Does anyone know how in bed with Hezbollah the Lebonese government/populace is?
I think most Americans would be pretty torqued with Israel, if Israeli planes started bombing Alabama for its KKK population.
:shrug:
Israel's going to come out of this looking like a bad guy, no matter what they do. Pressing the attack doesn't seem to be working to deter Hezbollah rocket attacks. They aren't making any friends in the region with their aggression and their destruction of civilian infrastructure.
Then again-- if Mexican bandits started lobbing grenades into Texas, and the Mexican governmnet wasn't able to stop them...I'd want a buffer zone, too.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: Does anyone know how in bed with Hezbollah the Lebonese government/populace is?
I think most Americans would be pretty torqued with Israel, if Israeli planes started bombing Alabama for its KKK population.
quote:Lebanon's stance against Israel was expressed particularly stridently this morning by Lebanese President Emil Lahoud. "The first clause in our army's orders is, 'Israel is the enemy,'" he told Al-Jazeera. Lahoud praised Hizbullah, saying, "Hizbullah's victory will be all of Lebanon's victory," and said that Rice "wants to force a multi-national force upon us and wants to coerce Hizbullah to disarm. This would be the worst thing that could happen, because now we are winning."
I don't think it can get any more clear than that.
These sentences accurately express my misgivings about Israel's dealings with their neighbors:
quote:Terrorists and their supporters have lost the right to complain about civilian casualties, since all they have done this entire war is target civilians.
quote:If you hide behind your baby to shoot at my baby, you are responsible for getting children killed. You, and you alone.
Hezbollah HAS lost its right to speak for the slain women and children of Lebanon; the rest of the civilized world has not. I hate the 'We're-sorry-but' expressions being worked on by the Knesset in your first link; they seem chillingly close to requesting amnesty for MORE bombs flying off target. Paired with Netanyahu's patriotic and militaristic backslapping-- it's just too much.
After Israel wins this war (and I sincerely hope they do), I also hope they pick up the tab for rebuilding Lebanon.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: Hezbollah HAS lost its right to speak for the slain women and children of Lebanon; the rest of the civilized world has not. I hate the 'We're-sorry-but' expressions being worked on by the Knesset in your first link; they seem chillingly close to requesting amnesty for MORE bombs flying off target.
"Amnesty"? That makes it sounds like we need any such thing. It was an unfortunate accident. We've done pretty well at avoiding those, as opposed to the other side, which does it deliberately. If we were perfect, we could just zap all the terrorists dead, and this'd all be over. Of course, we'd probably have to do the zap thing on a weekly basis to get the new ones, but it'd be a lot cleaner and healthier for everyone.
Unfortunately, we don't have that power, so we do the best we can. We make a serious attempt to avoid things like what happened in Kana. But we're not going to have trouble sleeping because Arabs chose to murder their own by shooting missiles at us right next to a building full of children.
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: After Israel wins this war (and I sincerely hope they do), I also hope they pick up the tab for rebuilding Lebanon.
Oh, sure. Right after the Arab countries pay us back for every single penny we've had to spend on defense for the past century. We'll take it out of that.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
quote:But we're not going to have trouble sleeping because Arabs chose to murder their own by shooting missiles at us right next to a building full of children.
This attitude disturbs me. Do many people in Israel and Israel's government share it? (Specifically, the attitude that the collateral deaths of civilians isn't, or shouldn't be, distressing)
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
It's distressing enough, in principle, that we try to avoid it. That's not enough for you? Sorry.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
No, alas, it's not enough.
I'm one of those crazies that thinks that we should create a national ceremony for all of the soldiers we've killed in all of the various wars and actions we've partaken in. Something to remind the United States that there were faces behind the guns firing at us, people who were beautiful in their way, as we are.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
Just out of curiosity... a guy comes up to you with an axe, screaming hate, and tries to kill you. In order to save your life, you have to take his. Do you mourn him?
For the record, I do not.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
For the record, I would.
I would regret that human beings had been brought to this. I would regret the chain of events that led to that moment. I would regret that I was unable to come up with another solution.
If the guy was carrying a baby that I had to kill in the encounter, you can be damn sure I would mourn that baby, too.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
I would.
But then, I'm self-interested enough to try to find out WHY some random stranger hated me enough to try to kill me. Part of my mourning would be seeing if there's something seriously wrong with the way I'm going about things that maybe caused his 'screaming hate.'
And for the record-- which of those women and children that were killed came tearing at Israel with a rocket launcher? Is there a particular reason that they shouldn't be mourned, rather than just glossed over as collateral deaths?
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
quote:Originally posted by starLisa: Just out of curiosity... a guy comes up to you with an axe, screaming hate, and tries to kill you. In order to save your life, you have to take his. Do you mourn him?
For the record, I do not.
Lisa, I had that happen to me....without the axe....and I regret it every single day. If I didn't I would feel like I had lost a part of my humanity, a part of who I am.
I would do it again, without a doubt, as they jumped me rather than the other way around, but that doesn't mean that what I did wasn't evil.
It was just less evil than allowing myself to die because they wanted to kill me.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Wow. Kwea, what were the circumstances of that, if you don't mind my asking? I don't think I've heard the story.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
I'm sorry you feel that way, Kwea. I think you've been indoctrinated with a very unfortunate worldview if you can possibly call what you did "evil".
Posted by JennaDean (Member # 8816) on :
I don't know what you mean by "mourn him". When I lose someone to death, I grieve because I miss them. If that's what you mean, I wouldn't mourn him, because he's a stranger. I wouldn't worry over his soul; that's up to God.
But I would regret having to do what I did. I would regret that he had put himself in a position to have to lose his life. I'm always sorry when someone's choices bring themselves and others so much pain. Not just sorry for the others - sorry for the perpetrator too, that they've brought themselves to this.
I would carry it around with me forever - the fact that I had taken a life. I would rationally recognize that I did what I had to do, but I would still regret it. So in that sense, I would mourn.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Well put, Jenna.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
Kwea, I don't agree that it was evil. I can see why you would have regrets, but I see no reason why you should feel guilt. Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:Just out of curiosity... a guy comes up to you with an axe, screaming hate, and tries to kill you. In order to save your life, you have to take his. Do you mourn him?
No, because as Jenna said, mourning is reserved for those I love and will miss. But I do think I would feel traumatized, and would think the whole experience was horrific. I would no doubt be very emotionally upset by it. I would wish that it had never happened, but I would try hard not to feel guilty because I do believe in the right to defend myself and my family, but I believe I would probably feel some measure of guilt anyway, just as I felt guilt over my parents splitting up even though I was an 18 month old baby and couldn't possibly have been responsible, I believed on some level that I was.