Report: Israel storms Gaza-bound aid ships

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

But you've then got to look at the propaganda efforts of both sides, Hamas has become unmatched in their propaganda efforts, thats why I have my doubts from Witnesses on a boat that openly attacked IDF troops.

I doubt that there will be any kind of International Inquiry, especially one mandated by the UN. Israel doesn't trust the UN to be fair and impartial.

I certainly don't trust Hamas or any Islamic group to provide legitimate information. Thats why I was hoping for an inquiry from the UN. I know quite a few people on here think the UN is a lame duck because the security council. But its really all we have at the moment. I guess I don't understand how Israel can say the UN is biased.

[Zevo]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Nothing like watching edited video and testimony from a western government famous for admitting propaganda. I think I'll wait for the impartial inquiry before jumping on the Israel was justified bandwagon. I think its comical people automatically equate condemning Israel for racism/bigotry. I guess when you're running out of moral rope you gotta grasp for something.

Pot, meet kettle.

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by Zevo

Pot, meet kettle.

Examples..? Or was this just a drive by?

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

I certainly don't trust Hamas or any Islamic group to provide legitimate information. Thats why I was hoping for an inquiry from the UN. I know quite a few people on here think the UN is a lame duck because the security council. But its really all we have at the moment. I guess I don't understand how Israel can say the UN is biased.

UN conduct when it comes to Israel hasn't been even sided, and the UN has repeatedly failed to live up to any promises that they've made to Israel (IE Hezbollah disarmament)

[Calgaryborn]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Nothing like watching edited video and testimony from a western government famous for admitting propaganda. I think I'll wait for the impartial inquiry before jumping on the Israel was justified bandwagon. I think its comical people automatically equate condemning Israel for racism/bigotry. I guess when you're running out of moral rope you gotta grasp for something.

I really don't see any lack of moral rope here. Israel has been attacked repeatedly by missiles and other means from the little State of Gaza. How many missile attacks should a country endure before declaring war and overrunning their enemies?: One? Five? ten? I would think that morally they are well within their rights to overrun Gaza and overthrow the Hamas government.

What Israel has done rather then invade and subjugate Gaza is build a wall to stop the kidnappings and suicide bombers. Also they have restricted the supply of weapens coming into Gaza by the blockade. Both to me seem to be measured responses. They are far less intrusive than what Gaza deserves from Israel which is war with all of the horror of it.

[Zevo]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Examples..? Or was this just a drive by?

Read post #14 again. You condemned Israel without knowing any facts whatsoever.

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by Zevo

Read post #14 again. You condemned Israel without knowing any facts whatsoever.

Hardly. I said theres options beyond storming a ship and shooting a dozen people. How is that statement even false?

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Hardly. I said theres options beyond storming a ship and shooting a dozen people. How is that statement even false?

I agree. I think the Israelis should have taken zero risk and just sunk it with an air-to-surface missile.
An impartial UN investigation? Hahahahaha. UN Human Rights Tribunal would be just the impartial body you want here.

[valo403]

My issue with all of this is the apparent ease with which actions by either side are condemed and those of the other praised based on misinformation. There's plenty of blame to go around in this entire conflict, not just this particualr incident. I understand that it's a heated topic, but when there's no interest in doing much more than blaming one side or the other what's the point? It's not limited to this board obviously, but it would be nice to actually see educated people take moderate stances as opposed to flying out to one extreme or the other. A bit of a pipe dream, but one can hope.

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by VladtheImpaler

I agree. I think the Israelis should have taken zero risk and just sunk it with an air-to-surface missile.
An impartial UN investigation? Hahahahaha. UN Human Rights Tribunal would be just the impartial body you want here.

Of course we can't take the Soviet approach. Whats the point in having a UN if its about as useful as the league of nations?

[Zevo]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Hardly. I said theres options beyond storming a ship and shooting a dozen people. How is that statement even false?

I was initially responding to you saying, and I quote, "I think I will wait for an impartial inquiry" when that is exactly the opposite of what you did.

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Of course we can't take the Soviet approach. Whats the point in having a UN if its about as useful as the league of nations?

It serves a pupose with humanitarian services and peacekeeping, but otherwise it is about as useful as the League... And from the American point of view, I can see why they dislike it - how would feel about funding a talking-shop so that a bunch of pipsqueeks can tell you are bad you are?

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by VladtheImpaler

It serves a pupose with humanitarian services and peacekeeping, but otherwise it is about as useful as the League... And from the American point of view, I can see why they dislike it - how would feel about funding a talking-shop so that a bunch of pipsqueeks can tell you are bad you are?

I don't even think that the concept of peace keeping even works anymore, and you could almost say that on a overall scale its become more of a failure then anything else.

Moving into this century, the UN has more often or not requested that NATO take on the more difficult tasks. The UN has neither the resolve, the experience, or the balls to effectively peacekeep, they do more to either put inadequetly trained troops into difficult situations, or they define flaccid rules of engagement that warring parties tear right through.

The new concept has to be peace enforcement, which is a far different beast, basically it means you have to use heavily armed troops with offensive punch to keep the two sides apart and protect civillians. Basically peace keeping needs the ability to intimidate both sides into not acting up, and shooting the crap out of either side if they break the conditions of the mandated peace. However the UN won't do this, because they are still stuck in the 60's where they believe that its enough to slap a blue Beret on some 20 year old kid and tell him to do nothing but to sit in the middle of a armed conflict while waiving his hands and telling both sides that they need to stand down or the UN will write them both a letter telling them how angry the UN is.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Devil's Rule

That's funny...a ship in "International Waters" being raided/boarded forcefully - call it what you will, it is what it is, and they expect no resistance is just crazy piracy.

The story would be 100% different if this took place within or at the blockade line. This was a very poor judgement by the Isrealis, and they deserve to be brought by the international courts.

Please point out the law stating that countries aren't allowed to board ships in international waters. Because all of them, including Canada do it.

Nevermind a ship with clear intent to break through the blockade.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

I really don't see any lack of moral rope here. Israel has been attacked repeatedly by missiles and other means from the little State of Gaza. How many missile attacks should a country endure before declaring war and overrunning their enemies?: One? Five? ten? I would think that morally they are well within their rights to overrun Gaza and overthrow the Hamas government.

What Israel has done rather then invade and subjugate Gaza is build a wall to stop the kidnappings and suicide bombers. Also they have restricted the supply of weapens coming into Gaza by the blockade. Both to me seem to be measured responses. They are far less intrusive than what Gaza deserves from Israel which is war with all of the horror of it.

Apparently 4,000 isn't enough according to some people.

Keep bending over and taking it you know where.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by valo403

My issue with all of this is the apparent ease with which actions by either side are condemed and those of the other praised based on misinformation. There's plenty of blame to go around in this entire conflict, not just this particualr incident. I understand that it's a heated topic, but when there's no interest in doing much more than blaming one side or the other what's the point? It's not limited to this board obviously, but it would be nice to actually see educated people take moderate stances as opposed to flying out to one extreme or the other. A bit of a pipe dream, but one can hope.

Yes.

We here in Canada love to blame Israel for not being more humane with their actions, not only now, but in years past.

And then we forget about what its like sitting in an area where all your neighbors want to kill you, and where territory you GAVE UP is inhabited by people who use it to shoot rockets into Israel.

To make matters worse, people tend to ignore those rocket attacks, and condemn Israel for the blockade without realizing that Israel has no choice but to impose a blockade. They HAVE to protect their own citizens from more attacks, and inspecting the cargo coming in is the only way they can possibly do that.

International outcry against stuff like this is why Israel says 'screw you' to everyone.

Especially when a bunch of morons in the media start bitching about 'international waters'...when its a grey area at BEST, and other countries do the same thing Israel is doing with the blockade and boarding, ALL THE TIME.

And lets not even get started by the people who voted Hamas into power. These same people Israel should be nice too.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Devil's Rule

That's funny...a ship in "International Waters" being raided/boarded forcefully - call it what you will, it is what it is, and they expect no resistance is just crazy piracy.

The story would be 100% different if this took place within or at the blockade line. This was a very poor judgement by the Isrealis, and they deserve to be brought by the international courts.

The international water argument is kinda a false argument, especially since these boats had declared that they intended to break the blockade and had made their destination of Gaza publically clear.

The term Piracy doesn't work in any way at all when defining the actions of Israel under international law. First the blockade actions under International law are considered a state action, wheras Piracy is defined as an action for profit. Secondly since Hamas is the elected government in Gaza, has attacked Israel on multiple occassions and the government in place has the destruction of Israel in its charter, Gaza it can be argued could be defined as a beliigerant state without Israel declaring war on it.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

The new concept has to be peace enforcement, which is a far different beast, basically it means you have to use heavily armed troops with offensive punch to keep the two sides apart and protect civillians.

Well, that isn't politically correct, so its never going to happen.

Unofficially the UN is all about being politically correct. Which is why they have their head up their ass when it comes to dealing with the Israel/everyone else around them problem.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Azure

Well, that isn't politically correct, so its never going to happen.

Unofficially the UN is all about being politically correct. Which is why they have their head up their ass when it comes to dealing with the Israel/everyone else around them problem.

One of the worst experiences of my life was working for the UN for peacekeeping. First and foremost we all knew that when the crap hit the fan there was nothing we could really do besides looking pretty.

To give you an idea of how bad they were, their command center in the late 80's to mid 90's ran bankers hours because the UN employees didn't want to work late, so if the crap hit the fan and you needed a decision after 5:00, you would get an answer machine, leave a message and they would get back to you the next morning. Jack Granensteins (sp?) novel who's war is it anyways goes into great detail as well as his book Who killed the Canadian Army about the problems with peacekeeping and how its uniquly unsuitable in its current form.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

I really don't see any lack of moral rope here. Israel has been attacked repeatedly by missiles and other means from the little State of Gaza. How many missile attacks should a country endure before declaring war and overrunning their enemies?: One? Five? ten? I would think that morally they are well within their rights to overrun Gaza and overthrow the Hamas government.

What Israel has done rather then invade and subjugate Gaza is build a wall to stop the kidnappings and suicide bombers. Also they have restricted the supply of weapens coming into Gaza by the blockade. Both to me seem to be measured responses. They are far less intrusive than what Gaza deserves from Israel which is war with all of the horror of it.

Correction: Statelet of Gaza. The Palestinians seem to want it both ways. All the privileges of statehood without the consequences.