Israel/Lebanon/Gaza conflict (continuation thread)

This thread is to let us carry on from Why is Israel getting away with these atrocities?

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In Message 299 of the original thread buz writes (entire message reproduced for completeness) : This bit caught my eye: I haven't seen this reported over here and an admitedly quick Google shows nothing - can you produce a source for this story?Speaking of Isreal warning the inhabitants to leave, I suppose you're ok with the events at Marwaheen where the Isrealis warned the inhabitants they had hours to leave and then when a convy of families tried to leave they were butchered by an Israeli air strike.Let's be very clear about the chain of events here:

• The Israelis tell the inhabitants of a village they have hours to leave
• The civilians obey the warning to get out
• As civilians leave a village where the Israelis told them they had to get out they are attacked by an Israeli aircraft

Is it ok to order people to flee their homes and then slaughter them when they obey your order buz? Do you think maybe adjectives like ruthless or cowardly are applicable?Even if this was a cock up rather than a deliberate act (I regard both as plausible explanations) Israel doesn't come out of this any better.If you have any pretensions to be a civilised country then if you explicitly order civilians to be on a road then you have an absolute duty to ensure your military isn't going to attack them while they are obeying your order. At the very least the Israelis failed to do this.

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And they are supposed to get North how? Most of the roads and bridges in Southern Lebanon have had the crap blown out of them. Just tonight there was an article on the BBC News over here from a Lebanese hospital where it was said that people are dying because they are getting injured in their homes by the Israeli bombardment and then can't get to hospital because the roads are impassable for most vehicles.

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In the original thread you said: I'm intrigued on what basis you regard the Hezbollah fighters as cowards (I should point out I don't support Hezbollah's aims or methods, but I think you are wrong in this assessment).They are taking on an opponent with a massive - indeed insurmountable - advantage in convential weaponry. Currently they are able to do two things:

• Launch rockets into Northern Israel
• Engage the IDF when it crosses the border as it has started doing in the last day or two

Now you may decry the launching of rockets and/or unguided missiles into Israeli cities but that's irrelevant to the point under discussion. The Israelis have total, 100% air supremacy and have demonstrated their willingness to not only destroy any rocket launcher that fires for more than a short time but also to attack any vehicle that looks even remotely like it might be carrying rockets while it is on the road.This means any Hezbollah fighter who is operating a rocket lanucher or moving it from place to place is at serious risk of being blown up by an air strike that they have no defence against. If they were cowards they wouldn't have anybody firing the rockets.As for fighting the IDF - again it's David against Goliath except this time Israel is Goliath. Hezbollah has no tanks, no self propelled guns, no heavy artillery (I haven't heard of them using anything bigger than mortars), no air support of any sort and is, at the end of the day, just a militia. The Israelis have all those things that Hezbollah doesn't. Again, nobody who is a coward would be willing to engage the IDF in a ground action - and yet that's what has been going on since Israel started sending troops over the border to engage Hezbollah.So I have to ask again, on what basis do you describe them as cowards? Isn't this just an example of demonising your enemy?

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How can I have been so dumb???Thanks for putting me straight.

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You need to work on your comprehension skills buz. Your own source, which you even quoted in your post does not say that a rocket was fired from the convoy. What the Israeli military said was that the area where the attack on the convoy took place was a target because missiles had been launched from there.Your claim that a Katyusha was fired from the convoy is shown by your own source to be complete unmitigated bullshit and I trust you will now retract it unreservedly. Have you not watched the videos the Israelis have released of their aircraft destroying Katyusha launchers? They are always stationary - they have to be. Katyushas are completely unguided - you have to point them in the direction of the target and set the elevation of the launch tube and stuff like that.This is from an article in the Baltimore Sun: So the idea that Hezbollah could use a moving civilian convoy as cover for launching Katyushas is also complete unmitigated bullshit and I trust you will now retract it unreservedly as well.So tell me buz, why are you making stuff up like this? Is it religious and/or racial bias that stops you doing even the most basic research to check your claims?

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Like I said, you need to work on your comprehension skills.The Israelis did not say they targeted the convoy because a missile was fired from it. Here's the quote again from your own source: There is no indication whatsoever that the attack on the convoy was in response to a specific missile launch.I further pointed out to you that you can't fire Katyushas from a moving vehicle. Even the videos released by the Israeli military confirm this - every one shows a stationary launcher being hit. Ahead of you on that one buz, even though your claims have already been shown to be total nonsense. From the same Baltimore Sun article I quoted in the last post: If they're using counter-battery radar then it will identify the launch spot - but the convoy will have moved from there by the time retaliatory fire hits it and so nothing will get hit.If they're using aircraft to spot the launch flash then they will see and target the launch vehicle, not the civilian convoy.But like I said, this is all academic because you can't fire Katyushas from a moving vehicle. It does, however, show that not only are you making shit up as you go along you aren't even thinking through the consequences of it before you post. I've just realised in re-readng this that you might be thinking that the Israelis are only hitting confirmed launch sites/vehicles. That is most definitely not the case. They are hitting anything that they think might be a launcher or even just carrying ordnance.From the Radio Netherlands website:

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As I have been trying to get across to buz the basic premise of his scenario is flawed.Hezbollah could not have fired a rocket from that convoy and then got safely ahead of the civilians. Katyushas are fired from stationary launchers.Quite apart from that he has totally invented the idea that there was a missile launched from the convoy at all. I'm going to repeat this so anyone glancing through these posts can't miss it: buz made up the idea that a missile was launched from the convoy. There is no support for this claim at all.This is from Message 29 that you were replying to: Then he goes on to quote from the International Herald Tribune: The key words are contained within the section buz bolded - he just bolded too many: The Israelis are not saying a missile was fired from the convoy, just some missiles had been fired from in the area. Nobody, anywhere, except buz, is claiming that the attack on the convoy was in response to a specific missile launch against Israel.Just to finally show how little actual investigation he has done he makes this comment: He didn't notice the byline attached to the story: The International Herald Tribune is part of the New York Times group and a variant of this story appears to have been in the NYT (you have to register to see it but if you dig around a bit you can get it for free in NYT owned papers in Florida and Alabama). Everything I've read suggests it is simply that Israel regards anything that looks like it might be a launch vehicle or carrying weapons as legimate targets. In fact I've just discovered Israel has recently become quite open that this is their policy (this is from Reuters but the same info is on most of the news sources): These leaflets have been only dropped in the last few days, but at least Israel is now open about what it is doing.

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The Red Army used them extensively in WW2. They are often seen in documentaries (and some war films) - they were usually used in mass batteries and they made a distinctive (and unsettling) 'whooshing' noise as they were fired.They were sometimes known by the nickname of "Stalin's Organ Pipes".

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No, but that is what buz is claiming - but this all a sideshow.The main point I've been trying to get across - and evidently failing dismally - is that there was no rocket launch connected to the attack on the convoy.There is no suggestion anywhere in any news report I've seen on TV or read anywhere that the strike on the convoy was a 'hot response' to a launch against Israel. Even the Israelis aren't saying this.I believe that buz is under the mistaken impression that Israel is only hitting vehicles in direct response to a launch. This has led him to conclude that if the convoy was hit there must have been a missile launch.So to reiterate and hopefully make myself clear this time - other than buz saying so there is no suggestion from anyone (including the Israeli military) that the attack on the convoy was in direct response to a specific rocket launch.

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Back in Message 28 I posted this from a Baltimore Sun article: So 'long enough to fire and move on' is somewhere between half an hour and an hour (on the basis that if it was less than 30 mins. the article would say 'less than half an hour' rather than 'less than an hour').It's not that quick a job.Edited by MangyTiger, : Added a missing 'an'.

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Fair enough buz - I apologise if I've come across as losing my cool.Let's get back to basics on this.Can you provide any evidence that the attack on the convoy was as a result of a specific rocket launch?Your International Herald Times article does not suggest in any way that it was. The relevant quote says (bolding mine): They are saying the general area around where the attack on the convoy happened was a target zone because Hezbollah had previously launched missiles from there, that's all. This is the whole point - there was no terrorist missile.Also all the reports I've been able to track down that give specifics about the attack say it was an airstrike that hit the convoy (i.e. from an Israeli plane). Look at the Israeli videos of airstrikes on launchers - they are not backtracking the missile, they are guided in by a human looking at the target. However, that is academic because there was no missile fired.It seems likely that because the convoy contained a small truck the Israelis decided it could possibly be a launcher and that was enough to destroy it, even though they knew there were civilians on the road (since they had ordered them out of the village).I posted a few messages ago that in the last few days Israel has been dropping leaflets warning that anything they think looks like it might be a launcher (i.e. a small truck or van) is a valid target as far as they are concerned. This is simply conformation of the policy they seem to have been following from the start.As further confirmation of this I also posted a quote from a worker for the aid charity Oxfam in Message 33: Note the phrase "If anything even vaguely resembles a rocket launcher, it will be hit".

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But it isn't evidence buz!Your quoted article simply says that Hebollah had, during the period of the conflict, fired rockets from the general area in which the convoy was hit.It does not say there was a launch from the specific spot where the convoy was attacked, not does it say there was a launch at the time of the attack on the convoy.The reason it doesn't say this is because it didn't happen. Even the Israeli military have not said it happened.

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As you will all have doubtless seen by now four UN observes have been killed by an Israeli air strike.They weren't in a vehicle on the road, they were in a fixed UN observation post. Prior to the air strike Israel shelled the post 14 times^[1].There seems zero possibility that this was an accident - the Israelis deliberately went after a UN position. This begs the question as to why.My guess is that Unifil (the UN observers in the area of the Lebanon/Israel border) will now be withdrawn, and this is what Israel wanted.Although it's obviously only a guess on my part I suspect Israel is planning to do something or deploy some form of weapon in Southern Lebanon that it doesn't want anyone to witness. Given their demonstrable indifference to civilian suffering and world opinion that's kind of a chilling thought.^[1]Just for good measure they shelled a rescue team which went in to try and clear the rubble after the airstrike.

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Nice post and I pretty much agree with all your points. I hadn't seen this yet. I suppose it's possible but it seems a bit unlikely - all the reports I've seen have said the UN soldiers were in a bomb shelter underneath the outpost. I'm not aware that Hezbollah has the capability of accurately delivering a bomb, shell or missile capable of destroying an underground bomb shelter. I've thought this for a long time. Given the relative numbers of deaths it seems the 'value multiplier' is at least 10 - and as your 'any ammount' suggests I suspect there is no upper limit as far as Israel (and the current US administration) is concerned. Couldn't agree more. The trouble is only the US is capable of having any effect on Israel and it seems to me it currently doesn't want Israel to stop.Some of the statements Rice has been making ('time for a new Middle East' etc.) make me wonder just how far/long the US will let - or even encourage - Israel go.

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