Will this increase or decrease the likelihood of terrorist actions in America, Europe and the rest of the world?

If you were a member of a family murdered in this conflict, would you be seeking revenge?

Should Tzipi Livni and Ehud Olmert, be tried for war crimes if or when this conflict comes to an end?

What will the price of oil be in 4 weeks time?

MM. well said.
your well loved on here, but dont expect an apology from the herbert Fred who doesnt know his head from his arse,hes truly a pathetic example of a man,lets just hope his children have been brought up and learnt about life mainly from their mother and lets hope she has better morals and more realistic views than Fred and they havnt turned out as twisted as he is.
Ruth x

i was more interested in watching Master Chef last night, so what was the Jeremy Bowen prog like? ..... as i wrote previously, he is a very good journalist and reporter

cynic

It was an almost entirely non-specific documentary showing the awful effects on innocent civilians living through an aerial assault and ground based shelling. It would have been pretty much the same program had it been filmed in Baghdad or Halman a few years back.

Some heart rending footage walking through family homes that had been destroyed, pointing out where in the house innocent civilians (including women and children) had been and had perished when the building was hit. Sad footage of an evacuated little girl returning to her bombed out home and unable to find her everyday possesions in the mess. Horror stories of how young children had remained in their homes with dead relatives for two or three days unsure of what to do.

A sad indictment of war - but nothing we didnt already know, nothing new, and nothing unique or specific to Gaza.

War is awful. And this war was no better or no worse than any other.

i rather thought that would be the general run of things ..... same film; just change the location script

"And this war was no better or no worse than any other"

Not sure that I would agree with that.
I have never heard of or seen a war in which there is footage of missile strikes being aborted when the people operating the launching platform see civilians being used as human shields.
Neither has there been a war in which people have been leafleted by air drops to flee a specific area nor a war in which people have been phoned by landline and/or mobile and told to evacuate their houses as there were tunnels, munitions dumps etc beneath them.
No war is clean; no war is free of civilian casualties; no war doesn't involve accidents; no war doesn't produce horrors; no war doesn't include incidents when soldiers shouldn't have fired; no war is free of the fog of war.
Richard

And if someone feels enraged by my last post and has steam coming out of their ears or excrement from their mouths or dripping from their typing fingers, lie down, take some more of those tablets, (many more), and sing the theme tune to another war, M*A*S*H..........

The RAF dropped 'leaflet bombs' over occupied territory during WWII.

Yes, of course, though that was leafleting of a friendly population in countries occupied by the Germans, rather than a hostile population whose children are brought up to want to slaughter Jews and whose parents danced in the streets with joy at the massacre of 3,000 civilians on 9/11.
In fact Bomber Command sometimes dropped leaflets on German cities anyway before incinerating them.
We lost 55,000 airmen in Bomber Command, unsung heroes.
Richard

having seen Dresden, and pix of the firebombing there, some considerable sympathy for the civilians incinerated etc is also more than warranted ..... certainly not one of Bombert Harris's better moments, though unquestionably we owe him and the bomber crews an incalculable amount

Mr Charts

The TV show interviewed somebody from the Israeli ministry who pointed out that they had made over 250,000 telephone calls in addition to huge numbers of leaflet drops, warning civilians to evacuate the areas that were to be hit.

For the contracts people among you, it appeared that Israel were using best endeavours rather than reasonable endeavours to warn.

Despite this, there obviously were civilian casualties - as there are in any such conflict.

Not surprisingly, the Israeli government minister blamed Hamas, and Hamas blamed the Israelis. The Hamas spokesman looked really spooky, his face covered by a black cloth with slits for his eyes. Strange really, as he too was a "government spokesman". But I guess he sees himself as a warrior first and a government spokesman second.

perhaps he had chemical burns to his face from "dirty" israeli bombs

or maybe he had splashed himself whilst making his own "harmless home made liberation device"

Never mind Dresden, if you wish to widen the debate, what about the justification for the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Fred - you could have saved yourself some of the insecurities of schoolyard gang warfare by looking at the video and conceding its dangers. And there are some easy ripostes - as if the West has never brainwashed its people.

Interesting watching Path to War- poor old Lydon Johnson watching billions being poured into bombs with no effect when all he wanted to do was use it for social programmes.

MM ... you are arguably right, though from what i have read, it was the lesser of two evils, obviously depending on whether your are american (allies) or japanese

Zscrooge,

As stated previously, I have not seen the video. Like some others posters I have used the squelch button, and therefore have not read many postings. I have therefore not commented or responded, as I am not omniscient.

I found the level of abuse by a small clique of posters was often sufficient to expose themselves to others without my help.

If you read the early response to my initial questions, you may understand what I am writing.

I have never found personal abuse gainful and tended to prefer a different form of debate or argument. I find the squelch button has been very satisfying for me.

As far as Panorama's exposure of the situation in Gaza is concerned I leave interpretation up to the individual.

Listening to some of the vitriol and stances of some of the Political Leaders, who are presently standing for re-election in Israel Government, I am amongst others who are horrified by their stated manifesto.

It appears to me that they are prepared to be isolated, like the present leadership of Iran.

I find the Middle East leadership and their problems depressing.

Fred:

As stated previously, I have not seen the video. Like some others posters I have used the squelch button, and therefore have not read many postings. I have therefore not commented or responded, as I am not omniscient.

I'm beginning to suspect that you're one of the more dishonest people that I've encountered. You appear to be implying that the reason you haven't read post 821 or watched the video linked to it is that you have squelched the poster.

Is that true? Try to muster a straight answer this time, don't dodge the question.

Given that you started this thread presumably to invite comment, it seems strange on the border of absurdity that you should filter out those that you encouraged to debate with you.

Guerilla warefare tactics of the BB? Time for a new thread?

Seeing those quotes from the squelched one is like looking at shadows - pointless, leaves no marks, and is of no value since the shadow is gone in a moment LOL

MrCharts: While I understand the provision of a squelch facility, I'm not sure how useful it is in the context of filtering people whose views you don't want to hear, as opposed to removing background noise.

For those without knowledge of radio engineering, the squelch control, typically on an FM transceiver, artificially desensitises the radio receiver to remove irritating background 'hash' or noise. The receiver's audio only cuts in (or "opens") when a strong (wanted) signal is detected.

So I wouldn't squelch Fred on this thread, as he's its progenitor -- nor, if I were Fred -- which thank God I'm not -- would I squelch any of my respondents.

Otherwise, what's the point of the thread? Or Fred?