The Israel/Hezbollah fighting

I just decided to post about this whole thing.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13853565/

I just hope our Snarkpitter, Kain is okay. He lives in Beirut, and from what I remember he lives very close to tall buildings.

Kain if you're still able to post, let us know how you are doing.

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

Good point about Kain, i'd forgotten that he was in Beirut. Let's hope
the Israeli government and the Hizbollah leaders have the sense to
climb down before even more elements drag this region into conflict yet
again.

That might just be wishful thinking though :/

That conflict has caused a lot of collateral damage. I just wish they'd calm down again.

Good that you pointed that one out Nickel. I didn't know that he was from Beirut. I hope he's okay.

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''Everyone wades in s**t until they're competent enough to walk on it. Jesus style.''
Dystopia - Empires

Yea it doesn't look like anything good is going to come from this. And if it doesn't calm down, oil prices are headed through the roof, hooray....

To hell with oil prices.

Both governments aren't actually protecting the civilians, that's my concern.

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:: Forceflow.be :: Nuclear Dawn developer

Forceflow said:
To hell with oil prices.

Both governments aren't actually protecting the civilians, that's my concern.

goverments that protect civillians....

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i eat paint

It's not the hip thing to care about citizens right now.

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

"in need of a comprehensive and speedy Arab plan"

Hehe I don't know why I can't stop laughing at speedy arab plan ^^

If i've understood correctly, Israel is fighting a war on 2 fronts
which will soon become 3 and in the worst possible case 4: Palestine,
Lebanon, Syria and Iran, the last being the place where it's rumored
the Israeli hostages will
be transfered to in order to get this Country involved aswell? If this
is true and If the US intervene and NATO go along for the ride we might be looking at the beginning of world war 3.

Everyone gangbanging 1 country is not a world war. It's a gangbang.

Not if they attract Iran in the war and that nutjob decides to turn the
war into a nuclear one. Common sense says NO THEY WON'T, but that
extremist leading Iran is unpredictable.

Iran will become involved in the wider conflict after Israel nuke Damascus.

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i eat paint

man....its like listening to howrad cosell and don meredith all over again.....///argh

Doc B... :dodgy:

I　checked the news sites as soon as I got back from Shaolin, and seeing this development + Iraq/Afghanistan + North Korea + India + African civil war is deeply troubling and depressing. All the gloom and doom is enough to drive someone to apathy, just to function.

I do hope Kain is OK, and I really hope this doesn't escalate into a 3rd world war, because yes, I could see it happening.

kinda ironic that a result of WW2 could lead to the start of WW3.

Yeah well... results of WWI led directly to WWII, so there's precedence.

Thanks Nickelplate, thanks everyone for you concern!!

Yes I'm ok, so is my family. I live in the center of Beirut, which hasn't been targeted by the Israelis yet; it's the southern suburb who has been and is still being ravaged...

It's true Hezbollah started this thing by kidnapping those soldiers and firing some rockets, but the reply is completely disproportionate... They've destroyed airports, ports, main roads, bridges, fuel tanks... I spend my time watching TV and feeling helpless...

I was extremely pleased when I opened this thread and saw you guys talk about me: may you all be safe and never be close to war! ever! The only good guns are those we fire in HL :wink:

I'm just glad you're safe!

I think everyne is just sick of taking crap from the other side. Eventually EVERYONE will be retaliating disproportionately. Soon enough, fanaticism will be brought into play and it will get worse.

Oh, BTW, Kain, what religion are most people affiliated with in Lebanon? Islam or what?

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

Well, I think acording to the latest polls it's 40% christians, 60% muslims, most of which are Shiits (or it's 35/65? i'm not sure).

[edit]

40 - 60, http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/le.html

The people of Isreal and Libanon dont deserve this, why do politicians always seek war?

Then again, Isreal can easily beat the army of any country neighbouring it. The only way they can be stopped is through the UN, wich America and Russia blocked(Who else?). Or the population itself, wich would have a higher chance of succeeding then the UN.

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RUST Gamedesign
pepper design

The strength of the turbulence is directly proportional to the temperature of your coffee.

what needs to happen before people realize that WW3 has already started? :sad:

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i eat paint

This aint WWIII, an other day. Humans are to stupid to understand peace, so yeah we kinda deserve it to blow ourselves to smitherseen, but not today.

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RUST Gamedesign
pepper design

The strength of the turbulence is directly proportional to the temperature of your coffee.

well you could argue this is WWIII, its just not what we think of as war. There is no "bad" guy and all the powers are working at different levels. Why do you think America is taking this pussyfooted stance on the Israel conflict? They want this to happen, Israel is attacking the "axis of evil" and why is that? Because we and the other ally nations put them there to do just that.

pepper said:
This aint WWIII, an other day. Humans are to stupid to understand peace, so yeah we kinda deserve it to blow ourselves to smitherseen, but not today.

off the top of your head, can you name a country that doesn't have a current involvement in one of the many conflicts? i know that i can't.

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i eat paint

right now its a cold war for the superpowers. their military involvement in the active middle eastern conflicts don't really make themselfs part of a war yet.

right now america seamingly is going to sit on its ass and take over the middle east when this blows over for the oil, it might be foreced to do other wise though.

<span style="color: white;">DrGlass, the only reason America wont intervent is becuase they armed Isreal themselves, same for Russia and Iran, so there making money.
<br style="color: white; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">off the top of your head, can you name a country that doesn't have a
current involvement in one of the many conflicts? i know that i can't.</span>

There WWIII has been going on for the last 50 years if you take that as an argument.

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RUST Gamedesign
pepper design

The strength of the turbulence is directly proportional to the temperature of your coffee.

fishy said:
off the top of your head, can you name a country that doesn't have a current involvement in one of the many conflicts? i know that i can't.

Tonga? Autonomous Svalbard?

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

The amount of conflicts in the world is similar to what it was shortly before WW2. It's all just a little more in the east this time.

Technically, WW1 should have been a short conflict in which Serbia
would have been nailed in a few weeks. But various treaties, old
rivalries (mostly regarding the colonies) and animosity between the
more powerful
european nations turned this local war into WW1.In fact, Sarajevo wasn't even the cause of the war, it was an excuse. Deja vu'?

I heard from the radio yesterday that Israelis have started to attack
Beirut. A lot of dead civilians. I also heard that the UN is being held
back by US(which seems to be silently supporting this mass slaughter
Israelis are conducting only because of couple of people) thus
preventing UN from doing somthing about this conflict. This is the
second time US is making a fool out of UN(first being the second Iraq
war in 2003)... Sad. I hope that Kain is still OK.

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''Everyone wades in s**t until they're competent enough to walk on it. Jesus style.''
Dystopia - Empires

The US is making good money out of Isreal, so it's not that crazy that there holding it back, though Russia supplyed Iran with the weapons.

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RUST Gamedesign
pepper design

The strength of the turbulence is directly proportional to the temperature of your coffee.

I don't care if they're making money. It's bulls**t that that takes precedent over thousands of innocent lives. Another reason I hate Bush.

Yep... still holding here... but each day with less hope...

Too bad there isn't a way to get you out.

My prayers are with you, even if they may be to a different God.

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Dark_Kilauea
DVS Administration
http://www.dvstudio-production.com/

Again the UN is turning its head. There should be a peace force there to gaurd the borders and ensure the saferty of the libanese and the israeli people.

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RUST Gamedesign
pepper design

The strength of the turbulence is directly proportional to the temperature of your coffee.

French Toast said:
I don't care if they're making money. It's bulls**t that that takes precedent over thousands of innocent lives. Another reason I hate Bush.

oh, this is bush's fault? silly me. here i thought israel was retaliating against a known terrorist group for the kidnappings.

:razz:

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the players tried to take the field
the marching band refused to yield

its not bushes fault, its the terrorist, American relations dating back to WWII, and Israel.

What gets me is the retaliation thing, both sides are just going back and forth, would it be so hard for them to just stop and say "ok thats it, we have caused enough strife for our people, we arn't going to retaliate that last strike if you stop aswell we can have some kind of peace"

The UN should have done something, but there is no hope deu to this bulls**t-like VETO right of a few select country's. Long live democracy!!

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RUST Gamedesign
pepper design

The strength of the turbulence is directly proportional to the temperature of your coffee.

I hope that none of you have any false impressions about Israel caring
about the hostages. They're prisoners of war now, no one cares about
them. There's political pressure for Israel to show their strenght at
this current time and plenty of civilians on both sides are
suffering(considering that Israel has one of the most efficent armies
in this world, I might even claim that Lebanese civilians are suffering
more than Israeli).

:smile: I hope that you'll leave the political trash talk out of this thread
so that we can use it for monitoring the situation and Kains health
instead of it getting locked or swallowed in flames. :smile: If you hear
real news of the situation please add them here, but world politics can
go to another thread. :smile: This is of course my 2 european cents, but I
hope that you'll respect them that much...

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''Everyone wades in s**t until they're competent enough to walk on it. Jesus style.''
Dystopia - Empires

agreed, i'm cut off for the most part so updates here would be nice

French Toast said:
I
don't care if they're making money. It's bulls**t that that takes
precedent over thousands of innocent lives. Another reason I hate Bush.

oh, this is bush's fault? silly me. here i thought israel was retaliating against a known terrorist group for the kidnappings.

:razz:

Manual says - To retaliate against terrorist organisations:

DESTROY WATER SUPPLIES TO UNCHECKED CIVILIANS

DESTROY ELECTRICITY SUPPLIES TO UNCHECKED CIVILIANS

DESTROY OFFICES WITHIN SUBURBAN AREA (arguably thats a ploy by terrorists, but hey, lets play the realist line here)

Israels response has been completely inproportionate to what has
happened. As I recall in the Hizbollah - Israel "war", one day yielded
1 Israeli civilian death - 30 Lebanese civilian deaths.

This all happened in Gaza, let alone Beirut and southern Lebanon.
Israel operates as a "rogue state unclassified" because of connections
in finance, defence or otherwise.

In my opinion - I don't want anyone to argue against me here, as I know
ultimately it is wrong - Wipe Israel off the face of the earth.

hmmm, I don't know if nazi is the first thing I'd assosiate with Iseal

Why not? It's ok to sympathise with the Jews of Israel because of the
horrific acts forced upon them in the Second World War - perhaps even
before, in reasonable arguments.

How can the Israeli government EVER justify indiscriminate bombings of civilians as retaliation? It's SS tactics.

"You execute our general, we kill a village"

That's a Swastika... The Israeli flag has a star of David in it. :biggrin:

It's ironic that an anti-semitist group's symbol was accidentally put on a Jewish nation's flag... What a boner!

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

I feel like there are a whole bunch of national flags that could be emblazoned with a swastika, justified by how much f**ked up stuff they've done over the years.

Additionally, it's not the first time innocent civilians were targetted by a country's war machine.

I mean, even just thinking back to WW2 with night bombing runs on civilian cities on both sides, and even things like Hiroshima or Dresden, it's clear that it's a tactic that has been used before. Not saying it's right, but it's definitely just following precedent.

And in terms of disproportionate responses, this has also been done before. The 2nd Sino-Japanese war was started over bulls**t pretenses that satisfied the Japanese imperialist desires.

This is all awful and I wish it would stop, but unless you're gonna say that you wished Japan, America (and a few other nations whose histories I know less about) should be wiped off the face of the earth as well, then I feel like you may also be reacting disproportionately.

Sign me up Gwil!

I have a beef with Israel - in reality, i'd wager and prefer a one
state solution ( toin coss for the name of it :smile: ) where Palestinians
and Israelis lived under one flag. Making the swastika post is making
an example - in my eyes, Israel, operates outside objective law. The
United States UN veto is far too often used in their favour (banking
connections?), the indiscriminate killing of civilians is portrayed as
terrorism by Arabs and protection by Israel.

I'm not condoning suicide bombings or supporting the Arab cause, but
far too often the realities of life in Gaza or the West Bank are
overlooked in favour of labelling disposessed Arabs as terrorists.
Remember always, one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter.
How's the United States support for the Irish Republican Army, going,
by the way. Perhaps the British government would like to explain their
links to a coup plot in Equatorial Guinea?

I feel like there are a whole bunch of national flags that could be
emblazoned with a swastika, justified by how much f**ked up stuff
they've done over the years.

Too true. USA, UK, France, Cambodia, China, Russia, Brazil, South Africa, Australia... all guilty, and then some more.

I guess the sad thing is, all through history its the power plays and machinations of governments that lead to the death of civilians.

The big people making the decisions, seemingly care not for the real effect of their choices.

Edit: On the flipside, if in any major decision they dispaired over even a single death, I feel like indecision and inaction would rule.

I usually don't get involved in political discussions, mainly because of my own ignorance to the truth and a hesitation to assume that I know anything about it. I have been opening my eyes a little more in the past few years, and am not very happy with the America that I see. This applies to much more than foreign politics - the heart of the problem as I see it, is our lifestyle and vulnerability to being numbed and duped by the corprate machine. This has left the common American in a position of great ignorance and dissillusion. It saddens and fears me to think that we may one day pull our faces away from 'MTV CRIBS', or 'GIRL GONE WILD', set down our super triple sized barrel of 'DIET' soda, look up, glossy eyed, shocked that half of this planet despises us, and would like to crash planes into our buildings, because the political magicians have been playing monopoly with thier country.... oh wait, that happened already didn't it.

We are so bombarded by media launched electrons, aimed at our dicks, wallets, and hearts, that no American (or should i say westerner, because this corprate entity surely isn't ours alone) is shielded. And man, even worse for the kids who know nothing but this commercialized world - what leverage will they use to seperate themselves from the consumer mindset and venture off into the land of free-thinking, free-will?

Sorry.... I think I'll just go back to being quiet now.

I recently watched this film, and my blood is just a tad warm.

http://www.sonyclassics.com/whywefight/