I too am sorry, No One Special.
Peace be to Israel.
Regards,
Shodan
Check out the thread going on in Great Debates, specifically this post for a good discussion on the history of the area.
Mines Mystique
I think the thing that bugs me the most is that no one did “Give Peace A Chance.”
Going back to the most recent Palestenian elections, they didn’t so much vote in favor of Hamas as vote to throw the other bums out - as I recall from the coverage I heard mostly from NPR and BBC at the time.
No one liked the the new bums at all, so everyone cut them off financially - which cut them off at the knees as far as making an actual government work.
Then, six months later, a bunch of the government were arrested - by Israel. I was never clear on why. So an unstable situation was further destabilized.
As far as I can see, that’s when this particular cartload of manure began to hit the rotating element in a big way.
Now, to be clear, I’m not saying that Israel arresting the Hamas government started this so it is ‘their fault’. Nor am I saying that whatever action took place that caused Israel to arrest them started all of this so it is the ‘fault’ of the Palestentians, and their sympathizers. This is all too complicated to look for Fault at this point in time. FAULT goes back generations.
What I’m really saying is that ibelieve that we, the rest of the word, contributed to this particular set of grotesque bombings and retribution bomings and killings of innocent children and other people by strangling a fairly elected government. We have no way of knowing what they might have done. It might have been awful. But it might not have. They were doing some pretty decent things in the refugee camps. We never gave them a chance. It might not have been "Peace with a capital P, but it was Democracy with a capital D.
‘Do nothing’ actually seems like a sensible tactic to me. If Israel is happy with the borders on the map, and knows that is has overwhelming firepower, then taking hits from missiles is a least-worst option. Yes, it sounds callous to sum it up in that way, but the failure to retaliate against provocative attacks from Hezbollah would render those attacks impotent.
I’m not inclined to move this thread to either. If posters don’t remain civil, I’ll close it.
Are you really sure of that? I realize I’m not an expert on the Middle Eastern conflict, but most of what I’ve read and heard leads me to believe that the vast majority of Arabs have realized that, whether or not the creation of Israel was a good thing in the first place, it is now done, Israel won’t disappear, and now the best thing to do would be to live in peace with the Israelis. Granted, that’s still not “love”, but it’s already a desire to have more normal relations with each other. And from here it seems that most attacks by extremist groups happen when it appears that a new step is about to happen in the peace process. The current crisis, from what I’ve heard (correct me if I’m wrong) started just when the Hamas government of Palestine was about to sign a resolution that would have implicitely recognized the right of Israel to exist. So it really seems that it’s a minority of people that keep trying to destroy the peace process. If we could remove these people’s influence, I believe we could do a lot of progress.
Israel, of course, has the right to defend itself and its population against acts of war and terrorism. The question is, is it in its best interest to respond with extremely strong force to them? Israel’s leadership seems to think so, probably believing, as you do (and maybe as most Israelis do, I wouldn’t know but maybe you do), that most Arabs hate Israelis and will do so forever, so the right thing to do is just make them fear complete destruction to the point where they won’t attempt to attack anymore. If they can’t access Israel and are so afraid of retaliation they wouldn’t try any attacks even if they could, who cares if they live in poverty, under dictatorial governments, and hate Israel to the point they just wish they could volatilise it out of existence? Not Israelis, I guess (and I’m not blaming them for this; I can understand that after decades of attacks, you just stop caring about the people the attackers are drawn from). But I’m not so sure the leadership is correct.
Of course, I’m not sure what kind of response Israel should have to these attacks. Maybe it is asking a lot of them to respond in a way that makes it clear that they won’t tolerate any attacks on their territory and people, but at the same time doesn’t create more ill will against them. Maybe it is impossible, as I guess you will answer me. But I wouldn’t be surprised if there was actually a way.
First and foremost, my sincere condolences No One Special and his family and his nation. Gruesome. Horrid.
Next,
That hurts. In the past, I have made many rude and ill-advised posts on this board. In the past few months I have made a real effort to reform myself. That being said, I am pleased with the post you took exception to.
Thoreau was a pacifist, a stand I find puzzling and immoral. That does not mean every word that came out of the man’s mouth is worthless.
In this case, military men like myself have no workable solution. Rather than order us to ‘do something’ and make the situation worse, it makes more sense in this case to do nothing. Or at least have the people in the steel hats do nothing. Military force is simply no too applicable to this problem.
I am not advocating teaching the world to sing in perfect harmony. I am simply pointing out that military force is not the correct solution to this situation. Does anyone here take exception to that?
If you have a hammer in your hand, you ought to realize that everything else is not a nail.
I do not know what to do. I am open to suggestions. I do say this, the solution to this issue is one that will solve the problem, not make it worse.
I consider this to be a loaded question.
We don’t know for sure whether or not that this is the case.
The issue from us sitting on the outside looking in is difficult for us to truely evaluate. Mainly because we come from different cultures. I think the Israelis understand Arab culture far better than we do and are acting in the proper fashion.
For the most part people in the Middle East have a culture where the group, the family and the viliage/tribe, is the center of their life. These groups have a strong leader who everyone looks to for strength in bad times and handouts in good times. This person not only has privilage that the typical member does not, but is expected to have this privilage. The more he has the more a member of the tribe can point to him with pride.
Take the current President of Yemen for example: He is universally despised by the people I work with for allowing such corruption as exists in Yemen to continue. People are upset about the amount of oil money that doesn’t go to the people. Yet no one complains about the amount of money that the president has - billions. Everyone is happy when he comes to visit their villiage and people spend lots of their own money to spif the villiage up. And he is elected with a vast majority at every election? If everyone hates him for the bad things he does, or his inaction due to corruption, how does he keep getting elected? Granted the opposition isn’t the most organized, but it doesn’t explain the huge majorities in votes he gets. The explanation is that he is a strong figure. Even if everyone hates him they still respect him. If he was a weaker figure he wouldn’t have lasted nearly as long as he has. People are afraid of what would happen to the country with all the competing tribes and regions without a strong figure to keep things relatively stable.
Was Hamas elected in Palestine because they promised change, or was the existing government kicked out because they were corrupt and incompetent? Neither, I think. It was more likely that the current government at the time appeared weak and Hamas, through actions or words, showed themselves to be strong. People in this culture don’t care about the corruption if the leader is strong. They expect it. Look how long Arafat lasted. He certainly didn’t run a competent government, but he kept power right up until his death.
So, how do you deal with people who respect power? I’d suggest that the soft approach might be fine with people who understand and respect it, but with people who don’t? I’d suggest they would think you weak and ripe for the plucking. If you don’t strike back and hard, they’d sit on the side lines and keep sniping at you until there is nothing left.
(Drat, got a meeting to go to!)
What would the American people do to a political leader who allowed our cities to be bombed, yet did nothing, because the politicians would assure us, “they can’t really beat us, but a few of you may die, have a good day.”
A president who said that would be eaten alive by the electorate, and with good reason. Leaders and governments have as their most basic responsibility protecting citizens from external threats and aggression. The only response to external aggression isn’t to respond in kind. However, to do nothing in response to external aggression is a response that is wholly unacceptable no matter how you cut it. Governments and leaders have a responsibility to ACT to deal with issues like this.
Also, I think most of you are really off-base on something. Yes, Hezbollah wanted this to a degree and they predicted Israel would respond violently. However, just like Saddam Hussein was famous for doing, I think they underestimated the will of their enemies. And I think that they will be very unhappy if Israel decides to escalate this further. Trust me, if Israel invades, no matter how many new recruits Hezbollah gets, this will be a loss beyond compare for them.
I see no indication that the Bad Guys are especially put off by the scale of the Israeli counterstirke.
As for the electorate, sometimes they are wrong. I suspect this might be one of those times.
The news sites are reporting that Israel has begin ground incursions. Oh joy.
Hezbollah has had what, six or eight years to lay traps for a ground invasion? The staggering complexity of their present armaments, as evidenced by the surface to sea missile that hit an Israeli ship and the long range STS rockets, combined with the lessons they undoubtably learned from Iraqui insurgents battling Americans (think IEDs) necessitates a real feeling of apprehension as Israel begings it’s move in.
I’m real sorry, Noone Special. Your situation and our other doper friends there, as well as our friends and family stuck in Lebanon now, is a genuine concern for us all.
Yes, because the “Bad Guys” are known to openly admit when they are put off by things. I don’t remember Hitler making public announcements that he was worried about the vast industrial resources of the United States when he declared war on us.
Or Mussolini for that matter. Nor do I remember the Japanese leadership openly saying they were worried about the scale of the American response.
Nor do I remember Saddam Hussein being too put off (publicly) about the response of the international community to his invasion of Kuwait.
Trust me, however, all of these leaders if they weren’t “put off” by the response at the time, sure as hell were not long after.
And believe it or not, Al-Qaeda wanted no part of us going into Afghanistan, and I do not believe they consider that a good thing for them, despite their ability to keep Osama hidden.
I’m not too worried about the Israelis. Some will die, yes. But Saddam had over ten years to prepare for us the second time around and we still didn’t have too much trouble with him.
The capacity to launch missiles into Israel is something Israel can take care of pretty well with open military force. Large missiles aren’t like IEDs, suicide bombers, car-bombs and the like. They are highly visible, difficult to hide, and require some decent room to be shot off. Israel will without doubt be able to crush Hezbollah’s ability to launch direct strikes of that type into Israeli territory. What Israel won’t be able to do with sheer force alone is insure that Hezbollah isn’t going to be laying booby traps in wait for Israeli forces, nor will Israel be able to stop lone Hezbollah agents from perhaps infiltrating Israeli territory and doing Bad Things™.
Does this compare to the US “scud hunting” in the first gulf war?
Just to point out that Israel has spent about 18 years recently occupying Southern Lebanon.
I doubt Hezbollah are worried about a further invasion, since it bolsters their cause.
The Guardian today estimates that Hezbollah have about 12,000 missiles (mainly supplied by Iran). They are not kept in armouries, but stored in garages + sheds of sympathisers.
I therefore doubt Israel’s return to South Lebanon will be as effective as you suggest.
So then we are agreed? The idea that the Israeli reaction was so overwhelming that it surprised the Bad Guys is not supported by any evidence.
Not sure. The U.S. didn’t fully occupy Iraq during the first Gulf War. Not that I’m saying Israel will necessarily do that…but I think it’s hard to tell at this point.