Our tax dollars at work....
In today's New York Times, Steven Erlanger reports the following:
JERUSALEM, July 18 — The asymmetry in the reported death tolls is marked and growing: some 230 Lebanese dead, most of them civilians, to 25 Israeli dead, 13 of them civilians. In Gaza, one Israel soldier has died from his own army’s fire, and 103 Palestinians have been killed, 70 percent of them militants....The cold figures, combined with Israeli air attacks on civilian infrastructure like power plants, electricity transformers, airports, bridges, highways and government buildings, have led to accusations by France and the European Union, echoed by some nongovernmental organizations, that Israel is guilty of “disproportionate use of force” in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon and of “collective punishment” of the civilian populations....(end of quote)
These figures reflect similar proportions from previous conflicts involving Israel such as the violence that followed the Sharon Al-Aqsa Mosque visit. It seems that every time Israel fights militants, the casualty ratio is always about 10 Arabs killed for each Israeli. How do they expect to ever get peace with these ratios? It's as if they WANT to radicalize their neighbors. After all, the whole reason that Hezbollah exists is that it formed itself in reaction to the last Israeli invasion into Lebanon. What do the Israelis think is going to be the result of this current nonsense? If the past is any measure, the result will be an even more radicalized southern Lebanon. Is that what they want? Why would they want that?
It's just so hard to be sympathetic to the one side in a conflict that regularly kills ten times over in retaliation for a given wrong committed against it. It's hard to be sympathetic to a side that seems to believe that shelling civilian residential neighborhoods is a reasonable response to a kidnapping!
Hezbollah is a danger to Lebanon and Israel, maybe even to the whole region, so why then do the one thing that will strengthen Hezbollah? Apart from the questionable morality of disproportionate retaliation, it's just plain stupid.
JERUSALEM, July 18 — The asymmetry in the reported death tolls is marked and growing: some 230 Lebanese dead, most of them civilians, to 25 Israeli dead, 13 of them civilians. In Gaza, one Israel soldier has died from his own army’s fire, and 103 Palestinians have been killed, 70 percent of them militants....The cold figures, combined with Israeli air attacks on civilian infrastructure like power plants, electricity transformers, airports, bridges, highways and government buildings, have led to accusations by France and the European Union, echoed by some nongovernmental organizations, that Israel is guilty of “disproportionate use of force” in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon and of “collective punishment” of the civilian populations....(end of quote)
These figures reflect similar proportions from previous conflicts involving Israel such as the violence that followed the Sharon Al-Aqsa Mosque visit. It seems that every time Israel fights militants, the casualty ratio is always about 10 Arabs killed for each Israeli. How do they expect to ever get peace with these ratios? It's as if they WANT to radicalize their neighbors. After all, the whole reason that Hezbollah exists is that it formed itself in reaction to the last Israeli invasion into Lebanon. What do the Israelis think is going to be the result of this current nonsense? If the past is any measure, the result will be an even more radicalized southern Lebanon. Is that what they want? Why would they want that?
It's just so hard to be sympathetic to the one side in a conflict that regularly kills ten times over in retaliation for a given wrong committed against it. It's hard to be sympathetic to a side that seems to believe that shelling civilian residential neighborhoods is a reasonable response to a kidnapping!
Hezbollah is a danger to Lebanon and Israel, maybe even to the whole region, so why then do the one thing that will strengthen Hezbollah? Apart from the questionable morality of disproportionate retaliation, it's just plain stupid.
Posted at 7/19/2006 06:30:00 PM UTC
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1 Comment(s):
But those are ratios this nation supports.
After all, in retaliation for the deaths of about 3000 on 9/11 we invaded Iraq (so we are told), and have caused a sea of turmoil and destruction that have taken the lives of at least 30,000 Iraqi civilians.
Is it any wonder we're not pushing for a cease fire?
It is an outrage that our leaders would condone and help perpetrate the killing of civilians in Lebanon by Israel.
There is no military solution to the situation in the Middle East. Israel has just guaranteed that it will be the target of terrorist violence for many years to come as the children of the dead in Lebanon grow up to become the suicide bombers of the future.
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