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Yes, that is exactly what it is code for. Nice job.
Is that some kind of code for, "Israel should just let Hezbollah annihilate all the Jews?" Is that your solution for what the Israeli policy should be? Because, that was the question.
Yes, that is exactly what it is code for. Nice job.
If blogs didn't exsist, how would Yonivore know what his opinions were?
So, unable to think of a Hezbollah defense?
Why would I want to defend Hezbollah?
I can't think of a reason. So, you think Israel is justified in their attempt to crush the Hezbollah presence in Southern Lebanon? And, if not, why not?
I dont have a problem with Israel's attacking Hezbollah. They're problem is everyone and everything they are destroying that happen to not be Hezbollah. You can talk about Pearl Harbor all you want, but seeing as Hezbollah is not a country, you'd be better off comparing it to our action against the insurgency in Iraq. Do we have a scorched-earth policy there?
I tell you what Yonivore. I'll go post a blog saying what I've said numerous times over the past 2 weeks in this forum becuase you apparently can't grasp it.
Here are some quotes:
the UN is a world wide joke. My two cents
And as has been said time and time again, Hezbollah had command and control facilities in Beirut. Iran and Syria were supplying Hezbollah through Lebanese infrastructures --- airports, roads, and such.
Isn't cutting command and control plus severing supply lines a fundamental strategy in any war? Yes, it's a shame for the Lebanese people but, damn, that doesn't change the fact the Hezbollah has insinuated themselves into that country like a cancer and that it's just impossible to have a war with them without causing harm to the Lebanese.
And, they're not scorching the earth in Lebanon either. Just the earth occupied by Hezbollah.
Which of course turns all of Lebanon against Israel.
Mission accomplished.
Again, what were Israel's options?
I do think what Israel does after Hezbollah is destroyed is crucial. Helping to rebuild the Lebanese infrastructure would be a good start.
You're assuming Hezbollah will be destroyed.
I believe they will be cleared out of Southern Lebanon and that Iran and Syria will be "persuaded" to quit supporting them and that, as a result, they will wither and die.
Yeah, they'll be destroyed.
You still haven't said what you thought Israel's options were. I'm interested to know how you believe Israel should have responded to the attack.
I have no problem with strikes targeted primarly on Hezbollah positions. But there have been a lot of attacks on anything loosely connected with Hezbollah in any way. These attacks have done very little if anything to help an Israeli military goal but have done much to hurt the Lebanese people. The destruction of infrastructure does NOTHING to stop Hezbollah but it does an incredible amount of damage to the Lebanese economy and chances for reconstruction.
The Lebanese army is weak because they have no money. Just when it looked like they would have money come into the country through tourism and a rising economy, Israel destroys the country. It is short sighted and detrimental to the long term solution for the region.
You don't destroy groups like Hezbollah through the air. You just don't. If the Israeli govenrment were serious about doing this right, they would have undertaken action that would actually provide a long term solution. Right now the entire world is asking for a cease fire and it isn't goig to happen because it quite frankly doesn't make sense for either side. Once again, there is a conflict in the region with no long term exit strategy other than the improbable "destruction of -insert group here-".
There is one fundemental truth to the whole situation in that part of the world. It will not be solved with military action. They've been trying to bomb each other into oblivion for 60 years now, and neither side is any closer to actually making it happen.
At some point, Israel is going to have to give in to some of Hezbollah's demands. The Hezbollah movment isn't going to go anywhere, and it quite frankly is undefeatable with an Army. At some point there will have to be talks and concessions by each side.
But what should have been done is pretty irrelevant at this point and the historians can debate it. Now that Israel has started with military action, they could at least do so competently and start killing more Hezbollah militiamen as opposed to civilians. If they continue to drop bombs on civilians, the excuse that they are dying becuase Hezbollah is nearby is not going to fly. People in that region are tired of hearing that becuase they hear it all the damn time when it comes to the Palestinians. Every civilian Israel kills - regardless of how justified in their actions they may feel - makes life for Israel that much harder. It just adds to the fire. You can't drown a fire with gasoline.
And if anyone is going to convince Syria of anything, it isnt' going to be the president we currently have in office. This administration needs to wake up the the reality that Syria is an important country that we have to deal with and refusing to step up to the plate and do so is just going to prolong this situation.
The Bush administration has the most stubborn approach to forgein policy that I've ever seen. Whether the other country is North Korea, Iran, or Syria, they always take a foolish self righteous stance that does nothing but prolong resolutions to these situations.
You would think the mother er would learn after 6 years of slamming his head against a wall.
That's just not true.
Also not true.
See here. Look at the map of Beirut and the places where Israel has bombed and an explanation of why those places were bombed. Also look at the videos taken by IDF drones and smart bombs of Hezbollah rocket launchers in civilian areas.
Well, if the UNIFIL (and Lebanon) hadn't spent the past six years allowing Hezbollah to cache weapons and then attack unprovoked, we wouldn't be here, now would we?
This is yet to be seen. The current hostilities are young. You do realize, of course, that during the same period of time Coalition forces had killed three times as many Afghanistan civilians, right?
Israel has been warning Lebanese civilians by leaflet drops and radio announcements when air raids are going to take place. Name another country that has done that during a war.
Israel has been stopped from completing the task every time they've tried. That's the only reason military action hasn't worked. And, the international community is trying to stop them again.
Nothing but military action will resolve this issue.
There aren't any reasonable demands left. They've capitulated every since this conflict has existed.
All that is left is national suicide and the release of horrible criminals. What is left for Israel to give in to?
I disagree.
I'd still be interested in what you think they should have done.
Who knows who's doing the counting? Whose counting civilian vs. Hezbollah deaths? Look at those videos on that site and tell me how you tell the good from the bad.
You can't put it out by allowing it to engulf your country either. It's just the better of two bad choices.
Both Japan and Germany became American allies and we bombed the out of their countries -- killing a lot of innocent people in the bargain. They understood (eventually, if not at first) just how evil Nazism was. Sad that you can't see the same about Hezbollah.
I believe the Lebanese are more understanding than you are.
Things in the Middle East are changing like no time in history. Your just full of . No one is running to aid Hezbollah, Syria and Iran are being pressured to abandon Hezbollah -- by the Arab League of nations no less.
I think this administratioon has pushed that region off high center and toward a resolution.
so how would a democrat resolve all these issues we are having with the world... just curious...
I mean hey it was democrat that dropped atomic bombs on japan...
That's funny, Israel doesn't think they will destroy Hezbollah.
from http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_i...3741681475B253
'We're not trying to destroy Hezbollah'
July 24 2006 at 02:21PM
By Matthew Tostevin
Jerusalem - Israel's offensive in Lebanon is not aimed at totally dismantling Hezbollah but rather at preventing the guerrilla group returning to the border and attacking the Jewish state, a cabinet minister said on Monday.
Public Security Minister Avi Dichter played down expectations for the campaign as security sources said the army believed it had only a week to keep pounding Hezbollah before an international deal would force it to stop.
Dichter said it was up to the international community to disarm Hezbollah under a UN resolution.
Hezbollah has rained rockets on northern Israel despite the offensive
"From an Israeli perspective, the target is not to totally dismantle Hezbollah," Dichter told reporters.
"What we are doing now is to try to send a message to Hizbollah and to the Lebanese government ... hoping that somehow we'll succeed in setting up a new situation between Israel and Hizbollah."
Israel's offensive has killed 370 people in Lebanon, most of them civilians, since Hizbollah abducted two soldiers in a raid on July 12. Hezbollah, which has fired barrages of rockets into Israeli towns, has killed at least 37 Israelis.
Israeli troops battled Hezbollah inside southern Lebanon on Monday and Al Jazeera television said two soldiers were killed. "We are ... trying to destroy every Hezbollah post and position along the line and we are not going to allow Hizbollah to return to the line," said Dichter, who used to head Israel's Shin Bet internal security agency.
Hezbollah has rained rockets on northern Israel despite the offensive and the group's leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, said in remarks published on Monday that Israeli incursions would not stop the Katyusha fire.
Diplomacy to end the crisis has intensified and both Israeli security sources and Western diplomats said the army believed it had about one more week to do as much damage to Hezbollah as it could.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who started a visit to the region in Lebanon, said a ceasefire was urgent as long as the right conditions were in place. The United States wants any agreement to remove the threat posed to Israel.
Israel has signalled its approval for the idea of a beefed up peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon that might prevent Hezbollah attacks over the border and help disarm the group, as provided for under a UN resolution.
Dichter said Israel wanted to write a new "Dictionary of Terms" for relations with Hezbollah.
"Trying to write it with bullets and trying to write it with bombs takes a little longer, but it's going to be written," he said. "If they even think of attacking, they will know what price they, or Lebanon, will pay."
As for how Hezbollah, and Syria and Iran with it, are losing influence in the ME:
Arab leaders fear rise of Hezbollah
By Roger Hardy
BBC Middle East analyst
Hezbollah is riding a wave of popularity on the Arab street. Not since it played a role in forcing Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon in 2000 has it enjoyed such adulation.
Its leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah is enjoying something akin to a personality cult.
At a time when Arab governments are seen as largely powerless to influence events, Hezbollah is seen as taking on the Israelis - and behind the Israelis, the American superpower.
This has put Arab leaders - in particular those allied to the United States - in a difficult quandary.
At the start of this crisis the rulers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan did not hide their view that Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers was "reckless adventurism".
This was unusual enough, but they also openly directed their displeasure at the group's backers, Syria and Iran.
Their stance pleased the Bush administration but was roundly criticised at home.
They were seen as siding with the Israelis against the new champions of the Palestinian cause.
Dark warnings
Now there is a distinct shift.
Washington's Arab friends are pressing urgently for an immediate ceasefire.
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has warned darkly of the danger of a wider regional war.
Saudi television this week organised a day-long appeal - or "telethon" - which raised some $29 million (£15.55 million) for Lebanon.
The Saudi media made much of the fact that the king and the crown prince made handsome personal donations.
In addition the Saudi state has given $1.5 billion (£800 million) to support the Lebanese pound and help rebuild the shattered country.
It is not that these rulers have changed their minds.
They fear the growing influence of Iran and Hezbollah.
They believe the regional balance of power is shifting in Iran's favour.
They think Iran and Hezbollah are trying to hijack the Palestinian cause.
Some Saudi religious figures have gone much further. For them the issue is not so much political as sectarian.
One well-known sheikh, Abdullah bin Jabreen, has issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, declaring it illegal for Muslims to join, support or even pray for Hezbollah.
This reflects the view of conservatives in the Saudi religious establishment that the Shia are not proper Muslims and are not to be trusted.
Joining the bandwagon
But the critics of Hezbollah find themselves in the minority.
The predominant view in the Middle East and the wider Muslim world is overwhelmingly supportive of Hezbollah.
For most people, the Palestinian cause transcends sectarian differences.
Even al-Qaeda, no friend of the Shia, has felt obliged to speak out.
The group's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has issued a video saying no Muslim can stay silent in the face of events in Lebanon.
Al-Qaeda does not want to be upstaged.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...st/5224650.stm
I believe this story belongs in this thread. Israel has called the area bombed a hub for Hezbulloh.
Israeli Attack on Lebanese Village Kills at Least 56, Sparks Outrage
Sunday, July 30, 2006
QANA, Lebanon — At least 56 people, more than half children, were killed Sunday in an Israeli airstrike that crushed a building, the deadliest attack of the Israeli campaign, raising Lebanon's overall death toll over 500. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice decided to return early to Washington with her diplomatic mission derailed after Lebanese leaders told her not to come.
Lebanon's prime minister said his country would not talk to the Americans over anything but an unconditional cease-fire. Rice, in Jerusalem for talks with Israeli officials, said she was "deeply saddened by the terrible loss of innocent life" but stopped short of calling for an immediate end to the hostilities.
However, she made one of her strongest statements yet saying: "We want a cease-fire as soon as possible."
The United States has resisted world pressure to call for a halt to the fighting, saying it wants first to ensure a deal is in place that will eliminate Hezbollah guerrillas from Israel's border and bring an international force to southern Lebanon.
The missiles struck just after 1 a.m., leveling a three-story building in Qana where two extended families, the Shalhoubs and Hashims, had taken refuge in the basement from heavy Israeli bombardment in the area. Throughout the day, rescue workers were digging through the rubble, lifting out bodies dressed in colorful clothes of women and children. At one point they found a single room with 18 bodies, police said.
"Why are they killing us? What have we done?" screamed Khalil Shalhoub, who was helping pull out the dead until he saw his brother's body taken out on a stretcher. The dead included at least 34 children and 12 adult women, security officials said.
Israel said guerrillas had fired rockets from near the building into northern Israel.
In Beirut, some 5,000 protesters gathered in downtown Beirut, at one point attacking a U.N. building and burning American flags, shouting, "Destroy Tel Aviv, destroy Tel Aviv" and chanting for Hezbollah's ally Syria to hit Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel "is not in a hurry to have a cease-fire" before it achieves its goals of decimating Hezbollah.
He told Rice that Israel would need 10 to 14 more days to finish its offensive, according to a senior Israeli government official. The two were expected to meet again in the evening before Rice returns home the next morning.
"We will not stop this battle, despite the difficult incidents this morning," Olmert told his Cabinet after the strike, according to a participant. "We will continue the activity and if necessary it will be broadened without hesitation."
The Lebanese government this week had been putting forward ideas on disarming Hezbollah and deploying an international force in the south. But after the strike, Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said any negotiations on a broader deal were off.
"We will not negotiate until the Israeli war stops shedding the blood of innocent people," he told a press conference. He said the Lebanese government still supported the ideas it offered this week, but would not discuss them with out a stop in fighting.
Rice was in Jerusalem meeting Israeli leaders, and Saniora's office said he told Rice not to come to Beirut. Rice disputed that version, telling reporters, "I called him and told him that I was not coming today, because I felt very strongly that my work toward a cease-fire is really here, today."
A U.S. official later said she had decided to return home Monday morning to work on a U.N. Security Council resolution.
Israel said Hezbollah guerrillas had fired 40 rockets into northern Israel from Qana, wounding five Israelis, before the airstrike — including some rockets launched from near the leveled building.
"We deeply regret the loss of any civilian life and especially when you talk about children who are innocent," Foreign Ministry official Gideon Meir told AP. But he accused Hezbollah of "using their own civilian population as human shields" and said the military had warned people to leave the area.
The attack drew immediate condemnation from the Arab world, with Jordan's King Abdullah II voicing his strongest criticism of his Israeli peace partner yet, calling it an "ugly crime." Israel promised an investigation.
In April 1996 more than 100 Lebanese civilians were killed in Qana in the hills east of the port city of Tyre, in an Israeli artillery s ing of a U.N. base. The civilians had sought refuge with the U.N. to escape Israeli bombardment and the attack sparked an international outcry that helped end an Israeli offensive.
Meanwhile, Israel launched its second ground incursion into southern Lebanon. Before dawn Sunday, Israeli forces backed by heavy artillery fire crossed the border and clashed with Hezbollah guerrillas in the Taibeh Project area, some 1.8 to 2.5 miles inside Lebanon.
Hezbollah said eight Israeli soldiers were killed, while the Israeli army said only that one of its soldiers had been moderately wounded.
Heavy artillery rained down on the nearby villages of Yuhmor and Arnoun as Israeli jets were seen in the skies overhead.
The incursion came after Israeli forces pulled back Saturday from Bint Jbail, the furthest point of their first major ground incursion across the border, launched a week ago. The incursion sparked heavy fighting with Hezbollah guerrillas, who put up a tougher resistance than expected and appeared to still be in the area after the pullback. Bint Jbail is further west along the border from Taibeh.
The United Nations World Food Program canceled an aid convoy's trip to the embattled south, after the Israeli military denied safe passage, the group said in a statement. The six-truck convoy had been scheduled to bring relief supplies to Marjayoun.
Lebanese civilians have suffered the most from the fighting, which broke out after Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid July 12 and killed eight others.
Some 458 Lebanese were killed in the fighting through Saturday — before the attacks on Qana. Thirty-three Israeli soldiers have died, and Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel have killed 18 civilians, Israeli authorities said, correcting earlier reports of 19 civilian dead.
More than 750,000 Lebanese have fled their homes in the fighting. But many thousands more are still believed holed up in the south, taking refuge in schools, hospitals or basements of apartment buildings amid the fighting — many of them too afraid to flee on roads heavily hit by Israeli strikes.
In Qana, Khalil Shalhoub and several other residents said people were simply too terrified to take the road out of the village, which has been attacked repeatedly by rockets and bombs. Charred wreckage and smashed buildings line the roughly 12-kilometer road from Qana to Tyre, where a small amount of humanitarian supplies had arrived. European ships had picked up foreign citizens from Tyre's port, but there were no evacuations of Lebanese.
On Thursday, the Israeli military's Al-Mashriq radio that broadcasts into southern Lebanon warned residents that their villages would be "totally destroyed" if missiles are fired from them. Leaflets with similar messages were dropped in some areas Saturday.
A senior official in the Israeli air force said the village had been warned "several times" that it would be attacked because "hundreds of rockets have been fired from inside the village in the past two weeks, from the backyards, from the squares ... from as close as 50 to 60 meters from this building."
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the operation, said Hezbollah guerrillas often fire near buildings then use those buildings as cover but that he did not know if that was the case this time.
Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr disputed allegations that Hezbollah was firing missiles from Qana.
"What do you expect Israel to say? Will it say that it killed 40 children and women?" he told Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV station.
Israel has apologized and alledgedly has video showing hezbulloh rockets being fired for the area. They also said that Hezbulloh was using the building for cover and that they had repeatedly asked the civilians to leave the bldg.
Reports now coming in that Israel is casting doubt that it was their missles that downed the bldg.
Skepticism abounds, even from the U.S.
Note: The rules of war are to protect innocent civilians. Hezbulloh by policy uses civilians as shields, attacks from heavily populated areas and has indiscriminately fired roughly 100 rockets a day into heavily populated Israeli cities.
Last edited by jochhejaam; 07-30-2006 at 12:20 PM. Reason: update
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