Whats the job of a politician? To aquire, maintain and expand power.

The Hezbollah terrorist/poltical party is becoming very dangerous to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. They'll not get in the way of Israel for the time being, but after Israel defeats Hezbollah the same three countries will lift Hezbollah to martyrdom status and it starts all over again.

On the internet? I have yet to see it. Sky's remarks are not 'inappropriate'; rather they are, as they say, spot-on. There is an inconsistency of moderation on these forums that had not been present until late.

And so, that would make this the teeter-totters? I never cared much for playgrounds.

Watch out Takeda, he'll call you a soulless savage monkey next...

The more I read this thread, the more I'm thinking that the opening question's answer is yes.... :damn:

ya just can't shut it up... can ya August... do ya want me to embarrass you even further than i already have...

Fish... don't make me get started on your case... boy... please, spare yourself the humiliation... and spare the forum your foolishness as well...

neither of you have been anywhere in the middle east... you know nothing about the place... and august has never served in a front line unit... no matter what he'd have us believe... you're both just babbling and spending all day on this forum, because you have no other life... no other existance...

i've been out shopping, did some yardwork, and come back... and what do i find... August is still here, trying to bait someone into joining him in the wasteland of an existance he calls a life...

shut down the computer for a while... go outside of your room sized world... visit real people... talk to em... smell the flowers... do something besides sitting in your room all day long trolling for companionship... or making a pain of yourself with your wild assertions...

it's no wonder that the forum seems so hostile to you two... start acting like you've got half a brain in your head... start treating other people with oposing opinions as you would like yourself to be treated... learn the reality that your way isn't the only way... discover it takes all kinds to make the world go 'round...

then you'll see that the world, and the forum can be a decent place to live...


ahhhhh, who am i fooling... i'm wasting my time trying to reason with the likes of you...


--Mike

Given the past 7 or 8 posts in this thread, I'd just like to remind everyone that the United States Coast Guard is actually a member of the United States Military. You are required to salute officers. You are accountable under the UCMJ. Even though their paychecks say "Department of Transportation" on them. They spend 24 hours on little tiny 36' cutters, in 30' waves, with caliber .50 automatics, looking to hunt druggies and illegal aliens and terrorists.

I have the utmost respect for boat crews of the United States Coast Guard. You bastards are harcore, because I would be puking my guts and liver out, every single day.

That's about all I have to say that is relevant to both this thread's topic, and the past 7 or 8 posts.

rotflmao at tycho... :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

--Mike

Ohkay, it's late (or early depending on how you look at it) and I'm feeling adventurous, so I'm gonna bite.
*dons flame protection*

Let's start in Lebanon, where it certainly does seem like Israel's military odds against Beirut are rather stacked towards Israel, with approx 350 to 31 and Israel's total dismantling of the infrastructure of Beirut won't be helping evacuation procedures much at all.
As much as I wish, and I really wish, that the two countries can broker a peace treaty, without some major investment from both sides it'd be as worthless as a certain treaty signed in 1939. Israel has enough military force, and world backing to pass up this opportunity, and Hezbollah just wants to keep the pot bubbling as long as they can, who knows, if they get lucky they might just get Iran and/or Syria involved, then it'll be a proper little jihad! :damn:
As I type this, words coming in that Israeli armour has crossed the Lebanese border and moved north to some villages, whether this is just another strike mission or a full scale invasion remains to be seen. I can't help but wonder whether this would have happened if Sharon was still in power....probably. Israel is a more aggressive country, but if you listen to its neighbours you can understand why they are that way.
Unfortunately, we are facing a new form of warfare in jihadist terrorists, and that warfare is everywhere and anywhere, my house, your house, our neighbours houses, or indeed the houses in Beirut or Haifa. They learnt when the WTC came down that civilians mean prizes, the more innocent bystanders get killed, the more world opinion is swayed, who can forget the 'baby milk factory' wreckage in Iraq during the first gulf war, and so they hide in buildings, sometimes I should imagine that even the buildings occupants don't know they have a guy with an AK-47 downstairs, right up until the point an Israeli missile comes into their living room.
Who's to blame for this? The guy with the AK downstairs, or the guy in the AH-64 who fired the missile? Or their bosses, or their gods? How far up the chain of command do we need to go?
I fear that war between Christianity and Islam is something that's just going to go on forever and ever until we forget the reasons why we're fighting and are just fighting for the sake of it, it's a pessimistic outlook on life but recent events and opinions expressed haven't let me down yet.
Let's face it, even Ghandi, arguably one of the greatest men to have walked this earth, couldn't bring eternal peace between India and Pakistan, as much as he tried, right up until the day he was shot...
Our fate isn't in our hands, it's in the lap of the gods....and if I was Hezbollah or Iran, those ships in Beirut would make such a tempting target for a captured Israeli missile fired from the Israeli border... :damn:

(All opinions stated above remain the intellectual property of an insane lunatic, quote it at your disgression.)

Few things to point out here (I am not going to flame you, by the way) in this "war between "Christianity and Islam".

You were using the current Israel-Lebanon as an example, thus I should point out that the two belligerents, Hezbollah and Israel, are a bad example of this Christianity-Islam war. Israel is a Jewish state. Hezbollah is a guerrila organization funded and supported by Syria and Iran (an Islamic dictatorship and Islamic theocracy respectively) that was founded during, and because of, the Israeli occupation of Lebanon. Lebanon, meanwhile, where the vast majority of killing and destruction is being wrought, is neither an Islamic dictatorship nor an Islamic theocracy. It is a very small middle eastern country that is both pro-American and democratic (rare things in that part of the world, though it is not likely it'll remain eithrt for much longer if you consider where that's gotten them), and which has a Christian President and a population that is over 1/3rd Christian.

Lebanon has not declared war on Israel, nor has it attacked it. If you don't let these facts get in your way, as so many here do, what Israel is doing to Lebanon makes about as much sense as the British Government leveling Ireland when the IRA bombed London.

Anyway, I'm getting tired of repeating these points. I heard Rush Limbaugh on the radio recently criticizing the 25,000 Americans in Lebanon for being there, and for having the "nerve" to criticize the evacuation effort. Imagine having the nerve to think you can work or visit a country outside your own that is also a peaceful democracy. Scratch that last part. My country is at war with Afghanistan, your country is fighting two wars, as is the U.S. Though you would never say it to look around, unlike in Lebanon which has no troops in Iraq or in Afghanistan, or anywhere else.

And yet we are so shocked and outraged and horrified when one of "them" blows up one of our shopping malls while we rain millions of pounds of explosives down on their part of the world every year, prop up the dictatorships over there like Saddam Hussein's which buried thousands of them in mass graves, or Saudi Arabia with its "Ministry of Vice and Virtue", and on and on.

You are right to expect this to go on forever (though it won't, it'll end one way or another when these guerrila groups and "rogue states" buy, steal, or develop weapons to match our own and no longer need to employ guerrila warfare tactics), but you are not - in my humble opinion - seeing the conflict from both sides in all of its many dimensions (the religious angle doesn't hold up if you look at the US protectorate of Saudi Arabia which is Islamic and Theocratic a country as you'll find in the ME).

Embarrass me? Please Mikey boy. Your strategy of personal insults and name calling as a cover for a weak argument doesn't embarrass me in the slightest. It should embarrass you though, but apparently it doesn't.

Do continue.

Actually i bought a Nissan Pathfinder today. Paid cash. The wife and I just finished unloading my old Dodge which i plan to bring up to my property and use as a woods truck.

Y'know, what savages do with their free time....

Oh by the way since you seem to want to make my military service an issue, just what outfit were you with hotshot? I'd bet dollars against donuts it's the admin clerk you accuse me of being.

Strange, the only hostility i feel from the members of this forum is from you and Scandium and he at least tries to make an argument before he retreats to insults and slander.

I'm still willing to discuss the situation in the middle east with you, that is if you can muster an argument. So far I see it summed up as this:

August: "Looks like the Isrealis are finally fed up and are taking action against those killing their people"

Mike: "Well war is, mmm, bad ok?"

August: "Well yes it is, but what choice do they have?"

Mike: "I don't care as long as they don't hurt the poor civilians"

August: "How can they do that, if the enemy hides among them?"

Mike: "You're a savage with no soul"

August: "But Mike, seriously..."

Mike: "I'm an big shot operational guy who hates war and who knows more than you could possibly ever know."

August: "Well i served too..."

Mike: "You must have been an admin clerk because they are the only ones who don't realize that just a few hand picked men could totally fix all the problems in the middle east and be home before lunch."

August: "I doubt that would work"

Mike: "Shall i embarrass you again? I have plenty more names i could call you..."

August: ":roll:"

So is that about right or did i miss an insult or two?

Scandium,

Hezbollah is the long arm of the Iranian theocracy and as that everything else than a simple political resistance organization. If now has an agenda that deeply roots in traditional Islam, and demands the destruction of the Jewish state AT ALL COSTS. It's terror as well as it's internal Palestinian welfare if grounded on that. Hezbollah has attacked Israel from Lebanese soil, since years, it is the aggressor in this, since long.

Hezbollah fighters are no guerillas, because Guerillas still could fight against a military, and spare the civilian population, at least from intentionally targetting them. Same is true for partisans. A suicide bomber trying to kill a bus with schoochidlren is not guerilla. He is a criminal, a massmurderer, a piece of human excrement. These guys intentionally try to kill civilians as their primary taregt, and they will do it as long as they are not kille dthemsleves or all Jews have left the ME. The want to murder as many of them as possible. And that is the description of terrorists, not guerilla fighters. This is the difference between the Israelis and the Hezbollah. Where the latter tries to kill civilians in the first, the Israeli target Hizbollah and cannot escape from accepting that by that destruction will be done to the civilians as well, since Hizbollah seeks to hide in their middle, intentionally to abuse them as human shields, puts it's infrastructure into the civilian infrastructure for cover and hiding, and make any resistance to Hezbollah as costly as possible, public relation-wise. If they are allowed that tactic, it means that no means of resistance to Hezbollah is left. We could give up and give up Israel as well, then.

Lebanon was independent only on paper, never in reality, it was and still is hanging at strings that are pulled in Damaskus and Teheran. This is one of the rare opportunities when America and the UN came to the same conclusions. The latest UN examination report on the political murderings in Lebanon clearly blames Syria to heavily influence Lebanon politics. Hezbollah has seats in the Lebanese givernment, it is part of it, and that due to it'S Iranian supporters means that Lebanon in fact is controlled and governed by Iran, and Syria. The reference to "democracy in Lebanon - is an empty phrase only.

And as often as you say the ME compares to GBR-IRA, as often you will be told again and again and again that this comparison does not hold any substance. It also is nothing like ther Red Armny Faction, Black September, or anything like that. These confrontations do not compare in any way.

Lebanon has hosted innumerable attacks on Israel from it's territory. Neither has it tried to prevent these, nor has the UN force in Lebanon been willing or able to do that. They are paper soldiers only. If Lebanon was too unwilling or too weak to prevent this, does not change the result. Terrorists have taken control oF Lebanon, the attacks are starting from Lebanese ground and soil, Lebanese infrastructure is in support of the Hezbollah. You cannot defeat cancer without hurting the body it has infected. the longer you wait, the deeper you have tio cut afterwards. One has waited very, very long. And that was a mistake.

The goal is and must be to implement the biggest ammount of damage for Hezbollah and reduction of it's potentials. As long as you cannot come up with a practical, realistic alternative to doing that with force, you have no real case to defend, only empty hands, and wishes for a better world. Your wishes in all honours, but there is only this one world that we got.

Islamic terror, btw is not there since the founding of Israel. Lethal violance has been encoded into Islamic thinking and theology since the days of Muhammad, terror was the constant companion of Muhammad. Violance and killing of infidels and the conquest of their homes countries and poessession is demanded for and encoded in it's very core and heart and essence. Muhammad was a bandit, a robber and murder, a Mafia Godfather who took care for those who followed him - and mercilessly shattered aeveryone and everything that rejected to submit - and Islam reflects that until today. It is absurd to assume that Islam would be less aggressive if the West only would give up Israel and would treat it kind and nicely. That only is perceived as a sign of weakness and apostacy - and the demands immediately grow. I don't know how often Muhammedan have told me int heir own countirws - that htey have a RIGHT on my home, on my country, and a right to destroy my culture. It is their mission to be the enemy of all non-Muslim mankind. Many of them do not want to realöize that, and denythat. But their own books and their own history and their own prophet proves them wrong. Terror has been with Islam since Islam has been there. Stop distorting history and theology by giving the impression that it is only a reaction to the West's injustice and egoism. That is simply not true. It's wrong. A scorpion has no sting because for example a snake has a rattle. A scorpion has a sting because it is a scorpion, and absolutely nothing different. what there is about the snake has nothing to do with it.

Odd that you bring me into this, given that I've only ever gotten pissed off at something you said toward me once, and it just happened to be over an insult you threw my way one too many times on a day when I was not in the mood for it, and which was forgotten pretty quickly. I don't "hate" anyone here, although I've been here long enough now to know that there are some things that people will not agree on and can even get a little heated over - myself included - but that is not "hate", at least not to me.

The hostility you feel from me is in your mistakenly equating my criticism of US foreign policy, and its president, with the US in general and you personally. Which makes no sense if you think about it for a moment, I mean, would you still feel that way if Bill Clinton were still in office and my criticism was directed toward him? Or if Hillary is elected in 2008 and I criticize her? And can you say you yourself have never criticized another country's leader or it policies? Or is that a right held exclusively by Americans?

Good analogy. Its possible to remove a tumour without doing any harm to the patient though, it is all depends on the form of the cancer and and how deep the rot goes. Further, if one has skin cancer then you do not amputate the entire limb to cure the cancer.

Let's just say we disagree on diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment ;)

Even though, to continue with this medical analogy, I have not recommened a treatment myself I will point out part of the original Hippocratic Oath all the same: