As they say in Lebanon, “Voila!”
In these two pictures, we see Hezbollah using high-density residential areas as launching pads for rockets and heavy-caliber weapons. The militiamen are dressed in civilian clothing so they can quickly disappear into the populace. The terrorists are seen carrying automatic assault rifles and ride on trucks mounted with cannon. The pictures appeared in Australia’s largest daily newspaper, the Herald Sun.
“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”
1 comment:
A couple of points:
1. From Ha'aretz (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/745185.html):
"The Israel Defense Forces had said after the deadly air-strike that many rockets had been launched from Qana. However, it changed its version on Monday.
The site was included in an IAF plan to strike at several buildings in proximity to a previous launching site. Similar strikes were carried out in the past. However, there were no rocket launches from Qana on the day of the strike."
2. We are given two different versions of the Israeli military. It is the most highly-trained, efficient, precise military in the world, as evidenced by the surgical precision of destroying (only the) runways in the Beirut airport or hitting a small bridge in the just the right way to take it out with minimal collateral damage. But at the same time, we are told that Israel can't attack Hizbollah in Lebanon without killing masses (and by "masses" I mean hundreds in the past few weeks) of civilians.
I find it hard to reconcile these two stories. The simpler version (Occam's razor and all) is that Israel _can_ be more discriminating in whom it kills, but chooses _not to_.
3. If Israel is intentionally causing significant harm to the civilian population in which their enemy is embedded (and there are plenty of other examples - the path of the Wall, taking out hospitals/water/power to the civilian population in Palestine, the middle-of-the-night sirens to keep civilians awake and afraid), then it is a violation of the fourth Geneva Convention which prohibits "collective punishment" (http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/lebanon/Isrlb997-07.htm).
A long time ago, another army was fighting a technologically far superior force, and so they embedded themselves into the population. They didn't wear "standard" uniforms, they didn't fight out in the open, they fired from the shadows. And if the army of a newly born America hadn't done so, we'd might be reading in history books about the failed plans of colonial terrorists.
Hizbollah targets civilians. It is a despicable organization, full of murderers. Having said that, I do not think that the vastly superior Israeli army can get very far saying it's just _impossible_ to get to Hizbollah without this kind of carnage. These are war crimes.
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