Gorgon

The psychology of the situation was simply all wrong, you send in a about a dozen men to the several hundred on the boat, mix in fear and animosity, the absence of any sense of legitimacy for the boarding, and perhaps a belief on the part of those determined to defend the vessel that they could succeed and you have a recipe for disaster.

That's the misunderstanding here, the convoy wasn't going to enter Israeli territory, it was going to Gaza. And a naval blockade means you stop ships in international waters, otherwise you'd have to enter the territorial waters of the country being blockaded. Of course this situation is a bit different as Gaza is not a country. And Turkey is the one who set the whole thing up, if Israelis still think Turkey is their friend, they're being delusional. Israel has the right to police the naval approaches to the port of Gaza following the Oslo accord. In addition Israel has a 20 km buffer zone along its coastline I believe instigated to stop rocket boat attacks. All this means that Israel does indeed have a defined naval border, which was not breached. There may be legal precedent for a search, but a midnight commando raid. That's not how you go about challenging an incursion you believe is about to take place. This is what they should have done : challenged the vessels the minute they entered Israeli territory and explained that their convoy was subject to search. Then sent in police and customs agents. If these agents were attacked, Israel would have had the moral high ground.

Because Iran is the real enemy for Israel and has, like every one else, been using the conflict to galvanize popular opinion. If Israel is seen to reject humanitarian convoys, actively supporting Hamas and Hezbollah gains in legitimacy. It doesn't make sense, but if you only consider appearances, it kinda does.

I mean a boarding action with just one helicopter. I doesn't seem like the right tactical choice. Neither did attacking the convoy before it entered Israeli territory. They may have gotten a hold of the ships and deported the activists but the PR battle was a sound thrashing, and this time the cost may be more tangible than usual. Lost military contracts with turkey, a huge PR win for Iran, just for starters-

How so ?. no laws broken, no infringement on territory.

What I don't get is this, the ship posed no military threat, and an action like this was obviously going to be high risk. Why did they bother ?

Hold up now, it was the IDF commandos who attacked the ship. They instigated this action in international waters. Some of the activists had obviously planned to resist a boarding attempt ahead of time. There were several members of the EU parliament as well as other well known activists whose focus was the effects of the closure and control of Gaza, and obviously some people who wanted direct action and to create an international incident. It is simply not correct that this was a Muslim Brotherhood action.

The activists weren't working for Hamas.

Hamas are probably ecstatic about this whole debacle, however this is about Israel handling a stand off with activists the worst way they possibly could have. It's got nothing to do with terrorism. It's really important that people understand that.

Not true, there's penises too.

You could likely get away with activism like this in most civilised countries. You know make a show of trying to unload the cargo, get arrested in front of the cameras, etc. In Israel they shoot you full of holes.

Didn't they already admit that they forgot to test it. It was 'blowout preventer'. Sounds vaguely humorous somehow.

Well BP are already liable, every day this continues is money down the drain.

If I recall correctly the sanctions did a great deal for the ANC in investing them with legitimacy. Mandela certainly thought so. He was also rather unimpressed that it took the UK so long to come around.

We have to give them something, you know let them get a feel for what democracy is all about. How else are they going to learn

Imagine if you could access every book ever submitted to a library for a minimal fee.

You would think they could just let the store burn a copy for you rather than lose a customer. In a lot of ways we are still doing business like it was the 80s in computer games.

What's the point of pre ordering PC games. They print 'em according to demand. Actually running out of copies must be pretty rare. Seems to me it's more intended as a sales ploy, get the ball rolling early.

But they are lists !. Lists must be engaged.

As far as I can recall it had something to do with the high level spell effects. If you didn't install the wide screen mod they would have graphics glitches.

What annoyed me about the PST fix pack was that it forced the resolution mod on you. I could barely see what was going on because the avatars were so tiny. Don't think the game was meant to be played in anything more than 640x800

It all sounds so good in the planning phase, and then 10 years later we are still picking up the pieces.

Gesundheit

I'm not getting suckered into dragon age DLCs again. Not untill they offer me a full refund of Warden's Keep anyway.