exactly... why build em in the first place...

nuclear war is suicide... for all parties involved...

...and those standing by watching it as well...

and that may be the final justice... if there is any justice to be found in this...
even you will be one of its victims...

you feel safe... don't you...
that's because someone has told you, maybe the pretty flowers, that
the radiation respects geo political boundaries...

-->http://www.lukefisher.com/mussed.wav




--Mike

bah...don't be so melodramatic....anyway...nukes saved lives too...why do you think we haven't had anymore big wars up until now? yeah...the threat of nukes. Only prob now is...we have suicidal nutcases who are prepared to try nukes out...Iran. ;) I say...give 'em a taste of what they can do...maybe that'll convince them to stop building them?

pretty much the same thinking that got Hirsohima and Nagasaki bombed not too long ago... eh...


--Mike

No..that was so you didn't have to invade the Japanese main islands...wasn't it?

same ideaolgy... let em eat gamma rays...
give em a severe sunburn...

indiscrimanently kill off civilians in one fell swooop...

no real difference...

the reason you put forth was given to a war weary
public... there were more factors involved in the
decision to nuke the cities of Japan...


and if you really think i'm being melodramatic... give this
a few more days... and you'll see the real melodrama
start to unfold...

--Mike

Indeed, so why do you hold Lebanon to such a standard given that it was wracked by decades of war, civil war, and foreign occupation and has only in recent years finally achieved a true measure of independence and autonomy?

You are confusing conflicts and terrorist organizations.

Skybird this is simply not true. Either you are ill-informed or you are projecting your usual anti-Arab bias into events there to make them conform to your prejudices. New phrase of the day for you Skybird: Cedar Revolution. From Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedar_Revolution

And the American President's comments on these events:

"Well, we just had a really interesting discussion. I told the Prime Minister that the United States strongly supports a free and independent and sovereign Lebanon. We took great joy in seeing the Cedar Revolution. We understand that the hundreds of thousands of people who took to the street to express their desire to be free required courage, and we support the desire of the people to have a government responsive to their needs and a government that is free, truly free . .

There's no question in my mind that Lebanon can serve as a great example for what is possible in the broader Middle East; that out of the tough times the country has been through will rise a state that shows that it's possible for people of religious difference to live side-by-side in peace; to show that it's possible for people to put aside past histories to live together in a way that the people want, which is, therefore, to be peace and hope and opportunity."

This is comment of yours is proof of what I said above. Lebanon is not an Islamic theocracy, and within its democratic government the Christians hold about the same amount of power as its other religions.

Thus, as a progressive, parlimentary democracy of many faiths it has more in common with your own European democracies than it does with the typically totalitarian Muslim states in the regions that you attemp to equate it with. This arguement of yours is a strawman. The Lebanese have not only been trying to root out the extremist factions, it itself has been victim to them. But to accomplish these things requires military and infrastrastructure and stability - the very things Israel is systematically destroying. Furthermore, Hezbollah was founded during the Israeli occupation to fight the IDF and with strong backing from Syria and Iran who are sitting on the sidelines and smiling while Israel behaves as a rogue state by razing the very country of only 4 million people that Bush said "can serve as a great example for what is possible in the broader Middle East". Who do you think are the winners here Skybird? Not Lebanon, which did nothing to provoke this respone, and not Israel, which every day moves closer to becoming an international pariah (if it isn't already). As to Hezbollah, this could go either way for them - it is russian roulette for Israel on that score. But as for Iran and Syria, they will have no trouble using these events to recruit what were formerly moderates, among them perhaps the now displaced 100,000 Lebanese civilians who will scatter to all parts of the world as a group of very pissed off refugees and I don't blame them one bit. I would be too.

Here are some facts for you, not that they'll dissuade you from your usual (and in this case out of touch completely) hyperbole:

In Lebanon, the death toll as of last night stood at 235 people killed in Lebanon (8 of whom are Canadians, I don't know when we went war with Lebanon but given they have killed 8 of my countryman with no fair warning to leave Lebanon before the hail of bombs came, and that they have even made that more difficult by destroying the means for them to escape, well I am beginning to wonder) and 25 in Israel. About half of the Israeli dead are military personnel, while only a handful of the Lebanese killed were military and a fraction civilian. But the Lebanese people who have not, and whose army has not, taken any action against Israel and whose democratic government was not only caught by surprise by all these events, but have begged ever since for a cease fire - and I am to believe that Lebanon is the aggressor and the Lebanese at fault?

See the Cedar Revolution above, which was only a year ago by the way, and comes after their recent occupied status has ended. By the way, how long did it take Germany to become stable after WWI and the Treaty of Versailles? 25-30 years? During which time the country was in virtual civil war as the Communists, Socialists, and Fascists (and their militant/terrorist factions) damn near tore Germany apart, correct? And what did it take to end all of this civil strife in this civilized country? Hitler. And what did he do to put an end to the strife, stabilize the country, and what was the outcome of those actions? Maybe you are not the one to preach given that Lebanon has been through an upheaval of its own yet was managing to make strides in the right direction without putting the authoritarian regime in power that your people did under similar circumstances.

No, that is genocide, not war. Militant Hezbollah is not the Lebanese government, its acts were contrary to the wishes of the government while the state of Israel uses this as a pretext to depopulate Lebanon (100,000 have already fled), destroy its infrastructure and eventually probably reoccupy it again.

Like Israel you apparently neither know nor care who the enemy is. It seems its enough to satisfy you that there's killing being done in Lebanon and if the people being killed are Hezbollah, Lebanese civillians, or Canadians then its all the same right?

bullets...

Israel has endured these iranian backed terrorists for years it was not the first time one of their citizens or soldiers had been kidnapped. Could they or would they have retaliated as they did if the U.S. did not have a strong military presence in the middle east?

The majority of the Arab league has told Hezbollah you started it you finish it and will not openly join them. I believe giving Israel a green light to go after them.

Is the U.S. and Israel trying to draw Syria into a war? Many have said it where the WMDs might be hiding what better way to find out than invade it?

Btw, Israel feel free to pull the plug on any American news media especially the Cresent News Network (CNN).

http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives...emSockem-X.gif

Robert Tracinski has an excellent editorial at Real Clear Politics about Iran's war: The War Comes to Us.

If, in the face of repeated threats and provocation by an aggressive dictatorship, you refuse to go to war, the war will eventually come to you.
That's the meaning of Iran's de facto declaration of war against Israel--which is, ultimately, a new war Iran is waging against the US. Iran is so desperate for war with the West that it is bringing the war to us, openly and willfully initiating a regional conflict that may soon involve three of Iran's proxies--Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria--fighting against America's proxy, Israel.

The danger for us is that, in seeking to avoid an unavoidable war with Iran, we have allowed Iran to start the conflict on terms that it believes will be most favorable to it. ...

In my view, the issue is not why Iran chose to begin a shooting war now; the issue is where it chose to do so. Iran is striking at the point where it thinks it is strongest and the West is weakest.

This is an Iranian strong point because it controls a whole network of proxy forces that can attack Israel on two fronts. As for the weakness of the West, the craven Europeans, crushed by leftist self-loathing over their "colonialist" past, seek to apologize for their sins by offering a scapegoat for sacrifice: the Jews who fled Europe to establish the one outpost of Western civilization in the Middle East. As for America, Israel is the one area where we have consistently suspended every virtue of American war policy.

Worse, the Palestinian Authority is the one area where we have tolerated the creation of a new Islamist terrorist regime, on the grounds that it is "democratically elected." As I explained in "The Weapon of Democracy," in TIA's last print issue, this is how the US has been disarmed by the dangerously vague concept of "democracy": if we claim that we are fighting for liberty, and then we equate liberty with "democracy"--then how can we condemn a "democratically elected" terrorist regime?

Thus, predictably, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon split the West, with the European Union taking its usual anti-Israel stance, even as the US vetoed a proposed Security Council resolution condemning Israel.

The Iranian provocation of Israel is also calculated to roll back one of the recent achievements of US foreign policy: the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. After Syrian troops were forced to withdraw from Lebanon last year, the advocates of Lebanese independence began calling for the disarmament of Hezbollah, the Shiite militia in Southern Lebanon that has long served as a Syrian ally and proxy. But, using the "weapon of democracy," Hezbollah has long had a large representation in Lebanon's parliament.

Scnadium,

my only direct reply to you in this thread, there will be no other.

Lebanon? Independent? Sovereign? :lol: On paper, maybe. Have i missed something? Stop reading Syrian newspapers. The murderers sleep in Beirut, their victims are on the southern side of the fence.

Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations. Placing bombs in busses and civilian crowds is qualification enough for that descripiton. You are confusing victim with murderer. The Mafgia in Sicily orginally cared for it'S servants and obedient followers. This did not make them anything different from being the Mafia. Hezbollah also does charity work, by that it can harvest the young to educate them in the politicis of Hezbollah, which includes mass murder. Be careful to see them as anything else than orginuzed murders just because they take care of their own.

Revolution nice and well, but Syria has the saying in Lebanon, even after the withdrawal of troops, while terrorists of Syria-supported Hezbollah are sending ministres to Lebanese cabinet.

And concerning Hamas, German newspaper "Die Welt" two or three days ago quoted Bush saying at the G8 (unaware that the mikes were open) that all "this **** is just because of the Hamas."

If Lebanon is your great example of what can be achieved, then I hope I never must witness the day when you judge that something is a failure.

Chriszian factions have been thinned out in Lebanon, and dramatically, comoared to the early 80s. Drusic militias do no longer play a sognificant role. The multiculti also has been crushed - several reports on this over the last months and 2-3 years. Lebanon HAS NOTHING TO DO with European models, that time is over, gone, done, dead, away. Culturally, we have far more in common with Israel, than with any of it's neighbours. You seriously distort things here.

The death toll in war is expected to be higher than during peace. It would not be there if Israeli cities and people would not get assassinated time and again by Palestinian murderers. It's war, man. You can be sad that there is war, but to be sad that war is dirty is absurd. That's war, if it would be different, it wouldn'T be war.

Recruitments or terrorists by Syria and Iran is not my concern here, since that would take place anyway, this operation is about reducing the material stockpile of weapons, and avoiding to need to negotiate with Hamas and Hezbollah. Their weapons stockpiles cannot be wiped out, but they can be reduced. Washington is said to have given them one more week, until then they will try destroy anything that looks like a weapon of Hizbollah.

If the Lebanese would keep the result of their instabiltiy to themselves (terror, that is), noone would complain. Unfortunately it is directed at Israel time and again. If their would be no Syrian control in Lebanon, and if they would not host Hezbollah and giuve it power in the government, then their would not be so huge a problem. Libanese people are not able or willing (doesn't matter for the outcome) to take care of this, while Israel was at the receoiving end of this arrangement. You may call selfdefense genocide, but I am afraid you will just earn more laughs for that. Genocide has another quality, another intention and motive, and another scale.

I do not welcome the killing of tourists. Tells something that you try to give the impression I do. but it is war. when there is war, and you are in the middle of it, then it is bad luck. Has nothing to do with justice, or morale, or guilt, it simply is like it is. They better shouldn'T have been there. If a stone falls from the roof on my head, I better shouldn't have stepped outside the house in that moment. As it is, they were in the wrong place, at the wrong time. That's sad, but there are targets of a multitude of types that in war needs to be destroyed. It's that way, and it is not different. It's war. I witnessed one bomb attack in Berlin 1986 myself at closest range - do you think I have asked for it? Should I file a case against fate?

You are too naive. You think if an official piece of paper says something, that this is the penultimate reality, and if a murderer shakes hand, that has a noble meaning. But there is lie in this world, and cruelty, betrayal and hunger for power, acceptance for violance, and religions that excuse the slaughtering on non-believers. Realize it, live with it, and if you wish: fight against it - but not by means of simply ignorring this all, pretending this will make it go away.

Endured? Surely you jest.

You catch on quick grasshopper. The question is why the green light? I think the reasons are threefold and the significance of each varies from state to state:

#1. The supporters of Hezbollah (the Syrian/Iranian connection) with only a trifling investment of capital and nothing else, enjoy the fruits of Israel's smashing of a small yet progressive ME country. And what are the fruits of this labour? Displaced Lebanese (100,000 and counting), some of whom will almost certainly hold enough of a grudge over this injustice to become Jihadist cannon fodder, and the international condemnation of Israel for its actions and the further loss of international prestige and support.

#2. Up until now its been the rule that democracies don't go to war with each other (as Bush famously pointed out) because democratization leads to good free markets, wealth, prosperity, human rights, trade partnerships, and acceptance into the international community. Lebanon meets the democratic criteria and was on this path, yet where did it lead it? It is every bit as isolated as Saddam Hussein's Iraq, in fact more isolated, and just as helpless. The lesson people in Lebanon will learn from this, and which their "friendly" Syrian and Iranian friends will point to is that democracy leads you nowhere and that had Lebanon not kicked Syria out perhaps Israel would have left it alone (as it is leaving Syria and Iran alone despite the ties of both to Hezbollah).

#3. Simple self-interest. None of them, not separately and not together, can defeat Israel - so why get involved when they can play the "good guys" by remaining neutral and the world gets distracted in the meantime from Iranian nuclear ambitions or Syrian human rights records.

An allegation is not proof, and you do commit blood and money on such a treasure hunt unless you're a fool. So no.

Faulty premise. Iran no more declared war Israel than did Lebanon.

You have a good imagination, if only you were as thorough with your fact checking. ;)

This is a false paradox. The reality is that democracy is something the US only pays lip service to, but otherwise could care less as long as its own interests are met. Thus Pakistan, because of its regional power, willingness to tow the American line, and penchant for expensive weapons and Saudi Arabia, with its massive oil reserves and compliant government that is willing to keep the locals in line and the spigot turned up, are valued American strategic and trade partners despite the fact that one country is little more than a military dictatorship and the other a midieval theocracy, and that both countries have ties, past and present, to terrorism and abysmal human rights records. Its when countries suddenly begin to get uppity and put their own interests first that the US takes a serious interest in their manner of government and its human rights record.

There was no "split". Every member of the UNSC (and Russia is neither European nor part of the EU by the way) objected to Israel's conduct except for its usual Rubber Stamp: the US. That is not a "split", that is business as usual as far as Israel goes.

This I not only agree with, but I've tried to point this out in my usual go-nowhere discussion with Skybird; so from this it follows, what can Israel accomplish by razing Lebanon and dispersing a big chunk of its population to other countries as waves of destitute refugees? Moral issues aside, I see nothing good coming of this for either Israel or for the rest of us.

heh. They "pulled the plug" on a Fox news camera. I'm actually surprised they didn't pull the plug on the cameraman, as well.

Reporters without borders, my arse.

I don't read Syrian newspapers anymore than I read the Jihadwatch blog and post articles here from it daily like some certain nameless people here ;). Perhaps that is why your view of the world appear skewered to me, as there is some definite bias, disortion, and outright lies,
(whether deliberate or merely of omission) on that trashy tabloid that some suck up like it was the gospel . Mostly I read the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, the New York Times, the CBC website, and the BBC website. That is my staple and if its not perfect, it at least offers a mix of viewpoints rather than an agenda masquerading in the guise of "reporting".

I see things as they are, I simply don't buy into the notion that you can stamp out terrorism by destroying a country's infrastructure, armed forces, and civilians (deliberately or otherwise - dead is dead). The only thing you will accomplish, unless you adopt genocidal measures as well, is an increasingly angry, resentful, and desparate population who, feeling victimized themselves and certain that their cause is therefore righteous, and they have little to lose anyway, will become radical when they otherwise would not have. Thus you create the conditions of anomie whereby people have had the normal bonds to society and family stripped away from them and thus no longer feel bound to the laws and norms of society. So they commit suicide, become criminals, or become terrorists.

Look at Iraq, as example: the destruction of the Iraqi civil service, its economy, the dismantlement of its armed forces, and an occupation by a foreign power. What was the outcome of that Skybird? Total lawlessness, chaos, and terrorism on a scale that the US probably would never admit to. And the best part of it is, that if they leave a lot of these Jihadists who have nothing else to live for are probably going to follow them home. Wonderful!

I dispute that, but I think the outcome of Israel's demolition of Lebanon will likely lead to an eventual Syrian occupation. So even if you're right, its about to get worse.

Yeah, that's why his handlers rarely allow him to do anything unscripted ;)

"Achieved" means an endpoint, that is a total mischaracterization of what I said, which was that Lebanon had only recently begun down the road of progress and democracy, and that having gone down this road there was hope there. If you judge it by its neighbours then even at the point it is at now it looks pretty damn good by comparison, in absolute terms it has a ways to go yes - but what new democracy hasn't? The Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago and Russia went through much turmoil and upheaval (mainly economic) before stability returned and still today it is imperfect and struggles with certain desires to turn back to the old ways.

*shrug* Israel itself is a pretty new democracy, and its start back in the '40s was far from perfect. That's even if you ignore the militant Israeli faction (the Irgun, I believe) in Palestine that, during the British Mandate, offered an allegience with Nazi Germany, believing it expedient since both were fighting the British anyway. Of course there are two standards of conduct: 1 for Israel, and 1 for everyone else.

That didn't cut it at Nuremburg, where we hung quite a few folks because of their conduct in the war (as well as their activities outside of it).

Airports, bridges, roads, and milk factories are weapons? :hmm:

That Lebanon couldn't take care of the problem is a matter I would dispute, especially since the same day of the kidnapping Israel immediately replied militarily and continued to escalate it in the days that followed. There were other avenues, other approaches they could have taken. Personally I think that if your goal is to get back a hostage then the best avenue is through the security services and special forces, ideally with the cooperation of the Lebanese government (and you cannot say they would have refused because the offer was never made). Call me crazy but if my wife is kidnapped I am not going to go about finding her by blowing up the police station. That is just stupid and counterproductive.

In terms of a solution to the larger problem, there were other approaches to that as well. Military force, while always an option, should always be the last resort and not the first one. Countries who behave in this manner are not civilized nations, and in this respect Israel's record is worse than many of its neighbours.

Why shouldn't they have been there? Lebanon was not at war with anyone and they could no more predict the rapid events that occurred anymore than you or I could; and further, even once it began the manner that it was conducted by Israel - the immediate retaliation, the immediate bombing of the airport, roads, bridges, the naval blockade - all give it a quality of something other than 'bad luck'. Even Saddam Hussein was given 48 hours to get out of dodge, and he knew for months what was coming, and every attempt was made to facilitate his peaceful stepping down (I think Jordan even offered him safe haven) - and this was a ruthless dictator. Yet for the Canadians, Americans, Europeans, and ordinary Lebanese citizens, what warning do they get? None. A week after the fact and there are still huge numbers of foreign nationals only now being able to be evacuated. And this is "bad luck"?

And if an Israeli dropped bomb falls on your head because you are in a country that their leaders decided to bomb without warning, then that is simple "bad luck"? Were the 9/11 victims also just unlucky? A matter of fate? You astound me.

I am not ignoring it.

So Scandium.

You seem to be very sure about what Israel shouldn't do, how about telling us what you think Israel should do to stop Hezbollah rocket attacks, kidnappings and incursions into Israeli territory?

I'm really interested in hearing your solution to this problem...

I am not one blind ignorrant living under a stone, you know. This is my folder with my "daily patrol":

http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/7273/0033pk0.jpg

I've already gone over this ground earlier today, either in this thread or its sister thread, in a reply to AL about how we dealt - successfully - with our own terrorist problem here in Canada (the FLQ, which committed over 200 acts of violence including bombings, killings, bank roberries, and kidnappings). The UK also eventually was able to eliminate its IRA problem. And in your own country you dealt successfully with the KKK (which under today's broad definition of a "terrorist organization" certainly fits the bill).

Plus on the schedule I am on now it is very late for me so perhaps tomorrow I will think on it some more, if you're not satisfied with what I wrote earlier on the FLQ and the October Crisis.

Skybird: fair enough, my "Jihadwatch" characterization of your reading habits was unjust, I apologize. :up: