--- Dwayne Monroe <idoru345 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I don't know if Haaretz is a "fringe publication" or
> not. Someone with information about its circulation
> and influence would know better. Still, it's
> unsurprising a (probably) patriotic reservist would
> object to the criticisms of Tel Aviv policy
> published
> within the paper.
>
This is correct. He calls it "Hasharetz," "sharetz" apparently meaning something bad in Hebrew and says it is more biased against Israel than Al-Arabiya.
I thought his comment below was very interesting. Oddly enough, this is on an internet discussion board for discussing role-playing games. --- I don't want to get into this thread (1) beyond saying this:
I do not believe the Lebanese people "asked for it," "deserve it," or "have it coming." The majority of them have been dragged into a conflict they wanted no part of and are being used in the most cynical of fashions as human-shields and media-currency by Hizbullah. They are being royally screwed through no fault of their own.
The current rise in support for Hizbullah is both natural and, in all likelyhood, temporary. Several Arab media outlets think there will be another Lebanese Civil War when this is over. There has already been anti-shiite violence in the northern christian zones, and the Sunnis are more likely to side with the Christians than the Shiites in the long-run - in Lebanon there's a precedent for that and sentiments that way are already running high.
Nor is their government in a position to do anything about Hizbullah. Their non-Shiite leadership is between a rock and a hard-place. The consequences of moving against Hizbullah are just as high as not moving against them, and may arguably be higher. Their army is untrained and 40% Shiite, which could lead to the army breaking into factions in a fight. They are damned if they do and damned if they don't.
And Israel is also between the hammer and the anvil: we can wave our little scary-stick at Hizbullah and hope it works without taking effective action, or we can go in and do the job knowing that means a bunch of perfectly nice, loveable Lebanese civillians go the way of the dodo along with our targets. I have no interest in engaging in legal quibbles over "necessary," "dual-use," or "proportional." If we use precedents from Kosovo and Iraq we're well within tolerances, even if that is sad, heart-wrenching, and disgusting. War is all three of those things and more - all of them bad.
I do think a full ground invasion with a narrower air-campaign would have been more effective and reduced civillian causalties - and would therefore have been the wiser and more desireable move - but that didn't happen. There were political and diplomatic reasons for that, as well as a failure of vision with our Chief of Staff, who is a pilot and therefore locked into the chairforce obsession with airpower.
I'm saying all of this because I see a lot of condemnation of both the Lebanese and Israeli people in this thread - much of which is extremely partisan, somewhat ignorant, and not very fair-minded. In a word: nasty. And to hear people say that the Lebanese civillians who have been killed had it coming makes me me exceedingly angry and shame-faced with some of you. They are not my enemy. They and we are human beings and what is happening here is tragic and I feel very deeply for the innocent Lebanese who have died, as well as the Israelis - both civillian and military - who have joined them in God's House.
That doesn't change my willingness to fight and grind Hizbullah down to a man and to take as few prisoners as possible in the process; nor does it change my mind about making hard decisions and inflicting "necessary" collateral damage (however that is to be defined), but there is no excuse for dehumanizing and blaming the victims on either side of the border, using ideological dogmatism to make either nation the focus of your "two minutes of hate," or simple blasting away in self-righteous ignorance because you want to have something to say about something everyone is talking about. Its wrong as wrong can be.
Yes, I'm utterly incensed and disgusted by what I have seen in this thread, including some of what I've seen uttered by people who have argued in favor of "my side." I saw a dead lebanese child in an alley on my way out of Bint Jbeil. He was in the wrong place in the wrong time. Which pitiless soul on these boards is going to tell me he had it coming? Or that the fathers, brothers, and sons we lost in that fight were "nazis." He didn't and they weren't. I'm sorry for him. I'm sorry for his family. And I'm sorry for the entire damned situation that sent us into that God-forsaken town. None of us - except Nasrallah and his taskmasters - want this to be happening.
And as for my side: in my town of 900 families we have 100 guest families from the North with nowhere else to go, little more than the clothes on their back, no work, and therefore little or no money. They are sleeping on the floors of our synogogues and schools and are being fed from our kitchens and at tables in our homes. They don't look like opressors and war-mongers to me. They look sad, frightened, and dislocated.
The only man who deserves no pity is the man who has none. And the same goes for a fair shake - if you refuse to look at your brother with a fair eye you don't deserve one yourself. Look at yourselves long and hard before you rush to judgement.
It is my sincere hope, when the dust settles, that we can find a common ground with the lebanese people and reach some sort of treaty as we have with Jordan and Egypt. There are good people up there and I hope they can rebuild their country, with our help, side-by-side, in peace.
Dear God, have mercy on all our souls.
(1) one Israel thread is the extent of my command and control capabilities, and, frankly, I don't want to get into many of the lines of argument I've seen here because they will simply get me banned.
Lyubo, bratsy, lyubo, lyubo, bratsy, zhit!
ËÞÁÎ, ÁÐÀÒÖÛ, ËÞÁÎ, ËÞÁÎ, ÁÐÀÒÖÛ, ÆÈÒÜ!
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