Disproportionate force

Ball bearings. Ball bearings aimed at civilians are disproportionate force:

The charred, dismembered bodies, and blood splattered against a stone wall, turned the stomachs of hardened emergency service workers.

“Even in this war I have not seen a sight like this,” said Eli Peretz, an ambulance driver. “The wounded people were all over the place. Part of them inside the cars, and others outside the cars.”

I’m sure, by the way, that the NY Times writer who wrote the story I linked to didn’t mean to sound as if he was condemning the victims for not getting to a bomb shelter, rather than Hezbollah for packing ball bearings into its missiles aimed at civilians. Nevertheless, that’s exactly how the article reads.

That is, the article’s spin is about how the residents of the community struck would have known to get into the bomb shelter, but the reservists waiting in a parking lot decided not to do so. The article mentions only once the fact that the missile was packed with ball bearings, and then makes no further reference to the fact that the ball bearings are intended to cause maximum human death and suffering. Had it not been for the fact that I know precisely why Hezbollah packed with ball bearings a missile intended to hit civilians, I, upon reading this article, would have passed over that detail without thought and merely tut-tutted about the victims’ own foolishness.

UPDATE:  The Chronicle runs a doom and gloom (if you support Israel) article about how Israel is not able to defeat Hezbollah, focusing on its six year arms and troop build-up since Israel’s withdrawal.  It’s not a bad article, but it fails to mention Hezbollah’s secret weapon:  Israel’s conscience.  If Israel, like Hezbollah, were a conscience-less military that had no compunction about targeting civilians, Israel probably could have destroyed Hezbollah in a week or two.  Israel’s problem, which is exactly the same as America’s problem in Iraq, is her moral inability to use appropriate military force against an enemy that entrenches itself among civilian populations.

Talking to Technorati: Israel, Disproportionate force, Ball bearings, Hezbollah, Hizbollah, Katyushas, Media bias