Why Lebanese civilians die

From Australia's Herald Sun newspaper: Photos that damn Hezbollah. Some excerpts:

...The images, obtained exclusively by the Sunday Herald Sun, show Hezbollah using high-density residential areas as launch pads for rockets and heavy-calibre weapons.

Dressed in civilian clothing so they can quickly disappear, the militants carrying automatic assault rifles and ride in on trucks mounted with cannon.

The photographs, from the Christian area of Wadi Chahrour in the east of Beirut, were taken by a visiting journalist and smuggled out by a friend...

Driving the truck cannon into Christian areas, so that Christians get killed by the return fire?

...The images include one of a group of men and youths preparing to fire an anti-aircraft gun metres from an apartment block with sheets hanging out on a balcony to dry...

...The Melbourne man who smuggled the shots out of Beirut and did not wish to be named said he was less than 400m from the block when it was obliterated.

"Hezbollah came in to launch their rockets, then within minutes the area was blasted by Israeli jets," he said.

"Until the Hezbollah fighters arrived, it had not been touched by the Israelis. Then it was totally devastated...

Kindermord bei Qana

...Let us call the childrens' deaths in Qana what they are: a horrific freak of war. They were not intended; they were not actively sought; and they were not the product of criminal negligence. In weeks of war and thousands of sorties against a foe that intentionally hides amongst civilians in the active hope of just this manner of carnage, the remarkable fact is that this hasn't happened before. Contrary to founding advocates of airpower -- and unlike its battlefield foes -- Israel does not seek the death of civilians for their own sake...

...Need it be said -- and it is a sign of our fallen age that it does need to be said -- Israel's enemy in this war operates under no such constraint. (One assumes that in bygone days, the difference between a Western democracy and a band of murderous savages would not need repeated explanation.) Hezbollah and the average Islamist do not shrink from direct assaults on civlians as such and as an end in itself. Indeed, it has been their sole tactic in this entire war. If they have not produced scenes of masses of dead children, it is not for lack of trying -- it is, after all, the only thing they try for...

Peace and Eurofighters

...A real peace is, as things stand, unlikely. While Israel, Lebanon and some other Arab states might want it, a non-state entity that is a cheap-to-run proxy of recognized states (Syria and Iran) exercises de facto control over the moment’s battle-field. The Party of God – well supplied with prayers and arms – is committed to a struggle to the last drop of unwillingly hosting Lebanon’s blood. Therefore, any cessation of hostilities (whether that be a peace or an armistice) depends of Hizbollah’s intentions. These Jihadists will agree to little and whatever they promise they will not feel obligated to keep as agreements with faithless dogs lack validity once breaking them is of use to the Faith.

All plans for pacification are cognizant of Hizbollah and so they take into account the resulting problem of making, respectively keeping the peace...

The author goes on to explain why Americans would be excluded from a peace keeping force, and why a European peace keeping force would be unlikely to succeed.

As for using the Lebanese Army as a peackeeping force, I would say that is unrealistic. You can read more about that here:

Fault Lines in the Lebanese Armed Forces

These charts are also from the article:




The short but fact-filled article has a lot of good background information about the Lebanese army. 70 percent of it's armed forces are Muslim, split about 50-50 between Shia and Sunni, with the Shia not only being sympathetic to Hezbollah, but actively supporting them:

...Considering the number of Hezbollah sympathizers and members in the Lebanese armed forces, it comes as no surprise that the militant group is receiving logistical and intelligence support from the army to stage its missile attacks. Hezbollah recently attempted to launch missiles from mobile launchers near the Kfar Shima army base, located in a Druze-Christian area just outside Beirut's southern suburbs. The Israeli air force subsequently destroyed the launcher and killed 10 Lebanese soldiers. Of particular concern is the transfer of technology, such as the French Milan and U.S. TOW anti-tank guided missiles, which are known to be in the Lebanese arsenal and may very well now be in Hezbollah hands in southern Lebanon...

While are MSM bends over backwards to be sympathetic to the Lebanese, any objective observer would have to admit that the Shia Lebanese, with their support of Hezbollah, are largly responsible for bringing these counter-attacks upon their country. But of course, being objective is hardly the strong point of our MSM, is it?