Keith,

What I and the majority of Israeli's are stunned at, is the absence of 100,000+ demonstrations and protests, like was expected at about week 1. I suggest that this was planned upon, and the leftist leadership of Israel were taken off guard by the fact that it did not eventuate, which means that the majority of western opinion really does not care one jot or tittle for how many lebanese are killed or who by.

Perhaps this is the result of the post-911, 7/7, Bali, latest London attack, world, in which so many people are now frightened of being blown up by a lunatic with a bomb and a grudge, in short, the population (or a major part thereof) of the western nations (whose opinions count) don't care, providing Israel with a veritable carte blanche. This I suggest is the meaning of Kofi Annan's statement that he is upset that a ceasefire was not forced upon Israel weeks ago.

Also, you missed my point, I argued that thanks to the current precedent, in which Hizbollah acted, but lebanon was not responsible, Israel could arm the settlers with offensive weapons and allow them to start wars with their neighbours, whenever they choose, basically to do whatever they please. The UN has shown that it sides with those who help themselves, irrespective of International Law, so be it.......

When one is not protected by International Law, one is not subject to it, which is especially useful in concert with the carte blanche (paragraph 2) provided by the International Community.

Buckle up, boys and girls, it is time to play hardball...

Inshallah

2bob

The bigots in this thread have rekindled my national shame.

Xenophobes-r-us.

Shame.

Well, whadyaknow, Strewthie? For the first time on OLO you were actually right about something. Syria is not a land locked country. That must have given you a warm inner glow.

My problem is that I am fed up of morons like your god self attacking my country, my people, my culture and my allies, so I am having a lot of fun tossing the puerile arguments of people like you right back in your faces. It’s really funny, ya know. All of you trendy lefties are so up yourselves trying to display to us Great Unwashed how morally and intellectually superior you are, that you can’t be bothered actually figuring out if the arguments that you parrot from the likes of John Pilger and the employees of the ABC Soviet are even true. . This makes people like you easy meat. And boy, aren’t you screaming?

Music to my ears.

I know that there are a lot of young people who read and contribute on OLO, and I intend to verbally grab people like you by the scruff of the neck, hold you up to the light, and display to our brainwashed youth what a bunch of transparent stooges all of you are. This I hope will stimulate some neuronal activity among our young and help them to understand what hogwash people like you are feeding them.

Oh, and your spelling of “Strewth” is incorrect. Australians spell it as “Struth”. That is because it actually means “God’s truth.” If you were lucky enough to be born white and came from a superior culture like the British, you would have known that.

Salaam.

Love it when you talk like that, red.

Redneck

I am arguing a case in a similar fashion to Strewth. However I'm also white, liberal, don't believe in any particular God, detest the violence of the Islamists and regularly question the beliefs that produce such, support the rights of soverign nations, reasonably intelligent, well educated (well by your apparent standard, or lack thereof, anyway), against and detest violence, reasonably transparent but no stooge and quite frankly would find any attempt by you to grab me by the scruff of the neck and hold me up for intellectual examination absolutely laughable.

I don't think Strewth either moronic or a God, as you suggested, but he sure is with his thoughtfulness closer to her and futher from a moronic state than you with your, displayed bigotry, sneaking mysogeny, out and out xenophobia and plain closed mindedness.

You should work on those failings ...you know.

Col,Iran has one of the biggest and well trained armies in the world.They have a pop of 80+ million.There is no way the US would engage in a ground war against them.Yes they are feral but the US should not have backed that dictator Ayatollah Khomeini.Why didn't they bring democracy to Iran when they had the chance?

The US foreign policy in the Middle East has been a disaster from the start.Israel is just creating more sympathisers in Lebanon for hezbollah.The US have made a mess of Iraq which is on the verge of civil war.There are not enough troops in Iraq to quell the violence and the only way they are going to tackle these lunatic Iranians is with nuclear weapons.

The US are now locked into being in Iraq for decades,since now that Saddham is gone there is no one strong enough to control the Sunnies,Kurds or the Sh-tes.[NB. OLO won't recognise that last religion and considers it be a profanity.Maybe they are right.]

If the US leave Iraq,Iran could quickly take over Iraq and be the most powerful country in the Middle East.They could dictate to the rest of the world not only the price of energy but how we must behave.It is a mess of ignorant,stupid religion,the power of oil and poor US foreign policy.

The best way for us to tackle it is to go for alternatives such as natural gas and become independant of the Middle East.The US should do likewise.Why are we selling all our gas to China cheaply and importing oil?There is no method in the madness.