A proportional response?
In my last post I mentioned, in passing, that Israel had invaded Lebanon. Of course in the Orwellian doublespeak that is the dialogue of modern warfare it was not called an invasion - euphemisms like "conflict", and "proportional response" were bandied about - even when the Israelis blew up a UN observation post that had been there for eighteen years - not months, years. Eighteen years!The term that most offended me was "proportional response". The response was not proportional, it was paranoid, reactionary and totally out of proportion, as the coffin counter shows.
However, the claims that the Israelis are not targeting civillians surprises me to. I have seen footage of Israeli asassins destroying one single apartment in an apartment block in order to eliminate a military target without taking out any civillians. At that time the world was caught-up on the legalities of Israeli military helicopters going into Palestine (or Jordan, depending on your politics) and destroying said single apartment. Whatever the legalities, it proved, beyond doubt, the surgical precision that Israeli agents are able to achieve when they want to. Which is why the scenes of entire streets blown to pieces makes me think that the Israelis wanted that to happen. If a group that can destroy individual cars on the road, and individual rooms in buildings suddenly destroys a neighbourhood, it is disingenuous for that group to expect us to believe them when they say that it was unintentional.
If this is how Israel responds to eighty casualties, I would hate to see how it responds to its road toll.
posted by Damian @ 12:43 pm
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