All Hank, all the time.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Israel's attacks have hardly been limited to places Hezbollah controls. E.g., the Beirut airport.

So what? Totally irrelevant to what Wonk and I were discussing.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
So what? Totally irrelevant to what Wonk and I were discussing.

You said:

• Israel's attacks have been in southern Lebanon. Hezbolla controls southern Lebanon. Ergo . . . .

I was responding to that first sentence. What am I missing?

Does anyone disagree that Israel can and should go after Hezbollah?

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

This one's for Spanky.

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
I just saw this, by Michael Walzer:

• Israel is now at war with an enemy whose hostility is extreme, explicit, unrestrained, and driven by an ideology of religious hatred. But this is an enemy that does not field an army; that has no institutional structure and no visible chain of command; that does not recognize the legal and moral principle of noncombatant immunity; and that does not, indeed, acknowledge any rules of engagement. How do you--how does anyone--fight an enemy like that? I cannot deal with the strategy and tactics of such a fight. How to strike effectively, how to avoid a dangerous escalation--those are important topics, but not mine. The question I want to address is about morality and politics.
  
  The easy part of the answer is to say what cannot rightly be done. There cannot be any direct attacks on civilian targets (even if the enemy doesn't believe in the existence of civilians), and this principle is a major constraint also on attacks on the economic infrastructure. Writing about the first Iraq war, in 1991, I argued that the U.S. decision to attack "communication and transportation systems, electric power grids, government buildings of every sort, water pumping stations and purification plants" was wrong. "Selected infrastructural targets are easy enough to justify: bridges over which supplies are carried to the army in the field provide an obvious example. But power and water ... are very much like food: they are necessary to the survival and everyday activity of soldiers, but they are equally necessary to everyone else. An attack here is an attack on civilian society. ... [I]t is the military effects, if any, that are 'collateral.'" That was and is a general argument; it clearly applies to the Israeli attacks on power stations in Gaza and Lebanon.
  
  The argument, in this case, is prudential as well as moral. Reducing the quality of life in Gaza, where it is already low, is intended to put pressure on whoever is politically responsible for the inhabitants of Gaza--and then these responsible people, it is hoped, will take action against the shadowy forces attacking Israel. The same logic has been applied in Lebanon, where the forces are not so shadowy. But no one is responsible in either of these cases, or, better, those people who might take responsibility long ago chose not to. The leaders of the sovereign state of Lebanon insist that they have no control over the southern part of their country--and, more amazingly, no obligation to take control. Still, Palestinian civilians are not likely to hold anyone responsible for their fate except the Israelis, and, while the Lebanese will be more discriminating, Israel will still bear the larger burden of blame. Hamas and Hezbollah feed on the suffering their own activity brings about, and an Israeli response that increases the suffering only intensifies the feeding.

Yes, and why not give them Geneva protections too, while we're at it?

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
You said:

• Israel's attacks have been in southern Lebanon. Hezbolla controls southern Lebanon. Ergo . . . .

I was responding to that first sentence. What am I missing?

Does anyone disagree that Israel can and should go after Hezbollah?

Does anyone disagree that Israel should go after Syria and Iran, since they are really behind all this in the first place?

[flare up]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
?

Does anyone disagree that Israel can and should go after Hezbollah?

Yes, the euro-socialist left and their comrades in the american democrat party. Wake up appeasers and apologists, this is total war and it won't be won until every last radical Islamist and supporters of the same, whether active and passive, is cold, dead and plowed under (like Rachel Corrie) and all of the instrumentalities of these filthy dog baby killing terror mongrels are destroyed.

Thank G-d the Israelis are leading the charge. the left has turned the once great usa into a nation of quivering pussies.

[flare up]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Does anyone disagree that Israel should go after Syria and Iran, since they are really behind all this in the first place?

Yes

[Adder]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
You said:

• Israel's attacks have been in southern Lebanon. Hezbolla controls southern Lebanon. Ergo . . . .

I was responding to that first sentence. What am I missing?

Does anyone disagree that Israel can and should go after Hezbollah?

Can yes, should, not so clear.

[Anntila the Hun]

Originally posted by flare up
Yes, the euro-socialist left and their comrades in the american democrat party. Wake up appeasers and apologists, this is total war and it won't be won until every last radical Islamist and supporters of the same, whether active and passive, is cold, dead and plowed under (like Rachel Corrie) and all of the instrumentalities of these filthy dog baby killing terror mongrels are destroyed.

Thank G-d the Israelis are leading the charge. the left has turned the once great usa into a nation of quivering pussies.

Omeonesay eedsnay to etgay ackbay on eirthay edsmay.

[flare up]

Originally posted by Anntila the Hun
Omeonesay eedsnay to etgay ackbay on eirthay edsmay.

I don't speak arabic, what translation page do you use?

[Anntila the Hun]

Originally posted by flare up
I don't speak arabic, what translation page do you use?

Flare honey, you're new here and don't really know your way around, so I'll forgive your little ad hominem attack. As you may know, I abhor such tactics and never engage in them myself.

Keep in mind the big picture, sweetmeat. If all the leftists and islamofascist sympathizers and G-dless freedom-hating camel schtuppers were destroyed in the cleansing fires of G-d's just wrath, tell me - where would be the outlet for our hate? We need them so that you and others will keep buying my books. You did know I have one out, right?

But keep posting, you big lump of delicious G-d-fearing righteousness. I like the cut of your jib.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Does anyone disagree that Israel should go after Syria and Iran, since they are really behind all this in the first place?

Israel probably wouldn't like the government that would replace the current one in Syria. At least the current one is secular. And Israel can't really "go after" Iran, Iran being hundreds of miles away.

eta: Larry Johnson says that Hezbollah's key backers are Iran, not Syria.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
but since that doesn't seem to be in the cards it more appears that Israel is trying to punish Lebanon for what Hezbollah is doing. Is that appropriate?

I agree, that if that is what is happening, that is not appropriate or prudent. But the fact that the NYT used the term appropriate just reconfirms my low opinion of the NYT (and - Slave - reason 167 that I don't read that rag).

[Spanky]

Originally posted by sgtclub

I swear to god I feel like I'm living in bizarro universe or Alice in Wonderland.

You need to take more drugs. Then everything will seem logical.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Not Bob
No. I thought that he was a nut-job. But then again, having read too much Hunter Thompson in my youth, I thought that most mainstream political reporters (Dan made his bones at CBS covering the White House during Watergate) were either lazy hacks who didn't give a shit about what was going on, or brilliant and perceptive students of the game who couldn't tell us what they really knew.

I think that he liked John Chancellor, though.

Unfortunately none of my political experiences have ever been even remotely similar to Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail.