Middle East erupts

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

All they had to do was give the soldiers back.

All who had to do? Hezbollah wants this to happen.

[Trilby]

Of all the depressing things--the Boing Boing link Kitsune provided to the nuts waiting to be raptured is the most depressing.

[JayMcGee]

Both the beeb and ITN have been showing the kids with shrapnel wounds all over them..... ITN claimed tonight that 1/3rd of fatalaties on both sides are children. Are you getting this in the US?

[Undertoad]

I get it perfectly, Jay.

By the way, Saudi clerics are harder on Hisballah than you are

[JayMcGee]

I'm harder on the IDF than on Hezbollah......

I'm kinda intrigued though by the american mindset that can condemm Hezbollah yet fund the IRA.

[tw]

In the meantime, innocent Maronites, Shi'ites, and Druze are murdered because Israel blames everyone else - and somehow that murder of the innocents is justified as if protecting Jews. Clearly they are also evil only because they live in the same region.

How to end it? For every arab murdered, also murder a jew. Make sure that every race suffers in equal numbers. Even better, smuggle arms to all parties. Guess what. Extremists are not so smart anymore.

This conflict will not end until as least 10% from all sides are murdered. The more gross those deaths, then the better. Sorry. But history demonstrates this is the only way to drive intelligent people from the ranks of extremists. Make sure all arms are distributes so that deaths are equal on all sides. The faster we murder, then the faster peace will happen.

Shameful that no one even in the US Congress has any respect for the innocent citizens of Lebanon. But then America is no longer an honest broker. It is no accident that George Jr destroyed the Oslo Accords.

[Trilby]

Originally Posted by JayMcGee

american mindset that can condemm Hezbollah yet fund the IRA.

I always found that to be a problem, too. When Bush said there's a war on terror, I immediately wondered when the US was going to invade Ireland and fight the IRA...

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by Brianna

I always found that to be a problem, too. When Bush said there's a war on terror, I immediately wondered when the US was going to invade Ireland and fight the IRA...

According to the IRA, the UK had already done that, no?

[Aliantha]

Brianna...I wondered the same thing.

[Undertoad]

Headline: Hezbollah leader apologizes for attack's child victims

But not all children:

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah apologized for an attack that killed two Israeli Arab children in northern Israel, saying the youngsters were "martyrs for Palestine."

In a Thursday interview with Arabic-language news network Al-Jazeera, Nasrallah accepted responsibility for the Wednesday attack, while conceding that an apology to the family was not sufficient.

In a later interview, Nasrallah said, "OK, we weren't supposed to totally admit that we really only want to kill Jews, so to keep the world's 'anti-zionist' story straight. But in all this confusion, we just plum forgot. Hey it was Al-Jazeera, so the infidels weren't supposed to notice anyway. Thanks to CNN for at least correcting the mistake in the headline."

[Aliantha]

Whether the party is legitimate or not doesn't negate their illegal actions, so no, I'm not anxious to hang the tag on them. The legitimacy of Hezbollah doesn't change the number of lives that've been lost due to their actions, nor does it change the course of events which has surely changed history, especially if what has been reported here is true in that the US is funding/supplying Israel during the course of these events.

Considering that Hezbollah is, if not officially then certainly unofficially, supported by the likes of Iran and Syria, I would say that this will legitimize the US intent to drop something on Iran sooner or later during the course of this conflict, which of course, would enable the Bush government to feel quite justified I'm sure.

With this thought in mind, I'd suggest that Hezbollah has played straight into the hands of the US government.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

Whether the party is legitimate or not doesn't negate their illegal actions, so no, I'm not anxious to hang the tag on them.

Which is really quite irrelevant. Hezbollah exists only because of Sharon's 'consolidation of positions' all the way to Beruit, the massacre of 5000 Palestinians arranged by Sharon, and the resulting Lebanon civil war. Hezbollah was created by Lebanonese as the only defense that Lebanon had against Israel. Hezbollah simply has not changed its founding and strategic objectives. An example of how one creates its own enemies.

They don't talk to one another. Therefore war is the only alternative. Make it real bad. Make the losses on all sides equal and high. Only then will parties in dispute finally decide that maybe talk (conducted by empowered centrists) is the only intelligent alternative. Currently everyone directly involved - including the US - only wants war. Don't fool yourself. Everyone is operating with illegal motives. Everyone directly involved only wants war - and is looking for cover to justify that war.

[Aliantha]

Thanks for the history lesson tw. It's always interesting to get a different perspective on these things.

I think the most important questions here are; what motivated the capture of the Israeli soldiers in the first place? Who decided to create this situation? Who thinks they're going to gain something by it?

Everyone has their suspicions and individual thoughts on the matter. I don't think any of us will ever know the full truth of it. I think we'll all be lucky to survive it.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

I think the most important questions here are; what motivated the capture of the Israeli soldiers in the first place? Who decided to create this situation? Who thinks they're going to gain something by it?

Apparently Hezbollah was doing what it had done previously to get large numbers of imprisioned (and uncharged) Palestinians out of prision in exchange for kidnapped soldiers. However, they did not 'feel the wind'. The resulting escalation is probably a major surprise to Hezbollah. They were probably only doing a deal and ended up with far more than they expected. Remember, no parties talk to one another. Israel does not even talk to Lebanon's government. Notes are only exchanged via the UN. Therefore war (and these minor and mostly irrelevant kidnapping) are situation normal.

Again, feel the air. The US administration wants war. A Cheney agenda whereby war is preferred over diplomacy as a quick, ultimate, and final solution. It is, BTW, a same concept promoted by Gen Curtis LeMay who said we were already at war with the USSR; American did not yet know it. This has a 'Cheney agenda' written all over it.

One more question. Will the Lebanonese government remain intact if Israel invades? Probably. But don't forget a previous Israel invasion that created a Lebanon civil war. Another civil war is remote - but still remains possible.

[Aliantha]

With Lebanon being a country with fairly equal parts of Islamic and Christian values, it would seem fairly likely that civil war is exactly what will happen with the Christian population being funded by the Israelis et al and the Islamic population being funded by their old partners in crime.

I agree that this was a bad time for any 'deals' to occur for the militants. I agree that this situation has been anticipated avidly by some groups of the international community and I would even go as far as suggesting that these particular parties have orchestrated the entire incident in order to achieve their own goals.

Funny how everyone's forgotten Iraq for the time being huh?