Tinfoil Update
Jeff Morley, blogging for the Washington Post, has a round-up on the sputtering blogosphere conspiracy theory that Hezbollah staged the Qana massacre. Jeff also has a few basic questions for the Tin Foil Battalion that they don't seem able to answer, surprise, suprise.
This particular "theory" presumes some sinister collusion in which many of the key moving parts are award-winning, professional, career MSM journalists who -- all of a sudden-- have decided to start covering for Lebanese terrorists. Sure, that makes sense.
Such "thinking" reveals how very near we still remain to an obscurantist era when masses of people believed in talismen and magic potions and bowed and scraped before illuminated manuscripts. Or when Russian peasants whipped their Soviet tractors that had run out of gas. Or who worshipped the burning spirits encased in a light bulb.
That is, I suppose, the true tragedy of our times. The same technology that theoretically enables us to know more, more profoundly, and with more dispatch than ever before in history instead helps return us to a medieval mindset. Facts are merely inventions of a terribly corrupt MSM and the truth, on the other hand, is out there...there in the hands of some guy with a keyboard, a spinning head-full ideology and all supported by a medium-level dose of meds.
As to the case in point: I think it absolutely a fair statement that the Hezbollah have done what they can to spotlight, highlight, exaggerate and exploit the deaths of the civilians in Qana.
But is this not what the Israelis have done to justify this gruesome war? Was is it not the kidnapping -- or capture-- of a single Israeli soldier in Gaza that set off this inferno? Were the Israelis not exploiting his situation, the seizure of a single indvidual to justify a frontal assault on Gaza? And then when a handful of soldiers came under fire by a Hezbollah sneak attack a few days later, it was not exploiting their deaths to respond with the fury of the Israeli Air Force, bombing, airports, roads, bridges and civilian villages?
Or maybe none of this really happened as it appears. Perhaps the Hezbollah took a page from the playbook of the Great 9/11 Conspiracy. Just as the Bush adminisitration faked the planes flying into the Towers (by using USAF craft), did the sinister Hezbollah lease a couple of F-16's, paint them up as Israeli Air Force jets, and then turn them againt half of Lebanon? You knever know. Especially if facts no longer have any meaning.
P.S. The Associated Press just released this story knocking down accusations that news photographers were duped by Hezbollah.
August 2nd, 2006 at 11:09 am
Morley’s article is game set and match. My favorite parts:
Tinfoil hats come in all sizes.
August 2nd, 2006 at 11:27 am
This reminds me of the ol’ tales of Vietnam vets coming home and getting spat on in airports, urine and feces thrown at them…But the only pictures of such events are of Vets who protested the war being spat at by pro-war rightwingers.
Or think of today’s rightwingers writing articles about Iraq vets’ funerals being protested by antiwar protestors, when the only protests at vets funerals have been by rightwing anti-gay and prowar nuts in Fred Phelps group…
As Noam Chomsky has said, conspiracy theory is useless in helping understand the real world and how power is structured.
August 2nd, 2006 at 11:41 am
Conspiracy theories are usually mistaken.
However, there are conspiracies.
Just one example: freemasonry is a classic target of conspiracy theorists: read Les Caves Du Vatican, translated as Lafcadio’s Adventures.
Usually such theories are nonsense. However, consider Propaganda Due.
Are guerrillas arisen from among the Shi’a, with their concept of taqqiya, capable of conspiracy? Perhaps so.
August 2nd, 2006 at 11:44 am
Sirnosir –
Fred Phelps is a DEMOCRAT and his group is protesting at vet funeral because he DOESN”T support the war. Thanks for playing.
I think with the revelations of about the supposed Jenin Massacre, CNN escorted tours and other events have made the people question the reliability of media and what they are reporting. That is a good thing.
Trust but verify
August 2nd, 2006 at 11:51 am
Is there anyone out there who would believe that Hezbollah would not fabricate an event in order to garner sympathy and outrage? These nut jobs have a playbook on how to defeat the West, and their bread and butter strategy is to hide among civilians, provoke a response, and then showcase the civilian deaths in order to incite the Muslim world, and put pressure on the West to stop the military action. The MSM is complicit in this little play in the sense that they breathlessly publish every photo that Hezbullah “allows” them to take, seemingly never bothering to ask about why they are not allowed to photograph other areas declared off limits by the Party of God. The perfect example is CNN’s Nick Robertson following around the Hezbullah P.R. soldier to survey damage to all of the “civilian areas” without bothering to disclose that they were not allowed free access to all sites, but restricted to only the sites the Party of God wanted them to see. This is not journalism, but rather allowing yourself to be used by a cunning enemy.
War happens. Civilians unfortunately pay the price. Civilians in Isreal are paying a price also by being deliberately targeted by these Islamo-nutjobs. Where is the outrage about that?????
August 2nd, 2006 at 11:52 am
Fred Phelps is a Democrat??? Ha ha ha ha…
Yeah, and so is Newt Gingrich!
August 2nd, 2006 at 11:54 am
Doug, what you’re describing sounds no different from what you would surely approve of at Guantanamo Torture Camp, namely strictly guided tours for the media, 0 real access to the grounds, etc. What’s good for the goose…
August 2nd, 2006 at 11:58 am
From http://www.maxspeak.org/mt
Ze’ev Maoz of Tel Aviv U. Teaser:
“On July 28, 1989, we kidnapped Sheikh Obeid, and on May 12, 1994, we kidnapped Mustafa Dirani, who had captured Ron Arad. Israel held these two people and another 20-odd Lebanese detainees without trial, as “negotiating chips.” That which is permissible to us is, of course, forbidden to Hezbollah.”
August 2nd, 2006 at 12:05 pm
Sirnorsir -
Yeah… those poor people. Maybe we could release them and let them move in next to you. I’m sure they would be really tolerant of you liberal western views. The thing you don’t get is that they hate you. You and Jimmy the Peanut Farmer can send them flowers, love letters, rationalize what they do, embrace them, and negotiate with them, and they will still continue to hate you. They hate you, and me, and anyone who is not an Islamofacist because of who we are, not what we do.
Isreal withdrew from every square inch of Lebanese soil. So much for the “give back the occupied lands and all will be well” theory.
August 2nd, 2006 at 12:08 pm
One thing, and one thing alone, raised my suspicions. That they showed the same poor child, over and over and over, in nearly every picture. First carried by “green helmet,” then carried by another, then held up for display, then in an ambulance.
Perhaps this was the first body recovered from the ruble, so all the cameras jumped on it…
Perhaps, as is often the case, multiple news agencies taking multiple pictures make it seem like an over abundance of pictures of this one child…
Perhaps it is acceptable in Shia culture to lift the poor broken body of an innocent child up like a trophy fish for all the cameras to shoot clearly…
Perhaps the sequence is out of order, and the pacifier was on as she came out of the rubble and later fell off, and that ambulance picture was really taken last…
Perhaps this is a relative of “green helmet,” which would explain why he spends so much time with this one dead child rather than helping dig others, possibly living, out of the rubble…
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
No one, NO ONE questions that a tragedy took place. There are dead children! What could be more tragic!? (Though they may affix the guilt in different places).
But I also know that photogs look for a great picture accompany an article and provide editors and writers with lots and lots of them, that editors look for a picture that supports their story, and that just the sensationalism alone could account for less that totally accurate visuals of this event, to say nothing of possible slant.
If the media want to take the pressure off, there is a simple solution: show ALL the pictures shot that day, including the “inconsequential” ones, and tell us what order they were shot. Then the evidence will be entirely self evident.
Sorry for the rant. The tinfoil was chaffing…
August 2nd, 2006 at 12:39 pm
“Yeah… those poor people. Maybe we could release them and let them move in next to you.”
Yeah, I know, the warlords of Afghanistan thought they were ‘dangerous’, so they must have been. It couldn’t be that they were kidnapped and turned over to the US for a pricetag…nah…they musta been ‘terrorists’, I mean how could one not trust the warlords in Afgahnistan to find ‘terrrorists’ for us?
So Doug, how about answering Randy’s solid question, how come Israeli Intelligence hasn’t confirmed conspiracy theories that the bodies were shipped in by Hesbollah…Interesting contradiction, eh?
August 2nd, 2006 at 1:04 pm
That Hezbollah would exploit any civilian deaths is a given.
Was this a Hezbollywood production? I don’t know. I wasn’t there, and most of the still and motion imagery from the site that has been published has focused on essentially one child victim and one “rescue worker”, clearly displaying a child.
[The way that Hezbollah and the Palestinians display dead bodies, viscera and other carnage contrasts dramatically with the Israeli decision to not show the horrific results of suicide bombings in Israel. Supposedly, Islam demands, as Judaism did centuries before Mohammed, respect for the dead.]
Can award-winning, professional, career MSM journalists convince themselves that they haven’t been conned? Oh never. They are selfless, egoless souls only concerned about giving neutral facts.
I’m skeptical about the Qana incident and I’ve never been a member of any tinfoil hat brigade. I instinctively reject conspiracy theories. I may also be a fairly right wing Zionist Jew, but I’m not naive and know that Jews have committed a small number of atrocities. In any case, in any war there are civilian casualties.
This is what I know. Reporters and rescue workers were summoned many hours after the building was attacked. Bodies show little sign of trauma as one would expect in a building collapse. Bodies seem to display rigor mortis and/or lividity seemingly inconsistent with supposed time of death. There apparently were no military aged men, actually hardly any men at all, in the building.
Where were the military aged men in the Hashem and the Shalhoub families?
Frankly, I care about the deaths of the “civilians” in Qana about as much as I care about the civilians who died in the bombings of Berlin or Tokyo. Let’s be real. The Shia in Qana believe that Jews anywhere are legitimate targets for jihad. Fine. I have no problem applying their own standards to their own families.
According to the accepted rules of war, warning a civilian population to evacuate before the onset of hostilities means that anyone who doesn’t leave can be considered hostile, with the moral responsibility of children’s welfare on their parents.
HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI,
IN THE FIELD, ATLANTA, GEORGIA
September 12, 1864
JAMES M. CALHOUN, Mayor, E. E. PAWSON and S. C. WELLS, representing City Council of Atlanta.
GENTLEMEN: I have your letter of the 11th, in the nature of a petition to revoke my orders removing all the inhabitants from Atlanta. I have read it carefully, and give full credit to your statements of the distress that will be occasioned, and yet shall not revoke my orders, because they were not designed to meet the humanities of the case, but to prepare for the future struggles in which millions of good people outside of Atlanta have a deep interest. We must have peace , not only at Atlanta, but in all America. To secure this, we must stop the war that now desolates our once happy and favored country. To stop war, we must defeat the rebel armies which are arrayed against the laws and Constitution that all must respect and obey. To defeat those armies, we must prepare the way to reach them in their recesses, provided with the arms and instruments which enable us to accomplish our purpose.
Now, I know the vindictive nature of our enemy, that we may have many years of military operations from this quarter; and, therefore, deem it wise and prudent to prepare in time. The use of Atlanta for warlike purposes is inconsistent with its character as a home for families. There will be no manufactures, commerce, or agriculture here, for the maintenance of families, and sooner or later want will compel the inhabitants to go. Why not go now, when all the arrangements are completed for the transfer, instead of waiting till the plunging shot of contending armies will renew the scenes of the past month? Of course, I do not apprehend any such thing at this moment, but you do not suppose this army will be here until the war is over. I cannot discuss this subject with you fairly, because I cannot impart to you what we propose to do, but I assert that our military plans make it necessary for the inhabitants to go away, and I can only renew my offer of services to make their exodus in any direction as easy and comfortable as possible.
You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war. The United States does and must assert its authority, wherever it once had power; for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling. This feeling assumes various shapes, but always comes back to that of Union. Once admit the Union, once more acknowledge the authority of the national Government, and, instead of devoting your houses and streets and roads to the dread uses of war, I and this army become at once your protectors and supporters, shielding you from danger, let it come from what quarter it may. I know that a few individuals cannot resist a torrent of error and passion, such as swept the South into rebellion, but you can point out, so that we may know those who desire a government, and those who insist on war and its desolation.
You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable, and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride.
We don’t want your negroes, or your horses, or your houses, or your lands, or any thing you have, but we do want and will have a just obedience to the laws of the United States. That we will have, and, if it involves the destruction of your improvements, we cannot help it.
You have heretofore read public sentiment in your newspapers, that live by falsehood and excitement; and the quicker you seek for truth in other quarters, the better. I repeat then that, by the original compact of Government, the United States had certain rights in Georgia, which have never been relinquished and never will be; that the South began war by seizing forts, arsenals, mints, customhouses, etc., etc., long before Mr. Lincoln was installed, and before the South had one jot or tittle of provocation. I myself have seen in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, hundreds and thousands of women and children fleeing from your armies and desperadoes, hungry and with bleeding feet. In Memphis, Vicksburg, and Mississippi, we fed thousands upon thousands of the families of rebel soldiers left on our hands, and whom we could not see starve.
Now that war comes home to you, you feel very different. You deprecate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds and thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes, and under the Government of their inheritance. But these comparisons are idle. I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect and early success.
But, my dear sirs, when peace does come, you may call on me for any thing. Then will I share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter.
Now you must go, and take with you the old and feeble, feed and nurse them, and build for them, in more quiet places, proper habitations to shield them against the weather until the mad passions of men cool down, and allow the Union and peace once more to settle over your old homes at Atlanta.
Yours in haste,
W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General commanding.
August 2nd, 2006 at 1:10 pm
A couple of facts:
1) Hundreds of rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel since the disengagement and before the kidnapping there. The kidnapping was not an isolated, rogue event but part of something more comprehensive.
2) At the same time it kidnapped and killed the Israeli soldiers, Hezbollah fired volleys of rockets at various sites across northern Israel. This rocket attack preceeded Israel’s retaliation and for some reason is rarely mentioned. So again — we’re not talking about an isolated raiding party, but a well-planned attack of some substance.
If raids and rocket attacks from separate fronts in the same time frame don’t merit a harsh response, what does?
August 2nd, 2006 at 1:23 pm
You’re going to look like an ass, and deservedly so, when the truth comes out. It’s not about faked pictures — the pictures were real. It’s about placing women and children in a building, then firing Katyushas from the building so that the Israelis would attack it. It’s about having Hizb’s primary public relations guy immediately on hand to parade dead children in front of the media.
> But is this not what the Israelis have done to justify this gruesome war?
If you really believe this, you are a moral cretin.
August 2nd, 2006 at 1:25 pm
The AP story demonstrates, if nothing else the complete idiocy of the tinfoil hat brigade.
August 2nd, 2006 at 1:26 pm
Last update – 10:44 25/07/2006
Morality is not on our side
By Ze’ev Maoz
There’s practically a holy consensus right now that the war in the North is a just war and that morality is on our side. The bitter truth must be said: this holy consensus is based on short-range selective memory, an introverted worldview, and double standards.
This war is not a just war. Israel is using excessive force without distinguishing between civilian population and enemy, whose sole purpose is extortion. That is not to say that morality and justice are on Hezbollah’s side. Most certainly not. But the fact that Hezbollah “started it” when it kidnapped soldiers from across an international border does not even begin to tilt the scales of justice toward our side.
Let’s start with a few facts. We invaded a sovereign state, and occupied its capital in 1982. In the process of this occupation, we dropped several tons of bombs from the air, ground and sea, while wounding and killing thousands of civilians. Approximately 14,000 civilians were killed between June and September of 1982, according to a conservative estimate. The majority of these civilians had nothing to do with the PLO, which provided the official pretext for the war.
Advertisement
In Operations Accountability and Grapes of Wrath, we caused the mass flight of about 500,000 refugees from southern Lebanon on each occasion. There are no exact data on the number of casualties in these operations, but one can recall that in Operation Grapes of Wrath, we bombed a shelter in the village of Kafr Kana which killed 103 civilians. The bombing may have been accidental, but that did not make the operation any more moral.
On July 28, 1989, we kidnapped Sheikh Obeid, and on May 12, 1994, we kidnapped Mustafa Dirani, who had captured Ron Arad. Israel held these two people and another 20-odd Lebanese detainees without trial, as “negotiating chips.” That which is permissible to us is, of course, forbidden to Hezbollah.
Hezbollah crossed a border that is recognized by the international community. That is true. What we are forgetting is that ever since our withdrawal from Lebanon, the Israel Air Force has conducted photo-surveillance sorties on a daily basis in Lebanese airspace. While these flights caused no casualties, border violations are border violations. Here too, morality is not on our side.
So much for the history of morality. Now, let’s consider current affairs. What exactly is the difference between launching Katyushas into civilian population centers in Israel and the Israel Air Force bombing population centers in south Beirut, Tyre, Sidon and Tripoli? The IDF has fired thousands of shells into south Lebanon villages, alleging that Hezbollah men are concealed among the civilian population. Approximately 25 Israeli civilians have been killed as a result of Katyusha missiles to date. The number of dead in Lebanon, the vast majority comprised of civilians who have nothing to do with Hezbollah, is more than 300.
Worse yet, bombing infrastructure targets such as power stations, bridges and other civil facilities turns the entire Lebanese civilian population into a victim and hostage, even if we are not physically harming civilians. The use of bombings to achieve a diplomatic goal – namely, coercing the Lebanese government into implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1559 – is an attempt at political blackmail, and no less than the kidnapping of IDF soldiers by Hezbollah is the aim of bringing about a prisoner exchange.
There is a propaganda aspect to this war, and it involves a competition as to who is more miserable. Each side tries to persuade the world that it is more miserable. As in every propaganda campaign, the use of information is selective, distorted and self-righteous. If we want to base our information (or shall we call it propaganda?) policy on the assumption that the international environment is going to buy the dubious merchandise that we are selling, be it out of ignorance or hypocrisy, then fine. But in terms of our own national soul searching, we owe ourselves to confront the bitter truth – maybe we will win this conflict on the military field, maybe we will make some diplomatic gains, but on the moral plane, we have no advantage, and we have no special status.
The writer is a professor of political science at Tel Aviv university.
August 2nd, 2006 at 1:30 pm
Stop now, immediately
By Gideon Levy
This war must be stopped now and immediately. From the start it was unnecessary, even if its excuse was justified, and now is the time to end it. Every day raises its price for no reason, taking a toll in blood that gives Israel nothing tangible in return. This is a good time to stop the war because both sides can claim they won: Israel harmed Hezbollah and Hezbollah harmed Israel. History shows that no situation is better for reaching an arrangement. Remember the lessons of the Yom Kippur War.
Israel went into the campaign on justified grounds and with foul means. It claims it has declared war on Hezbollah but, in practice, it is destroying Lebanon. It has gotten most of what it could have out of this war. The aerial “target bank” has mostly been covered. The air force could continue to sow destruction in the residential neighborhoods and empty offices and could also continue dropping dozens of tons of bombs on real or imagined bunkers and kill innocent Lebanese, but nothing good will come of it.
Those who want to restore Israel’s deterrent capabilities have succeeded. Hezbollah and the rest of its enemies know that Israel reacts with enormous force to any provocation. South Lebanon is cleaner now of a Hezbollah presence. In any case, the organization is likely to return there, just as it is likely to rearm. An international agreement could be achieved now, and it won’t be possible to achieve a better deal at a reasonable price in the future.
Advertisement
Israel’s other goals – returning the captured soldiers and the elimination of Hassan Nasrallah – will anyway be more difficult to achieve even if the war goes on for weeks and months. The IDF is now asking for “two more weeks” and in another two weeks it will ask for “another two weeks.” A decisive victory is not in the offing.
On the other hand, the price is skyrocketing. Every day increases international criticism of Israel and hatred of it. That is also an element in “national security.” As opposed to the choir in Israel that makes a false presentation as if the world is cheering Israel, the images from Beirut are causing Israel enormous damage, and rightly so. Not only in the streets of the Arab world is more and more hatred being sown, but also in the West. Not only hundreds of thousands of Lebanese but tens of thousands of Westerners fleeing from Lebanon are contributing to the depiction of Israel as a violent, crude and destructive state.
The fact that George Bush and Tony Blair are cheering Israel might be consolation for Ehud Olmert and the media in Israel, but it is not enough to persuade millions of TV viewers who see the images of destruction and devastation, most of which are not shown to Israeli audiences. The world sees entire neighborhoods that have been destroyed, hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing in panic, homeless, and hundreds of civilians dead and wounded including many children who have nothing to do with Hezbollah.
The continuation of the war therefore is neither moral nor worthwhile. The economic blow the war caused to Israel will even remain limited if the war ends now. A lethal summer will exact a much greater economic price.
The Israeli rear, which has so far displayed impressive resilience, will not remain indifferent in the shelters for much longer. Slowly, the cracks will open and citizens will begin to ask why we are dying and what we are killing for. That’s just the way of war. At first, nobody asks why, but the more entangled they become, the more difficult the questions become.
We’ve been here before, more than once. Wars began with broad national approval and ended with a great crisis. Those who bask now in the consensus should know that nothing lasts forever. The war will become an imbroglio. When it becomes apparent that the air force is not enough, the ground invasion that has already begun will intensify. The cliche about the Lebanese quagmire will be revalidated, and when the soldiers are killed, as is already happening daily, in house to house hunting, the protests will rise and divide society.
Now Israel is hoping for the elimination of Nasrallah. That’s an atavistic impulse, even if understandable, which seeks the head of the enemy in order to prove our victory over him. There’s no wisdom or practicality in it. Once again it is worth reminding ourselves of the dozens of people Israel assassinated in Lebanon and the territories, from Sheikh Abbas Mussawi to Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, each replaced by someone new, usually more talented and dangerous than the predecessor. The goals of the war should not be dictated by dark impulses, even if they come in response to the wishes and demands of the mob. The only advantage that would benefit Israel from the elimination of Nasrallah would be that maybe it would bring about an end to the warring. But it can be halted even without that. The other desired goal, the return of the prisoners, will anyway only be achieved through negotiations to release prisoners. Israel could have done that before the war.
It is still too early to weigh out the balance of achievements and failures of this war. The day will come when it will become clear that it was purposeless, as are all wars of choice. Ceasing it now guarantees a limited achievement at a limited price. Continuing it guarantees a heavy price without any guarantee of a suitable reward. Therefore, Israel must cease and desist. The president of the United States can push us to continue the war all he wants, the prime minister of Britain can cheer us in parliament, but in Israel and Lebanon, the blood is being spilled, the horror is intensifying, the price is rising and it is all for naught.
August 2nd, 2006 at 1:37 pm
The press and photographers dont admit or inform their audience that in Hezb’allah land they do what Hezb’allah says. They go where Hezb’allah tells them to go, they talk to Hezb’allah spokepeople, and they photograph what Hezb’allh shows them. Just like CNN in Saddam’s Bagdad they have to pay to play and the payment is that they dont tell anyone the rules under which they report.
These rules are a story in and of themselves, but it is one that isn’t told . Probably because of the circumstances of the reporting inconsistencies and descrepencies are not investigated or mentioned. But the fact that the press belittles and sneers at those who do mention or question these apparent incosistencies does little to inspire confidence. The release of ALL the images taken at Qana (uncropped) with their full digital information would resolve many questions. Assurances of complete impartiality and honesty from organizations which collectively can’t even admit their deceptions from 70 years ago ( the pulitzer prize given to Duranty for his lies about the Ukraine in the 1930’s remains unrevoked and unrepented) are at best amusing. Such assurances and attacks such as the one above are not what is required. Evidence is.
August 2nd, 2006 at 1:57 pm
” It’s about placing women and children in a building, then firing Katyushas from the building so that the Israelis would attack it.”
This sounds like a lot of work to me. If Hezballah really are ten feet tall, all knowing, capable of tricky conspiracy, and considering all the IDF drones and aircraft, apparently invisible, then I give up. I want to be on their side.
“These nut jobs have a playbook on how to defeat the West”
Cool, apparently you’ve seen it. What did it say? Are you friends with Hezballah? Now that we know the play book, couildn’t we use that information against them?
August 2nd, 2006 at 2:15 pm
“Just like CNN in Saddam’s Bagdad they have to pay to play and the payment is that they dont tell anyone the rules under which they report.”
Yeah, it was Sodom who was keeping the media from reporting the truth about Bush and Kerry’s lies about WMDs…eh?
August 2nd, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Signosir :
Are you unaware that during Saddams time CNN reported Iraqi propganda in order to be allowed to stay in Iraq ?
Also did Sadam use posion gas on the Kurds ? Who was chemical Ali, and why was he so named ? What do you think got shipped to Syria by Iraqi intelligence when the war broke out ?
August 2nd, 2006 at 2:39 pm
The only explanation, short of a conspiracy, that explains all of the oddities about the Qana thing is that Hezbollah was ready to exploit an attack — not just generally, but right there — and had the staff on scene and the planning to carry it out, from segregated storage of demo bodies, to posing for compliant Western photographers, to evacuation of the “fighters,” etc.
Up at Baalbek, they weren’t so well-prepared; while they had the story about how they had to use caterpilars to bury the dead, the dead body supply folks were only able to come up with one demo body — and no massive grave.
August 2nd, 2006 at 2:51 pm
Re: Lurker
I hope you are not seriously suggesting that Hezbollah does not manipulate the media for their own game. Would a western country ever hold up a dead child, or the remains of a civilian like a trophy so the press can get good photos of them? That tells anyone with brains all they need to know about their intentions, and their regard for “civilians”. If you think Hezbollah is honest and sincere, and seeks peace, then maybe you should move to Iran. You would fit right in.
August 2nd, 2006 at 3:48 pm
Sirnosir
In the 1980s, prior to Phelps protesting at funerals, the Phelps family were supporters of then-senator Al Gore’s Presidential aspirations.[18] The basement of Fred Phelps Jr.’s law office supposedly acted as Gore’s Kansas campaign office, and the Phelpses hosted a fundraiser. Numerous photos exist on the Internet of Fred Phelps Jr. and his second wife, Betty Phelps-Schurle, posing with Al and Tipper Gore. Phelps Jr. also served as a Gore delegate on the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta in 1988. [23]
During Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign, Fred Phelps Jr. and members of Westboro campaigned for Gore, though simultaneously attacking Hillary Clinton. In January 1993, Fred Phelps Jr. and Betty Phelps-Schurle were invited to the inaugural ball in Washington, D.C.[24]
In the ensuing years leading up to Clinton’s second presidential campaign, Gore and Clinton took stances increasingly in favor of gay rights. Consequently, Westboro turned against Gore, who nevertheless invited Fred Phelps, Marge, Fred Jr., and Betty back for the 1997 inauguration; they responded by bringing the entire Westboro congregation to the White House and picketing on the front lawn during the ball, [25] with signs proclaiming that Gore, Clinton, and both men’s families were going to Hell, not necessarily for their stances on homosexuality, but because they had “betrayed” Westboro. [26]
In 1998, Westboro picketed the funeral of Gore’s father, screaming vulgarities at Gore and telling him “your dad’s in Hell.” [26]
Westboro signs with political messages have read:
AL GORE FAMILY VALUES (with a cartoon of two men having anal sex) [27]
GO HOME (with a cartoon of Bill Clinton)
BABY KILLER (with a cartoon of Hillary Clinton)
BABY KILLER (with a cartoon of Bill Clinton)
FAG GORE
Phelps has failed in numerous Democratic primary elections for governor of the overwhelmingly Republican state of Kansas, in 1990, 1994, and the last time in 1998, when he came in second with 15,000 votes out of a total of over 103,000 votes cast, or 15%.[28]
Wikiepedia is your friend. Imagine what else you are mistaken about.
August 2nd, 2006 at 4:05 pm
“in which many of the key moving parts are award-winning, professional, career MSM journalists who — all of a sudden– have decided to start covering for Lebanese terrorists. Sure, that makes sense.”
“all of a sudden”? Where have you been hiding?
They are willing participants in the centerpiece of Hezbollah’s battle plan. The Left and its inverted morality is the West’s greatest weakness. THAT is the lesson of Vietnam. Zarqawi knew it, Hezbollah knows it, Iran knows it.
That’s why I saw this coming from day one. Sooner or later, a big chunk of civilian casualties would occur, and the Left would swing into action.
August 2nd, 2006 at 4:39 pm
I finally get it. It was Israeli spies who flew into the WTC on 9-11 so that they could start a war on terror with the “Hezbos” and Hamas who were colluding with them to make everyone mad. Right!
August 2nd, 2006 at 5:36 pm
Human Rights Watch offers a lower estimate of deaths than the previous one, here.
I don’t recall a news story that describes how the original estimate of the toll was made, or qualified it.
One dead child is too many, of course. But the facts matter.
August 2nd, 2006 at 6:36 pm
If one does not believe that Hezb’ollah is capable of “staging” the appearance of a “massacre” trumpeting it as Qana II after the very real brouhaha of the “Jenin” massacre and if you don’t believe that the vaunted MSM can be fooled than either you don’t understand Hezb’ollah, or you don’t want to believe that these “primitive” peoples can, out of sheer hatred, attempt to do what they have obviously been doing. Where is your compassion for the children of Israel and the Westbank that Hezbollah has been dumping rockets on.
By not even allowing yourself to imagine that these folk can dupe the MSM or you for that matter, you take yourself out of the game intellectually.
Grumpy Old Man is correct, one dead child is too many, but you absolutely must understand that in war, terrible things happen and had not, as Evets said (and I seldom agree with her) “If raids and rocket attacks from separate fronts in the same time frame don’t merit a harsh response, what does?”
To decry the death and destruction is one thing, to be blind to the islamofascist behavior of Hezb’ollah is entirely another. Too, where is the condemnation of Syria and Iran that so very obviously scripted this little war?
August 2nd, 2006 at 6:39 pm
By not even allowing yourself to imagine that these folk can dupe the MSM or you for that matter, you take yourself out of the game intellectually.
No one that I know of is doing that, but it’s irresponsible to practice forensics and draw conclusions from photos and that is certainly intellectually dishonest.
August 2nd, 2006 at 6:42 pm
Suddenly this has become a blog about how Israel is certainly, absolutely guilty of specific alleged acts that happened days ago. First, our esteemed proprietor opined that Israel deliberately targeted UN peacekeeping forces; now he opines that anyone who questions the nature and extent of Israel’s role in the Qana deaths is a moral pervert who willfully ignores established historical fact.
Well, maybe Israelis deliberately killed those UN observers. They either did or they did not.
Likewise, the innocents of Qana either died from Israeli munitions or they did not.
The undisputed facts are that Israel bombed the UN position and bombed that house in Qana.
Did Israel bomb the UN position because they wanted to kill UN observers or because they wanted to kill Party of God members who were firing from that UN position?
Did the innocents of Qana (children are always innocent) die from the Israeli strike or from a later explosion? Did Spanish agents blow up the USS Maine? Who shot JFK?
Here we have ideological synechdoche with wheels on. The alleged cold-blooded murder of UN
observers stands for Israel’s alleged over-arching historical guilt. Likewise Qana. For strictly ideological reasons, one must have an absolutist position on yesterday’s historical events as reported by the learned, judicious, apolitical historians of the NYT, the AP, Rueters, the Beeb.
Historical truth is completely, absolutely unforgiving. There is no reason why the Party of God’s version of historical fact, in any given case, might not be proven correct. You can distinguish between objective allies of the Party of God from historians by distinguishing between those who await history’s judgement from those who reflexively support the Party of God’s version of history in real time.
August 2nd, 2006 at 6:42 pm
This thread is wonderful…really an education in wingnuttery and it’s bizarre obsessions. We’ve got the “MSM” unrepentant for the sins of Walter Duranty 70 years ago and “the lesson” from Vietnam having been – drumroll! – the ignomy of “the left”. We’ve got an earnest, full-length offering of General Sherman to prove “war is hell” (who knew?) and blogospheric Fristian forensics that attempt to prove that when Israel engages its enemies “not so much.” Thank god I was distracted by work for most of the day…
Remember that these are mostly the same folks who believed that President Bush wasn’t a blustering moron engaged in the most disingenuous photo-op in American history when he proclaimed “Mission Accomplished” in a codpiece, that Donald Rumsfeld was a strategic genius who saw through the timidity of professional soldiers, that Dick Cheney’s declaration of “last throes” wasn’t the last throes of his own peculiar madness, that Ricky Santorum finally happened upon the WMD casus belli that justified pre-emptive war, that the “MSM” made up a tale of a brewing civil war in Iraq while hiding all of the “good news” and that Mel Gibson had been crucified by false readings of an anti-semititic sub-text in his fundamentalist opus.
The only thing missiing from some of these clowns commentary – in fact, from the totality of their ideology – is a laugh track.
Only semi-off topic, I found The Irony of American History by Reinhold Niebuhr complete on-line and – written in the early days of the cold war – it’s a very relevant and thought-provoking commentary – whether or not you share the Christian theology – in that it speaks to some of the pitfalls (run-of-the-mill right and, at least for the sake of argument if not prerogatives of power, far left) that we bump up against today in debates over projecting American military might – or at least in projecting it responsibly and effectively. Particularly recommended to the wingnuts for insights into the tradition of serious strategic and ethical thinking from the liberal left. Hard left types could also benefit. Niebuhr had rote “marxism” pegged at least as well as “free market” capitalism and blindered imperial pretensions.
http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=451
August 2nd, 2006 at 6:42 pm
Pardon the “second” post, but here is a quote for you: “To the south, along the curve of the coast, Hizbullah is launching Katyushas, but I’m loathe to say too much about them. The Party of God has a copy of every journalist’s passport, and they’ve already hassled a number of us and threatened one.” From this site!
And that was noted by Michael Totten, a solid reporter also who also notes he was threatened during “peace time” by Hezb’ollah.
August 2nd, 2006 at 6:46 pm
Randy, I’m not drawing conclusions from photographs, but from past behavior. Did it happen as portreyd? I don’t know, but at least I’m willing to acknowledge that given the history of this group of folks, it is entirely possible it was “faked” by one means or another or at least given a totally misleading slant.
August 2nd, 2006 at 6:51 pm
Absent evidence I won’t form any conclusions.
August 2nd, 2006 at 6:52 pm
Randy, 60 Minutes, hardly a “wingnut” program put this out some time ago and it has some interesting raw footage. Watch it carefully.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1oq7oGO_N8&eurl=
August 2nd, 2006 at 7:02 pm
“By not even allowing yourself to imagine that these folk can dupe the MSM or you for that matter, you take yourself out of the game intellectually.”
Perhaps the problem is that we make a distinction between “allowing ourselves to imagine” and making an argument from evidence. If it’s a “game”, I’d rather not be part of it. For a gang of intellectual midgets who still argue that there is overwhelming evidence Saddam had “WMDs” which posed a clear and present danger to the good old USofA that necessitated an invasion, you’ve got a lot of goddammed nerve telling the rest of us we’re morons because we aren’t overwhelmed by the random musings of wingnut bloggers. I “allow myself to imagine” lots of things – but I don’t broadcast it unless I can do a hell of a lot better job than “Con Yank” did in his crank musings. If you actually believe his stuff is an indication of how you guys are brilliant intellectuals and those of us who’ve raised questions about his competence are mentally challenged, I’d say that you allow yourself to imagine just a bit more than is healthy or normal.
August 2nd, 2006 at 7:28 pm
Some people find it hard to believe that Israel could have deliberately targeted the UN observer posts. Aside from the fact that those posts have been there for over thirty years, a fact I suppose the IDF was aware of, the people there sent out messages for EIGHT HOURS yet the Israelis ignored it and sent a “pardon me” note afterwards. Would they deliberately attack people who were observing what is going on? Why don’t you pose that question to the survivors of the USS Liberty?
August 2nd, 2006 at 8:08 pm
Still doesn’t prove that anything was faked at Qana.
August 2nd, 2006 at 8:27 pm
David Bernstein of the Volokh Conspiracy summarizes the case as follows:
Some More Details About Qana:
Early reports: Israel struck a four-story building in the early morning hours; or, according to CNN’s Ben Wedeman on July 30, the bomb hit “right next” to the building. Wedeman also reported that the building was supposed to have been the sturdiest in Qana, which is why the victims hid there!
The next day, CNN’s Brent Sadler reports that the the locals (who certainly aren’t trying to get Israel off the hook) told him that the building was not struck, but that a target 20 to 30 meters (65 to 100 feet) was hit, with the blast causing the building to collapse. And according to the July 31 Lebanon Star, the building was not a sturdy four-story apartment building, but a “half-finished,” three-story house, which may explain why it collapsed. Also according to the Star, the refugees were not hiding in the basement, but on the ground floor, behind a pile of dirt and sand that they hoped would protect them.
The later reports seem more reliable, as the reporters in question actually seem to have done some investigation, and questioned locals. None of this changes the basic outlines of the story: Hezbollah is firing from civilian areas, Israel warns the residents to leave, some residents don’t/can’t leave, and get killed in an Israeli strike that collapses a building. But it does change some of the details. Conspiracy theorists relied on various discrepancies in the early reports to charge that Qana was a total Party of God setup. It turns out that many of these discrepancies were just sloppy reporting (besides the above, some media outlets gave an incorrect timeline of the building’s collapse, and others accepted estimates of body counts as facts, even though they were not yet substantiated, and turned out to be wrong). The nearby pile of dirt and sand also explains how the victims could have easily been asphyxiated, ruining another element of the conspiracy theories (claiming that the lack of blood and bruises is evidence of sham). On the other side of things, if Sadler and the Star are right, it’s wrong to speak of an Israeli “attack on an apartment building.” An under-construction home is not an apartment building, (nor is it the most likely place to think refugees would be hiding, for those who claim that Israel intentionally “murdered” civilians), and if the bomb landed up to 100 feet away from the building, the actual target may have been an entirely different building, a nearby missile launcher, etc.
The lesson from all this is that it’s a mistake to rely on initial journalistic accounts of an event, especially when the journalists in question don’t speak the language, and haven’t had the time to investigate in any event.
Bernstein seems pretty judicious to me.
August 2nd, 2006 at 8:30 pm
Wake up and Smell the Condi.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2006/08/03/mideast/index.html
and, for a study in contrasts between two old friends..
http://christopherhitchenswatch.blogspot.com/
August 2nd, 2006 at 8:48 pm
“Some people find it hard to believe that Israel could have deliberately targeted the UN observer posts.”
C’mon richard – unless you’re willing to allow yourself to imagine that Israel is incapable of any such thing, you aren’t in the game intellectually. As for the survivors of the USS Liberty, they need to allow themselves to imagine that their flag was invisible after hours of surveillance by Israeli aircraft. Otherwise, out of the game…
August 2nd, 2006 at 9:23 pm
Considering that even Israel has admitted that it’s planes blew up this building I fail to see how these conspiracy nuts have anything to go on…
Unless…
Oh No!
Israel is part of the anti-Israel conspiracy too!
We’re through the looking glass here people.
August 2nd, 2006 at 9:46 pm
“but at least I’m willing to acknowledge that given the history of this group of folks, it is entirely possible it was “faked†by one means or another or at least given a totally misleading slant.”
Exactly the position of the “911 was staged” wingnuts. Welcome to the club.
August 2nd, 2006 at 9:46 pm
It bodes ill when people and even governments try to gain recourse through these wacky theories. Right after the “smoke clears” these people start their nonsense. There is this mad rush and anything goes mentality evident right after Qana – anything but face the truth of what has happened.
They bubble over at these blogs, poliferate with unbridled arrogance, minscule and unrelated fact seekers, pumped up with their preconceived prejudices and a world according to their own beliefs. They are relentless – and your wish to not hear their tripe makes you some sort of patsy.
They run about with this “questioning everything” attitude, but will answer no questions. Ask direct questions and forget about it, they just froth on.
They always use these quips, hackneyed phrases, and all the phrases do is absolve them (or they use them this way) from answering with hard evidence. Forget about applying Occam’s Razor, they take all these small supposed inconsistencies and pass up the holes in their logic, to explain the reality of what has happened in any other terms than what has taken place.
They cannot tell good evidence from bad evidence, the position of their source is never questioned (like the IDF explaining what is going on in Lebanon, etc.). Claims made from the man in the moon they will embrace and continue to espouse. They think that intellectual inquiry is answering any rumor – this really gets old.
They never claim that their views may have been without any foundation, that is, the whole of the matter or the “evidence” they have used to support it. They like to “pile it on,” just keep feverishly shoveling the shit rather than respond to anything.
These nuts constantly announce that the official account is wrong with no cause to come to that conclusion. Than they piece together all this small crap like some timing issue (or whatever), and other minutiae, like stringing together cheap beads and than they call it a work of logical art!
Not satisfied with all of the above nonsense, they use other conspiracy theories to support the one that they hold. Even though everything that is evident makes what they say extremely unlikely.
It always is some sort of conspiracy (especially when it is something that is disagreeable to them) – they drone on about their questions that MUST be answered. To be frank, I mean to just be blunt – they totally lack discrimination. They would not know a plausible theory if it came and bit them on the nose. If they are not some type of monomaniac (and they sure do seem to appear in Middle East subject matter), they are some of the biggest bores on the face of the earth.
If the shoe fits, wear it!
August 2nd, 2006 at 10:18 pm
“Did Israel bomb the UN position because they wanted to kill UN observers or because they wanted to kill Party of God members who were firing from that UN position?”
The most recent accounts I’ve seen indicate that Hezbollah was not firing near the UN position at the time.
All the conspiracy blathering above does not change the fact that Israel is acting in wanton disregard of civilian life throughout Lebanon and is responsible for hundreds of civilian deaths. Maybe some people have guilty consciences for supporting this and now want to distract us from the main issue.
August 2nd, 2006 at 10:21 pm
“It’s about placing women and children in a building, then firing Katyushas from the building so that the Israelis would attack it.”
There are no claims that missiles were fired from the building. As Virgil points out, these nuts don’t even need to inquire into the facts, they make them up as they go along.
August 2nd, 2006 at 10:48 pm
VATICAN CITY -
Pope Benedict XVI issued an impassioned call Wednesday for an immediate cease-fire in the Middle East, saying “nothing can justify the spilling of innocent blood.”
Clenching his fist and his voice filled with emotion, Benedict said: “Our eyes are filled with the chilling images of torn bodies of so many people, especially children — I am thinking in particular of Qana.”
Samuel Stott offers: You can distinguish between objective allies of the Party of God from historians by distinguishing between those who await history’s judgement from those who reflexively support the Party of God’s version of history in real time. (end clip)
With apologies to my hero, Stalin, how many research assistants does the Pope have ? Samuel Stott – God Bless Him – has seperated the objective allies of the Party of God (i.e. Marc Cooper, The Pope) from those who patiently await history’s judgement like…uh…Yank Con. It’s a question of “reflexivness”. Marc and The Pope are reflexive. In contrast – and it’s a stark contrast indeed – Yank Con is reflective and, perhaps even – if my wishful thinking doesn’t fail me – a historian. Something about the will to imagine.
August 2nd, 2006 at 11:59 pm
While your being smug…let’s watch this video…..Hmm what do you know!…..BUSTED.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_B1H-1opys
August 3rd, 2006 at 12:09 am
“There are no claims that missiles were fired from the building. As Virgil points out, these nuts don’t even need to inquire into the facts, they make them up as they go along.”
Indeed. But while we’re at it, who made up “massacre”?
I take exception to using the term “Qana massacre” until somebody proves that it was a massacre. The harder evidence so far (even from Lebanese sources) indicates otherwise.
If you shoot into a crowd of kids, you’re massacring them.
If somebody is shooting at you from a crowd of kids, and you shoot back at the shooter, you’re being very irresponsible. Only the most extreme of self-defense circumstances would absolve you.
If you shoot at some fighters who are shooting at you, and there are some kids in a school behind them, you might be guilty of not noticing, or of making some poor choices of tactics when you could have arranged for cleaner shots, but even accusations like those don’t always cut it for events that transpire in the heat of battle.
From what I can see, Qana isn’t even as morally problematic as any of the above. It appears that the building collapsed as a side effect of previous attacks on it (before the two extended families occupied it), then attacks on other targets. (I’m waiting for more facts, so I say “appears”.) Any blame game around Qana will have to take place on flimsier ground: the usual debate about who’s more “justified” in this chapter Middle East conflict as a whole, a debate which itself is not exactly a model of rationality to begin with.
In the meantime, the term “Qana massacre” is tantamount to a conspiracy theory in itself. To me, “massacre” implies intent. I don’t see intent here. Israel announced a 48-hour bombing halt for investigations (honored in the breach on the second day, admittedly, though they did scale back.) The Lebanese have done their own investigations in Qana. Some facts have since emerged from both investigations that make “massacre” an even less applicable term, especially when you consider that any bias is likely to cancel itself out if you weigh reports from both sides.
As for the theory that Hezbollah conspired to create Qana, because after all, why wouldn’t they if they could, this just doesn’t pass the sniff tests. I have little doubt that Hezbollah engaged in some stage management of the aftermath for purposes of press exposure. That works for them. But putting the whole thing together seems like something they couldn’t pull off convincingly even if they wanted to.
Incidentally, Qana is more Amal territory than Hezbollah territory. However, Amal doesn’t have a militia as such, last I checked. THeir militia (which attacked Palestinian refugee camps during the civil war) has since been absorbed into the Lebanese army. Amal and Hezbollah fought each other fiercely during the Lebanese civil war. If nothing else, this event may demonstrate the importance of disarming all militias at the same time. If Amal had kept its arms, it might have been able to persuade Hezbollah to stay out of Qana, and, at this critical juncture, Israel as well. As things stand, however, Amal and Hezbollah are forced to be strange bedfellows, with Nabih Berri effectively representing Hezbollah as Israel tries to kill the leader of Hezbollah. Even in the protest that led to the sacking of a UN building in Beirut, it appears that they worked together to try to control the crowd, with more success than the police.
“With emotions running high, Lebanese security forces attempted to intervene and stop the angry protest from spinning out of control. Witnesses at the scene say, however, that members of political parties Hizbullah and Amal had more influence in calming matters.”
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/SNAO-6S7NT7?OpenDocument
What a mess.
August 3rd, 2006 at 12:32 am
“The same technology that theoretically enables us to know more, more profoundly, and with more dispatch than ever before in history instead helps return us to a medieval mindset.”
Long before I became a Grumpy Old Man myself, I was an adolescent enthralled with the magic of computers. It wasn’t a terribly obvious magic at the time — clanky teletypes chattering out text at 10 characters per second, “mini” computers six feet tall and two feet wide, with a whole 32K of RAM and 5M of hard disk space–if you were lucky. But I knew that Information Valhalla was coming, inexorably: someday, you’d be able to sit down at a computer, and ask something like a question, and get the Straight Dope about any imaginable topic. It would take decades, perhaps, but it was only a matter of time. Perhaps schools would become obsolete. No more PE class! No more Social Studies teachers with all the brains of a gnat in the later stages of DDT poisoning! We wouldn’t need school, and we’d all be MORE educated, not less. And there’d be no more fights breaking out in bars over baseball statistics!
Well, at least we got Wikipedia out of it, even if the Web also accelerated the rise of Truthiness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness
August 3rd, 2006 at 1:09 am
I like the juxtiposition of Virgil’s excellent comment and the post here that seems to be a wonderful demonstration of the type of conspiricist we are dealing with By Michael Turner.
He begins with some anologies that do not even fit.
“If you shoot at some fighters who are shooting at you, and there are some kids in a school behind them, you might be guilty of not noticing, or of making some poor choices of tactics when you could have arranged for cleaner shots, but even accusations like those don’t always cut it for events that transpire in the heat of battle.”
I particularly like the use of the phrase “heat of battle” to describe the experience of a F16 pilot high above the ground (one under no threat As there is no opposition) pressing a button and watching a computer drop a GPS guided muntion onto a building full of children.
Israel has admitted that it’s plane dropped the bomb, that there were no Hezbollah rocket launchers fired from Qana that day and that the casualty figuers are correct.
My question for Michael is, what motive does Israel have to admit all those things if they are not true.
I’d also like to ask him, how does it feel to be compelled to find a rationale for the murder of children?
August 3rd, 2006 at 4:08 am
Citizen,
You.re late to the game. All that provs is that some people are capable of faking things and they happen to be Arabic. Ultimately it’s irrelevant. Also, these people were Palestinian and the ones killed at Qana were Lebanese.
Guess they all look the same to you . . .
August 3rd, 2006 at 4:37 am
” particularly like the use of the phrase “heat of battle†to describe the experience of a F16 pilot high above the ground …”
I wasn’t describing that. I was outlining different scenarios with different ethical quandaries. For my take on this whole Qana incident, try reading the posts I’ve made so far. Or what I have to say below.
“Israel has admitted that it’s plane dropped the bomb, that there were no Hezbollah rocket launchers fired from Qana that day and that the casualty figuers are correct.”
From what I recollect (and maybe I’m behind), Israel has said that there was a helicopter attack on the building between midnight and 1AM, well before the estimated time of collapse (and for all we know, before these two families occupied the building) and that there were strikes in the vicinity (under half a kilometer away) later on, with one theory being that these later, more distant, strikes triggered the collapse. There’s a difference between that and “Israel dropped a bomb, killing dozens of civilians.” And there’s a much bigger difference between that and “Israel dropped a bomb, *intentionally* killing dozens of civilians, some of whom it knew to be children.” THEN (and only then) do you have “the murder of children.”
As for its targeting of Qana on a day when there were no rocket launches, I don’t see what the lack of launches on that particular day has to do with it. Israel has hit a lot of targets suspected of holding or transporting all kinds of arms, and these strikes have accounted for most of the civilian casualties.
As for “the casualty figures being correct” — whose casualty figures? The initial reports? Hezbollah’s reports. Or the reports from the Lebanese government (somewhat lower)?
“I’d also like to ask him, how does it feel to be compelled to find a rationale for the murder of children?”
I’m not compelled to find a rationale for the murder of children in any case. And in this case, because until someone can prove that this building was purposely targeted because it had children in it, this isn’t the murder of children. I’m not even compelled to find a justification for the Israeli attack on Hezbollah generally, though I’ve written a lot in Marc Cooper’s forums about Israel’s possible political agenda–call that a “rationale” if you will, but I don’t offer my speculations as “justifications”.
There may be several crimes folded into this incident, or it might be just a mistake in a larger conflict that Israel is pursuing in the wrong way. What I AM compelled to do is to understand what’s going on here, with these deaths in Qana. And prejudging it as something morally clearcut as “the murder of children” is not conducive to sniffing out the facts of the matter.
This war was planned. During the planning, I’m sure the issue came up: how many civilian casualties are likely? I’m sure estimates were generated. It wouldn’t be unlikely for there to have been an age breakdown, so that the Israeli planners knew, going in, a *likely* estimate of child casualties. And they went ahead anyway.
Is that “the murder of children”? If the war is judged to be illegitimate, I suppose it’s something like murdering children. But I don’t think the Israelis were hoping for the deaths of children, and there was always a tiny probability that none would be killed, if there were sufficient warnings of bombardment, and if civilians were will and able to vacate. If there’s a comparable civilian crime, it’s manslaughter: causing a death without intending to in the process of committing a crime. But this isn’t civilian. This is the breakdown of anything like due process of law. This is war: a virtual guarantee that things will be done by both sides that would have no justification in peacetime.
Sonic, it will be interesting to see whether I’m wasting my breath on you here. I wouldn’t be surprised if you come back with something like “war is very, very, VERY bad, and Israel is totally to blame in this case, therefore it’s the murder of children.” There would be a lot of … truthiness, in that.
August 3rd, 2006 at 4:47 am
Sometimes restating what should be obvious helps, and so I’m going to point it out again: at one point in this war, there were an estimated 500 casualties after some 2000 Israeli sorties over Lebanon. If Israel were out to “murder” people, you’d think it could manage to be more efficient about it than killing an average of half a Lebanese per (expensive, time-consuming) flight over Lebanon.
August 3rd, 2006 at 4:48 am
My math is bad. Make that “an average of a quarter of a Lebanese”.
August 3rd, 2006 at 4:57 am
Turner’s version is what I had heard. Truth can be messy for absolutists because it clouds things up with facts.
August 3rd, 2006 at 5:23 am
Michael Turner, well said, and far better than I could have said it. Thanks.
August 3rd, 2006 at 7:30 am
Re: Michael Turner
“There’s a difference between…a helicopter attack on the building (in Qana)…and Israel dropped a bomb, killing dozens of civilians”.
If there is a difference, it’s miniscule and only involving the magnitude of the war crime that the incident constituted. It was a civilian target. Whether it was destroyed by a 25 Lb. missile fired from an attack helicopter or a 500 Lb. bomb dropped from a jet is irrelevant.
If it sincerely wishes to occupy the moral high ground, Israel should accept the rules of warfare explicitly codified by the UN High Commission and Geneva Conventions, and accept the limitations inherent in attacking a guerilla army and therefore limit it’s tactics to close-range ground operations with the use of long distance shelling and aerial bombardment
only on clearly military targets.
This would have been the only way for Isreal to comply with the rules of warfare. Of course, it would have meant significantly higher casualties for the IDF, a conflict lasting months instead of weeks (in the most ideal scenario) and an even lower likelihood of achieving thier military objectives, not to mention the very real possibility that a significant portion of the Israeli public would come to oppose a protracted, high-IDF-casualty conflict.
Instead the Israelis chose to pursue thier reckless invasion of Lebanon that they had been planning for over a year, committing the same war crimes that Hezbollah routinely commits (only of a far greater magnitude), under the diplomatic cover of the US and the rhetorical cover of US MSM which strains to rationalize thier war crimes as mistakes.
August 3rd, 2006 at 10:03 am
GM Roper -
Just so you know – I, evets, am a manly sort of fellow, not a ‘her’.
We’re sort of in agreement on the Israel issue, but it’s hard to say since I’m not entirely in agreement with myself. My point was that Marc was misleading in his depiction of the provocations as isolated incidents. They were part of something much more serious than that. They justified a harsh response. I waver though on the wisdom of this particular response, whether it can achieve something worth the sacrifice.
August 3rd, 2006 at 10:59 am
hey “Just a Thought”
Are you serious that you think because a rightwing facist like Fred Phelps ran on the Democratic ticket that that makes him something other than a rightwing fascist? Rightwing fascism has a long history of embracing left leaning parties to advance militarist policies in defense of capitalism, think of Hitler for starters…Mussolini…
August 3rd, 2006 at 11:54 am
“This report documents serious violations of international humanitarian law (the laws of war) by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Lebanon between July 12 and July 27, 2006, as well as the July 30 attack in Qana. During this period, the IDF killed an estimated 400 people, the vast majority of them civilians, and that number climbed to over 500 by the time this report went to print. The Israeli government claims it is taking all possible measures to minimize civilian harm, but the cases documented here reveal a systematic failure by the IDF to distinguish between combatants and civilians.”
Here’s the rest of the Human Rigths Watch Report.
http://hrw.org/reports/2006/lebanon0806/
August 3rd, 2006 at 12:28 pm
Gee LA –
I get it. He can’t possibly be a part of the Democratic Party because you say so. He supported democratic candidates, hell he was a democratic candidate but he must be “rightwing fascist” because you can’t believe that anyone in your party would believe what he believes. Yeah – he’s a fascist but he is all yours.
August 3rd, 2006 at 12:40 pm
Just a thought,
Yes and David Duke a KKK leader nearly was elected governor of Louisiana as a republican. Fortunately everyone I know doesn’t come to the conclusion that all republicans are KKK members.
Guilt by association went out of style with the twist. Give it up.
August 3rd, 2006 at 1:32 pm
” don’t know, but at least I’m willing to acknowledge that given the history of this group of folks, it is entirely possible it was “faked†by one means or another or at least given a totally misleading slant. ”
GM if youre going to make these disgusting claims perhaps you should rely on actual evidence, instead of thinly veiled xenophobia (”this group of people”) Here’s Human Rights Watch’s report on Qana, lets now hear you explain to us all how HRW is really an Arab propaganda arm intent on faking and staging deaths in order to bring about the downfall of western civilisation. I recived an e mail from a friend in Lebenon, they’re mourning the hundreds who have been killed and the wanton destruction of their nation. Have you no shame?
Israel/Lebanon: Israel Responsible for Qana Attack
Indiscriminate Bombing in Lebanon a War Crime
07.30.2006 | Human Rights Watch | Reuters Foundation
(Beirut, July 30, 2006) – Responsibility for the Israeli airstrikes that killed at least 54 civilians sheltering in a home in the Lebanese village of Qana rests squarely with the Israeli military, Human Rights Watch said today. It is the latest product of an indiscriminate bombing campaign that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have waged in Lebanon over the past 18 days, leaving an estimated 750 people dead, the vast majority of them civilians.
“Today’s strike on Qana, killing at least 54 civilians, more than half of them children, suggests that the Israeli military is treating southern Lebanon as a free-fire zone,” said Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch. “The Israeli military seems to consider anyone left in the area a combatant who is fair game for attack.”
This latest, appalling loss of civilian life underscores the need for the U.N. Secretary-General to establish an International Commission of Inquiry to investigate serious violations of international humanitarian law in the context of the current conflict, Roth said. Such consistent failure to distinguish combatants and civilians is a war crime.
A statement issued today by the IDF said that responsibility for the Qana attack “rests with the Hezbollah” because it has used the area to launch “hundreds of missiles” into Israel. It added: “Residents in this region and specifically the residents of Qana were warned several days in advance to leave the village.”
On July 27, Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said that Israel had given civilians ample time to leave southern Lebanon, and that anyone remaining could be considered a supporter of Hezbollah. “All those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah,” he said, according to the BBC.
“Just because the Israeli military warned the civilians of Qana to leave does not give it carte blanche to blindly attack,” Roth said. “It still must make every possible effort to target only genuine combatants. Through its arguments, the Israeli military is suggesting that Palestinian militant groups might ‘warn’ all settlers to leave Israeli settlements and then be justified in targeting those who remained.”
Even if the IDF claims of Hezbollah rocket fire from the Qana area are correct, Israel remains under a strict obligation to direct attacks at only military objectives, and to take all feasible precautions to avoid the incidental loss of civilian life. To date, Israel has not presented any evidence to show that Hezbollah was present in or around the building that was struck at the time of the attack.
Tens of thousands of civilians remain in villages south of the Litani River, despite IDF warnings to leave. Some have chosen to stay, but the vast majority is unable to flee due to destroyed roads, a lack of gasoline, high taxi fares, sick relatives, or ongoing Israeli attacks. The sick and poor are those who mostly remain behind.
The attack took place around 1:00 a.m. today, when Israeli warplanes fired missiles at the village of Qana. Among the homes struck was a three-story building in which 63 members of two extended families, the Shalhoub and Hashim families, had sought shelter. The civilians had taken refuge there because it was one of the larger buildings in the area and had a reinforced basement, according to the deputy mayor of the town, Dr. Issam Matuni.
According to the Lebanese civil defense and the Lebanese Red Cross, at least 54 civilians, including 27 children, were crushed to death when the building collapsed. Rescue teams were unable to reach the village until 9:00 a.m. because of ongoing heavy IDF bombardment in the area. None of the bodies recovered so far have been militants, and rescue workers say they have found no weapons in the building that was struck.
Qana was the site of a 1996 Israeli air strike on a U.N. compound sheltering fleeing civilians that killed more than 100 people. Human Rights Watch research established at the time that the 1996 strike was also an indiscriminate attack by the Israeli military.
Human Rights Watch researchers have been in Lebanon since the onset of the current hostilities and have documented dozens of cases in which Israeli forces have carried out indiscriminate attacks against civilians while in their homes or traveling on roads to flee the fighting. A report of these findings and their legal consequences will be issued later this week.
Human Rights Watch has also documented Hezbollah’s deliberate and indiscriminate firing of Katyusha rockets into civilian areas in Israel, resulting in 18 civilian deaths to date. These serious violations of international humanitarian law are also war crimes.
“War crimes by one party to a conflict never justify war crimes by another,” Roth said.
August 3rd, 2006 at 1:50 pm
The blame game is there for those who have a political agenda that events either support or are twisted to their dogma needs. Let it suffice either you believe the state of Isreal has the right to exist or you believe it does the world good for a “one-sided”ceasefire so the H. can accomplish the political ends of those who rather have it done without the cost of building an oven.
If you haven’t been under fire you have no idea but the Saturday Matinee mentality supported by the dogma of your agenda. Yes “people” get killed in wars . One side is no better than worse than the other in trying to attain its battlefield objectives. What is wrong is those who falisfy the reality with the horrors of war, not damning the intent of the combatants. Over two hundred rockets fired aimlessly against Northern Isreal should be condemned by those who profess a hatred for war.
And lets not say this is over a “kidnapped” soldier, this is about the world not caring what happens to Jews again!!! We gave all the excuses before I don’t blame them for not trusting us again….two years and H. is still not demobilized but strengthened (1559). There is no doubt in my mind that those who hold all the blame to the feet of Israel and of course the world’s best whipping boy the US (funny how people best vote with their feet…not many trying to get to any place but the bad old US of A…. )
I am not an American, nor a Jew but I respect their right to live as much as everyone else. I just believe those who say they want to kill all the Jews and don’t have the superior western mind that belittles them by saying “they really don’t believe it”. There is but two choices .1) you believe in the right odf Israel to exist or 2) you believe the H’s have the right to destroy them. No I’m not saying all are perfect but the choice to support one over the other is, in my mind a no brainer…Interstingly my father had said many years ago “my brother died and I fought so a new generation can cover their anti-semitism, by any means but in the end it will all be the same, if you don’t fight to correct I’m sorry but your children or grandchildren will have to.. because those who fail, those who want, will brainwash those who are simple, and by the time the world wakes up, I just hope you are not alone because the others have been sacrificed” Then I walked away…too bad Dad talks about stuff thats not important to me!!!!!
A Canadian from the far North who hopes he understands the fundamentals that are important and are true. My heart crys in the night for all those that are in harms way today…but I loathe those whose agenda perpetuates the hatreds of yesteryear under the guise of “peace in our time” or the wailings of “they are worse at killing than the other side”. Once war starts there are no right side in the event only on the intent!!
August 3rd, 2006 at 2:11 pm
Precis is never the strong suit of concpiracy theorists……
August 3rd, 2006 at 2:14 pm
I had a few extra minutes to review some of the Geneva Conventions regarding civilians for those who care about such matters:
“Combatants must distinguish between civilian and military property (and objects) and attack only military property (and objects)”
[Protocol I, art. 48]. It would be difficult for either party to claim that in the course of thier long range shelling and aerial bombardment of Haifa, Bierut, Qana etc., that they were clearly able to distinguish between military and civilian targets.
“If it becomes apparent that an objective is not a military one…then the attack must be cancelled or suspended” [Protocol I, art. 57, sec. 2b]. “Civilians must not be punished for offenses they personally did not commit” [Convention IV, art. 33]. Israel’s repeated bombardment of Bierut, far from the Hez controlled south, was clearly intended to punish Lebanese civilians and influence the political situation within Lebanon. As such, it constituted a non-military objective and should have been terminated/suspended (indeed, should never have taken place according to my first reference to the conventions above).
Regarding the frequently voiced defense of Israeli military actions that reasons: since the Hez are using civilians as shields (a war crime -
Protocol I, art. 51, sec. 7), the civilians are fair game. Chapter II, art. 50, sec. 8 states: Any violation of these prohibitions (regarding the use of civilians as shields) shall not release the parties to the conflict from thier legal obligations with respect to the (protections of the) civilian populations”. Hopefully, that will put an end (at least on this blogsite) to the laughable “once one side violates a convention, all bets are off” rationalization of Israeli (and less frequently, Hez) atrocities.
As far as the “my side makes mistakes, the other side deliberately targets civilians”, both sides have shown a clear pattern of reckless disregard for civilian casualties.
Bloggers, feel free to search for loopholes in this small sampling of the letter of the international laws regarding civilians and warfare – the spirit of the law clearly indicates that both sides are guilty of war crimes and neither side’s claim to any moral high-ground carries any more weight than the other’s.
August 3rd, 2006 at 2:51 pm
Israel will continue to create lots of “Collateral Damage” in Lebanon, whether intentionally or not, for a very simple reason. It is afraid to do what would be necessary to really root out the Hezbollah in S. Lebanon. Since they pulled out in 2000 the “Party of God” has had 6 yeaqrs to prepare defensive positions and dig in to wait for an attack. To get them the IDF would have to commit large ground forces to the area to root the fighters out. Air attacks won’t work. Never have and never will. But there is a catch.
In 1945 the US invaded Iwo Jima. After pounding the island for weeks with bombs and large calabre naval gunfire the 20,000 or so Japanese defenders were hardly scratched.It took over 100,000 soldiers and Marines to clear them out at a tremendous loss of life. There’s a reason that Joe Rosenthal’s picture of the flag going up over Surabachi became iconic and the losses there – and at other island fortresses -went a long way toward convincing Truman to drop the big one.
Israel can’t nuke the Hezbollah for obvious reasons. But its leadership has no stomach for the type of casualties that an all-out ground war would bring. So this is a lose-lose situation for them. Sooner or later even the dullards in Bush’s Washington will call for a cease fire and the Hezbollah will still be in place with plenty of rockets to make life interesting in Northern Israel.
And whether or not anything was staged will amuse those in rightwing land – just as some on the left know that we “brought down the towers” – but in the reality based community the “Party of God” will have another victory over the “Zionist Entity” and continue to grow in stature in the Arab world as the only people to give the Israelis a bloody nose.
August 3rd, 2006 at 8:13 pm
Evets… my most deep and humble apologies.
August 3rd, 2006 at 8:26 pm
Ahmed, you are a partisan, as am I. But don’t be a fool… HRW hasn’t said anything about the deliberate targeting of civilians by Hezb’ and the jihadists…
Further, I’m acknowledging that I don’t know what happened, I also am using “These people” to distinguish between the hezb militia and the lebanese civilians, a fact of which I’m sure you are aware, but choose to champion your own racism by attempting to call me one.
“I recived an e mail from a friend in Lebenon, they’re mourning the hundreds who have been killed and the wanton destruction of their nation. Have you no shame?”
Hell no I don’t. Listen you fatuous bump on the body politic, the so called 54 weren’t 54 more like the high 20’s and there may have been a number of reasons they were dead, killed either directly or indirectly by the IDF. Hezb has consistently targeted civilians and you sit there accusing me of not caring about civilian deaths… Jerk! I said that the possibility exists that the info was faked or was misleading… you deny that… fine, prove it was real… I’ve proven that jihadists are not above faking news and that story was told by 60 minutes. I’ve also not made any claim regarding the difference between the Palli’s and the Lebanese as Randy stupidly claimed.
There is a reason that conservatives don’t often come here, and it is because of true believers like you that can see only one side of an argument. You will pick a fight with anyone who doesn’t kowtow to your ideology wether it be me, or Marc or anyone else… support the Pali’s or the Jihadists or else… nuts!!! I’m through with you!
Pathetic!
August 3rd, 2006 at 8:33 pm
qmeerxkzta…
fhjqoow vptwzpnxd qigvqqcvzkw…
August 3rd, 2006 at 8:43 pm
To get back to the subject, the charge is that there is a “sputtering blogosphere conspiracy theory that Hezbollah staged the Qana massacre.”
This mischaracterizes the position of people who question what happened at Qana. No one disputes that the IDF bombed Qana, hit the building under question, and that an unknown number of women and children died.
Why and according to what justification was the building bombed? Were Party of God operatives firing from the building? Did the building collapse from the IDF bombing or from a later explosion. Did any of those “trophy fish” bodies, as sts puts it so well, come from offsite?
All of these are questions of fact. Who objects to facts?
Assuming and conceding no facts about Qana, one might still object to Israel’s response to the Party of God’s provocations.
But Qana seems to be a necessary thing to fix on. When you are an alleged “progressive,” attempting to draw a moral equivelance between an open democratic society on record as wanting peaceful co-existence and a sexist, homophobic, facist theocracy on record as calling for the destruction of a nation, well….
August 3rd, 2006 at 8:58 pm
I am going to accept Human Rights Watch’s account of Qana (thank you Ahmed, for the link). It exposes contradictions in the Israeli account of events that I didn’t know about until now, and contradicts previous Israeli theories that made it sound like the Qana deaths were incidental to, rather than a direct and immediate result of, Israeli air strikes. That makes some difference, in my mind, but I still can’t use the word “massacre” to describe the outcome.
On the other hand … Much as I hate to impugn HRW in their treatment of this theater of war, they are not impeccable just because they are ardent defenders of human rights and devoted to exposure of violations thereof. I already have impugned them, about another theater: Iraq. Tony Blair mouthed off about how mass graves in Iraq held some 400,000 bodies, based on estimates in an HRW report, and ended up retracting that statement when those estimates were shown to be laughably inflated.
HRW goes over the top sometimes. Here’s just one sample from the report Ahmed links.
“As demonstrated by the case studies below, Israel has caused large-scale civilian casualties by striking civilian homes, with no apparent military objective either inside the home or in the vicinity.”
Now that’s very sad, but I don’t think Israel can be blamed for having no *apparent* military objectives for such strikes when it’s dealing with an enemy that’s hiding weapons and fighters, and hazy intelligence about locations. All military forces make efforts at concealment, but there are right and wrong ways to do this, and Hezbollah’s ways are wrong. That doesn’t mean that everything that Israel is doing right now is right. But remember: I’m restricting my criticism on Qana to the objection that it shouldn’t be called a “massacre.” If this was is a game where the “loser” is the side that ended up having more war criminals, well, I think Hezbollah already won that game, long ago. Every single missile launch they’ve done so far is a war crime.
And what about HRW’s “large-scale civilian casualties”? Pardon me for perhaps suffering from an overdose of historical perspective, but I live in a city (Tokyo) that endured an Amerian fire-bombing attack. That attack is estimated to have killed over 300 times as many civilians in under 24 hours as have died so far in the air assaults on Lebanon over a period of more than three weeks. And killing civilians was clearly the point, in the case of Tokyo and other Japanese cities. If hundreds of civilians dying is “large-scale”, I wonder what HRW would have called the firebombing (and nuclear bombing) of Japan? “Super Duper Jumbo Colossal Scale”?
If the idea is help nail the worst war criminals as measured by some weighted formula taking into account number of civilian deaths and degree of intent, I say we should all forget about Lebanon for the moment and try to get Robert Macnamara (who, along with Curtis LeMay, planned the firebombings, and not just of Tokyo but every major city in Japan) arrested and brought up on charges of genocide at ICC. After working down through a list of thousands still living around the world (Henry Kissinger way up there, of course), we might get to Nasrallah. And after taking care of many more lower-priority cases after Nasrallah, we might finally arrive at some trigger-happy colonel in the Israeli air force in this current war in Lebanon.
Israel is committing war crimes. Hezbollah is committing war crimes. But do you think there’s ever going to be a Middle East War Crimes Tribunal? One with any kind of objectivity? I don’t think so. Legal norms only get traction when there’s a functioning judicial system and an effective police. We don’t have anything like that for arbitrating human rights violations in the Middle East conflict, a war that has to end before judicial proceedings can begin. Until we do, the term “war crime” is going to be more a rhetorical element of the political arsenal than anything objectively meaningful. It’ll be part of the war of words, in which you trump up and overstate the enemy’s “war crimes” and minimize or rationalize your own.
I trust I’ve offended everybody at this point.
August 3rd, 2006 at 9:38 pm
GM writes:
“Ahmed, you are a partisan, as am I. But don’t be a fool … HRW hasn’t said anything about the deliberate targeting of civilians by Hezb’ and the jihadists…”
Actually, GM, they have.
http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/07/18/lebano13760.htm
What, you don’t have time to dig? But that’s a link I turned up in under 7 seconds by googling on “human rights watch” and “hezbollah”. And under a reasonable assumption: HRW cares about human rights violations no matter who is perpetrating them.
Do your homework before using an unlikely assumption as any part of some justification for calling Ahmed a “jerk”, a “fatuous bump on the body politic”, and “pathetic”. Maybe it takes one to know one? Ahmed is a partisan, to be sure, but I value his contributions here and can’t bring myself to treat his biases with the lack of sympathy you demonstrate.
HRW is hardly free of bias (see my posting immediately above) but that bias is toward alarmism about human rights violations. That alarmism earns my sympathy even if it can’t win my approval. I sympathize with HRW even when it misleads me, in part because it’s nonpartisan, but mostly because they’ve signed up for what must be a very frustrating job: trying to get people’s attention without resorting to partisan appeal. That alarmism can backfire–partisans will selectively seize on alarmist statements from HRW for ammunition in the war of words. Every overstatement is a potential embarrassment for HRW, one that could undermine their clout in the long term. But avoiding alarmism over the long term must not seem to HRW a very attractive option in the face of short-term opportunities to make a difference that could save lives. Heart can win out over head even if you’re not aligned with any particular side.
August 3rd, 2006 at 9:51 pm
Ed Watters “I had a few extra minutes to review some of the Geneva Conventions regarding civilians for those who care about such matters: …”
What Ed said. And thanks, Ed. To the rest of you: Scroll back up and read it if you haven’t.
But also: what I said. The term “war crime” should be regarded as an armed grenade bouncing into the overheated salon of war-of-words discourse, until context and user intent proves otherwise. Too bad we don’t have the blog-comment-section equivalent of an on-call bomb squad.
August 3rd, 2006 at 10:53 pm
“Do your homework before using an unlikely assumption as any part of some justification for calling Ahmed a “jerkâ€, a “fatuous bump on the body politicâ€, and “patheticâ€. Maybe it takes one to know one? Ahmed is a partisan, to be sure, but I value his contributions here and can’t bring myself to treat his biases with the lack of sympathy you demonstrate.”
And here’s a head nod right back at you Michael Turner. Reading through your comments,which are always well informed and thoughtful,I can tell that we’ve got some substancial differences, moral, political and historical. That said I’ve always appreaciated what you’ve brought to the table. Gm Roper on the other hand acts the part of a quintessential demegogue and clearly isnt above making up outright and laughable lies (HRW doesn’t document hezbollah’s targetting of civilains) And if im going to dwell on personalities can i send a shout out to this lovely commentator
http://tinyurl.com/pp3hn
August 4th, 2006 at 4:39 am
Stupidly claimed, GM? Give me a break! As I mentioned to Woody on my site, all the “Pallywood” video showed was that people are capable of chicanery. Stop the presses!
It was utterly irrelevant as to Qana, especially as the facts have borne out. Stupid claims? Consider your comment on HRW and how that was quickly dissected.
August 4th, 2006 at 5:12 am
“There is a reason that conservatives don’t often come here, and it is because of true believers like you that can see only one side of an argument.”
You guys come here with the lamest, most partisan crap imaginable – Woody being the worst – and you’ve got the nerve to come off whining about “true believers that can see only one side of an argument” keeping poor, fragile right-wing blowhards from commenting here ? Give me a break. Marc characterized what was obviously wild speculation as precisely that…wild speculation. And you clowns come back arguing that because something was POSSIBLE, we were idiots and hacks for not bowing and scaping before morons claiming something was probably true – primarily because it would fit their agenda better if it was. Your bait-and-switch argument that criticizing ConYank’s evidentiary standards is somehow an inability to imagine possibilities – because (who knew?
What a profound lack of self-awareness your childish whining betrays.
August 4th, 2006 at 5:19 am
Michael, you are correct, and I apologize to both Ahmed and Randy. My only excuse is that I had returned from a funeral of a dear friend who sat next to me in chemo-therapy for some 4 of the last 6 months before succumbing to cancer and I was angry and upset. Not a real excuse believe me, but the only one I have.
Again, I apologize for my intemperate language!
I do not apologize however for the essense of what I said, that the tone in this thread is decidely one sided in a conflict that very obviously has two sides. I could have looked up the HRW link and I didn’t and there is no excuse for that so thank you Michael for the link.
August 4th, 2006 at 5:31 am
“There is a reason that conservatives don’t often come here, and it is because of true believers like you that can see only one side of an argument.”
You guys come here with the lamest, most partisan, hyper-ideological crap imaginable – Woody being one of the worst – and you’ve got the nerve to come off whining about “true believers that can see only one side of an argument” keeping poor, fragile right-wing blowhards from commenting ? Give me a break. Marc characterized what was obviously wild speculation as precisely that…wild speculation. And you clowns come back arguing that because something was POSSIBLE, we were idiots and hacks for not bowing and scaping before morons claiming that a particular event was undoubtedly staged – primarily because it would fit their agenda better if it was. Your bait-and-switch argument that Marc, et. al. criticizing ConYank’s evidentiary standards is somehow an inability to imagine possibilities – because (who knew?) Hezbollah are rotten bastards – is pathetic. Imagining possiblities was never at issue. Responding to a particular argument was. The reaction from right commenters was childish, ignorant sleight of hand – stuff that’s typical of the right blowhardsphere when their attempts at argument from evidence fail. It’s a fallback to ideology over critical thinking or analysis. And you’ve got the nerve to toss around your “true believers” cliche. Go tell it to your comrades Misha and Woody, if you’re such a tribune of objectivity and rational discourse. Once you’ve cleaned out your closet, maybe more of us here might take you seriously. I often disagree with Ahmed but his standards of discourse are far more competent than your pal Woody’s – or most of your own for that matter. He may be many things – and is certainly well to my left – but fatuous isn’t one of them. And he doesn’t resort to being a crybaby when he gets pushback from some of the rest of us.
What a profound lack of self-awareness your childish whining betrays.
August 4th, 2006 at 5:33 am
Okay…I wrote that before you last comment was posted or I missed it. Consider it retracted.
August 4th, 2006 at 5:38 am
Also sorry for the accidental “half-post” – computer glitch that I also didn’t catch when I was interrupted writing a comment. Probably need to imbibe caffeine before I make my rounds on the internet early AM.
August 4th, 2006 at 6:00 am
Michael Turner;
Thanks!
I agree. As long as the US has a seat on the Security Council of the UN, there will be no such tribunal but on the other hand, I don’t think it ever hurts to call a crime a crime.
Did I read above that you reside in Tokyo? I hear thier military is being expanded – is this true?
August 4th, 2006 at 6:30 am
Apology accepted.
August 4th, 2006 at 6:44 am
This mischaracterizes the position of people who question what happened at Qana. No one disputes that the IDF bombed Qana, hit the building under question, and that an unknown number of women and children died.
Did you read Con Yank’s post that marc linked to? He does just that and tries to make the case that the dead bodies there were killed elsewhere.
August 4th, 2006 at 10:46 am
Fair enough Roper and i accept your apology. Small correction though, it was yours truly who provided you with the HRW link not Michael Turner. As for Con Yank what a disgusting dehumanising show he put on here. His “Hezbollah hoax” rhetoric which was supported by Michelle Malkin and Rush Limbaugh demonstrate how little he values Arab lives. In the face the death of many civilians he immediaitely resorts to demonstrately false conspiracy theories. Let us now out him and others who argued this nonsense in the same boat as pernicious jerks who suggest that no jews died on 9/11 and others who see it fit to deny attroacaites as a way of justifying their political agendas
August 4th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
There is a difference here folks between those who argue that no jes dies on 9/11 or that the WTC was a put up job by the Bush crime family and those who argue that the killings in Lebanon are falsified. One side can be found on Pacifica and obscure websights. The others on FOX News and Rush Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly Et Al. Guess which side is on what media?
August 4th, 2006 at 7:47 pm
Ahmed, correction to my post noted. I, for one don’t value Arab lives one iota more or less than I value Israeli lives, not jewish lives over muslim lives, not christian lives over buddist lives.
I do deplore however the tactics of terrorism regardless of who does them, and in the recent past, the terrorist folk have killed far more muslims than the jews or americans. or so it seems to me.
April 9th, 2007 at 7:02 am
absolutists…
Online adult dating site and community…
May 17th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
berlin air lift…
Marshall and again 1947 TIME’s Man of the Year: George C. Marshall For European Recovery: The. The Museum aircraft, then assigned to Navy ……