Sigh... this is what I hated the most about being the UN guy stuck in the middle. It seems in every recent conflict that each side sees itself as the embodyment of justice/good/truth/right, while at the same time reviling their enemies as being unrepentantly evil... The problem is that each side (and their supporters) begin to believe their own propaganda, and begin to lose sight of the fact that they are fighting and killing other human beings.
Yes Israel has the right to both defend itself, and strike back at the terrorists that attacked her... however that doesn't mean that Israel has the freedom or right to bomb the living-sh-t out of Lebanon to "teach them a lesson", nor does Israel have the right to turn the south into a wasteland. Israel declared war on Hezbollah, not Lebanon...
Now I'm sure you hear a lot of crap about Lebanon being a "rogue-state" or a "terrorist-state", which is a nice rallying cry for the warmongers... to bad it falls far short of the truth. Afterall this is the country that we here in the West were applauding for it's secular and intigrated Christian/Mulsim society that was embracing Democracy and freedom. Yes Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, but that is in reality it's secondary function or goal ~ truth be told it is one of the more effective social support and security groups in the Middle East... one only needs to look into it's social support programs, schools, hospitals, pension funds, and children/elderly care network to see it's overall impact on Lebanese culture.
Now if one had bothered to read any of the intelligence briefings or primers (CIA, JANES, CSIS) on Hezbollah's place in Lebanon over the past 4 years, one might have been struck by the diminishing power of the militant wing of Hezbollah, and the increasing power of the social/political factions. So one can also assume that the militant-wing's power is supreme now as many Lebanese look to them (and not the government) for a way to strike back at the Israeli's bombing them... in short Israel has changed the direction that Hezbollah, and perhaps Lebanese society as a whole, creating a reborn and re-energized terrorist group bent on the destruction of Israel.
Now as for comparisons to 9/11 and the laughable scenarios tossed forth in an effort to weaken my observations... how very Republican of y'all, invoking 9/11 to counter any arguement
However if you want me to throw back a counter example, why not look at the IRA and Britian's response to them? When Lord Mountbatten was assassinated or when a platoon of Paras were ambushed did Britain turns around and bomb the living-sh-t out of Ireland? No. Instead the went after the only the terrorists... did the IRA have political seats in Ireland? Yep (heck they had one seat in the British Parliament). Did that mean that Ireland was a terrorist state, or supporter of terrorism? No. Most of the funding for the IRA came from criminal acts and sponsors abroad. Why didn't Britain go after the IRA cells and support in Ireland with massive military might? Because they didn't want to empower their enemies, nor did they want to create a plethora of eager new recruits, nor did they want to create another generation outraged by British "atrocities"... in short the British looked at the big picture and the long term goal of what they wanted to accomplish ~ something perhaps Israel could have learned from.
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