Author Topic: Israel moves tanks into Lebanon  (Read 85650 times)

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Offline Nuclear1

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Re: Israel moves tanks into Lebanon
Still, let's all laugh at those miscounts, eh?  Hoho!  Hilarious!  Less people are dead than previous said!  Let's mock them!

No, it's actually not funny, and none of us said that. What Sandwich and I were commenting on was the fact that death counts in both incidents were initially very high, but now they're suddenly being reported as 60 down to 25 and 40 down to 1. I mean, really--how can someone count 39 people as dead, and then suddenly turn around and say "oh, wait a second, maybe not"?
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Offline vyper

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Re: Israel moves tanks into Lebanon
Because its absolute chaos?
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Offline Nuclear1

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Re: Israel moves tanks into Lebanon
Yes, but anyone with even the slightest shrapnel of brain in his skull can tell between 40 people dead and one person dead. It's not that difficult.
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Offline aldo_14

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Re: Israel moves tanks into Lebanon
Yes, but anyone with even the slightest shrapnel of brain in his skull can tell between 40 people dead and one person dead. It's not that difficult.

It is when the survivors have hauled themselves off to aid shelters, or to hide in bunkers, or escaped with friends and family, and all you have is a ****ing huge collapsed building.  Not exactly hard to figure out that, ooh, might be hard to estimate bodycount when all the bodies are under several tonnes of rubble.

Not as if we've not seen casualty counts revised in these types of events, is it?  In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find a single building-collapse related disaster with an accurate initial casualy figure.

 

Offline Sandwich

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Re: Israel moves tanks into Lebanon
Look, I have no beef with casualty reports being revised. I remember following the weeks-long reports coming from south-east asia - the tsunami disaster - listening the the bodycount being constantly revised. I have no beef with that.

What I do have beef with is when the count goes down, not up. Not in a bloodthirsty way, mind you. But in an honesty way.

In ANY disaster scene (not involving Israel), you'll read something like "X bodies recovered, dozens more expected buried under the rubble. Up to 200 people are still missing..." And that statement gets revised and accuracized (I know, it's not a word - so sue me!) as time goes on.

But in this case (at least twice already - Qana and the 40-down-to-one instance), there is a specific bodycount, stated as fact. In Qana, it was 50-60 people, 30-something of them children. You don't say such things, especially not stating how many of these bodies are children, without having counted the bodies, right? Wrong - apparently. Now the count is down to 20-something, which is less than the original number of "confirmed" dead children.

My beef with this state of affairs is that the world opinion gets swayed by the shock and horror of the fresh new incident, the "bodies are still being pulled out of the rubble" immediacy of the event. All the bleeding-hearts go into shock at the "Israeli brutality", and the whole "why is Hezbollah firing rockets from (near?) a building they knew had occupants in it" question barely gets mentioned except en passant. And then when the TRUTH comes out, slowly, bit-by-bit, it gets virtually ignored by the media, and is certainly too late to affect any sort of change in someone's opinion on an event.

My beef is that the f****** Hezbollah is playing you masterfully, and you're eating their bull**** up unquestioningly. Use your grey matter.
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Offline vyper

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Re: Israel moves tanks into Lebanon
You know, whether the casualty reports are right or not isn't going to change the immediate problem - the danger of escalation.
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Offline Nuclear1

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Re: Israel moves tanks into Lebanon
Yes, but anyone with even the slightest shrapnel of brain in his skull can tell between 40 people dead and one person dead. It's not that difficult.

It is when the survivors have hauled themselves off to aid shelters, or to hide in bunkers, or escaped with friends and family, and all you have is a ****ing huge collapsed building.  Not exactly hard to figure out that, ooh, might be hard to estimate bodycount when all the bodies are under several tonnes of rubble.

So where's the problem with the media simply reporting it as "60 presumed dead in Israeli air strike"? If it's so damned difficult to find survivors from a collapsed building that people apparently had a chance to escape, then why doesn't any responsible news agency report it as such?

You know, whether the casualty reports are right or not isn't going to change the immediate problem - the danger of escalation.

No, it won't, but it sure begs the question of whether that body count for the Lebanese civilian population is as accurate as people claim it to be. How many of those 800 reported dead were ones that scurried off to shelters or bunkers and how many were ones buried in rubble that the media instantly assumes were killed when the building collapsed?
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Offline Mefustae

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Re: Israel moves tanks into Lebanon
No, it won't, but it sure begs the question of whether that body count for the Lebanese civilian population is as accurate as people claim it to be. How many of those 800 reported dead were ones that scurried off to shelters or bunkers and how many were ones buried in rubble that the media instantly assumes were killed when the building collapsed?
Right! Because 600 civilians dead is just so much better than 800.

How gives a flying **** about how many civilians are dead? The fact of the matter is that Israel has killed civlians, thereby sinking to the level of Hezbollah, and thus becoming no more than terrorists themselves. Way to go, Israel. :yes:

 

Offline Kamikaze

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Offline Sandwich

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Re: Israel moves tanks into Lebanon
Right! Because 600 civilians dead is just so much better than 800.

How gives a flying **** about how many civilians are dead? The fact of the matter is that Israel has killed civlians, thereby sinking to the level of Hezbollah, and thus becoming no more than terrorists themselves. Way to go, Israel. :yes:

You obviously don't give a flying ****. Luckily for the Lebanese, Israel does. Whether that's because we're simply trying to avoid international accusations as much as possible while still beating the **** out of Hezbollah, or whether we truly do try to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties because they're not our targets is left for the reader to decide.

And stop your utter nonesense about Israel having sunk to the level of the Hezbollah already, m'kay? You're not convincing anybody, and flagrantly false accusations like that just make you look ignorant. Terrorists' aim is to cause terror, to harm and kill civillian populations, in order to achieve a certain goal. Israel's not aiming at civvies, we're aiming at a semi-rogue terrorist organization who are often deeply entrenched among the Lebanese civillian population who are firing hundreds of ball-bearing-filled rockets on our main cities and minor towns per day. Our goal is to kill them, not civvies. The moment our goal turns to killing civvies, I'll let you know, and the you and the rest of the world can call us terrorists without me saying a thing.

Until then, cut the BS.
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Offline aldo_14

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Re: Israel moves tanks into Lebanon
Wouldn't terrorism technically include scaring the **** out of the population anyways?  Like, say, dropping leaflets saying 'we're going to blow up your house', stating "the national infrastructure of Lebanon will be destroyed" (*would) in retaliation to a Hezbollah threat to attack Tel Aviv,  calling for villages to be 'flattened' before sending ground troops in (justified by claiming anyone left is effectively a terrorist, even though there may be the very young, old, or sick and also that roads are subject to frequent attack; both of which bar evacuation), or threatening to "turn Lebanon's clock back 20 years" (for the act of a non-representative, unelected third party group), or effectively calling for the expulsion of the entire south of the country (Olmert, interviewed on the BBC news / Press conference, called for the removal of all 'Hezbollah sympathisers' from the south which essentially entails mass expulsion of the southern population - plus if they didn't sympathise with Hezbollahs portrayal of itself as a 'resistance' movement, they sure as hell will now).

I'm not saying on an individual level Israel has stooped to terrorism or deliberately terrorist acts.  But to me the reduced intent is outweighed by the sheer scale of destruction and the ensuing humanitarian crisis, something that makes it equatable to the smaller-scale yet worse-intended Hezbollah actions.  Certainly the collective punishment of a population is banned under international law, and yet this would seem to be exactly what is happening - just look at Tyre, completely cut off to aid.

So, again, we end up with the question which is 'right'; to kill 39 civillians with intentional terrorist rocket attacks, or to kill anywhere between 500 and 800 'accidentally'?

The sad truth is that the reprehensible actions of Hezbollah are now completely overshadowed by the seemingly inevitable destruction of Lebanon as punishment for their crimes. Israel now appears to be the playground bully, picking on the little kids because they can't get at the kid that called them names.
« Last Edit: August 08, 2006, 03:27:28 am by aldo_14 »

 

Offline Mefustae

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Re: Israel moves tanks into Lebanon
You obviously don't give a flying ****. Luckily for the Lebanese, Israel does. Whether that's because we're simply trying to avoid international accusations as much as possible while still beating the **** out of Hezbollah, or whether we truly do try to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties because they're not our targets is left for the reader to decide.

And stop your utter nonesense about Israel having sunk to the level of the Hezbollah already, m'kay? You're not convincing anybody, and flagrantly false accusations like that just make you look ignorant. Terrorists' aim is to cause terror, to harm and kill civillian populations, in order to achieve a certain goal. Israel's not aiming at civvies, we're aiming at a semi-rogue terrorist organization who are often deeply entrenched among the Lebanese civillian population who are firing hundreds of ball-bearing-filled rockets on our main cities and minor towns per day. Our goal is to kill them, not civvies. The moment our goal turns to killing civvies, I'll let you know, and the you and the rest of the world can call us terrorists without me saying a thing.

Until then, cut the BS.
I apologise if i've annoyed you, but coming from an outside perspective, the picture looks a little different. Yes, Israel does care about Lebanese civilian casualties, but the fact of the matter is that Israel is prepared to kill Lebanese civilians in order to attack Hezbollah, which is plain as day unless you can show me otherwise. And yet, you seem adamant that Israel is far above Hezbollah from a moral perspective. Let's just think about that for a second.

Hezbollah's aim is to destroy Israel, that's obvious. They use terror-oriented tactics because attempting to go toe-to-toe with the IDF would be suicide. From looking at the news, you'd think that Hezbollah targets only Israeli civilians, which isn't an unfair assessment recently as they've been attacking mostly civilian areas in northern Israel as of late. But in fact Hezbollah dislike the express targeting of civilians, as evidenced by their denouncement of the WTC-attacks. Moreover, it's definitely worth nothing that only about a third of Israeli casualties from Hezbollah have been civilian! Basically, Hezbollah aims to hurt Israel, and civilians get killed in the process. Sound familiar?

Now, obviously Israel isn't just targetting Lebanese civilians or, as you said several pages ago, there'd be a bugger-load more civilian casualties. I never said that Israel's goal was to kill Lebanese civilians, and I never said that Israel intentionally killed Lebanese civilians. I'll thank you to kindly stop putting words in my mouth. What I am saying is that Israel is prepared to put the lives of Israeli citizens above that of Lebanese civilians. I'm sure you'll fire back as you have in the past with 'one airstrike is allowed for every dozen proposed' and soforth, and that's fair. But the fact remains, if Israeli civilians are under threat from Hezbollah rockets, the IDF will attack the rocket position even if it is in the middle of a civilian area, which I sincerely doubt is allowed by international law [of course, i'm just making an assumption here, but it's a damned safe assumption]. You'll notice that as such Israel's attacks fall into the definition of terrorism:

Quote from: Dictionary
ter·ror·ism
n.

The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.
Call me ignorant, pedantic, whatever. By killing civilians in an attempt to destroy Hezbollah, Israel has sunk to their level and is acting [i'll conceed I was out of line to imply they were terrorists outright, I could have worded that better] like the very terrorists they are trying to quell.


Edit: And once a-****ing-gain Adlo swoops in and says everything I was trying to say in a far more succinct manner while i'm still trying to say it. Bastard. :rolleyes:
« Last Edit: August 08, 2006, 03:26:26 am by Mefustae »

 

Offline Rictor

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Re: Israel moves tanks into Lebanon
I don't know what you Brits think of George Galloway, but he's one suave mother****er. He's like the Sean Connery of politics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=249JaIaubVw

 

Offline aldo_14

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Re: Israel moves tanks into Lebanon
I don't know what you Brits think of George Galloway, but he's one suave mother****er. He's like the Sean Connery of politics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=249JaIaubVw


(I think Sean Connery could sue you for that.......)

In general, my view is that he's an arrogent, seedy, egocentric, self-serving little **** whose main 'suave' trait consists of SHOUTING VERY LOUD over peoples questions.   Even if he is slagging off Murdoch.

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: Israel moves tanks into Lebanon
I agree with you Aldo but I'd rather have him in the tent pissing out :)
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Offline Wobble73

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Re: Israel moves tanks into Lebanon
I don't know what you Brits think of George Galloway, but he's one suave mother****er. He's like the Sean Connery of politics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=249JaIaubVw


(I think Sean Connery could sue you for that.......)

In general, my view is that he's an arrogent, seedy, egocentric, self-serving little **** whose main 'suave' trait consists of SHOUTING VERY LOUD over peoples questions.   Even if he is slagging off Murdoch.

Yeah Rictor, Put briefly, not many of us like him!
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Offline Mefustae

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Re: Israel moves tanks into Lebanon
What was he saying about Israel abducting Palestinian political members? Any truth in that?

 

Offline Rictor

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Re: Israel moves tanks into Lebanon
But did you see his stylish glasses? His accent? His all black get up, looking like he just walked out of a high-profile LA nightclub? How can you possibly dislike someone so pimpin'?

 

Offline aldo_14

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Re: Israel moves tanks into Lebanon
What was he saying about Israel abducting Palestinian political members? Any truth in that?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5252356.stm
Quote
Israel has detained about 30 MPs and a third of the Palestinian cabinet in the past six weeks.

 

Offline Mefustae

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Re: Israel moves tanks into Lebanon
What the hell? Why?!