Middle East Tensions Exploding

[bobobrazil1984 0]

^ not only that, but the bulk of those killed aren't even Hizbolla (the group that kidnapped the soldier)!!!

 

so now both sides are lobbing missiles into cities, and killing civilians. lovely.

[Prime Time Andrew Doyle 0]

Maybe President Bush could step in and spend some of that political capital he has earned since 9-11 with all the other countries of the world.

 

What? He doesn't have any? Well damn! Foresight just isn't all that reliable these days.

 

Bush getting involved does nothing. Besides, people attacked him for invading a soverign nation, why now are those people calling for him to interfere with the rights of another soverign nation?

 

There are far better legit reasons for people to criticise Bush. When it comes for a chance to criticise Bush you are no better than MikeSC was when the issues were about Muslims or Democrats.

[Gary Floyd 0]

Hey Cheesala, I've heard that Bush likes to drink the blood of children and laughs whenever a soldier dies. Would you believe that?

 

Look, I hate Bush too, but chill out.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Celebrate good (end) times, come on!

 

Some thoughts on the Israel-Lebanon conflict from the good folks over at the Rapture Ready message boards.

 

For the first time in my Christian walk, I have no doubts that the day of the Lords appearing is upon us. I have never felt this way before, I have a joy that bubbles up every-time I think of him, for I know this is truly the time I have waited for so long. Am I alone in feeling guilty about the human suffering like my joy at his appearing some how fuels the evil I see everywhere. If it were not for the souls that hang in the balance and the horror that stalks man daily on this earth, my joy would be complete.

 

How can we not be excited, our redeemer cometh. We should pray always for the lost. But he is coming. Amen Amen ever so come lord Jesus.

 

Ready, waiting and excited here! Still telling others whenever possible that the rapture could take place at any time because this world is in such a big MESS and evidently it goes through one ear and right out the other.

 

I am excited beyond words that the struggle of this life may be over soon and I can finally be FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

 

I too am soooo excited!! I get goose bumps, literally, when I watch what's going on in the M.E.!! And Watcherboy, you were so right when saying it was quite a day yesterday, in the world news, and I add in local news here in the Boston area!! Tunnel ceiling collapsed on a car and killed a woman of faith, and we had the most terrifying storms I have ever seen here!! But, yes, Ohappyday, like in your screen name , it is most indeed a time to be happy and excited, right there with ya!

 

Lets keep the excitement going!!!!

 

Days like today it's all I want. Other days because of others I want one more. But what a privilege to be apart of the rapture. I can hardly wait!!

[Hawkius Maximus 0]

...People like them scare the shit out of me. Much more the nany serial killer thats ever existed.

 

If their actually happy and joyful at whats going on, then what the fuck kind of religion would REWARD them?

[Guest Felonies!]

Bet one of those posters was LessonInMachismo.

[Prophet of Mike Zagurski 0]

I don't think it's the end.

I think if the kidnapped soldiers die, then all hell will break loose. I don't go the Rapture Ready boards that ofter because they scare me. People should not be concentrating on the end.

[Lord of The Curry 0]

After watching the news today and seeing that 8 innocent Canadians died today in more bombings I've become convinced that the world would flow a lot smoother if the entire Middle East is just wiped off this planet.

[SuperJerk 0]

Celebrate good (end) times, come on!

 

Some thoughts on the Israel-Lebanon conflict from the good folks over at the Rapture Ready message boards.

 

For the first time in my Christian walk, I have no doubts that the day of the Lords appearing is upon us. I have never felt this way before, I have a joy that bubbles up every-time I think of him, for I know this is truly the time I have waited for so long. Am I alone in feeling guilty about the human suffering like my joy at his appearing some how fuels the evil I see everywhere. If it were not for the souls that hang in the balance and the horror that stalks man daily on this earth, my joy would be complete.

 

How can we not be excited, our redeemer cometh. We should pray always for the lost. But he is coming. Amen Amen ever so come lord Jesus.

 

Ready, waiting and excited here! Still telling others whenever possible that the rapture could take place at any time because this world is in such a big MESS and evidently it goes through one ear and right out the other.

 

I am excited beyond words that the struggle of this life may be over soon and I can finally be FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

 

I too am soooo excited!! I get goose bumps, literally, when I watch what's going on in the M.E.!! And Watcherboy, you were so right when saying it was quite a day yesterday, in the world news, and I add in local news here in the Boston area!! Tunnel ceiling collapsed on a car and killed a woman of faith, and we had the most terrifying storms I have ever seen here!! But, yes, Ohappyday, like in your screen name , it is most indeed a time to be happy and excited, right there with ya!

 

Lets keep the excitement going!!!!

 

Days like today it's all I want. Other days because of others I want one more. But what a privilege to be apart of the rapture. I can hardly wait!!

 

 

See, I told you so.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

After watching the news today and seeing that 8 innocent Canadians died today in more bombings I've become convinced that the world would flow a lot smoother if the entire Middle East is just wiped off this planet.

 

Come on...comments like that really don't help. I mean, I feel the Arab race in the Middle East is, mostly, completely backwards and barbaric, but it's too easy to say "let's just wipe them off the map."

 

I think the best thing to do is just let Israel have a free hand right now, and let them set their final borders on their own terms.

[cbacon 0]

Children die in convoy attack as Israel widens Lebanon assault

 

Inigo Gilmore in Nahariyah, Patrick Wintour in St Petersburg and Tracy McVeigh

Sunday July 16, 2006

The Observer

 

Israel steeply escalated its military campaign against Hizbollah in Lebanon yesterday with a series of air strikes that left more than 35 civilians dead, including a single strike on a convoy of families fleeing the fighting in a village near Tyre in the south of the country that killed more than 20 people, most of them children.

 

The intensification of the conflict, in which Hizbollah fired missiles deep intoIsrael, came as international leaders appeared to be deeply split over how to respond to a crisis that threatens to spill over into a full-scale war involving Syria and Iran as well as Israel, Palestine and Lebanon. Last night the Lebanese Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, declared the country in a 'state of catastrophe'.

 

According to witnesses and photographs from the scene of the worst incident, an Israeli missile incinerated a car and a small truck full of families leaving their Lebanese border village of Marwaheen near Tyre after the Israeli army used loudhailers to tell residents they had just hours to go. Pictures showed charred bodies of children strewn across the road.

 

UN peacekeepers recovered the bodies. Half the passengers were children or teenagers, according to medical sources. It was the deadliest single strike since Israel started an air campaign against Lebanon after two of its soldiers were captured by Hizbollah on Wednesday.

 

Relatives gathered at a hospital to identify the dead said they came from two families - Abdallah and Ghanem.

 

Around 100 residents sought shelter at a nearby UN base, but left after officials were unable to confirm the warning by Israel, a UN spokesman said.

 

Other residents had tried later to leave and were killed in the missile strike, the spokesman said, adding that the Lebanese authorities had asked the UN to help evacuate about 160 people remaining in Marwaheen. They would be relocated in the morning. Relatives blamed the UN for the deaths, pelting peacekeepers with stones when they arrived with the bodies after the strike.

 

"If they had taken people in to begin with then they would never have died," said Mohammed Oqla, who was at the hospital.

 

Last night an Israeli military spokeswoman said they were still investigating the reports of the incident.

 

Other air strikes flattened Hizbollah's headquarters in Beirut and attacked roads, bridges and petrol stations in the north, east and south of Lebanon, cutting the country off from the outside world and hitting Hizbollah strongholds including the leader Hassan Nasrallah's home and office. The northern port of Tripoli was also attacked, the deepest strike yet into Lebanese territory.

 

Israel's campaign has so far killed at least 100 people, all but three of them civilians, and choked off Lebanon's economy, including its growing tourism industry.

 

On a separate front, Israeli troops also yesterday fired several missiles at targets in Gaza, killing at least two.

 

Hizbollah fired dozens of rockets into Israel, some reaching Tiberias, 22 miles inside the border, the furthest Hizbollah missiles have so far reached. They killed two Israeli civilians and injured several.

 

One Katyusha rocket hit the roof of a seven-floor apartment building in the Shmuel neighbourhood of Tiberias, a hillside overlooking the Sea of Galilee, damaging several homes.

 

There were furious political exchanges throughout the region, with Israel accusing Iran of supplying increasingly sophisticated weapons to Hizbollah. Israel claims that the device that damaged one of its naval ships off the Lebanese coast on Friday, killing four sailors, was an Iranian-made guided missile.

 

Tension grew when Israeli warplanes fired four rockets at a border crossing point between Lebanon and Syria yesterday - Iran has threatened Israel that it will respond ferociously if there is any incursion into Syrian territory. But Syria swiftly announced that there had been no attacks within its borders.

 

There is a growing chasm in the international community. President George Bush yesterday angrily rounded on Hizbollah for starting the violence and demanded Syria intervene.

 

At a joint press conference with the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, at the G8 summit in St Petersburg, he said: 'In my judgment, the best way to stop the violence is to understand why the violence occurred in the first place.' Bush, visibly angry, added: 'And that's because Hizbollah has been launching rocket attacks out of Lebanon into Israel and because Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers. The best way to stop the violence is for Hizbollah to lay down its arms and to stop attacking. And therefore, I call on Syria to exert influence over Hizbollah.'

 

But in keeping with Russia's traditional role as a counterweight to the US in the Middle East, President Putin added: 'We believe that the use of force must be balanced. But in any case the bloodshed must be stopped as soon as possible.'

 

The European Union has asked Israel to show restraint and Britain was yesterday trying desperately tried to straddle the divide between America and other world leaders at the G8 summit, by saying it would not become involved in the 'blame game', or 'finger pointing'.

 

Number 10 instead focused on trying to find what it described as a 'mechanism' to de-escalate the crisis.

 

The EU, France and Russia have all condemned the Israeli air strikes as 'disproportionate' but Tony Blair's spokesman, speaking on the way to the G8 summit, refused to condemn the Israeli actions. Instead he said it was essential for the captured Israeli soldiers to be released 'and for all sides to act with constraint'.

 

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story...1821706,00.html

 

 

[cbacon 0]

University of Michigan Professor Juan Cole makes a good point:

 

It should also be remembered that Bin Laden said, at least, that he started thinking about hitting New York when he saw that 1982 Israeli destruction of the skyscrapers or "towers" of Lebanon. How many future Bin Ladens are watching with horror and rage and feelings of revenge as Israel drops bombs on civilian tenement buildings? When will this blow back on Americans? (I mean blow back in other ways than an already painful further spike in petroleum prices).

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Yeah, because Israel should just roll over and die for the barbarian scum.

[cbacon 0]

Because that's exactly what he was implying.

[bobobrazil1984 0]

After watching the news today and seeing that 8 innocent Canadians died today in more bombings I've become convinced that the world would flow a lot smoother if the entire Middle East is just wiped off this planet.

 

Uh, only now that Canadias die, you think that? You realize something like 100 Lebanese, most of them having nothing to do with Hezbollah, have died right? That innocent Israelis have died in missile attacks on Haifa or some such city (I dont have a number but i think its under 20).

 

btw I'm still trying to figure out how raining bombs on civilians in lebanon is supposed to take out hezbollah, but then again maybe i'm just not smart enough. after all, the geniuses in the middle east have been at this for so long.

[Danville_Wrestling 0]

I'm think that the barrage of bombs in Lebannon is supposed to prompt the government there to react and disarm Hezbollah because it may make the people pissed off enough to demand a reaction. Then again, the reaction the bombs may prompt is probably not the reaction that Israel is hoping for but I believe this is their course of action considering how they are not happy that the current Lebanese government has allowed Hezbollah to run Southern Lebannon and not disarm. In other words, its sort of like the "safe haven" argument the U.S. used against the Taliban when we invaded Afghanistan because they provided shelter to al-Qaeda.

[bobobrazil1984 0]

isn't it somewhat known though that the Lebanese government doesn't have that kind of control over hezbollah? I mean remember, this is the LEBANESE government, they're not Iran or Syria or whatever, where they're secretly trying pumping shit into these groups.

[The Robfather 0]

Basically, Israel isn't going to stand for Hezbollah camping out at the border anymore.

[bobobrazil1984 0]

^ well then thank god Israel's concentrating their bombing on the border and not Beirut!!!

[Lord of The Curry 0]

I was happy in my bubble until people started to fuck with my countrymen and women. Selfish? Sure but it's helped me sleep at night. Ever since I was young I've known that the Middle East was a rough area, full of violence and the like. The thing is, I've never seen progress. Not once. Nothing but bad coming out of the region to the point where by the time I was 9 or 10 I was completely desensitized to the concept of violence. Didn't affect me then and didn't until this point. Now, I could give a fuck about what they do to their own people.

 

When the Middle East shows me something other then a complete disregard for human lives and beliefs then maybe I'll start caring. But still probably not.

[Guest]

You guys know why Israel is doing this. They don't want to be fucked with anymore, and it seems like you guys are missing the fact that rockets are also being rained on Northern Israel. Those rockets are missing their targets in some cases, but regardless, the conflict is twofold. Hezbollah's not making an attempt to give back the soldiers, so this is what they want, and they will get it.

 

Something else is behind this, not just Hezbollah.

[cbacon 0]

I was happy in my bubble until people started to fuck with my countrymen and women. Selfish? Sure but it's helped me sleep at night. Ever since I was young I've known that the Middle East was a rough area, full of violence and the like. The thing is, I've never seen progress. Not once. Nothing but bad coming out of the region to the point where by the time I was 9 or 10 I was completely desensitized to the concept of violence. Didn't affect me then and didn't until this point. Now, I could give a fuck about what they do to their own people.

 

When the Middle East shows me something other then a complete disregard for human lives and beliefs then maybe I'll start caring. But still probably not.

 

The tyranny of a minority sector shouldn't be indicitive of an entire region. Polls suggest that in most Middle Eastern countries, citizens are thinking more progressively, embracing the concept elections, further democratic processes and certain civil rights. It's hard for progress to flourish when Western nations are supporting authoritarian leaders.

[Lord of The Curry 0]

You always were the pacifist out of the two of us, Bacon.

[bobobrazil1984 0]

by the way, the Canadians Curry is referring to are lebanese-canadians, 5 of them in one family, whose house was bombed by IAF planes.

 

that'll show those hezbollah bastards!!!

[Guest JustPassinBy]

You guys know why Israel is doing this. They don't want to be fucked with anymore, and it seems like you guys are missing the fact that rockets are also being rained on Northern Israel. Those rockets are missing their targets in some cases, but regardless, the conflict is twofold. Hezbollah's not making an attempt to give back the soldiers, so this is what they want, and they will get it.

 

Something else is behind this, not just Hezbollah.

 

Its Iran.

They make the weapons. They funnel them to Syria. Syria gives them to Hezbollah.

 

Newt Gingrich was talking about how this is going to start WWIII, but I really disagree with him for one main reason. These countries are 3rd world hell holes. They have very little weaponry built up. Very little power other than terrorism and suicide bombings. Basic guerrilla warfare.

 

WWII had super powers going at each other. This is totally different.

 

Another point was Diane Feinstien recommending that the US send over Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter...Do the liberals think the American public is this dumb? One day, even the Left will realize that the Muslims from these terror networks hate Americans and the West in General, dont give a shit about american politics, and want all of us dead. Its what they believe in for crying out loud. You could give the Palestinians all of Israel, exterminate the jews, and they'd still want to kill the infidels.

 

Its time the US takes a firm stand and wipes Iran off the face of the earth. Now, I would not immediately do it, bc no one wants innocent people to die. I'd issue a declaration granting asylum to all Iranians that do not support their regime. I'd have the US Troops at the border of Iran/Iraq, helping the ones that want to get out leave the country in a peaceful way. This process would last for about 6 months. After the 6 months was over, I'd draw up a declaration of War resolution, charging that Iran is a threat to the US freedom, and that their attack on Israel is an attack on America, since Israel is an American Allie. I'd then drop a series of nukes over Tehran. I would NOT go in with troops. 5 planes, 5 nukes, 5 strikes.

 

The reconstruction of Iran would be similar to the reconstruction of Japan. It would take time. But this is a noble fight worth winning.

[Zorin Industries 0]

If the US is still struggling to reconstruct Iraq how the hell are they going to be able to reconstruct Iran at the same time?

[Danville_Wrestling 0]

isn't it somewhat known though that the Lebanese government doesn't have that kind of control over hezbollah? I mean remember, this is the LEBANESE government, they're not Iran or Syria or whatever, where they're secretly trying pumping shit into these groups.

 

I'm not disagreeing with this but people say that the Lebanese government has the armed forces to make Hezbollah disarm. However, the Lebanese government hasn't taken those steps and as a result Hezbollah is launching rockets into Israel which Israel is pissed off about.

 

The one good thing about this is that while the world is divided over Israel's response, they are in joint agreement that Hezbollah is causing the violence. Hell, even SAUDI ARABIA came out at the Arab League recently and said the same thing which disrupted the process of the Middle East standing together to oppose Israel. If the clerics of Iran think this is a valuable way to achieve their objectives they are dead wrong.

 

As far as sending Carter and Clinton its pretty laughable. Carter won't be able to broker much and Clinton already did his best with Israeli cooperation at Camp David and STILL the Palestinians rejected a settlement. The reason Israel doesn't pursue diplomatic options anymore is because they acted in good faith before and the Palestinians refused to work with them and now they don't have a good faith partner to negotiate with. So diplomacy to resolve all of this is utterly inconceivable.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Exactly. All this talk of a "diplomatic solution" is foolish. Hamas and Hezbollah don't want a diplomatic solution. They want Jews to die.

[BruiserKC 0]

No matter what we do to pacify the Islamo-fascist movement, they won't be stopped until they've either been wiped out or the world has been converted into Muslim nations and we have the choice of Allah or the sword. I hate war...I don't want war...but I think in this case we have no choice. It's time for us to take a long, hard, look at Iran and let them know that their day of reckoning is at hand. Better now than when they have nukes.

 

As for the UN...they cut and ran when their envoys in Baghdad started getting blown up. They're just going to sit on the sidelines and wring their hands.

[CheesalaIsGood 0]

Oh for fucks sake calm down. A sarcastic remark around the TSM? No! You don't say?!?!?!

 

Besides *I* did not bring Bush into this story. He stuck his own nose into it. He stuck his nose in it and has NOTHING to spend in credibility. MAYBE if he had been smarter about oh I don't know IRAQ, guys like Putin would have such an easy time taking pot shots at him and all of us as far as what we could DO about this. So spare me your fucking "high ground". There is no MikeSC here, only reality.