Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

Doesn't matter. My point still stands. They were holding key offices even during their hayday. So unless you're willing to accuse the entire US of supporting Klan activities, then you cannot rightly say that the entire country of Lebanon is guilty because a handful of Hezbollah hold offices.

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"You poke the bee's nest long enough, you're gonna get stung."

Unfortunately, Israel has received a lot of "poking" so to speak in the last 60 years of its existance. Does that warrant its current actions? I think not. But I can understand where they come from. Being surrounded by a plethora of countries with the common goal of destroying their land can be a little stressful, to say the least. Attacking an entire country is the last straw in any case. But attacking Lebanon will not "send a message" to prevent further attacks. There is only one thing that the terrorists they attack are thinking: Make Israel the easy enemy. Attacking their homelands won't make the situation any better; it'll just destabilize the area, basically like putting a fan next to a house made of cards. Plus Hizballah (Iran mainly) are gaining from every war or battle or rocket fired in the Middle East.

But it is within the confines of the Gaza strip that present the largest challenge. Can Palestinians be trusted to create their own country when, given land to start, they continue attacks against the Israelis by firing rockets into Israeli compounds and settlements from Gaza? I believe that Palestinian extremists deserve whatever the Israelis give them. They've had their chance. It is their goal to slowly destroy Israel over time from the inside, as chartered by the PLO in 1967. They have no hope for the future, only the hope of the destruction of the Semetic state and its allies.

I agree with no sides on this one. I almost want the Middle East to just go away for a little while.

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I got that number from here. But ah! Funnily enough, the number given for militant deaths has been dropped to nine today - I don't know if that was the Wiki's mistake or my own (probably my own). But yep - by that account, it looks like Israel's result is even worse than I thought.

(Though I do take into account the fact that there could be more militant deaths than the number made publicly known.)



Hmm, that kind of sounds dubious to me. Even if every Lebanese person would love to see Israel pushed into the sea, having that wish isn't a terrorist act. And by that token, nor is supporting or voting for Hezbolloh, imo. That's just their democratic will, and they should be entitled to it.

The only way that wish becomes a terrorist act is when you take a rocket launcher into your hands (or put it into someone else's hands) and try to achieve that wish through violence. Otherwise, you're just a civilian - no matter what side you favour.

You're forgetting that the if the KKK's influence extended beyond the United States' borders at all back in their heyday, it was very minimal. Being a radical terrorist organization that attacks citizens within your borders is one thing, but having them attack citizens of another country is entirely different.

IF, in your hypothetical, the KKK were still politically powerful today in the US, and was currently engaged in firing missiles into Montreal and kidnapping Canadian citizens and the United States did nothing to stop it, I'd say YES, we are responsible for their actions.

On to my next point, what do all of you who are condemning Israel for its actions suggest the Israelis do? Try really hard to put yourself into their shoes. If there was an organization hell-bent on destroying Chicago, for example, that operated out of a city just across the Canadian border, obviously the United States government would call the Canadian government after the first few missiles hit and the first US citizen was kidnapped. If Canada acknowledged the problem and was able to rectify it within a reasonable amount of time, then no harm, no foul.

But if Canada acted like there was nothing they could do, or were unwilling to do anything, how long do you think it would take before the US was sending air strikes across the Canadian border to hit this city? I think the Israeli response here is normal.

And for all those who say it is disproportionate and evil and not just, what do you suggest?

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One suggestion: cutting back on those land-to-air missile strikes. Seriously. What are they achieving? They could better use the intelligence that they have to pinpoint exact targets, and execute a far more efficient campaign by air.

(Of course, I wouldn't want to speculate about what intelligence Israel has on Hezbollah's movements - but they must have some info on what places they should be concentrating on, right? So start concentrating on those areas with helicopter and plane strikes instead of firing blindly over the border.)

They've actually got decent intelligence, and have been quite accurate with their bombings. I've been following this pretty closely, and a few reporters' storys have stood out.

First was an interview with the father of a 7 year old child who was in the hospital with shrapnel in his liver. A militant Hezbollah group with missles was next door to his house. That house was attacked, but they escaped. Then, they got in a vehicle, and the israeli's hit that with another missle. That did the job on them, but it was on that bombing that the child was hit with shrapnel. Hezbollah is putting civilians in danger with their actions. The father didn't blame either group, because he said Hezbollah doesn't have anywhere else to meet but the suburbs, and Israel has got to do what they have to do. Israeli intelligence was quite good here, and the accuracy is as good as it can honestly get.

Second they were talking about the large number of trucks that have been bombed. Israel has been bombing pretty much every cargo truck on the road on suspicions that they could be transporting missles closer to the border (as Hezbollah's missles don't have much range). The accuracy of these bombs has been impeccable as well. Almost all have been directly through the front of the cab. Some have had missles in them. Others have had food and medical supplies. Obviously, intelligence has been flawed or incomplete in these cases.

Another point is that many lebanese civilians are doing more than democratically supporting Hezbollah. Hezbollah has been asking people to store missles and weapons in their homes for them. These people are technically civilians, but they have missles buried in their backyards and stored under their beds. If Israel's goal is to disarm Lebanon, then this is the only way to do it, short of a ground invasion.

Some here are suggesting a ground invasion, to minimize civilian casualties. This is a terrible terrible idea, if just because Israel's goal is principally to disarm Hezbollah as much as possible and to scare them out of kidnapping soldiers and firing missles. Their goal is not occupation. Israel needs to not show weakness here, because they are in a precarious position anyways. Already, many arab countries think Israel is weak because of the withdrawl they had been doing over the past year.

Another thing to note is that the position of a majority of Arab countries is that Hezbollah totally screwed up. Most of them add a token "Israel should be more proportionate" but they lay the principle blame on Hezbollah and the weak Lebanese government. How crazy is that?

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What racerx said. Israel is not dropping bombs indiscriminately. They're hitting specific targets. The alternative is occupying Lebanon, which is what they were doing until the UN got them to leave in 2003 under certain conditions which were never met.

Hugh Hewitt read an analogy about the conflic on his radio show last night. It's a fantastic analogy using a Marine and sailor in a bar fight.

The whole story is great (you'll have to follow the link to get to the analogy ... too long to cut-and-paste here), but his summary of Arab terrorist-nation tactics is classic:

1. Instigate a war.
2. Once the war is well underway and you are in the process of having your [butt] handed to you... get a few world powers to force your western opponent into a cease fire.
3. Whatever you do, don't surrender or submit to any terms dictated by your enemy. That would ruin everything! All you have to do is wait it out and eventually the world will become sickened at what is being done to your soldiers and civilian population... and will force a truce.
4. Once a truce has been called you can resume your intransigence (which probably caused the conflict in the first place), and even declare victory as your opponent leaves the field of battle.

link

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An extreme oversimplification that completely ignores the complexities of the politics of that region.

And the fact he's a Zionist doesn't in any way detract from his fair and balanced interpretation of the events.

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Would you mind answering some questions you've ignored thus far?

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I definately take your point on the ground invasion, racerx - an occupation is probably the last thing that Israel needs right now.

But if they concentrated their assault on targets through an air campaign - well, like they're beginning to do now - wouldn't that have helped to minimise civilian casulties at the beginning of the conflict? Israel fired over 20,000 land-to-air shells on Tripoli alone in the past nine days - how accurate could you be with such a bombardment?



Ha! You know, if I were a betting woman, I would bet anything that most Arab governments would be more than happy to follow Egypt and acknowledge Israel's existance. But they know what happened to President Sadat - they're as in thrall to the Islamic extremists as everyone else is.[/code]

World War III, eh? No, I don't think it's close to being a World War just yet. Not at this point in time, anyway.

However, if this all goes unchecked, I think this could escalate into a World War easily.

Sorry if I'm screwing up the discussion.

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I enjoy breakups of embattled conversations that focus on a few points, Mr. Ace. Your point, while it may not come to fruition, is a very good point.

This is something that is way beyond any reconciliation (the overall Middle East situation). It seems as though the countries there, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, etc, are still existing on purely the businesses of death and oil. You would hope eventually the civilians would get sick of it and try to move on, as they have historically, (South Africa, Namibia, various Eastern Europian countries), but it seems that that certain Israel-to-Iran locale is irreparible. See also: Babylon, Mesopotamia, Roman Empire, Egyptians, Muhammed's Army, Crusades, Zionist movement, Ottoman Empire, WWI, WWII, Six Day War...blah.

Why can't we all just get along?

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Because the Arabs & Jews both want that one little piece of land where Jerusalem is. I say, split both Jerusalem & Israel in half between the PLO and Israel.

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Fuh. Journalists.

Coincidently, I wanted to show you another example of half-truth journalism, from the front page of The Independent in London:



Okay, I think it's worth pointing out (especially to anyone who wants to pick holes in US/UK foreign policy) that the UK and the US don't actually oppose immediate ceasefire - they only oppose a one-sided ceasefire. And you know, I agree - even though I'm personally very critical of a lot of Israel's actions thus far.

I think the US Ambassator to the UN, John Bolton, said it best: "No one has explained how you conduct a ceasefire with a group of terrorists."

I would only urge Israel to scale down attacks in highly populated areas, and to stop destroying infrastructure. But to give Hezbolloh breathing room to re-group and launch bigger attacks doesn't make sense to me.

Here's an interesting bit I heard on the news today. Apparently, the Israelis have been warning the people of southern Lebanon to flee. But here's the kicker: they've been bombing northern Lebanon. That doesn't really leave a whole lot of places for these people to flee to, now does it?

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I really hate to do this, Didy, but I hereby label you as an Anti.

An Anti is someone who sits back and criticizes everything someone does without offering a better solution. Democrats are fond of this. (See the Democratic position on Iraq. There isn't one, other than "Bush is doing it wrong.")

Almost every one of your comments in this thread have been critical of Israel's actions, yet you seem unable to suggest a better way for them to defend themselves. I have specifically requested that you offer up an idea or two, but you seem to be ignoring me in that regard.

I suggest you either make a suggestion or two or just acknowledge that while Israel's actions are harsh, they have little choice in the matter.

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Just in case some of you don't believe that Hezbollah is really using civilians as human shields (often without the civilian's knowledge), here's an article about it:

link

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I know this statement is a bit old, but I've been looking at a bunch of different maps showing positions of all of the attacks on both countries, and I don't know where that newscaster is getting that statement from. There have been some attacks on northern Lebanon, but they are very few compared to the number of attacks on southern Lebanon.

With regards to "proportionality," what would be more proportionate? To have Israel kidnap a couple of Hezbollah soldiers? To have Israel launch hundreds of shoulder based rockets into Lebanon? And say that's all they do. What's resolved? When will the rockets end? When will it be safe?

The doctrine of proportionality in war is that one country does only what is necessary to end the conflict, without deliberately targeting civilians. I think I've sufficiently (for my purposes) shown that Israel is using their intelligence as best as they can to target Hezbollah and are not deliberately targeting civilians. Airstrikes and bombs are expensive, and Israel isn't going to use them unless they believe that the strike will further their goal of disarming Hezbollah. Could Israel do less than what they are doing and still end the conflict? That's a fine line to call, and I would propose that Israel is doing its best to end Hezbollah's attacks, which is the proportionate response.

Now, some say "Well they should leave the airports and roads and power stations and bridges and radio towers alone." The reason those are being bombed is to disrupt Hezbollah's ability to replenish supplies and communicate. Their missles are short range, so they need to keep feeding more missles into southern Lebanon so they can reach Israel. These have impacts on civilians as well, no doubt. But if they didn't, and Hezbollah had easy access to more supplies, when would the conflict end? Obviously, there are still resupply channels available, but that just increases the need for Israel to continue to try and cut off those channels.

Also, because of the infrastructure attacks, once this conflict has ended, hopefully everybody will be too busy rebuilding Lebanon to worry about resuming the rocket attacks for a while. Hopefully once it's over, the Lebanese will just say "All right Hezbollah, you had your chance, you blew it and it cost us big time. We're not putting up with this again." A strong Lebanese government would be necessary to pull that off, so who knows though.

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Well, According to that, if you guys wanna blame someone for the impending World War 3 and soon after Apocalypse, blame the UK and Israel, the US isnt the only one on that No.

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What makes you think the US will be safe, COLA? We support Israel, & we're BFFs with the UK.

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You missed the point. The Klan has done this kind of stuff in the past. Stuff like:

* The assassination of NAACP organizer Medgar Evers in Mississippi. In 1994, former Ku Klux Klansman Byron De La Beckwith was convicted of Evers' murder.
* The 1966 firebombing death of NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer Sr., 58, also in Mississippi. In 1998 former Ku Klux Klan wizard Sam Bowers was convicted of Dahmer's murder. Two other Klan members were indicted with Bowers, but one died before trial, and the other's indictment was dismissed.
* The 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Alabama, which killed four children. Four Klansmen were named as suspects in they were not prosecuted until years later. The Klan members were Robert Chambliss, convicted in 1977, Thomas Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry, convicted of murder in 2001 and 2002. The fourth suspect, Herman Cash, died before he was indicted.
* The murder of Willie Edwards, Jr., in 1957. Edwards was forced by Klansmen to jump to his death from a bridge into the Alabama River.
* The 1964 murders of civil rights workers Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner in Mississippi. In June 2005, Klan member Edgar Ray Killen was convicted of manslaughter in the murders.
* The 1965 murder of Viola Liuzzo, a Southern-raised white mother of five who was visiting the South from her home in Detroit to attend a civil rights march. At the time of her murder Liuzzo was transporting Civil Rights Marchers.

See Lahi, they are terrorist organization that has had considerable power and influence in this country on more than one occasion, just like Hezbollah.

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World War III...
Possible...
We are on the Brink of collapsing peace...
Canada needs to step up its army!

Canada? I don't think they need to worry much. Well, not as much as the US anyway.

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I am a little worried about the Terror Raids...We saw Terrorism on 9/11 in NYC im worried about it coming here

You guys have little to worry about. The terrorists said "Death to America".

Anydangway, I don't know what to make of the current Israel-Lebanon situation. All I know is that we need peace.

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Agreed.

Let them fight, they just need to let it out, it's better than letting them have constant tension.

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The problem is that the tensions won't just be gotten out. They will escalate.

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Well, I don't think that the Middle-East will ever have true peace until Israel and either Sunnis or Shi'ites are completely destroyed. Sorry if that came off as offensively insensitive, but it's true.

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Sometimes, the truth IS insensitive. The truth doesn't care...
You are right. The only way it's going to end is when only one side remains (and then that side will break up into factions and fight each other).

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.