Boston Globe: The time to cease fire

[Mass]

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2006/07/21/the_time_to_cease_fire/

The time to cease fire

July 21, 2006

WAR IS THE ultimate sire of unintended consequences. And there is no reason to believe that what has been true of past wars will not be true of the current Mideast war -- a conflict in which Iranian and Syrian missiles fired by the Lebanese Shi'ite militia Hezbollah are landing in Israeli towns while Israel's air force drops bombs not only on Hezbollah positions and weapons but on Lebanon's infrastructure and on the civilian population.


The sooner the bombs and rockets are stopped, the better for all concerned. There are now 500,000 displaced people in Lebanon. There are villages in the south, Christian as well as Shi'ite Muslim, where the populace is cowering in terror, not knowing how they will get milk for their infants and medications for the old and infirm. If Israel's political leaders believe they have anything to gain from continuing the army's campaign in Lebanon to reestablish Israel's degraded deterrence, they have lost track of the need to match the use of military force to the achievement of political aims

...



Rather than turning that population against Hezbollah, prolongation of the air war threatens to unite all of Lebanon's disparate communities in a shared indignation against the country that is killing so many civilians and smashing so much of the infrastructure built since the end of Lebanon's civil war. Although most of those communities might want Hezbollah to disarm in conformity with UN Security Council Resolution 1559, Lebanon's frail government -- which includes two Cabinet ministers from Hezbollah -- is incapable of forcing the Shi'ite militia to disarm. That government, elected last year after a peaceful uprising against Syria's domination of Lebanon, cannot risk provoking another Lebanese civil war by ordering its soldiers or police to take on Hezbollah's fighters.

[ixion]

1. Iran and Syrian missles fired by Hezbollah at Israel while Israel drops US

made bombs on Hezbollah and Lebanon.

The omission is interesting there, IMO.

[malaise]

2. And it's missing everywhere in

MSM. People are not stupid though. People know the truth.

[Mass]

3. Ok - I guess they should have called for continuing the carnage.

They are making the point that is actually the most important right now: STOP THE CARNAGE.

[malaise]

4. I support their call for a cease fire

but since they found it necessary to say where Hezbollah was supposedly getting its weapons, the least they should have done is include the fact that every bomb destroying Lebanon was made in the US.

[Mass]

5. This is an editorial in the BG. What is more important: that they

convince a large part of the population that these attacks are hurting Lebanon, but also Israe l, or that they make the point you quote, that most of the BG readers know anyway.

Actually, considering who is going to read this editorial, it is very well written and shows that the BG understands whom its readership is and is trying to be effective.

[malaise]

6. Then they should do so in a fair and

balanced way and not imply by omission that the US has no interest in the fight. They might also have added that the US Ambassador rejected the UNs call for a cease fire.

[ixion]

7. exactly... I am ALL FOR an IMMEDIATE CEASE FIRE

I just think it's poor journalism to write an imbalanced sentence like that, and felt it ought to be pointed out, since it was such an obvious attempt at propaganda by omission.