By Dick Mazess
10/08/07 "Democracy Rising" -- -- "There is simply no question in the international press: the attacks on Lebanon by the Israeli armed forces constitute war crimes comparable or worse than those perpetrated by Nazi Germany on defenseless civilians (ex Belgium) in WWII. Amnesty International has documented the deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure, as well as attacks on civilians, and called for a war crimes investigation. [For more information see the follow articles: the Guardian and the New York Times]While Europeans are appalled, the Arab street is celebrating what they see as a successful military effort by Hezbollah against one of the world's best equipped and trained armies, essentially a division of the US armed forces but with far superior soldiers than ours. About 100-150 Hezbollah fighters were killed in the Israeli war on Lebanon, similar to the number of dead Israeli soldiers (officially 118 killed by enemy fire). The big difference is that 1200 Lebanese civilians were killed by Israeli shells and bombs, while only 30 or so Israeli civilians were killed by Hezbollah rockets. Hezbollah basically held Israel to a standoff despite the massive destruction of civilian infrastructure (bridges, hospitals, gas stations, factories, warehouses, apartment houses), the massacre of civilians, including those escaping from the south, and the creation of an ecological disaster.
Villages in southern Lebanon were carpeted with US-made cluster bombs, which are basically anti-civilian weapons, and this was done even days immediately before the cease-fire. The true magnitude of the atrocity has been covered in the Israeli press, which documented the use of over a million cluster bombs, and white phosphorus, (both banned by international law) ; the US press has been silent until recently when hundreds of Lebanese civilians were killed or maimed. Several thousand Lebanese also are expected to die from the short-term effects of the destroyed infrastructure.
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