| Author |
 Topic  |
|
ChocolateLady 
"500 Chocolate Delights"
|
 Posted - 02/01/2007 : 11:03:13
|
quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
Ignoring issues won't make them go away.
I don't want to ignore any issues. I do think that this discussion should be moved to the proper forum. I have send a PM to Benj to request this move.
I must mention that despite the fact that I may seem like a source for more accurate information on this topic, I cannot discuss certain things due to my son's position in the army at this time. In this particular case, I'd prefer to err on the side of caution. I hope you now understand why I must remain silent on this.
|
Edited by - ChocolateLady on 02/01/2007 11:19:32 |
 |
|
|
Sal[Au]pian
"Four ever European"
|
Posted - 02/01/2007 : 11:19:28
|
quote:
Originally posted by ChocolateLady
I must mention that despite the fact that I may seem like a source for more accurate information on this topic, I cannot discuss certain things due to my son's position in the army at this time. In this particular case, I'd prefer to err on the side of caution. I hope you understand my silence on this.
Sure. I did not know that he was in the army. However, rest assured that I would not have asked for or expected information on this matter from you, as it's anyone prerogative to refrain from commenting on a subject (except in specific instances where this would directly contribute towards wrong being stopped).
On a related matter, although I'm sure this is already perfectly clear, my views here are only about the state of Israel, not about Israeli individuals. |
Edited by - Sal[Au]pian on 02/01/2007 11:20:28 |
|
|
|
Conan The Westy
"Father, Faithful Friend, Fwiffer"
|
Posted - 02/01/2007 : 11:20:07
|
quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
...in the process created a dangerously unstable mess in the Middle East.
The mess has been dangerously unstable since Sarah offered Abraham her maidservant Hagar to have a child on her behalf, then proceeded to have Isaac as well.
While understanding your point about believing "that if someone kills my brother that I've got the right to respond by killing his brother and his cousin's children if I can't find the man responsible", I find the situation that occured in Lebanon more complex than your argument suggests. The people firing rockets into Israel were deliberately using the civilian population as shields to maximise the political fallout when Israel retaliated. Israel is savvy enough to recognise that killing civilians will make their military look bad and allow the world press to crucify them. The press were also eager to portray Israel as overzealous in its response.
A couple of examples:
Why the UN post was bombed
Reuters Doctoring Photos from Beirut?
Not the hole truth
quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
Yeah, I don't want to rant on about this much longer either. Every time the topic of the Middle East comes up it makes me wanna rip my remaining hair out, and the phrase "basket case" keeps popping into my head.
At last a point of agreement. Actually I agree with much that has been said on both sides but I still feel that Israel cops a fair old shellacking in the press.  |
Edited by - Conan The Westy on 02/01/2007 11:22:54 |
|
|
|
Conan The Westy
"Father, Faithful Friend, Fwiffer"
|
Posted - 02/01/2007 : 11:21:04
|
quote:
Originally posted by Ali
PS. Did you know that when a suicide bomber gets killed, and goes to heaven, he is given 72 virgins? The beautiful irony is that the 72 are all male Star Trek geeks.
 |
|
|
|
ChocolateLady
"500 Chocolate Delights"
|
|
|
GHcool 
"Forever a curious character."
|
Posted - 02/01/2007 : 17:20:46
|
quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
quote:
Originally posted by Downtown
International law has established that armies that use civilians as human shields are the ones responsible for civilian casualties, not the opposing army that's defending itself
I base my opinions on fundamental morality, not international law. However, I think 'human shields' is being used rather loosely here. The people were not being held hostage - it was Israeli policy that meant they could not escape.
Again, not true. There were cases of Hezbollah literal human shield hostages and de facto human shield hostages because there was no way to escape due to destroyed roads (by Israel, yes, but who's fault was it that the civilians were in the battlefield to begin with)? It is the responsibility of the combatants to arrange for the safety of its own citizens according to international law and humanitarian ethical philosophy. Lebanon and Hezbollah failed to do this and relied on the UN and other international organizations to do what they were morally and legally obligated to do, thus purposefully placing international organizations trying to rescue its citizens in the line of fire. Israel can and should be criticized on a case by case basis using international law and humanitarian ethics as a yardstick, but its overall policy is consistent with all legal and ethical norms that I know of. |
|
|
|
Sal[Au]pian
"Four ever European"
|
Posted - 02/01/2007 : 17:27:10
|
quote:
Originally posted by GHcool
There were cases of Hezbollah literal human shield hostages and de facto human shield hostages because there was no way to escape due to destroyed roads (by Israel, yes, but who's fault was it that the civilians were in the battlefield to begin with)?
It wasn't just destroyed roads. Israel explicitly stated that vehicles moving along those roads would be targeted.
quote:
It is the responsibility of the combatants to arrange for the safety of its own citizens according to international law and humanitarian ethical philosophy. Lebanon and Hezbollah failed to do this
This is the problem with your viewpoint. Yes, I know very well that some in the Lebanese authorities probably let Hezbollah be there. However, this was not the official policy of the Lebanon and probably not even the unofficial policy of many in its government. You therefore cannot just conflate the two as if this is taken for granted. Yes, you can make a case for the ways in which the government was in the wrong, but you cannot say "Hezbollah did X, so it was the Lebanon's responsibility to do Y", as if they are synonymous. |
|
|
|
Downtown 
"Welcome back, Billy Buck"
|
Posted - 02/01/2007 : 17:46:04
|
| You're making it really hard for me to keep my promise about keeping the rest of my opinions on this subject to myself, Sal. |
|
|
|
Whippersnapper. 
"A fourword thinking guy."
|
Posted - 02/01/2007 : 18:31:59
|
quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
quote:
Originally posted by GHcool
There were cases of Hezbollah literal human shield hostages and de facto human shield hostages because there was no way to escape due to destroyed roads (by Israel, yes, but who's fault was it that the civilians were in the battlefield to begin with)?
It wasn't just destroyed roads. Israel explicitly stated that vehicles moving along those roads would be targeted.
quote:
It is the responsibility of the combatants to arrange for the safety of its own citizens according to international law and humanitarian ethical philosophy. Lebanon and Hezbollah failed to do this
This is the problem with your viewpoint. Yes, I know very well that some in the Lebanese authorities probably let Hezbollah be there. However, this was not the official policy of the Lebanon and probably not even the unofficial policy of many in its government.
It was the official policy of the Lebanese government not to send any troops to Southern Lebanon and that, in effect, ceded control of the area to Hezbollah. It was an abrogation of the government's responsibility for governing its territory and therefore the Lebanese government were responsible for the actions of Hezbollah, which were a de facto act of war.
As Conan has pointed out, certain supposed violations of the Israelis were fabricated and the press coverage was biased.
I personally spent no little time complaining to the BBC about their coverage of the Cana bombing. They reported, without qualification, that over 50 people had died, in many website articles, and even when later it was shown by independent observers that 28 died the BBC did not make any attempt to correct their pages and their own counterbalance to the more than a dozen pages of "over 50..." was something in the third paragraph of an article mentioning the correct figure.
Having phoned them about it I finally got them to put a note on the bottom of these pages stating the correct figure, although I have never received any answer from them as to how they published a figure of how many had been killed without either checking it or qualifying it with something like "Lebanese sources say...". The whole thing is particularly deplorable because any journalist should have been aware that the sides were fighting a propaganda as well as a physical war and they should have been very sceptical about any claims made by either side. In fact, too often they were prepared to swallow whatever Hizbollah told them.
|
|
|
|
Conan The Westy
"Father, Faithful Friend, Fwiffer"
|
Posted - 02/01/2007 : 18:52:00
|
quote:
Originally posted by ChocolateLady
Say, Conan - when Israel finally gets pushed into the sea, can I sail over to Australia to live?
You can move in next door. Ballarat's a beautiful city and I could do with a neighbour to discuss reviews with over the fence.  |
|
|
|
GHcool
"Forever a curious character."
|
Posted - 02/01/2007 : 18:53:14
|
quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
quote:
Originally posted by GHcool
There were cases of Hezbollah literal human shield hostages and de facto human shield hostages because there was no way to escape due to destroyed roads (by Israel, yes, but who's fault was it that the civilians were in the battlefield to begin with)?
It wasn't just destroyed roads. Israel explicitly stated that vehicles moving along those roads would be targeted.
quote:
It is the responsibility of the combatants to arrange for the safety of its own citizens according to international law and humanitarian ethical philosophy. Lebanon and Hezbollah failed to do this
This is the problem with your viewpoint. Yes, I know very well that some in the Lebanese authorities probably let Hezbollah be there. However, this was not the official policy of the Lebanon and probably not even the unofficial policy of many in its government. You therefore cannot just conflate the two as if this is taken for granted. Yes, you can make a case for the ways in which the government was in the wrong, but you cannot say "Hezbollah did X, so it was the Lebanon's responsibility to do Y", as if they are synonymous.
Well said, Whippersnapper. The claim that "Hezbollah did X, so it was the Lebanon's responsibility to do Y" and the claim that Hezbollah and the Lebanese government "are synonymous" are not the same, or even similar claims. One claim is clearly wrong (the claim of synonmity ... if that's a word) and one claim is clearly right (the claim that the Lebanese government is responsible for punishing illegal action and providing legal protection of its own citizens). |
|
|
|
Conan The Westy
"Father, Faithful Friend, Fwiffer"
|
Posted - 02/01/2007 : 19:01:49
|
I really wish that all people in conflict would read Robert Fulghum's book All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten
The title of the book is taken from the first essay in the volume, in which Fulghum lists lessons normally learned in American kindergarten classrooms and explains how the world would be improved if adults adhered to the same basic rules as children, i.e. sharing, being kind to one another, cleaning up after themselves, and living "a balanced life" of work, play, and learning. - from Wikipedia
|
|
|
|
Conan The Westy
"Father, Faithful Friend, Fwiffer"
|
Posted - 02/01/2007 : 19:10:30
|
quote:
Originally posted by GHcool
...the claim that the Lebanese government is responsible for punishing illegal action and providing legal protection of its own citizens).
The difficulty in this case is that the Lebanese government lacked the necessary power to enforce its will over Hezbollah. When 20% of the government is made up of a group with a military force supplied with enough weaponry from Syria & Iran to rival the national army (with Syria happy to resort to political assassination to support its own agenda), I can understand why Lebanon's political machine ground to a halt.
Hopefully no one wishes to see a recurrence of the Lebanese civil war that racked that country for so long and made Beirut as synonymous with violence as Baghdad is now. |
Edited by - Conan The Westy on 02/01/2007 19:11:40 |
|
|
|
GHcool
"Forever a curious character."
|
Posted - 02/01/2007 : 19:46:11
|
quote:
Originally posted by Conan The Westy
quote:
Originally posted by GHcool
...the claim that the Lebanese government is responsible for punishing illegal action and providing legal protection of its own citizens).
The difficulty in this case is that the Lebanese government lacked the necessary power to enforce its will over Hezbollah. When 20% of the government is made up of a group with a military force supplied with enough weaponry from Syria & Iran to rival the national army (with Syria happy to resort to political assassination to support its own agenda), I can understand why Lebanon's political machine ground to a halt.
This is certainly a problem Lebanon faces, and I sympathize with moderate Lebanese citizens. Nobody said it was going to be easy, but the fact remains that the Lebanese government is responsible for the protection and aggressive action of its citizens. The international community tried to aid the Lebanese government through the United Nation's UNIFIL program, but the program was hopelessly ineffective in combatting terrorism and limiting Hezbollah's military power through illegal arms trade. The United Nations continues to be ineffective to this day, even after Resolution 1701 that calls for Hezbollah's disarmament. Either the Lebanese government and citizenry and the international community becomes serious about disarming and limiting Hezbollah aggression and protecting its own citizens, or it runs the risk of retaliation. This is going to be the central question Lebanon will have to face in the next decade or two. |
|
|
|
Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
|
Posted - 02/02/2007 : 00:07:46
|
quote:
Originally posted by GHcool
Either the Lebanese government and citizenry and the international community becomes serious about disarming and limiting Hezbollah aggression and protecting its own citizens, or it runs the risk of retaliation.
I think this is the key issue. From various dictionaries:-
retaliate
1. to return like for like, esp. evil for evil: to retaliate for an injury.
2. to requite or make return for (a wrong or injury) with the like.
3. take revenge for a perceived wrong; [syn: revenge]
4. make a counterattack and return like for like, especially evil for evil;
5. to do something unpleasant to a person in return for something unpleasant he has done to one
That's the way I see it. It's all about fulfilling a primitive human need for vengeance.
In the above discussion (and it's been interesting), ethics, international law, responsibility have all been discussed at length, but I haven't seen anyone mention what was actually achieved in that conflict. In my view, nothing was achieved by anyone on either side. Does anyone think otherwise?
I think it was about as useful as a bar-room brawl; each hitting back as revenge for the last hit they'd just received. B-grade behaviour. |
|
|
|
Topic |
|
Racist films (2nd try)
