Israel mistakenly kills 34 Lebanese children in air raid

[Little Texan]

Israel kills 34 children 'by mistake'
[ 31 Jul, 2006 0219hrs ISTAGENCIES ]


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QANA: Fifty-four people, at least 34 of them children, were killed in an Israeli air blitz on the Lebanese village of Qana on Sunday, triggering outrage across the region and warnings of retribution for Israel's "war crime". Later in the day, Israel said it had "mistakenly" destroyed a four-storey building near a Hezbollah rocket-launching site in Qana.

The Israeli army, while voicing "regret" for the civilian deaths, pinned the blame on Hezbollah, saying it used the village as a base to launch rockets, and that residents had already been ordered to leave. The raid on Qana was the deadliest single attack since Israel launched its war on the Hezbollah 19 days ago.

Lebanese PM Fuad Siniora denounced the attack as a "war crime", demanding an immediate ceasefire in a conflict that has now killed more than 500 people and left a trail of destruction across the country. The Shiite Muslim Hezbollah and the ruling Palestinian Islamist militant movement Hamas both vowed revenge. "This horrible massacre, like the others, will not remain unpunished," the Hezbollah said while Islamic Jihad threatened to carry out suicide attacks against Israel in "upcoming days".

In Qana—scene of another deadly bombardment 10 years ago—rescue workers with only their bare hands clawed through rubble of flattened homes and an underground shelter to find survivors while mothers hugged their dead children in a final hopeless embrace.

"The bombing was so intense no one could move," said a distraught Ibrahim Shalhoub, 26. "I succeeded in getting out and everything collapsed. I have several members of the family inside and I do not think that there will be any other survivors." Israel, which has received staunch US backing since the conflict began on July 12, unleashed its firepower on Qana after flatly rejecting a UN call for a 72-hour truce to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to Lebanon.

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council was holding an emergency meeting on Sunday on the ongoing crisis even as France circulated a draft resolution for an immediate ceasefire in the conflict.

But as international condemnation of the Qana attack spread, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Israel needed another 10 to 14 days to complete its offensive in Lebanon.

Link (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1827159.cms)

[FORD]

Goddamned Likud Zionfascist murdering bastards!!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/06/middle_east_enl_1154282214/img/1.jpg

[DEMON CUNT]

"A ceasefire would be a false promise if it simply returns us to the status quo, allowing terrorists to launch attacks at the time and terms of their choosing," Condoleezza Rice - July 21, 2006

http://www.rainews24.rai.it/ran24/immagini/rice_bush.jpg

[FORD]

Just a trivial note about Qana, the place that the Likud Zionists bombed to shit today........

This was the place where Jesus Christ performed His first miracle, when He turned water into wine at a cousin's wedding.

It's entirely possible that His cousin's family still lives in that city. What if some of the 34 children brutally murdered by Likud Zionfascism today were relatives of the Messiah Himself??

Doesn't make the crime itself any more or less sickening, but it's a Hell of a twist...........

[Nickdfresh]

Something like this was bound to happen...

[Dr. Love]

Seriously, if your town was being bombarded and attacked from time to time, would you really stay there, especially if some militant group was firing rockets from near where you lived?

Why didn't these children's parents take them out of harm's way?

[DEMON CUNT]

Originally posted by Dr. Love
Seriously, if your town was being bombarded and attacked from time to time, would you really stay there, especially if some militant group was firing rockets from near where you lived?

Why didn't these children's parents take them out of harm's way?

To where? Disneyland?

[Dr. Love]

Do they have one of those in Lebanon?

[Seshmeister]

Originally posted by FORD
Just a trivial note about Qana, the place that the Likud Zionists bombed to shit today........

This was the place where Jesus Christ performed His first miracle, when He turned water into wine at a cousin's wedding.

It's entirely possible that His cousin's family still lives in that city. What if some of the 34 children brutally murdered by Likud Zionfascism today were relatives of the Messiah Himself??

Doesn't make the crime itself any more or less sickening, but it's a Hell of a twist...........

Ford I think it's a bit distasteful for you to start posting stuff stuff from fairy tales when real people are suffering and being murdered. It's like posting about King Kong after 9-11.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Dr. Love
Do they have one of those in Lebanon?

The Israelis bombed it...

[Nickdfresh]

U.S. risks backlash in Mideast
Deadly Israeli assault strikes at core of U.S. foreign policy in region
ANALYSIS
By Peter Baker
The Washington Post

Updated: 11:40 p.m. ET July 30, 2006

The Israeli bombs that slammed into the Lebanese village of Qana yesterday did more than kill three dozen children and a score of adults. They struck at the core of U.S. foreign policy in the region and illustrated in heart-breaking images the enormous risks for Washington in the current Middle East crisis.

With each new scene of carnage in southern Lebanon, outrage in the Arab world and Europe has intensified against Israel and its prime sponsor, raising the prospect of a backlash resulting in a new Middle East quagmire for the United States, according to regional specialists, diplomats and former U.S. officials.

Although the United States has urged Israel to use restraint, it has also strongly defended the military assaults as a reasonable response to Hezbollah rocket attacks, a position increasingly at odds with allies that see a deadly overreaction. Analysts think that if the war drags on, as appears likely, it could leave the United States more isolated than at any time since the Iraq invasion three years ago and hindered in its foreign policy goals such as shutting down Iran's nuclear program and spreading democracy around the world.

"The arrows are all pointing in the wrong direction," said Richard N. Haass, who was President Bush's first-term State Department policy planning director. "The biggest danger in the short run is it just increases frustration and alienation from the United States in the Arab world. Not just the Arab world, but in Europe and around the world. People will get a daily drumbeat of suffering in Lebanon and this will just drive up anti-Americanism to new heights."

The White House recognizes the danger but thinks the missiles flying both ways across the Israel-Lebanon border carry with them a chance to finally break out of the stalemate of Middle East geopolitics. Bush and his advisers hope the conflict can destroy or at least cripple Hezbollah and in the process strike a blow against the militia's sponsor, Iran, while forcing the region to move toward final settlement of the decades-old conflict with Israel.

"He wants a resolution that will solve the problem," White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters yesterday. "Not only do we feel sorrow for what happened in Qana, but also a determination that it is really important to remove the conditions that led to that."

"This moment of conflict in the Middle East is painful and tragic," Bush said in his radio address Saturday. "Yet it is also a moment of opportunity for broader change in the region. Transforming countries that have suffered decades of tyranny and violence is difficult, and it will take time to achieve. But the consequences will be profound for our country and the world."

Broader struggle with Iran
At the heart of the crisis for the United States is a broader struggle with Iran for influence in the Middle East, one that arguably has been going on since the Islamic revolution of 1979 and that has escalated during Bush's presidency. The United States not only backs Israel in the current war but also has accelerated weapons delivery to Israel. Hezbollah, on the other hand, has long acted as a surrogate for Iran, and in the past three weeks it has shown off Iranian weapons never before used by the radical group.

"It's really a proxy war between the United States and Iran," said David J. Rothkopf, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of "Running the World," a book on U.S. foreign policy. "When viewed in that context, it puts everything in a different light."

The Hezbollah attacks on Israel that touched off the latest conflict came just as international pressure on Iran to give up uranium enrichment had reached a crescendo. Bush aides suspect Iran orchestrated the attacks to distract attention from its nuclear program or to demonstrate the consequences of pushing too hard. "It's tempting to believe that," said a senior official involved in the crisis but not authorized to speak on the record. "Iran spends a very large amount of money on Hezbollah."

The president hopes the crisis will ultimately help him rally world leaders against Iran's nuclear program. Even as the U.N. Security Council today considers a peacekeeping force for Lebanon, it may vote on a U.S.-backed resolution to threaten sanctions if Iran does not suspend uranium enrichment in August.

"There's no question that this is going to stiffen up in the long run the resolve of the Europeans in dealing with Iran," said Henri J. Barkey, a former State Department official who teaches at Lehigh University. "Even if they don't like what Israel is doing," he said, they will recognize that Iran "is a menace."

Others are not so hopeful. Outside the White House, the mood among many foreign policy veterans in Washington is strikingly pessimistic, especially as leaders of Hezbollah and al-Qaeda, traditional rivals based in different Islamic sects, began calling for followers to take the fight to the enemy.

Analysts foresee a muddled outcome at best, in which Hezbollah survives Israel's airstrikes, foreign peacekeepers become bogged down, and U.S. relations with allies are severely strained. At worst, they said, Hezbollah and Iran feel emboldened, Islamic radicalism spreads, and a region smuggling fighters and weapons into Iraq fractures further along sectarian lines.

Increasingly isolated U.S.?
"What the conflict has exposed in a really clear way is how linked all these issues in the region are to each other," said Mara Rudman, a deputy national security adviser in the Clinton White House now at the liberal Center for American Progress. "The worst-case scenario . . . is a much more radicalized Islamic fundamentalist Middle East and much more isolated Israel and a much more isolated United States and fewer people to talk with."

Haass, the former Bush aide who leads the Council on Foreign Relations, laughed at the president's public optimism. "An opportunity?" Haass said with an incredulous tone. "Lord, spare me. I don't laugh a lot. That's the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. If this is an opportunity, what's Iraq? A once-in-a-lifetime chance?"

In the long run, he and others warn, the situation could cement the perception that the United States is so pro-Israel that a new generation of Arab youth will grow up perceiving Americans as enemies. The internal pressure on friendly governments in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere could force them to distance themselves from Washington or crack down on domestic dissidents to keep power. In either case, Bush may have little leverage to press for democratic reforms.

Jon B. Alterman, a Middle East specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, outlined "not even the worst-case scenario, but a bad-case scenario: South Lebanon is in shambles, Hezbollah gets credit for rebuilding it with Iranian money, Hezbollah grows stronger in Lebanon and it's not brought to heel. The reaction of surrounding states weakens them, radicalism rises, and they respond with more repression. None of this is especially far-fetched. And in all of this, the U.S. is seen as a fundamentally hostile party."

All of this is far too gloomy for administration officials, who see such dire forecasts as the predictable reactions of a foreign policy establishment that has produced decades of meaningless talks, paper peace agreements and unenforced U.N. resolutions that have not solved underlying issues in the Middle East.

"Some of the overheated rhetoric about how the United States can't work with anybody, we've lost our leadership in the world, is just completely ridiculous, and this crisis proves it," said the senior administration official involved in the crisis. "We are really indispensable to solving this crisis, and you're not going to solve this problem merely by passing another resolution."

While the diplomats work, the Pentagon is studying the possible impact on an already-stretched U.S. military. Commanders have diverted the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit and the Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group from a training mission in Jordan where they were available as reserves for Iraq. Now they are on ships in the Mediterranean Sea to help with humanitarian efforts, and another unit has been put on alert as backup for Iraq.

The Pentagon has done contingency planning for U.S. troops participating in a multinational peacekeeping mission, but Bush aides have all but ruled out such a scenario. A more likely option, officials said, would have the United States provide command-and-control and logistics assistance.

U.S. troops in Lebanon?
Peter W. Rodman, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, said that officials are studying the possibility of putting troops in Lebanon but that it is too early to comment on what such a force would look like. "The concept is still under development, and discussion of any potential U.S. participation would be premature."

Some analysts acknowledge the varied challenges the United States faces but consider the possible gain worth the risk. "It's a Rubik's Cube. It's very, very difficult to resolve," said Peter Brookes, a former deputy assistant defense secretary under Bush who is now at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "But if we were able to dismantle Hezbollah, that would be very positive for the war on terror."

The White House is acutely aware of the dangers of stirring up anti-American sentiment in the region. "There may be times when people say that they're unhappy with whatever methods we pursue," the White House's Snow said last week. "We are confident that in the long run, people are going to be much happier living in freedom and democracy than, for instance, in nations that are occupied by terrorist organizations that try to hijack a democracy in its formative stages."

Staff writer Josh White contributed to this report.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14110834/

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by Dr. Love
Seriously, if your town was being bombarded and attacked from time to time, would you really stay there, especially if some militant group was firing rockets from near where you lived?

Why didn't these children's parents take them out of harm's way?

Exactly...

[Seshmeister]

Originally posted by Dr. Love
Seriously, if your town was being bombarded and attacked from time to time, would you really stay there, especially if some militant group was firing rockets from near where you lived?

Why didn't these children's parents take them out of harm's way?

They don't have transport, they don't have anywhere else to go and the Israelis are bombing the roads and bridges.

[jacksmar]

http://camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=1148

Anyone remember Sec. of State Warren Christopher buying off the Hezbollah guerillas? Did this help pay for the rockets the Hez's bought from Iran?

[fryingdutchman]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Something like this was bound to happen...

Especially when those Hezbollah cowards set up their rocket launchers in the neighborhood and start firing....

Fucking terrorist shitbags using innocents as human shields.

[diamondD]

Some reports say that Hezebollah won't let them leave, because it gives them shields and propaganda when they are killed.

[FORD]

Bullshit.....

The Likud Zionfascists bombed the shit out of all the roads, airports, etc.

This "why didn't they leave" bullshit didn't work in New Orleans, and it doesn't work here.

[Cathedral]

Then it isn't really the Israeli's who are killing them, is it?

But since Jesus was brought into this let me remind people that he was crucified by the Jews using the hands of the Romans.

Just as the civilians are being killed by Hezzbollah using the hands of the Israeli's.

Sorry, but just as it was back then, neither side can wash their blood from their hands and will pay with their souls for their actions.

If you are going to blame one, you MUST blame the other, period.

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by FORD
Bullshit.....

The Likud Zionfascists bombed the shit out of all the roads, airports, etc.

This "why didn't they leave" bullshit didn't work in New Orleans, and it doesn't work here.

So, let me get this straight...you're siding with Hezbollah here?
You absolutely don't find them responsible for using innocent people as a shield?

That's a sick and twisted way to look at it, Ford.

Let's go back to before this confict started and remember that Hezbollah was NOT supposed to be armed to begin with.

Therefore, the blame should fall at the feet of the UN for NOT enforcing their own resolutions.

Strange how the UN has a habit of passing Resolutions they never enforce, but that never comes into play with you folks when someone holds them accountable for that refusal to comply.

[FORD]

Originally posted by Cathedral
So, let me get this straight...you're siding with Hezbollah here?
You absolutely don't find them responsible for using innocent people as a shield?

I'm not siding with either one. And I'm also not buying the Zionfascists' excuses for why they murder children. Those Synagogue of Satan* bastards bombed the shit out of the infrastructure THEN they targeted civilians, and claim that "they had plenty of warning to leave".

Well, warning to leave doesn't mean shit when their aren't any roads or planes leaving town.

*"I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan... - Revelation 2:9


Let's go back to before this confict started and remember that Hezbollah was NOT supposed to be armed to begin with.

Therefore, the blame should fall at the feet of the UN for NOT enforcing their own resolutions.

Strange how the UN has a habit of passing Resolutions they never enforce, but that never comes into play with you folks when someone holds them accountable for that refusal to comply.

If the UN starts enforcing ALL of their resolutions, then Israel will be in deeper shit than anybody. And they'll lose all those weapons that they aren't supposed to have in the first place. Not that it matters, because in the end, only God will be able to save the true Jews from the arrogance of Likud Zionfascism.

[ELVIS]

Originally posted by FORD

It's entirely possible that His cousin's family still lives in that city. What if some of the 34 children brutally murdered by Likud Zionfascism today were relatives of the Messiah Himself??




As long as your biggest audience is on a David Lee Roth Message, we're ok...

[Jesus Christ]

Gregory, do ye support the slaughter of children?

[ELVIS]

Originally posted by Cathedral

You absolutely don't find them responsible for using innocent people as a shield?


FORD has never put any blame on Hezbollah...

It's all Lukid Zionfascists, or whatever...:rolleyes:

Oh, and the BCE, of course...

[ELVIS]

Originally posted by Jesus Christ
Gregory, do ye support the slaughter of children?

Don't even start with that...:rolleyes:

[ELVIS]

I'm still laughing...

[Jesus Christ]

Verily I say unto you, that whosoever harm one of these little ones, better for him than he hath a millstone around his neck and be drowned at sea.

And it seems that many millstones are needed, for those who justify this murder.

The stench of the Likud arrogance hath reached the throne of My Father who art in Heaven, and He is not amused. Nor is the Son of Man :mad:

[ELVIS]

Neither am I...

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by jacksmar
http://camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=1148

Anyone remember Sec. of State Warren Christopher buying off the Hezbollah guerillas? Did this help pay for the rockets the Hez's bought from Iran?

Anyone remember when we traded Iran/Hezbollah weapons for the freedom of American hostages in Beirut?

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by fryingdutchman
Especially when those Hezbollah cowards set up their rocket launchers in the neighborhood and start firing....

Fucking terrorist shitbags using innocents as human shields.

There were no rockets in the neighborhood, and Israel has been bombing strategic targets all over Lebanon that have little to do with Hezbollah...

[Dr. Love]

Originally posted by Seshmeister
They don't have transport, they don't have anywhere else to go and the Israelis are bombing the roads and bridges.

I'll be honest -- I don't know much about the terrain or size of lebanon. Looks pretty small to me. Surely there are some Humanitarian Centers these people could get to, even if it's on foot? Surely that's better than staying where you know the bombs are falling.

[FORD]

Originally posted by Dr. Love
I'll be honest -- I don't know much about the terrain or size of lebanon. Looks pretty small to me. Surely there are some Humanitarian Centers these people could get to, even if it's on foot? Surely that's better than staying where you know the bombs are falling.

The Zionfascists have already bombed ambulances and hospitals, let alone residential areas. What makes you think that "humanitarian centers" would be off limits?

[diamondD]

Originally posted by FORD
I'm not siding with either one. And I'm also not buying the Zionfascists' excuses for why they murder children. Those Synagogue of Satan* bastards bombed the shit out of the infrastructure THEN they targeted civilians, and claim that "they had plenty of warning to leave".

Well, warning to leave doesn't mean shit when their aren't any roads or planes leaving town.




How long's this fighting been going on? 20 days? I could be a hell of a lot farther than still sitting on the border waiting to get killed.

[DrMaddVibe]

http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?g=297BEA10-6E1B-4F94-825C-F908472E48ED&f=00&fg=copy

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by Jesus Christ
Verily I say unto you, that whosoever harm one of these little ones, better for him than he hath a millstone around his neck and be drowned at sea.

And it seems that many millstones are needed, for those who justify this murder.

The stench of the Likud arrogance hath reached the throne of My Father who art in Heaven, and He is not amused. Nor is the Son of Man :mad:

I justify it about as much as I justify the legal aborting of children here in America, not at all.

I hate it with every ounce of my being.

But just like in New Orleans, I would NOT sit around waiting to die.
If i were killed trying to flee, at least THAT is better tha giving up.

And that brings me to a question i have yet to ask, Ford.

Why don't you blame Hezbollah in any of your posts?

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by Jesus Christ

The stench of my arrogance in pretending to be Jesus Christ hath reached the throne of My Father who art in Heaven, and He is not amused. Nor is the Son of Man :mad:

:D

[floyd95]

Originally posted by Cathedral
I justify it about as much as I justify the legal aborting of children here in America, not at all.


abortion is a personal choice, not your decision to make for someone else, no matter how self righteous an asshole you are

[FORD]

If Hezbollah is killing children, then I will blame them for doing so. But it's the Likud Zionfascists who murdered those children yesterday. And it's the Likud Zionfascists who blew up a Palestinian family on the beach in Gaza, leaving a 9 year old girl alone in terror, which is what started this mess, NOT the media lie about the two kidnapped soldiers (who incidentally were well inside Lebanon when they were captured)

[floyd95]

not that you are a self righteous asshole, just extreme pro-lifers in general

pro-life until they are born, then death to all, or extreme misery

[floyd95]

i digress, sorry for getting off subject

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by floyd95
abortion is a personal choice, not your decision to make for someone else, no matter how self righteous an asshole you are

It should never have been legislated by the government AS a choice in the first place.
It isn't about being self righteous either, it's about NOT allowing people to be irresponsible in creating babies they don't want in the first place.

If you don't want kids, don't have sex.
Or go get your tubes tied.
Or go get the balls snipped.

Saying it's ok to go out and get pregnant and have an abortion sends the wrong message.

We should be promoting responsibility, NOT excuses and providing an easy out for people who don't think ahead.

And if I had my way, it would take both parents to decide if an abortion happens or not.
That means that if I risk shooting my seed into a woman I do it knowing i'll be a good parent to that child should she get pregnant.

To argue that only shows one to be an irresponsible fuck, period.

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by Dr. Love
Seriously, if your town was being bombarded and attacked from time to time, would you really stay there, especially if some militant group was firing rockets from near where you lived?

How about the pamphlets Israel dropped on the area, in the native tongue, telling people to leave the REGION.

These people are idiots.

[floyd95]

yeah, easy to say with 40 years of life experience

people make mistakes

you shouldn't decide for them, sorry, you are self righteous

and people shouldn't be forced to have unwanted children, they will only be neglected and forgotten anyway, will you take care of them?

[floyd95]

it shouldn't be used as an easy out, or a form of birth control, i wouldn't have an abortion personally, but that's a personal choice

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by Seshmeister
They don't have transport, they don't have anywhere else to go and the Israelis are bombing the roads and bridges.

all good points

[Dr. Love]

Originally posted by ODShowtime
How about the pamphlets Israel dropped on the area, in the native tongue, telling people to leave the REGION.

These people are idiots.

Hm, good point.

[FORD]

Originally posted by Dr. Love
Hm, good point.

It's not a good point if the Zionfascists have destroyed any possible means of leaving town.

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by FORD
It's not a good point if the Zionfascists have destroyed any possible means of leaving town.

I know Israel is dismantling the whole transport infrastructure in Lebanon, probably for some wider objective, but the problem is that these 'tards are brain washed to be martyrs. They've been hardened by the 18+ year war, and the women and children have no say because everyone's a 'good muslim'.

So they stay around and help the guerillas move "like a fish in the sea" or whatever Mao said.

And of course the sick bastards that probably do set up rocket launchers right near schools and mosques.

[Seshmeister]

Originally posted by Cathedral
It should never have been legislated by the government AS a choice in the first place.
It isn't about being self righteous either, it's about NOT allowing people to be irresponsible in creating babies they don't want in the first place.

If you don't want kids, don't have sex.
Or go get your tubes tied.
Or go get the balls snipped.

Saying it's ok to go out and get pregnant and have an abortion sends the wrong message.

We should be promoting responsibility, NOT excuses and providing an easy out for people who don't think ahead.

And if I had my way, it would take both parents to decide if an abortion happens or not.
That means that if I risk shooting my seed into a woman I do it knowing i'll be a good parent to that child should she get pregnant.

To argue that only shows one to be an irresponsible fuck, period.

If you want to have a kid every time you have sex with some girl then maybe you should check if she feels the same way.

That's responsible.

[Dr. Love]

Originally posted by FORD
It's not a good point if the Zionfascists have destroyed any possible means of leaving town.

did they cut off everyone's feet??

[Seshmeister]

FORD you keep saying Likud but I don't see a whole different attitude from the 'opposition' in Israel. Are you saying that the Labor party over there are pacifists?

Don't think so...

[DEMON CUNT]

Originally posted by Dr. Love
did they cut off everyone's feet??

The infrastructure has been destroyed.

You must be all Rambo and shit and just be bustin' your way through the zone with your muscles flexing complete with slow motion close up battle scream. As sweat drips from your big 'ol manly balls.

Maybe they lack the cunning survival skills that you posses. I'm just sayin'...

http://images.joke.co.uk/images/products/s25062-med.jpg

[Dr. Love]

Originally posted by DEMON CUNT
sweat drips from your big 'ol manly balls.


Sure does... want a drink? :D

[DEMON CUNT]

Originally posted by Dr. Love
Sure does... want a drink?

Yeah, but your Mom's hair seems to have soaked it all up!

[Dr. Love]

I'll see what I can save for you in the future.

[FORD]

Originally posted by Seshmeister
FORD you keep saying Likud but I don't see a whole different attitude from the 'opposition' in Israel. Are you saying that the Labor party over there are pacifists?

Don't think so...

The Labor party at least TRIED to find peaceful solutions when they were in power. It's no coincidence that it's the Labor PM's that have attempted to talk to the Palestinians.

Sharon & Olmert were supposedly tired of the Likud Extremism, or at least that's what they said when they launched their "Kadima" party last year. Granted, it was probably a foolish gamble to trust anything Ariel Sharon said in the first place, but apparently they were convincing enough. The majoirty of Israeli voters rejected Likud Zionfascism in their last election, believing that Ariel - Or Olmert after Sharon's final Mossad induced brain meltdown - would put them on a new path that would eventually bring peace.

And what has been completely BURIED in the news for the last 2 weeks, is the fact that - curiously, right before this bullshit started - Hamas and Fatah had reached an agreement that would have presented one united (official) Palestinian voice which recognized Israel's right to exist.

Hamas was moving towards peace, for fucks sake. And suddenly all Hell breaks loose.

The Israeli people got fucked in the election, and the Lebanese people are getting fucked now. All because Likud Zionfascists will AVOID peace at all costs.

[DEMON CUNT]

Originally posted by Dr. Love
I'll see what I can save for you in the future.

Hell! I'll take all of your Mom's hair that you are willing to give me!

You see, I lost all my ass hair in a terrible lightning strike...

[Seshmeister]

The whole thing is a fucked up mess that will never be resolved.

Israel should never have been created in the first place but now it's there then it has to remain.

What I would like to see is an end to the US propping Israel up. She has nukes and can struggle along being an unpleasant racist country of 5 million or whatever it is.

Let them get on with it. You have a bunch of nuts on both sides whose arguments are based on stuff that happened hundreds of years ago. If we base our lives on stuff from back then noone has any sort of a civilised position. The US was created by a land grab and genocide of millions worse than Nazi Germany. Britain was run by a bunch of evil cunts in the 18th century. Neither of these are relevant now.

I'm a pragmatist. I don't see how it is in the interests of the American people to prop up this evil shit. It's fucking nonsense. Without Israel there would not have been a 9-11 it's that simple.

It does seem to be in the interests of the US etablishment to give them 3 billion worth of arms each year though. It's fine that Israel fucks up the whle concept of the UN for what it's worth and international law because it suits the people that run the US.

It's just plainly not in the interests of the US people. Nothing will change until the US electorate takes enough interest in the subject to see through the bullshit.

The whole thing is a massive con.

Cheers!

:gulp:

[Seshmeister]

Originally posted by FORD
The Labor party at least TRIED to find peaceful solutions when they were in power. It's no coincidence that it's the Labor PM's that have attempted to talk to the Palestinians.

Sharon & Olmert were supposedly tired of the Likud Extremism, or at least that's what they said when they launched their "Kadima" party last year. Granted, it was probably a foolish gamble to trust anything Ariel Sharon said in the first place, but apparently they were convincing enough. The majoirty of Israeli voters rejected Likud Zionfascism in their last election, believing that Ariel - Or Olmert after Sharon's final Mossad induced brain meltdown - would put them on a new path that would eventually bring peace.

And what has been completely BURIED in the news for the last 2 weeks, is the fact that - curiously, right before this bullshit started - Hamas and Fatah had reached an agreement that would have presented one united (official) Palestinian voice which recognized Israel's right to exist.

Hamas was moving towards peace, for fucks sake. And suddenly all Hell breaks loose.

The Israeli people got fucked in the election, and the Lebanese people are getting fucked now. All because Likud Zionfascists will AVOID peace at all costs.

You can only get so far with these fuckwits on both sides.

I see it like Nothern Ireland.

What yu have to understand is that a lot of people in situations like this like it. There were plenty of people in Nothern Ireland who did pretty well out of the situation. I'm sure it's the same with Hamas or whoever. It turned into the mafia and still is t a lesser extent. Scumcunts benefitting from the protection of their communities based on an injustice. The US needs to get the fuck out the Middle East. At the same time they need to in return agree with Syria and Iran to stop funding these cunts.

Peace initiatives and whatever are all very nice but the key in Nothern Ireland was the complete end of US funding to the IRA after 9-11.

Cheers!

:gulp:

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by Seshmeister
If you want to have a kid every time you have sex with some girl then maybe you should check if she feels the same way.

That's responsible.

Exactly, I knew the risk every time and was quite ready to take responsibility.

Aborting was never an option for me.

All i am promoting is educating kids in detail how to think and act responsibly before beginning a sexual relationship.

The numbers are going down, so that pleases me as long as they keep going down.

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by Seshmeister
The whole thing is a fucked up mess that will never be resolved.

Israel should never have been created in the first place but now it's there then it has to remain.

What I would like to see is an end to the US propping Israel up. She has nukes and can struggle along being an unpleasant racist country of 5 million or whatever it is.

Let them get on with it. You have a bunch of nuts on both sides whose arguments are based on stuff that happened hundreds of years ago. If we base our lives on stuff from back then noone has any sort of a civilised position. The US was created by a land grab and genocide of millions worse than Nazi Germany. Britain was run by a bunch of evil cunts in the 18th century. Neither of these are relevant now.

I'm a pragmatist. I don't see how it is in the interests of the American people to prop up this evil shit. It's fucking nonsense. Without Israel there would not have been a 9-11 it's that simple.

It does seem to be in the interests of the US etablishment to give them 3 billion worth of arms each year though. It's fine that Israel fucks up the whle concept of the UN for what it's worth and international law because it suits the people that run the US.

It's just plainly not in the interests of the US people. Nothing will change until the US electorate takes enough interest in the subject to see through the bullshit.

The whole thing is a massive con.

Cheers!

:gulp:

I gotta say, Nice Post!

[ELVIS]

Originally posted by FORD

Hamas was moving towards peace, for fucks sake. And suddenly all Hell breaks loose.


Hamas is a terrorist organization that somehow attained power in Palestine...

They DID NOT WANT peace...

You really are on the side of the terrorists...

[FORD]

I can't argue with anything Sesh says here either. I think it's time to cut Israel off.

And to the religious reich freaks like John Hagee who will bring up some misquoted Scripture about God blessing those who bless Israel and cursing those that curse them, I would just like to remind those zombies that God was referring to a Spiritual Israel that was living within His will.

So, if God bitchslaps Israel (by use of a huge Russian/Muslim coalition invasion) and then they wake up and turn from Likud Zionfascism to His ways, just like Ezekiel 38-39 says it will go down, THEN I'll reconsider my support of Israel. Until that day, I'll despise these Likudist cocksucking Nazis with every breath in my body.

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by ELVIS
Hamas is a terrorist organization that somehow attained power in Palestine...

They DID NOT WANT peace...

You really are on the side of the terrorists...

Yeah, they were elected...proves to me that peace is a long shot in that region.
All a terror group has to do is play American Liberal and create a bunch of entitlement programs and they're in like flynn.

I'll bet the same thing will happen in Iraq the first election after we pull out, in 15-20 years.

[FORD]

Originally posted by ELVIS
Hamas is a terrorist organization that somehow attained power in Palestine...

They DID NOT WANT peace...

You really are on the side of the terrorists...

I'm on the side of the innocent Lebanese and Palestinians caught in the middle. And even the innocent Jews who occasionally get caught in the crossfire.

But YOU need to do your homework on Hamas. They are the Israeli equivalent to Al Qaeda. A "terrorist" organization created by the Israeli government for the purpose of undermining the PLO.

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by FORD
I can't argue with anything Sesh says here either. I think it's time to cut Israel off.

And to the religious reich freaks like John Hagee who will bring up some misquoted Scripture about God blessing those who bless Israel and cursing those that curse them, I would just like to remind those zombies that God was referring to a Spiritual Israel that was living within His will.

So, if God bitchslaps Israel (by use of a huge Russian/Muslim coalition invasion) and then they wake up and turn from Likud Zionfascism to His ways, just like Ezekiel 38-39 says it will go down, THEN I'll reconsider my support of Israel. Until that day, I'll despise these Likudist cocksucking Nazis with every breath in my body.

I think we should cut everyone off and worry about what's going on here at home.
First, we need to elect a third party and stop the trend that's been ruling for 60 freakin years.

Second, aim our missiles and DARE anyone to start launching nukes but, be ready to send them all up if someone does.

I don't care anymore and i'm not willing, no, i absolutely refuse to be intimidated by a nuclear arms race again.

Shit, i remember doing the bombing drills, fuck that, let me outside with a pair of sunglasses and a bottle of Jack.

Cat needs a tan...

[ULTRAMAN VH]

Originally posted by Cathedral
I think we should cut everyone off and worry about what's going on here at home.
First, we need to elect a third party and stop the trend that's been ruling for 60 freakin years.

Second, aim our missiles and DARE anyone to start launching nukes but, be ready to send them all up if someone does.

I don't care anymore and i'm not willing, no, i absolutely refuse to be intimidated by a nuclear arms race again.

Shit, i remember doing the bombing drills, fuck that, let me outside with a pair of sunglasses and a bottle of Jack.

Cat needs a tan...

Well said CATMAN!!! We have numerous problems on the homefront and both Republican and Democratic parties continue to ignore them and get fat and rich off of the middle class. Here is just a small list of these problems.
1. 72 percent rate hikes in our gas and electric bills.
2. 3.11 for a gallon of gas.
3. paying for a war in Iraq.
4. paying for a broken welfare system.
5. paying for Illegal aliens education, health care, and their incarceration.
6. Wide open borders.
7. large National debt, China practically owns us.
and the list could go on and on.

[DrMaddVibe]

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,,19955774-5007220,00.html

[fryingdutchman]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
There were no rockets in the neighborhood, and Israel has been bombing strategic targets all over Lebanon that have little to do with Hezbollah...

Bullshit.

Israel has video of rockets being fired from the area.

Of course, if you choose to always take the opposing view then you could make up some argument that the "Neo-Cons" and the "Zionfascists" crafted some propoganda video and pictures to support their actions.

But I guess that just depends on how much of an Oliver Stone conspiracy-theorist you want to be.

[FORD]

The Likud Zionfascists have since admitted that they found no evidence of weapons or weapons delivery systems anywhere near Qana.

[jcook11]

Originally posted by FORD
Just a trivial note about Qana, the place that the Likud Zionists bombed to shit today........

This was the place where Jesus Christ performed His first miracle, when He turned water into wine at a cousin's wedding.

It's entirely possible that His cousin's family still lives in that city. What if some of the 34 children brutally murdered by Likud Zionfascism today were relatives of the Messiah Himself??

Doesn't make the crime itself any more or less sickening, but it's a Hell of a twist...........

It is also entirely possible that monkeys will fly out of your ass :rolleyes:

[DrMaddVibe]

Originally posted by FORD
The Likud Zionfascists have since admitted that they found no evidence of weapons or weapons delivery systems anywhere near Qana.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,,19955774-5007220,00.html

[FORD]

Originally posted by DrMaddVibe
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,,19955774-5007220,00.html

Murdoch. nothing else need be said there.

[DrMaddVibe]

How's bout the ABC footage I posted earlier...NOBODY commented on that!


Who cares about the killing...who was printing the 100 dollar bills?!?

Suppose that was the BCE too, you're psycho!

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by DEMON CUNT
The infrastructure has been destroyed.

You must be all Rambo and shit and just be bustin' your way through the zone with your muscles flexing complete with slow motion close up battle scream. As sweat drips from your big 'ol manly balls.

Maybe they lack the cunning survival skills that you posses. I'm just sayin'...

http://images.joke.co.uk/images/products/s25062-med.jpg

LMFAO!:D

[Nickdfresh]

Israel troops have landed in Baalbeck, Lebanon via helicopter (in the northeast, close to the Syrian border...) (CNN/Reuters)

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by ELVIS
Hamas is a terrorist organization that somehow attained power in Palestine...

They DID NOT WANT peace...

You really are on the side of the terrorists...

Funny, you could say the exact thing about the Israeli Gov't circa 1948...

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by fryingdutchman
Bullshit.

Israel has video of rockets being fired from the area.

And they also fired way more ordinance than they needed to take out a rocket launcher, which was well behind the apartment block.

That's what just about every military analyst I've seen has said...


Of course, if you choose to always take the opposing view then you could make up some argument that the "Neo-Cons" and the "Zionfascists" crafted some propoganda video and pictures to support their actions.

But I guess that just depends on how much of an Oliver Stone conspiracy-theorist you want to be.

Why don't you look into all those posts for conspiracy theories...

[ELVIS]

Originally posted by DrMaddVibe
How's bout the ABC footage I posted earlier...NOBODY commented on that!



How's about making your links more clickable...

[DrMaddVibe]

Type in Humanitarian crisis in Lebanon at http://video.msn.com

You'll find the link...it was hot yesterday...not too many people picked up on it.

[Nickdfresh]

Has Israel’s assault weakened Hezbollah—or made it stronger?

by JON LEE ANDERSON
Issue of 2006-08-07
Posted 2006-07-31

On a deceptively peaceful afternoon in the last week of July, Ali Fayyad, a Hezbollah strategist, puffed on a cigar and spooned up a dish of ice cream. Three scoops: chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. We were sitting in Lina’s Café, on Rue Hamra, in downtown Beirut. For eleven days, the city had been shuttered, nearly empty of people and traffic, as the Israeli military pounded Beirut’s southern suburbs and the south of the country, where Hezbollah, the “Party of God,” had dug its tunnels and bunkers and stored thousands of Iranian-built missiles. Bridges, tunnels, roads, and apartment buildings lay in ruins, and almost three-quarters of a million Lebanese had fled their homes in fear. But for the moment, at least, Ali Fayyad ate his ice cream in peace. Some of the shops were open, and more people were out on the street, because Condoleezza Rice was in town to meet with the Lebanese leadership and everyone figured—rightly––that the Israelis would hold fire over downtown Beirut until she left.

Fayyad is a burly man in his forties. As a member of the Hezbollah politburo, he is close to the group’s supreme leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, and everything he told me at Lina’s, about the cross-border abduction of two Israeli soldiers and the killing of eight others on July 12th, and the all-out armed conflict that followed, was an authorized version. “Our aim is to get Israel to return Lebanese lands”—he meant Shebaa Farms, a small strip of land occupied by Israel since 1967—“and to release three of our prisoners,” Fayyad said. “One of the prisoners has been held for almost thirty years.” He was referring to Samir Kuntar, a Lebanese man who, in 1979, killed an Israeli man and his four-year-old daughter. (Another daughter, who was two, was accidentally smothered when her mother tried to keep her quiet in the crawl space where they were hiding.)

“We’ve made many efforts to have them returned, and have tried everything, including diplomacy, with no results,” Fayyad said. “So we were left with no other choice but to kidnap Israeli soldiers. The idea was ‘prisoners for prisoners.’ And we have exchanged prisoners with Israel in the past.”

If that really was Hezbollah’s plan, it went wrong from the beginning. Tensions were already high, because of the Hamas kidnapping of an Israeli soldier in Gaza, two weeks earlier, and Israel responded with bombing raids, including one, the next day, on Beirut’s airport. That night, a rocket fired from Hezbollah territory hit Haifa, and more missiles, in both directions, soon followed, resulting in casualties and the threat of regional war.

Fayyad seemed both surprised and offended by the scale of the Israeli attack, which he said Hezbollah never expected. Although Hezbollah’s rockets were landing in Haifa, Nahariya, Safed, and Nazareth, he also claimed that it had been reluctant to target civilians. “First, for humanitarian and moral reasons, and, second, because when civilians are killed we come out as the losers,” he said. “Far more of our people get killed than Israel’s.” Still, for Fayyad, the events had the logic of reprisal: Israel had hit “civilian infrastructure,” and so Hezbollah fired rockets into “occupied Palestine,” by which he meant all of Israel.

The past two weeks have represented a return to first principles for Hezbollah, which was founded in the early eighties, after Israel invaded Lebanon. The group became known internationally when it was accused of bombing the United States Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, killing two hundred and forty-one American servicemen; that was followed by attacks on Israeli targets around the world. In Lebanon, Hezbollah draws support, in the Shiite community and beyond, for its role in driving the Israeli occupation forces out of the country in 2000. Since then, Hezbollah has presented itself as a political party, gaining two posts in the Lebanese cabinet and fourteen seats in the parliament. But, rather than disarming, it bolstered its military capacity, with Iranian and Syrian help. Now that it is under siege, the contradictions of its position—as part of the Lebanese state, but also as a clandestine body that subverts it—are plainer than ever. On July 14th, Nasrallah went on television and addressed Israel directly: “You wanted an open war. We are heading toward an open war, and we are ready for it.”

The Israelis, led by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his novice Defense Minister, Amir Peretz, quickly shifted their aims from retrieving the soldiers to destroying, or at least crippling, Hezbollah. Hundreds of Lebanese had already been killed, most of them civilians; dozens of Israelis had been killed, about half of them civilians. As Fayyad considered these numbers, he puffed on his cigar and said that Israel, and not Hezbollah, had made the greater strategic miscalculation.

“The real battle started four days ago, when the Israelis moved their troops into Lebanon, and it became a ground war,” he said. “That is the preferred situation for Hezbollah. They fought four days to take Maroun al-Ras, just one mile from the border, on very open ground, with tanks—four days.” A few days after our conversation, control of Maroun al-Ras was still in dispute, and Israel was facing more resistance than expected in the village of Bint Jbail.

But Hezbollah’s interests are not reducible to the conventional terms of a casualty balance sheet. Hezbollah has embedded itself deep within Lebanese society, in effect creating a state within a state, with an extensive social-service network. Even if Israel manages to dislodge Hezbollah’s fighters, Nasrallah will likely remain the most powerful politician in the country, in part because the chaos of the last weeks has exposed the weakness of the government. Most of the Lebanese analysts I spoke with said they believed that Hezbollah had, on its own terms, been significantly strengthened by the conflict.

The damage to Lebanon, meanwhile, has been catastrophic. Fayyad said that he had arranged to evacuate his father from the family home in a village near the Israeli border, but he emphasized that Hezbollah’s forces would not leave south Lebanon without a fight. “You must remember that the point of resistance is not to hold ground and face off in front of another position,” Fayyad said. “That is classical warfare, but we are guerrillas. If the Israelis want to take the territory all the way up to the Litani River, do you think they can do it without heavy casualties?”

Fayyad finished his ice cream and stubbed out his cigar. Before we left Lina’s, he said, “This doesn’t mean that the battle isn’t difficult for us. It is. It’s painful, too. But the longer it goes on the harder it will be for them.”

Across town, the talks between Condoleezza Rice and the Lebanese faltered the moment she announced that the Bush Administration would not yet press Israel for a ceasefire. “It doesn’t do any good to raise false hopes,” she said after a meeting with Lebanese, European, and U.N. officials in Rome two days later. “It’s not going to happen. . . . I did say to the group, ‘When will we learn?’ The fields of the Middle East are littered with broken ceasefires.”

On July 23rd, the day before Rice’s visit, I’d made my way toward the cities and towns of the Shia south––Hezbollistan, as some call it. I drove from Beirut with a few photographers, taking back roads to bypass the mangled highway interchanges and bridges. The only cars we saw were racing in the opposite direction, to the relative safety of the north, usually in caravans of seven or eight. Most were packed with families, who had attached makeshift white flags to the sideview mirrors. The previous week, an Israeli missile had hit a van full of refugees, killing sixteen of them. Some drivers flashed their lights, warning us not to proceed; most passed by at high speed, the expressions on their faces grim, intent, and scared.

Approaching Tyre, we saw that a bomb had gouged out a crater, twenty feet across and twenty feet deep, in the middle of the road. Nearby, a black S.U.V. sat accordioned and empty; it had crashed into a telephone pole. From the sky came the whoosh of a fighter jet and, much closer, the whine of a drone.

We pulled over to make way for a convoy of refugees. One driver, a man wearing a white T-shirt and steering a large black Mercedes-Benz, had several frightened-looking women and children in the back seat. As he slowed down to edge past the crater, he yelled out to us, in English, “We will never go back! We must leave this country.” In another car, a woman pointed to a child and said, frantically, “Down syndrome.” A teen-ager poked his head out of yet another car and exclaimed wildly, “U.S. Embassy!” A muffled explosion sounded, coming from beyond the city.

Over the next half hour, several more groups of cars made the run. One had its roof caved in and one of its sides smashed; it seemed impossible that anyone could drive it, but, as it came nearer, I saw an older man behind the wheel, his body bent and his head low to one side. As he passed, he called out that he had been with a woman—“a journalist like you”—and added, “She’s dead.” Later that day, news reports confirmed that a twenty-three-year-old Lebanese photographer, Layal Nejib, had been killed when an Israeli missile struck near her car on the road south of Tyre.

We turned north, to a hospital in Sidon. A large group of people—men, women wearing chadors, and children—were talking and crying at once. I recognized the man in the white T-shirt who had passed us by the crater. He appeared to be in shock, walking back and forth, trembling and shouting; several men were trying to calm him down. He was soaked with sweat. Three members of his family had been wounded. I walked up to the man and said that I had seen him less than an hour before. He turned and shouted, accusingly, “You were there and I talked to you—and then they hit us!”

Near the hospital, a mosque lay in ruins. Next door was a technical college and school run by the Hariri Foundation, which was established by the late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated in a car bombing in February, 2005. (A preliminary U.N. report implicated Syrian intelligence; the investigation is incomplete.) One of the mosque’s white domes, still intact, was propped up, bizarrely, on top of the debris. Strips of the mosque’s red carpet, shredded by the explosion, hung from the branches of nearby trees.

A man approached and told me that he was a teacher at the Hariri school. I asked him why he thought the Israelis had hit a mosque, and he said, simply, “It was a Hezbollah mosque.” As he led me onto the grounds, a caretaker began yelling in Arabic about “Israel” and “America,” but the teacher shooed him away. I found a leaflet that had been dropped by the Israelis. It showed caricatures of Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad; Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; and Khaled Mashal, a Hamas leader based in Damascus, playing flutes around an urn; from it emerged the bearded face of Nasrallah. “At your service,” the caption read.

A younger man came up to me and, when we were out of earshot of others, said that Hezbollah had kept bombs in the basement of the mosque, but that two days earlier a truck had taken the cache away. It was common knowledge in Sidon, he said, and everyone was expecting the mosque to be hit. When, the previous evening, displaced people from the south had gathered on the grounds, they had been warned away.

“Everybody wants to end this Hezbollah regime, but nobody can say anything,” the young man said. He told me that he had been to the United States. “I know how the people are there, what they eat and how they live and think, and we don’t have anything like that here. We would like to live like that, without all this”—he waved toward the ruined mosque—“normally, the way you do.” He hoped that the Israelis would be successful. When another Lebanese man came up and joined us, he stopped talking. Before we parted, I asked him if he was a Christian. He looked surprised. “No,” he said. “I am Muslim. Sunni.”

Sunni and Christian politicians often publicly declare their solidarity with the Shiite Hezbollah, which routinely refers to itself as a Lebanese national “resistance movement.” But the sectarian fault lines have been affected by the current crisis. The population is estimated to be thirty-five per cent Christian, thirty-five per cent Shiite, twenty-five per cent Sunni, and five per cent Druze, and government posts are allocated to specific groups—the Prime Minister must be Sunni, for example. “Civil war is on everyone’s mind, but it’s the one thing nobody wants to talk about,” an affluent Maronite Christian businessman told me over dinner at a restaurant in a Maronite enclave in the hills above Beirut. I was there with two couples—the other man, also a Christian, was a well-known former government minister—on the restaurant’s terrace. Like many people with money, they had moved their families to the hills. The restaurant’s sound system was playing a song by Fairouz, Lebanon’s most famous singer and a national idol, whose beautiful laments evoke emotions in the Lebanese the same way that Edith Piaf once did for the French in wartime.

My hosts had been telling me, with a certain pride, how the monasteries and schools in the area had taken in thousands of Shiite refugees from the south. “This kind of thing has never happened before,” the former minister said. “Most of the people from these two communities have never had this sort of contact with each other. But they have been taken in, and they are getting along.” He saw it as a promising sign of “inter-communal solidarity.” After all, he said, the attacks had been directed not only against the Shiites but against Lebanon’s infrastructure.

Down the table, the businessman said that he wondered why, with all the resources Hezbollah had at its disposal—it receives an estimated hundred million dollars a year from Iran—it hadn’t done more to protect its civilian population. “Why didn’t Hezbollah prepare for this?” he said. “Where is the food, the medicines? Where are the shelters for the people? Maybe, out of this, people will begin to question why they had to suffer because of the will of one man.” He meant Nasrallah.

Speaking about the Shiite refugees, who were now dependent on aid handouts, his wife asked, “What will happen when October comes and winter begins? Will they stay? Will they have homes to return to? All through the civil war, I stayed in Lebanon—I never wanted to leave—but in just two weeks they have destroyed everything we have built in the fifteen years since the war ended, and now I don’t want to stay anymore. This time, I want to leave.”

A moment later, a distant rumble could be heard. “Are those bombs?” she said. “Is that what I am hearing? Here?” Neither her husband nor the ex-minister acknowledged her. But then there was another, louder explosion, and she asked again.

“We are hearing Fairouz,” the ex-minister said sternly, cocking a thumb toward the sound system. He said this as if to tell her, “Don’t spoil the evening,” but afterward he brooded, and everyone at the table sat silently, listening to the music and, unavoidably, to the explosions in the distance.

When I arrived at the Hezbollah stronghold of Haret Hreik, in Beirut’s predominantly Shiite southern suburbs, it had just been pummelled, as it had every day since the bombing began. Most of the residents, who lived in concrete apartment blocks, had left. It had been risky for reporters to go to the neighborhood, both because of the Israeli bombardment and because of the remaining Hezbollah sentinels, who were tense and suspicious. But now Hezbollah was conducting a press tour of its ruins.

I found my way to the rendezvous point, at a bombed-out highway interchange, where fifty or sixty journalists had gathered—reporters, photographers, and television cameramen. An energetic young man named Hussein Naboulsi, who runs Hezbollah’s press office, announced that the tour would be fast, and that no one should stray from the group. He then headed off so quickly that people had to sprint to keep up. Hezbollah men kept an eye on the sky, and on us.

We walked past entire apartment blocks that had been flattened. The streets were littered with chunks of concrete, insulation material, twisted aluminum shutters, broken glass, and dangling electrical wires, and it became difficult to walk. Naboulsi paused and waved his arms and said loudly, “You see? This is where ordinary people live. This is what the Israelis do.”

In front of a row of wrecked shop- fronts, he declared, “This is revenge against Lebanon, the only country that has shown itself able to defeat Israel.” We reached an open area where the buildings had been completely levelled. Naboulsi pointed to some rubble and said, “This is where the Hezbollah Media Relations office used be. Now there’s no place for me to work.” He claimed that, apart from this and a center for social charity, there hadn’t been any Hezbollah offices around there—only civilian targets. He then led the group away from the area where, I had heard, Hezbollah’s security headquarters had stood. In Beirut, many people believed that Sheikh Nasrallah was still in the neighborhood, in a bunker, although there were also rumors that he was in Damascus or at the Iranian Embassy.

Naboulsi suddenly yelled, “Jet fighters in the sky!” He urged the journalists to hurry to their cars; the tour was over.

One evening, on a rooftop balcony in the eastern-Beirut district of Ashrafieh, I met with Jamil Mroue, a secular Shiite and the editor of Beirut’s English-language newspaper, the Daily Star. Mroue, a big, handsome silver-haired man of fifty-six, nursed a glass of whiskey and looked out over the sea, where two gray American destroyers were prowling the Mediterranean. After staring at the ships for a minute, Mroue began to vent his frustration.

“Even after 9/11, there is this expectation in the U.S. and Israel that some unspoken middle class is just sitting there waiting to inherit the ruins of whatever country it is that they are obliterating. But there is no calculation that, if they flatten Lebanon and Nasrallah comes out of hiding and is given a microphone to deliver a speech, he can topple governments. He has been extraordinarily empowered by this. Israel and America are still obsessed with destroying hardware. But if you do this with Hezbollah you just propagate what you want to destroy”—that is, an unmoored fighting force. “Do I want to live under Hezbollah?,” he said. “No, I don’t. But the same errors that the Americans made in Iraq are the ones being made here. You get rid of Nasrallah not by destroying his guns but by helping to create a sustainable society.”

Mroue went on, “In the beginning, in the eighties, Hezbollah controlled the night, but by 2000 it controlled the day, even as the Israeli soldiers were huddled in their bunkers.” He said that it was unfair to ask Lebanon’s fragile government to do what the Israelis couldn’t in their eighteen-year occupation. “Do you want to use a sledgehammer? Well, do you remember the Israeli minister who compared Arabs to lice? Try hitting lice with a sledgehammer!”

Mroue sipped his whiskey and said, “Hezbollah will most likely come out of this with its infrastructure shattered, but then comes the soapbox with the highly cerebral underdog—Nasrallah—and there will be a camera crew there from CNN or Al Arabiya, and he will go on camera and say ‘Do this,’ and people will.”

Mroue’s point of view was common not only among secular Shiites but among Christians and Sunnis who normally had little use for Hezbollah yet despaired of the effect of Israel’s bombing and the Bush Administration’s refusal to rein in the Olmert government.

“Before the war, probably eighty or ninety per cent of Lebanese were against Hezbollah,” Mroue said despondently. “But now I’d say it’s around fifty, teetering on sixty per cent—in favor.” Those numbers were guesses; the breadth and depth of Hezbollah’s support is one of the great uncertainties in the crisis. Mroue cited an old Saudi tribal proverb: “If you know the price of a man’s ransom, kill him.” The ransom was the price that would be exacted by the slain man’s tribe in revenge for his death. “In other words, if you know what the costs will be for your actions, and you can afford them, go ahead,” Mroue said. “But here, who knows what the price of the ransom is?”

Hussein Rahal runs Hezbollah’s information bureau, and, like other Hezbollah officials, he had gone underground. I met him by prearrangement in a borrowed office in a government building. Rahal was a study in gray: he wore a gray suit, had cropped gray hair, and had a gray stubble beard. He was taking the long view. “We have lived in this situation before. All wars end, and when this one does we will be victorious, because we will stand fast, and the situation we have now will be changed. Right now, the neoconservatives, as part of their strategy to reshape the Middle East, are encouraging Israel to escalate its war against Lebanon, which means that the U.S. Administration is taking a leading part in a war, one that the American people have no say in.” Rahal paused, and added carefully, “But Hezbollah does not want to cause any harm to the American people.” He went on, “The U.S. runs the risk of bringing down the Lebanese state it says it wants to support. And if this happens it could take the whole region into a new stage of the conflict—and who benefits from that?

“War is always two-sided, and you must test both sides’ ability to stand fast. We have weapons that we did not have in 1996. The casualties for Israel in a ground war will be very high. And we have only one choice, and that is to survive.”

The broadcast facilities of Hezbollah’s television station, Al Manar, were bombed––the Israelis consider it the group’s most powerful propaganda arm—but it somehow managed to stay on the air. When I asked Ibrahim Mussawi, the editor of foreign news at Al Manar, about the damage the country had sustained, he said, “We’ve managed with thirty-five billion dollars of national debt”—Lebanon’s current debt. “What will it cost to rebuild the new damage? Four, five billion? If we could manage thirty-five, then we can manage forty billion. Bad as it is, maybe some good can come out of this; maybe after this it will be the right time to settle all our problems in Lebanon, all of the ‘isms’ we are famous for: nepotism, corruptionism.” Mussawi seemed to be suggesting that the best solution for Lebanon’s ills, when the war was over, was a government led by the Party of God.

For now, it is not clear who is running Lebanon. Rice came to Beirut in part to express support for Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, who came to power after the “Cedar revolution,” the mass protests against Syrian interference in Lebanon that followed Hariri’s murder. Siniora, a Sunni, had criticized Hezbollah, but was openly in despair about the lack of U.S. support for a ceasefire; in Rome, he called the air war “barbaric.”

One politician Rice pointedly snubbed during her visit was the country’s President, Émile Lahoud, a Maronite who is widely seen as a tool of Syria. I met with him at the Presidential palace a few hours before Rice arrived. He was deeply tanned, and looked like an older, fleshier version of Tony Blair.

Lahoud told me how pleased he was that I had come to Lebanon to see the “truth” of what was happening. “Unfortunately, Americans have a very erroneous picture,” he said. “It’s—you know, they have a very strong media. Israel is all over the world.”

He spoke vehemently about the “infamy” of the Israeli attacks. “The Israelis said it was because of the taking of two hostages. Well, it is not true. They want to break the infrastructure, because Lebanon is a very big competitor of Israel, from the touristic point of view and with anything—regional trade, finance. So the Israelis don’t want Lebanon to prosper.” He added, “But the most important reason is that they want to take revenge, because we liberated our land.”

I asked Lahoud if he believed, as I had heard other Lebanese say, that Israel wanted to spark a civil war in Lebanon. “Yes,” he said. “Israel is happy when Lebanese fight each other.” He added, “Washington wants whatever Israel wants, unfortunately. For many reasons. The main one, you know”—Lahoud gave me a knowing look—“the lobby, and elections.

“Look, you can see the bombs from here,” Lahoud said. He led me to the window, and we looked down at the southern suburbs. A plume of gray smoke was rising rapidly.

On July 27th—the morning after Israel lost nine soldiers in clashes with Hezbollah, and two days after its missiles hit a U.N. outpost, killing four observers—I met a Western diplomat in Beirut. He told me that, while both Hezbollah and Israel had miscalculated, Hezbollah, at this point, had the advantage. “The casualties inflicted by Israel’s air campaign play right into Hezbollah’s hands. Hezbollah certainly thinks it’s winning. Even if it loses popularity among Druze, Sunnis, and Christians, its popularity remains high among Shiites, and for Hezbollah that’s all that really counts.”

Pointing to his head, he said, “In the end, the battle is between the ears. If, as a result of this, the Lebanese people get sick of Hezbollah, and if they turn on it and disarm it, that would be great.” A less favorable scenario was for the fighting to end inconclusively, with Hezbollah allowed to return to its former status. Still, he said, that might at least “show the Lebanese that there are serious consequences for supporting Hezbollah.”

The diplomat said that if anyone had benefitted from the confrontation, it was the government in Tehran. “Iran’s role in this has been huge,” he said. “I don’t know what role, if any, it had in the abductions, but I think it does encourage Hezbollah’s fighting on the border, and its arms shipments have been impressive. Without any cost to Iran, Lebanon is getting devastated, Israel is taking hits, and the Iranians are getting distraction from the nuclear issue. They must be very happy right now.”

The degree to which Hezbollah, fortified by its sponsors in Iran and Syria, has constrained Lebanon’s political dialogue was brought home to me by Nayla Mouawad, Lebanon’s Minister of Social Affairs. Mouawad, a Maronite, is the widow of former President René Mouawad, who was assassinated in 1989, the main suspects being Syria or a domestic political opponent. When I asked about Hezbollah, Mouawad chose her words very carefully. “We thought we needed Hezbollah to be a part of the government, and we gave it ministries to give it confidence to join in the nation-building. We thought that we could not implement a settlement by force, but through national dialogue.” Mouawad said that she wanted a ceasefire, but that afterward the Lebanese Army should assume control of the entire country. She was worried about it, though. “Divisions still exist in this country,” she said. “If a comprehensive settlement is not implemented, we are going to have problems. There will be people counting their losses—and the losses are tremendous—and looking for someone to blame.” She added, “Lebanon is paying the price for Syrian and Iranian interests.”

She noted that the Lebanese government agreed with some of Hezbollah’s demands, including the return of Shebaa farms and prisoners. “We need to convince Hezbollah that only a strong Lebanese nation and state could preserve its future as a party, as a Lebanese party—not as an armed political faction.” Mouawad paused, and said, “I am very much aware that the moment we are living now may be better than the one we are going to live through.”

Despite its losses, Hezbollah remains conspicuously in control in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Outsiders are stopped and interrogated by men who seem to materialize out of nowhere, riding on motor scooters. A few days after the press tour, I returned to visit an underground refuge for displaced Shiite civilians; a Hezbollah official had approved the visit.

My car pulled up outside the Farms Superstore, a modern supermarket in a concrete-and-glass building. After a round of questioning, I was allowed to proceed but only in the company of a Hezbollah man, who carried a black portfolio. Like most Hezbollah men, he wore a light beard, in the Iranian fashion. He led the way down into the three-level parking garage beneath the store, a vast, clean space of rubberized gray floors and support columns. There were no vehicles in sight; instead, at every other column or so, there were Lebanese families sitting and reclining on reed mats and foam-rubber mattresses. Each family had neat bundles of blankets and plastic bags of clothing and food. A few had electric fans, and one group was gathered around a television. They were mostly women and children, with some older men and teen-age boys; I saw few men in their twenties or thirties. The Hezbollah man said that there were three hundred and sixty families in the garage—approximately two thousand people.

In one corner, children played on swings, a slide, and a small carrousel. Our escort said that Hezbollah had provided the equipment. He added that Hezbollah had set up a clinic and a pharmacy.

As we walked down to the next level, two teen-age boys, who had been squabbling, began throwing punches at one another. The escort grabbed them and sent them away with a reprimand. A few minutes later, we were approached by a young man named Ali. He held the hand of a wide-eyed girl of six or seven. He said he was from the southern town of Marjayoun. “I have been here six days,” he said. “I am tired, but I’m not scared.” He said that he had volunteered his services to Hezbollah, patrolling the refuge at night, “to see if anyone needs anything.” Speaking of the Hezbollah leader, who the night before had made a television appearance, he said, “Sheikh Nasrallah said last night that it will last a long time. So here I am.”

A middle-aged woman in a black chador came over. When I asked if she minded living underground, she smiled and said, in a gravelly voice, “It’s all the same to me. If Israel and America want to do this to us, all we can do is to bear the situation, so if we have to stay underground we will. We don’t mind staying here as long as the boys are O.K.”—a reference to Hezbollah’s fighters—“and as long as Sheikh Nasrallah is fine. We can bear anything. Death is normal to us, and, anyway, it means we’ll go to heaven.” She told us that four children had been born in the underground garage. Two were boys, and they had been named Waaed, which means “the promising one,” and Sadeq, which means “the truthful one,” “because Sheikh Nasrallah says, ‘We have the promise of liberating the south.’ ” She added, “We don’t think the Israelis will come to Beirut, but, if they do, we know what to do with them.” A young pregnant woman standing next to her laughed and made lunging, stabbing motions with her hand.

Link (http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060807fa_fact)

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by FORD

But YOU need to do your homework on Hamas. They are the Israeli equivalent to Al Qaeda. A "terrorist" organization created by the Israeli government for the purpose of undermining the PLO.

FORD, I'm just flabbergasted.

I can't even imagine a sane human being even putting together a thought process like you do.

:cool:

[DEMON CUNT]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian (R-Thinks "Shortbus" is funny)
FORD, I'm just flabbergasted.

I can't even imagine a sane human being even putting together a thought process like you do.


That's because you are not very smart.

[FORD]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
FORD, I'm just flabbergasted.

I can't even imagine a sane human being even putting together a thought process like you do.


That's because I actually THINK. As opposed to grazing on the pastures of right wing sheepaganda.

Try reading something else.....

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/ZER403A.html

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2477/

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by FORD
That's because I actually THINK.

:rolleyes:

You feed on and spew right to this board whatever the latest crack-pot theory to come down the line from stage left gives you.

[DEMON CUNT]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
:rolleyes:

You feed on and spew right to this board whatever the latest crack-pot theory to come down the line from stage left gives you.

Yeah, crack-pot theories.

http://i20.ebayimg.com/03/i/00/88/43/05_1.JPG

[jcook11]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
:rolleyes:

You feed on and spew right to this board whatever the latest crack-pot theory to come down the line from stage left gives you.

FORD is a an intelligent person who likes to get a rise out of people with his so-called theories.....

[ELVIS]

I hope you're right...

[Cathedral]

It's all about being the Lightning Rod, folks...yeah, right.

Don't kid yourself, Ford fully believes everything he types, believe that.
Though i respect his conviction in his beliefs, i'm glad i don't know many people like him, lol.

That would hinder my ability to someday sit down with him and kill a case of Guiness.
Which, ironically, I probably never would have tried Guiness if not for his support of it.

He's good people, just a tad looney at times...but aren't we all?