It’s simple. The objective is to get Japan to surrender. Any and all means that can get Japan to surrender is proportional to the goal, and therefore justified and moral and ethical. Any and all means that hinder and prevent Japan from surrendering, such as the bombing of Kyoto or Tokyo or the religious shrines of the Imperial Palace, then this is unethical and not proportional to the military/political objective.

The wasting of military force occurs when the force used does not in anyway contribute to the attainment of the military or political goals set down by the duly constitutional authority of a state or nation. This disproportional wastage of force, this lowest of the low in terms of the acme of winning a war, is when Israel assassinates Hamas leaders but does not do anything else. When Israel waits to be attacked, and then uses military force to retaliate or assassinate in proportion to the attack they received, they are acting in a wasteful and disproportionate way that does not win the overall war and objectives.

Thus economy of force, the acme of battle skill, and the proportional means to achieve the objective of a just war, are all inter-related.

The only way in which this kind of attack on civilian infrastructure makes sense is if Israel is meting out “collective punishment” to Palestinians for having elected Hamas in the first place. That is, if Israel is holding each and every Palestinian somehow a little bit responsible.

But this is a dangerous argument to make. If Israel implies that Palestinian civilians share responsibility for the Palestinian militia’s actions, then that might affirm Palestinian arguments that Israeli civilians, too, are collectively responsible for the Israeli military’s actions, and this could be used to justify senseless violence against civilians.

The capture of Shalit was an action carried out by one militia (Hamas’) on another militia (Israel’s). Civilians should have been left out of the picture in any possible retaliation. Hamas demanded a prisoner exchange, which is also standard practice between conflicting armies.

Israel already had hundreds of Palestinian prisoners being held in “administrative detention” (i.e. they are being held indefinitely, without charges and without trial). In retaliation, Hamas took just ONE Israeli soldier prisoner and demanded a prisoner exchange. This is why Israel’s response is disproportionate.

Israel ought withdraw from the illegally occupied territories, dismantling all the illegal settlements it has built so far in occupied territories. It should withdraw to its 1967 borders, as international law demands. If, after withdrawing from the illegally occupied territories, and the formation of a Palestinian state, the newly-formed Palestinian state attacks Israel, then and only then would Israel have any right to complain.

Illegally occupying foreign powers are always met with resistance. That is nothing new. Even we, after the declaration of independence, resisted the foreign occupying power (Britain) that was illegally occupying our territory (the United States).

But when the war was over, none of them considered the resurrection of the Nazi party to be ‘a good idea’. Israel has been poking Hamas and Hezbollah with a stick for decades, and it hasn’t weakened their resolve. It’s time to hit them hard. It’s the only way (if there is one) to end this once and for all. To defend itself, Israel MUST attack with all it has, or it will continue to have to defend itself for the foreseeable future.

I’m not saying kill these people to make them pay for their aggression. I’m saying kill them to make them stop.

In unrelated news, that apple over your face has been bugging me for a year. So I used the latest photo enhancement technology (which turns out to be Photoshop) to recreate your facial structure here. I borrowed heavily from Britney Spears. Am I close?

It’s Israel which is illegally occupying Palestinian territory — the Palestinians are not illegally occupying Israeli territory.

And incidentally, your thinking that the firembombing of Dresden and Hamburg was necessary to prevent the resurrection of the Nazi party, is wrong. To see this, consier the following: No Italian cities were firebombed in World War II with the intensity that Dresden was, but notice that the Fascist party had no resurrection in Italy either, after the war ended. Ergo — mass destruction of civilian lives was not necessary. It was simply gratuitous, and morally wrong.

Italy was different. The fascism in Italy was not supported by the majority of Italians. They only towed the line because to not do so meant death. Not so in Germany, where agreement with nazi principles was at about 40% throughout the war. The bombs changed their minds. There was minor terrorism after WWII, but the terrorists were quickly destroyed because the rank and file didn’t want to suffer more destruction.

In the Gaza strip, 77% of palestinians support the idea of the kidnapping of Gilad. 77%! That is 77% support for terrorism, plain and simple. Those minds need to be changed. And it appears that they must be changed forcefully.

” Israel is only occupying palestinian territory because palestinians kidnapped an Israeli.”

Sorry, you’re wrong. Israel has been occupying the Gaza Strip and the West Bank ever since 1967. (It had “withdrawn “from the Gaza strip a few months ago, it is true, but it continued to control all access to the Gaza strip; and as for the West Bank, Israel has been illegally occupying it before, through and after the “kidnapping”, in fact, as I said, ever since 1967!)

As for Italy, yes, the fascists did have popular support. The Wikipedia article on Italy states: “Despite the themes of social and economic reform in the initial Fascist manifesto of June 1919, the movement came to be supported by sections of the middle class fearful of socialism and communism. Industrialists and landowners supported the movement as a defense against labour militancy. Under threat of a fascist March on Rome, in October 1922, Mussolini assumed the premiership of a right-wing coalition Cabinet initially including members of the pro-church Partito Popolare (People’s Party).”
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascist_Italy

“In the Gaza strip, 77% of palestinians support the idea of the kidnapping of Gilad. 77%! That is 77% support for terrorism, plain and simple.”

Kevin: why do you call the capture of Gilad “terrorism”? Gilad is a soldier, a member of the Israeli Defence Forces — not a civilian. He wasn’t captured while he was picnicking in civilian clothes or while he was on vacation, but while he was taking part as a soldier in a military operation. He was captured by members of a Palestinian militia who staged an attack on Gilad’s unit. In warfare, enemy soldiers are captured routinely, and that’s what seems to have happened. That’s neither “terrorism” nor “kidnapping”.

still cheerleading for death i see. How many dead lebanese will cheer you up?

Every member of Hezbollah would cheer me up immensely. It’s necessary. If no innocents are killed, that would make me ecstatic!

Adam, you might as well stop using the word ‘illegal’ because it has no meaning outside individual countries. Israel occupied Gaza because it was attacked. They removed their forces… and were attacked again! The lesson palestinians have not yet learned is “Don’t attack your neighbors.” Until they do, more palestinians are slated to die. Do you really want peace in the area? Then stop attacking Israel and give the kid back to them. The war will end quiclkly if you do.

Kevin: why do you call the capture of Gilad “terrorism”? Gilad is a soldier, a member of the Israeli Defence Forces — not a civilian.

I call it terrorism because Israel was not at war with you. He was not involved in a military operation. He was in an observation post. Palestine started this war for no reason. Israel needs to give them reason to re-think an idea to start another one.

Adam, call off your dogs, and this war will end quickly. Or don’t, and witness the demise of your race.

Kevin replied, “I call it terrorism because Israel was not at war with you.”

You shouldn’t use the word “you”, as I’m neither Palestinian, nor Arab.

Israel had prevented the flow of money to Gaza strip after Hamas got elected. This caused economic hardship, rising levels of malnutrition and starvation. When people can’t eat, they die. So, this was economic warfare, even though in the military sense Israel wasn’t at war — you’re correct. But whether you kill people with bullets or starve them to death, the net effect is the same: death. So economic warfare is also warfare, and that’s what Israel was doing to Gaza.

I’d hate for Adam to have been the US president in 1941. “Well, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, but everyone there was in the military, so it wasn’t really an attack upon our nation, just an expression of outrage against our foreign policy.”

We’d all be living under the peaceful, enlightened rule of the American Nazi Party today.

“Cultural warfare” does not kill. But economic warfare does, because if you take away people’s livelihood and reduce them to destitution and starvation, people die. So “cultural warfare” would not invite military retaliation, but economic warfare does.

Tatterdemalian also wrote: “I’d hate for Adam to have been the US president in 1941. “Well, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, but everyone there was in the military, so it wasn’t really an attack upon our nation, just an expression of outrage against our foreign policy.” ”

Where did I say that the capture of Gilad Shalit wasn’t an attack on Israel? Of course it was a military attack — it was a counterattack on Israel in response to Israel’s economic warfare and economic strangulation of Gaza, and, of course, to Israel’s illegal occupation, ever since 1967, of Palestinian territory.

What I said was that the capture of Gilad Shalit was neither an act of “terrorism” nor an act of “kidnapping”. It was a military attack leading to capture. Shalit was a soldier, in uniform, on a military mission (even if it was observation duty in an observation post). A military attack was made on Shalit’s unit and Shalit was captured. Get your terminology right.

I understand that it’s easier to spin in an attempt to acquire the world’s sympathy if you use the word “kidnapping”, but that’s not the correct word for what happened.

Arafat robbed the Palestinians. And yet to the left he is a hero. His wife lives in a luxury apartment in Paris and spends her life shopping, no one is going to bulldoze her house. But since Fatah and Hamas hate the Jews, they are to be admired or supported or excused inspite of the fact that they have robbed the poor blind.. And what good does excusing that kind of thievery do the Palestinian people? What good does Hezbellah taking it upon itself to make excursions into Israel do the Lebanese people?

Their apologists do not care what happens to the people who live there, just so long as the Israelis are being shelled and targetted they will be satisfied. To the enemies of Israel they will forever be the bad colonialists and the terrorists will forever be the victims.

I support Israel here. I am sick of Hamas and Hizbellah doing nothing but killing people and then demanding support from the international community. If there really are people out there who care so little for the Palestinian people and the Lebanese people that they want to see this nonsense go on year after year then I have no respect for them.

As for the chickenhawk argument that works both ways. Hamas might be running out of mentally retarded teenagers to force to wear suicide vests, they could use a few good martyrs. Just jump right in there. And it has been awhile since Hizbellah killed any American soldiers. There was the Khobar Towers and ofcourse the 200 plus dead Marines in Beirut some time back…maybe they could use some support blowing people up too. And ofcourse the Iranians are busy hanging homosexuals and promiscuous women and they might could use some help tracking down sexual deviants. If you really think their behavior is acceptable, why not join them?

“If there really are people out there who care so little for the Palestinian people and the Lebanese people that they want to see this nonsense go on year after year then I have no respect for them.”

It is for the Palestinian people to decide who they should elect. Neither I nor you have the right to dictate to the Palestinians who their leaders should be. If they choose to elect Hamas, it is their choice. If they choose to elect Fatah, it is their choice.

Let Israel pull out of all the illegally ocupied territories, dismantle all the illegal settlements, and then let there be elections in which Palestinians freely and democratically choose their leaders.

Adam is a new keyboard, not any smarter or with new and viable arguments. Just the same old clap trap. Power is what counts. When the chips are down the buffalo is empty. And, this is empty argumentation for the sake capturing the thread.

That is a fact.

And now they have chosen war instead of negoiation.

This is a joke. The article itself is a joke and shows absolutley zero knowledge of how we got here - starting with the supposed ‘withdrawal’ from Gaza to the unprovoked attack on the Gaza beach; the airstrikes on Gaza which the U.S vetoed; Hezbollah gets involved(thank god for them when the U.S president doesn’t have the decency to end the carnage); Israel has been terrorizing Lebanon leading up to this - provoking Hezbollah attacks by flying low and fast(sonic booms)over Southern Lebanon attacking Hezbollah targets before this latest act of war - Israeli spies have been caught in Lebanon(making it look increasingly like they may have been involved in the a spate of car-bomb attacks in Lebanon). And lets not forget that Israel continues to illegally occupy Lebanese territory in the Sheeba farms.

All you jokers who support Israel are morally repugnent. A disgrace.

This country is a cancer in the middle east.

Lets hope it incurs a massive military defeat that brings it to the bargaining table - because nothing else will.

I, for one, 100% support Hezbelloh and Hamas in their efforts.

I made a post about military expediency, here. It says what I wanted to say about the degree of retaliation justified.

As for what Adam said, it is terrorism because a duly uniformed soldier operating under the rules of war was taken prisoner without Geneva Convention protections and access to the Red Cross. It’s rather hypocritical for people to justify the abuse of Israeli soldiers, and at the same time complain about the treatment of terroists.

“hey boy its a good argument with you cowards”

I admit defeat; I cannot argue with logic like that. You win.
Brad

These people would find an apology for dropping a nuclear bomb tommorow on Lebanon. The capture of Israeli troops is NOT terrorism. Kidnapping Palestinian civilians - like Israel did in Gaza THE DAY BEFORE the capture of the IDF boys - is terrorism. A father and son abducted without charge and without explanation.

I can’t believe the MSM - as pathetic as it is - is still touting the line that the capture of IDF soldiers is what started this war.

You’d have to be a complete arsehole to believe that.

I guess they must really want those soldiers back.

Badly.

That is if someone is trying to stab you to death shooting them makes you the aggressor and you are arrested and prosecuted (and you loose). If there is a greater than 50/50 chance one side will win that side is the aggressor.

There are quite a few in the US who want this here, but luckily most of the country thinks that is, well, strange. In quite a number of countries that had enacted this are now removing it - it didn’t end up working to great. Nor will the idea of proportional war.

Of course, to be proportional the appropriate response is for Israel to kidnap two of thier “soldiers” and send them to to the US run Gitmo as enemy combatants. There is no way one can legitmatly say that is disproportionate (well, except that I bet the Israeli soldiers recieve much worse treatment) - yet I doubt that any person that hates what Israel is doing now would like that.

Repeating something over and over is not the same as proving it. You keep asserting that Israel is the “aggressor.” Just what do you call kidnapping soldiers and raining missiles down on civilians? _That’s_ aggression, and Israel is responding appropriately by killing the aggressors and destroying the infrastructure they rely on.

But you aren’t interested in that. You just want to spew hatred for Israel and the West. So the question becomes, are you an Islamist sock-puppet, or just an idiot?

Good point, Ymar.

I’m not “justifying” what was done _after_ Gilat Shalit was captured. I agree that Shalit should be given full Geneva Convention protection by his captors, to which he is entitled. I was merely pointing out that the taking of Shalit was, however, neither “terrorism” nor “kidnapping”, but capture of a combatant soldier in an act of war.

Incidentally, if we are to talk Geneva Conventions here, then it is hypocritical not to hold Israel to Geneva Conventions as well. The Geneva Conventions outlaw “collective punishment”, which is exactly what Israel is perpetrating in Gaza:

“Last week the EU and UN criticised Israel for “disproportionate use of force” against Palestinians in the territory, while the Swiss government alluded to the Geneva conventions on the laws of war in stating that the Israeli campaign amounted to “collective punishment”.”
— _Guardian_ newspaper, UK,
July 12, 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1818657,00.html?gusrc=rss

“But you aren’t interested in that. You just want to spew hatred for Israel and the West”

Not at all. I’m for human rights everywhere, not just for Palestinians. (I want North Koreans to overthrow their dictator and gain their human rights, for example.)

I do want, however, that the concept of human rights not be applied in a selective way. Human rights are universal human rights, and to condone human rights violations when they are committed by Israel, while criticizing Palestinians, as many neocons tend to do, is hypocritical.

It seems very logical. Collective punishment would be Israel taking 1 man out of every 10 in Gaza and cutting their head off. And taking 1 women out of 50, and cutting their left hand off. And taking 1 child out of 5,000 in Gaza, and scooping out their eyes. That is collective punishment, and people who know military science know exactly what collective punishment is or is not.

No, they just live in misery. What’s more, they live in entirely self-imposed misery. What kept them from growing food in the greenhouses that Bill Gates bought them, where Israeli settlers once grew enough food to feed all of Israel twice over? It wasn’t any Israeli troops that ripped them all to pieces, but the Palestinians themselves.

But I guess Adam’s “economic warfare” must involve some kind of mind control rays. It can’t possibly be the result of millions of individuals deciding for themselves what to buy and who to contribute money to. Nope, it all has to be the fault of those damned Jewish bankers controlling the world.

“Kidnapping Palestinian civilians - like Israel did in Gaza THE DAY BEFORE the capture of the IDF boys - is terrorism. A father and son abducted without charge and without explanation.”

In fact, right on the same day that Gilad Shalit was captured, there was a report in the New York Times about James Miller, a British filmmaker and producer who was shot dead by Israeli forces in 2003. The jury in St Pancras Coroner’s Court in London has returned a verdict of unlawful killing, finding that he was “murdered”. Miller’s family is now pressuring the British government to ensure his killer is prosecuted, accusing the Israeli authorities of “an abject failure to uphold the fundamental and unequivocal standards of international humanitarian and human rights law.”

Please don’t take my word for this. Read up on the case yourself, with references, here in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Miller_(filmmaker)

So, while there’s all this commotion about the rights of the captured soldier, why are you neocons expressing no concern about James Miller’s killing?

Or, do human rights matter only when the concerned party is an Israeli or American citizen, but not when they are the citizen of some other country?

(By the way, James Miller was a Brit. So at least the case is getting talked about a little, because after all Britain is a first world country. But if he were one of those Palestinians whose rights are violated everyday, his case certainly wouldn’t have gotten even this little bit of exposure as it has!)

Read about the James Miller case here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Miller_(filmmaker)

When responsibility is not taken, eventually someone steps up and forces the issue. That is what is happening now. Stevie and his ilk, hands bloody along with the those of the Islamists, terrorists, and state supporters of terrorism are being forced to pay up.

If proportionality were not in force, large parts of the Middle East would be glassy wastelands. Israel is certainly not a disease. It is in fact one of the actors in delivering the cure.

I’ve served my time standing up for my beliefs. Yet stevie and his ilk, from the comfort of their chairs have the temerity to talk of “cancers” and “massive military defeats”. I suspect that they sill continue to sit in those comfortable chairs since acting in service to their beliefs might be actually dangerous.

And, now we read: “Squabbles over the legitimacy of Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel - including the capture of two Israeli soldiers that sparked the 4-day battle - appeared likely to keep participants from reaching a consensus, delegates said.” Criticizing Hezbollah: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq, the Palestinian Authority, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. “The rift appeared likely to prevent participants from issuing a unanimous resolution.” Solidarity in the Arab world just crumbled. Note the countries distancing themselves.

It would be well to remember Churchill’s famous statement about it “not (being) the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning.” This is not a bi-polar world anymore. States may now act on what they see as in their interest relatively untrammeled. But, they must, in turn, be ready to bear the responsibility for those actions. The US and a few other states have always recognized this and have taken some hits for their actions in defense of their interests.

It is too bad that the only way to hold some responsible for their actions also punishes the innocent along with the guilty. But, states, and the citizens of those states in particular must bear collective responsibility for their actions.

It’s easy and, ultimately fatuous, to apportion “responsibility” to states and non state actors. There is however an easier way. It is called “winning the fight” and that is a simple nose count.

There are still those of us who are not “neo-conservatives”, whatever they are, some of us are “old conservatives” or “Paleo-Conservatives, if you will. We know that, as Coach Lombardi once said, “Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.” We’ve had enough half victories and standoffs to have learned that Coach was right. We also know all about “Pyrrhic victory”, they usually happen when “proportionality” is made part of the game plan.

It is gratifying to see things coming together and we know that our time is coming. To quote Co

stevie, when are you and yours going to have the courage of your convictions and “confront the Fascist Insect in the streets? After all it’s worked so well in the past. Can’t sit in the folks basement with your computer too much longer if you expect to haelp your brothers and sisters in struggle. Listen to a little Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; get pumped, fight for what you believe in.

It’s not hypocritical because neocons do not disregard targeting civilians. War is hell. Why did Hezbollah kidnap the Israelis? Should Israelis say, “Oh well – they were nice boys, as the French say C’est la vie. It’s not the Israeli character. It’s a Iranian/Syrian ploy to prod and prod and prod and prod like a wicked old man prodding a dog … sooner or later the dog is just going to lash out. The old man will say, “See, the dog is rabid – we must kill it.” It looks like serious leaders in the world are recognizing this shallow tactic, instigated, supplied, and cheered on by Iran [primarily] and the Left [secondarily].

Edited By Siteowner

It’s like Rachel Corrie, who tried to screw around with heavy machinery at a construction site and got herself killed. The only thing separating her from a Darwin Award was the fact that she hated Israel as much as the MSM does.

In the current situation, Israel’s realistic options are limited by factors such as the Palestinian practice of hiding weapons in civilian areas. Anyone accusing Israel of disproportionality has a duty to suggest an alternative *practical* means of accomplishing the objectives.

“The only thing separating her from a Darwin Award was the fact that she hated Israel as much as the MSM does.”

Not as much as you hate yourself, isn’t that right Tatter?

Has to be that only somebody with a low-self esteem bordering on the sociopathic could actually post something like that.

It’s ok. Tatter, being a liberal I’ll forgive you out of sympathy….

Being a believer that ‘proportionality’ only lengthens a war and also makes it less likely your side will win, I say toss ‘proportional response’ out the window. Hamas and Hezbollah are attacking Israel with everything they’ve got. Israel should retaliate with the same.

These are bad people. Let’s accept that they can’t be rehabilitated and remove them from the planet.

That sort of language is not condoned and you can expect the blade of the National Razor to drop very soon. I will await the thump of your head in the basket.

Edited By Siteowner

July 14, 2006
UK Guardian
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The Lebanese people, habitues as few people are of the lethal, violent and unexpected, yesterday awoke to the kind of news they thought they had put behind them. Their brand-new airport, the pride of their postwar reconstruction, had been bombarded by Israeli war planes along with a host of other infrastructure projects, bringing death and devastation on a more than Gazan scale.

For some it inevitably brought to mind a bleak winter day in 1968 when, out of the blue, helicopter-borne Israeli commandos landed on the old airport and blew up 13 passenger jets, almost the entire fleet of the national carrier. The pretext: of two Palestinians who killed an Israeli at Athens airport, one came from a refugee camp in Lebanon, then an entirely peaceable country. The significance of this most spectacularly disproportionate reprisal was something the Lebanese could hardly even have guessed at then. But it was a very early portent of the long nightmare to come: military conflict with Israel, eventually to be compounded with an atrocious civil war that it did much to engender.

There is something ominously similar, in possible consequences, about yesterday’s repeat Israeli performance. Ever since the Israelis ended their occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000, this weak and diminutive country has enjoyed an almost unmarred respite from the turbulence of the region to which it so easily and habitually falls victim. But overnight it has been plunged back into the role it endured for a quarter century and more - that of hapless arena for other people’s wars, as well as pawn in the ambitions and machinations of regional players far more powerful than itself.

It is only the players who change. After 1968 it was to be the Palestinian resistance movement, with Lebanon as its principal power base, that was Israel’s antagonist in Lebanon. Now it is Hizbullah. To be sure, Hizbullah is Lebanese in everything that defines nationality, and it has cabinet ministers and members of parliament. That is why Israel could so plausibly blame the Lebanese government for the seizure of its two soldiers. Yet blaming Lebanon was as about as futile as blaming President Mahmoud Abbas for the earlier capture of an Israeli solder in Gaza. If Islamists act on their own in Palestine, Hizbullah does so even more blatantly in Lebanon. It is a virtual state within a state, with a militia more powerful than the Lebanese army. Of course, in its Lebanese self Hizbullah places that army in the defence of Lebanon. But it has another self - another identity, mission, agenda - that it always tries to reconcile with its Lebanese one, but in the final analysis cannot: that of universal jihad and all that now implies in terms of non-Lebanese regional ambitions, allegiances, obligations and constraints. Palestine now looms largest in that.

I do so enjoy a self immolation. With the fat ones the flames tend to linger long enough to read a short book. I suspect, however, that you are quite thin; and short, very short. Hardly enough to notice.

Adam get with the program. If UK wants to take this issue as a declaration of war, they are free to do so. But they haven’t. So we don’t care about acts not leading to war, we care about acts leading to war.

This is the Israel vs Lebanon vs Palestine war we’re talking about, try and stay on the same subject if you seek to accuse people of being inconsistent. Different subjects mean different subjects, not “inconsistency”.

You can’t change the subject by talking about the United Kingdom you know. Red Herring.

Will that do it?

Looks like someone might get their IP banned — having trouble advancing your argument their stevie lol

Israel has about sixty MODERN WORKING DELIVERABLE nuclear weapons.

As of now, she hasn’t used them. Two or three would turn Gaza into melted glass. Eight or ten would effectively melt Lebanon. Ten or fifteen would toast Syria.

And that’s only about half the arsenal. The other half can be saved for Iran.

Sounds like forebearance to me.

“Faster, please…”

x

You actually believe the Guardian…my, my. True Blue Leftist…

You’re more illiterate than I thought. Is English your first language?

Or French…or Arabic…Or Russian??

x

Cute sarcasm, neo. The truth is that Europe has decades’ worth of experience in dealing with terrorists that the Cowboy-in-Chief could learn from if he could pry his nose out of Mad magazine.

It’s pretty ironic that the Republican architects of 2006 are doing everything they can to distance themselves from the disastrous, self-destructive policies of the first four years and are doing the best they can to suck up to the Europeans and others that they scorned in 2002/3.

And, of course, Hezbolah and Hamas, are local branches of Islamofascism internationale. Part of the reason for the slower-than-normal condemnations of Israel may be that it is finally sinking to world leaders that we are in a World War with the Radical Islamists.

Israel is going to blow up enough Hizbollah nuggets that Lebanon will come in and pick up the pieces.

“”Cultural warfare” does not kill. But economic warfare does, because if you take away people’s livelihood and reduce them to destitution and starvation, people die.”

No, they just live in misery. What’s more, they live in entirely self-imposed misery.

Read the following carefully:

“Top Israeli government advisor Dov Weissglas, optimistic as he had always been, wished to see the humor in starving Palestinians. (The economic siege) “is like an appointment with a dietician. The Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but they won’t starve to death.” ”

–”How Many More Must Die?” by Ramzy Baroud, full text at:
http://www.counterpunch.org/baroud07052006.html

[Ramzy Baroud teaches mass communication at Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia.]

So Israel looks to have a fair ammount of time to kick the dog poo out of the Hez and in the process teaching the Lebanese government not to cede control to extra territorial elements

Lebanon is fearful that Hez may try to kick off a new civil war and those awful Israeli’s keep using “disproportionate” means.

UNSC is at a standstill due to abstensions and a US veto so no muti-national “peace” force this time.

Who can save tiny Lebanon being savaged by all the contenders in the fracas and possibly losing the tiny bit of democracy it has developed since kicking a lot of the Syrians out?

(Que the Mighty Mouse Theme)”Here he comes to save the day…”. The Lebanese government declares a national emergency and asks the United States to step in and secure the country. Israel curls its moustache and says, “Curses, foiled again.” having neatly boxed the Hez in the south declares a cease fire while it turns its attentions once more towards the Paleos.

Assad and the Baathists in Damascus wet themselves. The Iranian “president” has a siezure and chews up a priceless carpet, exceeding his fiber requirements for the next six months. The Kurds, ten percent of the Syrian population

Now, we know Israel’s objective: the destruction of Hezbollah as a fighting force, and its replacement along the Israel-Lebanon border by a force that won’t attack Israel. The question of proportionality is, do the IDF’s present actions in Lebanon serve that objective; and, could it be accomplished with less damage by other actions? I suggest to you all, that the only people at this moment who could answer that question are in either Hezbollah or the IDF — for they alone know where Hezbollah’s forces are, and how they might be defeated.

Certainly the EU and the UN don’t have a clue. What they’ve said amounts to simple prejudice: the assumption that Israel must be doing evil, long prevalent in those circles. It isn’t a conclusion from the facts, because nobody in those circles has the facts necessary to reach a conclusion.

The Kurds in Iran, smelling the makings of a de facto Kurdish state become as restive as the Azari…. Well you get the picture.

Lebanon is saved from Israeli savagery. The US tells the Hez that the solution is disarmament, which they of course refuse. Those who stand and fight are left cooling in the dust while the rest run away to Syria, causing no end of problems there, which couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of guys.

Iran, you remember Iran, finds its client, Syria redundant since it was not able to help project Iranian combat power to the border of Israel. Syria is between a rock and a hard place actually several places called Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, a tiny bit of Israel (only forty or so miles from Damascus) and a US occupied Lebanon. Was that the sound of a domino falling?

United Kingdom
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AS2856 BTnet UK Regional network

I would not expect you to understand why friends help friends nor that others might have intrests somewhat broader than yourself. You might also want to contact bob-bob. You have been banned from this site yet you persist placing you in violation of BT’s TOS. The balance of the action I will leave to the site owner. I’m bored with all this and plan to take a hot shower since the Leftists have made it a sewer; directing your attention to stevie’s comments.

Aswe say in the USA…

Get Lost
(or)
Go Away, Boy: You Bother Me.

Cheers

That Israel has unleashed its rage over sixty years of unrelenting attacks infuriates those who see its establishment as original sin, yet offer no ideas on how that sin can be absolved without another holocaust. That those who are backing Israel’s foes in Lebanon have openly and recently called for their annihilation means nothing in the progressive equation of utopia; it’s just a factor to be left out because it messes up the product. That Iran moves closer to the bomb, and southern Lebanon would be the perfect launching pad seems to be of little interest to those who believe peace in our time can be achieved by friendly dialogue with those who call for your destruction. The religious faith (despite their antipathy towards religion) that so-called “progressives” have in their vision and belief system blinds them to the practical realities of the carnal, mortal life and the history of civilization.

I don’t believe that Israel is exacting collective punishment on the Lebanese people. It appears to be much more than that. They appear to be preparing for a larger campaign to end the threat to their existence, sooner rather than later.

Here’s some Arab perspectives on the new conflict.