Oorgo

It sounds trite Dave, but who started this?

Isreal has dropped leaflets over southern Lebanon warning innocent civilians to get out of the area. They're using precision munitions to limit damage as much as possible to Hezbollah targets.

Hezbollah purposely sets up in civilian areas for just this purpose, so that they can point at damage and claim Isreal is targeting civilians.

Hezbollah fires hundreds of unguided rockets into Isreali cities intentionally. They aren't targeting the military, they're targeting civilians.

I agree with your sentiments, but the fact remains that Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Isreal for years, and Isreal has tried the "measured response". It doesn't work, because if it did then the attacks would have ceased. This time, Isreal treated the attack like what it is: an act of war. By every definition and international treaty, Lebanon committed an act of war when one of its "political" factions did this.

Imagine the world today if the Allies had tried a measured response to the Axis. Or just look at the first few years of that time in history, especially what happened to Poland, China, Korea, North Africa, and on and on.

The world is full of bullies. If a bully pushes you around you can take it or tell him to stop. You know as well as I that he's not going to. But if you fight back then he'll realize that you are not going to be his victim, and he'll back off.

I like your ideas, I like your vision of the world. I hate that reality is so much different.

One last thing. You said:

"Do you that this God would want us to be killing each other over boundaries and theology?"

According to the Radical Islamists, the answer to that is yes.

Well it's not just Radical Islamists, really, it's anyone who puts themselves, their country and their religion above other peoples right to have their own country, religion or ideals. And then tries to force it on them.

Hezbollah, Hamas and other groups seem to have joined forces as of late, and are being funded by Iran (funny how a poor country has so much money to throw around) and since they never acknowledged Israel's right to exist, I think they wanted to poke the bear, and make it an armed conflict on two sides, Gaza and Lebanon, therefore making Israel feel surrounded and unwanted. Not that would really make a difference.

What makes me upset is the civilian casualties. Partly because it's innocent life, but also on the side of what they are attempting to do (smack around Hezbollah), it works against them. Support for Hezbollah is very strong in Lebanon, some say even more than it was before. They're not just a bunch of grungy rebels in the bush wearing camo and twigs, they are a political party in Lebanon. There are pictures of people wearing their t-shirts, posters of their leader in shops, etc. It's going to be a hard sell for Israel to convince the Lebanese people that Hezbollah are a danger to them, while Israel is killing their civilians and bombing their homes.

Again, by definition, every member of Hezbolla is a civilian, because they're a terrorist group. So if an airstrike kills several civilians, what determines how many were actually terrorists, or terrorist supporters, or true innocent victims.

Remember, it's Hezbolla who intermingles with the civilian population. By international law, that's a war crime, and Isreal is under no obligation to take civilian casualties into consideration. The fact that they do (by using precision weapons), is to their credit, although they get none for it.

I don't think you're trying to imply that both sides are equally at fault here, but the arguments you're putting forth are basically supporting that position.

A Hezbolla rocket today hit an Isreali hospital.

Isreal has the right to defend herself. Nobody else - especially the UN - is going to defend her.

If these assaults are so precise, how did they flatten a clearly marked UN compound that had been long established? What about the pictures of toppled appartment buildings, are these Hezbullah strongholds, or civilian housing?

Plain and simple Israel needs to nuke the entire Middle East. This will bring peace and resolution to the region and will restore democracy to an area of the world that has been a festering terrorist swamp for decades... Israel has always taken a high moral stance in her dealings with the rest of the region, never has she been the aggressor or acted with anything but restraint and the utmost concern for the welfare of her opponents and "innocent" bystanders. As Ted mentionned, nearly the entire population of Lebannon (and the native population of the majority of middle eastern countries) is comprised of terrorists or terrorist sympathizers. Israel needs to eliminate these threats for once... plus I've got a tonne of investments tied up in weapons manufacturing... this shit is great for my bottom line.

G.Bush and Son

p.s. Dave, my and G. Jr. love the blog... but if I ever see your red-haired commie terrorist ass I'm getting one of my SS agents to "pop a cap in yo" as my good friend 'fiddy would say.

To me it seems the definition of 'terrorist' is the problem. The face of terrorism really isn't the iconic 18-50 yr. old islamic die-hard running around hating the west, the US and Israel but rather the 3-13 yr old child who is growing up watching his/her family and friends die as a result of this forced democracy (for lack of a better term). These kids are the ones that we'll be fighting as this confrontation continues. If you realize this then you can calculate how to best respond ...and look at the big picture of influencing this young generation gradually, and over time (perhaps 20-30 years) demonstrate how successful our way of living really is. You have to 'persuade' them to our way of life ...and you have to persuade an entire culture not just an over-simplified category of people such as 'terrorists'. As simple as the concept of 'good vs. evil' is, it's not so cut and dry when you consider people are only doing what they feel is best for them, their families and their way of life. Everyone has the same objectives - 'ALL of us' as Dave stresses.

Anyway, some of the main reasons why we've been unsuccessful with this so far is our lack of respect for those who exist behind or have fallen behind our own standard of living, our immediate need for resolution to our energy problems and the typical 'ignorance is bliss' response. We are a successful culture (the West that is) and our success has made us complacent/negligent with respect to the humanities. We can do better - but it just seems we're too lazy to try and/or don't feel it's worth the effort ...which I'm afraid is a sad statement on future issues of unity.

Have any of you guys ever eaten spaghetti? I thought so. After eating said spaghetti, have you ever drank until you threw up? Yeah, me too. But it's one of those events that's the result of a series of actions that are irreversible beyond a certain point. That certain being when you start to get all that extra saliva in your mouth. You know the feeling I'm talking about. Anyways, if you haven't ever had the joy of chucking pasta though, throwing up spaghetti is a horrible experience for both the barfer and anyone who may be within sight or even earshot. See, the noodles get caught in your throat and nose right; and while you're heaving onto the sidewalk or maybe the line of people waiting to get into the bar, you're choking on the noodles in your vomit. This means you've got to keep barfing, while digging the noodles out of your airways. Let alone the pain of having to vomit tomato sauce, which burns like a mother.

But it's one of those things that is going to happen once that 10th or so beer goes down the hatch; regardless of any preemtive action or de-escalation you might try. It's just a nasty little peice of the human experience, you just do what you have to do; live and learn.

You are one wacked out cat, Shank. Only you could relate the Middle East Crisis to a night of eating pasta and overdrinking.

I could actually feel the noodles getting lodged in my trachea.