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| Thread: Rockets, airstrikes reignite Mideast conflict |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Geny
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What if Elvin was female?
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posted November 16, 2012 10:43 PM |
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I know, but that doesn't change the fact that they managed to do quite a lot of damage to it.
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antipaladin
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posted November 16, 2012 11:43 PM |
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you mistake first is to think of hamas as ligitimite goverment.
Must i remind you how they massacred fatah to take controll of the gaza strip? must i remind you that arabs massacre themselfs better then anyone, also im israely myself and part of the israel army thought not an officer as geny since i decided not to choose that path, but im a staff sargent and i have a duty to my frindes family and my soliders' family, i have a duty to have there familys protected and as such i must utilise any force nessery to keep those around me safe. not just bomb people out of sheer anger. you claim not to be a murderer but your actions and words speak otherwise. True is that israely is signifnctly stronger and advance in numbers of troops technology and startegy but must i remind you we never sought war,we sought to co exist, they do not see our right to exist in the first place. it is not by our fualt that we are so good at staying alive and fighting for it. it is our right to exist and live in those lands , we won them by law,by blood and by every other reason that so do you, therfor anyone who thinks otherwise is an enemy to israel and enemy to myself and probbly geny too,and we will make any means nessery to protect ourselfs.
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del_diablo
Legendary Hero
Manifest
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posted November 17, 2012 12:12 AM |
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Quote:
There used "moral" wars a long time ago. Wars when armies met in the field, had their fun and the winner took control of the loser's territory. Unfortunately, those days are long gone. Which is why the Geneva convention took place, to put in some guidelines about how to conduct a war.
You can count the number of rulers who practiced "Loser don't get pillaged apart" on a hand. Morals and honour in war has almost never existed, with very few exceptions, which was usually limited to the upper nobles.
Geneva convention never came around because war got messy and there was less honor, Geneva came around because the educated upper classes at some point realized just how much damage the civilians would suffer once society was no longer feudalism. The second reason for the Geneva convention was experimental weaponry, which even goes back to ancient warfare: Poison the wells and the river, which serves no purpose in a war lead by the "educated". Each ratification comes from a bunch of highly educated citizens with a amazing network getting to experience war, and how miserable it was, and used their nepotism status to attempt to fix it.
And for the note, there exists treaties that predates the convention. Their entire purpose was a set guidelines for ransom of nobles, and nothing else.
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GunFred
Supreme Hero
Sexy Manticore
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posted November 17, 2012 01:57 AM |
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Succesful modern guerilla wars have usually been fought in the jungle or in cities. The desert is no place for guerilla warfare. The missiles fired from Gaza could be considered guerilla tactics.
And you are right Antipaladin, arabs are good at killing each other. And that is why the western world should leave them in peace and not provoke them so that they slowly but steadily come to see things our way when they see that their way sucks.
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blizzardboy
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Nerf Herder
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posted November 17, 2012 06:07 AM |
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The Middle East isn't a giant barren stretch you know. There's plenty of plantlife or rocky outcroppings & grooves for groups to hide and take cover in. Perhaps a disadvantage to guerrilla warfare in arid regions in the modern context is that satellite intel is now a player, and a jungle can still offer a good amount of obscurity from that. Afghanistan is nicknamed the Graveyard of Empires and has successfully repelled Greek, Persian, British, and USSR invasions in the past and it's far from urban or congested with lots of trees. You just need to be tucked in some remote geographic location and allow attrition to do the heavy lifting.
I think a big reason that Hamas and related terror cells don't strike military targets is because they're incapable of doing it with hardly any success. So it's a "Dammit we're so freaking angry, let's just do any damage that we can" type deal. Vietcong was a highly brutal & effective guerrilla army, and the situation in colonial Indochina was more black & white and it had solidarity behind its cause, thus fueling plenty of recruits. Despite some bamboozled perceptions, a relatively small minority of people in Gaza are willing to sign up and shoot rockets into civilian towns. Yeah, 99% of the population is irate towards Israel to varying degrees, but most of them are more interested in keeping their heads low and perhaps opportunistically showing up at a protest to burn a couple flags, then once they're done venting, they go home.
I've said before that Israel needs to be extra cautious towards blowback, and that means giving the green light to unpopular high risk operations as opposed to aerial or remote strikes that have a higher chance of collateral damage. It means inevitability losing a couple extra soldiers now and then. The US can afford to fry a couple Pakistanis and then walk the diplomatic tightrope by apologizing about it and maybe making a few concessions; they're on the opposite side of the world and can't (usually) do anything about it. Gaza is next door. You gotta walk on eggshells. Of course, even this has severe complications. You often don't have a clear cut line between aggressors and random bystanders, and even if you do it can become convoluted and distorted with conflicting reports, ultimately resulting in a confusing, migraine-inducing cluster**** of politicized chaos. Still, the less excuses you provide, the better your government will be in garnering outside support.
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Geny
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted November 17, 2012 08:15 AM |
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Since I know I'm not that good at words, let quote what one of Israel's young politicians - Yair Lapid, posted on his facebook wall:
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We tend to feel, instinctively, that in any struggle or conflict the weaker side is also right. That is not the case here. The weaker side of this conflict fired 12,000 missiles on innocent civilians, using women and children as human shields, twisted Islam into a religion of bloodshed and horror, and at the very same time is cynically misusing western freedom
of speech in order to portray itself in the media as the victim; The stronger side of this same conflict is a democracy that has been bleeding for years from unprovoked terror attacks , that has already vacated the Gaza strip more then 7 years ago, and that is supplying it's enemy even now with electricity, medicine, water and humanitarian aid and is going out of it's way – including jeopardizing it's own soldiers – in an effort to save the lives of the very same Palestinian citizens the Hamas seems so eager to sacrifice in the name of Allah.
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xerox
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posted November 17, 2012 12:47 PM |
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Edited by xerox at 12:58, 17 Nov 2012.
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I really can't see how the Israeli military is saving the lives of Palestinian citizens. If that is how aspiring Israeli politicans reason, "We somehow save lives by taking lives", then there's little hope for some faint rays of peace on the horizon. What Israel needs to start thinking about is WHY people feel that they need to start supporting groups like Hamas.
I also don't think anybody is supporting the weaker side here. I hate groups such as Hamas, just like I hate the idea that a country can be "sacred" to a certain ethnic group of people. It's ridiculous. It's as if native americans would start killing people in the US, claiming it's their "sacred land". No land in the world belongs to a particular group of people. We all share the Earth.
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Doomforge
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posted November 17, 2012 12:52 PM |
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No land in the world belongs to a particular group of people. We all share the Earth. .
People aren't developed enough to realize that. They still cling to petty notions and ideas (like nations).
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GunFred
Supreme Hero
Sexy Manticore
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posted November 17, 2012 12:59 PM |
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Edited by GunFred at 13:03, 17 Nov 2012.
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Geny
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted November 17, 2012 01:55 PM |
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@xerox
Saving lives may be an overkill definition. Preserving lives would be more accurate in my eyes. And they do it by hitting the launch sites that are situated in a highly populated area instead of incinerating the whole neighborhood. Something that other countries did in the past and got away with.
And you're overdoing it with the whole sacred land stuff. Sure, there are many people here who believe that, especially about Jerusalem, and they have significant power in the government, but it is not Netanyahu's main reasoning. Protecting our homes is.
@GunFred
I don't think I want to watch another one of those videos after seeing how one-sided the first one was.
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GunFred
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posted November 17, 2012 03:14 PM |
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Neither of the videos are biased or un-neutral. They both show that the conflict is not black and white. This second clip is much shorter and is equally critical of both sides while the first focused on that Israel is not really as good as media claims it is.
Only a fantatic do not care about the truth and do not even want to hear it. If Israel really do not care about palestinians then you might as well destroy or conquer them swiftly and I am sure that the world will forgive Israel in 10 years.
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Geny
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted November 17, 2012 03:32 PM |
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If after all I've said about the first video you still think that it wasn't biased in any way, I'm not sure what more can I say.
I watched the second video now. The idea that the operation is too close to the elections to be a coincidence was voiced in Israel as well. It is a possibility. I for one am against it because operations like that are not born in a day just because a politician decides he wants conflict. Moreover, it's going very well for Israel so far, which makes me believe that the timing is not only good for Likud, but for the military as well, so again I don't think that the timing is political. Or at least not only political.
There is something else I want to point out on the matter of bias. Through the whole video I was thinking one thought - for a guy who talked about double standards in the first vid, he sure has a lot of them. He's talking a lot about how Netanyahu and Barak benefit from the war (even though Barak is a leftist), but he believes that Hamas are plain stupid. His guest has to actually push his face into the fact that Hamas are hardcore extremists and win a lot from any conflict for him to concede that it is a possibility, but he quickly changes the subject again claiming that it is not the point right now. If that's not one-sided coverage, I don't know what is.
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GunFred
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posted November 17, 2012 04:27 PM |
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The reason I think that the videos are not biased is that the guys in the video are not friends of either Israel or the palestinians. They do not even take the side that says that both are equally bad. I understand that it can appear that they bash Israel more but I think that is because it is more important to point out what Israel is really doing (or might be doing) because we already know about the palestinians. Many of them are evil/crazy fanatics that want to destroy Israel and the jews. They shoot countless rockets against israeli civilians from areas that make it impossible for israeli retaliation to avoid civilian casualties. But it is important to point out that despite how bad the palestinians are acting, Israel is not innocent in the conflict and are not "just defending itself".
And the guest guy is actually an employee of the show and I did not see much disagreement between them. The host though have a habit of saying "nonononono" but then just more or less rephrasing what the person before said with his own words. It has confused me several times so it could have been like that this time too. They disagree suprisingly often though on the show and do not have an agenda in the way that other medias sometimes have. *cough, fox news*
And I do not really see the double standards in the videos.
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Geny
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted November 17, 2012 05:27 PM |
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Thing is, you don't have to be someone's friend to be biased. It's enough that you have a certain built-in opinion. Look at xerox. He's nobody's friend, but he's living on Swedish propaganda which methodically takes the Palestinian side on most matters. Now, I understand what you're saying about talking about Israel more than Hamas, since you have higher expectation from a democratic state than from a terrorist group. But consider this - if you focus only on Israel, your silence towards the other side works as a silent agreement to their actions. Even if that's not what you mean, that's how it looks. Can you imagine what Israeli citizens feel when they're being bombarded for years and years and no one says anything, but when Israel strikes back half of the world rises in protest? It looks terribly one sided and makes it very hard for the people here to take anyone seriously.
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Seraphim
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posted November 17, 2012 05:45 PM |
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Minion
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posted November 17, 2012 05:45 PM |
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If Swedish media is biased, then could an Isreali officer be non-biased 
But it is really hard to expect anything from people who have nothing to gain (Gaza) and almost nothing to loose. Their situation is way more emphatetic... The kind of education they have, the kind of life they live. Gaza is nicknamed the worlds largest prison for a reason.
I have met Palestinian refuges here, so yes I am biased as well, I guess we all are. I do say that Israeli army has so far done a better job at targeting mostly Hamas buildings and leaders, which is an improvent to the previous conflict. Just hoping things don't escalate.
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Seraphim
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Knowledge Reaper
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posted November 17, 2012 06:02 PM |
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Quote:
If Swedish media is biased, then could an Isreali officer be non-biased
Maybe sweedish media is not that biased but does not dare to express its true motivation, that is not to piss off the refugees and other muslims in your country. They really would not want to lose customers or reputation.
Liberal media is actually unbearable to listen to.
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GunFred
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posted November 17, 2012 06:02 PM |
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Me and Xerox live in a nation that has not been at war for two centuries and we are proud to be peace lovers that keep a generally neutral stance in the world. But we do imagine what it feels like to not be so lucky with where you are born. We have a really realistic view on war and suffering in Sweden. We watched the world burn twice from the sidelines and ever since then we have witnessed the constant suffering and wars in the world with pity rather than jealousy and anger.
And trust me when I say that Sweden do not do propaganda. Swedish media is vastly different from what I have seen from american media. Swedish media is about reporting facts and what is actually happening and not twisting for the sake of a party or cause. If you think that Sweden is more friendly towards palestinians then it is because they suffer so much more (even though they can blame themselves a lot). And trust me once more, islamophobia is unfortunatly growing in ALL of europe so you will not find any friends of Islam here except the muslims themselves. And you do not have to be an islamophobe to strongly dislike what some muslims do or believe.
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Seraphim
Supreme Hero
Knowledge Reaper
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posted November 17, 2012 06:21 PM |
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Edited by Seraphim at 18:28, 17 Nov 2012.
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Me and Xerox live in a nation that has not been at war for two centuries and we are proud to be peace lovers that keep a generally neutral stance in the world. But we do imagine what it feels like to not be so lucky with where you are born. We have a really realistic view on war and suffering in Sweden. We watched the world burn twice from the sidelines and ever since then we have witnessed the constant suffering and wars in the world with pity rather than jealousy and anger.
And trust me when I say that Sweden do not do propaganda.
Well, I dont trust you. You are biased towards leftist beliefs and the false arguments.
Did you ever happen to question what you just said? The idea that you claim to adhere to palestinians because of empathy actually makes you emotionally charged and thus biased.
Palestinians had their chance in the past to form a bigger state, they did not want that. I wonder how people can feel empathy for these people. Maybe, people have too much time to think about these things.
Its no wonder sweedish peple are so Liberal. I bet that if you would ask any citizen that has money issues or any other life related issues, they would not care at all.
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Swedish media is vastly different from what I have seen from american media.
What you have seen may have been a fallacy.
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And trust me once more, islamophobia is unfortunatly growing in ALL of europe so you will not find any friends of Islam here except the muslims themselves.
Which is fine. Only liberal idiots would want to adhere to support an ideology that restricts the very rights you are using to fight islamophobes.
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And you do not have to be an islamophobe to strongly dislike what some muslims do or believe.
True that, one just has to be sane.
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antipaladin
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Legendary Hero
of Ooohs and Aaahs
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posted November 17, 2012 06:35 PM |
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Its funny As i remmber seraphim slighly less pro israel.. alas as i and geny mentioned there is no such thing as true neturel in RL its a video game term nothing more.
Also war has no winners only losers and those who lose more.
It might be true that israel elections have something to do with timing alas most of israel people are center leftist those he might have only chance to win if a change in national security has been made. despite if i do not agree on motive the couse is ttue and its not of my nor genys place as soldiers to question politics. its our duty to protect this god forbiddrn country that is seemed illigitimite by half of the world . you can not transform us elsewerr.. it doesnt work that way.
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