Ok now aint this some sh*t.

In 1996 the US Congress passed the "War Crimes Act".



The US Court ruled that the Geneva Conventions apply to terrorism detainees, which means technically their could be alot of heads rolling and convicted of war crimes. (which in reality war crimes where commited and the Geneva Conventions where not upheld). So this is a real problem for the Bush administration.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has spoken with the Republican controled law makers that they need to make a new law to "protect" anyone from being brought to justice for war crimes.

Now aint that a load of sh*t?

Heres the article.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 08_pf.html

presidential order ruled illegal and caused people to commit war crimes? Sure... make a shield law that exempts all the people following presidential orders and then get GW's happy ass and shit him in front of a UN tribunal for war crimes. Wouldn't that be a sight. Won't ever happen, of course.

That'd be pretty awesome

And shit @ the war crimes...I mean, I like it that some people are finally getting the crap for gleefully violating geneva conventions ('they're not prisoners of war, they're terrorists' blablabla), but as always it'll be some small fry soldiers and maybe an officere here and there. Pff. Most of them under orders anyway.

In other news, Israel is teh freaking suck. Stupid fuckers are bombing shit in Lebanon all over the place...in case you don't know how it started: an israeli military patrol passed the border with Lebanon and was attacked by a division of Hezbollah (armed organization with its roots in lebanon) fighters. Most of the Israeli soldiers were killed, two taken captive.

Now Israel is bombing the shit out of Lebanon over this. I mean, sure it's fucked up that the soldiers were killed and taken prisoner, but they shouldn't have been in Lebanon in the first place and the reaction is way over the top. Bombing civil areas using goddamn cluster bombs?! Killing hundreds. Oh, and a few days ago they blew the local UN department to bits, killing 4. I'm sure the UN will move out soon enough with their personnel in danger, then the Israeli killing spree can go on unwatched. Yee fucking Haa.

Of course, the US and its altar boy the UK support Israel. Pff. I loved Bush' reaction: "Israel has a right to defend itself against terrorism". Hahahahaha. Sure Georgie, if you call bombing defending. :rolleyes:


EDIT: oh, a second after I posted this I hear on the radio that the UN is retracting its ppl at the Israeli-Lebanse border. There ya go.

Where did you get the news that they were in Lebanon? That's the first time I hear that. If that Israeli patroll didn't cross the border, then the abduction of the soldiers was an act of war, committed by a party of the Lebanese parliament, and Israel has the right to strike back (although you can question the methods).

They were over the border -there was a burned out tank to prove it. I'm sure Israel will have the tank wreck recovered by now though, to cover that up.

Some media say it happened in Israel, some say Lebanon. So you won't hear me say that I KNOW it was in lebanon, but I trust the sources I read/heard it.

And besides, wtf would a Lebanese strike force come over the Israeli border, kill a patrol and take 2 soldiers back over the border to keep them captive? It doesn't make sense. The Israeli forces are some if the best trained militaries in the world, maybe even the best. I suspect that you'd need a seriously large group of fighters to engage kill 10-15 soldiers...which would make even less sense for a huge band of Lebanese fighters crossing the border.

The Israeli military isn't that great anymore. Same with their secret service, past glory. They didn't know that Hezbollah had so many rockets and were baffled by the tenacy of the defense in Lebanon.

I'm hearing a slightly different version of things. More of a Lebanon did something, Israel retaliated, Lebanon retaliated, and now we have a full scale war. Sorta.

Not that I blame Israel. Hezbollah's been doing shit for years and years. They're shooting rockets at civilians now. If Hezbollah really wanted peace, they wouldn't be doing that stuff. The only response Israel can have to people shooting shit at civilians is to shoot back...if they stop fighting they're basically surrendering.

Anyway, it's a bad situation all around, but both sides are the cause of that. Israel for treating Palestinians the way they do, and arabs for treating Israelis the way they do. Whatever... I say let em go at it till they get it out of their system and maybe we'll get another 30 years of peace.

It seems to me people forget that what started this whole mess was Hezbollah kidnapping Israeli soldiers. The media seems to be fix on the idea that Israel is bombing Lebanon for no reason or merit.

The point isn't so much that Israel is bombing Lebanon, but that they're completely overdoing it. They've killed nearly 1000 people already, and that's just the bodies that could be counted (not under rubble). Not to mention thousands of wounded.

Besides, there's a lot of debate whether it was the Israeli patrol hanging around in Lebanon when they were attacked or vice versa. Like I said above, it wouldn't make much sense for a Hezbollah force to come into Israel, kill half the patrol and kidnap the rest. The Israeli patrol crossing the border doesn't justify killing/kidnapping them, but it does shed a very different light on their 'guilt'.

No one is saying Hezbollah are choir boys you know...and I'm sure they're using civilians as a shield. Against their will, a lot of the time, so it doesn't matter if Israel warns them to leave their homes or not...which is just a way of them being able to sleep at night anyway. The real deal here is that Israel seems to think that the end justifies the means..and that's fucking downright criminal. It's Guantanamo logic. "we'll just bomb this civilian area so we're sure we've got the Hezbollah dudes".

You did hear about Israel 'accidentally' bombing the UN station at the start of the bombings, right? Convenienty, UN observers were withdrawn from the area soon after. I think they bombed some other foreign help forces a few days ago too, red cross or something. Oh, and using cluster bombs (!) in city areas. And what about the huge oil patch on the Lebanese coastline? It's the result of bombing a factory nearby.

What Israel is doing is taking the opportunity to bomb Lebanon's infrastructure (TV stations, political HQ's, factories, you name it - all part of Hezbollah?!) back to the ground, meanwhile killing a lot of people that have nothing do with it and seriously fucking up the ecology too with the oil patch. Hezbollah are fuckers, yeah, but Israel are the biggest jackasses in this entire matter. Israel should be the bigger man and give it a rest alright...it's military speaking so vastly superior to Lebanon that the initiative is theirs. Modern American-made seeking missiles vs. the Irani crap the Hezbollah are fighting with...there's no comparison.


@ Satis: I've heard a few other Americans I know say the same thing -that the media over there reports somewhat differently on it over there. But of course, the US (and its homey the UK) are the only countries in the entire world that didn't support an immediate ceasefire. I think the US even vetoed it in the NATO -go figure. No wonder their reporting is skewed towards Israel with the ol' Americo-Jewish connection. I'm not saying tv stations here are the most objective coverage in the history of mankind, but hard to say a Western European tv station has a bias for either arabs or jews...if anything, it would be Israel. But not when they're acting like complete fascists.

I don't ncecessarily agree. It seems like most of europe's got its panties in a bind over Iraq... and are thus more apt to twist stories in anti-US directions. But I can't say what the "truth" is. I know a few things.

1. Israel's been grinning and bearing suicide bombers blowing up their civilians for decades and has rarely taken miliitary action outside of its own territories. It's hard to keep recent history in mind when saying that Israel can't restrain itself.

2. Israel would have ignored any UN resolution telling it to do something it didn't want to do. Just like the US does.

3. It's Israeli citizens being killed. The rest of the world really has no business telling Israel what it can and can't do to protect its civilians.

beyond that...Israel's a democracy. A democracy is supposed to do what its people want...and I'm willing to bet that Israel's people are mostly for kicking Lebanon back into the stone age. Then again, I'm not israeli, so I can't say that for sure.

Panties in a bind over the fact that the US lied to the entire world about WMD's in iraq? (which were never found) Or made vague implications that the Saddam regime had strong ties with terrorism? (never proven, very likely didn't exist). Would you blame anyone for not wanting to hop on the next "pre-emptive" war wagon? The entire war was a farce based on nothing creating loads of terrorism and instability. And sure, the Balkan turned out ok, but the Balkan countries are waaaay smaller and more technologically advanced, so it's relatively easy to set up an infrastructure there.

Anyway, I don't agree because this isn't about the US, but about Israel. And believe me when I say that Israel does get the benefit of the doubt in most non-left media here. The only reason why this is remotely about the US is because they prefer to play solo again in backing Israel. Btw, a UN motion supported by the US would influence Israel imho. Israel isn't the US.

You're right that the majority of Israelis is behind this war, or at least the cover under which it's started (Hezbollah). I agree that it's inexcusable just the same that Hezbollah is firing rockets to Israel (they barely make any victims compared to the slaughter Israel is doing, but that's beside the point), but "protect". How exactly do you protect your own civilians by bombing other civilian areas? That's the spin Bush wanted to give to it..."Israel has a right to defend itself to terrorism". yeah, sure, but I don't see how this is gonna stop terrorism. Do you? I never saw a bunch of desperate extremists become LESS likely to hate and kill Israelis because Israel decided to bomb their country to pieces.

It's a mess. If Israel wanted to make an example it should have done so, but not some 2-week mass bombing madness while ignoring international pressure and, again, using cluster bombs in cities. That's fucked up man. If Israel wants to be the civilized nation and "civilize" Lebanon, it might start by not using weapons that own civilians. This way it puts itself on par with the Hezbollah's rockets filled with ball bearings.

You can't compare the Balkans with Iraq. the Balkans lie in Europe, and the US doesn't seem to be very good at fighting wars outside of Europe. Too much of a culture shock perhaps? Off course the figting is the same across the world, but the most important part for future peace is pacifying the population, and US troops just aren't trained for that task.

That's a good point, I think. Unlike most other countries (for example in Europe) your average American soldier has very little real exposure to other cultures because of the US being one huge continent-state. Add to that the fact that they don't typically speak much of another language than English (with a bit of luck some French or Spanish)...it could be an important factor. It always surprises me to see American -or even British- soldiers going up to some random arab in a shitty village and talking whole sentences of English to them. I mean, those ppl don't understand a word of what they're saying...it's kinda pointless.

Maybe it's like when you're mimicking behind a window and make the sound anyway: cos it makes it more "real".

btw, hellzboula was using UN buildings to hide in.

You must mean some other UN buildings than the one they actually bombed, cos in that bombing 4 UN workers died...if they were being held against their will/harboring Hezbollah fighters I'm sure we would have heard the UN about that.

Anyway, I'm not doubting that Hezbollah is using civilians/UN/whatever as a shield. What I'm questioning is Israel's right to blast through the shields.

There is none. If Israel wants to stop terror, why doesn't it start with itself? Some show of force might be needed from time to time, but not this shit.