Redstate

earlier today.

The fact that the pictures indeed appear to be posed and created for media consumption and benefit, is troublesome.  The media has in essence become a disseminator of propganda for the terrorists, and a willing one at that.

and the media that does not point this out is equally complicit.

Death, injury or suffering of little ones from the wars of their fathers is horrific, agonizing, heart-wrending, no matter which "side" they were on and no matter how they're imagery might be afterwards used as propoganda.  

Scholarly, esoteric essays of your sort that attempt to detract from what ought to be heart break have no place, and no use.

Do me the courtesy of reading my "precious" arguments and you will learn that I do not assign sides to the innocents of Qana.  I do, however, think that those responsible for their deaths and for manipulating their corpses for media photos should take a little blame.

Sorry if that doesn't suit you.

but the photographer certainly can.

The evidence that these photographs are staged is quite weak, given the links you've given us.  But, even assuming they are -- well, then what?  Wouldn't you want to show the world what's happening to you?  How does trying to get the world to pay attention make you somehow worse?  (And, even getting this far makes assumptions I'm not at all prepared to make)  

I'm just not sure what you're getting at.  Should we feel less sympathy for the victims because certain people are 'posing' them?  I don't imagine that's what you're getting at.  Should we distrust our emotional response because we're being manipulated?  But it's not like the images are photoshopped -- we're seeing real bodies.  Real <expletive> bodies of <expletive> babies.  And if you want to minimize the impact of that, then I just don't know what else I can say.

Well, yes, if you put it that way, I do hope to "minimize" the exploitation of these children by revealing the strategies of their exploiters.  And no, I do not think that such exploitation is simply getting the story out.  It's exploitation--just as driving mobile rocket launchers into high-density civilian residential areas is exploitation.

Do I have to use that word again, or do you see what I'm getting at now?

Well, given our assumptions for the argument, I think the line I'm pushing is that exploitation can be reasonable.  That is, exploitation for the cause of publication of an attrocity may be acceptable.  I'm not one to speak for the motivations of the dead, but I don't think a quiet burial is what they would want.

Or, let me put it this way: is it exploiting the remains of Holocaust victims to arrange them for photographs?  And if it is, so what?

and then rush to express their horror when the bombs come.  The disenginuity, hypocrisy, and cynicism is breathtaking, as is the gullibility of those who do not see it.

I also want to add -- as a separate point -- that it seems highly unsavory to push the line of "these victims are being exploited!" without much better evidence than "hey! this guy is in a lot of our pictures!"

to whom you refer?  The aid workers?  Or are you assuming he's Hezbollah?  And if he's Hezbollah, are you assuming he's one of the ones hiding rocket launchers in cities?  

And just who is being disengenious or hypocritical or cynical here?

You raise an important point here.  The photos of Holocaust victims were designed to document their suffering, assign blame to their torturers and ensure that this did not happen again.  The Qana photos were designed to assign blame for the children's death to a party not ultimately culpable and to make sure that the same thing does happen again.  Why wouldn't it?  Worked like a charm this time.

You may of course disagree if you believe Hezbollah is not actively exploiting women and children as human shields and then using their corpses after they're dead to further their cause.  In which case, I can see how you would believe that they're just getting the message out.

when it comes to Hizbollah, Al-Qaida, and the like.  

I fail to see my own hypocrisy in this matter, but of course that's a mark of hypocrisy as well as its absence.  Perhaps you could explain, because I fail to see how the term applies to me.

But I am not being disengenuous.  I fully believe that the Hizbollites are purposefully hiding behind the very babies whose eventual and predictable deaths they plan and then decry.

The Qana pictures were taken over a period of several hours, featuring the same lead figure over the day parading around the same corpses.  All day long.

With sooooo many children "martyred," wouldn't one suppose they might show more than a handful over the course of the day?

See more pictures at http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/ . . . scroll down, three of the top five posts at this hour.

The terrorists' apologists are the most vile and disgusting of creatures, beyond the terrorists themselves, who are members of a fanatical death cult.  The apologists present themselves as rational and sentient beings, and attempt to excuse the intolerable.

about the famous photo of the fireman holding the dead child's body after the bombing at OKC. Yes, such images have power and yes the media will use them to its own profit. However we should not be snarky over people who have just lost their children to an act of violence. And since this thread also includes some interesting comment about the Renaissance was perhaps the Israelis could have profitted from a less virtuous practice of that time, and sent assassins after the leaders of their enemies instead of bombs and missles. Israel most definitely has every right to defendi tself, but that does not mean that every such act of self-defense is wise. Sometimes a stiletto in the dark makes better sense  than a 500 pound blockbuster.

But your Church, as much as mine, teaches that assassination is a per se evil.

He is more then just in a lot of photos.  Look at the time stamps of the photos and you see something rather curious.  You see things like the same child's body being photographed over a period of hours.  For example, the photo in the article above shows Green Helmet holding up the boy is time stamped at 1:01PM.  Yet there is a photo of the same man with the same boy time stamped at 2:21 that shows them uncovering the boy from the rubble.  Odd.  Now, Friar Occam says that the simple explanation there is that the time stamp on one or both was wrong.  But when you add in the other photos in the sequence, and of another girl that all have odd time stamps and show the same child being handed off to multiple aid workers etc...the simple explanation starts to appear more like staged shots to exploit (oh, I used that term) the tragedy to benefit Hezbollah.

You can see all the photos in time stamp order on my blog http://www.broussard-sa.net/blog?p=172

about the famous photo of the fireman holding the dead child's body after the bombing at OKC

Yes, one oculd make the same comments; and one would be wrong. Moral relativism runs rampant even here at RedState.

I wouldn't have thought there was much debate that these terrorists would use their own children for exploitation.  They know that they could never win in an actual military campaign, so they resort to inflaming world opinion.  It works every time, and they know it.

The real issue is what do we do now, if anything.  I mean, if my dog chews the rug every time I leave him in the room with it, who is to blame when he chews it the next time?

Your cynicism is groundless.  After all, it's not like the Israeli's caught Hezbolla transporting weapons in an ambulance under a gurney bearing a sick child.

That was Hammas.  Completely different thing altogether.

...that fireman was part of a group whose explicit goal was to have every member of the milita movement killed where they stood, you would have a point.

And if they didn't want their children to die, perhaps they should consider not murdering them*.  

Moe

*Or assisting their murderers - which were, by the way, Hezbollah.  To hide behind a human shield is to accept moral responsibility for that human's death; for by that action you have declared that his life is less important than your own, and that you will do whatever it takes to make sure that he takes the bullet or bomb meant for you.

they cannot exploit their other 'martyrs' in the same manner.  Those young, brainwashed kids that they wrap in explosives and send into Israeli restaurants to kill civilians.  There is not enough left of THOSE martyrs to hold up for a photo op.

THOSE martyrs are also honored and their families are rewarded.  Why are these martyrs treated so differently from the others?  Do you suppose it is because they did not attempt or succeed in killing innocents?

Yes, Could be said about that occurrence...

...So long as 1 MAJOR point from every post were removed:

Hezbollah was Firing Rockets From That Neighborhood Hoping For This Kind Of Incident.

And this comes within Days of villagers from the surrounding areas saying they are ready to strap Explosives on their children and send them into Israel to blow themselves up.

OKC was 1 random terrorist/crazy blowing up a bunch of people to make a point.

Qana is a bunch of terrorists shooting at Israel from a crowd of Crazies willing to blow themselves up to harm their enemies.

What do you not get about the difference?

Well, the photos themselves don't assign blame.  They capture a moment.  Granted, the emotional response of the Holocaust photos might have been meant to assign blame, as are these -- but so what?

It seems pretty clear that the blame for this atrocity can't simply be lain at the feet of Hez.  There's enough to go around.  This is what you expect when you shell and bomb civilian areas.  And if you agree to go to war, you steel yourself for the moral consequence -- this is one such moral consequence of the kind of war Israel and Hez. are fighting.  This will happen even in targetted bombing campaigns, and if you innure yourself to the emotional response from this, then you're not human.  The fact that Israel is defending herself and Hez. fires from civilian areas means that Hezbollah doesn't have a clean concious.  But if they're saying, "look at this tragedy" -- they're right to do so.

Actually, what Occam said was that we shouldn't multiply entities beyond necessity.  And, it seems that a Hezbollah conspiracy to manage these photographs is an entity that is not required to explain the data.

I still don't see what the time stamps is proving.  That it's taking too long to remove the bodies?  That there should be a one aid worker per body rule?  I just don't buy this...

What, so because Hamas is cynical, no-one else in the world can be?

I demand an end to this relativism that saps the will and moral fiber of the right!!

Ahem.

The hypocricy and disingenuity are both tied to claims that "they" are monsters, violence is the only language "they" understand, and so on.  I ask you again -- and lets not get caught up in name-calling anymore, because this is important -- who is the "they" you're reffering to?

multiple poses is that this was a planned photo shoot of by-design deaths used for the express purpose of swaying public opinion.

My outrage stems not from the fact that Hezbollah is using this as misleading propaganda, but that the only reason they are doing rescue and recovery is for political and propaganda purposes.

Their children have more value to them as corpses.

ONLY if they have not set up that tragedy to happen in the first place.  The Hezbos have engineered this tragedy.  This sort of thing only happens in a "targeted bombing campaign" when the targeted are hiding among civilians instead of taking their weapons outside the cities so that when the Israelis retaliate for rockets being fired, the bombs don't land on the civilians.

What would happen if the Hezbos starting firing on Israeli weapons platforms and combat personnel?

They'd stop shooting at the cities and hit mostly combat units and war equipment.

What happens when the Israelis fire on Hezbo weapons platforms and combat personnel?

They kill the troops, destroy the weapons, and kill all the civilians that are in the same building.

Fanatics and other terrorists and everyone who supports them.

Period.  Happy?

Until we kill enough of them to convince them that the price they will have to pay to achieve their goals of the destruction of Israel, Europe and America (the West), they will continue to try.

And unless I miss my mark, that means we'll have to kill virtually Every Last One Of Them.

and stopping the flow of their money

But we need to be WILLING to kill all of the Islamists attacking us, if necessary

Well, the photos themselves don't assign blame.  They capture a moment.

I think this is the heart of our difference.  You accept the photos on face value as neutral documentation.  I do not.  I think that the people who constructed these photos with as much calculation as Guido Reni did so to assign blame to Israel--as quickly as possible.  

I also disagree with you that there is some sort of moral equivalency between Hezbollah and Israel.  You seem to be saying that there are faults on both sides--enough blame to go around--let's not judge.  The Israelis have to expect this when they bomb civilian areas.  But would they bomb civilian areas if Hezbollah hadn't hit on the brilliant strategy of using high density civilian locations to launch their rockets?  

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047573/

That's funny. I don't remember the fireman in the OKC posing with the child for hours. I don't remember him pretending to pull the child's body from the rubble from several different angles to try and get the biggest emotional impact.

If Mr. Green Helmet was in one shot (or even a few) with the child I would be more likely to believe it wasn't posed.

As it is, with 1) Hezbollah intending for this to happen by firing their missiles from a civilian area, 2) an unexplained 7 hour gap between Israel bombing the building and its collapse, 3) the Lebanese calling the media to come and film the recovery effort (and the media being able to do so easily in spite of the Lebanese civilians claiming they can't leave the area because the bridges have been destroyed), 4) some of the bodies appearing to have been long dead, and 5) the obvious posing of the bodies by Mr. Green Helmet (who also showed up in the 1996 Qana photos), I have no doubt who is to blame for this horror: Hezbollah.

Now try again to compare the photo of the fireman at OKC to this. The only legitimate comparison is that they both have emotional impact. OKC was a candid shot, these Qana shots certainly appear to be staged.

"It seems pretty clear that the blame for this atrocity can't simply be lain at the feet of Hez. "

This can precisely be lain at the feet of Hezbollah: they knew that this would happen when they violated the laws of war and simple human decency by putting rocket launchers - aimed at civilian targets, by the way - among their own civilian population.

When you take the admittedly circumstantial evidence about the pictures and combine it with what's coming out now, that Israel bombed the building between midnight and 1am but it didn't collapse until 8am, and that perhaps caused by Hezbollah explosives, combined with Hezbollah training children to be martyrs, ...

Doesn't that seem awfully suspicious?

Is it such a mental leap to go from 'deliberately hiding and firing thousands of rockets from civilian centers at other civilian centers' to 'willing to kill a few of their own civilians if they can get it blamed on Israel'?

Use the simplest explanation.

Option 1:  The photographers have various time stamps on their cameras and thus photos appear to be out of synch.

Option 2: The photographs were staged to an extent to heighten the PR impact of the tragedy.

If it was a couple of photos (like the one of the boy being held up and then being uncovered, by the same aid worker) then I would accept the simple explanation that the time stamps are off.

However, when you add in the other photos that show a child in the ambulance, then being held outside the ambulance, then being carried to a Red Cross worker, then being handed to a different aid worker...something doesn't add up and Option 1 becomes the less simple explantion then Option 2.  Suddenly the explanation that a whole bunch of photographs had their time stamps messed up and the photos were all taken in a short period of time is more complex then the idea that the bodies were used for a propaganda shoot by Hezbollah.

Is just a coincidence.

but when you have So Many coincidences in the same place at the same time centered on the same thing...

refers specifically to Hezbollah.  You know, them.  

The same tactics are employed by, and my disdain applies to, Al Qaida, Islamic Jihad, the Taliban, and their state sponsors in Iran, Syria and Lebanon.  

The moral status of those photos is still an interesting question.  Surely, they have a purpose -- and that purpose may be tied up in various unsavory things -- but, again, so long as they are actually images of what they purport to be -- that is human remains -- how could you not feel something for them?   But I think we're repeating ourselves, so I'll drop this point and move on to this:

If there's one thing I can do here on RS, it wouldn't be to convince y'all of some policy change or anything like that.  It would be to stop this absolutely ridiculous talk of the left's "moral relativism" and attempts at finding "moral equivalence".  I would think of it as my great contribution to The Debate.  Maybe someday I'll write a diary and spell out my thoughts at length on this.  But, in short, let me be absolutely clear here:

Just because Israel has bombed civilians doesn't mean that Hezbollah has a free pass.  And just because Hezabollah fires rockets from civilian areas doesn't give Israel a free pass.  It's really, really simple.  The principle is this: your enemies sins do not absolve your own sins.  This doesn't make your sins equivalent in any way whatsoever.  It does, however, mean that we can -- and should! -- criticize both for what they are.  

As to the success of targeted bombing campaigns: look, I could give you a long list of civilian/Lebanese gov't/UN targets hit by Israelis.  In some cases, it would be because of munitions in the area, in other cases, it would be human error.  Hezbollah, like I've said, is to be blamed for hiding behind their own people.  But, when you go to war, you accept a certain level of "collateral damage" -- and, insofar as we're human beings, we try to limit this damage to the extent that we can't.  But when we can't limit the damage, we accept responsibility for what we've done.  And pray to God that the ends will justify the means.  

Or, maybe you think that, given that Hezbollah hides behind civilians, we are free to kill all the civilians we please, so long as we keep aiming at the terrorists?  

Let me add this to my response to Raven:

You've given me an argument that Hezb. has some blame.  You've not given me an argument that Israel has no blame.  Given that they were killed by Israeli bombs, you have some spinning to do.  Maybe it could be done -- but, I just don't see how yet.

If you think that Hezb.'s tactics give Israel free reign, then it's quite possible that we don't have enough common ground on morality to carry on a decent discussion of the issue.  

Perhaps.  But you are forgetting 1 thing:

THIS IS A WAR

The Hezbos, with the apparent (they say it every chance they get) Full support of the lebanese "civilians" are doing their best to kill any and all Israelis they can, and the easier the kill the better for them (thus the direct attacks on civilians).

The Israelis are trying to kill ONLY the Hezbos.  The Lebanese keep getting thrown (jumping?) in the way to protect the Hezbos and provide propaganda material ("OMG!  They kill a Civvie!").

The Only criticism appropriate to the IDF is "Ugh, that is such a shame.  Try to do better next time."

The Only criticism appropriate to the Hezbos is "Die you --Tards!  Die!"

You seek to use the term "cynicism" as a club with which to beat those who disagree with you.  Cynicism is merely the distrust for the motives of another, or the belief that someone's ostensible motives are not genuine.  There is nothing wrong with cynicism itself.  In the case of terrorists using human shields and then complaining that the shields have been killed, cynicism is the least hostile reaction.  

Your attempt to equate that manufactured indignation at the harm to human shields with the cynicism of those who point it out is the only "moral relativism" here.  

Well, good -- we're somewhere now.  But pointing out the lunacy/hypocricy/cynicism/etc. of terrorists?  Not so sporting.  Thing is, my point way upthread wasn't in any way a point about Hezbollah.  It was about the emotional impact we should, as human beings, be feeling over pictures of dead bodies.  And whatever extent Hezbollah might or might not be managing this is irrelevant to that.  The victims weren't Hezbollah, but Lebanese people.  So, see, when you said "they express their horror", I didn't really think you were talking about Hezbollah

I was just being snarky there, and it's pretty obvious.  I'm starting to suspect that you have no clue what moral relativism even means.

On their Own accord, as the Lebanese tell reporters they are doing every chance they get (look around, several links to exactly that kind of statement here on RS), then yes, shoot them all and let God sort it out.

Other than that, yes, good people Do accept some responsibility for the deaths that occur because of their decision to defend themselves.

But this does not equate to All of the blame.  or even a Balance of the blame.

The Israelis' enemies are doing their best to CAUSE civilian deaths on Both Sides.  The balance of the blame lies Squarely at their feet.

Let me put it in simpler terms:

You walk up and punch out my wife.

I swing back and you duck and I KO your brother.  You swing at My brother.  I swing again, you duck again, and your Son gets hit.  You swing again and drop my sister.  I swing agaiin and you dck again and now it's your mother laid out...

Who's the more to blame?

I think we're in agreement about who the "good guys" and "bad guys" are.  You're talking to someone who emails friends in Haifa to see if they're okay.

What we're in disagreement about is the extent to which we should tolerate "collateral damage" on the part of the good guys.  And saying "do a better job next time" starts to ring hollow when it happens again. and. again.

if Hezbollah terrorists continue to fire Katyusha rockets from civilian areas and continue to hide behind human shields?

Hezbollah has given Israel a pretty simple choice: "We're going to kill innocents in your cities with rockets. And the only way for you to defend yourselves against us is to kill our innocents."

Hezbollah's secret weapon is that they are inhuman monsters who don't care whether their own mothers, wives and children die. That allows them to exploit the weakness that comes from Israel's well-founded distaste for killing innocents, and also the outcry from the rest of the world, which responds to manipulated photographs and biased news reporting by demanding that Israel not defend itself.

It's dirty pool, don't you think? And by the way, it seems to be working. There is evil in the world, in the persons of Hezbollah and their puppetmasters in Syria and Iran. You can't confront evil without getting some of it on you. Life really sucks, sometimes.

and give them 30 days notice that a warning might be forthcoming.

On a similar note, here is an interesting video on Palastenian staging for the cameras.

Pallywood

I think I'm in agreement with several others posts I've seen here, in that Israel has chosen the worst possible response.  Either you move in full force and try to once-and-for-all crush your enemy, or you don't have any kind of medium-scale military response at all.  What they're doing is really the worst of both worlds -- you're killing innocent people, getting bad press, while being generally ineffective at stopping the problem.  If they're not careful, they will hand Hezbollah a political -- and possibly even military -- victory by doing this.

Moving in with the army will lead to more civilian casualties -- it's unclear how many more -- but, if you're a "we're at war and the ends will justify the means" kinda guy, then this is your big bet.  I'm a little suspicious even of that, given that this isn't a movement I see being stamped out by the gun.  I think the long-term solution is a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians.  And believe me, I'm under no illusions that this will stop the violence, but it will certainly slow the violence and take away much of its support from the moderates.  From there, we will eventually be able to work with the people in charge to root out the problem as a criminal matter.  Maybe overly idealistic, but it seems to be the obvious solution in the end.  (What, do you expect me to solve the ME problem in one reply here?)

Civilians getting in the way of their own accord is a pretty extraordinary claim that will reacquire a lot of proof -- and Hezb. people bragging that this is the case don't count.  The more plausible explanation is that they live in a city, and not everyone will have the means to flee, the stomach to give up their home, or the courage to drive up on dangerous roads.  As for how much blame to give to whom -- gosh, I dunno, that's the kind of calculation that gets terrifically complicated.  But I don't see how we should concern ourselves with just what percentage of blame goes to whom.  The whole point here was that, "here are some striking pictures of corpses, but let's minimize the impact because maybe they were staged" doesn't seem to be the proper response to tragedy.

It's WAR.  And these people refuse to get out of the way and they fully support the Hezbos and their goals and their methods.

If they continue to die, that's THEIR choice.

I have said in other threads, and  I guess I need to say it again:

When the Hezbos started this particular round of violence, the Lebanese in the area were faced with 3 options and 3 options Only.

1.  Pick up weapons and get rid of Hezbollah themselves.
   
   
2. Get the heck out of the area and try to save themselves and their families from what Should have been a new show of what WAR really is.
   
3. Stay where they are and show their support for the Hezbos by "fighting" and dieing with them.

All the evidence says that they chose Option 3.

The correct response for us and the Israelis is, "Gosh, that sucks.  I hope they get out of the way now and let us kill the Hezbos..."

Show me When in the last 50 years and more, that has Ever worked.  It doesn't even Slow the violence.  The Palestinians still kill just as many people as before.  The "Moderates" still support their "cause".  And there is no hope for a future generation of Palestinians saying, "You know?  This is wrong.  Let's just live in peace.  Kumbayah!"

Since you couldn't be bothered to do it yourself:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/07/30/wmid330.xml

Check it out.  And it was right over under the Recommended section in the Kindermord bei Qana thread.

And you know it.  Of Course we are speaking about Hezbollah.

I want to resist being dragged into a discussion of the solutions to this problem.  It's not at all what I was commenting on.  But what I will say is this: giving the Palestinians a state hasn't worked because it hasn't been tried yet.  But while the process was going, there was less violence, that much is sure -- most of the peace progress occurred between the first and second intafadas.  And the more recent let-up in violence occured while the Israelis were pulling out of Gaza.  I just don't know why you make the claims that you do there.

And I don't see how it's evidence for anything but "Some people who are willing to talk to reporters are willing to blow themselves or their children up" -- and how that's news escapes me.

It might surprise you, but I'm in complete agreement here.  I just think that "getting some evil on me" might shake me worse than it does you.

And as I've said before, there are plenty of other options.  Lots of them couldn't leave.  Do you think that every resident of New Orleans is to blame for being in the way of the hurricane because they could have left?

I can't argue here when you keep moving the goal posts!  I was making what I took to be a simple point about the emotional impact of images.  Then, I got pressed into arguing about the moral blame of the Israelis as compared to that of Hezbollah.  Now, we seem to be talking about Socrates' comment about who we should feel sorry for -- I suspected that the reason he can appear callous is that he conflates Lebanese with Hezbollah, which is why I pushed for this clarification.  He took is ball and went home, and maybe I will too now.

"And just because Hezabollah fires rockets from civilian areas doesn't give Israel a free pass. "

...because clearly they've let us down, here.

Fine.  5000 word essay* on the Geneva Conventions, with an emphasis on the consequences of violations of them by irregular fighters.  Send it via the Contact Us link: once we get and grade it, we'll turn your account back on.

Have fun!

Moe

*He's a regular.

Because the price of not confronting evil is your life.

in the current world opinion.

Hezbollah's main goal is of course to kill as many Iraeli's as they can, nd the more they kill the better for them.

But if people on their side get killed, they turn into excellent proganda to feed the world media so that the world will condemn Israel.

Using civilians as shields is a win/win for them, and they aren't going to stop doing it.

which is why Israel should tell the world community where they can take their opinion and seek out complete victory.

I am yet to hear anyone who condemns Israel tell me what they think Israel has the right to do to protect itself.

you aren't permitted to set up close to civilian populations or store weapons nearby.  In essence you are required to avoid civilian populations.

So if Hezbollah had uniforms and giant H's on their shirts, their tactics still don't meet up with the laws of war-it is their duty to protect the civilians by keeping the fighting as far away from them as possible.  

THink it is article 28 that says the presence of civilians in the area of a legitimate target doesn't make it an illegetimate target.

Hezbollah is either careless, or in what is probably the better answer-purposeful in their use of civilians as shields, because it gives them propoganda to beat the Israelis over the head with, when the bombs hit those areas.

Liberals love, love, love to speak about the Geneva conventions when it comes to POW's but they apparantly don't care to read to carefully those parts that deal with the duty to protectig citizens or illegal combatants.

...that you weren't given homework to do.  :)

If the fireman was hauling the babies body all over the place, holding it up for pictures etc I might agree, but that photo was taken, the baby was put on an ambulance, and that was it.

The dead children in these pictures were hauled all over the place, with various pictures taken over a period of hours.

The former is to some degree photo journalism type news, the later is nothing more than propoganda.

Both types of photos can be used for propaganda, but the later is purposeful in that regard.

Do you think every resident of New Orleans who didn't get out couldn't? I would guess that of those who didn't get out of New Orleans or out of Southern Lebanon it was a small percentage who couldn't. In both cases, I don't blame them for being in the way, but for most it was their decision to stay.

We have all seen streams of refugees fleeing. If you have feet and can walk, with enough warning you can get away. In both cases the warnings came early and often enough for proper, orderly evacuation. Too many chose to stay.

I remember watching the news the Friday before Katrina hit. The warnings about this storm had been trumpeted for days. Even so, the news showed live pictures of downtown New Orleans with people milling about. The horse-drawn carriage was still in action with tourists onboard, seemingly oblivious to the oncoming threat. Anyone with ears to hear should have known this was going to be a devastating hurricane, yet many chose to stay.

Israel has been dropping leaflets throughout Southern Lebanon warning the people to leave. They even phoned the Lebanese and warned them that attacks were coming. Most of these people could leave. Too many of them are ignoring all warnings and choosing to stay.

though I am getting the idea that you are being Deliberately Obtuse, is that that is an example of the Lebanese people.  that is far from the only article where Southern Lebanese have declared their full support of Hezbollah and their willingness to die for them.

That is an example of the kinds of "Civilians" that are dying and/or losing their children in Southern Lebanon right now.

I already did mine lol

Kill anyone and everyone who wishes to destroy them and eveyone who supports said dreamers or provides aid to them.

That is what they have the right to do in order to prolong their survival.

Israel catagory.

But I don't know how many times I have had somebody say that Israel shouldn't be doing what it is doing, and when I ask them what response they think is appropriate I mostly get a "well I don't know, but they shouldn't be bombing anyone."

I honestly don't get their thinking.  Apparantly they think peace means Israel has to take everything Hezbollah or Hamas wants to throw at them, because to respond would be "mean."

Although I have also heard "well the world needs to step in and make them stop" and when I get into "who is the world? How should they step in?  What if Israel or Hezbollah don't want their interference, how do they impose themselves?" etc

I don't get too many coherant responses to that one either.

And there wasn't "Less violence"  because the Palestinians were happy with Gaza and the West Bank.  They kept trying to kill all the Israelis they could.  But that pesky wall slowed them down and they couldn't their suicide-bombers inside until they had dug tunnels.

And then they got their mortars and starting throwing explosives over the wall.

Then they Got their tunnels and they kidnapped an Israeli soldier and killed sevral others and started this whole round of violence.

Took a whole Year for them to get big enough tunnels to pull off that feat.

To understand your first sentence.  Not sure why, though.

But I DO think Israel should stop what it's doing.  Bombing Lebanon into the Dark Age (as if they have far to go) isn't the answer...

...They need to put their boots on the ground and hit Lebanon as hard as possible with everything at their disposal and smash the hell out of Hezbollah...

Here I am, in the Army right now, and YOU thought of the whole "Geneva Conventions" bit before me.  I'm going to go pout now...