Israel/Lebanon situation

[Tyrion]

Why do they follow him then if he is that bad?

 

I wonder why Stockholme Syndrome exists.

[Nancy Allen``]

I wonder why Stockholme Syndrome exists.

 

The long and short end of it is it is a survival instinct, in so that in a bid to escape death at the hands of captors hostages start identifying with them and may even go further into outright colloberation.

 

People are allowed to believe what they like, even if it is something as contraversial as God is the biggest monster in history. I will say this though: if you are right and Christians around the world are wrong then the ones I know have lost absolutely nothing in following Christ and have gained more than you can imagine.

[TK-8252]

I will say this though: if you are right and Christians around the world are wrong then the ones I know have lost absolutely nothing in following Christ and have gained more than you can imagine.

 

Ha, I'll keep my money thankyouverymuch, rather than giving it to some greedy pastor.

[Nancy Allen``]

Tithing, yes. This is a rather sticky area, as are many parts of the Bible. I can honestly say that, not getting into the 'greedy pastor' thing at all, that if it is an issue for you and you (I'll say here and now that as much as they may focus on it tithing is not a requirement) then you should read up on it, try and find the answers to some of the difficult questions, as knowing that you don't have to give a tenth of your earnings or that much of the Old Testement is done away with is really a weight off the shoulders.

[Dagobahn Eagle]

US condemns Israel.

 

So God is a terrorist now?

Probably yes, but that's not what I said. I'm just wondering why Israel has US support.

 

Can you provide a link of the Palestinions approaching the UN and America not allowing them to?

I just did (the link about the USA vetoing every attempt of the UN to take action).

 

In our eyes, and the eyes of anyone who is sane, it is. To those who follow militant Islam however it is considered an honor to martyr yourself killing your enemies, whether it be Jews, the West or Muslim traitors.

But when did they start this encouragement of suicide bombing? Before or after the US stopped them from going the diplomatic way through this?

 

Worked in the negative mostly, as people would see the suicide bombings on civillian, not military or government targets, and see them as terrorists, and whether or not you support Hamas that is exactly how they should be seen.

Much better than not working at all.

 

For that matter, why did he send his son to die for our sins if he is half as evil as you paint him?

Now that's a good thing to do? Killing an innocent man instead of punishing the guilty?

 

If Bush had one of his daughters executed for the Sins of the rapists and murderers in the US, would that make him a good person? No, it'd make him a madman.

[toms]

Here's your f'n source.

 

http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=17080

 

Its weird, we appear to have swapped sides at some point.

 

That story is interesting, but its worth bearing in mind that it appears to be a very biased propoganda site, not a serious news outlet. And having searched around the web i can find a lot of references to that report (usually on pro-israel websites where they use it as an excuse to get into anti-arafat rages) but no other, unbiased references to it.

 

thats the problem with the interent, anyone can stick up a site claiming to be an independent news site, and it gets very hard to tell if they really are.

 

Whatever people's views of Arafat's actions behind the scenes, he was always very careful to publicly distance himself from terrorism once he became elected and won the nobel peace prize... i can't believe he'd be daft enough to make such comments, especially infornt of a tv crew.

 

AFAIK there have never been any suicide bombers below 16, and only ever 9 below 18. I know the isralis have killed or caught a few kids that they thought were planning attacks, but all the palisinian groups have, at least publicly, condemned the use of children in fighting and said they don't do it.

 

though of course you tend to grow up a lot quicker if you live in the middle of a war...

[Tyrion]

The long and short end of it is it is a survival instinct, in so that in a bid to escape death at the hands of captors hostages start identifying with them and may even go further into outright colloberation.

 

As a comparison, that's very much why some, or maybe most, religious folk tend to believe in a God: it's a bid of faith to escape death. Some would even liken the actual religous bureaucracies here on Earth to the hostage takers.

 

People are allowed to believe what they like, even if it is something as contraversial as God is the biggest monster in history. I will say this though: if you are right and Christians around the world are wrong then the ones I know have lost absolutely nothing in following Christ and have gained more than you can imagine.

 

Pascal's Wager.

 

The logic behind the wager is fine, except it doesn't constitute a true belief. It's merely a safeguard and the wisest choice in terms of potential gain.(Well, the only choice in potential gain. )

 

However, if you meant that by following Christ and learning from the Bible I will learn more than I ever could imagine; could I not learn just a much from reading the Bible, and not necessarily believing in it?

[toms]

Well, sounds liek israel has just sent in ground troops... and of course the lebanese government has said it will send its troops, who have so far remained out of the conflict, down to defend lebanon.

 

Also, they've started burying civilians in mass graves in cities like Trye, as the risk of infection was too great with all the bodies lying around. Bit depressing when you see the number of small childrens coffins lying among the larger ones.

 

It'll be interesting to see if any war crimes charges are brought once this is all over. The UN seems to reckon that both sides may have committed war crimes, but it'll be hard to bring either side to justice.

[Dagobahn Eagle]

Hezbollah's unexpected firepower

[TK-8252]

There was footage on MSNBC of a destroyed Lebanese ambulance charred in the street. The driver explained that they were the only ones on the road when they were hit by an Israeli airstrike. He is now in the hospital himself.

 

Also there was footage of the survivors of another Israeli airstrike on a civilian car attempting to flee the chaos. The children had burns on their body. Their father was killed. The Israelis are packing their bombs with chemical weapons to drop on civilian targets. Two war crimes in one. Mind-blowing.

 

Israel has fired over 20,000 artillery shells into Lebanon. The artillery shells are untargetted. Hezbollah has fired over 1,000 rockets into Israel. They are also untargetted and a lot of them land harmlessly in the uninhabited countryside.

 

Oh yeah, and over 1/3 of all victims of Israeli attacks on Lebanon have been children.

 

Seriously, there is something wrong here. How can the world POSSIBLY just stand by and watch as Israel destroys an innocent country and slaughters by the hundreds its people and wounds and disfigures thousands more. And they have sent over 700,000 people fleeing from their homes. A lot of these people, in the process of fleeing, are targetted, at the same time that Israel drops leaflets telling people to flee their homes. Then there's that whole "all the roads, bridges, highways, ports and airports have either been blown to pieces or have been blockaded."

 

Also the Israelis have been blowing up banks suspected of having Hezbollah accounts. They even went the distance of blowing up a bank manager's home. If that's not terrorism I don't know what is.

 

If the UN doesn't bring war crimes charges against Israel then the slight bit of faith I had in the UN to not be a complete waste of time will be lost.

[toms]

I'd heard that a very high proportion of the victms had been children. Im not entirely clear on why that should be the case though.

I suppose that if people tend to have much larger families in smaller spaces then you might end up with a situation where there is a higher percentage of kids than there might be in the west.?

[CapNColostomy]

Hezbollah has fired over 1,000 rockets into Israel. They are also untargetted and a lot of them land harmlessly in the uninhabited countryside.

 

You say that as if it's deliberate. And yes, your faith in the UN is wasted. Anyone that knows anything knows that the UN is useless.

[Spider AL]

You say that as if it's deliberate. And yes, your faith in the UN is wasted. Anyone that knows anything knows that the UN is useless.

Deliberate or not, not really the issue. Suppose a psychotic child attacks you with a slightly blunt penknife and you respond with a concerted blast from an AK-47.

 

In this analogy, Hezbollah is the psycho kid, and Israel is you. Disproportionate response to threat. That's why the global community is up in arms.

 

And you're right about the UN, sadly. The UN is as ineffectual as the US electoral system. That doesn't mean that it should be LEFT in this state, however. I'd like to see the UN become the major governing body of the world. Would make a change from the US.

[toms]

And in the long term it would be in the US's interests to reshape the UN into something effective NOW (while they have the might to control that shaping) before CHINA becomes the major governing body of the world.

 

I'd think even those int he US who seem to have an irrational hatred of the UN would rather have a fixed UN than China as the world's policeman.

 

A UN who didn't have all it's Israel related decisions vetoed by the US would be a good way towards being fixed.. and then they might have actually stepped in and fixed this problem a decade or so ago before hundreds of thousands died.

 

Hezbollah may fire rockets at israli cities, but the aim is more to cause fear than to cause specific civilian casualties. Htey know that their rockets are unguided and unlikely to hit any specific target. That doesn't make it right, but its a relatively minor and insubstantial threat.. and the lethality to civilians of the Israeli "targetted response" seems much higher than the attempts by hezbollah.

 

So, is it worse to try and kill a few people, or to knowlingly comit an action that will have the side effect of killing hundreds?

[toms]

And in the long term it would be in the US's interests to reshape the UN into something effective NOW (while they have the might to control that shaping) before CHINA becomes the major governing body of the world.

 

I'd think even those int he US who seem to have an irrational hatred of the UN would rather have a fixed UN than China as the world's policeman.

 

A UN who didn't have all it's Israel related decisions vetoed by the US would be a good way towards being fixed.. and then they might have actually stepped in and fixed this problem a decade or so ago before hundreds of thousands died.

 

Hezbollah may fire rockets at israli cities, but the aim is more to cause fear than to cause specific civilian casualties. Htey know that their rockets are unguided and unlikely to hit any specific target. That doesn't make it right, but its a relatively minor and insubstantial threat.. and the lethality to civilians of the Israeli "targetted response" seems much higher than the attempts by hezbollah.

 

So, is it worse to try and kill a few people, or to knowlingly comit an action that will have the side effect of killing hundreds?

[Dagobahn Eagle]

If the UN doesn't bring war crimes charges against Israel then the slight bit of faith I had in the UN to not be a complete waste of time will be lost.

It doesn't matter if they do or not. Whenever they try, the bastards in the US government vetoes the decision, as toms said.

And you're right about the UN, sadly. The UN is as ineffectual as the US electoral system. That doesn't mean that it should be LEFT in this state, however. I'd like to see the UN become the major governing body of the world. Would make a change from the US.

Exactly. The neo-cons can whine about the UN all they want, but they forget that sometimes there are other solutions than throwing something out of it's broken. There's something called "repairs", too.

[rccar328]

If the UN doesn't bring war crimes charges against Israel then the slight bit of faith I had in the UN to not be a complete waste of time will be lost.

If the UN does bring war crimes charges against Israel, it should bring just as many or more against Hezbollah for hiding munitions in homes, using homes as launch-pads for rockets, and using ambulances to transport terrorists.

Hezbollah knows the 'rules' of war, and have adapted their tactics accordingly. The simple truth is that if Israel follows those rules, nothing will be done - they will have to allow the terrorists to live because the terrorists have adapted their tactics for precisely that reason.

 

And if you had any faith that in the UN to not be a complete waste of time, you must have a screw loose or something. Kofi Annan has been out there urging a cease-fire. Hezbollah, in response, has said that it is ready and willing to negotiate toward a cease-fire. Go figure! Israel is kicking their butts! Hezbollah, at this point, has little choice but to take the diplomatic route. A cease-fire is about the only thing short of an Iranian nuclear warhead detonating over Jerusalem that could possibly ensure Hezbollah's continued survival. And, even better for the terrorists, Israel comes out looking like the bad guys when they refuse to negotiate again with the terrorists! The United Nations, supposedly the world's best hope for peace, is playing right into the terrorists' hands with these continued calls for a cease-fire. What they don't seem to realize is that there have been cease-fires before. If cease-fires were the answer here, this conflict would have been resolved a long time ago. However, with their calls for a cease-fire, world leaders such as Kofi Annan show that they are either ignorant to the lessons of history, or are outright ignoring those lessons.

If cease-fires ensured peace, then the Israel/Gaza/Lebanon area would be the most peaceful region on Earth. As history has shown, though, all a cease-fire accomplishes is to give the terrorists a reprieve - a chance to heal their wounds, re-arm, and prepare further attacks on Israel. Israel has entered into cease-fire agreements in the past, and it has gotten them nothing but an eventual continuation of hostilities when the terrorists violate the cease-fire agreements.

 

Exactly. The neo-cons can whine about the UN all they want, but they forget that sometimes there are other solutions than throwing something out of it's broken. There's something called "repairs", too.

The problem is that the United Nations needs more fixing than just the US can give it. Not only is the UN rife with corruption, but it has shown that about the only thing it does effectively is to write nasty letters and pass meaningless resolutions (such as Resolution 1555, which Israel is now enforcing over Kofi Annan's protests). Fixing the United Nations is going to require the cooperation of many of the member nations, and too many of those nations are either brutal dictatorships that have been granted legitimacy by their UN membership, such as when Libya was made the chair of the Human Rights Council in 2003.

 

There is so much hatred and blame here toward Israel for doing what it takes to kill the terrorists...how about blaming the terrorists for using tactics that put civilians in harm's way? For some reason, that just never seems to come up...

[Nancy Allen``]

So, is it worse to try and kill a few people, or to knowlingly comit an action that will have the side effect of killing hundreds?

 

So you're saying that firing blindly into Israel and killing civillians is not as bad as deliberately targeting Lebanese innocents? I'll tell you right now that's BS. You commit an act knowing that it would kill civillians, you deserve to die. You hate Israel, as far as I'm concerned they should be obliterated for their actions. If it would make you happy then I'd be willing to take anyone who carried out those attacks on Lebanon and put two in the back of their head myself. There is no justification to putting civillians in the firing line. Hezbollah had no right to by hiding in Lebanon, Israel had no right to by continuing their attacks on civillians and Lebanon has no right to by launching rockets that would kill civillians. Throw Hiroshima at me all you want, if you want to make sacrifices then sacrifice the lives of soldiers, they are the ones who are meant to be fighting and dieing. But never ask me to accept the killing of civillians, because it's not.

 

This is the kind of thing that happens in war. It shouldn't and the people who commit such atrocities should be cut off from the civillised world, but it does and no amount of crying about the rules is going to change that.

 

You might think what I said is contradictory to this. Well damn straight it happens, but as I said it is never something we should accept. To try and justify it in any way, shape or form, to claim that Lebanon is acting in self defense, is not only crap but double standered because by rights Israel would be acting in self defense as well, making it one rule for who you root for and another for the enemy. I was pulling for Israel until they commited the acts they had. Now they should be made to pay for their war crimes. So please, don't think I'm shallow on the topic of atrocities that occur in war, because I'm not. They happen, nothing is going to change that. But those who commit them, quite frankly, can burn in hell.

[TK-8252]

Four UN observers have been killed at their base in Southern Lebanon by Israeli air raids. Sweet, now they're attacking the UN. I guess sending a peacekeeping force would be a bad idea, because while Hezbollah would be trying to blow the peacekeepers to pieces, Israel would actually do it.

 

If the UN does bring war crimes charges against Israel, it should bring just as many or more against Hezbollah for hiding munitions in homes, using homes as launch-pads for rockets, and using ambulances to transport terrorists.

 

And I'd like to see Hezbollah disarmed, its militia crushed, and its terrorists put on trial and convicted for those crimes.

 

I'd also like the Israeli leadership held accountable for their crimes which, if you have any respect for human life at all, are far worse than what Hezbollah has done.

 

The simple truth is that if Israel follows those rules, nothing will be done - they will have to allow the terrorists to live because the terrorists have adapted their tactics for precisely that reason.

 

Because it's either "destroy Lebanon" or "give up" right? There's no wiggle room. There's no way to work together with the Lebanese government to clean up Hezbollah's act and rid Lebanon of terrorists. There's just NO WAY! Hey I have a solution to this mess. Destroy the earth and we have peace. It's really that simple. After all, the ends justify the means.

 

Israel is kicking their butts!

 

Maybe if you're watching Faux News. But the sane press has reported that Hezbollah continues attacking Israel and killing innocent people there as if they were untouched. Hundreds of rockets are still hitting Israel. The leadership of Hezbollah remains untouched. Only a few Hezbollah terrorists have been killed or captured. The vast majority of the victims of Israeli strikes have been, well, innocent civilians, over 1/3 of those being children.

 

A cease-fire is about the only thing short of an Iranian nuclear warhead detonating over Jerusalem

 

Do you honestly think that Iran would nuke Jerusalem? Why would a bunch of Muslims bomb their own holy city? If Israelis were occupying Mecca, would the Iranians bomb Mecca?

 

The United Nations, supposedly the world's best hope for peace, is playing right into the terrorists' hands with these continued calls for a cease-fire.

 

Ah, but it is Israel that has played EXACTLY into the terrorists' hands by bombing those civilians that they're hiding among. On the steets of Lebanon, who is getting support from this: Israel or Hezbollah? If you say Israel then you're nuts. Let's remember that a lot of people in Lebanon were NOT religious radicals. But they are now. Sigh.

 

There is so much hatred and blame here toward Israel for doing what it takes to kill the terrorists...how about blaming the terrorists for using tactics that put civilians in harm's way? For some reason, that just never seems to come up...

 

The terrorists aren't the ones dropping bombs on populated Lebanese cities. They're not killing terrorists and if you believe they are then you are mistaken. Over 1/3 of the deaths in Lebanon have been children. I don't know about you, but I don't defend the intentional killing and wounding of children. Maybe you do, but I hope you don't. Hezbollah is murdering innocent people including children in Israel and for that they deserve the same treatment that Israel deserves. We don't waste our time condemning Hezbollah because that would be redundant. We all agree that Hezbollah sucks, but apparently not everyone agrees that Israel does too.

[Dagobahn Eagle]

For those who want to boycott Israel.

[TK-8252]

Here's something interesting:

 

Christian Zionism

 

Perhaps this is another reason why the U.S. is so supportive of Israel...

[Samnmax221]

Not really, I'm a hardline athiest (and I now several other athiests who think similairly) and I support a Jewish State.

[Nancy Allen``]

I DO NOT support the genocide of the Jews or Israel, or ythe Lebanese, or the Palestinions. Terrorism however is to be exterminated without question, and I see all three sides carrying out terrorist operations.

[TK-8252]

and I see all three sides carrying out terrorist operations.

 

Yes... but the sheer firepower behind the Israeli attacks outmatches ANYTHING that HAMAS and Hezbollah combined could ever throw at them. They have the might, and apparently they think "might makes right."

[Nancy Allen``]

That is not my problem with them. My problem, as I've stated, is Israel's deliberate targeting of civillians. Hezbollah's deliberate hiding amongst civillians so they would not be targeted or so they would have plenty of human shields is wrong, and if anyone did deserve genocide it's them. Israel's attacks however are just as wrong, not just the targeting of civillians but the way they attack is not working. The newspaper has said the attacks have had little effect on Hezollah and it went further to say that in the eyes of the Arab world Hezbollah only has to survive to come out victorious over Israel. That logic is about the same as the terrorist who said he won and America lost when he was sentanced to life in prison, but it's true. If Hezbollah escapes they win. If Lebanon is flattened to kill them they win, negative publicity. Civillian atrocities aside, Israel are fighting the war wrong.