With Friends like these

[Xavier_Onassis]

The April 1983 U.S. Embassy bombing in which 63 people were killed and the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing in which 241 American military personnel were killed.

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Even if this were true, it happened 24 years ago, and hardly makes Hezbollah the number one worst enemy of the US military as alleged.

We have lost maybe ten times as many troops to Mustangs and Corvettes, fer Christ's sake!

[Plane]

The April 1983 U.S. Embassy bombing in which 63 people were killed and the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing in which 241 American military personnel were killed.

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Even if this were true, it happened 24 years ago, and hardly makes Hezbollah the number one worst enemy of the US military as alleged.

We have lost maybe ten times as many troops to Mustangs and Corvettes, fer Christ's sake!

They are presently in second place , they were in the frount of the pack for years, but Al Quieda took  a commanding lead on 9-11.

[Xavier_Onassis]

They are presently in second place , they were in the frount of the pack for years, but Al Quieda took  a commanding lead on 9-11.

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Nonsense!

Big Tobacco has killed thousands more than 9-11, followed by Big Booze, Unsafe Pharmaceuticals, Unsafe cars and even ATVs and motorcycles. Al Qaeda may be the biggest foreign threat (although criminal immigrants have probably killed more Americans. Hezbollah is way, way way behind them, behind Tim Mc Veigh and ahead of the Unibomber, that is if they actually did have anything to do with the attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut, which is disputed .

[Jwmcc]

But if they didn't, who did?

[_JS]

And who's saying this? Khaled Meshal, described by Newsweek as the "most powerful figure" in the terrorist group Hamas.

So?

He's a leader of Hamas. You realise that Hamas runs a foreign state that you supposedly recognise?

Mossad tried to assasinate the guy, but Jordan captured the two agents. I really don't see the problem. It is certainly no worse than having Netenyahu or his ilk speak positively on one's actions.

[Michael Tee]

The moral hypocrisy on this issue is nauseating. 

A state like the U.S.A., which has torn up the Geneva Conventions, tortures at will, arrests and detains without trial and now has gratuitously started a war based on absurd lies (or if you are stupid enough to believe those lying bastards, oooops! sorry folks, it was all just a big mistake!) that has now claimed 600,000 human lives, has the God-damn fucking gall to morallly condemn others (al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah) as the evil ones.  They are the bad guys and the U.S.A., thank God, is still that hero on the white horse who is going to save the world from the error of its un-American ways. 

Just how fucking stupid do you have to be to believe even one percent of this guff?

[BT]

600,000 human lives

I question this figure.

[Xavier_Onassis]

But if they didn't, who did?

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I would imagine some Lebanese group other than Hezbollah who does not like the idea of the US stationing troops in Lebanon.

The US supplied and supported Israel's invasions and occupations of Lebanon, so I imagine that there are thousands of Lebanese who dislike the US. Maybe all of them except Danny Thomas and Kasey Kasum...

But Hezbollah does not see the US as its main enemy. Their main enemy is Israel. The Phalangist Party of Lebanon is probably a close second.

[Lyndon]

But if they didn't, who did?

How many groups around the world have grievances against the US? Still no proof it was Hezbollah.

[Michael Tee]

<<I question this figure. [600,000 as the cost in human life of the invasion of Iraq]>>

Yeah, me too.  If we can just somehow get it down to under 450,000, the U.S. gets back its halo and angel wings.  I know!!!  Let's call in Karl Rove.

I question a lotta figures.  The Holocaust for example.  Who knows, what if it was really "only" 4,000,000 lives?

Far as I'm concerned, numbers up in the stratosphere mean that a whole shitload of people got killed.  More than you could ever count yourself.  Each fucking one of them an irreplaceable and utterly inexcusable human tragedy.  The "real" number will never be known.  Not even by the Germans, those most meticulous and compulsive of record keepers.  Certainly not by the Americans, who famously (or infamously) "don't do body-counts."  They saw what happened to the people who did.

[Lyndon]

600,000 human lives

I question this figure.

BT, you are right to question this figure. It is misleading. Even at October 2006 the Lancet had estimated the deaths at almost 650,000. Given the devestating death toll in the 6.5 months since then it is fair to assume the death toll is a lot higher now given the daily figures we hear about now.

[BT]

Lyndon,

The 600k figure was indeed published by the lancet,  just as their other estimate in October of 2004 was considered high. Curious that their publication dates always swirl around US national elections.

No other sources for  estimates come even close to the Lancet figures. Iraq Body Count is around 150k.