Saturday, August 19, 2006

Does this really surprise anyone?

Israeli troops have raided a Hezb'Allah 'stronghold' in Lebanon, an act which has already been labeled as a 'flagrant violation' of the cease-fire.

Israel says that the raid was aimed at Syrian and Iranian arms shipments to Hezb'Allah, which are also forbidden by the cease-fire. If true, the cease-fire had already been broken (after what, a whole 5 days?) by, of course, Hezb'Allah. In the strictest reading of the laws of war, Israel (assuming they can prove that Hezb'Allah was indeed shipping arms) is now free to re-enter Lebanon and resume the fighting. That's the whole point of having cease-fire conditions, right?

Unfortunately, that won't happen because the rules that apply to the civilized powers of the earth are not expected to apply to barbarians like Hezb'Allah. They can re-arm, absorb foreign 'volunteers,' mobilize, and prepare for a new round of fighting, but Israel can't do anything about it without being damned in the eyes of the world.

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