Israel crosses into Lebanon

Great Debates
101

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Come now, the Israelis can’t possibly be so irrational as to hope Lebanon will deploy a partly Shi’ite army against Hezbollah! Can they?
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Despite that, Israeli and U.S. officials want Lebanon’s government to order its army into southern Lebanon and take control from the Shiite Islamic militant group. Syria – which virtually controlled Lebanonfor 29 years – and its allies in Lebanon have resisted such a deployment for years.

Despite that, Israeli and U.S. officials want Lebanon’s government to order its army into southern Lebanon and take control from the Shiite Islamic militant group. Syria - which virtually controlled Lebanon for 29 years - and its allies in Lebanon have resisted such a deployment for years.

Hopefully one of these doesn’t require registration.

102

[QUOTE=elucidator]
Making an unacceptable demand is not necessarily irrational, if you’re not seeking a peaceful resolution in the first place.
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What other kind of resolution could the Israelis be seeking? I’m sure they don’t want to try occupying any part of Lebanon, considering how that worked out for them last time!

103

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
What other kind of resolution could the Israelis be seeking? I’m sure they don’t want to try occupying any part of Lebanon, considering how that worked out for them last time!
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Could it be that they just didn’t think things through? It happened to us in Iraq afterall.

104

[QUOTE=Unregistered Bull]
But the US didn’t want the Japanese Navy to dock outside of Hawaii’s terrortorial waters.
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Perhaps, just perhaps, that’s because the area outside of those waters wasn’t part of the sovereign nation of Japan.

[QUOTE=Unregistered Bull]

And in this case Israel wants the Lebanese Army to be in South Lebanon / at the Israeli border to fight Hezbollah. That is why Israel is engaged in a terror campaign against non-Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.
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Well, we could be honest and say that they’re engaged in a war with one of Hezbollah’s state sponsors, and demanding that they stop supplying Hezbollah with weapons and safe haven. And we could be honest and say that using Hezbollah consitutes a clear casus belli, thus meaning that Israel is at war with the entire country, and not just Lebanon’s proxy force, even though Lebanon has hoped that they can launch a war against Israel and then have only their patsy be responsible for it.

Or we can call it terrorism.

105

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
What other kind of resolution could the Israelis be seeking? I’m sure they don’t want to try occupying any part of Lebanon, considering how that worked out for them last time!
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There is something called resolution 1559 - failing that, then yes they will have to secure a buffer zone on their own.

106

[QUOTE=FinnAgain]
Or we can call it terrorism.
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Ok they are legitimately at war, and in doing so, like their enemies, they are targeting innocent civillians and their property. Ie., resorting to terrorism.

107

Does everybody think Israel is blameless. A foray into Israel and 2soldiers supposedly taken. Retaliation of blowing up the infrastructure killing hundreds. Followed by tanks and troops entering. This is equivalency. This is using the incident as an excuse to punish a country.
We are responsible for arming Israel and we are the only country that could stop it and save lives. We are silent. they have a tacit ok from us to do what they want.
This will not stop terrorism any more than attacking Iraq made us any safer. The opposite will occur.

108

[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Never happen. When they get nukes, they’ll never give them to people they can’t control. If nothing else, what if the terrorists have a doctrinal disagreement with the Iranian leadership and blow up Tehran ? I really can’t buy the idea that any government would hand over nukes to a bunch of loose cannons. I’ve always regarded this bogeyman as pure scaremongering; terrorists are more likely to make one themselves, unlikely as that is.
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A small dirty bomb. enough to make an Israeli city, say Haifa, uninhabitable. Also nonspecific enough as to give plausible deniablitiy.

109

[QUOTE=DSeid]
A small dirty bomb. enough to make an Israeli city, say Haifa, uninhabitable. Also nonspecific enough as to give plausible deniablitiy.
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Quite correct. Consider the consequences of Chernobyl:
An entire city evacuated permanently, yet still there are measurable health consequences. And Chernonbyl was neither a bomb nor an aggression.

110

[QUOTE=DSeid]
A small dirty bomb. enough to make an Israeli city, say Haifa, uninhabitable. Also nonspecific enough as to give plausible deniablitiy.
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A neighborhood, maybe. Dirty bombs aren’t a serious threat; firebombs would be more dangerous. Besides, you don’t need a nuclear weapon program for that.

[QUOTE=Sevastopol]
Quite correct. Consider the consequences of Chernobyl:
An entire city evacuated permanently, yet still there are measurable health consequences. And Chernonbyl was neither a bomb nor an aggression.
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No, it was a huge power plant that burned for days, and produced far more radiation than any dirty bomb would.