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| 5/24 |
| 2006/7/21-25 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Israel, Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Others] UID:43761 Activity:low |
7/21 This is the best article I've found describing the recent Lebanon
escalation and its repercussions
http://csua.org/u/ghv (Wash Post, a mouthpiece for liberals, opinion)
\_ Faster, please.
\_ Faster and faster fast it goes
Hutalahey Hutalahey
\_ Faster, faster, fast it goes
Playing the sitar with my toes
Hutalahey, oh
Oheyoh
Hutalahey Hutalahey
Hutalahey, oh-oh-ey-oh
\_ I can understand Israel's right to defend itself, but this
whole thing is just stupid. It's one thing to act tough
when you are being attacked, but their response is
disproportionate. This bullying attitude toward their
neighbors will create more hatred toward Israel (and
therefore the United States) throughout the world.
Personally I think the only way they can make peace with
their neighbors is by helping them out, one way or the
other, instead of bomb the shit out of them at every
opportunity.
\_ They're doing a good job with their Pre-emptive Warfare,
because fighting evil is a good thing. God Bless.
because fighting evil is a good thing.
\_ you are funny.
\_ ie "Can't we all just get along"
\_ Um, you do know that Israel was one of the biggest donors to
pre-Hamas Palestine, right? They repeatedly tried to help the
bits of the country that _weren't_ attacking them. And
regardless, the sworn policy of Hamas and Hezbollah calls for
the destruction of Israel. Not "calls for that because Israel's
been mean lately", but "has called for that since Israel's
creation" There's not a lot of room for diplomacy with those
groups, and when those groups are in power, officially or
otherwise... what do you do?
\_ I don't know, but you can't seriously support what Isreal
is about to do - it is a collosal strategic mistake, no
matter what your politics. !pp
\_ What exactly is Israel about to and and why in your
expert-in-history-of-the-middle-east-and-military-stuff
is it a collosal mistake?
\_ Of course it is. The previous post was contesting
"...help neighbors out instead of bombing them at every
opportunity..." They've done both.
\_ the stragetic mistake Israel made, IMHO, is Israel's deliberate
act of punishing / weakening Lebanonese government. More stable
and wealthy Lebanon government it is, less justification for
Hezbolla to keep their arm. In fact, one would argue the reason
Hezbolla kidnapped Israeli soldier WAS to create incident to
justify their status quo. By destroying the basic infrastrue
Lebanon has build in the past 20 years, Israel is in effect
strengthening Hezbolla.
MAY BE, that is what Israel want, a strong, out of control
Hezbollah that Israel can justify their attack. I simply don't
know.
\_ Hezbollah doesn't help their cause with rocket attacks. It
rather proves Israel's point. Can you imagine rockets
bombarding Mexico from Texas and the US not stopping it?
Hezbollah should not fight back and show Israel to be
the aggressors.
\_ Hezbollah helps their 'cause' a great deal by lobbing
rockets into Israel. Their *only* cause is the complete
destruction of Israel. They don't hide that fact. They
are not in any way ashamed of that. They announced it
proudly to the world. What do you think their cause is?
\_ Lobbing rockets into Israel will only set them back.
It's not like that is going to destroy Israel. However,
it turns international opinion against them and proves
that Lebanon can't or won't control their activities.
Open war with Israel is not going to help Hezbollah at
the moment.
\_ Then why are they focusing their attacks on Lebanese
infrastructure? Bombing the rocket facilities seems
perfectly justified. Bombing highways does not.
\- I'm ceritainly not a knee-jerk israel supporter,
nor have i been following this "accidental war"
very closely, but hizbollah is not a group of nutjobs
at arms length from the lebanese state ... they hold
cabinet-level posts as well as being an appreciable
part of the legislature [10-20%?]. i recognize a weak
govt in a place like lebanon doesnt have complete
control over all parts of the country, but they also
cannot totally take refuge in "what can we do" ... i.e.
to israel's war not just with an outfit of fanatics
israel's war not just with an outfit of fanatics
but to some extent with the state. it's not as clean a
case of nobody expecting the US to distinguish between
the taliban [then the afgan state, more or less] and
al queda, but there is an element of that.
the mexico-texas thing is a strawman. i havent thought
about this deeply but consider the crossboarder
interventions in SE Asia in the 70s ... that might
be a better scenario to mine for what is a comparable
scenario ... china in vietnam, vietnam in cambodia,
khemer rouge, incursions into laos etc. do not taunt
LON NOL.
\_ Bombing the highways and runways prevents Syria from
moving more arms into southern Lebanon.
\- maybe this is a silly question but if israel
has clear evidence that syria and iran are
aiding and abetting HIZBOLLA, how come they
dont do a CPOWELL-style UN presentation with
the smoking gun. i'm not suggesting i or anybody
else doubts the connection, but it seems like
that sort of forces "the world" to confront the
issue ... especially the issue of state involvement
rather than state vs "group of crazies". then israel
can paint this as a proxy war against them by
two states.
\_ It isn't silly but it is naive. Let's say they
have this evidence in a way that is easily
presented to the UN and make the best presentation
the UN has ever seen and now the whole world is
convinced of it. So what? The whole world
already knows and believes Syria and Iran are
supporting terrorist organizations like Hamas
and Hezbollah. Why would the world 'confront'
them over it? Nations exist only for one
reason: to advance their own interests. It is
not in the interests of most of the world to
support Israel or oppose Iran (where their oil
comes from).
\_ I think your extended comments are a bit
naive. There are significant implication of
this being state vs state vs sort of a
"police action" type setting. It can put
Lebanon in the position of taking a postion
on Syrian/Iranian involement. I was looking
for a reply by somebody more knowledgable
about sunni-shiite interest, for example
[like which states are actually kind of
happy to see Hizbolla take a pounding] ...
the it's trivial to say people will act
in their own interest. What is meaningful is
to discuss what those interests are in this
scenario. |
| 5/24 |
|
| csua.org/u/ghv -> www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/19/AR2006071901296.html It is unwittingly targeting the best hope of civilized life in the Middle East (outside of Israel itself) and creating the kind of moral and institutional vacuum that engenders sectarian violence. As I traveled in Lebanon two weeks ago, four things struck me: the almost miraculous reconstruction of Beirut; the spirit of peaceful coexistence among the various religious groups, thanks in part to the open-mindedness of much of the Sunni population; and the resentment against Hezbollah among Christians (who comprise more than 35 of the population) and Muslims almost everywhere except the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon. About This Column A native of Peru, veteran journalist Alvaro Vargas Llosa offers commentary on international news with an emphasis on Latin American affairs. Compared to any other Arab country, Lebanon was the closest thing to paradise. Yes, Hezbollah's mighty presence was obvious as I drove around Baalbek, in the east, and from Tyre to the border with Israel in the south, where the Shiite population is concentrated. The yellow Hezbollah banners, pictures of Hasan Nasrallah's bearded face or of the late Ayatollah Khomeini indicated whose bastion I was in. And I heard Walid Jumblatt, one of the leaders responsible for forcing Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon and a pillar of the parliamentary majority, express frustration with Hezbollah's influence in the nation's politics. Even with an economy not fully recovered from a civil war that reduced the country's GDP by half, one sensed a spirit of optimism. People were planning all sorts of personal projects -- an unmistakable sign of civil society, whether it be opening new bars on Beirut's Monot Street or, as Nada, an assistant working at a cultural institute, had just done, persuading a publisher to start an imprint devoted to translations of Spain's modern literature. The infrastructure that took billions of dollars to rebuild is being pulverized. The institutions that managed to hold the internal peace are being blown away. The confident embrace of the outside world is dissipating. An atmosphere is now emerging in which civil society will shrink and extremists will thrive, as happened between 1975 and 1990. The country will now be hostage to the ideological and personal designs of power-hungry leaders. If Israel stops, the threat of this happening again will hang over us forever because Hezbollah is still strong. They have just bombed Byblos (a city in northern Lebanon) ... ") It is true that Lebanon in transition had many problems, including the political survival of many leaders who fought the war, a power-sharing arrangement entirely based on religious grounds and, especially, the incapacity of the political institutions to disarm Hezbollah. They are punishing a moderately successful attempt at religious diversity in a climate of peaceful coexistence and modernization in the Arab world. Hezbollah is in part a creature of Israel's presence in Lebanon from 1982 until 2000. Unlike the civil society that is being bombed, Hezbollah is trained in guerrilla fighting. And if things continue as they are, these terrorists will now be handed a failed state in which they will make themselves the only operative Lebanese force. Few things can be more legitimate than defending oneself against the attacks of an organization such as Hezbollah, whose cowardly rockets are aimed at terrorizing the whole of the Galilee hills area in Israel, whose allies -- Iran and Syria -- are two of the worst human-right offenders in the history of mankind, and whose ideology is simply barbaric. But Israel's response places collective guilt on an entire society for the atrocities of a minority of which that society is itself the victim. Gideon Levy, an Israeli commentator, put it like this in an article published in Haaretz: "Eight soldiers are killed and two abducted to Lebanon? Alvaro Vargas Llosa, author of "Liberty for Latin America," is the director of the Center on Global Prosperity at the Independent Institute. RSS Feed Post a Comment Comments: (Limit 5,000 characters) Post Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. |