Oh Snap! Isreal's on the offensive.

[LIME!]

Precursor to a nuclear attack? We'll have to wait and see.

[DarkReality]

I simply don't see Israel going nuclear. The Hamas isn't nearly enough of a threat to warrant that (yet...) and the resulting hostility in the entire world would be a disaster for Israel. Iran would be newly rallied against Israel, Europe would go ballistic and might actually push consequences, the US would probably set a few ultimatums as well (if only to give the impression of really caring) and so on and so forth.

And the Israeli government probably knows that using nuclear weapons would once and for all time make them the "bad guys."

As to the recent offensive, I'm starting to think that actually fighting against the Hamas as opposed to bombing civilian targets in the hopes of hitting a few higher-ups might be the only way to put an end to the fighting. Talking and diplomacy hasn't worked so far and there's no reason why it should it the future.

[l-Zero-l]

Rainbows in da water, rainbows in da water! It's da end of the world I tells ya!

[poguemahon]

They just sent in a ground force. Palestinian officials are stopping any pro-Hamas protests to make sure Hamas can't get power.

[Kerolix™]

Good gracious, I hope not.

Especially in somewhere as volatile as the Middle East. Last thing the world needs is a nukefight.

[poguemahon]

Israel'd fire at Hamas, Hamas tells a guy, who tells a guy, Russia gets pissed, US gets pissed 'cuz Russia's pissed at Israel. Cold war (being optimistic here) ensues, again, for 40-50 years.

[K1CkA55]

I wonder how Obama would respond to Israel firing off nukes.

[LIME!]

I wonder how Obama would respond to Israel firing off nukes.

It's gonna be a big nuke firing ####tail party and everyone's invited to the end of the world!

edit: wow, you can't say ####tail...

[Defective]

I don't think anything will happen, no one is insane enough to cause a nuclear war, everyone would be killed. I mean only the people who would want to kill their enemies at the cost of their own life would star a nuclear war and they don't have any of those sort of people in the Middle East.

[Fabian920]

It's going to be Fallout all over!

Just had to put that on the plate.

[DarkReality]

It's going to be Fallout all over!

Just had to put that on the plate.

Except we don't get to enjoy the adventurous aftermath of a nuclear war with all the Wild West feeling, we'd actually be the ones being killed. Which is probably not as much fun as it sounds.

Although I DO wonder how long it'll take for someone to start a Vault-Tec-ish company.

[a1b23]

Am I the only one who supports Israel? I think they are doing a good thing defending there nation. Don't just stand there and take this ####. Stand up and fight. The US will support Israel, Iran, China, Russia, Syria, North Korea and Cuba will align. Western Europe will ally with the US. WWIII essentially. This has the potential to be the end of the world but probably won't happen. Plus, the US could take on the world and pwn all.

[LIME!]

Although I DO wonder how long it'll take for someone to start a Vault-Tec-ish company.

Somebody better do it freaking soon... or nothing good will come from it in time.

[Leper Ghandi]

Precursor to a nuclear attack? We'll have to wait and see.
Last I checked, the USA has access to Isreali nukes, not them. Also, my top 5 suspects to launch a nuke first (in order) are:
1. USA: (We hate Iran that much *stretches index finger as far away from thumb as possible*) and are afriad that they are going to get nukes (chances are, they are) that we'll nuke them the second we find out that they just made one.
2. Britain: They too have nukes and intend to use them when we do. This is probably the only nation in the world where a US nuke won't land if the world does go into a nuclear war.
3. Iran: Their hatred to Isreal is so strong, nothing will satsify this nation other than nuking them. Reason why they don't hold #1 is because they don't have a nuke (yet).
4. Russia/Terrorists: Their nukes are unguarded and active (I know... Putin is retarded) meaning that terrorists can grab the nukes and give them to their leader for his birthday. Once a terrorist sets a nuke off (either in Isreal, USA, or Britain) Russia sets theirs off as well. Not only to mention that they're "friends" with Iran.
5. China: They simply hate us, only thing preventing them from setting off a nuke in the US is our satellite system and our kick ass air force. Watch, once the day comes and you see this in the newspaper: "Chinese missile shoots down US satellites. US open for invasion!" just go to the gun shop, take as many guns you can and hide in your basements.

I've made this list over the years (2002) and this is what I've gathered from since. I may be wrong, or I may be right. But I just wanted to point out that nuclear war is a real threat.

[LIME!]

5. China: They simply hate us, only thing preventing them from setting off a nuke in the US is our satellite system and our kick ass air force. Watch, once the day comes and you see this in the newspaper: "Chinese missile shoots down US satellites. US open for invasion!"

You do know that a war with China was how the world ended in the Fallout universe...

Dammit the world's going to end soon. Somebody needs to write a letter to their government to tell them to start a Vault-Tec type company. This is getting ridiculous. We're boned no matter what happens.

Oh, you left out North Korea, they hate us too.

[Leper Ghandi]

You do know that a war with China was how the world ended in the Fallout universe...

Dammit the world's going to end soon. Somebody needs to write a letter to their government to tell them to start a Vault-Tec type company. This is getting ridiculous. We're boned no matter what happens.

Oh, you left out North Korea, they hate us too.
Last we checked they have no more nukes (I think they sold them to China), so they aren't up there. If my list went to 10, they'd have #7 because they know how to make nukes, and hate the US.

[Mykester]

. I mean only the people who would want to kill their enemies at the cost of their own life would star a nuclear war and they don't have any of those sort of people in the Middle East.

I hope to God that was sarcasm...

[Ghecko]

It's gonna be a big nuke firing c0cktail party and everyone's invited to the end of the world!

edit: wow, you can't say c0cktail...

fix'd.

Now I know you may be asking, "What other wonders could this 0 possibly do??".

[DarkReality]

Am I the only one who supports Israel? I think they are doing a good thing defending there nation. Don't just stand there and take this ####. Stand up and fight. The US will support Israel, Iran, China, Russia, Syria, North Korea and Cuba will align. Western Europe will ally with the US. WWIII essentially. This has the potential to be the end of the world but probably won't happen. Plus, the US could take on the world and pwn all.

Support Israel? Yes. I don't support radicals thinking that a jewish nation doesn't have a right to exist based on history and religion. But Israel's methods are inhumane. They completely disregard the innocent civilian lives, making them no better than islamic radicals bombing civilian targets. And that kind of behaviour is simply wrong on all levels.

And what about Palestinians defending their nation? Israel isn't exactly cutting them a lot of slack or doing much to actually promote peace (save peace talks and promises of rainbows and unicorns).

Also, the US can't even handle securing the middle east. Let me restate that, your army is incapable of dealing with disorganized, underequiped and undertrained guerilla fighters. And you claim you could take on the combined military (read, airplanes, boats and all that #### the terrorists currently DON'T fight with) of Russia and China? While still undertrained and underequiped, the sheer size of a chinese army would completely overwhelm the USA and their sad excuse for allies.

I've made this list over the years (2002) and this is what I've gathered from since. I may be wrong, or I may be right. But I just wanted to point out that nuclear war is a real threat.

Yeah. Just as real as the threat during the cold war. Two gigantic nations with an arse-load of nukes spent 50 years threatening each other. What makes you think that Iran, which could be completely obliterated with a handful of nukes, would do anything stupid like that if not even the USSR or the USA had the balls to fire the first rocket? No nation will start a nuclear war, knowing that everyone would lose if it came to that. The only real threat is if a terror cell ever got their hands on a nuclear device. But because the US is doing such an awesome job of cracking down on those, we have nothing to worry about.

... Russian nukes are unguarded? That explains why so many have been stolen by terrorists. Yeah. That must be it. And Russia will DEFINITELY risk getting involved in a nuclear war if someone else is going to fight for them anyway. -_-

You do know that a war with China was how the world ended in the Fallout universe...

Dammit the world's going to end soon. Somebody needs to write a letter to their government to tell them to start a Vault-Tec type company. This is getting ridiculous. We're boned no matter what happens.

You may want to start worrying about your Fallout obsession :p

And seeing what happened with most of the Vault inhabitants anyway, I'd pass.

[poguemahon]

Am I the only one who supports Israel? I think they are doing a good thing defending there nation. Don't just stand there and take this ####. Stand up and fight. The US will support Israel, Iran, China, Russia, Syria, North Korea and Cuba will align. Western Europe will ally with the US. WWIII essentially. This has the potential to be the end of the world but probably won't happen. Plus, the US could take on the world and pwn all.
It won't go that far, but yeah, Israel deserves to kick Hamas ass. Watching the media coverage, they make is sound like Israel is just clearing Gaza of Palestinian life. I do believe they have a right to defend themselves. I was reading an Associated Press article talking about Israel's ground attack failures, and they've never been able to stop Hamas, because other countries said to stop. Hopefully, they'll kick some ass, and eliminate Hamas. It might even benefit the middle east.

[Freddy]

Ok guys, serious question. Does anyone know how long nuclear radiation was present after the bombs were drops on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
While I'm aware current nukes are considerably more powerful, I'm going to need some kind of reference to know when it's safe to come out of the nuclear proof bomb shelter I'm going to have to finiance.
God forbid I leave my safe shelter just to die of radiation sickness a year later. I don't think Rad Away will be availble in time.

>______>

[LIME!]

You should research it and let me know. I think the Countryside Mall could make a sufficient temporary shelter. I'm talking about the dentist' office which would make it inside the friggin hill. It's about the safest place in Clearwater/Dunedin.

[poguemahon]

Ok guys, serious question. Does anyone know how long nuclear radiation was present after the bombs were drops on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
While I'm aware current nukes are considerably more powerful, I'm going to need some kind of reference to know when it's safe to come out of the nuclear proof bomb shelter I'm going to have to finiance.
God forbid I leave my safe shelter just to die of radiation sickness a year later. I don't think Rad Away will be availble in time.

>______>
you'd be screwed for the rest of your life. There are zones in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that are still unsafe, even though people live in them. The half-life of uranium 238, the stuff they use for nukes, is 47.5 billioin years. Plutonium 239 has a half-life of 24,100 years. You'd die before you could venture outside safely.

[DarkReality]

Yeah. You should probably make your shelter veeeeery comfortable.

[Freddy]

Ok, new plan. Begin investing in phamasutical companies specifically to produce radiation retardants and rediation removers to be commercially viable drugs.

[poguemahon]

Ooh! I got one: Beer. If you get drunk on beer (nothing else works for some reason) the effects of radiation are lower.

[LIME!]

Yay for Rad-X and Rad-Away!

[Dan]

I hope to God that was sarcasm...

It clearly wasn't. Making a joke in this kind of serious thread is definitely out of the question.


Anyways, let the battle begin! This will not be settled in a cease fire anytime soon. Israel isn't backing off, and the Hamas is too brainwashed by their own religion to back off either.

[RAWR!]

Grr. Israel attacked Lebanon, and I'm part Lebanese D:<. They bother me. If only Lebanon had a good army, if only...

[DarkReality]

Ok, new plan. Begin investing in phamasutical companies specifically to produce radiation retardants and rediation removers to be commercially viable drugs.

Here's what I'm thinking. The sun emits EM waves. Sunblock lotion prevents those from harming the skin. Gamma radiation is also an electro magnetic wave. So... GammaBlock!

There's a future in this, I'm telling you.

[n3xus]

Lol....the combat, i mean massacre, is pretty lopsided....like the kill ratio between israel and palestine is 1:100 as in 4 israelis killed for every 400 palestinians....but of course....one can note that everytime israel cedes territory to palestine, Hamas starts launchign rockets from the newly gained territory...and as you can see from this graph...the rocket attacks are exponential.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/pictures/20090101GazaRocketsMortarsChart.jpg

and in case of nuclear fallout....erm....maybe us xgeners can become a group of reavers....or a post apocalyptic biker gang...

[Tanktunker]

Lol....the combat, i mean massacre, is pretty lopsided....like the kill ratio between israel and palestine is 1:100 as in 4 israelis killed for every 400 palestinians....but of course....one can note that everytime israel cedes territory to palestine, Hamas starts launchign rockets from the newly gained territory...and as you can see from this graph...the rocket attacks are exponential.
What exactly do you suggest we do, start firing crudely made short range missiles ourselves?
They place the civilian death toll at about 25%, of about 400 people dead, that means 100 civilians, and 300 Hamas personnel, and considering Gaza is the most densely populated place on earth, and Hamas hides it's weapons, ammunition and military personnel in civilian areas, it's kind of hard not to kill some civilians, especially when your only real option is to destroy entire apartment buildings.
Not to meantion that, really, massacre? It's mostly soldiers, these are well directed strikes against a well organized terrorist militia, not a bunch of guys with AK47s shooting random civilians.
If you want to talk about massacres, you can find plenty of them happening in Africa.

It won't go that far, but yeah, Israel deserves to kick Hamas ass. Watching the media coverage, they make is sound like Israel is just clearing Gaza of Palestinian life. I do believe they have a right to defend themselves. I was reading an Associated Press article talking about Israel's ground attack failures, and they've never been able to stop Hamas, because other countries said to stop. Hopefully, they'll kick some ass, and eliminate Hamas. It might even benefit the middle east.
0.026% of the population was killed so far, that's hardly a genocide.

Am I the only one who supports Israel? I think they are doing a good thing defending there nation. Don't just stand there and take this ####. Stand up and fight. The US will support Israel, Iran, China, Russia, Syria, North Korea and Cuba will align. Western Europe will ally with the US. WWIII essentially. This has the potential to be the end of the world but probably won't happen. Plus, the US could take on the world and pwn all.
I honestly doubt this is going to develop into anything large.

Support Israel? Yes. I don't support radicals thinking that a jewish nation doesn't have a right to exist based on history and religion. But Israel's methods are inhumane. They completely disregard the innocent civilian lives, making them no better than islamic radicals bombing civilian targets. And that kind of behaviour is simply wrong on all levels.
Seeing as Israel drops leaflets, and makes calls to home and cellular phones of civilians living around the area about to be bombed, we do seem to care about civilian life.
People in Sderot have 15 seconds from when the alarm sounds to run to a shelter, the Palestinians have several minutes, and they know where it's going off, no less.

And what about Palestinians defending their nation? Israel isn't exactly cutting them a lot of slack or doing much to actually promote peace (save peace talks and promises of rainbows and unicorns).
Hamas's condition for a ceasefire is the unconditional opening of all Israel-Gaza border crossings, honestly, this is completely ridiculous.
I disagree that Israel has done nothing to promote peace, two years ago we bulldozed every single illegal Israeli settlement in Gaza, 21 in all, and forcefully evicted the residents back into Israel.
Furthermore, as far as the Hamas's commitment to peace goes, I'd like to mention that on the 24th of November, 2008, not 2 months ago, after a period of 24 hours of no rockets or mortars fired into Israel, we opened a border crossing and sent through 30 truckloads of completely free, Israeli funded food, medicine, and other basic supplies.
The next day 2 rockets were fired into Israel and the border was closed again.
Furthermore, the vast majority of food, water, medicine, fuel and supplies are provided by Israel, many of them pro bono.
Israel does what it can, given the current situation, to help the Palestinian people, before the intifada in 2000, they allowed 25,000 Palestinian workers a day into Israel, at the expense of our economy, after the intifada, the GDP dropped 35%, and Palestinian leaders, knowing that, and not oblivious to the connection, continued attacking Israel to the severe detriment of their own people.
(And also, Israel provides upwards of 7000 medical permits a year to people in Gaza needing medical attention otherwise unattainable, and denies roughly 1500)

Wall of text, I know, you don't have to read it all, but Israel, and the people I know, at least, honestly care about the civilians there, despite all the bad things, and we do want peace, it's just not as easy as saying "here, have some land", which we tried with Egypt, and it worked (2/3rds of our country's total land mass was given to Egypt in return for peace), or "stop attacking us, we'll stop attacking you", but if you have any ideas for something we can offer that isn't our entire country and as a result, the lives of everyone living in it, then I'd love to hear it.

[Crusher008]

The Hell with Israel, Gaza 4 life!

[n3xus]

What exactly do you suggest we do, start firing crudely made short range missiles ourselves?
They place the civilian death toll at about 25%, of about 400 people dead, that means 100 civilians, and 300 Hamas personnel, and considering Gaza is the most densely populated place on earth, and Hamas hides it's weapons, ammunition and military personnel in civilian areas, it's kind of hard not to kill some civilians, especially when your only real option is to destroy entire apartment buildings.
Not to meantion that, really, massacre? It's mostly soldiers, these are well directed strikes against a well organized terrorist militia, not a bunch of guys with AK47s shooting random civilians.
If you want to talk about massacres, you can find plenty of them happening in Africa.


0.026% of the population was killed so far, that's hardly a genocide.


I honestly doubt this is going to develop into anything large.


Seeing as Israel drops leaflets, and makes calls to home and cellular phones of civilians living around the area about to be bombed, we do seem to care about civilian life.
People in Sderot have 15 seconds from when the alarm sounds to run to a shelter, the Palestinians have several minutes, and they know where it's going off, no less.

Hamas's condition for a ceasefire is the unconditional opening of all Israel-Gaza border crossings, honestly, this is completely ridiculous.
I disagree that Israel has done nothing to promote peace, two years ago we bulldozed every single illegal Israeli settlement in Gaza, 21 in all, and forcefully evicted the residents back into Israel.
Furthermore, as far as the Hamas's commitment to peace goes, I'd like to mention that on the 24th of November, 2008, not 2 months ago, after a period of 24 hours of no rockets or mortars fired into Israel, we opened a border crossing and sent through 30 truckloads of completely free, Israeli funded food, medicine, and other basic supplies.
The next day 2 rockets were fired into Israel and the border was closed again.
Furthermore, the vast majority of food, water, medicine, fuel and supplies are provided by Israel, many of them pro bono.
Israel does what it can, given the current situation, to help the Palestinian people, before the intifada in 2000, they allowed 25,000 Palestinian workers a day into Israel, at the expense of our economy, after the intifada, the GDP dropped 35%, and Palestinian leaders, knowing that, and not oblivious to the connection, continued attacking Israel to the severe detriment of their own people.
(And also, Israel provides upwards of 7000 medical permits a year to people in Gaza needing medical attention otherwise unattainable, and denies roughly 1500)

Wall of text, I know, you don't have to read it all, but Israel, and the people I know, at least, honestly care about the civilians there, despite all the bad things, and we do want peace, it's just not as easy as saying "here, have some land", which we tried with Egypt, and it worked (2/3rds of our country's total land mass was given to Egypt in return for peace), or "stop attacking us, we'll stop attacking you", but if you have any ideas for something we can offer that isn't our entire country and as a result, the lives of everyone living in it, then I'd love to hear it.

I didn't say I objected to Israel's offensive.
And I provided graphs suggesting reasons why Israel may be so pissed.

[SitarFreak]

Stop terrorism, nuke Israel.

>_>

I'm pretty neutral on this, it's just a stupid strip of land, either share it, or give it back. Just because of the six day war...

[gufu1992]

4. Russia/Terrorists: Their nukes are unguarded and active (I know... Putin is retarded) meaning that terrorists can grab the nukes and give them to their leader for his birthday. Once a terrorist sets a nuke off (either in Isreal, USA, or Britain) Russia sets theirs off as well. Not only to mention that they're "friends" with Iran.

You sir have played way too much of CoD4.

[Tanktunker]

Just because of the six day war...
wat

[Dan]

Lol....the combat, i mean massacre, is pretty lopsided....like the kill ratio between israel and palestine is 1:100 as in 4 israelis killed for every 400 palestinians.


What the #### do you expect Israel to do? Not do anything and continue to get shat on by these degenerates? I'm glad they are taking action now, because Hamas isn't going to stop. They need to be seriously decreased in number before there can be a cease fire.

[DarkReality]

Tanktunker's post

Hmm. These are things we're NOT told over here. I never meant to insult anyone. All we get over here is "The Hamas are evil satan spawn and Israel is cold and heartless." While I still don't agree with accepting civilian losses in a fight against the Hamas, or closing the borders and ending trade so that massive shortages plague Gaza (and where-not) isn't exactly the greatest thing to do (let's face it, there's a difference between getting a pamphlet and actually moving your handicapped grandmother and her three sisters all living with you while Hamas extremists are using your house as a storage base and have probably threatened you), it's probably the best thing to do apart from allowing constant attacks on both territories, whch also claim innocent civilian lives.

Long sentence yaaaaay.

[Tanktunker]

I think the Kerem Shalom crossing has been open for the entire operation, or at least for the most of it.

[DarkReality]

Then what was the entire deal with the import stops and massive shortages? It was a while ago, hence I don't know all the details (or I might have it all wrong), but I know that there were several problems in the past months with supplies in certain regions which civilians suffered under.

[K1CkA55]

2. Britain: They too have nukes and intend to use them when we do. This is probably the only nation in the world where a US nuke won't land if the world does go into a nuclear war.

Hey, I didn't realize we had nukes.

[DarkReality]

You were the third nation to build them.

You should read up a bit on national politics and history :)

[Matt]

Don't see Canada anywhere in this, probably why I have heard very little of it.

[ssgtGrimreaper]

I don't know why many of you seem to think any world power would use its nukes for anything more than threats. The Cold War taught us that. Seriously, get that idea out of your heads.

[Tanktunker]

Then what was the entire deal with the import stops and massive shortages? It was a while ago, hence I don't know all the details (or I might have it all wrong), but I know that there were several problems in the past months with supplies in certain regions which civilians suffered under.
The situation there isn't exactly peachy, with Egypt's border closed, Hamas hording supplies, and well, the fact that almost all their food comes through us means that when the borders ARE closed, the only people who will still have basic supplies is Hamas.
But starvation...http://www.daylife.com/photo/025m61w6uSbhP/lauren_booth_gaza
http://www.daylife.com/photo/02uy2JZ8Uw445/lauren_booth_gaza

[poguemahon]

Don't see Canada anywhere in this, probably why I have heard very little of it.

Slingshots don't launch nukes too far :D

Canada is doomed to sit and warch the US get blasted to bits, in this apocalyptic scenario. Fallout would drift north, around and make it's way to southern/middle canada, rendering it inhospitable to anything that isn't a fruitfly or roach.