Foxfyre wrote:
How could you possibly draw that conclusion from anything I've said?
You probably know that I'm no no native English speaker and most possibly I'm not always aware about the nuances in English, especially in grammar.
In German, a question doesn't mean that that the interogating person dras conclusions.
Sorry, I never intended to allege anything but only wanted to know why you didn't use quotes from the UN-websites or from those of the UNIFIL participating countries.
My apologies.
Walter Hinteler wrote:Foxfyre wrote:
How could you possibly draw that conclusion from anything I've said?
You probably know that I'm no no native English speaker and most possibly I'm not always aware about the nuances in English, especially in grammar.
In German, a question doesn't mean that that the interogating person dras conclusions.
Sorry, I never intended to allege anything but only wanted to know why you didn't use quotes from the UN-websites or from those of the UNIFIL participating countries.
My apologies.
I did quote from at least one UN site and also used a UN press release because the information in them was interesting. None of the sources I listed, however, answered the question i was attempting to answer which was how the UN peace keepers are armed and/or equipped and what their specific duties were.
You were not trying to answer any such question. You specifically stated that they were unarmed:
Quote:The UN sent 2000 peace keepers to Lebanon to enforce the resolution. These peace keepers had no authority, however, to carry firearms, make arrests, do inspections, or enforce the resolution in any way. One wonders what, if anything, they have been doing all this time. Now Kofi is suggesting they double the number of peace keepers who will have the exact same authority as the original group.
And, they're going to expect the USA to pay for most of that.
But, what else is new?
You
stated that they were unarmed. The only question you asked was rhetorical, to suggest that this is always the case with the UN.
I've gotta stop reading this thread--lots of good contributions from others, but typical drivel from Fox.
Setanta wrote:You were not trying to answer any such question. You specifically stated that they were unarmed:
Quote:The UN sent 2000 peace keepers to Lebanon to enforce the resolution. These peace keepers had no authority, however, to carry firearms, make arrests, do inspections, or enforce the resolution in any way. One wonders what, if anything, they have been doing all this time. Now Kofi is suggesting they double the number of peace keepers who will have the exact same authority as the original group.
And, they're going to expect the USA to pay for most of that.
But, what else is new?
You
stated that they were unarmed. The only question you asked was rhetorical, to suggest that this is always the case with the UN.
I've gotta stop reading this thread--lots of good contributions from others, but typical drivel from Fox.
Maybe if you had actually read the thread, you would have seen the question that I was addressing.
To Blatham:
Re Gingrich's comment and how you and I see his intent so differently. Thomas Sowell's essay this week very eloquently explains it and why Gingrich would have used the term 'public relations' in this context:
Quote:There was a time when it would have been suicidal to threaten, much less attack, a nation with much stronger military power because one of the dangers to the attacker would be the prospect of being annihilated.
"World opinion," the U.N. and "peace movements" have eliminated that deterrent. An aggressor today knows that if his aggression fails, he will still be protected from the full retaliatory power and fury of those he attacked because there will be hand-wringers demanding a cease fire, negotiations and concessions.
That has been a formula for never-ending attacks on Israel in the Middle East. The disastrous track record of that approach extends to other times and places -- but who looks at track records?
SOURCE
I did read the thread. I've quoted your statement from authority. When challenged on that by Revel, you simply made a vague reference to what you'd heard on television. Then Walter does his usual good work of going right to the source, and now you're attempting to suggest that you were seeking the answer to a question. The only question involved was Revel's question about the authority for your unsupported statement that there were 2000 unarmed UN personnel, and that Kofi Annan was sending in 2000 more unarmed personnel, and that the United States was going to pay for it.
As usual, you make statements from authority to support you highly partisan and often bigoted point of view, and when challenged on the veracity of your statements, you try to dance out of it.
Setanta wrote:I did read the thread. I've quoted your statement from authority. When challenged on that by Revel, you simply made a vague reference to what you'd heard on television. Then Walter does his usual good work of going right to the source, and now you're attempting to suggest that you were seeking the answer to a question. The only question involved was Revel's question about the authority for your unsupported statement that there were 2000 unarmed UN personnel, and that Kofi Annan was sending in 2000 more unarmed personnel, and that the United States was going to pay for it.
As usual, you make statements from authority to support you highly partisan and often bigoted point of view, and when challenged on the veracity of your statements, you try to dance out of it.
You need to brush up on your reading skills. It wasn't Revel who challenged it but Advocate. It was a reasonable question. I said I'd try to find something to support what I heard on TV and radio yesterday and today. If you really want to screw me over with something, Setanta, you need to look harder.
Foxfyre wrote:
I did quote from at least one UN site and also used a UN press release because the information in them was interesting. None of the sources I listed, however, answered the question i was attempting to answer which was how the UN peace keepers are armed and/or equipped and what their specific duties were.
There are some 'basic' sides, like the link I gave.
Lot's of questions and answers about peacekeeping for those who aren't well informed.
The full list of how the troops are armed can be got only from the websites of the armed forced of the relevant countries. (Though not from the US-Forces, as for as I could find out.)
Since you obviously didn't accept my apology, well, I can live with that.
Have a nice day.
Out here.
Walter Hinteler wrote:Foxfyre wrote:
I did quote from at least one UN site and also used a UN press release because the information in them was interesting. None of the sources I listed, however, answered the question i was attempting to answer which was how the UN peace keepers are armed and/or equipped and what their specific duties were.
There are some 'basic' sides, like the link I gave.
Lot's of questions and answers about peacekeeping for those who aren't well informed.
The full list of how the troops are armed can be got only from the websites of the armed forced of the relevant countries. (Though not from the US-Forces, as for as I could find out.)
Since you obviously didn't accept my apology, well, I can live with that.
Have a nice day.
Out here.
I'm sorry. I was just explaining why I used the sites that came up on my search and what I hoped to accomplish with them. I was addressing Advocate's very narrowly defined question which was a good question. I wasn't looking at the larger picture and only posted it because I found the information interesting. You didn't seem to be addressing Advocates question at all, but I didn't criticize anything you posted.
I didn't find the specific answer to his question in any of the sites, yours or mine. I would like an answer to the question myself.
Nor did I not accept your apology. I thought my response was friendly and it in no way challenged anything in your sources. If you did not think it was friendly, then I am sorry for that. It was not my intention in any way to offend. In truth, so many of your 'apologies' are sarcasm and, though I was pretty sure this one wasn't, I wasn't positive. I did give you the benefit of the doubt.
I tell ya, just when you think you get to the lowest these disgusting people can go, they go lower.
Quote:The Bush administration's efforts to evacuate Americans in Lebanon have been disorganized and lagged behind the efforts of other countries. As of yesterday, only a few thousand had been able to evacuate, and they departed "two days after the first Europeans left on ships." Denmark, for example, "evacuated more than 4,000 of its citizens" by Thursday.
Conservatives have reacted to this incompetence by attacking the evacuees:
Rush Limbaugh, 7/19:
Even in the eyes of our ingrate, spoiled-rotten little children, brat-type ingrate citizens in Beirut, it's our fault. (Crying.) "It's a war zone. It's a war! How do I get out? (crying) We're having to shield ourselves from the sun in cardboard." (sobbing) That's embarrassing.
Fox anchor Neil Cavuto, 7/20:
The media is playing up a lot of whining, complaining Americans in this country who said there's been no warning, no communication.
TownHall.com columnist Mike Gallagher, 7/21:
Amazingly, we're not even going to charge these ungrateful evacuees for the free trip home.
Their sense of outrage and entitlement is slowly but surely becoming the American way. And it's positively disgusting.
Fox anchor Steve Doocy, 7/19:
Shockingly, after they've been plucked out of Beirut, a lot of them are whining and complaining that, you know what, I had to sleep on the concrete and they didn't have any food for me to eat.
Watch Fox & Friends (a Fox correspondent in Cyprus disputes Doocy's account, describing the evacuation conditions as "really chaotic"):
http://images1.americanprogress.org/il80web20037/ThinkProgress/2006/evacuees.320.240.mov
Fox, you intentionally cited a lot of stuff that did not support your contention about the UN being unarmed. You now admit that there is no support for your statement. You should have said this at the outset and saved us from having to delve into your links.
Kofi, right or wrong, says that the big problem with the UN force is that it is too small. Hell, I hope the UN triples the force if that will somehow solve the crisis.
If you investigated further, revel, I bet you'd find most if not all those quotes were taken out of context.
The site from which they came is not exactly without bias.
Advocate wrote:Fox, you intentionally cited a lot of stuff that did not support your contention about the UN being unarmed. You now admit that there is no support for your statement. You should have said this at the outset and saved us from having to delve into your links.
Kofi, right or wrong, says that the big problem with the UN force is that it is too small. Hell, I hope the UN triples the force if that will somehow solve the crisis.
I did admit, in two or three different posts, that I didn't find any support for my statement and told you where I got the statement. What more do you want?
Advocate wrote:Fox, you intentionally cited a lot of stuff that did not support your contention about the UN being unarmed. You now admit that there is no support for your statement. You should have said this at the outset and saved us from having to delve into your links.
Kofi, right or wrong, says that the big problem with the UN force is that it is too small. Hell, I hope the UN triples the force if that will somehow solve the crisis.
What is your definition of 'solve the crisis'?
Of course Bushes government hasent gotten a hurry to evacuate ameriicans from lebanon. If a few hundred american citizens get killed by any side than bush has an excuse to send in our troops on the isralie side.
Brand X, if there is any chance that a larger UN force could keep Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon, and stop its attacks, it is worth a try. Don't you agree.
Fox, what bothered me is that you knowingly wasted a lot of our time by giving links that didn't support your original statement. Your admissions came later.
Advocate wrote:Brand X, if there is any chance that a larger UN force could keep Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon, and stop its attacks, it is worth a try. Don't you agree.
Fox, what bothered me is that you knowingly wasted a lot of our time by giving links that didn't support your original statement. Your admissions came later.
Well I apologize for posting links that I thought pertinent to the subject. In each one, or I think each one, I said that I did not find any information re whether the peacekeepers were armed. If you didn't want to read anything other than arming of peacekeepers, you didn't have to read any further than that.
I did make the statement, and I did try to find something to back it up. I failed to do so. So I honestly don't know if the statementis accurate or not. It was said in the morning news on our local ABC station and again on the radio.
Please don't ask me any more questions, okay?
Tom Friedman has some interesting thoughts, including a cogent suggestion for resolving the matter.
A follow-up to Friedman's excellent column in today's Observer
Ray
^7/21/06: Order vs. Disorder
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Tel Aviv
There was a small item in The Jerusalem Post the other day that caught
my eye. It said that the Israeli telephone company, Bezeq, was
installing high-speed Internet lines in bomb shelters in northern Israel
so Israelis could surf the Web while waiting out Hezbollah rocket attacks.
I read that story two ways. One, as symbol of Israeli resilience, a
boundless ability to adapt to any kind of warfare. But, two, as an
unconscious expression of what I sense people here are just starting to
feel: this is no ordinary war, and it probably won't end soon. At a time
when most Arab states have reconciled to Israel and their dispute is now
about where the borders should be, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah Shiite
militia, armed with 12,000 rockets, says borders are irrelevant; it is
Israel that should be erased.
That's why I find in talking to Israeli friends a near total support for
their government?s actions -- and almost a relief at the clarity of this
confrontation and Israel's right to defend itself. Yet, at the same
time, I find a gnawing sense of anxiety that Israel is facing in
Hezbollah an enemy that is unabashedly determined to transform this
conflict into a religious war -- from a war over territory -- and wants to
do it in a way that threatens not only Israel but the foundations of
global stability.
How so? Even though it had members in the national cabinet, Hezbollah
built up a state-within-a-state in Lebanon, and then insisted on the
right to launch its own attack on Israel that exposed the entire
Lebanese nation to retaliation. Moreover, unprovoked, it violated an
international border with Israel that was sanctified by the United Nations.
So this is not just another Arab-Israeli war. It is about some of the
most basic foundations of the international order -- borders and
sovereignty -- and the erosion of those foundations would spell disaster
for the quality of life all across the globe.
Lebanon, alas, has not been able to produce the internal coherence to
control Hezbollah, and is not likely to soon. The only way this war is
going to come to some stable conclusion any time soon is if The World of
Order -- and I don?t just mean "the West," but countries like Russia,
China, India, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia too -- puts together an
international force that can escort the Lebanese Army to the Israeli
border and remain on hand to protect it against Hezbollah.
I am not talking about a U.N. peacekeeping force. I am talking about an
international force, like the one that liberated Kosovo, with robust
rules of engagement, heavy weapons and troops from countries like
France, Russia, India and China that Iran and its proxies will not want
to fight.
Israel does not like international forces on its borders and worries
they will not be effective. But it will be better than a war of
attrition, and nothing would set back the forces of disorder in Lebanon
more than The World of Order helping to extend the power of the
democratically elected Lebanese government to its border with Israel.
Too often, assaults like Hezbollah's, which have global implications,
have been met with only "a local response," said Gidi Grinstein, who
heads Reut, an Israeli defense think tank. "But the only way that these
networks can be defeated is if their global assault is met by a global
response."
Unfortunately, partly because of China, Russia and Europe's traditional
resentment and jealousy of the U.S. and partly because of the foolish
Bush approach that said unilateral American power was more important
than action legitimated by a global consensus, the global forces of
order today are not at all united.
It is time that The World of Order got its act together. This is not
Israel's fight alone -- and if you really want to see a
"disproportional" Israeli response, just keep leaving Israel to fight
this war alone. Then you will see some real craziness.
George Bush and Condi Rice need to realize that Syria on its own is not
going to press Hezbollah -- in Mr. Bush?s immortal words -- to just "stop
doing this ****." The Bush team needs to convene a coalition of The
World of Order. If it won't, it should let others more capable do the
job. We could start with the elder George Bush and Bill Clinton, whose
talents could be used for more than just tsunami relief.
The forces of disorder -- Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, Iran -- are a geopolitical
tsunami that we need a united front to defeat. And that united front
needs to be spearheaded by American leaders who understand that our
power is most effective when it is legitimated by a global consensus and
imbedded in a global coalition.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Foxfyre wrote:Setanta wrote:I did read the thread. I've quoted your statement from authority. When challenged on that by Revel, you simply made a vague reference to what you'd heard on television. Then Walter does his usual good work of going right to the source, and now you're attempting to suggest that you were seeking the answer to a question. The only question involved was Revel's question about the authority for your unsupported statement that there were 2000 unarmed UN personnel, and that Kofi Annan was sending in 2000 more unarmed personnel, and that the United States was going to pay for it.
As usual, you make statements from authority to support you highly partisan and often bigoted point of view, and when challenged on the veracity of your statements, you try to dance out of it.
You need to brush up on your reading skills. It wasn't Revel who challenged it but Advocate. It was a reasonable question. I said I'd try to find something to support what I heard on TV and radio yesterday and today. If you really want to screw me over with something, Setanta, you need to look harder.
Yes, you are correct, Advocate and not Revel asked you to support your unsubstantiated contention. Hardly a major issue of reading skills given that the post doesn't appear on the page on which i posted.
However, we can compare this to your false statement that you were seeking the answer to a question--you weren't. You made an unsupported statement as though from authority about the UN in the Lebanon, their rules of engagement, and who would pay for it. Now, challenged on that, you are apparently willing to back down.
It isn't something "to screw [you] over"--it's a direct and plausible challenge to your falsification of the record of the exchange of posts in this thread, a legitimate activity for any member here, whether or not you hate that member. I made no comment about your original silly statement, because it was immediately challenged. I only commented when you attempted to falsely portray your unsubstantiated statement as seeking an answer to a question, which it clearly was not.
If you could coherently follow the train of discussion, and did not resort to unsupported statements, and then try to dance out of them, you would not waste everyone's time as you habitually do, and as Advocate (i checked to be sure so that you'd have no weasel room in it) has pointed out that you have done.
Fox, I apologize. I scrolled back and now see that I missed your note under the links.
