News Speculation mounting of an attack on Iran

[vociferous]

"The Lebanese civilian death toll is difficult to pinpoint as most published figures do not distinguish between civilians and Hezbollah combatants, including those released by the Lebanese government.[11] In addition, Hezbollah fighters can be difficult to identify as many do not wear military uniforms.[11] However, it has been widely reported that the majority of the Lebanese killed were civilians, and UNICEF estimated that 30% of those killed were children under the age of 13.[147]"

This is from wikipedia. 30% being children under 13 seams kind of inhumane to me.

Do you think it is inhumane for Hezbollah to operate in areas where children are present? When the US, or the British, or the Canadian army is operating in a war zone, they typically try to avoid, if at all possible, setting up bases and centers of operation in populated areas.

I would even speculate that it is quite possible that Hezbollah forces may have operated out of areas where they knew there would be a lot of civilians present in order to dissuade Israel from attacking them and to ensure that they would cause a lot of civilian casualties if and when they did, kind of like how Saddam set up anti-aircraft weapons on hospitals, mosques, and other protected targets.

 

[seycyrus]

Hey Vanesch, sorry about not responding yesterday.

Like GWB's words concerning Iraq ? Come on. Iran's leaders are out to become a dominant regional power, and they will do and say anything which helps them - or which they think will help them in that respect.

It is the *do* part that worries me.

If I'm going to write that I'm going to blow up planet earth, then you're just listening to a lunatic talking. There is in that case absolutely no relationship between what I'm saying and what I could or would possibly do.

I believe a better example would be if you threatened to blow up a local school and began amassing massive amounts of fertilizer. All for gardening purposes of course.

The *tension* was of course genuine. However, we will never know what were the *real* intentions.

That was not the point I had brought up. I posited that the crisis had been averted because both sides treated the other side as if their announced intentions were real. Not because anyone acted like the other side was merely bluffing.

This is manifestly and utterly wrong. In fact, even at the end of WWII, the Soviets could *easily* have continued all the way to Spain. After the withdrawal of the bulk of American soldiers, the conventional force of the Western European countries was an order of magnitude below what the Soviets had ready on the other side of the iron curtain. They would have ran over Germany and France in a blink of an eye. It was the fear of a nuclear conflict which refrained them...

That same fear would not have been lessened if the soviets did not possesses nuclear weapons, it would have been increased by many orders of magnitude.

Perhaps my ambiguous use of the pronoun "it" is leading to confusion. I was referring to the fact that if the Soviets did not have a nuclear force and the west did, the soviets would have had to tread much more cautiously.

In the contact of this discussion, I am using it as an example of how the mere possession of a nuclear arsenal allows the possessor to become much more brazen.

I do not think that Iran become more brazen is a good thing.

I think they mean it to get nuclear weapons. I am sure they don't mean it to use them against Israel.

I am afraid of the other things that they will be able to do, simply because they have a nuclear arsenal.

The answer to that one is simple: "we are not responsible for all evil that happens throughout the world,...

And the answer to that is, just because you cannot stop al levil does not mean you should not try to stop the evil you can.

...
and after all, that wasn't such a bad thing, because now we got rid of Evil Iran too, which got blown up by Israelian bombs! Things calmed down a lot in the region since then."

This sounds like the sort of talk that gets attached to members of a certain political party.

 

[quadraphonics]

I would even speculate that it is quite possible that Hezbollah forces may have operated out of areas where they knew there would be a lot of civilians present in order to dissuade Israel from attacking them and to ensure that they would cause a lot of civilian casualties if and when they did, kind of like how Saddam set up anti-aircraft weapons on hospitals, mosques, and other protected targets.

You can do more than speculate: you can be absolutely sure that that's exactly what Hezbollah did. Using civilian areas for cover is a standard asymmetrical warfare technique, one that has been used consistently by every armed group in Lebanon for decades. This is also standard operating procedure for Hamas and many other groups in the region, and the rest of the world. Really, the only armed groups that *don't* routinely use civilians as human shields are large national military forces that have signed treaties pledging not to do so. It's dubious that groups like Hezbollah even recognize any distinction between civlians and soldiers in the first place, other than when producing propaganda after the fact. If they did they'd probably wear uniforms and make at least token efforts to avoid targetting enemy civilians and separate their own operations from Lebanese civilians.

 

[AhmedEzz]

Yes, Hezbollah used civilians as shields but the civilians are innocent and didn't do anything to be killed. I condemn this tactic from Hezbollah's part. Just as I condemn this:

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."

http://www.international.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=56096

I am not against Israel/Israelis but I'm against a lot of their actions. I believe there is equal blame on the two sides not just one side and I hope people don't think of me as simply anti-Israel because I'm not. Please consider my words and I will gladly reply to any questions. I gladly participate in these discussions because I think that this is the best to clear out misconceptions that we have about one another so I come here and talk broad-minded trying to tell and be told as well. I hope I did not give the wrong impression.

 

[Evo]

Any off topic posts will be deleted. Repeated violators will receive infractions. This thread is asking for opinions on Iran.

Closed pending moderation.