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Orwellingly Yurz
SFN Regular
USA
529 Posts |
 Posted - 07/30/2006 : 10:20:33
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Yo:
I'm fuzzy at math and stuff but here's some shorthand for today:
Languishing Katrina Victims + Bush = Disaster
Languishing Lebanese Victims + Bush = Disaster
G.War: call off your rightwing Hebraic surrogates!
OY!
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"The modern conservative...is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy. That is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
--John Kenneth Galbraith
If dogs run free
Then what must be,
Must be...
And that is all
--Bob Dylan
The neo-cons have gotten welfare for themselves down to a fine art.
--me
"The meek shall inherit the earth, but not the mineral rights."
--J. Paul Getty
"The great thing about Art isn't what it give us, but what we become through it."
--Oscar Wilde
"We have Art in order not to die of life."
--Albert Camus
"I cling like a miser to the freedom I lose when surrounded by an abundance of things."
--Albert Camus
"Experience is the name so many people give to their mistakes."
--Oscar Wilde |
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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Orwellingly Yurz
SFN Regular
USA
529 Posts |
Posted - 07/30/2006 : 11:28:26 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricky
So:
Languishing Katrina Victims = Languishing Lebanese Victims
Which means:
Katrina = Lebanese.
I smell a conspiracy! 
Rick-Man: The day ain't over. Karl Rove may be developing a spin for the F-Word News Channel that gives off that very stink of a conspiracy.
OY! |
"The modern conservative...is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy. That is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
--John Kenneth Galbraith
If dogs run free
Then what must be,
Must be...
And that is all
--Bob Dylan
The neo-cons have gotten welfare for themselves down to a fine art.
--me
"The meek shall inherit the earth, but not the mineral rights."
--J. Paul Getty
"The great thing about Art isn't what it give us, but what we become through it."
--Oscar Wilde
"We have Art in order not to die of life."
--Albert Camus
"I cling like a miser to the freedom I lose when surrounded by an abundance of things."
--Albert Camus
"Experience is the name so many people give to their mistakes."
--Oscar Wilde |
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R.Wreck
SFN Regular
USA
1191 Posts |
Posted - 07/30/2006 : 12:52:33 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Orwellingly Yurz
Yo:
I'm fuzzy at math and stuff but here's some shorthand for today:
Languishing Katrina Victims + Bush = Disaster
Languishing Lebanese Victims + Bush = Disaster
G.War: call off your rightwing Hebraic surrogates!
OY!
Let's make it real simple:
n + Bush = Disaster
where n = anything
(Wreck's Theorem)  |
The foundation of morality is to . . . give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibliities of knowledge.
T. H. Huxley
The Cattle Prod of Enlightened Compassion
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 07/30/2006 : 13:57:51 [Permalink]
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Regarding the latest ignorant step taken by Bush in the Lebanese situation I have been discussing it on JREF with all the tunnel visioned pro-Israel knee-jerkers. They just reply like I'm pro-Palestinian despite that my posts have been pointing out the tragedy on both sides, the terrorism on both sides, and more importantly what I reiterated in my last post:
Israel continues to bomb Lebanon targets. Hezbollah continues to send off rockets. Why? Isn't it obvoius? Because the more basements full of 60 women and children crushed, the more cities flattened, the more UN Peacekeepers killed in the crossfire (or deliberately, take your pick), the more terrorist join the cause.
Gee, there was a Hezbollah fighter launching missiles from the backyard of the house with the 60 dead women and children, it's all Hezbollah's fault. That's their tactic, that's terrorism.
Well, yes, that is their tactic. And Israel just plays right into their hands.
The US, with our ignorant fearless leader has now made the typical foolish proclamation, "We want a ceasefire, but only a meaningful cease fire." Good luck! What a bind, keep slaughtering civilians in hopes the people who are benefiting from the wholesale slaughter will give up. Right! Like that's going to finally happen.
Everyone is going to see that it's all Hezbollah's fault. Everyone's going to see that Israel had no choice.
Just like the corner Bush backed us into in Iraq, it's a lose lose situation. But it's Bush and Israel in control of the lose lose situation. Notice I didn't say who was right or at fault or who caused it. I said in control.
What are the possible outcomes?
Israel achieves its goal and Lebanon's people and military kick out Hezbollah -> Fat chance.
Israel achieves its goal and a third party steps in and polices Hezbollah -> Sure, like that's possible. Who would it be and how would they accomplish this given 60 years of Israelis occupying Palestinian areas and never being able to accomplish it?
Israel ceases bombing and proclaims victory -> which will obviously be a lie.
Israel ceases fire and admits they can't win -> It will never happen, and wouldn't accomplish anything either.
Israel occupies southern Lebanon and prevent rockets from reaching Israeli cities. Isn't this what they had before the last pullout? Didn't they pull out because their soldiers were the targets instead of the cities?
Looks like Iraq. Painted into a corner and one's means of exit is looking pretty dim.
Don't you think it's time to start out smarting the terrorists instead of trying to smash them with revenge and the mistaken belief one can always win with military might? Has no one learned anything from Vietnam and past guerrilla wars and the 60 years of getting no where in this one?
What won the cold war? People in Russia wanted change, not Reagan's School of the Americas and all the US's unholy alliances with the Saddams of the world. Find some historical cases where people gave up and surrendered to another country without having lost faith in their own leadership and belief in their own cause in the fight? Maybe there's one or two cases out there, but there certainly aren't many.
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=60590&page=6
Conde has put out her ultimatum out there, "only a meaningful cease fire". How stupid can you be to stick your neck out again, after knowing what happened in Iraq. These guys are still in fantasyland thinking their military might will win any conflict.
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| Edited by - beskeptigal on 07/30/2006 14:04:42 |
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Orwellingly Yurz
SFN Regular
USA
529 Posts |
Posted - 07/30/2006 : 15:52:06 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by R.Wreck
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Orwellingly Yurz
Yo:
I'm fuzzy at math and stuff but here's some shorthand for today:
Languishing Katrina Victims + Bush = Disaster
Languishing Lebanese Victims + Bush = Disaster
G.War: call off your rightwing Hebraic surrogates!
OY!
Let's make it real simple:
n + Bush = Disaster
where n = anything
(Wreck's Theorem)
[/quote]
Yo, Mr. Wreck. I like the way you boil things down. Even though the Bushits seem very insensitive, they are very sensitive to bad PR, and can spot it coming, quickly. (They're very Rovian.)
Anything anyone can do, how ever small, to draw attention to their self-absorption which incurs their incompetence, i.e. Katrina, especially, I say do it!
The list of the Bush Disasters is long, and many of us are getting pretty goddamned tired of watching them precipitate and spread...you know...like authoritian democracy: Gaza...Iran...Germany in the 30's?
Reactionaries begat reactionaries, saith the Lord!
So when we hear G. War say that he's "spreading democracy," we know, down deep, that it's just a bunch of shit.
OY! |
"The modern conservative...is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy. That is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
--John Kenneth Galbraith
If dogs run free
Then what must be,
Must be...
And that is all
--Bob Dylan
The neo-cons have gotten welfare for themselves down to a fine art.
--me
"The meek shall inherit the earth, but not the mineral rights."
--J. Paul Getty
"The great thing about Art isn't what it give us, but what we become through it."
--Oscar Wilde
"We have Art in order not to die of life."
--Albert Camus
"I cling like a miser to the freedom I lose when surrounded by an abundance of things."
--Albert Camus
"Experience is the name so many people give to their mistakes."
--Oscar Wilde |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 07/30/2006 : 17:48:24 [Permalink]
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You cannot reason with insane religious fundamentalists. People who will strap a bomb on themslves and commit suicide for a chance to kill you are beyond the reach of reason.
You cannot fight, will full force, an enemy who shields their fighting positions with non-combatants. And any fighting you do against them incurs non-combatant casualties, which is their intent.
The whole situation with Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon is a tragedy. It has been and will continue to be one. Because yes, every time your bomb kills someone, their relatives become your enemy (if they weren't already).
How can you fight an enemy who shields themselves with civillians who WANT to be used in such a way? Civillians who support and provide material assistance to your enemy, at that.
And how do you respond diplomatically to groups who publicly declare that you have no right to exist? How can you open a meaningfull dialogue with anyone who holds that position towards you?
The situation is ugly.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 07/31/2006 : 09:42:59 [Permalink]
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But keep in mind, Dude, that every person in the Middle East is not a terrorist. If we forget that, we make the entire group the "enemy". That's how wars happen. That's how Israel bombs a basement with 60 women and children in it, "It was their fault the terrorists were nearby", according to the Israeli spokesman. Once you make the enemy less than human, you don't care if you kill them. There are many humans in this conflict from Iraq to Lebanon. We need to remember that and reach out to them instead of bombing them until they do join the jihad.
And even if you don't agree with that, look at where 60 years of the attitude you echo has gotten Israel -> nowhere else. If they would recognize (either or both sides BTW) that the current policies are failed policies and change direction, then progress will occur (unless it's already too late which I don't believe.) |
| Edited by - beskeptigal on 07/31/2006 09:46:53 |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 07/31/2006 : 10:48:52 [Permalink]
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FYI, only 40% of suicide bombers are religiously motivated. Revolution and revenge being the other major factors.
I think Tom Brokaw gave me that one or maybe it was Wallace. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 07/31/2006 : 13:53:39 [Permalink]
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quote:
But keep in mind, Dude, that every person in the Middle East is not a terrorist. If we forget that, we make the entire group the "enemy". That's how wars happen. That's how Israel bombs a basement with 60 women and children in it, "It was their fault the terrorists were nearby", according to the Israeli spokesman
First off: I have never said, nor implied, that every person in the middle east is a terrorist. It kinda pisses me off that you start off your response feeling the need to remind me of that.
Secondly: The residents of southern Lebanon, specifically the non-combatant residents, appear to overwhelimingly support Hizbollah. They allow them to put rocket lanchers in residential areas, on top of appartment buildings, etc. The combatants there live in and among the civillians, and have complex fighting positions built alongside and within the very same buildings that non-combatants use for their everyday business.
The civillian population of that area know damn well that when(not a matter of if) fighting starts up that they are going to be in direct danger from it.
I'm not cheering Israel on, and I pretty clearly stated that the situation they are in is (IMO) an ongoing tragedy.
My question is how do you fight an enemy who declares that you don't have the right to exist and then digs fighting positions in civillian areas with the full conscent and support of those civillians, without killing some of the civillians in the process.
Should Israel just ignore Hizbollah? Just accept the occasional rocket attack, border raid, and kidnapping as the cost of living there?
quote:
And even if you don't agree with that, look at where 60 years of the attitude you echo
You've lost me. What attitude am I echoing? The attitude that is sickened by the ongoing tragedy that is Israel/Palestine/Lebanon but wonders how you can deal with people who declare you don't have the right to exist?
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 07/31/2006 : 17:05:21 [Permalink]
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Dude wrote: quote:
Should Israel just ignore Hizbollah? Just accept the occasional rocket attack, border raid, and kidnapping as the cost of living there?
My opinion on that is: yes. And the reason is that I believe that: a.) the overall amount of human suffering will be less; b.) the way to peacefully (as peaceful as is possible, that is) defeat a force like Hizbollah is by not giving them any ammo (justifiable from our perspective or not) with which to demonize the enemy (in this case, Israel.) In the short-term, the terrorist get a few hits now and then, but in the long-run they lose their base and eventually dissolve.
Your opinion is certainly valid and held by many an intelligent people educated on the situation. My husband and I have been debating this exact same issue, and he takes your position.
Three years ago I probably would have gone that way on this particular situation too. But the Iraq War changed my perspective on insurgencies and terrorism. I know that what the terrorists do is truly sick. However, I do not believe it is just caused by fundamentalist Islamic beliefs. It's a whole cultural thing, which includes religious beliefs, and both can change over time, as they have in all modern societies. While the actions of terrorist can never be justified, there are reasons whole sections of people in a society become terrorists, and those reasons often have to do with either historical injustices, perceived injustices, or real and current injustices. The terrorism in the mid-East is fueled by all three, and the way to patch things up and move gradually toward modern values and mutual tolerance will always be deterred by bombs. At least that's my opinion, and for now I'm sticking to it. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 07/31/2006 : 17:08:46 [Permalink]
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| To clarify - by agreeing that Israel should "ignore" Hizbollah's terrorism, I do not really mean totally ignore. More like deal in reactions which are diplomatic or, if violent, only equal forceful response. Bombing and killing hundreds was not an equal response to the kidnapping of 2 soldiers. There was historical precident for a prisoner exchange. I think they should have gone that route. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Orwellingly Yurz
SFN Regular
USA
529 Posts |
Posted - 07/31/2006 : 18:01:01 [Permalink]
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Yo: Continuing this thread: Well, said Marfknox. It's really a complicated mess, exacerbated, mostly, by the failed presidency of these United States.
I just watched the CBS Evening News and was struck more compellingly than ever by just how pissed-off the Qanta, Lebanon bombing has made Lebanese, Syrians and Iranians, not to mention, now Egypt and other Arab nations.
The root causes of all the shit that's always coming down over there whether it be Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, you name it, is:
Tribalism, fundamentalist religious belief and thinking, extreme poverty, extreme wealth, quasi-royalty, oil, global petro-politics and the push of nuclear technology. Gulp!
Jesus, it's hard to imagine the place not blowing up sooner with all the selfish, visionless bastards in power on whatever side these days.
They're ALL culpable.
ah HA, I've just found something G. War Bush gets an "A" in: Culpability!
OY!
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"The modern conservative...is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy. That is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
--John Kenneth Galbraith
If dogs run free
Then what must be,
Must be...
And that is all
--Bob Dylan
The neo-cons have gotten welfare for themselves down to a fine art.
--me
"The meek shall inherit the earth, but not the mineral rights."
--J. Paul Getty
"The great thing about Art isn't what it give us, but what we become through it."
--Oscar Wilde
"We have Art in order not to die of life."
--Albert Camus
"I cling like a miser to the freedom I lose when surrounded by an abundance of things."
--Albert Camus
"Experience is the name so many people give to their mistakes."
--Oscar Wilde |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 08/01/2006 : 00:22:42 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
First off: I have never said, nor implied, that every person in the middle east is a terrorist. It kinda pisses me off that you start off your response feeling the need to remind me of that.
Secondly: The residents of southern Lebanon, specifically the non-combatant residents, appear to overwhelimingly support Hizbollah. They allow them to put rocket lanchers in residential areas, on top of appartment buildings, etc. The combatants there live in and among the civillians, and have complex fighting positions built alongside and within the very same buildings that non-combatants use for their everyday business.
The civillian population of that area know damn well that when(not a matter of if) fighting starts up that they are going to be in direct danger from it.
I'm not cheering Israel on, and I pretty clearly stated that the situation they are in is (IMO) an ongoing tragedy.
My question is how do you fight an enemy who declares that you don't have the right to exist and then digs fighting positions in civillian areas with the full conscent and support of those civillians, without killing some of the civillians in the process.
Should Israel just ignore Hizbollah? Just accept the occasional rocket attack, border raid, and kidnapping as the cost of living there?
You've lost me. What attitude am I echoing? The attitude that is sickened by the ongoing tragedy that is Israel/Palestine/Lebanon but wonders how you can deal with people who declare you don't have the right to exist?
I should have been more clear and less abrupt with my comments. Most people making overt comments of support of Israel are not bigots or racist.
At the same time, people also don't realize what a statement like, "people who declare you don't have the right to exist" really says. It says ALL the Arabs, ALL the Palestinians as if they were all the same when they are as mixed as any group; and in addition to that, it fails to recognize how many Israelis have said the Palestinians should be absorbed by other Arab countries and they only made up the claim to the land of Israel, but really didn't have a country in the first place. As if Israel moved into vacant land and these folks only started complaining later.
If you listen between the lines of most of the pro-Israel side, you don't hear much at all about the Palestinians as people, with their own tragedy. You don't hear that there have been serious wrongs on both sides.
I don't think either side recognizes the right of the other to exist no matter how they mouth the words. How often do you hear that Israeli leaders in the past and currently have said such things as Golda Meier saying, "There is no such thing as a Palestinian."
Golda Meier, a former Israeli prime minister,quote:
went so far as to assert that there are no Palestinian people. She believed that the Palestinians possess no national identity and are undeserving of any regard by the international community.
I've been looking into the history of the conflict and several forum members on JREF parroted this same propagandist sentiment. There were many people in Palestine before Israel destroyed their villages and ethnically cleansed the country. Jews owned as little as 5% of the land in Palestine before 1945. They acquired a third of it by British and the UN decree over the objections of the people who actually owned it in 1949, and they took much of the rest after fighting a war with those same people after the State of Israel was established including additional land in 1967 and the continuing thorn in the sides of the Palestinians with new settlements that continue to be built today.
Israel has twice as much of the arable land per capita as they left the Palestinians and Israel controls most of the water resources. Poverty and unemployment is overwhelmingly greater in the West Bank and Gaza, with Israel having prevented all chances to improve the situation, just as bombing Lebanon will set back their economy for decades.
It's hard to empathize with a culture so different from our own, but we really need to recognize the real barriers to peace here, agree or not with the response. By negating the fact there are human beings on both sides, terrorism on both sides, right and wrong on both sides, we lessen our chances for that meaningful cease fire Bush ignorantly claims he is after. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/01/2006 : 01:56:47 [Permalink]
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marknox said:
quote:
Your opinion is certainly valid and held by many an intelligent people educated on the situation.
What opinion would that be? Because the only opinion I have offered on the matter is that the whole thing is tragic. Surely anyone as demanding of consistency and evidence as you is not assuming to know what my opinion is on a matter that I have not expressed an opinion on?
beskeptigal said:
quote:
At the same time, people also don't realize what a statement like, "people who declare you don't have the right to exist" really says. It says ALL the Arabs, ALL the Palestinians as if they were all the same when they are as mixed as any group;
Well, good thing I said: "My question is how do you fight an enemy who declares that you don't have the right to exist", which is nothing like the sweeping generalization you seem to be accusing me of making.
Of course, you could be deliberately taking a sentence at the end of my last post out of context:
Dude said:
quote:
You've lost me. What attitude am I echoing? The attitude that is sickened by the ongoing tragedy that is Israel/Palestine/Lebanon but wonders how you can deal with people who declare you don't have the right to exist?
As Hamas and Hizbollah have both stated, they publicly declare that Israel doesn't have the right to exist.
Which, when taken with my entire post is also NOT the sweeping generalization you are accusing me of making.
You know, I expect this kind of bullshit from the crazed fundamentalist BillScott crowd. It is disappointing that the two of you are engaging in this style of fallacious argumentation.
I think I will decline further participation if this is the kind of nonsense I can expect from you.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/01/2006 : 02:04:49 [Permalink]
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marfknox said:
quote:
b.) the way to peacefully (as peaceful as is possible, that is) defeat a force like Hizbollah is by not giving them any ammo (justifiable from our perspective or not) with which to demonize the enemy (in this case, Israel.) In the short-term, the terrorist get a few hits now and then, but in the long-run they lose their base and eventually dissolve.
What evidence do you have that supports this? How do you know that there is a chance Hizbollah would "eventually dissolve" if you treated them with kid-gloves? Perhaps there is some historical precedent for the long-term peaceful dissolution of terrorist organizations (by ignoring them) that I am not familiar with?
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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