Update: Now Israel is hinting at a prisoner exchange for Shalit.
Major Update: Israel has entered Lebanon, following the abduction of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah.
Ah yes, ambiguity. So on the one hand, the Palestinians may be right , yet on the other hand the Israelis may be wrong?
Fuck it. I’m sitting here, waiting to see if my reserve unit is called up, and I’m supposed to care about some stupid thread on the SDMB? It’s all bullshit anyway.
For whatever it’s worth, my thoughts are with you and Israel.
OK – so now we have an overt act of war, from a UN-recognized country, with a UN-recognized frontier with Israel ,and a (sort of) functioning central government.
So how long after Israel reacts to an act of war like it is fighting a war will it take for the Europeans to start “urging restraint?” (only on the israelis of course!)
Like Alessan, I’m waiting to see if I’m called up (and I am far to old for his shit.) I know this in not in the Pit, but fuck World Opinion on our behavior when we are attacked with a five-speed chain saw.
No, sir, not from that country, except in a geographic sense. Lebanon != Hezbollah. Israel has no more right to cross that border over this than Pershing had to cross the Mexican border in pursuit of Pancho Villa.
Lebanon is responsible for Hizballa. If it can’t controll it, it has no right to call itself a sovereign nation. In which case, our troops are entering a no-man’s land.
And Pershing was well within his rights.
Um… either Lebanon exists, or it doesn’t. If it does, it is responsible for policing its borders, and any act of war against its neighbors, carried out through said border, must be laid at its feet. So it is a clear Casus Belli.
If not, what we have to our North is complete anarchy, so it is our right and duty to police that area to the extent required to ensure that soverign Israeli territory is not attacked from it.
Either was I don’t see how our reaction can be anything but justified except by somebody with an I-don’t-give-a-damn-about-the-facts-I-hate-Israel agenda.
Oh, and about what I posted minutes ago?
Well, it’s taking shorter than we thought…
Fuck this… we have a war waged on us on two fronts, and all the world can tell us is to keep quiet? :mad: :mad: :mad:
No wonder we won’t be listening to everybody’s oh-so-helpful “advice” in the near future! :rolleyes:
Are Lebanese troops making strong efforts to restrain and repress Hezbollah?
If they are either incapable of or unwilling to do so, then they are either engaging in acts of war by proxy or they do not in point of fact have sovreignty over the area.
In such cases, Israel is perfectly justified in invading.
Well, it is typical.
The attempt in the manner described to portray oneself as “even handed”, “fair”, “balanced” and “neutral” inevitably is for the benefit of aggressors, terrorists and the like. It has to be.
Because it treats aggression and self-defence as morally equivalent.
Or could it be the fact that Some wish to prevent further destabilzation in the region? With Israeli forces in Lebanon it is likely Lebanon will respond and likely bring Syria into it. What does that give us ? Another war, another occupation more resentment, terrorism and the whole region circling down the perverbial drain.
Al we need now is for some Egyptian radicals to try to capture a few soldiers to create friction between those two.
I have no idea how to resolve this but if a national boarder gets crossed that is pretty hard for others to ignore. Still what does Israel do? Sitting back and acting with restraint doesn’t work, and acting out doesn’t do anything but grow another generateion of suicide bombers and terror groups, besides I doubt Isreal can occupy the entire region, so what do they do?
I honestly don’t know. But I don’t think the latest actions will make this situation better.
I’m just greatful to live in a country that doesn’t have that kind of tension around it.
I’m so embarrassed being European right now.
Thank og the Netherlands did something right.
http://www.adl.org/PresRele/UnitedNations_94/4847_94.htm
[I’m going to hug right here, in Great Debates. Sue me.]
**(((((Alessan))))) (((((Noone))))) & (((((Israël))))) ** Please stay safe.
.
Hug seconded! Stay safe!
Allesan and No one, best of luck. Keep your heads down and your aim true if it comes to that.
No… do you honestly require cites for the real relationship? You do know that they’re really very closely linked and you’re just trying to quibble? Or like RTF, are you engaging in a discussion where you have no idea what the actual facts are?
And the ‘contractors’ we have working in Iraq now on our behalf also have nothing to do with us. Nopers… and if we hired, trained, and equipped them to invade a country, and they launched their assault from bases in the US, it still wouldn’t have anything to do with us.
You’ve also stated that no matter what provocation, no matter what, any defensive reaction is magically an aggressive reaction. Seeing as you’ve already denied a sovereign nation the right of self defense, why should your further judgements matter, and why should they be posted?
No, sir, I have never stated that, and shame on you.
Shame? Should I be ashamed for showing you your own words? Is that how shame is supposed to work?
Should I be ashamed, sir, because you have forgotten, or don’t want to own up to what you wrote?
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](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7536703&postcount=126)
So yes, you did indeed state just that. No matter what provocation Syria gives through its proxy, mercenary, or terrorist forces, defense is offense on Israel’s part. Why should we assume that you’ll say any different about Hezbollah and Lebanon, especially when your post relied upon a fallacious dismissal of their state sponsorship? (A claim I see you’ve seen fit to ignore rather than back up.)
You deliberately ignored that the relationship between Hamas and Syria was hardly hands off, and you ignored that the ‘military wing’ and ‘political wing’ of Hamas are not as seperate as they pretend.
And now, miracle of miracles, Hezbollah attacks Israel and you are baffled, just baffled as to why ever Israel might just have a valid issue with Hezbollah’s state sponsor. Which, of course, you disingenously spin into some absurd talking point about Hezbollah simply sharing geography with Lebanon. :rolleyes:
Which gets back to the questions in my post you ignored to order to pretend to be filled with righteous indignation over my correctly quoting your own words back at you.
Do you honestly not know about Lebanon’s relationship to Hezbollah, making you wrong but out of ignorance… or are you pretending in order to score rhetorical points? In the teeth of all the facts, will you try to contend that all they share is a coincidence of geography? Honestly?
And that, of course, brings us back to the question which you claim I should be ashamed about. As you’ve already stated that no matter what provocation comes down the pipeline, any defensive reaction is always going to be an act of aggression… as you’ve already stated that, how can you possibly argue a position in a debate, as it’ll always be “Sit there and take it.”
Sam Stone call you out on this, but your only response was an evasion, pointing to a post in which you called for a neverending series of terrorist attacks upon Israel which would go without reprisal, and permanent embargo with the terrorist state next door.
Then when he hounded you down and asked what, in specific, Israel would be allowed to do to respond to attacks like it’s already weathering, you evaded any real answer. Waffled about ‘provocation’, when you’d already said that no provocation justifies retaliation, and that even when Hamas takes clear military actions against Israel, it can’t respond.
So when you play word games with terms that have actual definitions in order to make your political spiel, when you need to ignore or have not read current events, when you need to stack the deck and declare that any defense is actually aggression… what point is there to a debate? If you need to create an alternate world with a different language in order to make your case, and then say people should be ashamed for pointing it out… isn’t that a suggestion as to the coherence of your views?
Or you can just keep telling me I should be ashamed to remember the thread.
I am getting confused here FinnAgain, then why Israel is not invading Syria?
I’d wager that it’s for any number of reasons, including not wanting to fight a war on many fronts.
What, exactly, confuses you?
If Syria is responsible, attacking Lebanon is similar to the US attacking Iraq when Iran was in reality the bigger issue.
Before continuing, I have to say that I am more in favor of Israel and I did not complain until now for what Israel was doing in Gaza, the problem is that IMHO Israel does not know when to stop, I do think BrainGlutton’s example of Pancho Villa is valid, particularly when the President in 2005 pointed at Lebanon (and Palestine, I know, Bush deserves a :rolleyes: ) as countries were democracy was on the march because of the preemptive action in Iraq.
What I am getting to here is that Israel is now making a mockery of what Bush said, and while I could point at yet another example of Bush’s incompetency, I’m afraid that in practice what Israel is doing is harming the US right now. (Yeah I know, one could turn this around and say the US action of invading Iraq set the conditions that we are seeing right now in Lebanon and Palestine)
Israel is now doing more than burning bridges in Lebanon, Israel could be burning the support of the US if the actions of Israel turn to cause more unrest in Iraq.
My position is that if Syria is the party to blame it is the country that needs to be dealt with. And if Iraq was not an issue right now, I would not have minded helping Israel even more. Heck, I do think the issue was just about timing, seems to me a better approach would have been to demand formally to Lebanon and give them an ultimatum to return the soldiers and control the border, it is disturbing IMHO that virtually no time was allowed in this case, and if the time line and facts of this report are correct:
I think Israel is blowing away the chance to get more support when one can see the collateral damage that “justified” the Hezballah raid that then caused Israel to attack Lebanon, I could understand why Hezballah did it, I don’t approve it, and I would not mind killing the Hezbollah attackers, but Israel getting involved once again in Lebanon was IMO what Hezbollah wanted Israel to do.
Syria is primarily responsible for Hamas. Lebanon is primarily responsible for Hezbollah.
Instead of an analogy, why not deal with the concrete reality of state sponsorship of terror, and its ramifications in terms of casus belli?
Eeeeeh… I think it’s more like reality is making a mockery of Bush’s soundbytes.
I don’t agree. We’ve seen similar situations there for quite some time.
I doubt that the US will cease to support Israel but I suppose we’ll see. As we don’t even want to admit that the Iraq war is going poorly, at all, it’ll be hard to start a diplomatic shoving match if we can’t even have a complaint without tarnishing the rosy image of Iraq. 
That’s what is being dealt with. Hamas’ stronghold of Gaza is under seige, the Syrians were warned that military action might include them as well, and then the Lebanese backed Hezbollah terrorist organization executed another attack upon Israel.
Personally, I don’t think that Iraq will become much more of an issue. It’s already in a state of civil war, having Israel do some stuff won’t, IMO, change things all that much. As for demanding anything of Lebanon… eh. State sponsors of terror have, as this thread has shown, more than their fair share of apologists.
All Lebanon would have to do is say “Oh… those terrorists? Who we train, lodge, finance, equip, and help direct? Never seen 'em before.” And you know there’d be a thread up on the Dope in record time condemning the acts of ‘aggression’ and ‘civilian targeted violence’ that Israel would take in response. Not to mention the actions over at the UN.
I’m also not sure what ammount of time should be taken once one country essentially starts a war with another. Let alone when the third does it.
Perhaps… but to a degree if that’s what Hezbollah wanted, that’s what Lebanon wanted.