What's happening in Lebanon

[stephen]

[quote name='Jeff' post='1032185' date='Jul 27 2006, 05:35 PM']
stephen,
The Jews let Muslims "live in the Holy Land", as well as Christians and other religious minorities. [/quote]

This is a half truth.

The Israelis have laws and policies which discriminate against non-"Jews." Indeed they make life very difficult for Christians and Muslims which is why the Christian population in the area has dropped very significantly and the Muslim population to a lesser degree.

And Biblically speaking, the "Jews" have no right to return to the land of Palestine in the first place.

[quote name='Jeff' post='1032185' date='Jul 27 2006, 05:35 PM']That's why a Muslim temple still stands where the temple of Solomon used to stand. [/quote]

You apparently seem to believe that the Israelis would be well with their right to destroy the al-Aqsa Mosque or the Church of the Nativity. If I'm correct in assuming that, then I must point out that's not the case.

[quote name='Jeff' post='1032185' date='Jul 27 2006, 05:35 PM']Unfortunately the Muslims want to "drive the Jews into the sea". [/quote]

Some of them do. And many "Jews" want to annihilate all Arabs and take their land.


[quote name='Jeff' post='1032185' date='Jul 27 2006, 05:35 PM']If the Muslims succeed, they won't stop at the Jews. Remember,
"When they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out."[/quote]

Yes, well it seems that "they've" come for the Arabs, doesn't it? And who's speaking out for them?

[quote name='Jeff' post='1032185' date='Jul 27 2006, 05:35 PM']If they succeed in routing the Jews from Israel, don't you see that they'll come after the Christians next. They have no concept of religious freedom.[/quote]

This is nonsense. Muslims have lived peacefully alongside both Christians and Jews for centuries at a time. You cannot conflate the radicalized version of Islam that was born out of decades of persecution and injustice with Islam in general. Furthermore, a stronger case can easily be made for the intolerance of rabbinic Judaism of other religions--particularly Christianity--than Islam.


[quote name='Jeff' post='1032185' date='Jul 27 2006, 05:35 PM']Israel is Americas only ally in that entire region. [/quote]

That's a Zionist lie. For instance, Lebanon [i]was[/i] an ally of the US, but I fear that our "ally Israel" has destroyed that relationship along with the infrastructure of Lebanon.

If the Zionists have their way, the US will have no other allies other than the UK government, but certainly not the UK population who hate the US. I fear the Zionists may have accomplished their goal with this latest barbarous action.

[quote name='Jeff' post='1032185' date='Jul 27 2006, 05:35 PM']Supporting Israel isn't just the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do. [/quote]

That slogan is insane. The US has never been more hated, not only by Arab nations, but by all of the nations of the world since it has become a proxy of the Zionist state with all of it's injustices.

[quote name='Jeff' post='1032185' date='Jul 27 2006, 05:35 PM']At a time when Muslims are bringing their "jihad" to our shores we need an ally in that reason.

The enemies of Israel are the enemies of America. [/quote]

Then it stands to reason that the US would have a lot less enemies if it stopped supporting the Zionist state's wars on it's neighbors.

[quote name='Jeff' post='1032185' date='Jul 27 2006, 05:35 PM']What, exactly, do you propose?
[/quote]

That the seditious Israeli firsters be removed from any position of power in the US. That the US stop supplying the Zionist state with weapons, and for the Zionist state to come into compliance with the mountain of UN resolutions against it. That's enough to begin with.

Edited July 28, 2006 by stephen

[Anomaly]

There's a great American song that has a line:
"Don't tug on Superman's cape.
Don't spit into the wind.
Don't pull the mask off of the ol' Lone Ranger,
And don't mess around with Slim."

There is also another saying:
"Don't let your mouth write a check that your "butt" can't cash."

[stephen]

[size=4][b]LEBANON: An estimated 800,000 people uprooted by attacks, says Lebanese body[/b][/size]

BEIRUT, 26 July (IRIN) - An estimated 800,000 people have been affected in Lebanon by the current crisis, with hundreds of thousands forced to leave their homes, according to the Lebanese Higher Relief Council established by the Lebanese government to deal with the crisis.

A spokeswoman for the Council, Mouna Souccarieh, told IRIN on Wednesday that some 100,000 were foreigners who were evacuated, including some Lebanese with dual nationality. Around 150,000 more people, mainly Syrian, Lebanese and other foreigners, crossed the border into Syria since the Israeli attacks began on 12 July, she said.

According to Souccarieh, an estimated 550,000 people have been displaced inside the country of which 106, 780 are staying in government schools and buildings. She said the rest were staying with relatives, or renting houses or paying for rooms in hotels.

Most of the internally displaced are said to be Lebanese, but there are also about 20,000 third country nationals, and some 1,000 displaced Palestinians.

While there is no complete breakdown of the areas in which the internally displaced are living, figures available suggest 32, 465 are in Beirut; 42, 271 in Mount Lebanon; 3,370 in north Lebanon; 24, 151 in southern Lebanon and 4,523 in the eastern Bekaa Valley.

The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) spokesman in Beirut, Hicham Hassan, told IRIN on Wednesday that many families in the southern cities and towns of Tyre (70 km from Beirut), Bint Jbeil (80 km from Beirut) and Marjeyoun (55 km from Beirut) were still besieged in their houses.

There has been heavy fighting between Israeli and Hizbullah forces in Bint Jbeil, a Hizbullah stronghold close to the Israeli border.

"Some of them haven't seen the sunlight for more than 13 days, and they don't even know what happened to their closest neighbours," he said. "So far we have sent four convoys to Tyre and one to Marjeyoun. That was the first time they saw people from out of town," he added.

Hassan also said these southern towns were suffering from shortages of medical supplies and food. "The convoys we sent distributed some of those supplies and we made quick assessment on the ground to find out what the needs were".

The ICRC in Lebanon is expected to release an evaluation report on the humanitarian situation in the south.

[url="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/b1f4201554fc1513133f1428a52b82d4.htm"]http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/I...428a52b82d4.htm[/url]





[quote name='Anomaly' post='1032260' date='Jul 27 2006, 08:02 PM']
There's a great American song that has a line:
"Don't tug on Superman's cape.
Don't spit into the wind.
Don't pull the mask off of the ol' Lone Ranger,
And don't mess around with Slim."

There is also another saying:
"Don't let your mouth write a check that your "butt" can't cash."
[/quote]

Yes, the law of the jungle. That's what it's come to.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I only hope that they are not representative of all Americans.

Edited July 28, 2006 by stephen

[Anomaly]

Way to go about it without reason.

Why pursue a violent solution when it cannot resolve anything? The only reason is because hatred or stupidity blinds one to reason. The mouse does not attack the hawk because the hawk feeds on it. The mouse instead develops quick moves, a sharp eye, and avoids pitting paw against talon.

[hierochloe]

Mmmm I was waiting for this thread to appear. I think this entire issue can be summed up nicely in two points:

1) The day that Hizzbolah/Hamas love their children more than they hate Israel, there will be peace.

2) If Hizzbolah/Hamas were to cease hostilities to Israel, the violence would end tomorrow. Yet if the Israelis were to do it, it would bring about the second holocaust.

Hizbollah has every opportunity to end the violence, while if Israel ceases hostility it continues to get screwed. Screw or be screwed. I would expect my own country to respond no differently should anyone (Mexico for example) pull some dumb stunt like that, kidnapping people and firing rockets into border towns. I hope the Israeli army shoots every one of these idiots, Lord have mercy.

Who started it? Go back to Balfour? OK, Israel is the initial aggressor and should move out or something? If so, using that logic, everyone of european descent in north america is obligated to give up all their land to the natives and shove off. Not to mention fund the exodus of blacks back to africa. Good grief. Let's live in reality.

[stephen]

[size=3][b]Lebanon: Catholic Action Needed[/b] [/size]

By John Grasmeier
July, 2006


[i]"For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places." - St. Paul to the Ephesians [/i]

The situation as it stands now

Lebanon is a country that was just beginning to recover from decades of suffering and civil war. Tourism, commerce and industry had finally begun to return to a war-ravaged nation. Instead of constant suffering and war, peace and relative security was beginning to gain a marked toe-hold.

After only a few weeks time, the dream of Lebanon's recovery has come to an abrupt and very tragic halt.

After Hezbollah guerillas captured 2 Israeli soldiers in an ambush, Israel implemented a pre-planned “plug and play” military operation that is now destroying crucial infrastructure and wreaking unholy havoc on a helpless and lamenting civilian population. In a virtual instant, dreams of any recovery have been dashed for now and for years to come.

As of the time of this article, hundreds of civilians have been killed - mostly women and children - while few Hezbollah guerilla (the supposed targets) deaths have been recorded. Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese are without homes. Thousands have been injured and nearly all business activity has ground to a halt. Transportation assets and housing has been reduced to rubble. What was once a recovering and modernizing society in the mostly devolved Middle East has been set back decades. In fact it may not recover at all. Even if Lebanon were rebuilt tomorrow (as opposed to taking many years), tourists will no longer see it as a travel destination and foreigners will be loathe to invest in its economy.

What a fine catastrophe to be created over two captured soldiers.

[b]Holy Mother Church in Lebanon [/b]

Although it goes without saying that properly formed Catholics are always prayerful and concerned with such grave matters as war and human suffering, such a situation would not under normal circumstances be specifically to related to the faith or dealt with directly by most Catholic media outlets such as this one.

These however, are not normal circumstances.

[b]Lebanon is the absolute last nation in the Mideast where there still exists substantial Christian population, or what’s left of one. Approximately 36% of Lebanese citizens are Maronite Eastern rite Catholics. If Lebanon continues to be destabilized or devolves into further chaos, there exists the distinct possibility that the Christians living there will once again begin to flee en masse, as they did during the scourging of previous tribulations when their numbers comprised over 80% of the population. We should be ever mindful that once this final bastion of Catholicism is vanquished, the Middle East will then (save for a few tiny remnants) be tragically devoid of any noticeable Catholic or even Christian society.[/b]

Our Holy Father, through communications released by the Holy See, has properly expressed righteous indignation over this human tragedy. All good Catholics should share his outrage, and thus far most have. Traditional, contemporary, Orthodox and other Catholic websites and publications have realized that our Eastern brethren and their families, who are mere victims trapped in this enormous tragedy, need our avocations, our support and our prayers.

Although many of us are Western Catholics who generally tend to hold many conservative political views (as does this author), you should not succumb to the prevalent groupthink that is currently infecting the “Israel can do no wrong” American/Western right. This flawed and dangerous mindset is being driven by factions that possess varying motivational inspirations, but shared goals. Two of the more prominent of these factions that immediately come to mind are the neoconservatives (who have largely hijacked and debilitated Western conservatism) and dispensational Protestants who adhere to the theologically absurd “rapture” heresy. Know that the neoconservatives are not your friends, and that the dispensational Protestant lemmings (and useful idiots of the Israelis) would madly have a human disaster beyond all comprehension if they – God forbid – ever were to achieve their “end is nigh” unholy dream.

Although taking a proper Catholic position may cause us become somewhat isolated from many of our otherwise political and functional alliances, we are called first to engage the world as members of Christ's universal Church. This is not optional or voluntary. We are compelled by our faith to propagate Christian ideals, speak to injustice and condemn evil regardless of any worldly concerns or potential condemnations. Our faith is sacrificial by its very nature, and has been since its inception when Our Lord died on the cross.

What can be done?

Catholics are historicly a creative and dynamic bunch, who certainly don't need to rely on an article such as this for ideas to affect change. That being said, here are just a few suggestions:

· As our Holy Father recently implored, we must sacrifice, fast and pray not only for the victims, but for their "know not" victimizers as well.

· One of the first casualties of war is truth, so become well informed. Do not believe everything you're told by the media.

· If you're a writer, you should write. Bloggers should blog, speakers should speak and preachers should preach. We must gently but firmly insist to others that there is nothing goodly or Godly about the current evil metastasizing in Lebanon.

· If you have the means and you'd like to contribute financially to help ameliorate the human suffering in Lebanon, the Vatican website(

[url="http://vatican.mondosearch.com/cgi-bin/MsmGo.exe?grab_id=0&page_id=59795&query=lebanon&SCOPE=EnglishUI&hiword=lebanon%20"]http://vatican.mondosearch.com/cgi-bin/Msm...word=lebanon%20[/url] ) has set up a fund to accommodate such.

· If you are in a leadership position or have some other type of influence, use it. If you're a Catholic politician, do not follow the shameful example of some of your counterparts, who are too fearful, compromised or ignorant to speak out against clear evil. Do not throw your lot in with your spiritually-vacant and faithless colleagues such as Rick Santorum, who while attending a "Christians United For Israel" (CUFI) event threw his full support behind Israel's wrathful temper tantrum while standing under a giant ceiling to floor Israeli flag. If you are a politician or leader who is unwilling to work towards bringing about a providential solution to this horror, then please just keep quiet. Uselessness or weakness is preferential to sinfully exacerbating an already bad situation.

· If you are none of the above and all you have to offer is prayer, then please pray - and pray hard. Our Lord answers the righteous prayers of His children.

· Come together. Although we often argue amongst ourselves and our faith cuts across many walks of life, there certain times when we truly must be as universal and one as possible.


Whatever you do, don't just stand there looking uncatechized. Our Lord, Holy Mother Church, the world and most particularly our Catholic brothers and sisters in Lebanon need your help.

Edited July 28, 2006 by stephen

[KnightofChrist]

From LittleGreenfootballs.com

[quote]From the UN’s own press releases:

[url="http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/pr08.pdf"]http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/pr08.pdf[/url]

[quote]One unarmed UN military observer, a member of the Observer Group Lebanon (OGL), was seriously wounded by small arms fire in the patrol base in the Marun Al Ras area yesterday afternoon. According to preliminary reports, the fire originated from the Hezbollah side during an exchange with the IDF. He was evacuated by the UN to the Israeli side, from where he was taken by an IDF ambulance helicopter to a hospital in Haifa. He was operated on, and his condition is now reported as stable.[/quote]

Notice: in this instance, the UN observer was injured badly enough to be evacuated to an Israeli hospital. <em>Where they saved his life.

Not a word of condemnation from Kofi Annan for Hizballah. And not a word of gratitude for Israel, for saving a UN peacekeeper’s life.

[url="http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/pr09.pdf"]http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/pr09.pdf[/url]

[quote]This morning, Hezbollah opened small arms fire at a UNIFIL convoy consisting of two armored personnel carriers (APC) on the road between Kunin and Bint Jubayl. There was some damage to the APCs, but no casualties, and the convoy was obliged to return to Kunin.[/quote][/quote]

[url="http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/2006/inside_hizballah/"]Inside Hizballah[/url]

[img]http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/pictures/20060724TyreLebanonTIME01.jpg[/img]

The return of Nazis?

From LittleGreenFootballs.com

[quote][b]CNN’s senior international correspondent Nic Robertson admitted on Sunday that his anti-Israel report on civilian casualties in Lebanon was stage-managed from start to finish by Hizballah terrorists: CNN’s Robertson Now Admits: Hezbollah ‘Had Control’ of His Anti-Israel Piece.
[/b]
[quote]Back on July 18, Hezbollah took Robertson and his crew on a tour of a heavily damaged south Beirut neighborhood. The Hezbollah “press officer” even instructed the CNN camera: “Just look. Shoot. Look at this building. Is it a military base? Is it a military base, or just civilians living in this building?”

In his original story, Robertson had no complaints about the journalistic limitations of a story put together under such tight controls, and Robertson himself at one point seemed to agree with the Hezbollah propaganda claim that Israeli jets had targeted a civilian area: “As we run past the rubble, we see much that points to civilian life, no evidence apparent of military equipment.”

Challenged by Reliable Sources host (and Washington Post media writer) Howard Kurtz on Sunday, Robertson suggested Hezbollah has “very, very sophisticated and slick media operations,” that the terrorist group “had control of the situation. They designated the places that we went to, and we certainly didn’t have time to go into the houses or lift up the rubble to see what was underneath,” and he even contradicted Hezbollah’s self-serving spin: “There’s no doubt that the [Israeli] bombs there are hitting Hezbollah facilities.”

But the closest Robertson came to making any of these points in the taped package that aired last week was admitting that “we [he and his CNN crew] didn’t go burrowing into all the houses,” after pointing out (for the second time) that “we didn’t see any military type of equipment” in the area Hezbollah chose to let them tour.[/quote][/quote]

[img]http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/pictures/06.07.25.CowardlyBlend-X.gif[/img]

[quote][b]Kofi Annan Could Have Ordered Peacekeepers to Leave[/b]

Haifa, Israel (CNSNews.com) - The four United Nations peacekeepers killed in an Israeli attack on their outpost were required to stay at that post “until they were ordered by the [U.N.] secretary general to withdraw,” said a member of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization on Wednesday.

But the peacekeepers apparently never received such an order, despite the fierce cross-border fighting that erupted in southern Lebanon two weeks ago.[/quote]

[quote][b]Hizballah Fired from or very near UN Positions[/b]

[url="http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/pr010.pdf"]UNIFIL press release[/url]

Another UN position of the Ghanaian battalion in the area of Marwahin in the western sector was also directly hit by one mortar round from the Hezbollah side last night. The round did not explode, and there were no casualties or material damage. Another 5 incidents of firing close to UN positions from the Israeli side were reported yesterday. It was also reported that Hezbollah fired from the vicinity of four UN positions at Alma ash Shab, Tibnin, Brashit, and At Tiri. All UNIFIL positions remain occupied and maintained by the troops.[/quote]

From LittleGreenFootballs.com

[quote][b]Canadian General: [size=5]UN Observer Post Used By Hizballah[/size][/b]

Retired Canadian Major General Lewis Mackenzie was interviewed on CBC radio, and had some very interesting news about the UN observer post hit by Israeli shells; the Canadian peacekeeper killed there had previously emailed Mackenzie telling him that Hizballah was using their post as cover. (Hat tip: Isadore.)

The entire interview is a breath of fresh air:

[quote]We received emails from him a few days ago, and he was describing the fact that he was taking fire within, in one case, three meters of his position for tactical necessity, not being targeted. Now that’s veiled speech in the military. What he was telling us was Hezbollah soldiers were all over his position and the IDF were targeting them. And that’s a favorite trick by people who don’t have representation in the UN. They use the UN as shields knowing that they can’t be punished for it.[/quote][/quote]

Hear the audio [url="http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=21786_Canadian_General-_UN_Observer_Post_Used_By_Hizballah&only"]here.[/url]

[quote][size=4]Why the UN post was bombed[/size]
By Andrew Bolt
Thursday, July 27, 2006 at 09:22am

[img]http://www.cjnews.com/photos/aug15/flags.jpg[/img]
Kissing cousins: The UN and Hezbollah flags fly side by side at the UN observer post. (Pic thanks to Michelle Malkin)

The lynching of Israel continues, this time with United Nations boss Kofi Annan accusing it of the “apparently deliberate targetting” of a UN observation post, killing four observers.

The usual suspects are now running with this line, with The Age front page screaming: “UN told: please explain.’’

The venom against Israel - as splashed about by former Deputy Prime Minsiter Tim Fischer on ABC 774 this morning - is extraordinary. Do these people seriously think Israel aims to kill UN staff, and that this was not simply - as Israel insists - a tragic mistake?

What makes Annan’s allegation so unforgiveable is that his UN Interim Force in Lebanon has been warning for days about what almost certainly caused this tragedy. Hezbollah fighters, who have already been firing behind screens of women and children, have also been shooting from behind and next to the UN positions, presumably hoping Israel will not dare shoot back and risk exactly this kind of propaganda disaster.

Read the UNIFIL press releases for yourself to learn that Hezbollah has not just shot at and seriously wounded UNIFIL observers - without any protest from Kofi Annan or The Age. You’ll also learn that UNIFIL has repeatedly reported Israeli shelling and bombing near UNIFIL outposts because Hezbollah fighters were shooting from right beside them .

Says the UNIFIL press release of 20 July:

Hezbollah firing was also reported from the immediate vicinity of the UN positions in Naquora and Maroun Al Ras areas at the time of the incidents (of Israeli return fire).

Can the jeering critics of Israel stop catcalling for a minute and explain how Israel is to defend itself against an enemy that shoots from among women and children, and from behind UN soldiers? Can they explain why they are such apologists for terrorists? Can Annan explain why he did not call on Hezbollah to stop risking the lives of his staff, or pull them out when they were being used to screen terrorist fighters?

UPDATE 1: More evidence. Retired Canadian Major General Lewis Mackenzie says he recently received emails from the Canadian peacekeeper killed at the UN post who’d told him that Hezbollah was using his post as cover.

We received emails from him a few days ago, and he was describing the fact that he was taking fire within, in one case, three meters of his position for tactical necessity, not being targeted. Now that’s veiled speech in the military. What he was telling us was Hezbollah soldiers were all over his position and the IDF were targeting them. And that’s a favorite trick by people who don’t have representation in the UN. They use the UN as shields knowing that they can’t be punished for it.

(Thanks to Little Green Footballs)

UPDATE 2: Canada’s prime minister Steven Harper also makes sense:

Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper said an Israeli attack on a UN outpost that killed four, including a Canadian, was a “terrible tragedy” but not likely deliberate.

At the same time, he questioned why the UN had manned the outpost in Lebanon near the Israeli border as bombs exploded all around.

“We want to find out why this United Nations post was attacked and also why it remained manned during what is now, more or less, a war during obvious danger to these individuals,” he told reporters.

UPDATE 3: Hezbollah is listed here and in the US and Canada as a terrorist group. Yet The Age today gave one of its spokesmen, Ali Fayyad, a senior member of Hezbollah’s executive committee, a quarter of a page to put his case against Israel. Am I alone in finding this shameful? I guess the paper at least “balanced” it by running alongside it a piece by an Israeli minister. Can someone older than I tell me if it was the habit of The Age in World War 2 to run pieces by Mr Hitler alongside ones by some Jewish spokesman not yet dead for the sake of a “balanced” argument? We can’t be far from the day that The Age hires Mr Osama bin Laden as a columnist. When Michael Leunig retires, perhaps?
Have Your Say[/quote]

[quote]Who’s Dissin’ Whom
There’s a disproportionate response all right.

By Claudia Rosett



As Israel fights to defend itself against the Iranian-and-Syrian-backed terrorists of Hezbollah, are we really seeing a reckless, damaging and — yes — disproportionate response?

You bet. But not from Israel. It’s coming from the U.N.


Hezbollah deliberately provoked this war on July 12 by kidnapping Israeli soldiers inside Israel’s borders, and has been launching rockets into Israel from a massive arsenal that under U.N. writ Hezbollah is not even supposed to possess. That was not the deal under which Israel, in keeping with U.N. wishes, withdrew entirely from southern Lebanon in 2000. The U.N. promise was that Hezbollah would be defanged and that U.N. peacekeepers would help the Lebanese government reestablish control over Hezbollah-infested terrain inside Lebanon.

Over the past six years, Israel honored its commitment to peace. The U.N. — disproportionately — required in practice no such compliance on the Lebanese side of the border. The “peacekeepers” of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, called UNIFIL, sat passively looking on, costing about $100 million a year and doing nothing to stop Hezbollah from trucking in weapons, digging tunnels, and running the armed protection rackets with which it has kept a grip on swathes of Lebanon, including the southern border with Israel, parts of the Bekaa, and southern Beirut. Before the current fighting, UNIFIL had most recently distinguished itself for a run-of-the-U.N.-mill financial swindle involving a contingent of Ukrainian peacekeeping troops. On that subject, whatever laws might have been violated, the U.N. has — as usual with U.N. scams — refused to release details. Now, UNIFIL peacekeepers have been reduced to casualties of the crossfire, while Secretary-General Kofi Annan urges that we take what the U.N. has done wrong already, and do more of it.

With its false promises, and disproportionate deals for “peace,” the U.N. left Israel exposed to the attack that has now come, and a war that Israel did not seek. Like America when attacked by al Qaeda, Israel has been fighting back. In response, U.N. officials have come close to trampling each other in their stampede to the media microphones — not to admit the U.N.’s own failure to stop Hezbollah, not to apologize for administering a phony peace that incubated this miserable war, but to denounce Israel.

These latest exercises in disproportion begin, of course, with U.N. officials ritually condemning all parties. With that sleight of hand, they conjure the baseline U.N. fallacy known as moral equivalence. In that U.N. scheme of the universe, a democratic society that is attacked while honoring U.N. agreements is treated as no different from its death-cult rule-violating terrorist attackers. But — and here we get to the U.N.’s real dark arts — having set up that bizarre equation, U.N. officials then proceed with their “proportionate” calculus, lavishing their further innuendos, sly criticisms, or, in some cases, outright denunciations on Israel. These comments — biased or even inane though some of them are — echo especially loud in the so-called international community because they come from officials flashing a U.N. badge.

Thus did we get last week’s Pollyanna platitudes from U.N. Deputy-Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown, who on the subject of this Hezbollah-propelled war opined that “military solutions” — an apparent allusion to Israel — are not the answer. “The basic point,” said Malloch Brown, is that “saving or losing a life is a very simple business”

Perhaps that is how the world looks from the tree-shaded lawns of the George Soros estate, where Malloch Brown rents a $10,000 per month home. But the saving of lives is anything but simple in the face of a Lebanese landscape infested with Hezbollah terrorists using Lebanese civilians — innocent or otherwise — as shields to launch death-dealing attacks on Israel. It is even less simple when you consider that Hezbollah has for years been on the receiving end of a Syrian-Iranian Ho Chi Minh trail of money and munitions which the U.N. — despite its resolutions and resources devoted in theory to “peace” — has done nothing in practice to block. And it all gets most terrifyingly un-simple when you take into account that Hezbollah, which among its assorted brutalities has killed more Americans than any terrorist group except al Qaeda, is the Lebanon-based arm of a nuclear-bomb-seeking Iran, which the U.N. has also failed to stop, and whose president has vowed to annihilate Israel. At the very least, one has to wonder if Malloch Brown would take the same Bambi-eyed view were Hezbollah rocketing his local tennis courts.

Following the words of Malloch Brown, we have been treated over the past week to Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemning Israel for “excessive use of force,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour hinting darkly about “war crimes,” and the accusations this past weekend of U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator Jan Egeland about “violation of humanitarian law.”

The issue here is not, in fact, what yardsticks these people are using — though that is quite problematic enough — but that they are abusing their U.N. positions by making these selective, ad hoc accusations against Israel in the first place. These folks are not presidents, or prime ministers. They are U.N. civil servants. Even Kofi Annan, who fancies himself, by his own description, to be “perhaps chief diplomat of the world,” is actually under the U.N. charter mandated to be nothing more than the organization’s “chief administrative officer.” (When trying to duck the blame for the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal, Annan was quick enough to deny not only any policy role, but even his clear administrative responsibilities).

In the case of Arbour, and her threats aimed at Israelis, Ambassador John Bolton had a very good point when he offered a reminder last weekend to the U.N. High Commissioner, as “one lawyer to another,” that “In America, prosecutors are not supposed to threaten people in public based on press accounts.”

In the case of Jan Egeland, his job is to coordinate aid, not make selective pronouncements on the fly about humanitarian law. (This is the same Jan Egeland who immediately after the 2004 tsunami took it upon himself to publicly insult U.N. member states, including the U.S. — mainstay of the bloated U.N. budget — for being “stingy”). Among other things, it was apparently lost on Egeland, when he toured the bomb damage in south Beirut last weekend, that his convoy was waved past a road block by “a Hezbollah guard dressed in black and armed with an assault rifle,” according to a Reuters report. That scene right there was a violation of everything in the U.N. book, and not by Israel — but apparently it didn’t fit his script.

There are of course some subjects on which the same senior U.N. civil servants now so vocal have been most disproportionately circumspect. I can’t recall any of them protesting in public that totalitarian, terrorist-sponsoring Syria (surely something in there is a violation of international law?) was allowed not so long ago to chair the U.N. Security Council, while democratic Israel has been chronically shunned.

And when operations of the U.N. itself have come under the spotlight in recent years, in some cases for behavior as egregious as pedophiliac rape by peacekeepers, or complicity in the kickback rackets of Saddam Hussein, Kofi Annan, and his entourage have rushed to impose the omerta in-house, while urging the rest of us to wait upon due process, refrain from rash comments, consider the larger picture — and preferably just shut up and forget about it.

If Annan and his retinue feel a desperate need during this current crisis to express themselves, perhaps they should channel it into actually delivering some of that transparency they’ve been promising in their own operations. That would be good preparation in the event the U.N. Security Council decides, say, to impose sanctions on Iran, and needs the Secretariat staff to perform with at least slightly more integrity than was displayed under the Iraq Oil-for-Food program.

Right now it is the job of the world’s more responsible political leaders not simply to deplore the horrors of war, or construct another false U.N. peace leading to even worse nightmare ahead, but to seek real answers to the miseries and menaces of the Middle East. That is a task perilous, contentious, and rough enough, without a parade of unelected and largely unaccountable U.N. civil servants using public platforms to insinuate into the process their private prejudices.

—Claudia Rosett is a journalist-in-residence with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
[/quote]

[stephen]

I'm going to repost this for emphasis. This is way too important and relevant to Catholics for it to be ignored:

[quote] [size=3][b] "Lebanon is the absolute last nation in the Mideast where there still exists a substantial Christian population, or what’s left of one. Approximately 36% of Lebanese citizens are Maronite Eastern rite Catholics. If Lebanon continues to be destabilized or devolves into further chaos, there exists the distinct possibility that the Christians living there will once again begin to flee en masse, as they did during the scourging of previous tribulations when their numbers comprised over 80% of the population. We should be ever mindful that once this final bastion of Catholicism is vanquished, the Middle East will then (save for a few tiny remnants) be tragically devoid of any noticeable Catholic or even Christian society." (John Grasmeier, Lebanon: Catholic Action Needed) [/b] [/size] [/quote]

What in God's name is going on here, when a person who calls himself "KnightofChrist" cheers on the sworn enemies of Christ as they terrorize and kill fellow Catholics? What kind of place is this?

If you want to be a knight for the anti-Christ Zionist state that's your business, but wouldn't it be more honest to call yourself "KnightoftheSixPointedState" or something else more appropriate?

Edited July 28, 2006 by stephen

[KnightofChrist]

[quote name='stephen' post='1032764' date='Jul 27 2006, 11:47 PM']
I'm going to repost this for emphasis. This is way too important and relevant to Catholics for it to be ignored:

[quote] "Lebanon is the absolute last nation in the Mideast where there still exists a substantial Christian population, or what’s left of one. Approximately 36% of Lebanese citizens are Maronite Eastern rite Catholics. If Lebanon continues to be destabilized or devolves into further chaos, there exists the distinct possibility that the Christians living there will once again begin to flee en masse, as they did during the scourging of previous tribulations when their numbers comprised over 80% of the population. We should be ever mindful that once this final bastion of Catholicism is vanquished, the Middle East will then (save for a few tiny remnants) be tragically devoid of any noticeable Catholic or even Christian society." (John Grasmeier, Lebanon: Catholic Action Needed)[/quote]
[/quote]


I stand with my Catholic brothers and sisters in Lebanon, but is its Hezbollah thats causing innocents to die, hiding behide women and children Hezbollah are the evil ones. If The Anti-Christain Hezbollah is allowed to live and grow in Lebanon they will wipe out the Christians there just like every other Anti-Christain Mideast state. Hezbollah will force them to choose Allah or death!

[quote name='stephen' post='1032764' date='Jul 27 2006, 11:47 PM'][color="#FF0000"][size=5]!!!WARNING WACKO ALERT!!!WARNING WACKO ALERT!!!WARNING WACKO ALERT!!!WARNING WACKO ALERT!!![/size][/color]
What in God's name is going on here, when a person who calls himself "KnightofChrist" cheers on the sworn enemies of Christ as they terrorize and kill fellow Catholics? What kind of place is this?

If you want to be a knight for the anti-Christ Zionist state that's your business, but wouldn't it be more honest to call yourself "KnightoftheSixPointedState" or something else more appropriate?
[color="#FF0000"][size=5]!!!WARNING WACKO ALERT!!!WARNING WACKO ALERT!!!WARNING WACKO ALERT!!!WARNING WACKO ALERT!!![/size][/color][/quote]


Your heart is black with hate. You have lost this debate and you have lost your mind. This reply is a absolute failure to respond with logic to what I posted previously. May God have mercy on your soul.

[stephen]

ISRAEL TROOPS 'IGNORED' UN PLEA

BBC News | July 26, 2006 12:56:36 GMT

[b]UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon contacted Israeli troops 10 times before an Israeli bomb killed four of them, an initial UN report says. [/b] The post was hit by a precision-guided missile after six hours of shelling nearby, diplomats familiar with the initial probe into the deaths say....The four unarmed UN observers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, died after their UN post was hit by an Israeli air strike on Tuesday. The UN report says each time the UN contacted Israeli forces, they were assured the firing would stop.

Israel is conducting an investigation into the deaths, and has rejected accusations made by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that the targeting of the UN position was "apparently deliberate".

***

IRISH OFFICER WARNED ISRAEL ON THREAT TO UN STAFF

DUBLIN, July 26 (Reuters) - [b]An Irish army officer in south Lebanon warned the Israeli military six times that their attacks in the area were putting the lives of U.N. observers at risk[/b], Ireland's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday. Four U.N. observers were killed in an Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon on Tuesday.

"On six separate occasions he was in contact with the Israelis to warn them that their bombardment was endangering the lives of U.N. staff in South Lebanon," a Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman said.

"He warned: 'You have to address this problem or lives may be lost'," the spokesman said of comments by a senior Irish soldier working as a liaison officer between U.N. forces in South Lebanon and the Israelis.

***

"THE SHELLING OF THE UN POSITIONS BEGAN EARLY IN THE MORNING AND CARRIED ON ALL DAY"

“Mr. Olmert definitely believes it was a mistake,” said Mr. Annan, referring to Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert. [b]But despite at least 10 calls from United Nations personnel to Israel that their positions were being shelled[/b], Mr. Annan added, [b]“The shelling of the U.N. positions began early in the morning and carried on all day.”[/b]

NY Times July 26 2006 [url="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/26/world/middleeast/26cnd-lebanon.html"]http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/26/world/mi...nd-lebanon.html[/url]

***

Other Israeli "Accidents"

ATTACK ON THE USS LIBERTY IN 1967

A clearly marked US intelligence vessel was attacked for hours by Israeli war planes and war ships. The surviving American sailors were sworn to secrecy concerning the "accidental" Israeli attack.

MASSACRE IN UN REFUGEE CAMP IN 1996

During an Israeli offensive against Lebanon in 1996, Israeli artillery blasted a U.N. refugee camp at Qana in southern Lebanon, killing more than 100 civilians who had sought sanctuary with UN peacekeepers. It was a deliberate Israeli massacre of Arab women and children which went--as usual--unpunished, having no impact whatsoever on the unstinting flow of US taxpayer cash to the Israeli killers, and of course no prosecution for a war crime. The Israelis claimed the massacre was an "accident."--M. Hoffman II

BOMBINGS OF PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS 2000-2006

There have been dozens of mass killings of Palestinian civilians by Israeli forces. Almost of all of these are explained away as "accidents...mistaken identity, stray cannon fire, stray missiles."

Edited July 28, 2006 by stephen

[stephen]

The criminals investigate themselves:

[size=3][b]Israel says UN can't be part of probe of deadly attack on post[/b][/size]

"Dan Gillerman also said Israel would not allow the United Nations to join in an investigation of an Israeli air strike that demolished a post belonging to the current UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon. Four UN observers were killed in the Tuesday strike."

[url="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/743541.html"]http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/743541.html[/url]



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



"Peace loving" Israeli population believes the destruction of Lebanon is justified, but not brutal enough:

[size=3][b]Poll: 71 percent say use greater force in Lebanon[/b][/size]

"According to a survey of the Israeli public, 82 percent believe the army’s offensive in Lebanon is justified, and [b]71 percent think Israel should use even greater force.[/b]

"The survey, published in Israel’s leading newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth Friday, was carried out by the Dahaf Polling Institute and led by Dr. Mina Tzemach."

[url="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3282592,00.html"]http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3282592,00.html[/url]

Edited July 28, 2006 by stephen

[Anomaly]

stephen,
Please respond with your own words. How does responding with violence that engenders and overwelming response promote peace?

[Jeff]

[quote name='Anomaly' post='1032775' date='Jul 28 2006, 05:51 AM']
stephen,
Please respond with your own words. How does responding with violence that engenders and overwelming response promote peace?
[/quote]

Indeed! We know how to cut and paste too.

[stephen]

So providing documentation and evidence which demonstrates the validity of my position is improper to you people?

In many cases the news articles speak for themselves and a brief comment is all that is needed. If you want further comments on, or explanations of what I've posted then make a reasonable, specific request.

And I hope that it will be will be taken into consideration that debating 7 or more people at a time who can't see the futility in defending barbarity which no properly catechized Catholic can support is not my primary focus here. I'm primarily concerned with bringing information and insight to American Catholics that they will not find in the US media, most notably the fact that fellow Catholics are suffering horribly because of this Israeli brutality and that the Israelis may very well succeed in further reducing the Christian presence in Lebanon just as they have in "Israel," and the Palestinian territories.

Edited July 28, 2006 by stephen

[stephen]

updated:

[size=3][b]Mapping of Israeli assault: July 12-27[/b][/size]


[img]http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1096/3412/400/lebanon%20map%20July%2012-27.jpg[/img]

Edited July 28, 2006 by stephen