[Kosh]

The Middle East is one giant, piece of crap that won't flush down the toilet, no matter how hard you try to plunger it.

One one side, you have a group of people who believe it is their right to live there at all costs, and one the other hand, you have a group of people who believe it is their right to live there at all costs.

I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit....it's the only way to be sure.

[Sarafan]

The Middle East is one giant, piece of crap that won't flush down the toilet, no matter how hard you try to plunger it.

I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit....it's the only way to be sure.

The same could be said of the U.S.A.

[Ace]

Just the south.

...and yes I do condone the nuclear option on both of these hotbeds of religious fundamentalism.

Or we send them to the Ori.

[Sandwich]

I mean, I remember figures showing a significant dip in terrorist activities concurring with negotiations during the Oslo accords....and this doesn't show any sort of long term decreasing trend concurring around 2002; just a spike in deaths followed by a return to the norm.

That graph is cumulative - it will never show a dip of any sort. But look through those graphs. Significant escalations in the angle of the line (cumulative is really a stupid and possibly misleading way of representing this kind of information IMO) on the Israeli side in Feb-March (when the series of bombings went off that triggered our Jenin offensive), followed by a near-flatlining in the months that follow (the result of knocking out so many explosives labs in Jenin and other places).

So why **** over an entire country for the crimes of a few thousand nutcases?  What justifies 'turning the clock back 20 years' in response to a third party action?  If, say, a Zionist terrorist group was to emerge, kidnap some (say) Egyptians or Syrians, would that be a casus belli for a war on Israel?

If Israel had repeated opportunity to deal with such a terrorist group and never did so - never even showed any desire to? If Israel continued to allow said group to launch repeated rocket attacks on Cairo or Damascus? Sure, I'd not be surprised if they took matters into their own hands.

This was very interesting: http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ai=214&ar=1050wmv&ak=null

[aldo_14]

That graph is cumulative - it will never show a dip of any sort. But look through those graphs. Significant escalations in the angle of the line (cumulative is really a stupid and possibly misleading way of representing this kind of information IMO) on the Israeli side in Feb-March (when the series of bombings went off that triggered our Jenin offensive), followed by a near-flatlining in the months that follow (the result of knocking out so many explosives labs in Jenin and other places).

(I didn't say which graph..... it wasn't a cumulative one, though, it was one that shown a sharp spike I believe in civillian deaths during Jenin followed by a slight dip then return to 'average' levels of violence)

Followed by rises that inevitably follow later on from any dips.

i.e. like punching water.

If Israel had repeated opportunity to deal with such a terrorist group and never did so - never even showed any desire to? If Israel continued to allow said group to launch repeated rocket attacks on Cairo or Damascus? Sure, I'd not be surprised if they took matters into their own hands.

This was very interesting: http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ai=214&ar=1050wmv&ak=null

'Decided to allow'?  What capacity do you think the Lebanese government had then - let alone now - to disarm essentially a 3rd party army without starting a civil war?  Would this, for example, have made it right then for the RAF to bomb Dublin in response to IRA terrorist attacks?

EDIT;
what I mean is;  this is bringing peace?

[Mefustae]

EDIT;
what I mean is;  this is bringing peace?

The price of Israeli peace of mind.

[vyper]

Eep, that photo reminds me of the old pictures of London during WW2.

[WeatherOp]

Just the south.

...and yes I do condone the nuclear option on both of these hotbeds of religious fundamentalism.

Or we send them to the Ori.

May you lose your manly orgins in a freak accident.

[aldo_14]

Eep, that photo reminds me of the old pictures of London during WW2.

I thought 'Stalingrad'

Obviously, it is perhaps an emotive 'dirty trick'.  But I thought it was relevant for 2 reasons; one because apparently even the UN humanitarian co-ordinater bloke was visibly shocked, and two because this is a civillian area, and the enemy is supposed to be a guerilla / militia force operating in the south.

[Sandwich]

Aldo: "This" was a page full of graphs. Perhaps you'd like to specify which graph(s) you were referring to? I think it's quite possible you misread or misattributed things on those graphs, possibly due to them not indicating exactly when Operation Defensive Shield took place.

Interesting how nobody has commented on the link to that video I posted.

Anyway, here's another link for you all to ignore: http://www.dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=2122

And from here (this guy's an Egyptian, I believe):

This is what this feels like: A never-ending war. The Battle that will never end, mainly because the Israelis are willing to Kill to stay alive, and because the arabs are willing to die to kill them. I don't think Peace is possible, mainly because you need a common ground for peace, and a level of acceptable losses. The Israelis will always reach a point where their losses become unacceptable, and they will push for Peace. Not for our side. Our acceptable losses are limitless, as long as we win. When your acceptable loss is your own death, what is there to compromise on?

[aldo_14]

Aldo: "This" was a page full of graphs. Perhaps you'd like to specify which graph(s) you were referring to? I think it's quite possible you misread or misattributed things on those graphs, possibly due to them not indicating exactly when Operation Defensive Shield took place.

Sorry, I thought it was quite obvious which one(s) i meant. (noting the march spike in deaths, of course)

Anyway, here's another link for you all to ignore: http://www.dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=2122

And from here (this guy's an Egyptian, I believe):

This is what this feels like: A never-ending war. The Battle that will never end, mainly because the Israelis are willing to Kill to stay alive, and because the arabs are willing to die to kill them. I don't think Peace is possible, mainly because you need a common ground for peace, and a level of acceptable losses. The Israelis will always reach a point where their losses become unacceptable, and they will push for Peace. Not for our side. Our acceptable losses are limitless, as long as we win. When your acceptable loss is your own death, what is there to compromise on?

Um, what's the point of mentioning this?

[karajorma]

Because Sandwich wants us to believe that there is no hope of peace in the region. That way what Israel is doing is more justified.

[Sandwich]

Sorry, I thought it was quite obvious which one(s) i meant. (noting the march spike in deaths, of course)

It's not the spike that is the topic here; it was the effectiveness of March's Op. Defensive Shield. And I think it's extremely clear that the trend in "people killed" (just civvies, or combatants too?) was on the rise well before that March, after which it headed downwards - for BOTH sides. Unfortunately, the graphs only show data up to Jan 2003, which was only a mere 3.5 years ago. But the point remains: Operation Defensive Shield broke the rising bodycount (at a price, to be sure) on BOTH sides.

an interesting aside one was this

Showing increased civillian deaths in March (the preceeding graphs also note greater responsibility for the Palestinian 'combatants' in this period; something criticised IIRC in various reports that were also condemning Israels actions at the time )

Yeah, crazy how many civilian deaths result when terrorists under attack hide amongst their own civvies. March was just that period of time when we decided that stopping the terrorism was more important than preserving Palestinian lives. And I can sleep just fine with that, since I wasn't the one hiding behind my own people.

Um, what's the point of mentioning this?

Besides showing you guys some Arab / Muslim viewpoints?

Let me emphasize what I avoided emphasizing before:

This is what this feels like: A never-ending war. The Battle that will never end, mainly because the Israelis are willing to Kill to stay alive, and because the arabs are willing to die to kill them. I don't think Peace is possible, mainly because you need a common ground for peace, and a level of acceptable losses. The Israelis will always reach a point where their losses become unacceptable, and they will push for Peace. Not for our side. Our acceptable losses are limitless, as long as we win. When your acceptable loss is your own death, what is there to compromise on?

[Colonol Dekker]

If someone would just give them all a bong and some doritos, A'la Ali G in'da house, All this would be over.........

[Mefustae]

Yeah, crazy how many civilian deaths result when terrorists under attack hide amongst their own civvies.

I'm seeing a lot of Israeli officials reiterating this, but i'm not seeing a whole lot of proof backing it up. I mean, i'm not sure who to believe; the Israelis shelling civilian areas saying Hezbollah is 'hiding' there, or the Palestinian civlians getting shelled by Israel saying Hezbollah 'cares' about them too much to hide amongst the civilian areas.

[aldo_14]

Sorry, I thought it was quite obvious which one(s) i meant. (noting the march spike in deaths, of course)
[]http://www.ict.org.il/graphics/GraphPics/Graph2_5.gif[/]
[]http://www.ict.org.il/graphics/GraphPics/Graph2_6.gif[/]

It's not the spike that is the topic here; it was the effectiveness of March's Op. Defensive Shield. And I think it's extremely clear that the trend in "people killed" (just civvies, or combatants too?) was on the rise well before that March, after which it headed downwards - for BOTH sides. Unfortunately, the graphs only show data up to Jan 2003, which was only a mere 3.5 years ago. But the point remains: Operation Defensive Shield broke the rising bodycount (at a price, to be sure) on BOTH sides.

(EDIT; I've not been able to find longer-term statistics either, annoyingly)

So what happened on March 2001?

  I note the graph shows that as a trough, and really what you're saying is that this against-the-trend peak in March 2002 was going to be 'the' trend, which strikes me as odd given that the terrorist death statistics are the same as prior after said event.... i.e. the only justification you can make is that this peak was the start of a sharp and sustained (sustainable) spike in terrorism - something we have no statistical evidence for - rather than simply a peak. 

Even then, you'll surely notice the 'killed by Pal' trend shows that it continued to take a long time - months - to level off to the start-of-graph level, far longer than if any sort of immediate damage had been done.  I'm noting also that the beginning of the graph shows a very large disparity between deaths due to Palestinians, and deaths due to Israeli action; can we say that disparity (the killings) precipitated the rise in terrorism?  If not, why not?

an interesting aside one was this
[]http://www.ict.org.il/graphics/GraphPics/Graph2_14.gif[/]
Showing increased civillian deaths in March (the preceeding graphs also note greater responsibility for the Palestinian 'combatants' in this period; something criticised IIRC in various reports that were also condemning Israels actions at the time )

Yeah, crazy how many civilian deaths result when terrorists under attack hide amongst their own civvies. March was just that period of time when we decided that stopping the terrorism was more important than preserving Palestinian lives. And I can sleep just fine with that, since I wasn't the one hiding behind my own people.

Actually, that was the wrong graph   As you can see by the title of it   (got mixed up a bit, hence why I deleted it)

But, um, yeah, your response kind of illustrates one of my fundamental objections to Israels actions, anyways - devaluing civillian, innocent lives in favour of quick and rather ineffective (as we can see by the simple length of this conflict) retribution that fails to lay any sort of groundwork for lasting peace or stability, and all too frequently falling back on justifying said innocent deaths by blaming the other party.  I mean, look at this curent affair in Lebanon - Hezbollah is a 3rd party guerilla force, and yet it's the civillian infrastructure we're seeing being devastated.

Me, I don't think the 'the enemy hides in civillians, so lets wipe out the civillians so they can't hide' tactic is one that ever works; it just creates more enemies.  For all the PA propaganda, I bet it's a lot easier for Palestinian kids to go and chuck stones at IDF soldiers when they see and hear innocent people being killed by IDF guns, or their homes being destroyed.  There's already a lot of predictions that this has helped mobilize and radicalize Lebanese, which will only strenthen Hezbollah and weaken the prospect of peace and security.  I'm not sure if Israel gave itself any choice in how to react (due to the Gaza re-invasion) following the kidnapping of the 2 IDF soldiers, but I don't think it makes the current violence any less forgiveable.

Um, what's the point of mentioning this?

Besides showing you guys some Arab / Muslim viewpoints?

Let me emphasize what I avoided emphasizing before:

One Arab/Muslim viewpoint.  How about I select the 'western' viewpoint seen a few pages back that's effectively calling for genocide, for example?  Is this a case of justifying violence by the victim?

[Wobble73]

Yeah, crazy how many civilian deaths result when terrorists under attack hide amongst their own civvies.

I'm seeing a lot of Israeli officials reiterating this, but i'm not seeing a whole lot of proof backing it up. I mean, i'm not sure who to believe; the Israelis shelling civilian areas saying Hezbollah is 'hiding' there, or the Palestinian civlians getting shelled by Israel saying Hezbollah 'cares' about them too much to hide amongst the civilian areas.

And how many terrorists/Hezbollah were hiding in those two red cross ambulances that blasted to shreds by Iraeli gunships?

[IPAndrews]

And how many terrorists/Hezbollah were hiding in those two red cross ambulances that blasted to shreds by Iraeli gunships?

I wouldn't put it past them.

[vyper]

That doesn't make it right. You don't attack the red cross. You just don't.

[IPAndrews]

Well the world isn't "right" is it. It's all well and good having morals but when the other guy doesn't they're always going to get the better of you unless you stoop to their level. I'm 100% behind the Israelis on this.