Middle East erupts

[Undertoad]

I'm really happy to let others judge what I write. All I ask is that they read it first.

[DanaC]

Brianna. Do a quick head count of how many people have died in Israel to arab attacks ( including all those dead to palestinian suicide bombs) and then do a quick count on the death toll in the Lebanon and Palestine in the same period, then tell me the Arabs are good at playing victim.

Israel is illegally occupying someone else's country. It is recognised by the United Nations as being engaged in an illegal occupation. Goliath is camped out in David's back yard and the world is feeling sorry for Goliath.

That last post didn't sound like me? Well, it was. This issue is one I feel very strongly about. It's also a subject I know quite a bit about. I have friends who make regular trips of months or years at a time, to Gaza. I have letters and videos brought back by them. I know the names of people they've lost. I know what they have borne witness to (in the name of peace, they are a Christian Mission).

Like I said, through the looking glass, straight through the rabbit hole, turn left and watch out for cluster bombs. The world's turned upside down. The victims are held to full account and the ones with the biggest guns get to wail their losses.

And how do we justify this? That some voices in the Arab world decry the presence of a Jewish state. Well. I know in the past the Israelis had to fight for their survival, but those days are long gone. They are now the power and the voices crying for their destruction are really spouting the rhetoric of the defeated. It is a willful misunderstanding of that fact which allows the Israeli state to unleash such unrestrained and bloody slaughter on those enemies.

This is an unevan struggle. Even with a war on two fronts they are a lion swatting at mice. With each night of rockets the Hezbolla attacks kill or maim a few unlucky souls. Meanwhile Israel destroys utterly any semblance of civilisation amongst the Lebanese in order to strike at Hezbolla, even though most of the casualties have nothing to do with Hezbolla.

And before people point at hezbollah and say,that they are drawing israeli
fire upon the civilians and that makes them guilty of war crimes, Israel has a choice as to whether to launch such a devastating response.

They could have considered other responses. For instance they could have done a prison exchange as Hezbollah wanted and as has been done in the past.

On a side note: do you know how many Arab women and children the Israelis hold in their jails these days? Betyou don't. These of course being jails under a system in which torture is legal.

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Brianna. Do a quick head count of how many people have died in Israel to arab attacks ( including all those dead to palestinian suicide bombs) and then do a quick count on the death toll in the Lebanon and Palestine in the same period, then tell me the Arabs are good at playing victim.

Considering that when they "play" victim they don't give a rat's ass about the body count, as long as it advances their cause?

They're good at it.

After all, it worked on you, didn't it?

[DanaC]

And the Israelis do give a rats ass about body count? They certainly don't make much of an effort to minimise civilian deaths. Given that they're supposed to be the civilised one in this war.

So basically Maggie what you are saying is that its the arabs own fault that their death toll is so high? and that theyve willingly allowed many of their people to be brutally slaughtered just to fool the likes of me?

Wasn't anything to do with any of that that made me see the injustices of that region. It was something much smaller and far removed from Hamas or Hezbollah fighters. A tiny incident, an instance amongst many in an ordinary daily life.

The looking glass logic is truly in effect here. Just as it is when we look at Iraq. An American president who cannot conscience the murder of feotuses to save lives but will happily preside over an initial assault on Baghdad that took nigh on 30,000 civilian lives.

We make up our morality on the fly. We twist it to suit our agendas and to fit the faces of our friends.

[Hippikos]

Body count:

Israel: 43 civillian, 112 soldiers
Lebanon 1043, mostly civillian (or actors?)

[JayMcGee]

I think you'll find they're mostly actors, hippy K..... in the biggest snuff movie ever made....


You look at the news... this buliding down, that one a pile of rubble...

but there's dead people in that oh so surgically struck wreckage....

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Tw invariably supports antidemocracies, and downs democracies -- we all know that. Draw your own conclusions about whether this man is worth the powder to blow his nose.

[MsSparkie]

We all know that Israel is being defensive.....not offensive, no matter how aggressive their defense is.

[JayMcGee]

*checks thread for previous germane posts by townie hoodie*

NONE FOUND! (sirens wail)

TROLL ALERT! TAKE COVER!

[Ibby]

You can dislike things the US has done without being communist.
You can misunderstand human nature without being communist.
You can agree with things that commies have said without being communist.
You can think that democracies are not automatically right without being communist.
In fact, you can easily do all of those without being communist.

Show me where tw has ever said anything about wanting socialism, communism, totalitarianism, or anything of the sort. You logic is along the lines of 'He runs fast, has a big wang, is strong, wears baggy clothes, and wears hats, so he must be black!' It's nothing but stereotypes and incomplete assumptions.

[Hippikos]

And I thought McCarthy was dead for years...

[Aliantha]

There can be no democracy without communism anyway. Everything needs a paradox; an equal and opposite force. It's one of the principal laws of physics. What makes communism so evil anyway? (can't wait for this)

[DanaC]

*Hands Aliantha a hardhat and tucks in behind the sandbags, damp ciggie hanging from lips*

Well this should be entertaining.

(Incidentally and appropos of nothing: is that Aliantha as in the berry?)

[Aliantha]

Yeah...big Stephen Donaldson fan here. Being a lefty, I spend a lot of time in fantasy land.

note: I do realize the definition of paradox is not 'an equal and opposite force', so don't bother correcting me. It'd be fairly easy to argue that communism is a paradox of democracy though.

[Aliantha]

ps. That note wasn't for your benefit Dana.