The Middle East Continues...

[MrFun]

At the cost of dead Palestinian babies and women.

[BlackCat]

Finns needs more than sweet talk to be converted.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by MrFun
At the cost of dead Palestinian babies and women.

I see dead palestinian babies everywhere!!

Even in Lebanon!

And in Iraq!!

And the hundreds poor dead palestinian babies in Afghanistan!!!


[/6th sense]

[MrFun]

Always a pleasure to up Siro's blood pressure.

[SlowwHand]

Defying U.N., Iran opens nuclear reactor

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer
48 minutes ago

KHONDAB, Iran -
Iran's hard-line president on Saturday inaugurated a heavy-water production plant, a facility the West fears will be used to develop a nuclear bomb, as Tehran remained defiant ahead of a U.N. deadline that could lead to sanctions.

The U.N. has called on Tehran to stop the separate process of uranium enrichment — which also can be used to create nuclear weapons — by Thursday or face economic and political sanctions.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Sikander


The Geneva convention is not a suicide pact. Non-state actors like Hizb. are not parties to it, and state actors are not bound by any enforcement mechanism. It's basicly a set of guidelines that it is hoped can be followed. M.A.D. is a violation of of the Geneva convention, yet it has been a surprisingly useul tool in the nuclear age.

The convention is there to protect individuals, not just parties. That HIzbullah is not a party is irrelevant, as the people of southern Lebanon are human beings (last time I checked) and thus covered.

As for MAD, yes, IF IT OCCURED, it would be a gross violation of the conventions. It hasn't occured, and therefore irrelevant.

Hizb. has little to no military infrastructure. It's infrastructure is the civilian infrastructure, by design. Israel is not obliged to allow artillery fire and armed incursions into its territory just because Hizb. doesn't give a damn about international law. Rules of war have always applied to both sides, or neither.

Read the report, this is more than adequately covered, as far as Israel's reponsibility ujnder the Geneva convention. The behavior of the US in Iraq is a good counterpoint. The insurgents in Iraq also have no "military infrastructure". When the uS wanted to clear out insurgents in Fallujah, they went in on foot, and while there was widespread damage to homes in the City, the US idd not do the same type of indiscriminate shelling, using of cluster munitions in civilian areas, and mass bombings of basic civilian infrastructure that Israel has done.

The fact guerilla movements blend into the population does NOT give a government carte blanche to kill civlians or destroy their populations. It forces the government to be more carefull, and have to bear the higher cost of those precautions.

If the Israelis were attempting to ethnically cleanse part or all of Lebanon in a war of conquest I would completely agree that they should be sanctioned heavily by the international community. But they are simply robustly sending a message that there is a price to pay for allowing your territory to be used as a staging ground for non-state military aggression. It is an act of war to allow such a thing, and perhaps the most common causus belli in the world today.

THat "sending a message" was the crime, because what you describe is collective punishment, something the Geneva Convention bans. Good to see you do agree.

[GePap]

Re: Jaakko

Originally posted by VJ

The situation is NOT Israel VS Lebanon because Lebanon isn't 100% muslim and it's by far not 100% "we want to kill jews". The motive of Israel in this assault has NOT been to invade Lebanon but to kill as many Hezbollah terrorists as they can. Hezbollah is NOT a Lebanese group but an originally Iranian-funded Syrian terrorist organisation. Lebanon was a peaceful and relatively wealthy multiculturalist state in the late 1970s before Israel occupied the country. It had and has a considerable Christian population.

Lets see:

The members of HIzbullah are Lebanese
Hizbullah is a political party in Lebanon

Sorry,. but its a Lebanese group. It was inspired and funded by Iran, but always made of of Lebanon's Shia.

Also, you are wrong about the history of Lebanon.

1. It has hardly always been "peaceful", given how many times the international community has had to sent troops there.
2. By the late 70's it was already roiled in a massive civil war.
3. It has NEVER been even remotely a "multicultural state". It is a state where the different factions, which live in seperate neighborhoods, share power uneasily. That structure was upset by Palestinian militant groups in the early '70s, leading to the civil war. Lebanon's Shia have always been the stepchildren, underrepresented politically, poor, and essentially abandoned by the Central Government. Initially they were left to the Palestinians (and Lebanon's treatment of Palestinian refugees is just as bad as Syria's, which is generally deplorable), to the point that they gave flowers to the Israelis when the IDF carried out its mass 1982 invasion.

But then the Israelis didn't behave themselves, and the Shia came to resent and hate them. The difference was that they now had the model of the Iranian revolution and the Iranians were willing to finance likeminded folks. Hence, hizbullah, which is not probably the most popular political force amongst the largest single Lebanese faction, because for the Shia of Lebanon, HIzbullah, not the central government, is the group that protects them and takes care of them.

[Chemical Ollie]

As see the situation, Israel has already lost the peace, as Hizbollah is already rebuilding Lebanon with the help of Iranian oil money. As far as I know, Israel hasn't payed a penny to clean up the crap they created in several weeks of bombing.

If Israel wanted to make some political gains from war, they should stand first in line to rebuild what they destroyed. But they aren't. In the long term, Israel will be weaker and Hizbollah will be stronger. I don't understand how any nation could be that arrogant and stupid? What was really the strategic goal of this war????

One thing Israel left were Vietnam vintage duds, unexploded cluster bombs for the children to pick up and be mutilated by. Experts claim that roughly 200 cluster bombs have been dropped on south Lebanon and that these Vietnam War vintage devices have a very high failure percentage.

Who said anything about ball bearings in Hizbollah rockets?

[SlowwHand]

I know they'd be lining up to rebuild Israel, now wouldn't they?

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by MrFun
Always a pleasure to up Siro's blood pressure.

Pffft...

I'm so cool, I could refute most of the posts here while sleeping.


I have "SiroBot"!! (also known as LOTM)

[SlowwHand]

When you get done with Lebanon, would you take care of Iowa?

[Sirotnikov]

But then the Israelis didn't behave themselves, and the Shia came to resent and hate them. The difference was that they now had the model of the Iranian revolution and the Iranians were willing to finance likeminded folks. Hence, hizbullah, which is not probably the most popular political force amongst the largest single Lebanese faction, because for the Shia of Lebanon, HIzbullah, not the central government, is the group that protects them and takes care of them.

The rise of Hezbullah is directly linked to Iranian intelligence infiltration and has nothing to do with Israel "not behaving itself".

Hezbullah's initial targets were western and not Israeli.

Israel hadn't really done anything too bad to the Shiites.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie
If Israel wanted to make some political gains from war, they should stand first in line to rebuild what they destroyed. But they aren't. In the long term, Israel will be weaker and Hizbollah will be stronger. I don't understand how any nation could be that arrogant and stupid? What was really the strategic goal of this war????

Israel was specifically excluded from talks on rebuilding.

[Sirotnikov]

Warfare against terrorism according to GePap:

OPTION 1 - Precision strikes agaisnt terrorists in civilian areas

WAR CRIME - Unlwaful execution without trial which puts civilian standbyers at risk.

OPTION 2 - Entering civilian areas with ground troops

WAR CRIME - That would be a disproportiante use of force which risks civilian lives and violates their daily habbits

OPTION 3 - Asking citizens to temporarily leave to allow clean military operations

WAR CRIME - That constitutes unlawful collective punishment and disruption of civilian lives.


Solution?

LET THE TERRORISTS WIN!!!

HOORAY FOR FREEDOM fighting!

[TCO]

Re: Jaakko

Originally posted by VJ

Learn to see through the state-upkept "Israel is evil and kills kids for fun, here's a video clip of a muslim guy shouting in front of a collapsed building to prove our words" -facade of bull**** and realize that Yleisradio (Finnish public broadcasting company) has been led by politically selected guys since the early 1970s.

Buncha wimps. They think they are so brave for truth against Israel. What did they do to speak out against the Soviets. Wimps.