Israeli war machines grind deep in reeling Gaza

[Liberal_in_LA]

Israeli war machines grind deep in reeling Gaza

Thu Jan 8, 2009 12:18pm EST

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsMaps/idUSTRE5075OA20090108

GAZA (Reuters) - The bodies stank because they lay too long where they died. Children were starving because they were left helpless by dead mothers. And the war in Gaza reeled to the end of a second week.

Inexorably, the civilian death toll mounted on Thursday as the Israeli army's fearsome array of high explosive weapons blew more of its Gaza targets to bits -- and sometimes missed.

One air strike targeted a group of Islamic Jihad fighters in the southern Gaza Strip but slammed into a street instead, killing two children, local medics reported.

A woman was sliced in two by a tank shell and her infant son obliterated.

Two fork-lift truck drivers in an aid convoy were killed by tank fire, the U.N. relief agency said. Two women were fatally struck by a missile in the courtyard of their house. Palestinian medics think it was fired from an unmanned drone.

[The Magistrate]

1. Are You Aware, Ma'am, Your Link Is To the Posting page For G.D.?

If you intended to link to the source of the article, you might want to use the edit function.

[Liberal_in_LA]

2. ooops.

[The Magistrate]

3. This Operation, Ma'am, Has Passed The Point Where It Becomes Counterproductive

It is doing as much harm to Israel's interests by now as it can hope to do to Hamas. The Israeli government would be wise to call a halt, now....

[napoleon_in_rags]

8. I know. What the hell?

"A woman was sliced in two by a tank shell and her infant son obliterated."

I'm trying to parse this as an information age military strategy, and I'm just not seeing the benefit. I mean I support Israel in general, but I'm sorry, this here is just bad, the kind of badness that is spreading all over the world at the speed of light no matter how much media clamp down there is. And my sense as a couch sitting TV watching American is that Israel, indeed the whole situation over there, is just beginning to get on my nerves. We're having these vast economic issues, requiring these changes and so forth, and I want to focus on that. But the situation over there just doesn't change. Its like the baby in Eraserhead, it just keeps on screaming.

When I actually use my brain though, I see through all of it to the underlying reality, which is that there is NEVER going to peace in the middle east so long as the world depends on oil and they are sitting on a mountain of it. And the real steps we can take to ending this shit are domestic, transforming our economy away from oil dependence, which is exactly what Obama is working on while we sit here and bitch. But the problem is that these things going on really do DEMAND our attention. Maybe that's point.

[TahitiNut]

16. Apparently "Israel's interests" and the interests of those in power have diverged.

Clearly, there seem to be far more than two (or three or four or five or ten) "interests" involved in this wanton slaughter.

Any portrayal of "Israel" or "Gaza" or "Palestine" as some monolithic, unified entity is becoming increasingly sophomoric.

[Junkdrawer]

17. This is the "Likud ot Likud Light for 100 years" invasion...

Neither peace nor victory - just increasing Palestinian oppression and the occasional terror attack...

[ihavenobias]

18. Yep.

That about sums it up.

[StudsT]

4. there is no justice here - this is simply barbaric and gross

Israeli leaders (as well as american) should be brought to the hauge for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

StudsT

[balantz]

5. If there were noble people in Congress they would be screaming murder.

Sadly that doesn't appear to be the case.

[G_j]

6. and today Congress blessed this

in so many words

[EFerrari]

9. I'm having flashbacks to Fallujah and Katrina and Lebanon.

Needless carnage and lots of it. This seems to be what people are worth to these our noble "democracies".

[G_j]

10. word....

[malaise]

20. It is all evil

and only those who seek justice can stop it. All these criminals governments will have to be locked away.

[Rhiannon12866]

7. Heartbreaking. K&R.

The entire international community needs to come together to broker peace here, ideally led by the US, but instead Bush* is "monitoring" the situation, clearing brush while Gaza burns... :grr:

[bunnies]

11. How is it that they can "pinpoint" target sites in Lebanon...

but cant hit the broad side of a barn in Gaza?

They're either completely incompetent or doing it on purpose. Or both.

[L0oniX]

12. If Americans could see what war does to people they would put an end to it.

Thanks to our media and government we never see the dead innocent people. If they could stop the inet from hosting the pictures and video you know they would do that too.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

13. From any rational perspective, the Israeli "incursion" into gaza is complete failure.

Whatever "moral" standing they had has vanished with the scenes of the carnage they are inflicting.

"Poor little Israel" has become a myth laid to rest.

They have, instead of destroying a failing Hamas, revived it.

Except for the ever-predictable American congress in thrall to them, the whole world is now disgusted by their depredations.

The question now is, in the face of their latest failure, where do they go now? What can they possibly do, except bluster and threaten? Their one remaining "ally" has a plate full troubles of it's own and is going broke (amended to say "is broke") fighting it's own lost wars that has bankrupted it.

What now, Israel?

[TahitiNut]

14. I cannot call it a "failure" unless I know what it is doing ISN'T the objective.

While I cannot accept that the majority of Israelis desire such wanton carnage, it seems clear that the extreme right wing Likud/Kadima DO want such carnage and the perpetuation of a strife-ridden climate of fear and militarisim under which they have gotten POWER.

Just as I condemn my own nation as cowards and criminals for permitting the war crimes done IN OUR NAME and our failure to impeach, remove, indict, convict, and imprison those responsible for their crimes against humanity, I also condemn the "democratic" nation of Israel for their cowardice and criminality in permitting this carnage.

[TahitiNut]

15. "A woman was sliced in two by a tank shell and her infant son obliterated."

I guess her infant son was what they called a "secondary explosion."

:puke:

The apologists for this wanton slaughter are despicable.

[malaise]

19. At least Bill Moyers calls a spade a spade

I weep for humanity. :cry:

[spanone]

21. the media is getting bored with it, but it rages on