Middle East Continued Again...

[Arrian]

Not enough smilies, bolding, and frothing at the mouth.

-Arrian

[Dinner]

Re: The summit fails. War rages

Originally posted by MOBIUS
So basically abject failure then - already weakly talking of talks with Syria and Iran, prisoner swaps and damaging rather than destroying hezb...

I'm just not seeing abject failure yet. The idea seems to be to bring things to a head and force some sort of resolution reguarding the private militia/terrorist group Hezbollah and its complete control of southern Lebanon.

If all of this results in either the Lebanese or some effective UN force taking control of southern Lebanon and forcing the terrorists out then it will all be worth it. I'm not sure a UN force can effectively take control of anything though. In order to disarm the private army/terrorist organization that is Hezbollah the outside force would have to completely control the border with Syria which will be extremely difficult (if not impossible) to prevent rearmorment, then both the UN and the Lebonese army will have to force the disarmorment of Hezbollah.

The problem is the only countries which could effectively bring this about are in NATO (well, Russia might possibly be able to do it but I doubt they could) and having westerners (and former crusaders) in the middle east won't play well.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by BeBro

I dunno. I'd rather not believe that Israel intentionally attacked the post because that would be outright stupid, without any gain for Israel, esp. in a situation like this where they talking about an international force there (and Israel seemed to favor this too).

Still it's a big fubar and the UN guys certainly aren't responsible for Israel's mistakes.

The way I see it any time you have hundreds of planes flying thousands of sorties, many of which are flown by reservists who are often not as well practiced as regulars, then you will see mistakes made. In war mistakes often take the form of the wrong targets getting blown up.

[Edan]

Originally posted by Oerdin
In war mistakes often take the form of the wrong targets getting blown up.

Indeed. There have already been several friendly-fire incidents (eg, a helicopter that was downed)

[Pekka]

I don't know but I hope EU stops fiddling with its own ass and do something about the situation right now. The need for cease fire is immidiate and urgent.

CO, Yeah that comment made big news in here as well, which basically destroyed the image of this current conflict with the Lebanon so ... like I said, someone is ****ing up really bad in the leadership there, the new guy who ever he was.. he definitely needs to go.

MOBIUS, I don't think it's a war crime if incompetent people are chose to what ever positions. I think a war crime needs to have intent there... a clear intent.

Basically I support Israel in its fight against its enemies at all times. However this new guy, he should stfu.. his statements are straight from the bible or something, it's horrible.. horrible I say.. And it's clearly projecting how he thinks, he should be someone who carries the ammunition to the cannon, nto someone who makes decisions!

Basically I understand the frustration... you get these SOBs doing these tricks to you, clearly not commited to peace anyway, wanting a fight, stretch the sitaution to last decades and you have a point where you are going to snap and say this is enough, we are going to take you out even if the price is high.

I think that's what is going on right now, unfortunately I don't think frustration justifies some of the things that happened, plus statements like 10 blocks for a rocket... you know.. stfu and go home!

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Oerdin
The way I see it any time you have hundreds of planes flying thousands of sorties, many of which are flown by reservists who are often not as well practiced as regulars, then you will see mistakes made. In war mistakes often take the form of the wrong targets getting blown up.

Yes, indeed. And btw, I'm rather with Israel in this conflict. I just don't think it's a good idea to come up with the "it was their own fault" excuse in cases like this with the attacked UN post, as it was done in this thread. That sounds a bit too much like "that girl asked for being raped by walking around alone at night" logic for my taste. Even Israel itself doesn't put the blame on the guys in the UN post afaik.

[DinoDoc]

Out of curiosity, can someone explain to me what the UN force was actually doing in Lebanon? It obviously wasn't peacekeeping.

[BeBMan]

Wezil already made that point, but that still doesn't make the attack any better, unless someone thinks any failure should be answered by bombing the guys involved

[DinoDoc]

I'm not justifing the attack. I don't know any of the facts about it to begin to even think about doing that. I honestly don't know what they were doing in the area beyond occassionally abetting Hezbollah in kidnapping raids. What was thier mandate?

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I'm not justifing the attack. I don't know any of the facts about it to begin to even think about doing that. I honestly don't know what they were doing in the area beyond occassionally abetting Hezbollah in kidnapping raids. What was thier mandate?

From Colon's earlier post:

quote:
According to Security Council resolutions 425 (1978) and 426 (1978) of 19 March 1978, UNIFIL was established to:

* Confirm the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon;
* Restore international peace and security;
* Assist the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area.

Most recently the mandate of UNIFIL was extended until 31 July 2006 by Security Council resolution 1655 (2006) of 31 January 2006.

They surely hadn't to observe Israel's withdrawal over decades, the German wiki article says they now mainly monitor(ed) the cease fire and do mine-clearing.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Pekka
---
CO, Yeah that comment made big news in here as well, which basically destroyed the image of this current conflict with the Lebanon so ... like I said, someone is ****ing up really bad in the leadership there, the new guy who ever he was.. he definitely needs to go.
---

I think that's what is going on right now, unfortunately I don't think frustration justifies some of the things that happened, plus statements like 10 blocks for a rocket... you know.. stfu and go home!

Pekka, do you recall the name of the guy who said it? I'm on holiday and only briefly follow the news, so I just noticed what he said and not who he was. It's hard to find the quote now, a few days later.

[Pekka]

It was 'the new guy' as far as I remember. Who the new guy is, I can't recall.. have to search .. His competency has been questioned few times now.

[Chemical Ollie]

Olmert?

[Pekka]

yeah, I think he was the guy.

[Arrian]

Olmert doesn't really seem like he knows what he's doing. Did he have a coherent strategy, or did he just tell his generals "go get 'em!" and hope they knew what they were doing?

-Arrian