Israeli warplanes strike in Beirut again

[CountAllVotes]

By SAM F. GHATTAS, Associated Press Writer 2 minutes ago

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Israeli warplanes punished the Lebanese capital on Friday, blasting the airport for a second day, shattering bridges, igniting fuel storage tanks and cutting the main highway to Syria. Hezbollah guerrillas fought back with a fresh barrage of rockets.

Police said three people were killed and dozens wounded in the airstrikes, raising the death toll to 60 on the third day of
Israel's offensive against the Iranian-backed militants.

Israel said it was determined to beat Hezbollah back and deny the militant fighters positions they have held along the border since 2000. Hezbollah began the current conflict Wednesday with a cross-border raid that captured two of Israel's soldiers.

On Thursday Israel imposed a full naval blockade on Lebanon, bombed a main artery and put the airport out of commission, effectively sealing off the country. The assault came after scores of Hezbollah guerrilla rockets that rained down on Israel and reached as far as Haifa, its third-largest city, for the first time.

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/net/20060714/large.c125a7fc62a096fe8222fcabc65b71f7.pjpeg

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060714/ap_on_re_mi_ea/lebanon_israel;_ylt=AiJSGs_HR.UV8OqnhIl6XX.s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

Great damn mess! :cry:

:dem:

[TAPat]

1. In the immortal words of Ms. Davis...

"Fasten your seatbelts, it's gonna be bumpy ride." :(

[soothsayer]

15. She actually says 'bumpy night' doesn't she? But the sentiment

is right on!

[TAPat]

17. It is "bumpy night" -

Thanks for the correction :)

[Binka]

2. This Shit Needs To Stop

Where is the UN?

[xultar]

3. I know what I am about to say is not popular but...

I do not like what Israel is doing. The response they are taking is WAY over the phuckin top in my opinion.
I am very dissapointed.

[CountAllVotes]

4. I find nothing wrong with your statement

and yes, I agree with you, this crap needs to stop now and I believe they are taking it way over the top too. They are flexing their muscle. I'm so not impressed! :grr:

[bluedog]

11. I agree.with you

the only reason Israel is doing this is because they know the US will back them no matter what........what if we stopped giving them weapons and monies to fund their country.....then maybe they would try to get along with other nations...........Israel wanted the US to attack Iraq and is pushing for and full out war in the ME...why....because they know the US will defend their country..........and thats where things are going wrong..

Bush says Israel has a right to defend its country............then with that logic.....so does every other country and there should be no bitching about countries around Israel for getting the same power to do so.......we are paying for Israel to arm their country..............other governments are doing the same to other nations....whats the big difference?.................Because we say so?..................

if bush means what he says...........the entire middle East should have the right to defend its borders from Israel......

I have always said.....Israel is goihg to be the destruction of the world and it looks like that will happen...............

[Tight_rope]

12. I totally agree...Israel has gone too far this time!

[AzDar]

30. I am right there with you, and I'm equally appalled that the U.N. Walrus

has vetoed the multi-national rebuke of Israel.

[46and2]

5. Biased Reporting

"Israel's offensive against the Iranian-backed militants."

Umm, I believe that the Hezbollah militants initiated this conflict and Israel is mainly responding in their DEFNSE!!!

[Name removed]

13. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Theres-a]

6. Stop it.

Somebody.Damn.

[primavera]

7. I wonder if those Israeli warplanes were in fact US warplanes

Does Israel actually make F-18s? But of course, they couldn't be US aircraft, because all of the aircraft we sold to Israel were sold under the express provision that they could not be used for offensive military operations; they were to be used purely for defensive purposes. So it couldn't have been US-made equipment being used, phew.

[46and2]

8. And you consider

this an "offensive" purpose? According to the facts, they were attacked across their border by Hezbollah which would actually make this a defensive use of their equipment... phew.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

10. If they were fighting invaders on their own soil, that would be defensive

However, when you're carpet-bombing other cities outside of your country, that's offensive.

[46and2]

14. How do you think

they should react to being attacked on their own soil? Ok, they pushed them back out of Israel so they should now go to the negotiating table to get their soldiers back? I'm not sure you have a realistic view of what is happening over there and has been happening for many generations. Hezbollah seized upon a perceived weakness in Israel and chose to break many conflict free years and now people want to point fingers at Israel who are the victim here! Unbelievable how many people on DU take sides against Israel.

[CountAllVotes]

16. we try NOT to go there

There is an Israel/Palestine forum for you to enjoy. Give it a shot.

I hate violence and killing.

I don't care if it is Israel or Lebanon.

People are dying. This is because they are bombing the region.

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[primavera]

29. Commando raid, maybe?

I'm certainly no expert and I'm enough of a realist to acknowledge that violence may, under certain hopefully very rare circumstances, be the only viable response. However, one of the most basic tenets of law, international and domestic in most countries, is that the response needs to be proportionate and appropriate to the original injury. In other words, if you steal flowers from my backyard, that doesn't give me a legal basis to employ disproportionate deadly force against you, nor does your individual culpability give me a legal basis for acting against an entire community of which you happen to be a part. Ergo, the proper response, even if we were to take for granted that a violent response was the only appropriate response, would be something surgical directed against individual perpetrators, for the limited purpose of recovering the captive soldier. Anything more than that escalates the conflict and is of questionable legality.

If there's no way to identify the individual perpetrators, that's unfortunate; that still doesn't justify acting against a group whose complicity in the crime has not been proven. That's just part of life. People die violently in American cities every day. In some instances, law enforcement agencies are able to identify the specific culprit(s) and take appropriate action against them; in other cases, the culprits are never identified and the crime goes unpunished. It sucks, but what's the alternative? To indiscriminately employ deadly force against entire neighborhoods where the perpetrator may once have lived? Would that be just?

[Jacobin]

9. Pushing the borders of Israel outward again

The indigenous population there is intractable. This carnage will go on for centuries.

[leftchick]

19. Israel keeps up Lebanon assault, criticism mounts

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/mideast_dc

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Israel struck Hizbollah targets and devastated an array of Lebanese civilian installations on Friday, drawing mounting world criticism of its tactics since Shi'ite fighters seized two of its soldiers and killed eight.

But the White House said President Bush would not press Israel to halt its military operation.

Asked whether Bush had agreed to a request from Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora that he rein in the Israelis, White House spokesman Tony Snow said: "No. The president is not going to make military decisions for Israel."

Hizbollah, which wants to trade its captives for prisoners held in Israel, fired more rockets across the frontier.

The Lebanon violence is the fiercest since 1996 when Israel launched a 17-day blitz on Hizbollah strongholds in the south.



Citizens gather around a crater after Israeli airstrikes targeted the main Mar Mikhail crossroad in southern Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, July 14, 2006. Israel tightened its seal on Lebanon, blasting its air and road links to the outside world, and brought its offensive to the capital for the first time Friday, aiming to punish Hezbollah and with it, the country for the capture of two Israeli soldiers. (AP Photo/Pierre Bou Karam)

[ixion]

20. so, how is it self-defense, as Bolton claims, when it is an assault

which indicates an OFFENSIVE rather than a DEFENSIVE move? Hmmmmm? Some Kool-Aid® drinker care to take a stab at that one?

The hypocrisy is staggering.

[Marie26]

21. Did you see this?

From MSNBC: "Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel would not halt its offensive until Hezbollah was disarmed. He made the comment in a telephone call with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Israeli government officials said."

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

Not just until the soldiers are released, but until Hezbollah is completely disarmed.

[stop the bleeding]

23. yep - take into account what Israel is telling it's own

citizens - they need to stock up on supplies - cause this is gonna be a long one

[Tom Joad]

24. That's crazy. Absolutely insane. This is a non-starter. Guaranteed to

make sure this continues for months, at the cost of hundreds of lives.

[IA_Seth]

25. Which will never happen.

A war on Hezbollah will never end. They are a group that feeds and grows on being met with violence, using martyrs as recruiting tools. To attempt to destroy a movement like Hezbollah with violence is like throwing gasoline on a bonfire in an attempt to put it out. For every Hezbollah militant or sympathizer they kill, 2 (at least) will take their place.

It will be genocide or eternal war.

Same goes with "us" fighting the insurgents in Iraq, same with the VC in Vietnam. You can't kill them all because every time we kill one they actually grow.

Insane.

[Marie26]

26. Exactly

It will never happen. It's a recipe for never-ending, spiraling war. I feel like that sentence tells the real truth about why Israel is doing this. It's not about the soldiers; it's about obliterating an entire organization - and maybe obliterating Lebanon in the process. Plus, they keep talking about how Iran & Syria are supplying Hizbollah, so I guess if you really want to disarm Hizbollah, you've got to attack the supplying countries, too. If this is true, there's no end in sight to this conflict.

[leftchick]

27. wow! Another eternal war!

where have I heard this rhetoric before? Oh, yeah that "war on terra". :eyes:

[Tom Joad]

22. The orange water is probably from sewage. I saw this at a

checkpoint near Nablus, the Israelis destroyed the underground pipes (I think by bulldozing in that case) and it was left in the open like that. People could climb around it to get to their villages, if the Israeli army was willing to let them pass that day. I will never forget the old lady taken on a stretcher (out of an ambulance, because the road was destroyed) who was carried across the mounds of dirt toward her home.

Caterpillar bulldozers destroyed those roads.

[Scurrilous]

28. Bar-On: We'll bring Wild West to Southern Lebanon

Interior minister tours north, meets with local council heads. Bar-On warns that if Lebanese government fails in restoring calm on border, Israel will step in

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3275557,00.html

<snip>

"Bar-On met with representatives of the local councils to listen to their grievances and present to them the objectives of the Lebanon operation as stipulated by the government."

<snip>

"We ask that new ground rules be laid, and this operation is not limited in time. Obviously, the international community may exert pressure on Israel and not provide us with the necessary window of opportunity. We'll do our best in this period," he stated.

Bar-On stressed that Israel would see to it that the rocket attacks on Israel are stopped. "If the Lebanese government fails to take control over the border and put a stop to Hizbullah's shooting, we will do it. If it fails in restoring calm in Southern Lebanon, we'll bring the Wild West to the area," he warned.

In a security discussion at the Prime Minister's Office Thursday, attended by Defense Minister Amir Peretz, IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz and other senior defense officials, participants said that Israel intends to put a stop to the Katyusha attacks.

"We expected Hizbullah to break the rules, and we plan to break it in return," Peretz said."