World Politics

[Jagartrott]

I also did not misunderstand that a 4 year old Israeli has been killed as well. Another great thing to do to bring about peace.

You really believe that Hamas wants peace?
If there'd be long-lasting peace, including free trade etc., Hamas would become insignificant. The extremist Israeli government is Hamas' greatest ally, and vice versa of course.

 

[laurel1969]

No, I did not misunderstand.

I also did not misunderstand that a 4 year old Israeli has been killed as well. Another great thing to do to bring about peace.

How many 4 year old Palestinians have been killed?

There is only one side that can bring about peace, and that is the side that is conducting a vicious occupation.

 

[Luigi_Max]

You really believe that Hamas wants peace?
If there'd be long-lasting peace, including free trade etc., Hamas would become insignificant. The extremist Israeli government is Hamas' greatest ally, and vice versa of course.

I do not believe Hamas or any of the militant Palestinian groups wants peace on any terms that are likely to be acceptable by Israel and they are never going to defeat Israel without help of other nations. They might however accept peace in the short term if Israel inflicts enough damage on them.

There is not much hope of long lasting peace because of the strength of which totally incompatible views are held by extremists on either side.

 

[Luigi_Max]

How many 4 year old Palestinians have been killed?

There is only one side that can bring about peace, and that is the side that is conducting a vicious occupation.

I do not know but I expect somewhere between 10 and 50.

Both sides need to want peace for the peace to hold.

 

[laurel1969]

I do not know but I expect somewhere between 10 and 50.

Both sides need to want peace for the peace to hold.

We know that around 500 childrenhave been killed, 3000 injured of whom 1000 will have lifelong disabilities. Factor into that the number of children who will have lifelong mental health issues as a result of their experiences.

One dead Israeli kid.

Which one did you chose to quote and why?

Funnily enough, those same statistics give you an indication as to why the Israelis don't really care about peace. The Gazans are living in a massive open air prison, whose origin was a refugee camp. They are blockaded from all sides with the Israelis controlling their water and power. They cannot develop economically because the Israelis will not allow it. Let e give you an example. A few years ago an acquaintance of mine was involved in the construction of a water treatment works in Gaza. Its construction stood to improve the lives of Gazans.

A week after it was completed the Israelis bombed it.

Why do you think they did this? What message do you think they were sending? Why do you think they didn't want the Gazans to be able to have access to fresh water that wasn't under the control of the Israelis?

A little clue is that Netanyahu has admitted that Israel will never allow a Palestinian state....that is in the context of all those foreign brokered peace deals that the Israelis have obstructed and renaeged upon.

So if the Israelis are determined to suppress any Palestinian state, whilst loudly proclaiming that the state of Israel has a right to exist, what do you think their intention is? Equally, why are they still rapidly building settlements on Palestinian and in the West Bank? ( you know, the other Occupied land).

Do you think the Palestinians realise this? If they do (of course they do) does that help explain their ongoing struggle?

You know, throughout this conflict the Israelis have been saying "what would you do if you were being rocketed?". ....but of course its a false question because "we" haven't got our hands round the throats of a disposed people who's land we are occupying and annexing.
The state of Israel was founded by Israeli terrorists who's tactics were to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians. To do this, they started massacring Palestinian villages so that other Palestinians would flee. They may not massacre entire villages anymore, they just bulldoze them instead.

Go back to the war score. 500 dead Palestinian kids....one Israeli.

Can you see why peace doesn't matter to the Israelis when the big win is all that land?

 

[Luigi_Max]

...........

 

[laurel1969]

Apologies, I forgot to insert the word 'children'. Post amended. Genuine mistake. I was broadening the topic as the age of the child is irrelevant.

Feel free to respond now

 

[blutto]

...and speaking of open and transparent inquiries here is some info on the progress on the MH 17 file...

"PS: I heard yesterday evening that Holland has officially announced that it will not release the full info of the flight data and voice recorders of MH17. Thus Holland has now become an official accomplice to the cover-up of this US false-flag operation and to the murder of the passengers of MH17. This is absolutely outrageous and disgusting I and sure hope that the Malaysian government will not allow this. As for Kiev, it is also sitting on the recording of the communications between the Kiev ATC and MH17. Finally, the USA has it all through its own signals intelligence capabilities. So they all know and they are all covering up. Under the circumstances, can anybody still seriously doubt "who done it"?"

...maybe the Dutch el Presidente dude should pick up the phone and call someone to straighten this wee snafu out....

Cheers

 

[Luigi_Max]

Apologies, I forgot to insert the word 'children'. Post amended. Genuine mistake. I was broadening the topic as the age of the child is irrelevant.

Feel free to respond now

Thank you I will respond in full.

 

[Luigi_Max]

We know that around 500 childrenhave been killed, 3000 injured of whom 1000 will have lifelong disabilities. Factor into that the number of children who will have lifelong mental health issues as a result of their experiences.

One dead Israeli kid.

Which one did you chose to quote and why?

Funnily enough, those same statistics give you an indication as to why the Israelis don't really care about peace. The Gazans are living in a massive open air prison, whose origin was a refugee camp. They are blockaded from all sides with the Israelis controlling their water and power. They cannot develop economically because the Israelis will not allow it. Let e give you an example. A few years ago an acquaintance of mine was involved in the construction of a water treatment works in Gaza. Its construction stood to improve the lives of Gazans.

A week after it was completed the Israelis bombed it.

Why do you think they did this? What message do you think they were sending? Why do you think they didn't want the Gazans to be able to have access to fresh water that wasn't under the control of the Israelis?

A little clue is that Netanyahu has admitted that Israel will never allow a Palestinian state....that is in the context of all those foreign brokered peace deals that the Israelis have obstructed and renaeged upon.

So if the Israelis are determined to suppress any Palestinian state, whilst loudly proclaiming that the state of Israel has a right to exist, what do you think their intention is? Equally, why are they still rapidly building settlements on Palestinian and in the West Bank? ( you know, the other Occupied land).

Do you think the Palestinians realise this? If they do (of course they do) does that help explain their ongoing struggle?

You know, throughout this conflict the Israelis have been saying "what would you do if you were being rocketed?". ....but of course its a false question because "we" haven't got our hands round the throats of a disposed people who's land we are occupying and annexing.
The state of Israel was founded by Israeli terrorists who's tactics were to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians. To do this, they started massacring Palestinian villages so that other Palestinians would flee. They may not massacre entire villages anymore, they just bulldoze them instead.

Go back to the war score. 500 dead Palestinian kids....one Israeli.

Can you see why peace doesn't matter to the Israelis when the big win is all that land?

No one should be killing anyone. That is my base position on any killing in any circumstance in the world. When someone kills someone they are doing the wrong thing.
Israel and Palestine are both doing the wrong thing when they kill someone, anyone, adult, child, civilian, milliant, member of the armed forces, they are doing the wrong thing. It also follows that they are doing the wrong if the try to kill someone and they fail. So i do not really see the disparity of the death tolls as meaning Israel is far worse the Palestinians. Just because the Israelis have the great ability to kill does not mean the Palestinians have any less desire to kill Israelis. They just do not have the ability to kill as many as they want.
It has been quite clear since 1948 that the destruction of Israel is what some Palestinians and Arabs have wanted, they have fought wars because of it.
There are also those on the Israeli side who would prefer that the Palestinians did not have any governing power.
Both of these groups of people are ensuring there is not going to be peace.

Even if there was an in principle agreement on both sides that there should be two states there is still the details to be worked. The question of where Jerusalem ends up would be extremely likely to be the breaking point of any negotiations.

So how is there going to be peace?

As to why I mentioned the 4 year old. There seems to be an enormous amount of people with the view that Israel are the bad guys in this and the Palestinians are the victims. There seems to be a lot of coverage highlighting the amount of deaths of Palestinians without any acknowledge that the Palestinians desire to kill just as much as the Israeli, they are just not capable of doing it. So I mentioned the 4 year boy to show that Palestinians can kill children as well. They are just as bad as Israel.

Now I have just highlighted the bad attitudes on both sides however I am sure there are plenty of people on both sides who do not want to kill, who just want peace, who are the victims in this war. It is true most of them are Palestinians as they are the weaker side and the nature of Gaza is it is hard to have any safety anywhere.

Israel should stop killing Palestinians, they are doing the wrong thing. However I also think the Palestinian leadership, Hamas, should realise that continuing the struggle is just going to end up with thousands of Palestinian dead. They should be doing everything they can to not provoke Israel, to not give them any sort of excuse to keep killing.

 

[fatandfast]

my 4 Israel experiences, people are nice and very good looking. Lots of blow, can dance to end it. and make food that is to die for. Not sure how the government went from the beaches and discos to get folks who said yes to missile strikes.
My boys who joined the army as a right of passage and to appease the folks, you are still my my brothers.
WTF? hitchhikers and a world war?
Piano
Suave
relax.
A part of my day was explaining that Israeli people are cool....why?
NO BOMBS
any bombs aszplug

 

[python]

trying to asses the situation objectively, i just completed a wide selection of this morning's rss feeds from all sides of the ukrainian crisis...the western msm, the pro-uki govt unian and the anti-ukrainian rt etc...

a surprising trend i have not seen in a while has emerged.

the western msm are clearly tired of ukraine and shoved any associated news way down. the tone of the articles also changed, particularly in the guardian and dw - more news of civilian casualties and the merkel de-centralization/ federalist model for ukraine

the ultra right unian, unlike virtually their daily practice, are totally void of bombastic claims of rebel defeats. no explanations of why the rebels did not give up on the 18 august as was claimed by the chief of state security lysenko...

the alternative sources, otoh, are full of the rebels military successes...they claim (and list) 8 towns from which they expelled 'the fascists', announced the surrounding of 7 000 uki troops, report an assault on a town near the sea of azov

i am sure the full truth is still not being served but the reversal of a trend is verrry interesting.

 

[laurel1969]

Ooohhh the irony.

Almost exactly a year ago Conservative PM Cameron lost a Commons vote proposing fighting the forces of Assad in Syria and helping the rebels. (No UK oil interests in Syria so no interest in fighting)

One year on and a Conservative ex-minister is suggesting fighting WITH Assad AGAINST the rebels.

So what has changed?

Well, admittedly the rebels have....they've morphed into a cohesive group and declared a state in part of Iraq and Syria. Plus they've got a bit too close for comfort to the UK oil interests in Kurdish Iraq. Maybe a bit more pressure on the eastern front (Syria) will take the pressure off the Western front (Kurdistan and Baghdad)

Sounds a bit familiar!

 

[Kotar_Rhakoz]

Ooohhh the irony.

Almost exactly a year ago Conservative PM Cameron lost a Commons vote proposing fighting the forces of Assad in Syria and helping the rebels. (No UK oil interests in Syria so no interest in fighting)

One year on and a Conservative ex-minister is suggesting fighting WITH Assad AGAINST the rebels.

So what has changed?

Well, admittedly the rebels have....they've morphed into a cohesive group and declared a state in part of Iraq and Syria. Plus they've got a bit too close for comfort to the UK oil interests in Kurdish Iraq. Maybe a bit more pressure on the eastern front (Syria) will take the pressure off the Western front (Kurdistan and Baghdad)

Sounds a bit familiar!

What a mess? No one has a solution.
An idea would be to give them victory over Assad in Syria in exchange for leaving Iraq alone. The mess would be contained to one country then.
However these people are probably not going to agree to it. Even if they did could they be trusted to keep their word?

 

[laurel1969]

What a mess? No one has a solution.
An idea would be to give them victory over Assad in Syria in exchange for leaving Iraq alone. The mess would be contained to one country then.
However these people are probably not going to agree to it. Even if they did could they be trusted to keep their word?

Well, it isn't up to us to 'give the victory' to anybody. Its an ethnic war, and the only possible interest to us is whether it affects our energy security or whether we are impelled to act against atrocities. Recent history such as Scebrenica, Saddam's persecution of the Kurds, Assad Senior's razing to the ground of Hama etc etc suggests that humanitarian concerns rarely come into it.

You can blame us, the British, (and the French) for the mess in Syria, Iraq, Israel and the no longer-in-existent Palestine. We made a very bad job of creating countries out of the defunct Ottoman empire.

 

[Kotar_Rhakoz]

The UAE is carrying out airstrikes in Lybia??

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-28933070

 

[Jagartrott]

Anecdote, but horrendous nevertheless:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/26/world/europe/russia-ukraine.html?_r=1

Of course, I'm sure that on the other side, equally horrible things happen.

 

[python]

the meeting brokered by germany and france between the prezs of ukraine and rusia MAY start within hours...

some commentators dream that if the merkel's messages to putya and poro will be heeded by both, 'the fate of europe is about to change'. the hope is that somehow out of the blue they may agree to stop shooting and impose peace.

frankly, such naivety is foolish, but i do not exclude some microscopic 'progress'.

why ?

1stly, because, unlike during the earlier diplomatic efforts, we do not see such one-sided mediators like poland and america. they were simply not invited, or more likely, dropped as a precondition for constructive diplomacy.

2ndly, because the military situation on the ground is close to a stalemate. the earlier ukrainian offensives have stalled (of course you wont find this in the western msm). but even reading the ultra right unian reports leaves no dobt that the rebels hold the initiative (one article talks of a SURROUNDED battalion commander whining about lack of weapons, another, of the glorious uki soldiers being expelled from the local highest ground etc). even the american envoy to kiev admitted in today's tweet that the rebels opened 2nd front...

personally, i find it unimaginable that the ukraine's increasingly far right, ultra-nationalist leadership is capable of accepting any rebel conditions, much less a limited self-rule. but the hope should live...for instance, the same vapid unian has suddenly stopped calling the rebels 'terrorists' preferring 'separatists' etc

 

[Kotar_Rhakoz]

So there is a more substantial agreement about Gaza. I do wonder how long it will last when the main issues have not be resolved. Still it is a lot better than what was happening. Hopefully there can be a real effort to rebuild Gaza and help those most effected by what happened there.

 

[ToreBear]

I guess the Russians couldn't get anymore voluntaries from Russia so they started sending active units. A few of them get destroyed and now it looks like they have started a general offensive in order to keep the conflict alive.

We have plenty of dead Russians being buried in secret due to "training accidents", and military units receiving citations for "bravery in action". So far I'm aware of dead from the 76th and 98th airborne divisions and 16th motorized division. Also the Ukrainians have captured troopers from the 98th airborne. I think all those units have professional soldiers, but time will show when Russian Conscripts will be sent to die.

So far the offensive is limited to the southern part of Donetsk. Mariupol and Amrosiivka.

It would surprise me if the Russians entered into other areas since they are still trying to maintain the fiction that they are not behind the "rebellion" in Ukraine to the Russian people.

We will see how it goes and how many will die.

 

[Jagartrott]

The new UN report on climate change and its consequences is clear: No Time To Waste.
Time is being wasted continuously though, and will be until people get it into their heads that you don't need to be an environmentalist to be worried about climate change. It makes your life more expensive, increases the number of fugitives, increases the amount of conflicts, and increases the amount of freak weather events.

 

[Kotar_Rhakoz]

What is Russia hoping to achieve by causing all these problems in Ukraine?

 

[laurel1969]

National interests.

It has a far-right government brought about by a coup on it's doorstep. That government is making noises about aligningvwith NATO and the EU (is. Russia's competitors). This is why the Russians annexed Crimea. If Ukraine had joined NATO it may have threatened Russia's access to the Black Sea( and therefore the Gulf and the Southern Oceans.

Plus, there is a sizeable ethnic Russian population in eastern Ukraine who felt threatened by the new Ukrainian nationalist government.

Put simply, Russia wants to influence who is on its borders (much the same as any big power). It is unlikely that they will stage a full invasion, but they will try to keep the disruption and destabilising going.

 

[Bustedknuckle]

National interests.

It has a far-right government brought about by a coup on it's doorstep. That government is making noises about aligningvwith NATO and the EU (is. Russia's competitors). This is why the Russians annexed Crimea. If Ukraine had joined NATO it may have threatened Russia's access to the Black Sea( and therefore the Gulf and the Southern Oceans.

Plus, there is a sizeable ethnic Russian population in eastern Ukraine who felt threatened by the new Ukrainian nationalist government.

Put simply, Russia wants to influence who is on its borders (much the same as any big power). It is unlikely that they will stage a full invasion, but they will try to keep the disruption and destabilising going.

Happening this AM...lots of Russian equipment and personnel into Ukraine.

Putin and his reflection in the mirror..harken back to Soviet days...a thumb in the eye of NATO, a country between Russia and the NATO countires..keeping a seaport outside of Russia(they have few-now only 2)...

Still lots of memory of the brutal Russian occupation during WWII...so they gravitate towards Ultra right wing, neo-German thinking..in the west.....

 

[ToreBear]

What is Russia hoping to achieve by causing all these problems in Ukraine?

They want to be able to decide Ukraines future. Why? There are differing reasons among different groups.

-Restauration of Soviet Union
-Rebuild the Russian Empire.
-Make the Eurasian Union a stepping stone towards rebuilding one of the above.
-Protect their military Industrial complex which is dependent on Ukraine.

I'm sure there are more opinions. We don't know the reasoning of Putin who decides what happens. For all we know he did all this to gain popularity(which was falling).

So short term at least, they want a conflict there that can simmer and make it difficult for Ukraine to move closer to the EU.