i agree with the fact that iran is involved i am just not sure to what extent and don't belive we can take it as established fact considering the missteps in iraq.
Don't you find it a little convienient that as the UN was begining to ratchet up pressure on Iran over the nuclear issue, the group set up by Iranian Intelligence that had been relatively quiet for years suddenly decides to attack and kidnap a couple Israeli soldiers? Maybe as convienient as the threat of WMD's potentially in the hands of the man who tried to kill the sitting President's father?
By the way, your attempt to show correlation between the common knowledge of Iran's links with Hezbollah and the "common knowledge" of WMD's in Iraq was ridiculous. Just do a Google search for God's sake.
Here's a great opportunity to illustrate another difference between western and Arab/Muslim culture. For the most part, you and wild-pitch have been on the same side in this thread often opposite of me. However, being the product of a western culture, you felt obligated to speak the truth of the facts and grudging point out that yes, Iran has significant links to Hezbollah. In the west, we consider this being intellectually honest, and the mark of good character.
In the Arab world, you have just proven yourself a liar, untrustworthy, and a worse flip-flop, waffler than John Kerry. In their culture, the objective facts are not nearly as important as the relationship obligations one has developed. You and wild-pitch were essentially on the "same side" in the discussion about Israel, but by then agreeing with me, you "switched" sides. In the Arab world, doing so destroys your credibility and is an indictment against your character, inspite of what the truth actually is. Being intellectually honest is viewed as being duplicitous because it shows you cannot be counted on to fulfill your personal obligations. As such, you have no 'wasta', meaning you have no value for a relationship investment, because they can't trust you to actually do what you say. Because you have little value for 'wasta', they won't take the time to build a friendship with you, won't want to do business with you, and because of their inductive reasoning process, anyone associated closely with you also is duplicitous and will have a hard time gaining cooperation.
Understanding these difference in how actions are interpreted by different cultures is critical to getting anything done. Understanding how what are considered everyday values in the west are thought of in a completely different way in the Arab world is important when doing any kind of business there, be it selling TVs or attempting to Nation-build. Unfortunately, westerners do a very poor job of understanding these differences.
Its pretty clear that Hezbollah & the insurgency in Iraq are using Iranian weapons. They are pretty much behind everything in the Middle East except Israel.
Sorry to chop the mess out of your post, but I think I should point out to you the error of Arab/Muslim culture comment. The two are not equal. Arabs are a people who aren't just Muslim. Ex. christians, muslims, and pagans. Muslims on the other hand aren't allowed to lie except in times of war and to bring people together. Our Prophet SAWS tells us that you are not a muslim during the time you are sinning, so that should be a clear indication to all that it is not allowed in Islam. Now in a culture, people can do and change things they see fit. This is not allowed in Islam at all.
And to answer some of the comments ahead of time, I know that people who are Muslims sin. That is all too clear. Doesn't make it any better just because they do the same thing that none Muslims do. Really it is sick.
Now on to the matter at hand.
These jews (the ones doing the killing) and their supporters are something else. 200 lives for 2 of theirs. And they call this self defense. They don't even know if they are killing the ones responsible for the abductions. It seems to be that if they are arab, they must be killed. Ah and mind you that christians are being killed as well, not just Muslims. The same thing in the occupied territories. It is not just Muslims who are dying, nor fighting these jewish hitlers. How can anybody support that type of evil, kill man woman and child because we are protecting our homes foolishness. Oh I get it, all of the men are going to be suicide bombers, the women carry the would-be suicide bombers, and the children will grow-up to be suicide bombers. What a sick people these killers are. Never will they call a spade and spade. In other words if a suicide bomber kills he is a terrorist because he is out to kill non-combatants, just like the jews who are out to kill non-combatants. It doesn't make it right even if they (both sides) get a few combatants.
Matthew Denton said in a forum I was reading that, People in Palestine and people in Israel both suffer, both are victims while both must share responsibility for this horrible epidemic of violence for they can't see the common humanity they both share. I believe the epicenter for the entire scourge of terrorism is Israel and Palestine and this war will not end until peace forged between these two people.
For all our little differences, our commonalities are far more important. We cannot dehumanize another without dehumanizing ourselves. If you can't see the value of another's life then we admit there is no value to our own.
This war must end as soon as possible for many are going to pay the price, a price that is far to high.
And I feel he makes a valid point. Some Palestinians support suicide bomber attacks in the heart of Israel, they cannot see the value in the lives of the people they perceive as their enemy. So Palestinian zealots attack Israel, and Israel responds with a military attack against Palestine but this only continues the violence which claims many lives. Attack and counter-attack, an endless cycle that will not be broken until one side stops the violence.
Terror is terror, these are people who have been in the region as long or longer than the Jews, I don't like my next door neighbor, but I don't send suicide bombers to his house, or send out air strikes destroying half of our neighborhood. I know this is an extravagant example, but the core point stands, they need to learn to get along, how long before this turns into an ethnic cleansing, or acts of genocide begin to occur? You would imagine that with WWII so close in memory and the Nazi solution to ethnic diversity, Israel would be a bit more sensitive on this issue trying to resolve this in a better way. In my opinion if Israel wants to maintain the Moral High Ground (so to speak) then they need to practice what they preach. I understand that the situation requires response, but this is a very unbalanced conflict with Israel wielding a modern army, and air force, what does Palestine have to counter Israel militarily? It's like farmers fighting Samurai, so what can they do? Exactly what they do, they fight with what they have.
I don't think either side has any moral high ground to stand on anymore, they both have blood on their hands. I think they should concider how similar their views are to those people they hate so much, the Nazi's didn't think of Jews as human, and it dosen't seem that the Jews think much differently about the arabs, or christians, as their air strikes are killing them too. How long is the rest of the world going to stand for this? Deja Vu anyone? 40 civilians killed in a air strike for the taking of 2 Isreali solders hostage? Crap, pure crap, no flipping way that can be justified. Hey, this is the result of being a soldier, and being at war, what's next, carpet bombing, bio-warfare, chem, nukes???
Of course it is factual to say that not all Arabs are Muslim, just as not all Muslims are Arabs, as all Westerners are not Christians. Coptic Christians in Egypt are but one example of Arabs who are not Muslim. However, denying the central role that Islam plays in the Arab culture is preposterous. Even in Europe where many consider themselves athiests, denying the influence of Judeo/Christian values on the culture at large is folly. It shapes their morals and world-view even if they've never set foot in a church. How much more so is that kind of influence part of a culture where the predominant religion is so demonstratively central to people's daily lives?
And you're right, lying is not allowed. However, the concept of lying in the Arab world is not the same as the concept of lying in the West. For example, a cab driver in Egypt will insist his son is a doctor, but when he shows you a photo, it will be of his 10 year old son that he wants to grow up to be a doctor. It's called para-lying by sociologists. Because he wants his son to be a doctor, he will tell people over and over again that his son is in fact a doctor in the hopes that by repeating it, it will become true.
Or say you ask a contractor in Kuwait if he can deliver 400 sheets of plywood in 2 days. Of course, he will always say yes, even though he knows he can't and has no intention of trying. However, saying "no, I can't" impugns his honor and makes him look as if he has little value, and in fact is considered rude. So he says, "yes" and quickly changes the subject. This is how he says 'no' without actually saying 'no'. As the guy requesting the delivery, you are supposed to know that he just said 'no' and not press the issue because than you would be rude for trying to embarass him.
In the Arab world, neither the cab driver nor the contractor would be considered to be lying. Yet in the western world, we would think one was full of crap and the other was a liar. It's a different concept of lying, one steeped in cultural and linguistic nuance. Not understanding that nuance creates communication errors which can obviously snow-ball into serious misunderstandings.
Now here's where you go right off the deep end. Not two paragraphs after "correcting" me about Arabs and Muslims not being synonymous, you immediately refer to all Israelis as "Jews" and continue to harp at the "Jews" who are doing the killing as if everyone in Israel is a Jew and only the Jews are killing anyone. You explain to me why you have this double standard, and then maybe I'll see fit to respond to your allegations.
One mans freedom fighter is another mans terrorist. Neither side will admit to being wrong, Israel is wrong this time.
Israel picks on Lebanon because it can. Its not tough enough to go after Syria and Iran because it would force them to ask for help from the US. We of course, wouldn't have the political cajones to say no and will bow to Israel's wishes.
Your interpretation is wrong. I would say Hezbollah was wrong for starting this mess by attacking across the border into Israel, killing Israeli soldiers, and kidnapping the two they didn't kill. Didn't Israel agree to leave southern Lebanon specifically because Hezbollah assured them they wouldn't do this?
You're also mistaken about the US assisting Israel in a strike against Iran and Syria. I don't think we'd intervene until Israel itself was threatened with invasion, and then, only because the Iranians would have to get thru our guys in Iraq just to get there.
And some insight into the weapons being used by Hezbollah and where they came from. Maybe Sanke would care to 'speculate' on the veracity of the reporting.
You mean as opposed to letting Hezbollah have free reign to cross their border, kill their citizens, and kidnap their soldiers?
I think the fact that Lebanon can't control or police the Hezbollah dominated areas speaks for itself. If Israel can't call upon the gov't of Lebanon to do something to control the situation like you said, then what exactly is Israel supposed to do?
Absolutely WP, there is no way Israel could do anything but overturn the government. Occupation would be out of the question on their own.
I think Israel could defeat Syria fairly easily, I dont' think they could defeat Iran w/o nuclear weapons simply because of the logistics. Iran is so mountainous it would drag on and on with the Iranians biding their time till Israel was bled out..... I think Iran would win the war of atrition if the US kept their noses out of it.
I don't think Israel would bother to occupy. They'd do what we should have done in Iraq: smash the country and go home, leaving the people there to sort it out for themselves instead of trying to tell them how they should live.
Occupation is always the issue. The reason is that the military is designed to conquer and to fight. Occupation is an entirely different strategy. It depends on either allowing as much freedom as possible which means you will lose and get killed or to shoot first and ask questions later which is something we are opposed to.
Your not serious are you? How many people were killed by those missiles? Listen to the news reports and you'll see (should be able to anyway) that as of yesterday there were only about 24 jews and others killed on the occupied side. How is that ignoring, ah, conveniently ignoring as you say what Hizbollah is doing? If you care to reread all of which I write which is in plan view you'll see that I don't support either terrorist [Hizbollah which means the party of Allah (which is a lie since they clearly don't fight in the way that is Islamicly allowed) and their likes and supporters, nor the jewish government and their likes and supporters which clearly states that they want to eradicate the muslims and their supporters].
Frankly I agree with what the kingdom has to say about the issue: http://www.saudiembassy.net/2006News/News/IslDetail.asp?cIndex=6366