U.S. Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis
The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.
And they wonder why their reputation is mud in the Middle East...
19 comments:
It is the UK Labour Party/US Republican Party Versus British and US national interests.
The ethnic cleansing of Shiites of Lebanon will take about a month or two to filter through to Shiites of Iraq before the young vulnerable British and US soldiers in Iraq notice something different about the insurrection in that country, this is already showing up in statements from Grand Ayatollah Sistani (basically the most influencial individual in Iraq)
http://www.juancole.com
Posted by Anonymous : 7/22/2006 10:30:00 PM
Surely if Israel was running low on precision-guided munitions you'd prefer that they were provided with more precision-guided munitions rather than resorting to use of unguided weapons?
Posted by Graeme Edgeler : 7/22/2006 11:19:00 PM
Graeme, you apologist fuck, neither of the things you posit are well described as preferable.
That there are slightly more insane things imaginable does not excuse this.
Posted by tussock : 7/23/2006 01:26:00 AM
I prefer the term "Devil's Advocate"
[not to be confused with advocate for the Great Satan]
Posted by Graeme Edgeler : 7/23/2006 08:04:00 AM
I wonder how the formula works.
If Israel ran out of precision weapons how many Lebanese civilians would it be NOT willing to kill (by accident).
My initial thought is - the more ruthless (immoral) you think the Israeli government is the more you logically should want them to have precision weapons and the less ruthless (immoral) the less you want them to have those weapons (in the short term as opposed to the long term).
he idea being that clearly they want to achieve some aim here - denying theim precision weapons uses "killing civilians as a lever - which will have various degrees of efectivnes depending on their ruthlessness.
Right up to the point at which they are so evil that they just keep on shooting for the fun of it... or where their objective really is to wipe out the civilians.
Posted by Genius : 7/23/2006 10:07:00 AM
It all comes down to WHO you are asking to do that sort of thing.
Neither Jews nor Lebanese are children of the corn. In the same way that the israeli government MUST retaliate against rocket strikes and cant just with draw to some 1940 something boarder the Lebanese government CANT attack Hezbollah.
Power in these countries is not centralized enough for any one person to be able to make a rational choice about stopping fighting you need some sort of wider or step by step change in the dynamics of the situation.
Posted by Genius : 7/23/2006 02:34:00 PM
Blog commenting in the face of this seems utterly pointless.
But:
1. That whatever the MSM is telling us is propaganda.
2. Is the reason for Hariri's assasination now a little clearer?
Posted by Anonymous : 7/23/2006 04:02:00 PM
So, these 'precision weapons' have some kind of way of differentiating between members of Hezbollah and civillians? Er, no.
Even if they did, does this make the use of them moral? Er, no. What other avenues did Israel try before resorting to an unreasonbale use of disproportionate force against a state? Hhhmmmm. Nothing.
I hope Israel faces war-crimes charges for its actions in Lebanon.
Posted by strong light : 7/23/2006 05:03:00 PM
Logix,
1-2) Are you somehow privy to much better information than everyone else?
I would say the israeli government is too weak to stand up to the will of its population.
either that or the entire jewish population are under psycic control.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L21734098.htm
"It said 95 percent believed the army's response against Hizbollah was justified. That is an increase from 86 percent in a poll conducted earlier this week. Only eight percent said Israel should stop fighting and enter negotiations."
Now it takes a democratic leader with some "big balls" to fly in the face of 95% of the population on the biggest issue of the day (and some moral suporters not to stab him in the back over it). I expect such things have a snowball effect.
Posted by Genius : 7/23/2006 06:24:00 PM
"Now it takes a democratic leader with some "big balls" to fly in the face of 95% of the population on the biggest issue of the day".
wow.. then this "democracy" thing that is supposed to be G_d's biggest political gift to the world really means "f*ck over whoever you like, however you like, so long as a majority of your population is in general agreement". It seems to make common morality quite redundant..
Posted by Anonymous : 7/23/2006 06:37:00 PM
I should have said:
Blog commenting in the face of THIS:
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1191880.ece
Precision munitions my arse.
Posted by Anonymous : 7/23/2006 10:08:00 PM
Logix: Not following you. What are you suggesting about Hariri's death? Why don't you think precision-guided weapons are better than un-targeted bombs etc.?
Posted by Anonymous : 7/23/2006 11:54:00 PM
Graeme, crappy logic is no path for the true devil's advocate. False dilemma, like "should I shoot you in the gut, or the head?"
Genius, precision? Fuck you too, they're dropping multi-tonne bombs onto apartment buildings and civilian infrastructure. There are hundreads dead and hundreads of thousands fleeing. It's a war crime they wouldn't be allowed to carry out without precision bombs, paid for by the ever ignorant US taxpayers (and the Chinese money tree).
Genius, can't help themselves? More apologist bullshit. That's what the english said for 20 years in NI, then they just stopped: it's just that easy. Rabin did it just fine for instance.
95%? Bullshit push-polls in tabloids often show near-perfect support for the troops. I'd like to see the raw data and questioning. Regardless, it's precicely the purpose of international law to limit such bloodlust, and the responsibility of all nations to prevent this very thing.
Add suppling arms for the commision of a war crime to GWB's ever growing list of mostrosities.
Posted by tussock : 7/24/2006 02:55:00 AM
> It's a war crime.
unless your willing to give the international court some real big teeth the answer is always going to be "what are you gonna do about it?"
----
You have made a call it seems that the Israelis wouldn't try to kill Hezbollah supporters if they did not have precision weapons. Maybe that explains why hezbollah doesnt attack israel -- oh wait, it does...
Somehow I don’t think that is the thing making the difference.
> Genius, can't help themselves?
Depends on who you are talking about. The Israelis can help themselves in the same way that Lebanon "could" capture the Hezbollah guys and hand the soldiers back. Or stop firing rockets.
> 95%? Bullshit.
95% or not - It seems pretty accepted there is overwhelming support. Shooting rockets at someone tends not to get their sympathy.
Posted by Genius : 7/24/2006 07:42:00 AM
hmm. should i precision bomb airports, power plants and appartment buildings or should i just plain old bomb airports, power plants and appartment buildings?
With the kind of attacks that are going on this type of question is irrelevant. And shame on anyone who would seriously try and use the "surley you would prefer more accurate bombs" argument for the justification of bombing non millitary targets.
Why? because it doesnt change the fact that it is civillians that are the targets of such attacks. Which is illegal.
Look at the situation the other way round. Would you support more accurate and powerfull bombs being supplied to Hezbollah?
fraser
Posted by Anonymous : 7/24/2006 09:16:00 AM
The last Israeli leader to pursue equal peace with the Palestinians was Rabin who was rewarded with a bullet for his efforts. Any wonder any individual politicians are unlikely to promote peace? They represent their people who seem to *want* war.
Posted by Anonymous : 7/24/2006 01:23:00 PM
My what a little freak show we have going on here..
Since it's anathema to the right to admit their little Israelo-US "democratic Middle East" project has the corporeality of the Wizard of Oz and the moral depth of Atilla the Hun, we're treated to:
- a mindless hairsplitting sojourn into whether the beligerant protagonist should best be armed with precision or unguided weapons, and
- the intellectual and moral idiocy of an argument that says unless and until we can solve Israel's (partly self-created) security issues, there is no moral mandate to intervene (particularly curious when in other circumstances you support invasion as a legitimate "intervention")
Do you guys have *any* control over how f*cking creepy you allow yourselves to get?
Posted by Anonymous : 7/24/2006 04:19:00 PM
isptbyef,
if you can pop over to the ME and simultaniously pacify the israeli military and hezbolla without harming any civilians then I give you the moral mandate.
Posted by Genius : 7/24/2006 05:57:00 PM
"if you can pop over to the ME and simultaniously pacify the israeli military and hezbolla without harming any civilians then I give you the moral mandate."
"Genius" - um, what?! am I going crazy or is the principle of not re-supplying armaments to the most grievously offending faction while they're in the process of using them against civilians a difficult concept to grasp?
Posted by Anonymous : 7/24/2006 06:14:00 PM
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