Machinations

(emphasis mine) Don't EVER expect the fruitcakes to acknowledge this.

That is a very dangerous way to do things, and preventing territorial gains by conquest was the prime reason for the creation of the UN. Basically, 'Balls to the wall anarchy' (as someone here previously said). The United Nations lost what effectiveness it had when it allowed membership to every variety of brutal, thuggish, banana replubic dictatorship from around the world. There are 192 members of the United Nations. How many are responsible nations whose people have a say in their government? A few dozen, perhaps. You cannot expect an organization largely made up of murderers and criminals to police the world. If the UN actually had any real degree of functionality it would have insisted on halts to the rocket attacks on Israel months ago and then enforced that demand. Then we would not now be seeing the nasty scenes on our televisions which some people find so traumatic. Argus also reported me to the mods for calling him a 'shoddy excuse for a human being'. What an authoritarian fruitcake. There is nothing but rhetoric to all your posts...you sycophantically recite everything you think you know and refuse to consider any kind of logical argument. If that's an insult, too bad - its also the truth.

What? Do you mean that people don't think about the future?Then why do they have children, plan for retirement, consider the resale value of a house? Why are we even having this discussion? People sell things for many reasons but in general, they will sell something now if they think the price will go down. They will wait if they think the price will go up. Incidentally, the price of a light sweet crude futures contract on NYMEX for delivery in December 2012 is $68.57. This fact alone should lay to rest any idea of "peak oil". The people who trade in oil futures have alot more interest in understanding oil pricing than the people who create peak oil Internet web sites. Ok. Is the ozone hole also a conspiracy by 'libruls'? I'm curious. Your lack of understanding on the peak oil question is illustrated when you ask ' Would'nt those companies do best to just leave the oil in the ground, wait 10 years, and sell it at 400% profit?' You see, with an oil well, you can't 'turn it off'. Most of the major fields that are relied on today have been in production for 20 years of more. When you stop production on a given well, you may find some of the oil has become unrecoverable - trapped in pockets inside the rock. Also, there is a question of capacity - Saudi has been paying huge amounts to Western engineers to come build them new capactiy, but they still don't have enough to simply siphon off a couple years production and dump it in vats. Also, while they are saving oil how do you propose they make money? Anyways, I suppose to you this is 'tin-foil hat' land. It's not, and I will cheerily remind you of that someday when we have ample ancedotal evidence around us to post-mortem prove the thesis.

Chuck Norris.

Abide by standing UN resolutions and leave the Occupied Territories. This is the #1 recruiting tool of Islamic fundamentalists worldwide - and ESPECIALLY in Lebanon.

This is absolutely known! Wow, my scholarly friend, a cite would help! I know you're not usually asked to actually back up your sweeping declarations with any evidence, but this isn't high school debate class and I won't prove a negative to you. Other than your staunch and seemingly unthinking blather in Israel's defense, do you have any actual facts? An unbiased, non-Israeli source, if you please.

Thats funny - I read that quote to mean the Occupied Territories - since that is what he is clearly talking about. I like how you attribute other meanings to it - when we have a black and white quote. This has been the rallying cry of the sycophants - Israel is defending itself! Hezbollah wants to destroy Israel! No, Hamas and Hezbollah wants Israel to give up the Occupied Territories, land they have illegally occupied since 1967 - and a fact you conveniently gloss over. If this destroys the 'greater' Israel - then yes, I guess they are calling for it's destruction. But really they are asking for Israel to abide a standing UN resolution - but this shatters the dream for a 'greater' Israel and has the Zionists all in a tizzy. Edit: Hezbollah is clearly using this for political gain. I do not support Hezbollah - to make that clear. However there are clearly more effective ways to curtail this kind of activity - one of which would be resolving the long-standing dispute over the Occupied Territories. Hamas and Hezbollah overnight would lose more than half their members. Israel is choosing to fight rather than give back what it 'won' in 1967.

Sorry, been working alot lately. I think my assertion that Iraq is plunging headalong into the abyss of sectarian civil war - and that our 'intervention' caused it - is the one I am referring to. It is obvious at this point to any who care to look the experiment in exporting democracy to Iraq was a collossal failure. No wonder, considering how unrealistic their expectations were - 'we'll be greeted with flowers!'. As I understand it, prior to the invasion, they had no real reconstruction plan. Also stupid was the decision to disband the entire Iraqi army and to pass out no-bid contracts to corporations that were politically connected. All this led to what we have today. I place blame at the foot of the door where it lies - the White House. Let's face facts people - it was incredibly, incredibly infantile to believe that somehow, by bringing democracy to Iraq that other democracies would begin to pop up all over the region. The United States supports repressive regimes (ie Saudi) as long as they cooporate with the US agenda. If democracy was the real goal, we have plenty of tools to exert pressure - we choose not to use them because we do not want the oil spigot shut off. We're afraid that who they elect would be more hostile to US interests, you see? Does any of this make sense, yet?

This is what terrifies me the most. People like you are religious extremists, no different from jihadis. I dont care if your invisible superman wears pink ponytails or dances the macarena. I dont care if you think once you have 'Greater' Israel you're all going to grow crops 10 feet tall and you'll live extraordinary long lives. I simply do not care what superstitions drive your irrational belief and value systems. Do all of us goyim not matter? You suggest that Israel has 'no room' to hold the people that live on it already - and then further go on to speculate that Arabs should not want to live in Israel. I question this, since Israel has plenty of room for new Jewish immigrants - and all the refugees living on Palestinian land seem to have room as well - if no freedom. The fact is, we need to stop supporting Israel - a theocracy masquerading as a democracy. Then you religious fundies can have your little war, but without my tax dollars paying to kill children.

Ha. The Germans WERE a military goliath. Most advanced tanks in the world at the time - most advanced tactics. Highly coordinated lighting strikes with airstrikes followed by a ground blitz. However, you are completely wrong in your second assertion. Israel has the fourth most powerful military in the world, placing it behind the United States, Russia and China. It also has nuclear weapons. Canada, by comparaison, is somewhere in the 100's. Edit: Poor troll bait title, btw.

From your link, maybe you missed it: This sounds to me as an ultimatum that does not call for the destruction of Israel. Rather, like the rest of the international community, it is asking Israel to abide by standing UN resolutions and leave the Occupied Territories. Much of Hezbollah is displaced Palestianian nationals, for your information. Get it?

jbg, I think you're setting the bar pretty high. There are examples of skirmishes and conflicts that they've stopped, but perhaps the visibility hasn't been high enough. Does that mean they should be dismantled ? Seeing how internation relations have been put in the hands of relatively inexperienced statesmen, of late, I think it would be negligent to eliminate one line of security altogether. One line of security, at what cost to taxpayers of corruption? More importantly, it creates a bogus "world opinion" that is shared by the chattering classes of diplomats. All I can say is - thankfully you have no say - thinking people around the world support the UN. Abolitionists are few and far between and usually, as in this case, poorly informed. If the uneducated and ignorant ever have their hands on the reins of power, they can do untold damage. Look south for a good example.

August1991, dont take this personally, but that is incredibly naive. A 'training camp' can be your basement. Think creatively. More importantly, it seems none of you have mentioned it was a US-backed alliance of warlords - well known for their cruelty - who were defeated by the Islamic militias. In Mogasdishu it was well known that the warlords were receiving financing from the US - it was also widely reported in the Western media. This does no good for Americas image and I would imagine emboldens extremists. America needs to pick its "friends" more carefully. Remember the Northern Alliance? Like a sieve that Osama slipped through - but hey, I guess fighting with a proxy army of mercenaries meant less American casualties to explain at home, mmmkay?

Any evidence that there were Hezbollah sheltering in those two ambulances mentioned in the report I cited? How about the UN post Israel bombed and then continued to shell during the rescue operation? You know, the one the Canadian soldier is now buried under, they can't recover the body. Were there some homemade rockets there? Any evidence? Or are you an apologist for Israel talking out your butt-hole again? You're sheer rhetoric, no fact. I'll tell you whats cowardly - shelling population centers with artillery and warplanes. That is the DEFINITION of cowardly.

Shameless bump.