Left I on the News

Those 70 Israeli violations of the ceasefire? Sure sounds to me like that must be a severe undercount:

A group of local men were unloading bags of donated food from a truck here Tuesday morning when the tok-tok-tok of heavy machine-gun fire rang out.

Men shouted; children screamed and ran. Then, as it became clear the firing was just the Israeli tanks again up on the hillside above town, they went back to their routines.

The shooting -- and occasional mortar fire -- goes on regularly around this village, a Hezbollah stronghold near the border.

To local people, it is sheer provocation, and a flagrant breach of the cease-fire that ended the fighting on Aug. 14.

To the Israelis, it is legitimate self-defense. Aita al Shaab “still has many Hezbollah fighters in it,” said Miri Eisin, an Israeli government spokeswoman. “They don’t wear uniforms and are wary about showing their weapons, and we use all means to differentiate between those with weapons and those without.”

So what is clear from this, as it has been from the start, is that Israel operates under the Bush doctrine - attacking and killing someone who might sometime in the future possibly do you harm qualifies as "legitimate self-defense." The Bush doctrine - the legacy of the man who says that Jesus is his favorite philosopher. Can someone who has risen from the dead still roll over in his grave?

The Israelis also seem to have studying in the Bush logic class:

The Israelis do not believe there is a cease-fire to violate. “We are at a cessation of hostilities in Lebanon, not a cease-fire,” [an Israeli government spokeswoman] said.

Huh?

Incidentally, remember that "kidnapping" incident that the Israelis used to start this assault? Real kidnapping, which involves taking civilians and not soldiers, is still going on on a routine basis:

Perhaps no one has witnessed the confusion of south Lebanon more vividly than Muhammad al-Hussein, a 32-year-old farmer from the village of Qantara.

Last week he and his brother were driving to a neighboring village to buy parts for a truck. They knew the Israelis had been operating a checkpoint in the area, but were told they had withdrawn and that the road -- an essential link to other towns -- was safe.

Instead, they found themselves passing a group of Israeli soldiers, who stopped them, Mr. Hussein recalled. The soldiers handcuffed and blindfolded the two brothers, and drove them to Israel.

For the next four days, shackled hand and foot, Mr. Hussein was interrogated about his family and village, he said. He was released Monday after United Nations and Lebanese Army officials lodged complaints with Israel.