Iran

[SeVeR]

Aileron:

 

Hezbollah killed:

119 Israeli soldiers

43 civilians

 

Israel killed:

50 Hezbollah soldiers (UN estimate and Lebanese government estimate)

1100 civilians

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Israel-Lebanon_conflict

That seems pretty concrete to me.

 

Hezbollah began this conflict by targetting the Israeli military. Israel responded by bombing civilian infrastructure and killing large numbers of civilians. Now who is the terrorist organisation here?

 

You say Israel was doing nothing to Lebanon. yet in actuality they still occupied an area of Lebanon right up until the war, known as the Shebaa Farms. But that is negligable to the complete invasions of Lebanon by Israel in 1978 and 1982 and the continued occupation of southern Lebanon up until 2000. Do you think 6 years makes that right? Hezbollah weren't at peace with Israel, they were waiting for the right moment to attack Israel and that happened when the new leader took over.

 

Regarding tactics you're right that its a little hard to distinguish... but you can be sure that the women and children who perished were not much of a threat to Israel. The UN estimates 50 Hezbollah fighters died and i believe that to be an unbiased estimate. You can't blame them for their tactics, they're a necessity against a superior force.

[NBVegita]

When a military force hides behind women and children they are just as much at fault for the deaths of those women and children as the force that killed them.

[SeVeR]

NBVegita: Your grip of the english language must also be brought into disrepute. The sentence refers to transparency measures that are required for the clarification of certain aspects of the scope and nature of Iran's nuclear programme. This in plain english means exactly what i told you it means - remote monitoring equipment.

 

Sorry to kill your whole post in one sentence. I wish you hadn't needed to go to all the trouble of looking through your dictionary...

 

Just to be sure you realise what i'm saying... (i really have to be sure) Iran letting inspectors into their facilities to monitor their uranium production levels is what we call a transparency measure , meaning they must be complying on some level to transparency measures.

 

And as i said in the previous post, it's hardly reasonable to expect any country to let the UN place spy-cameras in their government labs. In my opinion Iran was co-operating as much as they should with the IAEA... and the IAEA seems to agree on the important aspects:

 

The Agency has completed its evaluation of the physical inventory verification (PIV) of nuclear

material at PFEP carried out between 16 and 18 September 2006 (GOV/2006/64, para. 3), and has

concluded that the inventory of nuclear material, as declared by Iran, was consistent with the results of

the PIV.

 

Asking a country to put spy-cameras in their labs, and when they don't, saying "they aren't giving us any proof they're not making nukes so lets lay on the sanctions", is not reasonable; especially when Iran is letting the IAEA inspect their facilities on a regular basis... yielding trustworthy results!

 

So interpret it how you want, and keep your dictionary handy.

 

-EDIT- Were the French resistance hiding behind women and children when the Nazis massacred entire villages? You sure have a nice way to justify civilian massacres.

Edited April 2, 2007 by SeVeR

[NBVegita]

sever did you not read that post at all? Or did you just read what you wanted to read?

 

Certain:

6. definite or particular, but not named or specified: A certain person phoned. He had a certain charm.

 

The "certain aspects" is applied to the "scope and nature of its nuclear programme" not the "transparency measures".

 

"which are essential for the clarification of certain aspects of the scope and nature of its nuclear programme."

 

The whole sentence outlines that without the requested transparency measures, that the IAEA will not be able to determine the nature or character of the scope (purpose) of it's nuclear program.

 

How, after all of those definitions do you not understand at least that much of the english language?

Edited April 2, 2007 by NBVegita

[Aileron]

Actually, the point I made goes further than that, given the sort of tactics Hezbollah uses and the demographic makeup of the organization, it is very likely that most of those civilian casualties were actually Hezbollah gunman who had left their weapons at the last cache.

 

99% of Hezbollah members are essentially full time civilians that volunteered for militia service. In the eyes of the UN, a civilian who picks up a weapon and engages in military activity may be considered a soldier.

 

The thing is, from a practical standpoint, all the Hezbollah gunman has to do is leave his weapons somewhere, and if he dies, the UN will tally his body as a civilian casualty, because he is a full-time civilian and is dressed as one.

 

Additionally, given the tactics Hezbollah uses of fighting from pre-arranged caches and moving unarmed, their gunman routinely leave their weapons behind every time they move from position to position. This isn't a tactic to run away, desert, or surrender - the idea is that when they reach the next cache they will pick up another weapon and resume fighting.

 

They also use the same tactics with their widescale troop movements. The idea is that minimally en!@#$%^&*bered cars and trucks can travel much faster than tanks and APCs. The point is if the Israelis took out a Hezbollah transport, it is virtually indistinguishable from a civilian transport, and since Hezbollah members are most full-time civilians, when the UN does background checks on the casualties, they will find them to have jobs and families and such, and will assume that the intel was screwed up and that a civilian vehicle was hit.

 

I'd bet about 800 of those 1000 "civilians" Israel killed were members of the Hezbollah militia who just happened to be unarmed at the time. That's obviously a guess, because Hezbollah doesn't have a public list of who works for them. There is one way to find out...if you can state your source, maybe there could be further details on the casualties. If there are a disproportionate number of men over women in the casualty figures, then that would indicate that my theory is correct.

[SeVeR]

This is what you said NBV:

"Iran has not agreed to any of the required transparency measures, which are essential for the clarification of certain aspects of the scope and nature of its nuclear programme."

And i told you that certain aspects of the scope and nature of Irans nuclear programme do not mean all aspects of it.

 

Your very definition gives us the word "particular". By particular/certain aspects they mean those clarified by remote monitoring equipment, the bloody report tells you that lol.

 

The whole sentence outlines that without the requested transparency measures, that the IAEA will not be able to determine the nature or character of the scope (purpose) of it's nuclear program.

ROFL, you missed out the word 'certain' there NBV... you mean "nature or character of the scope (purpose) of certain aspects of it's nuclear program" don't you?

 

This is getting ridiculous. I told you in the last post that letting the inspectors check their uranium production levels is a transparency measure, so it can't mean all transparency measures. It's clearly telling us that certain aspects of the nuclear programme require transparency measures that have not been agreed on. Other aspects of Iran's nuclear programme are open to investgation by the IAEA which is why we have a report in the first place...

[NBVegita]

The whole point is that the "certain aspects" of the nuclear program that cannot be determined could be, the advancement towards nuclear weapons, or the future advancement towards nuclear weapons.

 

Very simply, the IAEA cannot prove what some aspects of their nuclear program might be advancing towards. Iran refuses to give the IAEA the access to complete this, although the IAEA is back by the United Nations. I'm sorry if this doesn't seem a bit like the kid who stole a cookie from the cookie jar and won't show his hands to prove himself guilty or innocent.

 

And don't use the bull !@#$%^&* excuse that the US has the UN in its pocket. If the UN was out to appease the US and the US had the UN in their pocket, why did the UN completely object to the war in Iraq? Why didn't they just approve that? If the US has the UN in its pocket, then so does the UK.

 

Iran is not above the UN or the IAEA. If I were Iran I would want to prove myself innocent. PROVE being the key word. But its better to try and become a zealot against the west, and get some bleeding heart librals to join your cause.

[SeVeR]

Well Aileron:

 

1. If these transports are so hard to spot then couldn't the Israelis have been targetting vehicles indiscriminately?

2. The destruction of city blocks in Beirut, Christian civilian villages in the north, civilian infrastructure and the airport doesn't support a transport specific method of targetting the enemy, it suggests bombing a whole building of people based on the possibility that one terrorist might be inside... or possibly even on no intelligence at all.

 

You're right that getting a list of civilians who died might be a good method of deciding how many were targetted for being soldiers. It would be interesting to see how many were male. It may be useful to note that the Israelis said they killed 600 Hezbollah soldiers. The UN, the Lebanese government and Hezbollah all gave numbers around 50. Although based on the public opinion of them after the war i wouldn't trust Israel's estimate... especially as they pulled out of the country before the dead could even be counted.

 

Ok here is what i've found:

 

"...it has been widely reported that the majority of the Lebanese killed were civilians, and UNICEF estimated that 30% of those killed were children under the age of 13.[128]"

Source 128 is: http://www.unicef.org/emerg/index_35274.html

 

I can't immediately find anything about the sex of the other 70% but with such a large percentage of the dead being children you would expect them to be part of family units with women and men present in fairly equal magnitudes.

 

Since the war:

 

The death toll estimates do not include Lebanese killed since the end of fighting by land mines or unexploded Israeli cluster bombs.[6] According to the National Demining Office, 27 people have been killed and 167 wounded in such blasts.[6]

 

So thats another 27 that can be added to the civilian death count.

 

I don't see anything to support your theory but until we see a definitive ratio of male to female deaths its open to speculation. Still 30% of the dead being children doesn't exactly make the prospects of the other 70% being terrorists very likely does it?

Edited April 2, 2007 by SeVeR

[SeVeR]

NBV:

The whole point is that the "certain aspects" of the nuclear program that cannot be determined could be, the advancement towards nuclear weapons, or the future advancement towards nuclear weapons.

Yes they could be. But it involves putting spy-cameras into the government labs of a sovereign country that has done nothing other than engage in the lawful construction of nuclear power plants. No country would stand for it. Being American (i assume you are) you must respect your right to privacy more than people from most other countries, and on top of that you must recognise your governments right to protect its secrets. Iran has allowed the inspectors in but they won't allow themselves to be spied on and i think that's their right.

 

If the UN was out to appease the US and the US had the UN in their pocket, why did the UN completely object to the war in Iraq?

The UN wouldn't support going to war with Iran either, what they will do is make resolutions and sanctions to keep the US happy.

 

Very simply, the IAEA cannot prove what some aspects of their nuclear program might be advancing towards.

And these aspects are?

 

If I were Iran I would want to prove myself innocent. PROVE being the key word. But its better to try and become a zealot against the west, and get some bleeding heart librals to join your cause.

Proving innocence? Huh...

 

Anyway, if Iran doesn't want spy cameras in their government labs then i don't blame them. That appears to be what the IAEA is talking about when they refer to transparency measures that are not being agreed upon. As for all the other aspects not referred to by these transparency measures, there appears (or at least appeared) to be co-operation.

[NBVegita]

I understand where you are coming from, but this isn't an everyday issue. It's not like trying to install cameras in a sweat shop to stop underage labor. This is concerning the possibility of nuclear weapons that break the international nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Nuclear technology should not be taken lightly. It's a big responsibility even on a peaceful level. And the IAEA isn't telling them they can't enrich uranium, though they did ask them to halt enrichment until their intent was proven, but that didn't happen.

 

And the permanent members of the UN were for sanctions, minus China and Russia before, and now even they are leaning towards supporting sanctions. That should be a sign right there.

 

I'm not saying Iran is going one way or another. All I'm saying is that on an issue of this magnitude, you can't be too careful.

[Aileron]

Well, the Israelis did bomb bridges, airports, etc. That's usually standard for modern warfare. I will admit it the Israelis didn't make it any easier for bona fide civilians to get out of dodge by taking out such targets.

 

And if I recall the Israelis did drag their feet pulling out of Lebanon. They did have the time to do a proper count.

[Greased_Lightning]

I have a question... did Israel ever find that missing soldier that they used as justification for the whole thing? I never heard one way or the other.

[SeVeR]

I don't know, but wouldn't mind finding out if someone else knows.

 

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says 15 British naval personnel captured in the Gulf will be freed.

He repeated allegations that the British sailors and marines "invaded" Iranian waters, but said they would be freed as a "gift" to Britain.

Latest in the battle for western public opinion.

[Aileron]

Well, he did free them. It seems like a standard case of brinkmanship. It really means very little except to show that Iran is more cunning than fanatical.

 

Clearly its an attempt to embar!@#$%^&* the British, emphasis on the word "attempt" because frankly the international community is quite used to this by now and knows that it doesn't really matter which side of the line the British ship was on.

[Greased_Lightning]

There was an article today that Hamas sent a new list of Palestinians in Israeli lockup to be released in exchange for that one soldier who was taken back in June.

 

Wow. Israel does all that on the basis of getting back one person, killing how many innocent civilians, and they don't even get their guy back. It's funny how it's been this long before the media reported that he was still captive. It's pathetic how futile their actions were and how they still claim it as a success.

[SeVeR]

Israel can get away with anything. Did you know that criticising Israel is becoming equivalent to racism?

 

The latest in the war of public opinion: Britain strikes back! The British government allow their captured soldiers to sell their stories to the press! The media sparks in outrage at the money these soldiers turned celebrities are making!... distracting us from the real reason the British government told them to go sell their stories - to hit back at Iran with shocking accounts of how these uninjured, well-fed looking soldiers were threatened, beaten, abused and all other things on the barbaric terrorist manifesto of doom!