• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Hezbollah: take that

So what should Israel do?
Click to expand...

It's doing exactly the right thing already. Israel maintains a pro-active stance and will not stop until this war goes a few more strong rounds and the terrorists are left reeling and in shock.

Israel does not need 'international support' -- it needs to stop the terrorists on whatever terms it wishes: No games, no negotiations, no BS.

Also --
A targeted surgical-strike to eliminate Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal should be a major goal.

Also --
NATANZ.

Syria and Iran both need to be given wake-up calls.
And the Israelis are just the ones who can clean the clocks of those two rogue nations.
 
Last edited:
Azure said:
Far as I'm concerned, Israel has the right to do whatever the hell they want. They could nuke Iran and Syria and I still wouldn't change in my support for them.
Click to expand...

Even Dubya disagrees with you

President George W Bush - who has strongly backed Israeli action - nonetheless put this point rather neatly.
"Defend yourself," he said, "but be mindful of the consequences."



Click to expand...



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5184974.stm


A lesson he has learnt himself, the hard way.
 
Rob Lister said:
I whole-heartedly disagree, at least as it applies to Israel. They have remained steadfastly, amazingly tolerant and restrained far beyond reason. The Islamofacists may (clearly do) think that way, but the way you put it, it applies to both sides equally. That clearly is not the case. Israel may (finally) see a god-given right to defend themselves regardless of public opinion to the contrary, but do not appear, on any level, to exibit a god-given right/duty to exterminate all other religions in the area first, and then the world...including other factions of their own religion.

How anyone (not talking about you) can side in any way with the islamofacists in this conflict is incomprehisably beyond me. It's like electing the KKK as world leader.
Click to expand...

Israel has not been tolerant and restrained beyond reason. Say what you like about which side deserves what or is morally more correct, Israel has blood on it's hands too. Eg, the helicopter that attacked a bus full of civilians, including children, trying to flee the fighting in Lebanon. Palestinians summarily executed without trial.
 
Azure said:
So what should Israel do? Quit with their mission to take out Hebollah since they're hiding behind civilian targets?
Click to expand...
What should Israel do?

My No1 hope at the moment is that when Australian citizens are assembled to evacuate that Hezbollah and Israel can manage to avoid killing them.
Thats my main "what should israel do" at the moment...
 
Come on AUP, seriously? Your Australian reports are filled with bias. From your news source above:


IN LEBANON, as in Gaza, it is not Israel's right to protect its civilian population from terrorist aggression that is at issue. It is the way Israel goes about exercising that right.

Despite bitter lessons from the past, Israel's political and military leaders remain addicted to the notion that, whatever they have a right to do, they have a right to overdo, to the point where they lose what international support they had when they began their retaliatory measures.
Click to expand...

Give me a break. Israel has no international support beyond lip service, and very little of even that mind you, except from the US. Let's stop BSing here. To pretend that Israel has lost "international support" because of its recent defensive actions is preposterous.

No one but the US steadfastly supports Israel and its right to exist and to defend itself from all of its hostile neighbors.

AS
 
Last edited:
I think the vast majority, including myself, see it has having a 'right to exist'. I see no reason for Israeli's to be killed off to 'free' the land, I do think that Israel has not been to smart in how it goes about ensuring it's survival, though. A second holocaust holds no more justification for me than the first. (I parenthesize that term, since I think it is not that simple, for example, does Australia or the US have a 'right to exist'.)

If you read the article I quoted, it is by a Jewish author, and is actually sourced from a US newspaper.
 
webfusion said:
It's doing exactly the right thing already. Israel maintains a pro-active stance and will not stop until this war goes a few more strong rounds and the terrorists are left reeling and in shock.

Israel does not need 'international support' -- it needs to stop the terrorists on whatever terms it wishes: No games, no negotiations, no BS.
Click to expand...

I agree with you, mostly. Israel knows exactly what it's doing. It is not only committed to stamping out Hezbollah and Hamas, but it is also sending a very loud message to its neighbors that it is very serious about and committed to defending itself and its right to exist as a sovereign state. It will fight to the death if necessary.

I don't agree that expanding its operations into Syria and Iran are wise at this point. Should Syria and Iran continue or step up their support of Hezbollah's current campaign of sending rockets into Israeli cities and towns, then I might change my mind.

It is not occupying others' territory. Due to nearly constant warfare with its various neighbors, it has expanded and contracted its borders since its creation by the victorious allies in 1945, but exactly where those borders were initially was somewhat arbitrary. The allies were trying to be accommodating to various Muslim nations and tribal and ethnic groups when they picked Israel's borders, but their chosing of the borders themselves was based on compromise and perhaps a dose of whim.

The various and sundry Muslim groups complaining and fighting with Israel over territory they claim was stolen from the Palestinians is a cover for their real complaint -- that Israel exists in the Middle East, and that Jews exist at all.

Palestinians should have just as much of a beef with Egypt and Syria as they do with Israel when it comes to claims of stolen territory, but they don't. Ask yourself why that might be so. There is only one reason, and that is that Israel is a Jewish state run by Jews, although it contains a very sizable minority of Palestinians. In contrast, the Egyptians and Syrians who stole Palestinian territory are Muslims.

The driving force behind all these conflicts with Israel is Muslim hatred of Jews, and the lack of international support is simply lack of empathy with Jewish people from the rest of the world. That's it. The rest is just base politics.

AS
 
webfusion said:
It's doing exactly the right thing already. Israel maintains a pro-active stance and will not stop until this war goes a few more strong rounds and the terrorists are left reeling and in shock.
Click to expand...

Most of the lebanese are already reeling in shock, don't know about Hezbollah, though. They keep talking like they are ready for a lot more.
 
a_unique_person said:
I think the vast majority, including myself, see it has having a 'right to exist'. I see no reason for Israeli's to be killed off to 'free' the land, I do think that Israel has not been to smart in how it goes about ensuring it's survival, though. A second holocaust holds no more justification for me than the first. (I parenthesize that term, since I think it is not that simple, for example, does Australia or the US have a 'right to exist'.)

If you read the article I quoted, it is by a Jewish author, and is actually sourced from a US newspaper.
Click to expand...

Israel was attacked by Muslim neighbor states the day after its formal announcement that it was a sovereign state in 1948. It has been at war with at least some of them virtually the whole time since then. The bigger picture is that this is not about how Israel uses disproportionate measures. It is about how Israel is surrounded by hostile neighbors and contains a huge hostile ethnic group within its own borders, and its existence has been threatened from Day One.

Other than the US, other nations have done little but pay lip service to support for Israel's right to exist as a sovereign nation. I'm not asserting that other nations tacitly support a second holocaust. Those are two separate issues. Israel's international political support, apart from the US, however, has been virtually non-existent.

I read the article you cite. I was specifically taking issue with the author's implication that Israel did enjoy any substantial international support (apart from the US' support) before the recent retaliatory attacks in Lebanon. I realize that he was careful to write "what international support they had when they began their retaliatory measures." I suspect that even he does not believe that there was much international support before last week.

I don't buy the proportionality argument as it is used by critics of Israel's military actions of the past week. Israel is not in this conflict to continue to engage in the tit-for-tat BS it has been having with Hezbollah for years. It is tired of it, and Hezbollah's sending of rockets into Israel was the last straw. Israel is out to put an end to the BS attacks, once and for all. You don't accomplish that with tit-for-tat.

If your goal is to win an armed conflict, then you must muster your armed forces and use them to destoy the enemy's ability to fight. That is exactly what Israel is currently doing. It is systematically destroying Lebanon's power grids and access to the outside world in order to break it. After a sustained blockade and siege of Lebanon, Hezbollah's ability to fight will diminish. Eventually, it will be forced to surrender, whether through internal or external forces.

If Israel were to engage Hezbollah on its terms and proportionately, with random rockets fired at Lebanese cities and towns, neither side would accomplish anything militarily except to prolong the conflict. An unfortunate side effect would be that both sides would needlessly kill civilians, which happens in any sustained armed conflict anyway.

This proportionality thing is BS and stupid, empty political posturing by world leaders. It makes no sense militarily. If you're going to fight, fight to win. That's what Israel is doing, and it's also deliberately sending a larger message to its neighbors to stop f*cking with it. Doing so will cost you dearly.

Lebanon is going to be left in tatters, as it has been several times in the past. That is meant to be a deterrent not only to it, but also to the likes of Syria and Iran.

AS
 
a_unique_person said:
You keep on equating Hezbollah to Lebanon. They are two completely different entities.
Click to expand...

Right, but as someone else pointed out, that is always the case with military conflicts. The political and/or military powers that control a nation or region are the enemy. You have to destroy their ability to fight. The Nazi party and war machine did not equal Germany, but the Allied forces were at war with Germany. Funny how that works, huh?

Because they are in Lebanon, and because a substantial majority of the residents of southern Lebanon and the Lebanese government have allowed Hezbollah to control southern Lebanon, there is no real difference. Fighting Hezbollah effectively and strategically requires knocking out power, centers of command and control, ingress and egress, and supply lines in Lebanon. Noting that Hezbollah is not Lebanon is irrelevant. The way to destroy Hezbollah is to blockade and siege Lebanon.

Surely, Israel hopes and expects that the non-Hezbollah part of Lebanon, whether that's the government or the people, will exert pressure on Hezbollah to disarm and surrender. Doing what Israel is doing is an effective means to that possible end.

AS
 
Come on, the whole army was made up of Germans and Austrians, who all fought. The civilians fought at least as nationalists, even if they weren't Nazis. Hezbollah does not draw it's members from Lebanese in general. About 40% of the population of is xian, of one pursuasion or another.
 
You don't really need to read the news to know what's going on in the middle east conflict.

You can just read the commentaries from the "sane" and "objective" reporters in such sources as "the age" or "the Guardian", and you automatically know how israel is reacting to terrorist attacks against it. Just consult the following list:

1). Editorials are filled with praise for israel for it "taking brave steps for peace", "giving hope to a war-torn region", etc.: means, israel is retreating under terrorist attacks.

2). Editorials are filled with comments about israel "showing brave restraint", "acting wisely", etc.: means, israel is suffering terrorists attacks, isn't retreating, but isn't fighting back, either.

3). Editorials warn against the "cycle of violence", reaise the spectre of "innocents suffering", "disproportionate force", the uselessness "collective punishment", etc.: israel is fighting back, though not with nearly enough force to actually stop the terrorist attacks.

4). Editorials scream that israel "has gone insane", "committing state terrorism", "digging its own grave", "awash in delusions of militarism", etc., etc.: israel is fighting back with, say, 30%-50% of the military force and 200%-300% of the restraint that any other nation faced with similar attacks would have have used.
 
a_unique_person said:
Hezbollah does not draw it's members from Lebanese in general. About 40% of the population of is xian, of one pursuasion or another.
Click to expand...

Does it really matter? The fact is that Hezbollah is physically in Lebanon. In order to destroy its ability to fight, Israel must take out electrical power to the Hezbollah members and supporters, cut off their supply lines, and blockade them and block their access to the air and the roads in or out of the country. In order for Israel to do that, it has to attack those targets where they are -- in Lebanon.

Also, please note that with respect to residential areas, the Israelis have intentionally targeted only the residential areas of southern Lebanon which contain the command and control centers of Hezbollah. They are not out to kill Lebanese people of whatever ethnic background or religious persuasion just for the hell of it. They are out to destroy Hezbollah's fighting ability, and secondarily, to weaken its support from within and without the country.

AS

Edited to add "electrical"
 
Last edited:
a_unique_person said:
So why would an Israeli helicopter target a civilian mini bus, and kill it's occupants, including children? It was fleeing the fighting, as the leaflets dropped by the IDF urged people to do.
Click to expand...

Mistake. Soldiers, sailors, and airmen are humans. Friendly fire kills one's own troops with surprising frequency, and collateral damage to civilians occurs as well. I suspect this was simply a target mistaken for something it was not, much like hunters who mistakenly shoot other hunters when they mean to shoot deer.

For all we know, the pilot could have thought the bus was full of arms or combatants. The radical Muslim ones tend to hide behind civilian cover.

AS
 
a_unique_person said:
So why would an Israeli helicopter target a civilian mini bus, and kill it's occupants, including children?
Click to expand...

Possibly mistaken for Hizbullah vechile. Or the belief was that Hizbullah warriors are hiding under the cover of a civlian vehicle--a common tactic, as is Hamas hiding terrorists in red crescent ambulances (remember the bruhahaha about israel "targeting ambulances", until videos of armed PLO gunsmen storming out of the ambulances were shown?). Or it wasn't targeting the minibus at all, but bombing the road to cut off communications, the bus being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Many other such possiblities exist.

Also, of course, one need to consider the possiblity that--just like "targeted ambulances" I just mentioned, the "Jenin massacre", Rachel Corrie, Muhammad al-Dura, the "deliberate targeting of journalists", etc., etc., etc.--this incident of "evil israeli agression" is significantly more fiction and distortion than fact.
 
Last edited:
a_unique_person said:
So on the possibility that a vehicle could contain Hezbollah, it is attacked?
Click to expand...

Sure, if the possiblity is reasonable according to the intelligence sources that give the pilots their targets.

Of course, if Hizbullah had obeyed by the Geneva convention for armed forces and not contantly and deliberately use civilian vechiles, villages, buildings, etc. for cover, the problem would not have occured.

Since Hizbullah does deliberately and systematically use civilians as cover, the two choices left to israel are to let it kill israeli civilians with impunity, or to fight back against it even when there's the possiblity Lebanese civlians will be hurt.

The simple fact is that Hizbullah is a fascist organization whose openly and repeatedly stated goal is the destruction of israel, and who repeatedly and deliberately uses civilians as cover. If those it wants to genocide fight back and hurt civilans in the process, this is solely Hizbullah's fault.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom