Wednesday

it all makes a twisted kind of sense

The tentative attempt at a 48 hour ceasefire - was announced by the Americans - but the very vast majority of the Israeli public was of the opinion that there should be no ceasefire - and then the Israeli Defense Minister comes out and immediately says he has no plans for a ceasefire and vows to expand the scope of the war. If the majority of the people want it, well that's democracy for you.

Fifty civilians, the majority of them children, are killed in an airstrike on Qana, drawing international condemnation against Israel. Strictly speaking, Israel did nothing wrong -> Qana is a hotspot for rocket launches into Israel, and according to them, it is the Hezbollah who have commited the war crime. Targeting military equipment and installations and then getting civilians killed in the process isn't a war crime - using civilians as shields to protect military equipment is. Yet when this happens, opposition towards the Israelis deepen while sympathy for Lebanon increases. Great strategy.

Hezbollah and Hamas both declare their ultimate goal is the destruction of Israel as a state. This is war, and it will not end until one side is completely eradicated or loses the will to fight. Nobody wants to lose.

Ultimately everything comes down to how much it costs. Israel could send in teams of ground troops to do house to house searches to destroy and disarm rocket sites instead of sending in precision bombs to do it from the safety of the air. House to house searches however would put many Israeli soldiers in danger. But of course, the lives of Israeli soldiers are more valuable than the lives of Lebanese civilians, so bombing is the logical strategy for them. Whereas for the Hezbollah, the Lebanese civilians are less valuable than their political goals so they are used as human shields.

Everyone believes they are right.

It all makes a twisted kind of sense.

7 comments:

Ash said...

All is fair in love and war yes?

Snipergirl said...

I think the sympathies lie with the Lebanese civilians and government- neither of which are actually affiliated in any way with Hezbollah or Hamas.

It is ridiculous to obliterate and invade a country based on the existence of unrelated terrorists in the country. It would make sense if they were only bombing Hezbollah positions. In actual fact, they are destroying UN installations, civilian airports, hospitals... you name it.

They are fighting the new holy war against Islam.

The crusades are so last millennium.

Ash said...

Lol. To say they are unrelated is probably not a properly complete truth.

They are related something the way a tumour is to a body. With tendrils far, deep, reaching and gripping. After all, hospitals and bases can be used as bases, ambulances will help anyone, roads for supplies give supplies to both citizens and adversaries.

If you could separate the goat from the sheep then yes surely you would. But if you can't?
If you're going to weed the fields, expect to unroot the crop as well.

There's no right and no wrong in this matter. Everything is just wrong.

And crusades? Have never ever truly stopped have they? Long before Christ was born

Ash said...

loops...I meant to say hospitals and schools.

Snipergirl said...

They are related something the way a tumour is to a body. With tendrils far, deep, reaching and gripping. After all, hospitals and bases can be used as bases, ambulances will help anyone, roads for supplies give supplies to both citizens and adversaries.

That may be true of the situation in Iraq, but there is no evidence to suggest that Beirut International Airport, for example, was anything other than an International Airport (before it turned into a pile of rubble this is)

Ash said...

:P Who needs evidence?
This is war. I don't need an excuse. A perceived threat. A potential threat.

There is no right nor wrong in this matter. It's all wrong. Everything is fair. Whether it's dropping a nuclear bomb on a million civillians vaporizing them, blinding another million and mutating another few thousand, chopping off heads on television to create fear, gas chambers, bombing ambulances, hospitals, schools and airports - it is all fair.

As Captain Jack Sparrow said quaintly, "There are only two real rules. What a man can do and what a man can't."

tendafoot said...

I think you're wrong Ash.

I think none of it is fair.