It has me glued and you bet it has the stock market glued.

Simple But Very True World Truths:

1) Never attack Russia in the winter.
2) Never press an attack against an opponent who has the high ground.
3) And for godsake, whatever you do, don't piss off the Israelis. They really don't care about things like "proportional response." They are armed to the teeth. They pretty much don't put up with anything.

What on Earth is Lebanon thinking? Israel has been pulling out of occupied territories and has pretty much been trying to expand the peace process more than at any point in the past 20 years. This kidnapping stuff will just embodlen the hawkish politicians in Israel who will be saying for the next decade, "See, we tried to pull out and look what happened."

Erm, didn't they actually kidnap a couple of Israeli troops in response to the Israeli navy shelling a bunch of Palestinian civilians on a beach? Despite the whole ceasefire and all?

I'm no apologist for the actions of folks who threaten or endager civilians but for the most part it seems that the major aggression in the Israeli/Palestine/Southern-Lebanese disputes has been purpetrated by Israel, much to the detriment of the USA (and the UK) who mostly seem to turn a blind eye to (or indeed support) vast numbers of Israeli atrocities whilst condemning Palestinian/arab ones. Sorry, but Israel brought all this shit on themselves for decades of pissing on the Palestinians, 95% of the time civilians. Supporting Israel does no good for the USA, from what I understand the widespread political clout behind Israel in the US is due to the very strong Jewish political lobby and the fact that having a friendly nation in the middle east has been seen as being preferable to allowing the area to erupt into arab-on-jew warfare in the last 20 years. If the region erupts into full-scale guerrilla warfare now the Israelis only really have themselves to blame for their actions in this period.

If Israelis don't want to be involved in a bloody war they probably shouldn't have more or less consistently elected hawks for the last couple of decades.

"If Israelis don't want to be involved in a bloody war they probably shouldn't have more or less consistently elected hawks for the last couple of decades. "

well in the middle east the vast number of arab countries don't recognize Isreal as a country because they don't beleive it has the right to exist. The central political dogma of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian government is adament to the fact that Isreal doesn't have the right to exist and therefore should be destroyed. A few months ago the president of Iran declared that A. The holocaust never happened and B. Isreal should be destroyed or moved to Europe becuase of the supposed holocaust. Don't forget the six day war and the yom kippur war in which coalitions of arab countries tried to take isreal off the map but the IDF pushed back and won both conflicts and then ceded the conquered lands to pre-1967 lines. So they got surprise attacked, won and then gave everything back in order to give peace a chance and to the delight of the UN. Hawks are neccessary when your surrounded by countries who would jump at the chance, and have, to wipe your country off the map.

"blind eye to (or indeed support) vast numbers of Israeli atrocities"

The U.S. has condemmed a lot of Isreali attacks that have resulted in civilians deaths but hasn't condemmed the basic point of fighting against an aggressor.
And yes civillians do die as the result of Isreali actions but thats the price of war. There have been over 500 suicide bombings in the past 6 years and those have all been targeted at Isreali citzenry. Most are aimed at checkpoints and buses where bombs have the most devastating effect. So figure in terms of civillian deaths and not just jewish but isreali citizens 2x9/11 and a significant figure above 7/7.The 11,000 Hezbollah rockets are aimed at, not military targets but again the condensed cities of Isreal which isn't larger then the state of Maryland. If you listen to the palestinean and lebanese casaulty reports they don't forget to mention or I wouldn't be surprised if there just made up the deaths of a 10-person family just to appeal to international sympathies. Because casulty reports in iraq, and the isreali conflict are rarely accurate.They result to P.R. in order to garner support against the evil Isrealis.

"Supporting Israel does no good for the USA"- Well If you have forgotten that it is essential to the worlds only superpower to support satellite states, in this case a major democracy in the middle east, like a diamond in the rough, then you are being ignorant to the nature of the military industrial complex. Don't forget either that Isreal is one of the major service based economies in the middle east and major buyer of the worlds biggest arms supplier, the united states. Isreal has traditionally been a major ally to the U.S. as well. In the first gulf war Isreal stood by and let the American military fufill it's mission in Iraq while thousands of Iraqi scud missiles bombarded Isreali cities such as Tel- Aviv. If isreal had responded militarily to this then the entire region would have again jumped at the chance to defeat Isreal. American-Isreali ties are strong enough to have stopped this. Idealogically it is neccessary for the U.S. to support Isreal.In fact, the U.S. doesn't need to directly benefit from alliances and actions. The price of freedom and liberty is never out of reach.

"very strong Jewish political lobby" well thats just a common scapegoat over-representing the strength of the jewish lobby which represents less then 3% of the population. Sect-wise jews are very conflicted as to political affliliation. Conservatives and Hasidics are generally republican and Reform are usually liberal(aka new york). I hear this conspiracy often and its just an irrational uninformed fear. Jews don't cry about the influence of a "gentile lobby" because that would rediculous. So don't catergorize the practitioners of an entire religon into 1 political affiliation with aims limited to support for isreal and financial advancement because that's just silly.

Again open Im open to more arguements

If, as most people accept, this is 2 groups of bad guys beating crap out of each other, why is the West backing one side rather than the other?

Cause israel is the shit!

(actually it's not, I've been there once when I was younger and fainted due to heat. Israel blows)