|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
|
 Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 8:07 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
| Yes I read something about this in the paper today (although the paper - owned by Murdoch and a staunch supporter of US and Israel - implied the allegations had not yet been confirmed). Truly sickening. If it is true, I'd love to see the members of Hizbollah responsible stand trial for war crimes alongside their counterparts in the Israel command - as well as any cynical politicians/arms dealers in the US and Britain who seemed to have complied with it all. But that would be just a dream... |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Teufelswacht
Joined: 06 Sep 2004
Location: Land Of The Not Quite Right
|
| Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 7:33 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Big_Bird wrote: |
| Yes I read something about this in the paper today (although the paper - owned by Murdoch and a staunch supporter of US and Israel - implied the allegations had not yet been confirmed). Truly sickening. If it is true, I'd love to see the members of Hizbollah responsible stand trial for war crimes alongside their counterparts in the Israel command - as well as any cynical politicians/arms dealers in the US and Britain who seemed to have complied with it all. But that would be just a dream... |
I'm interested why you didn't also mention China? After all, it was Chinese made cluster munitions that were employed by Hizbollah. Considering that the weapons, presumably, came via Syria and/or Iran why didn't you also include them as cynical politicians/arms dealers. Just looking for a little balance.
Oh, and considering your unease with the media reports, I am providing a link to the human rights watch report.
http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/10/18/lebano14412.htm
Take care.
T |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
|
| Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 7:53 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Don't hold your breath for a reasonable response from her. If it ain't the joos or Americans doing the killing she just doesn't care. The Guardian told her not to. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
|
| Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 3:44 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Teufelswacht wrote: |
I'm interested why you didn't also mention China? After all, it was Chinese made cluster munitions that were employed by Hizbollah. Considering that the weapons, presumably, came via Syria and/or Iran why didn't you also include them as cynical politicians/arms dealers. Just looking for a little balance.
|
The problem is that simply manufacturing the bloody things is not considered illegal by international law. I really wish it was. I want to see a complete ban on these pernicious weapons. What is illegal, however, is using them against civillian populations. It appears likely that the powers that be in the US, and probably Britain, knew very well that Israel was using these in densely populated areas (after all Israel has a previous record of this) - and kept mum about it - though I'd like to see more evidence of this.
However, while China manufactures these weapons, she didn't supply them directly to Hizbollah. Rather she supplied them to Iran and Syria. So it would be agents of Iran and Syria you'd be looking to try. However, you'd then have difficulty proving that they knew the weapons would be used against civillians. For over a decade and up until July this year, Hizbollah had made a point of not attacking civillians. If you can produce evidence that certain Iranians and Syrians were aware of how these munitions would be used - I'll very happily put them on the list of defendents to be tried. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Teufelswacht
Joined: 06 Sep 2004
Location: Land Of The Not Quite Right
|
| Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 9:22 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Big_Bird wrote: |
| Teufelswacht wrote: |
I'm interested why you didn't also mention China? After all, it was Chinese made cluster munitions that were employed by Hizbollah. Considering that the weapons, presumably, came via Syria and/or Iran why didn't you also include them as cynical politicians/arms dealers. Just looking for a little balance.
|
It appears likely that the powers that be in the US, and probably Britain, knew very well that Israel was using these in densely populated areas (after all Israel has a previous record of this) - and kept mum about it - though I'd like to see more evidence of this.
So it would be agents of Iran and Syria you'd be looking to try. However, you'd then have difficulty proving that they knew the weapons would be used against civillians. For over a decade and up until July this year, Hizbollah had made a point of not attacking civilians. If you can produce evidence that certain Iranians and Syrians were aware of how these munitions would be used - I'll very happily put them on the list of defendents to be tried. |
Not to get snippy, but can't you see the double-standard you are using here?
You are giving the Syrians' and Iranians and their "agents" the benefit of the doubt, which is a s t r e t c h to say the very least, and demanding hard evidence. But, you require no hard evidence to come to your conclusion about the U.S. and Britain. Two different standards of proof are being required here. You say "US and Britain" but then when you speak of Syria and Iran you use the word "agents." Although, to your credit, you do say you would like to see more evidence of US British knowledge/approval. As you probably know, prior bad acts is not considered prima facie evidence of a crime under investigation.
I must admit I almost fell off my chair when I read your comment about Hizbollah not attacking civilians. You're kidding, right? The kibbutz' (sp?) in northern Israel have been rocketed by Hizbollah for years!!!! Men, women and children have been killed in Israeli settlements by Hizbollah rockets and the rare direct action operation within the last 10 years. It just doesn't make the news, except on the back of page 21 of the New York Times (I'm being facetious here, but I think you get my point).
I have no problem with prosecuting anyone for blatant violations of the rules of war. However, if you prosecute and condemn one party in a conflict, you must condemn the other party with the same vigor and apply the same standards of proof. This is the difficulty I have with your position. It appears from your most recent post you are applying different standards. I could be wrong, but that is how it appears.
They say that "truth" is the first casualty of war. I think "justice" follows a close second because of the double-standards used in "condemning" the actions of parties to a conflict. I've seen it time, and time, and time again. Not just in the ME but in other many other places around the world.
Anyways, it's raining and time for some Irish coffee. Take care.
T |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Interested
Joined: 10 Feb 2003
|
| Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 11:01 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
The Israeli government has admitted that it used controversial phosphorus weapons in its attacks against targets during its month long war in Lebanon this summer.
The chemical can be used in shells, missiles and grenades and causes horrific burning when it comes into contact with human flesh. |
| Quote: |
| Throughout the war, Israel was accused of using controversial weapons, including WP and cluster munitions against civilian targets |
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1929007,00.html
While we're at it we should add a ban of phosphorus weapons to the list. Israel is the latest culprit, but the allies also used them to horrific effect in Iraq (specifically Falluja). |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Interested
Joined: 10 Feb 2003
|
| Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 11:10 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| Unexploded cluster bombs in Lebanon have regularly killed and maimed civilians since the end of the war. Rami Ali Hussein Shibly, 12, was killed and his nine-year-old brother brother, Khodr, injured yesterday by a cluster bomb as they picked olives in Halta. He was 21st person to be killed by the bomblets since the fighting ended. |
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1929007,00.html
Some here would like to put the Hizbollah's alleged use of cluster bombs on an equal par with Israel's. While it may yet be confirmed that Hizbollah are guilty of such use, I have not heard regular reports of Israelis dying or being injured by said weapons. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Teufelswacht
Joined: 06 Sep 2004
Location: Land Of The Not Quite Right
|
| Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 1:55 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Interested wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Unexploded cluster bombs in Lebanon have regularly killed and maimed civilians since the end of the war. Rami Ali Hussein Shibly, 12, was killed and his nine-year-old brother brother, Khodr, injured yesterday by a cluster bomb as they picked olives in Halta. He was 21st person to be killed by the bomblets since the fighting ended. |
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1929007,00.html
Some here would like to put the Hizbollah's alleged use of cluster bombs on an equal par with Israel's. While it may yet be confirmed that Hizbollah are guilty of such use, I have not heard regular reports of Israelis dying or being injured by said weapons. |
From the link provided - from HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH:
| Quote: |
| This is the first time that Hezbollah�s use of these controversial weapons has been confirmed. |
So I guess it's OK to use cluster bombs just as long as you don't use as many as your adversary. 
So I guess it's OK to use them as long as there are no "regular reports" of deaths or injuries.
Whatever......... |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Interested
Joined: 10 Feb 2003
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 5:20 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Teufelwacht - you talk about balance. Even if the Lebanese have used cluster bombs (and shame on them for it) they have in no way matched the gratuitious work of the Israelis.
| Quote: |
| "What we did was insane and monstrous," one Israeli commander admitted to the newspaper Haaretz. "We covered entire towns in cluster bombs." |
| Quote: |
When the count of unexploded cluster bomblets passed 100,000, the United Nation's undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, Jan Egeland, expressed his disbelief at the scale of the problem.
"What's shocking and, I would say to me, completely immoral," he said, "is that 90% of the cluster-bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution, when we really knew there would be an end of this."
That was on Aug. 30, by which time U.N. teams had identified 359 separate cluster-bomb sites.
Since then, the true dimensions of the problem have become even clearer: 770 cluster-bomb sites have now been identified. And the current U.N. estimate is that Israel dropped between 2 million and 3 million bomblets on Lebanon, of which up to a million have yet to explode.
In fact, it is estimated that there are more unexploded bomblets in southern Lebanon than there are people. They lurk in tobacco fields, olive groves, on rooftops, in farms, mixed in with rubble. They are injuring two or three people every day, according to the United Nations, and have killed 20 people since the cease-fire in August. |
| Quote: |
To drop two or three bomblets for every man, woman and child in southern Lebanon--after having wiped out their homes, smashed their communities, destroyed their livelihoods--is to wage war against them all.
And we supplied the weapons. |
http://www.counterpunch.org/makdisi10232006.html
The 'we' in that last quote is of course us - western nations with freely elected democratic governments. What do we the electorate have to say about the actions of our governments?
I would like to know more about what Hizbollah have done in regards to this issue - but I haven't yet been able to find much information on Hizbollah's use of these munitions. All I've been able to ascertain so far is that the Israeli Police claimed (to HWR) that they had found cluster bombs. I want more independent verifcation before I accept this as fact. Human Rights Watch are somewhat tainted on this subject, as many observers have pointed out their desperate need to come down hard on Hizbollah to counter the predictable accusations of anti-semitism which plague them as an American organisation critical of Israel's policies. I've come across several complaints of HRW's conduct - here is one example: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=11048
| Quote: |
The impression is that HRW is trying to present a more damning picture of Hizbullah�s actions than Israel�s, despite the evidence, to avoid attracting yet more allegations of anti-Semitism from Israel�s influential defenders.
It is for that very reason, of course, that Israel�s apologists use the slur: to intimidate organisations like HRW. |
That's not to say I discount HRW, but I like to get information from a variety of sources before I form any opinion. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Interested
Joined: 10 Feb 2003
|
| Posted: Sun Oct 29, 2006 10:46 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Teufelswacht may also (in the interests of balance) wish to note that the Hizbollah 'cluster bombs' do not pose any long term dangers once they have landed. They are a rather crude version of the cluster bomb in which missiles filled with ball-bearings are fired. The danger of death and injury is only present as the missiles are fired - after the ball bearings lay on the ground, they do not detonate. This is a vastly different scenario from the millions of cluster bombs laying around South Lebanon, which will continue to maim and kill unsuspecting civillians (the victims most probably being children) for years and years and years....
It seems to me that comparing the Israeli cluster bombs with those of the Lebanese is rather like comparing apples with oranges. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
|
| Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2006 8:41 pm Post subject: |
|
|
The British, US, Chinese and Russian governments will disgrace themselves today.
Britain is determined to protect its right to kill civilians at random
The British and US governments will today join forces in Geneva to block an international ban on cluster bombs
George Monbiot
Tuesday November 7, 2006
The Guardian
In Geneva today, at the new review of the conventional weapons treaty, the British government will be using the full force of its diplomacy to ensure that civilians continue to be killed, by blocking a ban on the use of cluster bombs. Sweden, supported by Austria, Mexico and New Zealand, has proposed a convention making their deployment illegal, like the Ottawa treaty banning anti-personnel landmines. But the UK, working with the US, China and Russia, has spent the past week trying to prevent negotiations from being opened. Perhaps this is unsurprising. Most of the cluster bombs dropped during the past 40 years have been delivered by Britain's two principal allies - the US and Israel - in the "war on terror". And the UK used hundreds of thousands of them during the two Gulf wars.
...
The first is that the bombs, being widely dispersed, cannot be accurately targeted. The second is that many of them don't detonate when they hit the ground. Officially, cluster bombs have a failure rate of between 5% and 7%. In reality it's much higher. Between 20% and 25% of the cluster munitions Nato forces dropped during the Kosovo conflict failed to go off when they landed. The failure rate of the bombs dropped by the US in Indochina was roughly 30%. Of the cluster bombs that Israel scattered over Lebanon, 40% did not detonate.
The unexploded bombs then sit and wait to be defused - leg by human leg. They are as devastating to civilian populations as landmines, or possibly worse, because far more of them have been dropped. Even 30 years or more after they land - as the people of Vietnam and Laos know - they can still be detonated by the slightest concussion.
A report published last week by the independent organisation Handicap International estimates that around 100,000 people have been killed or wounded by cluster bombs. Of the known casualties, 98% are civilians. Most of them are hit when farming, walking or clearing the rubble where their homes used to be. Many of the victims are children, partly because the bombs look like toys.
To read full article click here |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Hollywoodaction
Joined: 02 Jul 2004
|
| Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2006 9:33 pm Post subject: Re: Justify this |
|
|
| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
| dogbert wrote: |
| Big_Bird wrote: |
| I'm sure there are posters here who will have no problem justifying this. |
Well, at least it took 11 hours. |
I am sure you are aware that both the US and England have used many cluster bombs in Afghanistan. You can check it for yourself or just take my word for it.
Don't worry you don't need to justify it to me. Al Qaeda is a mortal enemy of the US so the US is justified in going after them with everything it has. |
Yes, and the undetonated ones have killed children who thought the bright orange bombs were toys. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
