All things Middle East related

part of the problem is that the previous US interventions have caused some of the current problems too.

the US and brits knocked over a democracy in iran in the 50s and installed a dictator that was willing to abuse human rights and suppress opposition and stay in power (and we supported him, where's the outrage over that, or US "pay for toture" black sites?). he got overthrown, guy we didn't like came to power (though if we stayed out in the 50s, this probably wouldn't be the case).

fast forward, being afraid of iran's growing power, we decided to give saddam billions in weapons and military command and control systems to help keep them in check. also supporting another dictator that wasn't afraid to commit genocide on his own people.

fast forward again, we spent a LOT more money removing those weapons and systems to put a sectarian leader in place that spent a lot of time removing sunni voices from power... and now you've got an ISIS army formed in syria's war that's gained a lot of traction due to Nouri al-Maliki's actions.

it's kind of like 2 steps forward, 3 steps back. and every time americans hit the ground, jihadii's from far and wide start flooding in to get their shots off. we're like a magnet for chaos. and we're doing it with your kids money too, cause none of this has been paid for yet.

As I already stated, the Israeli airstrikes are not "indiscriminate", they are as precise as our own.

Is that why Israel used cluster bombs for the longest while?


http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/img/ot53beec06.jpg


Precise my ass.

you know smart bombs are only smart 40-60% of the time right?

despite the popular misconception, "smart" weapons miss all the time. like when we had 300+ taliban prisoners in afghanistan that broke lose and were hiding in a single building inside a palace (old fortress) compound. 6 airstrikes later, their single building was fine, but we managed to blow up a kurdish tank and a bunch of kurds in the attempt.

Battle of Qala-i-Jangi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Qala-i-Jangi)


there are literally a million other examples. in armed conflicts, the wrong people get dead quite regularly. bad intel, miscommunication, ordinance landing off target. s#$% happens.


also if you had done any research, you'd know that egypt closed their border with palestine for over a year, and before that it was only open for 4 hours a day and only letting in 500-1000 a day max. so that's not a valid option.

kinda shocked how people are anti israel in this latest escalation. Hamas senior official just yesterday confirmed that someone in their orgainization kidnapped these 3 boys and killed them. thats what started this whole thing. Its Hamas's contining inability to hold their own accountable and bring them to justice when they break obvious laws that perpetuates this stuff. Yeah but go ahead and blame the israel

3 dead equals justification for wholesale destruction, since SS33 doesn't want to seem to put up the numbers here are the latest reports (I doubt they are exact, but the enormity of the scale is clearly represented).
Gaza residents dead 2050+, 550+ of whom are children, approx 350 women and seniors.(Come on, Grampa you should have moved your wheelchair faster). So if as SS33 proclaims, these are super accurate missiles, only hitting the targets of Israeli vengeance, then Israel has purposefully killed nearly 900 non combatants in response to 3 dead teens. I think the world should be outraged.

As for Israeli deaths in that same time, including the 3 above, less than 64 soldiers and 6 civilians. No reported attacks have come through the "terror tunnels".

images are graphic, and not suitable for work, or really for any civilized nation to abide by:
https://www.google.com/search?q=gaza+death+toll&safe=off&espv=2&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=7k73U4TFN4TdoASw9oDABg&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg&biw=1067&bih=511

Not to mention reportedly 2Billion dollars worth of infrastructure damage, that will take 3-5 years or more to rebuild, just so Israel can destroy it again, as it has done twice this century already.

3 dead equals justification for wholesale destruction, since SS33 doesn't want to seem to put up the numbers here are the latest reports (I doubt they are exact, but the enormity of the scale is clearly represented).
Gaza residents dead 2050+, 550+ of whom are children, approx 350 women and seniors.(Come on, Grampa you should have moved your wheelchair faster). So if as SS33 proclaims, these are super accurate missiles, only hitting the targets of Israeli vengeance, then Israel has purposefully killed nearly 900 non combatants in response to 3 dead teens. I think the world should be outraged.

As for Israeli deaths in that same time, including the 3 above, less than 64 soldiers and 6 civilians. No reported attacks have come through the "terror tunnels".

images are graphic, and not suitable for work, or really for any civilized nation to abide by:
https://www.google.com/search?q=gaza+death+toll&safe=off&espv=2&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=7k73U4TFN4TdoASw9oDABg&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg&biw=1067&bih=511

Not to mention reportedly 2Billion dollars worth of infrastructure damage, that will take 3-5 years or more to rebuild, just so Israel can destroy it again, as it has done twice this century already.

What about the illegal tunnels dug into israel to transport terriost, weapons, etc? Not to mention the rocket attacks which routinely break ceasefire.

Its the principal of accountability. You know what Hamas should have done was arrest the kidnap (cough, killers) hand them over for a proper trial. All this could have been avoided.

Hamas could have said no we are not in the business of killing children for political gain.

Sorry, there is no excuse.

As I said, no terror tunnels were used for attacks. As for the rockets fired routinely, it's like a 50 lb weakling pounding on the bully's chest and saying that it's his fault that the bully smashed his face in. Hamas and the Palestinians could fire rockets forever and not cause 1/100th of the damage of the IDF.

Saying it's accountability, without holding Israel accountable for the death, destruction, and wholesale savagery of their inordinately extreme bombardments is, to me, mixed up.

To be clear, I am not saying the Palestinians are without fault, but to somehow say 70 dead Israelis, all but 3 of whom are soldiers is justification for the killing of over 2000 and wounding over 8000 Palestinians is horrific logic.

In terms of the ceasefire, if the rockets that Hamas fires were causing equivalent death and destruction to Israeli's then yes I would get that Israel had to respond to it, but they don't, and 60 rockets shot down and no-one hurt ought not give Israel license to go kill another 1-200 Palestinians. At somepoint, you have to tell Israel, put the attack guns down, we will supply your Iron dome, and help with defensive responses in any way possible, but there will be no peace if you continue the mass killings of Palestinian's. Those should be unacceptable. And if Israel can't accept that killing 900 innocent women,children, and seniors is an unacceptable response, than we ought to use our influence and ask them flat out, if we drop our support, how long will you survive.

Back to the bully example.
A tiny kid gets angry, and throws pencils at a top athlete in school.

The athlete can:
A) break the pencils, walk over and pound the kid into the ground, and leave him disfigured for life.
B) break the pencil, get a drink and get help from others to get the kid to stop throwing pencils

Yeah the kid shouldn't be throwing pencils, and yeah maybe one gets the athlete good in the ear, or worst case eye. But at no point does throwing ineffective pencils justify the athlete using his superior strength to mercilessly abuse the weaker kid.

Back to the bully example.
A tiny kid gets angry, and throws pencils at a top athlete in school.

The athlete can:
A) break the pencils, walk over and pound the kid into the ground, and leave him disfigured for life.
B) break the pencil, get a drink and get help from others to get the kid to stop throwing pencils

Yeah the kid shouldn't be throwing pencils, and yeah maybe one gets the athlete good in the ear, or worst case eye. But at no point does throwing ineffective pencils justify the athlete using his superior strength to mercilessly abuse the weaker kid.

we are just going to disagree, you can side with the terriost. Politically, both are wrong.

Pentagon chief: ISIS 'beyond anything we have seen' - CNN.com (http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/21/world/meast/iraq-crisis/index.html?hpt=hp_t1)

this is why ive grown to hate this administration. Hagel is trying to sell me on something Ive known about for about a year. And now instead of doing something about Isis initially, we've let them now come into Iraq and embed themselves in the region, gain iraqi support, more international support and prepare themselves for a fight. Hagel and Obama negligence will cost more civilian causalities and american soliders lives.