Israel's war of attrition on the citizens of Lebanon

..And I should add, on the citizens of Gaza. Israel has every right to defend itself but in that defense should it wage war on innocent people because there MAY be hezbollah near them? Below is the strangest pic I've seen in a while. Children of Israel instructed for a photo-op to sign shells to be rained down on the children(?) of Lebanon.














There was a time when the US would or could be the go to mediator for a situation like this, but the days of dubya took care of any credibility we have as an honest broker. Not that we've ever been an actual honest broker when it comes to Israel and now I have no illusions about Bushco doing anything to help the people of Israel, Lebanon(or Gaza either for that matter) where there's no profit for Halliburton, etal. Juan Cole has some interesting quotes and pertinent information(as always).
Here's a bit:

"Israel has fought a lazy war, both morally lazy and militarily lazy. It is work to surveil enemy shipments. So, you just blow up the airport and the ports and roads and bridges, regardless of whether you have reason to believe that any of them is used by Hizbullah for their war effort. Just in case. It is a just in case war. You bomb Shiite villages intensively, just in case they have military significance to Hizbullah. Maybe they don't, and you've just blown up a civilian neighborhood and killed whole families. Where blowing up things has no immediate and legitimate military purpose and harms innocent civilians, it is a crime. It can be prosecuted, especially in Europe.Louise Arbour of the UN High Commission on Human Rights made this point Wednesday, according to the Daily Star story linked to above:"
' UN human rights chief Louise Arbour suggested Wednesday that the military operations being carried out in Lebanon, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories could be considered war crimes. The obligation to protect civilians during hostilities is entrenched in international law, "which defines war crimes and crimes against humanity," Arbour said in a statement. "The scale of the killings in the region, and their predictability, could engage the personal criminal responsibility of those involved, particularly those in a position of command and control," she added. '

--and
"Look into the abyss"

"And what of those who are raining bombs on Lebanon? Today a water-drilling truck in the Christian Achrafieh neighborhood, another truck transporting medicine, civilians dying everywhere. The targeting strategy errs on the side of overkill—the tactic of terror. But what does it yield? What does the Warsaw Ghetto tell us? Both Hezbollah and the Israeli leaders, despite the asymmetry of their power, assume this is a macho game about dignity, about facing down one’s enemy. Look in the mirror habibi. Look into the abyss."
-Patrick McGreevy from Beirut

And:

Israel's attacks on innocent civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza and Lebanon are a violation of U.S. law, specifically the U.S. Arms Export Control Act and the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act. The U.S. Arms Export Control Act restricts the use of U.S. weapons to legitimate self-defense and internal policing; U.S. weapons cannot be used to attack civilians in offensive operations. The U.S. Foreign Assistance Act prohibits U.S. aid of any kind to a country with a pattern of gross human rights violations.

Israel's attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza and Lebanon are
examples of collective punishment, which are prohibited under the Geneva Conventions.

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