IMO, this entire vendetta in the Middle East will end when either A) the oil supply is depleted or B) our reliance on fossil fuels ends.
All of the grief in the Middle East is religious but what funds it is oil revenues. If Iraq hadn't any oil, we never would have gone there. It would be like Rwanda, The Sudan and other areas where violence goes on seemingly unchecked until the UN steps in. Our strike was unilateral no matter how much the Bush Administration wants to say we were joined by our allies. Gunboat/Cowboy diplomacy at its worst and all for some shitty oil revenues.
Israel's Biggest Mistake
Why only the Middle East? Why not the world? Oh, yes, it's the Jews who rule the world, and since you're not anti-Semite, you do make the distinction.
Mel Gibson is anti-Semite. Israel is a bully, one among quite a few here in our tortured part of the world. The Middle East is ruled by cynical, global economic interests and motivations, represented by people in many Arab capitols as well as in non Arabs one, such as Teheran and Washington. That Israel is willingly taking part in this nasty game is obvious, and you're welcome to address this issue. When you fall back onto these old and familiar patterns of argument, you're not.
Mel Gibson is anti-Semite. Israel is a bully, one among quite a few here in our tortured part of the world. The Middle East is ruled by cynical, global economic interests and motivations, represented by people in many Arab capitols as well as in non Arabs one, such as Teheran and Washington. That Israel is willingly taking part in this nasty game is obvious, and you're welcome to address this issue. When you fall back onto these old and familiar patterns of argument, you're not.
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VanHelsing
- Assistant
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No point mentioning all these. Israel will continue to rule the Middle East INCORRIGIBLY with USA backing it 100%.
Oh no, am I considered an anti-Semite already? I'm scared... I don't want to go to jail like Mel Gibson.
Oh no, am I considered an anti-Semite already? I'm scared... I don't want to go to jail like Mel Gibson.
With a Southern accent...
"Don't you dare lie to me!" and...
"You threaten my congeniality, you threaten me!"
-------
"You shouldn't be doing what you're doing. The truth is enough!"
"Are you and Perry?" ... "Please, Nelle."
"Don't you dare lie to me!" and...
"You threaten my congeniality, you threaten me!"
-------
"You shouldn't be doing what you're doing. The truth is enough!"
"Are you and Perry?" ... "Please, Nelle."
Unfortunately, I find all these rules, bar # 10, to be reasonably accurate. Those fluently English speaking Israelis you mentioned are usually American born or, like Netanyahu, were educated there. As a rule, the English of people here, of my generation or older, tends to be worse than that of well educated Palestinians, but I guess there is no way one could know that from watching Fox News instead of the BBC. But do remember that Political correctness, like so many other things, is a matter of geography, and in other parts of the "West" you may find other, at times contradicting, at times just as ridiculous, sets of rules.
On the other hand, I would have skipped that little fable. Your point was finely made and there was no need to "symbolically" sledge hammer it.
On the other hand, I would have skipped that little fable. Your point was finely made and there was no need to "symbolically" sledge hammer it.
I thought this was funny, rather apt, yet scary and true all at the same time.
Rules of POLITICAL CORRECTNESS when it comes to the Israeli-Arab conflict:
Rule # 1 : In the Middle East, it is always the Arabs that attack first, and it's always Israel who defends itself. This is called "retaliation".
Rule # 2: The Arabs, whether Palestinians or Lebanese, are not allowed to kill Israelis. This is called "terrorism"/
Rule # 3: Israel has the right to kill Arab civilians, this is called
"self-defence", or these days "collateral damage".
Rule # 4: When Israel kills too many civilians. The Western world calls for restraint. This is called the "reaction of the international community".
Rule # 5: Palestinians and Lebanese do not have the right to capture Israeli military, not even a limited number, not even 1 or 2.
Rule # 6: Israel has the right to capture as many Palestinians as they want (Palestinians: around 10000 to date, 300 of which are children, Lebanese: 1000s to date, being held without trial). There is no limit; there is no need for proof of guilt or trial. All that is needed is the magic word: "terrorism"
Rule # 7: When you say "Hezbollah", always be sure to add "supported by Syria and Iran"
Rule # 8: When you say "Israel", never say "supported by the USA, the UK and other European countries", for people (God forbid) might believe this is not an equal conflict.
Rule # 9: When it comes to Israel, don't mention the words "occupied territories", "UN resolutions", "Geneva conventions". This could distress the audience of Fox.
Rule # 10: Israelis speak better English than Arabs. This is why we let them speak out as much as possible, so that they can explain rules 1 through 9. This is called "neutral journalism".
Rule # 11: If you don't agree with these rules or if you favor the Arab side over the Israeli side, you must be a very dangerous anti-Semite. You may even have to make a public apology if you express your honest opinion (isn't democracy wonderful?)
Symbolic story: Three Worst Men:
There were three men competing to see who was the worst one in the world.
The first one attacked a woman, beat her until her teeth fell out and she bled from her nose and ears. He beat her so savagely that she fainted.
He turned to the others and said, "I am the worst one of all."
The second man stepped up to rape her and beat her further until she was almost dead.He turned to the others and said, "No one can be worse than me."
The third one stepped up, smiled coldly, and said, "No, I am the worst one even though I just stood by and watched, because this woman is my sister.
The woman is Lebanon/Palestine.
The first man is Israel .
The second is the West.
The third is the Arab world that stood by and did nothing
Rules of POLITICAL CORRECTNESS when it comes to the Israeli-Arab conflict:
Rule # 1 : In the Middle East, it is always the Arabs that attack first, and it's always Israel who defends itself. This is called "retaliation".
Rule # 2: The Arabs, whether Palestinians or Lebanese, are not allowed to kill Israelis. This is called "terrorism"/
Rule # 3: Israel has the right to kill Arab civilians, this is called
"self-defence", or these days "collateral damage".
Rule # 4: When Israel kills too many civilians. The Western world calls for restraint. This is called the "reaction of the international community".
Rule # 5: Palestinians and Lebanese do not have the right to capture Israeli military, not even a limited number, not even 1 or 2.
Rule # 6: Israel has the right to capture as many Palestinians as they want (Palestinians: around 10000 to date, 300 of which are children, Lebanese: 1000s to date, being held without trial). There is no limit; there is no need for proof of guilt or trial. All that is needed is the magic word: "terrorism"
Rule # 7: When you say "Hezbollah", always be sure to add "supported by Syria and Iran"
Rule # 8: When you say "Israel", never say "supported by the USA, the UK and other European countries", for people (God forbid) might believe this is not an equal conflict.
Rule # 9: When it comes to Israel, don't mention the words "occupied territories", "UN resolutions", "Geneva conventions". This could distress the audience of Fox.
Rule # 10: Israelis speak better English than Arabs. This is why we let them speak out as much as possible, so that they can explain rules 1 through 9. This is called "neutral journalism".
Rule # 11: If you don't agree with these rules or if you favor the Arab side over the Israeli side, you must be a very dangerous anti-Semite. You may even have to make a public apology if you express your honest opinion (isn't democracy wonderful?)
Symbolic story: Three Worst Men:
There were three men competing to see who was the worst one in the world.
The first one attacked a woman, beat her until her teeth fell out and she bled from her nose and ears. He beat her so savagely that she fainted.
He turned to the others and said, "I am the worst one of all."
The second man stepped up to rape her and beat her further until she was almost dead.He turned to the others and said, "No one can be worse than me."
The third one stepped up, smiled coldly, and said, "No, I am the worst one even though I just stood by and watched, because this woman is my sister.
The woman is Lebanon/Palestine.
The first man is Israel .
The second is the West.
The third is the Arab world that stood by and did nothing
From the New York Times:
Human Rights Group Accuses Israel of War Crimes
By JOHN KIFNER
August 24, 2006
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Aug. 23 — Amnesty International accused Israel on Wednesday of war crimes in its monthlong battle with Hezbollah, saying its bombing campaign amounted to indiscriminate attacks on Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure and population.
“Many of the violations examined in this report are war crimes that give rise to individual criminal responsibility,” Amnesty International, the London-based human rights group, said in a report on the Israeli campaign. “They include directly attacking civilian objects and carrying out indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks.”
“During more than four weeks of ground and aerial bombardment by the Israeli armed forces, the country’s infrastructure suffered destruction on a catastrophic scale,” the report said, contending this was “an integral part of the military strategy.”
“Israeli forces pounded buildings into the ground,” the report went on, “reducing entire neighborhoods to rubble and turning villages and towns into ghost towns as their inhabitants fled the bombardments.
“Main roads, bridges and petrol stations were blown to bits. Entire families were killed in airstrikes on their homes or in their vehicles while fleeing the aerial assaults on their villages. Scores lay buried beneath the rubble of their houses for weeks, as the Red Cross and other rescue workers were prevented from accessing the areas by continuing Israeli strikes.”
Mark Regev, the spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, categorically rejected the claim that Israel had “acted outside international norms or international legality concerning the rules of war.” Unlike Hezbollah, he said, Israel did not target the civilian population, nor did it indiscriminately target Lebanese civilian infrastructure.
He added: “Our job was made very difficult by the fact that Hezbollah adopted a deliberate policy of positioning itself inside civilian areas and breaking the first fundamental distinction under the rules of war, by deliberately endangering civilians. Under the rules of war, you are legally entitled to target infrastructure that your enemy is exploiting for its military campaign.”
Citing a variety of sources, the Amnesty International report said Israel’s air force had carried out more than 7,000 air attacks, while the navy had fired 2,500 shells. The human toll, according to Lebanese government statistics, was estimated at 1,183 deaths, mostly civilians, about a third of them children; 4,054 wounded; and 970,000 people displaced, out of a population of a little under four million.
“Statements from the Israeli military officials seem to confirm that the destruction of the infrastructure was indeed a goal of the military campaign,” the report said. It said that “in village after village the pattern was similar: the streets, especially main streets, were scarred with artillery craters along their length. In some cases, cluster bomb impacts were identified.”
“Houses were singled out for precision-guided missile attacks and were destroyed, totally or partially, as a result,” the report said. “Business premises such as supermarkets or food stores and auto service stations and petrol stations were targeted.
“With the electricity cut off and food and other supplies not coming into the villages, the destruction of supermarkets and petrol stations played a crucial role in forcing local residents to leave.”
The Amnesty International report said the widespread destruction of apartments, houses, electricity and water services, roads, bridges, factories and ports, in addition to several statements by Israeli officials, suggested a policy of punishing the Lebanese government and the civilian population in an effort to get them to turn against Hezbollah.
“The evidence strongly suggests that the extensive destruction of public works, power systems, civilian homes and industry was a deliberate and integral part of the military strategy rather than collateral damage,” the report said.
It also noted a statement from the Israeli military chief of staff, Lt. Gen Dan Halutz, calling Hezbollah a “cancer” that Lebanon must get rid of “because if they don’t, their country will pay a very high price.”
The Amnesty International report came as a number of international aid and human rights agencies used the current lull in fighting to assess the damage.
The United Nations Development Program said the attacks had obliterated most of the progress Lebanon had made in recovering from the devastation of the civil war years. “Fifteen years of work have been wiped out in a month,” Jean Fabre, a spokesman for the organization in Geneva, told reporters.
Another urgent issue, aid groups say, is the number of unexploded bomblets from cluster bombs littering the southern villages. Tekimiti Gilbert, the operations chief of a United Nations mine removal team, told reporters in Tyre: “Up to now there are at least 170 cluster bomb strikes in south Lebanon. It’s a huge problem. There are obvious dangers with people, children, cars. People are tripping over these things.”
United Nations officials say at least five children have been killed by picking up the bomblets scattered about by the cluster bombs.
Despite the cease-fire, southern Lebanon remained tense on Wednesday. Three Lebanese soldiers were killed trying to defuse a rocket that had not exploded. An Israeli soldier was killed and two others wounded when, according to the Israeli military, they walked over a minefield that Israel had previously buried.
The Israeli military also said it had fired artillery rounds from the disputed territory of Shabaa Farms to the Lebanese village of Shabaa. There were no reports of casualties.
Greg Myre contributed reporting from Jerusalem for this article.
Human Rights Group Accuses Israel of War Crimes
By JOHN KIFNER
August 24, 2006
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Aug. 23 — Amnesty International accused Israel on Wednesday of war crimes in its monthlong battle with Hezbollah, saying its bombing campaign amounted to indiscriminate attacks on Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure and population.
“Many of the violations examined in this report are war crimes that give rise to individual criminal responsibility,” Amnesty International, the London-based human rights group, said in a report on the Israeli campaign. “They include directly attacking civilian objects and carrying out indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks.”
“During more than four weeks of ground and aerial bombardment by the Israeli armed forces, the country’s infrastructure suffered destruction on a catastrophic scale,” the report said, contending this was “an integral part of the military strategy.”
“Israeli forces pounded buildings into the ground,” the report went on, “reducing entire neighborhoods to rubble and turning villages and towns into ghost towns as their inhabitants fled the bombardments.
“Main roads, bridges and petrol stations were blown to bits. Entire families were killed in airstrikes on their homes or in their vehicles while fleeing the aerial assaults on their villages. Scores lay buried beneath the rubble of their houses for weeks, as the Red Cross and other rescue workers were prevented from accessing the areas by continuing Israeli strikes.”
Mark Regev, the spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, categorically rejected the claim that Israel had “acted outside international norms or international legality concerning the rules of war.” Unlike Hezbollah, he said, Israel did not target the civilian population, nor did it indiscriminately target Lebanese civilian infrastructure.
He added: “Our job was made very difficult by the fact that Hezbollah adopted a deliberate policy of positioning itself inside civilian areas and breaking the first fundamental distinction under the rules of war, by deliberately endangering civilians. Under the rules of war, you are legally entitled to target infrastructure that your enemy is exploiting for its military campaign.”
Citing a variety of sources, the Amnesty International report said Israel’s air force had carried out more than 7,000 air attacks, while the navy had fired 2,500 shells. The human toll, according to Lebanese government statistics, was estimated at 1,183 deaths, mostly civilians, about a third of them children; 4,054 wounded; and 970,000 people displaced, out of a population of a little under four million.
“Statements from the Israeli military officials seem to confirm that the destruction of the infrastructure was indeed a goal of the military campaign,” the report said. It said that “in village after village the pattern was similar: the streets, especially main streets, were scarred with artillery craters along their length. In some cases, cluster bomb impacts were identified.”
“Houses were singled out for precision-guided missile attacks and were destroyed, totally or partially, as a result,” the report said. “Business premises such as supermarkets or food stores and auto service stations and petrol stations were targeted.
“With the electricity cut off and food and other supplies not coming into the villages, the destruction of supermarkets and petrol stations played a crucial role in forcing local residents to leave.”
The Amnesty International report said the widespread destruction of apartments, houses, electricity and water services, roads, bridges, factories and ports, in addition to several statements by Israeli officials, suggested a policy of punishing the Lebanese government and the civilian population in an effort to get them to turn against Hezbollah.
“The evidence strongly suggests that the extensive destruction of public works, power systems, civilian homes and industry was a deliberate and integral part of the military strategy rather than collateral damage,” the report said.
It also noted a statement from the Israeli military chief of staff, Lt. Gen Dan Halutz, calling Hezbollah a “cancer” that Lebanon must get rid of “because if they don’t, their country will pay a very high price.”
The Amnesty International report came as a number of international aid and human rights agencies used the current lull in fighting to assess the damage.
The United Nations Development Program said the attacks had obliterated most of the progress Lebanon had made in recovering from the devastation of the civil war years. “Fifteen years of work have been wiped out in a month,” Jean Fabre, a spokesman for the organization in Geneva, told reporters.
Another urgent issue, aid groups say, is the number of unexploded bomblets from cluster bombs littering the southern villages. Tekimiti Gilbert, the operations chief of a United Nations mine removal team, told reporters in Tyre: “Up to now there are at least 170 cluster bomb strikes in south Lebanon. It’s a huge problem. There are obvious dangers with people, children, cars. People are tripping over these things.”
United Nations officials say at least five children have been killed by picking up the bomblets scattered about by the cluster bombs.
Despite the cease-fire, southern Lebanon remained tense on Wednesday. Three Lebanese soldiers were killed trying to defuse a rocket that had not exploded. An Israeli soldier was killed and two others wounded when, according to the Israeli military, they walked over a minefield that Israel had previously buried.
The Israeli military also said it had fired artillery rounds from the disputed territory of Shabaa Farms to the Lebanese village of Shabaa. There were no reports of casualties.
Greg Myre contributed reporting from Jerusalem for this article.
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
How convenient for Bush that the Lebanese crisis has suddenly been pushed to the back row on the news channels after the recent discovery of yet more Muslim terrorists trying to fly towards America from London!
Amazing how his foreign policies are being tolerated by the general public. First he makes an ass of himself in Afghanistan, followed by his utter failure in Iraq and now he has the gall to ''urge'' Israel into continuing their attacks on Lebanon. I suppose Syria will be next, followed by Iran. I would really like to see the U.S. take on Iran. I think the U.S. government will finally realise what they have been getting into!
Amazing how his foreign policies are being tolerated by the general public. First he makes an ass of himself in Afghanistan, followed by his utter failure in Iraq and now he has the gall to ''urge'' Israel into continuing their attacks on Lebanon. I suppose Syria will be next, followed by Iran. I would really like to see the U.S. take on Iran. I think the U.S. government will finally realise what they have been getting into!
From the Best Friends Animal Society:
Dear Members and Friends,
Please excuse a second e-mail in two days. This one is about the ANIMALS IN LEBANON.
It’s been tough for the animals on both sides of the Lebanon/Israel border, but for the animals in Lebanon, as you can imagine, it’s a major disaster. Thousands of them abandoned by evacuees who are being told by their governments to leave their pets behind. And thousands more just caught up in the general chaos. (Imagine Hurricane Katrina -- but with bombs and rubble instead of floodwaters.)
There’s one main rescue group in Lebanon – Beirut for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or BETA (no relation to the U.S. group PETA) – and they’re hanging on by a thread. Their shelter was hit, but they’ve managed to evacuate the dogs from there to a place in the hills, donated by a German supporter.
We’ve set up a new section on the Best Friends Network: http://www.ne16.com/t/1435902/82441269/18590095/0/. It’s updated regularly. Emergency funds are much needed by the BETA folks to buy food and medicine that can be brought in from Jordan and Syria. You can donate from the news page at http://www.ne16.com/t/1435902/82441269/18590095/0/, or you can send directly to BETA. We’ve asked them to keep us posted on their needs.
Thanks for caring,
Michael Mountain
Best Friends
P.S. Traffic on the Best Friends Network site is experiencing some bottlenecks. You may find it slowing down, especially in the afternoons. The site is still in beta test mode, so please excuse any delays. The tech team says it’s a “memory leak” and they’re working on it.
Dear Members and Friends,
Please excuse a second e-mail in two days. This one is about the ANIMALS IN LEBANON.
It’s been tough for the animals on both sides of the Lebanon/Israel border, but for the animals in Lebanon, as you can imagine, it’s a major disaster. Thousands of them abandoned by evacuees who are being told by their governments to leave their pets behind. And thousands more just caught up in the general chaos. (Imagine Hurricane Katrina -- but with bombs and rubble instead of floodwaters.)
There’s one main rescue group in Lebanon – Beirut for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or BETA (no relation to the U.S. group PETA) – and they’re hanging on by a thread. Their shelter was hit, but they’ve managed to evacuate the dogs from there to a place in the hills, donated by a German supporter.
We’ve set up a new section on the Best Friends Network: http://www.ne16.com/t/1435902/82441269/18590095/0/. It’s updated regularly. Emergency funds are much needed by the BETA folks to buy food and medicine that can be brought in from Jordan and Syria. You can donate from the news page at http://www.ne16.com/t/1435902/82441269/18590095/0/, or you can send directly to BETA. We’ve asked them to keep us posted on their needs.
Thanks for caring,
Michael Mountain
Best Friends
P.S. Traffic on the Best Friends Network site is experiencing some bottlenecks. You may find it slowing down, especially in the afternoons. The site is still in beta test mode, so please excuse any delays. The tech team says it’s a “memory leak” and they’re working on it.
"Y'know, that's one of the things I like about Mitt Romney. He's been consistent since he changed his mind." -- Christine O'Donnell
Another thing, why is nobody calling on these neocons who are at least insinuating, because Iran and Syria had supported Hezbollah in the past, that Iran and Syria were involved in the capture of the Israeli soldiers and that this is now also a war of Iran and Syria against Israel. It's this whole WMD-Hussein-and-al-Qaeda BS all over again.
No, I'd say the consensus is that Israel had a right to react but that the reaction has become excessive.
"...it is the weak who are cruel, and...gentleness is only to be expected from the strong." - Leo Reston
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
"Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable." - Jodie Foster
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MovieWes
- Professor
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Well, considering that Madeline Albright was on CNN the other day saying that Lebanon/Hezbollah attacked Israel first and that Israel has a right to defend itself, it seems as if the general consensus (including not only Republicans and Democrats, but the U.N. as well) is that Israel has done nothing wrong.
"Young men make wars and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution." -- Alec Guinness (Lawrence of Arabia)