Trooper

what about ben?

__________________
that sounds like a good idea trooper.
-Vulcan

Lucky Shot

Not saying that they are in siege mode yet, but many supplies are being shipped in via plane. Ports, airfields should be considered military targets regardless of the number of military jets that use them as they are used to resupply armies. Same is true of bridges and other pieces of infrastructure. TO me that includes powerplants, communication centers, anything that can power or fuel the enemy.

Lucky Shot

Trooper

You can really see the different mentalities in this conflict. I could be way off but from what Ive read thats all Israel is going for, military targets. But hezbollah is just shotting at what ever they can get in range of. And the sad thing is the Lebanon government doesn't have enough power to get rid of the terrorists and keep this stable.

reading some news articles tonight alot of Arab nations are pissed at Iran and hezbollah for this problem, most realize its not Israel causing the issue.

__________________
that sounds like a good idea trooper.
-Vulcan

CingularDuality

Destroying critical infrastructure, regardless of its effect on civilians, is NOT the same as "attacking civilians" and is absolutely not a violation of international law...

__________________

Become a supporting member!

Buy a Tactical Duck!
Take the world's smallest political quiz! "I was touched by His Noodly Appendage."
TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

H-Hour

I've been shot at by them. And yes, they have no credibility. They have lied repeatedly about their own responsibility in killing civilians and it has later been shown pretty clearly that they were lying. But nobody outside of Israeli newspapers carry the followup. They just report the IDF "preliminary investigation", which is just whatever the officer in charge at the time says, and bury followup.

No. I didn't say or imply such a thing. In fact, I implied the opposite by saying that La Guardia was a reasonable analogy because weapons have likely been smuggled through La Guardia.

Again, I never said it was legitimate. You already accused me of this and I already showed you that I didn't say it was legitimate.

Please don't assume just because I'm criticizing Israel's actions that I think anything any Arabs do is perfectly legitimate.

-------------------------------

I still disagree with several of you about the bombings of the power plant and the international airport in Beirut, but I see the debate just spiraling. I know I won't convince several of you, but I also know that there are people reading these forums who are interested in some of the things I have to say.

In that regard, I'll just close by saying both the attack on the power plant in Gaza - which serviced nearly 2/3 of a population already on the brink of humanitarian crisis - and the airport in Beiruit were not part of legitimate operations targeting infrastructure critical to violent (or militant) operations against Israel. Though Israel obviously tries to tie each attack into a valid military objective, the actual target was the civilian population. It is this targeting that makes the attacks illegitimate.

In Gaza, the attack was designed to create terrible living conditions in an attempt to coerce the civilian population into demanding the release of Shalit. Militants in Gaza use cell phones and assault rifles. They do not need electricity to launch rockets into Israel or to withstand any Israeli invasion of Gaza.

In Beiruit, the attack was part of a broader campaign to blockade Lebanon from the air and the sea, and to frighten northern Lebanese civilians into demanding Hezbollah comply with Israeli demands. I'm sure Hezbollah has routed weapons through the airport, but look at a map. Lebanon shares a LAND BORDER with Syria, it's main supporter. Is destroying an airport in the most remote location from both Syria and southern Lebanon going to seriously interrupt Hezbollah's supply of weapons?

CingularDuality

I love your posts on anything related to Israel. I just think you're wrong on this one thing.
Again, targets don't have to have a direct military value to be a legitimate target. Armies don't declare war on each other. Nations do.

__________________

Become a supporting member!

Buy a Tactical Duck!
Take the world's smallest political quiz! "I was touched by His Noodly Appendage."
TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

SmokingTarpan

Your logic seems to suggest that any object that has a civilian use (power plant, airport, road, railway) should be completely exempt from war due to the fact that it makes life harder for non-combatants. If this were the actual case, and assuming that all parties adhered to the rules, battles would pretty much never be fought due to the amount of a nation's infrastructure that impacts civilian life.

Even if Israel's goal was to make life hell for normal citizens, that still does not change the fact that the military derives use from airports, roads, powerplants and other structures. A country without electricity, air supplies or a means to transport people/gear is at a severe military disadvantage, and it's a sound war strategy to destroy those things (at least to the point of making them immediately useless to your enemy).

I'm not stating an opinion on the matter of Israel vs. Middle East, merely stating that your logic is flawed.

__________________

[squadl]
"I am the prettiest african-american, vietnamese..cong..person." -SugarNCamo

Mateo

For once, I agree. This is really, really, bad, like, on a Global scale.

Beatnik

Yep. This definitely has the potential to be an incredibly de-stabilizing force in what is already the least stable region on the planet.

__________________

icky

If I may speculate, I feel that the actions taken by Israel have an obvious motivation. They have made a clear choice to make the neighboring governments take responsibility for the actions of terrorists within their borders. Rather than trying to fight with terrorists who hide among civilians, protected by the government, they are declaring "We are at war with Lebanon until the terrorists are brought to justice BY Lebanon". They are choosing targets which will force the Lebanese government to take action. No matter what action Lebanon takes, it can't be any worse than sitting back while Lebanese terrorists attack civilians in their country.

We can only hope that there can be a sane outcome at the end of all this. There is one thing for sure. Countries cannot be allowed to claim ignorance or helplessness when terrorists are operating from within their borders. I'm sure if Lebanon said "Come help us clean these buggers out of our country", someone would answer their call, but they will not, and I doubt that even the very real threat to "set Lebanon back 20 years" will motivate them to do so.

__________________
Peace through fear... since 1947!

Kerostasis

In line with what Icky is saying, I think Israel is sending out a call to the people of Lebanon, that says:

The time for neutrality is past. It is too late to stand idly by and hope others will solve the problem. YOU are involved, and now you have a simple choice: Join Hezbollah and fight against us, or rise up against Hezbollah and throw them out, with our help.

I like that message.

__________________

icky

Keeping in mind that we've been down this road and the larger connecting highways before.

__________________
Peace through fear... since 1947!

Steeler

The Israeli ambassador is currently playing the liberation card, saying that Lebanon citizens have been repressed by Hizbollah and that they are at war with the terrorists, not Lebanon itself. That's a distinction I don't expect too many people in the line of fire to make (it hasn't worked well in Iraq). However, some factions within Beirut seem receptive to the idea of Israel doing their house-cleaning for them.

On the other hand, bombing airports and refineries might end that receptiveness pretty fast. We'll have to see how it pans out, but this is definitely the kind of conflict where if the major players don't settle on some form of cease-fire or reduction in violence, it could easily spill over into neighboring countries.

__________________

icky

Everything I've seen and heard indicates that the people of southern Lebanon fully embrace Hezbollah. Maybe it is because they have no choice, maybe it is because they feel they need to fear Israel, or maybe it is because they hate Israel and they think Hezbollah can make them go away. No matter what, that is going to make the whole deal very difficult to resolve for anyone. It really sounds like Lebanon is two distinct countries. One with government leadership and they other with heavily armed terrorist leaders.

Attacking the Lebanese infrastructure directly gives Israel a solid bargaining chip right off the start. The first time they talk, Israel can say "Ok, we will leave your airports out of this IF you agree to...". This has far more weight than "We will leave Hezbollah alone if you agree to...". I doubt they want to keep attacking Lebanon, but they will if nobody gets to the bargaining table.

__________________
Peace through fear... since 1947!

Beatnik

It doesn't appear as if Lebanon is positioning itself to start bargaining. It appears that they're interested in escalating the conflict.

__________________