[lbo-talk] Re: The "hiding among civilians" myth

[Michael Pugliese]

Some readers have asked why I characterize Hizbullah's rocket launches
as war crimes. It is because the Geneva Convention requires that in
war you have to aim at enemy combatants. You can't deliberately target
civilians, and you can't endanger civilians unnecessarily. The
Hizbullah rockets have poor targeting, and so just firing them
endangers civilians. The rockets themselves have apparently killed
almost no Israeli troops, and almost all their victims have been
innocent civilians, like that poor man who was just driving along in
or near Haifa. That is, the Hizbullah rockets have been fired
indiscriminately (the only way they can be fired) and mainly hit
civilian targets, which a prudent person could foresee. Bingo. War crime.
http://www.juancole.com/2006/07/israelis-kill-8-wound-45-on-sunday.html

BEIRUT, Lebanon - The U.N. humanitarian chief accused Hezbollah on
Monday of "cowardly blending" in among Lebanese civilians and causing
the deaths of hundreds during two weeks of cross-border violence with
Israel.

The militant group has built bunkers and tunnels near the Israeli
border to shelter weapons and fighters, and its members easily blend
in among civilians.

Jan Egeland spoke to reporters at Larnaca airport in Cyprus late
Monday after visiting Lebanon to coordinate an international aid
effort. On Sunday, he toured the rubble of Beirut's southern suburbs,
a once-teeming Shiite district where Hezbollah had its headquarters.
...

"Consistently, from the Hezbollah heartland, my message was that
Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending ... among women and
children," he said. "I heard they were proud because they lost very
few fighters and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this.
I don't think anyone should be proud of having many more children and
women dead than armed men."

-- 
Michael Pugliese