January 11, 2007
The Siege of Ain Ebel
AIN EBEL, SOUTH LEBANON – Amid the steep rolling hills of South Lebanon, a mere handful of kilometers from the fence on the border with Israel, sits the besieged Christian community of Ain Ebel. It is often said that Lebanon is a victim of geography; few Lebanese are as unlucky as those who live in Ain Ebel. For decades the people in this village have been caught between the anvils of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Hezbollah on one side, and the hammer of the Israeli Defense Forces on the other.
I visited this small town with my American friend and colleague Noah Pollak from Azure Magazine in Jerusalem. Two men, Said and Henry, from the Lebanese Committee for UNSCR 1559 – an NGO which advises the Lebanese government and the international community on the disarmament of Hezbollah – safely escorted us down there from Beirut.
Alan Barakat from the Ain Ebel Development Association waited for us outside a small grocery store owned by his uncle. He agreed to tell us about what happened to his community during the war in July, when Hezbollah seized civilian homes and used residents as human shields.
Ain Ebel is small, and we walked the streets on foot. I didn’t see nearly as much destruction as I saw in the Hezbollah strongholds of Bint Jbail and Maroun al-Ras which I visited earlier the same day. Downtown seemed intact. This was not a surprise. The residents are implacably hostile to Hezbollah and always have been. This was not a place where the Party of God could dig in, build bunkers, and store weapons. Ain Ebel was, as they say, a “target poor” environment. That did not, however, stop Hezbollah from using it as a battleground.
“There is a valley just below Ain Ebel,” Alan said. “I will take you there later. Until the army came after the war Hezbollah closed it. It was a restricted military area. They built bunkers there, and stored Katyusha rockets and launchers. When the war started they moved the launchers out of the valley and into our village. When the Israelis shot back they hit some of our houses.”
In Bint Jbail and Maroun al-Ras whole city blocks were pulverized from the air. Some houses and buildings were merely damaged, but many were demolished to their foundations. Nothing remains of whole swaths of these towns but fields of mostly-cleared rubble. Hezbollah controlled Bint Jbail and Maroun al-Ras both during and before the war. Houses were used to stockpile weaponry and were often otherwise turned into military targets.
Ain Ebel, however, was used only as a place to hide and as a place from which Hezbollah could launch rockets at the Israelis. Katyusha launchers weren’t placed inside houses. They were, for the most part, placed next to people’s houses. Most of the property damage, then, was caused by shrapnel rather than by direct air strikes. Israeli targeting in South Lebanon wasn’t random or indiscriminate. It varied considerably from place to place, depending on what Hezbollah was doing in each place.
“No one is helping us,” Alan said. “We are paying for all the reconstruction with our own money.”
“You aren’t getting any of the reconstruction money from Iran?” I said.
“Of course not,” Alan said. “Of course Iran is not helping us rebuild our houses.”
The Iranian government is sending money, via Hezbollah, to at least some Lebanese people whose homes were damaged or destroyed during the war. If Alan is telling the truth, though, that money is not exactly evenly spread.
Reconstruction had progressed more in Ain Ebel than elsewhere, even so. In Bint Jbail the only noticeable improvement was that most of the rubble had been cleared out of the way. Ain Ebel was less damaged, so there was less work to be done.
“Were people still living in Ain Ebel during the war?” I said.
“Yes, of course,” Alan said. “Most of us stayed in the village for the first 18 days.”
“Were people were still living in the houses that Hezbollah seized?” I said.
“No,” Alan said. “Hezbollah only took over houses that had no one in them.”
We came across a crater in the middle of a residential street on the edge of town left by an Israeli artillery shell.
“Did anyone here try to stop Hezbollah?” I said.
“How?” Alan said. “We have no weapons. Some people told Hezbollah to leave, but they pointed guns in our faces. Shut up, go back in your house, we were told.”
At the southern edge of town is an open field with a direct view to the south toward Israel.
“Hezbollah could have set up their rocket launchers here instead of in town,” Noah said. “It’s a straight shot into Israel.”
“The houses and trees gave them better cover,” Alan said. “The valley below, though, gave them even better cover than the village. If that’s all they cared about they would have stayed there.”
We walked back downtown. I wanted to find at least one more witness who stayed in Ain Ebel during the war.
Noah and I went toward the grocery store owned by Alan’s uncle. A poster on the wall outside warned children about minefields left behind by the Israelis.
A convoy of French soldiers from UNIFIL, the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon, rolled down the street.
Some French soldiers stopped at the same grocery store. Noah badly wanted to ask them what, exactly, they were doing. But they weren’t allowed to speak to us since we didn’t have a permit from the United Nations authorizing an interview.
A grim-faced soldier placed five bottles of red Lebanese wine – Chateau Kefraya, to be exact, which is really good stuff – on the counter. Noah couldn’t resist making fun.
“Are those for Hezbollah?” Noah said.
“No,” said the soldier without showing even a trace of a sense of humor.
“Are you going to buy some chocolates, too, while you’re here?” Noah said.
The French soldier ignored him.
I could not help but laugh at the sorry state of French-American relations, even in a place like South Lebanon where we’re more or less on the same side. I quietly suggested to Noah that if he really wanted to tease them he should ask if they were shopping for cheese to go with their wine.
“The French like to spend time in Ain Ebel,” Alan said. “They are welcome here, they feel comfortable. They help our economy. In Bint Jbail some of the residents make slashing motions across their throats with their fingers when they see UN soldiers.”
I felt bad for laughing when I heard that. South Lebanon is a hard place. UNIFIL isn’t allowed to disarm Hezbollah and prevent the next round of war. That would require their authorization as a combat force. But they do what they can within their sharply proscribed limits, and they spend most of their time in a shattered and hostile environment.
Alan’s uncle behind the cash register stuck up for the French.
“I feel safer now with them here than I’ve felt for more than 30 years,” he said.
It was easy to find another civilian who stayed in the village during the war. He said he would happy to talk to me as long as I promised not to publish his name. He didn’t even tell me his name, so he has nothing to worry about. I’ll just call him “Jad.”
I turned on my voice recorder. Alan translated.
“So you stayed in Ain Ebel through the whole war?” I said.
“Yes,” Jad said.
“At what point did Hezbollah come to the village and fire their missiles?” I said.
“During the war they took some uninhabited houses at the edge of our village and stayed there.”
“Uninhabited?” I said.
“Yes, uninhabited. Nobody was there, so they took them. They were eating in there, sleeping in there, and maybe doing some reconnaissance.”
“Did they ever go into houses where people were still living?” I said.
“No,” he said.
“Okay,” I said.
I wondered if Hezbollah deserved credit for not encroaching on people’s personal space, but Jad answered that question before I could ask it.
“They chose specific houses because nobody was living there and nobody would know.”
“Did they choose to come to this town for strategic or tactical reasons?” Noah said. “Or was it because it’s a Christian town?”
“Strategically, of course,” Jad said. “It’s a high peak. It is very good strategically. But they could have chosen these parts, these lands...” He gestured with his arm toward the valley below, the place Alan promised to take us next. “It would have been more protection for them than this village. So why did they come here? I think it’s because it’s a Christian village. They do this.”
“Did anybody who lives here try to get Hezbollah to leave the village?” I said.
“We don’t have any arms,” Jad said. “Hezbollah has arms. But there was this incident that happened. Next to a guy’s place they were firing Katyushas – you know, missiles. They were firing from the house. This guy went out and said Please, do not fire from our home, from in front of our house. My father is very ill and there are some children in the house. They came to him and said Shut up, go in your house, this is none of your business.”
What Jad said closely matched what Alan had told me.
Then he told me something off-the-record. He made me turn off my voice recorder before he would say it. I cannot and will not relay what he told me. But he wanted me to know that the people of Ain Ebel did use clever non-violent counter-measures against Hezbollah, and that Hezbollah has no idea what they did. I know what they did, but he wants it to remain a secret so they can do it again in the future. He did not, by the way, tell me they passed information to the Israelis.
I turned my voice recorder back on, but I didn’t realize until later that it got stuck on “pause.” So I’ll have to paraphrase what he said next.
He told me that 18 days after the start of the war a large group of civilians decided it was time to leave Ain Ebel and flee to the north. They were no longer willing to stay while Israel fired back at Hezbollah’s rocket launchers. It was too dangerous, and Hezbollah insisted on staying and endangering those who lived there.
So they fled the area in a convoy of civilian vehicles. It was safer, they figured, to travel in a group than alone.
On their way out of the village, Hezbollah fighters stood on the side of the road and opened fire with machine guns on the fleeing civilians.
I was shocked, and I asked Alan to confirm this. Was it really true? Hezbollah opened fire on Lebanese civilians with machine guns? Alan confirmed this was true.
"Why?" I had an idea, but I wanted a local person to say it.
Because, Alan said, Hezbollah wanted to use the civilians of Ain Ebel as “human shields.” I did not use the phrase “human shields.” These were Alan’s own words.
Fortunately, Hezbollah didn’t kill anybody when they opened fire. One person was shot in the hand, and another was shot in the shoulder. This was enough, though, to do the job. The civilians turned around and went back to the village under Israeli bombardment.
Alan then took me, Noah, and Said down into the valley below the village, the previously restricted military zone where Hezbollah built bunkers, dug fox holes, and stashed weapons before they moved their operations into civilian areas.
A young man named Victor came along for the ride. He thought it would be cool to check out the area now that someone would show him.
Alan told us to stay on the road because Israeli landmines might still be around. There are, perhaps, more landmines in South Lebanon than there are people.
“Did Hezbollah build this road?” I asked.
“No,” Alan said. “It is agricultural.”
Victor spotted some camouflage netting in one of the bushes. He and Noah pulled it out.
“Radar scattering,” Noah said as he read the tag. “This is American.”
He tried to cut the tag so he could keep it as a souvenir, but it wouldn’t come off.
The valley did seem like it would have provided better cover for Hezbollah than the village. The sky above was open enough that Katyusha rockets easily could be fired directly at Israel. Camouflaged fox holes and bunkers among the bushes and trees provide much better protection than houses that can be easily spotted by the Israeli Air Force and that show up prominently on satellite and aerial surveillance photographs. No Israeli infantry would want to go into that valley without first softening up the area with air strikes and artillery. It was the perfect environment for ambushes and sniper attacks.
The sun dropped quickly below the horizon. South Lebanon is in the region known as the Upper Galilee. It is not as high as the Mount Lebanon range in the north, but it was high enough that the cool Levantine air of early winter turned frigid as the light went out of the sky.
The funny thing about Middle Eastern war zones is how serene the natural environment often is. Wars in the popular imagination usually occur in ugly places. But the front lines of the Arab-Israeli conflict often look like somewhere that might be popular among hikers and backpackers if they weren’t so dangerous.
“There is a destroyed bunker up ahead,” Alan said as he stepped off the road. “Come on.”
“Is it safe?” I said. “What about landmines?”
“I have been here before,” Alan said. “Hezbollah was here. It should be safe.”
So we stepped off the road and walked toward one of Hezbollah’s demolished fortifications. I walked gingerly and tried to step in the footprints of others.
There was no sound in the valley but our own footsteps and breath. Alan was probably right that there were no landmines in the immediate area. Otherwise Hezbollah would have dug in somewhere else.
But what about unexploded ordnance from Israeli cluster bombs? Those were still lying around. You might as well have stepped on a landmine if you end up kicking a bomblet on accident.
The faint cold light of dusk illuminated the sky like a back-lit screen, but all was dark in the valley on the trail beneath the trees. I tried to imagine what it must have been like if Israeli soldiers walked the same path only a few months before. Did they feel like American soldiers in the jungles of Vietnam? Some Hezbollah fighters wore the uniforms of the Israeli Defense Forces. They used night-vision goggles. They hunkered down in fox holes and waited.
The valley must have been reasonably safe or Alan wouldn’t have taken us down there. But the enveloping darkness and the all-too recent violence made me wonder, although not very seriously, if Hezbollah had really been flushed out and kept out.
The bombed-out bunker was just up ahead under some trees. It was, indeed, very well hidden.
“If I were going to build a bunker, this is where I’d put it,” Noah said.
Nevertheless, it was hit. And it was hit badly. Anyone who was inside during an air strike would surely have been killed. But I didn’t see any blood or other evidence that it was occupied at the time.
We dug through the rubble.
“There was a sink,” Alan said and pointed to the right of the entrance.
“And here is some cable for faxes and phones.”
“Look,” Victor said. “A lid from a weapons crate.”
“Dude,” Noah said. “Check out the shower head.”
Sure enough, there was a shower head at my feet.
It was impossible to tell when the bunker was hit, whether it was at the beginning, during the middle, or at the end of the war. Since there was no evidence that anyone was inside when the strike came, I assumed it was hit in the middle or at the end after Hezbollah had already moved into the village.
I’m not a military forensics expert, if there even is such a thing. But everything Alan told me about Hezbollah relocating to Ain Ebel during the war seemed to add up and match the physical evidence I could see. The valley obviously was used as a military area, and so was the village.
We walked back to the car in absolute darkness and drove for a minute or so. Alan parked alongside an open ditch next to the road.
“The Israelis were here,” he said. “They left some of their food.”
At my feet was an empty can of tinned fish. Some of the words on the can were written in Hebrew.
Alan was right. The Israelis were there, recently enough that no one had bothered to pick up their trash yet. I tossed the can of fish back into the ditch, thinking with a grim almost-certainty that they would be back.
Post-script: If you like what I write, please click the Pay Pal button and help make it happen. These trips are expensive, and I have to eat and pay bills. Your donations are the only thing that makes my work possible. I would do this for free if I could, but we don’t live in a Star Trek money-free universe yet.
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That can of fish reminds me of halava that one of the local stores imports. It comes in two sets of packaging, Hebrew packaging and Arabic packaging, both made at the same factory I think. I never bothered to check exactly where it's made, but I always assumed that it came from Israel... No doubt Arabs won't buy the version that's labeled in Hebrew.
Posted by: Josh Scholar at January 12, 2007 12:28 AMAnother good entry Michael.
I read Brigitte Gabriel's book, 2/3 of it.... I wonder how close Ain Ebel is to the Christian town she grew up in South Lebanon... forget the name.
1 question... when can we get entries with hot Lebanese (Christian I assume) babes in Beirut again? All we get is Hezbollah Lover and the dank, depressing, Big Brother, backward world of Hezbollahland... (exclusing this post)
Now those posts made me actually want to visit Beirut.
LOL!!
Mike
Posted by: Mike Nargizian at January 12, 2007 01:09 AMA great post as usual. Thanks
Posted by: Alawna at January 12, 2007 02:34 AMMichaël bravo one more time for your great post. Thanks for this very interesting blog
Posted by: Emma at January 12, 2007 03:13 AMIf what you said about Hizbollah men shooting at civilians, why didn't you go interrogate the two people who were wounded? Where are they? Probably still in the village they were not allowed to leave???
And their is a contradiction in your story. Alan first said for the first 18 days they stayed, then left. But then said that they had tried to leave the village but weren't allowed by Hizbollah. How did they leave the village in 18 days when the war lasted 34???
Posted by: hezbollah lover at January 12, 2007 03:27 AM"How did they leave the village in 18 days when the war lasted 34???"
Just realised that this comment ^ might confuse some people. What i meant is, if they weren't allowed to leave the village by force coming from "hizbollah" during the whole war (as alan claimed), whcih lasted 34 days, how come he claimed earlier that the villagers had left at the 18th day of the war?
Posted by: hezbollah lover at January 12, 2007 03:43 AM"And their is a contradiction in your story."
Given that you often doubt Michael's reports on Hizbullah's actions; would it be true to say that IF everything Michael said was true, you would agree that Hizbullah is evil?
Posted by: Andrew Brehm at January 12, 2007 05:15 AM"IF everything Michael said was true, you would agree that Hizbullah is evil?"
Good question Andrew, and I'll bet you won't get an honest answer.
Another question for HL. Why do you suppose the Isralis did not level Ain Ebel like they did Bint Jbail. Clearly Ain Ebel was engaged by the Israelis, look at the damage, but it was not heavily bombarded. How do you explain that?
Posted by: mnm at January 12, 2007 05:24 AMAlso HL I don't see what is significant about the 18 and 34 days. Did it ever occur to you that some people left and perhaps Hez decided at some point to stop letting people leave?
Besides, if Allan is lying, why not say that Hez took over peoples houses while they were still occupied? He said they didn't. How do you explain that?
Posted by: mnm at January 12, 2007 05:31 AMMichael,
I suggest that you insert some maps to show the location of the villages.
The story about Ain Ebil is similar to a Sunni village in the South where HA tried to fire missles but the Sunnis told HA to go away from their village.
Posted by: Ghassan at January 12, 2007 06:15 AMIt must be noted that the eye witness accounts given here are consistent with a report in the New York Times from July 28, 2006:
"But for some of the Christians who had made it out in this convoy, it was not just privations they wanted to talk about, but their ordeal at the hands of Hezbollah -- a contrast to the Shiites, who make up a vast majority of the population in southern Lebanon and broadly support the militia.
''Hezbollah came to Ain Ebel to shoot its rockets,'' said Fayad Hanna Amar, a young Christian man, referring to his village. ''They are shooting from between our houses.''
''Please,'' he added, ''write that in your newspaper.''
...Many Christians from Ramesh and Ain Ebel considered Hezbollah's fighting methods as much of an outrage as the Israeli strikes. Mr. Amar said Hezbollah fighters in groups of two and three had come into Ain Ebel, less than a mile from Bint Jbail, where most of the fighting has occurred. They were using it as a base to shoot rockets, he said, and the Israelis fired back.
One woman, who would not give her name because she had a government job and feared retribution, said Hezbollah fighters had killed a man who was trying to leave Bint Jbail.
''This is what's happening, but no one wants to say it'' for fear of Hezbollah, she said."
Posted by: Mertel at January 12, 2007 06:59 AM"IF everything Michael said was true, you would agree that Hizbullah is evil?"
Hezbollah IS evil. And so is anybody who puts ideology before people. That's Hezbollah to a tee.
Posted by: Carlos at January 12, 2007 07:26 AMIF everything Michael said was true, you would agree that Hizbullah is evil?
No, just heartless. Nuking civilians is evil. And calling on civilians to leave a village, then bomb their convoy is evil.
"Another question for HL. Why do you suppose the Isralis did not level Ain Ebel like they did Bint Jbail."
Because people in Ein Ebel are anti-hizbullah, if they are attacked, they'll become pro-hizbollah. And because one village is christian, the other is a town and shia. Thats why.
Posted by: hezbollah lover at January 12, 2007 07:28 AMIF everything Michael said was true, you would agree that Hizbullah is evil?
No, just heartless. Nuking civilians is evil. And calling on civilians to leave a village, then bomb their convoy is evil.
"Another question for HL. Why do you suppose the Isralis did not level Ain Ebel like they did Bint Jbail."
Because people in Ein Ebel are anti-hizbullah, if they are attacked, they'll become pro-hizbollah. And because one village is christian, the other is a town and shia. Thats why.
Posted by: hezbollah lover at January 12, 2007 07:28 AMBy the way MJT.
Im working on a portfolio to propose a documentary or TV show. I would like to do it about the devisions between peoples views about hizbollah and israel.
I would like to send you some kind of questionaire, just a few questions long, only 5-7 questions, you can answer the questions anytime you want because i know you're a busy man and probably wouldn't bother with such things, i would understand if you can't and would appreciate if you did me the favour and accepted. The questionnaire can either be sent to your email or ill post it here, where-ever you prefer.
Please reply as soon as possible.
Thanks.
No, just heartless. Nuking civilians is evil. And calling on civilians to leave a village, then bomb their convoy is evil.
No, just innacurate. Yet purposefully hiding amongst civilians in order to deter Israeli attacks and then use those casualties as propaganda-- now that's evil. In fact they are war crimes according to the Geneva convention. Mind you, not the faky little "war crimes" Leftists and Arabs accuse anybody they don't like of, but the REAL legal definition kind of war crime. Nasrallah should be tried and hanged for crimes against the Lebanese people.
Posted by: Carlos at January 12, 2007 07:53 AMThe can says pretty much what you would expect: Chunk Tuna in Vegetable Oil. The black circle to the right says it's produced under stringent kosher supervision and identifies the religious organization.
Great report.
Posted by: Akiva at January 12, 2007 07:58 AMH Lover,
How many innocent civilians need to be killed before heartless becomes evil?
Posted by: Jeff at January 12, 2007 09:23 AMThis is my first time to post here and thoroughly enjoy the informative work you do.
Thanks.
I've been reading up on this for the past few days and just recently discovered the comment section. I found your blog via another website I frequent to learn more about the region. Your website makes a fine addition and shall be included in my attempt (although sometines vain) to piece context and perspective.
Much appreciated,
Anuts
So, HL, deliberately moving your battlefield to maximise the chance that children get killed is not evil? Turning your machine guns on innocent families trying to flee a war zone is not evil?
What sort of hate-filled moral vaccuum do you live in?
Posted by: Mertel at January 12, 2007 09:57 AMYou're all minors with really dumb arguements. Im just waiting for MJT to accept or refuse my offer MJT when you see this post, scroll up and see what i writ, thnks
Posted by: hezbollah lover at January 12, 2007 10:13 AM"You're all minors with really dumb arguements."
Here we go; this comment thread has now truly been "internetized".
Countdown to Hitler comparisons commencing.
Posted by: Nate at January 12, 2007 10:23 AMHezbollah Lover, it's probably best that I not be involved in a pro-Hezbollah project.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at January 12, 2007 10:25 AMAt the end of a comments section on an earlier post, I started this exchange, which I would like to continue:
Hello to the people I have encountered before on "From Beirut to the Beltway." I have two related questions for the Lebanese posting here (even expat Lebanese). I am asking them to try to gain an understanding of what is going on in Lebanon and it is sometimes more useful for me to think about things in pieces.
First:
Do YOU think Israel has territorial ambitions in Lebanon at all?
Do YOU think Israel has territorial ambitions in Lebanon beyond stopping missile fire or Hezbollah or Palestinian border raids into Israel (meaning if the border were quiet would Israel have any territorial ambitions in Lebanon)?
Second:
How do you think other Lebanese would answer the same question?
For any answers that presume territorial ambition in Lebanon on the part of Israel, please describe what you think those ambitions are.
For purposes of this question, please ignore Shebaa Farms (I am not telling you to ignore it generally if you think it is important; I just mean that is not the issue I am asking about).
In case it is at all relevant to your answer (and it shouldn't be), I am an American.
****
HL responded thus:
"Do YOU think Israel has territorial ambitions in Lebanon at all?"
They obviously do when they occupy the south for 18 years, don't they?
They surely do when they occupy the 7 villages for 59 years, don't they?
The obviously do when they occupy the Shib'a farms and Kfar Shouba for 38 years, don't they?
If they didn't have any such ambitions, why don't they just leave them? Isn't worth the hassle it's causing. Give the land back to it's rightful owners.
***
And I responded to him:
What do you think Israel's ambitions in the region are? What is it you think they want? Do you think if Hezbollah disarmed and the Lebanese border was quiet, i.e., neither Hezbollah or Palestinians in Lebanon launched missiles or conducted raids over the border than Israel would still have territorial ambitions in Lebanon? If yes, then what would they want and why?
I still haven't heard from any other Lebanese? Maybe this thread is just dead.
*******
That's as far as it got and I would like to continue the conversation here, especially with other Lebanese, since it is just as relevant to this post. I hope people don't mind.
Posted by: dontgetit at January 12, 2007 10:39 AMHere is an account of armed Druze villagers in a place called Al Mari preventing HA from firing rockets from their village.
Of course there is no way I can verify the veracity of this account, and for all I know HL may be a 60 yo Thai grandmother. But it is plausible (as is HL's self-identification as a Lebanese in London), and is consistent with both M. Totten's and the NYT accounts.
Posted by: Bruno at January 12, 2007 10:44 AMmnm writes: "Why do you suppose the Isralis did not level Ain Ebel like they did Bint Jbail. Clearly Ain Ebel was engaged by the Israelis, look at the damage, but it was not heavily bombarded. How do you explain that?"
HL writes
"Because people in Ein Ebel are anti-hizbullah, if they are attacked, they'll become pro-hizbollah. And because one village is christian, the other is a town and shia. Thats why."
I didn't ask that HL, the town was attacked, but not leveled. As you state, they did not attack the christians because the Israeli's don't want to turn christians in the town to pro-hez.
So you acknowledge that Hez was fighting from Ein Ebel, and that Israel doesnt bomb indescriminately then. Right?
So why was Hez in town? I'm beginning to think that you are cool with the whole human shield concept. Is that assumption correct?
Posted by: mnm at January 12, 2007 11:01 AMHmmm... the Zionist tuna was apparently packed in oil, as I can decipher from rusty Hebrew.
Excellent Job, Michael.
Posted by: Zak at January 12, 2007 11:11 AMNo, No, No seriously. Its a Uni project, ill even give you the final report if you want, and if you think it's biases in ANY way, you can withdraw your comments and ill sign to any deal of the sort.
The point of the program is that it's not biased, and its a report, not evaluation. All i do is take comments made by you, an american (i chose you because it would look nice to have your name on that report :D) and of those of different backgrounds i.e. muslims, arabs, british, black, white etc and i also have to take statistics from different media outlets i.e. CNN, BBC, ITV, FOX etc and just put them in a report.
I'd really appreciate it and i promise it's not biased, it'll surprise you by how fair it will be. If you don't trust me so much it's ok. Please reply one more time :D and PS can someone please teach me how to do bold and italics? :(
Posted by: hezbollah lover at January 12, 2007 11:18 AMHL,
Who are you working with on this project?
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at January 12, 2007 11:24 AM...it'll surprise you by how fair it will be.
You admit so much without even knowing it.
Posted by: Carlos at January 12, 2007 11:24 AMTo mmmm -
Where do you want hizbollah to fight from? The Moon?
The fact is Hizbollah's power lies in its invisibility and secrecy as well as the factor of surprise during wars. They are not made for conventional wars where two armies aligne themselves on two frontlines and rush at each other. The last time that happened was in WW2.
Another thing, you really think that the IDF didn't use houses in south lebanon for covers? Its a military tactic my friend. When IDF invaded Bint Jbeil, you think they said "oooh a civilian house better stay away from here, ill try re-locating myself in that open field right there exposed to the enemy dadadada and my name is lala, my mums dipsey and we live in teletubbie land..." Obviously not. This war was a house to house war, and street to street, alleyway to alleyway and corner to corner.
Alot of israeli soldiers actually died when the houses they were in were bombed by hizbollah using anti-tank weapons. So, i really don't know where you're trying to lead me here. If hizbolah did intend to use human shields, they would have forced some families into those houses they operated in, correct? If they can supposedly force a whole village people to stay, they could force a family or two to stay at the same house used by hizbollah, easy. But the fact is, they didn't.
So what if the village was attacked, half Marous Al-Ras was bulldozed, the other half had every single house bombed by at least one or more missiles. Anyways nearly every village, town and city in lebanon was attacked one way or another, except the ones in the mountains. Even a christian CHURCH all the way up near tripoli was bombed, what was there? If a katyusha was launched from near that church, it wouldve landed somewhere between beirut and sidon lol.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZNViirWTnk
Watch this ^ and see what hizbollah + Aita look like. We ain't no petite Mehdi army or Talibani guy with a skirt around him and an AK bigger than his head and sandles.
Posted by: hezbollah lover at January 12, 2007 11:34 AMIf the Algerians in the fifties, or the revolutionary Iranian resistance to the Shah, Hizballah in the eighties, or the Jewish defence leagues in the war of 1948, had only been willing to come out from their villages and fight in nice straight lines in the fields, they could have been annihilated by tank columns and airstrikes, and maintained their moral purity. Hurrah for the Shah of Iran, the French colony of Algerique, Israeli military rule in Lebanon, and Egyptian control of Tel Aviv.
Seriously, folx, guerrillas fight in villages and subject their civilians to the risk of reprisals from the attacking military. Traditionally, it is nevertheless the attacking military in question who is responsible for said civilian casualties. The jujitsu operation where guerrillas are evil because militaries kill their supporting civilians is rather threadbare. When the military is not responsible for the civilians they kill, you have arrived at warped moral logic. Generally speaking, when someone other than the person A who kills the person B is responsible for it, you're warping.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if the story of Hezb shooting at the Christians was true. Yeah, it's a war crime. I'm not amiss to its publication, either. But let's not kid ourselves, the relationship between the commiting of war crimes and whether the organization is therefore "evil" is rather flexible.
We live in a world where bombing civilians from the air is morally cost-free, but shooting them from the ground is a big no-no. The winners write the morality as well as the history books.
In any event, the relevant question, as always, is not the morality of the other guy's actions but the morality of one's own.
Posted by: glasnost at January 12, 2007 11:38 AMHL, in the examples below replace "[" by "".
[b]This text will be in boldface[/b]
Like this
[i]This text will be in italics[/i]
Like this
For links, just type [a href="http://(your link e.g. /www.michaeltotten.com)"](your text)[/a]
And it will show as:
Posted by: Bruno at January 12, 2007 11:39 AMMJT,
Well, it's kind of an independent peice of work and will lose marks if i get any help at any stage of the report.
The interview with you will be my Primary Source of research. If i just copy paste some of your comments, that will be secondary. You can answer any of my questions, ignore any if you don't like them, make your answer as long or as short as you like. If you're a bit busy, which you probably are, you can take your time i don't mind. :) PS ill give you a look at the final report in few days after i get the answers (its supposed to be an interview) and if you want anything changed or don't like the looks of it you can withdraw it or moderate anything you want.
A unit of the report is on copyright and bibliography, i have to refer to you as being a source. If you wanted to withdraw your answers and i still used them, they would probably send you an email before they mark it (examiners) and if you say you withdrew the interview, i'll be withdrawn from any exams for 5 years and get disqualified. So no dishonesty from my part, believe me lol. :)
Posted by: hezbollah lover at January 12, 2007 11:42 AMTo implement the examples above, replace the square brackets ] [ by the angular brackets >
Posted by: Bruno at January 12, 2007 11:42 AM[i]Testing[/i]
Posted by: hezbollah lover at January 12, 2007 11:44 AMitesting/i
Posted by: hezbollah lover at January 12, 2007 11:45 AMHezbollah IS evil. And so is anybody who puts ideology before people.
It's a wonderful principle and all, but every violent organization on the planet, including the United States Armed Forces, puts ideology before people and is therefore evil. They do so by a) taking actions that kill other people and b) taking actions despite knowing that others will try to kill them for it.
And that's only limiting it to violent actions, which you didn't even specify. When you talk about nonviolent putting of ideology before "people", you can indict everyone on the planet five times over.
Perhaps you should specify. Like, "so is any middle eastern group that shoots at people unless they really believe they're doing it for "democracy", or some other good* reason."
*to be specified later
Posted by: glasnost at January 12, 2007 11:46 AM"i"testing"/i"
Posted by: hezbollah lover at January 12, 2007 11:46 AM.i. testing ./i.
Posted by: hezbollah lover at January 12, 2007 11:47 AMi dont get it, its not working :( but much apreciated bruno, thanks. :D
Posted by: hezbollah lover at January 12, 2007 11:48 AMNo dude, replace the ] [ in my examples by >
Posted by: Bruno at January 12, 2007 11:50 AMThank you bruno :D
Posted by: hezbollah lover at January 12, 2007 11:51 AMLOVE YOU
Posted by: hezbollah lover at January 12, 2007 11:53 AMGlasnost: Traditionally, it is nevertheless the attacking military in question who is responsible for said civilian casualties. The jujitsu operation where guerrillas are evil because militaries kill their supporting civilians is rather threadbare.
"Threadbare" or not, it's a war crime.
It isn't even remotely threadbare when we're talking about people in a place like Ain Ebel who are not even remotely "suporting" civilians.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at January 12, 2007 11:55 AMHey, HL. Seeing you call everyone around here "dumb" and "minors" and then watching you try and post something (anything!) in italics is champagne comedy! Here's a hint: next time just click on "preview" instead of "post" to save yourself some more embarassment.
Posted by: Mertel at January 12, 2007 11:56 AMHL, the characters you are needing to use is the greater-than and less-than characters. On my keyboard you press Shift and the , or . keys. They don't seem to come up when you simply type < and > because they are special to HTML. (There is a way to type it so literals show but I forget.)
Hope that helps.
Posted by: nichevo at January 12, 2007 11:58 AMOh, and hey, not to start problems or anything, but objectively, did Mike publish the story of Hezb shooting the Christians with more evidence supporting it than the AP had when they published Jamil Hussein's story of the Shiites setting the Sunnis on fire?
Looks like hearsay both times to me. Personally, I think both organizations were right to tell the respective stories, as both of them are interesting and minimally plausible, but I doubt the conservative blogosphere will get on a crusade about producing sources and corrobrating evidence this time around.
I think this story was fine to publish - it's just a good example of how aggressive journalism, good , bad or witholding judgement, often has a hard time standing up when you grill the s*it out of it. If you're the AP, and an audience has been trained to fear and hate you, you're screwed. If you're a blogger, where audiences tend to be primal and polarized either way, you can get away with it.
Posted by: glasnost at January 12, 2007 11:59 AMThe problem with your line of argument, Glasnost, is that you seem to be saying all is fair in war. That is a dangerous road, my friend. War itself is an evil, but morality in war is important for reasons that I should not have to get into.
Anyway, it's not true that only victors write the history books unless the losers are exterminated to the last. See Carthage.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at January 12, 2007 12:00 PMOh, there they are, < and > FYI. Enclose the tags in < > and you're all set.
Posted by: nichevo at January 12, 2007 12:00 PMMJT,
Well, it's kind of an independent peice of work and will lose marks if i get any help at any stage of the report.
The interview with you will be my Primary Source of research. If i just copy paste some of your comments, that will be secondary. You can answer any of my questions, ignore any if you don't like them, make your answer as long or as short as you like. If you're a bit busy, which you probably are, you can take your time i don't mind. :) PS ill give you a look at the final report in few days after i get the answers (its supposed to be an interview) and if you want anything changed or don't like the looks of it you can withdraw it or moderate anything you want.
A unit of the report is on copyright and bibliography, i have to refer to you as being a source. If you wanted to withdraw your answers and i still used them, they would probably send you an email before they mark it (examiners) and if you say you withdrew the interview, i'll be withdrawn from any exams for 5 years and get disqualified. So no dishonesty from my part, believe me lol. :)
What you say?
Posted by: hezbollah lover at January 12, 2007 12:02 PMVery interested to find out what the method they used against Hezbollah was. Keep up the good work!
Posted by: mantis at January 12, 2007 12:02 PMGlasnost, I named my source Alan Barakat and even took a picture of him. How is this related to Jamil Hussein, who may or may not even exist?
As far as my second source in Ain Ebel, I told you I used a psuedonym.
What I published here is a more in-depth version of what the New York Times published. Someone included an excerpt from that story above.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at January 12, 2007 12:02 PMWhere do you want hizbollah to fight from? The Moon?
glasnost, HL,
So if I'm not hiding in someone's house then I must be standing on the moon? LOL. Good one. Must be the Arab version of the moon landing. I didn't know they even had a space program. You fool, there are plenty of places to put your rockets besides civilian neighborhoods where you know many will die when Israel tries to destroy them.
And lest we forget, Jan Egeland, the UN Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs-- and no friend of Israel-- said Hesbollah were “a bunch of cowards hiding behind women and children.” Wow. Coming from the U.N., who basically hate Israel, that's pretty powerful stuff! LOL. He said that he “cannot understand how someone could be proud that there were more women and children hurt than armed militants.” And he “call[ed] for the Hezbollah to immediately stop mixing with the civilian population.” But Hezbollah did not listen to Egeland. Instead they fired their Katyusha from behind the apartment in Qana knowing that it was filled with civilians.
Hesbollah = cowards
Posted by: Carlos at January 12, 2007 12:04 PM"Threadbare" or not, it's a war crime.
What, conducting military operations from within civilian areas is a war crime? For the guerilla organization doing it? But not for the military organization doing it back?
Is that actually, you know, an official war crime, in a UN convention, and so forth?
So... guerilla organizations are war criminals by definition?
Well, if the UN says so, I guess it must be true, (ha! just dutifully following the liberal line here), but you know what happens to rules that prove to be practically impossible to follow in practice, right?
After all, therefore the African National Congress were war criminals, and the Kosovo liberation army were war criminals, and the Kurdish reistance against Saddamn Hussein were war criminals, and the Northern Alliance fighting the Taliban were war criminals, and... on and on and on and on...
Posted by: glasnost at January 12, 2007 12:05 PMSo bottom line who killed more civillians the Israelis or Hezbollah ?
Posted by: John Ryan at January 12, 2007 12:06 PM"Seriously, folx, guerrillas fight in villages and subject their civilians to the risk of reprisals from the attacking military. Traditionally, it is nevertheless the attacking military in question who is responsible for said civilian casualties. The jujitsu operation where guerrillas are evil because militaries kill their supporting civilians is rather threadbare. When the military is not responsible for the civilians they kill, you have arrived at warped moral logic. Generally speaking, when someone other than the person A who kills the person B is responsible for it, you're warping."
Really. My grandparents both faught (that is paternal grandfather and grandmother) in the Algerian liberation war (and the War of the Sands that came right after it against Morocco) and they will tell you flat out: the ends justifies the means. They won independnece, lots of Algerians died but even more didn't have to live under the burden of French apartheid (which isn't to say that Algerian rule has been perfect, but most would prefer it to France). They got a glorious result using rather bloody means; the French got a humiliating result using even worse as well as the "conventional". One has to take responsiblity for the people they kill. The big conventional forces are reluctant to do this, they make excuses "the maquis cheated!" but who took those lives? Who was really responsible? The one that fires the shot and kills them or the one who runs past them and "makes them a target"? The impatient or the one in hiding? It's a tough question. I really can't answer it myself. I guess whoever wins/controlls how the story is written decides. Just like my grandparents are "terrorists" to the French and wil never be the heroes that I and other Algerians were raised to see them as, or how the French are baby killing monsters and are not the "heroes" winning presidential elections and honorable medals that French 'war criminals" get in Algeria. Who's the honorable one and who's the coward? Keep in mind that fighting "in the open" would mean generations more of slavery and oppression from abroad. Does the end justify the means?
Posted by: Nouri Lumendifi at January 12, 2007 12:07 PMGlasnost, I believe the crucial difference is whether the guerrilla force is using civilian areas as concealment (which is ok in most cases), or relying on the opposite side reluctance to harm civilians to fire with impunity (which is perfidy). From MT's report, the rockets were fired from the village not because it offered better concealment (the wooded valley would do just as well), but because the civilians might dissuade Israel from counterattacking, or would provide good propaganda if they did.
If HA wanted to fight from the village purely for tactical reasons, it would help rather than prevent the civilians from leaving.
Posted by: Bruno at January 12, 2007 12:08 PMGlasnost, some of us care about morality in war. Our military officers take these questions very seriously, and I'm glad they do or I would hate them.
If you think everyone is equally bad, that's fine for you. I'm glad everyone doesn't think like that, though. Because if we're all equally bad there is no point in doing what we can to fight honorably or humanely.
Organizations like Hezbollah should be glad, too, because if the Israelis didn't care about morality in war Hezbollah would no longer exist. Most, if not all, of South Lebanon would be destroyed.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at January 12, 2007 12:10 PM"If HA wanted to fight from the village purely for tactical reasons, it would help rather than prevent the civilians from leaving."
How do you know it isn't just a fabrication made by these people. I don't see the sight where the convoy was bombed, or any pictures of cars with bullet holes in them, or a pic/interview with any of the two wounded people.
And MJT, did you read what i said or are you just going to ignore me?
Posted by: hizbollah lover at January 12, 2007 12:13 PMMike, definitely talking about the Hezb shooting at civilians anecdote, rather than your whole story.
I see on a second read that you have two sources, one with a name, vouching for the story. The point is that the blogosphere swarms on reporters who publish hearsay stories. The further point is that they do so very selectively. Jamil Hussein's existence has been confirmed by the Iraqi government, actually. There's no physical evidence of the story of the shooting incident, only
So perhaps this story is okay because it has two people, one with a name and one without, vouching for it, whereas the AP story has one person with a name, and no support from a second, unnamed source. I'm not such that's a consistent standard being used, though.
In any event, Mike, I don't think journalists should be denied the right to publish these kinds of stories, or personally attacked for it. Sometimes a witness story is all the witness has. I'm just attacking the general hypocrisy of the anti-MSM blogger audience. You could have skipped Alan entirely and put the whole thing down to "Jad", and only Hezbollah lover would have questioned it, and he would have questioned it even if you had DNA samples and bullet casings, and nobody's listening to him regardless of whether or not his questions were valid, which would also be random.
Posted by: glasnost at January 12, 2007 12:16 PMHL, if you choose to think those people are lying there is nothing I can say to convince you otherwise.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at January 12, 2007 12:17 PMSo bottom line who killed more civillians the Israelis or Hezbollah?
Confession time. Israel killed more civilians! Yes, it's true. Inevitable given that Hesbollah used them as human shields, exposing them to retaliatory fire.
And Hesbollah killed more combatants than Israel did! That's also true. But equally inevitable considering the IDF was in front of-- not behind-- the Israeli civilians it was sworn to protect.
But that may be a wee bit much for the intellectually obtuse Arab and morally confused Leftist to grasp. But for the rest of you, there it is.
Posted by: Carlos at January 12, 2007 12:20 PMGlasnost: I'm just attacking the general hypocrisy of the anti-MSM blogger audience.
Fine, but you can please keep me out of it. I have not said word one about Jamil Hussein except just now when you compared my reporting to the AP's. I haven't been following that story very closely, and that's because I think it's boring.
Iraq is a huge and complicated mess. Jamil Hussein is a footnote at most.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at January 12, 2007 12:21 PMFine MJT be like that
Posted by: hizbollah lover at January 12, 2007 12:23 PMHL, I don't feel comfortable with your proposal. It's nothing personal.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at January 12, 2007 12:25 PM"How do you know it isn't just a fabrication made by these people[?]"
I don't. My argument in any case was that if MT's report is correct then HA clearly committed war crimes in Lebanon. There is really no doubt HA committed war crimes against Israeli civilians by firing those rockets.
Now, I have no reason to doubt the sincerity of MT's sources, and they are corroborated by the NYT piece. So, in my judgment, I believe the story is plausible. Of course this is a subjective (but not unthinking) call, and you clearly disagree.
Posted by: Bruno at January 12, 2007 12:26 PMYou could've just said, not just ignore me like im a fool.
Posted by: hizbollah lover at January 12, 2007 12:26 PMIf you think everyone is equally bad, that's fine for you.
I don't think everyone is equally bad. I'm not a Hizballah supporter. I just practice very tough love for people I do support, like March 14.. and you. I don't waste my time denouncing Hizballah on here. Hizballah isn't listening. If I ever meet one in person and there's some reason to suspect he's listening, there would be plenty of things to challenge one about.
Or for another way of looking at it, I support people and organizations situationally, not automatically. But I support more than any person or organization, consistency in perception and responsibility in behavior. I tend to give Western sides a lot of crap, because they're my side, and they're the ones I have access to, and I cam have better expectations of being listened to. But the target selection is opportunistic.
In this case, I'm not sure that the international community is really ready to make "operating within civilian areas" a war crime. I'm not sure they're ready to consistently enforce it. And I'm not sure it results in good things. If strictly enforced, it would make overthrow of all governments anywhere automatically a war crime if anyone involved was armed or violent. That has implications for the future.
Posted by: glasnost at January 12, 2007 12:28 PM
Alot of people seem to be chatting alot about hiding behind and infront of civilians.
Beirut was bombed. Well, atleast the outskirts which are more densely inhabited than the centre. How is that justified?
The biggest blow to free speech was served by the israeli's by bombing siveral TV stations in lebanon, including Al-manar, liban tv transmission tower, another telecommunications tower in beirut, and rumours were spreading that al jazeera was next, but im sure some kind of negotiation went on between qatar and israel. On top of this, Al-Noor radio station was also targetted.
Please don't tell me there was a katyusha hiding behind all of them?
Posted by: hizbollah lover at January 12, 2007 12:31 PMglasnost: When the military is not responsible for the civilians they kill, you have arrived at warped moral logic. Generally speaking, when someone other than the person A who kills the person B is responsible for it, you're warping.
What complete and utter bullshit. As Dershowitz recently argued: "A bank robber who takes a teller hostage and fires at police from behind his human shield is guilty of murder if they, in an effort to stop the robber from shooting, accidentally kill the hostage." And I would add, the police would not be culpable of any crime in almost every enlightened democracy.
So bottom line who killed more civillians the Israelis or Hezbollah?
The real question is who tries to kill more civilians. And the bottom line is, if Hezbollah lay down their weapons there would be peace, and if Israel lay down their weapons there would be no more Israel.
Posted by: Mertel at January 12, 2007 12:33 PMThe biggest blow to free speech was served by the israeli's by bombing siveral TV stations in lebanon,
Israel violated Hesbollah's freedom of speech! Will those ruthless zionists stop at nothing!!!
Hehehe! Really good one, you jokester. LOL. I can't stop laughing at that one. Pure comedy.
Posted by: Carlos at January 12, 2007 12:36 PMand ps., Hez did not kill more combatants than the IDF, but they did kill more Israeli soldiers than civilians, that much is true.
Posted by: Carlos at January 12, 2007 12:38 PMOrganizations like Hezbollah should be glad, too, because if the Israelis didn't care about morality in war Hezbollah would no longer exist. Most, if not all, of South Lebanon would be destroyed.
I'm glad the IDF cares about morality in war, too. Unfortunately, it's hard to win admiration for one's moderation in destruction unless there's some sort of obvious contrary benchmark. People tend to emphasize the lack of moderation in any one action, rather than than presence of it. Guerilla organizations have a similar problem. When was the last time someone patted an eco-liberarion-movement member on the back because they only commit arson, and refrain from assassinating people?
The above represents a challenging situation for a military to overcome. On the other hand, to the extent that the Israeli army has been more restrained than the Syrian army in operating in Lebanon, we should expect to see correspondingly greater support for Israel and lesser for Syria...
maybe.
Posted by: glasnost at January 12, 2007 12:39 PM"I just practice very tough love for people I do support, like March 14.."
Hahahahaah nice one glasnost. All of March 14 is corrupt, half its leaders are war criminal murderers (GaeGae, Jumblat, Gemayel family etc), Harriri is trying to set up his own militia (2 days ago a military US airplane was spotted in beirut airport. The security force, which is controlled by ahmed fatfat the zionist, who is part of march 14 + future party + government, were unloading weapons from it. Now we know why the culprits who killed ahmad mahmood used pistols, mini-harriri is bringing them all in, from the US.
Then, who watched yesterdays news? It was the biggest embaresment for the March 14 alliance. Bremertz, the guy in charge of the harriri assasination, gave a brief of his report. It concluded that both iran and syria complied with the investigation, but he also listed 10 other countries did not assist. When he asked for permission to reveal the 10 countries who were making it a very hard job for bremertz to complete the investigation, the US and France rejected. Russia then urged bremertz to reveal the 10 countries responsible for not complying and assisting the investigation. Again france and the US both rejected it and here we are. lol what does this say? I'd say it raises some suspicioun that france and the US are two of those 10.
They probably need more time to replace their names with those of iran and syria. Both of the latter countries were named as being countries who complied and co-operated with the investigation ;).
Posted by: hizbollah lover at January 12, 2007 12:39 PM"Israel violated Hesbollah's freedom of speech!"
No, idiot. They violated a nations freedom of speech.
Posted by: hizbollah lover at January 12, 2007 12:42 PMNo, idiot. They violated a nations freedom of speech.
And Hesbollah violated its own nation's right to be ALIVE and live in villages that aren't bombed out husks of their former selves because the only other place from which to lauch their rockets apparently was on the moon.
Posted by: Carlos at January 12, 2007 12:46 PMI was recently in Lebanon (2 weeks in December) and also went to the south and drove thru the towns Michael writes about. His desciptions are very accurate. I was a part of a relief effort and we helped fix up some homes that were damaged in the war. We also went into many homes ion the evenings to visit with the people (mostly Shia) and were very warmly received. We also had one meeting with a Hezbollah leader in one town and talked with him about Jesus and how He can give us love and peace. I hope to go back again some day and am grateful for the chance to go this time. Thanks for your great work Michael.
Posted by: airgore at January 12, 2007 12:47 PMA bank robber who takes a teller hostage and fires at police from behind his human shield is guilty of murder if they, in an effort to stop the robber from shooting, accidentally kill the hostage." And I would add, the police would not be culpable of any crime in almost every enlightened democracy.
I don't think this makes sense either. It's a legal and rational inaccuracy designed to support police because we like them better than bank robbers. What about when the policeman fires an automatic weapon into a crowd of people in a bank, aiming at the visible patch of torso of a bank robber shooting out a window at police officers?
What if the bank robbers are robbing from a computer terminal in Hoboken, and the police pull a no-knock raid on the wrong house?
HL, if you choose to think those people are lying there is nothing I can say to convince you otherwise.
Posted by Michael J. Totten at January 12, 2007 12:17 PM
Don't be ridiculous, of course you can! Just post their pictures, names and addresses, names of relatives, and anything else Hez would need to track them down and kill them and their families. What could be more simple?
But HL would have to act quick to interrogate them personally before they are slaughtered, otherwise it would still be all hearsay to him.
Posted by: nichevo at January 12, 2007 01:08 PMHL, everyone's corrupt, but not everyone works with Bashar Assad, tyrant and dictator, to perpetuate war in the Middle East.
Who am I to pass judgement on the arming of Christian and Sunni militias? That's how these situations tend to ultimately work out, HL, either no one has them or sure enough everyone will end up having them.
Posted by: glasnost at January 12, 2007 01:13 PMWe also had one meeting with a Hezbollah leader in one town and talked with him about Jesus and how He can give us love and peace.
Airgore, what an interesting story that is. Just curious, what's the name of your organization? Do they have a website? I could have sworn I heard that Hizballah didn't let outsiders in to do relief work.
Posted by: glasnost at January 12, 2007 01:17 PMWhat about when the policeman fires an automatic weapon into a crowd of people in a bank, aiming at the visible patch of torso of a bank robber shooting out a window at police officers?
What about it? A minute ago you were telling us that the context is completely irrelevant, all that matters is that 'A' killed 'B'. Now suddenly the context, actions, motives and intent are all important. You can't have it both ways, my friend.
Posted by: Mertel at January 12, 2007 01:18 PMglasnost: Or for another way of looking at it, I support people and organizations situationally, not automatically.
Well then your support must be of great value to whoever is getting it at that particular moment. Tell me, did you see Saving Private Ryan? Remember the opening scene? Remember about 22 minutes in when those GIs shot the two Germans coming out of the bunker with their hands raised? "Look Ma, I washed for supper!" So at that point, glasnost, who did you hope would win the war?
As for the jabber about police firing automatic weapons into a bank, this tactic is much deprecated in conventional police procedure. However, if the criminal had his thumb on the detonator of a big bomb, you might be a little more risk-tolerant in your calculus.
Posted by: nichevo at January 12, 2007 01:19 PMHezbollah lover, here's a little something from the Geneva Conventions:
Article 37.-Prohibition of perfidy
1. It is prohibited to kill, injure or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy. Acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence, shall constitute perfidy. The following acts are examples of perfidy:
( a ) The feigning of an intent to negotiate under a flag of truce or of a surrender;
( b ) The feigning of an incapacitation by wounds or sickness;
( c ) The feigning of civilian, non-combatant status; and
( d ) The feigning of protected status by the use of signs, emblems or uniforms of the United Nations or of neutral or other States not Parties to the conflict.
2. Ruses of war are not prohibited. Such ruses are acts which are intended to mislead an adversary or to induce him to act recklessly but which infringe no rule of international law applicable in armed conflict and which are not perfidious because they do not invite the confidence of an adversary with respect to protection under that law. The following are examples of such ruses: the use of camouflage, decoys, mock operations and misinformation.
You claim to be a Uni student, so presumably you are capable of comprehending what this quote means. But I will spell it out anyway: what Hezbollah did was a war crime. Putting yourself where the enemy cannot take you out without killing civilians is a war crime.
A war crime to which you obviously have no objection whatsoever.
Posted by: Omri at January 12, 2007 05:40 PMThe Geneva Conventions can be found here; scroll down for article 37.
Terrific post, as always, Michael. I can't help wondering why, if people don't trust what you say, they keep coming back to read your posts and post their doubts: it's very weird behaviour, if you ask me!
Posted by: Abu Nudnik at January 12, 2007 06:53 PMWhat about it? A minute ago you were telling us that the context is completely irrelevant, all that matters is that 'A' killed 'B'. Now suddenly the context, actions, motives and intent are all important. You can't have it both ways, my friend.
Indeed. I hold the cop responsible in both cases. Case Two is to demonstrate the futility of the contrapositive, never holding the cop responsible.
Using force to coerce someone to protect your life is probably its own crime, but is not one and the same event with the killing of the protector.
Posted by: glasnost at January 12, 2007 06:55 PMHL: You could've just said, not just ignore me like im a fool.
You are a fool.
Posted by: AG at January 12, 2007 07:07 PMWhat, conducting military operations from within civilian areas is a war crime?
Not unless the organization conducting the operation is doing so in the hope that the presence of civilians will deter attacks- that would be a war crime, but proving it is basically impossible without telepathy.
However, strikes against military targets within civilian areas are explicitly not war crimes.
For the guerilla organization doing it? But not for the military organization doing it back?
Yep. Explicitly.
Is that actually, you know, an official war crime, in a UN convention, and so forth?
Yep. Geneva Conventions, even.
So... guerilla organizations are war criminals by definition?
Yep.
Being a 'lawful combatant' requires that you distinguish yourself from the civilians via a distinctive mark recognizable at a distance.
The thing that keeps guerillas from being annihilated is blending in with the noncombatants.
Well, if the UN says so, I guess it must be true, (ha! just dutifully following the liberal line here), but you know what happens to rules that prove to be practically impossible to follow in practice, right?
Yeah. Lefties make all kinds of excuses for the rule-breakers, mostly along the lines of how the rules are 'unfair', or 'those resisting an occupation are entitled to use all means to do so', ad nauseum.
After all, therefore the African National Congress were war criminals, and the Kosovo liberation army were war criminals, and the Kurdish reistance against Saddamn Hussein were war criminals, and the Northern Alliance fighting the Taliban were war criminals, and... on and on and on and on...
Amusingly enough, that is not necessarily the case. You see, the relevant rules generally do not apply to conflicts entirely within one country's borders- civil wars and the like.
So if Hizbullah does something noxious to the Israelis, there's a good chance that it's a war crime... but would not necessarily be if the opposing force was, say, the Lebanese army.
Want cites?
Posted by: rosignol at January 12, 2007 08:08 PMWhat if the bank robbers are robbing from a computer terminal in Hoboken, and the police pull a no-knock raid on the wrong house?
Hoboken crime is low and mostly gangster related. Gangsters don't tolerate random, petty crime in "their" town. If the police raided one of the local social clubs the people inside would probably be better armed than the police. For that and many other reasons, they don't do no-knock raids here. You haven't done your research.
It's a legal and rational inaccuracy designed to support police because we like them better than bank robbers.
Of course we like the police better than we like bank robbers. We like sheepdogs more than we like rabid pit bulls. People are funny that way.
If an reporters described a robbery, should he/she be obligated to give equal weight to the robber's point of view - and if they didn't would you question his/her bias?
Just as every cop is a criminal, and all the sinners saints..who's argument is that? Does his opinion deserve equal weight?
Posted by: mary from hoboken at January 12, 2007 08:15 PMDamn Glasnost, you are getting SCHOOLED!
Posted by: Zak at January 12, 2007 08:33 PMGuerrilla warfare per se is not a war crime. If they follow the rules spelled out in the Geneva Conventions they are considered to have combatant status and have some of the same rights as regular members of the armed forces.
It's when guerrillas (or anybody) launches attacks behind human shields that it is a war crime. In international conflicts, guerrillas must distinguish themselves from the civilian population if they are preparing or engaged in an attack. At a minimum, guerrillas must carry their arms openly. (Protocol I, Art. 44, Sec. 3)
Civilians must not be used to protect military installations or operations against attacks. (Protocol I, Art. 51, Sec. 7)
Feigning of civilian or non-combatant status is perfidy and prohibited by the Geneva Conventions. (Protocol I. Art. 37, Sec. 1).
Hesbollah have violated all of these conventions, and bragged about it! They have launched attacks behind human shields in violation of the Geneva Convention's provision for the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, which prohibits the use of civilians as military shields. They have purposely mingled amongst the civilians to hide their combatant status. They have hidden their rockets amongst civilians in order to immunize them from Israeli attack.
The result has been the death of innocent Lebanese non-combatants and the obliteration of their property. Hesbollah are the only ones to blame for this. And because of this Nasrallah is a legitimate war criminal according to the letter of the law. And I don't mean "war criminal" like the clown Leftists do who nobody takes seriously. I mean it like the Geneva Convention means it. A certified genuine authentic war criminal. He should be captured, tried and executed as such. Yet Arabs praise him, and Leftists apologize for and excuse him. Truly disgusting.
Posted by: Carlos at January 12, 2007 10:51 PMOrganizations like Hezbollah should be glad, too, because if the Israelis didn't care about morality in war Hezbollah would no longer exist. Most, if not all, of South Lebanon would be destroyed.
And seeing how much international good will it gained Israel, at considerable human and economic expense, I imagine next time they fight, the gloves will come off, and Israel will stop confusing PR with morality. (Assuming Peretz and Olmert are removed by then. What a pair of buffoons.) War is... war.
There is a difference, albeit a fine one, between being ruthless and being evil or immoral. Deliberately seeking to endanger civilians, TRYING to increase civilian casualties to feed the media -- that's cynical and immoral.
Saying, "We have to win this sucker, and that means we have to eliminate the enemy wherever we find them -- even if they hide under women's skirts and in schools and play dirty," is cold and necessary in a fight for your nation's survival -- tragic, but not cynical, not evil.
Posted by: Pam at January 12, 2007 11:37 PMI'd like to compliment Hezbollah Lover. Although his perceptions are not mine (contrary I'd say) - I do think he is making the effort to come here and explain his views against an overwhelming part of the 'opposition' - and it's exactly this sort of discussion that is worth reading (not the average nod-your-head-in-agreement kind - because those are confirming ones only)
There should be more places and possibilities where opposite sides can discuss with each-other instead of staying in their own fenced-off 'territory'.
Tse.
Posted by: tsedek at January 13, 2007 02:48 AMHas anybody considered the cost-effectiveness of dropping MAC 10s with spare clips in all the non-HA villages in South Lebanon? I'm absolutely serious here. It won't increase the effectiveness of HA, and it might decrease their ability to pull this human shield crap.
Posted by: Mark Poling at January 13, 2007 05:49 AMGlasnost, the difference between "Jamil Hussein" and "Jad" is that Michael followed journalistic ethics and told us the latter was a pseudonym to protect his source, while the AP did not do so. Therefore, when bloggers found out that the Iraqi Interior Ministry said they had no such person on their payroll, they responded appropriately by questioning exactly who JH is.
Nearly two months after the original questions were poo-poohed by the AP, suddenly they 'remembered' that it's actually a pseudonym, even though none of the 61 stories that cite this named source say so. Throughout the course of this controversy, the story of four mosques and dozens of victims being burned has changed several times. But the AP "stands by their story." Which one?
One of the refreshing things about MJT's coverage is that he freely discloses his biases. We know where they might give him a blind spot. We can take that into account when we read his work.
Posted by: The Monster at January 13, 2007 07:08 AMAll this commentary about all the relative morality vis a vis Hizbo is actually quite hilarious. The only battles they are able to win are the propaganda battles and they did quite effectively because to them there are no rules. Human life is cheap; any dead, in any circumstances, are classified as martyrs, so its all within the party line.
The entire Qana story is the best metaphor. Aerial/satellite photos show the rocket launchers speeding into apartment building garages. Greeen Helmet vids show HIzbo using corpses (from who knows where) to set up propaganda shots. And then of course there are the famous 'missled' Red Cross ambulances that were demonstrated by Zombietime to be a total fraud.
And the MSM ate it all up without burping.
Civilian casaulties help the cause and in fact turned the whole propaganda war. The individuals don't matter as they are very useful. They are martyrs and besides, they are getting off laid in some ethereal hyperdimensions as their rewards.
Posted by: ankhfkhonsu at January 13, 2007 07:17 AM"But I will spell it out anyway: what Hezbollah did was a war crime." - Omri
Ok, thats one. How many did israel commit? if hizbollah commited a war crime, how many war crimes did israe commit?
How many UN resolutions did it defy?
How many acts of terrorism did it carry out?
Under the geneva conventions, any land captured shouldn't be annexed,but if it was to be annexed, the state which captured the land is responsible for security of the people living their, if their are no people living their then no people should be brought to live their. The perfect example of israel breqaking just that one convention is by building countless settlements on land not rightfully theirs and by terrorising the palistinian people.
By using bombs with low-enriched uranium in the core (a british team of scientists found traces of uranium in bomb craters in lebanon at 13 sites!). The use of cluster bombs in civilian areas. The constant fly-overs taking place to this day. The constant break-ins to lebanon (3 days ago IDF group was told to retreat after advancing 50 metres into lebanese soil). Still holding lebanese land. Taking water from the wazzani and threatening the lebanese state that if they built a water pump to take water from that wazzani river (which springs from lebanese mountains and ends in israeli held territory) "severe action would be taken". Explain to me how you justify that? What about when they bombed the lebanon army barracks when that particular party (lebanese army) did not fire a single bullet at israel. What about when they bombed 18 factories in lebanon? what about when they made those drop-in operations in tyre and baalbak where they captured innocent civilians, tortured them and then released them (a unique case was a man called hassan deeb nasrallah who was captured because they thought he was...well, you know who lol and then they thought he must have been a family member but turned out he, nor the rest of the 7 people who were captured with hassan, were family, nor operatives or the genral secretaries of hizbollah). Even if hassan deeb nasrallah had family links with nasrallah, does that mean he's a terrorist too? He didn't have a gun and nor was he fighting the IDF in the south, so he has nothing to do with it. So israel is breaking your own geneva convenssion omri. Trust me, the list goes on and on about israeli attroceties. It is unimaginable how many war crimes they've commited and how many UN security council resolutions they ignored. Im going to try and find the web-page where i saw over 100 UN resolutions defied.
BTW the UN does not claim hizbollah to be a terrorist organisation, but resolution 3379 stated that Zionism to be a form of racism and racial discrimination.
Posted by: hizbollah lover at January 13, 2007 07:54 AMHB,
defying U.N. resolutions doesn't make a war crime. Neither legally nor, in my personal opinion, morally. Nice try though.
Posted by: Carlos at January 13, 2007 08:08 AMHL: "resolution 3379 stated that Zionism to be a form of racism and racial discrimination."
This says more about the UN General Assembly than about Israel or Zionism.
Posted by: Bruno at January 13, 2007 08:16 AMHL,
If the UN (Unifil) would do their task - then Israel wouldn't have to do it for them, right?
Btw: the zionism - racist claim was recalled. Strange that not many people seem to know that...
Thank you Michael for writing about Ain Ebel. A friend of South Lebanon already told it to me, but so far this story has not been mentionned on the MSM. Since the 'liberation' of 2000, Hezbollah has been harrassing the Christian population in the South. There are other stories like this in Jezzine, Marja3youn and other Christian towns.
Posted by: Vox P. at January 13, 2007 10:05 AMMichael, very informative posts, as usual! I wonder, didn't you put in danger the guys who were your guides in South Lebanon, by posting pics, mentioning names, etc. I'm thinking that even the fact that you were in a grocery story and the owner talked to you... in a village everyone knows everyone, so its easy to connect the dots. Perhaps in the future, even if the ppl agree to let you take pictures of them, you should not post any on your blog. Bad things happen, and I'm sure you know it.
Thanks for reporting from the South!
Posted by: Manuela at January 13, 2007 10:11 AMBtw: the zionism - racist claim was recalled. Strange that not many people seem to know that...
Not strange at all, as the Arab news outlets and usual suspect Leftwing blogs are VERY selective about how they cover Israel. You might even call them censorious about the information they permit to filter down to their drones and bots.
Posted by: Carlos at January 13, 2007 10:42 AMHL: "resolution 3379 stated that Zionism to be a form of racism and racial discrimination."
That resolution was rescinded. I am curious to know if any other General Assembley resolutions have ever been rescinded?
The General Assembley has no moral authority. It is simply a tyranny of the majority. Between the Arab and Islamic countries and anti-Western Third World nations, the Arabs could get the GA to vote on a resolution saying the moon doesn't exist and it could very well get a 2/3 majority.
The only legally binding UN resolutions come from the Security Council.
Posted by: Zak at January 13, 2007 10:58 AMManuela,
I don't publish names or photographs of people who want to remain anonymous.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at January 13, 2007 10:58 AM"But I will spell it out anyway: what Hezbollah did was a war crime." - Omri
HL: Ok, thats one. How many did israel commit?
HL, you continually use the same argument that was attempted, and ruled illegitimate, at Nuremberg. Namely you attempt to defend the crimes committed by those you support by pointing your finger at others and claiming that they've done bad things too. It's the same lame argument used by prepubescent school kids and laughed at by their teachers.
Nonetheless, I'm glad to hear you admit that Nasrallah is a war criminal. We're making some progress.
And in answer to your question, how many [war crimes] did Israel commit? At last count: None.
Posted by: Mertel at January 13, 2007 11:11 AM"Not strange at all, as the Arab news outlets and usual suspect Leftwing blogs are VERY selective about how they cover Israel."
Nothings stranger than your p.o.v's and claims. For your knowledge, i got the resolution from the guardian, not a very leftist newspaper nor is it arab.
"You might even call them censorious about the information they permit to filter down to their drones and bots."
Everyone knows that during the war it was the zionists who filtered the news in israel. They told the anchors what to and what not to report on. Every anchor and reporter had to submit their reports to the media/info ministry oin israel which are then processed, then modified or disallowed or allowed.
Posted by: hizbollah lover at January 13, 2007 02:05 PMmicheal,
before writing this whole article, read what human right wash report about the war:
1. there were no evidence supporting the claim that HA used civilians as human sheilds
2. if it was true that HA tried to use civilians as human sheilds this will not justify the act of violence that israel did to civilians.
and cluster bombs is by itself a huge crime, espacilly when they drop it in the final days of apllying the ceasfire.
and by the way i am christian and i beleive HA more than your freinds coz they dont have evidence that support the things they are saying, it is obviously they hate HA, they are free though, and they are trying to destroy his image.
and dont forget that in the ME people tend to lie a bit more than anywhere else it is a middle easter bad habit especially when they want u to feel better and most welcome this is called hospitalization some how....
Every anchor and reporter had to submit their reports to the media/info ministry oin israel which are then processed, then modified or disallowed or allowed.
HL,
processed and modified my ass. The IDF censored reports on military movements that would endanger the operation. That is the extent of Israeli censorhip. Hesbollah did that too. The only difference is Hesbollah threatened to kill journalists who reported the wrong thing, while in Israel they merely threatened to expel them.
Posted by: Carlos at January 13, 2007 02:24 PMHL - The Grauniad (as it is affectionately known in some quarters) is "not a very leftist paper"? LOL! Sweetie, you need to expand your reading repertoire.
Thanks, Michael, for all your reporting. Getting in-depth, on-the-ground coverage of areas about which the MSM is content to parrot conventional wisdom is invaluable. Keep safe.
Posted by: Audrey at January 13, 2007 03:23 PMHezbollah Lover: Everyone knows that during the war it was the zionists who filtered the news in israel. They told the anchors what to and what not to report on. Every anchor and reporter had to submit their reports to the media/info ministry oin israel which are then processed, then modified or disallowed or allowed.
This is not true. I reported from Israel during the war and never had to do any of this. And I met with several members of the IDF, including official spokesman. I even tagged along with the IDF in the region near Gaza. They did not censor me in any way whatsoever.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at January 13, 2007 03:35 PMSarah: dont forget that in the ME people tend to lie a bit more than anywhere else it is a middle easter bad habit
No kidding.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at January 13, 2007 03:36 PMI just got done catching up on a bunch of your posts. Do you know what strikes me? It is that the land is beautiful. I envision it as agricultural fields, small villages and some light industry. Have you ever been to Wyoming or Montana? These are hard scrabble places. Southern Lebanon is not.
I dream of the day that the rocks and rubble will be cleared away and HUMANS will be able to live in peace. The fact that all this destruction is happening in the name of religion just makes me sick.
Actually, that is not exactly the case. The devestation that has taken place in Southern Lebanon is about power mostly, not religion.
I have read all the comments on this thread. To those that argue against Israel, the West, et al I ask; what is it that you think HB hopes to gain if not power within the country of Lebanon?
Possibly someone could enlighten me however, from what I understand, HB started firing rockets into Israeli territory and kidnapped soldiers before the IDF struck back. Why did they do that if not for power within their own country? Did they mean to take Northern Israeli territory? Were the Israeli's encroaching on their nation? I think not.
What a terrible shame all of this has been. Look at the photos. Envision the land in peace. Look at the foxholes and bunkers. Can you see vegetable farmers and fruit trees?
Why do some demand torment from others if not for power?
"The Grauniad" - Audry
Well, i dunno who the grauniad are, but no, the guardian isn't leftist.
"Sweetie, you need to expand your reading repertoire."
Well, from the looks of your spelling, i think you should too.
Posted by: hizbollah lover at January 13, 2007 04:59 PM"This is not true. I reported from Israel"
What? I swear you said you're not a reporter...well, well, well, it looks like that middle eastern habbit is getting to you, isn't it hahahaha
Posted by: hizbollah lover at January 13, 2007 05:01 PMthe only restriction given to all reporters during the war was not to film the surrounding areas of where katusiyahs fell -
Posted by: tsedek at January 13, 2007 05:07 PMAt the risk of being banned, I have to ask again why HL is still allowed to post his trash on this blog. Surely there is no one reading this blog that is so poorly informed on the ME that they are "educated" by HL and his perspective/opinions/fantasies.
Using an analogy that is perhaps overused; would an Allied blogger have allowed Goebbels to post his trash during WWII? It is MJT's blog, so he can do whatever he deems appropriate, but golly darn!
Posted by: Ron Snyder at January 13, 2007 06:06 PMRon, I'm certainly not going to ban you.
I don't really know what to do with HL. Probably nothing at least for now. He's a bit more polite than he was when he first showed up, and some people seem to think his comments are interesting as a window into a Hezbollah supporter's mentality. You don't see that everywhere in the blog world.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at January 13, 2007 06:47 PM"before writing this whole article, read what human right wash report about the war:"
What's the term for a typographical Freudian slip? Can we call it a Jungian slip, maybe? Anyhow, that was good for a chuckle.
On Ron's side -- I think we do have a pretty good sense how terrorist partisans think, MJT -- but I appreciate your courtesy to others. There's always the old-fashioned 'ignore' function -- if your eyes glaze over after HL's second or third post per article, just skip them. Works for me.
Posted by: Pam at January 13, 2007 07:11 PMWhy should you do anything about HL? His views aren't worth a dime, but that doesn't make him a troll.
Posted by: Carlos at January 13, 2007 07:42 PMInteresting info Michael. The evil that Hezbollah has inflicted on both Lebanon and Israel is reprehensible. Ant the UN force is a joke; perhaps better than nothing; but still a joke.
Yet, I detect a certain animosity towards Israel in your post Michael, why is that ?
Posted by: Cappy at January 13, 2007 08:21 PM"The Grauniad" - Audry
Well, i dunno who the grauniad are, but no, the guardian isn't leftist. -HL
Ah, yes, they are. Famously so.
From the relevant wikipedia entry:
[...]
Stance
Editorial articles in The Guardian are generally in sympathy with the liberal to left-wing ends of the political spectrum. This is reflected in the paper's readership: a MORI Poll taken between April-June 2000 showed that 80% of Guardian readers were Labour Party voters (cited in International Socialism Spring 2003, ISBN 1-898876-97-5); according to another MORI poll taken in 2004, 44% of Guardian readers vote Labour and 37% vote Liberal Democrat1.
[...]
"Sweetie, you need to expand your reading repertoire."- Audry
Well, from the looks of your spelling, i think you should too. -HL
From later in the same Wikipedia entry-
[...]
The Guardian in the popular imagination
The name the Grauniad for the paper originated with the satirical magazine Private Eye; it came about because of a reputation for text mangling, technical typesetting failures and typographical errors, hence the popular myth that the paper once misspelled its own name on the page one masthead as "The Gaurdian".
HL, please consider the suggestion that you expand your reading list seconded.
Posted by: rosignol at January 13, 2007 08:42 PMIt's funny isn't it MJT, how people's hypocracy cries out at me for belonging to an arab world with no democracy and freedom (excluding my own country lebanon, ofcourse) as if it's my fault, but at the same time want to censor me out of the blog because my opinion is different to yours and some of theirs.
Its a crazy world man.
Posted by: hizbollah lover at January 13, 2007 08:42 PMHizbo Blower, you can't help it.
You're just a wanker.
Posted by: ankhfkhonsu at January 13, 2007 08:49 PMThe Labour Part nor its members are leftists. They are along the middle, they moved further to the right after becoming New Labour Paty. Lib Dems certainly aren't leftists either.
A leftist party would be the respect party, sir.
Posted by: hizbollah lover at January 13, 2007 08:50 PMThe Labour Part nor its members are leftists. They are along the middle, they moved further to the right after becoming New Labour Paty.
That was just ditching economic ideas that didn't work (and were running the economy into the ground). Simple pragmatism, not ideology.
Lib Dems certainly aren't leftists either.
Sure they are.
A leftist party would be the respect party, sir.
Who said that only one party could be leftist?
The existence of another party farther to one extreme of the political spectrum does not make a less-extreme party 'centrist' or 'moderate'... it just makes them less extreme.
Posted by: rosignol at January 13, 2007 09:06 PMCappy,
Re:"Yet, I detect a certain animosity towards Israel in your post Michael, why is that ?"
I think one of the reasons for that is he is upset about the way he was treated at the airport. Maybe, he doesn't realize that EVERYONE is treated like crap at the Israeli airport(and let's face it, most airports). My husband is Jewish, an Israeli citizen in fact, and was almost not let in the country because he flew with his American passport (he wasn't born in Israel and only lived there a year) instead of his Israeli one. They gave him a hell of a time, but we didn't let it spoil or trip.
I think Michael needs to understand why Israelis are called "Sabras." :)
Posted by: Corinne at January 13, 2007 11:09 PMMJT:
Excellent work, as a piece of on the scene reporting from plausible eyewitnesses backed up by physical evidence [no evidence of "fauxtography"!].
My only major concern is that you may have exposed your guide to retaliation. (Pixelising or black-striping identifying features and disguising names and other details?)
Onlookers [and HL]:
It is highly interesting to see HL and his convergence across Islamist terror-support and the same sort of leftist-socialist anti-western ideological alliance that is reflected in say the Ahmadinejad-Chavez axis.
Further to this, observe that HL is evidently blissfully unaware of the extent of his biases.
For, if one can read the Guardian and not notice that it is a secularist- leftist- progressivist journal -- though one that does try to be fair -- one is plainly less than objective. [NB: if one is immersed in an ideologically intense environment and at least partly internalises it, one-sided and incorrect statements may very well seem "obvious" or "true." That is why it is important to look for accuracy across the scope of material facts, balance/ fairness, context/background and an attitude of respect for others in reporting.]
It is therefore saddening to see that if HL is indeed a media studies major/film producer - in- training or something like that, s/he is so evidently unaware of many blatant perspective markers at say the Guardian. S/he plainly needs to learn and practice some basic critical thinking skills and, for preference, also some basic worldview analysis. [I am here thinking about being aware of the outlines of major worldviews and developing ability to examine major comparative difficulties of such explanations across factual adequacy, coherence and explanatory power.]
That way HL may do some real service to his/her people, and to the wider ME and world. (We need more journalists capable of giving us a sound, honest, "rough, first draft of history." There is already a glut on the propagandist market!)
HL:
BOTTOMLINE: Maybe, you should be studying MJT as an exemplar of evidently honest journalism in a dangerous region [despite such mistakes as are inevitable], not viewing him primarily as a target for worn-out propagandistic comments.
Cheerio
TKI
Posted by: kairosfocus at January 14, 2007 12:43 AMRe:"Yet, I detect a certain animosity towards Israel in your post Michael, why is that ?"
I think one of the reasons for that is he is upset about the way he was treated at the airport.
Not once when I wrote this article was I thinking of my experience at the airport.
I have trouble with some of Israel's policies, especially in Lebanon where they consistently screw up. But I am supporter of Israel in general, including Israel's right to defend itself with military force, and I think anyone who follows my work closely knows this.
What in this article makes anyone think I have animosity towards Israel? Because I'm not an open cheerleader? What?
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at January 14, 2007 01:04 AMI've also been accused lately of hating the Shia, and during the July War I was accused of being both too biased toward Israel and too biased toward Lebanon.
(sigh)
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at January 14, 2007 01:09 AMKairosfocus's comments about HL are on the mark.
For example, HL when boasting about the great achievements of Hezbollah, wrote:
“A whole section of a country [Lebanon] as vast as the south is, accounting for nearly 1/4 of the country…”
Indeed, southern Lebanon “vast”? ALL of Lebanon is 10,400 sq km, about 0.7 times the size of the State of Connecticut in the United States, and HL is actually boasting about Hezbollah’s activities in only one-fourth of that land area. I doubt that anyone has referred to Connecticut or, say, Northern Ireland in the UK as “vast” recently.
HL’s imagination and his claims of great achievements are, compared to the very same kinds of tasks required in other countries with larger land areas and populations many times greater, rather ordinary. For, far more tasks are carried out daily in fully developed urban highly populated areas (with freeways, subways, etc.), and there are dozens of well-developed urban areas in the world, many actually as large or larger in area as all o