The President’s Take On Who Won:
It’s also a victory in the global war on terror:
It’s all part of the forward strategy of freedom which Bush launched in 2003.
What you are saying, then, is that Iran / Hezbullah are in a win-win situation. Either they may attack Israel without response (they win by virtue of hurting them evil Zionists) or Israel retailates, and they win by provoking chaos.
Unfortunatley, I’m not sure I don’t agree with you 
If Israel did not know about the rockets, then I would be seriously worried.
Apart from a bit of disinformation (my suspicion) about Saddam’s WMD, I would reckon that Israel is better qualified to conduct an informal munitions audit than most people.
@Puzzler, look back on my earlier posts, there is one suggesting a chequerboard menu.
Any launch site of Kayushas gets flattened within 12 hours - if you stick to 1km squares then civilians will not be a problem - for PR drop wheel chairs and stretchers.
Call it ‘systematic retaliation’ - stick out some bullsh*t that it is a scientific theory that people are like Pavlov’s dogs - they fire - you are predictable.
Assuming Hezbollah are not totally suicidal, I reckon that you guys have got out of this mess as cleanly as possible.
A selective recollection problem mayhaps?
Israel leads in ignoring Security Council resolutions
Of course, that list does not include the number of US vetoes to any number of additional SC resolutions against Israel.
So then, would you like to re-think your original statement?
Please start using the English language correctly. That was not terrorism.
If you kidnapped my sister, and I blew up your house because you wouldn’t release her; you are not entitled to be mad at me because your family got killed in the house; you started it. And if you hid in your neighbor’s house; he’s not entitled to be mad at me because he’s harboring a criminal. He should choose his friends better.
A person who starts a fight (throws first punch - kidnaps someone - blows up civilians deliberately) is not entitled to “vengeance” after the party they attacked fights back. Even if the the fighting back is not propotional to the original attack.
You lose all moral high ground when you start fights.
Show me where Israel ever “started” something. Their mere existence doesn’t cut it as “starting” something; In '48 their was a choice to be made; live side by side, or fight and winner take all. You don’t get to change your mind when you realize you are losing. Only cowards and children try to reneg once they don’t get their way.
:rolleyes: And if Israel was attacking Hezbollah, and not the general population and infrastructure, you might have a point. A more accurate analogy would be that I kidnap your sister, and you roll in with tanks and level half the town - without ever even trying to find your sister.
What makes you think I care who started it ? Does it matter who started the Hatfield/McCoy feud ? The Indians vrs the Pakistani ? What matters is the results of people’s actions; in this case, destruction and death in Lebanon.
Man, Hezbollah would just LOVE you to be in charge. Pick a few martyrdom-hungry teenagers, have them fire some rockets from the middle of the most densely-populated area you can find, rub hands in glee as Israel kills thousands of civilians in full knowledge that they had nothing whatsover to do with it. Receive thousands of new recruits. Rinse and repeat.
Errr - plenty of them ARE suicidal, in case you haven’t noticed. The senior leadership are obviously safe underground or well out of the war zone, and for many of the rank and file casualties fall into three categories:
[ul]
[li]They die - great, paradise awaits[/li][li]Lebanese die - irrelevant, a worthy sacrifice in the Great Struggle[/li][li]Israelis die - hurrah, bonus Jew-slaying credits in paradise[/li][/ul]
It seems that the real extremists JUST DONT CARE about how much suffering is inflicted on the civilian population - they are just a handy source of photogenic corpses. So what is devastating Lebanon going to achieve? Hezbollah want to draw Israel into a bleeding contest in the town and villages of Lebanon, because that’s the best chance they have of doing Israel some significant damage. Again, look at Iraq for a good example of how that would play out.
That’s how it looks to me. The current situation cannot be resolved militarily, and there does not seem to be any chance of a political solution anytime soon. Meanwhile, every year the weaponry available to organisations like Hizbullah gets better and better and more and more destructive.
Gee, there is a shocker. You don’t care who started it, only that Lebanese died. Don’t weigh you down with no stinking facts, don’t talk to you about all that worthless context stuff…the only thing that matters is ‘destruction and death in Lebanon’. Everything else is irrelevent! :rolleyes:
Interesting that you DO care that the US started the war in Iraq and have blasted the US for doing so myriad times. So…it seems that sometimes it matters who starts a conflict and sometimes it doesn’t too you. Interesting, no?
-XT
If it’s your town, yes, too bad, it sucks to have a kidnapping piece-of-filth as a neighbor. Good people in your neighborhood should get together, beat you to a pulp with shovels, and hand you over to me, to prevent collateral damage. or at the very least, point you out to me.
I disagree 100%. Who started it makes all the difference in the world; it correctly assigns the moral high ground; motive is everything.
No… the claim was that Israel, the state of Israel, did something. I
Irgun and the Stern Gang weren’t the state of Irael.
One of the incidents you cite was before 1948.
The other involves the Stern Gang, which was officially disolved by Israel in May of 1948.
Swing and a miss.
No, I don’t think that villages are cities. Puzzler stated that one of the intentions of the Israeli attacks was “reducing shelling of Israeli cities”. I was just pointing out that the shelling of the Israeli cities started in response to Israeli attacks - this is all about fighting ignorance after all.
I was under the impression that the original shelling was a diversionary tactic to capture IDF soldiers, rather than an attempt to shell Israeli cities.
What makes you think that I said otherwise?
Give us a break.
“The attack [on King David Hotel] was initially ordered by Menachem Begin, the head of the Irgun, who would later become Israeli Prime Minister”.
“Yellin-Mor and another Lehi member Schmuelevich were charged with belonging to a terrorist organization. They were found guilty [of assassinating Bernadotte] but immediately released and pardoned (Yellin-Mor had meanwhile been elected to the first Knesset)”
I would say that Hezbollah won, in a big way. The simple fact that they’re being negotiated with as an equal, or at least as a sovereign power, is a signal of how great their victory has been. The U.S. and Israel, who have a long, proud history of “we don’t negotiate with terrorists,” have now done just that.
It’s the equivalent of a mugger with a switchblade climbing into a heavyweight ring and being allowed to box the champ for the title.
My God!! How is Mr Bush managing to confabulate the Israeli-Lebanon conflict with the GlobalWarOnTerror.
Has he managed to do the same with Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka?
:dubious:
Argue honestly.
Who at the time of the order, was not only not Prime Minister, but Israel didn’t even exist. This would tell a reasonable person that Israel, which didn’t exist, didn’t do it.
The fact that Israel didn’t exist seems not to influence your claim that Israel did something. I’m not sure how something that doesn’t exist does something. I guess you are.
What a surprise, pardoning someone is not the same thing as a country assasinating someone.
Someone being elected after commiting a crime does not mean that the government commited the crime. Were your argument intellectually honest, you would admit that.
Contrary to your logic, actions at one point in time do not, in fact, work backwards in time. Nor does one member of the Knesset who took certain actions, before he was a member of the Knesset, mean that the Israeli government went backwards in time and ordered him to commit those actions.
If you had argued with intellectual honesty that Israel had excused terrorists, you’d have had a point. But you took the intellectually dishonest route instead.
Or if David Duke had been electred to congress, would you be saying that the US government had supported lynching blacks? :rolleyes:
Two strikes.
Wanna go for your third?
And according to the highly-respected Seymour Hersh, the Hezbollah kidnapping was merely an excuse, and the Bush Administration was thrilled to let Israel be a gueina pig for a later Iran attack:
Are you equally unaware that villages, like cities, have people in them? If you were, then let me fight your ignorance on this vital issue. Yes indeed…villages DO have people in them. In addition, ‘village’ is sort of a subjective reference, especially since what we are talking about is the northern enclaves south of the Blue line.
From Wiki :
Note that the conflict began with the shelling of Israeli CIVILIAN targets…
Well, so what? What do you think they were firing those rockets AT? Just villages, I know. Now, had they been firing at CITIES…well, that would be a whole other ball game (appearently), ehe? :dubious:
Gee, I don’t know what possibly could have given me this impression…
-XT
Already brought up, with this same typical lack of context, in other threads. Yes, Israel was planning on how to respond as Hezbollah had been arming itself with rockets for about six years. Planning on what to do when and if you’re attacked is hardly wrong.
And, whoa… they shared their military plans with an ally? What basatards!
Or, in other words “There was a strong feeling that sooner or later Hezbollah was going to attack Israel again, and Israel’s plans for defending themselves against Hezbollah would then be activated.”
Those damned Israelis… how dare they plan on how to respond to an almost inevitable attack by a proxy force arming itself on their border?
Ayieeeee! Teh Uber Evile Amerika was planning on analyzing military events and seeing if they could be applied to another possible conflict with a state that supports terrorists and has neuclear ambitions. They wanted Hezbollah dealt with so that if and when it becomes necessary to deal with Iran, there wouldn’t be a war on two fronts.
Absolutely beyond the pale.
You are making it sound as if I am arguing that Israel is a terrorist organisation. I am, however, pointing out that members of the Israeli government belonged to terrorist organisations.
You are almost as hopeless as arguing as xtimse.
First make it sound like the person you are arguing with is saying something completely different to what they are trying to point out.
Second you pick holes in this false argument.
If thats the poor standard you are capable of, then how do you think you will convince others of your point of view.
See my reply to FinnAgain. Same thing applies to this poor effort. If you misrepresent those you are ‘arguing’ with, how do you expect others to take you seriously.