[quote]rainjack wrote:
There should be not so much as a doghouse standing in Lebanon, Syria, or Iran.
Anything short of that, and they are not fighting to win. [/quote]
Nice. Do you realize how many non Arab Muslims live in Lebanon? There are quite a few.
There are thousands of innocent Lebanese civillians that are caught in the middle of this crap who don’t support Hezbollah (sp?).
Of course, everything Israel does is just, no?
Dustin
[quote]Wreckless wrote:
doogie wrote:
etaco wrote:
That guy looked a little like House.
Seriously though this is just standard operating procedure in this kind of war.
Have you seen any Jews on TV running around with dead babies for hours and hours?
Well, there are far fewer Jewish casualties.[/quote]
Does the fact that there are far fewer Jewish casualties sadden you wreckless? (Have you done your sums? There are a billion Muslims and 12 million Jews in the world. Per capita I guess there are more Jewish deaths).
I guess that you are proud of Belgium?s glorious past? Genocide and racism are, after all, so ingrained in your history and tradition.
Millions of Africans were exterminated in the Belgian Congo. Read ?King Leopold?s Ghost.? Did your grandfather take part in the murder of millions of black people?
Oh, and the Jews? I suppose your father was one of the many Belgians who volunteered to fight on the Nazi side in WW2 ? the 5th SS Volunteer Sturmbrigade was called Wallonia and was entirely manned by Belgians. Belgian SS men fought in their very own Waffen SS 28th Panzer Grenadier Division. I suppose it?s not too late for you ? the neo Nazi movement is alive and well in your heroic country.
why are you insulting someone that personally? did your ancestors kill any indians or rip them off their land? or had any slaves? no country in the whole world is innocent. better we don`t go there.
[quote]Mishima wrote:
why are you insulting someone that personally? did your ancestors kill any indians or rip them off their land? or had any slaves? no country in the whole world is innocent. better we don`t go there.[/quote]
And we have a winner!!! Quit attacking other country’s pasts when your is far from spotless.
Poor Hezbolah…losing the propoganda side of the war too.
August 03, 2006
Journalists Fail to Explain Qana
By David Warren
My reader may be wondering what happened to all the coverage from Qana. As usual, when the “liberal” media begin to realize they’ve been had, the story disappears. But it is never properly corrected. We get a few days of blazing headlines, and round-the-dial TV coverage of an “Israeli massacre”, laden with innuendos, and then – the fade-out. This will not do.
What happened at Qana was, almost certainly, what happened at Jenin in 2002, what happened on a beach in Gaza a few weeks ago, and what has happened on innumerable other occasions. The Israelis are instantaneously accused and convicted of a monstrous and perhaps intentional act of butchery, by people quite incurious about the facts. Their pathological hatred of “Zionism” is all the proof they need. These are people who seldom bother to shed even crocodile tears when Jews are blown to pieces by suicide bombers, or rockets are fired indiscriminately into their homes; but become tremendously excited when the news breaks that some Israeli retaliation may have gone wrong.
It took several months to clarify what had happened at Jenin – a staged massacre. It will take several months before something like the true story emerges, from Qana. By which time no one will be listening. (The ideologues will continue citing the original lies, regardless.) And yet in both these cases – Jenin and Qana – indications of fakery were visible from the beginning.
The Israelis quickly released real-time aerial reconnaissance footage to show the Hezbollah firing rockets from between houses in Qana; then pulling the launchers immediately afterwards into civilian buildings. The Israeli military logged three air strikes around Qana in the course of the evening in question, including one next to the houses that were destroyed. So while it was possible the Israelis had dropped the bombs that killed 54 people – coincidentally all women and children – it was, at the worst, unintended “collateral damage” near a valid military target.
The Israelis had extensively leafleted Qana for more than a week before the air strikes, telling civilians to evacuate, and warning just what would happen. Over the same period, Hezbollah pumped 150 Katyusha rockets into northern Israel from in and around this village. Hezbollah are notorious for refusing to allow civilians to evacuate (as U.N. observers have attested), and even preventing their flight at gunpoint. The argument that people “could not get out because the Israelis had wrecked the infrastructure” is rubbish. Once invited by Hezbollah, journalists got into the village quickly, all the way from Beirut. It follows that Hezbollah bears not some, but all of the moral responsibility for civilian deaths at Qana.
But we are still assuming the Israeli air strikes collapsed the houses. That theory begins to crumble, itself, when you look at the times logged for the Israeli air strikes. The houses were first reported to have been destroyed more than seven hours after the air strike next to them (the other strikes were about half a kilometre away). And even if they collapsed by delayed effect, why were women and children allowed to spend the night in a building on the point of collapsing?
Now look at the media pictures. Immediately you see several fishy things. For one, bodies displayed to media are removed, successively, from a single neat hole in the ruins. There is no evidence of a rescue mission having been mounted, or of a continuing search for bodies elsewhere under the rubble. The battered bodies do not resemble those which are seen after most real explosions and building collapses: their wounds do not look recent. All the blood and gore seems to be on just one body.
Moreover, as bloggers such as “Eureferendum” have demonstrated, by juxtaposing press photos from various newspapers, the men showing off the bodies – and identified in captions as “Lebanese rescue workers” – are the same as had been present at previous alleged atrocities. They are obviously not rescue workers, but Hezbollah propaganda agents.
The way they are handling and displaying the bodies is entirely inconsistent with rescue work. For instance, they hold up a dead child’s head for the cameras; they point to a pacifier still strung around his neck. But notice: the child’s body is covered in plaster dust, but the pacifier is clean. Such evidence of staging is glaring, everywhere.
Obvious questions: Did all or any of the victims die at this site? Was the event staged to produce exactly the effect on “world opinion” that was achieved? And in a symbolic location, last used to a similar purpose in 1996?
I do not see how full-time journalists, specializing in the Middle East, can excuse themselves for not asking such questions immediately. I do not see why they cannot spot with their own eyes, what bloggers can spot in their photographs and reporting, thousands of miles away.
We know all about Hezbollah. It is for the journalists now to explain what they were doing, playing the clowns in an Hezbollah circus.
Update: Since this was written, I see the Lebanese Red Cross has reported the number of bodies at the site was 28, not the 54 or 57 that our press and TV took on faith from Hezbollah. And, persons presented as survivors adjusted the time of the incident to coincide better with the proximate air strike the Israelis logged. I have no idea what actually happened. But in the absence of a credible investigation, nobody else has, either; and the dramatic media presentation of the story “as told by Hezbollah” must be assigned to the annals of anti-Israeli propaganda, not journalism.
Hedo,
Sounds about right. I can’t believe people don’t understand that fanatics that will blow themselves up, wipe a country off the map, target civilians and hide behind civilians have no moral boundaries left.
How come people are still believing the likes of these assholes? Every single statement coming out of the Lebonese side of the situation has been 9 parts out of 10 bullshit… including the “demonstrations”.
It’s all about the propaganda though. The majority of people in the Middle East really do believe all the evils happening over there are the result of Israel or the US. Fuck, if only the truth could get out some time.
The cognitive dissonance would probably be lethal.
this is the most ignorant shit ive ever heard. the guy’s analyzing the “rescue worker” and his appearance to show that he is hizbullah or something. fucking idiots. that’s what happens when you dont know what’s going on in Lebanon. pretty much all the rescue workers are members of the Lebanese Military. You see , Lebanon has a pretty weak military and at the very beginning of the war, Israeli air raids destroyed several of their bases, as well as all their radars and anti-aircraft capablities. as weak as they are, all they could do is distribute aid and bury the dead. that’s is what the Lebanese Military is doing. they dig up bodies, bury them, etc.
so the lebanese soldiers (NOT hizbullah) takes the body away from the rubble and walks to the people to show them what the israelis have done to their children. several pictures are taken on the way.
another girl is taken from the rubble, and taken to ambulance. and yes, on the way, they probably passed by the press to show them what happened.
as for all the stupid “analysis” with the times that is complete idiocy. you think these photographers and newspapers are keeping track of what second they took each picture? they just slap a time on their for the sake of the website or whatever.
Hezbollah, the Palestinians, and whoever else the Israelis are going to fight in the future learned during the Intifada in the late 80’s that you can gain concessions and international sympathy by portraying the Israelis as a country who deliberately targets civilians. What you are watching on the news is a calculated move by Hezbolah to get as many civilian bodies in front of the press as possible. Hedo’s post was spot on. Shaping the press coverage of a conflict in order to generate effects in the civilian population of your enemy and the governments of the influential UN powers is part of warfare now, and it is something that the countries and terrorist groups who oppose Isreal have mastered.
I am not defending Isreal’s actions, but understand that what you are seeing broadcast out of Lebanon is very much being influenced by Hezbollah. It is a very effective strategy, demonstrated by the calls for ceasefire after the airstrike at Qana.
[quote]silencer wrote:
this is the most ignorant shit ive ever heard. the guy’s analyzing the “rescue worker” and his appearance to show that he is hizbullah or something. fucking idiots. that’s what happens when you dont know what’s going on in Lebanon. pretty much all the rescue workers are members of the Lebanese Military. You see , Lebanon has a pretty weak military and at the very beginning of the war, Israeli air raids destroyed several of their bases, as well as all their radars and anti-aircraft capablities. as weak as they are, all they could do is distribute aid and bury the dead. that’s is what the Lebanese Military is doing. they dig up bodies, bury them, etc.
so the lebanese soldiers (NOT hizbullah) takes the body away from the rubble and walks to the people to show them what the israelis have done to their children. several pictures are taken on the way.
another girl is taken from the rubble, and taken to ambulance. and yes, on the way, they probably passed by the press to show them what happened.
as for all the stupid “analysis” with the times that is complete idiocy. you think these photographers and newspapers are keeping track of what second they took each picture? they just slap a time on their for the sake of the website or whatever.[/quote]
looks like the propaganda worked.
[quote]Wreckless wrote:
.
The Israeli have these bunkerbusting bombs. And they’re not afraid to use them in civilian areas. I wonder where they got them from?[/quote]
Hezbollah builds military facilities into civilian areas, sometimes into civilian buildings and then use civilian casualties as a propaganda tool.
What is the Israeli-an military supposed to do?
[quote]silencer wrote:
as for all the stupid “analysis” with the times that is complete idiocy. you think these photographers and newspapers are keeping track of what second they took each picture? they just slap a time on their for the sake of the website or whatever.[/quote]
Yeah, modern cameras don’t put time stamps on the images captured…
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Hezbollah uses women and children as human shields and then exploits their deaths for propaganda.[/quote]
Really? So why do they recieve widespread public support for their cause? It cannot be as you claim.
[quote]Nominal Prospect wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Hezbollah uses women and children as human shields and then exploits their deaths for propaganda.
Really? So why do they recieve widespread public support for their cause? It cannot be as you claim.[/quote]
Because those they hold hostage are afraid to speak out and the ignorant that are not hostage fall for the hateful propaganda just as you have.
Why am I not surprised you take the side of terrorists in this discussion?
[quote]Nominal Prospect wrote:
Really? So why do they recieve widespread public support for their cause? It cannot be as you claim.[/quote]
I’d say it’s because of a deep rooted hatred born out of propaganda. They receive support because public sentiment is behind anything with the goal of wiping Israel off the map.
That fact people buy it doesn’t mean it is appropriate.
[quote]Nominal Prospect wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Hezbollah uses women and children as human shields and then exploits their deaths for propaganda.
Really? So why do they recieve widespread public support for their cause? It cannot be as you claim.[/quote]
Seriously Nominal, you can’t be this ignorant.
Hitler had widespread public support for his cause too. Think about it.
[quote]vroom wrote:
Hedo,
Sounds about right. I can’t believe people don’t understand that fanatics that will blow themselves up, wipe a country off the map, target civilians and hide behind civilians have no moral boundaries left.
How come people are still believing the likes of these assholes? Every single statement coming out of the Lebonese side of the situation has been 9 parts out of 10 bullshit… including the “demonstrations”.
It’s all about the propaganda though. The majority of people in the Middle East really do believe all the evils happening over there are the result of Israel or the US. Fuck, if only the truth could get out some time.
The cognitive dissonance would probably be lethal.[/quote]
Vroom, Israel is a terrorist organization BAR NONE with a long documented, verifiable history. For the most part everybody in the world except North Americans are fully aware of Israel’s modus operandi. Hezbollah, Hamas & Al Qeada are all products of Israel’s aggression - just like the new one’s to grow from this conflict.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0728-01.htm
Belgian Jewish Leader: Israel Committing War Crimes
Head of the Union of Belgian Jewish Progressives (UPJB) Dr. Jacques Ravedovitch stated that Israel is committing war crimes in Lebanon.
In an interview with Zaman in Brussels, Ravedovitch said that while former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon committed indirect war crimes, current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is unquestionably a war criminal.
Dr. Ravedovitch said it is a shame that Jews who were once exposed to the holocaust are doing the same evil things against another nation today.
What Israel is doing in Lebanon is terror.
http://www.zaman.com/?bl=international&alt=&trh=20060727&hn=35131
If your reason for such passionate “see no evil” attachment to Israel is for religious reasons, then might I suggest you do some research into who published your bible…
“The Scofield Reference Bible was not to be just another translation, subverting minor passages a little at a time. No, Scofield produced a revolutionary book that radically changed the context of the King James Version. It was designed to create a subculture around a new worship icon, the modern State of Israel, a state that did not yet exist, but which was already on the drawing boards of the committed, well-funded authors of World Zionism.”
http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Jews-In-The-Media-Hollywood.htm
I agree.
[quote]JustTheFacts wrote:
Vroom, Israel is a terrorist organization BAR NONE with a long documented, verifiable history. For the most part everybody in the world except North Americans are fully aware of Israel’s modus operandi. Hezbollah, Hamas & Al Qeada are all products of Israel’s aggression - just like the new one’s to grow from this conflict.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0728-01.htm
Belgian Jewish Leader: Israel Committing War Crimes
Head of the Union of Belgian Jewish Progressives (UPJB) Dr. Jacques Ravedovitch stated that Israel is committing war crimes in Lebanon.
In an interview with Zaman in Brussels, Ravedovitch said that while former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon committed indirect war crimes, current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is unquestionably a war criminal.
Dr. Ravedovitch said it is a shame that Jews who were once exposed to the holocaust are doing the same evil things against another nation today.
What Israel is doing in Lebanon is terror.
http://www.zaman.com/?bl=international&alt=&trh=20060727&hn=35131
If your reason for such passionate “see no evil” attachment to Israel is for religious reasons, then might I suggest you do some research into who published your bible…
“The Scofield Reference Bible was not to be just another translation, subverting minor passages a little at a time. No, Scofield produced a revolutionary book that radically changed the context of the King James Version. It was designed to create a subculture around a new worship icon, the modern State of Israel, a state that did not yet exist, but which was already on the drawing boards of the committed, well-funded authors of World Zionism.”
“It’s all about the propaganda though”
http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Jews-In-The-Media-Hollywood.htm
I agree.
[/quote]
BULLSHIT…Isreal is an has been the most attcked country in the world. Anything it does as far as I ma concerned is self defense. If they seem brutal it is because they have to be. Being pussy would only make things worse. Other than the tit-for-tat fighting that has been going on since the begining, there is no reason for the islamic-anti-semitism to exist. The muslims and jews have been fighting back and forth, but nobody can answer me this, why do the muslims hate the jews in the first place, why? Where did it come from? Is it because Isreal has Jeruselem? Or is it that muslims are fucking half backed kooks who warp there kids with blood and gunfire…
[quote]JustTheFacts wrote:
vroom wrote:
Vroom, Israel is a terrorist organization BAR NONE with a long documented, verifiable history. For the most part everybody in the world except North Americans are fully aware of Israel’s modus operandi. Hezbollah, Hamas & Al Qeada are all products of Israel’s aggression - just like the new one’s to grow from this conflict.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0728-01.htm
[/quote]
Isreal used terrorist tactics to become a nation. The US used terrorist tactics to become a nation. The Britich used terrorist tactics against the US. The different sides of the french revolution used terrorism. Terrorist tactics were used in the Belgian Congo. There are incidents of terrorism in almost every country’s history, especially during revolutions, civil wars, and wars of independance.
The articles you posted are interesting, but none of them conclusivly prove that Isreal is a terrorist state. A jewish leader in Belgium is not an authority on who or who isn’t a terrorist.
IN fact, there is no accepted international definition of terrorism.
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/terrorism_definitions.html
I’m curious about which definition you are using.
It could be argued that Hezbollah are freedom fighters, if you ignore the involvement of Iran and Syria. With Iran and Syria backing and arming Hezbollah, the situation is different. If Hezbollah is fighting to accomplish Iran’s stated goal of the destruction of Isreal, then they are not revolutionaries or freedom-fighters but instead a group of para-military fighters targeting civilians.
Directly targeting civilians is a war crime. If you read the link above, one of the UN’s working definitions of terrorism is the peace-time conduct of war crimes. Hezbollah has a proven history of directly targeting civilians. Isreal has the reputation of targeting civilians but claims to only fire at military or terrorist (according to its own government definition) targets.
I think you are going to have a hard time conclusively proving that Isreal is a terrorist country, but I would like to see your argument.
Check this link out for a good discussion on the definition of terrorism:
http://faculty.ncwc.edu/TOConnor/429/429lect01.htm
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Because those they hold hostage are afraid to speak out and the ignorant that are not hostage fall for the hateful propaganda just as you have.
Why am I not surprised you take the side of terrorists in this discussion?[/quote]
They aren’t holding anyone hostage except their military enemy and propaganda cannot possibly account for the widespread popularity of their cause throughout the Arab world.
Propaganda is used by all sides in every war; it is not reserved for Arabs. American and Israeli occupation of Arab lands is not propaganda, it is fact. This is why independance groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas are supported.
I do not take sides in this conflict or any other. Power is amoral, and the study of power is all that I concern myself with.
[quote]vroom wrote:
I’d say it’s because of a deep rooted hatred born out of propaganda. They receive support because public sentiment is behind anything with the goal of wiping Israel off the map.
That fact people buy it doesn’t mean it is appropriate.[/quote]
Among the moderate Arab population, it is less about wiping Israel off the map and more about winning independance for Arabs in that region.
Speaking of propaganda, you sound like you’re tripping on the West’s version.
[quote]bigflamer wrote:
Seriously Nominal, you can’t be this ignorant.
Hitler had widespread public support for his cause too. Think about it.[/quote]
What should I think about? Hitler wasn’t slaughtering his own constituency; he gave the German people what they wanted. The allegation is being made here that Hezbollah is effectively using the civilian population as meat shields with no regard for the lives of Arabs. This is patently false.
Those are some interesting articles. Israel is NOT a terrorist state. That is a paradox. Staes are guilty of ‘terror’. Israel is guilty of ‘terror’ just like hezbollah are ‘terrorists’. Why people assume that our condemnation must be one or the other, all or nothing, i don’t get. Guess i’m not ignorant enough