"The right to life cannot be taken by another man.": There is the matter of capital punishment in Iran and the US, when life can be legally taken. Most believe in taking life in for purposes of self-defence. For the United States, self-defence includes taking pre-emptive action to rid Iraq of WMDs.

"Aljazeera ... freedom of the press without checks and balances.": I looked at the Aljazerra website and failed to find the bias referred to. I did find a code of ethics (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/07256105-B2FC-439A-B255-D830BB238EA1.htm) which, being a "check and balance" shows the statement is incorrect.

"Israel, used a conventional military force ... to find and kill people lobbing unguided rockets.": No. Israel was attempting to free two kidnapped soldiers.

"[Hezbollah lobbed] unguided rockets into [Israeli] civilian population ... a kind of asymmetric warfare of the most heinous sort." Indeed! Millions were killed in World War II. The military value was dubious and yet powers such as the United States continued the practice in South East Asia and Iraq. Strategic civilan bombing is heinous and useless whether the target be Birmingham, Beruit, Haifa or Hanoi.

"No nation, in the history of man, ever went to such great lengths in war to warn innocent civilians." Really? Consider this: "TO THE JAPANESE PEOPLE: America asks that you take immediate heed of what we say on this leaflet. We are in possession of the most destructive explosive ever devised by man .... EVACUATE YOUR CITIES."

"who is defying the United Nations while he does nuclear research[?]": North Korea and Iran. Additionally, it is also the US and Israel who should comply with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The American veto on the Security Council is very useful. Why does the author believe that Iran is not subject to the MAD paradigm?

I strongly believe in Western values, so it is shocking when leading nations depart from them, whether it is capital punishment, invasion and occupation, developing nuclear weapons, detention without trial OR using a UN veto to block international concern. It is our departures from our own values which are exploited and/or copied by terrorists.

There were three (or four) key objectives of the war four Israel:

--Elimination of Hezbollah’s rockets.
--Disruption or annihilation of Hezbollah.
--Return of captured Israeli soldiers.

An Israel expert named Boaz Ganor told me the four goals were:

(1) Destroy Hezbollah's rocket forces.
(2) Dismantle Hezbollah.
(3) Cut the physical connection between Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran (via Syria).
(4) Rescue the Israeli soldiers held by Hezbollah.

See: http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20060731-085006-8134r.htm

Al-Manar (translated: "The Beacon," the name of Hezbollah TV), al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya TV have to be watched and evaluated before they can be understood. A sign that says "no smoking" is not the same as an area where no one smokes.....

The writer's other criticisms escape me now but all readers are certainly wise to doubt every word of everything they read.

John E. Carey
http://peace-and-freedom.blogspot.com/

"The military value was dubious and yet powers such as the United States continued the practice in South East Asia and Iraq."

The United States generally uses precision guided missiles on militarily significant targets. Not unguided rockets on civilian population centers.

But don't take it from me (who commanded a guided missile cruiser): we recommend you surf the web and learn more before you form such unguided opinions.

John E. Carey

John E Carey, imbecile and spin merchant extraordinary.
Japan - nice, guided atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Vietnam - nice, presicion agent orange and napalm, cluster bombs and daisy cutters. 3 million dead. Fast forward to

Afghanistan 2001. Bagram airbase tortures and deaths, Gitmo Bay outside all laws.

Nice precision daisy cutters and cluster bombs that looked like food parcels and linger still. Nice guided depleted uranium that poisons the food and water for eons to come.

Fast forward to Iraq - nice new Mark 77 napalm that vaporises people so they can't run down the road like they did in Vietnam.

Cluster bombs, phosphorous bombs, bunker busters, depleted uranium by the thousands of tonnes, Abu Ghraib, Haditha, Stephen Green's raping and killing gang, looting and mass destruction of everything.

Now we have Israel planning the same thing on innocent civilians in Lebanon while the civilised in the west sit back and watch after the US and UK approved the whole thing.

The school of the Americas, now Whisc, trains the worst of the worst South American terrorists and has done since WW11 and that is well documented through history.

John E Carey does not belong to any "western values" that I want any part of. In fact John E, you and your ilk totally disgust me and always have.

Lebanon has been blown to pieces by the terrorists in Israel and there is no denying that. The Hezbollah you whine about are just Lebanese people defending their homeland against 4 or 5 invasions by Israel. They are not terrorists with their little mickey mouse rockets and the fact that it took some 3,000 of them to actually hit 40 people, 12 of them soldiers, shows how effective they were.

Israel on the other hand was blowing up passengers leaving their homes, blowing up their homes and lying to disguise the fact. The Hezbollah set up the rocket launchers on "hillsides" according to every single witness.

Handcuffed by Western values, surely this is a spoof, a stalking horse designed to shift the battle to ground of ones choice purity!
Fist the definition of terrorists designed to exclude most of the actions of the west is at best self serving.
The West being the dominant culture at present choices to force others to conform to its needs, particularly markets with scant regard for even so called Western Values, (they are universal). There was of course no terrorism involved in American or British hegemony Philippines, India Guatemala, Nicaragua, Colombia and many more?
Abiding by treaties. Well the best researched I have seen would be America and Nicaragua though perhaps Australia’s withdrawal from Laws of the seas could be cited amongst many. International law and the UN are used as and when useful to the sides desires. Assassination is common to most cultures including Israel and America but of course such is doing God’s will or something anyway it is okay.
Hypocrisy is the major attribute of civics.
A final point the indiscriminate lobbing may relate more to their being without guidance system unlike the American provided weapons and since Israeli call up troops are indeed amongst civilians as is much of the military infrastructure of Israel it would perhaps be hard to target the military. The argument Israel uses.
Wipe Israel of the map. A colonial concoction assuaging guilt of the Holocaust and rampaging Zionism which has proceeded as though they are indeed the chosen rightfully occupying not just the Colonial allocation but better land, water and access as well leaving a Bantu type social structure. There is even a view amongst some Israeli that this might be correct and might is wrong. That maybe UN resolutions should be enforced that maybe dialogue is needed.
Naturally in Australia thanks to our terror laws, Victoriana with its nosegay, can’t even address reality. Yes killing civilians is wrong why then do we all do it?

That is the most pathetic piece of propaganda I have ever read, completly oversimplified and nothing in it even resembling journalism-the dumbing down of America is a terrible phenomenon, but they are a resourceful passionate people and there country will be great once again, hopefully in my life time.