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AliEnvy said:


Perhaps because at stake is the UN deal regarding nuclear development in Iran...this is Israel sending a strong message to the UN (and US) that they will not take kindly to concessions in Iran's favour.

Am I the only one here on that wavelength? lol

Maybe. There can be little doubt of the damage done by the steady decline in the diplomatic climate between Israel and Iran (if there ever was one) of the last few months and the extreme statements by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
 
So would you still say Israel's response is over the top or are they actually responding to much more than a couple of kidnapped soldiers and subsequent rocket bombs...
 
STING2 said:
The fact that several dozen people died throughout Iraq on Tuesday does not show that the Iraqi government is in crises. The Iraqi government rather has successfully formed despite all the claims that Iraq was in or would soon be in a full blown civil war.


STING, it's far more than several dozen people dying on a random Tuesday (which was sort of the culmination of a particularly wrenching 4 days of continuous violence) and the fact that a government that can't even provide a basic level of security to it's citizens isn't much of a government at all. over 100 people have been killed during the past 96 hours despite the fact that 50,000]/i] troops were moved into Baghdad last month. iraq is pretty much anarchy at this point and the only thing holding it together are the 130,000 US troops.

more to consider:

[q]West Baghdad is no stranger to bombings and killings, but in the past few days all restraint has vanished in an orgy of ethnic cleansing.

Shia gunmen are seeking to drive out the once-dominant Sunni minority and the Sunnis are forming neighbourhood posses to retaliate. Mosques are being attacked. Scores of innocent civilians have been killed, their bodies left lying in the streets.

Hundreds — Sunni and Shia — are abandoning their homes. My driver said all his neighbours had now fled, their abandoned houses bullet-pocked and locked up. On a nearby mosque, competing Sunni and Shiite graffiti had been scrawled on the walls.

A senior nurse at Yarmouk hospital on the fringes of west Baghdad’s war zone said that he was close to being overwhelmed. “On Tuesday we received 35 bodies in one day, 16 from Al-Furat district alone. All of them were killed execution-style,” he said. “I thought it was the end of the city. I packed my bags at once and got ready to leave because they could storm the hospital at any moment.”

In just 24 hours before noon yesterday, as parliament convened for another emergency session, 87 bodies were brought to Baghdad city morgue, 63 of them unidentified. Since Sunday’s massacre in Jihad, more than 160 people have been killed, making a total of at least 1,600 since Iraq’s Government of national unity came to power six weeks ago. Another 2,500 have been wounded.

In early June, Nouri al-Maliki, the new Prime Minister, flooded Baghdad’s streets with tens of thousands of soldiers and police in an effort to restore order to the capital.

More recently, he announced a national reconciliation plan, which promised an amnesty to Sunni insurgents and the disbandment of Shia militias. Both initiatives are now in tatters.

“The country is sliding fast towards civil war,” Ali Adib, a Shia MP, told the Iraqi parliament this week. “Security has deteriorated in a serious and unprecedented way,” said Saadi Barzanji, a Kurdish MP.

Mr al-Maliki told parliament: “We all have a last chance to reconcile and agree among each other on avoiding conflict and blood. If we fail, God knows what the fate of Iraq will be.”

Joseph Biden, the senior Democrat on the US Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, described Baghdad after a recent visit as a city in the throes of “nascent civil war”.

Most Iraqis believe that it is already here. “There is a campaign to eradicate all Sunnis from Baghdad,” said Sheikh Omar al-Jebouri, of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni parliamentary group. He said that it was organised by the Shia-dominated Interior Ministry and its police special commandos, with Shia militias, and aimed to destroy Mr al-Maliki’s plans to rebuild Iraq’s security forces along national, rather than sectarian, lines.

Ahmed Abu Mustafa, a resident of the Sunni district of Amariyah in western Baghdad, was stunned to see two police car pick-ups speed up to his local mosque with cars full of gunmen on Tuesday evening and open fire on it with their government-issued machineguns.

Immediately, Sunni gunmen materialised from side streets and a battle started. “I’d heard about this happening but this was the first time I’d seen police shooting at a mosque,” he said. “I was amazed by how quickly the local gunmen deployed. I ran for my life.”

Yesterday, General George Casey, the most senior US commander in Iraq, said that the US might deploy more American troops in Baghdad. He said that al-Qaeda, to show that it was still relevant, had stepped up its attacks in Baghdad following the killing last month of its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. “What we are seeing now as a counter to that is death squads, primarily from Shia extremist groups, that are retaliating against civilians.”

A local journalist told me bitterly this week that Iraqis find it ironic that Saddam Hussein is on trial for killing 148 people 24 years ago, while militias loyal to political parties now in government kill that many people every few days. But it is not an irony that anyone here has time to laugh about. They are too busy packing their bags and wondering how they can get out alive.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2268585_2,00.html

[/q]


but keep fiddling as Iran slowly takes over.
 
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verte76 said:
Israel's response is pretty over the top.

I guess I can't accept as coincidence that the kidnappings happened the day after Iran and EU stalemated again on the nuclear deal talks. Expectations in the West were that the deal would be final before the G8 conference and Iran has been saying they won't respond until August.
 
I don't think there over the top. After all the bombings and harrassment they go through.
 
‘Extreme overreaction’ characterises pretty much everyone who has a part in the conflict. Is the attack on Lebanon solely caused by the kidnapping incident? Of course not. Was the kidnapping of the two soldiers only an attempt at obtaining the release of Palestinian prisoners? Of course not. If I knew what to do about it I would run for the post of world dictator. I suppose a start would be to stop using military force as though it offers a real solution.
 
Irvine511 said:



STING, it's far more than several dozen people dying on a random Tuesday (which was sort of the culmination of a particularly wrenching 4 days of continuous violence) and the fact that a government that can't even provide a basic level of security to it's citizens isn't much of a government at all. over 100 people have been killed during the past 96 hours despite the fact that 50,000]/i] troops were moved into Baghdad last month. iraq is pretty much anarchy at this point and the only thing holding it together are the 130,000 US troops.

more to consider:

[q]West Baghdad is no stranger to bombings and killings, but in the past few days all restraint has vanished in an orgy of ethnic cleansing.

Shia gunmen are seeking to drive out the once-dominant Sunni minority and the Sunnis are forming neighbourhood posses to retaliate. Mosques are being attacked. Scores of innocent civilians have been killed, their bodies left lying in the streets.

Hundreds — Sunni and Shia — are abandoning their homes. My driver said all his neighbours had now fled, their abandoned houses bullet-pocked and locked up. On a nearby mosque, competing Sunni and Shiite graffiti had been scrawled on the walls.

A senior nurse at Yarmouk hospital on the fringes of west Baghdad’s war zone said that he was close to being overwhelmed. “On Tuesday we received 35 bodies in one day, 16 from Al-Furat district alone. All of them were killed execution-style,” he said. “I thought it was the end of the city. I packed my bags at once and got ready to leave because they could storm the hospital at any moment.”

In just 24 hours before noon yesterday, as parliament convened for another emergency session, 87 bodies were brought to Baghdad city morgue, 63 of them unidentified. Since Sunday’s massacre in Jihad, more than 160 people have been killed, making a total of at least 1,600 since Iraq’s Government of national unity came to power six weeks ago. Another 2,500 have been wounded.

In early June, Nouri al-Maliki, the new Prime Minister, flooded Baghdad’s streets with tens of thousands of soldiers and police in an effort to restore order to the capital.

More recently, he announced a national reconciliation plan, which promised an amnesty to Sunni insurgents and the disbandment of Shia militias. Both initiatives are now in tatters.

“The country is sliding fast towards civil war,” Ali Adib, a Shia MP, told the Iraqi parliament this week. “Security has deteriorated in a serious and unprecedented way,” said Saadi Barzanji, a Kurdish MP.

Mr al-Maliki told parliament: “We all have a last chance to reconcile and agree among each other on avoiding conflict and blood. If we fail, God knows what the fate of Iraq will be.”

Joseph Biden, the senior Democrat on the US Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, described Baghdad after a recent visit as a city in the throes of “nascent civil war”.

Most Iraqis believe that it is already here. “There is a campaign to eradicate all Sunnis from Baghdad,” said Sheikh Omar al-Jebouri, of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni parliamentary group. He said that it was organised by the Shia-dominated Interior Ministry and its police special commandos, with Shia militias, and aimed to destroy Mr al-Maliki’s plans to rebuild Iraq’s security forces along national, rather than sectarian, lines.

Ahmed Abu Mustafa, a resident of the Sunni district of Amariyah in western Baghdad, was stunned to see two police car pick-ups speed up to his local mosque with cars full of gunmen on Tuesday evening and open fire on it with their government-issued machineguns.

Immediately, Sunni gunmen materialised from side streets and a battle started. “I’d heard about this happening but this was the first time I’d seen police shooting at a mosque,” he said. “I was amazed by how quickly the local gunmen deployed. I ran for my life.”

Yesterday, General George Casey, the most senior US commander in Iraq, said that the US might deploy more American troops in Baghdad. He said that al-Qaeda, to show that it was still relevant, had stepped up its attacks in Baghdad following the killing last month of its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. “What we are seeing now as a counter to that is death squads, primarily from Shia extremist groups, that are retaliating against civilians.”

A local journalist told me bitterly this week that Iraqis find it ironic that Saddam Hussein is on trial for killing 148 people 24 years ago, while militias loyal to political parties now in government kill that many people every few days. But it is not an irony that anyone here has time to laugh about. They are too busy packing their bags and wondering how they can get out alive.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2268585_2,00.html

[/q]


but keep fiddling as Iran slowly takes over.



The article states that 1,600 people have been killed in the last 6 weeks. Thats only 3 dozen people per day. In Bosnia, an average of 300 people were killed every day in a country thats one sixth the size of Iraq. Bosnia is an example of anarchy and civil war, Iraq is not! The US Military which has experience in both environments has clearly stated that Iraq is not in a state of Civil War. For it to be a civil war, you would have to have the government disband and see a massive jump in violence, at least 10 times of what it is now. Right now, the violence, in terms of civilians being killed, is no different than it was 6 months ago, a year ago, or two years ago. Bombings, shootings, and other types of random violence have been happening since 2003. Its just that since the February Mosque bombing, every time there is violence, its now labled as being sectarian in nature with little or no evidence.

I suppose you would say that the British government was not much of a government at all given its inability to stop the violence in Northern Ireland in the 1970s? Is the United States government not much of a government because 10,000 people were murdered in the country last year? Iraq has a lot of problems, but it is steadily making key progress in many area's that will eventually over time be able to slow and manage this type of violence, especially when the Iraqi military and police force is finally rebuilt. But this is a process that will take years, and once those security services are in place, it could take decades to end all the violence as we saw in Northern Ireland. But Iraq is gradually moving toward a capability to be able to handle these problems on its own. If your criteria for a stable government is the absense of any violence, no government on the planet meets that standard. It takes years to manage and resolve these problems and declaring that a situation is in total anarchy because 100 people died over 4 days in a city of 5 million people is absurd, especially when the level of violence is not significantly different from any given time period over the past 3 years.


A strong Iran would be able to send military units into Iraq and take and control actual territory. They can't do this. Their not strong enough. They have to act indirectly and attempt to influence things indirectly, just as they are doing against Israel, and totally unlike what Saddam was able to do when he was in power. Its true that Iran has a greater ability to influence events inside Iraq than when Saddam was in power, but that in no way changes the necessity of removing Saddam from power.
 
Irvine511 said:
but keep fiddling as Iran slowly takes over.

I think Israel is making it clear that fiddling by the US and others is no longer an option.

Unless this mess is contained quickly, next on the Israeli agenda could be air raids taking out Iran's nuclear facilities.

How convenient!
 
Friday July 14, 7:36 PM

Vatican condemns Israel for attacks on Lebanon

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican on Friday strongly deplored Israel's strikes on Lebanon, saying they were "an attack" on a sovereign and free nation.
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano said Pope Benedict and his aides were very worried that the developments in the Middle East risked degenerating into "a conflict with international repercussions."

"In particular, the Holy See deplores right now the attack on Lebanon, a free and sovereign nation, and assures its closeness to these people who already have suffered so much to defend their independence," he told Vatican Radio.

Vatican gets it right. :up:
 
STING2 said:



The article states that 1,600 people have been killed in the last 6 weeks. Thats only 3 dozen people per day. In Bosnia, an average of 300 people were killed every day in a country thats one sixth the size of Iraq. Bosnia is an example of anarchy and civil war, Iraq is not! The US Military which has experience in both environments has clearly stated that Iraq is not in a state of Civil War. For it to be a civil war, you would have to have the government disband and see a massive jump in violence, at least 10 times of what it is now. Right now, the violence, in terms of civilians being killed, is no different than it was 6 months ago, a year ago, or two years ago. Bombings, shootings, and other types of random violence have been happening since 2003. Its just that since the February Mosque bombing, every time there is violence, its now labled as being sectarian in nature with little or no evidence.



i'll say it once more: the only reason Iraq is not *yet* Bosnia is because of US Troops on the ground in Iraq. basically, you're saying that because Iraq does not yet have the body count of Bosnia -- which was the worst example of European bloodshed since WW2, quite a high standard -- then everything is just dandy. a functioning government does not have 50 people die in the capital on a random Tuesday. if the government were as wonderful as you think it is, then when will Maliki deem it necessary to suppress the violence? he won't because he can't!

many Iraqi MPs think they are in a Civil War. Maliki has said that Iraq is pretty much on it's last legs: "If it fails, I don't know what the destiny of Iraq will be." and Colin Powell thinks we are in a Civil War:

[q]In between panels, I ran into Colin Powell and asked him if we are ever going to get out of Iraq. "We are," he told me, "but we're not going to leave behind anything we like because we are in the middle of a civil war."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/powell-on-iraq-couric-on_b_24599.html

[/q]

and since we all know you believe everything that Powell says, then it must be so.

[q]Bombings, shootings, and other types of random violence have been happening since 2003. Its just that since the February Mosque bombing, every time there is violence, its now labled as being sectarian in nature with little or no evidence[/q]


oh, for goodness sake, NO ONE BELIEVES this anymore.

[q]The U.S. commander in Iraq, General George Casey, said Sunni militants in al Qaeda were stoking the sectarian violence that pits majority Shi'ites against the once-dominant Sunni minority.

"What we are seeing now as a counter to that are death squads, primarily from Shi'ite extremist groups that are retaliating against civilians," he told reporters.

"So you have both sides now attacking civilians. And that is what has caused the recent spike in violence here in Baghdad."

U.S. commanders have often been careful not to label gunmen as Shi'ites, although many of the recent attacks in Baghdad neighborhoods have been blamed by Sunnis and police on the Mehdi army militia controlled by Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Sadr and his followers vigorously deny the accusations.

BIGGEST CHALLENGE

U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said sectarian violence was now the main challenge to the security forces, overtaking the three- -year-old Sunni insurgency as the biggest source of instability.

"A year ago, terrorism and the insurgency against the coalition and the Iraqi security forces were the principal sources of instability," Khalilzad said on Tuesday. "Violent sectarianism is now the main challenge."

As a result, the U.S. military is adapting its tactics to focus more on containing the sectarian violence, but Rumsfeld cautioned that the "solution is not military."

[/q]


your comparison to murders in the US is laughable -- the US has 300 million people, Iraq 25 million, and please tell me the last time we had a suicide bombing in the US. please tell me the last time we 100 people were killed in, say, Los Angeles (a city far larger than Baghdad) over 96 hours.

it's not the absence of violence that makes a government effective, it's the government's ability to create a civil society that guarantees a basic level of security to it's citizens, a society where the middle class does not flee because they fear violence. the United States has this. Northern Ireland, even in the 1970s, had this.

Iraq does not.
 
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trevster2k said:
Regarding punishing the Lebanese or Palesitinians for "allowing" terrorism, what are we gonna do, take away their tents? These people are already in a desperate position which is probably half the reason they are so willing to use extreme measures to attack Israel.

Beirut is far from a "tent" city of desperate people. The Lebanese have consistently refused to police the portion of their country bordering Israel, which Syria likes to think of as "Southern Syria". Whether the Lebanese are "allowing" terrorism or simply powerless to control it, I don't know. But if they do not control the situation , I cannot begrudge the Israelis from taking care of the situation themselves.
 
I, for one, do not believe Israel is acting out of proportion. This is not about a single abduction. This is about a successful abduction (Hezbollah tried this before), and a free lance military group engaging in a persistent terror campaign (over 700 rockets have been fired into Israel).

Lebanon, which was making great strides at rebuilding the “Paris of the Middle East” did not have the collective determination of its people to prevent Hezbollah from operating within its borders. In doing so, Lebanon is a willing participant to the continual attacks on Israel. If this angers the people of Lebanon – their anger should have been directed at Hezbollah long ago. I guess they made their choice when they voted Hezbollah into office.

To compound this tragedy, Iran can continue to fund Hezbollah to threaten Israel indirectly. While the world condemns Israel’s response to an active, persistent threat, Iran can continue to develop its own programs.

Are we seeing the next attempt at the “final solution”? The region is polarized. I think we are underestimating the resolve the non-Jewish states have in their desire to eliminate Israel.
 
Are we seeing the next attempt at the “final solution”? The region is polarized. I think we are underestimating the resolve the non-Jewish states have in their desire to eliminate Israel.

I think this is crossing the line of good discourse. ‘Endlösung der Judenfrage’ is hardly an apt analogy.
 
Irvine511 said:




i'll say it once more: the only reason Iraq is not *yet* Bosnia is because of US Troops on the ground in Iraq. basically, you're saying that because Iraq does not yet have the body count of Bosnia -- which was the worst example of European bloodshed since WW2, quite a high standard -- then everything is just dandy. a functioning government does not have 50 people die in the capital on a random Tuesday. if the government were as wonderful as you think it is, then when will Maliki deem it necessary to suppress the violence? he won't because he can't!

many Iraqi MPs think they are in a Civil War. Maliki has said that Iraq is pretty much on it's last legs: "If it fails, I don't know what the destiny of Iraq will be." and Colin Powell thinks we are in a Civil War:

[q]In between panels, I ran into Colin Powell and asked him if we are ever going to get out of Iraq. "We are," he told me, "but we're not going to leave behind anything we like because we are in the middle of a civil war."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/powell-on-iraq-couric-on_b_24599.html

[/q]

and since we all know you believe everything that Powell says, then it must be so.

[q]Bombings, shootings, and other types of random violence have been happening since 2003. Its just that since the February Mosque bombing, every time there is violence, its now labled as being sectarian in nature with little or no evidence[/q]


oh, for goodness sake, NO ONE BELIEVES this anymore.

[q]The U.S. commander in Iraq, General George Casey, said Sunni militants in al Qaeda were stoking the sectarian violence that pits majority Shi'ites against the once-dominant Sunni minority.

"What we are seeing now as a counter to that are death squads, primarily from Shi'ite extremist groups that are retaliating against civilians," he told reporters.

"So you have both sides now attacking civilians. And that is what has caused the recent spike in violence here in Baghdad."

U.S. commanders have often been careful not to label gunmen as Shi'ites, although many of the recent attacks in Baghdad neighborhoods have been blamed by Sunnis and police on the Mehdi army militia controlled by Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Sadr and his followers vigorously deny the accusations.

BIGGEST CHALLENGE

U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said sectarian violence was now the main challenge to the security forces, overtaking the three- -year-old Sunni insurgency as the biggest source of instability.

"A year ago, terrorism and the insurgency against the coalition and the Iraqi security forces were the principal sources of instability," Khalilzad said on Tuesday. "Violent sectarianism is now the main challenge."

As a result, the U.S. military is adapting its tactics to focus more on containing the sectarian violence, but Rumsfeld cautioned that the "solution is not military."

[/q]


your comparison to murders in the US is laughable -- the US has 300 million people, Iraq 25 million, and please tell me the last time we had a suicide bombing in the US. please tell me the last time we 100 people were killed in, say, Los Angeles (a city far larger than Baghdad) over 96 hours.

it's not the absence of violence that makes a government effective, it's the government's ability to create a civil society that guarantees a basic level of security to it's citizens, a society where the middle class does not flee because they fear violence. the United States has this. Northern Ireland, even in the 1970s, had this.

Iraq does not.

Iraq does not have anything remotely approaching the body count found in Bosnia, Rawanda, Sudan, the Congo, or several other places around the globe. LESS PEOPLE are dying in Iraq on average today than when SADDAM was in power!

There was a functioning government under Saddam, but there was a far greater number of Iraqi's dying throughout the country on a daily basis than there are now. Iraq is in the middle of a war, but it has an elected government. Once the rebuilding of Iraq's security forces is completed in a few years, the level of violence among the civilian population will drop.

The United States military ON THE GROUND in Iraq and in charge of the overall security situation there does not view the situation as a civil war. Once again, if Iraq were in the middle of a Civil War, millions of Iraqi's would be dead instead of thousands, and the Iraqi government that was just formed would not exist. Those committing secterian violence constitute a tiny percentage of the population. More significant are the vast majority of Iraqi's who continue on with their lives every day working to rebuild the country from 24 years of Saddams rule. More significant is the Iraqi military which continues to grow in strength and numbers every day.



Wow, you read on huffingtonpost that Colin Powell says that Iraq is in a full blown Civil War. It must be so, just like all those people who claimed Colin Powell was totally against the use of military force against Iraq and was deeply against most of the administration on most foreign policy matters. What a joke.


The US military in Iraq, including some of my closest friends don't find a Civil War on the ground in their experience there. Sorry if that does not jive with your claim that "NO ONE BELIEVES THIS".

Show me where General George Casey or U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad have said Iraq is in the middle of a CIVIL WAR. The mere presence of sectarian violence DOES NOT EQUAL A CIVIL WAR!


Israel has had dozens of people killed in suicide bombings on single days. Are you going to claim that Israel does not have a functioning government because of that?


1. Iraq has never really had a middle class, at least not one that would be similar to what we find in the first world. Even if there is such a flight, that population of people is so small and will have little impact on the eventual stabilization of the country.

2. Iraq is going through a nation building process while still being attacked by former elements of Saddam's regime as well as foreign terrorist.

3. Despite these strains, it has made dramatic progress, progress that your unable or refuse to see.

4. This is a process that is going to take years to complete. Jumping up and down and claiming x city has collapsed because 100 people died in the past 4 days is simply absurd.

5. If you take the time to examine what Iraq has been through since 1979, you'll find that casualty figures among Iraqi's are currently less than what they were when Saddam was in power.

6. There are certainly a lot of things Iraq does not have, but the same could be said for many other countries around the world. Iraq is going through a development process, yet you seem to think that regime change, and rebuilding a third world country have a 25 year dictatorship by somone like Saddam should take less than 3 years and be nearly bloodless. Fact is, its going to take several years, but things in general are on the right track and the process will succeed provided that coalition troops are not withdrawn prematurely.

The fact is, the disaster that everyone described back in February never happened. Instead, the Iraqi government got over some big hurdles and successfully formed a government. Just another thing on a long list of things that so many people claimed Iraq would never be able to do.
 
STING2 said:

Instead, the Iraqi government got over some big hurdles and successfully formed a government. Just another thing on a long list of things that so many people claimed Iraq would never be able to do.

Oh My God!!.. Just who are you? Rumsfeld, Bush or Cheney?
:eyebrow:
And don't even bother to ask me to elaborate.
 
Iraq is a separate topic completely. It has an elected government instead of a dictatorship. Terrorist driven instability does not take away from these accomplishments - but the terrorist would want you to believe otherwise. The fact the terrorists continue to work so hard is evidence of the successes - the ones they are trying to undo.
 
silja said:
I think this is crossing the line of good discourse. ‘Endlösung der Judenfrage’ is hardly an apt analogy.

When you have leaders in the region calling for the elimination of Israel, it would be completely dishonest to ignore the connection.
 
From here in New York I'm looking at the big picture.It looks like this,Iran uses Hezbollah to bait Israel then Iran and Syria gang up on Israel.Then the U.S Bombs Iran and while that happens North Korea bombs Japan.Then China goes After Taiwan! Sounds crazy I know,but my imagination runs wild.
 
I agree U2fan, this whole thing could get out of hand very quickly. I know it's 2006 but the leaders of the world are just as triggerhappy as they were back in 1914 and 1939. This could escalate especially if the US actively supports Israel during this conflict while at the same time Russia and other nations decide to support the other side. One thing leads to another,and who knows where this could lead? Gilad Shalit could be the Archduke Ferdinand of WWIII. I find it odd how the Israeli response to the kidnapping of a single soldier dwarfs their past responses to suicide bombings which killed non-military women, and children, kind of upsetting really. I guess it's a change in policy which will just lead to more and more conflict in the future.

Remember back on the eve of the new millenium when the whole world was all lovey dovey for a few hours and everyone was so hopeful about the new millenium. Well, the wheels fell of that pretty quick.
 
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I'm not saying I want it to happen,I work in Manhatten and Seeing soldiers in the stations makes me think.Why would China not throw it's weight around and demand Korea stop it's tests?
 
u2fan628 said:
I'm not saying I want it to happen,I work in Manhatten and Seeing soldiers in the stations makes me think.Why would China not throw it's weight around and demand Korea stop it's tests?

Maybe Beijing believes that it's not in China's interest right now to help the Bush administration. There are a lot of things to suggest that they are using the US focus on the Middle East to expand the chinese powerbase in the oil-rich regions of Africa.
 
nbcrusader said:
Israel has every right to take the actions it has. Allowing placement of rockets so close to the border is by itself an act of aggression. It has nothing to do with being a “democratic” country. It has everything to do with a country surrounded by enemies (who would love to kill all the Jews) trying to keep its citizens safe from indiscriminate rocket attacks.

If we were so concerned with Israel’s response to international criticism, perhaps we would hear something more than silence concerning terrorist “governments” before Israel is forced to deal with another attack.

When Palestinian terrorists blow up buses in places such as Tel Aviv, killing as many as a dozen people at a time, I view it as an immoral act. I don't put that forward as some kind of new and higher moral insight on my part - practically any sane person will accept that bombing a bus and killing a dozen or two of its passengers is evil.

Or will they?

It turns out that the Israel government and its advocates regularly justify actions such as blowing up buses as 'self defense', 'a proportionate response', etc.

Today Israeli airstrikes blew up a bus, killing as many as 15 or 18 Lebanese civilians, depending on reports.

The great moral error of the Israeli government is its proposition that all acts carried out to allegedly defend the Israeli state are in and of themselves moral. The rest of the world is supposed to agree to that questionable proposition and to waive any other moral considerations.

Tragically, the US does buy into this questionable morality, sends an endless supply of weaponry to the Israeli state, and shields it diplomatically at the UN and elsewhere. Others, such as the spineless EU, remain silent in the face of current atrocities.

I cannot credit your statement that actions of terror-supporting governments (or indeed 'governments', in the case of Hamas) are greated by silence, as we have had numerous threads on here dealing with Hamas, the Iranian regime, Syria, etc.

As for the view that merely pointing rockets at a state is, in and of itself, an act of war, this is the strangest definition of an act of war I have ever heard. For many years, the US and the Soviet Union had rockets pointing at each other - no-one seriously argued that either side was committing an act of war against the other.
 
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India launches a test missile capable of reaching China with nuclear warhead capabilities last week and silence greeted that too. North Korea testing missiles, act of war, India testing missiles, sovereign right, the world is so f'ked up right now. And now India's PM has suggested the terrorist attacks had links to Pakistan and is condemning Pakistan for failing to stop the terrorists from flourishing there, hmmm, perhaps India should start bombing Pakistan too based on the logic used by Israel's leaders.:hmm:
 
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html

snippet:

"Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing that given to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct economic and military assistance since 1976, and is the largest recipient in total since World War Two, to the tune of well over $140 billion (in 2004 dollars). Israel receives about $3 billion in direct assistance each year, roughly one-fifth of the foreign aid budget, and worth about $500 a year for every Israeli. This largesse is especially striking since Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to that of South Korea or Spain.

Other recipients get their money in quarterly installments, but Israel receives its entire appropriation at the beginning of each fiscal year and can thus earn interest on it. Most recipients of aid given for military purposes are required to spend all of it in the US, but Israel is allowed to use roughly 25 per cent of its allocation to subsidise its own defence industry. It is the only recipient that does not have to account for how the aid is spent, which makes it virtually impossible to prevent the money from being used for purposes the US opposes, such as building settlements on the West Bank. Moreover, the US has provided Israel with nearly $3 billion to develop weapons systems, and given it access to such top-drawer weaponry as Blackhawk helicopters and F-16 jets. Finally, the US gives Israel access to intelligence it denies to its Nato allies and has turned a blind eye to Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.

Washington also provides Israel with consistent diplomatic support. Since 1982, the US has vetoed 32 Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members. It blocks the efforts of Arab states to put Israel’s nuclear arsenal on the IAEA’s agenda. The US comes to the rescue in wartime and takes Israel’s side when negotiating peace. The Nixon administration protected it from the threat of Soviet intervention and resupplied it during the October War. Washington was deeply involved in the negotiations that ended that war, as well as in the lengthy ‘step-by-step’ process that followed, just as it played a key role in the negotiations that preceded and followed the 1993 Oslo Accords. In each case there was occasional friction between US and Israeli officials, but the US consistently supported the Israeli position. One American participant at Camp David in 2000 later said: ‘Far too often, we functioned . . . as Israel’s lawyer.’ Finally, the Bush administration’s ambition to transform the Middle East is at least partly aimed at improving Israel’s strategic situation."
 
2 Royal Navy ships have been scrambled to the scene , no idea what their objectives are.
 
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