Remember, as the newsies keep reporting the civilian deaths in Lebanon that most of them are occurring in Hezbollah-controlled areas, where Hezbollah distributes and hides it's weapons, and, by some accounts, does not allow the residents of the area to leave.
Keep that in mind when (if) someone gets all Geneva in a conversation - the convention explicitly allows for a combatant to attack areas where another combatant is hiding forces and storing munitions - even if they are doing so among non-combatants.
Remember that as Hezbollah fires rockets in the general direction of cities and civilians, and not at concentrations of Israeli military personnel or equipment. Israel is not carpet bombing, not randomly firing rockets and artillery, and not using artillery in "zone and sweep" missions, but is firing at point targets.
And the Israelis are going to hurt innocent people. The difference is Hezbollah targets innocent people (yes, I know, if we aren't with them, then we're not innocent, and therefore targetable in their eyes, yadda yadda yadda). Keep that in mind as you ponder how do we deal with people who reject most of the rules we choose to abide by policy and custom?
That's not a call to abandon restraint - it's just an observation that I'm not interested in listening to Israeli-bashing moral equivalency arguments unless you've got something better to offer than that.
Just sayin'.
It would be nice if the Lebanese government could exercise control over it's territory, but Iran chose to finance and equip it's proxies, Syria and Hezbollah, not the Lebanese government and people.
Not that I expect much of that from regular visitors to this space. But I do get some irregulars...
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