Israel

[Albert Tatlock]

Mr Tatlock. Are you seriously suggesting that Iraq didn't use WMD against the Iranians and the Kurds in Hallabja? Dear me, which planet are you on?

Halabja occurred in 1988. What WMD were found in 2003, or since (when WMD were used to justify the 2003 invasion to the UK population)?

 

Answer = None.

[P.K.]

Mr Tatlock. Are you seriously suggesting that Iraq didn't use WMD against the Iranians and the Kurds in Hallabja? Dear me, which planet are you on?

Halabja occurred in 1988. What WMD were found in 2003, or since (when WMD were used to justify the 2003 invasion to the UK population)?

 

Answer = None.

Errrr - so what?

 

It still amazes me that anti-war folks continue to cling to this "fact". I didn't expect them to find anything. What, as though they would leave it lying around or something? Here's a little challenge for you. How do you prove that someone does or does not have the knowledge to produce something like powder Mustard Gas or Tabun at short notice? And isn't it interesting how quickly the Iranians have moved forward in nuclear research?

 

It's as pathetic as the other "fact" they all cling to, the "forty minute" claim. It takes about forty minutes to prepare for use a battlefield binary weapon. It's common knowledge FFS!

 

I wonder if the IDF will take out the Iranian nuclear facilities? Iran and Syria have sponsored Hezbollah and probably stirred them into action so I guess it would serve them right.

[mollag]

Lest we forget when handing out white hats and black hats, why we are so hated and distrusted by the iraquis.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,...rticle_continue

 

Iraq is the product of a lying empire. The British carved it duplicitously from ancient history, thwarted Arab hopes, Ottoman loss, the dunes of Mesopotamia and the mountains of Kurdistan at the end of the first world war. Unsurprisingly, anarchy and insurrection were there from the start.

The British responded with gas attacks by the army in the south, bombing by the fledgling RAF in both north and south. When Iraqi tribes stood up for themselves, we unleashed the flying dogs of war to "police" them. Terror bombing, night bombing, heavy bombers, delayed action bombs (particularly lethal against children) were all developed during raids on mud, stone and reed villages during Britain's League of Nations' mandate. The mandate ended in 1932; the semi-colonial monarchy in 1958. But during the period of direct British rule, Iraq proved a useful testing ground for newly forged weapons of both limited and mass destruction, as well as new techniques for controlling imperial outposts and vassal states.

 

The RAF was first ordered to Iraq to quell Arab and Kurdish and Arab uprisings, to protect recently discovered oil reserves, to guard Jewish settlers in Palestine and to keep Turkey at bay. Some mission, yet it had already proved itself an effective imperial police force in both Afghanistan and Somaliland (today's Somalia) in 1919-20. British and US forces have been back regularly to bomb these hubs of recalcitrance ever since.

 

Winston Churchill, secretary of state for war and air, estimated that without the RAF, somewhere between 25,000 British and 80,000 Indian troops would be needed to control Iraq. Reliance on the airforce promised to cut these numbers to just 4,000 and 10,000. Churchill's confidence was soon repaid.

 

An uprising of more than 100,000 armed tribesmen against the British occupation swept through Iraq in the summer of 1920. In went the RAF. It flew missions totalling 4,008 hours, dropped 97 tons of bombs and fired 183,861 rounds for the loss of nine men killed, seven wounded and 11 aircraft destroyed behind rebel lines. The rebellion was thwarted, with nearly 9,000 Iraqis killed. Even so, concern was expressed in Westminster: the operation had cost more than the entire British-funded Arab rising against the Ottoman Empire in 1917-18.

 

The RAF was vindicated as British military expenditure in Iraq fell from £23m in 1921 to less than £4m five years later. This was despite the fact that the number of bombing raids increased after 1923 when Squadron Leader Arthur Harris - the future hammer of Hamburg and Dresden, whose statue stands in Fleet Street in London today - took command of 45 Squadron. Adding bomb-racks to Vickers Vernon troop car riers, Harris more or less invented the heavy bomber as well as night "terror" raids. Harris did not use gas himself - though the RAF had employed mustard gas against Bolshevik troops in 1919, while the army had gassed Iraqi rebels in 1920 "with excellent moral effect".

 

Churchill was particularly keen on chemical weapons, suggesting they be used "against recalcitrant Arabs as an experiment". He dismissed objections as "unreasonable". "I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes _ [to] spread a lively terror _" In today's terms, "the Arab" needed to be shocked and awed. A good gassing might well do the job.

 

 

And if time of use of WMD doesnt matter, let us not forget that only one country has used the atomic bomb, against civilian targets, in a country that could not retaliate in kind.

[Chinahand]

Here's a little challenge for you. How do you prove that someone does or does not have the knowledge to produce something like powder Mustard Gas or Tabun at short notice?

 

I don't quite get this. You are talking about the ability to produce militarily useful quantities of chemical weapons. This requires raw materials, equipment, weapons stores, converted shells etc etc etc.

 

That Sadam had knowledge is beyond doubt, but there simply isn't any evidence he had active programs to make the stuff, or the equipment, facilities or raw materials to make it.

 

That is the point. The UN concluded he had ended his programs, the US, UK disagreed, invaded and in the end have had to conclude Hans Blix et al were basically correct.

 

And isn't it interesting how quickly the Iranians have moved forward in nuclear research?

 

Are you seriously suggesting Iraq handed over their nuclear research to Iran ... that's about as realistic as George Bush having a technology agreement to give Bin Laden chemical weapons.

 

It's as pathetic as the other "fact" they all cling to, the "forty minute" claim. It takes about forty minutes to prepare for use a battlefield binary weapon. It's common knowledge FFS!

 

Yes it is, I agree with you that that is the reason it was in the dodgy dossier ... if he's got these types of weapons he can activate them quickly, but the issue is these were short range battlefield weapons, but after the 1st Iraq war Iraq didn't have any long range delivery systems to use them and so the headlines about attacking Cyprus were bolloxs, AND no binary weapons were ever found and there is no evidence he produced them .... THAT'S THE POINT ... the threat was exaggerated, and inaccurately reported.

[P.K.]

The point I was trying to make, obviously badly, is that you don't need a warehouse full of the stuff if you have the wherewithall to make as much as you want tomorrow. That nice Hans Blix reported that there was a chlorine plant in al-Fallujah that could just as easily turn out mustard gas. Which is why the stupid mantra chanted by the anti-war brigade "No WMD found in Iraq!" is about as relevant as they are.

 

As for binary weapons here is another little Hans Blix gem:

The nerve agent VX is one of the most toxic ever developed. Iraq has declared that it only produced VX on a pilot scale, just a few tons, and that the quality was poor and the product unstable.

 

Consequently, it was said that the agent was never weaponized.

 

Iraq said that the small quantity of [the] agent remaining after the Gulf War was unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991.

 

UNMOVIC, however, has information that conflicts with this account. There are indications that Iraq had worked on the problem of purity and stabilization and that more had been achieved than has been declared. Indeed, even one of the documents provided by Iraq indicates that the purity of the agent, at least in laboratory production, was higher than declared.

 

There are also indications that the agent was weaponized.

 

As for Iraq shipping their nuclear results to Iran, well "War makes strange bedfellows". Nobody likes Iran or Iraq but everybody hates America. So to me it's certainly possible.

 

Headlines about attacking Cyprus, dear me, surely nobody is stupid enough to believe anything they read in The Daily Mail.... And why would they attack Cyprus when they have Israel just down the way?

 

Saddam and his nasty regime had to go. To me it's that simple.

[joeyconcrete]

Four United Nations peacekeepers have been killed in an Israeli air strike on an observation post in southern Lebanon, the UN has said.

..

It said the four, from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, had taken shelter in a bunker under the post after it was earlier shelled 14 times by Israeli artillery.

 

A rescue team was also shelled as it tried to clear the rubble

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5215366.stm

[Albert Tatlock]

It still amazes me that anti-war folks continue to cling to this "fact".

I have spent more time serving the UK (The British Isles if you include the IOM) than you can imagine. I am an advocate of commonsense that's all, and old enough to see and remember just how cyclic Middle East violence has become, and sensible enough to analyse who is really causing the problems there. Interested enough to try and work out a solution, and not blind enough to not see how much bullshit the US and UK populations have been subjected to over the past five years by a right wing fanatical religeous leadership in the US.

 

You are clearly a FWit PK - that had you been born in Germany would have made a great concentration camp guard, or born in Israel, happy to just fire shells from gun number three from hill six into some distant village in Lebanon (where anything that moves is a legitimate target - Red Cross ambulances included). You are a grunt, an obeyer of illegitemate orders, and cannon fodder.

 

I suggest next time you make a cup of tea you try licking the kettle lead, in the slim hope that it might kick start your brain and you might start thinking for yourself. (No offensive intended of course!)

[P.K.]

I suggest next time you make a cup of tea you try licking the kettle lead, in the slim hope that it might kick start your brain and you might start thinking for yourself. (No offensive intended of course!)

It's too hot for tea....

 

This made me chuckle:

 

SO IF we’re now all Germans, it is entirely appropriate that the word of the day should be schadenfreude, defined by my dictionary as “a malicious satisfaction obtained from the misfortunes of others”.

 

The cause of this malevolent glee is the thought of a certain Omar Bakri sitting sweating on the quayside in Beirut while Israeli missiles rain down all about him. Bakri, of course, is the race-hate “preacher” who spent 20 years on the dole in this country while hailing terrorists as “magnificent martyrs” and praising those behind the 9/11 atrocities.

 

When he nipped off to Beirut to snap up a £150,000 luxury apartment (and where did that money come from?) the jug-eared and muddle-brained Charles Clarke had a moment of unusual sanity and banned him from ever returning. Bakri did a “not bovvered” and replied that he “never wanted to see the place again”.

 

Strange, then, that he should turn up amongst 2,000 British evacuees in the port on Thursday, trying to blag a place on board HMS Bulwark. Top marks to the embassy official who spotted him and promptly told him to clear off. Schadenfreude indeed.

[Rog]

Four United Nations peacekeepers have been killed in an Israeli air strike on an observation post in southern Lebanon, the UN has said.

..

It said the four, from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, had taken shelter in a bunker under the post after it was earlier shelled 14 times by Israeli artillery.

 

A rescue team was also shelled as it tried to clear the rubble

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5215366.stm

 

So a UN post was hit and (sadly) 4 UN observers were killed, and it IS sad.

 

What is also sad is the responses by that useless article Kofi Annan.

 

First off he accuses Israel of deliberately targeting the UN post and THEN calls for an enquiry to find out what happened.

 

The man is a fool.

 

Let’s just suppose that it WAS an Israeli bomb that hit the UN post, and it probably was and let’s put aside just why the UN observers were still there in the first place.

 

Why would the Israeli commander in the field give an order to take out a UN post?

 

The ONLY reason would be if the UN staff were acting as fire directors for hezb’allah. VERRRY unlikely that they would have been. Not inconceivable, just very unlikely.

 

So that leaves four options.

 

#1. A pilot “lost it” and went after every target of opportunity that he saw or thought to be a target of opportunity.

 

#2. Simple misidentification of a target. A pilot didn’t realise that he was about to hit a UN post.

 

#3. A miscalculation of system failure of a bomb.

 

#4 The deliberate involvement by hezb’allah either to cause the explosion and make it look as if it had been bombed OR that they used an “aliasing” device that redirected a ‘smart’ bomb away from its real target that had been identified by a laser designator and re-designated it against the UN post. These devises do exist.

 

What is for certain is that for people to simply accuse Israel as a state to deliberately attack a UN installation is beyond stupid.

[Albert Tatlock]

Four United Nations peacekeepers have been killed in an Israeli air strike on an observation post in southern Lebanon, the UN has said.

..

It said the four, from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, had taken shelter in a bunker under the post after it was earlier shelled 14 times by Israeli artillery.

 

A rescue team was also shelled as it tried to clear the rubble

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5215366.stm

 

So a UN post was hit and (sadly) 4 UN observers were killed, and it IS sad.

 

What is also sad is the responses by that useless article Kofi Annan.

 

First off he accuses Israel of deliberately targeting the UN post and THEN calls for an enquiry to find out what happened.

 

The man is a fool.

 

Let’s just suppose that it WAS an Israeli bomb that hit the UN post, and it probably was and let’s put aside just why the UN observers were still there in the first place.

 

Why would the Israeli commander in the field give an order to take out a UN post?

 

The ONLY reason would be if the UN staff were acting as fire directors for hezb’allah. VERRRY unlikely that they would have been. Not inconceivable, just very unlikely.

 

So that leaves four options.

 

#1. A pilot “lost it” and went after every target of opportunity that he saw or thought to be a target of opportunity.

 

#2. Simple misidentification of a target. A pilot didn’t realise that he was about to hit a UN post.

 

#3. A miscalculation of system failure of a bomb.

 

#4 The deliberate involvement by hezb’allah either to cause the explosion and make it look as if it had been bombed OR that they used an “aliasing” device that redirected a ‘smart’ bomb away from its real target that had been identified by a laser designator and re-designated it against the UN post. These devises do exist.

 

What is for certain is that for people to simply accuse Israel as a state to deliberately attack a UN installation is beyond stupid.

Please promise you'll eventually leave your brain to medical science Rog. There's stuff going on in there that'll keep scientists busy for years trying to understand.

[Amadeus]

Four United Nations peacekeepers have been killed in an Israeli air strike on an observation post in southern Lebanon, the UN has said.

..

It said the four, from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, had taken shelter in a bunker under the post after it was earlier shelled 14 times by Israeli artillery.

 

A rescue team was also shelled as it tried to clear the rubble

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5215366.stm

 

So a UN post was hit and (sadly) 4 UN observers were killed, and it IS sad.......etc

TBH, they are hard to tell apart, aren't they? UN? Hezbollah? UN?

 

 

Especially in times of 21st century warfare and all the high tech equipment involved - you could definitely be excused for 'accidentally' shelling the same place 14 times...

 

Either the Israeli army is

 

a: exceptionally stupid or blind

b: up to no good

c: using American equipment, which either totally malfunctioned or they just couldn't read the intructions - not sure: does Lockheed Martin do manuals in Hebrew?

 

Either way, not good and it won't do Israel any favours....

[P.K.]

TBH, they are hard to tell apart, aren't they? UN? Hezbollah? UN?

The four, from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, had taken shelter in a bunker under the post after it was earlier shelled 14 times by Israeli artillery.

I guess the Israelis forgot to use their "Look Underground" optics....

 

They were in an OP in an area under attack. I should imagine the IDF thought it was being used by Hezbollah as they wouldn't want the associated bad pr. I'm sorry the four were killed but in a war shit happens.

[Amadeus]

I guess the Israelis forgot to use their "Look Underground" optics....

 

They were in an OP in an area under attack. I should imagine the IDF thought it was being used by Hezbollah as they wouldn't want the associated bad pr. I'm sorry the four were killed but in a war shit happens.

 

"This coordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long-established and clearly marked U.N. post at Khiyam occurred despite personal assurances given to me by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that U.N. positions would be spared Israeli fire," he said in a statement. CNN

 

Someone really fucked up, it seems....

[Chinahand]

This is how China Daily the official english language newspaper of the Comunist Party of China reported the attack on the UN outpost with a Chinese observer being killed: CLICKY.

 

Its interesting how China has become more involved intenationally and hence has its servicemen more at risk world wide. Israel will have to be careful in how it deals with the apologies/investigation, it really shouldn't piss China off!

 

The article has also got quotes from Hezbollah admiting they miscalculated when they launched the raid in the first place. Interesting!

 

Mahmoud Komati, deputy chief of the Hezbollah's political arm said Tuesday the guerrillas did not expect Israel to react with an all-out offensive after the capture of two soldiers, the first acknowledgment by the group that it had miscalculated the consequences of the raid two weeks ago.

 

In separate remarks early Wednesday, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah defiantly vowed his fighters would begin firing rockets deeper into Israel, beyond the northern port of Haifa.

 

"The truth is, let me say this clearly, we didn't even expect (this) response ... that (Israel) would exploit this operation for this big war against us," said Komati.

 

He said Hezbollah had expected "the usual, limited response" from Israel after the two soldiers were seized by guerrillas on Israel's side of the border on July 12.

 

In the past, he said, Israeli responses to Hezbollah actions included sending commandos into Lebanon, seizing Hezbollah officials and briefly targeting specific strongholds in southern Lebanon.

 

Komati said his group had anticipated negotiations to swap the Israeli soldiers for three Lebanese held in Israeli jails, with Germany acting as a mediator as it has in past prisoner exchanges.

 

In a speech broadcast on Hezbollah's al-Manar television, Nasrallah urged his people to be patient, apparently counting on growing international anger at the Israeli offensive in which hundreds of Lebanese have died.

[Ringwraith]

Four United Nations peacekeepers have been killed in an Israeli air strike on an observation post in southern Lebanon, the UN has said.

..

It said the four, from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, had taken shelter in a bunker under the post after it was earlier shelled 14 times by Israeli artillery.

 

A rescue team was also shelled as it tried to clear the rubble

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5215366.stm

 

So a UN post was hit and (sadly) 4 UN observers were killed, and it IS sad.

 

What is also sad is the responses by that useless article Kofi Annan.

 

First off he accuses Israel of deliberately targeting the UN post and THEN calls for an enquiry to find out what happened.

 

The man is a fool.

 

Let’s just suppose that it WAS an Israeli bomb that hit the UN post, and it probably was and let’s put aside just why the UN observers were still there in the first place.

 

Why would the Israeli commander in the field give an order to take out a UN post?

 

The ONLY reason would be if the UN staff were acting as fire directors for hezb’allah. VERRRY unlikely that they would have been. Not inconceivable, just very unlikely.

 

So that leaves four options.

 

#1. A pilot “lost it” and went after every target of opportunity that he saw or thought to be a target of opportunity.

 

#2. Simple misidentification of a target. A pilot didn’t realise that he was about to hit a UN post.

 

#3. A miscalculation of system failure of a bomb.

 

#4 The deliberate involvement by hezb’allah either to cause the explosion and make it look as if it had been bombed OR that they used an “aliasing” device that redirected a ‘smart’ bomb away from its real target that had been identified by a laser designator and re-designated it against the UN post. These devises do exist.

 

What is for certain is that for people to simply accuse Israel as a state to deliberately attack a UN installation is beyond stupid.

 

 

Astonishing! The Rabid Rabbi strikes again.