DK guest-blogging at Josh Marshall’s place:
The logic, such as it is, employed by Bush and Condi is that since cease-fires have been broken in the past, it is the cease-fires themselves that are the impediment to peace. No cease-fires ergo no broken cease-fires. It’s sort of like saying that red lights are the reason drivers run red lights. Remove the traffic lights and, presto, drivers aren’t running red lights anymore. Just ignore the carnage at intersections.
Think that sounds familiar? Read my earlier post. They take the ostrich approach to practically every problem that they don’t want to deal with.
D. Mason
Well, it’s alot easier to bury your head in a big pile of war profiteering money than to actually face the problems you created.
Nutcutter
I also think that there’s a political calculation here.
Also, they are triangulating the ground between support for Israel, which is obsessive on Bush’s part, and the Saudis, who have huge influence with the Bushes, and who also own that giant oil spigot.
I think Bush is caught in a vise of his own making, is in complete denial, and thinks he can mumble his way through it by repeating “freedom” and “they hate what we stand for” and “turrists” and “democracy” over and over again hoping that his friends will be able to get a sound bite out of the verbal gumbo somehow.
I think that the Israelis, as bellicose and as reactionary and as insensitive as they are to the true nature of their surroundings, will figure out that they have created an unmitigated disaster for themselves over what amounted to a border skirmish, and will eventually declare victory and stop this shit. Not before their precision weapons and great concern for humanity will have killed a thousand or so civilians, which will be something around 20 or 30 times the number of military casualties, and not without shooting most of those in the back or in their sleep or in their fleeing vehicles.
Nutcutter
And Lebanon is not exactly Bush’s only problem this morning. After only a year or so of unfettered violence in Iraq, he is ready to add troops equal in number to about a month’s worth of civilian fatalities, to …put one of them next to each dead Iraqi as a gesture of “concern” for the carnage?
Par R
More reasoned discourse from the NUT: “Not before their precision weapons and great concern for humanity will have killed a thousand or so civilians, which will be something around 20 or 30 times the number of military casualties, and not without shooting most of those in the back or in their sleep or in their fleeing vehicles.”
The NUT may not be anti-Semitic, but he sure as Hell hates and despises the Israelis.
Nutcutter
The Bush-Rice “No Peace Before Its Time” doctrine will surely go a long way toward shoring up America’s collapsing support around the world. Especially with those Pesky Arabs. Who Hate Us For Our Freedoms.
Rice, the assiduous student of history and world affairs, knows that rushing into peace has always been the underlying cause of war. She makes a good complement to Bush, who is resolute and can be steady and patiently support war, giving war time to do its important work.
sockpuppet in training
The red-light analogy is deeply flawed. If everyone ignored stoplights and people were dying in droves at intersections, would you install stoplights at new intersections? Sounds a little like “stay the course” to me.
Nutcutter
What kind of candy-ass Bushmonkey are you?
Reasoned discourse? That’s for pussies. Why don’t you go order a latte and plan your next windsurfing vacation?
Nutcutter
You’re slipping, Doug. Let me teach you a thing or two about how to carry on a flame war on the Internet.
This is an excerpt from my booklet “Why I Have Never Lost a Flame War — Cease Fires Are For Girlymen” (just $29.95 plus shipping if you order this morning) ….. { Add to Cart }
Slide.
One thing Bush is real good at and that is painting himself (and all of us along with him) into a corner.
Slide.
did somebody say ostrich approach? This is a description of Bush’s first meeting with Ariel Sharon:
.the Worst President in History
Nutcutter
And the amazing thing is, he does it with fingerpaints.
Nutcutter
Same thing he said when he flew over New Orleans last year.
Slide.
exactly what I thought when I read it.
Slide.
Watching Fox News I see that the current theme is that Hezbolla is “crazy”. Just fuckin nuts. Insane maniacs. Lunatics. Why do we always underestimate our enemies. These “crazy lunatics” seem to be outmanuvering Bush/Rice/Olmert at every turn.
Nasrallah is talking now on TV but none of the cable news channels find it newsworthy enough to show with translation. Nope, lets hear again for the 400th time the same predictable pundits and military experts but don’t listen to what the head of the “enemy” is saying. Amazing. Fucking amazing.
Punchy
Perhaps I’ve misheard/misunderstood what CNN said, but it sounded as if the Hezbollah leaders agreed to the cease-fire conditions….
SHAZAM! Talk about putting Bush in hot seat. He doesn’t want this to end, but now his opponents have agreed to his conditions. I’m guessing that to prolong this, Bush/Condi will intro a new slew of additional conditions so as to scuttle the agreement.
Anyone have additional info?
Zifnab
They’re just crazy like a fox. But don’t go running off and thinking foxes aren’t crazy.
I honestly think DK is buying too much into the Bush logical rhetoric (as flawed as it is) and mistaking this for some boneheaded blunder rather than a very calculated, analyzed blunder.
The Bush media has been trying to link Iran and Syria to the Hezbollah crisis since before the conflict started. A cease-fire will cool Isreali and Hezbollan tempers alike. Continued conflict will inevitably insight more conflict. The White House sees a bit of burning kindling and is thinking, “Man, we could turn this into a real forest fire if we blew on it just right.”
They want to bomb Iran. They want to invade Syria. And they’ll be damned if a little thing like “dashing the hopes of peace in the Middle East for the next century” is going to stop them.
Slide.
Kinda off topic but since charges of anti-semitism have be raised to some commenters here I’d like to show you what real anti-semitism looks like. This reportedly is from a police report of Mel Gibson’s DUI arrest:
Now, thats anti-semitism.
Nutcutter
Hezbollah will win every aspect of this situation, it appears. Militarily, there will be no lasting effect. As PR, the crisis works entirely in their favor. For Bush and Israel, it’s a huge loser in every regard.
The MSM conventional wisdom now among pundits is that Israel is caught in a situation where it can’t give the appearance of weakness, since its whole schtick for the last sixty years has been its invincibility.
So the mothers wailing over their burned babies — on both sides — can rest comfortably knowing that all of this has been for a good cause.
Punchy
Yes, but did they bring him back his son?
Nutcutter
I wonder if that’s how Bush acted when he was getting arrested during one of his binges?
Paul L.
As opposed to the Clinton-Albright “Peace at any price” doctrine that gave us North Korea.
Expect Calls for a Cease-Fire…
Nutcutter
This is the “Parade to Post” at Jackalope Downs!
Lebanese have been calling for a cease fire from day one. Your writer is not exactly the Amazing Kreskin.
Not exactly rocket science here. And the morally correct thing for the US to do would have been to join that call, immediately.
Nutcutter
–Kreskin.
Apparently, Kreskin foresaw the advent of ParRot/DougJ(tm) here at Balloon-Juice. He just didn’t see that the ice cubes would be crushed and then thrown down the front of your pants.
Nutcutter
See, it would be a fake peace to put a stop to this kind of thing. Anyone can see that.
It’s a good thing that Israel keeps shipping those weapons-targeting videos to the media, though. Otherwise you’d think they were just firing wildly into a crowd. Luckily the precision of their attacks has kept the civilian-military kill ratio down to something like 30:1.
Darrell
Tim F, as usual, needs to buy a clue. Paul L. points out the obvious, which leftists dare not acknowledge:
“Peace at any price” is exactly the position of the left. That would be an honest foreign policy campaign slogan for them. Perry Como and Slide on another thread yesterday explicitly blamed Bush for not ‘renegotiating’ another treaty with the N. Korean dictator.. after the N. Koreans had of course broken all their earlier promises. The left is so stupid, dangerously stupid really.. and they never learn from their mistakes.
Nutcutter
That’s right, you horrendously stupid piece of shit.
Following the example of a country that has kept itself in a state of war with the same adversaries for SIXTY FUCKING YEARS is a good example of “learning from their mistakes.”
demimondian
No, Paul, it would be a fake peace which put a stop to the murder of Lebanese civilians, but not of Israeli civilians. (Please do bear in mind that the majority of the Israeli casualties have also been civilians. And those attacks have not had the poor excuse of intermingling terrorists among the community; Hizbollah has been targeting civilians from day one.) Lie to yourself, if you want, but don’t try to lie to me: what Hizbollah wants is to be able to continue to launch rockets at Northern Israel, as they have done for many months, without fear of retribution. That would be a fake peace.
Hizbollah made a terrible miscalculation — that Israel would continue to avoid responding. The people who have sheltered them made the same calculation. (And don’t bring up the article which alleges that they don’t; that’d been Darrelling of the first order. That article has been debunked.) They should have known that sooner or later, they’d be wrong.
The various Palestinian organizations have said for many, many years that there are no innocent Israelis in this conflict; even Israeli Arab children contribute Israel’s existence. Sadly, as the Lebanese Shia are now learning, that argument cuts both ways: there are no innocent people in Southern Lebanon now. Their children are guilty of nothing more than living, just as Israeli children have been guilty of the same crime for the last sixty years.
I don’t think that the current Israeli strategy will work — but I’m not going to pretend that they don’t have just cause to pursue it.
Darrell
“Trying to link” Iran and Syria? As if the links between Hezbollah and Iran and Syria have not already been well established. This is a stunning bit of ignorance, even by leftist standards.
demimondian
You’re right — the Palestinians would do well to not follow the example of Syria, and, instead, to follow the example of Egypt and Jordan. Negotiating with the Israelis in good faith does work.
Nutcutter
When you explain to me how those two opposite statements go together, I might consider that you are doing anything other than regurgitating some crap you read in a Zionist website.
There is no moral ground upon which you can stand and fire rockets into cars being driven by fleeing families, and burn children in front of their mothers.
There IS NO MORAL GROUND on which you can stand and argue that. Not with me. You can sing the song of bathos a la Israel or Palesting, it’s all the same music to me. It’s bullshit. It’s the language of death and war and politicians who will not speak plainly.
It is support of murder, and that is true whether it’s you, or Darrell. Exactly the same.
It is a lie to say that the only recourse anyone has in a situation like this is to fire at children and create a 20-30:1 civilian kill ratio in what is supposedly a military operation. That’s a lie, and you are a liar.
Darrell
Stupid ass reference to “Darrelling” notwithstanding, an otherwise excellent post Demi
Entirely accurate observation
Nutcutter
You’re a homophobe, a bigot, a liar, and and a coward who supports the murder of children.
I’m sure Demi is thrilled to have you as his compatriot.
Perry Como
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
Keep going Darrell. Your all GOP government has been a domestic and foreign failure. The only thing you can do now is lie to yourself that it’s somehow the “liberal’s” fault.
Perry Como
Peace in the Middle East!
Nutcutter
Sure, if you think …
…that burned childred are “unfortunate collateral” (phrase used by a BJ poster)
…that responding to an air attack against innocent civilians requires mounting an air attack against innocent civilians
…that using a minor border skirmish as an excuse to mount a cruel and murderous air campaign against babies that has been apparently planned for a year is enough to give you the high ground in a moral shitstorm
…that waging a war whose only apparent objective is to maintain an appearance of invincibility is adequate justification for killing kids (there is, you see, absolutely no liklihood of any military conquest here, unless Israel intends to reoccupy Lebanon for another dismal 20 years of failure)
…that supporting the policies of a president who has demonstrated nothing but incompetance and cruel indifference to reality for all the civilians in all the countries who are “unfortunate” enough to be in the way is what you really want to be doing here
Sure, then it’s “accurate.” Tragic, disgusting, reprehensible, but accurate.
Darrell
Got it, you insufferable fucking jackass. Only in “Nutcutter’s” reality-detached fantasy world, can anyone have the moral high ground. Israel is attacked by bloothirsty arab terrorists sworn to kill every jew, while hiding themselves and their weapons in civilian areas.
If Israel does nothing, more innocent Israelis die. If they respond, Lebanese civilians are at risk to be killed. Israel’s decision to fight back was 100% MORALLY justified. In fact, after being attacked, Israel was OBLIGATED to respond violently.
Nutcutter, you’ve been quite harsh in your criticisms of Israel. Can you direct us to any posts you’ve made in which you condemn the arab vermin who target Israeli civilians?.. because I haven’t see you do that. Funny how almost all the condemnations flow in one direction.
Perry Como
I think we should escalate the situation in northern Iraq, between the Kurds and Turkey. We shouldn’t bother negotiating a false peace. We need to let the underlying tensions play out. It’s the Bush Doctrine!
Darrell
You’re repeating a lie right now. Perry is lying his ass off trying to deny that just last night he was so fucking stupid, as to “blame” Bush for not renegotiating another treaty with the North Koreans, after the N. Koreans had already broken all their promises from their previous agreement. From yesterday evening, Perry Como wrote
Leftist idiocy in all its glory. The problem is that ‘stupid’ Bush won’t renegotiate another treaty with the N. Koreans! Why doesn’t Bush just listen to the brilliant advice of leftists?
Nutcutter
There is NO MORAL GROUND on which you, or a country, can stand and justify shooting into civilians in this situation.
Flap your arms and stamp your feet all you like, that’s the truth and there is no escape from it.
AS for your inane question, several hundred Lebanese civilian deaths, about a third of them children, and maybe a couple dozen military deaths. A 20-30:1 civilian death ratio. Civilian targets are being deliberately used to force a political solution, that’s obvious.
It’s murder. I know murder when I see it.
The fact that Hezbollah may be similarly reprehensible is not an excuse. Your disgusting behavior does not entitle me to blow up your neighbor’s house and family and call them “unfortunate collateral.”
You and Demi make a fine pair. You assert that civilians can’t be “proven to be innocent” and he asserts that there are “no innocent civilians.”
I assert that innocent people are innocent, and their children are innocent, and killing them to make a point is murder. It is not self defense, it’s murder.
You are moral filth. You are exactly the kind of person who is the reason for sixty years of death and destruction over there.
Demdude
Guess who wants to negotiate with North Korea:
Par R
Give it up Darrell, the NUT has evolved into as big an anti-Semite as has existed, at least since Yasir Arafat died…and I suspect the NUT is just about as ugly and smelly.
Perry Como
Explain to us how the Bush Doctrine ended up working better than negotiation. Does North Korea have less fissile material now? Are tensions lower in the Korean peninsula now?
Again, your all GOP government has failed. Miserably. They’ve run up a massive debt, increased the size of the Federal government (alot!), made the US a hated nation internationally, and pretty much fucked up everything it’s touched.
Heckuva job!
Darrell
This, from the idiot who thinks the problem with N. Korea is that Bush hasn’t sat down to renegotiate another treaty with the ‘trustworthy’ N. Korean dictator. What makes the left dangerous, is that they never learn from their idiotic mistakes.. in the case of Perry and Slide, frantically trying to change the subject away from their idiocy
demimondian
It’s really quite simple. Sometimes, being alive, in a certain place, at a certain time, is a crime. That’s been the case for people in Northern Israel for six decades (and the reason there are so few civilian deaths up there is because the residents have bomb shelters, not because they haven’t been attacked). It’s the case in Southern Lebanon, now.
Is that just? Certainly not to the children who have been hurt. Is it fair? To the children? No, of course not. To their parents? Well, probably, yes.
Fact one: the vast majority of people in Southern Lebanon are not members of Hizbollah. Their only relationship to the terrorists is either a terrorized victim or a silent supporter.
Fact two: there were almost certainly very few silent supporters before the current campaign began.
Fact three: Hizbollah didn’t care. As long as there are civilians to hide behind, they were more than happy to use them as human shields.
Fact four: the people of Southern Lebanon have been fleeing north to Beirut for decades. They lived in poverty, but they left.
Fact five: the civlians who remained gambled that Israel would not allow them to come to harm.
Fact six: by making that gamble, they knowing provided shelter to murderers, even when they had an alternative. In so doing, they — and their children — became accessories to that murder, because they knew that it was their presence which kept Israel from turning their villages into killing fields.
Conclusion: As a result, their presence in Southern Lebanon has been a crime, and, therefore, there are no innocent people in Southern Lebanon, now.
Nutcutter
Good argument.
Nutcutter
I’ll assume that that is spoof, because it is grotesque and sociopathic, beyond just about anything I’ve seen in here.
Madness.
Nutcutter
There you have it, folks. The Darrell/Demi Doctrine. You heard it here first.
No reason to worry about the morality of killing innocent people in this war.
All of the people being killed have been declared to be guilty. Case closed.
I gotta tell you, I couldn’t invent a load of crap like that, and tell anyone I read it here …. nobody would believe me.
I don’t think even the morally bankrupt George Bush or the insane Condi Rice could invent a bunch of shit that crazy, that evil, that sociopathic, and have the nerve to float it in public.
Perry Como
Bwahahahahah. Sec. Rice is an unhinged leftist! Come on Darrell. Leftist! Leftist!
Perry Como
Fixed that for you. Moron.
Par R
demimondium, you may as well give it up too. As has been readily apparent to periodic visitors to this site for a number of months, the NUT is nothing more than your somewhat ordinary anti-Semite, possessed of a modest education and bullying approach to everything in life….sounds a little like those fellows from the 1930s that used to wear a lot of black leather in Germany, doesn’t it???
Perry Como
Irony is dead.
Steve
Do you see how the phrase “and their children” is a tremendous leap of logic to just slip in there?
I think it’s positively silly to call someone an accessory to murder simply for not wanting to leave their home, but to say “oh, if you’re guilty of a crime, so are your children” is madness on top of madness.
Steve
I retract my call for Par to come up with some original insults. Stick to ripping people off, dude.
Nutcutter
Precisely.
Nutcutter
I think by rule, I win.
Steve
Being compared to the Nazis and Yasser Arafat in the same thread definitely deserves some kind of special prize.
Imagine if you went out right now, and like, killed a bunch of people or something? They’d have no one left to compare you to. You’re already the worst anti-semite since Arafat.
Perry Como
Speaking of black leather and Germany:
It’s for Freedom!
Andrew
Meta-commentary:
1) Demi is surprisingly hard line.
2) It’s really hard to argue something when Darrell and Par R are on your side. However, there is always the possibility that they’ll just plagarize your work, so you’ll get more exposure.
Perry Como
btw, that Mel Gibson thing is hilarious. Just goes to show you how much good Christian Republicans like the Jews. Rapture, bitches!
Nutcutter
I know. And to think I almost married Gayle, my childhood sweetheart, who is Jewish.
She went off the Europe for a year and the next thing I knew she had married some Swiss guy.
Now, I get my revenge.
Par R
And Steve, I have it on good authority from folks in Phoenix that the NUT also has very bad BO.
Nutcutter
Smell my shorts.
Par R
The NUT says:
.
The next thing he’ll be telling us is that his best friends are all black, handicapped, gays and lesbians.
Steve
Okay, that made me laugh.
Meanwhile, I’m thanking my lucky stars that Nutcutter hasn’t stuck me in an oven yet.
Perry Como
I have it on good authority that Nutcutter has an oven. You should watch your back.
Slide
how incompetent and dangerous is out boy president? This from someone that supported the President and supported the war in Iraq:
ahhhhh.. .but the resident asswipe, Darrell, dares to attack the Clinton foreign policy? Ladies and Gentlemen, its Twilight Zone time.
Nutcutter
Yeah, mostly. And they all have real names, too.
Nutcutter
The picture of him that MSNBC had up on thier banner most of the afternoon was just jaw dropping.
He looked like a guy who was about to be eaten by a giant gorilla. He looked absolutely dumbstruck and mystified.
Par R
One of the NUT’S neighbors describing him at dusk:
Nutcutter
Hey Par?
Boo!
Par R
And another neighbor said “He smelled just awful, even though his trailer is fifty feet from mine.”
Nutcutter
Well then, like the Lebanese, they should just move.
Fuck em. Civilians have no rights around here, eh?
Par R
I had the impression that the neighbor was thinking more in terms of bombing.
Nutcutter
My neighbor? Did you mean bonging?
Slide
you know what pisses me off the most about the naive bedweeting right, its that they want to frame the issue as they are tough on terrorism while the left wants “peace at any cost”. No morons, I want do defeat our enemies as much as you do but I want our country to do it INTELLIGENTLY. Your chest thumping, cowboy hat wearing, swaggering, bring it on, President has HELPED our enemy enormously by his actions. You guys don’t want to be effective you just want to play tough guy – with other people’s blood. This administration is populated with nothing but Chickenhawks. Guys that did everything in their power to avoid fighting and serving their nation. But.. to show how tough they are, they strut to the ever present microphones and broadcast to the world, “bring it on” .
I have to think this has to do with a real inadequacy in their testicular makeup. Freud would have a field day with likes of our armchair toughguys like Darrell. So bold and tough he is from behind his keyboard.
Look, my little bedwetters, we get it, you are the real tough boys and you want to kill as many arabs as you can. Doesn’t matter much if they are our enemies or not.. any arab will do… we have to show them we’re tough right? Thats the only thing these A-rabs understand – that we have balls. Yeah.. Hoooo rahhhh
What little punks.
Nutcutter
I took an oath not to participate in threads that deal with testicles.
Par R
You may be right. I perhaps misheard. In fact that would make sense, as the aroma from the “bonging” would perhaps help mask the unpleasant odor coming from the direction of your trailer.
Nutcutter
Why are you sounding like The Professor from Felix the Cat?
Not your best work, Doug.
Pull that gerbil out of your ass and get your act together.
Par R
Methinks someone was squeezing Slide’s testicles a tad too much as he was typing that overripe comment.
Perry Como
I’m still laughing about Darrell being called out twice by the administration. Yesterday about the ceasefire and today about negotiations with North Korea.
Fucking priceless.
Nutcutter
The fog of war.
Lost control of his talking points.
It happens in combat.
Slide
Keep me out of your sick right wing fantasies sub-par,
Nutcutter
Translation: Condi, we’re doin a heckuva lousy job. We’re gettin killed in the polls and the Saudis are gonna take oil up to $150 a barrel unless we can stop this shit. Gotta get ya back on the plane.
Rice: Please don’t talk with your mouth full, Junior. Don’t MAKE me call your mother again.
Par R
As the NUT would say, “It looks as if another spoof has shown up this afternoon.” Usually they have a bit more wit and are somewhat better with their English and typing skills, however.
Nutcutter
Not since you lowered the
parbar.Slide
anybody that has been around Ballon-juice a while knows I am anything but a spoof. Now go back to reading your Ann Coulter book.
Nutcutter
Darrell cannot be reached for comment.
Par R
I don’t think David Letterman has anything to worry about with this fellow’s “wit,” such as it is.
Nutcutter
Unless I am missing something, Tuesday is August.
August means hurricanes.
Do we suppose that the Bush Government Machine can handle a Middle East hurricane and a Gulf Coast hurricane at the same time?
Maybe if we put Shrub on the plane and just have him continually fly over the devastated areas, circling from Gulf Coast to the Eastern Mediterranean constantly?
Pictures of him staring out the window and looking concerned will certainly boost his ratings.
Par R
Actually, June is the start of the hurricane season, and notwithstanding all the blather from Gore about the impact of global warming on hurricane creation, this has thus far been a remarkably quiet year, far quieter than virtually all of the predictions issued by the alarmists and weather forecasters.
Perry Como
He’s busy digging in his ass for a clue. All he’s coming up with is Cheetos.
Pb
Fuck them. Seriously. Never again.
Nutcutter
Who’s talking about the “start of the season?”
We’re talking about the heart of the season, when most of the hurricanes, uh, actually occur.
You’d make a good FEMA employee.
“Wayull, uyuk, we made it through June okay!”
Slide
Now lets tie the Mel Gibson arrest thread and War in Middle East thread together and see what we come up with.
Something that has bothered me of late has been the flippant use by those on the right of the word anti-semitic. They equate not agreeing with every fucking thing that Israel does as somehow being anti-semitic. There have been any number of right wing blogs that have talked about the new anti-semitism of the left. What a reprehensible argument. What a cowardly way to debate an issue. But we are used to the scummy tactics of the bedwetting right wingers now don’t we? So I paid it no mind.
Well, back to the point. The unmasking of the vile anti-semitism of Mel Gibson is quite revealing isn’t it? I mean he was the darling of the Christian right. Those of us that saw anti-semitic atmospherics in his movie The Passion were attacked for even suggesting it. Lol.. Interesting turn of events. So to recap, many of us were attacked for suggesting that an anti-semite was anti-semitic are now being attacked for being anti-semitic. Whew…. again.. its Twilight Zone time in this country. I’m waiting for Rod Sterling at any moment to wip off his Dick Cheney mask, take a puff on a cigarette, and tell us it was all just a bad bad episode.
Slide
good right wing Christian Mel Gibson waxing philosophically on the nature of Judaism.
Par R
Again, NUT, you really are a very poor reader (and likely just as bad a listener). I was merely noting that (1) the season started in June and (2)with one third of the season complete, there has not even been a tropical storm warning issued as yet. Obviously, with four more months to go, we’re not out of the woods yet.
And as an aside, it appears that this Slide jerk may overtake you, NUT, in terms of plain old stupidity and simplemindeness. He writes as if he had spent a lifetime on the government payroll and has become very embittered about it.
Nutcutter
It is, and this moral nullification has been going on for decades. It’s exactly the same crapola that is marketed on the Islamic side under a different logo and with different celebrities. But it’s the same idea.
And I think this hideous clusterfuck of a war and the fifty years of mad PR it will earn Israel is going mark the tipping point in the world’s waking up to this constant, relentless working of the refs being done by the blind defenders of Israel.
I strongly believe that the biggest single thing that could happen for world peace right now would be to put an end to that crap. Stop already with the ads in the paper calling for unqualified and unquestioning support of Israel.
If Israel is so fucking right, why does it need to keep insisting on unquestioning support? Being right enables you to stand up to the most aggressive questioning. Why would a set of actions and policies that is right have to pimp for unflinching support? Do the people running these ads imagine that Satan is lurking behind every bush, ready to snatch support away from the Baby
JesusIsrael at the slightest moment of inattention?The question answers itself. Give me policies and actions that stand up to the most rigorous tests and questions. Whether in Israel, or Washington DC. Give me also people who will ask the damned questions and demand straight answers.
Nutcutter
And yet I toy with you and pull off your legs as if you were a bug.
Nutcutter
Laugh. That’s right up there with “We haven’t been attacked since 911, so we must be safer.”
I guess that explains the Perma-Orange Terror Alert Threat Level for five years, eh?
Check the chart. Almost all the fucking hurricanes happen in August and September.
Except for the one going on in your cerebellum.
Par R
I don’t know where Steve is when we could use him, but NUT, what you have just written is a near direct replay of the thoughts (not the verbatim words) from a long anti-Semitic rant posted on one of the Islamic websites, perhaps CAIR. You should just come out and acknowledge where your true beliefs lie; your words certainly tell those with a sense of the English language where you stand.
And as to the ravings of Slide, well, that’s just what they are…the ravings of a fool.
Slide
the collected wit and wisdom of Par R
and then says of me:
uh huh….lol
Perry Como
I think the term is projection. Much like the tough guy that goes around calling everyone a fag and turns out to be gay.
Perry Como
Case in point:
Nutcutter
Oh, my color chart fell down. It’s Perma-Yellow, “Elevated — Significant Risk of Terrorist Attack“.
Five years. No change. WTF? This is what we can expect from the bullshit War on Terrah?
Give me my fucking money back. Seriously. Fire these punchdrunk toads and get me a new government. This one is about as effective as an overfilled vacuum cleaner bag.
Nutcutter
I stand now with Secretary Rice and most of the modern world: Stop these hostilities now. Stop killing civilians.
Call that whatever names you like. It is the only morally defensible position.
I said it in my first post on this subject on the first thread on this subject here: There IS no good guy in this situation. Anybody who pulls this shit and tries to pose as a good guy is a fucking liar and murderer. I don’t care which side he’s on. Sides don’t matter here.
But keep up the harangue, because I couldn’t invent a better foil than you. At this point I have to assume that you know that and are laying down this carpet of straight lines to help me out.
Par R
Slide, Slide, Slide, Slide. Have you no pride?
Clearly you’re a fool. As well as a tool.
But the Nut like’s your butt. Though you look like a mutt.
Your posts are really silly. Written by a hillbilly??
(by Steve, the “attorney”)
Nutcutter
How to tell if you have a dunce?
He’ll try everything, at least once.
When you’re right you don’t have to dance.
Just get right and take your stance.
Par R
NUT, that sounds awfully familiar. From whom did you steal it?
Nutcutter
I didn’t steal it, your sister gave it to me.
Nutcutter
Read the whole thing at salon.com
Nutcutter
It looks to me like Israel’s intelligence has sunk to the level of ineptitude we can now expect from American intel.
Israel is starting to act like us, bull in china shop, can’t get out of its own way, shooting itself in the groin.
In other words, something Darrell can root for.
Slide
Nut:
Kevin Drum agrees with you:
.
Nutcutter
Again, Salon.
Again, another reason why the insane defense of its sociopathic strategy in this war is failing on every front.
You can’t tell the world that civilians are unfair cover for your enemy, and then blow up the roads that the civilians need to use to flee the area, and then blow up the cars the civilians are fleeing in.
Well, you can and still bamboozle a few BJ posters. But the world is not fooled. At all.
Nutcutter
Sorry, “its” = “Israel’s sociopathic strategy”
Nutcutter
Obviously these people have not read Darrell or the other double-speakers around here who dismiss civilian carnage and 700,000 refugees as “collateral.”
Panicked people trying to save their families are not disposable garbage in the insane machinations of bellicose politicians and cowardly bloggers.
Nutcutter
MoDo on the Bush-Blair comedy show. Her best work in years. Look around for it, it’s NYT Pay-to-See but you can find it out there if you look for it.
Okay, one more snippet, but this is public domain so don’t worry about the NYT police coming down here …
Imagine a job like Dowd’s, where all you have to do is paste the presidents actual words and you can have ’em rolling in the aisles. Nice work if you can get it!
Nutcutter
Justin Raimondo
Nutcutter
MSNBC at this hour.
Darrell remains unavailable for comment.
chopper
jesus, this thread is stupid.
either israel can’t kill any civilians, which basically means they can’t fight back at all (which is great in a turn-the-other-cheek jesus sorta way, and i know he’s a big fucking deal among the jews), or everyone is an anti-semite.
what a choice.
christ, i know that this is the era of false equivilences, ‘with us or against us’, ‘good vs evil’ and all that naive garbage, but come the fuck on. if there’s any place, any era in which there are shades of fucking grey its the modern middle east. shit, we roasted a fuck of a lot of civvies in germany and japan in WWII. many of them were a mistake. we didn’t need to kill all those fuckers in hiroshima. but i’ll be damned if we could have fought that war without killing civilians. i mean, it’s not like this conflict is just like WWII but fuck, how the fuck are you supposed to do anything at all about these assholes hiding around civilians w/o putting civilians in danger?
BTW Par, you’re a shithead. plain and simple. just wanted to make sure that was out there. darrell, you too.
Nutcutter
Did you even bother to read the thread?
1) The killing of civilians in this context is not morally defensible, and you haven’t mounted any defense. “Whaddya mean we can’t kill them” is not a defense.
2) The “hiding among civlians” myth is contraindicated by the only reports and evidence we have from those on the ground. There’s no basis in fact to believe it’s true.
And no, this is not WWII, or anything remotely like it.
And don’t mince words. We’re not talking about “putting civilians in danger.” We’re talking about killing them, and at a ratio to military casualties of something like 20-30 to 1, at least a third of those children. And killing them as they attempt to flee. And bombing and throwing rockets at the escape routes. And by people who are bragging about their precision targeting and shedding crocodile tears over the great “concern” for civilian tragedy here.
Cut the crap.
Nutcutter
Courtesy DKos. This Bud’s for you, Darrell.
Slide
The Moron in Chief said this today:
“This moment of conflict in the Middle East is painful and tragic,” Bush said. “Yet it is also a moment of opportunity for broader change in the region.”
Question, when Lebanon has another election do you think the governement they elect will be more pro Israel/USA or more pro Hezbella?
Maybe this will give you a clue:
Nutcutter
Slide, my addy is decipherable at my url, the first text panel you see upper left.
Send me an email.
Cheers, p.
Nutcutter
Good find. The collossal PR calamity for Israel on this stupid adventure has been a slam dunk from day one. Outside of Israel, I think Red State America and Neoconland are about the only places on earth where you will find anything less than slack-jawed dismay at what they are doing.
Well, and the uglier corners of the blogosphere.
Darrell
Kisses and hugs to you too shitstain, for the uncalled for insult.
Nutcutter
Oh yeah, if there is one thing you don’t deserve here, Darrell, it’s an insult.
Are you actually for real? Sometimes you are so far out in bullshitland we wonder if you are a spoof.
Darrell
From the article:
No renegotiation for the sake of renegotation. Only on our terms. I blame Bush for that ‘hard line’ policy with North Korea
Nutcutter
What about this thread do you think warrants talking about North Korea, Darrell?
It’s about Condi Rice seeking a cease fire that you reject because you support the murder of children for political purposes.
Darrell
Are you referring to the Israelis as being the ones murdering children “for political purposes”? You probably don’t see yourself as irrational and unhinged, do you?
Nutcutter
It’s pretty much the world’s mainstream view, Darrell.
And it’s absolutely true, for reasons explained to you numerous times.
Your steadfast denial of it doesn’t change it.
Murder is murder. You support murder.
Shooting into crowds of people trying to run away? That’s murder. Plain and simple.
Darrell
Overlooking his gratuitous insult directed at me, chopper states an obvious point:
But chopper, don’t you see, that ANY civilian deaths in course of defending itself constitutes “murder” for political purposes on the part of Israelis? Nutcutter said so. And only Israelis .. because Nutcutter hasn’t made such accusations against Hezbollah, because the arab terrorists aren’t as bad as the jews in Israel, otherwise he would have mentioned something bad about Hezbollah murderers by now.
Nutcutter, if all your condemnations are directed at Israel, and few if any towards the terrorists who began this fight, is it really so unreasonable to say that you’re a Jew hating anti-semite?
Darrell
No Nutcutter, it’s not the world’s mainstream view that Israelis are “murdering” children for political purposes as you have claimed. It’s a very extremist view.
While others may feel Israel has gone too far in defending herself, only the most extreme would argue, as you are doing, that Israel (no mention from you of Hezbollah atrocities of course) is murdering children for political purposes.
DougJ
This sort of logic — if you never have ceasefires, the ceasefires will never be broken — reminds me of friend’s logic regarding hangovers: if you never stop drinking, you’ll never get a hangover. It’s probably true.
Nutcutter
From the notorious terrorist rag, US News and World Report.
Darrell
Israel is in a battle for her survival, fighting against bloodthirsty enemies sworn to wipe her off the face of the earth. Under these circumstances, best to worry about “world opinion” later.
Nutcutter
Nope. This thing is the most collossal disaster for Israel’s image in the world, ever. It’s the reason why Israel is rapidly backpedaling from its position of just a week ago, now stating that it won’t require “disarming” Heabollah at all. It’s the reason why Bush reversed himself and is now trying to look like a peacemaker when only a week ago he was doing his bullshit “talk tough” routine. It’s the reason why Rice is already back in the Middle East and imploring Israel, as we speak, to stop the madness.
It’s the reason why every editorial page on every respectable newspaper in the world outside of the US — and many IN the US — are calling for an end to the madness.
It’s the reason why Bush’s poll numbers, already in the toilet, are freefalling even faster now.
But more, much more to the point, is the fact that the bare facts alone condemn Israel here. Pretending to be concerned for humanitarian values, pretending to be careful, and then bombing escape routes and attacking civilian homes, cars and hospitals and inflicting almost entirely civilian casualties and no Hezbollah casualties … Israel made a grotesque and morally reprehensible miscalculation here, and deserves nothing but the contempt of every responsible citizen in the world.
If you pull your head out of your ass and out of the righty blogs where you hang out, you’ll find that the world is quite different from what you think it is.
Or, just continue to be the pimp for murderers here. You pimp for bigotry, why not murder? It’s not that big a leap.
Nutcutter
She is her own worst enemy. This debacle is going to leave a mark for twenty years.
Darrell
Doug, tell us, is it your position that a cease fire treaty is always preferable to fighting? even if the cease fire is bound to be short lived, while giving cover for your enemies?
Please elaborate, as you seem to be taking an extreme position, pretending that your views are rational.
DougJ
Actually, it is a fact that Israel is “murdering” children for political purposes. It also a fact that Hizbolluh is murdering children for political purposes and that FDR murdered chilren political purposes when he authorized attacks on civilians in WWII.
You see, when you kill innocent civilians, it’s murder. The question is whether or not you agree with the political purpose.
DougJ
Darrell — you can’t argue with the logic that if you never have a ceasefire, your ceasefires will never be broken. It’s ironclad logic. I certainly don’t dispute it.
Darrell
I see more Israeli troops and tanks in Lebanon now than a week ago. In what alternate reality universe is that Isreal “backpeddling” out of concern for it’s “image”? You’re a halfwit and don’t even realize it.
Darrell
No one, with the exception of the voices in your head, is arguing that there “never” should be ceasefires, especially after one side has defeated the other. You, on the other hand, appear to sugget that ceasefires are always preferible to battle. Please explain, as I’d like everyone to see how far out you really are.
Nutcutter
Bill Press, Boston Herald.
Darrell
It is a “fact” that Israel is defending itself from violent attacks, not fighting just to make a ‘political point’. I like it when DougJ strays away from his snark, so that we can see what a whackjob he really is deep down.
Darrell
Nutcutter, halfwit that he is.. is easily impressed. Wow, it’s in ours and Israel’s “best interest” to pull back now huh? The author doesn’t explain why it’s in Israel’s or our best interest to pull back now. He doesn’t bother to explain, because idiots like Nutcutter follow such advice like blind sheep. No reason or argument needed.
They accept such proclamations, totally devoid of substance, as if those words are some kind of deep thinking revelation..
Nutcutter
Only a moron with your walnut-sized brain would say such a thing. What exactly do you think that means?
Darrell, if you take all the Americans who think, best case, that we should be supporting Israel in this situation and trying to prevent a cease-fire, the very best case and numbers you could pull out of your ass, you wouldn’t have two percent of the world’s population. That’s almost half the US population including men, women, and children. I’m giving you a freebie on the numbers.
The world, by which I mean 80-90 percent according to recent Gallup World Poll numbers, thinks the US is not to be trusted in the middle east. They don’t even trust our motives, much less our tactics.
If you took all the people who voted for George Bush in the last election, you would have less than one percent of the world’s population.
What world do you think you are living in?
DougJ
Darrell, first of all: suck my dick, bitch.
Second of all: you are a fucking moronic piece of shit.
Nutcutter
What do you think Condi Rice is doing over there today, Darrell?
She was sent there to get a deal and a cease fire. Israel is already pulling back from its chest-thumping bullshit of just a week ago.
What do you think is going on here? Do you think Israel is winning something?
Do you think that further and deeper alienation of the world against Israel and the US is somehow a good thing for you?
Do you have even that strong a grasp on reality and on your own interests?
You are living in a bubble, Darrell. Completely out of touch with reality.
There will be no disarming of Hezbollah here. There will be no Israeli occupation of Lebanon. Hezbollah will be strengthened by this debacle. Unless Israel walks away from its bellicose and foolish overreaching tactics, she will be considerably less secure down the road, due largely to this one giant clusterfuck.
You have no fucking clue.
DougJ
Darrell — you ruined it. I type some over the top profanity in and you don’t even gloat to tell me that I’m typical of the angry left or anything. Either you’re busy or I have to work on my delivery.
Slide
Darrell world:
.
Real World:
.
Slide
What is the purpose of Israel’s actions right now? It has to be clear to any sentient being that Israel is NOT going to destroy Hezbella. There eventually will be an end to all this with Hezbollah still intact, hurt yes, but intact. Hezbollah will emerge out of this much stronger and in higher regard in the entire Muslim world. They will have done what no other arab army has done before – fight Israel to a draw. They will be heros to a generation of young Muslims. And lets not forget that I doubt very much that the people of Lebanon will soon forget what Israel did to their country. How does this in any way work to Israel’s benefit? Anybody? I just don’t get it. A huge blunder for Israel and a huge blunder for Bush/Rice to have been so clearly shilling for Israel.
Nutcutter
Darrell appears to have been dispatched to the Meddle East by the president. Hopefully on the plane on the way over, he’ll read up and get in touch with reality.
Poor bastard apparently thinks that the whole world believes the crap on Fox News.
chopper
there is no moral defense for killing civilians, dumbass. never was. but you know what, when countries get into wars, civilians die. sorry to bring the real world into these political arguments, but its the truth. saying ‘killing civilians is wrong’ does fuck-all to advance any discussion on war, much less war in a place like the middle east. like we don’t know that killing civilians is a bad thing.
contraindicated by one crap story of very dubious authority. if they aren’t hiding among civilians, where the hell are they hiding, anyways? got any evidence for that?
of course, hezbollah are hiding among civilians. of course the ratio of dead civilians will be higher, the ratio of civilians to hezbollah in south lebanon is far more than 20-30 to one.
how about this, smart guy; from the comfort of your computer desk, why don’t you enlighten us as to how israel can respond to rockets being fired into their country by terrorists that isn’t ‘don’t do anything at all and hope they stop’. or ‘give them whatever they want’.
seriously, i’m all ears.
Nutcutter
I agree, Slide. Unless every informed analysis I’ve seen and heard is wrong, Israel comes out a big loser.
The entrenched Arab radicals are rubbing their hands with glee over this. Once again, the bumblin stumblin Neocon potatoheads have managed to play right into their hands.
How many extra years of crap from Arab radicals will the world have to put up with now thanks to Israel’s idiotic adventure? What the hell were they thinking?
This will be seen as one of the great headshakers of all time. What in the holy fuck were they thinking? The only way I can make sense of it is that Israel took America’s stupid policy toward the region as a signal that the use of lopsided force was now cool. So they put on a show of death and carnage that shocked the world and will accomplish nothing.
Andrew
That stupid Salon article has been debunked so hard that the author’s mom had to issue corrections.
Punchy
Gotta just love the “second of all”, as if the first insult didn’t get the point across.
Where’s Krista, so we can have Civility Saturday where everyone drinks a beer and blows kisses at the computer monitor?
demimondian
Slide world:
Real world: (from Reuters, via MSNBC):
In other words, Israel finished what it was doing, and moved on.
[By the way, yes, some of my “allies” in this debate do make my skin crawl. I console myself by anticipating that one of them will steal my words and replay them without attribution, providing me with a certain anonymous immortality…]
Nutcutter
Really? It appears from your post that you are all mouth.
You said nothing. You have done nothing but repeat the material in your first post, only in a higher pitched voice.
“Civilians die in war” is essentially your defense.
Well, no, civilians die in a particular kind of war, especially air war. There is no necessity and no need to wage a grotesquely careless air war on a civilian population here. There is no excuse for bombing civilian escape routes, or attacking their vehicles as they flee … and then putting on the long face and pretending to be “concerned with the humanitarian aspects” of the monstrous action. Or showing targeting home movies and claiming to be taking extra care not to do what the ENG footage clearly shows you are doing.
Israel is shooting at children, and using every device of deception and manipulation it can muster to conceal that simple and terrible fact. While Zionists run newspaper ads asking its apologists to “stand firmly with Israel against terrorists,” Israel, a nation born out of terrorism, is being a terrorist itself, and shocking the world with its gross contempt for life in southern Lebanon.
Outside of the bubble you and Darrell live in, the world pretty much sees this clearly. It doesn’t take a lawyer or a politician or a Zionist or even a Hezbollah member to explain what murder looks like. Even the Bush administration now knows that huge damage is being done to our position over there thanks to this clusterfuck. It isn’t smart enough to have seen it sooner, or necessarily smart enough to know what to do, but it knows there is a big problem. That puts Bush ahead of you, which is a rather embarassing position for you to be in. For anybody to be in.
Nutcutter
Liar. Israel is backpedaling. Their main concern is their appearance of magic invincibility. But the MSNBC blurb from my post at 5:00 BJ time is just the tip of the iceberg.
Only days ago the bellicose shitheads in Israel were thumping their chests and talking with straight, long faces about how they would “disarm” Hezbollah.
What utter crap. They are not going to disarm Hezbollah, and no serious observer of the train wreck ever thought that they were.
Nutcutter
I’m always something between charmed and baffled that anyone in here thinks that anyone is making points with anyone else in here. Ain’t gonna happen.
The adversary is simply a foil. And please, let’s not have any lectures about “reasonable conversation.” The name of the blog ought to be enough of a clue that such a thing is not intended here. The proprietors, especially John, do not have a record of promoting such a thing. There is no evidence that such a thing is even possible in these hallways for more than 5 minutes in passing. A sizeable percentage of posters are trolls, and spoofs, and many have impenetrable walls of anonymity around them. If you want reasonable chat, join a book club.
Nutcutter
All you’ve managed to do here is pimp the idea that one brand of spin is to be taken over another brand of spin.
Gee, you don’t suppose that you might not be totally objective about this, do you?
Sixty fucking years of war, and I am supposed to believe that either side is playing the role of good guy and always telling me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? If I believed that, then I would deserve the government of George Lying Cocksucker Bush. Or GLCB, for short.
And I ask again, without response so far, if Israel is always so fucking pure and so fucking right, why does it need an army of apologists out there raising money and running ads in newspapers asking people to unquestioningly support them? What kind of package of policy and action requires blind allegiance, and doesn’t stand up to the most rigorous questioning and challenge?
Blind allegiance is for Bushmonkeys. It’s for sheep.
Nutcutter
War Is Peace
George Orwell himself could not have invented a more chilling or sociopathic bunch of crap than this.
I ask you, why would a nation that is doing something morally right, and that has God On Its Side, need to be promoting crap like this?
Why is the US, the unflagging defender of this nation of “God’s People”, despised by 90% of the world’s people?
Nutcutter
I may have overstated my facts. I was referring to this
… and so my recollection generalized it. It’s 90 percent of the people in some countries. Which ones, not clear to me at this point.
However, if anyone wants to argue, and support, the idea that admiration of America worldwide is on the rise and not the precipitous decline, go right ahead. I’d like to see those numbers. I think it’s the decline that matters more than then actual number on the dial. But feel free to argue otherwise.
Slide.
demimondian:
hmmmm…now what did Israel say when they started all this?
Wow, now that sounds pretty definitive to me. Destroy Hezbollah. Put them out of business for good. Is that what they are saying today?
huh… fancy that. Now if that ain’t backpeddling then I don’t know what is.
Slide.
billmon has an interesting take on the situation. Read the whole thing but here is a snippet:
.
Par R
The NUT from Phoenix opens his ass wide and out came this crap:
NUT, with ever succeeding post, you prove yet again what a complete shit and anti-Semite you truly are. And please, don’t lay that crap on us again about almost marrying a Jew. Nobody but that other twit, Slide, is likely to believe you; and everyone has already written him off as some kind of a semi-literate whack job who likely works for the government and will probably go “postal” any day now.
DougJ
: “What do think you’re looking at, sugar tits?”
That’s gonna be a go-to line for me from now on.
DougJ
It’s from this.
Par R
DougJ, I think you meant to put up this Link to the NUT’s bedroom.
demimondian
There’s a bit of difference between Reuters’ report, which is reporting a bit of evidence in support of their thesis (massing of troops somewhere else, reported by observers outside of the control of either side) and Slide’s quotation alleging that “Israel has encountered unexpected difficulty in taking the town”. The second was taken, verbatim, from Nasrallah’s radio address. Which one would an unbiased observer think was spin: a report with disinterested observations behind it, or a report which is, by its own admission, a press release from one of the warring parties?
I’ll go out on a limb, here. In a couple of weeks, when the press gets in to Bint Jbail, they’ll be shocked, *shocked* to discover that the town basically isn’t there any more. What that will mean is that there is no city left to capture.
But your key question is this:
For the same reason that other nations hire PR firms which make the same bogus demands: because it works. Do you think that Hixbollah doesn’t have organizations dedicated to getting its views out? Did you realize that they release press releases?
As to “unquestioningly” supporting Israel, when I speak in my official capacity — there’s a reason that I hide behind my nick, you know — Microsoft’s products are always the best for the purpose. I don’t fake data, but I don’t necessarily mention all the data that’s out there. I leave that to my competitors; I’ve found, over the years, that they’re particularly good at it.
The problem here is that you’re not submitting the Israeli attacks to rigorous questioning. Once you start accusing the IDF of “shooting women and children in the back”, and call all incidents leading to the deaths of children “murder”, you’ve left that behind. Rigorous questioning requires going back and finding out if there’s any evidence of wilful negligence, or if there’s a genuine intent to kill civilians. Using propoaganda expressions like you’ve been doing isn’t rigorous inquiry, it’s demagoguery.
I’m willing to wait for the follow-up reporting. I’m very confident that there are people all over Israel who are looking for evidence that the civilian deaths were plotted; Sabra and Shattila were broken by the Israeli press, remember. I, personally, doubt that any evidence will ever be found to support wilful killing of civilians — but Israel is as much a family argument as it is a country, and I also have a great deal of faith that if there ever is any evidence, it will come out.
demimondian
Slide, you’re Darrelling. I investigated your source, and showed that you were wrong. It’s OK to be wrong — Steve caught me out this morning — but responding by changing the subject is cheap and unworthy.
The fact is that you quoted a piece that quoted a Hizbollah radio broadcast as fact. I went back and checked, and found that the back story was quite different than you thought it was. Your response? “Hey, look! A jackalope!”
Nutcutter
I’ll post the following, not as a response to the harpie ParRot and his endearing but nonsensical “anti-semite” bullshit. It’s because this information clarifies my position, which in the heat of this emotional topic, gets distorted rather regularly.
1. My position here is clear, unambiguous, and consistent. I pretty much stated it in the earliest posts I made to the first thread on this topic ten or more days ago. The main thrust of that position is …
2. I am opposed, without reservation, to all religious fanatacism, sectarian radicalism, ridgid ideology which requires belief in superstition such as “God is on our side” or anything that is remotely similar.
3. I do not believe that terrorism is the enemy that free and freedom-loving people face. I believe that terrorism is nothing but a symptom, and the disease is fanatacism.
4. Fanatacism comes in many flavors and many disguises. It can be Christian, it can be Jew, it can be Muslim, it can be Arab, it can be white, black, or brown. It can be Hispanic. It can be French. It can be anything, as long as it requires its followers to blindly follow a set of beliefs and reject all others as not only incompatible with the set of beliefs, but incompatible with all positive values. It can be Osama Bin Laden, it can be Tim McVeigh, it can be Dobson, or Robertson, or Falwell, or Begin or Sharon. It can be anything and any group and any person and any party and any culture that puts loyalty to its belief system above what I would call the basic tenets of Americanism and freedom and life and liberty. It can live in America, or in Israel, or in Iraq, or in Toronto, or in London, or in …. anyplace.
5. After fifty years of my own listening to and reading and looking at the Arab-Israeli war, I no longer believe that either side is righteous, is right, is God’s favorite, or deserves any particular loyalty or blind support from anyone anywhere, including its own people, and including the general peoples of the world. I think both sides are selfish, are sociopathic towards others and even toward their own people. I think they lie, cheat and steal to protect their image, their power, and their base of support. I don’t like them, and I don’t trust them. The history that I see tells me that these people have all decided that prevailing or triumphing over something is more important than any other value set, including the most basic respect for life and humanity. I think that their actions demonstrate a complete lack of that respect, and I in turn give them no respect as a result. They have lost my respect. That goes for Israel, that goes for Hamas, for Hezbollah, for Al Qaeda, and for the Christian Coalition and Focus on the Family. Right now it also goes for the Republican party in this country, and if the Democrats aren’t careful, it will go for them too.
6. As far as I’m concerned, anyone who looks at the current state of the Middle East and starts taking sides and pimping a tribe or a team or a country or a culture as somehow being morally superior to the others, is first a damned fool, and second, a damned liar. The struggle for the world is not the struggle against the vague “terrorists” that a George Bush talks about. It’s a struggle against the people who think that their particular relationship with God, or with land, or with culture, or some crazed mixed of these, makes them special or favored or above criticism or empowered to do any rotten thing to anyone who gets in their way just because they can. I think that describes a lot of people in Iraq, in Iran, in Syria, in Palestine, in Egypt, in Israel, in Lebanon, in Saudi Arabia, in the entire Arab world, in North Korea, and to some extent, in Washington DC. Evil is where you find it. It doesn’t own a country, it doesn’t own a party, it doesn’t own a language, it doesn’t own a government, it doesn’t own a religion. Neither does good own any of these things. All of those things are artificial and arbitrary divisions of people and things, whereas good and evil flow like water where gravity take them. There is evil on this blog. There is evil in a cave somewhere in Pakistan or Afghanistan. There is evil in Israel. There is evil in Lebanon. There is evil in Syria.
Let the buttheads with no vision, no ideas, no integrity, no values, no understanding, no courage and no decency stand around and employ who-struck-John arguments, lawyerly musings, political manipulations, find blame and assign virtue as it’s convenient to do so, call people “anti semitic” or “traitors” or “Saddam lovers” or whatever browbeating bullshit is the order of the day.
Think for yourself, ask hard questions, demand hard answers. And trust your instincts. When you see kids with their faces burned off and their mothers wailing to God in agony over the pain of their children, and you see people in here writing to excuse or explain or trivialize or compartmentalize that pain because it’s expedient to do so, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what’s right and what’s wrong. The bullshit is wrong. The excuses for doing that to the kid are wrong. The act of agression that kills kids is murder.
We all know what murder looks like. Don’t let some asshole in here talk you into thinking you don’t know it when you see it. You know it when you see it. And you know what to do when you see it. Tell the people responsible to stop their reprehensible actions immediately, and don’t take no for an answer.
Nutcutter
Oh wow, Demi, that’s right up there with Bill Clinton’s mea culpa on why he got a blow job in the Oval Office.
“Because ah could, and that wuz wrong.”
I don’t believe you. I think that they do it because they are covering for the fact that they don’t deserve that kind of support, and they know that the bigger a lie is, the more likely it is to be believed. Just ask Karl Rove if you don’t believe me.
Pb
demimondian,
I don’t know that Slide (or McClatchy) was necessarily wrong, actually:
Nutcutter
From an interview with Tim LaHaye, author of “Left Behind” novels, in the current issue of Newsweek:
Just so you know what crazy bullshit sounds like from the horse’s mouth. And remember, this guy is making a fortune selling this crap to millions of your neighbors. People who are quite pleased with what is going in Lebanon right now.
demimondian
Pb…the evidence that Bint Jbair was defended is incontrovertible. I don’t question that; what I question is the interpretation that the IDF was surprised by the battle they faced. Looking at the figures, I’m rather amazed at the low numbers of IDF casualties; even in an asymmetrical fight, an army attacking a fortified city typically takes many more casualties than the defenders.
demimondian
You asked why they could do it. I answered. You don’t like the answer; fine, but I answered your question, and you haven’t undermined my argument.
Meanwhile, it’s worth pointing out that the effectiveness of the “Israel lobby” has been greatly reduced by the quasi-bantustan policies of Likud. There was a much more effective and unified chorus behind Israel before the intifada than there is now. Your thesis, that Israel has such a lobby because it’s evil, would predict that the lobby should have gotten stronger during and after the uprisings, which is has not done.
Nutcutter
In your mind, you mean.
You made no argument as far as I am concerned, you proffered what amounts to a publicity agent’s explanation.
My question wasn’t answered: Why does a country that is so “right” need all this defense? Why would there be any question about what is right, requiring newspaper ads to beef up the support?
Mind you, I was reading those ads when I was in high school, and that was before you were born, son. I thought they were odd forty years ago.
Now I know what they are, damned lies, manipulation, kool aid. They’re Rovian. They’re evil.
Why doesn’t Israel sponsor the asking of tough questions about the history of the Arab-Israeli war? What is it afraid of?
Of course, Israel is not alone in this. I don’t see George Bush inviting tough questions either.
You will take this as an attack on Israel, because you are apparently blinded to the reality here. Instead, it is an attack on blind support and loyalty, no matter to whom or to what.
Blindness is the enemy. Not countries, religions, cultures, languages, and politics. Blindness.
You show me that you aren’t blind to the truth here, and I will consider your point of view. But I see a mother wailing over the burned-off face of her son, and I see your posts, and I have no problem knowing where the truth lies. It lies in this simple statement: This war is evil.
Period.
Nutcutter
Associated Press at this hour.
How many 1-day old girls have to die in order for some of you to say “enough?”
Nutcutter
“Where is the proof that the civilians are innocent?”
— Darrell
Punchy
Why continue to pretend we don’t know you’re both? WTF?
Nutcutter
From the appeal for support for Israel I posted earlier:
This, while ….
Tell me again your lawyerly arguments, your accusations of blame, your litany of excuses, your browbeating bullshit, your taunts and your political spinning. Keep telling me that crap, maybe I’ll start to see it your way.
I pray that I don’t, but don’t let that stop you.
Andrew
When did Al Maviva hack your account?
Beej
Did anyone read Trudy Rubin’s column last Wednesday? I would imbed a link if I knew how to do it, but since I don’t I’ll just say that it’s worth it to Google her name and click on the first choice that comes up, then the column for 7/26. What she has to say makes more sense than anything else I’ve seen on the subject of the Hezbollah/Israeli mess.
Steve
Trudy Rubin
Perry Como
Ok, sugar tits.
Pb
demimondian,
Read that whole article, then–it sounds to me like they were.
Slide.
Listen I’m not going to go blow by blow disputing the silliness of the apologists for Israel’s criminal actions. I’m sure they’ll all find justification for this:
You know even if your strange moral compass says this is somehow ok to you lets just look at this on a practical level do you think that this sort of thing works to the benefit of Israel in any way? I just don’t get the thinking here. This will stop Hezbollah? This will make the citizens of Lebanon more likely to work with Israel? this will win over Arab moderates? Its not only immoral it is just stupid. Very very stupid.
go ahead guys… now tell me about poor Israel and how they have no choice but to kill women and children. Your as predictable as my morning shit.
Slide.
latest update: 57 killed, 37 children… and counting. Terrorism is terrorism and this is terrorism.
Slide.
. . . and the sad thing is that the USA is now fully complicit in these horrendous actions of Israel. As the entire world knows, Bush/Rice gave tacit approval for Israel to continue the killing. We could have played the ‘honest broker’ like we ALWAYS have in the past, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, but we didn’t. We put all our marbles in with Israel. By our actions we make it harder and harder for moderate Muslims and moderate Arab governments to support and defend the actions of the United States. It must seem to many that Bush is not going to be happy until ever single Muslim on the planet hates us with a passion. I can’t imagine how anyone President could chave fought the “War on Terror” with less effectiveness that this band of naive amateurs that have currently hijacked our government.
Slide.
Here is an example of what I mean about making it very difficult for moderate Arab governments. Probably our biggest friend in the region is King Abjulah II of Jordan. This is what he had to say:
the Arab street is said to be boiling as images of dead children are playing non-stop on Arab TV’s across the entire world. Stupid, stupid, stupid. But I’m sure we will have justifications and excuses from the Darrells and Par R’s of the world. Yep, nothing that Israel can ever do is ever ever wrong. Kinda like Catholic doctrine which says the Pope is infallible, this chorus can never find anything to criticize Israel for. Ever. To even suggest it says you are anti-Semitic don’t you know?
chopper
and it appears that you’re all complaints and no solutions. but what else is new.
‘civilains die in war’ is reality. welcome to it.
jesus harold christ, that is the biggest bunch of naive bullshit i’ve ever heard in my entire life. civilians die in every war. there hasn’t been a single war in history that lasted longer than five fucking minutes where civilians didn’t die.
so then your solution is an invasion? please, lay it on us. exactly how would this invasion work, general?
israel is born out of terrorism? guess what, genius, half the countries on this planet were born out of terrorism. the US was born out of terrorism. and who the fuck cares if some pro-isreal people are taking out ads? WTF does that have to do with anything at all?
i love this bubble you live in, where israel loses no matter what, and ‘the zionists’ are to blame. shit, israel might as well just pack it in and hand the reins over to hezbollah and hamas right now.
and oh yeah, you can magically tell who is hezbollah and who is a civilian in south lebanon. cause the media tells you. bullshit. all this garbage about hezbollah not hiding among civilians, this bullshit story you’re hiding behind, is just bullshit.
i’ll explain it slowly: hezbollah is the de facto government of south lebanon. when the roads need to be fixed, hezbollah does it. when a school needs to be repaired, hezbollah does it. because the lebanese army and the lebanese government don’t go there. they patrol the streets, they patrol the sidewalks.
of course they fucking hide among the civilian population.saying that hezbollah doesn’t hide among the civilian population is like saying that the mob didn’t hide among the civilian population in america. it’s complete bullshit.
and your sources citing civilian deaths are a guess at best. unless you can explain exactly how you tell the difference between a dead hezbollah militant and a dead adult civilian. which you can’t. they don’t wear uniforms, jackass. and half the people in south lebanon, hezbollah or no, have guns. machine guns. lots of em.
all this garbage really shows is that a lot of americans have a complete lack of understanding of the reality of the situation in the middle east. they eat up reports of civilian deaths in terrorist strongholds so they can hate on israel, not knowing that those statistics are so flawed as to be no better than a guess at best. some jackass preparing a belt bomb blows up his house on accident and the dudes next door look into the cameras and say ‘obviously israel did this’ and anti-semites and ‘war is bad, mmkay?’-types just gobble it up with glee. a plane drops a bomb on a building full of hezbollah and hezbollah sympathizers claim but they were all civilians. well, who does the press believe? the evil, big bad israeli government or the dude on the street? oh, but they’re all just as bad. just as bad as the other. the liberal democracy, where terrorists who try to blow up buses are treated in hospitals right next to citizens, they’re just as bad as the terrorist organization who wants to wipe all the jews off the face of the earth. the people that have enough firepower to commit the worst kind of genocide against their enemies but don’t, are just as bad as the people that would wipe out every jew in israel if they had the ability. totally, they’re just as bad as each other.
i think israel has waaaaay overdone it on this one. i think they’ve made a bunch of mistakes. in a similar manner to the US attack on afghanistan; we killed too many civilians (dropping bombs on wedding parties etc), which is a fucking tragedy. and don’t get me started on tora bora or the failures in reconstruction. but fucking something needed to be done about al qaeda and the taliban, those fuckers needed to be routed. and in a similar manner, israel needs to do something about hezbollah. they can’t just sit there while these fuckers launch rockets into haifa.
but all we’re getting from you is this naive ‘war is bad, israel’s defending itself here is wrong’. cause civilians getting killed apparently completely negates israel’s right to defend herself from terrorist assholes killing her own civilians.
so once again, genius, tell us all how israel should be responding to rockets being fired at their civilian population by a terrorist organization that isn’t ‘give them what they want and hope they stop’. lay it on us.
chopper
abdullah isn’t a moderate. he only keeps his mouth shut because the US gives him tons of cash.
Par R
A moron going by the handle of “Slide,” says:
Of course, it goes without saying that the apologists for Hezbollah seldom blame anybody other than Israel. The NUT tries to cleverly cover his wide ass on this by tossing out a few “plagues on both your houses,” but his fundamental anti-Semitism shines through. Slide isn’t even clever enough to try that tactic…he just spews his hatred for Jews and Israel like he was in his 1930s Fatherland.
chopper
speaking of “lil’ coffins”…
four-year-old kid killed by a hezbollah rocket. can you imagine the tiny little coffin? come on, the pathos can’t work only one way, can it? really?
Par R
Here’s a Link to a British newspaper story, including several photos, that put the lie to the NUT and Slide’s stories that the thugs of Hezbollah are honorable people who would never think of endangering real Lebanese civilians.
chopper
did that bit about them not hiding among civilians really even need to be debunked? i mean, it’s about the most preposterous thing i’ve ever heard.
next we’ll be seeing people demanding ‘proof’ that american police and garbagemen live among the civilian population.
Slide.
Par… try as you might to make my positions anti-Semitic that won’t make it so. It really shows that you have no cogent arguments to make just to attack those that you disagree with and spew your rather silly claims of anti-Semitism.
What you guys on the right don’t seem to understand is that you can’t kill enough terrorists to make a difference. This is not a war that can be won through military action as much as you would wish it could. Islamic fundamentalism is a movement. An ideology. A certain percentage of the huge Muslim population around the world will find that ideology appealing and a percentage of that group will be so radicalized that they would be more than willing to strap a bomb on their back and blow up a bus somewhere. Our actions, and those of Israel, have a huge impact on how many want to join the bin Ladens of the world. Iraq has been a boon to al Qaeda. This latest action in Lebanon will as well. You can put your head in the sand all you want but I really want to WIN the battle we are in with Islamic terrorists and not just feel good by killing some innocent Arabs to show how tough I am. I just don’t think we advance our cause by killing hundreds and hundreds of women and children that had nothing to do with terrorism. If that makes me an anti-Semite then I don’t understand what the term means. It has NOTHING to do with religion. I am just as critical of my own governments actions in Iraq so where does the anti-Semitic angle come into play? Oh.. I guess I’m anti-American as well. I forgot.. the right wing war mongers are the only ones that can claim to be patriotic Americans.
so par r to briefly recap the above, go fuck yourself, I will not be called an anti-Semite by the likes of a shitbag like you that doesn’t know a thing about me. You are a simplistic asshole that can’t debate the issues just call names. So, to repeat, go fuck yourself..
Slide.
hey asswipe show me where I ever sided with Hezbollah. Show me where I say they are honorable. Show me ANYTHING that I said that makes you think I have a favorable opinion of Hezbollah. Show me. To be against the actions of Israel does not mean one supports Hezbollah. I know you are not very bright but try to understand that.
Slide.
there are no moderate Arabs right? Kill ’em all chopper, kill ’em all.
Par R
To basically quote the moron, Slide, who apparently resides in or about the environs of NYC:
Slide.
good come back par… demonstrating that rapier wit of yours that we have all come to love.
Par R
But, Slide, I was merely quoting YOU, thereby piggy-backing that “rapier wit” of yours…
Slide.
Let me show you all how incredibly clueless Par is. He basically accuses me of being a supporter of Hezbullah because I am critical of the actions of Israel. That is because he is not very bright. My position is just the opposite. Hezbullah is a very dangerous organization and they should be dealt with. But, and this is the part where people with limited gray matter like Par can’t get, Israel’s actions make Hezbullah STRONGER. It is counterproductive. Israel will not be able to wipe out and destroy Hezbullah and anything short of that is a victory for Hezbullah. Public opinion is swinging STRONGLY in favor of Hezbullah. As a result they will have more support, more money, more influence and more say in Lebanon policy in the future.
Ok.. now for Par since the above is way too nuanced for him let me make it even simpler.
Hezbullah bad bad.
Israel killing women and children bad bad
Hezbullah as a result, stronger stronger
bad bad strategy on Israel’s part.
very bad strategy on Bush/Rice to support Israel’s bad strategy.
bad for you and me
Par R
AND Slide, for the jackpot question, what would YOU have Israel and/or the US do under the circumstances in which a terrorist group, aided and abetted by Syria and Iran, initiate attacks and kidnappings on a neighboring state [Israel]? Sit idly by and say “come on in and kill a few more of our children and other citizens?” Remember, this is the same terrorist group that killed several hundred American soldiers back in 1982. Also remember that Osama bin laden has cited the US reaction to that 1982 incident, namely, prompt US abdication of Lebanon, as an indicator that he and his supporters can pretty much do anything they want to the “paper tiger” and get away with it. At some point, it becomes incumbent to defend oneself…and Israel is clearly entitled to do that under international law. Continuoius acts of appeasement merely serve to prolong the suffering and make the inevitable response more difficult for both sides, including all of the innocents injured and killed by collateral damage.
Nutcutter
Israel Bombs Building Killing Children Hiding in Basement
“There is no proof that the civilians are innocent.”
— Darrell
Nutcutter
No, it isn’t naive. It’s the nature of an air war against a civilian population.
Nutcutter
Then it’s time to change that statistic. It’s 2006, not 1506. It’s time for the world to grow up.
Why do you think we are manipulated into fighting a “war on terror” if the history of the world is rooted in terror?
Maybe it’s time to say “enough?”
Is is for me. You, I don’t know.
Par R
The NUT doesn’t even bother putting up his faux outrage at both sides of the battle in Lebanon and Israel. He just says another outrageous thing and motors on confident in his own stupidity and ignorance.
Nutcutter
That’s why my first post on this topic to the first thread on this topic some days ago said clearly that both sides here are full of crap.
Terror is terror, whether practiced by Israel, or Hezbollah, or Tim McVeigh. It’s all the same thing, it’s all sociopathy.
Slide.
Israel had a right for very limited military response againt military installations of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. They did not have the right to destroy the infrastructure of Lebanon. To bomb the airports and roads. They do not have the right to be so careless as to kill UN workers at a clearly marked UN outpost especially after the UN having them warned them over 10 times that their bombs were coming too close. They did not have the right to blow up clearly marked ambulances and say that they “could have” been used for military purposes. They have no right to blow up residential apartment buldings killing dozens of women and children and use as an excuse that maybe Hezbullah fired from somewhere nearby.
Israel believes that their civilians lives are worth more than Arab civilian lives. That comes across loud and clear and it is part of the reason why so many young arabs would give up their life to avenge such actions.
Again, counterproductive. A huge miscalculation on Israel’s part and just about everyone is coming to that realization. That is with the exception of someone like you where no amount of rational argument will ever convince you otherwise.
Nutcutter
Kids are being killed in their sleep, and this is what you do?
Slide.
Israel doesn’t even respect the United States , their only friend in the world. It was just reported that Rice has begged Israel to use extreme caution while she was on her way to the region to try and put together (rather belatedly) a cease fire. But, Israel by killing over 57 women and children, basically said fuck you to the USA and embarassed Rice on the eve of her visit,and will probably cause her to go home as a failure. This is the thanks we get from Israel. It clear they wanted to sabatoge any talk of a cease fire.
Par R
Well, if you want to avoid these human tragedies, you should encourage your friends in Lebanon to stop seeking shelter around innocent civilians from which THEY then kill innocent Israelis, including children.
Nutcutter
Here’s the madness, in a nutshell.
Carnage among terrified women and children hiding in a basement, and a spokesman asserting that the perpetrators were “exercising (their) right.”
What kind of person can say a thing like that, in face of this kind of tragedy?
Oh, the disclaimer:
That sounds familiar.
“Clearly, our intelligence was not perfect.”
The mealy mouthed always have an excuse at the ready.
“There is no proof that the civilians are innocent.”
The insane always have an explanation for everything.
Par R
I COULDN’T AGREE MORE.
Nutcutter
Then grow up.
Slide.
On that well thought out brilliant statement I will bid you all adieu.
Par R
AGAIN, I COULDN’T AGREE MORE.
Par R
.
LIKEWISE
Nutcutter
I don’t believe you, Par. But if you mean it, then see my 10:19 and keep reading it until you get it.
There is one and only one responsible thing to say in the face of this kind of tragedy.
That’s it. Anything else is crap.
demimondian
Slide:
Asymmetrical warfare uses the local civilian infrastructure to support attacks. That’s why it’s so efficient: no full-time armed force to maintain, no military bases, no officer corps. Few, if any, arms depots; partisans hide weapons in their own homes or in single-person caches nearby. A partisan force has no distinct military infrastructure.
Instead, there’s civilian infrastructure which is parasitically employed for military purposes. What your saying, then, is that Israel has the right to defend itself by attacking things which don’t exist. That’s a worthless offer.
Nutcutter
Liar. What I’m saying is that Israel does not have a right to do this:
You are apparently asserting that they do.
I say you are wrong.
Nutcutter
Rice grins in photo op with Olmert
Israel says it needs more time to “conduct operations.”
Sorry, but we already know what that means.
This story encapsulates many elements of the lies and the madness surrounding this situation. The photo of Rice beaming into the camera. Is she going to a wedding reception, or is she talking about dead kids?
Oh really? Then why is practically the entire death toll from your “operations” in the last two weeks, civilians, and children? Are you that bad at this, or are you a liar?
Oh really? Which “objectives” would those be? Disarming Hezbollah, which was your boast two weeks ago, but apparently pulled back from yesterday? Getting your captured soldiers back, which was a battle cry two weeks ago, but apparently not that important now, since Hezbollah offered to return them “in six hours” upon a cease-fire?
chopper
that’s a pathetic strawman. there are plenty of moderate arabs. but abdullah isn’t one of them. since when does abdullah represent all arabs?
chopper
par isn’t accusing you of being a supporter of hezbollah simply because you are critical of the actions of israel, it’s because you are saving all of your criticism for israel and not condemning the bombings by hezbollah. personally, i think it’s a stupid assertion to make. but don’t misinterpret what he’s saying.
Nutcutter
This is Darrellworld. One of anything is all you need to prove the whole.
This is crazyworld. According to, um, you, “half the countries” in the world were born out of terror. Yet here we are with a NEWOT (Never Ending War on Terror) and a color coded system for telling us what the threat level is.
So what’s the deal? We were for terror, before we were against it?
Nutcutter
There are two bad guys here. Why are you so concerned with the treatment of just one of them?
Slide.
name one Arab head of state more moderate.
Slide.
hezbollah is not killing women and children with munitians and planes paid for with my tax dollars. And if you read my posts I said that Hezbollah is a dangerous organization, my point for at least the twentieth time is that Israel’s actions make Hezbullah stronger. I am against that. Apparently are are for that since you support the actions that are empowering Hezbullah.
demimondian
Yes, exactly. Under certain circumstances, Paul, I am asserting excatly that. As a for instance, there’s a case where a photographer watched a Katyusha launched from a building in Tyre, and, two minutes later, watched that building be leveled. Are you saying that a building which is used for offensive military operations is *not* a legitimate target?
If so, then you’re saying that Israel doesn’t have the right to self-defense. Slide’s “offer” is worthless.
Nutcutter
Israeli parent talks with NBC reporter.
He’s right. It’s not acceptable that twenty years later, he has to worry about his son fighting the same war he fought, and probably the same war that his grandfather or his contemporaries’ grandfathers fought.
At what point, as the years roll by in their dreary sameness of war and destruction and parents crying over their dead children, do the people on both sides of this tragedy stop listening to the liars in the suits and the lawyers and the table thumpers and the mealy mouthed manipulators and say, Enough! Shut up with your lies and your bullshit, and find a way to stop this crap, now.
When the people have had enough of the lies, the shit will stop. That goes for Israel, for Palestinians, and for that matter, for Americans.
Slide.
chopper, I’m still waiting for a more moderate arab head of state than Abdullah? got one?
chopper
yes, it’s the nature of an air war against a country that civilians die. always has been. that’s what i’ve been trying to explain. saying that it shouldn’t happen is incredibly naive.
i’m still waiting to hear your solution. tell me, ppgaz, how is israel supposed to destroy hezbollah’s missile launchers?
let me give you a hint: they set up these launchers, launch missiles into haifa, then pack up and go in like 5 minutes. the only way to destroy them is to send an air strike. ground troops and tanks would never make it there in time. by july 16th israel’s air strikes had already destroyed a quarter of hezbollah’s missile arsenal. by the 20th that number was at about 50%. how many of these incredibly mobile missile batteries would they have been able to take out w/o using airstrikes?
again i ask, genius, what is israel supposed to do?
Nutcutter
Well, then I assert that you are a liar, and that you are supporting murder.
There won’t be any agreement on this point. There is no moral ground on which you can stand to defend the killing of children in their sleep, and I will be here to say so every time you open your mouth.
I know murder when I see it, and I don’t need lawyers and bloggers to explain it to me. There is no excuse. The excuses are lies, and those who repeat them are liars.
Nutcutter
I think we have a failure to communicate.
I’m saying that the air war is wrong, and must stop.
There is no excuse for this murder.
And we’re a little sick of hearing about how “careful” the Israelis are trying to be. Almost the entire death toll from their air war is civilians and children. That’s why it’s murder, and that’s why the excuses are lies.
chopper
being the least dickish autocratic ruler in the middle east does not make you a moderate. it just makes you the least dickish autocrat.
Paul L.
Hey Nutcutter,
How about a litle criticism of Hezbollah.
Photos that damn Hezbollah
Via Glenn Reynolds
Of course the Balloon Juice crowd will blame Israel and call for a Cease fire to allow Hezbollah to rearm.
chopper
and i’m asking how israel is supposed to destroy hezbollah’s missile arsenal otherwise. and i still haven’t gotten an answer.
tell me, how is israel to stop hezbollah from firing missiles into their cities?
Slide.
You guys keep arguing as to whether Israel has the “right” to do this or that. How about arguing whether is it right to do this or that? Or smart? So, even if it is counterproductive your position seems to be that since Israel has the “right” to kill women and children – they should. I mean why let a golden opportunity like that to pass heh? Disgraceful.
Ok..my wife is giving me dirty looks I have to run but I’m sure the same arguments will be made tonight. And tomorrow. And next week. Next year. Next decade… yada yada yada.
chopper
of course. the US was all about terrorist tactics and genocide when it got us the land we wanted. the same can be said for the founding of most countries. this is new information to people?
point is, saying ‘israel was born of terrorism’ means fuck-all. you think lebanon, syria, iraq and saudi arabia weren’t born of terrorism and war?
Nutcutter
From a review of a new book being pre-sold (sold before publication) on Amazon. Monsters to Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror And Sin (Hardcover)
by Ira Chernus.
It looks like Chernus is tackling the issue that I wrote about last night, here. He is apparently looking at the motives for ginning up perpetual “wars on terror” such as the one Bush wants you to believe in, which he has not latched to the sixty-year one that Israelis and Arabs apparently want you to believe in … which is being waged right now in the UN, as we speak, as each side describes the other as “monstrous.”
Watch the UN show, and then imagine yourself trying to explain it to the people in the collapsed buildings.
Hopefully, the words would stick in your craw, because the whole thing is based on a pyramid of lies.
chopper
ooh, a ‘dangerous organization’. wow, that’s a strong-ass condemnation of a terrorist organization that’s killed thousands, including hundreds of americans, that pledges to commit genocide against the jewish people.
Nutcutter
You want easy answers? The Republicans have a party for you. Darrell is right here to take your voter registration.
There is no meaningful military objective here, that’s a lie being told by liars. If Israel keeps up this murder for six more months, it would not “disarm” Hezbollah. I am not aware of a single analyst anywhere who is arguing that Hezbollah can actually be disarmed, or even describe what that scenario would even look like. Short of another occupation of Lebanon, Israel has no chance to achieve any such objective. It is so bullshit, they themselves took it off the table yesterday. After only two weeks of pimping it, they backed away from it. They know it’s a lie.
Nutcutter
Step back from the nonsense, man.
If Satan himself were holed up in Qana, it would not justify killing kids in their sleep to get him.
If there is a Satan, such a monstrous thing would be exactly what he would try to get you to do.
If there is a Satan, he is laughing his ass off this morning.
The “they are really bad guys, I have to kill the kids to get at them” defense is morally bankrupt, morally reprehensible, and it’s a lie. Tell it a hundred times today, it’s still a lie.
Nutcutter
It means fuck-all unless you are looking for who is telling you the truth. The truth is that if you support Israel, you will support terrorism by Israel. Not you specifically, you generically.
It’s no different than George Bush telling you that we are fighting terrorism by practicing terrorism against Iraq. That we are defending freedom by practicing torture against detainees. That we are saving Social Security by throwing away the trust fund and putting the money into the bond market. That we are respecting life by passing laws to save blastocysts.
Liars tell good lies. That’s why some people believe them.
chopper
first off, i’m concerned with the equivilation of the two. yeah, there are ‘two bad guys here’, if you remember that one of the bad guys (hezbollah) is far, far worse than the other. you sound like some crazy DUer during the invasion of afghanistan going on about how the US is ‘just as bad as al qaeda’.
all you guys who are so concerned about civilian lives, where were you when hezbollah was launching missiles into israel long before the air war started? hezbollah has been launching missiles into northern israel for years, but apparently nobody gives a damn.
Nutcutter
Just replace “United States” with “Israel” and you get the idea. The people who peddle these lies want perpetual war. The men in the suits are lying to you.
chopper
in other words, you’ve got nothing.
israel apparently should just let hezbollah continue to murder their civilians. that’s just great.
Nutcutter
That’s exactly what the liars want you to do. They want you to obsess over which asshole is the worst asshole. Which terrorist is worse than the other one. That’s how they maintain their power.
Think Karl Rove. Think Donald Rumsfeld. Sure, Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. So effective, that they have Israel now acting like a terrorist organization. I don’t know whether you see this or not, but Hezbollah wins that round. They are winning the PR battle in this thing everywhere in the world today. Laughing their asses off. They are sociopaths who have pushed their adversary into being sociopaths. Viola! Now they can sit across the table from each other and call each other monsters. Win, win.
Did you know that the National Terror Threat Level today is “Yellow — Elevated?” It’s been no lower, for four years now.
Welcome to their world.
Nutcutter
Wake up and smell the coffee, Chop.
chopper
so do whatever you want as long as you hide behind civilians. awesome!
all war is morally bankrupt and reprehensible. but in cases its necessary to protect your own population from harm. it’s called ‘reality’.
chopper
the goal of israel is to be left the fuck alone.
Nutcutter
Sure.
Nutcutter
It’s a lie.
It is not necessar to kill kids in their sleep in order to save kids from being killed in their sleep.
If somebody came into your neighborhood and tried to sell you such a bill of goods, you should shoot him. He’s a liar. I don’t care whether he’s a Jew, an Arab, or a Smurf. He’s a liar, and that’s a lie.
Andrew
It’s not that they’re not in uniform, it’s just that it’s casual Fridays at the Hezbullah office.
Pb
Al-Qaeda could have saved a lot of money this way if all they had to do was launch a rocket from the World Trade Center. However, I’m more interested in the cases where Katyusha’s weren’t being launched.
Nutcutter
Funny, you jackass. Don’t take the three seconds necessary to realize that Par’s stupid taunt is a complete lie.
Andrew
Sorry Slide, but this is dipping into Darrell-level thought processes.
Of course they fucking believe that their own lives are move valuable. Jesus, what a brilliant insight. You mean, like, everyone in history?
chopper
sorry, but karl rove didn’t come up with the concept of ‘shades of grey’. its horribly simplistic and naive to look at israel and hezbollah in a situation like this as if they are on the same moral ground. they aren’t. any more than the US and al qaeda were on the same moral ground during the invasion of afghanistan.
i can’t believe i have to explain this.
of course, because hezbollah have people like you eating out the palms of their hands. the AP comes in after a missile attack and hezbollah jumps in front of the camera saying something about how ‘every person in that building was a civilian’ and people like you just eat it right up. because hezbollah would never lie to advance their cause, would they?
meanwhile, a rocket blows up a few children in haifa and nobody cares.
its the same way its always been in the west bank. the PA made massaging the press an art form during arafat’s days. you’d see a picture of an IDF dude pointing a gun towards a kid and think ‘man, israelis are a bunch of assholes’. what was cut out of the picture was the dude from hamas standing a little behind the kid pointing a gun over his head.
but it makes good PR, and people eat it right up cause it fits right into their preconceived notions that israel is always in the wrong.
Nutcutter
But, you see, that’s a lie. Their lives are not more valuable. There is not a single Israeli kid whose life is more valuable than that of a Lebanese kid.
Just because people might be manipulated into believing a lie, even for thousands of years, doesn’t make the lie true.
The entire War on Terror paradigm is based on lies. Why do you think Karl Rove latched onto it in a heartbeat? Why do you think George Bush inserts the phrase into every other sentence? Because these guys are looking out for your interests?
Andrew
If only the world had a Coke, they could sing in perfect harmony and peace would reign in the Middle East.
By “Coke,” I mean “killing all of the Jews in Israel.”
chopper
no, you’re right. israel’s intent is to have armies full of crazy dudes surrounding them willing to completely wipe them off the face of the earth. that’s it, totally. they want rockets to rain down on their civilian population.
Nutcutter
You’re being ridiculous, man. Take the day off, you are embarassing yourself.
A basement full of mostly women and children in their nightclothes, asleep, is not a military target. They are civilians, and they deserve protection, not attack.
If you are too afraid to see that and call a spade a spade for fear of losing ground in your argument, then you are making a big mistake.
Watch the CNN video of the mother with her burned kids, and then come back and make the preposterous statement you made here.
You’ve gone over the fucking edge.
Nutcutter
They occupied Lebanon for twenty years and the legacy they left behind is pretty much Hezbollah. Their intent?
They put men in suits on tv to tell lies, and they sound exactly like George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. I am not interested in what their intent is, any more than I am interested in Hezbollah’s intent. I am interested in shutting them up and stopping the violence.
chopper
coming from mr ‘vegetable rights and peace’, that means a lot.
that is true. this particular attack was a mistake, pure and simple, and i hope israel offers sympathies for it at least, like what the US did after blowing up that wedding party in afghanistan.
this example aside, however, many of the people you call civilians in other attacks merely because some hezbollah on the street was quoted as saying such, are not mere civilians. this is a common tactic among groups like hamas and hezbollah; point to every dead body on the street and tell the press that they were innocent civilians, their lives tragically cut short by the vile zionist invaders. oh, that dude with the AK-47, he was just holding it for a friend.
yeah, says the guy who thinks israel should just sit back and enjoy it.
Andrew
If the war in Afghanistan was justified, where far more civilians died than have in Lebanon, why isn’t the Israeli action justified?
chopper
…is to be left the fuck alone. the problem is, populations around them have been trying to destory them for the past 60 years in one way or another.
chopper
easy, it’s israel. they can do no right.
chopper
good thing it isn’t pepsi
Nutcutter
Let me tell you, when even Andrea Mitchell can figure it out, and you can’t, then you are in a world of hurt. I mean literally a world of hurt.
Nutcutter
Then their bankrupt moral judgment is trumped only by their collossal ineptitude.
This disaster will insure a lack of security for Israel through another generation of people who will have to live in this shit.
chopper
real world:
loopy land:
Nutcutter
Sixty years of war, topped off by this two week disaster, this train wreck, this massive clusterfuck that makes even Bush’s Iraq War look pale by comparison.
Apparently the Israeli people aren’t tired yet of being lied to by their lunatics in suits. They are reupping for another generation of this crap.
Nutcutter
So they mount an air war that kills 500-700 civilians, at least a third of them children, and almost no enemy combatants.
Brilliant. Yeah, these are the people I want running my world.
And our moron government buys into it, and insures that America will now be despised by even more of the world’s people, as if that were possible. Well, it is possible, because it’s happening.
chopper
see, this just points to the complete lack of perspective americans have with regards to the situation israel is in. its really a no-win situation, because they have to defend themselves against a shitload of people all surrounding them who want to destroy them. and any thing they do to try to stop those people is met with disdain from all sorts of people, not the least of which are american liberals who sleep safely in their beds without any idea how precarious israel’s situation is.
Nutcutter
That was live from the scene this morning on Meet the Press.
This is the carnage that is being defended on these very pages by the Pars, the Choppers, and the Darrells.
You thought you’d seen everything? Well, now you have.
chopper
“almost no enemy combatants” according to you, and hezbollah.
meanwhile, israel has destroyed over half of hezbollah’s arsenal.
Demdude
What is to stop Hezbollah from getting more weapons?
Nutcutter
C’mon Chop, you are letting your emotions get in the way of your judgment. You know better than this.
Killing kids in their sleep is not a win for anybody. Ever. Under any circumstances. Not even if Satan himself were in the building.
Faux outrage? Chop, they’ve killed hundreds of civilians with no end in sight, and are achieving no definable military objective. It’s Israel that is operating now on faux outrage. Every decent citizen of Israel and every person who sincerely supports Israel should be calling for an end to this madness today. Not trying to defend it. End it.
Nutcutter
Not according to me, according to every report coming from the ground. Every one.
And the famous arsenal? How long will it take Iran and Syria to replace that arsenal? As long as it takes the US to replace Israel’s cache of weapons?
Civilians are disposable now in the war of weapon attrition?
This is what you defend today?
Nutcutter
Gillerman is the Israeli ambassador to the UN.
Here in capsule form, you have the core of the madness.
Dead mothers and children killed in their sleep, and the man has already constructed the sentences and put in the “but.”
The evil in the world can be distilled into that “but.”
Yes, Tim, we slaughtered innocent people. But …..
That is sociopathy. That is madness.
There is nothing you can put after the “but” that makes this right. There is no wickedness you can point to which will wash the blood from their hands. There is no excuse for this shit.
It is very important to stress? It is very important to stress that you are KILLING CHILDREN IN THEIR SLEEP. That’s what’s important.
Nutcutter
You cannot make this stuff up. “This is … what the Hezbollah wanted.”
Oh really? THEN WHY DID YOU DO THIS? A few rockets or some other thing were worth this carnage and the twenty years of hatred toward Israel that will surely follow?
I don’t even have to ask if this guy is mad. Only a madman would agree to go on tv and say this crap.
Pb
chopper,
Ok, I’ll bite, how precarious *is* Israel’s situation, and would you say that their current offensive is helping or hurting that situation? Are we talking about the state of Israel that has an estimated 150 nuclear weapons or so, by the way?
Nutcutter
Just a snipped of the madman’s answer:
So, we’ll kill their children in their beds to convince them to rid themselves of the monster.
I’m sorry, we’re in the Twilight Zone now. Madness has descended upon the world.
Nutcutter
That’s Tom Friedman on MTP today, who described himself as a “Jewish-American reporter.”
He’s right. It’s not working. Don’t misunderstand me here, I am not proposing that if “it” were “working” that it would be okay to bomb kids in their sleep. The fact that it won’t work is not the reason why it’s wrong. It’s wrong because it is wrong.
But when you add the obvious fact that it can’t possibly work, then you have to wonder …. what kind of morons are deciding to do these things?
Slide.
From Andrew Sullivan, a strong proponent of Israel’s right for self-defense
shame on Israel
Slide.
Saudi Arabia initially attacked Hezbullah but Israel’s actions have made them change their tune:
.
good going Israel
Slide.
Lets call this what it is, Israeli terrorism. From Juan Cole:
.
demimondian
Paul, since the “murder of children” is so awful, please do tell me what Israel is supposed to do? I mean, the government could rebuild the death camps and start running trains — but Hizbollah will be content with nothing less than the deaths of all Israeli Jews. I know it’s awfully convenient to forget that fact, and to forget that the rockets have continued to rain down despite UNFIL, which has been shocked, *shocked* to discover that there were -terrorists- armed miliitants still attacking Israel.
If you have no answer to that question, then stop Darrelling. Israel has shown, on multiple occasions, the willingness to stop fighting — neither Egypt nor Jordan has suffered a single Israeli attack since they agreed to lay down their own arms. You are free to question the wisdom of Israel’s tactics, but you need to have a better suggestion. If you have none, then you need to stop bleating about “liars” and “sociopaths” and “murdering children”, and start thinking about why that is.
Nutcutter
That is beyond stupid. It indicates that your brain has just ceased functioning altogether. Seriously, you need to stand back and get some perspective.
Look at the pictures of the dead kids, the little coffins lined up. If you can’t figure out that that’s wrong, and inexecusable, then I’m sorry, it’s not my job to help you understand it. You either get it or you don’t.
Once you understand that it’s wrong, you can start figuring out what to do. But as long as you are taking the position you are taking, you will never reach that point. You are just like them, on both sides. Two sides after sixty years of war. “What are we supposed to do?”
Fuck them. And fuck anyone who buys that crap.
YOU DO SOMETHING ELSE, that’s what you do for Christ’s fucking sake.
Nutcutter
Bleating? FUCK YOU, Demi. I’m talking. I am not a goat.
And I am right. They are sociopaths, and they are telling lies. If you don’t like that truth, too fucking bad.
Nutcutter
How anyone can look at this (see the Reuters site for the visuals) and come up with nothing better than “What else are we supposed to do?” is totally beyond me.
Maybe the end timers are right, maybe this is the end of the world. Because if “What else can we do?” is the best you got, then the world deserves to end on that note.
That is just beyond pathetic and reprehensible. To me it’s more evil than fucking Charles Manson. At least a guy like Manson will look you in the eye and tell you he wants to kill you just because. But what kind of a pathetic fucking liar drops bombs on kids and says “What else can I do?”
Ted Bundy had more balls than that. Of course, he was just a run of the mill sociopath. But he donated his brain to science, so that maybe we could learn something from his monstrosity.
GOP4Me
Would arming the Lebanese government have been such a crazy idea? Sending money and guns to the Lebanese government runs a risk that Hezbollah supporters will embezzle some of it, but I’m sure there are plenty of Lebanese (the Maronites and Druzes and Sunni Muslims, for example) who would be happy to take Israel’s economic and military support and use it to extirpate the Syrian-Iranian puppet terrorist army from their sovereign territory.
Is that a risky plan? Sure. Would Syria have tried to raise trouble? Sure. Could they have done it through an intermediary state like Turkey? Maybe. Are there better plans out there? Probably. But I’d argue it would’ve been a better idea than the current one, which will end by strengthening support for Hezbollah while hardening Lebanese hearts against Israel.
When your plan for dealing with a murderous terrorist organization like Hezbollah backfires so badly that you find yourself having to launch PR campaigns to argue you still hold the moral high ground, it should be pretty obvious that you screwed up somewhere along the way.
Par R
Well, I knew it wouldn’t be long before the NUT would drag Karl Rove into the mix and blame all this on him:
And when pressed for an alternative to what he so objects to, his solution consists of exactly these words:
Just how helpful is this advice to an Israeli parent surrounded by his children who hears the incoming missiles that may be headed into their apartment. One suspects that the parent might favor an approach that attempted to destroy the missile before it could be sent his direction. But one can read the NUT’s prose and come away with a very clear and distinct feeling that he doesn’t really care all that much about the fate of the Israeli family.
Nutcutter
They killed my kids, so I must kill theirs? Yeah, that’s the ticket. I’ll kill theirs.
Brilliant, Par. You’ve really outdone yourself.
You can get a job at our State Department, I think.
Nutcutter
People who bomb kids, like you, don’t care about anyone’s family.
Par R
NUT, you have now convinced me that you are indeed a complete idiot. Your repetitive posts say the same thing… Israel is VERY BAD, and the other side is unnice, but it’s basically 99.999% the fault of Israel for not letting those Hezbollah protectors of the innocent Lebanese civilians kill them with their daily bombings.
Nutcutter
Talks With Rice Canceled
Can anyone explain to me what those women are smiling about?
They look like they just came from shopping and lunch.
Slide.
Do you care at all for the women and children killed by Israel? Are they not worthy of your concern? No, of course not, they are Arabs, silly me for asking.
Has the killing of women and children reduced the number of rockets flying into Israel? Has it made it safer for Israel? Will they be safer in the future with the entire Muslim world watching on TV the terrorist attacks by Israel on innoncent Arabs? You keep saying, well, what would you do? Well, I certainly won’t do something that makes me more in danger which is exactly what Israel is doing.
Israel killed in that one attack more innocent civilians than all of the 1400+ rockets launched by Hezbullah. And that is just a small part of the hundreds and hundreds of innocents incinerated by Israel using my tax dollars.
Nutcutter
Your troll is getting sloppier every day. What I’ve said is “very bad” is killing kids and then trying to excuse it with lies.
In face of piles of dead kids, this is the best you can come up with?
What are you, a 12-year old?
Nutcutter
Actually, I said they are sociopaths. Every day on this topic for about two weeks now.
Nutcutter
Wow. What a woman of action.
I’m sure that after she reads Balloon-Juice, she’ll change her mind and realize that the only way to peace is continual slaughter of children.
It’s always worked in the past.
Par R
NUT and Slide, tistom tapeh yanaal…and I am being excessively polite and kind, given your near complete lunacy and rabid anti-Semitism.
Nutcutter
That black bitch. She’s clearly anti-semitic.
Slide.
Glen Greenwald has a must read post up that you should read but this part where he talks about Mark Levin, famed neocon at NR, could easily be said of the macho warriers like little Par R:
.
Nutcutter
That also appears to be the gist of the defense of Israel on these pages as we speak.
They just haven’t killed enough babies yet. And of course, there is the Darrell principle: Nobody has proved that the civilians are innocent.
I think when this is all over, and I pray that that is very soon, it’s Darrell’s assertion that I will remember the longest. Just when you think you have seen everything on the Internets ….
Slide.
Oh, and Par, leh zaient ima shha.
Par R
Slide, now that you’ve quoted the world’s leading Sock Puppet, I’m really convinced of the merits of your position. The same comment applies to the earlier extended quote from that infamous anti-Semite, Juan Cole. Where’s your usual quote from Osama bin Laden, telling us nasty neocons how awful we are for resisting their efforts to kill us.
God, between you and the NUT, there’s enough anti-Israeli feeling to fuel a rebirth of the Third Reich.
Nutcutter
Isskay eyemay asspay.
Nutcutter
Well, Slide, it appears that the “Defend the Killing of Kids At All Costs” brigade is down basically to Par and his body odor jokes.
I’m taking the afternoon off, there’s nothing here of any interest at this point.
Maybe Darrell will stop by and insist that the dead children were Hezbollah midgets.
Par R
Well, since you’ve insisted in moving to the profane and family members, zayin al hakuss hamasrihah shel haima hamehoeret shelha….
Par R
Before you depart, NUT, could you confirm whether this is true or not…I read on another blog an explanation of what prompted the NUT to abandon his earlier handle, “ppGaz.” The comment said he adopted the new handle to commemorate the surgical procedure that will now permit “him” to sing the soprano lead in Richard Wagner’s “Rienzi,” reportedly Hitler’s favorite opera.
Andrew
Uh oh! Arabs and Iranians are mad at Israel!
Next thing you know, they might want to kill Israelis!
The only reason that there is any peace with Israel is that there have been America-brokered payoff with authoritarian strongmen in Egypt and Jordan, or the Israelis have defeated their opponents militarily, Syria and Egypt, again. The majority of the populations of all of these countries hate Israel now, but they hated Israel yesterday, and they hated Israel before the Lebanon war.
Israel has killed far fewer Muslims in its history than any single Arab government. Tens of thousands of Muslims have been killed in Darfur in the past year or two. These governments and most of their peoples don’t care at all about Muslim deaths. They only care about demonizing Israel.
So, what’s the solution? How do you reason or deal with these horrible hypocrites that just hate Israel?
Nutcutter
Shorter Andrew: It’s okay for Israel to slaughter children, because Arabs and Muslims are much worse.
Nutcutter
What an ass you are.
Nutcutter
Breaking — Israel Suspends Bombing
They know that they are losing the public opinion war, and that they have royally fucked up. They are couching the cessation of the air attacks as an opportunity for humanitarian improvements. Of course, people with humanitarian concerns don’t bomb children and shoot at families fleeing in terror.
Now apparently a good deal of Southern Lebanon is under pressure to flee. These are people with little means and as near as I can tell, nowhere to go. But of course, no price is to great a burden to be paid by innocent people when “God’s Chosen People” are pissed off.
No price is too great, when somebody else has to pay it.
While the 48-hour cessation is welcome, I give no quarter to these insane motherfuckers whatever. With every passing day, they earn more contempt on the world scene, which they richly deserve. And of course, the US earns basically the same contempt. This most recent outrage was committed while Rice was in Israel, about as rude a slap to American relevance as could be arranged.
This is what you get when you tell the world for five years that peace, freedom and liberty are only gained through war and destruction.
This is Shock and Awe, Phase Two. The world is shocked and awed, alright, and it appears to me that both Israel and America will pay the price for it for at least twenty five years.
Stupid, stupid motherfuckers.
Andrew
Shorter ppgaz: We should have rolled over for the Nazis. Because, you know, we might have killed some German civilians if we had fought back.
Nutcutter
This is really the nonsense you are down to now?
What an asshat.
chopper
their objective is to destroy hezbollah’s rocket arsenal. which they are achieving so far.
yes, and do tell how the AP determines what adults, for example, are and are not hezbollah. do they check it for themselves? or do they ask the man on the street, who is likely a hezbollah sympathizer?
given that one of the first things israel did was to destroy the runways of the airport that hezbollah used to import weapons, and blockade weapons shipments by sea, a while. oh wait, those sort of things don’t fit in to your whole idea that all israel cares about is smokin’ civvies. never mind.
i defend israel’s right to exist. i also defend israel’s right to defend herself against murderous terrorist assholes who launch rockets into her cities.
its the same reason, despite my utter dislike for bush and his crew, that i supported the US attacking al qaeda in afghanistan. apparently, for the rest of you, its okay for the US to attack afghanistan to stop a terrorist organization who’s killed thousands of americans, but when israel goes after a terrorist organization who murders israelis, it’s bad.
i’m still waiting for you to tell me what israel is supposed to do against these rocket attacks.
chopper
heh.
Andrew
I still haven’t heard a reasonable explanation why the Afghanistan war was at all justified if Israel’s war with Lebanon isn’t.
GOP4Me
Could someone please tell me why it would’ve been such a worse idea for Israel to make friends with the Lebanese government and get THEM to deal with the Hezbollah bastards forming a de facto separate mini-state in southern Lebanon, rather than Israel taking Hezbollah on by itself and alienating the Lebanese people by flattening portions of Beirut?
I certainly don’t think it’s anti-Israeli to suggest that you’re always better off helping a weak potential friend than you are making lots of new enemies, but maybe helping the Lebanese government would’ve been the stupidest action Israel’s ever taken and would surely have resulted in its national destruction. Maybe the rest of you can see that happening if they’d helped the Lebanese government help themselves, and maybe I’m just too dense or too in love with my own idea to see it.
But how am I supposed to know how stupid I am if none of you have the common decency to point it out for me, laying down specifics? Please, somebody tell me why it would have been a bad idea for Israel to arm Lebanon (maybe using Turkey as the intermediary supplying state, to take the heat off of Israel and defuse Syrian sputterings until the Lebanese offensive against Hezbollah was underway) and let them deal with Hezbollah a year or two from now, rather than Israel pissing off the rest of the planet by impetuously trying to do the job right now?
Please tell me how this was a bad idea, so I can come up with other bad ideas- bargaining to cede the Golan Heights back to Syria in exchange for them recognizing Israel, perhaps, or maybe calling for an increase in the number of UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon. Those are both horrible, terrible ideas, it’s true. But for all I know, they’re genius masterstrokes of diplomacy compared to the idea of arming the Lebanese government and having them fight Israel’s war as Israel’s proxy. I don’t know, because you people haven’t told me. Come on. Help me out here.
Nutcutter
Maybe Andrew, Demi and Par can put together a little something for the known anti-semite, Blair, and call him some choice names?
C’Mon you guys, you are on a roll here. Surely you know that Blair is nothing but a crumpte-eating pussy, the bitch of Osama Bin Laden?
Come on, you fuckin chest-thumpers. Get with the program here.
chopper
but israel is pure evil! this makes no sense at all!
they’re stopping to investigate the earlier bombing. yeah, i’m sure that hezbollah would do the same thing. totally. they’ve opened investigations into every rocket attack that’s killed civvies in israel, right?
Nutcutter
No, you are a liar. You are defending the murder of children in their sleep.
Nutcutter
Yes, in this situation, I’m afraid that they are.
And you are, for defending them.
chopper
the lebanese government has given up on doing anything about hezbollah a long time ago. even if it got a dose of cash, it’s very doubtful they’d actually do anything with it, especially since hezbollah has a sizeable number of seats in lebanon’s legislature. they wouldn’t let anything actually happen.
chopper
i’m defending a country’s right to exist and defend herself. which unfortunately means civilian casualties during war time. it’s the real world. welcome to it.
i take it you think WWII wasn’t worth fighting, since so many german and japanese children were killed in their sleep, right? and i guess you were also against the us attacking afghanistan on purely moral reasons. interesting.
well that’s it in a nutshell, innit? israel can do no right.
Nutcutter
What are you, in high school? The Lebanese government is a new and very fragile democracy that is just starting to show signs of being perhaps the first — ever — liberal democracy in the Arab world, a fact which was being touted right here in these pages a year or so ago as evidence that liberal democracy is actually possible in the Arab world. As support for the nutty idea that Iraq can become such a state, as support for our stupid policy there.
Now comes Israel and threatens to knock Lebanese democracy right off the chart. If anything, this stupid, careless, selfish and evil action will produce a rise of Hezbollah power in Leganon and insure more years of instability and war for Israel and the entire region. A clusterfuck right up there with the American Iraq adventure for sheer stupidity and foolishness.
What fucking comic book world of good versus evil and heroes with magical powers are you getting your worldview from?
If Israel knows what it’s doing why has it created for itself a sixty years state of war with its neighbors with NO END IN SIGHT?
Because they don’t know what they are doing, they are fanatics, just like the asshole fanatics they are fighting. They think they can fight fanaticism with fanaticism. What do you think, should we give them another sixty years and then check in and see how they are doing?
Nutcutter
Not so far in this current crisis, no. They have done no right, and a lot of wrong. And it appears that they are poised to keep shooting themselves, and us, in the groin.
Nutcutter
You are a liar. You are defending the killing of children in their sleep.
Pb
Heh. World War II comparisons, that’s rich. Wake me up when Hezbollah takes over Lebanon, invades Israel, and starts putting people into camps and executing them–then you can make your comparison. Until then, I can’t tell which side is supposed to be which.
Andrew
The notion of “arming” the Lebanese army is a nice idea, ut impractical in reality. The army is too small to police the country, too weak, and fractured by strong religious factions. Many Lebanese army are also Hezbullah or sympathetic.
Andrew
Answer the Afghanistan question then.
Did you support our attack on Afghanistan?
GOP4Me
See, I think if the Lebanese government started getting a lot of cash and weapons, and they knew it was coming from Israel, and they knew certain conditions were attached to this influx, some of that would change. Then again, I could be wrong. Then again, we’ll never know, since they never tried it.
As for Hezbollah’s seats in the legislature, you fight them there first. It’s going to become a fight between the Lebanese government and Hezbollah sooner or later anyway, why not squabble with them and backstab them and make deals behind their backs in the legislature beforehand? Spend tons of the money on aid projects in the south, wrest some electoral gains away from Hezbollah, start introducing regular Army units into southern Lebanon, and THEN, 3 or 4 years down the road, start disarming them. Sort of how I envision our plan is for dealing with the warlords in Afghanistan, assuming we even have a plan there.
It’s a long-term project, and it requires a lot of patience on the part of Israel. It doesn’t provide the visceral satisfaction of a useless air war that won’t impair Hezbollah’s capabilities, but it does offer prospects of eventual success.
Then again, it has the advantage of being a pure hypothetical, so it can be as stupid or as brilliant an idea as we want to make it. Hypotheticals are fun that way, they’re as good or as bad as the people advancing them or attacking them will let them be. It’s not so much that the idea is stupid, as it is that the act of suggesting any alternative is, in and of itself, stupid. Israel will Israel, Lebanon will Lebanon, Hezbollah will Hezbollah, and innocent civilians on all sides will do what they always do: scream and run and die horribly. I don’t expect Israel to listen to my ideas any more than I expect President Bush to stop by for a chummy chat about policy with me. It’s all an extended act of masturbation in the face of the ongoing train wreck that is the Middle East, but at least it passes the time.
Now, a new hypo: what if Israel abandoned all settlements acquired after 1967, and in exchange all their enemies agreed to become friends and hold hands with them and sing Kumbaya? Why is THAT a bad idea?
Pb
Andrew,
My answer from last time stands, I’m not rehashing it again.
Nutcutter
Same here, I think I answered that one a year or more ago.
GOP4Me
That’s why you arm them, and proselytize to them, and wait. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was the USSR. Neither was America. But we went from being devout subjects of the crown in 1763 to ardent separatists in 1776, so anything’s possible if the will to attempt it exists. Since there is no will, it’s pointless to talk about; but you guys wanted an alternative proposal, so I suggested one.
Thanks for the critique, anyway. Sorry it’s such a pointless subject, that’s my fault for not coming up with a better plan. But I have the feeling that even if I did, it’s not as if Israel would adopt it.
Nutcutter
A very bright gentleman in the region over there said on television the other day: Israel says it wants to be secure. But it keeps making the same mistake, over and over again. It thinks it can be secure while its neighbors don’t think they are secure. In order to be secure, the bordering countries need to be secure. The way to security is to have neighbors who are secure. In that light, the current action is completely self-defeating. It will certainly give rise to a widening of Hezbollah power and influence, and inflame the entire Arab world against Israel.
“What else can we do?” Grow the fuck up, that’s what else Israel can do. It decided to put a flag in the ground in the most unstable and inflammable place on earth, politically speaking, and in the face of some of the most ancient conflicts on earth, and expects to beat its chest and be secure because it is God’s Chosen People.
Guess what, magical thinking has been largely debunked. The gods are not coming to save Israel from itself, it is going to have to grow up and work with the realities of its situation. The fanatics over the hill think that their god gave them the same land. So what are we having here, a fight to see whose god has the biggest dick?
chopper
first, i have no doubts whatsoever that this sort of thing was already thought through. despite other’s belief to the contrary, israelis are not some ogrish war-mongering group of people who wish only to destroy things and kill little kids. if israel could have gotten what they wanted with cash instead of war, they would have gone for cash.
but remember again, a sizable portion of the lebanese parlaiment is hezbollah. what do you think would happen to all that money? 20$ sez hezbollah would get their hands on it, and then israel would end up paying for the rockets that are used to blow up their own civilians.
Nutcutter
Thought through? This is going to go down as the greatest clusterfuck in the modern history of Israel, maybe in the Middle East. A tipping point. The point at which Arab sentiment and world sentiment turned so strongly and so permanently against Israeli and American interests that another 25 to 50 years of turmoil and terrorism are as likely as any other outcome. The point at which the world looked at the unholy alliance between the peabrains in our government and the peabrains in the Israeli government and said, fuck both of those guys. They are all crazy.
Right now you have the Western world, minus a few complete mental cases in the White House like Bush and Cheney and their neocon mad hatters, thinking that the US is an impotent and irrlevant bungler in the Middle East. They think that, because it’s true. That’s what we are. That’s what we’ve become. A few miles down the road from where Israel is blowing up babies, Iraq is descending further daily into civil war and we have no power to do anything about it whatever.
We better keep our eyes on the ball here. We better figure out a way to get a cease fire in this situation immediately. Then we better figure out a way to seize control of the Congress and restore some order to the government of our own country.
Otherwise, we are surely and completely fucked.
Andrew
Moreoever, chopper, any time and money spent arming the Lebanese army would be more than countered by Iranian resupply of Hezbullah. Iran is extremely cash rich right now, and Ahmadinejad clearly wouldn’t mind destabilizing Israel.
It’s not like Hezbullah’s outstanding business practices paid for the 10,000 rockets imported since 2000.
chopper
they’ve destroyed a majority of hezbollah’s arsenal. but they’ve ‘done no right’? does that mean that you’d prefer that hezbollah continues to shoot rockets into haifa?
i also defend the US invasion of afghanistan to kill OBL and destroy al qaeda. i also support that the US bombed japanese and german people in the 40’s. and children died in those attacks! ooh, i’m an asshole!
whereas in your world, western democracies like the US and israel can’t fight back against people who have sworn to wipe them off the face of the earth and kill hundreds to thousands of their civilians just for the fuck of it. they should, as the old saying about a woman getting raped goes, “just sit back and enjoy it.”
GOP4Me
Are you sure that a Prime Minister who is out to prove his own reliability as a Commmander-in-Chief didn’t maybe, just maybe, rush to war a little hastily? Sorta like Bush in Iraq?
I know. That’s why the money has to be spent on improvements in southern Lebanon. To get around the Hezbollah faction, the money would have to be spent by a separate government organization explicitly connected to the central government exclusively. Or, you could finance opposition parties directly for a while, and tell them to spend the money in southern Lebanon so as to wrest popular support away from Hezbollah.
Nothing in politics is written in stone. The Israeli government could learn much by adopting the tactics of Nixon in the “Solid South”. The least they could do is remember what they learned the last time they were in Lebanon: if you pay someone enough money, you’ll get a loyal puppet out of him. Hire a couple puppets to finagle parliament seats away from Hezbollah. America and the UN will probably help foot the bill. Nobody likes Hezbollah much, nobody except Iran and Syria and nobody likes them much either. So everyone would be happy to finance elections out from under Hezbollah.
The main factor isn’t money, it’s time. And I’m not sure Israel was willing to wait. Despite your protestations to the contary, I don’t think Israel wanted to wait for Hezbollah to wilt. I can’t honestly criticize them on that score, just making an observation. I’m not sure I’d want America to wait either if Canadian-based terrorists were shelling us every night and kidnapping our soldiers all the time.
But regardless, they didn’t wait. They attacked. And this attack will bolster Hezbollah support just like every other attack they’ve tried against a terrorist group. It makes me very sad, because I want Israel to succeed. I just think this isn’t the way to do it, and there’s got to be a better one. Not that anyone really cares what I think anyway, or what you think for that matter. Israel’s not tapping us for advice, is it?
Nutcutter
Correct, sir. They have traded the lives of children for a few missiles, and they then want to strut about and beat their chests over what a great thing they have done.
Meanwhile, the missiles will be replaced, Hezbollah just doubled its membership once they have time to process in all the new recruits this action will generate, Lebanon is weakened and therefore the hope for true security on the norther border is pushed back, the Arab world is inflamed, American interests are in more jeopardy than ever, and Israel’s manipulators in suits have created another two generations of hatred for themselves in the region which they can then use as the basis for sustaining their own power for a while longer. The most dangerous region on earth is now more dangerous. George Bush looks like a deer in the headlights. His Secretary of State is the laughingstock of the world.
Yeah, this is a great time for everybody.
Nutcutter
QED.
chopper
meanwhile, hezbollah continues to launch rockets into haifa.
chopper
at least i’m not so braindead (or deluded) to believe that hezbollah doesn’t hide among the civilian population, merely because a single op-ed piece, sans any actual evidence, says so. but it fits into my hatred of israel like a puzzle piece! it must be right! i don’t care about all the evidence to the contrary!
let me know when you join the real world.
Nutcutter
Let me know when you are done waving your arms and trying to defend the bombing of children in their sleep.
I won’t wait up for you, though. You’re totally invested in this whole “What else could we do?” delusion.
As if the “only” solution to any problem on earth required the bombing of civilians in their beds.
As I said, if Satan himself were upstairs in that building, this would still be murder. Satan can lure you into the evil but you actually have to pull the trigger.
Obviously you’d pull it without blinking an eye.
chopper
missiles which would have killed their own children.
despite not getting anything resembling an answer (especially from you, ppgaz) after asking like 10 times, i’m going to ask again just for shits and giggles:
assuming that israel has a right to defend herself against people who lob rockets into her cities and kill her civilians (and i really hope that you at least believe that), how exactly is israel supposed to do so if these people are hiding among the civilian population?
Nutcutter
Well then why don’t those stupid people in Haifa just move? If they stay in harms way they deserve to get blown up. Right? Isnt’t that the rule?
GOP4Me
Yep. Like I said, it requires patience.
Do you really think this brilliant Israeli victory we’ve just witnessed is going to STOP Hezbollah from launching rockets? That’s a given until you get rid of Hezbollah. The most- the absolute most- Israel has done is buy itself a couple weeks of comparative peace, to be followed by intensified rocket-launchings later. Those rockets will inevitably kill more Israelis, and I’m sure the Israeli response will be to continue to play whack-a-mole with Hezbollah. Quite a solution, really.
Heaven forbid any long-term planning be suggested. But Hezbollah didn’t start rocketing Israel overnight, and it’s not going to stop overnight either just because Israel blew up some buildings in response. This is a mighty beast Israel helped create in the north, and it took a while to create it. Getting rid of that beast is going to take a while, too. If you want overnight results, I’m afraid you’re not being very realistic.
chopper
let me know when you quit defending hezbollah’s right to lob rockets into israel and characterizing all warfare by ‘kiddifying’ it.
only in your world is defending your country against people shooting rockets into your cities ‘delusional’. jesus, yet more evidence that people in america have it easier than everyone else in the world.
i’m still waiting for your solution, the one that destroys hezbollah’s arsenal without killing a single civilian. maybe a stern letter of protest?
Nutcutter
By some means other than waging a careless air war against an innocent civilian population.
And the attack of last night wasn’t against somebody “hiding” somewhere. It was against hardware. Stop already with the totally dishonest “hiding” bullshit. If the people being killed are to be believed, and I do believe them, they are trying to avoid contact with anything that would be a target. They are mostly terrified of being attacked by Israel.
Of course, Israel states that they will “investigate” the attack. We’re all tingly waiting for those results, aren’t we?
Nutcutter
You fucking lying piece of crap. I am not defending Hezbollahs attacks.
Israel is the one “kiddifying” the slaughter, you stupid asshole. The bodies are stacking up like cordwood. Just because you dismiss them doesn’t change anything.
You are defending murder. You stink. You should be ashamed.
chopper
patience which you can’t blame a country for not having when terrorists are shooting rockets into their cities. imagine if say, cuban militants were launching rockets into miami. would you be cool with a 3-year plan to stop them (with a low chance of actually working) involving throwing money at castro and hoping he does something about it (hah!), all the while they’re still lobbing rockets into south florida, killing civilians?
Nutcutter
The arsenal is not likely to be destroyed, and to the extent that it is, it’s replaceable. That phony objective was a cover that Israel floated out there when it still thought that it could get away with this shit.
Only yesterday, their call for “disarming” Hezbollah was taken down. They knew it was bullshit from the get go. This is all about rearragning the politics at the border, not disarming anybody. I haven’t seen an analyst anywhere who says that disarmament was ever a realistic possibility. Except in your miniscule brain.
GOP4Me
Fine. Let Iran waste its loot arming Hezbollah. When the Lebanese opposition is siphoning support away from Hezbollah under Lebanese Army protection, Hezbollah support can quietly wither away.
How are you guys proposing we stop Iran and Syria from doing whatever they want to do? Invasion? Count me out. You’re going to have to factor them into whatever you say. Iran is going to re-arm Hezbollah whether you finance Lebanon’s gov’t or bomb Hezbollah flat. Doesn’t matter either way, Iran is going to re-arm them. That’s what Iran does, really.
chopper
yes you are. you obviously think that israel should do nothing at all about these attacks. you even believe the propoganda that hezbollah isn’t even hiding among civilians, the biggest joke i’ve heard all week, which is utter crap to anyone with a working brain cell.
as i said, in the real world, civilians die in war. put on blinders if you wish, but it doesn’t change that fact.
i’m defending a country’s right to defend itself in war. i am not ashamed at all for that.
tell me, did you support the US attacking afghanistan? you’ve been asked this several times, but have conveniently ignored it.
Nutcutter
Wrong. I am indeed blaming them. One of the first steps necessary toward any peace is that parties take responsibility for their actions.
They are bombing children. They have completely fucked up this operation from the get go, creating civilian carnage and accomplishing virtually nothing militarily. The world recoils in horror today …. but not you. You are on cruise control. “What else can they do?”
Welcome to your future: As the world goes up in flames, we can all observe your great shrug.
{ shrug } What else could we have done?
Mushroom cloud, up and out. No wonder they talk about the end times. They are counting on people like you to provide them.
Nutcutter
No, I am not, you fucking liar. And if you want to make this into a did-didn’t shouting match I can do this 24 hours a fucking day forever. Let’s go.
I’m not defending anybody in this contest except the dead civilians, you worthless turd.
Nutcutter
Obviously. That’s why you are a piece of crap. You are defending murder.
Slide
Very interesting, albeit long, analysis of this “futile little war” from bonifide conservative Gregory Djerejian. Read it to get an overall perspective but here is just a portion: (oh, Par R don’t bother, don’t think you have the intellecutal capacity)
.
GOP4Me
I believe I already said I didn’t blame Israel for not having patience. I don’t blame them. I believe I already said I wouldn’t have any patience if guys in Canada were acting like Hezbollah acts toward Israel.
So what, though? Are we celebrating the human condition of impatience, here, or are we brainstorming for better ideas than the one Israel came up with? I was trying to do the latter; if all you want to do is point out that humans don’t have the patience for it, I agree and close the discussion. It’s dull, and we have nothing to talk about.
Anyway, in about 4 weeks we’ll know whether or not Israel’s gambit paid off. If Hezbollah starts sending rockets into Israel again, this whole impatient response didn’t really pay off in my opinion. If the UN swarms into Lebanon and somehow disarms Hezbollah without any real cooperation from anyone, not even the Lebanese government, then I guess you were right. The short-term future will tell. But either way I still think it would’ve been better for Israel to start funding the Lebanese gov’t, and clandestinely fund opposition parties. I think they should start doing it now, regardless. It might take 10-15 years to see results, but that’ll still be better than 50 more years of shelling and warfare.
Nutcutter
Who the fuck do you think you are talking to?
I don’t have to answer anything from you. If you want to know my position on anything, you can look it up in my 10k posts in twenty locations out there. Too hard? Tough shit. You can suck my dick.
Slide
Hey… even the right wing nutjobs on Fox’s Sunday show all agreed that this is a disaster for Israel and the USA. A blunder of major proportions by Israel and for the USA in giving them the green light. Fred Barnes looked like he was about to cry. Bill Kristol suicidal and Brit Hume was his normal cheery self.
Nutcutter
According to the lying lunatic Chopper, yes, and you can even throw in the mythical “disarmament” of Hezbollah which has now been taken off the table by Israel.
Nutcutter
Or are we using it as an excuse for murder?
Impatience is fine. It’s the action you take as a result that counts. It’s one thing to be impatient. It’s another to turn that into an excuse for sociopathic disregard for any humanity that gets in your way.
GOP4Me
Well, yeah, probably. But hey, what is war if not murder? Omelette-making, that’s what. You can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs, and who ever tasted an omelette more delectable than a Lebanon free of Hezbollah’s nefarious presence?
I’m sorry, I find it increasingly difficult to discuss this issue without resorting to spoofing. Might as well, really. We’re all jerking off right now no matter what we say, so I don’t see how it hurts if I actually enjoy it when I masturbate.
Either I spoof, or lose my temper, fly off the handle and start sounding like this Nutcutter kook. And I’d rather not do that right now, because so far nobody’s called me any names. For some reason, that’s rare on this blog. Oh, maybe it has to do with all the spoofing…
I’m really not sure what sort of measured reponse Olmert could’ve taken in the short term. I guess maybe lobbed a couple missiles back into Lebanon, for all the good that would’ve done. Seems really pointless, but then so does lobbing a lot of missiles into Lebanon. Or into Israel, for that matter.
The whole thing seems pointless. Neither side is going to win, they’re just going to keep bludgeoning away at one another, generation after generation, until either one side’s external backers or the other’s stop financing them. There seems to be no progress for Israel in making new friends in the region, but they seem very good at cultivating new generations of enemies.
For the Arabs’ part, Israel will always be necessary as a convenient scapegoat for the people to direct their wrath at while their own leadership systematically rapes them on a constant basis.
And the victims become the aggressors, and the aggressors become the victims, and it all goes round and round.
So, who’s up for taking out Iran? If it doesn’t work out, we can always nuke them.
chopper
if i’m pro-child murder, then you’re pro-hezbollah. and hey, hezbollah kills israeli children too. so i guess you’re pro-child murder as well. congrats!
Darrell
Yes, by defending her right to exist, Israel is to blame for “creating” Hezbollah. Last I checked, there was no shortage of arabs in the middle east cheering for dead Jews. No doubt Israel is to blame for that hatred too, given that her very existence “creates” hatred among her arab neighbors. Such bad PR. Why don’t those jews just hurry up and die?
It’s tragic to admit, but it appears a LOT more arabs need to killed before Israel can have peace. If they are going to continue to try and kill Israelis, then they need die in large numbers like the murderous cockroaches that they are.
Interesting how no one screaming “Israelis murder children!” is able to square that view with their support of Afghanistan, a war which resulted in many civilian deaths. These same aholes blaming Israel for all civilian deaths in Lebanon, didn’t say jack shit when civilians were dying in Afghanistan. They can’t explain or justify this inconsistent position, because there is no justification for their dishonest double standards.
chopper
a naive dumbshit?
your 10k posts, none of which answer the question. look, if you don’t know, just admit it and get it over with. you’d prefer that israel do nothing at all, while hezbollah continues to rain death upon haifa. including the lil’ israeli babies. defending child murder, nice racket you have there, ppgaz.
Nutcutter
One little with your wicked scheme there, genius.
I haven’t said one word in favor of anything that Hezbollah has ever done, so far as I know. If I have, show me the post and I’ll eat the words.
You on the other hand are just Jim-dandy with child murder. Hey, people die in war, right?
That’s why you advocate murder, and I think both sides in this crapfest are full of shit. Both, as in two.
That’s dos for you Spanish speakers.
Nutcutter
I have answered the question. You missed it.
Tough shit.
Zifnab
Hey, GOP4ME, you’re a cocklebarrel assbreathed moonnut wingbat kossaholic red-fart-face-stater colenhausser.
Nothing personal. I was just worried you were feeling left out.
Darrell
Exactly right. In every war throughout history. Many children and other civilians died in Afghanistan when we toppled the Taliban/Al Queda govt. there. Did you scream “child killers!” then? No? How about when all those children and civilians were killed when US planes bombed the Serbs in the 90’s? You scream “child murderers” back then too? Just curious if the accusations of ‘child killers’ only come out when it’s the Israelis fighting back
Nutcutter
chopper and Darrell will be authoring an explanation of how children sleeping in a basement are being used as “human shields” — for anything.
We’re also interested in knowing how carloads of fleeing families are being used as “human shields” — by anyone.
It’s time to put a top to the disgusting “human shield” lie being told over and over again on these pages.
Children sleeping in a basement are not human shields. People running away in cars are not human shields.
Lies are shields being used by moral reprobates on this blog to defend the murder of kids.
Zifnab
I’m sure somewhere on some Arab blog they’re saying the exact same thing about Isrealis and Americans.
Back in ’01 when we had that little run in with a couple hijacked planes in New York and the news was broadcast worldwide, there were parades in Palestine. Palestine, a country we have spent the past 30 years struggling towards peace with, and its citizens are dancing in the streets because a bunch of wall street execs, interstate tourists, and building janitors got torched alive.
Some people would look at Lebanon today and think of all those cheerful Palestinian dancing muslims as they think these people are getting what they deserve. How dare Jamal Abdulla living in a nation run by a Hezbollah government. How dare Sally Sahed go to school in a building with Hezbollah RPGs in the basement. Every man, woman, and child in Lebanon was just asking for it when they didn’t rally together and toss out their corrupt, violent, terrorist government.
And then I think about my school, and my house, and my family, and wonder if I’d be feeling the same way because someone bombed all of them after calling George Bush a terrorist. And I shake my fist thinking, “Damn you liberals, this is clearly all your fault.” And I feel better.
Nutcutter
Aren’t you the stupid asshole who said that there’s no proof that the civilians are innocent?
Par R
The NUT has distinguished himself by “thinking only of the sleeping children.” And that is indeed a noble sentiment to which most will agree. However, what NUT refuses to acknowledge is that there are reasons that innocent children are dying, and among those reasons are the reprehensible and murderous actions of a group of terrorists, terrorists that murdered several hundred innocent American soldiers in 1982, and precipitated this current crisis by an international act of war, i.e., crossing the Israeli border, killing eight soldiers and kidnapping two Israeli soldiers. They have further directly contributed to the deaths of many innocents by mixing and sheltering themselves among such “innocents.”
Being on the side of the angels is always a nice place to reside. But it is unreasonable to expect one nation to sacrifice its own people and right to existence in the furtherance of what makes one feel good. And it is no answer to respond as the NUT does every time someone brings up the inconvenient truth that Hezbollah is largely responsible for these deaths:
Exactly what solutions has the great thinker, NUT, come up with? Well, the NUT‘s solution to the Israeli/Hezbollah crisis:
and:
As to the comments from Slide, well, we all know he can barely type, let alone think, so I’ll let others with more time and patience deal with that moron.
Slide.
Shame on the apoligists here that are doing back flips justifying the murder of women and children hiding in the basement of a building. Where does it end, this “right” of Israel to “defend” herself? Can she nuke Tehran because they supply the weapons that Hezbullah fires at Israel? Is that within Israel’s right to defend herself as well? Its a serious question. What limits are there? Any?
chopper
and i haven’t said one word in favor of children getting killed. however, i defend a country’s right to defend itself against those who wish to completely destroy it, even if it ends up resulting in the unfortunate deaths of civilians. its why i supported the US attacking afghanistan (did you? i’ve noticed you have also avoided that inconvenient question as well), despite the fact that i believe that we went too far in places. it’s why i supported the US bombing germany and japan in the 40’s, again despite the fact that i believe that we went too far in places.
your only solution to this crisis is for israel to sit back and do nothing while rockets rain down on israeli civilians. ergo, you support hezbollah murdering children in israel, at least in the same vein as i support israel murdering children in lebanon.
that they do. well, in the real world. i don’t know what happens when war breaks out in candyland, where you reside.
and don’t get all ‘i answered the question’. you didn’t. all you said was ‘if you want easy answers, blah blah blah darrell’. that isn’t an answer, its a predictable cop-out.
Slide.
as much as I feel for our marines that died in Lebanon they were a FOREIGN ARMY in THEIR COUNTRY. That is not terrorism in any book I know to attack a FOREIGN ARMY IN YOUR COUNTRY. You guys say the same thing in Iraq. Someone that fights againts the OCCUPYING ARMY IN THEIR COUNTRY is somehow a terrorist. Kinda explains how you view the world. I guess if some foreign army invaded the United States you would not fight them because… well.. that would be terrorism right? Moron.
Nutcutter
Then repeat after me: “Israel, stop killing the kids now.”
That is what you want, isn’t it? A cessation of the killing of innocent people?
chopper
i for one don’t justify the murder of the people in the basement. that was a big fuck up.
shame on you, however, for putting israel in the hard place where they can’t do a single thing to stop terrorists from murdering their own civilians. i’ll bet your attitude would be fucking different if terrorist assholes started shelling your town, wouldn’t it?
that’s a nice slippery slope you’ve made. i like how you put ‘right’ in quotes, like a country being attacked doesn’t have the right to defend itself.
where does your argument end? can hezbollah get their hands on a suitcase nuke and blow up tel aviv, and israel still has to sit on her hands and take it because hezbollah hides among civilians? hey, a few million dead jews, too bad; but we can’t go after hezbollah because we might kill some civilians! when does israel get to defend the lives of her people? does haifa have to become a giant pit in the ground before israel can fight back?
Nutcutter
An air war doesn’t “break out.” People plan it, and execute it.
In this case, where virtually the entire death toll is civilian, and around a third or more of the children, and many of the fleeing in their cars or asleep in shelters, when somebody plans and executes such a thing with such obvious disregard for innocent life, that’s murder.
That’s why the world is up in arms right now. And that’s why you are a damned fool.
Nutcutter
Spoof or not, just get the fuck out of here, man.
Children should die because some crapheads fucked up 24 years ago?
No. They are dying because crapheads are shooting at them RIGHT NOW.
Par R
Uhh, Slide, I recognize that you probably received a third rate education from one of your likely beloved public schools in NYC….but the murderers of our American soldiers, which obviously means absolutely nothing to you given your comments, were NOT representatives authorized by the duly constituted government of Lebanon, but by your currently beloved terrorists, Hezbollah. And I find it interesting that you have crossed so far over the line into total whack jobdom, that you now consider members of the US military as “somehow a terrorist.”
Slide, you are truly a disgusting, unspeakable piece of shit.
Slide.
they did, I live in New York
others commenting here don’t think it was.
never said that. As a matter of fact I said Israel would be in its right to take limited military action against military targets in southern Lebanon.
because it is a slippery slope and obviously we have different opinions of what is and what is not acceptable. For me, and the vast overwhelming majority of the rest of the world, what Israel has been doing has gone over the line.
chopper
sure thing. israel, please stop killing kids now. even when you’re trying to blow up rocket launchers that douchebags are hiding among civilians. the basement bombing, that was a big fuck up.
now, you repeat after me: “israel has a right to defend herself against terrorists who kill her civilians.”
i want a lot of things. i want hezbollah to stop firing rockets into israel. i want hezbollah to get their asses kicked. i want my relatives in northern israel to be safe from rocket attacks. i want israel to pull out of lebanon, having sufficiently fucked up hezbollah’s infrastructure, and quit bombing. and i want the UN and the US to put enough diplomatic and financial pressure on iran and syria to keep any more rockets from making their way in to lebanon.
chopper
i’m still waiting for you to explain to me how exactly you know what dead adults are civlians and what dead adults are hezbollah. i keep asking these questions, and you keep avoiding them.
Slide.
Par has made several disparaging references to NYC already, whats your problem with New York? Do you think I have something to be ashamed of for living in the greatest city in the world? Lol… interesting Par, very interesting.
The US Marines were involved in the Lebanese civil war. A war in which the Israel backed christian militia massacred hundreds of Muslims in refugee camps. Don’t the muslims have the same “right” to defend themselves or is that only reserved for Israel. Terrorism is now just a description this administraton applies to anyone that we are fighting.
Par R
And if you expect the NUT or Slide to answer them, forget it. All of their arguments are based on emotional comments about dying, innocent children on only side of the Israeli/Lebanon border. And it’s very clear from their comments that they don’t give a rat’s ass about those innocents dying on the Israeli side.
All that I’ve ever seen come out of the NUT is bluster and attempts at bullying. But if you have the time, keep trying to get real answers, not platitudes and useless blather, which appear to be his best game.
chopper
appeasement! that’s the answer! we’ll just…do…nothing!
yeah, that’s utterly brilliant. “do something else!” why don’t you tell that to someone in haifa that wants to bury their 4-year-old child killed by a rocket attack but can’t because the air raid sirens are going off again. oops, there goes the goldsteins’ house.
“do something else,” that’s the second-funniest thing i’ve heard this week, right after “hezbollah don’t hide among civilians”
chopper
you live in NY? so do i. tell me, did you support the US attacking afghanistan after 9/11 intending to rout al qaeda and the taliban? i don’t know if you’ve answered already, i can’t seem to find if you did or not. honest question.
Pb
Zifnab,
Five dancing Israelis celebrating from across the Hudson, filming the event as it happened.
Andrew
That’s some crazy stupid shit.
You are hereby known as Bizzaro Darrell.
Par R
The slug from the great city of New York makes an interesting comment,
Interesting comment, don’t you think? In his many other posts today, Slide declines to give Israel the right to “defend themselves,” even when virtually the entire world agrees that Israel was the one initially attacked. But now he argues that Hezbollah had the apparent right to murder several hundred American soldiers back in 1982 because somehow the Americans were part of an aggresion against them.
Slide has fallen so far over the side that he should just join up with the local al Qaeda cell in NYC and call it a day.
chopper
well, on this we can agree; i think also that israel has gone over the line many times during this conflict. however, that does not, to me, negate the basic necessity of the conflict itself. israel cannot just sit back and do nothing while hezbollah fires rockets into its cities, something they’ve been doing for over a decade straight.
at the very least they have a responsibility to their citizens to defend them against these sort of attacks, which means at the very least trying to destroy hezbollah’s ability to launch these rockets. not “grow the fuck up” and take it, not “well…uh…DO SOMETHING ELSE, dammit” or any of this ham-handed garbage.
Slide.
yes I supported attacking the Taliban in afghanistan. The Taliban was the government in power in Afghanistan that they were complicit with al Qaeda in the attacks on New York where 3,000 Americans were killed. I am far from a pacifist. Not only am I a New Yorker, I have been in law enforcement for over 25 years and have a special place in my heart for all of the cops that died that day. I don’t need lectures from the likes of Par R that has called me anti-semitic and worse on several occassions.
There is no question in my mind that the actions of Israel have hurt our war on terrorism. Our invasion of Iraq hurt our war on terrorism. The torturing of detainees hurt our war on terrorism. Gitmo hurts the war on terror. You guys just don’t get it. You think that by being “tough”, beating your chest, and killing a whole bunch of Arabs shows that you are more interested in fighting terrorism. WRONG. You are creating MORE terrorists with these policies. Forget the whole moral dimension for a moment. Forget if Israel has the “right” to do what they are doing. Is it effective should be the question? NO is my analysis. You can agree with me. Disagree with me. But you and that little tiny dick momma’s boy Par does not have a right to call me anti-semitic or to question my patriotism. Got that? And if you don’t know that, I don’t give a shit because I have zero respect for a guy like Par who seems to think Arabs are disposable and not worth our concern.
Andrew
So, slide, it was cool that we killed civilians in Afghanistan?
I mean, we only killed about 3,000 or so in the first 7 months, which is about that same as the number of dead on 9/11, so I guess that’s proportional.
Andrew
Er, proportionate.
Whatever the fuck that means.
Slide.
some of the results of Israel’s actions:
again my question, is this going to make Israel safer?
chopper
well, in attacking al qaeda we ended up smoking a bunch of civvies too. the wedding party in uruzgan comes to mind. tragic to be sure, but it didn’t negate the necessity of attacking al qaeda.
no offense, but israel’s concern should be for their citizens, not the US’s war on terrorism. rocket attacks are a big fuckin deal, and they need to be dealt with.
wtf? i don’t support israels incursion into lebanon because its merely them ‘being tough’. i support the incursion because they’re destroying the rocket launchers that are killing israelis. that’s actually fighting terrorism. asking that israel sit on its hands and appease hezbollah, as some are advocating, that shows a complete lack of any understanding about not only the real world, but how terror is dealt with on the most basic level.
i believe that destroying hezbollah’s rocket arsenal, along with putting enough pressure on syria and iran to keep more of these missiles from coming in to lebanon, is about as effective as its going to get.
uh, i never questioned your patriotism. and i called par an asshole, remember?
Slide.
No, its never cool that civilians have to die but I am a realist and I am well aware that civilians die in war. Again, not a pacifist here. and yes proportionality is the issue. Are you saying it shouldn’t be? This started over what again? oh yeah two members of the Army were abducted. Now we have 700 dead in Lebanon. A little disproportionate wouldn’t you say?
chopper
hezbollah has been launching rockets into northern israel for over a decade now.
Slide.
after pounding Lebanon for two weeks now more rockets were fired into Israel today than any other day so far. Pretty effective. And if Israel does not go in in force with their entire army to “wipe out” Hezbollah as they intially said they would, Hezbollah will emerge stronger. Get it? Stronger. More young arabs lining up to join. More money flowing to them. More support from iran and syria. Get it? Stronger. So you can keep saying Israel is making their citizens safer but most rational people think in the long run they are not.
When this is all over, and it will end, what do you think Lebanon is going to be like. Big supporters or Israel? Do you think Hezbollah will have more or less influence in that countries politics? Hmmmmm? Self-defeating, counter productive stupidity.
Slide.
How many citizens of Israel have been killed in those ten years?
Pb
Andrew,
I agree. But do you dispute that it happened?
Slide.
More of the wonderful results from Israel’s actions:
thanks Israel, just what we needed, more anti-Americanism.
Slide.
Wake up America, the consequences of Israel’s actions:
chopper
that’s anecdotal at best. at this point, israel estimates that they’ve destroyed about 3/4 of hezbollah’s rocket arsenal. that’s pretty effective, no matter how many they may have launched today.
also note:
again, in trying to keep the missiles out of hezbollah hands.
they never have been in the past. before all this they sat and did nothing as hezbollah launched rockets into israel for over 10 years straight. they even elected the fuckers to parliament. israel gave up on pleasing the lebanese a long time ago.
Andrew
I see. So, it’s cool that 3000 civilians died in Afghanistan. Because, you know, those poor bastard sheep farmers had something to do with attacking the U.S.
The whole notion of proportionality, as used by the anti-Israel faction, is ridiculous. There is no such concept in the law of war or in basic moral values. The entire notion that equal numbers of innocents should die is evil.
The only proportionality that is required is that the means are proportionate to the legal ends. That is to say, you may not gratuitously kill civilians, but you may indeed kill civilians if that is required to secure a reasonable objective, like destroying rocket launchers.
chopper
i’m not sure, but why do you ask?
Andrew
Yeah, I dispute it happened. Show me a story in a media source with credibility, not some insane left wing propaganda piece from Scotland.
Allow me to give my credientials in this regard:
I am a crazy left winger who used to live in Scotland, and the Sunday Herald is shit.
Pb
Andrew,
Oho, who’s not in the ‘real world’ now. Why should I have to do your research for you, anyhow–why don’t you try to back up your claim? Maybe you’ll learn something.
But, just to get you started, here’s some of what The New York Times had to say about them on 11/21/2001:
Zifnab
I wonder if those were the legendary Five Jew Bankers who secretly rule the world. Or maybe the Scottish Sunday Herald isn’t the world’s most reputable source of information. Since 1999? Oh yeah. A bedrock of reputability.
Of course, since the Jews control the media, I’ll understand how this might not have been printed anywhere else.
Pb
Zifnab,
See above.
Nutcutter
You’re a liar.
First, the right to defend a country does not translate into the right to do any grotesque thing you damn well please.
Second, bombing sleeping children and shooting fleeing family vehicles full of kids is not defense.
It’s murder. You can dance around here and fling the shit all day and all night, you are defending murder.
You are no better than the fucks who are committing the murder. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Nutcutter
So your defense is, if one pack of shitheads kills kids, then the other side is justified in killing other kids, whose family probably had nothing to do with the first event.
That’s your defense.
And after a few cycles of this kid killing, when have you had enough? When do you say, “Stop this now?”
How much of this fucking madness are you ready to defend?
How many dead kids is enough? Would it be acceptable for Israel to fire a nuke and kill 100,000 civilians?
Why not? How is that different from what you are supporting, which is the daily, deliberate killing of innocent people, many of them in their beds, or running away?
What’s your limit, Chopper? Ten thousand? Fifty thousand?
Do you have a limit? If you do, how did you arrive at it?
Zifnab
Maybe I’m just an old softy, but does that bother anyone else besides myself? Talk about Machiavellian ends justifying means. In a more traditional war, I can’t really argue with you. If bin Laden decides to hide in the middle of 100 adorable orphan children, do you still bomb him to death? I’m sure quite a few people would say yes.
But, again, one questions the long term results of a bomb-first-diplomacise-later policy. Isreal may have achieved a number of “mission objectives” in blowing up much of southern Lebanon, but will they have earned themselves any reprive from violence in the next 20 years? How many people are they going to have to kill to get their peace? On PBS I heard a Lebonese woman saying how, even if the Isrealis try to committ genocide across Lebanon, they still would not kill all of Hezbollah. To which I thought, “My god! Has it come to that? Do people really believe Isreal would contemplate genocide?” How many people do you need to kill to “win” in the Middle East?
No one has successfully answered that question to date. Not that I have seen.
Andrew
I lika this!
Wawawiwa!
Andrew
Oh, and Jews killed Jesus.
Zifnab
Pb,
That’s cool and all, but other than proving that there are five Isrealis in New York with very poor taste in humor, this doesn’t exactly serve as iron clad proof of Isreal’s ties to 9/11.
Let’s assume for a second that they were Mossad or some other branch of Isreali foreign intelligence. Let’s go further and assume they were shadowing the 9/11 hijackers. Let’s assume Isreal knew weeks, maybe months in advance, of this plot.
You still haven’t shown that Isreal did anything to keep us in the dark about this. There’s only so much an ally can expect to do. Why would you assume that Isreal monitored this thing and didn’t tell US authorities? So the five Isreali spies were a bit callous? They’re spies. They watch people get killed for a living. Military, ex-Military. They come from a part of the world were rocket strikes and car bombings happen on a daily basis.
I present to you another senario. Isreal has been shadowing Al-Queda for some time. They report the disturbances to US officals, who blow the whole thing off as a Clinton-legacy scare tactic or an unfounded rumor or just not a high priority. Rebuffed, the agents are told to continue shadowing Al-Queda until they make their move, then recon the damage and return home. The end. No grand Isreali conspiracy. Just a bunch of agents doing their job.
Which is more likely? I don’t know. I don’t work for the CIA and I don’t work for Isreal. But 5 guys, 5 Isreali spies even, does not make much of a case of a grand conspiracy to drag the US into a disaster war.
Nutcutter
No. Of course not.
Not even if it’s Satan.
And if these civilian deaths are, as the liars’ myth is told, the result of Hezbollah using them as shields ….
1) Where are the Hezbollah deaths that resulted from the use of the shields? We have somewhere between 500 and 700 deaths in Lebanon so far, depending on who is counting. Civilians. All reports hold that about a third are children. So where are the deaths and injuries of the people using them as shields? I don’t see any.
2) If the Qana attack was a “tragic accident” as claimed by the lying thugs in the Israeli government, then what was the accident? What was the target? How bad does this targeting have to be to be killing this many civilians, and virtually no combatants? Where is all this care and concern for innocent life? Are they wanting us to believe that if not for this care, there would have been MORE fleeing vehicles targeted by rockets, or shelters full of terrified children struck by bombs? This stupid carnage is the result of care and concern?
3) When did the “right to defend” become the right to kill anyone who gets in the way? What is being defended against that requires that kind of brutality?
4) If even this grotesque level of carnage is acceptable, then how much of it is not acceptable? Where is the tipping point? How many dead kids will be brushed off by the apologists for this clusterfuck? A thousand? Ten thousand?
Pb
Zifnab,
And, really, what would? Anyhow, that wasn’t my point, my point was just what I said in the first place, the (apparently) outrageous claim that there were
You know, the one that you and Andrew ridiculed and disbelieved, for no apparent reason. The one that happens to be true. So what if Israel *did* have ties to 9/11–good luck proving *that*.
Two obvious choices there–either they did tell us and we ignored them, or they didn’t tell us because they thought that would better serve their interests.
The conspiracy theory guys will tell you that there were more than 5 spies involved, but even if that were the case, your scenario still works just as well, absent further evidence to the contrary.
Nutcutter
Thanks for clearing that up, Andrew. Mrs. Shalhoub was quite relieved to get your message of concern.
Nutcutter
Well done.
Of course she has the right to defend herself.
However, that right does not include doing whatever she wants to do.
Andrew
I hope those kids were Christian, so the Jews can mix some Matzoh meal with their blood.
Nutcutter
The Star can hardly be called a terrorist rag. As Arab papers go, it looks pretty middle of the road to me.
The Israelis say they want security. But their actions are those of a nation that doesn’t understand security at all.
The Israelis say they are an ally of the US. But the entire US Middle East “policy” (if you can call it that) is predicated on the thin possibility of a stable liberal democracy in Iraq. So far, Lebanon was the only example of any semblence of a stable, liberal democracy in the Arab world …. and Israel has just fucked it completely.
Lebanon is the most stable neighbor Israel has. Or I should say, it was. By limiting and precisely targeting action against Hezbollah, it could have achieved more, with less, and avoided the biggest fuckup in its sixty year history.
But that would have required something better than the Darrell Government it has now.
Andrew
That’s an insanely wrong understanding of the region.
If we were to start a list of “Most Stable Neighbors of Israel”, Lebanon would almost certainly come in dead last.
demimondian
Yes, bleating. Mindlessly making noises of complaint.
See, Paul, you don’t like the fact that “just do something else” isn’t an answer. What else? Gop4Me at least made a suggestion — you’re content to engage in a Rovian string of “feel-don’t-think” hot-button lines. I want a solid suggestion.
Here are some things you could have suggested: work through the UN, build bomb shelters to protect the populace in Northern Israel, or offer to negotiate with the government in Beirut. Unfortunately, Israel has already tried every suggestion on that list, with no effect whatsoever. I’d love to hear creative suggestions, but I haven’t heard any.
Nutcutter
I assume that you are referring to Hezbollah. I don’t consider Hezbollah to be Lebanon, or vice versa.
Lebanon is the closest thing to a stable democracy yet seen in the Arab world … until now. What happens to it now, remains to be seen.
As for Hezbollah, obviously a problem for Israel. But that doesn’t make Lebanon the problem.
Zifnab
Actually, Iraq would come in dead last. Lebanon is such a tragedy todaby BECAUSE it had been such a mess for the last 25 years and finally looked like it was on the road to recovery. It’s like watching a recovering alcoholic on his first month of rehab get thrown face first into a giant barrel of vodka. If drowning doesn’t kill him and he doesn’t just snap and drink himself to death, its still just a giant kick in the nuts for no apparent reason.
Zifnab
I’m sorry, but historically, Lebanon is a mess. Civil war from 1975-1990 followed by another 15 years of Isreal on the south and Syria on the north both trying to play kingmaker.
The last Lebonese election was supposed to be the triumph of Democracy in the Middle East. WH officals were claiming that it was the increased security in Iraq that inspired Lebanon to make a break for true independence from Syrian politics. More realistic politicos were recognizing that Lebanon had this coming for a long time, as natives finally became sick of getting puppeted by foreign powers. But either way, it was a triumph of Democracy in the Middle East to be sure.
Not so much anymore.
Andrew
Heh, I was only considering bordering countries. And yes, the autocratic neighbors are the most stable, and the democratic Lebanon is the least stable.
Regionally speaking, Iraq certainly takes the cake.
Nutcutter
Sure. “What else could they do?” is so deeply analytical.
Go away, bother somebody else.
I see dead kids and say it’s unnecessary.
You see them and say “What else could they do?”
First of all, as you fucking damned well know, they could state a viable military objective. Haven’t seen one. The delusional “disarm Hezbollah” lasted about ten days. That isn’t going to happen, if the air war goes on for another six months. Besides, arms are replaceable. The thing is ridiculous on its face.
What else could they do? Formulate a rational set of objectives and a scenario to achieve them. These are nowhere to be seen.
Here’s what they did: They engaged in a giant clusterfuck of a mission and a strategy. They invented an air campaign that has mostly slaughtered civilians when their stated objective was apparently hardware. They created a huge PR disaster for themselves and for the US.
They said that they wanted their captured soldiers back, but haven’t mentioned them lately. Even after Hezbollah said they could be returned in six hours. What happened to that bogus “objective?” That big deal that was the crux of the matter a couple of weeks ago?
What fucking crock. Israel never had any intention of working to bring about a cease fire, but instead lobbied to NOT have a cease fire. It never intended to make the two soldiers key to a cease fire. To my knowledge, nbody is talking about the two soldiers now. Why not?
What else could they have done? Like I said, a lot of things, starting with a believable and coherent set of objectives and plans, consistent as the events unfolded, and military operations that at least killed more combatants than civilians once in a while, and failing that, at least without the daily dishonest hand wringing about the “care” being taken to avoid civilian deaths and the “concern” for these unfortunate collateral.
Nothing but bullshit, bullshit worthy of Bush and Rumsfeld. Nothing but clumsy handling of every aspect of the crisis, including making the US look even more ridiculous than it is at every turn, and creating a PR disaster that will put American lives at risk for the next 25 years if we are lucky.
And what else can you do? YOU can call for an end to the unwarranted, immoral, unjustified, disproportionate, evil killing of civilians and children. You can do that for no other reason than you might think that the civilian carnage is more important than some policy crap you read on a website somewhere, or because while all the shitheads in the suits sit around bloviating about whatever it is that keeps them in power, nobody seems to be speaking for the dead kids.
That’s what YOU could do.
Nutcutter
Because?
And Iraq? By neighbor, I meant countries with a common order.
And democracy here? Are we saying that the Bush doctrine that sees the solution to the Middle East in democracy …. not true? The benevolent king is the best idea?
Wow. How American of us.
Nutcutter
I didn’t say it wasn’t a mess, I said it was the closest thing to a stable Arab liberal democracy, so far.
I also (earlier) described its condition as “fragile”, and by that I mean, before the current crisis.
I would have given it a 50-50 chance, maybe, of growing into a solidly stable liberal democracy. Until now. Now, I wouldn’t make the bet at all.
Nutcutter
order = border
Beej
Why is no one commenting on GOP4ME’s ideas for strengthening the Lebanese government? It makes sense, which is more than I can say for the silly ranting and name calling that is becoming so tiresome in this thread.
Nutcutter
I’ll tell you something else, Demi.
I don’t believe the official story on this crisis at all.
I don’t believe that we know what really provoked the border operations that resulted in the blown Israeli tank and the captured soldiers.
I don’t believe that we know the true story behind the planning for this operation.
I don’t believe that George Bush was taken by surprise by this situation. In fact, I don’t even believe that the Bush-Blair chewed-food discussion in Germany was an accident, that a mike was “left on.” I believe that the thing was staged and scripted. I think Bush was deliberately trying to give the appearance of “dealing” with a problem that he had known about for a while, and had no intention of “solving” at all.
I think that Bush’s plan backfired, first when the Saudis, who figured out that they had been blindsided by this thing, took him to task, and then later, when world and Arab opinion started to go against the reckless and foolishly implemented Israeli air war. Suddenly he was in the “peace” business and continues to pretend that he is in the “peace” business.
I think the reason why this whole clusterfuck has the smell of Bush and Rumsfeld on it is because it involves Bush and Rumsfeld, and the thing was set up to be triggered by some “incident” at just the right time.
I don’t trust any of these lying cocksuckers, at all. Not the ones in Washington and not the ones in Israel. I don’t believe them and I don’t think they have anyone’s interests at heart but their own.
Nutcutter
Because the people asking the dishonest question “what else could they have done?” don’t really want an answer.
Andrew
I was almost with you up until this…
W is taken by surprise by pretzels, words, and bicycles. I wouldn’t bet on him knowing anything. At least go with Cheney.
Nutcutter
Your point is well taken. But there’s knowing, and there’s understanding. Maybe Cheney was the brains behind the thing, and George is the front man. Kinda like the whole presidency, in a way.
Anyway, the neocons cook up this whole “crisis” using Hezbollah as the foil. They want action this summer to deflect from the hideous disaster in Iraq, and the general failure of the presidency. They think they can have a little jackalope war and Israel gets in some hits on some bad turrists.
But it all goes awry. The Saudis are pissed when they realize they have been had. The Israelis get out of control and turn “we want our soldiers back” into “we want vengeance for 60 years of being dissed by these fucking Arabs” and they completely fuck up the air war.
The PR disaster hits the fan, the Saudis are talking $150 oil, and Bush’s poll numbers are going through the floor.
Meanwhile the dead kids in the Middle East are just props in a giant shell game. All the usual suspects rush to the microphones to say the usual things.
Man, I am so fucking sick of these people.
Nutcutter
Washington Times.
Which version of the Israeli-Neocon Bullshit Machine would you like to believe today?
One has to believe that this “editorial” which is actually a bunch of Israeli press releases regurgitated into the language of the piglike Tony Blankley is vetted by the neocon establishment.
Hezbollah fires rockets and then “darts into buildings?”
Why would they do that? Why would they “dart” into a building? Isn’t that a little melodramatic?
Let’s review:
1) Pigman Blankley asserts that “civilians inevitably die in wars.” Hmm, which of our turd commenters here has cust and pasted THAT line today? Facing stacks of bodies of dead children, we have that line. I can’t repeat it often enough: We are talking about murdering kids in their sleep.
2) Israel placed soldiers at risk to prevent casualties? It’s a fucking AIR WAR. What is the point of that jackalope?
3) There were military targets in the same town? So what? You killed kids. In fact, in 18 days, you have been mostly killing kids and civilians. For what?
4) The civilians have not been proven to be noncombatants. Now we know wher Darrell and his new friends get their copy. Pardon me, kids are being killed. I don’t have to prove anything. You do.
Welcome to the new world of George Bush, the neocons, and his writers.
GOP4Me
Sorry for being late coming back to the thread.
Darrell:
Israel created Hezbollah during its initial invasion of Lebanon during 1982. It was welcomed with flowers in the street by jubilant Shiites; later, its ham-handed occupation forces created local resistance. This is pretty well-documented history (one “>source), but if you want to argue Israel’s invasion of Lebanon wasn’t the catalyst for the creation of Hezbollah, please go ahead. One could certainly blame the PLO, that would be a reasonable position. Arafat had a hand in it, too; if he hadn’t run away to Lebanon, the Israelis probably wouldn’t have chased him there. Still, Israel screwed up by not making friends with the local Shiites. Israel is good at not making friends, unfortunately.
Arabs are human beings. Cockroaches are arthropods. You may not like the majority of their opinions or the actions some of them undertake, but that doesn’t mean you should start employing the Interahamwe’s rhetoric against them. Keep it up, and I’ll start asking you when we should take our machetes and hack up our nearest Muslim neighbor.
So, is every attack by Israel justified? When an Israeli captain guns a 7-year-old Palestinian girl down on the street in cold blood, no problemo? When they kill 20 children to kill Shehahde, it’s okay?
Look, I’m no pacifist. Sometimes, killing is necessary. This is not one of those times. If it’s anti-Israel for me to say that Israel should be making new friends instead of new enemies, make the case. I know I’m a dishonest leftist kook, and that’s who I am, and my assertions underline the fundamental dishonesty and irrationality of the “reality-based community”, but come on, Darrell. Make the case.
And please don’t mention WWII. I’ve seen a couple people bring up that silly argument, and it serves no purpose other than to denigrate everything else you say. First of all, this isn’t WWII. But even if it were, I think that a being capable of rational cognition could support the Allies in WWII without supporting every single thing they did. Does everyone who hates Hitler and Tojo support the firebombing of Dresden? The nuking of Nagasaki? The mass internment of Japanese-Americans- many of whom went on to glory in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the most highly decorated unit in American military history? I could go on, but the point is comparisons to WWII are inappropriate, self-parodying, and extremely offensive. I would hope that people whose emotions have gotten the better of them would refrain from these arguments in the future, but I’ve read enough comments threads here not to hope for it.
The war in Afghanistan was necessary. The war in Lebanon is not. Civilian casualties in necessary wars are tragic; civilian casualties in unnecessary wars constitute war crimes.
I’d like to hear your opinions on Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, Darrell. Please explain how Israel hasn’t violated it. (Here’s a hint- use Article 51.) Write cogently- you will be graded on punctuation and grammar, with points deducted for sentences not ending in periods.
Demimondian:
I’d love to hear more about these efforts, particularly vis-a-vis Lebanon. I don’t know much about them. Did these “negotiations” include offers of aid, or was it pretty much no carrot, all stick? You know, sort of like Condoleeza Rice’s efforts to broker a cease-fire with Hezbollah: “First disarm, then we’ll talk about disarming you.” (If I wouldn’t expect a lone mad-dog hostage taker to do that for a police negotiator, I certainly wouldn’t expect an organization like Hezbollah to fall for it. They may be evil, but unfortunately they’re not especially stupid.)
Zifnab, thanks for the insults. But seeing as how Senator Cornyn has taken time off of his Washington itinerary to address my comments, I think your services are no longer required.
Beej, thanks. But isn’t it all pointless? I’m sure there are dozens of sensible ideas far better than my own, but seeing as how people getting attacked can’t necessarily take the long-term view of things (that definitely goes for the US, too), it’s expecting too much to demand the Israeli government actually implement one of these ideas. Instead, they’ve launched a counterproductive, useless air offensive, achieving nothing except for expanding the list of their enemies.
Oh well, though. At least people can’t accuse opponents of this offensive of coming up with NO plans at all. Here are some others, I’m pulling them out of my ass right now as I type so undoubtedly most of them are retarded:
-Israel forms a deal with the Arab League whereby League members patrol southern Lebanon and see to the disarmament of Hezbollah, followed by the peaceful reintegration of the region into the control of the Lebanese gov’t. In exchange, Israel cedes the Golan Heights back to Syria and agrees to pull all settlements out of the West Bank. As surety for its self-defense, Israel is permitted to fly air patrols over the capitols of all neighboring Arab nations, as well as fix artillery coordinates on all neighboring military installations.
-A joint UN/NATO coalition embargoes southern Lebanon, keeping all weapons and supplies out until Hezbollah starves away. Massive UN peacekeeper increases ensure the infrastructure of southern Lebanon is taken care of. Southern Lebanon’s Shiite population is weaned off of its support of Hezbollah, and Syria and Iran are threatened with enhanced economic sanctions for continuing to support terrorist organizations in Lebanon.
-Israel supports Syrian territorial claims against any Iraqi oil interests in western Iraq, and cedes the Golan Heights back to Syria. In exchange, Syria agrees to recognize the Israeli state, and to cease all aid to Hezbollah, and to intercept all Iranian aid to Hezbollah. (If they want to try buying off Iran, Israel could also agree to recognize Shiite Iraqi efforts to form a united nation with Iran. This would undoubtedly alienate America, but since Israel would actually have a PLAN for dealing with Iraq, we might actually have to be grateful for the help.)
-Israel finances Kurdish resistance groups in northeastern Syria. Israel then goes to the table with Syria, and offers to cut off aid to such groups in exchange for Syria cutting off aid to Hezbollah.
-Israel nukes the fucking Hezbollah motherfuckers. Then it nukes Iran. Then it nukes Mecca. Then Senator Cornyn rushes to its defense on this blog, and compares nuclear weapons to the use of Raid against insects.
Blah blah blah, I write too much. Sorry.
GOP4Me
Fuck. Sorry that paragraph is crossed out, I don’t know how that happened.
Darrell, here’s the source I was talking about.
GOP4Me
Darrell, my source is corroborated by a Fox news source. That makes it gospel truth. You could stone somebody with that level of sourcing, if you were an Old Testament kind of guy.
GOP4Me
Also, as for the UN- if China gives anybody any shit about Iran, the rest of the UN Security Council should get together and threaten to give their seat back to Taiwan. That should nonpluss the bastards, at the very least. I miss Taiwan having that seat. Admittedly, they lost it before I was alive; but still, it seems like it was a pretty humorous thing. Just like when the USSR tried to swamp the UN by claiming its SSR provinces should all get seats. The UN’s history is not without its comic moments.
chopper
so a country doesn’t have the responsibility to defend her citizens? interesting idea there.
never said it did.
nope. but accidentally bombing kids and vehicles does not negate a country’s right to defend itself against terrorists. our fuckups and civilian deaths in afghanistan didn’t negate the necessity of our mission to wipe out al qaeda, did it? of course not. give israel the same benefit you give your own country.
and you’re no better than the fucks lobbing rockets into haifa, telling israelis that they should just sit there and die.
Slide.
This is terrorism clear and simple:
Israel is now a terrorist nation. Bombing ambulances? Oh.. I’m sure their argument was that the ambulance “could” have been moving rockets around. There is always a scenario that would justify their terrorism and they will always have their apologists making their case – aptly demonstrated in this thread. Isn’t bombing an ambulance a war crime you ask? Seems like it is:
Oh, and to save you time Par / Chopper, yes Hezbollah is guilty of war crimes too. Hebbollah bad. Very bad. But make no mistake, Israel is engaging in terrorism. Their policy of “collective punishment” is terrorism.
chopper
my defense is, if one pack of shitheads intentionally kills kids, the other side is justified in going after the other side, even if it accidentally kills kids.
another slippery slope argument. great. tell me, ppgaz, how many dead israelis and destoryed towns are enough for you? when, in your ultimate wisdom, does israel finally earn the right to go after people who are killing her citizens? do 10,000 jews have to die before they earn the right to stay alive? 20,000? do you have to see a massive pile of dead jews before you’ll give a damn? what’s yourlimit?
chopper
never said it did. however, you agree that israel has a right to defend herself, yet you argue that israel’s response to terrorist rocket attacks should be to ‘grow up’ and take it.
you can see how inconsistent this stance is.
you’re putting israel in a bind, namely telling them that they should just sit there and let terrorists blow up their people and not do anything to stop those terrorists from blowing up more of their people. yet you agree that israel has the right to defend itself.
unless your stance is ‘israel has the right to defend herself as long as she doesn’t kill any civilians in the process’, which is about the most naive thing i would have heard all month.
hey ppgaz, did you support the us attacking al qaeda in afghanistan? i haven’t seen your answer to that question yet.
chopper
fuck you, i want an answer. i responded to GOP4ME’s idea, thinking that it was unrealistic.
but shit, at least he has an idea. he’s thinking, how can israel work to end hezbollah w/o using the military option? because unlike you, he actually gives a fuck about civilian casualties on both sides. you, on the other hand, are just fine telling a country attacked by terrorist assholes that it should just ‘grow up’ and take it. meanwhile, more jews die and well, whatever.
chopper
wow, it’s a conspiracy. you’re getting loopier by the day.
of course. buildings provide cover. either that, or they pack up (if it’s a mobile launcher) and take off to go somewhere else.
so your problem is that the guy used the word ‘dart’? that‘s your criticism? that’s inane.
so this is the point in which you find some disliked commentator who agrees with say, me, and post his opinion to demonstrate that i’m a douchebag because this asshole or this asshole says the same thing.
fine. i’ll go find an article where lyndon larouche agrees with your stance and we’ll have a battle of the batshit-crazy proxy commentators. that’ll really raise the quality of the debate here.
well, i’m still waiting for you to explain how exactly you tell the difference between a dead civilian adult and a dead hezbollah. or how the AP does it.
chopper
personally, i have no problem whatsoever likening hezbollah members who launch rockets into israel as ‘cockroaches’. i also have no problem likening the 9/11 hikjackers, bin laden, zawahiri, zarqawi and many other terrorist douchebags as ‘cockroaches’. same with many other terrorists throughout the ages, including some that have ended up prime minister of israel.
chopper
why was the war in afghanistan necessary while the war in lebanon is not? in the first case we were attacked by terrorists who were plotting to attack us again, and we excercised our right to defend ourselves by trying to take them out.
in the second case, a country attacked by terrorists who are plotting to attack them again and again is excercising their right to defend themselves by trying to destroy their arsenal.
how is it that it’s okay for the us to fight back against these assholes, but not for israel?
chopper
well, that only really applies to you, since you’re the only one actually trying to come up with anything.
least you’re tryin’.
problem is, israel would not necessarily like the idea of arab league armies being so close to their northern border. and i can’t blame them. also, the lebanese government, which is made up of quite a few hezbollah, would never let this happen. however, i like the general idea.
israel is already pulling settlements out of the WB. however, its past time they gave the golan heights back. but there’d be a lot of dealing going on over river access rights etc. tough dealing.
this would never, ever be allowed to happen.
this would be great, if the UN actually gave a damn about israel. right now the only people who are actively embargoing lebanon are israelis, and the UN doesn’t seem to want to have anything to do with it.
this should have happened a long time ago. however, it doesn’t do much about rocket attacks happening today. its more of a long term solution.
this sounds really interesting, i’m not sure if it would work or not. the second part, the US would never let happen.
turkey would have something big to say about israel financing kurdish resistance.
luckily, this is the least likely.
its quite hard to contemplate exactly how twisted and machiavellian mid east politics really is. its the sort of place where aid packages get swallowed up and funneled into terrorist groups and nobody knows what the hell happened. its also the sort of place where outside influences are managed and used against the outside world with the kind of finesse that would make nicolo himself blush.
Slide.
well, that kinda explains a lot. I think I get where you are coming from chopper. Its not new to view other races as vermin and something that should be exterminated. It pretty well explains your seeming cavalier attitude to the horrendous murder of women and children. (breeders of cockroaches? future cockroaches?) You can cloak it with your post after post after post but it comes all down to your obvious belief that the lives of arabs are not valued the same as the lives of Israleis.
Slide.
This was written about J-Pod and Iraq but could as easily have been written about the Par R and choppers of the world:
And that is what i have been saying from the beginning – not only is it morally repugnant what Israel is doing, but it is self-defeating and counter productive.
chopper
this has nothing at all to do with race and you know it. likening bin laden to a cockroach has fuck-all to do with him being an arab. if i thought all arabs were cockroaches, i wouldn’t have limited my comparison to terrorist assholes.
and i wouldn’t have also included in my list of cockroaches an israreli prime minister.
seriously, get your head out of your ass.
you want me to list more white terrorists who are also like cockroaches? let me get the list of IRA, hold on.
well, then given the civilian death toll of the US war in afghanistan, and your support for it, i can also assume that you obviously believe that the lives of persians are not valued the same as the lives of americans.
welcome to the club!
Slide.
As Yogi Berra once said, “this is deja vu all over again”
chopper
“israreli”==”israeli”
chopper
which was followed later by hezbollah launching rockets back in to israel. yeah, a cease fire carries a lot of weight with hezbollah, doesn’t it?
Slide.
More startling similarities:
Not an “accident” but quite clearly Israel’s modus operandi. Terrorism, plain and simple – in 1996 and 2006.
Slide.
how did it start though?
Hezbollah has a “right” to defend herself doesn’t she? See how two can play that game? Both sides can always point to the other side as having “started it”. Both are guilty equally.
chopper
well, amnesty international thinks that the warnings “appear to have been intended” to spread panic in 1996.
that’s convincing.
maybe i’ll quote the washington times to prove the other point of view. that would be great.
Slide.
as much as it does with Israel
.
Slide.
well some people just don’t want to be convinced
chopper
you’re confused. you talked about GOW, which created a cease-fire. i mentioned that hezbollah later on broke that cease-fire, yet you’re citing operation GOW as proof that israel broke the cease-fire? that makes no sense.
hezbollah is not a government, nor are they a nation-state. they are a group of terrorists, nothing more. stop trying to equivilate them with a representative democracy.
uh…hezbollah launched rockets into israel. this was basically in response to israel, well, existing.
they then invaded israel’s sovereign territory, kidnapping two soldiers most likely with the intent to extort israel to release terrorist assholes from prison. probably at a ratio of about 200 prisoners to one terrorist asshole, which is the way it worked last time.
don’t give me this garbage about ‘equally guilty’. it’s childish.
Slide.
ok…I’m off to the beach. Unfortunately I imagine we will be having this debate for decades.
Slide.
or resistance fighter. It all depends on one’s perspective doesn’t it? Ok… definitly off to the beach now.
chopper
well, given AI’s slant against israel, let’s just say i’m taking that opinion (that israel wanted to spread mass panic) with a grain of salt.
i’m wondering, among those of you who honestly believe that israel really wants to kill arab civilians: what is israel’s motivation to do so? do israelis in general get off on killing arabs? are they just plain bloodthirsty? are they actively trying to get even more people around the world to hate them?
i’m also wondering if this same thing applies to the US, given that we killed far more afgan civilians than israel has killed in lebanon. by far. are we bloodthirsty assholes as well? or does that standard only apply to israel?
chopper
yeah, they launched rockets into israel this year in the name of ‘resistance’, even though israel had fully pulled out all the way back to their border. resistance to what? israel’s existence?
Punchy
Ah, Israel…Land of Jesus and Fucking Liars…
How does one go from “not targeting anyone or anything”, and in the VERY NEXT paragraph, then cop to destroying a vehicle Israel was targeting? Just b/c they’re diff towns, they have diff policies??
I’ve never seen such increbible lying, deciet, wanton carelessness in a military “operation” ever. It’s no wonder why the Arab world is now rallying around Hezbollah…Israel is just a freakin’ monster.
chopper
tell me, the katyushas and mortar shells launched into israel at the same time as the kidnapping of the two israeli soldiers on the 12th (which preceded the israeli response), what was that in particular ‘resistance’ to?
chopper
makes sense to me. the first paragraph states that the airstrikes in taibe were intended to protect ground forces. imagine bombing an area around a field in front of ground forces in order to create a safe path for them to continue moving. that sort of thing, we’ve done it tons of times in warfare. helps to clear out mines, snipers and machine gun nests, etc.
the second paragraph states airstrikes in tyre were intended to kill a hezbollah official.
sometimes bombs are used for different objectives.
Par R
At the end of the day, I come back to theses words from today’s TH posting:
“The tragedy of the deaths of children and adult civilians should not obscure that every day the Hezbollah terrorists send barrages of rockets into Israel, each one of which is intended to kill civilians and in far greater numbers than died in Qana. The incompetence of Hezbollah’s munition makers is somehow obscuring the scale of its terrorism. If the 9/11 attacks had only killed 300, would the U.S. not have invaded Afghanistan and later Iraq? Hezbollah has tried for three weeks to inflict a 9/11 on Israel, but Israel is being damned because its defensive measures have led to civilians held hostage by terrorists. This is an insane inversion of the laws of war and customary international law as well as of common sense. Hezbollah began this war and is responsible for the deaths of everyone on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border.
“Each day of the war Israel struggles to minimize harm to civilians. Each day Hezbollah tries to kill them and uses Lebanese civilians as hostages.”
Punchy
Yeah, but it kinda sucks and many would call it bullshit after you’ve announced that you won’t bomb for 48 hours…
Somebody buy Olmert a new watch, because his “48 hours” suddenly became 4.8 hours. Dishonest douchebag….
chopper
that’s definitely true. however, i’m not seeing something screwy in the fact that bombs were used in one case against nobody in particular to help ground troops vs bombs used against hezbollah targets. the former is used all the time in warfare.
Nutcutter
Chopper: The new von Clausewitz. War is merely the continuation of blogocrapola by other means.
Nutcutter
Based on what I’ve seen in the last 3 weeks, Israel’s officials have now graduated from the “You Can Tell Any Lie As Long As It’s Big Enough” School of Public Relations, run by Karl Rove and Don Rumsfeld.
Israel’s new slogan:
You go to war with the morality you have, not the morality you wish you had.
Punchy
Apparently you intentionally missed the part about Olmert saying he wouldn’t bomb for 48 hours.
You must live in some warped dimension, where time is optional and “48 hours” becomes whatever you say it is.
Par R
Lucianne sums up most of the NUT’s comments of the last 24 hours:
chopper
not at all. not only did i notice that fact, i acknowledged it and agreed with your post about it.
when i said “i’m not seeing something screwy in the fact that bombs were used in one case against nobody in particular to help ground troops vs bombs used against hezbollah targets”, i was talking about your criticism of israel for doing two different bombings for two different reasons (different towns, different policies? and all that). that’s what the word “however” is used for.
chopper
jesus, only on BJ, or maybe DU, does the statement “sometimes bombs are used for different objectives” get people all pissy. what, it isn’t true? militarys don’t drop bombs in open areas to aid the movement of ground troops?
chopper
hey ppgaz, did you support the US attacking al qaeda in afghanistan? just checking.
demimondian
The Israeli wording was important. There was no declaration of a cease-fire, but rather a declaration of a “partial” bombing pause aimed at allowing an investigation of the apartment building bombing.
Here’s what the Beeb says:
I’m not quite sure what that means, but it’s clearly got a loophole you could drive a whole war through, much less an isolated bombing.
Pb
chopper,
See above, and pay attention.
And incidentally, to point out the obvious, Afghanistan is not Lebanon.
Nutcutter
Asked and answered. A quick read of the 2005 archives will answer that for you.
Also, my email address is in plain sight.
Pb
demimondian,
It’s interesting, though, because it raises the question: what sorts of bombing have they been doing that haven’t been to defend its civilians or troops, and why were they doing it? Now obviously ‘taking out infrastructure’ is one category, but–more controversially–‘sending a message’ is another. We saw both of those in play with their attacks on financial institutions, for example.
Nutcutter
Silly. Only “representative democracies” have a right to defend themselves?
A person, group, or country that is “terrorist” has no right to self defense?
I’d wear a lot of Kevlar if I were you.
Hezbollah, of course, is a terrorist group. And a shitty one at that. But if the last three weeks are any indication, not much shittier than the people running Israel. And the US, for that matter. When shitty people get into a war, my instinct is to hope they all kill each other. Of course, that’s lethal to the innocent bystanders as we see now, so not viable as a policy.
But there is no good guy in the current scrap. That was my point from the get go n days ago (lost count) and nothing that has happened since would change any reasonable person’s mind.
If you elect me your president, here’s what I’ll do in the first week: I’ll gather the so-called “leaders” of Israel and her neighbors and say, here’s the deal. You assholes either stop fighting the same fight over and over again, or else you are going to be fighting me. You have 120 days to come up with the terms that will produce peace for 100 years, or else I will send troops into your countries and turn the entire eastern Mediterranean into an American colony where Jews and Arabs are nothing but wait staff.
Forget the phony War on Terror. That’s history. Starting today we have War on Bullshit, and the Times Square of bullshit in this world is in the middle east. So you guys either get your fucking act together, or I will get it together for you. No longer can anyone count on American support just because they have had it in the past. Going forward, it’s results that count. If I hear one gunshot, I will kick your asses all the way to Pakistan. All of you.
Oh and by the way, I’m not running for a second term so don’t bother trying to scare me with political threats.
Fucking bunch of crazy lying bastards and their stupid wars. All of them.
Nutcutter
That argument doesn’t work when most if not all of the casualties are civilians. Of course, the Israel apologistocracy will point to missiles supposedly destroyed.
Sorry, I don’t trade kids for missiles. And I don’t support countries who do. Period.
chopper
jesus, learn to read. any country has the right to defend themselves. but hezbollah isn’t a country. they aren’t a government. they are a murderous terrorist organization which deserves to be destroyed.
i’m not a member of any non-government, non-country murderous terrorist organizations, last time i checked.
well, at least we’re finally getting you past the idea that they’re both ‘just as bad as one another’. i’d call that a breakthrough.
chopper
i’d also like your explanation as to exactly how the news media you listen to determines what adult bodies are civvies and what adult bodies are hezbollah, outside of the obvious example of Qana.
by my solution (targeted airstrikes against hezbollah rocket launchers), lebanese civilians accidentally die.
by your solution (israel just ‘grow up and deal with it’), israeli civilians purposely die. and continue to die, since hezbollah will continue to launch rockets into israel for however long they want to.
at least in my solution, a country is fulfilling its obligation to its people to try to keep them safe from harm, and at least i’m not appeasing a terrorist organization hell bent on the utter destruction of israel and the jewish people.
chopper
the search on BJ is not working (its been about 5 minutes with a blank screen). care to just answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’?
Nutcutter
Sorry, if you are trying to get me to say that if one party kills kids it’s less of a crime than if another party kills them … no dice.
Israel kills kids. When they stop doing that, I’ll stop regarding them as “no better” than terrorists.
If we are going to license countries to kill kids, then what exactly are we fighting for?
This ?
Maybe some people think so. Or maybe they have been blinded by Israel’s 50 years of working the refs, 50 years of “We Support Israel” bathos bullshit in the newspaper ads, and watching Sal Mineo win the Arab-Israeli war. Whatever.
But like I said on Day One of this clusterfuck, when I hear people say that God is on their side, I reach for a gun. And in this situation, I hear it from both sides. That’s all I need to know. They’re crazy.
Nutcutter
Email.
Pb
chopper,
I’ll bite. Of course the children aren’t, but we’ve covered that. The mothers and other women probably aren’t either. As for the adult, military-age men, some of them probably are (although it depends on the attack–it’s a fair bet that bankers, ambulance drivers, lebanese militia, and your average villagers generally aren’t), however, Hezbollah members killed are sometimes separately designated as such, removing them from the civilian tally. But if you didn’t know who was who in the first place, then any Hezbollah member killed was sheer luck. So statistically, what are the odds–how many Hezbollah members are there in Lebanon, how many Lebanese are left in Lebanon, and given the proportion of women and children killed, how many of the men killed are likely to be innocent civilian family members?
Nutcutter
Before I answer an email from you, Chop, you’ll need to sign a non-disclosure agreement. My identity is not for publication under any circumstances.
Sign here __________________.
With that I will be glad to answer your mail.
thx.
chopper
sure thing.
signed, chopper.
emailing…
Par R
Does anyone really care, or even surprised, that the NUT supported the Taliban in the Afghan war? I’m not.
chopper
of course.
how do you tell from a charred, dead body who is an average villager and who is hezbollah?
well, given that israel is aiming at the rocket launchers that hezbollah is driving around in, i figure its a bit more than sheer luck. the problem is, the press steps in and sees bodies on the ground and either makes a wild guess, or listens to somebody on the street (likely sympathetic to hezbollah’s cause), and either way its gonna be off.
chopper
BTW, i posted a comment signing your agreement, nutcutter.
however, i changed my email address since the previous one is a bit old, so that comment is awaiting moderation due to the new email address.
Nutcutter
Check back with us when you can form a sentence.
Nutcutter
Those moderation
NaziDOJ thugs!chopper
the funny thing is, israel creates more hezbollah fans either way. if they bomb rocket launchers hidden among civilians, they kill civilians and people get pissed.
if they sit on their hands, extremists point at hezbollah and say “look, hezbollah bravely attacks the evil zionist menace and they are too afraid to fight back!” and suddenly hezbollah is the man. and of course, they keep lobbing rockets into israel.
look at how al qaeda and bin laden’s image soared after he got away at tora bora. suddenly the dude became god-like, the man who bombed new york and escaped from the clutches of the mightiest military power in human history.
Ryan S.
Just as much as I would *not* like to get in the middle of this discusion. I think a dose of reality would be helpfull.
Recently my familiy had traveled to Haifa (this past March actually), and there had been NO violence, for a very long time. Haifa itself has a reputation for being a very peacefull place. Before the day in which the two Israeli soldiers were capured there were no rockets coming into Israel from the north.
What I am deeply disturbed by, is the lack of the media to even try to explain what, and when things pecisely got out of hand.
Reguardless, Israelis response has been disastrous, they are tring to project force with oxymoronic precision guided munitions instead of taking Hezbolla on directly. Which will only result in a nearly limitless propaganda for their enemies.
Interestingly, the Hezbolla kidnapping attack was most likely started as because the Isrealis were having success capturing members of Hezbolla using really the only tactics that work agains such a gorilla group, namely spying, and subterfuge.
Par R
The really funny thing about the nitwit who has posted variously as “ppGaz,” “NUT,” and “Shirley” is his/her attempts at winning with nothing more than bluster and bullying. The “arguments” typically offered have about as much gravitas as the hole in a donut. I will readily acknowledge, however, that I have learned a couple of new obscenities as a result of reading “their” posts.
Nutcutter
Yet, you still cannot form sentences and paragraphs that scan.
Maybe obscenities is not where you should focus your energy?
Slide.
Question? does sub-Par R ever present arguments and analysis or does he just throw rather juvenile insults at those that do? Just wondering.
Nutcutter
I think that history will reveal these things about the situation:
1) Israel was planning this attack on Hezbollah for a long time, and waiting for a “trigger” to pull
2) This planning was done with the full knowledge of the US
3) The border skirmish was just another in an endlessly long line of intentional provocations that go on between the two “sides” in the useless Arab-Israeli war. The who-struck-John analysis would be of no value, just the peeling of an infinitely deep and rotten onion.
4) Israel and its US buddies had a foolish and simplistic view of what would happen when they started this ill advised campaign. And they had no clear objective or clear strategy for achieving it. It’s the Bush Doctrine: Shoot, and hope that the aftermath is better than whatever you started with. See: Iraq.
5) It all got out of control in a hurry and now Israel can’t back away without looking like stupid assholes, so they keep it up, knowing full well that no actual military objective can be won at this point. But appearance is everything when you are playing by Bush rules.
Par R
From the site’s resident moron and semiliterate comes:
LOL…that must be “Shirley” at work given the absence of any new obscenities.
Nutcutter
Sometimes he forms a complete sentence.
By accident, I reckon.
Nutcutter
Shirley you jest.
Pb
Nutcutter,
It already has, actually.
Nutcutter
As an example, he said while answering himself, look at the history of the dispute over the Sheb’a Farms, a tiny parking-lot sized plot of ground that you’d think held the fucking Holy Grail. To me, that’s a classic example of why the Arabs and Israelis have forfeited their right to be taken seriously, a long time ago.
And I think that’s the ground upon which this current dispute actually started. These assholes would all be perfectly happy to see the world go up in flames before giving up a few acres of fought-over ground.
Ergo, the strong sales in Rapture books.
Par R
Wonder no more…the comments/arguments that you and that other fool, NUT, offer here are not worthy of much of a serious response. All we get from you silly fools are bluster, bluster, bluster and often a whole buch of childish attempts at bullying, especially from NUT.
Nutcutter
Thank you Pb, that sfgate link is excellent. Yes, I heard that story floating around out there somewhere the other day but I lost track of it in the blizzard of dead child body parts that these idiots have created the last few days.
So this is the best prepared they have been … and yet, they have completely and utterly fucked it up. Bush and Rumsfeld could not have fucked this up any worse. Of course, they still have time to get in on the fuckup. I never underestimate them now.
Slide.
doesn’t sub-Par R remind you of the obnoxious child in the toy store throwing a tantrum when he doesn’t get the toy he wants? Sorry sub-Par R if I don’t argree with your “Israel can do no wrong” view of the world but stomping your feet and holding your breath are not going the change the fact that the vast overwhelming majority of the people on this planet seem to agree with me and not you.
Nutcutter
Well, he’s spoof. Probably DougJ or kl. We have some world class spoofers around here. The Par character is not exactly their best work, though. I see him as a sort of failed prototype.
The character is such an ass that even when it says something intelligible, nobody notices.
Nutcutter
This is like reading a horror story. How does this explain the fact that they keep shooting not at caves and rocket launchers but at buildings and cars full of children? Have they reached the level of ineptitude being made famous by Don Rumsfeld’s Theory of Warfare?
WTF? Seriously, what the fuck.
JH
Arabs as cockroaches. Hmmm.
IIRC, Nazis had similar views towards Jews, and had a long litany of transgressions by Jews to justify those views.
Amazing how some things never change.
Slide.
nah… not DougJ. DougJ is much too talented to have created sub-Par. I’m not all that convinced that sub-Par is a spoof. Yes he is ridiculous at times. Makes embarassingly stupid comments. Displays utter cluelessness. but… that could be said for many on the right these days. Did you see Rumsfeld’s last press conference. Wait, come to think of it have you ever seen Rumsfeld and DougJ in the same room?
Par R
It’s time to take a look at some of the very scintillating and insightful comments made by the resident genius and always thoughtful ppGaz/NUT/Shirley…Their greatest hits from earlier this year…
Punchy
THAT’S why Israel went after only Hezbollah bridges, Hezbollah airport runways, Hezbollah ambulances, Hezbollah UN buildings, Hezbollah Women and Children buildings, Hezbollah roads, and Hezbollah Red Cross vehicles…right?
They’re all owned by Hezbollah and need to be destroyed. NONE of those are Lebanese, I’m sure. Thanks for the clarification.
Nutcutter
That one is my favorite.
Which one is your favorite?
Of course, my Bennett line is an insult to shit. Shit actually serves a purpose.
GOP4Me
Exactly. The options are not good. That’s why thinking outside of the box, and thinking of long-term solutions, is preferable to playing the ongoing game of whack-a-mole. This wasn’t the first air war against Hezbollah, and it won’t be the last. What did it accomplish? Just another miserable note or two in the 35-hour-long Symphony of Anguish that is Israeli history.
Replying to your earlier comments (thanks for the feedback, BTW):
Ah, but do you agree with the following comment by Senator Cornyn:
I found it easy to read this comment either way. Either the Senator was referring only to those Arabs attacking Israel, or he was referring to Arabs in general. As I read it again a seventh, eighth, and ninth time, it seems to me that he’s inextricably linking the two- ALL Arabs, who are murderous cockroaches by their very nature, must die because of the actions of those Arabs who happen to be attacking Israel at the moment. I could, of course, be wrong, but Senator Cornyn is busy right now. (He’s working to repeal the death tax. If you’re a farmer in Texas, be sure to vote for him.) Here’s how to contact him, though. If you get ahold of him, please advise him to have a better-looking website constructed.
Anyway, I was unaware of Senator Cornyn’s support of the Hutu Power movement, but you’d think that would be something worrisome to his constituents. Even in the most reactionary parts of Texas, a thing like that should raise some eyebrows. What do you make of all this, chopper? Please note the dissimilarities between his statement and your own.
Honestly, I can’t think of any peaceful solution to Afghanistan. Nothing that would’ve worked. We could still be negotiating a Taliban relinquishment of Bin Laden, if we wanted to. Embargoes weren’t working too well, either. And Clinton had already tried the lob-some-isolated-Tomahawks-at-’em trick, and it didn’t work so well. At least we were willing to put ground troops in and try to rebuild the place. Israel’s not gonna do that in Lebanon again, I should think.
One difference with Israel’s situation is that it’s put up with these pinprick rocket attacks before, and it’s going to put up with them again. America flies off the handle easier, we have much less patience than Israel does. But the other difference is that Israel had other options. YOu might think their unrealistic, but I think that’s only because they were never seriously tried. I’d like to see some evidence of Israel’s serious efforts to strengthen the hand of the Lebanese government in the south before I agree with you that Israel actually tried this tactic and rejected it as unrealistic. For all we know (and this is unlikely), they never even thought of it. Until we see evidence to the contrary, that is.
A failed attempt, which will need to be repeated over and over and over again. How about a major air war over Lebanon every 5 or 6 weeks from now until Doomsday? That’s what Israel is committing itself to if it wants to start this kind of punitive retaliatory strike every time Hezbollah fires a Katyusha at it.
Anbother difference is the US isn’t surrounded by the assholes (I happen to like Canada and Mexico, although some of the Quebecois border guards are real dickheads), and nobody’s constantly raining shells down on us. That affects patience levels, obviously, but it should also affect reality. If you can’t bomb these fuckers into submission, you’ve got to think of a better way to deal with them. We dealt with Afghanistan by sending troops in and trying to reconstruct the place (well, until Bush started the whole Operation Iraqi Freedom goat fuck, anyway). Israel can’t do that in Lebanon, so simply bombing them isn’t going to do anything except appease national anger. They can continue to play this game, but they also need a long-term strategy. I haven’t seen one developed yet. Israel’s long-term strategy seems to consist of creating future Hezbollah recruits for the next 25 years. I think they need a better one.
Anyone else who wants aboard this gravy train can easily say I speak FOR them, though. The representative nitwit scheming unrealistic alternatives to violence. I should make myself a fucking plaque. :)
I think Israel would be willing to give it a shot. They can train their artillery on the Arab League peacekeeping force too, if they want. Also, Hezbollah’s going to have a hard time arguing against it. (This would’ve worked very well when Saudi Arabia was condemning Hezbollah 2 weeks ago, BTW.) Regardless, who said anything about consulting the Lebanese government? If it’s too unrealistic to make them become strong, then why is it too unrealistic to ignore them in negligible matters like Lebanese sovereignty?
Yup. Still, better talking than killing. And no one said making friends out of blood enemies was easy.
Well, it depends on how well the Arab leaders could sell it to their people. After all, Israel just let them put a massive army on its front doorstep, right? We need to let Israel have some tangible security measure too, or the whole Mutually Assured Destruction angle ain’t gonna work. But with salesmanship and chest-thumping, most of the Arab leaders could probably get their people to go along. And lest we forget, in the case of the autocrats, they always have the repressive crackdown option!
Well, to be fair, Israel has often snubbed the UN, too. (I’m still a little pissed about those South African arms deals, truth be told.) But at this point, I think the UN would be quite willing to jump on board with an Israeli proposal to strengthen their presence enormously in southern Lebanon. Israel could sweeten the deal for itself by proposing US troops be among the peacekeepers. That wouldn’t be good for US troops, but it WOULD be good for Bush, because he could sell it as his brilliant idea to end the fighting, and that would get him on board. The best way for a plan to work is for everyone to have some benefit coming out of the plan. (Except for Hezbollah, I don’t consider them cockroaches but I do consider them evil bastards and I hope they all rot in Hell for ever and ever and who really gives a shit what they think?)
Most of my ideas are long-term solutions. If we’d started them in 1996, they’d be in place by now. Why not start them today, and prevent the massive rocket attack/air war combo over the Israeli-Lebanese border that’s probably in store for us sometime between 2012 and 2018?
I think the US would go along with just about any Israeli suggestion on Iraq at this point. If Israel told Bush that the best way to pacify Iraq was for him to show his penis on Arab television, he’d probably go along with it. We have no ideas on Iraq whatsoever. We are planless, aimless, and utterly fucked. This Israel plan lets us declare victory and leave. Bush can say that Syria’s ancient border has been restored, the Shiite people now have peace, the Kurds are now free, blah blah blah God, sonny Jesus, Mom and apple pie, now let’s get the fuck out of Iraq before somebody drives a truckbomb into one of our bases and kills a couple hundred Marines. (Thanks for the suggestion, Hezbollah! You motherless fucks.) Anyway, I expect little opposition from Bush on any plan that might pacify Lebanon AND give us an excuse to leave Iraq. (At the very least, it would make vast swathes of the country Syria and Iran’s problems.)
For all we know, they were already doing it in Iraq. Turkey is just happy it has good relations with Israel. Anyway, Turkey’d be very happy to see Syria get fucked up the ass no matter who did it.
That’s why you have to offer something to everyone. Arab leaders don’t finance terrorist organizations for the Hell of it, they do it for a reason. Take away that reason, and they’ll take away that financing. They also need a new scapegoat for their people- why not Iran? The Persian Shiites (Saddam’s people called them Magis and Zoroastrians) are not particularly popular amongst Muslims. There’s a fine ethnic split, as well as the whole heresy issue. Give them means to make friends with Israel and demonize Iran in the process. Israel can be best buddies with the Arab League when it’s arming them against the Iranians. (Just laying out the long-term strategy; as for how to get there, we have many possibilities. Not all of them are realistic, but I’m damn sure none have been tried. How about if Israel gives up the WB and Golan Heights, AND pays cash indemnities to neighboring governments? AND, the next time Hezbollah rocket-attacks them, they run to Saudi Arabia and Egypt for a brokered agreement? Neither Neither country is going to fuck with someone that pays them for the sake of an Iranian puppet army, not if they can get away with it; Israel could help that situation out by pointing out that a) it was the Iranian menace that created the monster of Saddam in the first place, b) if OPEC booted Iran out and embargoed the Straits of Hormuz, it could charge more for its oil, c) Hezbollah is oppressing Sunni Muslims in Lebanon, d) with the US clusterfuck in Iraq, Iran is looking at gaining a solid wedge from Afghanistan to the Mediterranean, which wouldn’t be good for any of them; the only nation vocally stopping such a sweeping shift of ME power is Israel. Let them say whatever they want to say, as long as it turns Sunni Arabs against Hezbollah. Then the Lebanese gov’t can be persuaded by promises of aid from Israel and Saudi Arabia to call for Arab support against Hezbollah.
It might sound far-fetched, but I guarantee Israel’s never tried it before. Appealing to the self-interest of people is a good way to motivate them, and it’s the first step toward making friends. My particular ideas may be shitty, but I maintain that the gist of my ideas is the only guarantee of Israel’s long-term security.
GOP4Me
Sorry for that long-ass paragraph at the end, there. I got carried away in my own insane musings.
Shit, I forgot to mention- Saddam’s Iran-Iraq War generals also referred to the Iranians as “Zoroastrian cockroaches.” I can’t find the exact quote, but one of Saddam’s generals, Rashid Ali, once told Saddam, “If you gave me a pesticide to use against these insects, I would use it.” He was referring to WMDs, of course.
chopper
whatever you say. bin laden isn’t a cockroach, he’s a wonderful, caring human being. and calling osama bin laden a cockroach means that you think all arabs are cockroaches.
let me know when you remove your head from your ass.
Slide.
More bad consequences of Israel’s actions:
Thanks Israel. You have made Americans less safe by your actions.
Nutcutter
I agree with most of your thesis. But this part ….
What would be the incentive for Arab leaders to sell this idea? The way I look at it, which is basically Orwellian, but anyway, the way I look at it, these (ahem) people have a vested interest in perma-war. That includes Israel, and it includes the new Bushamerica. Permanent war as a response to permanent perceived threat.
Oh, BTW, your Terror Alert Threat Level indicator is at Yellow today. And will be tomorrow ….. and the next day …..
chopper
no, they’re not owned by hezbollah. they’re owned by lebanon, and used with a wink and a nod by hezbollah.
hezbollah remains a non-government, non-state terrorist organization. they don’t have a country’s right to defend themselves. they don’t have a government’s responsibility to its citizens to defend them.
GOP4Me
Not my work. I agree, though- definitely spoof. Not particularly good spoof, but I’ve seen (and done) worse.
Nutcutter
I hope he shampoos first ….
Slide.
ahhhhh…. the wink and nod theory of warfare. Got it. BTW, won’t it be hard to try and land an airplane with all that winking and nodding going on?
GOP4Me
To stop Iran from getting too powerful. Iran is more of a threat to them than Israel, and is almost as easy to demonize. The Sunni states have a vested interest in preventing the growth of Shiite power, and I really think Israel could take advantage of that. They should make friends against the common enemy that American bungling has helped empower.
I know. But hey, at least I don’t live in Iraq.
Punchy
Then please clarify your position–either you think Israel has a “right” to blow up bridges, roads, airports, ambulances, and houses just becuase Hezbollah might use them, or could have used them in the past….or you think Israel has no such blank-check.
If you think the former, then you CANNOT say Iz is attacking only Hezbollah, as they are surely destroying things not owned or controlled by Hezbollah. THEN you must admit that Israel is in many ways at war with the Lebanese state itself.
If you believe the latter, then you ought be disgusted with the tactics Iz has used to wage this war….destroying UN buildings in complete defiance of the UN, etc….
Punchy
Wow…that’s a BIG fucking deal. Sistani “controls” a large pop of Shites in that country. If/when HE turns on the US…we’re DONE, at least that’s what I’ve read.
Punchy
Slide–can you give me that link to the Sistani statement?
Darrell
And such wonderful “ideas” they are too. More trust in UN troops who did nothing about Hezbollah rockets fired into Israel for years, and your other idea to give back the Golan Heights. I think those are brilliant ideas which would guarantee security for Israel.
chopper
i don’t believe that a lot more arabs ‘need’ to be killed for israel to have peace. i do believe that a lot more arabs, as well as a lot more israelis, will end up being killed, however. then again, i’m a pessimist in these situations. cornyn, on the other hand, can eat my ass.
cornyn is a douchebag, same as i felt before.
sure. i think terrorist assholes like bin laden are like cockroaches. i’m sure most of the people that live in NYC with me agree with that statement. cornyn may or may not think that all arabs are cockroaches. i dunno, i try not to listen to him. if he does, he’s a prick.
well, israeli troops would get shot at trying to rebuild. best they could hope for would be the UN to do that, and they don’t seem too interested.
definitely.
is there a realistic way that israel could strenghthen the lebanese government’s hand in the south when the lebanese parliament is full of hezbollah? when the speaker of the lebanese parliament is the de facto representative of hezbollah in negotiations?
they obviously don’t attack south lebanon every time a rocket is fired into israel. as you mention above, they are actually quite patient. what it looks like is every decade or so, israel gets pissed off enough at attacks against their civilians that they retaliate against hezbollah. they destroy hezbollah’s arms, then after a few years hezbollah rearms with the help of their friends in syria and iran and it starts all over again.
hopefully this time, the UN and the US will step up to the plate and help put enough pressure on syria and iran to keep hezbollah from easily rearming. maybe then israel will only have to retaliate every 20 years.
well, like what? these fuckers have sworn the destruction of israel, and the countries they work out of support them. they have their roots deep in the political system of these places, so offers of aid and other economic incentives won’t work, unless you want to see millions of dollars for aid to the lebanese government get funneled into hezbollah’s back pocket.
look at all the aid that went to the palestinian authority. look where it went.
i’m sure they’re glad you did the legwork for them.
well, israel currently is ignoring lebanese sovereignty. what i would figure worries israel are arab league armies from countries that still refuse to even acknowledge their right to exist. i can imagine having an army hanging out on your northern border, from a country that doesn’t even acknowledge you’re existence to be a bit of a bother, eh?
israel is very worried about their northern border, for good reason. i’m just not sure that they’ll be behind that kind of multinational force.
arab leaders would not want it to happen in the first place. secondly, i don’t think there’s a person on earth who could sell the concept of israeli fighter jet flyovers of their capitol cities to most any arab country. i’m afraid that idea is just too unrealistic.
i would hope so. i think a UN force in south lebanon would be more welcomed by israel than hezbollah. but again, that’s up to the UN. if the US sold the idea, maybe; but right now our pull with the UN is rather…’limited’.
however, of the ideas i like this one the best. to be honest, its what the UN is supposed to be about.
i don’t think that would work in bush’s favor. our military is already stretched thin in iraq, with troops extended far beyond their service dates. bush would lose big time with the idea of putting even more american soldiers in another part of the middle east.
i think it would be great. but in the meantime, there are rockets.
these are the sort of things i think are great after israel has accomplished their most basic goal of at least mostly disarming hezbollah. but until then, something has to be done about rocket attacks now.
i agree that something should have been done in 1996.
i agree on that last bit (ick). but bush is never going to be behind giving most of iraq to the iranians. unfortunately, i think that’s what will end up happening in the future, after a civil war or two. but bush will not want that to happen on his watch.
plus, giving any autonomous province or country to the kurds would bring forth an instant invasion by turkey.
turkey HATES on the kurds. seriously. the government shits on the kurds in the south/east, and have stated numerous times that any attempt by the kurds to create their own country will be met with war.
Nutcutter
From the guy whose “ideas” can be summed up basically by a skull and crossbones.
The fucking Grim Reaper can’t love death any more than you do.
Paul L.
For Nutcutter – Hizballah apologist
A One-Sided Cease Fire
“How did Hizballah respond to Israel’s temporary suspension of airstrikes into southern Lebanon. By firing more than 140 rockets into northern Israel, of course, setting a one-day record for the current conflict. ”
Also
Were the Qana Bodies Staged?
Darrell
If you believe ever dumbass suggestions promoted by GOPforme chopper, you’re a prick and a dumbass. Please criticize specifics of what I write, not what some idiot advocating that giving back Golan Heights is the magic solution for Israeli peace tells you I said.
chopper
i believe that israel has the right to blow up airplane runways that hezbollah uses to import rockets that kill israeli civilians, since lebanon will do nothing about it. i believe that israel has the right to blow up houses that are used to fire these rockets. i believe that israel has the right to blow up these rocket launchers even if they’re on lebanese roads and bridges.
ambulances, i’m against. unless an ambulance is being used to ferry troops or munitions. then it’s fair game.
of course. when we attacked afghanistan, we attacked afghanistan. we were after al qaeda and the taliban, but in many ways we were at war with the afghani state itself.
i am wholly disgusted with many of these things. i go by the assumption that most if not all are mistakes or a result of gross negligence (which pisses me off), as i don’t see why israel would actively try to blow up UN observers or civilians. i don’t believe in this ‘israeli bloodlust’ theory.
however, despite this, i still believe in israel’s right to attack hezbollah in response to numerous civilian attacks.
just as i believed in the US’s right to attack al qaeda in afghanistan, despite our blowing up wedding parties and other fuck ups.
clear?
Nutcutter
Blast lung is, I believe, the most common cause of death for victims in proximity to a large explosion. It produces esentially no outward signs, just collapse and then death due to asphyxiation.
Apparently the certifiable lunatics who write “confederate yankee”, the well known righty tinfoil hat site whose banner proclaims “Liberalism is a persistent vegetative state” never heard of either blast lung, or Google, which is an excellent source of that kind of information.
You’re a fucking idiot, Paul L. Did you really think we’d fall for that load of crap?
Nutcutter
Everybody here pretty much does that all the time.
You just run away or change the subject.
What’s the point?
Darrell
This, from the piece of shit who accuses Israel of “murdering” children for political purposes.
chopper
hey dumbass, i was talking about cornyn, not you.
quoting:
learn to read and shut the fuck up already. if your ears are burning, its because all the hot gas in your head caught on fire.
Darrell
Nutcutter, if you supported the war in Afghanistan without referring to those actions as “murdering” children.. a war which resulted in the killing of many innocent children and civilians.. tell us, why is it ‘murder’ of children when Israelis fight back trying to stop rocket launches against their citizens?
John S.
Paul L. Says:
Tinfoil hats! Get yer tinfoil hats here!
Yeah…the Confederate Dipshit – through his crack photography analysis – has uncovered an elaborate cover-up to make it appear as if a destroyed building contained the remains of dozens of children. Why don’t you hook up with the “moon landing was staged” people so that you can peddle some really meaningful commentary?
Seriously Paul, you and your ilk are the undisputed kings of idiocy.
Nutcutter
That country is a mess. But looking back on the whole post 911 thing, in retrospect, I don’t think that “conquering” Afghanistan achieved much. I say, in retrospect, because I was all for it at the time.
But the ostensible reason for the invasion was to “get” OBL and his buddies. Well, we failed. We won the battle for the country but lost the war. And within weeks, our urgent desire to get him had turned into this pathetic dribble from our drunken president:
“I am really not that concerned about him.”
By then, of course, unbeknownst to us, Bush was already putting the Iraq war machine into motion. He was distracted.
I absolutely do not in any way subscribe to the insane and factually unsupported assumptions behind the Bush League War on Terror that we are waging. It’s pure bullshit from A to Z. Everything about it performs at the level of Don Rumsfeld. In other words, Homer Simpson in a suit.
Darrell
I have learned to read, and GOPforme, in case you haven’t learned to read yourself, was referring to ME as being Senator Cornyn. Got it? No one else BUT ME has posted anything about killing arab “cockroaches” who try to kill Israelis. Are you clear now?
Nutcutter
Simple. Because I did not take America to be murderers.
Unfortunately, I have no such regard for either Hezbollah or Israel. I have no reason to have such a regard for either. I have sixty years of evidence to the contrary. I have a mountain of evidence that says both of them and a bunch of other over there would gladly see the world in flames rather than give up their grip on some precious slight, or sliver of land, of God-given whatthefuck.
I think they’re crazy, and I said so on day one of this crap, and it’s still true today. All of those fucking people are crazy. After sixty years your license to make the same fucking war over and over again and then tell me how righteous you are has EXPIRED.
Nutcutter
I’ve referred to terrorists as cockroaches many times, on these pages.
Paul L.
John S. I am sure Hizballah will allow the bodies to be examined to prove you correct.
High praise coming from the diebold stole the election and 9/11 was a inside job crowd.
Are you sure that Hizballah would not staged this. *Cough* Jenin *Cough*
chopper
okay, it’s clear. you’re a prick.
Nutcutter
You’ll need something a little more convincing than a rank nutcase website to stir up any interest in your theory.
Maybe if you Google for some Israeli press releases and Tony Blankley editorial ….. oh wait, I already did that and posted it last night. Sorry.
chopper
i don’t believe the ‘staged bodies’ thing. not that i don’t put that sort of thing past hezbollah, but i don’t believe it.
it’s funny tho, that people who were so quick to believe that hezbollah doesn’t hide among civilians merely because an op-ed at salon.com says so sans evidence (and despite the actual evidence to the contrary), so quickly pooh-pooh the ‘staged bodies in qana’ bit.
both are flimsy premises. but people believe what they want to believe.
Nutcutter
We need to wear nametags. Mine is ASSHOLE.
Be sure to write your name in large CAPITAL letters.
Darrell is ALFALFA, KING OF STRAWMEN.
Par is FAILED SPOOF.
John S.
Paul L.
Na, let’s let you and Confederate Yankee play CSI from looking at photos and determining the whole thing was staged because the bodies show no external injuries. Too bad here’s what happened when we dropped a bomb on Al Zarqawi:
But jam your tinfoil hat on a little tighter and keep screaming how it’s all a farce you fucking moron.
John S.
I don’t know who you’re referring to, but I know it sure as hell isn’t me. I’m quick to pooh-pooh the ‘staged bodies in qana’ bit because the analysis behind it is fucking retarded.
Nutcutter
Don’t lump me in with those, please. Yes, I cited the Salon piece.
But my reason for doubting it is the evidence on the ground. If Israel is hitting civilians who are shields, then where are the Hezbollah casualties? Why do all the civilians appear to be basically terrified of being attacked and trying to run away? Why are cars containing just families (father, mother and kids) being targeted?
I don’t buy the “shield” story because it’s a story being told by paid liars. I put these governments on notice, whether it’s Israel or the US or Iceland, makes no difference to me: You lie to me and manipulate and prevaricate and spin and cherry pick facts, and you have lost the right to ask me to believe you any more.
When the people get tired of being lied to, they’ll demand the truth. I’m already tired of it.
So no, Israel does not get to issue a press release and expect me to join their blind amen chorus. My answer to them is Fuck You.
Nutcutter
That is precisely what they are doing. Should I believe you, or my lying eyes?
I wouldn’t believe you under any circumstances, you worthless piece of crap.
Nutcutter
Classic example of Blast Lung:
Blast Injuries for Clinicians
Paul L.
John S. Did they pull Zarqawi out of rubble?
So you are saying that the blast waves of the explosions that took 8 hours to collapse the building killed everyone inside instantly?
chopper
from here
and i assume that hezbollah is lowballing the fuck out of casualty numbers as well.
further, look at the pictures.
listen to the lebanese.
Krista
Don’t sell yourself short, hon. Why should they get fancier titles and more words?
How about SIR ASSHOLE, MASTER OF OBDURACY
I think I like it! :)
Nutcutter
My wife already gave me that one.
Krista
I wasn’t even keeping up on things over the weekend, so hadn’t even heard of the “staged bodies in qana” bit.
I honestly don’t know if Hezbollah hides amongst civilians. It wouldn’t suprise me if they did. Does that, however, give Israel a blank cheque to bomb anywhere where they think Hezbollah might be hiding? No. They still have a responsibility to try to ascertain those facts. Some of the Dutch were Nazi sympathizers — would the Allies have been justified in blowing up Dutch ambulances, or hospitals, or shelters?
I’m pretty offended when certain people just seem to assume that any dead Lebanese were either Hezbollah agents, or Hezbollah supporters.
GOP4Me
Will the Senator yield?
I second that motion. All in favor?
True. American troops would get killed, too, although I’m sure Bush would use them if he thought he could score political points with it at home. UN troops or Arabs. The trick, then, is figuring out which group to use, and how to lure them in to a thankless, dangerous task.
Yes. Opposition party funding. They did it before with the Maronite Phalangists, now they can spread the cash around and form a strong anti-Hezbollah coalition. A coalition that finances independent reconstruction projects in the south, in an effort to woo support from Hezbollah.
Or never. I understand Israel’s predicament, and the plan is that Hezbollah becomes a petty little faction of fuckos and fuck-ups by 20 years down the road. It’s a long-term plan, and maybe none of my ideas would work, but I’ll give you a guaranteed loser of a plan if you want to cut down on Hezbollah recruitments- bombing the fuck out of Lebanon.
That’s why you finance Hezbollah’s enemies. Israel can be selective with its investments. Hezbollah has plenty of enemies in Lebanon, and plenty more will appear once people realize there’s money to be had in going against them.
An excellent point. But look at where the money went. Fatah and Yassir Arafat were thieves. Israel should’ve hired itself a few puppets to spend the money around. If they thought Arafat would work for them, they really fucked up. Hopefully, they’ll learn from that mistake next time they go on a bribing spree.
I don’t hear them complaining, anyway. But maybe they’re too lazy to complain, just as they’re too lazy to help me out with the ideas. Lazy bastards. (Except Senator Cornyn, of course. His cockroach elimination program is a model followed by pest exterminators, Hutu Power advocates, and Fourth Reich planners everywhere.)
How is that different from the situation now? The only difference is instead of having Syrians and Jordanians to the East, you also have them to the north. Also, you have a hostile army quiescent to the north, instead of a hostile terrorist group lobbing missiles at you from the north. Really, I don’t think it’s that bad a deal in comparison to the status quo.
They will once we get this anti-Iran pan-Arab scapegoating thing going. Believe me, plenty of Arab leaders will be behind that one.
Well, the Arab leaders will sell it to their people as Israeli allies defending their capitols against sneak attacks by Iranian terrorists. The key is the Arab leaders coming up with a new bad guy; it might take a year or two to get all the kinks worked out, but I’d rather have another year or two of warming detente than another 60 years like the last 58.
To be fair, I think Israel owes humanity in general an apology for supporting the apartheid-era South African government. That really stuck in my craw when I first found out about it. But I’m sure if the UN can buddy up to the fucking Syrians, they can get over an ancient thing like that in 2 seconds. (And yeah, the US has WAAAAY more stuff to apologize for than Israel does. Maybe the UN should have an annual “National Apology Day” or something.)
As for limited US pull at the UN: regime change begins at home, friend. We can put all these ideas on the back burner until 2009 if we have to, or even 2013. Israel isn’t going anywhere, and neither is Hezbollah.
Me too. Some of the other ones I just put out there for the sake of conversation, or to see if Senator Cornyn would bring any of them up on CSPAN later in the week. They’re all feasible, if unrealistic to various degrees. But right now, the UN is panting and eager to jump into south Lebanon with both feet. It seems more than realistic. Even China will back us on this one.
Well, after he declares victory in Iraq and turns the country over to Kurds, Iranians, and Syrians, they’ve got to go SOMEWHERE.
Here’s where you and I part company, I’m afraid. I don’t see how Israel can disarm Hezbollah for any long-term period. Even if they destroyed every weapon at Hezbollah’s disposal, Iran would have them rearmed within 6 months, tops. And nobody is claiming this air war was anywhere near that effective. Israel is going to experience some more rocket attacks in the very near future, unfortunately.
No use crying over spilled milk. It’s never too late to start, though. Really, we can say Israel should’ve made peace with the Arabs in 1948, but who knows how they would’ve done it back then?
Maybe. Maybe he can get Iran to say it won’t make any nukes on his watch if he gives them Basra, then he can just turn a blind eye for the next 30 months while Iraq builds nukes. It’s a stupid idea, but it’s a Hell of a lot better than his current one, which involves invading Iran as a means of bringing peace to both Iraq and Lebanon. I’m sure Senator Cornyn will be on board for that one, but you can count me and about 80% of the American electorate out.
Yep. And guess whom we’re leaving our weapons to when we leave? Turkey’s not going to have a lot of fun with this thing, that’s for sure. Anyway, once we leave Iraq it’s really not our problem. Who loses sleep worrying about what happened to the Montagnards in 1976? Not me. Fuck, it’s not our business to remake other peoples’ countries for them. We try to stop ongoing genocide, and we work through the global consensus voiced in the UN to do it. When we’re led by sensible people like Clinton, of course, not genocidal warmongering asshats like Senator Cornyn who quietly think the only way to solve the world’s problems is to kill the world.
Then Turkey can have a Vietnam in Kurdistan, it’s not our problem.
I was really hoping to hear your thoughts on my idea for the Arabs to turn their scapegoating away from Israel and toward Iran. I’m quite proud of that idea, actually. I’m pretty sure even most of the Arab leaders haven’t thought of it yet, although those Saudis are a wily bunch and they’re hard to predict.
GOP4Me
Will the Senator yield?
GOP4Me
Will the Senator yield?
Will the Senator yield?!
God-fucking-damn-it, will the Senator please yield already?!! Sheesh, every forum’s a podium for these politicians, isn’t it?
Nutcutter
This is from PaulL’s cited website. An entire page devoted to saying that these dead kids are “not civilians.” That’s a step further than Darrell’s “There is no proof that they are innocent.”
This is the kind of people we have posting in here, folks.
Nutcutter
Follow-up: We are already on record as saying that the dead children, including those under one year of age, could in fact be Hezbollah midgets.
GOP4Me
Well, Bush fucked up by putting too few troops on the ground. We gave the warlords back too much power, too. Anyway, we got rid of the Taliban assholes from most of the country, and we got rid of Osama’s training camps, too.
Oh well. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Oh well. It seemed like a good idea at the time. (To Bush, anyway. Half of America and 99% of the rest of the world realized it seemed like a fucking insane idea, of course. But then, Bush himself said he doesn’t listen to “focus groups” like us, right?)
Yeah, but any President would’ve invaded Afghanistan. Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, and Al Gore all would’ve invaded Afghanistan if they’d been President on 9/11/01. Even President Nader probably would’ve invaded Afghanistan, or else the GOP would’ve impeached him and President LaDuke (or whoever the fuck his VP was) would’ve invaded. It was a good idea, waged unsuccessfully by Rumsfeld. Then we still could’ve salvaged a win if we’d kept our eye on the ball instead of getting distracted by Iraq.
Honestly, Afghanistan was pretty much the only action the Bush Administration has taken where I supported him. But now, 5 years later, when their gross incompetence is manifest, I wouldn’t trust any of them to hold a door open for me, much less plan a major war.
chopper
i think with proper pressure on iran and syria, rearming will be slowed down considerably. enough so that some sort of longer-term situation can be ground through.
but i still believe that something needs to be done now to ruin hezbollah’s ability to launch rockets from south lebanon. personally, i think its short sighted to perform only that and not have a longer-term plan in the works. unfortunately, israel doesn’t exactly have much pull with well, anyone these days.
GOP4Me
It’s a reasonable assertion, Nutcutter. Let’s hear you make the case against it, without all these ad hominems and profanity-laced tirades.
Nutcutter is typical of the “reality-based” community, folks. He’s a dishonest leftist scumbag and a kook, but you can’t blame him for not acknowledging it. He’s too dishonest to do that. It’s who he is.
chopper
i agree wholeheartedly. unfortunately, when bush lost the spirit to go after al qaeda and let bin laden get away, my support for his invasion equally receded.
in retrospect, the job could have been done better by a retarded rabbit.
Slide.
here is the link Punchy.
Nutcutter
Our previous imbroglios notwithstanding …. I’ll bet you a 32 oz Thirst Buster that Israel does not in fact accomplish even that goal here. Even if they do, the effect will be short-lived.
Hezbollah is a bunch of assholes. What I see happening is Israel renewing their lease for another 25 years.
Nutcutter
I thought that was Rumsfeld?
The only way I can look at him is to imagine him in a bunny suit.
Nutcutter
I think Article { mumble } of the Geneva Accords, which is not to be taken for the Honda Accords, states:
Back to you.
GOP4Me
How do you pressure Iran and Syria, though? Who’s going to do it? Right now, we can’t even get Iran to stop getting nukes. How are we supposed to stop them from sending some rockets to Hezbollah? (I’m leaving invasion off the table for now, obviously. Let’s keep this conversation sane.)
It’s a failure of vision. Every enemy is a potential friend, every friend a potential enemy. And anyway, nations don’t really have friends and enemies, they have interests.
Israel’s problem is it’s run by short-sighted morons like Senator Cornyn who can’t see clearly into next week, much less 20 years down the road. They had to retaliate to some extent, sure, but I think they overreacted by far. As someone pointed out above, Sharon, warmonger and mass-murderer though he was, would never have launched this air war against Hezbollah. I have to give him credit, I hated the bastard but he showed a little bit of vision and promise toward the end there. But when Israel elected a civilian leader who was going to have to prove himself as a war leader the first time opportunity knocked, they should have expected this kind of thing. Seems like they did, and most of them support it. Whether they’ll support it 2 or 3 years from now is another question, of course.
America’s problem is it’s run by short-sighted morons like Senator Cornyn who can’t see clearly what’s happening today in places like Iraq, much less what’s going to happen there next week. But when we “elected” a civilian draft-dodger frat boy whose only goal in life is to one-up his father, we should have expected this kind of thing. 3 years down the road after his insane invasion of Iraq, most of us don’t support it anymore. But it’s a little late for buyer’s remorse at this point, ain’t it?
Anyway, getting back to your point, there’s not much Israel can do to stop Hezbollah. If they could stop Hezbollah by a simple air war, then it was criminally negligent of every other prior Israeli leader not to have launched an air war by now. However, this is not the case. They’ve just made Hezbollah’s recruitment poster for them for the next 10 yearsm, and every Hezbollah member they’ve killed will be replaced by 10 others. There are two schools of thought as to what can be done about this problem. Two schools that I know of, anyway. If there’s a third one, please let me know.
Senator Cornyn: These Shiite Lebanese are unstoppable, I tell you. They’re like cockroaches! We need to kill them all.
Me: Let’s try to think of something else. It may not work, but I’m operating on the assumption that genocide is not a viable solution to the problems faced by a nation-state which was founded by the survivors of the worst genocide in human history.
Nutcutter
Sorry, I meant “Persons of any age or size wearing ONLY diapers ….”
Nutcutter
Actually, I think they are a little more like Dung Beetles. But who’s quibbling?
GOP4Me
Say, where’s the Easter Bunny when you really need him?
Peeps, bitches!
Yeah, pretty much, yep.
See, this is why we need to pull the US out of the UN. A bunch of froggie and wanna-be froggie bureaucrats living the sweet life as expat limousine liberals in Manhattan will never understand that when you’re in a battle for national survival, you can’t let a little thing like legal drinking ages or whether or not the enemy has graduated preschool yet determine whether or not the enemy constitutes an imminent security threat, or merely a potential future threat.
GOP4Me
They all look the same when you’re looking down on them from 5’11” and stomping on their miserable asses, that’s all I know.
demimondian
Hey, Paul? You do realize that there’s quite a bit of reason to doubt the Melbourne Sun article, too? We have an unidentified photographer, with pictures of people. Kewl! Except, of course, for the fact that we have no provenance for any of those pictures.
As to “bodies planted in Qana”…wow. That’s right out of “Diebold stole the election central”. You ought to publish it on dKos — at least you’d be no stupider than the moonbats there.
Darrell
If they were launching rockets at allied population centers as Hezbollah has done with Israeli population centers, most definitely the allied would be 100% justified in bombing those positions to the best of their ability.
Pb
chopper,
Ah, going after bin laden… I remember that like it was yesterday…
demimondian
GOP4Me — when you suggest sending “aid without strings”, you do realize that there’s a better word for that, right? It’s called “tribute”, or, more traditionally, Danegelt. Paying for peace is an old strategy, with which we have millenia of experience. It has never worked in the past — why would anyone believe that it would work now?
Darrell
To be clear NUT, you’re perfectly ok with characterizing the children and civilians killed in Afghanistan as necessary “collateral damage” as I do. However, when Israel does the same thing in self defense, they are “child murderers”.. this difference in characterizations solely because you take the Israelis to be murderers. Got it.
chopper
i only drink 40 oz bottles.
Darrell
What about all those “preschool” age and pre-drinking age kids killed in Afghanistan during the toppling of the Taliban govt? Or those kids killed during bombing raids on Serbs in the 1990’s? Were you screaming like a little bitch over their “murders”? No? How honest and consistent of you to make such accusations when Israelis defend themselves.
Nutcutter
Self defense is not a defense for killing children.
It is not necessary, and it is not excusable. These idiots apparently think they can sit back and run a push-button war from their easy chairs and if they happen to exterminate mostly civilians running away or sleeping, tough shit … they have the Darrell’s of the world to cover for them.
Sorry, not buying it. Neither is the rest of the world. Gigantic, ugly, reprehensible clusterfuck that will set Israeli and American security back decades.
IOW, just the sort of thing you’d stand up for.
Nutcutter
Incorrect, sir. As I told you before, I know what murder looks like, and I don’t need you to explain it to me.
Second, I take them to be liars. I don’t need you to tell me when I’m being lied to. Israel’s government is a bunch of liars and manipulators. I simply don’t believe them, and the reports from the ground don’t support the lies they are spreading.
Darrell
Let’s be clear – so you “know what murder looks like” and the bombing and shelling deaths of children in Afghanistan was not murder according to you.. because you “know” murder when you see it. For that reason, you “know” Israelis are murdering children, and you’ve explicitly accused them of doing just that.
Nutcutter
Who does? I watched CNN and NBC reports live from the scene. I didn’t see anything that didn’t jive with the reports.
We have 500-700 civilian deaths in Lebanon last time I counted. How many in Israel? Around 200 Lebanese kids. How many in Israel? I have report after report of fleeing vehicles driven by crazed fathers trying to get their kids or their wives out of danger … attacked. Ambulances, attacked. And on and on.
Are you going to sit here and assert that this is all false? I am more than happy to hang every single dead kid around your fucking lying neck like an albatross from now until hell freezes over. You’ve gone over the fucking edge as far as I’m concerned. Fuck you.
Nutcutter
I’m talking about Israel. I’ve already answered the Afghan question.
Why do you keep changing the subject? Are you afraid to stay on topic?
You are supporting the lying murderers of children. Stand proud, quit running away from it.
Nutcutter
Everybody who looks at the reports from the ground knows it. Some will say it, some won’t.
You … I long ago gave up trying to figure out what your game is. I think you’re as crazy as they are.
Darrell
versus your two ‘farsighted’ suggestions for peace: 1) Give back Golan heights, making Israel even more vulnerable to terrorist attacks and 2) put more trust in the UN.
We can certainly see what a world visionary you are with ideas like those.
GOP4Me
It worked quite well in the past, actually. If you only read the history books for the wars that happen, not the wars that don’t, you might overlook a thing like that.
Anyway, America has a proud history of receiving it: Country X refuses to give our corporations favorable investment climates. The CIA whacks the head of said country, citing Communist leanings, and installs a puppet dictator. Puppet dictator provides a favorable business climate for US corporations.
Tribute? In a roundabout way, yes. Anyway, Israel wouldn’t have to pay the money half the time. Half the Arab leaders would return it publicly, in a show of pompous defiance. At first. But once the ball started rolling on the Iran-as-scapegoat ticket, they’d be happy to accept both Israeli money and Israeli military advisers.
You can’t make friends unless you offer people things, Demi. No one’s ever going to like Israel just for who it is, but if it gives up the West Bank and starts to redirect some of its old enemies against their mutual, rising-star enemy, common interest and the cash that greases the wheels might just do the trick.
Or, it might not. But it’s certainly easy to sit back and scoff, isn’t it? So there’s always the alternative: Stay the course. Have fun with another 60 years of schoolbus bombings and rocket attacks, Israel.
Nutcutter
Well, when you publish your first idea here, it will be a whopper, given the years that you’ve spent working on it.
What was the subject matter again? Oh yeah … Why gays shouldn’t go camping with kids.
Darrell
Because your position is inconsistent as hell. Children killed during bombing raids and artillery shelling in Afghanistan = collateral damage according to you.
But children killed in Lebanon by Israelis trying to stop rocket attacks were “murdered” by Israelis for political purposes (your words)
GOP4Me
Will the Senator yield?
Will the Senator yield?
GOP4Me
Well, not in southern Lebanon, certainly. Or in Iraq, either.
And what kind of “camping” are we talking about here, anyway? Woodland camping, or “Rocky Horror Picture Show” camping?
Nutcutter
Already asked and answered.
Darrell
How ‘principled’ of you to dodge the question.
Nutcutter
You’ve been dodging some of the same questions for a year an a half that I know of.
Who owes you an answer to anything?
demimondian
Really? Want to cite any examples? I’m not being snarky; I cannot think of a single case in which tribute *alone* actually bought peace. Those cases where bribery actually worked depended on not just the payment of the bribe, but also the presence of a large military force and a willingness to use it.
We call *that* “carrot and stick” in my country. And it is exactly the strategy which Israel has used in the past with great success.
demimondian
Bliar Witch Project camping.
Nutcutter
Kevin Drum, my favorite, and the most level-headed, blogger in the universe.
(No offense, John. Or Tim.).
I think Drum is probably not aware that Darrell continues to hold on to his unflagging support for Bush’s amazing contribution, which I would describe as “It’s too soon for a cease-fire. We haven’t killed enough people yet.”
Nutcutter
Ed – under his breath, did he say, “Fuck, though, we are really bad at this?”
All he left out was “They hate us for our freedom.”
Nutcutter
And to think our own little Darrell thought of it first ….
Nutcutter
Justin Raimondo.
This is what happens when you let crazy people turn a ridiculous border skirmish into a collossal fuckup of a war.
Nutcutter
No wonder Bush loves these guys. They are as bad as he is. But I dunno, this is going to cut back on the hand kisses when the Saudis come out to the ranch, isn’t it?
Nutcutter
By the way, Darrell … would you let your kids go camping with a guy who kisses other men on the hand?
Just asking.
Nutcutter
Of course, we should all wait for Darrell’s reports from the ground in Lebanon to get the real picture. I understand that he and his Boy Scout troop are on their way now.
Darrell
I’m still trying to digest your assertion that “Israelis murder children” for political purposes, a sentiment echoed by DougJ upthread.
Especially coming from someone who didn’t make the same “child killer” assertion regarding children killed in Afghanistan.
GOP4Me
Will the Senator yield?
GOP4Me
Rome existed for about 100 years longer than it should have due to a masterful ability to pay off some tribes, bribe some to fight others, and only facing down the remaining few tribes who wanted to fight it out. Cf. the career of Roman mercenary generalissimo, Stilicho the Vandal.
I’m also thinking of the Eastern Empire, which pretty much paid off the Huns to go bother the west.
Nowadays, “free trade” agreements obfuscate obvious examples of tribute. But you’ve got to admit that Saudi Arabia would almost certainly have faced some sort of US consequences by now if they had tried to fork over their oil to the Soviets instead of to us.
I think you need a better carrot. All I’m seeing here is sticks, and lots of ’em. That’s all the Arabs are seeing too, which is a large part of the problem.
Oh, yeah, Israel’s security has been a great success, all right. If your definition of “success” is “clinging precariously to existence in the face of ongoing and relentless attacks by swarms of enemies who are demographically set to outnumber you in the near future,” then Israel should stay the course. Go on, stay the course. You like getting bombed all the time, you think it’s a “successful” policy that enables this to happen, why worry about changing?
GOP4Me
At least those kids got to live their final hours without somebody going all “Brokeback Mountain” on them. You’ve gotta give it that much, at least.
GOP4Me
Does Israel allow gays in its military?
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you.
Nutcutter
Breaking — Syria Raises Army Alert Level
We used to sit around here and wonder how George Bush would pull of a widening of the war in the Middle East this summer in time for the elections.
Show of hands …. how many think they know the answer now?
GOP4Me
God, I hope not.
Nutcutter
Is that why you keep pulling things out of your ass? Bad digestion?
demimondian
Somehow, the juxtaposition between this comment and the Qana deaths is particularly grisly…
Nutcutter
At 12:00 tonight you can catch the West Coast rebroadcast of Countdown on MSNBC. Hear as the unmitigated disaster and humiliation facing the Bush administration over its bungling of the Lebanon crisis is described.
“Bush apparently wanted Lebanon to accept the bombing of its own country.”
Man, that is going to leave a mark.
I am starting to think that the only thing that will end up SAVING the world from these bumblebrains is their own ineptitude. They’ll try to blow up the world and end up just blowing off their own fingers. I mean, I hope. The fewer of us … the people … who get killed in their machinations, the better.
Lebanon so far is the Bush administration’s Katrina of 2006. Watch and learn as they drive their own daggers deeper and deeper into their own groins.
demimondian
In fact, Stilicho is a great example of the failure of tribute. Alaric eventually sacked Rome in 408, after all.
(And, I question how “Roman” Rome actually was after the rise of Julian the Apostate. How many seven year old emperors under the guardianship of some general with foreign roots does it take to question the real authority of the Imperial throne?)
Nutcutter
So, is it warm enough for you out there?
Science question:
Is the heat you feel today being caused by the blood rushing to the face of George Bush as he realizes how completely he is being fucked by the Lebanon story, or by global warming?
Show your work.
demimondian
As zzyzx will tell you, the high today in Seattle was in the low seventies. It reached a whole 73 here in the demi-mansion, east of the city. (Where’s the Easter Bunny when you need him, anyway?)
(By the way, the Paul that I was criticizing for his Melbourne Sun story was Paul L. I couldn’t figure out why you went after me, until I realized that you thought I was questioning you. I think the Salon article was lunacy, but I’m no fan of the Melbourne Sun article, either.)
Nutcutter
Who’s Paul?
Nutcutter
From the notorious anti-semitic hate site, MSNBC.
Pb
While we’re on the subject, there’s an excellent diary on Daily Kos about asymmetric warfare…
GOP4Me
Did Qana really happen, or was it staged? What about the Blair Witch Project? I hear rumors that one was staged, but most of my buddies swear up and down that it’s true.
After Stilicho was murdered by a Roman emperor who decided to abandon his policies.
Empires never die, they only change form. Alaric and Gaiseric and all the rest of them (with the exception of Attila) were mostly fighting so the Roman emperor would grant them lands and titles in the Empire. Eventually, these landed estates became their own nations; but it wasn’t until Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustus that people seemed to realize the old Empire was de facto extinct. Then, of course, Justinian reconquered a lot of it for a generation or two…
demimondian
So says Claudians. However, Alaric was on the move before Stilicho’s recall, and Claudians is hardly an unbiased source, seeing as how he held Honorius responsible for the sack.
I don’t find your example compelling at all. Alaric could not be bought off, despite Stilicho’s dodging and weaving. The one thing which would have saved Rome — actually, Ravenna — was a stable military force, and there was none.
Pb
When the fuck did this thread turn into Al Maviva central? Don’t make me sic Genghis Khan on you candy asses.
demimondian
We, the peace-loving denizens of the demi-bunker, sincerely hope that you will think of the children. In the light of our on-going efforts to peacefully potentiate persistent power transitions in the locale of the bunker — and the gas centrifuge equipment that the late Santa Claus distributed so generously to us — we remind you, with due deference to your no-doubt heartfelt concerns, that we would strongly protest any violent actions that adversely affected our offspring, and we rule out no option if that happens.
GOP4Me
I’ve never read a source that says Alaric sacked Rome BEFORE Stilicho was murdered by Honorius. Have you?
That’s funny, because Alaric’s whole campaign was about getting bought off, by receiving a title to Roman estates. He sacked Rome because Honorius wouldn’t a) give him Roman title, and b) wouldn’t let him take Stilicho’s old job. his brother-in-law Athaulf finally got Roman lands in southwestern Gaul in exchange for breaking up an alliance of Siling Vandals and Suevi that was rampaging around Spain (also looking for title to land, incidentally, and trying to create enough of a nuisance that Rome gave it to them). Not that it did’em much good; a decade later, Gaiseric led these same barbarian assholes into north Africa and conquered Carthage.
Better Al Maviva than Senator Cornyn.
demimondian
No, and I didn’t mean to imply that. Sorry if my wording was unclear.
The sole source for the story is Claudian, who was employed to write pangyrics for Stilicho — someone I would consider to be a biased, and probably untrustworthy, source. I suggest that the timeline for the attack on Rome in 408-410, is inconsistent with a response to Stilicho’s death; instead, it appears to me that Alaric was never successfully bought off.
That’s my point about tribute. It doesn’t provide a persistant peace, but rather a chance to feel good until the vandal returns, stronger than before.
I like “Peeps (TM), bitches”, better.
Nutcutter
It looks like we were right, Israel has been lying through its teeth the whole time. The explanation for the puzzling huge civilian death toll? Simple: A huge civilian toll is exactly what Israel wanted.
BTW, this article came from Haa’retz, the notorious anti-semitic news organization.
GOP4Me
But his brother-in-law was, and the Visigoths fought on the Roman side against the Vandals, Suevi, and Huns. It was tribute they were after, and once they got it they went from being Rome’s worst enemy to its best friend. They were the most successful of the German tribes trying to get Roman titles (a form of tribute, if you will), the other tribes were only trying to emulate them.
If you can’t read the history books and see that the Visigoths fought for the Romans for over 60 years after Alaric died and the tribute was made, then there’s no point arguing it. We’re going to have to agree to disagree, I guess. Nobody pays tribute forever, that’s not successful; but as a temporary tactic it works very well. Otherwise, to name one example, Attila might’ve sacked the Eastern Empire before he tried to sack the Western one. All I was suggesting was that Israel fork out some cash to help grease the wheels as the Arab-world’s hatred-wagon shifts course away from Israel and toward the rising threat of Shiite-Iranian supremacy. If that’s a stupid expenditure of cash, then America and China and every other country might as well take their foreign aid budgets and burn the cash in trashcans right away. The trashcan fires could keep homeless people warm for the night, and apparently that’s more useful than squandering money as “tribute.”
As tribute pertains to Israel, well, you’ve already said you think Israel’s current policies are “successful” ones. Ergo, changes to that strategy are a waste of time at best, and dangerous to Israel’s security at worst.
As ar as I can tell- and correct me if I’m wrong here- to your way of thinking, any Israeli attempt to be nice to its Arab neighbors constitutes a form of tribute or appeasement. The US spends millions of dollars annually trying to woo Arabs with media stations and government bribes in various forms, but Israel can’t do that because it’s “tribute.” Israel doesn’t need to, either, because right now the “successful” peace Israel enjoys is the envy of the world.
Well, all I can say is that if this is your definition of “success”, I’d hate to see what your idea of a “failure” looks like.
GOP4Me
Well it certainly makes my alternative plans seem downright quaint and anachronistic, whatever one might say about their other merits and flaws.
The new plan I propose is for Israel to build a huge wall around the whole country, with a giant steel net spanning 1,000 feet above it to catch the rockets. There’s not much else they can do at this point anyway, especially since their “successful” plans are mostly succeeding at pissing their neighbors off. Senator Cornyn is right, they should hold on to the Golan Heights. With asshole moron jackasses like Olmert running the place, they’re going to need every strategic strip of terrain they can get their hands on.
demimondian
Yes, actually, I do. I had real hopes for a realistic change when Oslo came down, and I still think Sharon was a fool for playing the game the way he did. However, it turned out in the end that the PLO and the PA really could have stopped Hamas from bombing, and chose not to. (Cf. what’s happened since Hamas actually took power in a *God forbid* fair election.) The other Arab states have too much invested in using the Palestinians as jackalopes to be willing to give them up. I see no hope for peace until Hamas (*not* Hizbollah, Hamas) chooses to negotiate.
I don’t recall saying anything like that. What I said is that payment without a quid pro quo is tribute, and that, yes, that is ultimately useless.
Nutcutter
The really bad news here is for the US. Israel is still the little country that could, well armed and well connected. No matter how badly they fuck up, and this current escapade may show us where that limit is, what’s their worst case? Another sixty years of war? Do they care? I can’t tell.
But the US takes it in the shorts. The level of hatred toward America has gone off the charts now thanks to our bumbling fumbling handling of this situation.
The insane mumblings of George Bush, in which he basically suggests that (a) Lebanon accede to the bombing of its own country, and (b) the main threat to peace is a cease fire …. has cost him the last shreds of credulity he needed to be taken seriously by anyone in the world outside of Texas and maybe Utah at this point. The man is a fucking laughingstock and effigy-burning prop now. And of course, his stock is our stock in the world. Our safety … yours and mine … just took a huge hit. Another entire generation of radical terrorists will suit up in explosives or worse to take out their insane frustrations on us or our allies.
Thanks, Israel. Nice job.
The Easter Bunny
Peeps, bitches!
Sorry, kids. Been busy lately. Lots of irons in the fire, you know. And if I had fingers, I’d be sticking them in lots of pies too. But I don’t. Fingers, I mean. Pies I have plenty of. Sweet apple-filled pies of liberty, bitches!
You know, I’m glad I aborted my plan to rain the fires of genocide on the people of Earth, since all signs now point to you doing it for me. Way to go in the Middle East, people! Keep up the good work! At this rate I think we can safely plan on a hippity-hoppity human-free Rabbit Utopia by 2010. And don’t even think about trying to hide in the Gaza Strip, bitches.
Pb
Wow, what a fucking shock: bombing people *doesn’t* win hearts and minds! Just another fact to file away and forget before the next unnecessary war (Iran?), I suppose.
ats
Demimondian: “What I said is that payment without a quid pro quo is tribute, and that, yes, that is ultimately useless.”
What is really useless is seeking peace while Israel is hurriedly settling all the best land in the West Bank. It should be obvious that the elements currently running Israel are profitting from the failure of Oslo, and set out to dismantle it. The status quo CUM Bellum suits the expansionist facts-on-the-ground people far too well for them to allow peace to break out.
Bottom line: Had Hezzbollah not occassioned this elaborate, obviously pre-planned incursion into Lebanon, Israel would have been compelled to find, or even create, another pretext for it. After all, who is talking about the separation wall and the illegal settlements now?
GOP4Me
Then what right do you have to complain about terrorist attacks on Israel? Sure, they suck, but they’re as inevitable as bad weather and taxes. Anyway, there’s nothing anyone can do about them, since Israel is already pursuing the best of all possible policies; might as well suck it up and live with it, Pangloss. California has earthquakes, Israel has suicide bombers blowing up children on schoolbuses. Hey, no place is perfect, right?
Blah blah blah blah blah, doesn’t matter. Israel’s pursuing the best of all possible policies, so the rest of this crap isn’t their fault. They shouldn’t be blamed if it happens, and their actions can’t be expected to improve it. They’ve absolved themselves of all responsibility for the actions of their neighbors, since their policies are the finest and sanest available. If the Arabs are haters, it’s their fucking problem. Why are you wasting time even bringing it up? What do you care what the Palestinians are doing? Let them blow shit up, or starve, or elect Hamas. As long as Israel’s only losing a dozen people or so a month to them, it’s no biggie.
So is US foreign aid money, then. Sorry, African kids! If we fed you and kept you from dying, that would be tribute! Any good-will gesture to other countries constitutes tribute, and as Alaric has proven, tribute is useless. Making friends is useless. The way to win nations over is to firebomb them into submission. It’s the only way to show the superiority of western democracy, after all.
GOP4Me
Not if they think like Demi, they don’t. Look, terrorist attacks really aren’t that big a deal. I don’t understand why everybody keeps talking about it so fucking much.
Yeah, but we’ll never stop supporting Israel, so what do they have to lose?
The only important thing is that Israel is pursuing the best of all possible policies. Any attempt to change it could destroy Israel, so even discussing it is dangerous. With that in mind, can we PLEASE stop talking about this petty terrorism crap and discuss something a little bit more relevant to Israel’s future, like its hot Olympics prospects for 2012?
GOP4Me
If it worked for Israel, it can work for us.
GOP4Me
True. But the whole debate presupposed rational actors were running Israel, not expansionist warmongers like Olmert. It’s purely hypothetical, so we can posit anything we want. The important thing is that Israel is pursuing the best of all possible policies, so that pretty much closes off the discussion. If the Arabs don’t like it, fuck’em. If the Palestinians don’t like it, then in the words of Stormy, “light ’em up.”
GOP4Me
Looks like those air strike against Hezbollah really worked out, too.
skip
“Nasrallah is talking now on TV but none of the cable news channels find it newsworthy enough to show with translation.”
Well, we can all settle for MEMRI’s artful translations, through the uniformly generous filtering service of Daniel Pipes. That is to say, the US media as usual. My favorite so far is the Israeli Foreign Minister telling the WPOST’s Lally Weymouth that what Israel is doing is “helping Lebanon deal with Hezzbollah for the future.” Gee thanks.
BTW, as I write, the IAF is back bombing south Beirut. Query: Wasn’t collective punishment outlawed subsequent to the Nurnberg trials? Did I miss something? Has Alberto Gonzalez dismissed that too, along with the Geneva Conventions?