Quote:Original post by trzy

Quote:Original post by Eelco

Quote:Original post by trzy
Err, right, what I meant to say is highly advanced but different and therefore misunderstood societies. All joking aside, I actually have no beef with those people and would like to see their societies preserved with an absolute minimum of intervention from the outside. That means no missionaries, no scientists, and no doctors.

a sidetrack, i know, but personally i think those people can decide for themselves what they do with their culture. if they want doctors and refridgerators, good for them. you can expect there are going to be a person or two who prefer that over being someone elses living museum piece. anyone who really cares about the preservation of culture can put his word where his mouth is and donn a viking helmet and go freeze his ass off in a fjord any day of the week.

It's true that working for cultural preservation is rather selfish on our part, as if we want to be amused by these people, but OTOH, true cultural preservation would mean a real lack of contact (hence my "no scientists" comment.)

I agree that should these people want to join modern society, they should be welcomed and helped in their transition, but they should take the first steps to signal that desire rather than having us descend upon them from the outside. Even for them, the world is a much smaller place and there's no reason for us to offer them modernity until they start wondering about it, IMHO.

The Xenocide by Ender Wiggins.

Quote:Original post by Eelco
its inevitable, i see... thats not the idealism im used to from you less.

you kept your analysis of the situation a little dry aswell. let me make it explicit: its your moral/ethical analysis i was interested in.

Israel began the conflict on the moral high ground but lost it quickly when it opted to bomb all of Lebanon rather than focus it's efforts on Hezbollah in the South. Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israel were also morally bereft, but in the end they killed more military than they did civilians. The same can not be said about Israeli airstrikes. Toss in the attacks on ambulances, the bombing of banks, the oil spill, the killing of UN observers, the killing at Qana and it's very clear to me who the bad guys were in this conflict. Will I join with Nicole Kidman and condemn Nasrallah? No. Those folks in Hollywood were weeks too late anyway. Nasrallah's forces survived. They held off the IDF. They should be proud of themselves. If that elevates Nasrallah to the status of Nassar, so be it. That's the kind of thing that happens in war, the outcomes are never certain. And that's another reason why diplomacy first and war last would have been a better course of action to pursue.



Why the IDF Lost in Lebanon

Quote:
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The magnitude of the defeat is considerable. Israel appears to have lost at every level-strategic, operational and tactical. Nothing she tried worked. Air power failed, as it always does against an enemy who doesn't have to maneuver operationally, or even move tactically for the most part. The attempts to blockade Lebanon and thus cut off Hezbollah's resupply failed; her caches proved ample. Most seriously, the ground assault into Lebanon failed. Israel took little ground and paid heavily in casualties for that. More, she cannot hold what she has taken; if she is not forced to withdraw by diplomacy, Hezbollah will push her out, as it did once before. The alternative is a bleeding ulcer that never heals.

But these failures only begin to measure the magnitude of Israel's defeat. While Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, is now an Islamic hero, Olmert has become a boiled brisket in the piranha pool that is Israeli politics. The cease-fire in Lebanon will allow camera crews to broadcast the extent of the destruction to the world, with further damage to Israel's image. Israel's "wall" strategy for dealing with the Palestinians has been undone; Hamas rockets can fly over a wall as easily as Hezbollah rockets have flown over Israel's northern border.

Most importantly, an Islamic Fourth Generation entity, Hezbollah, will now point the way throughout the Arab and larger Islamic world to a future in which Israel can be defeated. That will have vast ramifications, and not for Israel alone. Hundreds of millions of Moslems will believe that the same Fourth Generation war that defeated hated Israel can beat equally-hated America, its "coalitions" and its allied Arab and Moslem regimes. Future events seem more likely to confirm that belief than to undermine it.
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Are there any brighter prospects? Not unless Israel changes its fundamental policy. Even in the unlikely event that the cease-fire in Lebanon holds and Lebanese Army and U.N. forces do wander into southern Lebanon, that would buy but a bit of time. Israel only has a long-term future if it can reach a mutually acceptable accommodation with its neighbors. So long as those neighbors are states, a policy of pursuing such an accommodation may have some chance of success. But as the rise of Fourth Generation elements such as Hezbollah and Hamas weaken and in time replace those states, the possibility will disappear. Unfortunately, Israeli politics appear to be moving away from such a course rather than toward it.

For America, the question is whether Washington will continue to demand that we go down with the Israeli ship.

Quote:Original post by Eelco

Quote:Original post by LessBread

Quote:Original post by Eelco
its inevitable, i see... thats not the idealism im used to from you less.

you kept your analysis of the situation a little dry aswell. let me make it explicit: its your moral/ethical analysis i was interested in.

Israel began the conflict on the moral high ground but lost it quickly when it opted to bomb all of Lebanon rather than focus it's efforts on Hezbollah in the South. Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israel were also morally bereft, but in the end they killed more military than they did civilians. The same can not be said about Israeli airstrikes. Toss in the attacks on ambulances, the bombing of banks, the oil spill, the killing of UN observers, the killing at Qana and it's very clear to me who the bad guys were in this conflict. Will I join with Nicole Kidman and condemn Nasrallah? No. Those folks in Hollywood were weeks too late anyway. Nasrallah's forces survived. They held off the IDF. They should be proud of themselves. If that elevates Nasrallah to the status of Nassar, so be it. That's the kind of thing that happens in war, the outcomes are never certain. And that's another reason why diplomacy first and war last would have been a better course of action to pursue.

so isreal is the bad guy and Nasrallah should be proud of himself. alright.

do realize that youve lost a big cunck of credibility next time you indignantly berate isreal for supposedly not building bunkers for its arab population, scorn isreal for only being able to do what it does with foreign support, and i guess you will be proud of them too the next time they target civillians, even if the only single motive that can be found or is offered is genocide.

I knew you were trolling. I don't support Nasrallah. I think his anti-Semitic remarks are disgusting and so on. But when it comes to this episode, yes, Israel is the bad guy and Hezbollah should be proud of the job it did defending it's country from invasion and for having survived Israel's air assault. If Hezbollah ever invades Israel, I will condemn Hezbollah for it, but in this case I'm not going to condemn David for having killed Goliath.

Meanwhile, show me where I berated Israel for not building bunkers for it's Arab population and scorned it for using foreign support to wage war. You're taking things out of context, creating straw men and in the process demolishing what little credibility that you have. Seriously. All you've done this entire thread is troll. I never said that I was proud of Hezbollah so stop making things up. Moreover, stop claiming that Hezbollah's motive is genocide without backing it up - and don't forget that Israel killed more civilians than Hezbollah did.

Quote:Original post by Eelco
so what specifically should they be proud of? their indiscriminate rocket attacks? their urban guerellia tactics? seems to me it was the international community that drove out isreal, because the ground offensive, while with losses on both sides, was pretty sustainable in terms of kill ratio.

As I wrote previously, they should be proud that they survived the air attacks and they held off the ground assault. If you want me to go on, they should also be proud that their indiscriminant rocket attacks killed more soldiers than civilians - which is something that the Israelis can't say about their supposedly accurate bombs. Israel has ignored the international community before, it it wanted to continue with it's ground offensive, it would have. You're obviously missing part of the picture.

Quote:Original post by Eelco

Quote:
Meanwhile, show me where I berated Israel for not building bunkers for it's Arab population and scorned it for using foreign support to wage war.

just some preemptive remarks, im sure youve never done any of that.

Just trolling then?

Quote:Original post by Eelco

Quote:I never said that I was proud of Hezbollah so stop making things up.

and Nasrallah never said he wants to kill all the jews. not in precisely those words anyway, and he doesnt condemn the killing of jews either. hey where did i see that pattern recently?

Why are you defending your false accusation against me by compounding it with a false comparison? And if, as you say now, Nasrallah never said he wants to kill all of the Jews, then why did you before say that Hezbollah's motive was genocide?

Quote:Original post by Eelco

Quote:
Moreover, stop claiming that Hezbollah's motive is genocide without backing it up - and don't forget that Israel killed more civilians than Hezbollah did.

oh yes, their borderraids were purely defensive and had nothing to do with fuelling the conflict. dont give me that crap about them being freedomfighters fighting off the jews oppressing them. yes they just fought an invasion, and no that doesnt explain many of their other activities.

Do you think that Israel never sent military forces across that border before this conflict? Do you think that Israel had nothing to do with fueling the conflict? Do you think that Gaza is the only place the IAF terrorizes with sonic boom attacks? It's not [1], [2], [3].

What other Hezbollah activities do you need explained?

I just stumbled across this analysis from 9 months ago: Hezbollah's Strategic Threat to Israel. It's interesting to see what that analyst got right and what he got wrong, although I suspect Diodor would appreciate it more than you would.

Quote:Original post by Dmytry
LB, it's getting rediculous. Should hizballah be proud of reigniting this whole f**** thing and giving good excuse for israel to conquer this territory? should they be proud of rocket attacks over border that indeed are more indiscriminate than israel's bombing? What "defending from invasion"? if not international intervention israel would easily turn this region into complete ruins, and hezbollah wouldn't be able to do a shit. (But yep i'm pretty sure they're indeed proud of all this)

Whether Hezbollah is soley responsible for the ignition of this conflict is argueable. It takes two to tango. The conflict was ridiculous but Hezbollah comes out better in the end. Nasrallah is now an Arab hero and Olmert and Halutz are on the ropes and facing a hostile public. Kadima might not survive. As I said before, since when has Israel paid attention to international opinion regarding matters it feels are vital to it's security? At any rate, is that the new spin on this? That Israel lost the fight because it's hands were tied by the international community? If so, that's like blaming the hippies for losing the Vietnam war.