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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (10498)	8/2/2006 2:55:13 AM
From: CYBERKEN	Respond to of 71588

Democrats are addicted to tax hikes "for the rich". Senile Republicans may propose bridges to no where, but it's still Democrats who jump OFF them. Call it "Mad Democrats Disease" (encephalus godandcountryus howarddeanitis, or EGH), triggered by a lack of critical GOD and COUNTRY enzymes in the brain. And no, THAT'S not what makes Algore glassy-eyed...

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (10498)	8/2/2006 9:31:08 AM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Hezbollah's To Blame For Civilian Casualties Charles Krauthammer What other country, when attacked in an unprovoked aggression across a recognized international frontier, is then put on a countdown clock by the world, given a limited time window in which to fight back, regardless of whether it has restored its own security? What other country sustains 1,500 indiscriminate rocket attacks into its cities - every one designed to kill, maim and terrorize civilians - and is then vilified by the world when it tries to destroy the enemy's infrastructure and strongholds with precision-guided munitions that sometimes have the unintended but unavoidable consequence of collateral civilian death and suffering? Hearing the world pass judgment on the Israel-Hezbollah war as it unfolds is to live in an Orwellian moral universe. With a few significant exceptions (the leadership of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and a very few others), the world - governments, the media, U.N. bureaucrats - has completely lost its moral bearings. The word that obviates all thinking and magically inverts victim into aggressor is "disproportionate," as in the universally decried "disproportionate Israeli response." When the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor, it did not respond with a parallel "proportionate" attack on a Japanese naval base. It launched a four-year campaign that killed millions of Japanese, reduced Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki to cinders, and turned the Japanese home islands to rubble and ruin. Disproportionate? No. When one is wantonly attacked by an aggressor, one has every right - legal and moral - to carry the fight until the aggressor is disarmed and so disabled it cannot threaten one's security again. That's what it took with Japan. The perversity of today's international outcry lies in the fact that there is indeed a disproportion in this war, a radical moral asymmetry between Hezbollah and Israel: Hezbollah is deliberately trying to create civilian casualties on both sides while Israel is deliberately trying to minimize civilian casualties, also on both sides. In perhaps the most blatant terror campaign from the air since the London Blitz, Hezbollah is raining rockets on Israeli cities and villages. These rockets are packed with ball bearings that can penetrate cars and shred human flesh. They are meant to kill and maim. And they do. But it is a dual campaign. Israeli innocents must die for Israel to be terrorized. But Lebanese innocents must also die for Israel to be demonized, which is why Hezbollah hides its fighters, its rockets, its launchers, its entire infrastructure among civilians. Creating human shields is a war crime. It is also a Hezbollah specialty. The long-range Hezbollah rockets that have been raining terror on Haifa are based in Tyre. What is Israel to do? Leave untouched the launch sites that are deliberately placed in built-up areas? Had Israel wanted to destroy Lebanese civilian infrastructure, it would have turned out the lights in Beirut in the first hour of the war, destroying the billion-dollar power grid and setting back Lebanon 20 years. It did not do that. Instead, it attacked dual-use infrastructure - bridges, roads, runways - and blockaded Lebanon's ports to prevent the reinforcement and resupply of Hezbollah. Israel's response to Hezbollah has been to use the most precise weaponry and targeting it can. It has no interest, no desire to kill Lebanese civilians. Does anyone imagine that it could not have leveled south Lebanon, to say nothing of Beirut? Instead, in the bitter fight against Hezbollah in south Lebanon, it has repeatedly dropped leaflets, issued warnings, sent messages telling Lebanese villagers to evacuate so that they would not be harmed. Israel knows that these leaflets and warnings give the Hezbollah fighters time to escape and regroup. The advance notification as to where the next attack is coming has allowed Hezbollah to set up elaborate ambushes. The result? Unexpectedly high Israeli infantry casualties. Moral scrupulousness paid in blood. Israeli soldiers die so that Lebanese civilians will not, and who does the international community condemn for disregarding civilian life? Charles Krauthammer is a syndicated writer in Washington. From: Ben Wa 2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) of 14666

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (10498)	8/2/2006 9:44:41 AM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Jenin Redux?--II The death toll is declining in Israel's strike on a Lebanese town, Ha'aretz reports: Additional questions arose yesterday about the Israel Air Force's strike on a building in Qana on Sunday, even as 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. . . . The survivors spoke of two bombings--one at 1 A.M., and the second some 10 minutes later. However, what appeared to the survivors as a second bombing may have been the sound of the building coming down. Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post suggests that the Israel Defense Forces are making real progress in degrading Hezbollah's military capability: The IDF also believes that it seriously damaged the long-range rocket array in the first night of air strikes almost three weeks ago and impaired Hizbullah's ability to fire the rockets. Nevertheless, Hizbullah is still believed to have 10,000 short-range Katyusha rockets, after 1,500 were fired at Israel and another 1,500 were destroyed by the air force. The longer-range Zelzal missiles, manufactured by Iran and capable of reaching Tel Aviv, have also not been fired at Israel, and the IDF believes this is because it destroyed almost two-thirds of these in the Hizbullah arsenal. In addition, Israel has identified the bodies of 200 Hizbullah operatives killed in fighting, out of the organization's total number of fighters estimated to stand at 1,000. Hizbullah fighters were also found to be using special thermal suits that retained their body heat and curtailed IDF attempts to discover them at night. It seems clear that prolonging the conflict is to Israel's military benefit (except, as Bret Stephens argues, to the extent to which the sense that it "can take its time" breeds complacency in Jerusalem). So why, after the Qana bombing, did the Lebanese--presumably now doing Hezbollah's bidding--break off cease-fire talks with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice? Perhaps because Hezbollah sees this is primarily a propaganda war, rather than a military one--and in that effort, the deaths of Arab civilians in a supposed Israeli "massacre" is a victory for Hezbollah. opinionjournal.com Also, in case anyone missed this: Message 22644712