It seems to work with your all your false allegations Lebanon and excuses for Israel’s actions that aren’t against Hezbollah.
Neither is. Israel certainly isn’t morally superior either.
I certainly don’t trust you or any Israeli supporter.
That’s not how I see it. I don’t see direct military funding either. Israel wants to destabilize Lebanon. It doesn’t want its democracy to succeed. Nor does it want it to recover economically. Why else does it attack Lebanon, including Christian areas, where Hezbollah doesn’t exist?
Would it matter? You have condemned every Lebanese be they Christian, Druze, Sunni, or Shiite and in every part of the country. They’re bombing all over the country, destroying all over the country, killing innocent civillians all over the country, and Hezbollah isn’t all over the country.
Yes, they did. Or, should I take your word over the Lebanese Defense Minister and their official government statement?
Hrmmm… Lebanon’s government says it helps supply Hezbollah with weapons, you say they don’t. Nope, I have no idea who to believe.
Of course not, because defending yourself from state sponsored terrorist attacks isn’t defending yourself from state sponsored terrorist attacks. It all makes perfect sense now.
Again, one of us has our position supported by official Lebanese governmental statements, the other is you.
You mean… Lebanon commited an act of naked aggression via a proxy force, and thus started a war… and Israel had the nerve to respond as if Lebanon had started a war? Keeeeerazy.
Charming intellectual dishonesty.
Care to ignore, yet again, that it was the Lebanese Defense Minister who admitted to supplying Hezbollah with weapons, confirmed by the Lebanese government?
I know, you’re being wilfully ignorant and refusing to accept Lebanon’s own claims that it was supplying Hezbollah with weapons. Against such deliberate ignorance, the Gods themselves contend in vain.
Ah yes, the well known No Backsies Doctrine which states that when a government uses a proxy force to attack their neighbor as a clear act of war, they can invoke the No Backsies Doctrine and remain free from any reaction.
Is that an admission that you were simply making things up when you claimed that Israel wasn’t attacking valid dual-use targets? Or just an attempt to evade and get out of providing any proof, at all, for your claims?
Wow. It’s… it’s… it’s almost like Lebanon commited a clear act of war by arming a proxy force that their President has said is a tool in their arsenal against Israel. That’s like, so weird. You mean when one country starts a war with another… that war affects the country? Trippy!
So you really are just going to blisfully ignore that you actually have to provide proof of your claims that Israel is targeting valid dual-use targets?
Or are you working, along with the No Backsies Doctrine, from the Let’s Pretend Sovereign States Aren’t Sovereign doctrine? Do you have any cite, anywhere, that once a country commits an act of war upon another country that defends itself, the defender is only allowed to hit certain valid military targets and not others?
Unregistered Bull, you took the time to color highlight your responses but did not take the time to put individual quote tags around the statements you were quoting. Unfortunately, not everyone’s monitor (or eyes) discern color changes that easily and it left the impression that the entire body of text had been posted by another poster.
Please make sure that only text that has been posted by another person is inside the quote tags. Color, bolding, italics, etc. are nice for effect, but actual quotes should be identified by the quote tags, specifically. Thank you.
I suppose this was directed at me, since you responded to Sam Stone, so I’ll answer you both.
In the long run, it will matter. Israel cannot survive as a state without outside help. There might come a time when the will to support them vanes and if they are perceived as too aggressive, that time will come sooner.
Wars are won and lost in the media nowadays, something the U.S. is extremely aware of, from Vietnam and the wars that’ve followed. Hearts and minds and all that.
Seriously, how do you reconcile the fact that more than 300 civilians died in the last two weeks? What I mean is what moral logic and what kind of thinking goes through your head when you see such a huge destruction and loss of innocent life?
Please, avoid using “collateral damage” phrase as it has become quite evident that such technique is always used when no actual thinking took place or when hitting a huge brick wall during one-sided elaborations. I want to hear your words and not some media learned behavior.
It is an interesting question in the OP. It is my theory that Hezbollah wants a widening of the conflict, and that a lot of people in the Arab world believe that the current crisis is an attempt by Iran to use Arabs as their proxies to attack Israel and deflect attention from Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Hence the largely negative reactions in the Arab world to the current battle (mixed with lots of anger directed at Israel, to be sure).
An Iranian friend of mine pointed out that, while largely unappreciated in the West, Persians and Arabs do not in fact like each other much, though Sh’ia partisanship elides that cultural difference for some - and aside from those directly involved, in spite of the dislike for Israel which is in part popular and in part ritual, the divides between Arab and Persian, Sunni and Sh’ia are a lot more fundamental and important in the ME as actual motivators than the conflict between Israel and everyone else.
This is a persective which seems to be largely missed by those who oppose and those who defend Israel alike, all of whom appear, reading boards such as this, to assume that the conflict between Israel and Arabs and/or Muslims generally is fundamental. There are plenty of other motivations which do not catch our attention so much, and the current crisis has at least part of its origin in them.
And how can there not be ? With their infrastructure destroyed, how are the people supposed to get what they need; magic ?
You weren’t talking about them, you were talking about me.
I provided a cite.
What are you ranting about ?
They aren’t defending themselves; they are causing general destruction.
Even if true, irrelevant.
It’s a logical implication.
I do not lie.
You wanted a cite; not my fault you didn’t like it. And roads and bridges and so forth are civilian targets.
That is the logical result of destroying a nation’s infrastructure.
As I said, I don’t lie. Your constant personal insults are unbefitting GD.
As I said; I don’t believe it. They aren’t targeting their enemies; they are attacking the general populace. Terrorism.
I DON’T LIE. Can you comprehend the possibility that people honestly disagree with you ? People call me extreme, but at least I usually only consider my opponents foolish; I don’t automatically assume everyone who disagrees is lying to me.
Ah. It’s murder to shoot invading Israeli soldiers; self defense to kill civilians.
Once again, I don’t lie. Stop with the personal insults; this isn’t the Pit. I don’t believe them; can you understand that ? And yes, if you kill innocents to make a point that shows a complete disregard for their lives.
Your kind of attitude is one reason why I despise Israel supporters.
That’s not what I said, and you know it. I regard both Hezbollah and Israel as terroristic groups. I care about the people who have been killed; most of whom are Lebanese civilians.
No, it is an accurate restatement of your position.
And the part where you claim to care about people who are killed is another lie. You have already stated clearly that you don’t care about atrocities committed against Jews.
Here’s the quote again -
So, were you lying when you said it, or lying when you claim you didn’t say it? Or did you say something you didn’t mean to stir up trouble?
And for my second SDMB post, I will attempt to bring peace and harmony to this thread, in the hopes that it will then spread to encompass the Mideast itself…
With regard to the pissing match which has largely hijacked this thread, maybe we could consider that there is actually a very large spectrum between “targeting innocent civilians for the sake of doing so” and “avoiding putting civilians in any danger whatsoever, even if this makes acheiving your military aims difficult or impossible”? Maybe we could then consider that reasonable people might disagree about where the line separating the morally acceptable from the objectionable portions of that spectrum is? Maybe we could then remember that in our best moments, we like to think of ourselves and others as reasonable people? I have my own opinions about Israel’s conduct, but will refrain from expressing them here out of respect for the OP.
With regard to the actual OP, I see four possible scenarios:
Syria and/or Iran get directly involved. Best case, things eventually return pretty much to status quo ante, only with a lot more dead people and angry mourners all round. Worst case, the US and/or other world powers get drawn in —>WW III—> nuclear armageddon
Israel decides it can’t acheive its objectives without putting ground troops into Lebanon and --stop me if you’ve heard this one – winds up in a long-term occupation of a territory with a hostile population, facing a constant low-level guerilla war with no apparent workable exit strategy.
Israel blows a lot of shit up for a few weeks and succeeds in substantially destroying Hezbollah’s military capacity without needing to occupy Lebanon. In the short term, this increases the safety of Israeli civilians while further stoking hatred of Israel among the Lebanese population, leading to a rematch in a decade or three.
UN troops occupy the south of Lebanon, protecting civilians on both sides while buying time for Lebanon’s civil society to strengthen itself to the point where it can elect a government which is both willing and able to prevent terrorists from using its territory as a base for attacks. There are lots of reasons why this probably wouldn’t work, but it is the only scenario that I see as offering any sort of hope for a positive long-term outcome.
I think the likeliest scenario is some variant of #3 (Syrians too smart for #1, Israelis too smart for #2, UN too gutless for #4), probably with Hezbollah crippled but not totally destroyed, allowing both sides to claim victory and continue beating their chests to the adoring gazes of their respective sycophants.
Interesting analysis, but far too even-handed to attract attention among this crowd.
I would add that I disagree that the presence of the UN would be a good outcome. It would only be a “good outcome” if the UN was able to actually stop Hezbollah from launching attacks at Israel. This doesn’t appear at all likely. To my mind, the likely outcome of UN presence would be that UN troops would have no actual powers to do anything to prevent Hezbollah; Hezbollah would simply use their presence as a “shield” even greater in its deterrent value vs. Israelis than Lebanese civilians, and continue attacks.
To me, by far the most significant factor in the current conflict is the response of the rest of the Arab world - it is quite different from what one would expect.
Thanks, Malthus. I don’t necessarily disagree, but see the last sentence of scenario #4. The apparent split between the Sunni and Shiite worlds is indeed an interesting development, and it is unclear where that will lead.
Hezbollah’s initial strategic goal could have been one of several things (or a combination of them):
[ul]
[li]To achieve a prisoner swap, and thus become heros. Hey, it worked before, when Sharon was in power. I think it’s quite likely that this is exactly what they thought would happen - a center-left government comes into power in Israel, and starts giving all kinds of signs of being willing to give up things in return for security. They may have thought that they could trade two or three soldiers for dozens of prisoners. This would have been a huge PR victory for them.[/li][li]If Iran called the shots, to deflect attention away from Iran’s nuclear program.[/li][li]If Syria called the shots, to help Hezbollah solidify support in Lebanon and give Syria a backdoor path to power.[/li][li]To provoke Israel into attacking Lebanon, thinking that this would turn world opinion against Israel, enrage the Arab street and radicalize them, and in the meantime Hezbollah emerges as the defenders of the Middle East against the hated Jews.[/li][li]To kill Jews and terrorize the Jewish people. To many, that’s an end unto itself. [/li][/ul]
Now, as to whether they achieved any of those goals, let’s think about that…
[ul]
[li]Israel’s getting far more support in the world this time around than it has traditionally gotten.[/li][li]Hezbollah has been discredited throughout the Arab world. Far from being seen as the strong horse that will fight the Jews for all, Hezbollah is being seen as a troublemaker that’s stirring up shit for no reason.[/li][li]Iran’s nuclear program is still visible, but what’s more is that this episode has awakened the world to the destabilizing nature of the Iranian and Syrian regimes. Furthermore, it’s increasing tension between Shiites and Sunnis throughout the Middle East, which is splitting the Arab’s previously unified front.[/li][li]Hezbollah is getting HAMMERED. They’ve lost more than half their military capability already, and it’s possible that a good chunk of their leadership was killed in a bunker strike this morning. [/li][li]Lebanon is going to wind up either under UN control in the south, or occupied by Israel, or the Lebanese army will finally stop playing footsie with Hezbollah and take over control of the country (something that might be possible after Hezbollah has been crushed by Israel).[/li][/ul]
Personally, whatever their initial motive, I think Hezbollah miscalculated big time, and they’re now paying a heavy price. They never intended this outcome.
[li]Israel’s getting far more support in the world this time around than it has traditionally gotten. [/li][/quote]
From whom? It seems like the usual suspects are taking the same stance. France and Russia are calling the action excessive, the U.S. is supporting Israel, while Germany and Britain are nominally on Israel’s side.
According to whom?
I believe you have this completely wrong. For example, in Iraq Sunnis and Shiites put aside their bitter sectarian bickering in Parliment to pass a unanimous resolution condemning Israel. By unleashing a massive military response that is killing or wounding hundreds, and displacing 500,000 people, Israel is galvanizing opposition against itself, not breaking it.
So says Israel. Hezbollah claims that they haven’t been significantly affected, but who really knows for sure? Regardless, as soon as Israel ceases it’s military action Hezbollah will quickly be resupplied by Iran and Syria. Certainly Hezbollah will find no shortage of recruits to replace the fighters that are killed.
Israel has already tried occupying southern Lebanon. It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now. I don’t see Lebanon having the will, or perhaps even the ability to wipe out Hezbollah. We see Hezbollah as nothing more than a terrorist organization, but in Lebanon they run schools and hospitals, which brings them support from the population. UN control sounds nice, but in reality it just isn’t a practical option.
I disagree completely, and think that Israel is taking a poor strategic view of the situation. Hezbollah, Iran, and Syria are getting exactly what they want. Israel has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, and wounded/killed hundreds. In other words, it has now given a very good reason to hundreds of thousands, even millions of people to take up arms against Israel. Hezbollah now has even more fertile grounds for recruiting, and the humanitarian effect from this action has increased the Arab’s world distaste for Israel.
Even if Israel destroys the entire aresenal of Hezbollah, that is nothing more than a momentary set back. The factories that make the rockets still exist in Iran and Syria, and will probably take no more than a few years to completely replenish Hezbollah’s aresenal. This temporary military set back is a small price to pay for the huge increase in recruiting.
What should be done is the same thing that has been done to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. Find a reasonable solution to the current issues, and give them lots and lots of money. Simply buy Lebanon’s support for Israel like we bought Egypt’s, Saudi Arabia’s, and Jordan’s. Large scale attacks against Lebanon make this strategy impossible. Israel is in essence trading a long term strategic peace for short term security.
Couldn’t agree more. This is exactly what I was thinking when I mentioned the Camp David Accords in another thread. Money always buys one friends.
But can someone tell me why the Americans always have to pick up the tab for others to be friends? I think the British and French should have to pick up the tab for this one since this mess is really their fault.
