Iraq War

[Iraq is now a lost cause. Do you agree?]

Iraq is now a lost cause.  Do you agree?

Yes

 16 (64%)

No

 8 (32%)

Unsure

 1 (4%)

Total Members Voted: 25

[jballer]

Wow. 



That is all. 

[Miss P]

Oh, now I get it: rising2L thought I was black.  Well, wow is right. I may not be wow-ing over the same thing, but I'm pretty much in shock and awe territory nonetheless.

There is a difference between contributing a few posts once in a while and coming here  contributing your politically ignorant nonsense. This would be just as distressful as me coming to the black message board every ten minutes trying to dispense fale wisdom on the positive aspects of slavery. So please get your own community in order before obsessing about every little thing the Jews do to protect their tiny piece of land. 

Why don't you get your own community's house in order before you come here letting out the completely false and idiotic criticisms of Israel. Don't you have enough friggin problems to deal with than sitting around, picking your nose and hyper scrutinizing every little move Israel makes.

[Mr. Burnz]

For all you nerds who think they know exactly whats going on in Lebanon as you hide behind their computer screens munching on potato chips--here is a report (source: Yahoo News) by Human Rights Watch, which collected information ON THE GROUND IN LEBANON regarding Israel "defending itself" as the cliche goes... http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060803/wl_nm/mideast_lebanon_rights_dc_1;_ylt=At0qwSTqT3NO5zh.Ycwn5bUUvioA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

Rights group slams Israel for bombing civilians
 
Israel's military appears to have deliberately bombed civilians in Lebanon and some of its strikes constitute war crimes, U.S.-based rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday.

HRW said Israel's contention that Hizbollah fighters were hiding among Lebanese civilians did not justify its "systematic failure" to distinguish between civilians and combatants.

"In some instances, Israeli forces appear to have deliberately targeted civilians," HRW said in a statement accompanying a report released on Thursday.

"The failures cannot be dismissed as mere accidents and cannot be blamed on wrongful Hizbollah practices. In some cases, these attacks constitute war crimes."

At least 646 Lebanese, mostly civilians, have died in the strikes. The mounting toll, compounded by Sunday's bombing of the Lebanese village of Qana in which 54 civilians died, has fueled international outcry against Israel's tactics in the three-week-old war.

Israel says its strikes destroy Hizbollah infrastructure and stop rocket attacks that have killed 56 and caused large-scale evacuations in Israel.

HRW Executive Director Kenneth Roth said in the many cases of civilian Lebanese deaths investigated by the rights group, the location of Hizbollah members or their weapons stores appeared to have no bearing on the areas attacked.

"Hizbollah fighters must not hide behind civilians. That's an absolute. But the image that Israel has promoted of such shielding as the cause of so high a civilian death toll is wrong," he said in the statement.

The report said that included strikes against civilian vehicles fleeing the violence in southern Lebanon, which Israel says is the targeting of Hizbollah arms and their transport routes.

"Israeli forces have fired with warplanes and artillery on dozens of civilian vehicles, many flying white flags," it said.

"However, none of the evidence gathered by Human Rights Watch or reported to date by independent media sources indicate that any of the attacks on vehicles documented in the report resulted in Hizbollah casualties or the destruction of weapons."

HRW said it based its report on interviews with survivors of attacks, visits to blast sites and information from hospitals, aid groups, Lebanon's government and Israel's defense forces.

[dhartanian]

Posted by: TrojanChispas
Your analogy leaves out at least four important facts.  1) The smaller child knows he is going to geet beat up but still insists on attacking the larger kid. 2) Everytime the larger kid gives ground to the smaller kid, the smaller kid uses it to attack the larger kid, 3) the smaller kids' stated purpose is to destroy the larger kid, 4) the smaller kid's demands for peace are patently unreasonable.

Your lies, even if true, would be irrelevant to the main thesis - that someone completely unacquainted with the history of the region can understand the main moral and legal issue arising out of what is largely an Israeli crime.  Israel is a powerful terrorist state.  ALL of the recent air strikes, assassinations and ground fighting initiated by Israel into Lebanon have been in clear violation of international law.  If these crimes were taken up at the Hague they would no doubt be correctly identified as terrorist crimes.  The specific tactic is largely irrelevant but for the rabble of racists who seize on the word terrorist it is worth noting that they are usually using the term as a pejorative for Arab and nothing else. 

Israel is the world record holder in UN Security Council resolution violations.  It is inconceivable for this to be mentioned when the American press reports that Israel is seeking a fulfillment of a recent resolution calling for Hezbullah disarmament.  Israel is destroying Lebanon.  Discussions should center on what strategies and methods Lebanon and the international community should take to seize and disarm the IDF.  What measures should be taken to ensure that the Lebanese are not threatened with occupation and thousands of acts of terror? - supported and financed by the U.S. and condemned by most of the rest of the world.  How should Lebanon including its populist Hezbollah factions control Israeli airspace and ports without causing undue harm to the Israeli civilian population?  What measures can be taken to completely disarm the IDF so that it can never again illegally capture thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians? - including girls as young as 13, and torture them in Israeli jails.  What can the Arabs do to stop the theft and destruction of their farms, orchards, and homes in West Bank Palestine?  What means of violence is most appropriate for reclaiming the Palestinian water resources stolen by Israel for use by crazed fundamentalist Jewish settlers who continue to expand illegal settlements in Palestine?  These are the reasonable queries of people serious about addressing the crimes and the problems that surround them but until the propaganda is denazified it will be impossible.  As a legal discussion board its worth noting that your international colleagues probably find the American discussion of these matters devoid of humanity.  The educated American elite especially have such a complete contempt for international law it is no wonder that most of the world regard the United States and Israel as the gravest threats to world peace. 

[TrojanChispas]

Posted by: TrojanChispas
Your analogy leaves out at least four important facts.  1) The smaller child knows he is going to geet beat up but still insists on attacking the larger kid. 2) Everytime the larger kid gives ground to the smaller kid, the smaller kid uses it to attack the larger kid, 3) the smaller kids' stated purpose is to destroy the larger kid, 4) the smaller kid's demands for peace are patently unreasonable.

Your lies, even if true, would be irrelevant to the main thesis - that someone completely unacquainted with the history of the region can understand the main moral and legal issue arising out of what is largely an Israeli crime.  Israel is a powerful terrorist state.  ALL of the recent air strikes, assassinations and ground fighting initiated by Israel into Lebanon have been in clear violation of international law.  If these crimes were taken up at the Hague they would no doubt be correctly identified as terrorist crimes.  The specific tactic is largely irrelevant but for the rabble of racists who seize on the word terrorist it is worth noting that they are usually using the term as a pejorative for Arab and nothing else. 

Israel is the world record holder in UN Security Council resolution violations.  It is inconceivable for this to be mentioned when the American press reports that Israel is seeking a fulfillment of a recent resolution calling for Hezbullah disarmament.  Israel is destroying Lebanon.  Discussions should center on what strategies and methods Lebanon and the international community should take to seize and disarm the IDF.  What measures should be taken to ensure that the Lebanese are not threatened with occupation and thousands of acts of terror? - supported and financed by the U.S. and condemned by most of the rest of the world.  How should Lebanon including its populist Hezbollah factions control Israeli airspace and ports without causing undue harm to the Israeli civilian population?  What measures can be taken to completely disarm the IDF so that it can never again illegally capture thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians? - including girls as young as 13, and torture them in Israeli jails.  What can the Arabs do to stop the theft and destruction of their farms, orchards, and homes in West Bank Palestine?  What means of violence is most appropriate for reclaiming the Palestinian water resources stolen by Israel for use by crazed fundamentalist Jewish settlers who continue to expand illegal settlements in Palestine?  These are the reasonable queries of people serious about addressing the crimes and the problems that surround them but until the propaganda is denazified it will be impossible.  As a legal discussion board its worth noting that your international colleagues probably find the American discussion of these matters devoid of humanity.  The educated American elite especially have such a complete contempt for international law it is no wonder that most of the world regard the United States and Israel as the gravest threats to world peace. 

what a flame.

I didnt lie, the Palestinians, while beat up, do not konw when to throw in the towel and live for peace.  Is it this honor culture that I keep hearing about that wont let them swallow their pride?

If the palestinians wanted peace, they wouldnt attack from Gaza after it was ceded to them in exchange for peace.

If Hezbollah wanted peace, they wouldnt have continually raided the border in order to provoke Israel.

Was Israel bombing Lebanon and Hezbollah before the kidnapping?

Israel is responding with overwhelming force which is appropriate.  Maybe a little reality therapy will make Hamas and Hezbollah realize that terrorist tactics will get them no where but bombed out and depleted.

Also, a country's sovereignty is questionable when it cannot control the army within its borders.

[dhartanian]

what a flame.

I didnt lie, the Palestinians, while beat up, do not konw when to throw in the towel and live for peace.  Is it this honor culture that I keep hearing about that wont let them swallow their pride? 

If the palestinians wanted peace, they wouldnt attack from Gaza after it was ceded to them in exchange for peace.

If Hezbollah wanted peace, they wouldnt have continually raided the border in order to provoke Israel.

Was Israel bombing Lebanon and Hezbollah before the kidnapping?

Israel is responding with overwhelming force which is appropriate.  Maybe a little reality therapy will make Hamas and Hezbollah realize that terrorist tactics will get them no where but bombed out and depleted.

Also, a country's sovereignty is questionable when it cannot control the army within its borders.

After two off topic rebuttals with no attempt made to counter the arguments it is clear you are a dishonest imbecile.  You are working from a Zionist creed, egregiously lie (with a 4500 post history), repeat, repeat, repeat, and overpower the discussion, the battlefield, the boardroom - anything to win.  With an unprincipled bloodlust for your jingoist aims your future will be met with raving hoards of witch burners ready to tear you limb from limb.

[Miss P]

I thought this was a pretty sensible op-ed in the Times today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/03/opinion/03pape.html

August 3, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
Ground to a Halt
By ROBERT PAPE
Chicago

ISRAEL has finally conceded that air power alone will not defeat Hezbollah. Over the coming weeks, it will learn that ground power won’t work either. The problem is not that the Israelis have insufficient military might, but that they misunderstand the nature of the enemy.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, Hezbollah is principally neither a political party nor an Islamist militia. It is a broad movement that evolved in reaction to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in June 1982. At first it consisted of a small number of Shiites supported by Iran. But as more and more Lebanese came to resent Israel’s occupation, Hezbollah — never tight-knit — expanded into an umbrella organization that tacitly coordinated the resistance operations of a loose collection of groups with a variety of religious and secular aims.

In terms of structure and hierarchy, it is less comparable to, say, a religious cult like the Taliban than to the multidimensional American civil-rights movement of the 1960’s. What made its rise so rapid, and will make it impossible to defeat militarily, was not its international support but the fact that it evolved from a reorientation of pre-existing Lebanese social groups.

Evidence of the broad nature of Hezbollah’s resistance to Israeli occupation can be seen in the identity of its suicide attackers. Hezbollah conducted a broad campaign of suicide bombings against American, French and Israeli targets from 1982 to 1986. Altogether, these attacks — which included the infamous bombing of the Marine barracks in 1983 — involved 41 suicide terrorists.

In writing my book on suicide attackers, I had researchers scour Lebanese sources to collect martyr videos, pictures and testimonials and the biographies of the Hezbollah bombers. Of the 41, we identified the names, birth places and other personal data for 38. Shockingly, only eight were Islamic fundamentalists. Twenty-seven were from leftist political groups like the Lebanese Communist Party and the Arab Socialist Union. Three were Christians, including a female high-school teacher with a college degree. All were born in Lebanon.

What these suicide attackers — and their heirs today — shared was not a religious or political ideology but simply a commitment to resisting a foreign occupation. Nearly two decades of Israeli military presence did not root out Hezbollah. The only thing that has proven to end suicide attacks, in Lebanon and elsewhere, is withdrawal by the occupying force.

Thus the new Israeli land offensive may take ground and destroy weapons, but it has little chance of destroying the Hezbollah movement. In fact, in the wake of the bombings of civilians, the incursion will probably aid Hezbollah’s recruiting.

Equally important, Israel’s incursion is also squandering the good will it had initially earned from so-called moderate Arab states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The countries are the court of opinion that matters because, while Israel cannot crush Hezbollah, it could achieve a more limited goal: ending Hezbollah’s acquisition of more missiles through Syria.

Given Syria’s total control of its border with Lebanon, stemming the flow of weapons is a job for diplomacy, not force. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, Sunni-led nations that want stability in the region, are motivated to stop the rise of Hezbollah. Under the right conditions, the United States might be able to help assemble an ad hoc coalition of Syria’s neighbors to entice and bully it to prevent Iranian, Chinese or other foreign missiles from entering Lebanon. It could also offer to begin talks over the future of the Golan Heights.

But Israel must take the initiative. Unless it calls off the offensive and accepts a genuine cease-fire, there are likely to be many, many dead Israelis in the coming weeks — and a much stronger Hezbollah.

Robert A. Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, is the author of “Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.”

[TrojanChispas]

what a flame.

I didnt lie, the Palestinians, while beat up, do not konw when to throw in the towel and live for peace.  Is it this honor culture that I keep hearing about that wont let them swallow their pride? 

If the palestinians wanted peace, they wouldnt attack from Gaza after it was ceded to them in exchange for peace.

If Hezbollah wanted peace, they wouldnt have continually raided the border in order to provoke Israel.

Was Israel bombing Lebanon and Hezbollah before the kidnapping?

Israel is responding with overwhelming force which is appropriate.  Maybe a little reality therapy will make Hamas and Hezbollah realize that terrorist tactics will get them no where but bombed out and depleted.

Also, a country's sovereignty is questionable when it cannot control the army within its borders.

After two off topic rebuttals with no attempt made to counter the arguments it is clear you are a dishonest imbecile.  You are working from a Zionist creed, egregiously lie (with a 4500 post history), repeat, repeat, repeat, and overpower the discussion, the battlefield, the boardroom - anything to win.  With an unprincipled bloodlust for your jingoist aims your future will be met with raving hoards of witch burners ready to tear you limb from limb.

flame with a veiled threat.

You made a straw man out of my posts by ndicating that I have not responded to your arguments. However, I squarely rebutted your first analogy by stating that you forgot to mention some important facts, to which you responded with a flame.

You wont be able to rebut this:  the Palestinians are out gunned and cannot take Israel by force.  Is that a lie?

Israel withdrew from Gaza, and shortly thereafter, the Palestinians began shelling Israel from Gaza.  Is that a lie?

Israel was not bombing Lebanon before Hezbollah raided the border, killed Israeli soldiers, and kidnapped Israeli soldiers.  Is that a lie?

This is a discussion board for people that have the mental dexterity to make legitimate, rational, and logical arguments.  If you do not want someone to poke holes in your emotional arguments, then find another board upon which to post.  Until then, save up all your threats, anger, strawman and non sequiter arguments for your therapist.

HTFH

[some weird girl]

  saddness all this war sucks

[wannaB1L]

good points Trojan. Israel tried to play nice. Also I think that harboring terrorists and firing rockets maybe against International law, or maybe I did not get the memo. Also every state reserves the right to defend itself. Good luck Israel and kick some a$$.