-16 without computer control or without hydraulics is abandoned like a flying garbage dump.
What is by far the most dangerous mission for any pilot? Ground attack. What is the primary purpose of an air force? Ground attack in support of those boots on the ground. Why did Swartzkopf have so much praise for the Marines in Kuwait? They did it without the F-18 air support. Carrier based planes back then were that inferior in a Navy who forgot what the Marines need from that carrier. Toughest planes are those that must survive the most difficult and essential task. Glory planes such as F-16s and F-18s stay high up because they are so easily shot down by simple guns.
I can't believe you people are arguing so vehemently about fixed-wing aircraft.
R0t0rz 4 eva! F1zzed-w4ng iz 4 lu53rs!!! LOLOL0L!!1one2!
I can't believe you people are arguing so vehemently about fixed-wing aircraft.
No debate about aircraft. This is a major and essential detail about the purpose of an air force and what an air force can and cannot accomplish.
Not sure about F-16's, but F-15's can fly with one wing, and
here's some proof.
Damn, maybe it was the F-15, now that I think about it.
Okay, I take that back, F-16's suck
Damn, maybe it was the F-15, now that I think about it.
Okay, I take that back, F-16's suck
And the pilot said he didn't think any other aircraft could have done it.
Also note two things: the wing proper is indeed *mostly* gone, but not *completely* gone, further, Tomcats get a significant amount of lift from the engine nacelles, which are shaped as lifting bodies.
I can't believe you people are arguing so vehemently about fixed-wing aircraft.
R0t0rz 4 eva! F1zzed-w4ng iz 4 lu53rs!!! LOLOL0L!!1one2!
Just keep laughing when you pay the bill...helos are fiendishly expensive.
Just keep laughing when you pay the bill...helos are fiendishly expensive.
They're
all expensive, when the only thing they do is kill people (albeit really, really well).
And the pilot said he didn't think any other aircraft could have done it.
Helicopters and space craft do it every day without any wings.
Meanwhile, look at the size of that F-15's tail. Another 'wing'.
Helicopters and space craft do it every day without any wings.
Spacecraft operate ballistically...although a returning Shuttle is aerodynamic, and needs its wings, as Columbia demonstrated on STS-107.
Helicopters are "rotary-wing aircraft"; knock off the rotors and they drop like stones.
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