ive had a good read through the posts and dont think this has been posted yet..

it seems a strong possiblity that the others (ie. goodwin, ethan, henry etc.. assumign they are one group) would like the losties to go and attack the shoeless people.

but why would they want that?

personally, i think that the others are on the defensive - we've already seen their medical facility trashed, maybe it was by the shoeless people? the others might now be trapped inside a hatch by the shoeless bunch, and need to manipulate a group of people with lots of guns, ie. the losties, into breaking the seige. as he's been holed up in the cell for a while 'henry' may or may not know about this.

the other possibility that i have been thinking about - the others have technically not killed anyone yet, perhaps their being 'good' doesn't allow them to - so again with the whole being on the defensive etc, they can't exterminate the crazy diseased 'bad' shoeless people, they need to get some other 'bad' people to do it for them

:confused:

Yeah I never really though about the others not killing anyone yet. That seems logical that they need the "losties" to do their dirty work for them, but I doubt that they are being trapped in their hatch. Maybe it is their definition of "good" that prohibits them from killing, but at this point anything is possible.
100%
Oh yeah congrats on your first post Kjeevah. I am still trying to get off the Tarmac (it has been a very long smoke break).

the other possibility that i have been thinking about - the others have technically not killed anyone yet, perhaps their being 'good' doesn't allow them to - so again with the whole being on the defensive etc, they can't exterminate the crazy diseased 'bad' shoeless people, they need to get some other 'bad' people to do it for them. Maybe I am misinterpreting your post, but the Others HAVE killed people.

1. Ethan killed Scott (or Steve) and tortured him a little bit first by breaking numerous bones in his body. The threat was that unless Charlie returned Claire to him he would kill one Lostie a day and would save Charlie for last.

2. Goodwin killed Nathan.

3. Ethan tried to kill Charlie by hanging him and almost succeeded.

4. The Others shot Sawyer, blew up the raft, and left Sawyer, Michael, and Jin out for dead in the middle of the ocean.

5. "Alex" claimed that after the Others cut the baby out of Claire they were going to kill her.

6. Had Locke not come along "Henry" was going to kill Ana Lucia and seemd to enjoy doing so out of revenge for killing two of his fellow "good people".

I think the biggest example I have provided would be that the Others were planning on killing Claire after stealing her baby. That is a move completely on the OFFENSIVE considering Claire did absolutely nothing to them and were only using her for baby, after which she was expendable.