Donnervogel

Oh come on. Wikipedia: Israeli-occupied territories It doesn't matter if you and I agree or not that they are occupied. Fact is the Plaestinians in a majority think they are (And something tells me they have a lot more authority than you and I in this question). And that makes them rebels. They fight for "their" land. We can discuss the border dispute and the "security wall" to death all over and over as we already did countless times. It's not gonna change our viewpoints. And it's not gonna matter. that is right but it's not the only reason why they fight. [EDIT] source [/EDIT] So how does that invalidate my point? It only shows that this conflict has many more aspects. Like obviously also a conflict between religions. Stop thinking in two categories only. As for hesbollah. Until 2000 souther Lebanon was occupied by Israel. It also was occupied before numerous times. And besides if you would *read* for once you could see that I wrote as referring to the groups acting primarily from Gaza and the West Bank.Come on... this whole answer of mine is so unneeded. Don't just respond for the sake of opposing everything. If you answer then please make your point clear and point out why the points crizisised don't apply. If you just state other things without referencing to the original you run in danger of losing context which you partially did now. Like bringing up the topic of Hamas want's to kill all jews as answer to my statement that the plaestinian terror groups are rebel groups too. Those two issues are not directly connected in this context and hence it serves no point to use them as an argument against my position unless you elaborate why this would be so - which you didn't. Especially you fail to show why you think they don't fight for land.

since when does that exculde itself? You really need to open up your mind. People can be rebels AND terrorists. Terrorism is just one form of violence. A rebel describes a person that opposes and/or fights a ruler/government. A terrorist is someone that uses acts of violence to frighten people in order to get his demands fulfilled. And as you can read Jinef referred to the terrorism aswell as to the rebel movement in his statement. Because both is true. The palestinian terrorists groups are rebel movements. They fight the Israeli occupation of their land. This perfectly fits the definition. And they are terrorist organisations aswell as they use acts of terror to archieve their goal.

My opinion? Well I'll keep it short this time. I am convinced you won't be able to root out Hesbollah. You can weaken their militia's offensive capabilities but you won't get rid of them and they will allwas try to attack Israel. But hesbollah is not only the militia. It is a significant political power inside Lebanon that needs to be taken into accound by the lebeanese political landscape. I also don't see how the government of lebanon has attacked Israel. It simply didn't. Sure you can say they didn't act to disarm the hesbollah but that would be totally illusional considering Syria blocked any attempt to give Lebanon more than a silly excuse for an army so that the hesbollah militia is effectively the strongest armed force in the country. Also as I already explained lebanon can't risk another civil war that's why their government can't act offensively against Hesbollah. The Sia muslims would consider such as an attack on them and rally behind Hesbollah.

Well Blair is right with this. And also with this (same article) You see I don't dispute Israels right to fight against the Hezbollah militias that attacked them and to defend against rocket attacks and to try to get their soldiers back. I condemn their exaggerated reaction and bombardment of civilian infrastructure.

wow we agree Wikipedia: Opposition to the Iraq War or just search google for "iraq war protests"

ok for the secound time. I want you to either provide a serious source for this statement or to elaborate why the christian chief of the lebanese army supports hesbollah. From everything I heard he does not support the hesbollah but he obviously supports action against Israel as Israel is attacking lebanon.

yes I remmember that. We got Rantisi too ! Run - Tisi- run I am disgusted.

that is a recent image from AFP. You can see the whole archive in english language here: Crisis in the Middle East: Lebanon Faces Continued Bombardment

Hizbollah rocket fire hits Israeli hospital: medics Another outrageous chapter in this crisis How accurate are those rockets? I don't think they are too accurate so this hit *could* be unintentional. Yet they obviously won't mind it and count it as a success which is the really outrageous thing. Quite disgusting mindset of those radicals. Unfortunatly I fear the common civilians on both sides will again pay most for it when the revenge and counter revenge takes place.

Would you please read what I write and stop wasting my time? Thx much appreciated.

That is a lie. The prisoners' document to which you are by all likelyhood refering to says NO. SUCH. THING. It is a lie, and Hamas has themselves said that they will not sign any document that recognizes Israel in any way whatsoever. Ignoring facts won't help you and it also won't really make you a serious partner for discussion. Besides nobody really said that they will do it but it was the first time there were ever talking about something like it and considering their internal instabillity as a consequence of the frozen funding by the UN, EU and other organisations for the palestinian authority, some parts among the political arm of Hamas were probably ready to implicitly recognise them. Of course not everyone wanted this so this lead to a very confusing situation where -depending on what source it was reported - some claimed hamas will implicitly recognise Israel and some claimed Hamas will never do it (as it is part of the Hamas Charter to destroy "the Zionists"). Anyway that thing didn't tell us they wanted to accept Israel for sure. But it showed us that there was an obvious discrepancy isnide the Hamas and Fatah about this issue. The kidnapping probably was an action among the hamas military wing hardliners to torpedo any attempt of such a recognition as - obviously - it would be very controversial among the palestinians. As you can see they more than succeeded. You can't expect any huge turnaround from one day to another in the middle east conflicts anyway. That's why diplomatic sensitivity is needed in this matter but none of the parties directly involved shows any of it. What eyes should that open. The Hamas and Palestinian terrorists and Hesbollah are for a long time already critisised by the the USA, the EU and other organisations and everyone want them to lay down their terrorist activities. Unlike you however the rest of the world makes a distinction between Palestinians and terrorists. Also between the Hamas government and their military wings (like Al-Quassam brigades). You know the world is not only two sided and by seeing it that way no conflict can ever be resolved. The same disticntion goes for Lebanese and Hesbollah and Hesbollah and Al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya. The background is that there can only be diplomacy if there is a recognised government in those countries. That's why EU and USA do not totally reject the Hamas and Hisbollah as they represent large parts of their countries population and are not exclusively terrorist organisations. They also build a lot of social and civillian infrastructure in their territories. However this does not change the fact that they support terrorism and have their own terrorist wings and this needs to be stopped. As a consequence the EU for example is calling on Hamas to stop the violence and recognise Israel in order to recieve the funding they so deperatly need. The hope is that - as we have seen with that "recognition" story - there could be voices inside hamas that want to make it less radical in order to get international support and by that hamas could slowly get forced to reform its charters and by that way allow diplomacy with israel again. They ask what is disproportionate in that Audio file. Disporportionate is to bomb the lebanese civillian Infrastructure and kill many more Lebanese and foreign nationals that have nothing to do with the recent crisis. Disprportianate is also to attack Haifa and other Israeli cities killing Israeli civilians that also aren't directly involved into the crisis. They ask why nobody calls the Hisbollah and Palestinians disporoportinate. The answer is they all do. Maybe not with those words but those organisations get so much critisized by all sides that people probably don't notice anymore. The difference is that Israel recently gets critisised much more. And instead of pulling the "everybody hates Israel" card all the time they could simply look at themselfs and notice that their continued ignorance towards human rights and international law and their intentional attack on civillian infrastructure and their careless approach to civilian casualties are not what is expected from a democratic and modern nation. Yes that's right. A democratic nation has higher standarts to fulfill than terrorists. That's what is distinguishing the two and that's what gave Israel more sympathy than the terrorists in the past. But they're using up their sympathy stock rapidly. The problem with this figure is that Israel is comitting "acts of war" aswell. The Hesbollah attacked Israel first, that is right. But Israel attacked Lebanon as a whole in return (that is what is most disproportionate). And Israel killed more unvolved civillians than the Hesbollah did in this crisis and the Lebanese Army Chief is a christian. I really doubt he supports Hesbollah. Care to give me a source? If you mean the Lebanese Army reacting to Israeli incursion on their land and airspace. Well that's their very right. What do you expect? Invade a country and their army is just gonna sit and watch the fun? Something in your mind must be twisted. Of course. But what is your point? Israel has been providing Lebanese christians with weapons and support for a long time aswell. Syria was part of the game too. All this is what makes that country such a mess.

We are taking notice but nobody expect Hezbollah to act right. Tey're an organisation that is devoted to terrorism which we all agree is bad and must be stopped. But we do not expect Israel to react like it did because Israel is not a terrorist organisation yet is is acting very careless and over the top and by that endagers many civillian lifes. And as it stands now the Hesbollah killed less Israelis than the Israelis killed Lebanese citizens during this crisis. I dunno but that leaves a very sour taste in my mouth considering Israel is claiming to fight terrorists and by that is causing even more dammage than the terrorists are. Israel simply has to restrain itself and show us what the difference is to the terrorists. This is not done by killing more people than the terrorists. Because then I really begin to wonder if Israel is any better. Don't get me wrong. I know Israel has the potential to be better and to show it to us. But it is definitly going into the wrong direction at the moment.

show me a single quote from here that says firing rockets into israel is ok. And you can hardly bomb airports and bridges accidentally. Also when you drop bombs that leave huge 3m deep and like 6m wide craters in some road inside beirut you don't accidentally kill civillians. you have to expect to kill civilians when you do such and taking that into account in the planning. Pictures if you do such attacks you cannot claim to not expect civillians to die and still be sane.

the Hezbollah is not the lebanese government. Sure it is member of the lebanese government simply because it is a party in the country that has much power and if you read up history and recent reports on lebanon you can see that that country has not a very stable government and thus not a very stable peace. Not long ago lebanese were slaughering each other and the potential for this to happen again is still there if some major party feels it is overruled. That's why the hezbollah needs to be part of the government. The Wikipedia article on Lebanon suggests that there are about 60% Muslims and 40% Christians. The latest election results suggest that the Muslims are split equally to Sunni and Shiites. Hezbollah is a Shiite party. I don't know if there are any other major Shiite parties in Lebanon so let's just assume the majority of these Shiites are inclined to support Hezbollah that would make about 30% of the Lebanese population. So much for the (very rough) math. anyway. I can't see how one can argue "they deserved it" when the israeli bombardment targets the civilian infrastructure of a country. This is punishing the entire country and mostly the civilians and especially the 70% non Hezbollah supporters are affected aswell. Israels reaction is totally over the top. Sure "if they gave back the soldiers" it would end. But the government can't really do that. If they would use the military/police against the Hezbollah a new devastating civil war is guaranteed. Also Israel didn't really leave the Lebanese any chance to actually negotiate the release with Hezbolloah. The attacks on Lebanon (not only Hezbollah positions but also important civillian Infrastructure like the Airport, bridges) started almost immediatly after it happened. Now of course the Lebanese are in a sucky position. Bowing down to the Israelis and use their own forces against Hezbollah to fullfill their demands (disarming Hezbollah as stated in the UN resolution 1559 in the year 2004, releasing the soldiers, ...) would be seen as treachery by Muslims (the lebanese army chief being a christian on top of that) and is a guarantee for religious turmoil and maybe another civil war. Also it would destabilise the government for sure as the Muslims (at least the Shiites) would not let it happen that Lebanon becomes Israels puppet. Doing nothing on the other hand will not stop the Israeli hardliner as they can savely claim their demands are not fulfilled and in the end result in the country being bombed to stone age or devastated in a war with a huge risk of another following civil war or Syrian intervention whose mastery they could just get rid off short while ago. And the chances for Hezbollah to cave in to Israeli demands are slim to none... so... what would YOU do in this situation? You got the choice of civil war or... civil war. Maybe if you're lucky you only get bobmed to stone age and robbed of much of your economy (tourism, destroyed infrastructure). What a nice prospect. EDIT: Also keep' in mind that the Hezbollah organisation only has a couple tousand real members. About thousand of them armed and about 400 "fighters". (according to the German Wikipedia article on Hezbollah that claims to have the CIA as a source - other sources I found stated they had about 800 members, it is unclear how member is defined as the Hezbollah is not the "military wing". The Military wing is Al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya which that is a sub organisation of hezbollah.) The Lebanese population is about 3.5 Mio and according to my calculations about 1.2 Mio shiite muslims.

phonix I do not claim to know how it is to live in a country that considers itself at war and all. But that was never the point of mine (and other people's) postings. We don't know it but we can observe and what we see is that both sides are doing wrong things and both sides are accusing each other of starting and both sides are being terribly stubborn. The point behind my replies was merley to show to you that you are affected by something that is called double standards. Easy example... you get mad when a soldier of yours gets abducted. But you find it correct when israel makes mass arrests of people and then holds them in prisons without even charging them. But if you take a neutral look you could see that those actions are basicly equally unrightful. Because detaining people and not charging them has nothing to do with justice. Of course Israel has the right to prosecute terrorists but they have to arrest people only when they have clear evidence and the people get charged and get heard by a court within a few days after they got arrested. (Israel is not the only "western" country violating these basic principles of modern justice systems.) Another example of said mentioned double standarts is that you come here being quite angered that a Kassam rocket landed 1km from your house but you say "shit happens" when Israeli chopper pilots kill kids playing football because they apparently misfired their missile or you call a 10 year old girl that gets shot because she entered a restricted area around some outpost "stupid". Now having double standarts when living in a country like yours is not uncommon and to some extend everybody has them. But that's where outsiders can come in handy as they can point those things out and instead of accusing them of being anti-jewish/anti-israeli or pro-terrorists you should take some time to think about it and think about what you want. Which leads me to the next thing. "Burn Gaza"? What would that help? You guys need to accept that there will allways be muslim arabs in your "neighbourhood" and the only realistic solution to your problems is to get along without killing each other. For that both sides need to settle down their unbeliveable stubbornness and stop seeking revenge for everything. I blame the palestinians equally for the situation as the Israelis. We can debate for centuries about who started and what not but the simple fact is that it doesn't matter. Only thing you need to do is to accept is that there is a price to pay for "peace". That price might hurt, but surley doesn't hurt as much as losing loved ones in terror attacks or in IDF raids. And the price is to let go and burry the hatchet without being "even". Yes I know I'm terribly naive. But I'm right too.

Personally I wouldn't give much on the fortifying on rooftops. It's most probably preplaced units. I just trasnlated as it was written. I don't think the author has a profound understanding of the OFP AI and OFP mission editing in general anyway.

nothing, but then again why you complain when they "arrest" members of your army? What is wrong in arresting people that belong to organisations that steal your land and bulldoze your houses? No but this isn't the USA politics thread or the Iraq thread so I don't complain about Guantanamo and Abu Graib and such in here Well their police obviously doesn't have access to the places occupied by Israel. I didn't say Israel is occuping all of the land not belonging to it. Just parts. You can consult the map posted by Bernadotte for some further information. And you do infact control about 1/3 of their government right now. Already forgot you arrested them? oh there are two issues about your "rightful" reason. Firstly if it was a rightful reason those people would have been charged with it already. They are not charged and I suspect it might have something to do with the fact that the Israelis have a hard time comming up with a believeable explenation how all those people are directly involved in carring out said attack/kidnapping. The secound issue is that Israel violated the sovereignty of the Plaestinian Authority by arresting about 1/3 of their democratically elected government. You can do such stunts in your interior if your law allows it but if you arrest a different government from yours it is infact a crime as it is an influence into their internal affairs and such are ususally forbidden by their statutes. The correct way to get this done "rightful" would have been to issue an official protest and demand the transfer of said alledged persons into your custody for a trial. Of course for such you'd have to come up with charges first so it's kind of complicated to even get started with it.

By that logic the Palestinians could claim they arrested the israeli Soldier for being member of a foreign occupying army and get away with it.

@Jinef no, meaning it generally. @Billybob Nope didn't know that and didn't find any source on what you claimed in a quick search. And even if some group claims stuff... they alaways claim everything. Sometimes you have sevral groups claiming the same thing. It's not like I really trust what those organisations claim. Nevertheless it doesn't change the fact that you don't know if he is a terrorist or not. Simply because he is (if he is) a memeber of an "resistance" Organisation doesn't mean he ever carried out terror attacks or helped to carry out any. You see when israel attacks the Gaza strip I can imagine there's lots of people turning to those terror organisations and ask if they can help to fight off the israeli attack. It doesn't automaticly mean that they are long time premium members. EDIT: My point is. If someone blows up an israeli bus then he certainly was a terrorist. But if someone defends against an insraeli aggression that alone doesn't make him a terrorist. Still the term terrorist is very quickly on the tongues of certain parties.

Isn't it a bit pathetic to call that sniper a "terrorist" sniper? I mean he didn't attack in Israel. He didn't snipe israelis in Tel Aviv or something. Last time I checked the Israelis intruded into plaestinian territory with military force there in Gaza and not the other way around. Hell what do you expect? Such actions are considered acts of war. And you think everyone defendinding against the Israeli aggression is a terrorist? Maybe he was. Maybe not. But I honestly can't see any reason why you would know that he was one. If you go to war with people you have to expect them shooting back. That doesn't make the defenders terrorists by definition.

Well driving seems to be way smoother than it has been in OFP, most buildings seem to be not enterable and the palm swaying is gone. The cites/villages look nice though. Much denser and bigger feeling to it than in OFP. If that is a Landrover then we're seing the video from the driver side I would assume. I hope the view is not as zoomed in in normal gameplay. Also some freelook around inside the car would have been nice.

eh take care with that allegadions. you speak of the fake Budweiser that should only be called "Bud". The real Budweiser is quality czech beer.

yeah I love Smog. Really chilly beautiful guitar music on "A River Ain't Too Much To Love". My favourite from the Album is "Palimpsest". That Album is also my favourite but the others have some great pieces aswell. And I'd give so much to see BSS and their satelites live... Too bad they seam to avoid switzerland :/ Although I saw The Most Serene Republic as support for Stars this year. They were quite good. I don't like Stars that much though.

Do you realise how silly you are? I am not very familiar with this case but from reading it here I really have doubts. How on earth is a 10 year old girl threatening soldiers behind cover from 70m away? Oh yeah I see she could have a nuke in her lunchbox. Yeah sure. Comeone. Normal human beings would take a megaphone or raise their voice and tell her to go away. Maybe the army could help out and teach those soldiers how to say basic things like "Go away you are in forbidden area" in arabic. Maybe the soldiers could fire in the air or at the ground to scare the girl away. All that would not bring any additional danger to the soldiers and would probably work if the girl was accidentally there. And how can you expect a 10 year old girl is supposed to know everything about the shitty situation she lives in. 10 year old children are known to make mistakes and to not fully reasilse why people would be shooting at and kill each other. And let's assume it was an evil terrorist girl with a bomb in her backpack. 70m... a ten year old girl. the soldiers would still have about 15 secounds to react before she could really threaten them behind their cover if she came running full speed at their position - that's more than enough. There really is not a single reason to shoot her right away. Of course the orders... yeah... you know if you are ordered to shoot anything in 150m range I wonder how many people the IDF loses when they try to bring supplies to those outposts... it must be a masacre...

One thing you people should keep in mind is that in the OFP scene there aren't many original BIS mission still played. In OFP it's all about player made missions as it's quite easy to create new missions and with some effort everyone can make the mission he ever wanted himself. There are almost no limits really. Whatever you imagine can pretty surely be made if you put in some effort.