Thursday, August 03, 2006

War: What is it good for?

Politics is war without bloodshed,
war is politics with bloodshed
- Mao Tse Tung

I am opening a can of worm here. Normally, I avoid discussion about the situation in the Middle East. The Dutch have this saying 'onbegonnen werk', a task that is doom to fail. Think about it, they say G_D put his prophets one after another in the region and yet there is still no peace over there. So, how on earth can you expect UN can bring peace in the Middle East?

However, there some points I've been wondering about.

1. The Lebanon situation started when Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. According to BBC, Nasrallah wants to give Israeli pressure to release the thousands of Palestinian prisoners in its jails. The way I see it, Hezbollah is in fact put a higher price on Israeli than on Palestinian. Two Israelis against thousands Palestinian, what an insult! With a friend like Hezbollah, who needs enemy?

2. Israel wants to wiped out Hezbollah by bombing all over Lebanon. Bad, bad, bad move. Ok, I know nothing about politics or war strategy for that matter. But if my brother hits you and you come to our house and whacking my grandma, you'd better believe that the whole family will be united supporting my brother, even though some of us doesn't agree or even hating with him. The same will happened in Lebanon. There are Christian, Muslim and Druze in Lebanon. I hate to think that most of them are supporting Hezbollah now. When will Israel and the USA learn?

3. Israel maintain that they already warned the Lebanese to evacuate from the south before they shelled and air struck the area. Hello? In order to evacuate one needs some kind of transport. Not everyone got one. If they do, there is a chance that their cars are targeted by Israeli missiles. I don't see they have much choice but to stay put. Because one way or another they are bound to get hit by a missile or a bomb, or whatever that is that can blow you up into millions of pieces anyway.

4. I was astonished when I read that in the beginning of the war USA was more concern about expediting the shipment of their bombs to Israel than humanitarian relief for the Lebanese. I was even more bewildered knowing that USA, UK (and The Netherlands) did practically nothing to push for ceasefire. It seems like they just give Israel a blank check to do whatever Israeli wants disregard of the outcome.

5. According to Webster dictionary, terrorist is the systematic use of terror especially as a mean of coercion. Now, I'm as clueless as this kid in this article of who the terrorist is.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Simply put, we know nothing about the current crisis in the Middle East. What we know is from what we read, hear, and see on TV; and of course they're partial and bias. If you would ask people about their opinions about this whole circus, the answers would vary depending which side(s) they're on.

Anyway, I happened to bump into your blog today. Some of the contents are informative, and refreshing ... a bit different from those written by Indonesian bloggers in Planet Terasi. Keep it up!

Anonymous said...

It is never that simple, there are always two sides of a story. For instance, you do know that Hezbollah's innate mission is to eliminate Israel, right? And what does Israel suppose to do? Stay put and be killed?

triesti said...

Sugiarto: thanks... like I said I am just wondering.. thinking out loud..

Indira: who said that it is simple?? I said it's onbegonnen werk.

You do know that Hezbollah was founded BECAUSE Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, right? Using your argument, the Lebanese also has the right to fight for their land. Enter: Hezbollah. ;)

Do you think Israel has the right to bomb all over Lebanon as it is to eliminate Hezbollah? I don't know why Israel doesnt use their special force unit to rescue their soldier, or Mossad, or whatever.. I bet you know much more than I do.

You do know that there are far more civilian casualties in Lebanon than in Israel, that bombing infrastructure doesnt eliminate Hezbollah but somehow helping them gaining support even from the Christian Lebanese. So, do you think Israel getting their objective by doing all of these?

Anonymous said...

Stupid move by Israel!!
Gosh, Will there ever be peace on this earth????

Anonymous said...

Check these out. IMHO, the comments are credible.
http://www.gusdur.net/indonesia/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2533&Itemid=1
http://www.juwonosudarsono.com/archives/2006/08/diplomacy_and_military_balance.php

Anonymous said...

Sugiarto: thanks

have u seen this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKq38COoTG8