Can you say Hezba-Qana-gate? I thought you could... RTWT

"The photographer who took this picture (probably also the person who doctored it), Adnan Hajj, is rather well-known to LGF readers. In fact, rather well-known to the entire world.

He also took this infamous photograph from Qana of the guy in the green helmet, parading a dead body around for pictures, featured on the front pages of newspapers worldwide: Yahoo! News Photo."

"Before you can have a civilization, before you can have a justice system, before you can have peace, you must have the will and the capacity for raw, barbaric violence. Because if you won’t do it, someone else will have to do it for you--or to you. You can be a spiritually decadent pacifist, but only because there is a freedom-loving, civilized barbarian with a mailed fist watching your wimpy liberal Euro ass. Behind every thousand or so feckless liberal castrati is a man with true grit. And we want terrorists and their enablers to scratch their heads and never stop asking, "why does this gritty bastard hate us so?""

"A republic is two wolves and a sheep voting on a representative who will decide what they will have for lunch.

A Constitutional Republic acknowledges the sheep has inalienable rights endowed by his Creator that prevent the wolves from eating him, and he is armed to ensure the wolves respect those rights."

""There are four matters in which concord may be lacking. When there is discord within the country the army can not be mobilized. When there is discord in the army it can not take the field. When there is lack of harmony in the field the army can not take the offensive. When there is lack of harmony in battle the army can not win a decisive victory." — trans., Sun Tzu, The Art of War, ca 450 B.C."

Bodyguard of Lies: The Root Cause

Of course, Churchill's "Bodyguard of Lies" quote (my original piece here) has been forced down the Memory Hole by the MSMemory Hole media "overclass".

Today is a good day for those still retaining their brains where Churchill got such a silly idea. It was from Wolseley:

Sir Garnet Wolsel[e]y -- Former Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, Sir
Garnet Wolseley wrote in The Soldier's Handbook (1869);

"We are bred up to feel it a disgrace ever to succeed by falsehood . .
. we will keep hammering along with the conviction that honesty is the best
policy, and that truth always wins in the long run. These pretty little
sentiments do well for a child's copy book, but a man who acts on them had better sheathe his sword forever." — prologue to Bodyguard of Lies, by Anthony Cave Brown.

Winston Churchill -- "In war-time, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."

Barone deserves another long careful gander:

"Just as you're not as likely to favor responding forcibly to attacks on civilized nations and their people. Surely, this kind of thinking goes, there's some way to compromise, some things to negotiate, some concessions to be made. Surely, it's just too crude, too unsophisticated, too unnuanced, to respond with military force. That attitude is, of course, familiar to those who have read the history of the 1930s. I've been reading Donald Cameron Watt's pointillist history of the diplomacy between the Munich agreement of September 1938 and the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, How War Came: The Immediate Origins of World War II.

How people then yearned to avoid war! And for good reasons: War is indeed terrible, and the war that broke out in September 1939 was far more terrible than what we seem currently to face. But then how do you deal with Hitler? And how do you deal with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly said that Israel must cease to exist? Negotiation, as Neville Chamberlain realized after Hitler tore up the Munich agreement and occupied Czechoslovakia, was not enough. Diplomacy--the construction of alliances to deter Hitler--proved not to be enough either, especially after the Soviet Union made its nonaggression pact with Germany on Aug. 23, 1939, one of the most evil dates in history.

Cameron Watt's 1938-39 is not today, but like today it was a period of shifting alliances, slippery negotiation partners, evil dictators intent on the destruction of decent societies--and a period of no easy choices for the forces of good. Today we see the forces of democracy struggling in Iraq against terrorists and insurgents who may be no more than young males bent on mayhem; we see the Arab nations at least temporarily more troubled by Hezbollah and Hamas than by Israel; we see those who urged Israel to give up land for peace having to confront the fact that Israel gave up land and the people there sent rockets back to Israel. In that setting, it's important for those who care deeply about Israel to remember which American party's constituency shares their views and which American party's constituency, increasingly, doesn't."

"We as Americans have forgotten our spiritual roots. "

EneMedia in action:

"Doesn't this sound a little different from what you were told about this event by your CNN, BBC, and Sky reporters?"

"These numbers would have been astonishing 50 years ago and surprising 20 years ago. In the 1940s and 1950s, Democrats were much more supportive of Israel than Republicans were. Israel, after all, was a conspicuously socialist republic, whose creation initially was supported by the Soviet Union. The Democratic Party had a much more philosemitic image than the Republican Party. And remember that it was Republican President Dwight Eisenhower who stepped in and shut off Israel's offensive in the 1956 war. And Democratic President Lyndon Johnson who sped support to Israel in the 1967 war.

Now we see a turnaround. Left-wing anti-Israel sentiment is not confined to a few odd corners of the academic world; it has become a mass constituency in the Democratic Party. Nor is the view that the Palestinians and Hezbollah are virtuous and deprived Third World victims while Israel is a First World oppressor limited to old media (see CNN, BBC, large parts of the New York Times, etc., etc.). It's also the view of a mass constituency in the Democratic Party."

"Railway officials found one suitcase on Monday aboard a regional train in northwestern Germany and unpacked it at the lost-and-found office of the Dortmund station. The other was found Sunday on a train between Mönchengladbach and Koblenz, and unpacked Tuesday at the Koblenz station. The gas-canister bombs in both cases were professionally-built, according to Jürgen Kleis, head of the team of detectives on the case; other sources added that they were filled with too much gas to explode. [ Ho-hum. It must be that new Merkel woman. They would never have tried to attack their old buddy Gerhard... -ed. ] "

"In related news, the official U.S. News Agency released a brief statement saying President John F. Kennedy is “on the mend” after a “small arms fire incident in Dallas” and that, in the interim, Secretary of State Alexander Haig is fully in command."

The adventures of Green Helmet and White T-Shirt:

"Against all that, does it matter that we were sold a lie? Ironically - and unintentionally - The Independent headline articulates the question: "How can we stand by and allow this to go on"? But I suspect they were not thinking what we are thinking."

"So what we have here are the purported defenders of free speech and privacy delving into the records of a library patron to dig up information. Not concerning national security, but concerning the embarassment of the p.c. cockroaches that do their dirty work in the dark.

I do like the folks I deal with at the library and they share my concerns that the BPL is on a negative trajectory, from a once great library system to a politically correct propaganda organization.

Sounds a lot like the NY Times."

"Today I am serving as the voice of six million bombarded Israeli citizens who serve as the voice of six million murdered Jews....In both cases, those responsible for these evil acts were, and are, barbarians devoid of all humanity, who set themselves one simple goal: to wipe the Jewish race off the face of the earth, as Adolph Hitler said, or to wipe the State of Israel off the map, as Mahmoud Ahmedinjad proclaims. [ Got your attention yet? -ed. ]

And you - just as you did not take those words seriously then, you are ignoring them again now. And that, ladies and gentlemen, leaders of the world, will not happen again....Never again will we wait for salvation that never arrives. Now we have our own air force. The Jewish people are now capable of standing up to those who seek their destruction - those people will no longer be able to hide behind women and children. They will no longer be able to evade their responsibility.

***

We do not dance on the roofs at the sight of the bodies of our enemy's children - we express genuine sorrow and regret. That is the monstrous behavior of our enemies.... [ Period. End of paragraph. All a rational person needs to know. -ed. ] "

ShrinkWrapped Takes On The Tinfoil Apocalypse

And does a pretty mind boggling diagnoses of it too:

"What was most painful was the desperation with which Michael clung to his self esteem while his life was unraveling around him. His initial problem was a difficulty in separating important data from irrelevant background noise. This kind of signal to noise disorder is often an early sign of cognitive dysfunction in Schizophrenia, well before any of the more dramatic symptoms appear. The problem made it impossible for Michael to function academically and he was left with the option of recognizing a serious problem within himself or finding an alternative explanation that preserved his sense of himself. Since the defense he used couldn't work long term, and his illness was progressive, he had to invent increasingly convoluted and irrational explanations for his ongoing problems.

***

Those who gleefully attack Israel for its disproportionate response, for committing genocide, or collective punishment against the victim Lebanese, must simultaneously believe the Israelis are evil monsters bent on genocide, super human military villains, and spectacularly inept at the murderous warfare they are accused of. It doesn't add up and it damages one's critical facilities to continue to believe such nonsense.

***

More than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East, according to a new Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll. ... [ Holy sh*t Sherlock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That doesn't explain more than oh, say, most of the Democratic party faithful. If Canada wasn't probably worse, I'd consider moving there based on this alone... -ed. ]

***

As for the title of this post. Philip K. Dick, whose books I began reading in high school, in his own paranoia and disorientation, described what happens when the inmates run the asylum, though he left out one salient issue. While I last read Clans of the Alphane Moon almost 40 years ago, it has stayed with me ever since. And what did Philip K. Dick leave out? In Clans of the Alphane Moon, the inmates did not have nuclear weapons. [ Did I forget to mention the Tinfoil Apocalypse? -ed. ] "

And somehow, the fact that Nazi stood for "National Socialist Party" seems to have slipped into the memory hole:

"“In Germany and Italy the Nazis and the Fascists did indeed not have much to invent. The usages of the new political movements which pervaded all aspects of life had in both countries already been introduced by the socialists. The idea of a political party which embraces all activities of the individual from the cradle to the grave, which claims to guide his views on everything […] was first put into practice by the socialists.

It was not the Fascists but the socialists who began to collect children from the tenderest age into political organisations to make sure they grew up as good proletarians. It was not the Fascists but the socialists who first thought of organising sports and games, football and hiking, in party clubs where the members would not be infected by other views. It was the socialists who first insisted that the party member should distinguish himself from others by the modes of greeting and the forms of address. It was they who by their organisation of “cells” and devices for the permanent supervision of private life created the prototype of the totalitarian party.”

Ulf Nilson, columnist in newspaper Expressen and one of the saner voices in Sweden, thinks that: “Any idiot can see that Swedish leaders – starting with [Social Democratic PM] Palme and his gang – have been waging a war on the family, father, mother, child, since at least the 70’s. The law of individual taxation from 1971 did in reality abolish stay-at-home-moms. The overwhelming majority of families became dependent on two salaries. Thus the child was collectivized; children became the property of the state and a state responsibility.” This thinking was “exemplified by the famous citation: “You [the state] can’t possible be thinking of unloading the burden of responsibility onto the parents?”"

"Anxious to lend the west’s agitated humanitarians a helping hand, a group of Palestinians in Jenin held a funeral a week ago for one of their massacred compatriots and invited a cameraman along. The deceased, covered in a shroud, was being borne on a stretcher to his final resting place when, alas, his bearers stumbled and the body fell to the ground. The “corpse” picked himself up, dusted himself off and climbed back on the stretcher to start all over again. Unfortunately, the clumsy pallbearers managed to drop him a second time. At this point, the crowd, who apparently weren’t in on the scheme, fled in terror. The stiff, meanwhile, had had enough of his bungling bearers and flounced off in a huff."

"Qana, revisited":

"But as is alleged to be the case at Qana, initial civilian-death claims -- Palestinains originally said hundereds had been killed -- were exaggerated. Even among the 52 non-combatants believed to have actually died in the fighting, later investigation revealed that many had perished, not at the hands of Israeli troops, but in the blasts of booby-traps set by Palestinian terrorists themselves to defend their hideouts.

Despite this, international media and organizations such as the Red Cross and the UN quickly accepted the claims by terror organizations of widespread civilian losses at Bethlehem and Jenin, and never bothered to correct the record when facts proved their reports unjustified."

"But others, chastened by their experiences north of the border, were less sure. “It’s a lose-lose situation,” said one. “They’re a bunch of terrorists. We are an army. We can never beat them completely because we have to obey certain rules. They operate from within civilian populations, and can do whatever they like. They don’t give a shit about these things."

"So if you are saying now that I was wrong when I believed that it would be possible to ensure far fewer casualties and far more quiet after leaving Lebanon, you're right. I was wrong. I'm afraid of those who are incapable of saying 'I was wrong' in the first person. I lived on the border, in Malkiya, and I saw the small tobacco plots of the farmers in southern Lebanon, and I believed that prosperity on both sides of the border would ensure quiet. That Nasrallah would aspire for his people to have a good life. In that I was wrong. I was definitely wrong."

The Summary Judgement: With Better Graphics This Time

The fact that the moral superiority of the western victors of WWII can today be used as an effective propaganda tool -- and literally a weapon -- against us is really a damning judgement on how little the world has learned since then.

And the supposed "trump card" argument in support of why the west is wrong is that everyone in the rest of the world believes we -- and Israel of course -- are. Even if they're being propagandized by totalitarian leaders of various degree -- who of course would neverfoster an information war to retain their own power. Democracy jujitsu indeed.

The fact that we (small d of course) democrats have given dictators the ability to outvote us in the U.N. is a farce of epic scale.

And somehow -- I can't imagine why -- it's been buried that at the low point of WWII there were only approximately 9 allies! The whole world was against us including German-France, German-Czekoslovakia, German-Hungary, German-Spain, German-Netherlands ... you get the idea. By the standards of today's Fascifists and Gramscian neo-Syndicalists the defeat of Hitler was illegitimate. I'm shocked, just shocked!

The equivalent has been accomplished by today's Islamo-Nazis. And make no mistake. They are truly some of Hitler's totalitarian heirs -- Jerusalem Grand Mufti Haj Mohammed Amin Al-Husseini was Hitler's confidant in the "final solution" as well as his radio propagandist to the Arab world. And did I forget to mention that Haj Amin was one of Arafat's role models?

And the Islamists still want to kill the Jews. I'm sure Hitler is quite literally cheering them on from hell. None of the Arab nations were part of the 9 allies in WWII either...

The precursor to this post is "On Restraining The Police West". The title is a reference to the better graphic than that post had. And look here while you're at it.

"To further complicate things, the British attached the province of Mosul to this new nation Iraq. Mosul was actually part of the Turkish homeland. But oil had recently been discovered in Mosul, and the British did not want the new Turkish republic to have oil, just in case the Turks should, later in the 20th century, decide to attempt reforming their empire. So now the Iraqi Sunni Arabs had to dominate the Kurds as well, something they had not had to do in the past. The Kurds were not Arabs, but Indo-European, like the Iranians. The Kurds of the region had been trying, for thousands of years, to establish their own state. They were never able to do it, and resisted attempts by others to govern them.

***

And it gets worse, because the Sunni Arab dictatorship got worse as time went on. The last 10-15 years of Saddam's rule were particularly horrible for the Kurds and Shia Arabs. There were massacres and constant terror from Saddam's secret police. So not only are the Sunni Arabs now outnumbered, and facing over a quarter million soldiers and police they do not control, they are also on the receiving end of revenge attacks by millions of enraged Kurds and Shia Arabs.

This is not the recipe for civil war, it's the prelude to massacre and mass expulsion. Of the Sunni Arabs. In Iraq, everyone is aware of this, but too many foreigners, including many who should know better, just don't get it."

Did I Mention VDH Rocks?

"But nevertheless it is still surreal to reread the fantasies of Chamberlain, Daladier, and Pope Pius, or the stump speeches by Charles Lindbergh (“Their [the Jews’] greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government”) or Father Coughlin (“Many people are beginning to wonder whom they should fear most — the Roosevelt-Churchill combination or the Hitler-Mussolini combination.”) — and baffling to consider that such men ever had any influence.

Not any longer.

Our present generation too is on the brink of moral insanity. That has never been more evident than in the last three weeks, as the West has proven utterly unable to distinguish between an attacked democracy that seeks to strike back at terrorist combatants, and terrorist aggressors who seek to kill civilians.

***There is no need to mention Europe, an entire continent now returning to the cowardice of the 1930s. Its cartoonists are terrified of offending Muslim sensibilities, so they now portray the Jews as Nazis, secure that no offended Israeli terrorist might chop off their heads."

"An officer who took part in the evacuation of the settlements from the Gaza Strip a year ago recalled, at that time, the evacuation of Yamit, in northern Sinai, which within weeks led to the Lebanon War, and wondered when the IDF, which was then pulling out of Gush Katif, would return to Lebanon. His evaluation was sound, but he did not imagine that the "northern confine" of Gaza - the area of the Israeli settlements - would reappear so quickly across the border fence in the far north. [ Looks to me like the Israelis have misplaced their copies of Brown's "Bodyguard of Lies". -ed. ] "

"The constructive engagement approach rests on an odd assumption -- that the leaders of a rogue state are somehow unaware that they will become trapped in a web of economic interdependence. The truth is that applying constructive engagement against as a means to induce economic and political change tends not to work either. Put crudely, if a regime wants to stay in power at all costs, all of the economic openness in the world is not going to make much difference, because the government that wants to stay in power will simply apply strict controls over trade with the outside world."

"Ah, but how to get started on that loop? Our ancestors had the easy start-up motivation of hunger, but we -- or our children -- could wander aimlessly through life, never feeling the initial motivation. Perhaps nothing is more valuable and mysterious than becoming interested in something in the first place."

"These purchases do not come from a market fund or retirement portfolio. The Lamonts deliberately purchased Wal-Mart stock for themselves and their child. One presumes that the Lamonts did so because of Wal-Mart's performance and delivery of dividends to their stockholders -- all of which come from the same business practices that Lamont publicly blasted this week.

It gets worse. While he and his family continued to get thousands of dollars in dividends, Lamont supporters castigated Lieberman at the event for taking a one-time donation from Wal-Mart's PAC of $1,000. Lieberman says he sent the money back, but will Lamont's supporters now demand to know what their candidate did with his Wal-Mart money.

Lamont bills himself as a new kind of politician, but from what we've seen this week, he looks like the same old model we see too often in Washington: dishonest and hypocritical"

Today's health hoax skewering:

"Vitamin supplements do not work and may do more harm than good, experts have warned. The tablets taken by millions of health-conscious Britons each day do nothing to stave off illness, they said. In fact, Vitamins C and E - compounds known as anti-oxidants - may actually cause some illnesses. While vitamins may ward off disease in the test-tube, they do little to protect in everyday life, this week's New Scientist reports."

The other take on Blair:

"In summary I believe that the current drift of events is quite simple. The Islamists want to kill us, and aren't going to stop trying. So-called moderate Muslims are going to stand firmly aside as the Islamists do their worst, and the publics in the US and Europe are beginning to realize, no matter what Tony Blair babbles on about, that they have a major war to the death upon them."

And Some Shoebat Gloom For Good Measure

"Yes, patience is the message, Shoebat preaches. The extremists outlasted the Russians in Afghanistan and they will eventually outlast the American occupiers as well, he says.

The same sorry scenario is also potentially true with Iraq.

And the patience thing extends all the way to the American homeland, Shoebat warned: "People ask me the question how come we haven't been hit [since 9/11]? Well, what they are looking for is a grand finale. [ Can you say "Tinfoil Apocalypse"? -ed. ] They want to cripple America by one event. This is why you don't see small-time bombings in America... They are waiting to get a dirty bomb, a nuclear bomb of any sort and blow up a few cities.

"Is that what it is going to take to wake America up?"

"After an attempt to destroy trains in New York and after an attempt to destroy the Sears Tower and after an attempt of Canadian Muslims to blow up buildings, after Bali, and after all the evidence that we have - we not doing something about it. I think we are in deep trouble.""

Today's Gloomy Comment

"I will be back in 7 days and I will list 5 metrics for us to look at:

1. Hezbollah will remain intact and all their rocket losses will have been replaced by Iran and Syria

2. The IDF will be gone from Lebanon or will be no more than a few miles in in some useless buffer zone

3. The 2 soldiers will either not be released or will have been swapped for hundreds of hb prisoners

4. Hassan Nasrallah and the HB leadership will still be breathing and will be free men

5. A ceasefire will be in effect

I contend that all 5 of those will happen.

We'll see what it looks like in a week. [ More gloom. -ed. ] "

"The U.S. has gone far out on a limb to allow Israel to win and for all this to happen. It has counted on Israel's ability to do the job. It has been disappointed. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has provided unsteady and uncertain leadership. Foolishly relying on air power alone, he denied his generals the ground offensive they wanted, only to reverse himself later. He has allowed his war Cabinet meetings to become fully public through the kind of leaks no serious wartime leadership would ever countenance. Divisive Cabinet debates are broadcast to the world as was Olmert's own complaint that "I'm tired. I didn't sleep at all last night." (Haaretz, July 28.) Hardly the stuff to instill Churchillian confidence. [ Olmert hasn't read "The Bodyguard Of Lies"? Not good. -ed. ]

His search for victory on the cheap has jeopardized not just the Lebanon operation, but America's confidence in Israel as well. That confidence -- and the relationship it reinforces -- is as important to Israel's survival as its own army. The tremulous Olmert seems not to have a clue. [ We can always count on Krauthammer to sober us up... -ed. ] "

You don't want to miss Wretchard today. A dual edged vivisection of why our chattering classes are mental midgets:

"Walid Phares, interviewed by Kathryn Jean Lopez at the NRO describes OIF as a riposte to 9/11, the Syrian riposte to OIF, the Cedar Revolution as the counterstroke to Syria and Nasrallah's counterstroke to the Cedar Revolution. He sees both Iraq and Lebanon as not conflicts of purely local origin but as arenas in a regional war. It's interesting to compare Phare's piece with Tony Blair's speech in Los Angeles, which will probably be read with the same attention as speeches in the 1930s are read now.

***

[ Blair: -ed. ] There is a host of analysis written about mistakes made in Iraq or Afghanistan, much of it with hindsight but some of it with justification. But it all misses one vital point. The moment we decided not to change regime but to change the value system, we made both Iraq and Afghanistan into existential battles for Reactionary Islam. We posed a threat not to their activities simply: but to their values, to the roots of their existence.

***

[ Wretchard: -ed. ] Blair's speech is not about war but a Pole Star. All great captains are alike in that they draw not just any blade, but a ringing and shining blade. For only a sword so enchanted can defeat real malice.

"

"The Rolling Stone and American Prospect’s embrace of Dreyfuss and his theories reflects the standard of self-described progressives who let their Bush-hatred trump the most basic journalistic standards. What really is sad is that The American Prospect continues to endorse the book Dreyfuss wrote for LaRouche."

"They want Israel to endorse the very reasons Hezbollah started this war in the settlement, before Hezbollah verifiably disarms. That's not a promising development -- it's the same ploy Mussolini used to get Europe to the table in Munich, and the same nations have fallen for it again."

"The difference between us and Hezbollah is that when we kill innocent people we consider it a failure, when they kill innocent people they consider it a success."

"“Nobody says let’s have a march against these drug dealers, let’s have a march against bad schools. You never hear that kind of talk.”

So Juan Williams sets out to tell the truth, writes a book about it, and he can’t get on liberal television, he can’t get on ABC, NBC, or CBS because they have sold out to these leaders of the black community picked by guilt-ridden white liberals. White leftists refuse to allow blacks to be individuals. They look at them only as a group. [ D'oh. Class struggle and all that... -ed. ] They have put them on their liberal white plantation where their hand-picked black taskmasters such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton rule the roost."

"This is not a joke. [ Welcome to PallyHezbollywood! Lights! Camera! Green Helmet! -ed. ] "

"The Longest Sustained Terrorist Act In History"

Tinfoil Apocalypse Today -- Tick, Tick, Tick...

So if we get hit with another terrorist attack, we certainly won't be able to figure out who did it?

"Today more than ever, the Muslim peoples are disgusted and furious with the Americans. The Muslim governments, including those governments whose political statements stem from restrictions [that are placed upon them], are disgusted by the insolent and arrogant oppression and are opposed to it. The American regime can expect a resounding slap and a devastating fist-blow from the Muslim nation for its support of the Zionist crimes and criminals, after it has so brazenly violated the rights of the Muslim peoples. [ to have another holocaust since the first one wasn't big enough there was no holocaust ... Time out folks. My head is about to explode and they haven't even done the "fist-blow" part yet. -ed. ] "

This is nihilism on a scale that mere mortals can only speculate about. But just as before WWII, the leftists are so self-hating and empathetic with the enemy that they can't begin to see it. Did I mention that August 22nd seems like an interesting date right now?

"I would have said that either smintheus has not read North’s work, or he is misleading his readers. North’s challenges include far more than the time stamps, and to reduce it to that is either dishonest or very sloppy. But then smintheus informs us that the rest of North’s work is “writing obsessively about inconsequential details.” This comment reveals quite nicely what happens when someone with a predisposition to reject the argument, reads uncomfortable material (like me reading tax forms). Apparently knowing that this kind of thing could not happen, smintheus feels free not to bother with details that suggest that it might."

"The Litani river forms a natural barrier that Israel can easily defend if need be. Southern Lebanese will be compelled to vacate the area by what we can only say is Israel's deliberate dehousing campaign.

If Hezbollah are fish that swim in a sea of the people, using Mao Tse Tung's analogy, then Israel has determined to drain the sea. Certainly Hezbollahis will also move northward, but in doing so they will be pushed further and further out of rocket range, especially the Katyusha rockets, which comprise at least 90 percent of what they have fired into Israel. [ One hopes this is true anyway... -ed. ] "

"August 3, 2006: In the last 24 hours, Hizbollah fired a record 231 rockets at five Israeli towns, killing one Israeli (a civilian) and wounding 49. The Hizbollah rocket campaign against Israel has been a colossal failure, and this is being noticed in the Arab world. So far, it appears that Hizbollah has to fire over a hundred rockets, to kill one Israeli civilian. This is not impressive, especially when you consider that Hizbollah is trying to kill Israeli civilians."

"Douste-Blazy said that the crisis had presented an opportunity for Iran to "show that it can play a positive and stabilizing role in the region," but added that Ahmadinejad's statement "confirmed that this is not the case."

[ To which Ed says: -ed. ] Not to be rude, but no s**t, Sherlock."

"We are, it seems, in danger of losing any sense of priority, of scale, of genuine importance.

Abe Foxman, as my new guest blogger Dean Barnett has noted, is deep into Mel commentary. As was Andrew Sullivan. As were and still are many thousands of others.

We are three weeks and two days into the longest, sustained terrorist attack since the V-2s fell on England. It is a war crime --recognized everywhere-- to employ indiscriminate weapons. More than 2,000 have fallen on Israel in a little over three weeks, every one of which is intended to kill civilians."

"Mr. Malloch Brown said that since Hezbollah is not a terrorist organization, it should be “invited join the U.N. with all the other peace-loving nations that have gathered in New York to thwart the designs of Zionists and crusaders.”"

"“As an Islamist, I go to the Saudis to get money,” the Jordanian GID man outlines the current practice of Islamist holy warriors. “When I need weapons, logistical support, or military terrorist training and equipment, I go to the Iranians.”"

"“This is a test-fire, test-firing of rockets into a Western country,” former prime minister Netanyahu told me. “Iran is committed to the destruction of Israel. It denies the Holocaust while preparing a new Holocaust. But Iran is also committed to a demented branch of Shiism which sees an apocalyptic war of millions of casualties in which Shiism will rise and the West will go down. We may be the first target, but we’re not the last target.”

Through its proxy in Lebanon, and its proxy in Gaza, Iran “has established two beachheads,” he added.

“Let the citizens of the world beware,” Netanyahu cautioned. “What you see here is what you’ll get later.”"

"Of course, Iran favors this because, as Ahmadinejad said, it would be a first step to the destruction of Israel. One wonders why other nations, supposedly Israel's Western allies, favor this strategy as well."

"As is the case in most ultimate antinomies, the question of free will vs. determinism is not an either/or issue. Rather, we can possess "more or less" free will, depending on various circumstances. But by and large, our free will is squandered and given away. As Dostoyevsky wrote, man has "no more pressing need than the one to find somebody to whom he can surrender as quickly as possible that gift of freedom with which he, unfortunate creature, was born.""

Sweet Dreams

You don't have to read Taheri today. You can just keep the ostrich position if you like:

"Tehran believes that a victory for Hezbollah in Lebanon will strengthen President Ahmadinejad’s bid for the leadership of radical Islam. A number of recent events have made his attempt to wrest control more likely. This week several leading Sunni theologians at the Al-Azhar seminary in Cairo issued fatwas that allow Sunnis to fight alongside and under the command of Shia Muslims. The fatwas came in response to a Saudi fatwa that had declared any association with and support for Hezbollah to be haram (forbidden). [ Whoops. We were a little too optimistic about the Sunnis there, eh? -ed. ]

More significant was a message from Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s number two. The Salafist radical tried to get hold of Hezbollah’s tailcoats in the hope of winning a share of the expected spoils of victory. He endorsed the idea of a global campaign against the “infidel”, thus abandoning his previous strategy of focusing the jihad on countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. More significantly, he dropped the al-Qaeda claim of fighting a defensive war against the infidel by designating a vast area of jihad from Spain to India. [ Whaaaat??!! You mean the change of government in Spain wasn't good enough? The land for peace drivel isn't quite all it's cracked up to be? It worked so well with Hitler after all. It's: We give them all of our land and then there can be peace. Back to the future Andalusia indeed. -ed. ]

All that is good news for President Ahmadinejad, who claims that Sunni radicalism has reached the limits of its capabilities in the fight against the global system led by the US and that it is now the turn of the Shia, led by Iran, to be in the driving seat. [ And of course, the Pakis would never have shared actual nukes with them. Just nuke technology we are lead to believe by our vaunted CIA New York Times. And everyone's agreed that the Iranian's are too stupid to build a bomb themselves. Why, there's just light-years of difference between the Pakis and them, non? -ed. ]

“Hezbollah has fought Israel longer than all the major Arab armies combined ever did,” President Ahmadinejad told a crowd in Tehran this week. He also promised that Muslims would soon hear “very good news” about the jihad against the United States. [ I would suspect that August 22nd falls within a reasonable definition of "soon". -ed. ] "

You really need to get busy and watch Obsession, don't you? Go ahead. I'll wait.

Oh -- I almost forgot: Sweet dreams...

"It is the responsibility of a free press to ferret out information that those in power wish to withhold. It is the responsibility of an informed citizenry to openly request information from press sources when there is the appearance that they are withholding information critical to their mission of maintaining the public trust.

We await response from AP, AFP and Reuters that could lay to rest this one important issue."

"These Hezballiwood executive producers should import their missile struck vehicles from Gaza. They have a lot of them and they are so much better than the locally made replicas. [ You have seen Pallywood, haven't you? And then watch Obsession. If you were able to sleep after 9/11, this will solve that problem for you. -ed. ] "

Only just "soft"?

"If the world wants to live without terrorism, it needs to stop enabling terrorists with disproportionate criticism of civilized nations that wage war within established limits. This soft nihilism of low expectations encourages non-state actors to engage sovereign nations, knowing that the world will not allow the nations to fight terrorism effectively."

"Sen. Kerry, a career Vietnam veteran, who told a political gathering in Detroit yesterday that “we must destroy Hezbollah” and that the president “has been absent on diplomacy“, said he would bring his own brand of “diplomatic destruction” to the terrorist group."

"Check out this video from Blog of the Week Vital Perspective. A terrorist hauls rockets into a house, then fires them at Israel from the house. At the end of the video an Israeli airplane takes out the rocket launcher. Undoubtedly the dead terrorist was counted as a "civilian casualty," and who knows how many actual civilians he endangered by launching rockets from inside a house?"

"This is what the activist, radical Left have planned for America if they win control in November -- character assassinations and smear campaigns. If they enjoy doing this to Lieberman, imagine what they'll do to the rest of us."

"Now we have the different committees and activists within the party working independently, lacking coordination, and shuffling their money around to cross purposes. One of the key figures for the midterm cycle, DCCC chair Rahm Emanuel, won't even speak to the head of his own party. The party has fallen apart, thanks to Dean's incompetence and their lack of action in correcting it.

If the Democrats lose the midterms, expect to hear a lot of conspiracy theories about Karl Rove's supposedly Machiavellian power. The truth will be that the Democrats sealed their fate when they put a nutcase like Howard Dean at the head of their organization."

It's "Syran", stupid!

"It is the Thirties again. Many of the statements above apply to Franklin Roosevelt’s first two administrations, and to the political atmosphere of those dreadful years. Then, too, the mounting power of what became the Axis was ignored. As my father often reminded me, a few months before Pearl Harbor, at a time when Nazi armies were long since on the march, the draft passed by a single vote. Apologists for Hitler and Mussolini were legion, and some of our leading intellectuals were saying that American democratic capitalism was a failure, and we would do well to emulate the European totalitarians."

Today's "boiling frogs" correspondent:

"They have already changed the government in Spain. They have infiltrated the fledgling democracy in Lebanon and pulled it into a devastating war. They have won control of the Palestinian government, and nearly immediately engaged Israel in a war. Their goal is not victory, it is anarchy. And anarchy is their entry into power. Afghanistan the first time around. Somalia in its current state of affairs. [ Boiling frogs? It's said that if you put a frog in a pot and very slowly raise it to a boil, he won't jump out to save himself. He'll just keep thinking everything is normal... -ed. ] "

"Maybe one of the reasons so many voters have trouble taking the Democrats seriously on national defense is that the Democrats keep running away from the very policies they claim as their own."

"So the Israelis are killing kids again with their random strikes and then claiming they're fighters, huh? [ POO on you... -ed. ] "

"The social work of the Party of God consisted in building a school and some housing on top of the bunkers! A local sheikh laughingly told me that whatever happened the Jews would lose out, because either the rockets would be fired at them or, if they attacked the camp, international public opinion would condemn them for the civilian deaths."

"Two weeks ago, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said that the EU lacked "sufficient data" to classify Hezbollah as terrorist. Which is sort of like saying that we can't quite figure out whether the Knights of Columbus are Catholic."

"Israel had seemed ready to shut down its offensive a few days ago, but the Israeli people rose up in indignation at the criticism leveled at them for defending themselves. This shows that the new push may have all of the critics confounded. Israel is not just looking to create a buffer zone in southern Lebanon with this new action -- they want to strike at Syria."

"This begs another question: If we were the ones who had the superior military machine, would we have shown them any mercy, or any regard to their civillian casualties? Would we have hesitated to wipe them all out? Armed forces, civillians, whatever? Would any of us have felt bad about it at all? Or would we be filled with the feelings of Pride, honor and dignity that we keep talking about day and night?"

"The scary thing about our current jam is that 9/11 was supposed to have been the wakeup call, but we are again asleep. For this I blame our leaders — both the administration and the Dems. The administration is constitutionally unable to explain itself, and the Dems have no qualms about losing all present battles so long as they can elect their candidates and bring down this president."

"Now the peacenik group CodePink, according to the Washington Post, "has issued a nationwide call for people to go on at least a partial hunger strike, if only for a few hours, to show their opposition to the war in Iraq." Partial? For a few hours? Does that mean if you were planning on having two Twinkies and a bag of chips between lunch and dinner you should cut out one of the Twinkies? The life of a war protestor is a harsh one indeed."

"Lebanese rescue teams did not start evacuating the building until the morning and only after the camera crews came. The absence of a real rescue effort was explained by saying that equipment was lacking. There were no scenes of live or injured people being extracted.

There was little blood, CNN's Wedeman noted: all the victims, he concluded, appeared to have died while as they were sleeping -- sleeping, apparently, through thunderous Israeli air attacks. Rescue workers equipped with cameras were removing the bodies from the same opening in the collapsed structure. Journalists were not allowed near the collapsed building.

Rescue workers filmed as they went carried the victims on the stretchers, occasionally flipping up the blankets so that cameras could show the faces and bodies of the dead.

But Israelis steeled to scenes of carnage from Palestinian suicide bombings and Hezbollah rocket attack could not help but notice that these victims did not look like our victims. Their faces were ashen gray. While medical examination clearly is called for to arrive at a definitive dating and cause of their deaths, they do not appear to have died hours before. The bodies looked like they had been dead for days.

Viewers can judge for themselves. But the accumulating evidence suggests another explanation for what happened at Kana. The scenario would be a setup in which the time between the initial Israeli bombing near the building and morning reports of its collapse would have been used to "plant" bodies killed in previous fighting -- reports in previous days indicated that nearby Tyre was used as a temporary morgue -- place them in the basement, and then engineer a "controlled demolition" to fake another Israeli attack.

The well-documented use by Palestinians of this kind of faked footage -- from the alleged shooting of Mohammed Dura in Gaza, scenes from Jenin of "dead" victims falling off gurneys and then climbing back on -- have merited the creation of a new film genre called "Palliwood."

There is increasing evidence that the Kana sequel is another episode in this genre, a variety which might be called Hezbollywood. The Hezbollah have evidently learned their craft well."

"The Israelis keep civilian casualties down by having better bomb shelters, using them more effectively and evacuating many of the more exposed towns in northern Israel. Since Israel is a democracy, the government has to do all it can to minimize its civilian casualties. Hizbollah is not a democracy, but a religious dictatorship (trying to bring that form of government to Lebanon, and then the world.) Hizbollah considers itself on a mission from God, and within its rights to kill anyone, and do anything, to complete its mission. Thus the policy of getting the maximum number of Lebanese civilians killed. European and Moslem media have taken the bait, and are calling Israeli responses, to Hizbollah attacks, "war crimes." [ The Hojjatieh need the maximum amount of turmoil to bring back the 12th Imam. What could be a better religion death cult than that? -ed. ] "

"Doesn't Hezbollah have anyone else the media can photograph? (HT LGF)"

"The French effort in Beirut has not yet hit the wires, but the French foreign minister has apparently requested an emergency meeting with the Iranian ambassador. France, which earlier today called Iran a stabilizing force in the Middle East, may try to get Iran to call back Hezbollah so that a settlement can be reached. I suppose it doesn't hurt to ask, but one has to wonder how France would convince Iran that a war on Israel's border doesn't serve their national interest -- which is, of course, the destruction of Israel. [ The French have a knack for the absurd, don't they? -ed. ] "

"Churchill understood Hitler’s half-hearted attempts to pose as a man of peace for what they were. He famously referred to one of Hitler’s less bellicose speeches as “comfort for everyone on both sides of the Atlantic who wished to be humbugged.” [ Which was most of the folks. Sound familiar? There's a reasonable school of thought that Chamberlain had no choice but to appease based on popular opinion. Didn't know about the large peace marches in Britain before the war did you? Of course, a lot of it was Soviet sympathizers who only changed their minds when Hitler broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and attacked Stalin. -ed. ]

Alas, the Jihadists see no need to humbug us – we’re quite willing to humbug ourselves."

"What does Mr. Jumblatt think of that threat, obviously directed against him and his political comrades? "Nasrallah was talking in the name of the Syrian regime. He thinks he's a demigod. Like [Iran's President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad he's waiting for the 12th Imam, the Mehdi. This aspect of Shiite religious mobilization can be frightening." [ To say the least. -ed. ] "

"Now, someone show me the warning leaflets Hezbollah dropped on all the cities in Israel it has lobbed missiles and rockets at, okay?

When has Hezbollah or any jihadi group dropped warning flyers before they commit their routine acts of intentional mass murder and terrorism against civilians?

The only thing I remember raining down in Beirut in 1983 or the Khobar Towers in 1996 or NYC on 9/11 were ashes and dust."

"Any "peace" that does not secure Israel against terrorist attack from Lebanon-based Hezbullah terrorists will be no peace at all. It could touch off a series of political changes that will create momentum for total war the likes of which have not been seen in the region for forty years. [ Did I forget to mention that August 22nd is fast approaching? -ed. ] "

"It's manifestly clear that the current conflict is not a war on Lebanon. It is a war in Lebanon by outside powers over the central political issue in the Middle East: Israel's right to exist. That fact, which has become so nakedly apparent that even the Israeli Left -- indeed Olmert's government is a coalition with the Israeli Left -- cannot avoid staring it in the face, makes this conflict different from the border clashes of the recent past. [ Land for peace is dead. RIP. Or war? -ed. ] "

"And even when the battle with the Israelis is over, he adds menacingly, Hizbullah will have other battles to fight. "The real battle is after the end of this war. We will have to settle score with the Lebanese politicians. We also have the best security and intelligence apparatus in this country, and we can reach any of those people who are speaking against us now. Let's finish with the Israelis and then we will settle scores later. [ Hitler updated. Everyone seems to think it doesn't matter that Mien Kampf is a best seller in the Muslim world. As I've mentioned before, there's a real affinity here -- even with the title. You did realize that it translates to "My Struggle" didn't you? And remember what "Jihad" translates to? -ed. ] "

"A salvo of five rockets slammed into the Galilee early Monday afternoon, shattering a half-day of quiet and hopes that Hezbollah had suspended its launchings in response to curbs of IAF activity. ... Earlier in the day, a Lebanese parliamentarian from Hezbollah hinted that the group may be willing to put its attacks on hold, in the wake of a 48-hour cessation of Israel Air Force strikes, sparked by the deaths of 56 Lebanese civilians in the southern town of Qana on Sunday. [ Once more, I'm shocked, just shocked. -ed. ] "

"Huh? The last time we heard from the Democrats on this issue, they blamed the Bush administration for its multilateralism, not for a "go it alone' attitude. John Kerry demanded that we cut out the other four nations in the six-party talks and start dealing direct with Kim Jong-Il. Democrats across the party have complained about "outsourcing" the negotiations with Iran to the EU-3, which insisted on leadership in those talks because they already had diplomatic relations with Teheran. France, Germany, and the UK also have economic ties with the mullahcracy and thought they could leverage that into concessions from the mullahcracy."

"HEH: "If a drunken Mel Gibson did indeed call out, 'Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,' then there can be only one possible place for a man who believes such things: as the next Secretary General of the United Nations.""

"The village looked empty, and then we heard noises coming from one of the houses, so we opened fire. But when we went inside, we found two women and a child huddled in the corner of the room. We were so relieved we hadn't hurt them. We took up base in one of the empty houses. And then, all of a sudden, we came under intense fire. Three rockets were fired at the house we were in. Only one managed to destroy a wall, which fell on one of us, covering him in white dust, but otherwise not hurting him. I spent the whole time feeding bullets to my friend who was shooting non-stop. We managed to kill 26 terrorists. Not one of us was hurt.

Our commanding officer kept walking around, touching everybody on the shoulder, smiling and encouraging us: "We're are better than they are. Don't worry." It calmed us all down. And really, we were much better than them. They are a lousy army. They only win when they hide behind baby carriages."

"The American media have no problem being ferociously jingoistic when it comes to the two-man luge. Yet, when it's a war, there is no "our" team, not on American TV. Like snotty French ice-dancing judges, the media watch the U.S. skate across the rink and then hand out a succession of snippy 4.3s -- for lack of Miranda rights in Fallujah, insufficient menu options at Gitmo.

Our enemies understand "why we fight" and where the fight is. They know that in the greater scheme of things the mosques of Jakarta and Amsterdam and Toronto and Dearborn are more important territory than the Sunni Triangle. The U.S. military is the best-equipped and best-trained in the world. But it's not enough, it never has been and it never will be."

"The legacy of the hostage crisis, the decades of isolation and the messianic aspect of the Iranian regime represent huge obstacles to such a diplomacy. If Tehran insists on combining the Persian imperial tradition with contemporary Islamic fervor, then a collision with America -- and, indeed, with its negotiating partners of the Six -- is unavoidable. Iran simply cannot be permitted to fulfill a dream of imperial rule in a region of such importance to the rest of the world. [ Back to the depressing... -ed. ] "

BUMPED HIGHER -- I'd rather end the day on a more positive note:

"One of the innovations of Christianity was to present the idea of God in such a way that people could wrap their minds around it. The Jewish God was so utterly transcendent as to be inaccessible to the average Joseph. Most of us need the Abbasolute to be made accessible to us in a relative form, so that we may think about what is otherwise unthinkable. Of course, Judaism accomplishes this in a different manner, through the study of Torah, which you might say is the Word made word instead of flesh.

Given the fact that well over ninety percent of people in the ancient world were illiterate, one can well understand how God might have conceived the idea of extending the courtesy of making himself available to the masses. Although inter-religious dialogue can obviously be a sensitive area, I happen to know some Jews who are able to reconconcile Judaism with Christianity by viewing it as the ideal way to have spread Jewish monotheism. [ I keep growing more impressed with Gagdad. I highly recommend not only this post but his blog. (over on the right: Bob Godwin) -ed. ] "

""The Basij and Revolutionary Guards should prepare to get even with the Zionists and Americans," Yahya Rahim-Safavi was quoted as telling Islamic militiamen by the conservative Fars news agency.

The Basij are volunteer Islamic militiamen.

"The timing of the this will be announced by the leader," he added. [ Did I forget to mention August 22? -ed. ] "

"That's all well and good, and would make an interesting article. But instead, the author, Mitch Prothero, "debunks" the claims that Hezbollah hides among civilians, and instead provides evidence that it's true. Worse yet, Salon's editors play up a sensational angle in the headline ("The 'Hiding Among Civilians' Myth") that is actually contradicted by the text of the article. If I didn't suspect that either sympathy for the Party of God or hostility to Israel blinded the editors to the obvious, I'd be embarassed for them."

It’s Pallywood, via Hizballah:

"Whatever else, the event in Qana was a human tragedy. But the photographs do not show it honestly. Rather, they have been staged for effect, exploiting the victims in an unwholesome manner. In so doing, they are no longer news photographs - they are propaganda. And, whoever said the camera cannot lie forgot that photographers can and do. Those lies have spread throughout the world by now and will be in this morning's newspapers, accepted as real by the millions who view them.

The profession of photo-journalism thereby is sadly diminished by them, and the trust in those who took them and in those who carried them is misplaced. Truly, we are dealing with loathesome creatures."

"48 Hours ???"

"That’s a great example of Hizballah’s often-touted charitable work. They build houses, and schools for children.

On top of ammunition bunkers."

Why Ignorance Of History Is A Bad Thing

Time for a few comments from the great one:

"Pacifism is objectively pro-Fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, ‘he that is not with me is against me’. [ Didn't realize W was a great Orwell fan did you? Orwell? you scream!? Yes. Orwell. Eric Blair for those of you who have read more than one book in your life. -ed. ] The idea that you can somehow remain aloof from and superior to the struggle, while living on food which British sailors have to risk their lives to bring you, is a bourgeois illusion bred of money and security. [ Perhaps I need to put that in larger print so you won't miss it? -ed. ] Mr Savage remarks that ‘according to this type of reasoning, a German or Japanese pacifist would be “objectively pro-British”.’ But of course he would be! That is why pacifist activities are not permitted in those countries (in both of them the penalty is, or can be, beheading) [ Hmmm. Sounds vaguely familiar. -ed. ] while both the Germans and the Japanese do all they can to encourage the spread of pacifism in British and American territories. The Germans even run a spurious ‘freedom’ station which serves out pacifist propaganda indistinguishable from that of the P.P.U. [ Ever wondered why Howie seems indistinguishable from Al Jazeera? I haven't. -ed. ] They would stimulate pacifism in Russia as well if they could, but in that case they have tougher babies to deal with. In so far as it takes effect at all, pacifist propaganda can only be effective against those countries where a certain amount of freedom of speech is still permitted; in other words it is helpful to totalitarianism."

"Let me sharpen this point further. The value of civilian corpses to Hezbollah, and allied terrorist forces, depends on the media’s willingness to make an issue of them -- thereby inferentially blaming Israel for disasters that Hezbollah’s methods have contrived. Quite plainly: the more obsessively the media focuses upon this body-count, the higher it is going to be.

In past generations, journalists understood there were moral consequences to the way they shaped the news. In the present generation, they seem to think that morality consists only of opposing war, as if war itself were an absolute evil. Their utopianism effectively serves the interests of the most ruthless party."

"In a partly incoherent, rambling, and apocalyptic address on official Iranian TV, Sunday, President Ahmadinejad said, "Lebanon is the scene of an historic test, which will determine the future of humanity.” Then, after condemning the unnamed leaders of various Arab regimes that had failed to align with Iran and Hezbollah, “This is ‘the Day that all things secret will be tested’.”

Iran unquestionably ordered the rocket and kidnapping attacks with which Hezbollah and Hamas provoked the current Israeli reaction (though it may have been greater than they expected). The ayatollahs are probably also behind the current terror spike within Iraq. Their motive is quite obvious: to change the subject from the Western and growing Arab alarm about Iran’s own emergence as a bellicose nuclear power. The ayatollahs are, further, trying to cement their claim to be the managing directors of the international Jihad.

Ahmadinejad is right: this is “an historic test”. But it does not follow that he is winning it. Instead, it appears, by pushing too hard and fast, Iran has opened a civil breach across the Muslim world between Shia and Sunni. The ayatollahs have thus created a new opportunity for the West to form alliances with Sunni Muslim states against Iran’s aspiring regional hegemony, which the Bush administration is now rightly trying to exploit. Ahmadinejad has, in short, given us an unexpected reason to hope -- as Hitler did, when he began to make too many enemies. [ Just in case you didn't click through on the last post ;) -ed. ] "

"Even the United Nation’s humanitarian point-man, Jan Egeland -- no friend of Israel -- has noted actual boasts from Hezbollah that their "human shield" strategy has got so many women and children killed, and so few of their own fighters. They cache their weapons in schools, hospitals, houses, apartment buildings. They hold civilians at gunpoint who are trying to flee."

"Obsession: What The War on Terror Is Really About."

UPDATE: I'll bet you a large sum that you haven't seen PALLYWOOD yet either. Shame on you. Forget the silly crap you've been watching and go be gobsmacked by a look at the anti-Semitic propaganda industry...

"The terrible tactical logic of war meant that the same substantial buildings attracted the Japanese Army, who bayoneted civilians to take possession or simply turned them into strongpoints with the civilians inside. When the inevitable rain of 8-inch US howitzer shells came the stone walls crumbled like sand. Sixty people died in Qana. About 100,000 civilians died in the Battle of Manila, a drop in the ocean of what we remember as the Good War."

The indispensible and once more bracing Warren:

"I needn’t quote the phrase, “weak and stupid”, from any private correspondent, for it is said often enough of their entire political class by some Israeli media. I am myself amazed, and troubled, by how many Israeli officials continue to speak as if the goal were a trade-off with Israel’s mortal enemies. But the thing about mortal enemies is, there’s nothing to trade but your head. Here is my horrible thought: If "liberalism" can survive under such intense conditions, as those to which Israel has been exposed for nearly sixty years, it can survive until the West is extinct. [ Unfortunately, a thought that I keep having with increasing regularity. -ed. ]

...

Egypt and Jordan did not come to terms with the state of Israel, in 1979, because they suddenly developed a soft spot for Zionism. They did so when they realized they couldn't budge Israel, let alone drive her into the sea. Peace came when they gave up trying."

"The strangest aspect of all this, of course, is that no one doubts that Israel killed the civilians in Qana accidentally while targeting terrorists, whereas, on the other hand, Hezbollah has launched hundreds of rockets into Israel for the sole and express purpose of killing civilians. Yet where is the outrage against Hezbollah? Why is it that Kofi Annan swings into action only to denounce Israel and to promote the course that Hezbollah wants, namely a time-out so that it can rebuild its terrorist infrastructure?"

Qana Agitprop Vs Israeli Video

"The question is, what were the people doing there? Residents in this region and specifically the residents of Qana were warned several days in advance to leave the village. Now, what could be the most important part of this entire story from Qana... Many people are working to confirm this now, but this video shows Hezbollah terrorists firing rockets from behind a three-story building which looks remarkably similar to the building destroyed in Qana: [ You've got to see this video. (And note carefully my last post of course.) Whether this is the exact building destroyed in the Israeli strike or not, it's more extremely damning evidence of Hezbollah's use of human shields. One must remember that this is a world where terror states like Syria self-righteously sit on the UN Human Rights commission. I just want to puke. HT Power Line -ed. ] "

Hez fighters in a residential area:

"Meanwhile, I'm expecting an outcry any year now about Hezbollah's violations of the laws of war. So far, though, there's this: "The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it had not received agreement so far to its request to visit two Israeli soldiers abducted by Hezbollah guerrillas.""