Turtle on 24/7/2006 at 20:46
This thread delivers.
Not <i>facts</i> or anything, but you know...
thefonz on 24/7/2006 at 21:59
Quote Posted by Turtle
This thread delivers.
Not <i>facts</i> or anything, but you know...
Yeah totally. Like how the pizza guy delivers pizza.
Or the candyman deliveres candy because he can.
THE CANDYMAN CANZygoptera on 25/7/2006 at 01:00
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
Remember when Sharon "let" the Christian militia in Lebanon murder all those civilians? Who was blamed for it? That's right, the people who "let" it happen.
Big differences. Sharon could almost certainly have stopped the Phalangists simply by telling them to stop. Stopping Hezbollah would require the Lebanese Army to fight them. The majority of the Lebanese Army wouldn't because even amongst its
Christian members Israel is disliked. Recipe for civil war.
Quote:
As for you "kidnap" rubbish - the fact remains; Hizbullah entered Israel (ILLEGALLY) and took 2 Israeli citizens (ILLEGALLY) and is doing God knows what to them (ILLEGALLY) if they are still alive. Hizbullah has fired rockets into Israeli, ILLEGALLY, at civilians, ILLEGALLY.
This is as pointless an arguement as agwpt's 'might makes right' one, and for the same reasons. You can justify Hezbollah's actions using the exact same arguement- the exact same paragraph, even, if you reverse the names (well, and exchange Hezbollah for Lebanon. And increase the number 2 by several orders of magnitude).
Quote:
There is a WORLD of difference between actively targetting civilians and civilians being killed as a consequence of attacks.
So if Hezbollah claimed it was firing its (highly inaccurate) rockets at, say, Haifa's airport or train station, or an IDF military base nearby, or a bridge or a petrol station, or its port (which is, logically, the actual target), or an Israeli political party headquarters, then that would be OK? After all, they would be targeting 'legitimate' military targets. For the 'we aren't deliberately targeting civilians' arguement to work there must be a minimum effort involved in separating the military from the civilian, and it's fairly clear that
neither side are bothering to expend that effort.
I would, however, be very surprised if Israel deliberately attacked a hospital. You can explain away blowing up the odd ambulance or two, but hitting a large, fixed and supposedly inviolate target like a hospital would not look good.
aguywhoplaysthief on 25/7/2006 at 04:11
Quote Posted by BR796164
The point is that Israel has better opportunities for manipulation of western people with their own media, because they have better reach on western media than Arabs or, in this case the Lebanonians have.
I don't know much about the general Western media, except for the American media, and while I don't have a television, listening to the radio I've learned:
- Assloads of innocent Lebanese civilians have died, and the Israeli civilians have had some nasty bruises.
- Israel is has been acting disproportionately.
- Everything Israel is doing is either: not working, illegal, and/or morally wrong.
- Few of the civilians killed in southern Lebanon supports Hezbollah.
- The rockets aren't doing hardly any damage to Israel, and therefore it's okay.
- The Hezbollah attack is a conspiracy by Israel (or the U.S. - they're not sure) so they can justify a reoccupation of Lebanon.
- The Jews dictate American policy, own the media, and use the flesh of Palestinian prisoner's chldren as a kosher bacon substitute at breakfast time.
Somehow I doubt that the newspapers are saying much different.
Quote Posted by BR796164
Another thing is that we usually don't see extremely violent displays of war from some godforsaken country on the opposite side of the globe in western newspapers and TV, because the oversensitive, escapist western audience just isn't used to such hot displays. But for many societies in the Middle East it's almost daily issue to see such things.
Maybe because the vast majority of the Arab owned media is designed to goad the uneducated populace into religious hatred so as to not pay attention to what their own Islamic governments are doing with their aid and oil money, and the American media doesn't like to show distasteful images because they can't afford to turn off any the last three people who still watch TV news and buy newspapers.
Printer's Devil on 25/7/2006 at 05:34
Quote Posted by BR461697
...It looks as if you were underestimating intelligence of other participants of this thread...
I
might have been inclined to agree if the shrieking hadn't started almost immediately after that post. Still, it wouldn't really be TTLG without the noise!
Rogue Keeper on 25/7/2006 at 07:24
Communication noise is cumulative. :cool:
Ko0K on 25/7/2006 at 07:50
So, what's going to kill us this time? I hope it's nukes, because I could really use a third arm to scratch places.
Deep Qantas on 25/7/2006 at 11:21
Quote Posted by aguywhoplaysthief
Maybe because the vast majority of the Arab owned media is designed to goad the uneducated populace into religious hatred so as to not pay attention to what their own Islamic governments are doing with their aid and oil money...
That sounds familiar somehow. :p
Anyways, just wanted to say that the "they were warned about the bombing" argument is bullshit. The million people in Beirut are just supposed to pack up and leave? That worked real well in New Orleans, too.
Rogue Keeper on 25/7/2006 at 11:34
For example Al Jazeera is a very respected television channell of western type. Of course they must reflect opinions of their society and it's islamic bakround. When Al Jazeera shows ruins and victims of American or Israelian rocket attack, it naturally causes hatred and negative sentiment towards the west, it would cause hatred in anyone.
It's true they were showing beheadings at the beginning of Iraq War, but later they stopped it because, what a surprise, because of disgusted reactions of it's Arabic audience.
SubJeff on 25/7/2006 at 15:49
Quote Posted by Strontium Dog
He's doing his usual trick of agreeing with my main point, and then going to town over some minor disagreement, yeah. Totally sick and tired of it now so SE = ignored. Go and troll someone else :bored:
I'm not trolling though. That you should accuse me of that as an excuse to sidestep the issue is typical. Not that I think you think you are wrong, I realise that you just don't get what I've been saying, even with AM pointing it out to you.
You and I are just in broad disagreement about the logistics of this conflict. I believe that, whilst regretable (and I'm sure the Israelis think it regretable too) civilian deaths in these conflicts, when the terror groups use these human shield tactics, are unavoidable and, crucially,
not a reason to end the offensive and/or necessarily change tactics.
I also find it incredible that you are so quick to criticise the Israelis whilst at the same time making excuses for Hizbullah by using some utter twaddle about them NOT being a terrorist organisation but some "resistance" group. Resistance against what? You and I and every other person who watches the news knows that it takes Hamas or Hizbullah to make the first move in
every one of these little spats before the Israelis lay the smackdown. Whenever there is a truce it is always the terrorists who start it off, and then bleeding hearts like you moan that Israel is over-reacting when some civilians die.
Let me give you an analogy that you might understand. A Liverpool fan is punched by a Man U fan, but doesn't go down. Damn it smarts though. Seeing that this Man U twoccer is gearing up to swing another the Scouse scally gives him the old 1-2 a few times, with a knee to the ribs for good measure, and suddenly the Man U fan is in a heap, weeping into his tatty (and naff) footy scarf.
Now is the Scouser wrong for duffing this guy up? Did he use force that was much greater and strike many more times? I say no and yes. In other words, if you want to bring it don't cry when you realise you just started on a ninja.
