Left I on the News

The press is reporting:

Israel likely misused American-made cluster bombs in civilian areas of Lebanon during the war against Hezbollah last summer, the State Department said Monday.

Spokesman Sean McCormack said a preliminary report has been sent to Congress on a U.S. investigation of the issue. He did not provide details of the investigation.

Today, McCormack held a press conference which covered this subject and more. Naturally, all the talk is about how Israel was justified in using cluster bombs because Hezbollah was using civilians as "human shields" (allegedly). Not once in any of the press coverage, nor in today's press conference, did this fact come up:

"90 percent of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict when we knew there would be a resolution, when we knew there would be an end," [according to UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland].

Not that anything is going to come of this "criticism" anyway, but at least the press could do a decent job of exposing the real issue here, which is that Israel's use of cluster bombs was a deliberate strategy to inflict harm on the civilian population long after they withdrew.

It might also be nice if there weren't out and out lies in the press coverage. Here's what we are told today:

The U.N. mine office said in a report that it had found hundreds of bomblets of the types made by the United States among unexploded ordnance recovered in nearly 250 locations in southern Lebanon.

"Hundreds"? That must be those same "hundreds" who show up at demonstrations when there are really tens of thousands. Because this is the truth of the matter (same link as above):

The UN Mine Action Coordination Center...identified "359 separate cluster bomb strike locations that are contaminated with as many as 100,000 unexploded bomblets."

Not "hundreds." "As many as 100,000."