Israeli Air Terrorism in Lebanon

Originally posted by xmotex
The official position of the US goverment could be that water runs uphill.
That wouldn't change the facts however...

The facts according to you maybe.....

IMHO what needs to happen is America needs to stop being so politically correct all the time. It was not too long ago that Bush was giving a speach during the Hez/Israel war that he called Hezbollah "Muslim Fascists". He got all kind of flack for that, which is unfair. All he did was say what the truth was and he gets blasted for it? The truth is not all Muslims are terrorists, however nearly every terrorist is a Muslim. What does that say about the great Muslim religion?

Oh and the arguement that not all Muslims are radicals.. I am starting to not believe it at all. When an American is beheaded or journalists are kidnapped or rockets being launched at innocent civilians Muslims don't condemn these actions, why aren't they standing up against the radicals and telling them to stop?

If you ask me, which no one did. Certain parts of this world should be turned into a glass desert for the next hundred or so years.

Pie, thanks for posting all of that stuff and I appreciate your research, but to be honest with you, any time I read the word "neo" in a column I automatically turn the page. Using the word "neo" in a sentence is synonymous with being an ultra-liberal and having an agenda. Whether it be neo-conservative, neo-con, NWO, etc, it all smells of conspiracy theory and ultra-liberal behavior. You lost me on the very first sentence.

Thanks for the effort though!

Outside the right-wing nutosphere, international condemnation of Israel's assault on Lebanon continues to pour in: Amnesty International: Lebanon: Destruction of civilian infrastructure

During more than four weeks of ground and aerial bombardment of Lebanon by the Israeli armed forces, the country’s infrastructure suffered destruction on a catastrophic scale. Israeli forces pounded buildings into the ground, reducing entire neighbourhoods to rubble and turning villages and towns into ghost towns, as their inhabitants fled the bombardments. Main roads, bridges and petrol stations were blown to bits. Entire families were killed in air strikes on their homes or in their vehicles while fleeing the aerial assaults on their villages. Scores lay buried beneath the rubble of their houses for weeks, as the Red Cross and other rescue workers were prevented from accessing the areas by continuing Israeli strikes. The hundreds of thousands of Lebanese who fled the bombardment now face the danger of unexploded munitions as they head home.

...

Israeli government spokespeople have insisted that they were targeting Hizbullah positions and support facilities, and that damage to civilian infrastructure was incidental or resulted from Hizbullah using the civilian population as a "human shield". However, the pattern and scope of the attacks, as well as the number of civilian casualties and the amount of damage sustained, makes the justification ring hollow. The evidence strongly suggests that the extensive destruction of public works, power systems, civilian homes and industry was deliberate and an integral part of the military strategy, rather than "collateral damage" – incidental damage to civilians or civilian property resulting from targeting military objectives.

Statements by Israeli military officials seem to confirm that the destruction of the infrastructure was indeed a goal of the military campaign. On 13 July, shortly after the air strikes began, the Israel Defence Force (IDF) Chief of Staff Lt-Gen Dan Halutz noted that all Beirut could be included among the targets if Hizbullah rockets continued to hit northern Israel: "Nothing is safe [in Lebanon], as simple as that,"(8) he said. Three days later, according to the Jerusalem Post newspaper, a high ranking IDF officer threatened that Israel would destroy Lebanese power plants if Hizbullah fired long-range missiles at strategic installations in northern Israel.(9) On 24 July, at a briefing by a high-ranking Israeli Air Force officer, reporters were told that the IDF Chief of Staff had ordered the military to destroy 10 buildings in Beirut for every Katyusha rocket strike on Haifa.(10) His comments were later condemned by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.(11) According to the New York Times, the IDF Chief of Staff said the air strikes were aimed at keeping pressure on Lebanese officials, and delivering a message to the Lebanese government that they must take responsibility for Hizbullah’s actions. He called Hizbullah "a cancer" that Lebanon must get rid of, "because if they don’t their country will pay a very high price." (12)

The widespread destruction of apartments, houses, electricity and water services, roads, bridges, factories and ports, in addition to several statements by Israeli officials, suggests a policy of punishing both the Lebanese government and the civilian population in an effort to get them to turn against Hizbullah. Israeli attacks did not diminish, nor did their pattern appear to change, even when it became clear that the victims of the bombardment were predominantly civilians, which was the case from the first days of the conflict.

I encourage everyone to read the report, it's clear that while Israel claimed it was acting in "self defense" against Hezbollah, this was a terror campaign aimed squarely at the civilian population of Lebanon - even according to Israeli officials themselves, as in bold above.