Thursday, August 24, 2006

Israel-Hezbollah Conflict

Hezbollah's Terror Tactics

How can anyone sympathize with Hezbollah, which doesn't even consider Israel to be a legitimate state and--unprovoked--wants to destroy Israel entirely? It's a terrorist organization, not a moderate political organization in the least. Suicide bombing, a tactic employed by Hezbollah and not Israel, has no justification. It kidnaps, tortures, and murders soldiers and other individuals for its own gain. Much of its financing is illicit. It bombed embassies, maimed people with car bombs, and hijacked airliners. Hezbollah, who started the conflict, hides weapons in mosques and rains dozens of Katyusha rockets at urban centers on a daily basis to murder civilians. It also uses ball bearings in its warheads so as to cause maximum damage to civilians. Lebanon failed to carry out its duty under UN Security Council Resolution 1559 to disarm Hezbollah and send its army to southern Lebanon. Hezbollah is so callously indifferent to human life to the point where it deliberately sets up shop in civilian neighborhoods where the citizens will be in danger; it employs the "human shields" tactic. The Lebanese people should have been more vigilant in thwarting the growth of Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel is acting responsibly by widely disseminating warnings to Lebanese civilians of coming airstrikes. Could Hezbollah be staging some grisly photos as part of a propaganda campaign? A cease-fire needs careful consideration before action, since it would allow Hezbollah to recover so it could later carry out more terrorism.

Hezbollah members are not freedom fighters; they are terrorists. They engage engage in violent actions against Americans and Israelis. Murdering innocent men, women, and children is not a "legitimate form of resistance." Hamas, Hezbollah, PLFP, and Islamic Jihad members shoot infants, blow themselves up in restaurants and at bus stops among other places, take and murder hostages, and commit many other abominable crimes. They illegally use force against people and property to coerce the population in order to further their warped political objectives.

Everybody whining about Israel's military strikes on Lebanon needs to put themselves in Israel's shoes and ask themselves what they would do if a state-sponsored terrorist organization like Hezbollah was hell-bent on destroying one's state and indiscriminately murdering innocent noncombatant civilians with hundreds of rockets. Israel is careful and precise in its strikes, and mistakes are inevitable, but at least its soldiers feel remorse and are held accountable for these mistakes. Israel is not stooping down to the level of the terrorists and engaging in suicide bombing in shopping malls, raining rockets at random locations, etc.

The Truth About Qana

Hezbollah's staged photos in which they give corpses different poses are sickening, and perhaps more sickening is the uncritical acceptance and publishing of these propaganda photos by left media outlets. I have linked to EU Referendum, an excellent blog which posted several photos of disaster scenes at different times and locatons in which the same man ("Green Helmet"), clearly a propagandist for Hezbollah who had acted similarly in the 1996 Qana airstrike, holds up the dusty corpses of children right before the camera to ignite hatred of Israel. At Qana, 28 deaths have been documented, 16 of them children. (R.I.P.) It is important to know how extensively the Israeli military distributed leaflets to civilians in the week before what anti-Zionists and anti-Semites label an "Israeli/Zionist massacre." Infrastructure damage had no significant effect on evacuation, as indicated by the movement of journalists to and from Qana following the strikes. On the evening of the incident, Israeli planes carried out three airstrikes on Qana. One of these airstrikes was a bomb adjacent to a house in which a Hezbollah terrorist had fled after raining several of 150 Katyusha rockets on northern Israel. Why the seven+ hour delay between the airstrikes and the reports of the total building collapses? Why were women and children kept in the buildings long after the airstrikes were over (Hezbollah is on record as having forced endangered civilians to remain, sometimes intimidating them with guns)? Note that Hezbollah rockets have damaged more than 5,500 homes, and Katyusha rockets have targeted Nazareth, Tiberias, and Safed.

There is a new hilarious blog, Green Helmet Guy, a parody of the Tourist Guy. Be on alert for blogs complaining about the "Israeli murder" of Rajaa Abu Shaban, a 5-year-old girl who actually died from head trauma when she fell off a swing. (R.I.P.) In the AP photo the relative holding the poor girl is crying but a gunman to his right is smiling. You must also look out for clipped photos and tightly shot photos which exaggerate damage, when the surrounding area could be completely unscathed. In addition, be highly skeptical of reports which still cite the obsolete Qana death toll that was initially widely reported.

God bless CNN's Anderson Cooper for his consistent fair media coverage, such as when he recounted when Hezbollah lined up several ambulances and had them go back and forth as their sirens blaired in a pathetic propaganda effort to pretend they were conducting rescue operations. On the other hand, shame on Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post for his false charge that Israel left Hezbollah rocket launchers intact in order to let Israeli civilians be killed for the benefit of Israel's public relations.

Middle East Media Watchdog

In this unfortunate turn of events in Lebanon and Israel, take media reports with a grain of salt. The terrorists are also waging psychological warfare and so disinformation is common. It is Hezbollah that started this conflict and it is Hezbollah's control of southern Lebanon and attacks on Israel that are endangering the Lebanese people. The leftist media needs to do better research before spitting out unverified statistics that can be used as propaganda by Islamofascists. The truth needs to be known about:
1. Was the casualty a civilian or terrorist? Were they combatant or noncombatant? Armed or unarmed?
2. Which group is responsible for the casualty?
3. Was a given building a home, a terrorist sanctuary, etc.? Who destroyed it?

Doctored and Misleading Lebanon Photos

On the upper left in the above photo, someone forgets to lie down while they play dead at Qana.
A car purportedly damaged by an Israeli airstrike, but the damage is inconsistent with a missile strike.
The photo on the left above is a fakery by disgraced Reuters photographer Adnan Hajj, and the one on the right is the original photo showing much less smoke.The above photo was doctored by Adnan Hajj and purports to show missiles from an Israeli F16 when it actually shows flares.
The above photo shows a living, uninjured man playing dead.
The above photo shows garbage burning at a dump.
The above photo was staged by Hezbollah and the damage was falsely attributed to Israeli shells.
Rajaa Abu Shaban, who died when she fell off a swing, and whose death was falsely attributed to an Israeli airstrike.

[UNDER CONSTRUCTION]

posted by A Sinner at 8/24/2006 03:26:00 PM

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