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The easy answer is yes -- look at anything coming straight from the horses' mouths ot Faux.
But:
An attack on a hospital, the killing of an entire Lebanese family, the seizure of five men in Baalbek and a new civilian death toll - 468 men, women and children - marked the 22nd day of Israel's latest war on Lebanon.
According to the very same article, the 22nd day of fighting ALSO included "Hizbollah continu{ing} to fire dozens of missiles over the border into Israel, killing one Israeli and wounding 21."
The Israelis claimed that helicopter-borne soldiers had seized senior Hizbollah leaders although one of them turned out to be a local Baalbek grocer. In a village near the city, Israeli air strikes killed the local mayor's son and brother and five children in their family.
It's like some ginat game with statistics or yet another non-sequitur. ANother way of looking at this might be "EIGHTY PERCENT of the people seized were Hezbollah leaders. The local maypr's son and brother were Hezbollah supporters aiding in illegally launching missile strikes against the nation of Israel. Had they lived, perhaps the son and brother would be held for trial in an International Tribunal for war crimes for using civilians as hostages? I doubt, but probably not fot he same reasons that you do.
The battle for Lebanon was fast moving out of control last night. Lebanese troops abandoned many of their checkpoints and European diplomats were warning their colleagues that militiamen were taking over the positions. Up to 8,000 Israeli troops were reported to have crossed the border by last night in what was publicised as a military advance towards the Litani river. But far more soldiers would be needed to secure so large an area of southern Lebanon.
This is the part that I suspect NEITHER you NOR I really get, at least without having been there. If the Isaelis were hell-bent on conquering Lebanon, then why did they NOT send enough troops? And why, if Hezbollah only makes up 10% of the government, is the Lebanese governemnt able to curtail them?
The Israelis sent paratroopers to attack an Iranian-financed hospital in Baalbek in the hope of capturing wounded Hizbollah fighters but, after an hour's battle, got their hands on only five men whom the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, later called "tasty fish". The operation suggests what Hizbollah has all along said was the purpose of the Israeli campaign: to swap prisoners and to exchange Hizbollah fighters for the two Israeli soldiers who were captured on the border on 12 July.
Tasty fish? That doesn't mean anything particularly. And why does the Israeli operation "suggest what Hizbollah has all along said..." if the article isn't biased? And notice the word "sugest?" Used in a way to suggest "prove?" Couldn't it have just as easily have said -- AND BEEN JUST AS ACCURATE -- "The Israeli operation suggests what the IDF has long said, that Hezbollah is using civilian infrastructure to hide its activities..."?
Hizbollah continued to fire dozens of missiles over the border into Israel, killing one Israeli and wounding 21, with Israeli artillery firing shells back into Lebanon at the rate of one every two minutes. For the first time, a Hizbollah rocket struck the West Bank as well as the Israeli town of Beit Shean, the longest-range missile to have been fired so far. Yet still the West seems unable to produce an end to a war which is clearly overwhelming both Hizbollah and the Israelis.
Why is it the West's job. yes, the US supplied Israel. But Syria and Iran supplied Hezbollah. Where's the outrage against them for not stopping the violence?
Hizbollah obviously has far more missiles than the Israelis believed - there is not a town in northern Israel which is safe from their fire - and the Israeli army apparently has no plan to defeat Hizbollah other than the old and hopeless policy of occupying southern Lebanon. If Hizbollah had planned this campaign months in advance - and if the Israelis did the same - then neither side left room for diplomacy.
One of the few things that I have no disagreement with
The French have wisely said they will lead a peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon only after a ceasefire. And to be sure, they will not let this become a Nato-led army. France already has a company of 100 soldiers in the UN force in southern Lebanon, whose commander is himself French, but Paris, after watching the chaos in Iraq, has no illusions about Western armies in the Middle East.
What good is a peacekeeping force AFTER a ceasefire? Whi;'s going to instill it and enforce it?
Outside the shattered Dar al-Hikma hospital in Baalbek yesterday stood two burnt cars and a minivan, riddled with bullet-holes. Hizbollah, it seems, fought the Israelis there for more than an hour. The hospital, which includes several British-manufactured heart machines, was empty when the Israeli raid began and was partly destroyed in the fighting.
"which included several British manufactured heart machines?" Could yellow journalism be any more yellow? What's the purpose of including this? And the hospital apprently wasn't empty, now was it? The captured Hezbollah members and the various cars "riddled" with machine gun fire would indicate this, wouldn't it? From the very story I'm lambasting? And not to mention the earlier Hezbollah reports that they had trapped a contingent of Israelis inside the hospital.
The Lebanese army, which has tried to stay out of the conflict - heaven knows what its 75,000 soldiers are supposed to do - was attacked again by the Israelis yesterday when they fired a missile into a car which they claimed was carrying a Hizbollah leader. They were wrong. The soldier inside died instantly, joining the 11 other Lebanese troops proclaimed as "martyrs" by the government from a logistics unit killed in an Israeli air raid two weeks ago.
Why haven't those 75,000 soldiers stopped hezbollah well before this? If, as so many suggest, we accept the premise that Hezbollah has moved to a democratic position and not a terroristic one, then why haven't the 90% of Lebanese (assuming that the Army has similar percentages) who DON'T support Hezabollah DO something about them?
The obscene score-card for death in this latest war now stands as follows:
I would agree wholeheartedly with the use of the word "obscene." I'm not arguing that one side is right, only that one side is not more "right" than the other.
508 Lebanese civilians, 46 Hizbollah guerrillas, 26 Lebanese soldiers, 36 Israeli soldiers and 19 Israeli civilians. In other words, Hizbollah is killing more Israeli soldiers than civilians and the Israelis are killing far more Lebanese civilians than they are guerrillas. The Lebanese Red Cross has found 40 more civilian dead in the south of the country in the past two days, many of them with wounds suggesting they might have survived had medical help been available.
Can someone abuse statistics more blatantly?
First off, the Hezbollah rockets are not aimed at Israeli soldiers, they're aimed at Israeli civilian populations. Should we claim that the Israelis are on the losing side because they have better aimed weapons?
Secondly, where's the outrage against Hezbollah for putting their terror-weapons in civilian areas? For instance, there was a lot of outrage last week about the UN observers who were killed, until it was revealed that they'd radioed in about the Hezbollah rocket positions that has set up adjacent to them. They've set up shop in downtown Beirut amongst thousands of civilians. Hezbollah has gone out of their way to kill civiians, while Israel has gone out of their way to achieve the opposite effect. Yes, more Lebanese civilians have been killed than Israeli civilians. But should we get angry against Israel because they have more accurate weapons and their targets happebn to be located in Lebanese territory? Ir do we get angry agaisnt the HEzbollah forces that located their assets inside of schools, churches, and apartment buildings, but who aim randomly with the sole intention of killing Jews?
Or perhaps we realize the statistical lie when we realize that soldiers vs. civilians killed is just that: a statistical lie. The Israeli soldiers being killed are in unfamiliar territory, and they're being kiled by snipers and IEDs. The Hezbollah missiles are being aimed at civilians.
And are we to blame Israel for having better medical care for their wounded? When they're not using their hospitals as bases of operation?
Is Israel WRONG for having better equipment and bigger bombs?
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