AMosely

What might it feel like to be one of the thousands of Palestinians who do not support Hamas? Or a Lebanese civilian who most certainly does not wish to go to war, or let Hezbollah occupy the southern border? Do you suppose they trust the election results as valid? These same people are being held to account for things that are far beyond their control and have no way to escape it.

Trooper

Simple Break down. Israel is very deadly, its people are people of war. Their nation was created thru war and the Israeli people have fought to keep their freedoms since the days of the Hebrew's, its gonna be messy how ever it goes. I have a feeling the USA will help Israel bit weapons (more) Advisor's, intelligence, money, so how we will be involved. We are America thats what we do.
Britain will get dragged in because feel they need to back our every move, which isn't good for their country. France will start to help the opfor (Muslims) well because they seem to like to help what ever side is winning at the time. Turkey will get drug into this, they have a big interest in keeping shipping and receiving lanes open.
Egypt, Jordan and Syria are gonna be the mini-buffers for this whole deal. because once Iran starts lobbing nukes around people are gonna start to realign weapons and sides. It wont take Iran to start to "feel threatened" and start shooting. Hezbolah is an Iranian group thats is causeing the problems, so once they start getting beat Iran is gonna start to get itchy.

O and Russia will profit the most from this war, considering 75% of the weapons and machinery in this conflict are russian.

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that sounds like a good idea trooper.
-Vulcan

H-Hour

Well, International Law says you're not allowed to do this. You can't target a civilian population with military strikes, such as what Israel has done in Gaza by blowing up the power plants that service 2/3 of the population, or in Lebanon by shutting down a civilian airport.

Israel has directly stated its intent to target the civilian population with collective punishment, which is an expicit violation of the 4th Geneva Conventions.

No matter how much the "will of the people" is in support of violations of human rights or international law, you can't target the civilian population. Even though the U.S. economic infrastructure, and the people working in it, are very responsible for human rights violations around the world, targeting the World Trade Center was still a violation of International Law.

Everyone knows the Palestinians' and Hezbollah's violations of International Law.

But in this case, both the joint PRC/Islamic Army/Hamas attack and the Hezbollah attack targeted uniformed military personnel and equipment. All three of the soldiers reportedly "kidnapped" are uniformed military personnel captured during operations between enemy combatants.

Israel has responded by targeting civilians.



Also, just days before the Palestinian attack on Kerem Shalom, the IDF invaded Rafah - the same city in Gaza from which the Palestinian attack would originate days later - and captured two Palestinians, who today remain in Israeli prisons with hundreds more. No one took notice. Certainly, no one called this a "kidnapping", even though the Israelis were not obliged to provide any proof that the two were guilty of any crime.

H-Hour

No. The IDF is by far the largest army involved and they are supplied by U.S. machinery, supplemented by their own arms industry (Merkava Tanks).

Switchcraft

Attacking power plants and airfields are not war crimes.

And singling out attacks on military targets while ignoring the hundreds of rockets launched indiscriminantly into civilian areas both before and after this whole thing started is disgusting.

But if you want to say the kidnapping of a soldier was lawful because these people are all enemies, then you should have no problem with Israel's treatment of these incidents as acts of war and responding accordingly.

TheFatKidDeath

Al-Qadia has not taken responsibility for 911 and a host of other attacks? Hamas doesn't claim responsibility for suicide bombers? A claim of responsibility by those groups is made every time they commit a terrorist act.

Well, Israel claims a "right" to defend it's nation. That claim is made almost everytime an Israel offical appears on television. Ok, if we accept Israel's premise of "rights", then certainly the Palestinian's have a "right" to invade Israel to free their prisoners.

But you are certainly correct on the question of consequences, because the Israel/Palestinian conflict is so lop-sided that the Palestinian's suffer the worst of the consequences. Yes, terrorist's act are committed against Israel, but the real body count is on the Palestinian side. If we are to deal in cold numbers, the Palestinian deaths (and perhaps include the Lebanese for the sake of the thread) vastly out number Israeli deaths.

Kerostasis

Putting out a statement on a website saying that you DID something is a far cry from taking RESPONSIBILITY for it. Responsibility is not about finding out who caused something, its about finding out who is going to pay for it.

Over here in the US, those two terms usually go together. So I can understand your confusion on the subject. But its time to wake up, and see what the world is really like.

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H-Hour

"Airfield" is a clever way to make a civilian international airport sound like a legitimate target. Would we really accept it as legitimate if someone bombed La Guardia?

And attacking power plants and airports are breaches of international law if the primary targets of the attack are civilians. Israel has made it perfectly clear that it's goal in Gaza is to make life hell for the civilian population.

I didn't ignore the hundreds of rockets launched. As I said:

I didn't say the capture of the soldiers was lawful "because these people are all enemies", I said it was not a kidnapping because the soldiers were uniformed personnel captured during combat between the IDF and militant forces.

Of course, no one cares to even remember the fact that Palestinians kidnapped and executed an Israeli CIVILIAN settler in the West Bank right after the capture of the first Israeli soldier. He is forgotten, and the hundreds of Palestinians held in Israel without trial would be forgotten if anyone had ever paid attention to them.

Switchcraft

If we were at waging war against another country, all of our airfields would be legit targets if they were used to transport military equipment.

In this case, Israel claims that particular airfield is used to transfer weapons to hezbollah, which is currently launching attacks from Lebanon into Israel. It is not a violation of international law to target enemy military infratructure.

USN_Squid

H-Hour, I think it's a little unfair to use an example in the US don't you? The situation over there is much more complicated than one analog can explain. To counter your example I could say that if a terrorist organization based in the US had captured Canadian Soldiers and Canada bombed La Guardia in response the US would be searching for those terrorists with everything we had.

Unfortunately Lebanon has yet to comply with the UN's request to rid southern Lebanon of Hizballah.

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Drizzid

Hey guys just want to let you know we have a member that is about 45mins away from some of the fighting that is going on there. Shafik who is a member of the 12th lives in Isreal so lets hope this cools down quickly for his sake. I am sure he would like to know that all of TG is thinking of him. Thanks

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H-Hour

The IDF, frankly, has no credibility whatsoever anymore.


I don't. Why do you think it's unfair? Because we're a better country? We're more stable? The fight is "dirtier" out there? I don't mean to make this a personal attack, but that sounds very similar to the rationalizations used to justify colonial practices - that there is one set of practices for us civilized folks and one set of practices for the barbarians.

Why is the Beirut airport something different than La Guardia? Do you think weapons haven't been smuggled through La Guardia?

What about this comparison: If Syria was to bomb Ben Gurion airport (Israel's main civilian airport), you think Israel and the U.S. would treat this as a legitimate target? They don't even treat uniformed military personnel as a legitimate target!

USN_Squid

No, that's not what I meant at all.

Trying to make a comparison of the decades old Israel/Palestine conflict with a single isolated hypothetical incident in the west just doesn't give justice to the gravity of the situation. That was all.

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Switchcraft

No credibility? Have you ever worked with them? Do you just simply believe that Beirut airport has never been used to transfer weapons to Hizbollah?

And what eactly made Hizbollah fighters crossing into Israel and kidnapping Israeli soldiers legitimate, in your mind? Because that's certainly a violation of international law.

Rincewind

I agree drizzid. It's important to remember this affects people we know. I hope this is resolved quickly and amicably for their sake.

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~~ Veritas simplex oratio est ~~
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