As we enter the third week of the Israeli offensive, I can't help but be taken by surprise at the speed and precision of which Israel has moved through Gaza and into Lebanon.

The pace at which the Israeli army is moving is unusual to say the least. What is bothering me is how Israel is marginalizing the Hamas government and preventing (with assistance) any one on one dialog from taking place. I wasn't the only one who noticed this either. Russian president Vladimir Putin and Robin Wright of Washington Post have made observations as well.

Let's assume the safety of the hostages is paramout.

Question for debate:

1. Do you feel air and sea attack methods are an appropriate and effective response to a hostage crisis?

2. What is your opinion on forced capitulation?

3. What would your response be?

Bonus question for the conspiracy theorists!

If you accept the notion there is something more at play than meets the eye and conducting war on multiple fronts is a unique way of managing relations with your neighbours,

Is Israel making an unprecendented grab for power under the umbrella of retribution?

Paramount to who?

Question for debate:
1. Do you feel air and sea attack methods are an appropriate and effective response to a hostage crisis?
I feel that they are an appropriate and effective response to acts of war. I doubt if the Israeli's expect to secure their safe release, and are not going to subsume their national security to the safety of a few hostages.

2. What is your opinion on forced capitulation?
Capitulation by who?

3. What would your response be?
1) Blow a whole bunch more holes in the wall that the Egyptian built to keep the Palestinian "residents" of Gaza out of Egypt (odd, nobody seemed to object to that wall.)

2) Sweep through Gaza, killing everybody who resists and forcing everybody else out. (hence the holes in the Egyptian wall.) The Palestinians elected to lead them a party who's primary platform is the annihilation of Israel. If we are to accept the legitimacy of their democracy, then 'tis just that they reap what they sow.

3) Notify the Palestinians living on the West Bank that its time to move on...

4) Hunt down Hezbollah's leaders, and kill all of them, with extreme prejudice. As soon as the Gaza operation is complete, notify the Lebanese government that if they fail to insure that attacks on Israel do not originate in Lebanon, Israel will treat Southern Lebanon the same as they've treated Gaza.



Conducting war on multiple fronts is not a "unique way of managing relations", its a reasonable and practical rsesponse to being attacked on multiple fronts. I'll reference World War Two for your education...

And yes, Israel is making an unprecedented response. It is unprecedented because both of the "kidnappings" occurred inside of Israel's pre-1967 borders. It is unprecedented because the attacks have both been launched out of areas from which Israel had previously withdrawn, areas that it had occupied as a result of prior attacks. It is not a grab for power...., it is a move to insure their survival.

1. Do you feel air and sea attack methods are an appropriate and effective response to a hostage crisis?

Normally I would say absolutely not. In the context of what is going on it depends on the circumstances (I'll explain on question three).

2. What is your opinion on forced capitulation?

This question doesn't make much sense. Capitulation is often, probably usually, forced. That's the main reason why prisons, police forces, and militaries exist to begin with. It even works with economics. But on the other hand, it works for criminals. It depends entirely on the situation.

A man holds a gun to your head, you give him money. He used force. Your friend sees this from a nearby window and takes out his gun and tells the crook to give you back your money. Your friend used force. Later the police come and arrest the man. Yet another instance of forced capitulation.

3. What would your response be?

Honestly, yesterday I was thinking of starting another similar thread. What are they thinking? They are isolating themselves and making their prior Lebanese supporters look like fools. The Lebanese are poor and don't wish to see another war. What is going on? Beirut suburbs? Airports? Insanity!

Then I read a news article that indicated the Lebanese government was likely to bring its army to police the southern border. They are obviously trying to force the Lebanese to police Hezzbolah. That wouldn't be possible without an Israeli offensive, but now they can say that the Israelis are forcing their hand. It's a tactical gamble, but perhaps worth it as the Iranian influence in the area grows. Maybe they considered their future options, none of which look good, and this seemed the best plan.

Edited to add: BTW...UN peacekeeping forces are still at that border. This is a reality check worth noting.

1. Do you feel air and sea attack methods are an appropriate and effective response to a hostage crisis?

I don't think air and sea attacks are effective methods to resolve a hostage crisis. Yet, I don't think Israel is seeing this as a straight hostage crisis. I think the Israeli government responds to this threat as a sovereignty crisis. Israel uses an overwhelming response policy in the face of threats. It has served them reasonably well in the difficult and stormy foreign policy waters of the Middle East but it makes Israel appear like a bully in these situations.

Israel has been hounded by non-state organizations using southern Lebanon as a base of attack for decades.
It has decided (as apparently have Hezbollah and likely Iran) that now is the right time to force a showdown over Lebanon. Israel is pressuring Lebanon to secure its own border and replace Hezbollah in the hills of southern Lebanon.

3. What would your response be?

I'm not sure. But I haven't been attacked from that direction for more than four decades.
What do you think the response would be be this country if one of our military bases was attacked and a barrage of missile attacks were launched at us? We are not really in a position to counsel restraint and concern about collateral damage at present.

Bonus question for the conspiracy theorists!

If you accept the notion there is something more at play than meets the eye and conducting war on multiple fronts is a unique way of managing relations with your neighbors,

Is Israel making an unprecendented grab for power under the umbrella of retribution?

Unprecedented? As in grabbing more territory than in the 1967 war?
no Israel is trying to marginalize Hezbollah and strike a blow at the influence of Syria and Iran in the region. They and the US believe that there is some sympathy for this effort from the moderate Arab countries that are concerned about the growing influence of Syria and Iran.

I am concerned that this either will pull Syria back into the country of Lebanon or reveal the weakness of the Lebanese state in its inability and lack of will to accept the role that Israel is demanding of it.

Some of these debate questions are a bit odd.

1. Do you feel air and sea attack methods are an appropriate and effective response to a hostage crisis?

Hostage crisis? Wars and conflicts start for various reasons and usually can not be pinpointed or placed as a result or response to one singular event. Last time we saw this all play out in Lebanon in 1982 it was in response to an attempted assassination. Yet is that all it was? Just an overreaction to a failed assassination? I don't think so, and I don't believe currently this is all just a reaction to a hostage crisis.

I also question the motives you assign to the hostage takers and their many supporters, is that all that was desired, to take hostages? Is that the purpose or stated objective of groups like Hezbollah and their supporters, hostage taking?



Is Israel making an unprecendented grab for power under the umbrella of retribution?

Again such a one sided view. Do you not consider groups like Hezbollah that operate within Lebanon extensions of power from other nations? Again all under the umbrella of retribution. I would hardly consider Israel's actions unprecedented, we have seen all of this before.


Anyone who follows the news closely in this region saw this coming, it comes as no surprise. I have focused on Lebanon and it's fracturing and instability in the region in my past few posts here at AD and have felt that the tensions over power were really starting to arise again. I don't think this is unprecedented, or so singular, or even a conflict so trivial as many wish to portray it. It is the inevitable, appeasement only brings about time, not resolution. I am also really bothered by all this rubbish in the press here in the US questioning whether the US will become involved, or remain on the sidelines. How Iraq became the "sidelines" I have no idea.

1. Do you feel air and sea attack methods are an appropriate and effective response to a hostage crisis?
This isn't just a hostage crisis just like wasn't WWI an assassination crisis. The hostage taking was just the catalyst. As I see it freeing Israeli hostages is just a pre-text for stamping out Hezbollah and Hamas threats on Israel's border. For the past few years Hezbollah has been allowed to grow unfettered with the support of Iran. To protect itself in the future from Hezbollah attacks Israel is trying to set Hezbollah back in its capabilities. If, for example, Israel was attacking Iranian Nuclear facilities having a a strong, well equipped Hezbollah on Israel's border would be a serious liability. This is just a measure to promote future Israeli security, especially from Iran.

Perhaps I should elaborate on #2.

I'm not sure the use of force to answer force is the best way to guarantee the safety of the hostages. Threatening to the point of antagonizing multiple countries is not a particularly good way at ensuring cooperation. What has become evident is the greater the use of force the greater chance of loosing control of the situation.

Under recognized police practices, I had hoped the both sides would have been able to engage each other to voice concerns instead of the how the events played themselves out. As Bucket has pointed out, there have been simmering tensions at play here well before the young soldier was kidnapped in June. The goal was in my opinion to keep the issues separate.

Here is a sample of what I had hoped would play out.



The decision to employ the military from the get go and engage in aggressive tactical assaults without any form of talks has moved the issue away from the hostages and complicated things IMO. By allowing standard law enforcement to become involved, could police procedure have succeeded where military procedure failed? I mention this because there seems to be a necessary dialog component missing to this whole affair. Despite overwhelming superiority in the field, Olmert is still encountering resistance. So much so that he may risk strengthening support of arch rival Hezbollah as Eeyore has described.

From the perspective of one of the hostage's families, has Mr. Olmert's response gotten us closer to resolving the situation or further away? So once again, how effective is forced capitulation?

Collective punishment as a strategy is a failure, I think the current picture of the mideast in relation to the debate issue will point this out. So some group of people launch an attack, its not you that did it or how really how much of the populous that is committing such acts is probably low, though that is an assumption, and for this the attacked nation decides to bomb you back into that stone age and slowly but surely create a humanitarian nightmare for the rest of the innocent population, how is this going to bring about the result desired?

First of all, to police something, say garbage on the street you have to be able to find it, such a task I imagine would be very hard for a blind person. Now what amount of this terror group Israel wants destroyed is publicly known vs the rest which I imagine follows protocols and lives basically in the shadows, so just from that one point Lebanon could desire for a thousand years to rid itself, but just like above being blind probably does not help them. So what should Israel do in that circumstance, or did it even consider it, I mean they cannot even find and destroy hamas really, and hamas is not as high end as the group in Lebanon happens to be.

Then you also have to factor in that from all the bad blood and cultural relations, cultural identity involved that "terrorist" groups will have some form of support from the locals in some form or another, in one simple aspect the KKK is still alive and well in the US. This of course in my opinion will just add another layer of difficulty in finding and stopping such people.

Another aspect you have to consider in the successful strategy employed overall by "terrorist" groups is how they pretty much play the opponent against itself, just like how Israel has racked up around a 100 civilian casualties now not counting wounded, those people never did anything and I am sure is will not lend a hand towards goodwill or even brownie points for Israel, but in some other aspects I am sure it will pay off overall for terrorism to survive and grow in the mideast in general, this is yet another reason collective military based punishment will fail against such a foe.

Face it, its an outrage in the US when you hear about marines killing Iraqi civilians, but in this conflict we see something different morally and why? Its still a black and white issue to me when it comes to killing civilians with a military force. You can say well it will win, and I will say well it should have one a long time ago then, but really it probably one made the #@$% deeper to step in and smell, look at or generally experience.

Then you have to consider that it is an international issue, of course the world at the UN happened to receive a shattered hand in relation of how to deal with it, this will not help and only aid the bad guys, from whatever side you happen to sit on. War leaves scars in a nation, you can look at Vietnam and Afghanistan and see this, you can look into America and still see the north and south issue alive and well in many respects. Extreme Islamic views will not cease in a second just because a peace agreement was struck. To rush to arms in the fashion currently in the mideast will only keep the wounds open and make them deeper for anyone involved in my opinion.

As for how to deal with it, the only thing I would say is the current method does not work, or it should have already, it has really seemed to only embolden the situation in my opinion, like a vicious cycle of abuse in a family, a change needs to be done, which will bring about a change in the environment there, in some form this will occur.

Really, a unified strong and motivated international military force should basically take over most of the mideast, its because of outside power that such problems exist, so in my opinion the locals cant handle previous mistakes in judgment, it does not mean such ways cant fix them now. Lock the area down and rebuild it, with the people that want peace and with means and tools to suffocate hatred being established in such cultures, it would only take a few generations of people and things should be all better, that and public education curriculum, secular tv shows, books and filthy liberals and such.

Let's see, there has been almost no movement by Israel in Lebanon, nor did Israel move into Northern Gaza for over a week. Some speed there. I think that the IDF has shown that it is capable of moving into and out of any territory that they want to, but are exercising extreme restraint.

To answer the questions.

1. No, sending ground troops in and searching EVERY building and killing anybody that is armed would be appropriate. And keep moving through so long as one armed terrorist remains.

2. Good oxymoron. Capitulations are forced. But forcing an end to terrorism and terrorist can hardly be considered anything except a positive move.

3. See number one.

4. You have got to be kidding! If Israel acted like their Arab neighbors maybe, but they have more than proved their desire for peace at almost any price. Sadat finally spoke the magic words of 'no more war' and what happened? Israel gave back a chunk of land larger than their entire country that they acquired in a defensive war. And even though Egypt has violated nearly every one of the provisions of the peace treaty, Israel has not done a single thing in return. Jordan to said the same and got all of their land back and every though Jordan has yet to fulfill all of their obligations again there is no violence. Again your claims are totally disproved by the facts.

gordo:

You wrote:

"Collective punishment as a strategy is a failure, I think the current picture of the mideast in relation to the debate issue will point this out. So some group of people launch an attack, its not you that did it or how really how much of the populous that is committing such acts is probably low, though that is an assumption, and for this the attacked nation decides to bomb you back into that stone age and slowly but surely create a humanitarian nightmare for the rest of the innocent population, how is this going to bring about the result desired"?

In reply, I would first simply submit the difference between the theoretical best end and the practical best end. The practical best end might simply be in keeping some occupied with rebuilding so they won't have the time to engage in other more injurious activity, while the theoretical best end might simply be beyond one's capacity or desire.

And there's also another difference of import, to wit, the means being used by some. Most shadow groups don't have thousands upon thousands of missiles/rockets. To take just the one example, the PIRA, well, the PIRA largely used homemade mortars to attack British army barracks in the north of Ireland. They didn't have thousands upon thousands of missile/rockets. And so, while it is indeed rather hard to locate and kill the unidentifiable soul who at most is probably protecting a case or two of rifles and some ammunition, it isn't quite as hard to eliminate a stockpile of thousands upon thousands of missiles/rockets. Which is not to say that one can accomplish the same via air strike, but someone has to keep those thousands upon thousands of missiles/rockets somewhere, just as we do, and such an arms depot can indeed be destroyed by use of the situationally appropriate military means. Oh, here you can also use our prior history, in that Israel usually takes rather limited/restrained remedial action when it is just going after a lone nut or two or three or four, but as the case with Jenin, when there is a target of substantial size [in terms of both persons and/or arms, both in the case of Jenin], well, with that our history, then one can readily understand the current event.

And one more difference simply lies in the threat itself. Israel can survive, though not necessarily all that pleasantly so, but Israel can survive the having to take precautions against those so fond of explosives, and even miss nabbing one such soul every now and again, but Israel cannot survive with thousands of missiles/rockets raining down on its territory [bomb shelters make for a poor place to conduct business and go to school].

And so, to tie it all together, the Israelis, of all people, understand the likely blowback, but they've apparently reached the conclusion that the benefits to be gained from reducing Hezbollah outweigh the costs, including the blowback.

Lastly, please don't confuse outrage with sorrow and regret. Which civilians in Iraq, exactly, do you have in mind? My outrage in such regard is otherwise reserved for what I would consider mere murder, while my sorrow and regret is for those who'd we like to still be whole but, regretfully and with much sorrow, the mission came first. And the rather cruel irony here is that if all the outrage recently expressed by some by way of objecting to civilian death had been expressed in relation to, say, inmate Hussein and Co., well, then there wouldn't even have been a war in Iraq, at least not our war in Iraq. And if the objection to Hezbollah would have been just that, objection, and otherwise not so passive, then we would likely be witness to an Israeli remedial counterstrike of a wholly different nature [which is to say that if the Israelis want Nasrullah dead, with some patience, the Israelis could accomplish that result, just as the same result was accomplished with respect to all but one of those who took it upon himself to descrate the Olympics and all that event serves to represent].

Sorry, one more. International forces? You mean like the international force that was asked to stand aside by the late President Nasser of Egypt, did so, and so stands accused of playing just much of a role in the start of the Six Day War?

And just one more, please also note just that much more evidence of the hypocrisy of some [ http://san.beck.org/GPJ22b-UNPeacekeeping.html ]:

"After Yemen's Imam Ahmed bin Yahya died on September 19, 1962, a civil war broke out in Yemen; as the military tried to take control with Egyptian support for republicans, Saudi Arabia and Jordan assisted the royalists. In November, President Kennedy proposed a phased withdrawal of the Egyptian, Saudi, and Jordanian forces, but neither Nasser nor the Saudis would agree. Yemen's royalist diplomats at the United Nations sent a letter to Secretary-General U Thant on November 27 asking for an investigation to see if Cairo had instigated the military coup. In February 1963 U Thant sent Ralph Bunche on a fact-finding mission. On April 29 U Thant announced that Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt had all asked for UN intervention, and on June 11 the Security Council established the United Nations Yemen Observation Mission (UNYOM). However, the civil war continued after UNYOM ended its mission in September 1964; the royalists were still powerful while about 40,000 Egyptian troops were in Yemen and were increasing."

So is it our skin color, our faith, or both, that explains the current outrage but none with respect to the war just noted?





Trouble:

History can be unpleasant thing, especially when such does not suit one's ideology. And so, re that "buffer" being people and not a zone, have you heard of this place that some call Kuneitra? If not, Kuneitra is, was, a city on the Golan Heights. Following the Yom Kippur War of 1973, in 1974, the Israelis and Syrians entered into a cease-fire agreement. Insofar as concerns "buffer[s]", the noted 1974 cease-fire agreement provided for the return of Kuneitra to Syria and also provided that Syrian civilians were to be allowed to return to Kuneitra.

Now think about that. Who and/or what would prevent the civilians from returning if Syria would once again be exercising sovereingty over Kuneitra? How would the Israelis stop any Syrian civilians from returning to Kuneitra? And they wanted to give the land back but ensure its continued depopulation, that too could have been in the agreement, in place of that which I related.

And so the noted cease-fire agreement provides, in pertinent part, at paragraph B(1) of the same:

"All territory east of Line A will be under Syrian administration, and the Syrian civilians will return to this territory."

As you can see, I lied. The agreement does not say that the civilians can return, as it requires that they return. As you can imagine, the Syrians have no need to say such in the agreement, since with the return of sovereignty, Syria could presumably allow whoever it sees fit to return to Kuneitra. So it was Israel that insisted that the civilians be allowed by Syria to return to Kuneitra. And the Israelis did so because they believed that with a repopulated and rebuilt Kuneitra, that it was just that much more likely that Syria would not conduct armed combatant operations against Israel [since a repopulated and rebuilt Kuneitra would provide Israel with a ready-made and rather convenient target for the remedial counterstrike to any such armed combatant operations]. So suffice it to say that Kuneitra and its people were intended to be a buffer. Well that, and also that Syria would be in violation of the noted cease-fire agreement by not allowing the former inhabitants of Kuneitra to return, well that, and even further that, by not allowing some to return and repopulate, some are not sending the signal that they truly want peace with Israel.

Oh, and on a semi-related note, please lastly note that what I call lying propaganda tends to get more creative with the passage of time. And so we read of the Los Angeles Times reporting in 1967, June 30 of that year, to be exact, that Kuneitra enjoyed a population of some 5,000 - 6,000 prior to the start of the Six Day War and that only 250 or so were left following. But then, and leave it to my leftist idealogue friends at the LA Times to prove my point, but then on May 1, 2003, the LA Times was observed reporting that prior to the Six Day War, Kuneitra had enjoyed a population of some 20,000. So is it 5 or 20K, and since some claimed to have been there at the time, hard to imagine how one could make any 400% percent (as it were) mistake in the number. But it helps, when one is writing of Syrians displaced from the Golan by war with Israel, to inflate the numbers, and so no mistake but some lying propaganda.

And, lastly, re "land grabs", certainly some might desire the same, but as government policy, well, we know just who gave back to Syria sovereignty over Kuneitra, and never mind the cry of some others that "Kuneitra Is Ours Forever!" As a freebie, though I couldn't find the one for Kuneitra, here is the bumber sticking saying the same thing re the Golan in its entirety:

http://www.jr.co.il/pictures/israel/bstickers/jril0435.jpg

But please tell me, given Kuneitra and the relevant provision of the noted cease-fire agreement, are the Israelis looking to grab land, or are they looking for peace?

Do you feel air and sea attack methods are an appropriate and effective response to a hostage crisis?

This is not solely about releasing the hostages that were taken by Hezbollah. Similar scenarios have occured in the past, and Israel has been willing to negotiate. The problem is that Hezbollah uses this and other violent tactics repeatedly when they should be disarming in accordance with UN Resolution 1559.

Israel is sending a message that if the military wing of Hezbollah isn't controlled, they're capable and willing to take care of it themselves.

Additionally, for as long as Hezbollah is operating within the region, it significantly reduces the chances for stability and peace. Both Hezbollah and Iran use the Palestinian/Israeli conflict as a tool to obtain their own goal of expanding the Iranian model of government into other territories. It's a way of mobilizing the people, and I don't believe that either Hezbollah or Iran actually want to see peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

What is your opinion on forced capitulation?

I'm not sure that the safety of the hostages is priority number one in this situation.

What would your response be?

Honestly, I don't know. Israel's reaction appears to be rapid and extreme, and the humanitarian crisis that is unfolding is extremely unfortunate. By targeting civilian areas and the country's infrastructure, it appears that Israel is also giving a message to the Lebanese government and the Lebanese people that their support for Hezbollah will only drag their country into war. It seems like an extremely poor move on Israel's part, but I don't know what a correct move would be. How does one go about disarming a group like Hezbollah?

Edited to fix my tags.

So is it our skin color, our faith, or both, that explains the current outrage but none with respect to the war just noted?


I simply don’t understand. IN my stance I never said anything that would relate to me picking on Jews because they happen to be Jewish or live in Israel. I was more or less suggestion on the point that the strategy Israel runs happens to only lend itself to a cycle of violence, and as an assumption probably only fans the flames for those that wish to bring harm to Israel. My position on the international community is simply just that, Israel does not posses to means to ever actually end the violence it faces, and from its limited resources it has to act in a way that brings harm to many non combatants in any theater it comes to run in, how will that help Israel in the long run, it’s a vicious cycle, and I am sure Israel’s enemies are fully aware of this.

As for more on my international stance, I feel that’s what it would take really to bring any lasting resolve to the area, I don’t think any single nation alone has the resources to do such, or can retain itself from any prior bias in such an endeavor. Israel and America I doubt really to be able to handle this issue past serious military conflict that will resolve nothing but the creation of the problem in the same form in a different period of time. Israelis military actions have not created anything lasting for them in the sense of yet another round of violence. This is not there fault in a direct sense because they can only work from what they have and what they have to face.

The methods in which terrorist groups employs leaves many hard up as to targeting them. Only in Afghanistan were forces truly successful in being able to directly find terrorists hiding out. Sure you can destroy a stockpile of missiles if it happens to allow itself to be found, but that alone is not going to solve anything, and the actions of Israel in Lebanon seem hardly to be just that. They want to destroy Hezbollah, well more power to them as in I don’t respect them very much, but I also do not have to respect the idea of what Lebanon may come to look like in the process from how terrorist groups operate. I also do not have to respect that fact that such methods in my mind will not bring the results Israel and probably most of the world desire which is the actually end of Hezbollah.

It’s a quick fix on a failed strategy that truly needs to world to collectively come to realize and work with in some form that is actually fit to do such, current means of force by the UN typically land a force that in its birth was never going to be able to handle it and resolutions that no nation will really ever back save for self interest, it’s a failure at the UN that in my mind is generating more problems then should be allowed and for the sake of Israel it has to keep running a cycle that is only leading to decay and more problems in the region.

I won't be going to the first part but the second part is the real problem. The international community is part of the problem and they are lending themselves to the cycle of violence, not Israel's response.

As long as the Arabs pay no permanent cost for their continual attacks against Israel they will continue to do them. The stance that Israel must not occupy any Arab land after they defend themselves from those attacks means that the only thing the Arabs lose it people (whom they have no regard for) and equipment (that the international community replaces).

Israel does have the means to end the violence, but has never been allowed to end the attacks. As soon as it became clear in 1967 that the Arabs were losing then and only then was there a cease-fire call, not a surrender, not a peace treaty just a stupid cease-fire. So 6 years later Israel had to refight the same war and again when the Arabs were shown to have lost again the international community stepped in and did it all over. President Carter made sure that Egypt got back every inch of land even though they attacked Israel numerous times. This is an enabler of the cycle of violence.

Now the call to just stop the current round will enable Hezbollah to rearm and attack all over again. This is what will happen, just as it has every other time. Now is the time to truly end the cycle. Disarm the terrorists and let Lebanon establish government control over all of their territory, then it will become an independent country. Without that two countries will never have peace.

No other country has ever been told that their responses to attacks are excessive when another attacks them. England had a couple of islands thousands of miles from their homeland occupied and none killed or even hurt. England launched a massive invasion and killed hundreds, wounded thousands in response, now where was the restraint? Kind of seems like a pretty heavy excessive to me. Where was the cease-fire calls then? I smell hypocrisy in the air.

So I take it you feel Israel should be bound by no chains in regards to any possible invasion they should come to conduct. The international community should just turn a blind eye to mideast during this process for however long it takes to run its course and for whatever means and then end.

I dont think that will work. Israel has committed these actions before as is in a constant state of such actions overall within Palestine, to lend itself to development of what kind of situation?

If you feel Israel’s actions are just and in accordance with whatever you feel should be done, that is a fine stance and of course you can have it, I on the other feel that Israel is not going to obtain what it wants with its actions and that if anything they should just look into the history books to see that. Israel is stuck in this situation by what is my opinion the lack of any other options and or resources to operate on, furthermore I see this current situation as just the kick off of something far worse that will not end anything that started it in the first place. Lebanon has already been destroyed in such fighting, to just have it start over again, such joy.

If Lebanon’s case was it did not want to start another destructive civil war in their nation, this claim should have been giving some attention rather then just leaving Israel to no longer want to be attacked and launching what will in my opinion lead to nothing more then a horrible repeat. Who is the winner in that, I doubt anyone will be. The US basically made its case for why Iraq needed to be democratic, why then would the US not care to protect such in Lebanon, or why would such a nation so easily just be allowed to be swallowed in such a situation, or for that matter the world over, which again in my opinion is the real reason we have to deal with all of these problems in a contemporary sense.

Israel has been conducting military actions in the name of self defense for a very long time now, to only have to keep that up, why is my opinion so off in thinking that it takes more and for how Israel operates to not be successful overall?

On the end of it, if Lebanon ends up a nation of rubble and broken people, what do you think that will lead to, and who is going to rebuild it and what future will it be rebuilt for.

1. Do you feel air and sea attack methods are an appropriate and effective response to a hostage crisis?

Agh yes, we are assuming this is nothing more than a hostage crisis. That Hezbollah is not loudly proclaiming the death of Israel, and, from a position that has been peaceful, deliberately attacked an Israeli outpost and started launching rockets at civilians. We are assuming that they do not have a 'war' plan, and it is merely a hostage crisis being over-reacted to, and not a war being fought badly by the idiots that started it.

Make no bones about this: HEZBOLLAH KNEW EXACTLY WHAT THEY WERE GETTING INTO. Hamas had already tried it, and the Israeli response was well known. Unlike Hamas, who has some legitimate beefs with Israel, as Israel has issues with them, the Northern Israeli border was peaceful. It was Hezbollah who attacked and broke the peace. It was Hezbollah, fully knowing the response from Israel, who decided to DRAG THE ENTIRE NATION OF LEBANON INTO A WAR. The war was completely avoidable. Hezbollah started it, and now they are losing it badly. Well, that must suck, but they are getting what they deserve.

As for the civilian deaths, my heart goes out to them. Yet ONCE AGAIN, it is Hezbollah who has tried to protect their military might by DELIBERATELY placing their weapons in civilian areas. Israel tolerated this for years, so long as Hezbollah kept the peace. They didn't keep the peace. They proved that they will use these weapons, and, with all due respect, Israel has a right to defend itself. The Israeli government has a duty to its citizens, not to the Lebanese civilians who go to sleep with Hezbollah rockets in their basements. Rockets that are now killing civilians in Israel. (And for some reason, because Hezbollah is less adept at warfighting, it is OK for these civilians to die?)

Lets put this on a personal level. Would you really feel sorry for a guy that sucker punched another guy in the back of the head, only to find the punchee then getting pummeled by the punched? I certainly wouldn't, and I have no sympathy for the aggressors in this war. They started a WAR. They picked a fight. And now they are losing the war they started.

And finally, Is there anyone else who is sick and tired of extremists Islamic groups trying to show how Muslim they are by simply blindly siding with the Palestinians? Anyone who disagrees with Hamas and it's policiess is now a prime target for some warped adherent to a warped version of a noble religion to kill and prove just how 'Muslim' the killer is? (And true Islam certainly DOES NOT support this kind of behavior). Is that all that Palestine is to radical Islam? A chance to glory in innocent blood in some kind of religious right? How about Islamic groups help rebuild the Gaza Strip? How about the send medical care? How about they send competent administrators that can help fight the corruption that has crippled Palestine? Why not set up financial systems that help Palestinians start legitimate businesses? How about they call for peace and let people make a life without needless destruction? And, God forbibe, how about the follow the Koran and treat Jews like the people of the book they are supposed to? How about the accept some responsibility for the injustices of their own oppressive systems instead of blaming the US and Israel for everything that is wrong? No ... much better to kill some innocent Jews, that is the best bond of friendship?

No, apparently it is better to start stupid wars and watch innocent people die for no reason. And to all those who think that way, I have no sympathy.

"We started a war and are now losing! Someone Help!" I will remind readers that Hezbollah initially welcomed a war with Israel, the very same war they started. Now, they are not so cocksure. Whatever happened to holding leaders accountable for their actions?

2. What is your opinion on forced capitulation?

It is not the capitulation that matters, it is the peace. WWII produced a lasting peace. WWI did not. The difference is the peace, not the war or its ending.

By the way, an interesting aside, what do you think Hezbollah would do if it captured a Jewish town? Might it be a blood bath in manner of the Crusades?

And one more, if Hezbollah had the AH-64's and the F-15's to drop bombs, do you think for a second that they would wait to attack Israel? Would there even be a pretext before they invaded?

3. What would your response be?

I would be responding exactly as Israel is. Though I would also send ground forces it to clear Hezbollah out of the South and occupy the terrirtory until an International Relief Force or the Lebanese Army arrived to take control of the area.

gordo:

To clarify what I said prior, I was not asking you to explain you [as it were]. So please don't think that I think that you are a racist, since, first, that isn't what I was trying to communicate, and second, the thought hadn't even otherwise occurred to me. So rest easy in that regard my friend.

But I was instead asking you to explain the Arab reaction. The Arab world is outraged over Lebanon, but yet Arab the world wasn't outraged at the private little war that some waged within Yemen [nor would the same some be outraged today if another Yemeni adventure were to again occur].

And so, going back to your point re counterproductive action, who really cares? I mean, how do you treat crazy/irrational people? People who could give a rip if Egypt, Saudi, and Jordan wage their own private little war in Yemen, but then foam at the mouth and otherwise turn rabid as soon as they get word of the latest Israeli response to some rather provocative action of the part of Hezbollah. So as I asked, and you may very well not have the answer, since I don't, but is it the skin color, or the faith, or both? Or do we, as I did above, call it crazy/irrational and so never mind even looking for the answer since there cannot be a sane and rational answer. I don't know, it is just that every time this happens I sit in front of the tele scratching my head while I try to reconcile the non-reaction in the one instance with the rather rabid reaction in the other instance.

All of which is to say that maybe we would justifiably care about the reaction of some others, if their reaction was otherwise going to be rational. But if it's not, and the cost of appeasing such irrational souls is one's destruction, well, then maybe, just maybe, we ignore them.

Or better yet, maybe we assume that they simply need a clean install of the system software [as it were] and so continually remind them that we would rather not be doing what it is that we are doing and that if they're looking for someone to blame, that they might start with those who would kidnap our citizens and rain missiles over Haifa. And there comes a time when they get that, or they don't, and if they don't, not so pleasant, but as I remarked to Trouble, whoever said that life was fair? And so maybe it's a rather large shite sandwhich and we need take the bite.

The solution here is simple. Some renounce the right of return in exchange for some land of their own and some development aid. Quite frankly, if all of the money that the locals and the US and the former USSR have pumped into the military organs of all concerned had instead been used for development, well, the place wouldn't be a desert but heaven on earth. Or at least it would be if the people could make themselves as beautiful as their surroundings would be.

So the Palestinian Arabs renounce return, they get their state, and some, including the more wealthy players on the international stage, pony up some bucks so that we might build the houses, cities, farms, necessary infrastructure, etc., that those living in the camps are going to need so that they might have some place to truly call home. This proposal was actually bandied about for awhile, but died a slow and painful death when the more wealthy international players took a tad bit too long to ponder the matter. Which is not to say that we could ever have ultimately obtained the agreement of the necessary number of Palestinian Arabs, but it would have been "nice" to have put the onus on them [i.e., have all of the other ducks lined up with only them waiting to sign on].

I would otherwise ask that you read all of my posts, both on this thread and the other one dedicated to this topic. I ask that because while you related one explanation/reason that I mentioned for the Israeli conduct of this war, there are some others, and that because there is more than one strategic goal and more than one tactical goal. In other words, the Israelis are trying to accomplish multiple things here, some of which they can more or less realize on their own, some maybe not though some help would be nice, and some certainly not, and as I said, as concerns the last, if it's blowback or their destruction, well, then it's blowback.

Now that I'm growing old and going the way of the dinosaur, well, maybe it's just me, but as I've said here nearly ad infinitum or ad nauseum, depending on one view's, but I understand the Israeli point completely. I was called "brutal" by some for my prior remarks on the death penalty, but my views on that matter explain my understanding of Israel. And while it may frighten my friend Vermillion here, sorry, but we have been forced into aggressive defense and the stakes keep getting higher. In the end, we may have to choose action that might pull down the Temple of Humanity itself, rather than surrender even a single member of the family to the executioners. And so, because I'm "Mr. We Surrender None", the executioner is gonna pay, and rather dearly so.

It probably is just me, and probably some others as well, since I wasn't even there, and I am certainly not the only person who has spoken at length with some of those who survived those extermination camps. And maybe, just maybe, if one has never ever been exposed to the pain that attends that event, even if only secondhand, then maybe one doesn't know the rather heartfelt desire to teach the world that no life is cheap but instead infinitely priceless. And the reason for that attitude, or more correctly, the reason for the means of teaching the lesson, well, our history teaches us one thing, and for cruel irony, war proves it best, which is to say that most lessons learned are negative ones, in the case of war, some souls died for no good and to no good purpose and so we need analyze why that occurred and then make policy and plan so that such never ever occurs again. And so the negative lesson here is that the destruction of the priceless life is answered by the infliction of infinite pain. And lucky for some, even though not considered such, but lucky for some that the pain inflicted isn't necessarily death. And the answer to those who cry "out of proportion," well, one more answer is simply that, as near I can discern, in those states with a death penalty, a conspiracy of 3,000,000 that murder the one, well, each ought, under law, be adjudicated guilty of having committed murder and the penalty of death imposed. And it's otherwise just, since all 3,000,000 are indeed guilty, and in both the moral and legal sense[s].

Oh, and those words in that paragraph preceding the one immediately above, about the being forced into aggressive defense, and the Temple of Humanity, and maybe having to pull it down, well, not mine, as they belong to the late Yerucham Amitai, who survived the Holocaust, became a bricklayer in Palestine, then became a pilot in the IDF, and ended up flying nearly plane in IDF service during his tenure. And for the irony here, the late Mr. Amitai's words are included as part of Uri Dan's contribution to Walter Stevenson's 90 Minutes At Entebbe. With the irony here truly being that the same are related in the context of Uri Dan's commentary on the effort or lack thereof of the international community with respect to terrorism, and so Uri Dan reports that the late Yerucham Amitai would have heard of the speeches in the UN and would have shrugged, saying, We depend on nobody...we have been forced into aggressive defense.....

And, lastly, the word to outraged, the crazy, and the irrational, and once again, the late Chaim Herzog:

"Mr. President,

From a purely formal point of view, this meeting arises from a complaint brought against the government of Israel. However, let me make it quite clear that sitting here as the representative of the government of Israel, as I have the honour to do, I am in no way sitting in the dock as the accused party. On the contrary, I stand here as an accuser on behalf of free and decent people in this world. I stand here as an accuser against the forces of evil which have unleashed a wave of piracy and terrorism that threatens the very foundations of human society. I stand here as an accuser of all those evil forces which in their inherent cowardice and abject craven attitude see blameless wayfarers and innocent women and children-yes, even babes in arms-a legitimate target for their evil intentions. I stand here as an accuser of the countries that because of evil design or lack of moral backbone, have collaborated with these bloodthirsty terrorists.

I stand here as an accuser of all those in authority throughout the world who for reasons of cynical expediency have collaborated with terrorism. I stand here as an accuser of this world organization, the United Nations, which has been unable, because of the machinations of the Arab delegates and their supporters, to coordinate effective measures in order to combat the evil of world terrorism. I stand here as an accuser of those delegations to this organization which for reasons of political expediency have remained silent on this issue, an issue which is bound to affect each country in this organization. In so doing, they have themselves become accomplices.

Seated in the dock today with the accusing finger of enlightened world opinion directed against them are the terrorist organizations which are plaguing this world, and whose representatives have been seated here by the world body with rights equal to those of member states. In the dock are all those countries who have collaborated with the terrorists and who have aided and abetted them. There stand here accused those countries which have blocked every international move to deal with this plague of terror which besets the world.

In the dock before us stand the members of all those countries, they are all too numerous, who cry to the high heavens when they are affected by terrorists, who fulminate at this Security Council table when their citizens or diplomats are threatened, and who remain silent when the same happens to citizens of other countries. Some of them do not even have the doubtful grace to remain silent; they have the wicked effrontery to join in the condemnation of a country that tries to prevent these acts. In the dock before us are the representatives of all those countries who stood and applauded the entry into the hall of the General Assembly of a gun-toting terrorist [the late Mr. Arafat] who, according to the President of Sudan, personally gave the order to execute the American and Belgian diplomats bound hand and foot in the basement of the Saudi Arabian embassy in Khartoum on March 1, 1973.

Yes, sir, before us stands accused this rotten, corrupt, brutal, cynical, bloodthirsty, monster of international terrorism and all those who support it in one way or the other, whether by commission or omission. Facing them today are the ordinary decent human beings throughout the world who seek nothing more than to live a life free from terror and from intimidation, free from the threats of hijackers, the indiscriminate bombs of terrorists, and the blackmail of criminals and murderers."

And that's what we say to the outraged, to the crazy, and to the irrational...and it either penetrates or it doesn't...and we make no apology for it, and we accept the consequences [which is what it means to make that moral stand]. Oh, and if it suits your fancy [it suits mine], then you too can call it your declaration that some are hostis humani generis, or enemies of the human race, and will be treated as such. And so will their active and passive accomplices/collaborators [so this is no time to be lazy, and, yes, on the premise that, all it takes for bad man to succeed is for good men to do squat, then there can indeed be a passive accomplice/collaborator]. And sorry that Chaim and I have to be so harsh, but I think that both of us would have preferred if things had turned out so that I'd have no need to be quoting him on terrorism more than 20 years after he spoke. And the tragedy of it all is simply that we are in no better position, vis-a-vis that desired cooperative effort, than we were in Chaim's days in the UN. And if they want to be outraged and offended, well, then let them be outraged and offended.



Schmed:

You here? Did you see Bolton on O'Reilly? Or do you boycott Faux News in its entirety? Or just O'Reilly? The UN in Lebanon for 28 years. Need I say more? What harm could Bolton possibly do that hasn't already been accomplished? And if you were there in place of some others, then maybe we could settle things over tea and crumpets, but that just won't do for some others. Bolton seems to have a reasonable view on this one and this is the time to make the moral stand that I spoke of above. We'll let the Israeli ambassador make the noted declaration for us, well that, and also those words thanking us for Bolton's eloquent and moving statement [just as Chaim thanked the then United States Ambassador to the United Nations, William Scranton, for his eloquent and moving statement]...

I myself was deployed to a combat zone in which I had many experiences that involved me fearing my own demise. I never talk about this with other people but I feel its paramount to understanding here.

This situation leaves scars in your life that can never be undone. I live in fear always now.

When I go out public I no longer feel secure, I can not escape this fact, I can not enjoy anything that brings a rush to me, I get filled with hate and fear for no reason, a terrible fear of horror.

When the leader in Iraqi insurgency was killed I yelled in joy for no reason I can understand.

I remember very much what bullets sound like hitting concrete, I will never be able to forget this sound.

War scars people.

Israel is faced with a situating it cant end on its own means. It has to protect itself, in the means of war.

This means does not end the situation it has to face, it only propagates it.

The world needs to respond to this crisis with real resolve.

The world in unable to head this, and only leads to more death to life.

I overall do not care about warmongers that never have to face what they call for, or really understand what that means, they are worthless cowards.

The world has problems of ignorance you experience in the form of pain, people should learn from this.

I am tired already and I am young, nothing can ever change this or give me back what it has taken.

I do not feel that any nation on this planet has the right to have any say in the matter. This is not the first attack by Arab terrorists, nor the 1000th or for that matter 100,000th attack. All the time the international community has done everything in it's power to ensure that this process is the norm instead of stopping it. Insteading of doing anything to end the violence this same international community has protected the agressors and making sure that they are never hurt enough to either end the violence or deter it. That is immoral to me

Actually the opposite of the facts. Again the international community has aligned itself with the aggressors and lo and behold the same results.

I have looked at history books and found that your opinion is in direct contradiction with what has ooccurred Look at Korea, World War I, Gulf War I, 1948, '56, & '67 Arab-Israeli Wars. In each and every situation the violence was merely postponed and not ended. The ppostponementhas resulted in millions more ccasualtiesand massive destruction that should never have been necessary if the international community had not stepped in and protected the aggressors.

Lebanon may or may not have another destructive civil war, that I don't know, but if they do not have control over all their country then they can not be considered a sovereign nation. No nation can be half under government control and half under terrorist control.

All the while the international community has done everything to keep them from concluding them. Always when Israel is on the brink of victory the same international community is there to make sure that it ends in a stalemate instead of victory.

Guess maybe those Arab countries that has supported the terrorists should be the ones to pay for the reconstruction. They certainly have gained a large windfall in profits because of there support.

I have been through one war, which is far too many. I have heard the chant “Charad al yahood!" (Kill the Jews). Which can now be heard in the streets of San Francisco by the ISM. Guess what I believe them when they say they want to kill all the Jews.

gordo:

To provide the answer, or more correctly, since I'm not you, my supposition re the answer that you are looking for. You rejoiced. Call it your subconscious knowing that the soul in question was responsible for instilling fear of death into more than a few others, and since you've, by your own report, or at least my understanding of that report, well, since you've experienced, and still experience that same fear, then with his death one less reason to live in fear and so cause for just that much rejoicing. And rejoicing not so much in his death but instead for the end of that fear.

And some of us aren't warmongers, and we know what death is like, since we've been there to watch the old, the young, and the in-the-middle, die. And while some fear this other impotence, there's nothing quite like the impotence of having to stand there helpless watching some others die.

And some of us otherwise know the pain attending the now undertaken response, even if only to ourselves [and this is from Abraham Rabinovich's The Yom Kippur War[:] The Epic Encounter That Transformed The Middle East [Schocken Books/Rabinovich 2004], at p. 500]:

"At a rally in the government center a month after Ashkenazi's solitary appearance, the number of demonstrators reached 5,000. The painful process of working through the nation's trauma was under way.

For [then IDF Colonel] Amnon Reshef, the process had begun as soon as the shooting stopped. His brigade had suffered more fatalities than any other Israeli brigade in the war, more than 300. It had borne the brunt of the Egyptian crossing [of the Suez canal] on Yom Kippur and of the battle for the Chinese Farm. With the cease-fire, the brigade was posted to a captured Egyptian air base on the west bank of the Canal, where it remained for two months. On Friday nights, after the Sabbath meal, Reshef would retire to a bunker with his officers and choose two to share a bottle of whiskey with him. He would insist that the pair drink until drunk, until they danced, or laughed, or cried. Sometimes they shouted at him for having let their friends die."

But that didn't stop Amnon from continuing the therapy, with the import of that reality being that, no matter that objective observation would opine that such was no fault of his, since still, the dead had been under his command, and maybe, just maybe, there was something that he could and ought to have done and so they'd still be alive, and so the shouting hurts. A good man, Amnon Reshef, since, among other items, the described circumstance rather patently demonstrates that he puts the needs of his men before his own. And let the story otherwise show us the mind of the "warmonger."

And not to "belittle", "devalue" and/or "invalidate" your own experience and pain, but if you think that war has some monopoly on unpleasant and needless death, well, you're mistaken. I've only watched one die from the violent conduct of some other, but I've seen quite a few more die from our apathy. And if UB40 is right and that endless sea of blood that's been spilled is enough to sail that ark of guilt, then I don't even want to begin to complete the number of arks that our apathy could sail. And if we aren't doing anything much by way of ameliorating their condition, why any surprise that the same phenomenon should be exhibited here? And so, my friend, some people shot at you. No matter, since no difference. You would have been hungry and they would have let you starve. Welcome to our world. And your quest and your consolation is simply to seek out and join forces with those of a different mind.

And if you want some other answer, I have none. And to give you a glimpse of some other pain, we can take the 2 year old boy who got into the pool and, well, it wasn't so pleasant to watch the morphine being administered to ease the soon to be coming pain and then watch life support measures terminated and that certain machine "flatline." And who does one blame for this? Since with all this pain, we surely need someone to blame. Do we blame the parents who, for a moment, since that's just about all it took, lost track of their beloved child, or do we blame God, who could made it so that while some might murder our children, well, at least God could have made it such that our children would float nose and mouth up [I mean, I understand the proposition of some that, if not for pain, we'd be nothing more or other than walking, talking, tennis-playing panda bears, but what does a 2 year old getting into the pool have to do with that, or as the man put it in the movie, does pain make turkeys noble?]. Oh, and for "brutal", I am also a rather strong proponent of the proposition that we fill up with concrete, every pool, since no need to swim in that pool when we can save a child's life instead.

And it isn't just the failure to it arrange it so that our children would float nose and mouth up, it's also the fact that, as I mentioned here on AD prior, you can pick whatever great and oh so noble cause that you like, no matter, since we've always "won" that cause on the dead bodies of our children. Why does that have to be? And who do I talk to about that? And I'm not even necessarily talking about war here, since there's another war going on, or as I asked, is it our race?, since in the case of that 2 year old, we won a battle in another war that day, in that white parents of white wife finally accepted the fact that white daughter married a black man, but we won that war at the cost of a dead 2 year old.

In the meantime, while you are pondering the matter of just who I talk to re the matter of why our children can't and don't float nose and mouth up, I suppose that I'll have to console myself with that study on what we all would do if we could save that passenger filled train if only we'd flip the switch and thereby cause the death of some other[s]. And not that I find such study consoling, since the matter of whether one flips the switch seems to depend, at least in part, on the identity of the one who will die instead, and so the lesson is that we are not all equal, at least not in the minds of some. But by way of the noted consolation, that might beat the implication, or one of the possible implications, of the story I just related re the death of the 2 year old, given that the one possible implication is that God made it so that we have the capacity to be so pathetically racist that it would take the death of a 2 year old to cause the noted reconciliation, and so God made it such that, in addition to any other circumstance, our children can't and don't float nose and mouth up. And what does that say about us and about just how much pain might be heading our way? And, lastly, as you can see, please note that I am religiously superstitious, since if nothing else, it beats the competing alternative, which is simply that we're all fools and none it matters.