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Post by chrisfan on Jul 17, 2006 13:12:06 GMT -5
And I am sure the people who died in the incidents don't really care about the superficial difference between terrorism and legal warfare. Which is a nice, emotional, tug at hte heartstrings sort of point Ken, but rather irrelevant to the issue at hand. |
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Post by shin on Jul 17, 2006 13:43:53 GMT -5
"Pretend", Chrisfan?
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Post by kmc on Jul 17, 2006 13:45:41 GMT -5
Your cavalier attitude about civilian deaths is specifically relevant to your undiminished support for campaigns that have accomplished nothing except for the deaths of people like you and I who just happened to be caught in the crossfire. Fact of war? Yes. Irrelevant or diminished fact, as you have argued? No.
Is there a difference between dropping an atomic bomb on a civilian center and flying a plane into a civilian center apart from formal declarations of war? I guarantee that there were many civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki who had no idea whatsoever that the mother of all bombs was going to be dropped on them before it happened. How is that at all different from what happened on September the 11th? Does the aforementioned threat of force somehow diminish the impact of lost lives? Is a death ok as long as you're warned it's gonna happen?
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Post by Mary on Jul 17, 2006 13:48:30 GMT -5
Kicking out was too strong of a word selection. In April 2002, Powell travelled to Lebanon and Syria to deal with the issue of Hezbollah. In those meetings, Lebanon agreed that Hezbollah's actions were a problem, and vowed to do everything they could to keep them under control. Seems like an incredibly flimsy basis for arguing that the Lebanese government can now legitimately be held responsible for Hezbollah's cross-border kidnapping. More to the point, from what I can find online about this meeting, it seems that the Lebanese president, Emil Lahoud, explicitly rejected Powell's call to control Hezbollah and argued that Hezbollah was a legitimate resistance movement, while the Prime Minister at the time, Rafiq Hariri, merely agreed that Lebanon would do its best to "calm the situation". This hardly seems like the sort of "promise" which provides the basis for aggressive acts of war when Hezbollah acts completely outside the control or authority of the Lebanese government 4 years later. www.lebanon.com/news/local/2002/4/15.htmM |
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Post by chrisfan on Jul 17, 2006 13:51:09 GMT -5
Your cavalier attitude about civilian deaths is specifically relevant to your undiminished support for campaigns that have accomplished nothing except for the deaths of people like you and I who just happened to be caught in the crossfire. Fact of war? Yes. Irrelevant or diminished fact, as you have argued? No. Is there a difference between dropping an atomic bomb on a civilian center and flying a plane into a civilian center apart from formal declarations of war? I guarantee that there were many civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki who had no idea whatsoever that the mother of all bombs was going to be dropped on them before it happened. How is that at all different from what happened on September the 11th? Does the aforementioned threat of force somehow diminish the impact of lost lives? Is a death ok as long as you're warned it's gonna happen? Ken, if you cannot argue what I've said without making it into something other than what I've said, then please don't waste my time. I have NEVER written off civilian deaths as irrelevant, and you damn well kno that. What I wrote off as irrelevant is the tugging on emotion you attempted with your speculation as to the thoughts of those killed by the a-bomb attacks. What was irrelevant there was your attempt to use such emotion to convey a point you were failing to make with logic. Let's go back to the logic standpoint for a minute. In a war - a real one recognized by the world like we were in against Japan, soldiers die. The goal is to save your own soldier's lives. There's a very good argument to be made (though debatable of course) that the US saved quite a few of our own soldier's lives by dropping the a bomb. Tell me Ken - how many al Qaeda "soldiers" lives were saved by flying three planes into buildings? |
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Post by chrisfan on Jul 17, 2006 13:52:09 GMT -5
Kicking out was too strong of a word selection. In April 2002, Powell travelled to Lebanon and Syria to deal with the issue of Hezbollah. In those meetings, Lebanon agreed that Hezbollah's actions were a problem, and vowed to do everything they could to keep them under control. Seems like an incredibly flimsy basis for arguing that the Lebanese government can now legitimately be held responsible for Hezbollah's cross-border kidnapping. More to the point, from what I can find online about this meeting, it seems that the Lebanese president, Emil Lahoud, explicitly rejected Powell's call to control Hezbollah and argued that Hezbollah was a legitimate resistance movement, while the Prime Minister at the time, Rafiq Hariri, merely agreed that Lebanon would do its best to "calm the situation". This hardly seems like the sort of "promise" which provides the basis for aggressive acts of war when Hezbollah acts completely outside the control or authority of the Lebanese government 4 years later. www.lebanon.com/news/local/2002/4/15.htmMSo what does Israel do instead? Let's be honest here - if Hezbollah did not have the security of a "there's not much we can do" stand of Lebanon, they'd lose quite a bit of strength there. |
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Post by shin on Jul 17, 2006 14:00:05 GMT -5
Shame on you for making Chrisfan consider the emotional pull of a 5 year old with shrapnel in her face, Ken.
Shame. On. You.
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Post by kmc on Jul 17, 2006 14:14:01 GMT -5
Are you kidding me? Here's, let's quote:
To which I replied:
And you said:
Anyone with a passing knowledge of war history knows that the killing of civilians is a tool to be used as a bargaining chip during warfare. Hell, the reason we dropped the atomic bomb was to prove, among other things, that we could kill a shitload of civilians with one bomb, and that if Japan wanted to curtail the death of its citizens, it ought to surrender (which they did, after two bombs). Now mind you this has no bearing on the current Israel-Arab nations clusterfuck. But if you'll acknowledge that the death of civilians is an unfortunate but acceptable part of war, then you'll acknowledge that the actions of Al-Qaeda or Hezbollah or whoever are really no different than dropping a bomb on a civilian center. They are killing civilians to force us into the bargaining table. There is nothing illogical about that. I am sorry you can't see it. Because it is a shame that people are being used as political pawns, and that because it is the nature of warfare, it shouldn't be our primary concern.
Also this:
Completely irrelevant.
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Post by chrisfan on Jul 17, 2006 14:18:36 GMT -5
I use words like "unfortunate reality" and you try to paint that into my saying that civilian deaths are irreleant ... and then try to defend that BS? Screw you Ken.
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Post by kmc on Jul 17, 2006 14:23:40 GMT -5
Yeah, screw me.
Chrisfan, don't get all emotional because you can't win the argument with logic.
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Post by skvorisdeadsorta on Jul 17, 2006 14:25:11 GMT -5
Chrisfan, I really think that you have a warhawk neo-con view on this situation that I can not agree with. I have a response to a few of things that you have posted. Either side here can work from the assumption that relevant history begins at X date, claim the land belongs to one group or the other, and make it a nice, simple fight. But if you go ALL the way back in history, recognizing that it's all relevant, it's not so simple and pretty. The land started out belonging to both groups. They both have legitimate claims to it. The problem is, that used to be true with A LOT fewer people than it is now. Not that they lived in harmony back then either, but at least you could fit all of them back then.
Relevant History to me being within the last 50 years. If we went by your argument here, then we should expect a Native American uprising and willingly give the land back to them. You have to have a cut off date here and I don't think that's too much to expect either. The other deal with this is that yes, there may have been fewer people in the region, but for about 300 years, it was recognized as Palestine with a Jewish population and none of these problems were to the extent of what they are today. Israel's Zionism and further encroachment on their land through militant brutalitarian tactics under the guise of "chosen people" is disgusting. Again, I ask you in which you have not been able to answer that why should a goverment be disassembled by a body that wasn't elected to give another body a government built on destroying and limiting access to land, resources, and basic living needs. The fact that you have Christians helping Hezbollah isn't lost on most since Israel doesn't even allow Christian access either. This is colonial imperialism of Britain and the US making facist doctrine to keep their corporate interests and infrastructure intact without all out devesatation in the region. It's easier to support facist Zionism than it is to support Arab Nationalism. Regarding the shrapnel, dead families, etc ... (here you go, fresh meat to try to pretend that conservatives are heartless monsters). War is fucking ugly. There is just no other way to describe it. Many would love to romanticize it into a neat clean operation where bad guys are killed, and everyone else lives happily ever after. But it's not like that, and has never been like that. The reasons for a war, or for objecting to a war (well, unless you're just against all war under any circumstances, but that's a different story) cannot be the death of innocents. No matter how you do it, innocents will die, and it's going to remain fucking ugly.
This is by far the most disgusting response from someone that I have known on a forum in a long time. True, War is hell, but quite honestly making civillians targets as scare tactics is not appropriate and their are accords and conventions available on the proper ettiqitte for Warfare. We won WWII with engaging the enemy, not the enemies civillians. Which also since war is ugly, it limits the justification of such acts just because 2 Israeli soldiers were captured by a group that happens to live in that country. Texas has bloods, but you don't see us bombing the shit out of California because that happens to be the Bloods headquarters. This is strong arming bullshit no matter how you paint it. The reason for war is when conflicts become so great that no other means of change will work. Destroying the opposition is never desirable per se, but the plain truth is that there are times when there is no other choice. It'd be lovely to live in a world where reason always pervailed ... but we don't.Nice Newt Gingrich esque marketing but save it for the re-election of Republican Congressmen in November. Since when is it okay to not have talks with a government who not responsible for the group that stole said soldiers. Get real. Israel is out of line and if this was any other country, the UN and everyone else would have santions and cease fires on this guys so fast you'd see the tailspin. Despite Israel's concessions, they continue to be attacked, and the attacks were escalatingAn escalation that they started, dunderhead. So you're telling me that when Israel attacks that shouldn't expect someone to shoot back?!  |
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Post by shin on Jul 17, 2006 14:30:11 GMT -5
Shame on you, Ken.
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Post by kmc on Jul 17, 2006 14:43:46 GMT -5
Fucking ridiculous logical abstractions I keep bringing up. Shame on me.
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Post by chrisfan on Jul 17, 2006 14:52:34 GMT -5
Relevant History to me being within the last 50 years. If we went by your argument here, then we should expect a Native American uprising and willingly give the land back to them. You have to have a cut off date here and I don't think that's too much to expect either. This may be true if I were ever arguing that past claims to the land were a legitimate reason to determine a "right" and "wrong" side in the dispute. But I have not made that argument. The only reason I pointed out that each side has legitimate claims through history to the land is to point out the weakness in the "it's not fair" argument. Both sides can make that argument ... doesn't make it valid for either side. I fully realize that you, Ken, and others do consider the "The land was taken from the Palestinians unfairly" argument to be at the center of the issue. I however do not, so my views on the subject to not center on the notion of history. Therefore, arguments of "What if they did that to the US with the Indians" don't really say much to me ... other than ignoring the fact that at one time the Indians had the land that is now the US to themselves without the "Americans" (as transplanted from the rest of the world) being here at all ... but that was never true of the land in question here. Regarding the shrapnel, dead families, etc ... (here you go, fresh meat to try to pretend that conservatives are heartless monsters). War is fucking ugly. There is just no other way to describe it. Many would love to romanticize it into a neat clean operation where bad guys are killed, and everyone else lives happily ever after. But it's not like that, and has never been like that. The reasons for a war, or for objecting to a war (well, unless you're just against all war under any circumstances, but that's a different story) cannot be the death of innocents. No matter how you do it, innocents will die, and it's going to remain fucking ugly.
This is by far the most disgusting response from someone that I have known on a forum in a long time. True, War is hell, but quite honestly making civillians targets as scare tactics is not appropriate and their are accords and conventions available on the proper ettiqitte for Warfare. And if you believe that I have said that it is, then it appears you've been so busy looking for mean names like "conservative" (yikes!) and "Newt Gingrich-like" (ooh!) to actually give some thought to what I've really said. The reason for war is when conflicts become so great that no other means of change will work. Destroying the opposition is never desirable per se, but the plain truth is that there are times when there is no other choice. It'd be lovely to live in a world where reason always pervailed ... but we don't.Nice Newt Gingrich esque marketing but save it for the re-election of Republican Congressmen in November. Since when is it okay to not have talks with a government who not responsible for the group that stole said soldiers. Get real. Israel is out of line and if this was any other country, the UN and everyone else would have santions and cease fires on this guys so fast you'd see the tailspin. It's okay when the attempts at diplomacy have been attempted and failed for so long that the start of such attempts has made its way into history books by now. |
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Post by Mary on Jul 17, 2006 14:55:01 GMT -5
What else can Israel do? There are short-term and long-term answers to this question. In the short term, Israel can negotiate a prisoner exchange - as it has done several times in the past with no catastrophic results whatsoever. It can also consider more directly targeted reprisals against Hezbollah which do not entail the indiscriminate slaughter of Lebanese civilians.
In the long term, I don't know. I'd be up for a Nobel Peace Prize if I did. Since both Israel and Hamas are recalcitrant, it seems that only international actors can push them to a negotiating table. That includes the United States and the European Union, of course, and also Arab states with relatively moderate (and it's all relative, here) attitudes toward Israel, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. That's a vague answer because I don't know. But if your answer is apply unbridled force, then that has also been Israel's answer for 4 decades and this is where it has gotten us.
M
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