Blogs More Accurate Than MSM On Qana

Several blogs, including Michelle Malkin, Confederate Yankee, my post here, and others took an objective view of recent events in Qana. And I believe there's much more to be exposed on the MSM's horrific coverage of the war in Lebanon.

For now the MSM is eating crow for buying into the Hezbollah hype.

A Tyre hospital on Thursday revised the number of casualties resulting from Israel's air strike on the south Lebanese village of Qana from 52 down to 28.

Comments

[rwilymz]

"What is Israel if not a "do over" of the first magnitude? How did they get their country?"

The Isrealis got their country the same way the Pal-Arabs were granted the means and territorial assets to get theirs.

Only one of them bothered to make a nation, though. The other made a war.

"they got it handed to them on a silver platter wrapped up in a big United Nations bow from the West."

Hardly! The British were actively participating in the oppression of the Jews between 23 and 48, and many of the British military officers resigned on May 15th to join various Arab nations' militaries to fight against Isreal.

[rwilymz]

"which of course goes hand in hand with criticzing Israel, everyone that criticizes Israel is, obviously, an anti semite one way or the other."

When you hold a position that explicitly declares that Israel has different rules than every other nation has, that pretty well advertises you to be biased against Israel.

[rwilymz]

"For all your knowledge of history you haven't any wisdom or understanding of what it means or how to interpret it."

You analyse by collecting the facts you like and the facts you dislike, putting them together in their associated sets, determining the relationships between those facts and drawing a conclusion based on the relationships between all the facts.

When you start with a conclusion and collect facts to support that conclusion, discarding those which contraindicate your conclusion, you become -- if paid to do this -- a lawyer trying to get a client off; if unpaid, you are an advocate [politely] or an ideologue [impolitely].

I've been fairly careful to not disclose what my personal views are. You presume to know them because the direction that *all* the evidence lies in is generally contrary to your preferred philosophy.

Israel is doing nothing that any nation, surrounded by belligerent nations on all sides, would not do if it wanted to survive. In fact, Israel's actions to date roughly parallel the actions of the US in our own early years... us damned zionist crusaders!!

[rwilymz]

And being critical of the creation of Israel is really quite funny; all the "nations" of the middle east, south of Turkey, were created out of the same bolt of whole cloth, based roughly on past, historical claims. "National" identities in central Asia were simply invented, as were most in Africa, based more on colonial boundaries than any historical divinations, or even current tribal affiliations.

[rwilymz]

dan ... there is something about the combination of the foregoing pieces of response that are flagged as "spam"

[xxx]

I suspect the Brits considered the Revolutionary War to have been a terrorist and illegitimate action, we ambushed Brit troops, we even killed our fellow Americans who sided with the Brits, took their lands by force and burned their homes.

Hmmm, is that terrorism or birth of a nation?

Either you apply the same rules to both sides or you don't. If you do, then, while it may be legitimate to claim the Palestinians f**d up their chance at a state, it is also, a common and legitimate response when you lose land, lose a war or become dispossed to keep fighting for what you lost. To be expected.

Either an Israeli soldier who shoots a 13 year old unarmed girl in cold blood and then mutilates her corpse has committed a war crime, a crime as serious as that of the Palestinian who bombs the grocery store or you lose your credibility.

Letting the Israelis get away with anything and everything under the guise of either 'defense' or 'oops, we made a mistake' is crap. It is completely unfair and unrealistic. When you keep making the same mistakes over and over again they are no longer mistakes, they are a strategy. Just like the Israelis aren't targetting these civilians by mistake, they are doing it on purpose to instill fear and to punish the civilians that support Hezbollah, for the same reason that you don't gun down a 5 year old by mistake or shoot a grandmother by mistake, the same reason that all these civilian targets in Lebanon that the Israelis are taking fire from aren't showing up any men or weapons, because its a lie, pure and simple. There are no weapons or rocket launchers, they are purposely targeting these civilians as their strategy in fighting Hezbollah and, foolishly, reducing Hezbollah support.

[rwilymz]

"Hezbollah was an organic, Lebanese response to the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon."

So what? That has bupkus to do with it. Without somebody from the outside supplying them with arms, they are pissed off Arabs.

WITH somebody supplying them with arms, they are now a proxy paramilitary force.

"It didn't exist before the 1980's, and presumably, you will agree that Syria and Iran already had some prior beefs with Israel."

From a cold and cynical, anti-ideologuish viewpoint, Iran had nothing to do with Israel.

In fact, if Syria hadn't taken it upon themselves to interject themselves in the partitioning of Trans-Jordan, they wouldn't have had a beef either.

"It doesn't matter who they got their money from, it matters why they organized in the first place."

They organized because they got whipped into shape by one of the many available charismatics who are capable of molding the general rabble into a mob.

Without the charismatic, they are nothing but one of thousands of disparate groups of poor, uneducated people who think their condition is worse than the next. History's full of them.

Yet ... "terrorism" doesn't really show up until the 20th century.

"Guerilla fighters from the viet cong to the sandinistas to the taliban got their start from local, organic condidtions, they got their motivation from local conditions and situations and conflicts"

We are not talking about "geurilla" fighters. People who have nothing and make their own weapons. We are talking about poor people who have nothing, yet manage to collect modern weapons that they have no earthly way to afford.

"You admit that our politicians speak in rhetoric and say things that they don't mean"

No, they mean what they say, but they are ideologues. I don't *believe* them, which is a different thing entirely. I don't believe Murtha and his "over the horizon" caca because it contradicts every stick of military tactics ever discovered to work. But he says it because he's trying to get unknowledgeable twerps to side with him. And if he were to become some great hmfwic in the House or, god forbid, higher than that, i'm sure he'd try to implement that. But the great ignoramus masses who do not know what they're talking about fully believe him because, well, he was a Marine.

"you don't give the Arabs the same credit"

There are significant differences between secular, cynical US politicians playing politics and dogmatic theocrats in Greater Islamia playing politics.

"...everything they say they mean literally..."

A great deal, yes. We are not the same culture as they are, and do not operate on the same sensibilities.

"it's no wonder you think the only solution is to kill them"

I really really really object to you putting words on my keyboard, and this isn't the first time I've warned you about that.

[rwilymz]

"I suspect the Brits considered the Revolutionary War to have been a terrorist and illegitimate action, we ambushed Brit troops, we even killed our fellow Americans who sided with the Brits, took their lands by force and burned their homes."

"Terrorism" as a concept did not exist in the 18th century.

That was simply "war". And up until the mid 19th century, everyone fought war that way. Most people and nations still do, actually. Only in the west do we turn pale and get the vapors.

What signifies "terrorism" -- apart from its targetting strategy -- is that it is a paramilitary structure supplied from outside or private sources to fund a war for private purposes.

Nobody "funded" the American Revolution. You only need look at the national debt the US started with to determine that.

"Either you apply the same rules to both sides or you don't."

That's my line. Be consistent.

"If you do, then, while it may be legitimate to claim the Palestinians f**d up their chance at a state"

Certainly.

"it is also, a common and legitimate response when you lose land, lose a war or become dispossed to keep fighting for what you lost. To be expected."

It is expected.

What is *not* expected is that these people disgruntled at having lost their land under the enormal exigencies of war are supplied from outside sources to keep fighting long past the time they'd be able to maintain a resistance.

About the only other time, pre-20th century, when that happened was during the long-running Brit-Frog wars of the late Middle Ages. England crushed Scotland, so France fed Scot resistance until France went broke; Franks crushed Burgundy, so the Brits fed Burgundian resistance until the Brits went broke.

Other than that I can't think of much.

War is expensive, and paying others to fight it for you is even more expensive, in a lot of ways.

"Letting the Israelis get away with anything and everything under the guise of either 'defense' or 'oops, we made a mistake' is crap."

The US bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. We said "oops". Crap?

"It is completely unfair and unrealistic. When you keep making the same mistakes over and over again they are no longer mistakes, they are a strategy."

You have unrealistic expectations of war.

Remaining faux-pious moralizing ignored.

[xxx]

Do I?

So, if civilians are bound to die in war, then why so many tears and so much outrage for Israelis killed by suicide bombers? Attacking civilians, according to you, has always been done in war and everyone has always done it except the West in the last 50 years, so what's the big deal? These Jews know the Palestinians don't like them and are prone to suicide bombings so, if they get killed, that's their tough luck, that's the price of war....a little bloodshed is expected.

Either the civilians killed by arabs are collateral damage, just like the arabs killed by israelis are collateral damage, or not.

Both are atrocities or neither.

You can't have it both ways, every civlian killed by Israeli soldiers has been an accident and mistake, every one of them? for 60 years??????? even most of them? I think not.

Israeli soldiers kill these civilians on purpose, just like the arabs kill Israeli civilians on purpose. No difference.

[rwilymz]

"if civilians are bound to die in war, then why so many tears and so much outrage for Israelis killed by suicide bombers?"

You accusing me of tears and outrage?

"except the West in the last 50 years"

150...

m/l...

"Both are atrocities or neither."

The fact that civilians are killed is not something you can validly point at and declare "war crime".

Civilians *are* killed in wars, and always will be.

The rules of war we've invented, though, say you cannot **deliberately** target civilians.

And "civilian" is not simply "no uniform".

The rules of war say that soldiers can attack anyplace and anyone that attacks them. If you and I are hunkered down in our foxhole and someone whoots at us from a hospital, ... guess what? That hospital is no longer a "civilian object". We have every right to shoot our 50-cal into it, and my laser-guided bazooka deal.

Will civilians in the hospital die from the exchange? Probably. Them's the breaks.

When I as the pilot and you as my co-pilot see enemy fire coming from the crest of Hill 12-X, and we fire on that hill crest -- which also houses UN "observers" -- will UN "observers" get in the way? Probably. Them's also the breaks.

Civilians die, period. And lack of uniform does not a civilian make. Particularly in that part of the world.

"No difference."

And the US deliberately targetted the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Should Clinton report to The Hague?

Have a weekend, 'x'. Spend it productively. Join Mel Gibson in sensitivity training.

[xxx]

and when you see a grandmother walking a cross a field and you shoot over her head and she runs away from her, its okay to shoot her down like a dog?

and when you see a little girl walking across a field that you have declared she cannot walk accross, its okay to shoot her down like a dog?

and when you come upon a refugee camp full of women and children and old men, its okay to raze it to the ground, killing all the inhabitants?

sorry, no sale.

some civilian casualties are of course, inevitable, and some civilian 'casualties' are actually murders committed by soldiers in uniform.

[Phoenix]

"some civilian casualties are of course, inevitable, and some civilian 'casualties' are actually murders committed by soldiers in uniform."

The uniform of an ideologue/terrorist/Islamofacist: Suicide/homocide vest. Yep. Actual murders of civilians.

Who else commits that form of 'warfare'? Name one.

What tattered bandwidth this has been.

[xxx]

The witchfinder always found witches and the witches always confessed. His worldview permitted no other outcome or objective reality to intrude.

Only problem is he was right out of his mind and was actually torturing and burning alive people who did not actually fly through the air or fornicate with the devil.

[Phoenix]

From the only objective reality there is, your statement contradicts itself. If the witches confessed, then surely they were not tortured as they burned because they were on the highway to hell and glad of it.