ISRAEL - IRAN - SYRIA - HAMAS - HEZBOLLAH - WWWIII?

Kofi is an idiot. Of course he says to appease his friends.

To stop now would mean Hezbollah are not disarmed and the threat to Israel is not extinguished.

source: reuters

As long as one of these militants are left standing the threat to Israel is always going to be there ready to strike at some point in time. Does that mean they mean to obliterate the whole country and everybody in it now? Emergency care needs to be given to those in need and the only way to do that is if both sides have a cease fire and that is all the leader of the UN is saying.

The country is being obliterated, and I agree the threat as long as there is an Israel will never fully vanish.

However ther are Hezbollah missiles all over Lebanon, they were smart enough to spread out their operation but dumb enough to underestimate how serious Israel is about weakening them to the point they can't fire a missile from anywhere.

Dual-purpose targets will continue to be bombed until missile capabilities are nil.

As recent as two days ago Hezbollah was still receiving supplies so some of the bomb sites are strategic ones to close of routes. If not support of all kinds could roll in and this skirmish would be indefinite.

It's an unfortunate result, wish it could be different but reality gets in the way.

You can go on about duel purpose targets all you want but when I see pictures on the internet of villages with children being slaughtered, my sympathy for Israel goes by the wayside, take it as you like it. They are just going through that country slaughtering everything and everyone in their path with no regard for human life at all, the very thing they accuse of the enemy

How do you get by in life thinking this way? Could you please tone-down the rhetorical bull$hit and actually try to be honest.

Let me add, disregarding your emotional correctness brought on by political correctness, that the death toll can be nothing but one sided no matter what.

Israel have been attacked so many times that they are better prepared with bomb shelters and such. Also remember that the first missiles fired by Hezbollah were straight into Haifa and several hundred since. It's not like Hezbollah haven't tried to kill as many civilians as possible, they have just been unsuccessful.

Hezbollah has been periodically shelling and rocketing northern Israel for 20 years, with little response from Israel. Israel would frequently arrange for talks, hopefully settling things. However, the shelling and rocketing would begin again. Finally, Israel had enough, and is now trying to stop Hezbollah once and for all. How terrible?

Israel has been a fabulous asset for the USA, as the only democracy and ally in the Middle East. The USA get a tremendous amount of intelligence from Israel, and is a forward base and agent for the USA. Some have said that we get as much bang from the few bucks given to Israel that we get from the $100 B we spend for defense in NATO. This is the reason that every president and congress have, without hesitance, supported Israel.

http://www.internationalanswer.org/

MCG
Actually I was being completely honest and I get by in life just fine but thanks for the interest.

BrandX

I am not denying that they had to do something since Hezbollah kidnapped two of their soldiers then fired rockets into their civilian areas. I never claimed that Islamic militants were saints that never hurt civilians of their enemies.

What I do say is that if we make judgements about them killing civilians then we shouldn't do it ourselves or make lame excuses for doing it.

Nations with big weapons cable of massive destruction should be more responsible and intelligent in preventing civilian deaths. If they don't take any care, they should be held accountable.

Also, it's not really anything to do with any kind of political correctness with the things I say in this thread, if anything it's the other way around and it kind of makes me nervous.

House overwhelmingly supports Israel.

Interesting article.

Will Israel invade?

I didn't think this was a possibility. Do you think they're bluffing?

Actually, they have already troops in Libanon and some officials announced to invade it earlier as well.

Did anyone else foresee an invasion? I can't imagine them having them manpower to invade.

Is anyone else sort of surprised even?

According to the Israelian ambassador in Germany, they could invade Syria (and Iran) as well - "if it must be done".

Thanks, Walter.

Not business as usual by a long shot.

Israel Iran Syria
From the NY Times, July 19, 2006
Israel Leaves the Scuds Behind

By ZEV CHAFETS
Published: July 19, 2006
Tel Aviv

ON Sunday my 10-year-old son's summer camp was shut down; it was judged to be too close to Haifa, too vulnerable to missile attack. Instead, he and his sister are at home in Tel Aviv, busying themselves with yard work.

On Monday, the Israeli Air Force discovered and destroyed a Hezbollah rocket capable of hitting our yard in Tel Aviv. There are said to be many more such rockets in the Hezbollah arsenal. So today, when I sent my son and his 9-year-old sister out to buy gardening gloves and a rake, I first briefed them on what to do in case of a missile attack.

Ah, memories. It seems like only yesterday that I was having a similar discussion with my elder son, then 9 years old. That was in 1991, during the Persian Gulf war. My parental briefing included instructions on how to put on a gas mask. Saddam Hussein had threatened to "burn half of Israel" and we thought his Scuds might be armed with chemical warheads or worse.

This time around there are no gas masks (at least not yet; Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, has promised "new surprises"). But Hezbollah's conventional rockets are lethal enough. They have killed 13 Israeli civilians since the fighting began. In 1991, after almost a full month of trying, only one Israeli was hit and killed by an Iraqi Scud.

The Israeli government in 1991 was ordered by President George H. W. Bush to stay out of the fighting. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, a man of limited communications skills, complied without explaining his decision to the Israeli public. When Israelis realized they were unprotected, people panicked. Schools shut down, businesses closed and just about everyone fled to safety.

This reaction led Israel's enemies to a simple conclusion: whatever the Israeli Army could accomplish on the battlefield could be neutralized by hitting the squeamish home front. Hezbollah (and the Palestinians and Syria) began laying in stocks of missiles.

Successive Israeli governments made the prevention of missile attacks a major goal. Israeli diplomacy, from the Oslo accords through the unceremonious Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 and right up to the current frenzied efforts to stop the Iranian nuclear program, have been premised on the fragility of Israeli morale in the face of assault. Starting with the first gulf war, Israel went from being the deterrent power in the neighborhood to being the chronic frightened patsy.

At least that's what Sheik Nasrallah thought when his men snatched two Israeli soldiers on the Lebanese border. He figured the new prime minister, Ehud Olmert, would meet almost any price to get the soldiers back peacefully.

Instead, Mr. Olmert attacked. He knew that retaliation would bring on the missiles and rockets, but he evidently thought it was worth the risk.

What Mr. Olmert didn't know when he gave the order ?- what the Israeli public itself didn't know ?- was that the rockets wouldn't cause panic. Fear, yes. Caution, too, and some complaining (this is Israel, after all). But, amazingly, most people in even the most vulnerable areas have behaved with something like the sanguine good nature of the British during the Blitz.

What's different this time? Leadership, in Jerusalem and in Washington.

For Israelis, fighting back made all the difference. We've taken Hezbollah's best shot and we're still standing. "We will win," Mr. Olmert told the Knesset on Monday, and this simple assertion became an instant headline and a rallying cry. Mr. Olmert's confidence is based on military capacity, of course ?- fully unleashed there is very little the Israeli Army can't accomplish against Hezbollah (and beyond) ?- and on his faith that George W. Bush will give him the time and the international support needed to finish off Hezbollah.

And this faith is well placed.

There is, of course, a certain poetic justice in having President George W. Bush help Israel restore the deterrent power President George H. W. Bush undermined in 1991. Unlike his father, this president doesn't seem to regard Israel as a nuisance. On the contrary, he sees it as a friend and an ally in the fight against Islamic radicalism.

An Israeli victory in Lebanon wounds Hezbollah's patrons, Syria and Iran, both of which threaten American troops and aspirations in Iraq. It establishes Mr. Olmert as a major figure as he tries to set Israel's permanent borders in accordance with American policy. And, with any luck, it will make it possible next year for my children to stay in camp for the entire summer.

Zev Chafets is writing a book about Christian evangelicals, American Jews and Israel.

The finest Congress money can buy.

See also "Who Is Congress Listening To?" because it is for certain they are no longer listening to you.

See history of Charles the First.

They've bought a lot of Democrats recently.

So have the Florida Cubans.