Has WWIII Begun?

[Crushing Fist]

most of americas oil comes from canada. Yep its foreign alright....sort of.

how does it feel to wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and be so very wrong?

(imports) (dom prod)
Canada 2,084 17.8% 10.1%
Mexico 1,507 12.9% 7.3%
Venezuela 1,505 12.9% 7.3%
Saudi Arabia 1,358 11.6% 6.6%
Nigeria 1,194 10.2% 5.8%
Angola 522 4.5% 2.5%
Iraq 476 4.1% 2.3%
Algeria 404 3.4% 2.0%
Virgin Islands* 299 2.6% 1.4%
United Kingdom 283 2.4% 1.4%
Other 2,079 17.8% 10.0%
Total 11,711 100.0% 56.6%

OPEC Countries 5,102 43.6% 24.7%
Persian Gulf Countries 1,949 16.6% 9.4%

canada is #1 on this list at 10.1% of domestic product supplied

what form of math do you use to make 10.1% "most of america's oil"

if you had said canada was the number one exporter of oil to the US that would have been correct.

but you didn't.


"Most" of america's oil comes from foriegn sources...


more than twice as much comes from OPEC countries as comes from Canada.

[Crushing Fist]

Why goodness, that would be wrong! What you do is call the Homeowners Association (The U.N.) and tell them about all that is happening, and show them the photos of your windows, your dog, etc.

That way the Homeowners Association can look at it, and say "Well this is all very bad, we'll investigate further." You call week after week to check on the investigation, and you still get the same response. Months pass by. After all, the Homeowners Association is busy with important things, like parking illegally and punching an old lady in the face while claiming "Homeowner Immunity."

At this point, more damage has been brought against you. Your wife was shot by a stray bullet, and your son is too scared to go outside of his room anymore. You have another neighbor who is pretty good friends with you (the U.S.), and offers to help you out.

"Great, so you're gonna come with me to confront him?" you say.

"Errrr, no. But here's a gun. Good luck with that!" your other neighbor replies.

So after much agonizing and soul-searching, you hold the gun, tempted to fire back at your neighbor, but you know the possible consequences. You hear a crash, and a thud. Your son is laying dead on the floor. Unable to take it, you fire back, and you accidentally kill your neighbor's wife. Your neighbor immediately calls the Homeowners Association. HIS son straps a bomb to his chest and blows up your car in order to avenge his mother.

At this point the Homeowners Association wants to take the title to your house, saying "You know, we were just going to help you out with your neighbor, but you just COULDN'T WAIT could you?" Then the Homeowners Association chastises the neighbor who gave you the gun, and claims that since you acted without them, they cannot help you. Nothing is done or said to the neighbor who is still taking potshots at you.

oh is that how it happened?


poor little Israel... they never hurt nobody

March 16, 2003

STATEMENT ON THE MURDER OF RACHEL CORRIE

In Rafah, Gaza Strip today Rachel Corrie, a 23-year old American woman from Olympia, Washington, who was a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement, was killed by the Israeli Army. Rachel was standing in the path of the bulldozer as it advanced towards her. When the bulldozer refused to stop or turn aside she climbed up onto the mound of dirt and rubble being gathered in front of it wearing a fluorescent jacket to look directly at the driver who kept on advancing. The bulldozer continued to advance so that she was pulled under the pile of dirt and rubble. After she had disappeared from view the driver kept advancing until the bulldozer was completely on top of her. The driver did not lift the bulldozer blade and so she was crushed beneath it. Then the driver backed up - effectively running over her again. The seven other ISM activists taking part in the action rushed to dig out her body. An ambulance rushed her to Al-Najar Hospital where she died.

The Israeli Army consistently bulldozes Palestinian homes, particularly in Rafah, where over 100 homes have been demolished in the last two years. The International Solidarity Movement - both Palestinian and international citizens - calls upon the international community to break the silence around Israel's grotesque human rights abuses. International civilians are in the Occupied Palestinian Territories attempting to protect Palestinian human rights and lives precisely because formal international bodies have refused to take action to do so. Dozens of Palestinian civilians are being systematically murdered weekly, and today, a beautiful, conscientious American defender of human rights was killed trying to protect the home of a Palestinian family.

This murder, along with Israel's continued destruction of Palestinian homes must be strongly condemned by the United States and the United Nations and they must insist that Israel abide by international law and UN Resolutions. The International Solidarity Movement also calls upon the United States government to conduct its own independent investigation into this incident and to take responsibility for the manner in which the Israeli government is using the $2.2 billion in military aid that we grant to Israel per year. This money and US-made weaponry is daily being used by the Israeli military to harm innocent civilians. The bulldozer that killed Rachel Corrie was an American-made Caterpillar D-9 bulldozer.

The murder of Rachel Corrie was clearly NOT an accident. Eyewitnesses report that the bulldozer driver was able to see Rachel, and that they were shouting to the driver to stop. The Israeli government and army continue to blame the victims of violence carried out by the Israeli Army for their own suffering. Israel must be accountable for this criminal act and all criminal acts it is carrying out on a daily basis in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

...much

[Crushing Fist]

poor Israel... we should feel bad for them.

The Israeli Assault on Gaza

This article documents events in besieged and now reoccupied Gaza since the Palestinians responded to continued Israeli Defense Forces' (IDF) attacks against them by striking at an Israeli military post near Kerem Shalom crossing, southeast of Rafah, on June 25 killing two IDF soldiers, injuring several others and capturing a third. The Israeli response was swift and deadly but has not yet been unleashed fully as the IDF decides when to enter Gaza full force to launch an assault against the defenseless people there already under seige. The Palestinian strike followed a series of bloody June Israeli attacks on Gaza including the widely reported beach shelling that killed 8 Palestinians and injured 32 others including 13 children. The Israelis admitted shelling the beach but denied responsibility for the deaths. They falsely claimed a Palestinian planted mine killed the civilians there despite the forensic evidence clearly proving otherwise. The corporate media reported the Israeli version of events but ignored the evidence refuting it preventing the public from knowing the truth. It also never reported that the so-called Israeli Gaza withdrawal of its 8,500 settlers in 21 settlements last August wasn't that at all. That staged media event was little more than the resettlement of Gaza's Jewish residents to new homes in Israel proper and the West Bank on other seized Palestinian land. Furthermore, the IDF didn't withdraw. It merely redeployed away from the settlements it was guarding to new positions on the border. Gaza continued to be under de facto occupation and sealed off whenever the IDF wished, as it's now done, and along with the West Bank remains one of the world's two largest open air prisons.

The Palestinian June 25 raid was its response to continued IDF daily attacks against Gaza throughout June that killed about 30 people, injured many more and caused much destruction of property. Following the incident, the IDF launched "Operation Summer Rain" that included closing all border crossings, sealing off the territory to restrict movement in and out including humanitarian supplies such as food and medicine, and surrounding the territory awaiting orders to launch a major assault which it's now begun. The IDF has also stepped up its artillery shelling that has gone on continually for months. It's been firing 200 - 300 or more shells per day into northern Gaza, many close to civilian homes. It's also launched round the clock air attacks with F16 fighter jets and helicopter gunships firing air-to-surface missiles and dropping one-ton bombs on civilian facilities; it's conducting mock air raids; and it's aircraft are breaking the sound barrier over Gaza at low altitudes deliberately inflicting eardrum shattering and terrifying sonic booms against the helpless people.


The IDF Assault on Gaza Was Planned Well in Advance

What's now unfolding in Gaza was planned months ago by the Israelis. They've just been waiting for a plausible excuse to unleash it. The capturing, not kidnapping, of one of their soldiers as a POW provided it. So far the US, world community and UN Secretary General support the Israeli action by their near silence. And nothing is said in the major media to condemn a clear crime or report anything about the 9,000 or more Palestinian civilians forcibly arrested, now held in indefinite detention and grievously abused or tortured by the only country in the world to effectively legalize torture according to Amnesty International (the US, of course, now also has). Many of those in custody are political prisoners held administratively without charge, and Israeli human rights monitoring group B'Tselem reports Israel's use of torture is widespread and routine against them.

of course the US sides with Israel...


herding people into reservations while stealing their land is the American way



Tell the Cherokee Nation about how the US never violated human rights in its long and glorious history.

[Merryprankster]

once you grasp the history of the region, israeli actions become quite transparent.

You're joking, right? I mean, you must be. Because your subsequent comments reveal the extent of your bias. An accurate reading of the history reveals an enormously complex problem with some genuinely odd root causes - some of them an artifact of Ottoman land distribution and governance.

As far as Hizballah being a "response to the Israeli invasion of 1982," you have to ask yourself a single question: Is correlation causality?

In this case, I don't think it is.

The context for Israel's invasion of 1982 was the raging civil war in Lebanon. As a reminder, this lasted from 1975 to 1990. Lebanese society is composed of three major demographics, with a smattering of others. The majors are Maronite Christians, Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims. Lebanon has always had a weak central government by design, with some unusual provisions in the Constitution- namely, that the President is a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim, and the Speaker of the Legislature a Shi'ite.

Fighting broke out in the early 1970s between PLO & Palestinian Militia, and the Lebanese. Incidentally the PLO and Palestinian militias were referred to as "anti-Lebanese" militias...

Oh, those that too "peaceful and in danger of placing serious political pressure on israel regarding a settlement for the palestinians" PLO! So peaceful and goodhearted that they BIT THE HAND THAT FED THEM....

The weak central government was unable to control the violence of course. Harboring Arafat and Co was a fantastically bad idea in the first place, but that's another issue.

Resistance groups loyal to their own "tribe," usually defined in terms of religious & political identification sprang up to protect their interests. After all, if the government does not have a monopoly on the use of force, then it is in your best interest to arm yourself against hostile neighbors.

MANY different armed factions lobbed shells at each other. The Shi'ite resistance group, Amal was doing ok, but was nothing to write home about. After all, the Shi'ites were poor, poorly educated, and mostly rural - pretty standard Shi'ite situation in most ME countries.

Cue a brief history lesson: The split between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims stems from an argument over the rightful succession to the Caliphate and Muhammed's legacy. With the split comes different religious precepts and structure. Shi'ites are a serious minority throughout the world, have been treated that way, and have used several artful phrases, such as "the dust of the earth," "The oppressed of the field," etc over time, to express that sentiment. In some places in time and space, Shi'ites were actually considered heretics, to be extirpated.

Enter the Iranian Revolution.

Iran, through a quirk of history (a Persian ruler simply got up one day and declared that Persia was Shi'ite to solve a political problem), is the only super-majority Shi'ite country in the world. The Iranian Revolution was supposed to do two major things, beyond the internal stuff:

1. It was supposed to provide a model for an Islamic Democracy that would shine as a beacon to the rest of the Islamic world (and that has worked SO well!), and it would promote that revolution in appropriate places.

2. It would become protector of the dust of the earth.



Hieronim would have us believe that Hizballah stood up in 1982 as a response to the Israeli invasion, but we have established a few things:

1. Lebanon had no central government.
2. The militias were all in it for themselves, pounding the crap out of opposing groups in an amalgam of shifting alliances.
3. The historical place of Shi'ites and their not especially fantastic Amal resistance group in Lebanon.

If I am Iran, and I am looking around the world for a place to: A) spread my Islamic Revolution and B) protect the Shia, Lebanon looks mighty attractive.

With a weak central (none effective by this time) government, there is a good chance that you might be able to win and the significant Shi'ite majority in Lebanon is a great, high profile group of people to protect.

It makes PERFECT sense, under those conditions to start/support a Shi'ite movement using Iran state resources - formidable in the ME.

So did Hizballah REALLY begin as an opposition group to Israel? I believe two things. First, the Israeli invasion was a catalyst, given Iran's hatred of Israel from the outset (remember the "Little Satan?"). Iran was still a young revolution at that point, and southern Lebanon is majority Shi'ite. I'm betting the revolutionary government knew that supporting a Shi'ite militia to protect Lebanese Shi'ites from Israel would play quite well, internally.

Secondly, citing the destruction of Israel as a key platform item for Hizballah not only would have been popular among the Shi'ites in Lebanon at the time, but also is in line with the goals of Iran - note also that a key goal for Hizballah is trying to establish an Islamic government based on Iran's.

From the Lebanese Shi'ite perspective - yes, Israel was an enemy, but not the only enemy... it was just another in a string of groups trying to blow them up, certainly being Israel didn't exactly speak in their favor.... But the Shi'ites would fight them, just like they fought everybody else. And if Iran is willing to offer money and weapons and training on the condition that you adopt destroying Israel as a country - well, that's a pretty popular sentiment in the ME - so why not? Can't hurt anything. Maybe recruitment will rise.

An Islamic revolution? Sure, why not? Whatever you say Iran.

When you are looking death in the face, the guns, the money and the training are what matter. Attach whatever label to it you want. If you can help us organize and protect ourselves and our cultural identity, we'll be more than happy to make this bargain. Israel is certinaly the enemy NOW...where were you, when we were getting crapped on by the Christians and Sunnis? It's been 3 years since the revolution after all... No matter...but since Israel's invasion is what made your panties wet, Iran, we'll be more than happy to take that aid and continue fighting the Israelis just like we fought the rest!

Lebanese Shi'ites took the aid for the same reasons any of us would have, and they fought the Israelis just like they fought everybody else - the PLO, the Christians, the indigenous Sunni groups.

Hizballah eventually became a political party - albeit one that refused to disarm - and conveniently dropped the "Islamic Revolution" part saying that "the conditions are not yet met."

I also happen to think that the political arms of both Lebanese Hizballah and Hamas currently have zero control over their militants, and that Israel is suffering from some severe short-sightedness in that regard, but that is a separate issue.

Note that in the above, I am not suggesting that Israel's invasion of Lebanon was necessarily justified, nor that Israel's invasion was not a key factor in the timing of the creation of Hizballah. I am merely pointing out the myriad internal and external factors - the context - in which Israel's invasion occurred. The Israeli invasion of Lebanon did not suddenly produce Hizballah - and given the strength of the other things that were going on with respect to Iran and Lebanon, you could conceivably argue that really, it was only a matter of time before Iran got involved this way - the '82 invasion just sped the timetable up.

Now my personal viewpoint is that I don't know. I don't know if something like Hizballah would have been started anyway. It might have been in light of Iran's goals - but Israel grabbed Iran's attention in a huge way. The argument could go both ways and there are valid reasons on each side, and we will never know, probably, because anything Iran and Hizballah issue to that effect will be propoganda pieces.

Saying Hizballah,

didn't exist until israel invaded lebanon to destroy the PLO, who were being too peaceful and in danger of placing serious political pressure on israel regarding a settlement for the palestinians

Is vastly oversimplified...and these oversimplifications offered by supporters on each side have promoted the travesty, emboldened the hard-liners, and created barriers to resolution - perpetuating violence, tragedy and death. And, as long as people oversimplify the issue, this will continue.

Such is the power of myth.

And anybody who thinks the PLO was serious about brokering a deal with Israel under Arafat... I've got some beachfront property in Arizona you're going to LOVE.

[Merryprankster]

more than twice as much comes from OPEC countries as comes from Canada.

Ok.

But what's your point? Venezuela and Nigeria are two of the top five providers of foreign oil to the United States and they are OPEC nations.

Of the other OPEC Countries, only KSA breaks the top 5.

I'm desperately trying to figure out what you are trying to demonstrate with this.

[Crushing Fist]

Worst fears realized...

TEL AVIV (BNN)--Defense Ministry sources revealed today that Israel's army is struggling to meet the threat from a Palestinian "super rock" which it is feared will decimate Israel's tank forces in the Occupied Territories.

Israeli spokesmen have long defended the use of live ammunition, tanks and helicopters against Palestinian civilians who are either unarmed, or armed with rocks, by arguing that rocks, too, can be deadly.

For this reason, say the sources, Israel's army has been compelled to deploy its heaviest and most advanced equipment to meet the threat from 9 year-old boys lobbing fist-sized pieces of rubble at them.

"At the present time, we have only just succeeded in staving off the threat from these deadly pebbles," said Israeli military analyst and retired major-general Onef Koach. According to Koach, the number of Israeli troops killed by Palestinian children throwing rocks is currently zero, as is the number of tanks destroyed. Amnesty International for its part says that the number of Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces since October 2000 exceeds three hundred, all of them completely unarmed and innocent, although some may have been throwing rocks.

According to Koach, this kill ratio is getting much too close for comfort. "We cannot rely forever on the inferiority of Palestinian weapons," said Koach, referring to leaked reports that Palestinian scientists buried deep in Yasser Arafat's Ramallah compound are using the abundance of rubble there to develop a new Palestinian "super rock." "If this is the case," said Koach, "we could actually see the paint on some of our tanks being chipped instead of the rocks just bouncing off harmlessly as they do now. This would be a disaster for Israel's deterrent capacity, national morale, and macho pride, and would give the Palestinians the message that the Israeli army can be defeated by force."

Asked about these report, the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat denied them categorically. "I am asking the whole international community to come and see, do we have rocks here?" he said, standing atop a pile of rubble that used to be the Palestinian National Archive, flanked by all four of his remaining supporters.

hey MP...


give it a couple years, that Arizona property really will be prime beach front real estate.

[Merryprankster]

BTW, I re-read my last post - it comes across kind of ****ish, and I'm not trying to be.

I'm just trying to figure out what the point is, LOL!

It's early out here... and my brain sometimes don't work so good.

[Crushing Fist]

Ok.

But what's your point? Venezuela and Nigeria are two of the top five providers of foreign oil to the United States and they are OPEC nations.

Of the other OPEC Countries, only KSA breaks the top 5.

I'm desperately trying to figure out what you are trying to demonstrate with this.

It was right there front in center in my post MP...


I was demonstrating the fallacy of Jamison's statement...

he made some wild statement like it was a fact and I had to call it out.

nothing more


Are you saying we are all "buddy buddy" with Venezuela?


and you bring back another of my questions that was utterly ignored:

why are we so "buddy buddy" with the KSA?


anyone?

[Merryprankster]

Got it. I thought you were trying to make a larger point. I'll assume that the tone of your post was a response to the deadly bad one of my original and leave it at that

Not looking to start any fights this morning.

At least, not with you, LOL.

Yet Israeli analysts say Olmert's formidable challenges are the same that Sharon faced: The Lebanese and Palestinian governments he holds responsible for the attacks are too weak or unwilling to confront the armed groups in their territory.

"The dilemma is you cannot force a non-state to become a state," said Yaron Ezrahi, a Hebrew University political science professor. "What Olmert is seeking to do is to say this issue is not just about us. It should show to the world very clearly that the Arab-Israeli conflict has been hijacked by Islamists for their own purposes."

BTW, I just pulled the above from the Washington Post. At least somebody gets it...

[David Jamieson]

ok so not most of americas oil comes from canada, im pretty sure that it is higher than 10% though MP. Not certain of the exact figure, but I have heard 14 - 17% of US oil is imported from Canada, not to mention Natural gas as well and Coal.

anyway, be assured that Canada is a major raw resource energy supplier and that's not going to be shaken by any of these events in the middle east. It is likely that Canada can supply even more than teh current output as well and we will likely see an increase in trade in the not too distant future.

anyway, what does canadas supply base have to do with either supporting or not supporting Isareals actions?

I personally support Israels actions, would like to see them restrain themselves and focus their attacks on military targets and Hezbollah targets only and to refrain from striking at Lebanese civilian infrastructure.

As complex as the land issue is, that does need to be resolved, but that is not the reason for what is going on at this instant. Even though, for sure this is tied to the overall problem.

anyway:

The United States has on average 42,000 car crash related deaths a year (out of a 300 million population). - source wikipedia.
That's a lot of dead people and has as much relevance as a word game about oil.

[Merryprankster]

It is higher than 10 percent. I know that for certain.

I personally support Israels actions, would like to see them restrain themselves and focus their attacks on military targets and Hezbollah targets only and to refrain from striking at Lebanese civilian infrastructure.

As complex as the land issue is, that does need to be resolved, but that is not the reason for what is going on at this instant. Even though, for sure this is tied to the overall problem.

I support Israel's imperative (not desire - big difference) to act. I do not believe going into Gaza again was a proportional response - at least the way they've done it.

I also agree that Hizballah needs to pay for their kidnapping. They seem to have just decided that it was a good time to screw with Israel.

I concur that they should refrain from striking Lebanese civilian infrastructure. I do not believe that Israel had a right to violate Lebanese soveriegnty here. A more appropriate action would have been to go to the UN. Yes, it sounds silly, but the points scored on that manuever could have been quite valuable.

However, I think Israel right now doesn't seem to get, or is being willfully ignorant of the idea that HAMAS and Hizballah's political leaders don't have control over the militants. They can hold the political leaders responsible all they want, but it will not result in resolution.

Case in point - Khaled Meshal not two days ago announced to the press that Israel needed to talk to him and not Ismail Hamiya if Israel wanted Corporal Shalit back safely... one analysis from Haaretz believed that this was just an opportunity to play good cop/bad cop. While Hamiya plays the "poor Palestinians" card, Meshal can be a **** from the safety of Syria.

But think about that for a second - would Hamiya the political leader of the Palestinian government - willfully advertise that HE isn't the guy in charge? That would completely undermine his authority.

What you are witnessing, IMO, is an internal power struggle. HAMAS got elected. But when you get elected, you are acquiescing to the facts on the ground. They are at least willing to work within the system. It is an act of compromise.

Within any revolutionary organization, there is some faction that is unwilling to compromise. For them, it is all or nothing. RIRA split from the IRA...Irgun wanted to maintain its independent militia status for continued attacks...

Somewhere, while Hamiya is publicly denouncing the attacks and trying to stay ahead of the Corporal Shalit problem, he is locked in a back room with his trusted advisors trying to figure out how he gets the collective heads of the militants who did this. He's calling a bunch of people he formerly worked with *******s and trying to make sure they get dead.

[fa_jing]

source: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/.../refugees.html

"Israel's Proclamation of Independence, issued May 14, 1948, also invited the Palestinians to remain in their homes and become equal citizens in the new state:

'''In the midst of wanton aggression, we yet call upon the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve the ways of peace and play their part in the development of the State, on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its bodies and institutions....We extend our hand in peace and neighborliness to all the neighboring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all.'''"


"Although much is heard about the plight of the Palestinian refugees, little is said about the Jews who fled from Arab states. Their situation had long been precarious. During the 1947 UN debates, Arab leaders threatened them. For example, Egypt's delegate told the General Assembly: “The lives of one million Jews in Muslim countries would be jeopardized by partition.”"

"The number of Jews fleeing Arab countries for Israel in the years following Israel's independence was roughly equal to the number of Arabs leaving Palestine. Many Jews were allowed to take little more than the shirts on their backs. These refugees had no desire to be repatriated. Little is heard about them because they did not remain refugees for long. Of the 820,000 Jewish refugees, 586,000 were resettled in Israel at great expense, and without any offer of compensation from the Arab governments who confiscated their possessions. Israel has consequently maintained that any agreement to compensate the Palestinian refugees must also include Arab compensation for Jewish refugees. To this day, the Arab states have refused to pay any compensation to the hundreds of thousands of Jews who were forced to abandon their property before fleeing those countries"

"Through November 2003, 101 of the 681 UN resolutions on the Middle East conflict referred directly to Palestinian refugees. Not one mentioned the Jewish refugees from Arab countries (Jerusalem Post, December 4, 2003)."

ME - so much for going to the UN, I guess, no expert but it doesn't look good from here.

"The treatment of the refugees in the decade following their displacement was best summed up by a former UNRWA official, Ralph Galloway, in August 1958: “The Arab States do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as an affront to the United Nations and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders don't give a **** whether the refugees live or die.”

Little has changed in succeeding years. Arab governments have frequently offered jobs, housing, land and other benefits to Arabs and non-Arabs, excluding Palestinians. For example, Saudi Arabia chose not to use unemployed Palestinian refugees to alleviate its labor shortage in the late 1970's and early 1980's. Instead, thousands of South Koreans and other Asians were recruited to fill jobs."

[fa_jing]

http://www.answers.com/topic/jewish-...rom-arab-lands


PS good luck and god bless everyone. I just wanted to provide some extra info. Peace is the way.

Peter Tosh - "I don't want no peace, I want equal rights and justice"

[ZIM]

I haven't been paying much attention to much of anything on this list of late, but I kinda figured ya'll would be debating this one..

I think the major reason Israel is responding in such a strong way is because of something very important that nobody in the news has seen fit to mention yet: There hapens to be a nuclear reactor in Haifa, just off-shore, in the northern part of the port.

Now, Haifa itself has never been targeted by terrorists before in such a concentrated way - and you'll note that they've already taken out one of the Israeli ships. Haifa is basically a steep ridge about 10-15 miles from Lebanon, with Lebanon having the high ground & strategic advantage from an artillery POV.

Basically, Israel can't afford to take any chances. If the reactor goes kablooey, its a cinch the US Navy gets involved, blockading & providing humanitarian relief. If *that* occurs, we just may get that WWIII....

[Apologies if any of this has come up previously..]

[Royal Dragon]

I'm thinking we are seeing the first stages of the apocolyps personally.