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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Jan 21, 2009 - 09:04pm PT
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Well there is a start, Skip acknowledges that there is NO DOUBT that Israel used WP.
But skip look again at the video and then check with Janes. here is NO DOUBT it was used illegally. But since Israel is NOT a signatory to those international treaties concerning the use of WP it was not illegal to them.
Regarding DU there is heaps of evidence it was used in Gaza. I have already posted the information and link to the long term effects of DU on civilian populations. It is grim and disturbing and a vile war crime. Gross birth defects are rampant in the theaters of war where it has been used. Depleted means that it cannot be used as a fuel source or a fissionable material. It is not just a anti-armor weapon. It is also used for deep penetration.
Curiously, but not unexpectedly, the US adamantly denied the use of WP and DU in Afghanistan and Iraq until incontrovertible evidence came to light. As it is in Gaza. Deny it if you feel you must. But like Lucy you'll have a lot of 'splainin' to do later. Like when your kids and grand kids ask you why you didn't speak up against it's use.
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Chaz
Trad climber
Boss Angeles
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Jan 21, 2009 - 09:44pm PT
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It's a War.
All kinds of mean nasty stuff is used.
That's the whole idea behind a war.
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TradIsGood
Chalkless climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Jan 21, 2009 - 10:07pm PT
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As long as they both don't escalate....
to bolts.
If that happens we will have to send in the old guys.
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Chaz
Trad climber
Boss Angeles
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Jan 21, 2009 - 10:10pm PT
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"Chaz you mean like primitive rockets and suicide bombers."
If your intention is to bring a knife to a gun-fight, and suffer all the negative consequences included, I guess.
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Jan 21, 2009 - 10:17pm PT
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I always bring a knife to a gun fight. What else are you going to do when the ammo runs out.
But Israel brought a machine gun to a slap fight.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Jan 21, 2009 - 10:57pm PT
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US-Egyptian Red Sea ships hunt for Iranian ship carrying 60 tons of arms for Hamas
January 20, 2009, 11:23 AM (GMT+02:00)
Iranian Fajr-5 rocket
US and Egyptian warships were scouring the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea Tuesday, Jan. 20 to waylay an Iranian freighter carrying scores of heavy rockets for delivery to Hamas. DEBKAfile's exclusive sources report they were acting on intelligence that a ship loaded with an estimated 60 tons of arms to replenish Hamas' depleted war stocks had set out from the Iranian Persian Gulf port of Bandar Abbas on Jan. 17.
Our sources reveal that the arms-smuggling vessel started its voyage as the Iran-Hedayat and changed its name in mid sea to Famagustus registered to Panama. The captain was ordered by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to unload its cargo at a smugglers cove on the southeastern coast of Sinai opposite the Gulf of Suez, to be picked up by armed Bedouin gangs and moved to El Arish in northern Sinai. From there the contraband rockets were to be slipped gradually into the Gaza Strip.
The cargo consists of 50 Fajr rockets whose range is 50-75 km, scores of heavy Grad rockets, new, improved launchers whose angle of fire can be precisely adjusted, tons of high-quality explosives, submachine guns, rifles and pistols and armor-piercing missiles and shells (of types used successfully by Hizballah against Israeli tanks in 2006).
The shipment, the largest Tehran has ever consigned to the Palestinian Hamas in Gaza, includes also a large number of anti-personnel and anti-vehicle mines, equipment for assembling roadside bombs and advanced communications and night vision gear.
(The Palestinian Karin-A arms smuggling ship intercepted by Israel naval commandoes seven years ago carried 50 tons of arms for Fatah).
The Iranian ship aroused suspicions when Western spy satellites and surveillance stations spotted its change of registration after entering the Sea of Oman. Closer observation identified the cargo as a huge arms shipment.
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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Jan 22, 2009 - 12:28am PT
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January 21st, 2009
U.S. Navy stops weapons ship bound for Hamas
Posted: 08:06 PM ET
From Mike Mount
Senior Pentagon Producer
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The U.S. Navy stopped a ship Monday and found weapons aboard that were bound for Hamas, according to Pentagon officials.
The weapons were found when a boarding team from the USS San Antonio stopped a Cypriot-flagged ship and discovered artillery shells.
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apogee
climber
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Jan 22, 2009 - 01:52am PT
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Man, I can't believe this thread is coming up fast on the hugely popular 'Who the hell are you people?' thread...wouldn't it be ridiculous if it surpassed the all-time ST record holder, 'South Face Half Dome' thread?
And just think...YOU helped make it happen!
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Jan 22, 2009 - 11:58am PT
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Gaza And The Aid Bandits
January 22, 2009: Gaza is turning into another Somalia. That's because Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that runs the place, is turning a humanitarian disaster into a business. This has been a growing trend over the past two years, since Hamas won an election that put them in charge of the Palestinian government. For decades, much of the Gaza population has been dependant on aid agencies and food relief to get by. Gaza is, technically, a Palestinian refugee camp. Hamas is, technically, an international terrorist organization (that makes no secret of its goal of killing Jews and destroying Israel.) As a result, European nations cut back on their economic aid to Gaza (which amounts to $700 million a year.)
Hamas responded by imposing its own "taxes." Not quite as bad as Somalia, where, for example, the trucks carrying food to starving Somalis, have to pay "taxes" to the warlords whose territory they pass through. Currently there are nearly 300 roadblocks in southern Somalia. The gunmen charge $20-$500 per truck, depending on what they think the driver can afford.
Hamas does tax, as much as possible, Palestinians working for aid agencies. Also lucrative are the "taxes" imposed on businesses. Even busses and individual cars must pay. Another major source of Hamas revenue is the taxes on the smuggling through the tunnels under the border with Egypt. Most of these tunnels were destroyed during the recent Israeli bombing campaign. In response, Hamas has begun hijacking trucks carrying food and other aid. This will either be used for Hamas members (and their families) or sold in the markets to raise more cash.
What the "aid community" has lost sight of is the fact that the idea that the UN was supposed to be "impartial" was not part of the original UN concept. The original idea was that the Great Powers (the West) would use the UN to maintain order. But since the Great Powers couldn't get along, the UN evolved its own ways. The aid community, and all those NGOs that appeared in the last half century, through they were above politics. Now they have received a reality check, and they don't like it at all. In places like Somalia, the aid organizations plead, unsuccessfully in Somalia, for peacekeepers to protect the aid workers and their supplies. In Gaza, the same appeal is being made. But even Israel does not want to return to controlling Gaza (which they did until 2005). Thus a growing portion of the aid coming in will be forcibly diverted to Hamas, who is desperate to raise cash to pay its key followers (most of them armed) and stay in power.
From Strategy Page
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Jan 22, 2009 - 12:09pm PT
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Fattrad I am only reiterating what the UN and most of the world's humanitarian agencies, including Israeli ones, are calling for.
You know it is true but are obliged to deny and obfuscate reality to your own ends.
Sorry but the truth hurts.
Didn't you find my Polestinian comment humorous though?
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graniteclimber
Trad climber
Nowhere
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Jan 22, 2009 - 12:30pm PT
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"Man, I can't believe this thread is coming up fast on the hugely popular 'Who the hell are you people?' thread...wouldn't it be ridiculous if it surpassed the all-time ST record holder, 'South Face Half Dome' thread?"
What is ridiculous is when people judge a thread by how many posts it has. The 'Who the hell' and 'South face' threads are different threads and the number of posts in this thread does not make them better or worse.
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Dick_Lugar
Trad climber
Indiana (the other Mideast)
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Jan 22, 2009 - 02:05pm PT
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Maybe I don't understand the phosphorous debate...but I understand you use it to illuminate, but doesn't it fall to the ground at some point? So using it in a civilian area guarentees or increases incident of contact? Whatever the case, nasty business.
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Jan 22, 2009 - 02:26pm PT
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If the intent was to use WP for illumination then why are there so many videos and still shots of it being used in broad daylight?
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jan 22, 2009 - 02:32pm PT
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Philo, it's also internationally acceptable to use WP as a 'smokesceen' to conceal troop movement.
Dick, the idea is that the WP burns out by the time it makes groundfall
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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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Jan 22, 2009 - 04:02pm PT
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Which, obviously if you looked at the videos, was not the case.
Last update - 04:19 22/01/2009
Gideon Levy / Gaza war ended in utter failure for Israel
By Gideon Levy
Tags: Israel News, Gaza, Hamas, IDF
On the morrow of the return of the last Israeli soldier from Gaza, we can determine with certainty that they had all gone out there in vain. This war ended in utter failure for Israel.
This goes beyond the profound moral failure, which is a grave matter in itself, but pertains to its inability to reach its stated goals. In other words, the grief is not complemented by failure. We have gained nothing in this war save hundreds of graves, some of them very small, thousands of maimed people, much destruction and the besmirching of Israel's image.
What seemed like a predestined loss to only a handful of people at the onset of the war will gradually emerge as such to many others, once the victorious trumpeting subsides.
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The initial objective of the war was to put an end to the firing of Qassam rockets. This did not cease until the war's last day. It was only achieved after a cease-fire had already been arranged. Defense officials estimate that Hamas still has 1,000 rockets.
The war's second objective, the prevention of smuggling, was not met either. The head of the Shin Bet security service has estimated that smuggling will be renewed within two months.
Most of the smuggling that is going on is meant to provide food for a population under siege, and not to obtain weapons. But even if we accept the scare campaign concerning the smuggling with its exaggerations, this war has served to prove that only poor quality, rudimentary weapons passed through the smuggling tunnels connecting the Gaza Strip to Egypt.
Israel's ability to achieve its third objective is also dubious. Deterrence, my foot. The deterrence we supposedly achieved in the Second Lebanon War has not had the slightest effect on Hamas, and the one supposedly achieved now isn't working any better: The sporadic firing of rockets from the Gaza Strip has continued over the past few days.
The fourth objective, which remained undeclared, was not met either. The IDF has not restored its capability. It couldn't have, not in a quasi-war against a miserable and poorly-equipped organization relying on makeshift weapons, whose combatants barely put up a fight.
The heroic descriptions and victory poems written abut the "military triumph" will not serve to change reality. The pilots were flying on training missions and the ground forces were engaged in exercises that involved joining up and firing weapons.
The describing of the operation as a "military achievement" by the various generals and analysts who offered their take on the operation is plain ridiculous.
We have not weakened Hamas. The vast majority of its combatants were not harmed and popular support for the organization has in fact increased. Their war has intensified the ethos of resistance and determined endurance. A country which has nursed an entire generation on the ethos of a few versus should know to appreciate that by now. There was no doubt as to who was David and who was Goliath in this war.
The population in Gaza, which has sustained such a severe blow, will not become more moderate now. On the contrary, the national sentiment will now turn more than before against the party which inflicted that blow - the State of Israel. Just as public opinion leans to the right in Israel after each attack against us, so it will in Gaza following the mega-attack that we carried out against them.
If anyone was weakened because of this war, it was Fatah, whose fleeing from Gaza and its abandonment have now been given special significance. The succession of failures in this war needs to include, of course, the failure of the siege policy. For a while, we have already come to realize that is ineffective. The world boycotted, Israel besieged and Hamas ruled (and is still ruling).
But this war's balance, as far as Israel is concerned, does not end with the absence of any achievement. It has placed a heavy toll on us, which will continue to burden us for some time. When it comes to assessing Israel's international situation, we must not allow ourselves to be fooled by the support parade by Europe's leaders, who came in for a photo-op with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Israel's actions have dealt a serious blow to public support for the state. While this does not always translate itself into an immediate diplomatic situation, the shockwaves will arrive one day. The whole world saw the images. They shocked every human being who saw them, even if they left most Israelis cold.
The conclusion is that Israel is a violent and dangerous country, devoid of all restraints and blatantly ignoring the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, while not giving a hoot about international law. The investigations are on their way.
Graver still is the damage this will visit upon our moral spine. It will come from difficult questions about what the IDF did in Gaza, which will occur despite the blurring effect of recruited media.
So what was achieved, after all? As a war waged to satisfy considerations of internal politics, the operation has succeeded beyond all expectations. Likud Chair Benjamin Netanyahu is getting stronger in the polls. And why? Because we could not get enough of the war.
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cintune
climber
the Moon and Antarctica
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Jan 22, 2009 - 04:35pm PT
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What's really cool is that if you Google "Israeli Nazi's" the first-ranked result is:
Israeli Nazi's :: SuperTopo Rock Climbing Discussion Topic
20 posts - Last post: Dec 27, 2008
SuperTopo offers the world's best rock climbing and mountaineering route information for rock climbing in Yosemite, big wall climbing, ...
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=751277 - 90k - Cached - Similar pages
There are 309 other sites listed, by other people who also don't know how to spell.
Crazy internetz.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jan 22, 2009 - 05:10pm PT
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"Maybe I don't understand the phosphorous debate...but I understand you use it to illuminate, but doesn't it fall to the ground at some point? So using it in a civilian area guarentees or increases incident of contact? Whatever the case, nasty business."
Pretty plain from the image on this very page that the sh#t was hitting the ground in a civilian area in broad daylight and that it just missed from folks who would be dying a firey torturous death from it's contact.
Shame, they have plenty of firepower without using this. It's sort of like medical experiments on Jews in WW2, they want to see what their new death tech will do. Hate to make the comparison, but what is White Phosphorus doing in an urban conflict in the most crowded civilian area on earth?
Peace
Karl
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