rhizome17 said:
Well Rice should know better... she would know that Hezbollah are not just some rogue outfit... that are fully integrated into the wider social mechanisms in much the same way as Hamas are... you can't just 'get rid' of them using bombs and bullets and the like... you have to give the people a reason to reject them... and killing innocent people isn't the way to do that.
"Condoleezza Rice has blamed Hezbollah for the war with Israel and said a ceasefire would be possible only if two kidnapped Israeli soldiers were freed."
Yes, makes the war sound all more reasonable. Over 400 civilians are dead, and "it could have all stopped" if the 2 soldiers were released.
Sounds what an excited blogger would say, not a head country official, however dumb this official is.
And in the meantime...
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Israel used cluster grenades on civilians
Tuesday 25 July 2006, 0:52 GMT
A US-based human rights group has accused Israel of using artillery-fired cluster grenades against a Lebanese village last week during its assault against Hezbollah.
Human Rights Watch said on Monday that it had taken photos of cluster grenades stored by Israeli artillery teams on the Israel-Lebanon border.
It also said that a cluster grenade attack on Wednesday killed one and wounded at least 12 civilians in the village of Blida.
"Cluster munitions are unacceptably inaccurate and unreliable weapons when used around civilians," Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch executive director, said in a statement.
"They should never be used in populated areas."
Violating a ban?
Human Rights Watch said it had photographed M483A1 artillery shells stored on the Israeli side of the border, which deliver 88 cluster sub-munitions per shell and have a failure rate of 14 per cent, often leaving behind dangerous unexploded shells.
It said it believed the use of cluster grenades in populated areas could violate a ban on indiscriminate attacks contained in international humanitarian law.
"Our research in Iraq and Kosovo shows that cluster munitions cannot be used in populated areas without huge loss of civilian life," Roth said.
"Israel must stop using cluster bombs in Lebanon at once."