I have never implied that Israel should turn its other cheek and do nothing about it. I am however worried about the intensity of the operation and the extent of civilian casualties on both sides.

Good guy or bad guy, Hezbollah must be scaled waaaaay back. To stop the conflict at this point, would be a major mistake by Israel. With a cease-fire, Ehrahn will simply send Hezbollah even more sophisticated weapons. The mullahs have already mentioned, that Hezbollah will not be disarmed.

Hezbollah will resupply and regroup, and a year from now, they will simply take another group of either Israeli civilians or soldiers hostage. With that being the case, it is very important, to continue the fight now.

If Israel were to get into a fight with Ehran today, it would make very good sense to immediately take out (at the least, – scale back the program a number of years) many facilities from their nuclear weapons program. If Ehran decides to escalate, Israel should exclusively target all of their oil export and production facilities. It would be in Israel’s best interests to take care of Ehran today.

I just hope things cool down and get solved before it’s too late. An escalation involving Iran may entail certain consequences in Iraq and in other parts of the region.

The terrorists don’t play by the rules so why do you want us to play by the rules.

You’re entitled to your own opinion, but I disagree on this one. A course which would put us in the same category as the terrorists is not the way to go. How can one claim to be morally superior and sustain the right to fight terrorism if one chooses to follow the same path as the terrorists one is trying to defeat? It would be downright asinine.

You cry foul when the US or Israel “torture freedom fighters and kill civilians” but you are ok with the terrorists bombing a bus in Tel Aliv that kills women and children because after all they deserve it because Israel is just a big bully.

No innocent civilians deserve to die in this conflict, whether they be Palestininan, Israeli or Lebanese.

The fact that we don’t see many people in the West taking to the streets to protest against terrorism, war criminals in Africa etc. might be explained by the possibility that the majority feels more responsible for the actions of e.g. the U.S. and Israel than for any actions committed by non-Western groups or countries. Many may also think that any attempt at an appeal will have no effect on terrorists and those who support them (as if it has much effect on Western leaders on every occasion).

Still, I can agree with you in this context, because I don’t see any excuse for not protesting against terrorism.

I’m not directly accusing anyone of anything right now, but I think it’s important to acknowledge the tragic fact that there is a live conflict going on and that innocent people are getting killed and wounded. This isn’t a movie or a video game.

And in the middle of all this, world attention on the far greater issues in Africa, at least in terms of human lives, seems very limited.

PGM use does matter. Their are more effective less expensive conventional munitions in the IDF arsenal. Obviously a cluster bomb, is much more effective against soft targets vs a Hellfire or a typical LGB.

The use of PGMs with unitary warheads also reduce the risk of collateral damage compared to e.g. cluster munitions. However, blast waves and fragments can inflict considerable damage on nearby objects and personnel when used in densely populated areas. Is it really necessary to hit those road intersections? I’m pretty sure it won’t hurt the Hizbollah all that much.

I am sure that Nasrallah, Assad, and Adjamenijdad all considered the Lebanese people’s situation, with the obvious Israeli response that would come, and green lighted the Hizbollah abduction, of two Israeli soldiers with their blessings.

I think so too. I don’t think they really care much about the Lebanese or the Palestinians. They might just as well be using them as heavy pawns to benefit their political agendas in the region. The Israeli response will probably create more antagonism towards Israel, something which certain key persons can feed on. It won’t surprise me if this development was anticipated by the perpetrators and the people behind or above them.

Good guy image or bad guy image, it really does not matter. What matters is the return of the two kidnapped Israeli soldiers alive and unhurt.

It matters, but is it worth the casualties we’ve seen so far?

Big deal on the comparison. PGMs or no, There are still in the area of 50 or more dead civilians in Lebanon that did nothing more than go about their daily life. Dropping over-passes and cratering roads in a dense population area ( one community there ) still will mean there is no way you are going to avoid killing innocents as opposed to the old saw of “trying your best….” or whatever is said in the current I_am_wearing_a_white_hat_and_doing_good mode claimed by the P.R. people of the op. Knowningly trying to destroy a whole economy… ( cratering runways,… destroying fuel at an airport…. dropping bridges.. cutting roads all with PGMs of some sort, destroying a tourism based economy is just way over the top. It’s a given that the weak Lebanon government doesn’t have control over everything in Lebanon concerning terrorists running around and showing the flag. So the logic here is that the “good guys” are just going to flat out punish a whole population as opposed to more sensible things. Where more sensible things envolve techiques they already have in place that work: example the stiff amount of recon assets, UAVs, and C2ISR of all flavors, that can bring down a good airstrike or artillery quickly on bad actors firing unguided artillery rockets, and numerous other good methods the IDF uses. I don’t have a problem with that. Punishing a whole population in Lebanon however is ruining the “good guy” image real real fast. Our ( U.S. ) blanket support every_day_all_the_time doesn’t make us look good either using the old tired “Israel has a right to defend themselves” words. They have a right to defend themselves. In all humanity, they don’t have a right to over-react and kill 50 or more civilians or destroy a whole countries economy given the kind of force that was used against the IDF by the bad guys.

This pretty much sums up some of my thoughts as well, although I feel it is important to realize other aspects which e.g. IluvtheF4E has mentioned.

compare Iraq today and iraq in saddam time.

You will notice the diffrences.

Answer my question.

Although the occupation has lead to some very bad consequences (personally I’m very skeptic about it), I find it impossible to defend Saddam Hussein and the bad things his regime did.

Imagine israelis come and occupy your land and kick you out of your homeland and do not let you come back . What you gonna do? sure you gonna fight for your right.

Indeed, but not by firing unguided rockets at civilian targets. Nothing constructive will be achieved by that. All it does is to provoke the Israelis into more offensive operations which, until they get more effective, will strenghten Hizbollah’s resolve to continue with their efforts. It’s a wheel of cr@p.

I wonder why you guys not speaks about Those plaestinian children who get murdered by israeli amy!

I for one haven’t had any reason to bring up that issue yet, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have it in mind. The Israelis’ hands are far from clean, just like the hands of the Hizbollah and other organizations in the theater. Have IDF and IDF/AF units intentionally targeted civilian personnel? I think it’s nearly impossible to tell through the media. The objective truth can be very hard to identify and isolate from everything that is not true.

Viper, negotiation only works with reaonable humans.

Did you read my previous post?

If hezbollah has no qualms about hiding behind there own civilians whose life they endanger why should israel or the rest of the world give a damn about how many lebanese/hezbolla die.

No one should give a damn about how many Lebanese civilians die. Israel should do everything in its power to prevent civilian casualties, unless the Israelis wish to share the same category as the groups they are trying to defeat.

I don’t disagree…but how will it be done?

While military power can sometimes be the solution to certain immediate problems, I also think we need to work with a more distant perspective. We need to focus on the different roots and dynamics of terrorism; to identify and understand what the hell lies behind all of it. Personally I’m not sure where to start or how to do it, but I’m sure there is a way, however long and difficult it may be.

There will most likely always be individuals who are prepared to dig up virtually any reason in order to justify terrorism. But in order for these individuals to get many, to get organized, resourceful and to work at large, there probably has to be some public support involved, right? We need to locate, identify and work against the things which provide these parts of the public with reasons to embrace terrorism. When it comes to e.g. the Gaza Strip, this should be getting obvious.