Lemuel Gulliver wrote:No one put guns to Germany's heads and made them start that. Neither the Czechs, nor Poles, nor French, nor British, nor Hungarians, nor... provoke Germany.

Sverige wrote:

Lemuel Gulliver wrote:No one put guns to Germany's heads and made them start that. Neither the Czechs, nor Poles, nor French, nor British, nor Hungarians, nor... provoke Germany.

no, but the treaty of versailles was put to their heads. and who drafted that again?

UN officials contacted the Israeli army to inform them that a team of Chinese military engineers attached to the UN force in Lebanon intended to repair the bridge on the Beirut to Tyre road to enable the transport of humanitarian supplies.

According to the UN, Israeli officials said the engineers would become a target if they attempted to repair the bridge.

Senior UN officials reacted angrily to the destruction of a temporary causeway over the Litani river overnight. "We must be able to have movement throughout the country to deliver supplies. At this point we can't do that," said David Shearer, the humanitarian coordinator for Lebanon. "The deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure is a violation of international law."

Toll of a war that shames the world
It is 28 days since Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers, prompting a ground and air assault on Lebanon by the Israeli army. In that time, 932 people have been killed in Lebanon, with 75 missing, presumed dead.
Published: 08 August 2006

29 Lebanese Army soldiers have been killed. 3,293 Lebanese have been wounded. 45 per cent of the casualties have been children. 913,000 Lebanese have been displaced (300,000 of whom are children). 94 Israelis have been killed and 1,867 wounded.

10,000 Israeli soldiers are currently fighting Hizbollah in southern Lebanon. 3,000 rockets have been fired at Israel by Hizbollah. The average number of rockets fired daily by Hizbollah in the first week of the conflict was 90. Over the past five days, it has been 169.

Israel has flown 8,700 bombing sorties, destroying 146 bridges and 72 roads. Damage caused to Lebanon's infrastructure is estimated at $2bn. Up to 30,000 tons of oil have spilled into the Mediterranean since an Israeli air strike on Jieh power station.

The international community (apart from Britain and the US) has called for an immediate ceasefire. As yet, the number of UN resolutions: 0

sparky wrote:

galanter wrote:Hezbollah is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. If they were not, again, ZERO deaths on both sides.

Furthermore, nasty gang that they are, Hezbollah are quite politically astute. They made the original raids in a power play. They'd been successful before in kidnapping and stealing Israeli corpses and swapping them for live prisoners (of which there are a lot in Israel, many of which should probably not be there).

Also, if Hezbollah is indeed an organisation that is purely dedicated to the destruction of Israel, does its existence within Lebanese borders warrant the wholescale destruction visited in the country? We have extremists here in London, I read, some of whom may go abroad and kill innocent people there. Following your logic, we should be bombed. So should Miami, as a matter of fact, as there are some dodgy Cuban exile terrorists there who are living scott free (airliner bombers to boot).

Final time I bring this up in this thread, honest: the Dublin-IRA-Belfast-London route - should we have bombed Dublin when militia crept across the border? Should Iran bomb the US and London for overthrowing their democratic leader back in 1953? Life is not a Tom Clancy novel, Phil.

Back to your earlier point: death statistics are an effect of bombs and rockets. It is very easy to stop them moving so quickly.

Adam CR wrote:I'm really not certain that this article is correct about Katyushas not being suitable for use inside buildings. This article is all over the net, and yet I can't find a single other reasonable source that questions whether 122mm rockets can be fired from a house.

The fact that this comes from the Irish Times and appears to be doing the global circuit seems to indicate that maybe people are a little too keen believe it.

There's also plenty of footage on YouTube (admittedly posted by amateur Israeli propagandists) of rockets being fired from buildings.

steve wrote:

galanter wrote:The goal is to disarm Hezbollah. It's a goal that virtually everyone has agreed is the thing to be done.

"Everyone has agreed," I suppose, except everyone in Lebanon, the only people whose opinions matter in the instant case. They see an armed Hezbollah as a legitimate defensive force, whether you and Israel agree or not, and will not likely change their minds while Israel is killing them at such a clip.

Do you think Hezbollah will be disarmed by this war? Forget "likely," do you think it is even possible? Do you think no other group will then arm itself to fill the defensive vaccuum?

You are out of your fucking mind.

rayj wrote:

Andrew L. wrote:There's a nice piece in The Economist on US support for Israel.

I would like to point out here that where I come from, the average person couldn't point out Israel on a map.

Andrew L. wrote:

galanter wrote:
Hezbollah and Hammas won't disappear. So the best thing we can hope for is that they turn into political parties and over time give up their private armies and become part of an actual country.

Hamas became a political party--elected freely and democratically by all international standards--and Israel responded by kidnapping its elected cabinet members. You know this, right?