The Antisocial Socialist

oh, i wasn't aware that israeli terrorists attacked canada...

From:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2006/07/17/qc-family.html

From:

as i said, i wasn't aware that israeli terrorists attacked canada. do you even know what war means? because, in a war, you know, innocent bystanders get hurt, and the israeli retaliation only arrived after the citizens have been warned by several types of media.

From:

And what, all of Lebanon was supposed to evacuate the country? I'm not sure I follow your line of reasoning...

Or to take another example, is that like the village where Israel warned the citizens to leave, and then when they did, Israel bombed the departing convoy?

From:

fyi, the war is not in all of lebanon.

and no. it's really not. it's a case in which israel was under attack that was carefully planned for about seven years.

From:

I think both sides had well-prepared attack plans well in advance... Although judging at the targets Israel is bombing, it's either willfully crippling infrastructure that has little to do with Hezbollah (a lighthouse?) to scare the Lebanese in not tolerating Hezbollah, and/or it's been going at semi-random once it ran out of relevant targets.

I'm always amazed when Israel demands that a government (either the PA or the Lebanese) take military action, and then starts bombing that government's military (référence libanaise, in effect preventing them from complying when they are driven to that point.

From:

actually, israel had little to no idea there was going to be an attack. it's a bit of an intelligence failure.

lebanon doesn't really *have* a military. it barely has a government.

From:

oh, they were warned! that makes it ok, then.

I understand that being attacked by terrorists is different than being attacked by a nation's armed forces. However, I think our PM's stance has more to do with national (er, US) interests and racism than with a recognition of this difference.

And yes, I am aware that on average over 90% of the casualties of modern warfare are civilians. This is precisely why war is not an appropriate response to a terrorist attack. There may be a moral difference between killing people on purpose and hitting "bystanders" by mistake, but there is no practical difference.
(The "mistake" argument is a stupid argument to make, anyway - of course there are people in populated areas! Killing bystanders is not a "mistake".)

From:

...who exactly do you think is getting killed on the israeli side? have you even bothered checking that, or are you just basing your opinion on some deeply rooted prejudice?

and, fyi, the lebanese front is only southern lebanon and beirut, there are plenty of war-free areas.

are you aware that over a thousand rockets have been shot at israel since the fighting started? do you care? just today there were 70 rockets in one hour. these aren't the palestinians. this is not an enemy that can't afford to buy bread. it's an expensive, well-planned attack that has been in the works for about seven to ten years, backed up by iran. they have thousands of missiles in their stock, and no plans to stop shooting them.

the idf is working on getting all the foreign citizens back home. the problem is that canada has only little desire to get them back.

From:

I am sorry I joked about it. It was a bit obnoxious of me to do that. Of *course* Israel didn't attack Canada, just as Lebanon didn't attack Israel.

Yes, I'm worried about who is dying on the Israeli side. I don't know why Israel went to war, knowing that Hizbollah could and would fight back with their rockets. It doesn't seem like it was a decision that was in the best interests of Israeli citizens, but perhaps you could explain it.

You keep bringing up the fact that in Lebanon, people in areas that are about to be bombed are warned in advance, that there are areas they could flee to, and that foreign nationals are being evacuated, as some kind of reason as to why war is not as bad as terrorism (or maybe more speifically why Israel's attacks aren't as bad as Hizbollah's?) This opinion is nonsense to me: if you're dead you're dead. It's of no practical difference whether you were intentionally killed or if it was a (so-called) mistake.

From:

by the way, what WAS israel supposed to do when the kidnappings and missile-launching came? were they supposed to say "oh it's TERRORISTS! nevermind, then!" and let them destroy all of haifa?

From:

not completely destroy lebanon and kill hundreds of people. aside from whether that was right or not, do you really think it will bring an end to hezbollah??

i don't have know what really *would* put an end to hezbollah, but i don't think you or anyone else does either.

From:

yes, i forgot.. not like they're actually attempting to target hezbollah headquarters and bunkers that are located, in a very strange coincidence, under people's apartments. nevermind!

um. i didn't claim i knew how to put an end to hezballah, you, however, seemed to have plenty of ideas how *not* to, so i was wondering if you know what israel actually should have done. do you think that just because no one has an answer, then no one should do anything about it?

From:

when all else fails, bomb lebanon? @_@ seriously?
it's a bit disturbing that you hold your national government to a lower standard than you hold a terrorist orgabization to.

From:

*rolls eyes* i am so not having this discussion with you anymore.

From:

smhwpf.livejournal.com

Good grief. The article doesn't even mention the Canadians that were killed.

But if they were killed by Israel they must have been bad people.

From:

sabotabby

It does, as a passing aside. In fairness, it was on the cover of almost everything today.

From:

montreality.livejournal.com

Hey, I didn't forget to let you know about the TO demo for Lebanon. To my knowledge there was supposed to be one on Sunday along with the other protests that occured in Ottawa and Montreal, but it was postponed to tomorrow. They very recently set the time and place.

You can read the details here: http://www.lfpm.org/forum/showpost.php?p=314584&postcount=70

From:

What's with the "Bring only Lebanese or Canadian flags" thing? Are organizers going to ask people with Palestinian flags to put them aside?

From:

montreality.livejournal.com

It's unlikely they'll ask them to put them aside, but if you're attending please respect their wishes. The Lebanese are not homogeneous in their opinions on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and the demonstration is supposed to focus on Lebanese unity and avoid internal squabbling.

Self-centered? Maybe. But we also want to avoid skirmishes between people coming from different political parties, and to bring to Canadians' attention that what PM Harper's response is extremely biased and unacceptable.

From:

I'm kind of worried when my sense of self-entitlement rears its head like this...

From:

montreality.livejournal.com

Also, other than flags representing other countries, there is concern that people will bring flags supporting their political parties (such as Lebanese Forces, Kataeb, FPM, Future Movement, etc.) I hope you understand that this wouldn't look good for national unity.

From:

sabotabby

Gah. I won't be able to make it Tuesday.

From:

...why are there so many canadians in lebanon?

From:

sabotabby

On vacation, I guess. There's a huge Lebanese population in Toronto and Montréal.

From:

ghostwes.livejournal.com

Windsor, too. I can't throw a rock in this town without hitting a Shawarma restaurant. Well, not that I would throw rocks at them. They might not serve me falafel if I did that.

From:

In another article I've seen the figure of 40,000 Canadians in Lebanon, but it went on to say that most of these have dual citizenship and live in Lebanon permanently, that there is really only 5,000 Canadians in vacation there that will need evacuation. I kind of wonder at this proportion (only one eigth of those with Canadian citizenship there would rather live in Lebanon?) but then many might have acquired Canadian citizenship during the civil war, and gone back to start a new life in the country once the civil war was over...

From:

ahhh. see, i suspect that they just didn't *want* the citizens that have dual citizenship back.

From:

I don't think that Canadian citizenship expires, I just think that Harper is either incompetent or doesn't care much about Lebanese-Canadians.

From:

sabotabby

I can see why he doesn't care about the Montréal family of seven (they probably speak French or something), but a lot of the others are from al-Berta.

From:

I was thinking more in terms of racism than provincial preference...

From:

sabotabby

That goes without saying.

From:

i didn't think it expired.. i said that they were probably trying to thin down the arab population in canada.

From:

Oh, I mis-parsed your sentence.

From: