Israel-Lebanon War Casualties - Thursday July 27, 2006

[IndianaGreen]

This is why we need a ceasefire. These numbers will only go up!

The casualties

Israeli

Yesterday:

Civilian wounded 9

Military deaths 14

Since outbreak:

Military deaths 38

Civilian deaths 18

Wounded 390+

Lebanese

Yesterday:

No reported deaths

Civilian wounded 16

Since outbreak:

Military deaths 20

Hizbullah deaths 31

Civilian deaths 391

Wounded 1,550+

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1831157,00.html

[Warren Stupidity]

1. And once again.

89% of Lebanese deaths inflicted by the IDF are civlian while 32% of the Israeli deaths inflicted by Hezbollah are civilian.

Which combatant force is waging a terror campaign? Which force is using precision munitions?

[Sparkly]

3. Is it not true that Hezbollah places its targets (munitions etc.)

in civilian areas, even homes?

Is that incorrect?

[IndianaGreen]

5. Look around your own city or town in America

and see how many military targets are in civilian areas, things such as armories, police stations, federal buildings, post offices, transmission towers, military recruiting stations, etc.

[HlavniNadrazi]

6. Even if that were the case,

Israel undoubtedly has their own special forces who are trained for that type of (low intensity) conflict. Hard for me to see their side of things this time.

[Warren Stupidity]

7. It is bullshit.

The human shield argument has been used consistently by governments fighting guerrilla forces since I was a kid back in the 60's and it was an excuse for warcrimes then and it is equally bullshit now. The intent is to terrorize the shiite population of Lebanon into submission. The facts appear to be that the IDF has no clue where Hezbollah's munitions are. If they actually knew where they were they would be destroyed by now.

But leave that aside. How would you explain the attack on the UN observation post?

[Sparkly]

12. It's just not clear to me yet WHAT Hezbollah has been doing or where....

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0720-04.htm

[Warren Stupidity]

28. The numbers are clear

Hezbollah has killed about 32% civilians, the IDF has killed about 89% civilians. The pattern has been consistent since the start of this war.

[truth2power]

31. Incorrect...

From Common Dreams:

Five Myths that Sanction Israel's War Crimes

"Egeland and Howells need reminding that Hezbollah’s fighters are not aliens recently arrived from training camps in Iran, whatever Horowitz claims. They belong to and are strongly supported by the Shiite community, nearly half the country’s population, and many other Lebanese. They have families, friends, and neighbors living alongside them in the country’s south and the neighborhoods of Beirut who believe Hezbollah is the best hope of defending their country from Israel’s regular onslaughts." <emphasis added>

"Given the indigenous nature of Hezbollah’s resistance, we should not be surprised at the lengths the Shiite militia is going to ensure their loved ones, and the Lebanese people more generally, are not put directly in danger by their combat."

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0725-35.htm

Also, Fresh Air (npr) had an interview last week with Julie Choucair, with Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Worth a listen, IMO.

http://www.audible.com/adbl/entry/offers/t2.jsp?BV_UseB...

[HlavniNadrazi]

4. Exactly

Israel has a first world miltary, there is absolutely no excuse for this. What does Hezbollah have, unguided rockets and old assault rifles? At least they are connecting with legitimate targets. Its really hard for me to consider them a terror organization in this capacity.

[Sparkly]

18. Legitimate targets?

Rescuers removed bodies from a train station in Haifa on Sunday, July 16, after a missile strike by Hezbollah.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2006/07/16/world/middleeast/20060717_MIDEAST_SLIDESHOW_1.html

[HlavniNadrazi]

19. sorry,

legitimate targets at a greater rate of accuracy than the opposition.

[IndianaGreen]

20. That's only one side of the story, Sparkly, and you know it!

We can match each of your pictures with 10 pictures of dead and wounded Lebanese, but that would be an exercise in futility. We need a ceasefire, and we need it now!

Even Bill Clinton said today that we needed a ceasefire! So why don't you get with the program and join us in stopping the bloodbath?

Clinton calls for western-brokered ceasefire

HALIFAX — Former U.S. president Bill Clinton says the West should be pushing hard for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah and the insertion of an international peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon.

Speaking in Halifax, Clinton said Hezbollah is the root of the problem and should be disarmed, and Israel has been looking for a way to at least degrade the Islamic group's military capability.

He says Israel did go too far in bombing the airport in Beirut, which he described as a symbol of the new Lebanon.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2416298

[HlavniNadrazi]

21. I'm not trying to pick a side here,

I wish it all would stop. The facts of the matter are that Israel has a first world military(maybe the best Air Force in the world) and has killed about nine times as many civilians as combatants. Hezbollah is a crude militia at best and has hit about %60 combatants (according to the stats from the OP'er). What conclusion are we supposed to come to here?

[IndianaGreen]

22. My reply was to Sparkly, not to you HlavniNadrazi

I want a ceasefire now!

[The Magistrate]

29. You Are Mixing Apples And Oranges, Sir

The proprtion of Isareli military casualties is rising because because Israeli infantry has been committed to action in the southern hills against dug-in opponents. It is also from these engagements that the only acknowledged Hezbollah casualties are being tallied. While there is no doubt many genuine non-combatants have been killed in Lebanon, it is also quite likely that the Lebanese government's reports of civilian casualties contain a bit of wriggling: a Hezbollah man killed in an air strike can be reported without openly lying as a civilian, for he is not a uniformed soldier, but he is nonetheless a combatant.

[Sparkly]

23. I DO know it -- so let's make sure we remember the TWO sides.

Defending Hezbollah, siding with them, or otherwise pretending they're somehow fair, upstanding and non-violent is just wrong, imho.

[IndianaGreen]

24. Siding with Bush's opposition to a ceasefire is obscene!

We could argue the grievances that both sides have against the other, but if we were to travel back in time, we would end up at a family dispute involving a bowl of lentils.

Let's stop the killings now!

[Sparkly]

25. Did I say anything about Bush's opposition to a ceasefire?

I said there are TWO sides.

The notion that Hezbollah is somehow legitimate and saintly is ALSO "obscene!!"

[IndianaGreen]

26. Who cares? Innocent people are dying, that's a fact!

We could play this stupid "eternal victim" game that both sides play, and we both know that if one decides to find out who started what, we will find ourselves back with Esau and the bowl of lentils.

I don't give a rat's ass what Israel or her allies say. I don't give a rat's ass what Bush and his allies say. I don't give a rat's ass what Hizbollah or Hamas and their allies say. All I care about is that innocent people are dying and that we have a moral obligation to stop the war by calling for an immediate ceasefire and face-to-face negotiations with all the parties.

[Sparkly]

27. I hear that, know that, care about that.

It still does no good to sympathize with Hezbollah, period.

It's important to stop it now, and in future. In blaming Israel, don't overlook Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah and their potential -- and desire -- to create even more instability, cause more deaths, etc., for their own ends.

This isn't about who cares more about innocent people dying.

Nothing is accomplished by pretending Hezbollah is "better" somehow than Israel. And I think it's a common error, on DU in particular, to associate ANYthing that goes against BushCo as "our side" -- whether it's Hezbollah or Ramsey Clarke. Big mistake.

[uppityperson]

2. k&r for numbers of dead and wounded and peace someday

[IndianaGreen]

8. There is considerable angst in the American Jewish community

There is considerable angst in the American Jewish community about the war in Lebanon. Outside of the usual Israel-is-always-right crowd, there is genuine concern about friends and loved ones in Israel, and a growing realization that the IDF has bitten more of what they can chew.

It is hard to see the pictures of dead babies and wounded children without feeling a spark of humanity. Those that don't feel moved, are not people that we would want to associate with, they are just like Freepers.

Olmert is a chicken hawk, just like Bush, and people like that are too quick to choose war as the first option rather than the last.

Hillary is a chicken hawk!

[HlavniNadrazi]

9. The thing that gets me is that

I don't even know enough about Judaism to be an anti-semite, yet I"ve been called that (on military.com) for criticizing Israel and our support for them. That word has been so overused it has no meaning anymore.

[IndianaGreen]

11. Anti-Semitism is not a myth, it is very much real

but just like some people will use the race card to distract us from the real issues, there are some that too freely toss the anti-Semitic charge to stifle dissent.

But let's not fool ourselves, some of the criticism of Israel is motivated more by anti-Semitism than by a genuine humanitarian concern for the civilian victims of this war.

[HlavniNadrazi]

13. I know but those are t

he people who sit up at night and read the Talmud so they can point out whatever. Over on military.com, pretty much the party line is "well, Israel has the right to obliterate everyone in the region, up to and including use of nuclear weapons". I pointed out that a Gaza power plant they blew up cost the US Government and was immediately called "anti-semantic" (his spelling) and got warned with the TOS.

[Sparkly]

14. "the right to obliterate everyone in the region?" Really??

That's the party line, in quotes, exactly??

[HlavniNadrazi]

15. Thats hyperbole, but someone said that and did not get warned

,just pointing that out.

[HlavniNadrazi]

16. and that would just be from random posters....

just to clarify..

[truth2power]

32. Justice Minister Ramon said something today

about "flattening" their villages. I'll look for the link.

Here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5219360.stm

"He <Ramon> said that in order to prevent casualties among Israeli soldiers battling Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon, villages should be flattened by the Israeli air force before ground troops moved in."

more...

[The Magistrate]

36. That Is The Hard Man Posuer Method, Ma'am

Oddly, it does not work as well as many suppose or expect. Rubble offers as much protective cover, and frequently better fields of fire, for a defender.

But the villages are stone, generally situated on dominating high ground, and all in all pretty tough nuts to crack. One way or another, ovberwhelming forepower is going to be used: there is no way of avoiding it, hostilities having been joined, and both sides being resolved to press them. Non-combatants would be wisest to flee.

[bemildred]

37. Rubble slows everything down too, also good for defenders.

I think you are right, we are going to see the rubble bounced thoroughly now. Non-combatants would be wise to flee or find a really deep hole with plenty of supplies.

[The Magistrate]

38. If The Hole Is Deep Enough For Real Safety, Sir

A man with a gun will already be there. Some of these places may have very deep well and tunnel arrangements below dating to ancient times. Nobody built anything in this region without considering how it would stand up to assault and seige, albeit in pre-gun-powder forms.

[bemildred]

39. A good point.

I had not thought of that. I had some curiosity about what they have done, there was the "Vietnam tunnels" story, but had not considered that the Romans might have started the work for them.

[The Magistrate]

40. It Was Pretty Standard, Sir

You cannot withstand a seige without water, and you cannot prevail in a seige on low ground by a stream. So people, in that "how did they manage by hand?" manner of the ancestors, drove the well-shafts down into the hills. Past a point, it is easier to move the debris out laterally through shafts than lift them up. It is also wise to have potential sally and escape points, as well as means of covert access for distant friends and couriers. There will also be cisterns carved in the rock, and channels to bring the rainwater into them, and conduct people with their jugs to fill. Most of it should still be there....

On a side note, Sir, as you mention, there have been characterizations of "Viet Nam tunnels" in news acounts. One of my pet peeves is the frequent assertions of such imitation, in a variety of directions, as if there were only a handful of times war had ever been waged, and people had not been focusing their ingenuity on it for thousands years, and no one was aware of that vast body of knowledge, or could think up anything for themselves....

[bemildred]

41. LOL. Yes.

I am curious about one thing. It seemed to me that Hizbullah has been conservative in use of their rockets, and that the rockets can be used against military as well as civilian targets. That lead me to wonder whether the conservative approach to the use of IDF ground forces that one sees so far might be, in part, due to a desire to avoid large concentrations of force, at least until Hizbullah's stock of rockets has been depleted.

Contrariwise, might Nasrallah be trying to goad the IDF into attempting a large ground invasion, both for that reason and in hopes of bringing Syria into the conflict?

Does that seem reasonable? And does it seem likely? I really don't have much of a feel for it.

[The Magistrate]

42. That Surprises Me Too, Sir

The Israeli S.P. artillery would seem to be in range of the rocketeers, and a concentration of several dozen fired at a battery of them could be expected to do some harm, particularly as the cameras show a good deal of exposed ammunition stacked about. It would seem to me that the prestige of such a strike would be considerable, and so desireable to Hezbollah from its own view and on its own terms. Quite simple means of sound ranging triangluation exist, that would be accurate enough for the purpose, even if concealed observation of the positions, or more modern equipments, are not available.

The possibility large infantry concentrations were being avoided to avoid the chance of a rocket concentration had not occured to me, and it does sound possible, if a touch over-cautious. Quick reacting fire-control would be needed to hit infantry on the move. But great sensitivity to casualties is an Israeli hallmark. In general terms, between that tendency, and the pin-point aerial delivery that promises a good deal more than it seems to really achieve, modern top-drawer military organizations seem to be afflicting themselves with a debilitating paralysis that wholly forfeits the benefits of close shock imposed by rapid motion and the fear of men who keep coming. Casualties are a necessary part of the business, and if it is not worth a number of your own men to do, it is probably not really worth doing at all. In an odd sort of way, taking casualties establishes a sort of moral legitimacy to your efforts: if all you do is stand off and kill the other fellows, the whole business seems "off" somehow, and particularly so if a goodly portion of those you kill are mere bystanders.

[bemildred]

43. Thank you for your comments.

I agree with your comments about the necessity to have a sense of what one is about. The Spartans at Thermopylae would find the modern way of doing war odd, I think.

"Back in his camp, he told Xerxes all that he had seen. Xerxes was bewildered; the truth, that the Spartans were preparing to die and deal death with all their strength, was beyond his comprehension, and what they were doing seemed to him merely absurd." -- Herodotus VII 209

But then the stakes are much different now, and the means much more technological. But it is nevertheless still most true that one had better not start without good reason and firm resolve, as we seem to insist on re-learning over and over.

[truth2power]

49. We will have to agree to disagree, Sir...

There is NO excuse for the carnage that's being visited on Lebanon.

"Non-combatants would be wisest to flee." Where, may I ask, are they to flee TO, all the ways out having been bombed into oblivion. And even the act of fleeing is fraught with danger, as numbers of fleeing people have been killed by attacking Israeli jets. By accident, of course. As was the killing of the 4 UN observers an accident. As were the deaths of members of that Palestinian family on a Gaza beach. An accident.

You will excuse me if I wonder how any military which has so many accidents can function at all in any sort of defensive role.

Also, you noted, upthread, that perhaps the Lebanese government's civilian casualty figures contain some wriggling. Perhaps. But I watched, online, a CNN International report a few days ago. Two horribly burned children, one an infant, lying in a hospital bed, screaming, and the Lebanese doctor saying, of the burns, "That's phosphorus." This wasn't "wriggling".

Not a war crime, either, I guess. Because I understand that phosphorus isn't mentioned specifically in whatever rules prohibit certain substances used in munitions, as long as it's not used on civilians. If the doctor were to be proven correct in his assessment, I guess one could always say it was, well....an accident.

[IndianaGreen]

17. There are people in this country that would wet their pants at the thought

of dropping bombs or nukes on other people. I know of a couple of co-workers of mine that adjusted their work hours so that they could leave early enough to be home on time for "shock and awe." It was like some kind of primetime entertainment except those were people dying on TV while the American audience drank beer and munched on chips.

America has not tasted war! Even 9-11 cannot compare to having rockets and bombs fall on your home and city for days on end.

[truth2power]

50. Americans have not tasted war on their soil,

in our lifetimes at least. For some people in other parts of the world, 9-11 is what their day to day life looks like.

I think that the only way the chickenhawks are going to give up their lust for war is if they experience it right here on American soil. Given the way Bush is poking sharp sticks at practically everybody in the world, I wouldn't be surprised if someone obliges us before too long.

[Warren Stupidity]

10. From another post.: a definition of terrorism.

"Terrorism refers to a strategy of using violence, or threat of violence targeted against innocents or non-combatants to generate fear, cause disruption, and ultimately, to bring about compliance with specific political, religious, ideological, and personal demands."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism


"We have met the enemy and he is us."
- pogo

[The Magistrate]

30. Not A Good Definition, Sir

The actual definition, derived from current usage, is "Violence towards political ends which the utterer of the word disapproves of."

[bemildred]

33. Terrorist. n

"Vicious killer working for ones enemies, as opposed the heroic warriors working for our side."

[The Magistrate]

34. We Could Use Mr. Bierce Today, Sir

Though it would probably not be good for his blood pressure....

An excellent exercise in channeling the Master, my friend!

[bemildred]

35. Why, thank you, that's a nice compliment Sir. nt

[theanarch]

45. as i have posted elsewhere...

Terrorist, n. A man with a bomb, but not an air force

[The Magistrate]

46. Not Bad, Sir, Not Bad At All

But we do have people nowadays employing the term to include an air force as well, which complicates the matter.

[bemildred]

47. And our good friend OBL demonstrated that you can borrow one.

But I agree, an excellent effort.

[theanarch]

48. oh, i don't know...

...what's so complicated about it. The only difference between the terrorism of a state's military, and that of a stateless militia, is one of (throw-weight) quantity, not (moral) quality. That, and one side gets to wear fully-accesorized/camo-color-coordinated/GI Joe blood-sports wear, drive/fly around in really neat tanks/planes, and gets to talk in the dehumanized, technocratic Jargon of Nomenclature. What seems to have been forgotten by modern military tacticians is that war is politics by other means. To make war (as a political or foreign policy) acceptable to the public back home means adopting a doctrine of using overwhelming force in any situation where soldiers lives are at risk...for instance, calling in air-strikes, attack helicopters, heavy artillery, naval guns, every time the grunts encounter a sniper (not to mention having the troops fire everything they have in every direction, without ascertaining where the fire is coming from first--a complaint British soldiers make all the time about our GI Joe's and Jane's in Iraq).

Which creates a contradiction: to take casualties in order to minimize civilian deaths erodes public support for the war back home; to increase "collateral damage" (e.g. more dead rag-heads, gooks, etc)in order to minimize military casualities escalates the anger, rage and hatred of those innocents or by-standers who survive the slaughter. The former subverts domestic public approval; the latter creates more enemies. Quite the conundrum, indeed. The tragedy we face here is having a regime which believes every problem this country faces (domestic as well as foreign) can be solved by having the National Guard shoot it. We have subordinated the long-term goals of forgeign policy to the Pentagon's short-term exigies of minimizing military casualties, and the isolation from, and hatred by, the rest of the world is all we have to show for it. Ditto for Israel.

[ray of light]

44. all of this is sad! ALL of it!