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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend.... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (21855)	7/30/2006 11:58:39 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

I don't know what to make of this report other than it seems there was a several hour lag between the Israeli attack on the terrorist position & the building collapse. If so, why were there any civilians still in there? BTW, FoxNews has video of what appears to be that same building with the terrorists launching rocket attacks on Israel. The curious case of the Qana building collapse The American Thinker The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are noting the strange 8 hour gap between the attack on Qana and the colllapse of the apartment building which killed so many children. <<< “The attack on the structure in the Qana village took place between midnight and one in the morning. The gap between the timing of the collapse of the building and the time of the strike on it is unclear,” Brigadier General Amir Eshel, Head of the Air Force Headquarters told journalists at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, following the incidents at Qana. Eshel and the head of the IDF’s Operational Branch, Major General Gadi Eisnkot said the structure was not being attacked when it collapsed, at around 8:00 in the morning. The IDF believes that Hizbullah explosives in the building were behind the explosion that caused the collapse. Another possibility is that the rickety building remained standing for a few hours, but eventually collapsed. “It could be that inside the building, things that could eventually cause an explosion were being housed, things that we could not blow up in the attack, and maybe remained there, Brigadier General Eshel said. >>> Buildings about half a kilometer away were attacked at 7:30 AM, so the ricklety building theory may have something to do with it, as vibrations might have triggered the collapse. But why on earth were so many children and other presumed innocents inside the building 8 hours after it was attacked? Pardon my suspicions, but isn’t this possibly a case of Hezbollah intentionally killing them, in order to have an effective propagando tool? Of course, the nut-job Left in the United States has long claimed that 9/11 was an inside job, and that the Twin Towers and one other building were (for some obscure reason) demolished by controlled demoltion. But I think this is not at all comparable. There is an excellent propaganda gain for Hezbollah from the slaughter of innocents, and they are a group which has never been bothered by a few deaths of “martyrs.” Hat tip: Clarice Feldman 7 30 06 Update: Powerline asks an interesting question. powerlineblog.com Update: Mideast On Target offers a timeline. me-ontarget.com americanthinker.com ynetnews.com americanthinker.com

To: Sully- who wrote (21855)	7/31/2006 12:00:53 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Just Wondering Posted by John Power Line This AFP photograph shows Beirut demonstrators with a giant poster of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that was used in a rally protesting the accidental killing of civilian human shields, along with terrorists, in Qana: What seems odd about this is that the banner was unfurled within hours after the Qana attack took place. The building where the civilians died was bombed on Sunday morning, and the demonstration took place during daylight hours, later the same day. I have no idea what kind of facility it takes to produce a 30-foot-high banner like this one. It is obviously professionally done. It would be interesting to know where this banner was produced; who designed and paid for it; and how its production was expedited so that it was ready for use, on the street, within hours after the event being protested. For example, was the image of Rice produced in advance, awaiting a pretext for its use, with only the script added at the last minute? I've often been curious about the logistics of pro-terrorist demonstrations, and this seems like an especially curious example. powerlineblog.com news.yahoo.com

To: Sully- who wrote (21855)	7/31/2006 3:56:21 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

We now wait to learn how those people died in the bombed building in Qana as some reports indicate that the building didn’t collapse until some eight hours after it was hit. But the rush to judgment has now become news, and news becomes fact, and if we later find out that Hezbollah either wouldn’t let those people leave the building or are otherwise responsible for killing them, it won’t matter. It won’t matter to the U.S. media, the U.N., the EU, or most of the rest of the world. Israel has been condemned and judged guilty by those who either wish for her demise and/or continue to preach appeasement in the face of genocidal fanatics. Wrong Again And Another Thing . . . The Mark Levin blog 07/30 10:06 PM Did we not learn from Katrina that the Big Media get big stories wrong? As best as I can tell, the U.S. media are repeating most of the information about the bombing of Qana that is being reported by the Arab media, including Hezbollah TV. I am convinced that the Big Media are not only hostile to Israel’s right to defend itself, just as they are hostile to our efforts in Iraq, but they are incapable of reporting accurately and comprehensively about the war on terrorism. I’ve yet to see any U.S. reporter or cameraman embedded with Hezbollah reporting about their tactics, brutality, and whereabouts, and sending pictures of all of it to the rest of the world. Of course, Hezbollah has no intention of giving them such access. So, as in the case of Qana, they run to the scene of the devastation, provide no context or perspective for what occurred (or de-emphasis it), while repeatedly pointing to Israel as the culprit. Hezbollah uses children and women as shields. They lob rockets and missiles into Israeli population centers. Conversely, the Israelis drop fliers on town they are about to attack, urging civilians to leave (and in Gaza, Israel actually has called ahead to private homes urging the occupants to leave). Yet, Israel is blamed for Hezbollah’s terrorist tactics. Where are the video and photos of the enemy? What we get are endless reruns of old footage of Hezbollah terrorists marching in some city because the Big Media have no access to the enemy, just the ambulances and bombed out buildings resulting from Israel’s effort to defend itself against Hezbollah’s war of aggression. Now, the victim is portrayed as the perpetrator. And, of course, the world demands that Israel stand down — handing a victory to the terrorists. But the world has held this view since this latest battle started, first pressuring Israel to show “restraint,” then accusing Israel of a “disproportionate response,” and next demanding an immediate “cease-fire.” Keep in mind, Israel has yet to unleash its military power against Hezbollah for fear that world opinion turning against her (as if it wouldn’t anyway). Meanwhile, Iran and Syria have blood on their hands — having trained, funded, armed, and provided logistical support to the terrorists — and we hear precious little about their culpability. In fact, some demand that the U.S. negotiate with them. The point is that people and countries behind this carnage (and not just in Israel, but throughout the world) escape any responsibility. They will not have their cities attacked (at least not yet). They will not have to stand down. They will not have to answer for their conduct before the U.N. or any other body (a pointless exercise anyway). And the Lebanese government and U.N. escape all responsibility for failing to honor their agreement in 2000 to disarm Hezbollah and send the Lebanese military into what had been the buffer zone in southern Lebanon in exchange for Israel’s troops leaving. President Bush says that Israel must be careful not to weaken Lebanon’s democracy. With all due respect, what is he talking about? Lebanon’s army sits idle, refusing to stop Hezbollah, because some of the army is loyal to Hezbollah. Lebanon’s parliament does nothing, because the speaker and a significant minority of its members are allied with Hezbollah. Syria continues to send weapons to Hezbollah through Lebanese territory, as Iran sends Hezbollah reinforcements, homicide bombers, and armaments. Lebanon isn’t a democracy. The place is in anarchy. The terrorists and their masters have free reign. We now wait to learn how those people died in the bombed building in Qana as some reports indicate that the building didn’t collapse until some eight hours after it was hit. But the rush to judgment has now become news, and news becomes fact, and if we later find out that Hezbollah either wouldn’t let those people leave the building or are otherwise responsible for killing them, it won’t matter. It won’t matter to the U.S. media, the U.N., the EU, or most of the rest of the world. Israel has been condemned and judged guilty by those who either wish for her demise and/or continue to preach appeasement in the face of genocidal fanatics. (Oh, and by the way, you’d think the Big Media would alert the American people to the dangers we, in our country, face from Hezbollah. Their cells have committed numerous crimes here, in Mexico, and in Canada, all for the purpose of raising funds in pursuit of their terrorist objectives. Isn’t that relevant news?) levin.nationalreview.com

To: Sully- who wrote (21855)	7/31/2006 7:18:54 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

John at Power Line notes: The strangest aspect of all this, of course, is that no one doubts that Israel killed the civilians in Qana accidentally while targeting terrorists, whereas, on the other hand, Hezbollah has launched hundreds of rockets into Israel for the sole and express purpose of killing civilians. Yet where is the outrage against Hezbollah? Why is it that Kofi Annan swings into action only to denounce Israel and to promote the course that Hezbollah wants, namely a time-out so that it can rebuild its terrorist infrastructure? http://powerlineblog.com/archives/014841.php

To: Sully- who wrote (21855)	7/31/2006 7:51:01 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Warning! Graphic photos below Was The “Qana Massacre” Staged By Hezbollah? Sweetness & Light From Israel Insider: Hezbollywood? Evidence mounts that Qana collapse and deaths were staged By Reuven Koret July 31, 2006 It was to be a perfect Hollywood ending for Hezbollah. Just as the Israeli bombing of the village of Qana in 1996 brought a premature end to Israel’s Operation "Grapes of Wrath," so too a sequel of Qana II could change, once and for all, the direction of Israel’s current summer blockbuster, "Change of Direction." Ten years ago, world condemnation of an errant Israeli shell that hit a civilian compound forced then-PM Shimon Peres to curtail the offensive against terror bases. The setting was also perfect: Kana was again being used as a primary site for launching rockets against Israeli cities. The IDF reported that more than 150 rockets had been launched from Qana and its vicinity at Israeli civilians, wreaking destruction in Kiryat Shmona, Maalot, Nahariya and Haifa. It was only a matter of time before the Israeli Air Force would come for a visit, using pinpoint targeting of the sites used to launch rockets, Hezbollah logistical centers and weapon storage facilities. On the morning of July 30, according to the IDF, the air force came in three waves. In the first, between midnight and one in the morning, there was a strike at or near the building that eventually collapsed. There was a second strike at other targets far from the collapse building several hours later, and a third strike at around 7:30 in the morning. There too the nearest hit was some 460 meters away, according to the IDF. But first reports of a building collapse came only around 8 am. Thus there was an unexplained 7 to 8 hour gap between the time of the helicopter strike and the building collapse. Brigadier General Amir Eshel, Head of the Air Force Headquarters, in a press briefing, told journalists that "the attack on the structure in the Qana village took place between midnight and one in the morning. The gap between the timing of the collapse of the building and the time of the strike on it is unclear." Gen. Eshel appeared genuinely mystified by the gap in time. He "I’m saying this very carefully, because at this time I don’t have a clue as to what the explanation could be for this gap," he added. The army’s only explanation was that somehow there was unexploded Hezbollah ordnance in the building that only detonated much later. "It could be that inside the building, things that could eventually cause an explosion were being housed, things that we could not blow up in the attack, and maybe remained there, Brigadier General Eshel said. Eshel reported that as recently as two days ago, military intelligence reported the building area had been used by the terrorists for storage or firing of weapons. It was a bad place to cram dozens of women and children. There are other mysteries. The roof of the building was intact. Journalist Ben Wedeman of CNN noted that there was a larger crater next to the building, but observed that the building appeared not to have collapsed as a result of the Israeli strike. Why would the civilians who had supposedly taken shelter in the basement of the building not leave after the post-midnight attack? They just went back to sleep and had the bad luck to wait for the building to collapse in the morning? What we do know is that sometime after dawn a call went hour to journalists and rescue workers to come to the scene. And come they did. While Hezbollah and its apologists have been claiming that civilians could not freely flee the scene due to Israeli destruction of bridges and roads, the journalists and rescue teams from nearby Tyre had no problem getting there. Lebanese rescue teams did not start evacuating the building until the morning and only after the camera crews came. The absence of a real rescue effort was explained by saying that equipment was lacking. There were no scenes of live or injured people being extracted. There was little blood, CNN’s Wedeman noted: all the victims, he concluded, appeared to have died while as they were sleeping — sleeping, apparently, through thunderous Israeli air attacks. Rescue workers equipped with cameras were removing the bodies from the same opening in the collapsed structure. Journalists were not allowed near the collapsed building. Rescue workers filmed as they went by carring the victims on the stretchers, occasionally flipping up the blankets so that cameras could show the faces and bodies of the dead. But Israelis steeled to scenes of carnage from Palestinian suicide bombings and Hezbollah rocket attack could not help but notice that these victims did not look like our victims. Their faces were ashen gray. Their limbs appeared to have stiffened, from rigor mortis. Neither were effects that would have resulted from an Israeli attack hours before. These were bodies that looked like they had been dead for days. Viewers can judge for themselves. But the accumulating evidence suggests another explanation for what happened at Kana. The scenario would be a setup in which the time between the initial Israeli bombing near the building and morning reports of its collapse would have been used to "plant" bodies killed in previous fighting — reports in previous days indicated that nearby Tyre was used as a temporary morgue — place them in the basement, and then engineer a "controlled demolition" to fake another Israeli attack. The well-documented use by Palestinians of this kind of faked footage — from the alleged shooting of Mohammed Dura in Gaza, scenes from Jenin of "dead" victims falling off gurneys and then climbing back on — have merited the creation of a new film genre called "Palliwood." There is increasing evidence that the Kana sequel is another episode in this genre, a variety which might be called Hezbollywood. The Hezbollah have evidently learned their craft well. The current suspension of Israeli military air activity is supposedly intended, among other things, to be used for the investigation of what really happened at Qana. It is to be hoped that there are real journalists on the scene, and unbiased medical examiners, who will have the courage and intelligence to sort out the anomalies and contradictions, and get to the buried truth of what happened. There is no shortage of victims in Lebanon and Israel these days. From this vantage point, at this time, it looks like in the case of Qana, the world’s media was duped in a cruel and colossal hoax by a terror organization that knows no moral bounds in its exploitation of suffering and anti-Israel hatred. But, as usual, the only party expected to pay the full price will be Israelis. Yes, it would be a Hollywood ending for it all to end in Qana, exactly as it did a decade ago. But perfect endings, and perfect crimes, are rarely pulled off in real life. Israelis will not be able to investigate this claim directly. The question remains whether honest men and women of other nationalities will let this likely lie stand or press for the revelation of the improbable and inconvenient truth. >>> As the author points out (like we have earlier) a strangely similar "atrocity" in Qana saved Hezbollah’s neck in 1996. There is also the matter of the time gap, since the Israelis attacked at 1 am and the building collapsed hours later. And the inexplicable delay of the bodies not being removed until hours after that. The light in the photos make it look like late morning or mid day or even later. But, as the author also notes, the most compelling evidence is the photos of the bodies themselves. They simply don’t look like recently deceased bodies. But ones that have been dead for some time. And this is certainly not something that one would put past the Hezbollah to stage. <img src='' <img src=''

To: Sully- who wrote (21855)	7/31/2006 9:16:17 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Qana Media Coverup? Posted by Confederate Yankee The more I see about the timeline in Qana, the more I doubt the story being told to us by the world's media. Katherine Shrader and Kathy Gannon of AP make the strike and its effect seem immediate: <<< A three-story house on the outskirts of Qana was leveled when a missile crashed into it at 1 a.m. Red Cross officials said 56 were killed and police said 34 children and 12 adult women were among the dead. It was worst single strike since Israel's campaign in Lebanon began on July 12 when Hezbollah militants crossed the border into Israel and abducted two soldiers. >>> But we know that the immediacy of the collapse given in this timeline to be a false construct. Many hours before this AP story was released, the IDF had already reported that the building did not collapse until 8 A.M. Shrader and Gannon did not question the rather unique makeup of the families hardest hit in the attack (my bold): <<< Israel suspended air attacks on south Lebanon for 48 hours starting early Monday in the face of widespread outrage over an airstrike on a house that killed 56 Lebanese, almost all of them women and children. [jump to page 2] Red Cross officials said 56 were killed and police said 34 children and 12 adult women were among the dead. [snip] In Qana, workers pulled dirt-covered bodies of young boys and girls dressed in the shorts and T-shirts they had been sleeping in out of the mangled wreckage of the building. Bodies were carried in blankets. Two extended families, the Shalhoubs and the Hashems, had gathered in the house for shelter from another night of Israeli bombardment in the border area when the strike brought the building down. "I was so afraid. There was dirt and rocks and I couldn't see. Everything was black," said 13-year-old Noor Hashem, who survived, although her five siblings did not. She was pulled out of the ruins by her uncle, whose wife and five children also died. >>> 34 children. 12 adult women. Not a single adult male officially listed among them. How strangely asexual these "civilian" families seem to be. The men were elsewhere as under-reported elsewhere: <<< In Qana this morning, the Katyusha squads took their rocket launchers and rockets from inside the buildings, fired off the rockets at Israel and then rushed back inside. >>> It seems increasingly probable that the Shalhoub and Hashem men were likely members of Hezbollah, involved in launching the very rockets at Israel that called in the counter-battery fire that killed their families that were hiding deeper in the building. It also seems possible that the deaths of the Shalhoub and Hashem women and children came not as a result of the initial Israeli air strike, but because of secondary explosions more than seven hours later, explosions that would seem to be consistent with ammunition and rockets "cooking off." Based upon the evidence emerging, it seems more plausible than not that Hezbollah men were responsible for the deaths of Hezbollah women and children, and over-exploited that fact for media consumption. Somehow, this more plausible scenario gets little play from Shrader and Gannon and the rest of the media. It must be the CNN effect (CNN admits that knowledge of murder, torture, and planned assassinations were suppressed in order to maintain CNN's Baghdad bureau.). confederateyankee.mu.nu ynetnews.com abcnews.go.com isracast.com eureferendum.blogspot.com honestreporting.com

To: Sully- who wrote (21855)	8/1/2006 3:58:45 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

TRAGEDY AND TERROR NEW YORK POST Editorial July 31, 2006 Yesterday's Israeli missile attack on the Lebanese village of Qana, which killed 54 civilians, including 37 children, was precisely the kind of human tragedy that Hezbollah and Syria have been instigating for weeks. Much of the international community, led by the utterly predictable U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, harshly condemned Israel - which responded, perhaps unwisely, by announcing a 48-hour stand-down on aerial strikes. But Qana did not happen in a vacuum. Over the past three weeks, at least 150 rockets have been fired into northern Israel from the Lebanese village. Qana was a focal point for the firing of Katyushas at the Israeli towns of Kiryat Shmona and Afula - which already has killed 18 people and wounded hundreds of others. The specific building that was hit yesterday was apparently sheltering Hezbollah guerrillas - they'd been seen ducking into it after firing their missiles - as well as Katyusha rockets and launchers. The fact that non-combatants - including children - were inside as well shouldn't surprise: Hezbollah routinely places innocent lives at risk by using civilians as human shields. The purpose for that is clear enough: To provoke precisely the kind of incident that occurred yesterday - along with the anti-Israel, anti-American hysteria that followed in train. And why not? Ten years ago, "international" pressure brought the last major Israeli operation against Hezbollah to an end after artillery shells killed 100 Lebanese civilians in the same town of Qana - which even then was a Hezbollah stronghold. Second verse, same as the first? Hezbollah, Iran and Syria hope so. But if any condemnation is called for, it should be aimed at Israel's tormentors - and at the United Nations itself; the world body has failed utterly to implement its own Resolution 1559, which demanded the disarming of Hezbollah and which in turn would have rendered the Israeli border action unnecessary. Let's be clear: Any self-respecting nation would do the same in similar circumstances: protect the lives of its citizens, even if it means endangering civilians in adjoining belligerent territory. Fortunately, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, despite fierce criticism, have stood fast. "Our hope for peace for boys and girls everywhere extends across the world," Bush said yesterday - adding that America "is resolved to work for a sustainable peace . . . that will enable [parents] to raise their children in a hopeful world." That is to say, any political solution that fails to disarm Hezbollah will be a recipe for further violence. As Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns observed yesterday, "this has not been a good two-and-a-half weeks for Hezbollah from a military point of view, and they've got to be worried about continued Israeli offensive operations." While it is not altogether clear that the offensive is achieving - or even if it can achieve - its military objectives, there is little doubt that bringing it to a premature conclusion is not going to result in a lasting peace. Not even close. The administration yesterday reiterated that point. "We want to avoid a situation where we essentially put a Band-Aid on something," said Burns. "We have to have a sustainable cease-fire. We have to make sure Hezbollah is not allowed to be in a position to strike again." Wise words. In the rhetorical firestorm that is building, Washington must not lose sight of the fact that an Israeli defeat now would be a stunning - perhaps turning-point - victory for global terrorism. And Israel needs to hunker down and complete successfully the distasteful, but absolutely necessary, campaign forced on it by Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. nypost.com

To: Sully- who wrote (21855)	8/1/2006 4:12:41 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Hezbollah and its allies in the media and elsewhere have successfully portrayed any and all civilian casualties in this conflict as entirely Israel's fault.... The civilian deaths there are a great tragedy -- one for which Israel has expressed its regret -- but they are a tragedy of Hezbollah's making, not Israel's. It would serve no strategic purpose for Israel to target civilians, but in the cruel and callous calculus of Hezbollah, these civilian deaths -- for which Hezbollah is responsible -- actually do serve Hezbollah's strategic purposes by encouraging the world to urge Israel to use more "restraint" while Hezbollah continues its missile attacks specifically targeted against Israeli civilians. The Meaning of Robert's Fifth Birthday by Newt Gingrich HUMAN EVENTS Posted Jul 31, 2006 This week I had one of those moments that puts everything in perspective and reminds you what's really important in life. I had the pleasure of attending my grandson Robert's fifth birthday party. We had a pool party with all of his friends, and I gave him a birthday card with a dinosaur on it, because Robert and I share the same passion for dinosaurs. We had fun, and of course, we had to assure Robert's sister, Maggie, that we would have an equal amount of fun when she turns seven in October. But as a grandfather, Robert's birthday party reminded me of how precious life is and how real some of the things we're watching on the television are. In addition to attending my grandson's party in Atlanta, last week I traveled to Chicago, Las Vegas, New York and California. And as I met with people around the country, it is clear that there is a hunger for clarity. People are watching television, and they are really bothered. They are bothered by what they are seeing in Iraq and in Southern Lebanon. Paying for Iranian Aggression -- at the Pump Here is something else that is bothering Americans I spoke to: high gas prices and the notion that our enemies are profiting from the higher prices we pay at the pump. Think about it. On July 11, the price of a barrel of crude oil was $74.16. That was the day before Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, which sparked the latest fighting in Lebanon. Three days later, after the fighting began, the price of a barrel of oil was $77.03. That's a $2.87 increase. Now, Iran exports 2.7 million barrels of oil a day. That means if the price of oil stays the same, that $2.87 increase will amount to almost $3 billion more a year for the Iranian dictatorship. That's $3 billion more to spend on rockets for Hezbollah, militias in Iraq and on their nuclear program. Which, by the way, nobody is paying attention to now because of the fighting in Lebanon that Iran almost certainly instigated. So the dictator of Iran is getting the best of both worlds: He gets to attack Israel by funding Hezbollah, and he gets to make all his money back -- and then some -- from our pocketbooks. Energy Independence: Time to Cut off the Dictators We can do better than this. It's a dangerous world, but I am absolutely convinced that even though we have challenges we also have enormous opportunities. I've been talking to scientists about the opportunities for expanding alternative energy supplies here at home so that we can produce more affordable energy in America rather then have to rely on Saudi Arabia and Venezuela for our energy needs. What I have been learning is extremely encouraging. I mentioned last week that I was sending my research director, Vince Haley, on a week-long trip to Iowa and Minnesota to visit with some of the leading pioneers in this new energy economy -- think of it as the emerging Silicon Valley for energy. Well, this week he is back with his report. Vince received briefings from both Robert Brown, director of Iowa State University's Bioeconomy Initiative and Richard Hemmingsen, director of the University of Minnesota's Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment, two of the leading academic centers at the forefront of research and development for the new energy economy. He also visited a soy diesel plant, a wind farm, a hydrogen engine manufacturer, a biomass energy conversion facility, and a manufacturer of biomass furnaces. Vince's bottom-line impression from his trip is that there is an enormous amount of entrepreneurial creativity taking place in the Midwest, and it holds forth the tantalizing potential of dramatically transforming our energy economy. While current bio-renewable programs will not replace our use of oil in the near future, they clearly offer the promise of reducing our dependence on foreign oil, improving our environmental quality, and transforming the rural economy into a much more prosperous zone of American economic activity. These are some of the themes I will be covering with Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack at a Renewable Fuels Dialogue on August 12 at the Iowa State Fair. I'm looking forward to this event, because I believe there is a remarkable amount of common ground between the political parties on energy issues and I believe that by having a frank, open dialogue on energy with Gov. Vilsack, a Democrat, we can demonstrate to all watching that by working together we can achieve a safer, cleaner, and more affordable energy future for all Americans. (Also, I hope all those in the area will join me for a breakfast meet-and-greet in Des Moines on Saturday, August 12, before the energy dialogue. For RSVP details, click here.) Is Hezbollah Winning the Information War? We also have another opportunity -- one we are currently squandering -- to go on the offensive against our enemies in the irreconcilable wing of Islam in the war for public opinion. In the conflict between Israel and the terrorist group Hezbollah, we are witnessing an effective information offensive by Hezbollah and its allies that has us losing the war for the hearts and minds of the world. Hezbollah refuses to follow the international rules of war. It consistently targets civilians in Israel and promotes civilian deaths in Lebanon by hiding amongst the Lebanese population. By design, Hezbollah is indistinguishable from the Lebanese civilian population because they dress like civilians -- and not like soldiers, as required by international law. And yet Hezbollah and its allies in the media and elsewhere have successfully portrayed any and all civilian casualties in this conflict as entirely Israel's fault. Yesterday's accidental killing of innocent civilians in the Lebanese town of Qana is a case in point. Israel had information indicating that Hezbollah was using this area as a base of operations to fire rockets into Israel. And the Israel Defense Forces repeatedly leafleted this area urging civilians to leave. The civilian deaths there are a great tragedy -- one for which Israel has expressed its regret -- but they are a tragedy of Hezbollah's making, not Israel's. It would serve no strategic purpose for Israel to target civilians, but in the cruel and callous calculus of Hezbollah, these civilian deaths -- for which Hezbollah is responsible -- actually do serve Hezbollah's strategic purposes by encouraging the world to urge Israel to use more "restraint" while Hezbollah continues its missile attacks specifically targeted against Israeli civilians. So my question is this: Where is the American strategic information campaign that educates our country and the world about Hezbollah's illegal tactics? Why haven't we and the Europeans proposed a resolution in the United Nations calling on Hezbollah to move out of civilian populated areas and demanding that they wear military uniforms to identify themselves as combatants and distinguish themselves from innocent civilians? We should use every opportunity to highlight Hezbollah's appalling encouragement of Lebanese civilian deaths in order to win the war for world opinion. Our mantra should be "disarm Hezbollah, evict the Syrians and Iranians, and return Lebanon to the Lebanese government's control." Send Me Your Questions A lot of folks have talked to me about comments that I've made about our being in the early stages of a Third World War. On my website -- Newt.org -- we're going to post a series of questions and answers regarding this conflict. If you have questions about it, I hope you'll send them to me at asknewt@newt.org because this is a very important conversation. Only if we look at the entire reality -- from North Korea to Iran and Iraq to what's happening here at home -- will we understand how big and how complicated these challenges are. Which brings me back to the moment I had at my grandson Robert's birthday party. It was a very strange and bittersweet moment. On one hand, I was enjoying watching the children splashing in the pool on a sunny day -- Atlanta at its best. And on the other, I was thinking about children in other places -- places we're watching on television -- who are living under the constant threat of violence and death. To me, it is the security of these common people that the conflict we are witnessing in the world today is all about. It's about real people who want to live lives of happiness in peace. Real people who want to get married and have children and who want to live out their retirement years in safety and prosperity. It's about a world in which, sadly, some people are prepared to kill the innocent and commit the most horrendous of deeds in order to impose their dark vision on the rest of us. So I'll leave you this week with this request: Think about your children and grandchildren and all of your loved ones. Think about your neighborhood and ask yourself: Aren't our children and grandchildren worth protecting? Aren't our neighborhoods worth protecting? And isn't it important that we do all that we can to defend our way of life, not only for ourselves, but for all those whom we love? I'm confident I know what your answer will be. Your friend, Newt Gingrich P.S. - If you haven't yet had the chance, go to my website and read a remarkable essay by Israeli Rabbi Daniel Gordis about the war between his country and the Hezbollah-Hamas-Iran-Syria terrorist alliance. Here is just a taste: "This is a different kind of war, and an old kind of war. In the last war, when they blew up buses and restaurants and sidewalks and cafes, Israelis were enraged, apoplectic with anger. This time, it's different. Rage has given way to sadness. Disbelief has given way to recognition. Because we've been here before. Because we'd once believed we wouldn't be back here again. And because we know why this war is happening." You can read the entire essay here. newt.org humanevents.com

To: Sully- who wrote (21855)	8/1/2006 6:17:16 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

How nice to be Hezbollah By Bill Murchison Townhall.com Monday, July 31, 2006 Here's why it's nice to be Hezbollah: 1. Any fighting you start, Israel gets blamed for the killings. Thirty-four children and 12 women killed in Qana (or as the Bible spells it, Cana) through an Israeli mistake -- and that's all the watching world sees. Not the unguided Katyusha rockets falling on Israel, with demonstrably lower prospects for killing and maiming -- though a score of Israelis indeed have been killed and hundreds wounded. Not the border raid that provoked Israeli retaliation. No, it's pictures that count, and the pictures this week are of torn and dazed Lebanese caught in the crossfire. Strange -- or telling -- to think you never see pictures of dead terrorists, their like having inserted themselves neatly into the Lebanese population, whence they rain death on Israel. That's one reason it's nice to be Hezbollah. 2. There's the Western media, via technology of Western origin, to tell your story. Whereas no one expects al-Jazeera to deal "objectively" with the story, the Western media take pride in their allegedly even-handed coverage of the war. On The New York Times' front page for Monday, July 31, is a four-column color photo of Lebanese rescuers moving a body out of a Qana apartment, with the cutline noting that "Dozens of people were killed." That's above the three-column head, "Night of Death and Terror for Lebanese Villagers," with a one-column subhead reading, "A Decade Later, It Is Again a Day When the Children Died." You can't buy publicity like that. Which is another reason it's nice to be Hezbollah. 3. No one puts the screws to you to stop fighting. That contrasts with the international pressure on Israel to stop bombing and "killing refugees." Israel is a real place, with a real government, one both humane and democratic. Democracies listen to the people. Homicidal maniacs, the chief component of the Hezbollah organization, listen only to each other. You don't think it's nice to be Hezbollah? Guess again. 4. Your suppliers and abettors -- Syria and Iran -- both being undemocratic and conspicuously anti-humane, pay no attention to anyone who clamors for an end to the shipments of rockets and other armaments. Not much use trying, hmmm? But the United States -- that's different. Democratic and humane, like Israel, the United States subjects itself -- a condition of responsible nationhood -- to the cries of the world and of its people. There's always the hope that the "peace" crowd in the West, which doesn't like Israel a lot to begin with and despises George W. Bush, can be harnessed on behalf of efforts to make Israelis back down -- to make them buy into some sham agreement structured to keep refugees alive, especially the women and children among them. Yes, it's delightful being Hezbollah. 5. If you win, you win. If you lose, you still may win, provided you structure (sheer adamance always helps) the peace agreement as a standoff or "truce." During a truce, the Syrians will resupply you. You can attack again when ready. And all the foregoing advantages obtain again, if not more intensely than ever, your adversaries having shown how fast they will flinch when squeezed. Neat, eh? Neat to be Hezbollah. Unless... ... Unless your enemy manages somehow to shrug off the admonitions of the watching world, stays after you, chases you down and, despite the formidable odds, kicks the stuffing out of murderers and gangsters, kidnappers, killers of women, killers of children. The trick is never to discount moral courage -- a virtue less touted in the modern West than in former times and places when good and evil were accounted radically different, and opposed, commodities. Take the Jews of the second century A.D., to whom their captain, Judas Maccabeus, reportedly said (1 Mac. 3:58): "Arm yourselves, and be valiant men, so that ye be in readiness against the morning, that ye may fight with these nations, that are assembled together against us, to destroy us and our sanctuary." It was an invitation his listeners took up gladly -- United Nations or no United Nations. townhall.com

To: Sully- who wrote (21855)	8/1/2006 7:52:41 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

IDF says it may not be responsible for Qana deaths By Amos Harel Haaretz The Israel Defense Forces indicated yesterday that it might not have been responsible for the deaths of at least 54 Lebanese, including 37 children , when a building bombed in an Israeli air strike in the village of Qana collapsed yesterday - but was unable to offer an alternative explanation. There is an unexplained gap of about seven hours between the one Israeli air strike that hit the Qana building housing the civilians, which took place around 1 A.M. Sunday, and the first report that the building had collapsed, said the chief of staff of the Israel Air Force, Brigadier General Amir Eshel. Speaking at a press conference at the Kirya military complex in Tel Aviv last night, Eshel said that of three Israeli air strikes on Qana early Sunday, only the first strike hit the building in which the civilians were staying. The other two hit areas at least 400 meters away. "I can't say whether the house collapsed at 12 A.M. or at 8 A.M.," said Eshel. "According to foreign press reports, and this is one of the reports we are relying on, the house collapsed at 8 A.M. We do not have testimony regarding the time of the collapse. If the house collapsed at 12 A.M., it is difficult for me to believe that they waited eight hours to evacuate it." Eshel and Major General Gadi Eisencott, who heads the Operations Directorate in the General Staff, said Hezbollah had set up headquarters in Qana and that militants fired about 150 Katyusha rockets at parts of northern Israel, including Haifa and the Galilee panhandle, from Qana. Some of the rockets, the army said, were fired from the built-up areas of the village. In the second IAF strike on Qana, which took place at around 2:30 A.M. Sunday, IAF planes bombed two targets located about 500 meters from the building that collapsed, and in the third strike, at around 7:30 A.M., three targets were bombed 460 meters away from the building, Eshel said. He told reporters that an analysis of photographs of the strikes, taken by cameras installed in the warplanes, showed that the four bombs dropped during the second and third strikes hit the intended targets, and that an IAF plane sent on a photo sortie in the afternoon confirmed that the intended targets had been hit. The IDF has not released the aerial photographs, which Eshel said were being processed. Addressing the possibility that the building may have collapsed because the IAF bombing triggered a delayed explosion of weapons stored inside, Eshel said: "I don't want to get into conspiracy theories. We will work diligently and collect every detail, so as to understand what happened there. I hope that we will know in the end, but I'm not sure. It's possible that we will never know what exactly happened there." The IDF screened a video yesterday showing rocket launches from Qana, and said it chose the objectives in the village by analyzing the locations from which Hezbollah had fired rockets on Israel. However, the house that was hit had no direct connection to the rocket-launching cells. Nonetheless, IAF officials said that immediately after firing rockets at Israel, some Hezbollah cells hide in civilian houses in built-up areas in southern Lebanon. IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz and other senior officers expressed regret yesterday over the deaths of the civilians. They said the IDF was not aware that the civilians were in the village and had expected them to leave Qana the week before, following Israeli warnings of an impending attack. Eisencott blamed Hezbollah for the deaths, saying the group uses the civilian population as a human shield. haaretz.com

To: Sully- who wrote (21855)	8/1/2006 7:59:35 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Was Qana Staged? Cont'd Jonah Goldberg The Corner A giant banner denouncing Rice and the "Qana massacre" might have been made a bit too quickly (see at links below). I don't want to get too far out ahead on this, but I know we've got a zillion printer-type folks among our readers. Do you guys think such a banner could be made in 2-4 hours (particularly in a supposedly war-ravaged area)? Update: From a reader: <<< "Do you guys think such a banner could be made in 2-4 hours (particularly in a supposedly war-ravaged area)?" Heck no. A designer could throw it together in probably 15 minutes or so, but the longest part would be the printing. Notice how deep the reds and blacks are - this means they didn't just bust it out. I wouldnt be surprised if that job itself (requiring special equipment, as it looks to be printed on canvas or nylon, not merely paper) took 6 hours simply to print. Also, that puppy would be expensive. >>> Update II: From a reader: <<< Nope. Not possible in 2 hours to design, typeset, print, assemble and transport to the site. 24 hours if you're really good to do all the above. I say that as an career commercial artist of 18 years now. >>> Update III: From another reader: <<< called a close friend who has a very large printing company in NY with the question. he called out to one of his technicians as to how long a color 30 foot banner would take to produce. the response was that it would have to be done by a special machine and that machine would take "5 to 6 hours." by the way, their rather enormous, state of the art (less than 6 months old) facility doesn't even have the equipment necessary to do it. so make a guess as to what's available in a war-ravaged area... >>> corner.nationalreview.com news.yahoo.com israelmatzav.blogspot.com

To: Sully- who wrote (21855)	8/1/2006 8:09:16 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Hezbollywood Mona Charen The Corner Thanks to Jonah for flagging this. There is much more here and here and here. cuppapolitics.blogspot.com web.israelinsider.com eureferendum.blogspot.com Many suspicious details about Qana point to possible Hezbollah staging of entire thing. Banner is suspicious, ditto the time lag between building being hit and collapsing, pictures of dead children were clearly exploited and also do not look — there's no pleasant way to say this — newly dead. If this were staged by Hezbollah it would not be the first time the Palestinians have faked footage. Just a few weeks ago they circulated a clearly doctored tape throughout the Arab world that purported to show Israeli gunboats firing at a beach in Gaza. The Qana backstory is something all serious journalists should be on. corner.nationalreview.com

To: Sully- who wrote (21855)	8/1/2006 8:24:34 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

The myth of the myth of Hezbollah hiding behind civilians Ed Lasky The American Thinker David Bernstein, writing at the Volokh Conspiracy, finds Salon Magazine publishing a self-refuting article purporting to demonstrate that Hezbollah doesn’t really hide behind innocent human shields. <<< First two paragraphs of the article: “The bombs came just as night fell, around 7 p.m. The locals knew that the 10-story apartment building had been the office, and possibly the residence, of Sheik Tawouk, the Hezbollah commander for the south, so they had moved their families out at the start of the war. The landlord had refused to rent to Hezbollah when they requested the top floors of the building. No matter, the locals said, the Hezb guys just moved in anyway in the name of the ‘resistance.’ Everyone knew that the building would be hit eventually. Its location in downtown Tyre, which had yet to be hit by Israeli airstrikes, was not going to protect it forever. And ‘everyone’ apparently included Sheik Tawouk, because he wasn’t anywhere near it when it was finally hit.” Is it just me, or [do] the first two paragraph[s] of this articles directly contradict its thesis? Thesis: Hezbollah does not hide behind civilians. First paragraphs: A Hezbollah commander and other “Hezb guys” force themselves into the top floors of a ten-story apartment buiding, knowing that its likely to be targeted by Israel. >>> By the way, the editor of Salon is Gary Kamiya. He promotes the myth that the dual loyalties of American Jews led us into Iraq. He was also chosen by the New York Times yesterday to be one of ther book reviewers. He used George Packer’s book about Iraq to help bolster his views that the dastardly Jews are resposnible for the mess that is Iraq. americanthinker.com volokh.com salon.com

To: Sully- who wrote (21855)	8/1/2006 8:28:41 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Burden of civilian deaths sits with Hezbollah, not Israel Chicago Sun-Times July 31, 2006 The Muslim gunman who stormed a Jewish charity in Seattle on Friday grabbed a 13-year-old girl to force his way into the building where he killed one woman and wounded five others. He may have learned that despicable tactic from Islamist terrorists. Hezbollah acts in precisely this way, commandeering Lebanese women, children and elderly as shields while it launches rockets aiming to kill Israeli women, children and elderly. The world's condemnation of the airstrike on Qana that killed at least 56 Lebanese should be directed on the Hezbollah terrorists, not the defenders of Israel. Qana is a horrible tragedy, the loss of innocent lives heart-rending. But the Israelis do not target civilians. It's Hezbollah gunmen who put women and children into harm's way. Video released by the Israelis on Sunday showed rockets being launched from near a building very much like the one where the casualties occurred. The New York Times reported last week that Lebanese Christian refugees complained Hezbollah used their villages to fire rockets. They said the terrorists killed a man who wanted to flee his town. No doubt Lebanese are trapped in the war zone by an inability to get out, but no doubt Hezbollah forces civilians to remain as hostages. It's worth recalling here that the only regret expressed by Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah over any deaths came when one of his rockets struck an Arab-Israeli village, killing two people. His expression of remorse over the deaths of Arabs was not sincere since he considers everyone expendable in the terror war on Israel, but it did demonstrate the racist nature of his cause. But all this is ignored in the condemnation of Israel. In criticizing Israel, Britain's foreign secretary apparently forgot about London police killing an innocent Brazilian man in the very nervous days right after the terrorist bombings last year. The men and women charged with the awesome responsibility of protecting us from mass murder sometimes make mistakes. What you didn't hear in any of the complaints from European capitals were offers to dispatch troops as part of a muscular international force to police southern Lebanon and disarm Hezbollah. We have this war -- and the Qana tragedy -- because Lebanon and the world ignored U.N. resolution 1559 ordering the disarmament of Hezbollah. Lebanon's special envoy to the U.N. declared Sunday that disarming Hezbollah was "not in our political agenda." So who's left to do it but the Israelis? The Qana tragedy is increasing international pressure on Israel to stop its military response to Hezbollah's aggression. Forcing the Israelis to end their campaign before achieving its objectives would mark a major setback in the war on terror. It would leave Hezbollah there to ignite war again at a later date. Even worse, consider this: Ending the Israel defensive effort because of Qana would reward Hezbollah for using civilians as shields. It would be saying that war crimes succeed. And that would only encourage more war crimes by terrorists for whom the Geneva Conventions are meaningless words. suntimes.com

To: Sully- who wrote (21855)	8/1/2006 10:07:56 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Is Qana another Jenin? Roger L. Simon I'm not prepared to say so yet, but if it is, the mainstream media will have disgraced itself beyond words. At the best, they were so initially unquestioning about this event as to have shown themselves to be both incompetent as journalists and contemptibly biased as human beings. Meanwhile, this article from Ynet News is worthing noting. It details a report from a Lebanese Website called LIBANOSCOPIE. <<< The Lebanese website LIBANOSCOPIE , associated with Christian elements in the country and which openly supports the anti-Syrian movement called the "March 14 Forces," reported that Hizbullah has masterminded a plan that would result in the killing of innocents in the Qana village, in a bid to foil Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's "Seven Points Plan", which calls for deployment of the Lebanese army in southern Lebanon and the disarming of Hizbullah. "We have it from a credible source that Hizbullah, alarmed by Siniora's plan, has concocted an incident that would help thwart the negotiations. Knowing full well that Israel will not hesitate to bombard civilian targets, Hizbullah gunmen placed a rocket launcher on the roof in Qana and brought disabled children inside, in a bid to provoke a response by the Israeli Air Force. In this way, they were planning to take advantage of the death of innocents and curtail the negotiation initiative," the site stated. >>> rogerlsimon.com ynetnews.com libanoscopie.com

To: Sully- who wrote (21855)	8/2/2006 1:22:58 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

IT'S ANOTHER HEZBOLLAH ATROCITY John Podhoretz NEW YORK POST Opinion August 1, 2006 FORGIVE me if I find the general elite discussion of the horrible incident in Qana - in which an Israeli air strike apparently killed 57 civilians, the majority of them children - at the very least bizarrely ignorant and at the very worst simply despicable. Given the amount of coverage these past months of the Geneva Convention and its applicability to the War on Terror and the war in Iraq, you'd have expected the U.S. and European elites who profess their great love for the convention to rush to Israel's defense: The Geneva Convention makes clear that the moral responsibility for the deaths at Qana belongs entirely to Hezbollah, and that Hezbollah has violated the most basic laws of war in its behavior. Here's the relevant language. It comes from Article 37 of Protocol 1, ratified in 1979: "It is prohibited to kill, injure or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy." It lists three types of perfidy; the third is "the feigning of civilian, non-combatant status." And, by hiding in and launching missiles from Qana, Hezbollah was feigning civilian status and therefore resorting to perfidy. This isn't just some kind of nicety. It's central to the entire notion of the rules of war. The convention came into existence as a way to protect those who are not fighters in the midst of war - civilians unlucky enough to live near a battlefield, and relief medical personnel working with the Red Cross and other groups. Even Article 44, a deeply controversial provision that seems to grant protected status of a kind to guerrilla fighters, is unambiguous on this: "In order to promote the protection of the civilian population from the effects of hostilities, combatants are obliged to distinguish themselves from the civilian population while they are engaged in an attack or in a military operation preparatory to an attack. Recognizing, however, that there are situations in armed conflicts where, owing to the nature of the hostilities an armed combatant cannot so distinguish himself, he shall retain his status as a combatant, provided that, in such situations, he carries his arms openly." In other words, though Article 44 specifically allows a combatant not to wear a uniform, he cannot in any way conceal his weaponry. This is why Hezbollah bears the specific responsibility for the Qana attack. A substantial number of rocket attacks against Israel (10 percent or more) were fired from trucks hidden inside the populated village. Spy footage released by Israel over the weekend tells the tale: It shows unmarked trucks with rockets hidden on them being driven in and out and around the streets of Qana in a deliberate effort to prevent any Israeli strikes. Like a particularly malignant kind of parasite, Hezbollah weaved itself thoroughly into the limited infrastructure of Qana so that every person there would serve as a deterrent to an Israeli attack. It had good reason to know Israel might hesitate before ordering a bombing raid. Ten years ago, under a similar set of circumstances, Israel hit Qana and killed 100 civilians - an act that led to the suspension of a potent military campaign against Hezbollah. Israel did hesitate. It waited 17 days into the conflict before risking the assault. But since Israel's war goal is the complete degradation if not total destruction of Hezbollah's military capability, it could have hesitated no longer. Questions are even being raised about whether the Israeli attack actually caused the deaths in question, since the building collapse that caused most of them came seven hours after the bombs fell. Only a naive person would assume that Hezbollah wouldn't be willing to stage an atrocity for political effect. But it doesn't matter, really. The blood of those dead is on Hezbollah's hands and the moral responsibility for the deaths lies with Hezbollah entirely. True, some Geneva Convention language could be used to declare Israel's entire operation illegal. Article 57 reads: "In the conduct of military operations, constant care shall be taken to spare the civilian population, civilians and civilian objects." It further states that "an attack shall be cancelled or suspended if . . . the attack may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated." Was the "incidental loss of civilian life" at Qana "excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated"? I don't see how any fair reading of the situation would find this to be the case. Qana was, for all intents and purposes, a missile base for Hezbollah, with something like 10 projectiles being fired a day at Israeli civilians from inside its precincts. If a missile battery is not a legitimate military target, there is no such thing as a legitimate military target. jpodhoretz@gmail.com nypost.com

To: Sully- who wrote (21855)	8/2/2006 1:57:16 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

What happened in Qana? "Vent" with Michelle Malkin daily video newscast hotair.com

To: Sully- who wrote (21855)	8/2/2006 2:22:31 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

The curious Qana body count Thomas Lifson The American Thinker Something is very, very wrong with the reporting on Qana, for the moment, the worldwide symbol of Hezbollah’s media offensive. It is already reasonably clear that major media photographers were willingly made into tools of propaganda, accomplices in the hideous desecration of corpses of children. The timing of the building collapse hours after the actual air attack raises very awkward questions. Why were women and children kept inside the building for so long? Were they murdered? Now, the previously-announced toll of 57 appears to be as phony as the picture of the dust-covered baby with a sparking clean pacifier. Haaretz reports: <<< ... the number of fatalities in the incident appeared to be much lower than originally published. The Red Cross announced yesterday that 28 bodies, including those of 19 children, had been found at the site. Additional bodies are expected to be found over the coming days. >>> The timing is once again in question: <<< None of the survivors said that the building only collapsed several hours later. [....] Ibrahim Shalhoub described how he and his cousin had left to find help following the strike on the building. “It was dark and there was lots of smoke,” he said. “No one could do anything until morning. I could not stop crying; I couldn’t help them.” The fact that the Red Cross in Tyre was informed of the incident only in the morning is another reason why assistance was late in arriving. The director of the Red Cross office in the city, Sami Yazbek, said that he received word of the incident only at 7 A.M. >>> Do NOT expect the world’s media to be the least bit curious about all the inconsistencies. They’ve got their story, and they’re sticking to it. Update: Confederate Yankee raises some further interesting questions about the pictures and the entire incident. <<< As asked here on Confederate Yankee, why were the bodies Hezbollah said were recovered from the scene seemingly inconsistent with the dead and injured of other collapsed buildings? The same forces of nature occur in every building collapse, regardless of whether the collapse is intentional (implosion or explosion) or unintentional (faulty construction, etc). Buildings of concrete such as the one in Qana generally produce a substantial amount of fine concrete dust that blankets nearby surfaces to such an extent that it almost appears to be volcanic ash, especially when explosives are involved in their demolition. [....] And yet, when we look at the bodies of those reputedly recovered from the building in Qana, only a handful of those are covered in the heavy layer of concrete dust. If all of these bodies were recovered from the same basement or shelter as Hezbollah claims, then why are the bodies so unevenly coated? Why do some appear all but free of dust at all? >>> Update: Israel Insider has more. <<< There are other mysteries. The roof of the building was intact. Journalist Ben Wedeman of CNN noted that there was a larger crater next to the building, but observed that the building appeared not to have collapsed as a result of the Israeli strike. National Public Radio’s correspondent reported that residents of that building had left and the victims were non-residents who chose to shelter in the building that night. They were “too poor” to leave the down, one resident told CNN’s Wedeman. Who were these people? But Israelis steeled to scenes of carnage from Palestinian suicide bombings and Hezbollah rocket attack could not help but notice that these victims did not look like our victims. Their faces were ashen gray. While medical examination clearly is called for to arrive at a definitive dating and cause of their deaths, they do not appear to have died hours before. The bodies looked like they had been dead for days. Viewers can judge for themselves. But the accumulating evidence suggests another explanation for what happened at Kana. The scenario would be a setup in which the time between the initial Israeli bombing near the building and morning reports of its collapse would have been used to “plant” bodies killed in previous fighting—reports in previous days indicated that nearby Tyre was used as a temporary morgue—place them in the basement, and then engineer a “controlled demolition” to fake another Israeli attack. The well-documented use by Palestinians of this kind of faked footage—from the alleged shooting of Mohammed Dura in Gaza, scenes from Jenin of “dead” victims falling off gurneys and then climbing back on—have merited the creation of a new film genre called “Palliwood.” >>> americanthinker.com bookwormroom.wordpress.com americanthinker.com news.yahoo.com confederateyankee.mu.nu confederateyankee.mu.nu

To: Sully- who wrote (21855)	8/2/2006 3:00:10 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

FWIW, I just heard a report on FoxNews that the Red Cross says the body count is now 30, with 18 children & 12 adults accounted for. But that won't matter. The initial reports said 58 - 60 dead mostly children & women. There will be no major headlines reducing the total or blaming the terrorists for this. Hezbollah's twilight zone By Kathleen Parker Townhall.com Wednesday, August 2, 2006 WASHINGTON -- Watching the anguish in Lebanon following an Israeli airstrike that killed at least 37 children in Qana Sunday put me in mind of Susan Smith, the South Carolina mother who drowned her children several years ago. The Smith parallel requires a small stretch of free association, so bear with me. You'll recall that Smith killed her children, then tried to blame a fictional villain. After allowing her car to slip into a lake -- with the boys strapped to their car seats inside -- Smith claimed the children had been kidnapped. Her infertile imagination provided a racist cliche: a black man did it. Fast forward a few years and I bumped into a woman who had just visited Smith in prison, where she is serving a life sentence for the double murder. When I asked how Smith was doing, the woman replied: ``Like any grieving mother, she's mourning the loss of her children.'' Then Rod Serling stepped into the frame and cued the ``Twilight Zone'' soundtrack. Let's see: You kill your children, and then you get sympathy for your loss? That dissonant comment has haunted me ever since, and it came to me a few days ago as I watched reports of the Qana airstrike. As the Qana myth unfolds, the children's deaths are blamed on the Middle East's perpetual villain -- Israel -- while Hezbollah's minions gnash and wail for the cameras. We are expected to join in vilifying Israel while Hezbollah enjoys a bounce in popularity. Obviously, the anguish of the Lebanese people is heartfelt and no one celebrates the loss of innocent life. Wait, correction. No one except Hezbollah, which pioneered that nihilistic addition to modern warfare, the suicide bomber. The suicide bomber's purpose, of course, is to kill as many civilians as possible. Hezbollah excels at that sort of thing. The ``Party of God'' is also a proud innovator in the use of human shields, especially women and children. Indeed, Hezbollah relies on the civilized world's outrage as part of its strategy. By bringing the war to suburbia in violation of the Geneva Conventions and launching rockets from villages such as Qana, Hezbollah virtually ensures that civilians will die. Pending an investigation, many facts are unknown, including whether the building in which the children died came down as a result of Israeli fire. The Associated Press and others now report that the Israeli strike on Qana came between midnight and 1 a.m., but the building didn't collapse until 7 or 8 a.m., possibly as a result of munitions inside the building. Whatever the case, Israeli Defense Forces had dropped leaflets into Qana a week beforehand, warning residents to evacuate. Although international humanitarian law forbids the deliberate targeting of civilian areas, exceptions are tolerated under certain circumstances. As Human Rights Watch explains on its Web site (humanrightswatch.org), a civilian area can be targeted if it ``makes an 'effective' contribution to the enemy's military activities and its destruction, capture or neutralization offers a 'definite military advantage' to the attacking side in the circumstances ruling at the time.'' The humanitarian guidelines also call for ``proportionality'' in ``dual use'' areas and for precautions to protect civilians. Parsing the language of ``dual use'' when bombs are killing sleeping children seems absurd when measured against such senseless loss. But it is also necessary if we are to maintain perspective against a cowardly enemy that hides among women and children, then relies on emotion to gain traction on the battlefield of public opinion. Why some residents of Qana didn't leave given fair warning is a point of speculation, but Hezbollah reportedly has blocked residents from evacuating other areas. Proportionality is a trickier question, but let's be clear on the issue of moral equivalence. There is none. Hezbollah aims to kill civilians; Israel aims not to. But by firing rockets from civilian areas, Hezbollah forces Israel to return fire, thus inciting the condemnation of civilized nations and fueling the reliable outrage of the Arab street. The fog of war may prevent absolute clarity, but this much seems certain: Those dead women and children are casualties of Hezbollah, not Israel. As in the case of Susan Smith, we mourn the deaths of the children, but have no sympathy for the responsible party. Only in the Twilight Zone is Hezbollah a victim. townhall.com

To: Sully- who wrote (21855)	8/2/2006 3:19:00 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

The theater of Jihad By Michelle Malkin Townhall.com Wednesday, August 2, 2006 Welcome to the marquee performance of "Qana: The Fraud and the Furious," brought to you by the Acting Guild of the Religion of Perpetual Outrage. The drama unfolded over the weekend with mob scenes across the Muslim world, ostensibly -- ostensibly -- in response to civilian deaths in Qana, Lebanon. Angry Muslims from Beirut to Gaza to Lahore set fire to American and Israeli flags. They burned effigies of Western leaders. They raised their voices in chants of "Death to America" and "Death to Israel." The nervous nellies sitting in the world's balcony seats exclaimed that the tragedy in Qana will make the Muslims hate us more. But if the uproar over the accident in Qana -- an Israeli exception to the Hezbollah rule -- sounds like a tired old re-run to you, well, it is. This ongoing production utilizes the same talented field of Jew-haters and West-haters and flag-burners and machete-wielders who brought you worldwide months of manufactured rage over the Mohammed cartoons, crazed riots in Nigeria over the Miss World pageant, sharia-approved murders in Somalia of World Cup soccer fans, the fictional Jenin "massacre," the fable of Mohammed al-Dura, and ululating protests over the corrupting influences of "The Satanic Verses," Theo van Gogh, Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald's, the sacrilegious Burger King ice-cream swirl, Valentine's Day and Piglet from "Winnie the Pooh." The truth about Muslim outrage over Qana is that it's not really about the tragic deaths at Qana -- just like the Mohammed cartoon jihad was not really about the cartoons. It's a pretext for much grander goals to defeat the infidels -- be they Israeli, Danish, Dutch or American. Remember: Muslim riots over the Mohammed cartoons printed by the Danish Jyllands-Posten newspaper last fall were manufactured amid attempts to bully Denmark over the International Atomic Energy Agency's decision to report Iran to the UN Security Council for continuing with its nuclear research program. Iran blamed Israel for the cartoons in a speech marking the 27th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. Now, the Qana jihad, gleefully stoked by Iran, is unfolding amid mounting UN Security Council pressure on Tehran to suspend its nuclear program. What better way to distract from Hezbollah's atrocities and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's annihilate-the-Jews plans than to start screaming about Israel's "war crimes" and Western crimes against humanity? As we watch Hezbollah's horrible parade of dead children in Qana replay endlessly on television, here is a suggestion for all the intrepid American journalists gallivanting with Hezbollah's handlers in the region: Perhaps you could put down the figurative hookah pipes, take off your sympathy hajibs and find out the identity of the green-helmeted guy holding up baby corpses in Qana as props for your sensational, page-one pictures. Is he just an ordinary bystander? A rescuer who just happened to be in the same place 10 years ago, traipsing around with dead children's bodies to exploit an accidental Israeli bombing prompted by terrorists hiding behind civilians? A civilian volunteer or a propaganda producer? To his credit, MSNBC reporter Richard Engel picked up on a question the blogosphere has been asking since the toddler corpse-paraders in Qana took center stage: Where were all the men? His reporting underscores Hezbollah's evil m.o. -- embedding themselves in civilian populations to force exactly the kind of tragic error from Israel that appears to have occurred at Qana. "[W]e went house to house in trying to figure out where all the young men were. It seems that some of them were fighters, some of them were Hezbollah members that were out -- this according to Hezbollah people who didn't want to be interviewed but we convinced them to talk to us." To the photographer-stenographers who were herded to the scene eight hours after the strike, why is it that the bodies of the children were already in a state of rigor mortis? How to explain the sparkling clean pacifier clipped onto a dust-covered toddler carried around by the friendly corpse-parader? And why were the women and children kept in the building for so long? Questions abound. Answers are as scarce as men in that Qana building. "All the world's a stage," Shakespeare wrote. The journalists of our age have chosen their costumes: court jesters in the Theater of Jihad. townhall.com

To: Sully- who wrote (21855)	8/3/2006 10:47:22 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

"In No Rush To Dispel the Cloud" Over Qana Press Patterns 08/03 The Red Cross now says that only 28 bodies were found at the site of the Qana airstrike: <<< Lebanese officials say more bodies remain trapped under the rubble but Bouvier could not confirm the reliability of the reports. And as such, nearly a week after the event, many questions remain unanswered. Where did the report that "some 60 people" were killed come from and what was it based on? What are the bases for estimations that more bodies remain under the rubble and how do they know how many bodies are there? Why wasn't the 48-hour ceasefire used to bring in heavy equipment from Beirut to dig in the rubble? These questions can only be answered by the Lebanese but they are in no rush to dispel the cloud over what they labeled "The second Qana massacre." >>> Nor do the Western media seem to be making any effort to correct the record. media.nationalreview.com ynetnews.com

To: Sully- who wrote (21855)	8/3/2006 10:56:20 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Lose-Lose Facts of Israeli existence. By Jonah Goldberg National Review Online If you took Western news outlets at face value, you’d think that every Arab hamlet, no matter how humble, must have at least one thriving American and Israeli flag merchant. For whenever the Big or Little Satan sneezes, it seems all anyone has to do is run down to Achmed’s Flag Emporium to set one on fire for the cameras. The point here, alas, is that Westerners are suckers. Or, put another way, terrorists aren’t stupid. They understand that images are more important than armies. Heck, that’s why they’re terrorists in the first place. Nowhere is this more evident than in the global war against Israel. Its enemies understand that they cannot defeat Israel militarily. Instead, they must fight a war on Israel’s resolve. This requires fighting on several fronts. One of them is terrorism. We know how that works: Blow up children. Tear apart buses. Shred wedding parties. Etc. Another tactic in this “asymmetric” war is to make the Israelis the bad guys for resisting terrorism. Jews have a well-cultivated sense of guilt (take my word for it). And, for obvious reasons, no insult could hurt more than depicting Jews as Nazis. Hence, the nigh-upon global campaign to depict Israelis as the heirs to Hitler. Of course, ad hitlerum argumentation is just the tip of the propaganda spear. “Aggression,” “apartheid,” “racist”: No insult is barred from the anti-Israel script. Terrorize your enemy and make them feel like villains in the process — that’s a powerful strategy. This strategy depends on the willing support of what Lenin called “useful idiots.” These are the accommodating Westerners — many of them intellectuals — all too willing to take the word of totalitarians and even more eager to believe that the champions of democracy are in the wrong. Some social scientists call these people “French,” but that is too limiting. For there are plenty of them in America, too. All they require is a steady stream of useful “facts.” For example, in 2002, a Palestinian camera crew was videotaping a staged funeral at which the “corpse” accidentally spilled out of the stretcher and was miraculously reborn. Sometimes the facts don’t require such sorcery; they just need to be gussied up a bit. In June, a Palestinian family was tragically killed while visiting a beach in Gaza. At first it seemed plausible that Israel was responsible. Which is why Hamas immediately swept the beach for evidence and collected all the shrapnel from the bodies to prevent that impression from changing. The Israelis initially apologized for the deaths — that’s what Israelis do when they kill civilians — and only later revised their apology when an investigation revealed that the deaths were probably caused by ordnance buried under the beach. That didn’t stop the usual chorus from calling the deaths a deliberate “massacre.” Indeed, every unintentional civilian death caused by Israel is a “massacre” while every intentional slaughter of Israeli civilians is “self-defense.” But here’s the thing. Even if Israel did accidentally bomb the beach — as the Hamas government still claims — those deaths would still be tragic, but they wouldn’t be Israel’s fault. Hamas was allowing rockets to be fired at Israel a few football fields’ distance from a recreational beach, hiding behind day-tripping picnickers. What, exactly, was Israel supposed to do? Less than a week ago, Israeli jets bombed a building in the Lebanese village of Qana — a building Israelis believed to be evacuated — and it later collapsed. More than 50 people, many of them children, were pulled from the wreckage, dead. Newspapers, politicians and a host of useful idiots condemned another Israeli massacre. Images of dead children saturated the airwaves. Israel immediately apologized. The script is even more familiar. The Qana “massacre” was very convenient for Hezbollah politically. It stymied Condoleezza Rice’s visit to Beirut, forestalled talk of disarming Hezbollah, and rallied international opinion around the terrorist group. Aspects of the Qana story don’t jibe, starting with the timeline. The building collapsed seven hours after the bombing (which remains the likely explanation now). Some of the bodies don’t look like they were killed in a building collapse, and refrigerated trucks were reportedly brought in before the media could visit the site, perhaps delivering corpses. An elaborate 30-foot-long banner condemning a bloody lipped Rice for the attack was improbably at the ready for a protest that morning. Bloggers around the globe are steadily picking apart other details, to the dismay of many who like their anti-Israel storylines tidy (see confederateyankee.mu.nu for a summary). But again, even if the deaths were the byproduct of Israel’s bombing, that hardly makes it an intentional massacre, and it hardly makes Israel the villain. Hezbollah deliberately places its weapons caches beneath schools and homes, in violation of the Geneva Conventions. It shoots its rockets from civilian population centers. If the rockets slaughter Israelis, Hezbollah wins. If Israel responds and kills civilians, Israel loses. And either way, you can be sure some sucker will blame Israel for the whole thing. (c) 2006 Tribune Media Services article.nationalreview.com

To: Sully- who wrote (21855)	8/8/2006 1:32:58 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

More Double Standards At The UN By Captain Ed on Israel and Palestinians Captain's Quarters Kofi Annan continues the Turtle Bay tradition of double standards when it comes to fighting terrorists. Annan, responding to Arab League complaints, said that the bombing in Qana could show a pattern of war crimes by Israelis against civilians -- without mentioning the deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians by Hezbollah rocket launchers: <<< Israel's air raid on in the Lebanese town of Qana, which killed 28 people, may be part of a larger pattern of violations of international law in the war between Israel and Hezbollah, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a report Monday. In that light, Annan said that the July 30 attack was sufficiently serious to merit a more comprehensive investigation. The attack should be seen "in the broader context of what could be, based on preliminary information available to the United Nations ... a pattern of violations of international law, including international humanitarian law and international human rights law committed during the course of the current hostilities," Annan wrote. ... Annan's report said the U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, known by its acronym UNIFIL, could not confirm or deny Israel's contention that Hezbollah was launching attacks from Qana before the July 30 attack. In a letter to Annan accompanying the report, Israel claimed Qana was Hezbollah's regional headquarters, contained weapons stockpiles, and was the site of 150 missile launches. The letter said Israel had repeatedly warned civilians in the town to clear out before it was bombed. "Since the start of hostilities, Israelis in 150 population centers have faced unprecedented danger from a barrage of missiles and attacks emanating from areas such as Qana," said the letter, which was unsigned. "Like other operations, the goal of the Qana raid was to defend Israeli citizens." >>> In other words, the fact that Israel has provided videotape showing rocket launches in the vicinity of the strike and its attempt to minimize civilian casualties despite Hezbollah's exploitation of civilian populations as shields, Annan felt that he could not determine whether Israel should be accused of war crimes. Bear in mind that his report offers no evidence at all to support such a charge; he admits that the UN forces supposedly acting as observers and peacekeepers had no input on the charges by Hezbollah and Lebanon. In the absence of evidence, Annan feels it necessary to issue smears nonetheless. And please remember that Israel actually comports to the rules of war. They wear uniforms to distinguish themselves and attach their insignia to equipment and outposts to mark the IDF as combatants. They do not launch their attacks from within civilian populations, nor do they hide their command and control in such areas. They have not carpet-bombed Lebanon but attempted to destroy selected targets based on intelligence, which has not proven faultless but at least shows some restraint. Hezbollah, on the other hand, hides its forces in civilian clothing, They place rocket launchers and anti-aircraft guns next to apartment buildings and houses to shield them from Israeli attack. Instead of targeting Israeli military assets with their rocket barrages, the Hezbollah terrorists have aimed them indiscriminately at civilian population centers. Only because their missiles lack both large-scale explosive power and sophisticated targeting have they proven inefficient at their purpose -- to kill Israeli civilians and terrorize Israel into defeat. Does Annan castigate Hezbollah or the Lebanese government that allowed them to operate freely in southern Lebanon? No. He instead pillories the one side of the conflict that has attempted to fight within the rules of war. Annan has given such leeway to the terrorists that he even failed to object when they attacked a UNIFIL position and wounded several Chinese peacekeepers, in contrast to his hysterical reaction when Israel hit a UNTSO position after taking fire from an adjacent Hezbollah launching position. The UN should not even bother investigating Lebanese and Hezbollah complaints until they make an effort to fight within the rules of war. If one wants to end terrorism, then the global community must insist on reciprocity by both sides before taking up the question of violations. Holding Israel to an impossible standard against an enemy determined to use civilians as shields while never noting the grotesque strategy of the terrorists only encourages more terrorism. Annan seems determined to make asymmetrical warfare pay off. captainsquartersblog.com news.yahoo.com

To: Sully- who wrote (21855)	8/10/2006 8:08:36 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Ethics of War By WALTER REICH The New York Sun Opinion August 10, 2006 On the day an Israeli airstrike inadvertently killed some 28 civilians in the Lebanese town of Qana, a Berlin daily, Der Tagesspiegel, published an amazing letter that summarized the Hezbollah strategy that resulted in those deaths. The letter-writer, who identified himself as Dr. Mounir Herzallah, said he was a Shiite from southern Lebanon who had lived there until 2002. After the Israelis withdrew from the area in 2000, he recalled, Hezbollah moved into his town, dug rocket depots in bunkers, and then built a school and a residence over those bunkers. The letter went on: "Laughing, a local sheikh explained to me that the Jews would lose in any event because the rockets would either be fired at them or, if they attacked the rocket depots, they would be condemned by world opinion on account of the dead civilians. These people do not care about the Lebanese population; they use them as shields and, once dead, as propaganda." I was amazed by that letter not because it described a strategy that wasn't known before but because it described that strategy so well, because the writer had heard it articulated with such cynicism, and because he had actually witnessed it being put in place. I was also amazed because the writer dared, as a Shiite, to identify the location of his neighborhood in Berlin — even though that neighborhood, that city and Europe as a whole contain people who would view him as a traitor and harm him, maybe even kill him, if they could. In fact, I was so amazed by all this that I suspected that the letter might be a fake, sent in by someone, perhaps even an Israeli intelligence agent, as part of the media war being carried out by both sides that was accompanying the ground and air war in Lebanon. So I contacted an editor at the newspaper that ran the letter to find out if it had confirmed that the letter-writer actually exists. The editor responded that staff had been in touch with him by e-mail after the letter had appeared, but that he wanted to be left alone because he was afraid of reprisals. The editor told me that his gut feeling was that the letter-writer's story was probably true, but that he couldn't be certain of it. He wondered if, because of his fear of reprisals, the writer had written under an assumed name. Despite these uncertainties, I think it's worth quoting from this letter because it formulates, in a way better than I've ever heard it formulated before, the human-shield strategy that is being used by Hezbollah, as well as by Hamas, against Israel — and also by forces with which we and other Western powers have been engaging on battlefields that are unfamiliar to us in this post-9/11 world. Qana is, in fact, the new face of war. And this letter describes the contours of that face, as well as the mad logic behind its eyes, with the concision and clarity we'll need in order to be able to judge the actions of countries that are forced to respond to it — and in order to respond to it ourselves with a maximum of both humaneness and realism. There will be more Qanas in Israel's future, and many more in ours. Specialists in military strategy, having recognized the challenges posed by this human-shield strategy, see a solution in better intelligence — in particular, better human intelligence. They argue that in order to avert international condemnation — which can be even more damaging than losing on the battlefield — armies shouldn't attack built-up areas, even ones being used to launch rockets that are killing their civilians, unless they can be sure that their own attacks won't kill civilians on the other side. The problem is that an army facing such an enemy can almost never be absolutely sure of that. And if the standard such an army has to satisfy is absolute certainty that it will never harm civilians, then it will never be able to fight such an enemy even when the threat is critical — even when the rockets, endless volleys of them, are sure to be fired. Countries needing to protect their citizens will be utterly defenseless. The letter in the German newspaper shines a clarifying and sobering light on a strategy that, like terrorism itself, is used precisely because it works. In an age in which many organizations and even some countries are prepared to sacrifice their own civilians in the service of killing ours — and are prepared to do so by situating their weapons, even weapons of mass destruction, in places of human habitation — we have to be ready for more Qanas. We have to be ready to place the blame for such Qanas on those who engineer them. We have to learn how to expose the depraved but effective logic that will make those Qanas happen. And we have to learn how to fight a war that's built on that logic even if we can't always be absolutely sure that innocents won't suffer as a result. All countries have an obligation to minimize the loss of civilian life, both on their own side and on the other. But no country has an obligation to allow itself to be destroyed or its people killed. Demanding that of any country is a perversion not only of the ethics of war but also of the ethics of life. Dr. Reich is a professor of international affairs, ethics and human behavior at George Washington University, a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a founding member of the Council on Global Terrorism, and the editor of "Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind." From 1995 to 1998 he was the director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. nysun.com