Reply #4: We'll never be able to produce a remotely accurate [View All]

[Igel]

civilian:combatant kill ratio.

We don't know what's happening in the south, we can't identify Hezbollah when they're dead. We know the civilian death count because that's what the reporters are told; we don't know the Hezbollah count. The deaths would occur in areas that support Hezbollah, or in areas where Hezbollah's all but imposes a news blackout.

They wouldn't say they had heavy losses if they did; they wouldn't say they had heavy losses if they didn't. They can't say they've had no losses; that's palpably false. So they've said they have light losses. What inference can we make?

But this levels another charge at Hezbollah--that they're waging a media war as well (in fact, when Nasrallah said they weren't hit, he took pains to point out that that fact wasn't part of "psyops war", I think his translator's phrase was). It also means that the media would have to acknowledge they know less than they want to be seen as knowing.