Re: Potential Overuse of Papelbon


McDuck wrote:
On 14 Aug 2006 15:30:59 -0700, "Gnork" <gnork@xxxxxxxxx> quacked:


McDuck wrote:
On 14 Aug 2006 11:58:43 -0700, "Gnork" <gnork@xxxxxxxxx> quacked:


Tough elephant dung. What would you say if an organized group in
Tijuana started lobbing rockets into San Diego and the Mexican
government said they couldn't do anything about it? The United States
would go after them and protect its citizens. Why should Israel do any
less?

Not a good analogy b/c we all would suspect that the Mexican
government could do something, whereas we all know that the government
of Lebanon could not do a damned thing about it. Also, the attacks on
Israel escalated only after Israel escalated --- it started with a
kidnapping of a few soldiers.

Actually it is a good analogy. You have to accept the big "IF"
realizing fully that this would not actually happen. But what IF just a
few of our soldiers were kidnapped by dastardly Canadians who hate us?
Do we write them off as just a few? Your buddy Jimmy Carter, aka quite
possibly the worst president of modern times (Say post 1900), probably
would.

Anyway, the complaint was not about Israel responding --- it was the
response well out of the border areas and the rather indiscriminate
attacks on civilians. To mix in your analogy, would you want the U.S.
to start bombing Mexico City, assuming that you believed that the
Mexican government could not control the terrorists?

If the terrorists had strongholds there and the governement did nothing
to stop them and they posed an ongoing threat to us.

For internal political reasons, Israel decided to try to "solve" its
Hezbollah problem once and for all. The result was, in my view,
harmful to Israel, just as the invasion of Iraq has been harmful to
the U.S.

I'm all for killing the bastards. Later on we can all join hands and
sing.


Also, do you think the McDuck grandparents were condemning the fire
bombing of Dresden in WW2 that killed about 100,000 civilians or
protesting the use of the A-Bomb on Japan?

My grandfather (on my father's side) fought in the Spanish American
war. He died long before I was born (from TB, contracted in the
Philippines). I doubt he'd have had much good to say about that
terrible, brutal war to impose colonial rule on the Filipino's.

It was the guerilla war after the war with Spain that was wrong.
However, I once spent a month in the Philippines and IMO there are few
more pro-American countries in the world than the P.I. Also I work in
Los Angeles in the accounting profession and about 40% of my co-workers
are Filipinos. They are very successful people as shown by the US
Census that said Filipinos have a higher average income than
caucasians. In part that is due to the fact that a high percentage of
Filipino immigrants are professional people, especialy accountants and
nurses. Try finding a hospital in So. Cal without lots of Filipino
nurses. It won't be easy.

I'm sure my parents (who were the ones living through WW II) would
have opposed the senseless bombing of civilians at Dresden if they
knew the story we now know. It has no military justification, as far
as I can tell, and was brutal and vengeful, unrelated to winning the
war. But I don't recall discussing it with either parent. I'm sure my
father would not have said "tough elephant dung" <g>.

Don't underestimate the old man! The bombing of Dresden, led perhaps by
one of Lee Harris' relatives, had no military justification as you said
EXCEPT to demoralize the enemy and bring them closer to surrender no
matter what the maniac in power thought. The Germans elected the nazis
and implicitly or tacitly allowed the atrocities that followed. Their
chickens came home to roost. As an aside long ago I dated a hot blond
from Stuttgart named Ursula. (Hot blond sort of takes precedence over
everything). She as I was born after the war so she had no
responsibility for what happened. My point is I never once asked her
about her family. I didn't want to know.

I don't know my mother's position on the A-Bomb, but my father
supported the use as a way to end the war against Japan. It was a very
popular decision at the time.

No doubt. I would have supported it too, but i wonder about the need
for the 2nd A Bomb. I think I would have given then a little more time
to surrender. As a combat vet i know war is a very nasty game and it
isn't always played by the rules.* But fanatics looking for that quick
trip to see Allah don't care. Look at the recent airline plot. To have
done what was planned would have required 30-40 suicide passengers.
They don't care. The Brits ought to retroactivily reinstate the death
penalty for terrorism. Then try them, convict them if the evidence is
there, and quickly execute them in their home neighborhoods. That might
afford them the opportunity to gun down lots of their buddies who might
riot. * I never violated the rules of the Geneva Convention. That may
be why I never had nightmares afterwards.

I hope you have no illusion that the Israeli attacks in Lebanon will
end its problems with the Arabs. Many observers believe that they will
increase those problems.

End the problems? Hell, not in our lifetimes. Increase them? Maybe,
maybe not. Many (not all) of the arabs only understand a strong hand.
Israel just turned over Gaza and started to dismantle settlements. That
was taken as a sign of weakness rather than a move for peace.
Interestingly I heard a Lebanese arab on the radio here saying that
secretly in his opinion most Lebanese are to some extent happy that the
Israelis attacked Hezbollah. They hate them too and resent what they
have done and they know that only force will drive them away.

.

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