Quoted Text

national security official with direct knowledge of the operation

Quoted from boomslanger

Here is the true agenda behind Israel's attack:

Quoted from boomslanger

but the information and so called "facts" from the US and Israel are just as murky and likely to be untrue

Quoted from ALLEYCAT

but you were adament in your first posting that the statement was true
flip a coin on your next post and you turn the corner  

Quoted from boomslanger

Very interesting read especially the US neocons thinking of the M.E. as The Realm and wanting to expand into it. Here is the true agenda behind Israel's attack:

http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/salon027.html

This may be borne out as Israel attacked and killed 12 Syrian farmers today, obviously attempting to expand the war beyond Lebanon.

Quoted from boomslanger

Today's children have had their homes, history, security and families taken from them. Tomorrow, they will feel the need to harness their outrage, which is why resistance movements such as Hezbollah are such a magnet.

Quoted Text

No such thing as half a peace rally

The silence of anti-war protesters on Hezbollah and Hamas is absurd, writes Gerard Henderson.

BLUNT question: when is a proclaimed anti-war rally not really an anti-war rally? Honest answer: when those rallying oppose only one side in a two-sided military conflict.

On Sunday the annual Hiroshima Day rally was held in Australian capital cities. Green Left Weekly provided an idea of what was to come. It told readers where to assemble - from Brisbane to Perth - and set out the political agenda: "Stop the war on Lebanon and Palestine. No nuclear power, no uranium mining. Troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan. No attack on Iran."

There was no call on Hezbollah or Hamas to stop firing rockets indiscriminately into Israel. And there was no call on the Islamist militants in Iraq to stop murdering their fellow Iraqis by exploding bombs in marketplaces, on playing fields and the like.

The Hiroshima Day Sydney website carried a similar message. It advised a theme of "no war in the Middle East" and listed the Islamic Friendship Association's Keysar Trad as a principal speaker. He was depicted on ABC TV news on Sunday night as criticising Israel - but not Iran or Syria, which back Hezbollah and Hamas. Reporting the event, Annie Guest said that "hundreds gathered in rallies like this one in Sydney, supporting peace or protesting against current conflicts".

Not so. There was no report of anyone at the main Hiroshima Day rally in Sydney having supported peace or having protested against both sides in the conflict. Protesters carried banners depicting both George Bush and John Howard as terrorists.

What's more, only one party in the Middle East conflict was criticised. Israel, of course. According to reports, the main Sydney rally was effectively taken over by a group of young Australians, many with a Lebanese Muslim background, who turned the occasion into a protest against Israel.

It is understandable that some supporters of peace and opponents of conflict would want to criticise Israel over the hostilities on the Israeli-Lebanese border and in the Gaza Strip. But to genuinely support peace, and to genuinely reject conflict, it is necessary to oppose the actions of both sides.

Take the conflict on the Israeli-Lebanese border. Not even Hezbollah disguises the fact it initiated the military activities. Sheik Naim Qassem, Hezbollah's second in command, was recently interviewed by London's Sunday Times. He told the journalist Hala Jaber that Hezbollah had been preparing for this conflict since Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000. He said it had used the time to stockpile weapons, including missiles which can travel at least 100 kilometres from a firing point into northern Israel.

Now, whatever his faults, Hezbollah's second in command is intellectually honest. He does not claim to support peace or to oppose conflict. Like his leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Qassem wants to destroy Israel. So do the terrorist organisation's financial backers and military suppliers in Iran. Yet this message did not get a run in publicity for the Hiroshima Day rallies or in the speeches which were reported on the day.

The heads of some of Australia's leading non-government organisations did not perform much better. When Australians give money to organisations such as Anglicord, Caritas, Plan or World Vision, they expect that, after reasonable administrative costs, the funds will help relieve poverty somewhere in the world.

So it must have come as a surprise for some donors to open The Weekend Australian on Saturday to find that a group of non-government organisations had paid for advertising space to send an open letter to the Prime Minister.

John Howard is not difficult to contact. The likes of Jack de Groot (Caritas) and Tim Costello (World Vision) could have spoken or written directly to Howard. But they chose the media option to call on the Government "to support the call for an international ceasefire immediately". This was consistent with the position of Israel's critics. On the ABC's AM program on Saturday, de Groot and Costello made it clear the prime focus of their criticism was directed at Israel - rather than at Hezbollah or Iran.

The fact is that Howard is not in a position to tell Israel what to do. Nor, indeed, is Bush. Israel is a democracy whose long-term security is being threatened. No democratically elected government could fail to respond when thousands of rockets are launched at its citizens in the hope of killing as many military personnel and civilians as possible and when its third largest city, Haifa, is under constant bombardment.

The fact is that very few people are unconditionally anti-war. For example, there was majority support for the war against Nazism (1939-45) and for the Union (anti-slavery) side in the American Civil War (1861-65). And rightly so. However, Allied action in the final years of World War II led to literally millions of civilian dead and the Union Army probably inflicted more civilian casualties than did the Confederacy. In other words, some conflicts are not judged primarily on the proportionality of military action.

Many of the Lebanese Muslim Australians who demonstrated on Sunday are in Australia because of an act of grace by Malcolm Fraser's Coalition government (in which Howard was treasurer). They were given refugee status during the civil war in Lebanon in the late 1970s and early 1980s, despite the fact they did not meet the requirements for obtaining refugee status.

Yet the likes of Trad are prepared to march with banners depicting Howard as a terrorist while failing to criticise the terrorist leaders of Hezbollah.

The Hiroshima Day rally was a farce. You cannot be anti-war, or pro-peace, if you support one side of a conflict.

Gerard Henderson is executive director of the Sydney Institute.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/no-such-thing-as-half-a-peace-rally/2006/08/07/1154802818596.html

Quoted from x452

You cannot invade another country like Israel and the U.S. has done and mass-murder innocent civilians and call it "collateral damage". Most people do not condone the actions of the terrorists, and I imagine many Muslims are somewhat in two-minds because they denounce the actions of the terrorists but to some degree support their ideology of ridding Muslim countries of western exploitation and military presences. And they support the idea of ridding their countries of terrorists but denounce the mass-murder of innocent civilians by the anti-terror forces.

Quoted from Aussies_Online

Those people are cowards, which is why they only target innocent civilians. They are not even brave enough to challenge a civilian face to face. Even less an armed soldier. They are just brainless people playing a game of hide and seek like 5 years old do.

Quoted from Aussies_Online

Like it or not, but the US and Israel are also representing Australia. We are one big family (The West) and we need to stick together.

Quoted from ALLEYCAT

Again, where is your Facts that this is the case! You have again made  another outlandish - (personal) un informed comment and fail to back up your comments with the source.

Sure Jump on the soap box - you are welcome to it  but at least provide the facts around the matter.

Quoted from Aussies_Online

Terrorists are the scum of the earth. They have no moral, no regard for human life and there is certainly nothing honorable about their cause.

Quoted from Aussies_Online

No possible alternatives.

Quoted from Aussies_Online

Like it or not, but the US and Israel are also representing Australia. We are one big family (The West) and we need      to stick together.