Israel-Hezbollah War

[Arch]

It was simply fascinating reading the following article and trying to understand the power of 'might' and 'diplomacy' from an Israeli's point of view.



wow.



http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite? ... 2FShowFull

US Affairs: Walking a diplomatic tightrope
By NATHAN GUTTMAN


There was no sense of alarm or disappointment in Washington following the modest results reached at Wednesday's Rome summit. From the administration's standpoint, the Middle East diplomatic effort is proceeding just fine: The principle of favoring a "sustainable agreement," as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice phrased it, over an immediate cease-fire was maintained, initial understandings on the issue of providing humanitarian assistance to Lebanon have been reached and the pressure on the international community to provide troops for a future force in southern Lebanon was turned up.

American diplomacy seems to be moving ahead unaffected by the war being waged on the ground. Though all senior Bush administation officials have stated that there is an "urgent need" to solve the conflict, there is no sense of urgency on the diplomatic front. If there is one message to take home from Rice's first shuttle trip between Jerusalem, Beirut and Rome, it is that there is no force that can make the US depart from its predetermined course of action - not the growing demand in the Arab world to stop the fighting, not the UN's public disapproval of the ongoing air raids and not the calls coming from both ends of the political spectrum to use the US's diplomatic abilities more forcefully.

For the US, Rice's shuttle diplomacy is beginning to bear fruit.
The most important result is widening the international consensus concerning the outlines of any future solution for Lebanon. As the second week of the war drew to an end, there was widespread international agreement on the need to strengthen the Lebanese government, to control the country's borders so that arms won't reach Hizbullah, and to form an effective international force which will deploy in southern Lebanon and keep Hizbullah under control.

True, all these principles were already agreed upon at the G-8 summit in St. Petersburg at the beginning of the war, but now they have greater significance, with all parties joining in, even the Arab countries that participated in the Rome summit. Having Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan sign on to the G-8 principles can prove to be valuable in future weeks, as discussions on the Lebanon cease-fire package move forward.

THE DISAGREEMENT between the US and the rest of the world over the need for an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon overshadowed this achievement of the Rome summit, but for the administration, which anticipated the differences of views on the issue of an immediate cease-fire, widening the consensus on the G-8 principles is seen as much more important.

The US views the international response to the Lebanon crisis in a broader context, regarding it as a test case for the ability of the world to stand up and join forces when a clear case of fighting terrorism presents itself. If Europe, moderate Arab countries and the UN waiver on the Lebanese issue, it will be a sign they can not be trusted on the greater challenges facing the region, mainly Iran.

While the initial international response is seen in Washington as positive, the main stumbling bloc is forming the multinational force for Lebanon. With the US and Britain announcing they will not participate in the force, due to their already overstretched military needs in Iraq, other European countries were expected to take the lead. Yet they did so hesitatitingly - France expressed reluctance and finally agreed, Germany conditioned its participation on Hizbullah agreeing to have a foreign presence in southern Lebanon and Italy took a while with announcing its willingness to send troops for the future force.

The vision of having Arab countries taking part in the multinational force dissolved quickly - though some in the administration still believe it will be possible to get Egypt on board - and now the US is pinning its hopes on Turkey. If Turkey, which has already signaled it will favorably consider participating in the force, will actually join in, the US will be able to show the world that a Moslem country is taking part in ensuring Hizbullah does not take over Lebanon and that it is not merely another Western attempt to dictate policy to an Arab country.

Still, it is not yet clear whether Lebanon and Hizbullah will accept the international force and allow it to operate. If the terms of the force's deployment are limited by the Lebanese, it will be hard to get Israel and the US to buy into the idea and the cease-fire will grow even more elusive.

FROM ISRAEL'S standpoint, the US's unhurried approach regarding the cease-fire signals that nothing has changed. Two weeks into the war and Washington and Jerusalem are still on the same page.

"The big question," says David Makovsky from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, "is if there is any understanding between Israel and the US on the point in which Israel stops the operation and moves on to the diplomatic phase." It is not clear that such an understanding exists, yet meanwhile, it has not been tested.

The Bush administration is continuing its delicate balancing act of allowing Israel to go ahead with its military operation, while trying to demonstrate some kind of diplomatic activity.

When Bush and Rice met with the Saudi foreign minister Saud al-Faisal last weekend in Washington, they heard from their guest that the Arab condemnation of Hizbullah's actions of should not be interpreted as a green light for the continuation of the Israeli operation and that to maintain Arab legitimacy for a future solution which will rein in Hizbullah, there needed to be an immediate cease-fire. The Saudis also emphasized the need to go back to the 1989 Taif agreement, an Arab blueprint for freeing Lebanon from foreign influence.

Even after listening to the Saudi warnings, Bush did not accept the concept of a cease-fire now. Instead, the administration increased its efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to Lebanon to show that Washington is not blind to the Lebanese population's suffering.

The only threat that seems to resonate in Washington is that of the collapse of the Lebanese government. Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora already warned he would resign if the Israeli attack is not halted, but was convinced to stay on. Such a move would be a major blow for the US administration, which views Saniora's government as the only - somewhat - successful example of the Middle East democracy doctrine.

Any future agreement would be tailored by the US to strengthen the government in Beirut, allowing Saniora to present to his people - once the fighting is over - a generous rebuilding package sponsored by the US and Europe and enabling him to use the new flow of money and the multinational force in the south to build his political power and assert the government's sovereignty over the country.

But that is the long-term plan. To get there, the US needs to cross its fingers that all sides will stick to the script - the Israelis need to keep things under control, the Lebanese government needs to endure a few more days or weeks, and the international community has to keep its pressure for a cease-fire measured. That is a pretty long wish list, even for a world superpower.

[Arch]

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Mj ... g1ZDIzNzQ=

A “ceasefire” would occur should Hezbollah give back kidnapped Israelis and stop launching missiles; it would never follow a unilateral cessation of Israeli bombing. In fact, we will hear international calls for one only when Hezbollah’s rockets are about exhausted.

“Civilians” in Lebanon have munitions in their basements and deliberately wish to draw fire; in Israel they are in bunkers to avoid it. Israel uses precision weapons to avoid hitting them; Hezbollah sends random missiles into Israel to ensure they are struck.

“Collateral damage” refers mostly to casualties among Hezbollah’s human shields; it can never be used to describe civilian deaths inside Israel, because everything there is by intent a target.

“Cycle of Violence” is used to denigrate those who are attacked, but are not supposed to win.

“Deliberate” reflects the accuracy of Israeli bombs hitting their targets; it never refers to Hezbollah rockets that are meant to destroy anything they can.

“Deplore” is usually evoked against Israel by those who themselves have slaughtered noncombatants or allowed them to perish — such as the Russians in Grozny, the Syrians in Hama, or the U.N. in Rwanda and Dafur.

“Disproportionate” means that the Hezbollah aggressors whose primitive rockets can’t kill very many Israeli civilians are losing, while the Israelis’ sophisticated response is deadly against the combatants themselves. See “excessive.”

Anytime you hear the adjective “excessive,” Hezbollah is losing. Anytime you don’t, it isn’t.

“Eyewitnesses” usually aren’t, and their testimony is cited only against Israel.

“Grave concern” is used by Europeans and Arabs who privately concede there is no future for Lebanon unless Hezbollah is destroyed — and it should preferably be done by the “Zionists” who can then be easily blamed for doing it.

“Innocent” often refers to Lebanese who aid the stockpiling of rockets or live next to those who do. It rarely refers to Israelis under attack.

The “militants” of Hezbollah don’t wear uniforms, and their prime targets are not those Israelis who do.

“Multinational,” as in “multinational force,” usually means “third-world mercenaries who sympathize with Hezbollah.” See “peacekeepers.”

“Peacekeepers” keep no peace, but always side with the less Western of the belligerents.

“Quarter-ton” is used to describe what in other, non-Israeli militaries are known as “500-pound” bombs.

“Shocked” is used, first, by diplomats who really are not; and, second, only evoked against the response of Israel, never the attack of Hezbollah.

“United Nations Action” refers to an action that Russia or China would not veto. The organization’s operatives usually watch terrorists arm before their eyes. They are almost always guilty of what they accuse others of.

What explains this distortion of language? A lot.

First there is the need for Middle Eastern oil. Take that away, and the war would receive the same scant attention as bloodletting in central Africa.

Then there is the fear of Islamic terrorism. If the Middle East were Buddhist, the world would care about Lebanon as little as it does about occupied Tibet.

And don’t forget the old anti-Semitism. If Russia or France were shelled by neighbors, Putin and Chirac would be threatening nuclear retaliation.

Israel is the symbol of the hated West. Were it a client of China, no one would dare say a word.

Population and size count for a lot: When India threatened Pakistan with nukes for its support of terrorism a few years ago, no one uttered any serious rebuke.

Finally, there is the worry that Israel might upset things in Iraq. If we were not in Afghanistan and Iraq trying to win hearts and minds, we wouldn’t be pressuring Israel behind the scenes.

But most of all, the world deplores the Jewish state because it is strong, and can strike back rather than suffer. In fact, global onlookers would prefer either one of two scenarios for the long-suffering Jews to learn their lesson. The first is absolute symmetry and moral equivalence: when Israel is attacked, it kills only as many as it loses. For each rocket that lands, it drops only one bomb in retaliation — as if any aggressor in the history of warfare has ever ceased its attacks on such insane logic.

The other desideratum is the destruction of Israel itself. Iran promised to wipe Israel off the map, and then gave Hezbollah thousands of missiles to fulfill that pledge. In response, the world snored. If tomorrow more powerful rockets hit Tel Aviv armed with Syrian chemicals or biological agents, or Iranian nukes, the “international” community would urge “restraint” — and keep urging it until Israel disappeared altogether. And the day after its disappearance, the Europeans and Arabs would sigh relief, mumble a few pieties, and then smile, “Life goes on.”

And for them, it would very well.

— Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is the author, most recently, of A War Like No Other. How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War.

[Cragg]

The difference between one or two attacks that too on millitary and genocide of civilians .



http://www.nogw.com/israeliatrocities.html



http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5240.shtml

As Israel's siege on the Gaza Strip passes the one month milestone, Defence for Children International - Palestine Section (DCI/PS) would like to draw attention to the 31 Palestinian children whose deaths expose anew the degradation of the principles of international humanitarian law. The death of these children implicates both the parties to the conflict as well as those States not directly involved, but who, as third parties, are legally bound to enforce these principles.



Recalling that the Gaza Strip has been under belligerent occupation by Israel since 1967, and that it remains under occupation despite the 12 September 2005 'disengagement' of Israeli troops, the attacks by both the Israeli army and Palestinian armed groups in the past month have been characterized by their lack of respect for the customary international law principle of distinction. This principle requires combatants at all times to distinguish between civilians and civilian objects, and military objectives.



The Israeli tactics in Gaza have also been condemned as disproportionate by the EU and the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator in that the incidental loss of Palestinian lives, injury of Palestinians and damage to Palestinian civilian infrastructure has been excessive in relation to the military advantage understood to be gained by Israel.



Israeli air, sea and ground troops have opened fire in civilian areas in the dense population centers of Gaza cities and refugee camps, including near hospitals, schools, and in crowded residential housing complexes on numerous occasions.



The following children have been killed by Israeli military actions in Gaza since 26 June 2006:



Anwar Isma'el Atallah, 12 years old Saleh Sleman Al Jemasi, 16 years old Ruwan Fareed Hajjaj, 5 years old Khalid Nidal Abed Al Karim Wahbeh, 1 year old Mahfouth Farid Nasseer, 15 years old Ahmad Ghaleb Abu Amshah, 16 years old Ahmed Fathi Odah Shabat, 16 years old Waleed Mahmoud Al Zinati, 12 years old Salah Adeen Hammad Abu Maktuma, 17 years old Ibrahim Ali Khatoush, 15 years old Mahmoud Muhammad Al Asar, 15 years old Ibrahim Ali Al Nabaheen, 15 years old Ahmad Abdil Mina'm Abu Hajaj, 16 years old Nasrallah Nabil Abu Selmieh, 5 years old Aya Nabil Abu Selmieh, 7 years old Iman Nabil Abu Selmieh, 11 years old Yahya Nabil Abu Selmieh, 9 years old Huda Nabil Abu Selmieh, 13 years old Basma Nabil Abu Selmieh, 15 years old Sumaia Nabil Abu Selmieh, 16 years old Raji Omar Deif Alla, 16 years old Muhanna Sa'ed Mesleh, 16 years old Ahmad Rawhee Abdo, 13 years old Ali Kamil Al Najar, 13 years old Fadwa Faisel al 'Urouqi, 13 years old Mohammad Awad Muhra, 17 years old Khitam Muhammad Tayeh, 11 years old Nadee Habib Al Ataar, 11 years old Saleh Ibrahim Nasser, 13 years old Bashir Abdullah Awad Abu Thaher, 12 years old Sabrine Naser Habib, 3 years old.



DCI/PS recalls that one of the predominant reasons for restrictions enshrined in the ius in bello (the law governing the conduct of warfare, or international humanitarian law) is to regulate combatant behavior such that acts will not be taken which are so grave as to prevent the return to peace. At a time when international political actors are calling for a return to the logic of 'durable solutions' to stop the current escalation in violence, DCI/PS asserts that nations at war remember no injuries as acutely as they remember the death of their children.



Thus, DCI/PS believes that any effective solutions to the current crisis and the crisis of the future must include a reiterated commitment to the principles of international humanitarian law, and particularly those principles relating to the protection of the civilian population and civilian infrastructure.








Not guilty. The Israeli captain who put 17 bullets into a Palestinian schoolgirl · Officer ignored warnings that teenager was terrified
· Defence says 'confirming the kill' standard practice

Chris McGreal in Jerusalem
Wednesday November 16, 2005
The Guardian


An Israeli army officer who fired the entire magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl and then said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old was acquitted on all charges by a military court yesterday.
The soldier, who has only been identified as "Captain R", was charged with relatively minor offences for the killing of Iman al-Hams who was shot 17 times as she ventured near an Israeli army post near Rafah refugee camp in Gaza a year ago.

The manner of Iman's killing, and the revelation of a tape recording in which the captain is warned that she was just a child who was "scared to death", made the shooting one of the most controversial since the Palestinian intifada erupted five years ago even though hundreds of other children have also died.

After the verdict, Iman's father, Samir al-Hams, said the army never intended to hold the soldier accountable.

"They did not charge him with Iman's murder, only with small offences, and now they say he is innocent of those even though he shot my daughter so many times," he said. "This was the cold-blooded murder of a girl. The soldier murdered her once and the court has murdered her again. What is the message? They are telling their soldiers to kill Palestinian children."

The military court cleared the soldier of illegal use of his weapon, conduct unbecoming an officer and perverting the course of justice by asking soldiers under his command to alter their accounts of the incident.

Capt R's lawyers argued that the "confirmation of the kill" after a suspect is shot was a standard Israeli military practice to eliminate terrorist threats.

Following the verdict, Capt R burst into tears, turned to the public benches and said: "I told you I was innocent."

The army's official account said that Iman was shot for crossing into a security zone carrying her schoolbag which soldiers feared might contain a bomb. It is still not known why the girl ventured into the area but witnesses described her as at least 100 yards from the military post which was in any case well protected.

A recording of radio exchanges between Capt R and his troops obtained by Israeli television revealed that from the beginning soldiers identified Iman as a child.

In the recording, a soldier in a watchtower radioed a colleague in the army post's operations room and describes Iman as "a little girl" who was "scared to death". After soldiers first opened fire, she dropped her schoolbag which was then hit by several bullets establishing that it did not contain explosive. At that point she was no longer carrying the bag and, the tape revealed, was heading away from the army post when she was shot.

Although the military speculated that Iman might have been trying to "lure" the soldiers out of their base so they could be attacked by accomplices, Capt R made the decision to lead some of his troops into the open. Shortly afterwards he can be heard on the recording saying that he has shot the girl and, believing her dead, then "confirmed the kill".

"I and another soldier ... are going in a little nearer, forward, to confirm the kill ... Receive a situation report. We fired and killed her ... I also confirmed the kill. Over," he said.

Palestinian witnesses said they saw the captain shoot Iman twice in the head, walk away, turn back and fire a stream of bullets into her body.

On the tape, Capt R then "clarifies" to the soldiers under his command why he killed Iman: "This is commander. Anything that's mobile, that moves in the [security] zone, even if it's a three-year-old, needs to be killed."

At no point did the Israeli troops come under attack.

The prosecution case was damaged when a soldier who initially said he had seen Capt R point his weapon at the girl's body and open fire later told the court he had fabricated the story.

Capt R claimed that he had not fired the shots at the girl but near her. However, Dr Mohammed al-Hams, who inspected the child's body at Rafah hospital, counted numerous wounds. "She has at least 17 bullets in several parts of the body, all along the chest, hands, arms, legs," he told the Guardian shortly afterwards. "The bullets were large and shot from a close distance. The most serious injuries were to her head. She had three bullets in the head. One bullet was shot from the right side of the face beside the ear. It had a big impact on the whole face."

The army's initial investigation concluded that the captain had "not acted unethically". But after some of the soldiers under his command went to the Israeli press to give a different version, the military police launched a separate investigation after which he was charged.

Capt R claimed that the soldiers under his command were out to get him because they are Jewish and he is Druze.

The transcript

The following is a recording of a three-way conversation that took place between a soldier in a watchtower, an army operations room and Capt R, who shot the girl

From the watchtower "It's a little girl. She's running defensively eastward." "Are we talking about a girl under the age of 10?" "A girl about 10, she's behind the embankment, scared to death." "I think that one of the positions took her out." "I and another soldier ... are going in a little nearer, forward, to confirm the kill ... Receive a situation report. We fired and killed her ... I also confirmed the kill. Over."

From the operations room "Are we talking about a girl under the age of 10?"

Watchtower "A girl about 10, she's behind the embankment, scared to death."

A few minutes later, Iman is shot from one of the army posts

Watchtower "I think that one of the positions took her out."

Captain R "I and another soldier ... are going in a little nearer, forward, to confirm the kill ... Receive a situation report. We fired and killed her ... I also confirmed the kill. Over."

Capt R then "clarifies" why he killed Iman

"This is commander. Anything that's mobile, that moves in the zone, even if it's a three-year-old, needs to be killed. Over."

[CTC]

It looks middle east destined to be at war forever. There is a consistent opinion among arabs that Israel has occupied arab lands, however they seems to forget that Judaism existed much before.



ref: Considering the word "Jerusalem" existed for about 2,000 years prior to the birth of Islam, this is noteworthy.



"jerusalem was founded by King David on the former Jebusite city of Jebus about 3,300 years ago when he renamed it and gave it a Jewish character. Jerusalem has been both the political and spiritual capital of the Jewish people, the latter without interruption to the present through good and bad times.



Throughout the past 3,300 years Jerusalem has never been the capital of any other people, including the Arabs and Muslims"



http://www.israel-wat.com/jer_eng2.htm



The war which is fought on the existence of Israel has no basis.

Hence both sides should stop their terrorism and compromise for co-existence. It is time now that Middle east should adopt tolerance for other religions for betterment of their citizens. All faiths have right to exist. People should learn to live together otherwise it is doom.

[CTC]

This should be motto of both factions : Live and let others live, give peace a chance.

[Arch]

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/ ... 20,00.html

Photos that damn Hezbollah
July 30, 2006 12:00am

http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata ... 790,00.jpg
http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata ... 788,00.jpg
http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata ... 791,00.jpg




THIS is the picture that damns Hezbollah. It is one of several, smuggled from behind Lebanon's battle lines, showing that Hezbollah is waging war amid suburbia.

The images, obtained exclusively by the Sunday Herald Sun, show Hezbollah using high-density residential areas as launch pads for rockets and heavy-calibre weapons.

Dressed in civilian clothing so they can quickly disappear, the militants carrying automatic assault rifles and ride in on trucks mounted with cannon.

The photographs, from the Christian area of Wadi Chahrour in the east of Beirut, were taken by a visiting journalist and smuggled out by a friend.

They emerged as:

US President George Bush called for an international force to be sent to Lebanon.

ISRAEL called up another 30,000 reserve troops.

THE UN's humanitarian chief Jan Egeland called for a three-day truce to evacuate civilians and transport food and water into cut-off areas.

US SECRETARY of State Condoleezza Rice returned to the Middle East to push a UN resolution aimed at ending the 18-day war, and:

A PALESTINIAN militant group said it had kidnapped, killed and burned an Israeli settler in the West Bank.

The images include one of a group of men and youths preparing to fire an anti-aircraft gun metres from an apartment block with sheets hanging out on a balcony to dry.

Others show a militant with AK47 rifle guarding no-go zones after Israeli blitzes.

Another depicts the remnants of a Hezbollah Katyusha rocket in the middle of a residential block blown up in an Israeli air attack.

The Melbourne man who smuggled the shots out of Beirut and did not wish to be named said he was less than 400m from the block when it was obliterated.

"Hezbollah came in to launch their rockets, then within minutes the area was blasted by Israeli jets," he said.

"Until the Hezbollah fighters arrived, it had not been touched by the Israelis. Then it was totally devastated.

"It was carnage. Two innocent people died in that incident, but it was so lucky it was not more."

The release of the images comes as Hezbollah faces criticism for allegedly using innocent civilians as "human shields".

Mr Egeland blasted Hezbollah as "cowards" for operating among civilians.

"When I was in Lebanon, in the Hezbollah heartland, I said Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending in among women and children," he said.

[DQ]

Wait lebanon theres more to come !!! The Bunker busting bombs are on their way.

------------------------------------------

































TOWARDS A TERRORIST FREE WORLD.



Use of chemical weapons and now depleted uranium weapons of mass destruction to get rid of the terrorists.



Bomb and Smoke them Hail Bush, Hail Olmert.



Bunker Busting Bombs -

----------------------------

One way to make a bunker buster heavier while maintaining a narrow cross-sectional area is to use a metal that is heavier than steel. Lead is heavier, but it is so soft that it is useless in a penetrator -- lead would deform or disintegrate when the bomb hits the target.

One material that is both extremely strong and extremely dense is depleted uranium. DU is the material of choice for penetrating weapons because of these properties. For example, the M829 is an armor-piercing "dart" fired from the cannon of an M1 tank. These 10-pound (4.5-kg) darts are 2 feet (61 cm) long, approximately 1 inch (2.5 cm) in diameter and leave the barrel of the tank's cannon traveling at over 1 mile (1.6 km) per second. The dart has so much kinetic energy and is so strong that it is able to pierce the strongest armor plating.



Depleted uranium is a by-product of the nuclear power industry. Natural uranium from a mine contains two isotopes: U-235 and U-238. The U-235 is what is needed to produce nuclear power (see How Nuclear Power Plants Work for details), so the uranium is refined to extract the U-235 and create "enriched uranium." The U-238 that is left over is known as "depleted uranium."



U-238 is a radioactive metal that produces alpha and beta particles. In its solid form, it is not particularly dangerous because its half-life is 4.5 billion years, meaning that the atomic decay is very slow. Depleted uranium is used, for example, in boats and airplanes as ballast. The three properties that make depleted uranium useful in penetrating weapons are its:



Density - Depleted uranium is 1.7 times heavier than lead, and 2.4 times heavier than steel.



Hardness - If you look at a Web site like WebElements.com, you can see that the Brinell hardness of U-238 is 2,400, which is just shy of tungsten at 2,570. Iron is 490. Depleted uranium alloyed with a small amount of titanium is even harder.



Incendiary properties - Depleted uranium burns. It is something like magnesium in this regard. If you heat uranium up in an oxygen environment (normal air), it will ignite and burn with an extremely intense flame. Once inside the target, burning uranium is another part of the bomb's destructive power.

These three properties make depleted uranium an obvious choice when creating advanced bunker-busting bombs. With depleted uranium, it is possible to create extremely heavy, strong and narrow bombs that have tremendous penetrating force.

The problem with depleted uranium is the fact that it is radioactive. The United States uses tons on depleted uranium on the battlefield. At the end of the conflict, this leaves tons of radioactive material in the environment. For example, Time magazine: Balkan Dust Storm reports:



NATO aircraft rained more than 30,000 DU shells on Kosovo during the 11-week air campaign… About 10 tons of the debris were scattered across Kosovo.

Perhaps 300 tons of DU weapons were used in the first Gulf war. When it burns, DU forms a uranium-oxide smoke that is easily inhaled and that settles on the ground miles from the point of use. Once inhaled or ingested, depleted-uranium smoke can do a great deal of damage to the human body because of its radioactivity. See How Nuclear Radiation Works for details.

[Cragg]

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,,19955774-5007220,00.html

Photos that damn Hezbollah
July 30, 2006 12:00am

http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata ... 790,00.jpg
http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata ... 788,00.jpg
http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata ... 791,00.jpg




THIS is the picture that damns Hezbollah. It is one of several, smuggled from behind Lebanon's battle lines, showing that Hezbollah is waging war amid suburbia.

The images, obtained exclusively by the Sunday Herald Sun, show Hezbollah using high-density residential areas as launch pads for rockets and heavy-calibre weapons.

Dressed in civilian clothing so they can quickly disappear, the militants carrying automatic assault rifles and ride in on trucks mounted with cannon.

The photographs, from the Christian area of Wadi Chahrour in the east of Beirut, were taken by a visiting journalist and smuggled out by a friend.

They emerged as:

US President George Bush called for an international force to be sent to Lebanon.

ISRAEL called up another 30,000 reserve troops.

THE UN's humanitarian chief Jan Egeland called for a three-day truce to evacuate civilians and transport food and water into cut-off areas.

US SECRETARY of State Condoleezza Rice returned to the Middle East to push a UN resolution aimed at ending the 18-day war, and:

A PALESTINIAN militant group said it had kidnapped, killed and burned an Israeli settler in the West Bank.

The images include one of a group of men and youths preparing to fire an anti-aircraft gun metres from an apartment block with sheets hanging out on a balcony to dry.

Others show a militant with AK47 rifle guarding no-go zones after Israeli blitzes.

Another depicts the remnants of a Hezbollah Katyusha rocket in the middle of a residential block blown up in an Israeli air attack.

The Melbourne man who smuggled the shots out of Beirut and did not wish to be named said he was less than 400m from the block when it was obliterated.

"Hezbollah came in to launch their rockets, then within minutes the area was blasted by Israeli jets," he said.

"Until the Hezbollah fighters arrived, it had not been touched by the Israelis. Then it was totally devastated.

"It was carnage. Two innocent people died in that incident, but it was so lucky it was not more."
The release of the images comes as Hezbollah faces criticism for allegedly using innocent civilians as "human shields".

Mr Egeland blasted Hezbollah as "cowards" for operating among civilians.

"When I was in Lebanon, in the Hezbollah heartland, I said Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending in among women and children," he said.

redifining words : two ppl dying is a carnage :;2000 innocent civilians mostly children and women dead is just defending against terrorism and making sure of no terrorist attacks.



cowards: operating form civilians



Brave: killing civilians





Pictures . only of the so called perpetrators carrying arms .

what abt the pictures of civilians killed . Need one more pair of eyes to see???

[Cragg]

[Arch]

Cragg, Cragg, Cragg! when the Hezbollah fires its 100's of weapons each day, where do they hit, Cragg?



Can you please answer this question, simply?







btw, I do not answer to bad language. I do not believe in disrespecting you nor do I expect you to disrespect me. If you are ready to have a simple, straight discussion, I am game. It should be about the topic, nothing personal with me and I promise that I will abide by the same rules. Cragg, I understand that you 'might' be a hyderabadi muslim and you must have already understood that I am a hyderabadi hindu. If these are rules fine with you, I am game too. is that a deal?



I have started this thread with the sole purpose of understanding the issue. When I started it, I did not have much of info as much as I've gathered today from the posts here and my internet research and some books. I am still open to a different point of view, but please do not be biased. I am not.



This request goes to other members too, to those who might join the discussion.

[indiabo]

you must have already understood that I am a hyderabadi hindu.
.

i do not know how on earth you came to this conclusion. I have gone through all your post on this thread none of them is wat u want to say!!!!!!

Its only articles and ofcourse gud gud articles.

so is that conclusion.

but please do not be biased. I am not.

I left this thread becoz everyone is game.



no one is here to learn.



and said by akshay somewhere that its too hard win ideological war.



but must compliment cragg

[Arch]

you must have already understood that I am a hyderabadi hindu.
.

i do not know how on earth you came to this conclusion. I have gone through all your post on this thread none of them is wat u want to say!!!!!!

Its only articles and ofcourse gud gud articles.

so is that conclusion.

but please do not be biased. I am not.

I left this thread becoz everyone is game.

no one is here to learn.

and said by akshay somewhere that its too hard win ideological war.

but must compliment cragg

..



i understand what u r saying.. abt my being hindu and all.. I am relatively an old member on these DB's and somewhere else I know I mentioned several times, over a period of time, abt me being a hindu .. so



I had been posting articles, yes, and so?

as I said I am learning abt this issue.. and I thought I will share it with other members here so that they also will get to know abt' it.. and discuss if they feel like ..indiabo.



But, whats' the problem here abt this issue!!?

[tfb]

Cragg, Cragg, Cragg! when the Hezbollah fires its 100's of weapons each day, where do they hit, Cragg?

Can you please answer this question, simply?

I wonder how a woman can be so stonehearted to support the murder of dozens of children in one single shot, you talk about rockets and where do the Missiles land.



Show one example of where the rocket landed and the destruction caused by it , I can show pictures of Israeli kids signing the Missles as "With love to Lebanese Kids".

[mango]

personally, i support the israels as they have contributed a lot more to the world. however crude the opinion, it still holds true. i dont think hte lebanese need to die.. thats not the objective here. the objective is to rid the area of hezbollah. if you cant see a distinction, then thats too damn bad.



the jews are the ones who are being victimized here. their soldiers were kidnapped. and when you attack a military, you need to face the consequences.

[Arch]

I wonder how a woman can be so stonehearted to support the murder of dozens of children in one single shot, you talk about rockets and where do the Missiles land,

lol..Oh, so now its 'the stonehearted woman' thingi that u r using ! all these days it had been all about just hindu fundamentalists lol



honey, to me, anybody's children are children.. be it Israels' or Lebanons'. what happened to your soft heart and the rest of the works a day before the qana deaths?



nah. you will NOT understand that for the simple fact that you are thinking only one way, and that is anybody says anything against anything muslim is a hindu fundamentalist and today onwrds, a stonehearted woman is added to ur vocab. lol again



anyways, I find ur posts amusing at best and extremely biased at worst wherever the issue of islam/muslim against anything else is concerned..so.. 'alvida'

[Arch]

Show one example of where the rocket landed and the destruction caused by it , I can show pictures of Israeli kids signing the Missles as "With love to Lebanese Kids".

you mean to say hezbollah's rockets do NOT land?!!!

LOL

[Arch]

It looks middle east destined to be at war forever. There is a consistent opinion among arabs that Israel has occupied arab lands, however they seems to forget that Judaism existed much before.

ref: Considering the word "Jerusalem" existed for about 2,000 years prior to the birth of Islam, this is noteworthy.

"jerusalem was founded by King David on the former Jebusite city of Jebus about 3,300 years ago when he renamed it and gave it a Jewish character. Jerusalem has been both the political and spiritual capital of the Jewish people, the latter without interruption to the present through good and bad times.

Throughout the past 3,300 years Jerusalem has never been the capital of any other people, including the Arabs and Muslims"

http://www.israel-wat.com/jer_eng2.htm

The war which is fought on the existence of Israel has no basis.
Hence both sides should stop their terrorism and compromise for co-existence. It is time now that Middle east should adopt tolerance for other religions for betterment of their citizens. All faiths have right to exist. People should learn to live together otherwise it is doom.

Ah, CTC.. finally, a historical fact that has come out on these DB's. abt the existence of Israel since ages. So many issues fall into perspective, if the fact is accepted.



Yes, as you rightly said, all faiths have a right to exist and we need to learn to live together. NO single religion is above the others. and this is not in middle east alone anymore, CTC. This intolerance of other religions is spreading like wild fire and if it is not restrained atleast now, the fundamentalists will rule.



and is that scary or what !

[tfb]

It looks middle east destined to be at war forever. There is a consistent opinion among arabs that Israel has occupied arab lands, however they seems to forget that Judaism existed much before.

ref: Considering the word "Jerusalem" existed for about 2,000 years prior to the birth of Islam, this is noteworthy.

"jerusalem was founded by King David on the former Jebusite city of Jebus about 3,300 years ago when he renamed it and gave it a Jewish character. Jerusalem has been both the political and spiritual capital of the Jewish people, the latter without interruption to the present through good and bad times.

Throughout the past 3,300 years Jerusalem has never been the capital of any other people, including the Arabs and Muslims"

http://www.israel-wat.com/jer_eng2.htm

The war which is fought on the existence of Israel has no basis.
Hence both sides should stop their terrorism and compromise for co-existence. It is time now that Middle east should adopt tolerance for other religions for betterment of their citizens. All faiths have right to exist. People should learn to live together otherwise it is doom.

Ah, CTC.. finally, a historical fact that has come out on these DB's. abt the existence of Israel since ages. So many issues fall into perspective, if the fact is accepted.

Yes, as you rightly said, all faiths have a right to exist and we need to learn to live together. NO single religion is above the others. and this is not in middle east alone anymore, CTC. This intolerance of other religions is spreading like wild fire and if it is not restrained atleast now, the fundamentalists will rule.

and is that scary or what !

The perfect analogy would be something like this, tomorrow if south Indians claim that all the north India was being occupied by them before the Aryans came and if the south Indians go and conquer the whole of North India and drive and kill the North Indians , will you support such action logically, if you answer has the slightest shred of dismissal then you will sound like a bigot to the core.



Happy cheerleading to the suffering and genocide of Lebanese, did you and your Hindutva elements throw a party to celebrate the death of innocents in Lebanon

[Akshay]

The perfect analogy would be something like this, tomorrow if south Indians claim that all the north India was being occupied by them before the Aryans came and if the south Indians go and conquer the whole of North India and drive and kill the North Indians , will you support such action logically, if you answer has the slightest shred of dismissal then you will sound like a bigot to the core.

So in your anology are the hezbollah south indians or north indians?

[tfb]

The perfect analogy would be something like this, tomorrow if south Indians claim that all the north India was being occupied by them before the Aryans came and if the south Indians go and conquer the whole of North India and drive and kill the North Indians , will you support such action logically, if you answer has the slightest shred of dismissal then you will sound like a bigot to the core.

So in your anology are the hezbollah south indians or north indians?

They are the opressed ones:roll:

[Akshay]

The perfect analogy would be something like this, tomorrow if south Indians claim that all the north India was being occupied by them before the Aryans came and if the south Indians go and conquer the whole of North India and drive and kill the North Indians , will you support such action logically, if you answer has the slightest shred of dismissal then you will sound like a bigot to the core.

So in your anology are the hezbollah south indians or north indians?

They are the opressed ones:roll:

who is opressed? israel or hezbollah or lebanese? opressed in what sense?

[akshay]

Fascist Hindu fundamentalists attack a 1 year old muslim pakistani boy....read read read before they kill him

Pak. baby becomes youngest liver transplant patient in country
New Delhi, Aug. 2 (PTI): A one-year-old Pakistani boy has become the youngest liver transplant recipient in the country after doctors here replaced his diseased organ with a healthy one donated by his grandmother.

Doctors at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital here conducted the operation on June 21 by cutting out 25 per cent of the left liver from Nasreen Fatima and transplanting it to her grandson, Sheryar.

Little Sheryar, born with Biliary Atresia, a condition in which the bile ducts of the liver are absent, was given only a few months more to live by doctors in his hometown of Karachi unless he underwent a transplant.

Announcing that the hospital is now conducting liver transplant for upto one-year-old patients, Dr B K Rao, Chairman of the Board of Management today said they have already conducted about 74 liver transplants, with a success rate of about 90 per cent.

Dr A S Soin, one of the doctors who conducted the surgery said there were many challenges faced by the team while undertaking the task.

"The blood vessels of the baby are very small, so we had to use magnification glasses to connect them. Also, the main artery was completely blocked due to the advanced stage of the disease," he said.

Since the baby was in a very serious condition, it took the hospital six weeks of intensive medical and nutritional care to prepare him for the eight hour-long surgery, said Dr Neelam Mohan, the hospital's Paediatric Liver Specialist.

[sreeakshay]

Fascist hindu police and justice system leave an innocent muslim no option but to turn violent....read read read before they kill him

Abu Salem challenges TADA court's order to separate his trial
Mumbai, Aug. 2 (PTI): The Bombay High Court today deferred till August 8 a petition filed by 1993 serial bomb blast accused Abu Salem challenging a TADA court's order to separate his trial from other accused.

Justice D G Deshpande and Justice S A Bobade adjourned the petition as the public prosecutor sought time to file a reply to Salem's petition.

Salem contended that separating his trial in the bomb blasts case from other accused would violate the agreement between the Portugal and Indian Governments under which he was extradited last year.

He contended that according to extradition conditions, he was to face the ongoing trial and not a fresh one.

Salem is one of the 123 accused in 1993 bomb blasts case.

Earlier, last month, the CBI urged the designated TADA Judge Pramod Kode to separate the trial of Salem and his associate Riyaz Siddiqi (who was also arrested recently) from the other accused, saying otherwise the entire trial would be delayed.

The TADA judge accepted the CBI plea and ordered separation of trial on June 13. In the main trial, Judge Kode will begin to deliver the judgment from August 10.

Salem, in his petition in the High Court, has also alleged some other violations of the extradition agreement. One of his contentions is that as per the agreement, he was to be sent back to India for standing trial, not for interrogation and fresh probe.

[Arch]

It looks middle east destined to be at war forever. There is a consistent opinion among arabs that Israel has occupied arab lands, however they seems to forget that Judaism existed much before.

ref: Considering the word "Jerusalem" existed for about 2,000 years prior to the birth of Islam, this is noteworthy.

"jerusalem was founded by King David on the former Jebusite city of Jebus about 3,300 years ago when he renamed it and gave it a Jewish character. Jerusalem has been both the political and spiritual capital of the Jewish people, the latter without interruption to the present through good and bad times.

Throughout the past 3,300 years Jerusalem has never been the capital of any other people, including the Arabs and Muslims"

http://www.israel-wat.com/jer_eng2.htm

The war which is fought on the existence of Israel has no basis.
Hence both sides should stop their terrorism and compromise for co-existence. It is time now that Middle east should adopt tolerance for other religions for betterment of their citizens. All faiths have right to exist. People should learn to live together otherwise it is doom.

Ah, CTC.. finally, a historical fact that has come out on these DB's. abt the existence of Israel since ages. So many issues fall into perspective, if the fact is accepted.

Yes, as you rightly said, all faiths have a right to exist and we need to learn to live together. NO single religion is above the others. and this is not in middle east alone anymore, CTC. This intolerance of other religions is spreading like wild fire and if it is not restrained atleast now, the fundamentalists will rule.

and is that scary or what !

The perfect analogy would be something like this, tomorrow if south Indians claim that all the north India was being occupied by them before the Aryans came and if the south Indians go and conquer the whole of North India and drive and kill the North Indians , will you support such action logically, if you answer has the slightest shred of dismissal then you will sound like a bigot to the core.

Happy cheerleading to the suffering and genocide of Lebanese, did you and your Hindutva elements throw a party to celebrate the death of innocents in Lebanon

wah, kya analogy hai ! anyways, it is one country, north and south, north indians are not kidnapping south indian soldiers, not threatening that they will wipe out the south from the map... if they do, ofcourse we will need to protect ourselves





BTW, lol, bigot ! ? (bigot: One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.) me !? pot calling the kettle black..



and reg we hindutva elements cheerleading and throwing a party: Nah! me and my supposed party: we arent even those who beat up the mutt-heads that burst firecrackers when India would loose against Pakistan in cricket matches. We just used to 'hurt' that these are our fellow Indians. Now, i feel sorry that we did not beat them up. sigh! we did not raise ourselves well.



If the ilks of you continue the way you had been doing: not even protesting when it happened in your own backyard (mumbai blasts), but you are outraged when you hear abt Lebanon or Palestine or even Pakistan(?) then, we will be certainly protecting ourselves, honey.. we will need to.



Hey, u guys! why dont you live a couple a months in one of these countries once in a while, maybe u'd kno the imp of ur own country-men and of your own country !

[Cragg]

Fascist Hindu fundamentalists attack a 1 year old muslim pakistani boy....read read read before they kill him

Pak. baby becomes youngest liver transplant patient in country
New Delhi, Aug. 2 (PTI): A one-year-old Pakistani boy has become the youngest liver transplant recipient in the country after doctors here replaced his diseased organ with a healthy one donated by his grandmother.

Doctors at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital here conducted the operation on June 21 by cutting out 25 per cent of the left liver from Nasreen Fatima and transplanting it to her grandson, Sheryar.

Little Sheryar, born with Biliary Atresia, a condition in which the bile ducts of the liver are absent, was given only a few months more to live by doctors in his hometown of Karachi unless he underwent a transplant.

Announcing that the hospital is now conducting liver transplant for upto one-year-old patients, Dr B K Rao, Chairman of the Board of Management today said they have already conducted about 74 liver transplants, with a success rate of about 90 per cent.

Dr A S Soin, one of the doctors who conducted the surgery said there were many challenges faced by the team while undertaking the task.

"The blood vessels of the baby are very small, so we had to use magnification glasses to connect them. Also, the main artery was completely blocked due to the advanced stage of the disease," he said.

Since the baby was in a very serious condition, it took the hospital six weeks of intensive medical and nutritional care to prepare him for the eight hour-long surgery, said Dr Neelam Mohan, the hospital's Paediatric Liver Specialist.

Anything for money(Laxmi)