Originally posted by Vitchilo
They'll blow up their own oil wells and fight you till death, it'll be worse than Iraq and Vietnam together, how do you like that?

Then it's kind of a win/win situation. By blowing up their own oil wells, they have effectively lost the support of China and if they fight us to their death, we will have the oil wells when they are dead.

Look, this whole middle east mess is a powder keg with so much political spin it is hard to figure out who is wearing the white hat. You can't continue to lob missiles, send suicide bombers, and abduct people, without some sort of recourse. If you don't like the results, then don't keep kicking the sleeping dog.

The more I listen to the whole issue about the Israel Hezbollah crisis the more I see that the goal is getting Iran into the conflict.

Israel has gotten tire of waiting for US and the UN to take stronger measures against that nation and they will force the door to open.

At the end US will have not choice but to get involve also.

I mean seriously, what is happening to Australia? I read something from a guy who said he would fight against the evil US war machine...And then I read about a guy blaming all the world's problems on the US. And now you are saying you hope someone puts Israel in their place?

Hey, whoa. Take it easy on the Aussies. This fool doesn't speak for all of Australia. We have brain washed people here spewing the same ignorance. Unfortunately the more extreme your views the louder you state them. I think it's part of the conditioning. I've got some time with Aussie soldiers and construction workers and such (I'll save those tells for another thread, them boys can drink) and I know for a fact this guy doesn't speak for all of Australia. The more he tries to "prove" his opinion is the general concensus, the more you know it isn't.

Look at his post. He says 99% of Aussies want nothing to do with the war on terror. Is it possible to get 99% concensus on anything? A huge, uber meteor could be heading towards the Earth, threatening to kill all of us and you still wouldn't get 99% of the worlds populace agreeing that we should prevent it reaching us. The people of Australia aren't sheep. They actually hold alot of our ideals on independence and freedom.

I just wanted to say that War is very serious, and it is even more serious when it's a war in regions that have historically been unstable/barely stable.

War is never the only option.

Read the above line again.

We, the people of this world need to understand that. We can't just allow elite powers and their interests to rush us(humanity) to war.

We common people need to understand that war is never our only option. We can't just allow major media to desensitize us and repeat the pounding on the drums of war.

Humanity, we common people; we end up doing most of the bleeding, the suffering, the dieing. We are the ones that have to see war in its ugliest form, we are the ones who see it at it's moste pure: Hatred and Destruction.

We can't allow ourselves to be told that war is the only answer. We can't endlessly go off on various crusades for various causes of faith or profit. We have to realize who and what industries reap the profits generated by military actions.

We need to understand that our blood is what ends up directly fueling those profits.

We need to steel ourselves from propaganda and bickering.

We need to resist war to our full extent, with all we are.



Thank you for letting me speak my opinion.

X

Kudos to Xatnys. Well said.



Pie

What I'm afraid of is that for the Bush clan and the zionists, War IS the only option.

But unlike in the Seven Days war, which came close to ignite a war between US and USSR, the US administration is not facing any major military/nuclear threat (USSR), and the domestic political opposition (i.e. the Democrats and some liberal conservatives, mainly) is too weak to push Congress for a diplomatic solution. The position of Russia and China into this, although implicitely antipathic to the US and Israel interests is not very clear, and we can't really expect any direct retaliation from them until things get very, very constrainging on the global geostrategic level... so the US/EU/Israel block might as well behave as if Middle-East is an easy bet.

This is not looking good at all...

Originally posted by Echtelion
....the domestic political opposition (i.e. the Democrats and some liberal conservatives, mainly) is too weak to push Congress for a diplomatic solution.

What would the diplomatic solution you describe?

Hezbollah will not give up the soldiers they took without a ransom of prisoners. Hezbollah will not give up attacking Israel and the central government of Lebanon is powerless/unwilling to stop Hezbollah from setting up a defacto army on Israel's border with Lebanon. Add on top of that Israel is determined to have Hezbollah cleared from the field of southern Lebanon. I'm sorry but unless things take a drastic turn in the mindset of all parties involved, I don't think there is much to negotiate.

Originally posted by elysiumfire
The Israeli response to one kidnapped soldier was so over-the-top that the actual action just didn't compute. Why was it over-the-top? Why are they killing, indiscriminately, innocent Lebanese civilians when most of them are pro-American?

Israel, historically has always put a very high value on all of it's military missing in action. For Hezbollah to think that they could take two soldiers and not bring the full wrath of the IDF upon them just goes to show how stupid some groups can be. Hezbollah knew full well that by doing this would bring about a response from Israel like we are seeing. Ask yourself this question: if there were no kidnappings would we be seeing what we are seeing? If the answer is no, then blame those who started this.

Unfortunately for the Lebanese, there are always civilian casualties in a war. Now you may not think this is a war, but I am sure Israel considers themselves to be at war. Some attacks have been to put pressure on Lebanon's government for sure. Just as sure, innocent civilians have been killed and maimed. Contrary to popular opinion, War is a very dirty, messy and overall very bad thing to happen to a civilian population caught in the midst of it.

The majority of the attacks, Israel has been dismantling concentrations of Hezbollah sites and have tried to eliminate the routes they might use to move the two captured soldiers. Yes the airports, roads and bridges to Syria have been rendered unusable, however the strikes have damaged not destroyed things. There is a bridge that Israel punched holes in with missile strikes, they easily could have just destroyed the bridge but didn't. the airport runways have been struck, not the rest of the airport infrastructure for the most part.

Hi Pavil,

Your post requires a response, not for what you have stated, but more for how you have stated the points contained in it. It contains a very 'matter-of-fact' attitude and a condescension that denies your post the credibility it deserves.

Firstly, what you quote from me are not specific questions to the forum. The sentences end in question marks, but they are to be considered as thoughts spoken aloud to no one but myself. They are there to show a thought-process...that is all.

Your acceptance of civilian casualties in war, simply because war "...is a very dirty, messy and overall very bad thing to happen to a civilian population caught in the midst of it." does not excuse the condescencion with which the statement is delivered. You are not talking to a child, in fact, I am probably older than you are. By all means, make your statements, but consider your readers to be minimum-ly the same age as you, and of equal intelligence.

Your third paragraph explains nothing that furthers the point of your post. Such information has already been garnered by most members through the news media. My post, from which you have quoted, is of course speculation, but backed up with the link supplied. My speculation hopes to provide interesting hypothetical answers to questions that a number of forum members are perhaps already thinking. I do not consider myself to be the only one thinking in these terms, for I am certainly not, but the pattern of events unfolding seem to be following a premeditated course of action that is meant to lead to the wider effect of an attack upon Iran.

I am neither anti-Jewish nor anti-arab, I care not for religion, but I do care about humanity, I care about people, especially those caught up in these conflicts created by people serving their own interests first. There is little I can do physically, but I do have a voice, and I will use it against those whom brush humanity aside as if they're swotting at a fly! It's all too easy for any one of us to declare that war is dirty and messy, and oh how tragic it gets when innocents are left slaughtered in its wake; easy that is until we ourselves are caught up in the troubles. We are quite happy to condescend just as long as we are not touched by the tragedy ourselves. Sometimes, I think we could all do with a taste of it, just so that we can gain a real and true perspective of what it is like to be caught up in these conflicts.

Regards

Sorry if you are taking offence to my comments.
I have just stated that these events were set in motion by Hezbollah, knowing full well what the Israeli response would be to the kidnappings of their soldiers. Without the kidnappings, the events occurring now in Lebanon/Israel do not occur.

As for my comments about civilians in war, I stand by them and I was not being flippant about it. Show me a war where civilians are not killed. You may seem to think they are being intentionally targeted because they are civilians. I think that unfortunately, in a war especially where there are close concentrations of combatants and civilians, civilian casualties are unavoidable even by the best trained of forces. Wars are messy, wars are brutal, things go terribly wrong in wars sometimes, wars kill innocents and the guilty at the same time. That's why they are to be avoided.

My point in my description is that in this modern age, people have seemed to have lost a perception of the brutality that is war. They somehow think that armed conflict can be waged with pinpoint accuracy, without innocents suffering, that has never been the case and still is not. At the same time, again unfortunately, armed conflict is the only way some issues can still be decided. You may disagree with that statement, however history and current events bear my argument out. That is not to say that armed conflicts shouldn't be avoided at all costs. However, sometimes disputes need to still be settled in the way they ultimately always have been.

The point of the third paragraph was that if Israel really, really wanted to, they could really do massive damage to Lebanon in general. So far they have selected narrow targets and attacked them with relatively (militarily speaking) minimum amount of force necessary to do the job. If this turns in to a full fledged conflict you will see what I mean.

Where is the condemnation of Hezbollah rocket attacks back into Israel , targeting and killing, indiscriminately, innocent Israeli civilians. You can't have it both ways and your initial post singled out Israel only as the instigator for responding to an attack. I don't follow that logic myself.

Israel is goading attacks upon itself so that it can move towards a not-so-hidden goal...Iran.

Again please tell me how Israel "goaded" an attack by Hezbollah, which incidentally, is what caused this whole thing to flare up. Place the blame squarely where it belongs in this particular instance.

I don't think Israeli's and their supporters for the most part, are glad when the IDF kill civilians, can you say the same about Hezbollah and their supporters when the do the same?

Let's look at my original quote with the emphasis added

Originally by Pavil
I DON'T think Israeli's and their supporters FOR THE MOST PART , are glad when the IDF kill civilians, can you say the same about Hezbollah and their supporters when the do the same?

You are taking a fringe person and extrapolating it to Most Israeli's and their supporters. Nice try. Is he a politician, does he speak for the majority of Israel? A quick search doesn't show him as anything more than a very minor person in any of this. What is your point? Anyone can find stuff like that.

What about the second part of my quote. Why don't you find some Hezbollah leaders or supporters who aren't gleeful, express regret or who condemn when they attack Israeli civilians unprovoked? Have fun looking. For each quote you find you will have to sift through 100 saying the opposite.


[edit on 17-7-2006 by pavil]

Originally posted by pavil
You are taking a fringe person and extrapolating it to Most Israeli's and their supporters. Nice try. Is he a politician, does he speak for the majority of Israel? A quick search doesn't show him as anything more than a very minor person in any of this. What is your point? Anyone can find stuff like that.

What about the second part of my quote. Why don't you find some Hezbollah leaders or supporters who aren't gleeful, express regret or who condemn when they attack Israeli civilians unprovoked? Have fun looking. For each quote you find you will have to sift through 100 saying the opposite.

Well you said you don't think. Well we already know what hezbollah has said. Just wanted you to know and not have to think that its coming from both sides. The media is not posting the stuff that extremists in Israel are saying.
If anyone can find stuff like that then why is it that we are led to believe mostly by Pro-israeli supporters or media that it is only violent rhetoric and anti-US propaganda being spewed coming from only the Muslim or Arab side?

Originally posted by ThePieMaN
If anyone can find stuff like that then why is it that we are led to believe mostly by Pro-israeli supporters or media that it is only violent rhetoric and anti-US propaganda being spewed coming from only the Muslim or Arab side?

Perhaps because the vast majority of violent rhetoric and anti-US propaganda is being spewed on the Muslim side by some, not all, of their LEADERS and much, not all, of their media and not some fringe people who don't really come into play at all on a national or international stage. Sure there are whack jobs on both sides out there and yes, anyone can find almost anything on the Internet if you look hard enough. Comparing a whack job to a Leader of a nation or a news organization is comparing apples to oranges.