Slashdot Mirror
Cyberwar on NASA Websites
Vexorian writes "Two NASA websites were hacked today by a group of Chilean activist hackers. The reason was to protest against the war on Lebanon. The mirror of the defaced site contains an image of an injured child and claims that the sites were running MacOSX."
I, for one, welcome our new Chilean activist overlords.
On the one hand, this is news; NASA is a big target. On the other hand, why are we posting a link to the defacement? We don't need to see it -- just report the story.
Look, I seriously doubt you're going to find that many people who think the war in Lebanon is a good thing, besides anyone with a vendetta against the Lebanese or the people selling bombs and rockets. You want to protest the war, fine -- but don't exepct me to care what you have to say when you can't make your voice heard in a public and legal forum. Defacing a website, any web site, is not the way to make me feel sympathy for your point of view.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Hacktivist hacks happen all the time. Is someone trolling for an Israeli-Lebanon Conflict discussion?
Arabs? Chile is in South America for crying out loud!
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
what with the shooting of Jews in chicago yesterday and now the Lebanon debacle that the US refuses to condemm even though 24 lebanese children died in a bombing in Quana this disaster of an administration have sown seeds of hate that will come back to haunt the US for years to come
staggering that in such a short time the US has gone from loved to hated , the conclusion is Bush and his cronies have put the US populace in a lot more danger than they where 5 years ago, and it is the populace that will suffer the consequences while the administrations operatives relax on their ranches in absolute luxury laughing
What is not clear is... did they hack OS X or simply hack a web application running on OS X. I wouldn't say "Linux was hacked" if I was running an insecure forum or blog. The information is VERY thin, but I'm interested to see if OS really was hacked.
Yeah! That'll show those NASA warlords.
"Oh boy"
When last I looked into this it was a unilateral isreali action.
since when did NASA of all government agencies have to do with a war in lebanon.
It seems to me like theyre doing the cyber equivalent to nasa that isrealis are doing to lebanese civillian centers.
stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid....
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I think you need to look at some other news channels apart from Fox!
Won't somebody please think of the -- oh, right.
First of all, everybody knows that Mac OS X is actually the dictionary definition of the word "unhackable" (it was the Wikipedia definition, too, until some corn-hole vandalized the entry), so these "kids" are clearly filthy lying scumbags.
I am from a small, grease-loving country in the north called Ca-na-da.
... totally targeting the wrong people. Why target NASA, apart from it being a U.S. institution? It is non-military and seems an odd choice to attack.
Yes, but it have the biggest foreign palestine community in the world.
It is so easy to protest something that is right in your face on TV, isn't it? How about years and years of killing that have been going on in Israel by Hizballah and Hamas terrorist organizations? How about all those rockets that were launched at Israel from Lebanon within the past two decades? Maybe a UN server should be hacked, after all after 2000 UN and Lebanon was responsible for keeping Hizballah from amassing rockets and other weapons. Do these activists care when during the 'peace times' Israeli kids and adults get blown up?
If anything, these protestors should thank Israel for taking action now and preventing more carnage later. One cannot constantly procrastinate in this kind of a situation, because it is only getting worse.
Oh yes, and how about protesting where it actually makes sense: at Hizballah, at Lebanese, Iranian and Syrian governments. Protesting against regimes that allow terrorists to do what they do: use civilians AND UN folks as living shields on the battlefield. Not only are civilians used as shields, they are a great propaganda tool. When a terrorist launches a rocket at civilian targets in Israel from a busy market place in Lebanon, and Israeli army answers with fire at that place, is it the responsibility of Israel to make sure that Lebanese civilians do not suffer or is it responsibility of those, who used the civilians for their political gain around the world?
Here are a couple of caricatures that do tell something about the reality of this war.
You can't handle the truth.
Hezbullah kidnaps and kills Israelis on their own territory. Israelis try to get them back. Hezbullah fires 100's of rockets into Israel to terrorise the civilian population. Israel wages war to exterminate Hezbullah. Chilean hacker defaces NASA website. Am I missing something?
an ill wind that blows no good
I am so very sorry, but I do believe this was a particularly silly decision of the slashdot editors. /. editors.
Publishing a non-news, hoping to stir up a debate on a very sad combination of events, is essentially trolling.
I am extremely disappointed and will not feed the trolls, not even when they happen to be
Thufir Hawat
Part-time Mentat
They did NOT hack OS X. They simply hacked the application database running on those platforms. Why would the author indicate OS X was hacked when really, it looks like a large number of the servers hacked were in fact running Linux.
I'm not saying OS X is unhackable, but leaving ANY insecure server software running is asking to be hacked.
What's with telling people to leave. It's like "We asked all the civilians to leave the city."
Isn't that like a giant hint to the terrorists to get out?
Anywho, my support is firmly behind Israel.
While the parent is most likely wrong as to the ethnicity of the activists, particularly if he is speaking of Chile, it should be noted that there is a significant Syrian and Lebanese Arab population can be found in Argentina, many of which are practicing Muslims. Other pockets exist throughout South America.
Not everyone in South America is a Mestizo, you know.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Argentina
Tony Blair will be addressing the issues with Fox today:
c le1204523.ece
"The public attack is the most direct so far on the authority of the Prime Minister, who still refuses to join calls for an immediate ceasefire or rebuke Israel. Instead Mr Blair will today make the case for pre-emptive strikes against Islamist militants when he addresses Rupert Murdoch's senior executives in California."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/arti
Chilean hacker 1: Gee, this war in Lebanon is getting me down! It's immoral and unjust - innocent people are dying every day! I want to do something about it: assign blame to those responsible and rely on the moral force of the billions of regular people around the world to bring this pointless war to an end!
Chilean hacker 2: Let's h4ck N4S4!
Chilean hacker 1: Great idea!
When Martin Luther King led the nonviolent marches that pulled off a second American Revolution without a second Civil War, the marchers didn't trespass or tear down signs. That's why they changed the attitude and culture of America, which is the victory everyone needs in these conflicts. The victory that others who accepted or embraced violence lost, like Farrakhan's Nation of Islam, the Black Panthers, and all the hundreds of forgotten "freedom fighters". Even when their agenda and goals included important results that would be good for practically everyone, they polarized, alienated and pushed people into defensive positions on even indefensible parts of the status quo.
Chileans vandalizing America when Israel attacks Lebanon doesn't change anyone's minds for the better. It just escalates by a little bit the spiral of violence:
Ignorance -> Fear -> Anger -> Violence -> Alienation -> Ignorance
The central front in the Terror War is in our own minds, where that well-worn cycle can send us all to our doom.
--
make install -not war
and we all ready to die for some kind of a weird religious ideals? you're not? so what makes us all humans? judging others according to tv propaganda? or may be hooligan action against fairly peacfull website? they found exploit, they hacked site. period. rest is a sheer bs.
root of all...
NASA certainly qualifies as a military aspect of the US, especially now that there is mounting talk of the militrization of space. Even more than that, NASA has put up every single US military sattelite.
A blog about stuff.
The main crime of 9/11 was not the destruction of the world trade center, it was the killing of 3000 people.
The Lebanese government is in enough trouble as it is, having a radical group (Hezbollah) executing attacks on their neighbors against the government's whim. Getting civilian support for that radical group (by demonizing the aforementioned neighbor, which Israel's civilian-infrastructure-targeted attacks and utter carelessness with regard to collateral damage have been doing pretty effectively) weakens the legitimate government, giving the radicals even more of a chance to take over Lebanon completely.
Israel is off their collective rockers, and the world is standing by and letting them get away with it. It's insane.
Hacking NASA's site to protest a conflict between Israel and Lebanon? Wow, why did't I think of that? Maybe if we bombed Chile we could defeat all hackers too!
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
Great, all this talk about chilean hackers and now I'm hungry for chili.
http://religiousfreaks.com/2006/07/27/islam-deaf-d umb-and-blind/
http://boortz.com/nuze/200602/02032006.html
The Israelis sent messages to the cities they intended to bomb so that the people there could leave and not get killed. Why did they bomb the buildings in those cities? Because the people who run those cities had installed thousands of rockets pointed at their neighboring country and had engaged in randomly firing those missles into civilian centers of the neighboring country without any warning!.
This is an unprovoked serious act of war, by a people who have repeatedly and openly sworn to destroy the neighboring country. Against a people who lost 90% of their population in a slaughter the last time they didn't take these warnings seriously.
If the criminal Hizba'allah organization had not repeatedly engaged in serious unprovoked acts of war against a neighboring sovereign state, the Israelis would not be currently bombing the shit out of them.
This is the way that the world works. You would be doing the exact same thing if it were you. The difference between the Israelis killing Arabs and Arabs killing Israelis is that the Arabs wrap their children in high explosives and send them off to blow themselves up in crowded public areas without warning and without mercy. Then they dance in the streets in celabration of their ' great victory'. The Israelis warn the Arabs that they are coming and if they want to live, then leave. Then they agonize over the wisdom and morality of their actions. They offer peace plans that are always rejected. The cycle of madness begins anew.
All this anti-Israeli and 'anti-Zionism' talk around the world is just anti-semitism resurfacing and trying to pretend not to be. The Israelis are great people that are surrounded by millions of people who have surrendered their minds to a death cult. The Israelis do what they must. They don't get any pleasure from it. But they don't shrink from it, either.
This is more related to setting cars on fire in protest march than to 'war'. It seems stupid nerd-macho posing to use warry-truthy terms like 'cyberattack' and 'cyberwar' in internet situations that are better compared with existing protesting rallies and other borderline accepted democratic forms of having your say (posters, stickers, graffiti). Were Vietnam peace rallies 'acts of opinion warfare' against America then? In Paris, for example? If you want to frame things such then you'll be having lots of wars all around, forever, and nasty surprises when you find yourself as 'enemy combatant' for some view in power. (Think of the damage the Nasa suffered with this horrible attack!)
Wars are things where people die, other uses are just posing or kids play and fucking awful when used in serious politics. This act was act of protest, not act of war or act of terrorism.
Every single one that U.S. citizens do, and they are numerous. Don't try to excuse the hacking as a "lack" of political access. That don't fly.
The real news here is that Slashdot articles continue to decline in quality. Hacktivism sounds exciting, but these guys are just script kiddies with a No War sig. Yesterday alone they defaced 296 sites, none of which had any political significance. They happened to find an old PHP application on a backwater NASA website (the Aura Validation Data Center), and they took the opportunity to step up their normal text sig to include a graphic picture.
The only reason that this is newsworthy is because Slashdot made it newsworthy. The greatest impact came not from the script kiddies or their vaguely political scribbles, but the deluge of the Slashdot effect on some poor iMac in Alaska.
The Hezbollah army builds their bases on the ground floor of civilian apartments. They are literally hiding behind women and children. Both sides (Hezbolah and Israel) are equally to blame for the civilian deaths. And since the Syrian and Iranian government are funding the rocket attacks, shouldn't these hackers be hacking Syrian and Iranian sites as well? Could it be that hacking US sites just provides bigger bragging rights?
Disproportionality is the only way to deal with terrorists. The border was peaceful until the Hezbullah incursion. If I were an Israeli I would not relish the prospect of being terrorised forever at an ever more lethal intensity. I would want to irradicate the problem. As for civilians, they were given fair warning to leave the area and go to central Lebanon were they would not be harmed. Hezbullah uses civilians as shields, launching attacks from aprtment buildings, residential areas.. If Hezbullah stopped doing this there would be no civilian casualties. Israel's only recourse is to ignore them in pursuit of the enemy.
an ill wind that blows no good
See, the first website you should be hacking is Hizbullah. They are the terrorist fuckers whose little cross-border kidnapping raid led to the deaths of hundreds of their fellow Lebanese.
Second, you should be hacking Ehud Olmert's site -- the first non-military Israeli prime minister in ages, who decides to prove his miltary virility by bombing Lebanese children.
Then, the IDF, the Knesset, the Mossad.
Then, the Arab League, for being pussies and not helping Lebanon.
Then, the White House and US Congress, for not pressuring Israel to stop. Maybe the Pentagon if you are so inclined
Then, don't forget to hack your own government's site, for not sending humanitarian aid to Lebanese refugees.
And you do NOT hack NASA, not unless a space shuttle fuel tank falls on Beirut.
Seriously...How else do you think they paid Spielberg those many millions to fake those moon landings! By selling rockets of course!
I ate your fish.
These hackers need to be taught how much involved NASA is in killing Libanese people. :-p
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Actually it makes complete sense if you understand the culture of that area. Hez claims victory as they touted Isreali pull out as a loss for Isreal. To that part of the world, Isreali lost face and was defeated by Hez. Hez is elected into power since they are the ONLY Arab organization ever to DEFEAT Isreal. Land for peace is now a dismal failure and Isreal has to show the Arab (sp) culture that Isreal has not been defeated and will kick them in the nuts repeatedly till they get the message.
Yes it's horrific, but it HAS to be done.
And no, I'm not a Jew.
Dammy
I think you misunderstand the whole situation. Hezbullah doesn't have any claim to Israeli land. They just want Jews dead. They are a Iranian Shia backed gang who wants to supplant democracy with Islamic Fascism in Christian/Sunni/Druse dominated Lebannon. I for one rejoice in Israel's initiative in irradicating them at all costs.
an ill wind that blows no good
Actually, it's Chileans, so, it's more friend of my friend's enemy's friend is my enemy.
People at the WTC offices didn't launch rockets at Afganistan, didn't they?
4Z5TX
Yes yes, Hesbulla has been lobbing rockets at Haifa, but this was only after Israel flattened half of Beirut.
Oh sure, they kidnapped 2 Israeli soldiers, how could I forget! But is that reason enough to slaughter 450+ civilians? If a para-military group in Canada kidnaps 2 people, do you start bombing Toronto?
And now back to why the rest of the world really hates the US right now: because they could have easily supported UN resolutions or stopped Israel but they didn't. They are just letting the bloodshed continue, angering millions of muslims even more. Israel is firing US-arms in a unilateral war against a sovereign nation. Doing so, they are only strengthening the ranks of Hesbulla and isolating themselves even more. I am no Hesbulla-fan, but think about what you all are cheering for: supporting Israel at this point is no better than supporting Bin Laden when he struck New York: an unilateral, unprovoked attack on a civilian population.
And if hacking US websites is a way to get that into American heads, so be it.
This sig is intentionally left blank
no, not okay, but yes, that would have been much more humane to avoid most or all of the deaths from the WTC destruction. can you actually be suggesting otherwise? are you saying there is no difference between blowing up a building full of civilians, and giving warning to those civilians so they can get to safety first?
No, that just creates more terrorists.
Emotional response leads to emotional response and the situation never changes.
I see that argument a lot.
If they're using civilians as "shields", but those "shields" don't stop the attacks, then why are they still using them as "shields"?
An easier explanation is that they target them where they believe they live. And if civilians also live there, too bad.
They target them where they believe they gather. And if civilians are also there, too bad.
Then, when the civilians are killed, claim that the "bad guys" were using them as "shields" again. Even when they've never worked as "shields".
And when you kill an innocent civilian, you've just given his/her family and friends a reason to join the "bad guys".
Maybe they just couldn't figure out the difference between N.A.S.A and N.S.A. Hey, dumber things have happened...After all, they're probably not "Rocket Scientists," are they? :P
In all honesty, haven't the US and Israelis attempts at "kicking the nuts" of Hezbollah and similar organizations repeatedly failed miserably? It's a real world example of the myth of the hydra, the more heads you chop off the more there will come! Israel is selling out all their international goodwill (axcept maybe in parts of the US) for a futile attempt to kill off all of Hezbollah. It just can't be done!
I keep wondering when the US or Israel will "go Roman" and kill every Arab male between the ages of 14 and 60.
It makes perfect sense that the hackers came from south america and not an arab country. My own government (the UK) is way ahead in removing that particular distinction
Seriously though, the reason they hit NASA was because they could. They almost certainly scanned through all US government sites for a vunerability they could exploit, and NASA just happened to have one.
Also, you should be thanking them for this. This form of protest hurts exactly nobody. A sysadmin gets some extra overtime, thats all. If you guys didn't have contempt for peaceful forms of protest like this, perhaps people wouldn't feel the need to murder thousands of you just to get your attention.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
I've heard from several sources (including CNN and Wikipedia, not that these are the most credible sources on the planet, I've neglected to search Al-Jazeera) that Hezbollah holds seats in their parliament and runs much of the civil infrastructure. The government of Lebanon accepted Hezbollah as a militia to fight Israel's earlier occupation. I don't know the details of that occupation, so I'm not going to support either side on that. However, in the event of an occupation... I don't blame the Lebanese accepting in Hezbollah in order to combat occupation, governments resist outside forces (that's not going to change). What other course of action is there instead of attacking?
What I condemn is the lack of old style deterrent. The rest of the world is sitting around twiddling their collective thumbs going "We don't like terrorists. Stop bombing Lebanon. Let's get a ceasefire going." Just 30ish years ago, the major deterrent to something like this would be a larger war. I bet there's a senile old guy somewhere going "Is the Egyptian Air Force out getting drunk?"
A good protest for a mass defacement, but the title is missleading.
While MacOS X (appparently), they didnt "target" NASA computers.
Matt
The deluxe edition of Roadhouse is out. Or is that bad news as well?
Can I bum a sig?
what with the shooting of Jews in chicago yesterday
Do you actually read the news, or just go with what you're told? The shooting was in Seattle - a very different place from Chicago. And Jews have been at the bottom of some people's "favorite peoples" list for centuries - I doubt our foreign policy could really ever change that in just a few years.
The world is not nearly as petty a place as some would like to think it is. Bush hasn't helped, sure, but anti-US sentiment has been building for years. We rule the world, but spend outlandish amounts on shopping trips and vacations to countries whose people can barely afford basic food and shelter. Then, when something happens to our own, we can't take care of them either.
We'd be a whole lot better off is more Americans would stop using Bush as a scapegoat (again, he might be a good one, but that's not the point) and started changing the way they actually lived - cut back on energy consumption, buy a hybrid or use public transit, demand true equality in civil services and protection in poor neighborhoods/regions, and quit mouthing off on the Internet complaining about your government when the House has something ridiculous like a 98% re-election rate.
We don't take responsibility for our own actions - and when something goes right, take responsibility whether it was our doing or not. That's why people hate us.
I love seeing how a story about NASA websites being defaced by hackers has turned into a full-fledged Israel-Lebanon threadjack. Your comment is blatantly offtopic and should be modded as such.
The editors are turds for baiting the story like this too.
Reasoning with Hezbullah is pointless. Trying to win the heart and minds of their recruitment ranks through passive response to provocation is pointless. Hezbullah's raison d'etre is to kill Jews. They have no other legitimate reason to exist. Peace didn't work. If that means some lebanese will be manufactured into junior Hezbullah, so be. All the rats in one trap.
The civilian deaths have much of the international community in an uproar. That is hezbullah's goal: to increase the cost of Israeli action.
A Christian, Sunni, or Druse will never join Hezbullah, only Shia. There is nothing to be done about it except let them fight until there is a clear winner.
an ill wind that blows no good
I'm sure a greater number of americans than 6 have been abducted or killed by canadian criminals on our northern border, maybe we should attack canada?..
... still no reason to deprive that group of their entrenched position along your border?
At least use a better analogy (since that isn't even close). There is no political party in Canada that has a formal platform specifically calling for the destruction of the United States. The UN didn't pass a resolution years ago demanding the disarmament of a group of thousands of militarized Canadians that have been launching flesh-shredding ball-bearing-laden, imprecise missiles randomly over the border for years. Any cross-border murders/killings from Canada don't appear to be well organized by a militia that doesn't allow that country's police and military into the southern part of the country, and which receives a continual flow of arms, cash, and weapons training from Iran and Syria.
If Michigan had been continually hit with rockets from Canada, would you think any differently? If the RCMP was afraid to enter the entire southern half of Quebec to stop hundreds of members of a group dedicated to the deaths of all Americans from launching missles from schoolyards, would you expect the U.S. to just shrug and let it keep happening? If an armed incursion from that area came across the border, shot up a bunch of our border guards and kidnapped some, and the Canadian government just said, "Oh well - we can't stop it or do anything about it," would that feel the same?
And if you knew that the group doing that stuff was receiving millions of dollars and truckloads of weapons from another country that's also talking in terms of "wiping your country from the face of the earth" (um, while also scrambling to build a nuke program)
Israel sustained 1,500 missile attacks from Hezbollah in the period preceeding the abductions that were the last straw. That group's willingness to park their Iranian and Chinese weapons in the basements of residences and apartment buildings, and to set up launchers under the cover of a UN peacekeeping station specifically to draw fire towards targets they hope will further inflame the situation - that's hardly the same as your random Canadian sociopath, is it? Would you recommend that every time Hezbollah uses "their" part of Lebanon to launch a made-for-terror-and-only-for-terror ball-bearing bomb into where it will randomly land in Israel, that Israel should just be "porportionate" and do one of the same? How about just ending that Iranian-backed group's ability to hijack the Lebanese land, infrastructure, and convenient human-shield population, once and for all? The Lebanese government hasn't been willing to do it. The UN's toothless resolution has accomplished nothing. What would you do? Just have Israel take the missle hits, for years and years, and not act to end it? Assume that a certain number of cross-border raids and Hezbollah-inflicted deaths are just going to happen, and not mind it?
Really: you don't see the difference between that scenario, and your counter example? Israel doesn't call for the destruction of any country. They scatter pamphlets in areas where they're about to attack Hezbollah missle-launching sites to warn civilians to get out of the fight. They use very expensive precision weapons to minimize damage beyond what they're shooting at. The Hezbollah militants, on the other hand - whom you've just compared to a few hypothetical individual murderers from Canada - attack without warning, directly against civilians, and routinely proclaim that only the destruction of Israel as a country will suffice - and they're taking action to try accomplish it. Use a different analogy, or brush up on the background, here. If the same thing did happen to US citizens near the border with another country, for years on end, putting a stop to it wouldn't feel "disporportionate" at all.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
If you think Bush and the christian fundies are bad, you just wait until there are enough muslims to start a serious call for sharia law. You have not yet begun to suffer.
(unless you'd be one of the people calling for sharia law)
It's damn easy to predict that islam will take over the world.
Then maybe we should have done the same to the chicago mafia in the 30's...
just shelled their places of business and damn the consequences...
Again, a non-workable analogy. The people smuggling whiskey and evading taxes in the 30's weren't launching missles from Chicago into Toledo, or proclaiming that only the destruction of Illinois is acceptable to them. They didn't randomly kill women and children, year after year, just to stoke things up (they just killed each other in a turf war over the smuggling market and related "industries").
The mafia wasn't a militant front for an oil-rich retrograde fascist theocracy that was shipping them millions of bucks and thousands of missiles.
It doesnt make sense to use millitary weaponry when surgical strikes on the ground would get things done.
If the Israelis stopped using precision weapons, you'd see the civilian deaths in the areas where Hezbollah keeps parking their weapons and launchers go from a few hundred to thousands and thousands over night. You do understand that you can't just march Israeli troops back into all of Lebanon and surgically remove Hezbollah weapons and infrastructure from the middle of the civilian presence in which they hide without an enormous invasion, right? It takes a gigantic supply chain, tons of armour, and thousands of soldiers - and it would take months and months, and many more Israeli deaths, which is exactly what Hezbollah would like to force them to have to do.
Hezbollah has had an uninterrupted six years to build bunkers, to booby-trap and mine their weapons storage sites, and to make sure that their personnel are woven completely into the fabric of the civilian population of Lebanon. Israel is being smart, and taking out the tools Hezbollah will need to re-supply themselves with weapons. Eventually they will run out, or Iran will have to more clearly show their hand by visibly pushing new weapons into the area by air - and they don't want to have that light shown on them just now. In the meantime, when Hezbollah pops out of a basement with a missle launcher, Israel hits that spot immediately, to destroy the cache that's there. They have no choice, other than to just tolerate more missles raining down on Haifa and beyond.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I'm sorry, I appreciate your argument, but here's what gets me. When Hesbulla provoked this whole incident, what in all honesty, did they expect to happen? They know Israel is zealous in the defense of their country, they know Israel has a massive amount of weaponry, they know Israel will do whatever it takes to eliminate terrorist threats. In my mind, Hesbulla is almost equally responsible for the deaths of its own Lebanese citizens by provoking this as Israel is. When the Lebanese people and government finally fully reject terrorism as a viable manner of acting in today's world (ideally by fully purging Hesbulla from the country) only then will it gain the respect of the rest of the world. The twisted part is that the people of Lebanon take pride in Hesbulla's actions, when, in fact, it is the source of many of their problems, particularly this latest one. Until they realize that the rest of the civilized world does not associate terrorism with civility, they will gain less empathy than they otherwise would, particularly from the United States. I see only one viable solution to this problem. Get rid of the zealot, extremist terrorists, and all problems will miraculously go away.
Mod me as flamebait if you must, but I can explain, in general terms, the crux of the problem. It is when we ignore this that we see no workable solution. --
Martin Luther King wasn't violent, but remember, he also wasn't Muslim.
Perhaps you'll remember his more aggressive and violent counterpart - Malcolm X. And guess what? Muslim.
Vast swaths of Islam have cultivated and condoned violence as a tool. We can try to reconcile and justify Arab violence throughout the world by thinking things like "they had no choice" or "Islam is a wonderful religion, it's some people that are bad." But time and time again (in the recent era), Islam and violence have been very happy bedfellows. This is illustrated very well when we compare Malcolm X vs. Martin Luther King. MLK knew that non-violent means could be very powerful, but Malcolm X ignorantly felt he had no choice (and was himself killed by fellow Muslims). Zoom out of this picture a little bit, to look at the entire mid-East conflict, and it's easy to see just how irrational and violent these Muslim regions in the Middle East have become.
I'm not implying for one second that Christianity is some great non-violent religion. BUT, as a WHOLE, in the last century, Christianity has generally proven to be a faith of reason and non-violence, whereas Islamic regions have shown that they should be knocked back to the stone age so that they're lifestyle can match their social advancement.
Yes, you are missing something, but it's ok, you were meant to miss it.
You are missing the fact that on the day prior to Hezbullah kidnapping that IDF soldier, the IDF had entered the Gaza Strip for the first time in almost a year, and detained a palestinian doctor and his brother, claiming they were members of Hamas, thereby starting this last wave of violence.
See: The British Media And The Invasion Of Gaza
You do not "reason" with the group. You deny them new recruits.
There is some reason those recruits are joining them. Remove that reason and you remove the recruits.
Why do their recruits want "to kill Jews"?
That approach has failed in the past. Why will this time be different?
So they aren't "shields" as such.
Historically, Christians and Sunni have both fought against Jews. So you're argument is little more than hair-splitting. And there is no reason that Sunni militants could not again fight against Israel.
So what you're saying is that "hacktivism" is only "legit" when the government it is undermining isn't your own?
The Chilean hackers blocked the flow of information from the websites attacked to the users wishing to access it. This is what the Chinese government is doing to their citizens.
Efforts to overcome Chinese censorship are directed at allowing information to flow to internet users. There is a difference.
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
Right on.
All this anti-Israeli and 'anti-Zionism' talk around the world is just anti-semitism resurfacing and trying to pretend not to be.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Semitism
"Anti-Semitism (alternatively spelled antisemitism) is hostility toward or prejudice against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group, which can range from individual hatred to institutionalized, violent persecution."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Zionism
"Anti-Zionism is often characterized by opposition to the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish state"
The Anti-Zionism != Anti-Semetism, though the two do get mixed together.
The Israelis are great people that are surrounded by millions of people who have surrendered their minds to a death cult.
Not to burst your bubble, but the Israelis have heaps of fanatic (relegious) nutbags too. You seem to be confusing and conflating ideological extremism with religion. They are not the same, in the exact same sense that Anti-Zionism & Anti-Semetism are not the same, even though people mix them together.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Because if you see images of children bleeding, perhaps you wouldn't support the war. Perhaps you'd stop the shipment of arms, perhaps stop sending them $3 billion a year, or stop the latest shipment of $120 million worth of fighter jet fuel, or cancel the shipment of cluster bombs.
It's difficult to demonsize an enemy when you can see the bleeding faces of their children.
I'm sorry but when you try to justify the killing of innocent civilians you have already lost the argument. Surely war is war and civilians becoming victims of "collateral damage" can be explained. But it can never be justified. Once you claim that killing innocent lives is morally right you have lost all moral authority.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
Remember, Hezbollah only EXISTS because of Israel's invasion of Lebanon decades ago.
So, after the Israelis left, why did Hexbollocks build undergound bunkers beneath mosques, missile storage facilities in civilian apartments, ammo dumps in hospitals, and launch missile attacks against civilians from schoolyards?
The reason that this conflict is taking more of a toll on Lebanese civilians than on Israeli civilians is that Israel is doing everything it can to protect its citizens, while hezbollah is doing everything it can to make targets of civilians. That is why the hez are called terrorists -- it is what they are.
The Lebanese civilians are reaping what hezbollah has sown.
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
So what you're saying is, Israel must remain the dominant power in the region, no many how many innocent people they need to kill to achieve this.
I imagine you would feel diferently about this if it were you and your family being killed to achieve someone's political objective. Israel is completely out of line, and the whole world knows it. The US is the only nation stopping the UN from acting.
Why is that relevent? Does it somehow make your opinion more valid?
http://209.67.212.138/~lebanon/
It hurts. Sure, you can find similar photos from Israel too, but these are a small group of extremists vs. a government who really should know better.
Fuck Hizbollah, and fuck the Israeli government.
Actually, if you believe some, they, the terrorists, did warn many to stay away on 9/11.
"This is about survival. If Israel does not take care of this cockroach problem today, there maybe no Israel tomorrow"
They're people not cockroaches.
I thought their business was things that go whoosh over people's heads?
What is funny is that the kinds of people who would visit a website like NASA are the kinds of people who probably are against the conflict in Lebanon. Also I wonder why people would blame the US for this war. The US has an army of diplomats trying to encourage all sides to agree to a ceasefire. Do they think the US enjoyed evacuating it's people from Lebanon? Everything is the US's fault, unless it was something positive.
n .svg
Lebanon has the best looking flag, it's like the Canadian flag only better. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Flag_of_Lebano
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
It's very easy to forget that only a few months ago you had a ceasefire.
7 68.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5066
The end of the ceasefire happened when they shelled a Palestinian beach killing a family. For every Israeli killed by a rocket, there has been many many more Palestinians killed by Israeli's bombs.
Hesbollah (not Hizballah, you pronunciation-challenged Jewish-American utter moron) is born of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
Beforehand it did not exist, and nor did Hamas.
Now, can you say and understand "Faber est suae quisquae fortunae", you illiterate uneducated twit?
Try. I have seen that in this discussion there is anyway no point trying to argue rationally.
Jewish-American fuckers, as well as Israeli neo-nazis will just go on with the usual Sharon-like propaganda.
In all seriousness, a PSA in the middle east saying "We're buddies with, not run by, Israel" would really be nice at some point.
Let's play a trivia game, at the end let's see if you understand why the US is equated with Israel in middle eastern circles.
Question: Which country alone in the Middle East has nuclear weapons?
Answer: Israel. (Ignore this, lameness filter bypass)
Q: Which country in the Middle East refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and bars international inspections?
A: Israel. (Ignore this, lameness filter bypass)
Q: Which country in the Middle East seized the sovereign territory of other nations by military force and continues to occupy it in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions?
A: Israel. (Ignore this, lameness filter bypass)
Q: Which country in the Middle East routinely violates the international borders of another sovereign state with warplanes and artillery and naval gunfire?
A: Israel. (Ignore this, lameness filter bypass)
Q: What American ally in the Middle East has for years sent assassins into other countries to kill its political enemies (a practice sometimes called exporting terrorism)?
A: Israel. (Ignore this, lameness filter bypass)
Q: In which country in the Middle East have high-ranking military officers admitted publicly that unarmed prisoners of war were executed?
A: Israel. (Ignore this, lameness filter bypass)
Q: What country in the Middle East refuses to prosecute its soldiers who have acknowledged executing prisoners of war?
A: Israel. (Ignore this, lameness filter bypass)
Q: What country in the Middle East created 762,000 refugees and refuses to allow them to return to
their homes, farms and businesses?
A: Israel. (Ignore this, lameness filter bypass)
Q: What country in the Middle East refuses to pay compensation to people whose land, bank accounts and businesses it con- fiscated?
A: Israel. (Ignore this, lameness filter bypass)
Q: In what country in the Middle East was a high-ranking United Nations diplomat assassinated?
A: Israel. (Ignore this, lameness filter bypass)
Q: In what country in the Middle East did the man who ordered the assassination of a high-ranking U.N. diplomat become prime minister?
A: Israel. (Ignore this, lameness filter bypass)
Q: What country in the Middle East blew up an American diplomatic facility in Egypt and attacked a U.S. ship in international waters, killing 33 and wounding 177 American sailors?
A: Israel. (Ignore this, lameness filter bypass)
Q: What country in the Middle East employed a spy, Jonathan Pollard, to steal classified documents and then gave some of them to the Soviet Union?
A: Israel. (Ignore this, lameness filter bypass)
Q: What country at first denied any official connection to Pollard, then voted to make him a citizen and has continuously demanded that the American president grant Pollard a full pardon?
A: Israel. (Ignore this, lameness filter bypass)
Q: What country on Planet Earth has the second most powerful lobby in the United States, according to a recent Fortune magazine survey of Washington insiders?
A: Israel. (Ignore this, lameness filter bypass)
Q: Which country in the Middle East is in defiance of 69 United Nations Security Council resolutions and has been protected from 29 more by U.S. vetoes?
A: Israel. (Ignore this, lameness filter bypass)
Q: What country did the United States invade because "U.N. Security Council resolutions must be obeyed?"
A: Iraq.(Ignore this, lameness filter bypass)
-
All except the last item were taken from Charley Reese's Orlando Sentinal editorial.
Israel is a bad friend and the US shouldn't be so closely aligned with it.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
This guy is right. The American populus in general needs to quit moaning about someone they elected and start to use their power in government to get what they want done, done. As far as countries go, the citizens of the U.S. have more power over their gov't than people in any other nation. All we need to do is quit with the "I'm to poor, weak, ect." bullshit excuses and go back to the "Well I don't have much but I'll try anyway" or the "Damn the torpedos, full steam ahead!" attitudes that founded and formed this nation and lead us through a civil war and 2 world wars successfully. Case and point, I'm currently building a PC. My friends have all told me that it can't be done because I don't have money. But I've researched, saved, and planned and now am ready to build. By taking the time and having faith I've readied myself for the task at hand. One could also say that the current state of affairs in the U.S. is due its secular movement and liberalism spreading and taking over and ruling out the good Christian values once held so dear in this nation.
So what you're saying is that hypothetically if I am going to bomb the s**t out of your house, by giving you an advance warning makes it okay? What the f**k have you been smoking?
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
You don't suppose that dropping cluster bombs on civilians deprives them of their rightful access to information, do you?
NASA has never been anything but an R&D branch of the US Military.
Facts?
The NASA/DoD connection is obvious, but saying that it's sole role is R&D for the military is simplistic at best. Think about the commercial satellites launched into space by NASA; the massive amounts of pure science research on the Venus, Mars, and the moon; Skylab and the ISS; exploration of the outer solar system; the Hubble space telescope; the list goes on.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Seems pretty clear-cut, doesn't it? Keep reading.
Enemy hospitals are, by default, not targets. However, if an enemy hospital has a SAM site on the roof and machine gun nests on every balcony, it becomes a legitimate military target. Any innocent civilians inside are undoubtedly aware of the military nature of their otherwise civilian location, and just in case they aren't, they are warned explicitly by the opposing forces that they are now considered hostile. If they continue to defend their position, they are no longer innocent -- they have become enemy combatants, whether they pick up a gun or not.
In this example, conducting air strikes on the hospital would be completely justified. That's why the Geneva Conventions explicitly make it legal to do so. If you don't want your civilians to get hurt, you keep them out of the fighting. You make it clear that your fight is between your army and their army. On the other hand, if you use civilians to hide your army, if you use civilians as human shields, if you use civilians to conduct suicide bombings, if you set up armories in hospitals and mosques, you leave the opposing force no choice but to kill civilians.
Ditto to that dup.
--
make install -not war
http://209.67.212.138/~lebanon/
I don't have mod points for you, but I have Karma to burn.
Bush refuses to call for an immediate ceasfire.
Other defacements by the same group
Sent from my desktop computer
We don't need to see it -- just report the story.
The term 'war' is so nebulous to most Americans. After all, everything is a war. The war on drugs, the war on porn, the war on terrorism....the term 'war' is being used as a catch-all term to describe anything that has required government intervention. When you get right down to it, few people know what is actually going on when it comes to the real thing. How many people, for example, have seen the horrific consequences from the use of white sulphur? This was commonly used against innocent civilians in Iraq. More recently, I saw a clip of a Lebanese mother sitting with her infant and nine-year-old son- the son had been horribly injured by an explosive device that was targeted at a nearby car. It was very difficult to watch, but that's what's happening.
And yet again Hezbollah is kicking Israel's collective nuts. So much for their elite army. Israel relies on fighter jets because even their best ground troops cannot stand up to Hezbollah fighters... pathethic considering their numbers probably exceed 10x the number of Hezbollah troops. They have been on a destructive rampage, targetting anything and everything they can like a child throwing a temper tantrum. Would it really have killed them to give up Sheba Farms, especially with Hezbollah claiming their only reason for remaining armed was Israel's continued occupation of the area. Anyway, this war is almost over, since Israel was dumb enough to target a shelter in Qana again - you'd think they learned something from their mistake 10 years ago. Way to go Israel! You woke the rest of the world from their apathy. Maybe this time around you'll realize that the best way to protect your people is to offer friendship not violence to your neighbours.
So, in your mind, anything critical of the policies of Israel is anti-semitism. Because that is what you have written. The Israeli people are no different from the palestine or lebanese people: Mother Theresa and that serial killer Manson belong to the same human race. There is of course ideology flung around, but labeling all arabs as being part of a death cult is "anti-arabicanism". If you think that anti-semitism is bad, then why do you exercise "anti-arabicanism"? The sole reason I put quote marks around that phrase, is because it is not even in common use to describe a behaviour that is exhibited in your own post.
I don't think the Israelis are doing what they must. I think they keep voting in politicians that act as if they and only they could protect them from a not lifethreatening (on a national scale) enemy (doesn't that sound familiar?). What the Israelis need to do is vote for less comforting, less "black-and-white" world viewed politicians, who can do their best to solve the problems on the middle east. While it might not look so good, because there are many compromises to be reached, both the israelis and palestinian/lebanese people would end up safer. If history ended up teaching something, is that unilaterialism end up in empires, and that empires fall.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
You absolutely have to understand that not everybody have the same basic worldview as you do, and that other people are also simply trying to do what's right. And if you don't, you'll never really understand "why they hate us".
Oh, natural selection still works. Unfortunately, the world is so interconnected now that these modern day knuckle draggers threaten to take the rest of us with them. Society really needs to develop a mechanism for weeding out those who would do it irreparable harm. In the interim, I would suggest a constitutional amendment preventing anyone who has spent more than six months in Texas during his entire life from running for national office.
Hezbollah (sp?) has been attacking Israel for a very long time with terrorist missile attacks. Thank goodness they aren't more successful, though that is not from lack of trying. They kill every Israeli have get a chance to, and kidnap soldiers to try to release captured brethren. They hide within the Lebanese population, using them as human shields. They have been at least tolerated by the Lebanese government and their Syrian masters.
Lebanon is reaping their own rotten fruits. If they were a rational culture, they would demand that their leaders remove Hezbollah I am only surprised at the level of retraint shown by Israel. I wish I believed their efforts would be successful. I wish I believed that Lebanon would clean itself up.
I wish I could believe that the civilians that have died and will die would be the last ones, ever.
That said, terrorists need to be removed, and any nation that aids or harbors them needs to change their tune. The only way I can imagine achieving this, short of large scale military operations, would be to give up Israel to the Arab nations to fight over. If I believed that would actually work, I would support it. However, Israel will go nuclear before they lie down, with or without U.S. support.
Oh, and what's up with NASA using Mac's? I'd think a buncha rocket scientists would be on the 'nix train by now.
Shaw's Principle: Build a system even a fool could use, and only a fool would want to use it.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/DB17388F-0D A1-4F56-A029-B83BBB551037.htm
The children are under the care of their parents, and if their parents had any brains, then they should've gotten out of there as soon as they noticed Hezbollah activity, knowing that it will draw Israeli fire. If they were forced to stay by Hezbollah, then I guess they aren't the freedom fighters that so many ignorant fools believe they are.
Also, as long as we are talking about children, I might as well mention the use of teenaged sucide bombers by Palestinian factions, just to show you that on the one hand they cry and lament about children dying due to announced Israeli bombings, while at the same time they brainwash some children to go and blow themselves on busses and in malls, where, chances are, that they will kill some children as well.
Another poster in this thread mentioned that Israel would have had more luck in combating Hezbollah if they were not to announce strikes. I fully agree with the poster -- with the exception of using the word "efficient" instead of "luck" -- because if Israel were to simply bomb all the southern villages/cities in Lebanon with a slew of dumb bombs, they'll most likely destory more of the Katyusha stockpiles, as well as save some money on the more expensive guided munition. However, they are trying to reduce civilian casualties, and therefore they have to get a positive identification on a target, either through intelligence, or by waiting for Hezbollah to fire.
I honestly don't know what went through people's mind when they rated the parent post as insightful.
It's Israel's attempt to allow the civilians to leave before the start of bombing. Obviously, it's a risky thing to do for the reason you state: it gives advance warning to the terrorists also. However, the alternative, to just bomb civilian-occupied areas without warning, is rejected by Israel.
In part, this is justifiable by Israel's limited goals in Lebanon. If the terrorists leave the south, and move to a distance beyond which they can no longer land their rocket bombs into Israel's cities, it would meet the primary goal of the incursion.
However, Hezbollah thrives on civilian casualties and deaths. The term for this is "radicalization". Simply stated, Hezbollah is betting that if "the world" sees that civilians are suffering at the hands of Israel, then "the world" will become angry at Israel, and not at Hezbollah, despite the fact that Hezbollah has located their arsenals and fighters smack in the middle (and underneath, in bunkers) of the civilian population of Lebanon. Hezbollah fires their rockets from the civilian areas. Ambulances have been used in the past to secretly transport their munitions.
As expected, this strategy is working for much of "the world", which is calling for Israel to stop their "aggression", rather than calling for the immediate disarming, arrest, and trial of the Hezbollah terrorist groups.
Hezbollah targets Israel's citizens; it promises to destroy Haifa and Tel Aviv. Remember that there are numerous civilians, including women, children, and elderly living in Haifa and Tel Aviv. Those are Hezbollah's stated targets.
Actually, I would say the ones actually firing the bombs on civilians (and on the rec cross, and on UN positions, and on evacuation cars that are evacuating on Israeli orders, but I digress) are the ones most responsible for the civilian deaths. And even more so, given that Israel had no legitimate reason to attack Lebanon AT ALL.
The difference between the Israelis killing Arabs and Arabs killing Israelis is that the Arabs wrap their children in high explosives and send them off to blow themselves up in crowded public areas without warning and without mercy.
A large number of those Arabs have been involved in a long running war with Israel whom they consider to have stolen their land and destroyed their livelihoods. They are fighting an enemy massively better funded and armed (by the United States) who employ tactics deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice and condemned by the Secretary General of the United Nations.
As a British person I accept that Israel exists and we must practically do everything we can to stop the violence. However, I also accept that Brtiain broke a lot of promises to Arabs in the Balfour Declaration and today the US and the UK continue to supply weapons to Israel that kill innocent women, children and now UN workers, despite the fact that Israel is in breach of international law.
Looking at the history of it and the current situation, I would have to say "we" (US/UK in particular) are responsible for a lot of deaths on both sides.
"Wrong. Defaceing (sic) something is a violation of the law. I don't need to see what some moron did to know it's wrong, and I certainly don't want the guy pasting it in his scrapbook and being emboldened because he got some cheap and free publicity for his illegal act. Same way I wish the news media in Los Angeles would stop following car chases -- it takes something dangerous and gives it creedence (sic). There's no need for it."
Oh, well, if it's illegal. Gee, I guess that means that the administration will have to stop spying on Americans and Israel will have to stop colonizing land conquered in war. And maybe, while we're all so hopped up on obeying the law, we can all start observing the speed limit.
Perspective, son. Perspective.
Yes, lets send them leafets telling them to leave. But wait, lets blow up all the bridges and roads first so they can't and we can kill every lebanese we can and justify it by saying 'we warned them'. And if they still have the gaul to try and leave we'll just blow up their vehicle convey. THE PEOPLE CAN'T LEAVE, THEY ARE BOMBED ONE WAY OR THE OTHER.
The same grief, the same youth, the same mourning, the same casualties, the same destruction, the same fear. When will it stop?
Privacy is terrorism.
The jews in the fight are outnumbered and out equipped but bolstered by refugees from europe and arab countries, yes my dear onsided fried, jews were forced to flee from arabia long before palestinians fled, the jews nonetheless manage to hold their own. Although various arab countries send their armies they cannot win and slowly the jews carve in the british terreory the land that would become Israel and in 1948 pronounce its founding. This is quickly regonized by almost the entire world, for whole host of reasons almost all political.
The arab world suffers a massive defeat. Setout to wipe the jews from the face of the world they instead end up with military and political defeat. This tiny group of jews defeated their proffesional armies and politically they were forced to accept the creation of Israel, a jewish state on arab land, by the heathens of the world.
In a very real sense the 1948 Israel/Arab war never ends. It is a ceasefire. Not peace. Two more times almost the exact same nations will commit to open warfare. The six day war and the jonn kippur war. The last one at least bring open military conflict to an end for now as egypt regonizes Israel and slightly less known Jordinia warns Israel of the attack ending that conflict as well.
Only syria remains as a warlike neighbour. The other countries are at something less then peace but more then a ceasefire. Perhaps the best that can be hoped for in the region, a realistion that nobody has anything to gain by continued conflict.
One thing to remember that the so called occupied areas, palestine, are in fact areas that belong to jordania and egypt. Jordan especially is less then pleased with the idea that it has to sacrifce land to the palestines. Arab brothers, shared faith is nice but not when it halves your country. This is a common attitude. How many syrians crying over palestine cry over the koerds?
Lebanon is very much involved in this conflict. It was one the founders behind the Arab Liberation Army, the force send to destory Israel during the 1948 conflict. It was lebanon that attacked Israel, not the other way around.
But the current troubles are far simpler. Lebanon goverment has never, either because of lack of will or lack of capability, stopped arab forces from launching attacks against Israel from within its borders. After too many attacks by amonst others palestines from lebanon Israel attacked with the goal of making its northern border secure.
What you call the kidnapping of two soldiers is just one of the countless attacks from lebanon against israel that the lebanese have done nothing to stop. Perhaps even the opposite.
This creates an impossible situation. What can Israel do? The objective of hezbollah and similar groups like hamas is the destruction of Israel. This is not an option Israel can accept, you perhaps love to see all jews erased from the face of the world but the jews themselves do not. Odd but true.
In effect hezbollah and others hide behind a human shield. This is a problem in modern warfare. In more civilized times armies would just meet up somewhere in a field and do their fighting there leaving the civilians in peace. Well until the winning forces went on a rampage but what is a little bit of murder, looting and rape?
But how do you deal with an enemy who shoots at you from behind an "innocent". You can't. You either accept the shootings, the rocket attacks, the suicide bombs and the kidnappings OR you shoot back with the almost assured change of killing the "innocent".
There is ple
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Question: Which country alone in the Middle East has nuclear weapons? Answer: Israel. (Ignore this, lameness filter bypass)
Yeah, except for that one nation called Pakistan. Oh and Iran in 10 years if we let them.
Q: Which country in the Middle East refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and bars international inspections?
Except for that country called Iran. Yeah, they signed it, but they certainly haven't lived up to the treaty. Not to mention that Syria has not signed the CWC or BTWC.
You know I was intending of going line by line on your commentary, but it's obvious from your first two "points" that you did not intend to add a well-researched comment to this discussion and I know better ways of spending a Sunday afternoon than exposing trolls.
The Geneva Conventions cover the so called "rules of war". It is not the end-all of ethical discussion. What about civilians who are unable to recognize the warnings and understand the military uses of the hospital? Such as the elderly, mentally handicapped, children, and those in a vegetative state? Sure attacking such a hospital may seem "justified in war" but it doesn't seem right nor does the use of such civilians to shield military operations.
War is hell because we lax our morals in order to achieve a goal that in the end will hopefully improve the overall situation (cause more good then harm). Yet it rarely does and we should reserve conflict only when it is necessary. Even when it is in self-defense it should only be against the inital aggressors. There is a paradox is claiming the justification in killing innocent cilivans in order to protect the innocent.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
All this anti-Israeli and 'anti-Zionism' talk around the world is just anti-semitism resurfacing and trying to pretend not to be.
This is mindless propaganda. Apparently no one can speak out against the actions of the jews without being labeled as anti-semetic. I'll agree with you that there are a lot of great Israeli people. But there are also a lot of great people in the muslim world that surrounds Israel.
You talk about the difference between how arabs kill jews and how jews kill arabs. I think that the reason the jews pass out flyers warning arab territories of impending attack is because they are not using guerilla tactics while the arabs are. Maybe if the US gave F-16s, smart bombs, and Abrams tanks to the arabs then they could afford to give advanced warning to the Israeli citizens. I'm pretty sure the arabs have been warning the Israelis that they will die if they do not leave ever since Israel was formed on land that was previously muslim territory and given to the jews because the world felt sorry for them after World War II. My question is, why did they take land away from people who had nothing to do with the Holocaust and give it to the jews? Shouldn't they have given them part of Germany?
If all the Israelis really wanted was to get back their kidnapped soldiers, why didn't they just send in Mossad to extract them? Instead they instantly started bombing all sorts of civilian facilities like the airport, suburbs, mosques, etc. Despite what you may think, Israel is not perfect and they deserve their fair share of the blame for all the deaths over the past 50 years. Saying that Israel is innocent is just as racist as those who would like to see it wiped off the map.
And even more so, given that Israel had no legitimate reason to attack Lebanon AT ALL.
uh-huh. How about lobbing bombs into their towns un-announced. Syria, Iran, and Lebanon are all at fault here.
Why do we assume that an attack on a US 'target' (NASA) is protesting a war between israel and lebanon?
Last time I checked, iraq was still at war..
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
But he is not innocent, he was a willing criminal breaking british laws.
The word "innocent" always makes me uneasy. It is claimed so easily. You can only truly claim innocence if you have truly committed no crimes.
There is another element as well. We have heared from his friends and family that he was innocent. At one point they even claimed he was legally in england. He was not. He was, as is proven, an illegal alien in england. Wich is a crime. His family knew this. So they are lying. What other lies are they telling?
I am a very suspicious bastard and always suspect the worsed. I do believe the police made a really stupid mistake here but sadly that is what happens. In the same way we accept several thousand people killed because bad mistakes while driving we have to accept lethal mistakes when we have armed police.
A simple case of mistaken identity couple with extreme orders lead to a tragedy. YET we have to remember one thing. If this guy had not broken the law he would not have been in england at the time but in his own country, a well known safe heaven with perfect police and zero crime.
In reality this case is little different the a case from my own family, a distant aunt was hit on a zebra crossing by a police car with lights but not sirens. They do then not have right of way, only when both are one do they have right of way. She broke her hip and that probably lead to her premature death. Was the police at fault? Yes and no. They should have had sirens on BUT they are also under orders to use them as little as possible to keep the noise down (yes really). My aunt should probably have paid better attention, a flashing police car is hard to ignore, but do we all always pay attention when crossing the street?
In the end it is just a tragic accident.
In a way this person was just another victim of terrorism. True terror that lead to police being given orders to shoot to kill in a country were most cops don't even carry guns. This is what terrorists really want. For us to live in terror. They succeeded. The real victim is us all. Since we are the ones who create this world, we are not innocent.
As for your comments on peacefull protests. Yeah right. The middle east has seen a lot but peacefull protest is not one of them. Check the goals of the arab liberation arm formed by lebanon in 1947. What this is is just kiddies rebelling against the world and selecting the first anti-hero they can find. Earlier generations lashed onto to the USSR as their guiding beacon.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
.. want that the respective Chilean hackers be shot in the face, i.e. executed, as a protest against animal rights activist abuses?
I wouldn't consider South Asia the Middle East. And our very different treatment of Iran and Israel's nuclear weapons programs just prove the GPs point.
Frosty piss posts are worthless, GNAA posts are worthless and hurtful, but they are the least of this site's neuroses.
The goverment makes the laws you say. This is true but the public gets to elect them. Last time I checked your country had three major parties with at least some political differences. The conservatives (disgcraced but basically sorta of left to the americans), labour (used to be socialist but it is hard to tell these days) and the libdems (the eternal losers). There are smaller parties but not as many and certianly not as powerfull as in mainland europe.
Coalition goverment (were more then one party form the goverment) is unknown in england, winner takes all.
Correct so far?
While the conservatives are not much of a choice if you are anti-iraq/afghanistan (anti the war that is not the countries) the libdems I thought were. So why did they loose? Why did blair win? Although labour suffered losses this cannot be explained by the war. The conservatives were the ones who got more votes, not the anti-war parties.
So at least when it came to choosing their next leader your vast majority does not seem to be all that vast.
The simple fact is that it was not one million, a google return a BBC report claiming a figure somewhere between 700.00 and 2 million. In London.
London has about 7% muslims on a total population somewhere between 6 and 12 million depending on how you select the area. To keep the math simple lets make it ten million. 7% muslims that makes, oh say 700.000 muslims. What do you know, the exact number the police say walked in that march.
But not all the marches are muslims. Indeed, so not even all muslims give a shit about this war. After all for a londoner all it would take to march is to take a day off from school or work. Not exactly an a huge sacrifice.
The problem with such big protests is always that if you really start to count the numbers it just ain't that big a percentage. 7% of the london populatin, a fraction of the total english population.
The reason they are ignoring you is simple. You are just one tiny voice. As hard as it may be to accept the majority of britsh, indeed the world are not against the war in Iraq/Afghanistan. No you won't hear about them in the news because they are the SILENT majority who either just don't give a shit or are in support.
It is what democracy such a bitch for activists. To get public opinion to swing your way you have to overcome a gigantic mass of people who have completly different concerns. Even getting a million people to march is insignificant. Even if you got 10 million to march you would still only have a small portion of the people who can vote. And just because they take part in a march does not mean they will vote the way you want them too.
Democracy is the dictatorship of the masses. If england was a dictatorship of a minority were say the lords wanted to start this war you have would at least have a chance but what are you going to do against the masses telling you that they are not opposed to this war?
Well your answer is clear, deny this is the case.Hang on to your tiny march and ignore the evidence of the election. The goverment is not doing what you want so they must not be listening to the people. They did, at the last election, the people spoke. War is on.
Welcome to the adult world.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Yeah, except for that one nation called Pakistan. Oh and Iran in 10 years if we let them.
Pakistan isn't in the middle east. Pakistan is in asia.
Except for that country called Iran. Yeah, they signed it, but they certainly haven't lived up to the treaty.
Iran is developing a nuclear power program. Can you produce any evidence that they are doing anything else?
You know I was intending of going line by line on your commentary, but it's obvious from your first two "points" that you did not intend to add a well-researched comment to this discussion and I know better ways of spending a Sunday afternoon than exposing trolls.
With the exception of the last item, those are taken verbatim from an Orlando Sentinal article.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Both sides have radicals that have no use for peace in the region. It is a self fueling situation when attacks are involved. The situation won't get better until the violence ceases and both sides learn to control their radicals. The violence won't cease as long as other nations (the US included) keep choosing sides and fanning the flames of war. This war by proxy (Iran & Syria vs the USA) is a direct result of US cowboy policy this administration enjoys. Unless the UN got some balls about it and condemns the fighting AND ALL THOSE WHO SUPPORT IT, it won't stop.
B.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
"As many prior posters have quoted, the difference between Israeli citizens and Lebanese citizens is that "Israeli citizens are sleeping in bomb shelters; Lebanese citizens are sleeping with bombs."
Nice soundbite, it makes it sound like the children are complicit in missle launches, but of course they were just innocent victims. Did they choose or even know who was next door? You are using the vague phrase 'Lebanese citizens' to try to blanket transfer blame from SOME terrorists to A WHOLE COUNTRIES POPULATION.
This strategy can never work. Consider the case of the IRA in Northern Ireland. We faced their bombs regularly in Britain, yet we never did anything so foolish as to bomb huge sections of ireland in the hope of flushing them out. It would be counter productive, it would simply create more terrorism.
In the same way this strategy can't possibly ever fix the problem Israel has with its northern border. It will simply increase the terrorism, and decrease their security.
Your comment is now on page five of this whole mess of a discussion (for me at least), but I hope at least some people get this far and can read it. Thank you.
Reading through the posts on this topic, I've noticed a number of people criticising the significant number of civillian casualties to date during Israel's campaign in Lebanon. Rightly so, the number of civilian deaths is appauling, however, the blame does _NOT_ nessecarily lay purely on Israel's hands. I'm not defending Israel, I believe both sides of this conflict have a lot to answer for. However, people need to recognise that the staggering number of civilian casualties is less due to carelessness on Israel's behalf (certainly some is, but not a large amount), but primarily due to the tactics employed by Hezbollah.
Hezbollah quite intentionally launches rocket attacks and other military actions from within civilian centers, as a deterent to those who would strike back at them. It's a dispicable tactic, and it makes for some very difficult decisions for those who wish to retaliate. Ultimately, there comes a point where one has to retaliate, even if that means loss of civilian life. So please, keep this in mind when commenting on the loss of life in Lebanon, it's certainly terrible, but the blame game is not one-sided, Hezbollah is as much at fault (if not significantly more so) as Israel is. Just my small piece of input.
"Then the huge "DUH, they're being used as human shields" kicks in and you realize how fucking stupid all this shit really is."
They launch the missiles then move to a new location. Why would they wait until Israeli army arrives?
Since the Israeli's didn't send them army, they did a punishment bombing instead, they knew the missile lanuchers had long gone and wanted to dish out a punishment instead. So no, they weren't Hizbolla human shields, they were Israeli human targets.
So if the 9/11 hijackers had warned us they were going to destroy the WTC, it would have been OK?
If the WTC had been a legitimate military target, yes.
uh-huh. How about lobbing bombs into their towns un-announced. Syria, Iran, and Lebanon are all at fault here.
Oh, good grief. If you're going to parrot what some guy said on whichever current affairs program you watch, you could at least do some basic research to make sure you know what the conflict is about.
Hint: the Israeli attacks on Lebanon were in response to a Hizbollah raid into Israel in which several Israeli soldiers were killed and two were kidnapped. Nothing to do with "lobbing bombs" into anyone's towns.
(I do like your rather ludicrous implication that it's fine to lob bombs into someone's towns as long as you announce your intention first, though. Thanks for the laugh.)
There is a HUGE difference. America wasn't firing at the hijackers before-hand. The attack of 9/11 was totally uncalled for. While Hezbollah have been asking for war since their first attack against Israel.
Plan 9 from Bell Labs.
This may break your heart to hear, but the US has never been loved by much of the world, ever. Unless, of course, those people dancing in the streets on 9/11 were, you know, doing it out of love.
I seem to recall services of remembrance being held across the world. I remember the Union Jack being lowered to half-mast and the Star-Spangled Banner playing at Buckingham Palace. I remember Le Monde saying "We are all Americans now" and meaning it. I remember the genuine shock, outrage, support and sympathy of more than half the world.
Why don't you?
"from the video that the missles are being fired right from behind the main large 4 story building on top of the hill. "
The terrorists, of course, wait around until Israel comes and bombs them..... oh wait that would be dumb, they move away immediately after the launch.
Israel knows this, that's why it doesn't send in the soldiers, it drops bombs. To punish the civilians for letting Hizbollah launch a missile from their village, rather than kill Hizbollah fighters.
"Argument that they could not get out because of roads/bridges blown were false because the news crews have been reporting they got there with their big news vans easily."
They don't have cars, money, petrol, anywhere to go and if they go out on the roads Israel blows them up. Why should they go? Why doesn't Israel stop killing people?
Am I the only one that finds it stupid that these "cyber terrorists" attacked sites associated with NASA? Sure, it's a .gov, but why not hit a site that will get more notice or is at least somewhat related to what is happening in the middle-east. Not like something like this matters, america backs isreal no matter what they do, some momentary annoyance isnt gonna stop that.
Flamebait? Honestly? Sounds like it's time for the mods to pull their collective heads out of their collective asses, or at least out of the sand. Isreal is the kid who talks funny in a schoolyard full of bullies. Anyone who has ever witnessed this knows that there are only two outcomes: Either the kid resigns himself to victimhood or he learns to speak the bullies' language, and by language I mean violence in quantity when the line is crossed.
Israel is a Jewish nation surrounded by arabs, many of whom seek actively to destroy Israel by any means. The arabs' current and favorite method is to pick fights until Israel responds and then cry to the "international community". Considering the common thread of anti-semitism that runs through much of the world's governmental bodies, this is a can't-lose strategy.
Just because you disagree with something or you have some political/religious/whatever axe to grind does not mean you can mod something Flamebait, Overrated, or whatever. If you want to bitch-slap someone for their beliefs, do it in your own damn blog and leave the real discussion to the adults.
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
The logical fallacy in your arguement is assumning that an attack on a people requires directly killing them yourself.
Both the US and Russia supplied weapons to terrorist groups in Africa, the Middle Easy, and South America, all playing a game intended to defeat the other. Similiarly there is now a theological war going on in the middle east, each group saying they should control the world (or at least the middle east). It's greedy self important people playing the desperate against each other, I have no doubt both sides think either they're doing right, or they have no choice if they want to win.
9/11 involved a stupid and civilian target, but it got huge press. And perhaps between it and Afghanistan and Iraq, led to a few people being reminded how a few short years ago these groups were seen as useful pawns if nothing else to us. I personally think the current situation is much like it on both sides. Both sides are killing civilians preaching 'look what they're doing to us' with the powers that be safely tucked away from injury, while the common man is killed because civilians are easy to reach. Reaching a real target, the people who it would make the most difference to eliminate is hard... or perhaps simply against the goals of both sides. War is good for business and especially good for power grabs. How often do you hear great things said about leaders in peace, compared to the great leaders who 'lead to our victory in the war'? If peace was desired in the middle east, then the world would quit it's whining, supply food, water, and resources to the region with no expectations of repayment, place peacekeeping troops, anti-aircraft and missle stations within all currently contested zones, and enough peacekeepers strictly along the borders to keep terrorists or military personnel from making provoking attacks on both sides.
Maybe this is naive or farfetched, but it seems like there's a whole lot of talking and not enough acting from the international community as a whole. Peace cannot be achieved without those willing to make sacrifices without personal gain.
someone has stuck it to NASA for their oppression of Lebanon. It's been obvious for quite some time that those geeks had it out for South Lebanon and are fully responsible for the Isreali offensive.
Kudos to Chilean hackers for their educated response to this crisis!
What else would he say? That Israel bombed the civilians on purpose.
Ever heard of "conflict of interest?" Get better sources before you even bother to speak.
Okay, look gfxguy. In your previous few posts you talk about RIGHTS. First, Chilean people that are not naturalized U.S. Citizens have virtually no rights in the U.S. outside international law and treaties, certainly not in the context of the First Amendment of the Constitution. So talking about legal rights in the context of this very specific occurance is just dumb and borderline trolling. Second, the posters that you are arguing against are mostly referring to MORAL rights, which is a very different thing than LEGAL rights. There is a lot more gray area there, if you haven't noticed from the replies you have received thus far. Hypothetically speaking, if Congress outlawed the 1st Amendment, would you then call someone a jerk for breaking the law and asserting their inalienable right to free speech?
...but I'll fight against anybody who defaces somebody elses property (thus taking away their free speech)
...and I'll fight against anybody who thinks they have a RIGHT to a forum for their speech.
Obviously there was a security hole. The owners of the site are now aware of it. They will be better off for having it exposed, assuming there is no data loss.
Like yourself, for instance? Perhaps you should excercise better judgement in picking your battles. I guess I've been had by a troll, so I should take my own advice. But lastly, FWIW, I agree with you in principle but the way of the world is not so black and white. You've had ample opportunity to chime in on this subject, so do me a favor and STFU.
What could possibly hurt the security of the American people more than giving our own government the ability to hide its
I am sure that the NASA websites are well traveled and poorly defended government website. What website would you have them hack instead?
The sun never sets on Admiral-Bell's empire.
"And even more so, given that Israel had no legitimate reason to attack Lebanon AT ALL."
Well, Lebanon is a part of Eretz Yisrael Haslemah, as promised to Abraham by God. God promised the Nation of Israel all the lands of the Canaanites as described in Genesis 15:18-21.
This would mean that many people from Israel would consider it their right to do what they want with those lands; they would consider people not of the Nation of Israel to be trespassers on those lands. This is an unalienable right they would say, as it is described in Abraham Stern's 18 Principles of Rebirth, which is also describes Israel's right to use any force necessary to secure all the lands promised to them by God.
So it's not exactly right to say they have no right to bomb them: because apparently God gives them that right.
That stupid lazy "hacktivist" attack NASA websites, to protest the atrocities in Lebanon, because they are easier targets than say for example cia.gov, while Israel pummels Lebanon, because they are easier to make war with than the real villians behind Hizbollah, i.e. Syria and Iran.
my old sig is obsolete, and I haven't come up with a stupid enough new one yet
First off, I want to add my voice to those that say: Fuck Israel and Fuck Hizbollah. Fuck Hizbollah for dragging Lebanese civillians into a war where they are utterly defenseless. Fuck Israel for so utterly disregarding civillian lives (accidents my fucking arse).
Fuck Israel for being so fucking dumb as to not have learnt its lesson from the last time they invaded Lebanon. Hizbollah won then and Hizbollah is no weaker now. Fuck Israel for being so stupid as to always make disgustingly bad excuses for the wholesale slaughter of civillians. Fuck Israel again for being so numbingly stupid as to not realise that every bomb that falls on Lebanon makes Hizbollah more popular in the Arab world. And again, fuck Israel for achieving what no Iranian Mullah or politician could: unifying the Shia and Sunni sects against Israel and the west.
You think Israel can disarm Hizbollah? You must have also thought that the US could pacify Iraq. Look how well that turned out and how "disarmed" they are.
And Fuck Bush and his cabal of poodles in the UK who are too stupid to see where this is going: Destroying whatever miniscule amount of credibility the US and the UK had in the Arab world and dragging us one step closer to World war 3.
And you know who must be laughing so hard at all of this that they must be pissing themselves: The Russians and the Chinese.
Modern warfare is nothing compared to what both soldiers and civilians went through in previous wars.
It's amazing to me that people in America get upset when 3,000 soldiers are killed. There were INDIVIDUAL BATTLES in World Wars I and II where 50,000+ soldiers were killed. While this war is horrific, it's nothing compared to real full-scale combat. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it shows that technology is making war less bloody. Of course, that doesn't help the thousands of people who still die in Iraq.
-- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
You're right, sort of. Hizbollah and Hamas just launch 20 or 30 rockets into Israel on any given day from Lebanon and "Palestine". Funded and supplied by Syria and Iran. Usually fired while surrounded by children in the middle of villages and civilian populations.
The amount these terrorists surround themselves with children is amazing. The pictures are hard to find, since they're mostly taken by terrorist friendly AP stringers, but they're out there.
Here are a couple examples.
And the hacked rover wrote "I dig Osama" in the Martian sand.
Table-ized A.I.
Thank you, that post was one of the most moronic posts I've seen in awile. I think he's a news reporter, but if he's not, someone needs to hire him right away, he could do a great propogandist peice for a newspaper or T.V. broadcast.
It's not a question of whether it would have been "all right". Israel is doing what they can to minimize civilian deaths. Islamist terrorists (like the 9/11 hijackers and Hezbollah) do what they can to maximize civilian deaths. If you can't see the moral difference between those two, you're a completely lost cause.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Me thinks you're either forgetting the rest of the situation or don't care to know.
This started with kidnapping and ransoming of Israeli soldiers.
Then, it continues with rockets raining down into Israeli territory.
Should they just say 'my bad' and let it continue? Do you think if they stop now the other guy is going to go 'cool, we can stop'
Do you think the solider that was working a checkpoint into his country that was kidnapped will live? He wasn't shooting at anyone, they attacked and kidnapped him.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
I'm not sure if I would have put a gmail address on the site...is that a subpoena I hear the FBI getting signed to search the ENTIRE GMail database? This was just the thing they were waiting for.
Fuck.
Something like this?
Anything less graphic is Israeli propaganda. This is what their so called self-defence looks like.
Nyhetsankaret.com -- det bÃsta av Sveriges Nyhetssido
That doesn't justify their actions -- the deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure, the carelessness with regard to civilian casualties. Would carefully targeted strikes on Hezbollah targets be appropriate? Of course! But they're going far beyond that point, and attacking targets which harm not Hezbollah but Lebanon's legitimate government -- which is weak enough as it is.
If you missed this aspect, I need to ask where you get your info -- Faux News?
Just wanted to add that in Chile exists the biggest Palestinian community outside the Middle East.
While I have a certain sympathy for the hackers if you really want to help in Lebanon donate money to the Lebanese Red Cross/Red Crescent.
Bank details can be found via the list of national sites http://www.ifrc.org/address/rclinks.asp - Lebanese Red Cross Want To Help
AUDI BANK
BAB IDRISS
Account Nb: 841500
SWIFT: AUDBLBBX
I've provided the complete HTML trail so people can check that this is not fraudulent.
Regards Brian
Fear leads to Anger, Anger leads to Hate, Hate leads to Suffering...
Ahhh, Yoda.
Think back to WWII. During that war we dropped two atom bombs on hundreds of thousands of innocent japaneese civillians. Before we dropped the bomb, we droped millions of leaflets to warn civillians to leave the area. Does this mean the US was wrong for ending the second world war too? If a country is making a good-faithed effort to warn civillians to get out of an area that is about to be attacked, it should be looked upon as humanatarian, as they could simply just start bombing the piss out of the same building with civillians in it, and would be just as justified in doing so.
Warning: Corny karma killing post above.
However if you let two die, they can and do take more.
How do you know they aren't one and the same? There have been photos and videos of where Hezbolla fighters are wearing civillian clothing firing from civillian buildings.
There are reports that the 'poor civilians' are being held in the buildings against their will with the express intent of them dying in retalliation and then exploiting it to dupe people just like you to believe that Israel doesn't know how to figure out where a rocket came from. Hell I played Scorched Earth 20 years ago and I can figure out where a rocket or shell came from. Counterbattery launch systems can figure it out while the projectile is still in the air, and over 100 different ones.
This is a complete and culturally different portion of the world. How you are viewed by the other guy is the most important thing ever. If you're viewed as week, they just want to kick you ass more. If you rain holy hell down on them in response to a single kidnapping they'll think twice next time.
Plus, Hezbollah was supposed to have been completely disarmed by the wonderful UN in 2000 as a condition of Israel withdrawing from Lebanon. We see how well that worked.
I'm not a warmonger. I lay awake until the wee hours of the morning thinking of all the people that are dying over one of the dumbest things on earth - organized religion. I wonder how I could protect my family from something that could kill me from over 100 miles away, or 1000 miles, or 10,000 miles. I wonder at what point does a parent have to decide to either die with or abandon a small child because they are screaming and attracting the bad guy, or can't swim when your boat is overturned, or can't get free from a seatbelt when your car is damaged. I can't imagine how I'd react in those situations yet there are people right this very second experiencing them and suffering from the consequences.
Why is that? If I'd gotten a leaflet rained down on me that said go north of this river and we'll leave you alone my ass would have been out the door in a heartbeat. Yet they're staying, some say against their will. Who is right? Hard to say because everyone reporting the news has an agenda. Either for or against. So the news is tainted. Though can we trust someone 'blogging' from there? Just as hard to say, you can stage anything. The amount of distrust of the reports from that region are so loaded that it's impossible for someone on the other side of the planet to know what really is going on.
The only way I watch fox news is if someone holds a gun to my head or it's made fun of on the Daily Show. For the record I'm only to Jun 27 of Daily shows so I've not seen their attempt at humor with the current crisis.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Thank god. In the U.S. there is such a climate of fear that no one can utter a word even faintly critical of Israeli policy without being labeled an anti-semite. If an American dare suggest that slaughtering innocent Lebanese is not good, in every medium and in the most strident tones pro-Israel apologists immediately throw the slander machine into gear and liken the speaker to a Nazi or at best ignorant. It is vile and profoundly undemocratic, and this American is utterly fed up with it.
Arabs who slaughter innocent Jews are bad. Jews who slaughter innocent Arabs are bad. Arab terrorists are trying to force the formation of a state. Jewish terrorists (Hagannah) forced the formation of their state. Israel is a state founded by terror, maintained by terror, fighting terror. It's all terror. And the United States should either sit on all parties concerned until they stop the terror, or walk away and let them annihilate each other. I favor the former, but will accept the latter. But the status quo, unequivocal support for Israel, must end.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Seems the leet hackers got what they wanted.. media coverage.. If everyone just said "fuck it" and didn't report on this stupid crap then it wouldn't happen.
;) :D
-- A snip of some moron on IRC a while back that I had the pleasure of meeting --
Dec 12 16:44:13 <Hollyweed> do u know to use cc's?
Dec 12 16:45:28 <Rez> card?
Dec 12 16:45:31 <Rez> credit cards?
Dec 12 16:45:34 <Hollyweed> yes
Dec 12 16:45:41 <Rez> why?
Dec 12 16:45:50 <Hollyweed> im a big carder
Dec 12 16:45:53 <Rez> ahh
Dec 12 16:45:57 <Hollyweed> wanna join our server
Dec 12 16:46:03 <Rez> well i don't do illegal things
Dec 12 16:46:10 <Hollyweed> you can make scriptsd
Dec 12 16:46:14 <Hollyweed> scripts*
Dec 12 16:46:15 <Hollyweed> for users
Dec 12 16:46:18 <Hollyweed> that they need
Dec 12 16:46:20 <Hollyweed> if u want
Dec 12 16:46:31 <Rez> nope
Dec 12 16:46:38 <Rez> its illegal stuff
Dec 12 16:46:41 <Hollyweed> ok its ur choice
Dec 12 16:46:44 <Hollyweed>
Dec 12 16:46:50 <Hollyweed> u r afraid
Dec 12 16:46:51 <Hollyweed> ?
Dec 12 16:46:54 <Hollyweed> of CIA FBI?
Dec 12 16:47:58 <Rez> no i'm not
Dec 12 16:48:02 <Rez> i have morals
Dec 12 16:48:08 <Hollyweed> ok !
Dec 12 16:48:09 <Hollyweed>
Dec 12 16:48:10 <Rez> and i work for my living
Dec 12 16:48:15 <Rez> i don't need to steal things
Dec 12 16:48:19 <Hollyweed> sorry for inconvinience
Dec 12 16:48:21 <Rez> get a job and make money
Dec 12 16:48:32 <Rez> and stop rippin people of
Dec 12 16:48:50 <Hollyweed> its not for money
Dec 12 16:48:53 <Hollyweed> its for fame
Dec 12 16:49:38 <Rez> yeah
Dec 12 16:49:44 <Rez> get fame from rippin people off
Dec 12 16:49:58 <Hollyweed> did u see the news from CNN
Dec 12 16:50:03 <Hollyweed> we got in news
Dec 12 16:50:28 <Hollyweed> look bro
Dec 12 16:50:39 <Rez> i don't watch cnn
Dec 12 16:50:41 <Hollyweed> we do that for Fame to show the world that isnt secure
Dec 12 16:50:48 <Rez> so
Dec 12 16:50:48 <Hollyweed> we will always get trough them
<snip him talking about killing chickens>
Dec 12 16:53:02 <Rez> just to become famous
Dec 12 16:53:08 <Hollyweed> yea
Dec 12 16:53:10 <Hollyweed> to show the world
Dec 12 16:53:13 <Hollyweed> that isnt secure
Dec 12 16:53:23 <Rez> sorry to burst your bubble
Dec 12 16:53:32 <Rez> but everyone knows there are bugs
Dec 12 16:53:48 <Rez> its created by man then it can be hacked
Dec 12 16:53:50 <Hollyweed> yea of cours
Dec 12 16:54:03 <Rez> so all you're doing it making peoples lives hell
Dec 12 16:54:17 <Rez> and thats what terrorist enjoy doing
Dec 12 16:54:26 <Hollyweed> heh
Dec 12 16:54:30 <Hollyweed> no its not what u thing
Dec 12 16:55:05 <Hollyweed> what u think*
Dec 12 17:02:01 <Rez> either way its people like you that make the world a shithole all becuase you want to be on the news
Dec 12 17:02:49 <Rez> if it wasn't for the communist news network (cnn) reporting it all then you wouldn't get anything
Dec 12 17:02:49 <Hollyweed> we wanna show them asses that they arent the best theres out somewhere always will be someone better
Dec 12 17:03:23 <Hollyweed> lool
Dec 12 17:03:37 <Rez> why not stop cracking the code and put your coding to good use and make something better?
Dec 12 17:03:41 <Rez> everthing about that?
Dec 12 17:03:46 <Rez> dout it
Dec 12 17:03:55 <Rez> becuase that wouldn't get your name all over the news
Dec 12 17:04:05 <Hollyweed> yea of course!
- - - - -
ALL about getting in the news media.
Fucking moron yourself, nameless (and probably pissed off because I dared criticise his hallowed Israel) chicken fuck. I don't start wars without caring about civillian lives. I don't drop bombs on houses full of children and I don't sell bombs to people who do, so please, cunt face, tell me again why I should be offering solutions?
Fucking zombie.
I am sure 6 million enlightened, prosperous, patriotic Israeli citizens give a crap. Neville Chamberlain held the same view of eastern Europe during the invasion of the Nazis. What is not working is the Muslim fantasy that the state is going anywhere. They stew in their hate and impotence and spawn terrorists, Inevitably their cause is set back. Sadly, your attitude is becoming more common with liberals in the west. I find it interesting that 30 years ago Israel drew much of its support in America from politically progressive left. But with the reconciliation of Catholics with the Jews led by Pope John Paul II, and the realization that Israel is a dependable custodian of the Christian holy sites, the support roles have reversed. Most US anti-Semitism festers on the political left.
an ill wind that blows no good
"Oh, good grief. If you're going to parrot what some guy said on whichever current affairs program you watch, you could at least do some basic research to make sure you know what the conflict is about."
oo, do you feel special now?
"(I do like your rather ludicrous implication that it's fine to lob bombs into someone's towns as long as you announce your intention first, though. Thanks for the laugh.)"
Your statement is comical at best. There is a difference between attacking a country un-announced with major acts of terrorism and defending your country with force. There is a definite good and evil in this world..but many people such as yourself don't seem to be able to tell the difference. I feel sorry for you.
Lebanese have been lobbing rockets onto civilian targets. Did you miss the part where Hezbollah has been firing hundreds of rockets into Israeli cities?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
You make some good points. Even if the "civilian casualties" aren't, however, that doesn't make it acceptable to destroy such blatantly non-military targets as bridges, power plants and privately owned factories when engaging in what's supposedly less than full war. The attack on a power plant, in particular, has had massive environmental impact -- spilling thousands of tons of fuel oil into the Mediterranean, which the Lebanese government is unable to send ships to clean up due to an Israeli blockade.
You said:
And Lebanese (quite unlike the Israelis) have not been lobbing explosives and rockets onto civilian targets, so it's obvious where the moral high ground is.
If the IDF counts as "the Israelis", why doesn't Hezbollah count as "the Lebanese"?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Due to a DOS on that website, a mirror is available here:
http://www.bubbleshare.com/album/47671/overview
Why are they defacing a NASA website? Different government agency, different government, different continent. We are over there trying to broker a peace deal. If some hacker has a beef with Lebanon then take it out on Israel.
Both sides are wrong.
The guys firing rockets into Israel are wearing plain clothes and firing from residential neighborhoods. They know Israel is going to immediately retaliate, and they know that when they do, that residential neighborhood is going to become a smoking wreck full of dead bodies. This will in turn make Israel look like they are baby killers and soul less and re-inforce the muslim sentiments that Israel needs to be destroyed. They know that Israel doesn't have the troops to fight a ground war and that the only response they can make is with their airforce. And they exploit this to force Israel to kill innocent people. If anybody should be pissed it should be the people of Lebanon. If I saw a rocket truck parking in front of my apartment I would be telling them where to fuck off to. And the terrorists certainly know that Israel will strike back yet they continue to attack from residential areas. The reason is they are fighting the only way they can. If they wore uniforms and attacked on the open battlefield they wouldn't stand a chance. So they are using the devils logic and fighting the only fight they can, knowing full well that innocent people are going to be killed because of their actions.
And Israel has equiped their armed forces in such a way that they use small groups of special forces backed up by overwhelming air power to defend themselves. They don't have enough people to go in on the ground and in any case they are fighting an enemy who dresses in street clothes and can blend into the wood work. The rules of Geneva don't apply here and it's not a conventional war. The enemy could be anybody because they don't wear uniforms and attack from everywhere. So Israel does the only thing it can and they attack back, even knowing that they are going to kill innocent people because it's the only thing that Israel can do.
You can comment on who's right and who's wrong from the safety of the USA all you want. But the fact of the matter is that if someone were firing rockets at US cities from Mexico or Cuba you can be sure that people would be up in arms demanding retaliation. You can't expect the Israelis to just stand back and take it!
I'm so sick of hearing about cease fires that are broken, and a new peace process that ultimately falls to shit, and suicide bombers, and tanks rolling through Gaza. Even when they weren't at war it was still a daily war. I'm so sick of it that I wish they would just get it over with. Get the fight out of your system, go to war, re-learn how truly horrible and inhumane it is to kill your neighbors. And maybe when enough people have died, and the site of blood is everywhere, maybe then the offers of peace will be real.
War sucks, people die, the innocent always suffer the most. But is living a civil life with daily bombings and rocket attacks any better?
Get it over with.