{"id":2913,"date":"2006-08-03T19:02:10","date_gmt":"2006-08-04T02:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2006\/08\/03\/they-shoot-horses-dont-they\/"},"modified":"2006-08-03T19:15:24","modified_gmt":"2006-08-04T02:15:24","slug":"they-shoot-horses-dont-they","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2006\/08\/03\/they-shoot-horses-dont-they\/","title":{"rendered":"They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Frankly, I am tired of Israel accusing Hezbollah of “<\/font>using human shields<\/font><\/a>.” Even if Hezbollah truly are hiding behind children, the Israelis <\/font>act<\/font><\/a> as if they believe this excuses their military killing well over 600 (possibly closer to <\/font>900<\/font><\/a>) people in Lebanon. At best, their seeming inability to find a way to attack Hezbollah without killing civilians makes them look inept or careless. At worst, they look like cynical monsters trying to pin the blame on their victims, a charge they have made against Hezbollah. <\/font><\/p>\n

The Israeli inquiry into the Qana “mistake” <\/font>alleged<\/font><\/a> that, “had the information indicated that civilians were present…the attack would not have been carried out.” At the same time, a former senior Israeli military officer <\/font>stated <\/font><\/a>that the IDF believed the apartment building demolished in Qana “was the residence of two Hezbollah operatives.” In other words, a couple of Hezbollah members were living in a building along with their civilian neighbors. The IDF also <\/font>bombed<\/font><\/a>, allegedly on purpose, the home of a Lebanese bank manager in hopes that it would scare other bank officers into rejecting Hezbollah accounts. So which is it? They don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t bomb civilian homes, or they do?<\/font><\/p>\n

Israel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s defenders like to point out that <\/font>leaflets<\/font><\/a> often warn residents of an impending strike, but these same leaflets also warn Hezbollah. So if the enemy has left the building too, what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the point of demolishing it? Even without leaflets, if the Lebanese know that rocket launchers will attract Israeli attacks, why do they remain in those buildings? They didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t notice somebody launching a rocket from their backyard? Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Dan Gillerman, has <\/font>suggested <\/font><\/a>that Hezbollah force the civilians, “in a cynical and brutal way,” to remain behind as shields, but that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make any sense. The Israelis have demonstrated that they will bomb human shields. Besides, if the Israelis truly believe that those civilians are hostages, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one more reason to make sure they are not attacked.<\/font><\/p>\n

That wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the only time that Gillerman has called Hezbollah cynical. Last Sunday, during his <\/font>speech <\/font><\/a>at the UN Security Council\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s emergency meeting on the Qana catastrophe, he again referred to Hezbollah\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cynicism. Earlier in the day, Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres, while <\/font>speaking <\/font><\/a>on CBS\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s “Face The Nation,” also called Hezbollah “cynical”; however, it seems more and more like a case of the pot calling the kettle “cynical.” <\/font><\/p>\n

I suppose it could be that the Israelis are merely annoyed that Hezbollah haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t gone to the same lengths, that the Lebanese Army has, to make themselves easy targets. On the other hand, they could be ticked off that Hezbollah also use Lebanese soldiers as human shields. Or was that <\/font>base bombing<\/font><\/a>, or the other <\/font>base bombing<\/font><\/a>, or that other <\/font>base bombing <\/font><\/a>a different variety of intelligence mistake? And how about those <\/font>banks<\/font><\/a> in Beirut? Vaults must be great places to stash rocket-launchers on the fly, huh?<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t recall any old Western where the heroic sheriff complains to his horse about having to kill a pioneer family in order to save them from desperados. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d spend a good part of the movie seeking a way to bring the enemy over to his side or defeat them without harming innocents<\/i>. Likewise, the Israelis should take some of their famous intelligence resources and those fancy weapons with the superior tracking and figure out a way not to slaughter children, instead of whining about how they were forced to…unless, of course, they enjoy blaming<\/a> the victims. <\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Frankly, I am tired of Israel accusing Hezbollah of “using human shields.” Even if Hezbollah truly are hiding behind children, the Israelis act as if they believe this excuses their military killing well over 600 (possibly closer to 900) people in Lebanon. At best, their seeming inability to find a way to attack Hezbollah without […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[676],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-2913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-antiwar-movement"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2913\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2913"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}