Joe, I guess we’ll see whether Hagel has any staying power or influence. It’s sort of funny, in a sad way, that he’s staked out a position that was available to Democrats for years: touting a responsible foreign policy without the downside of being held responsible for enacting it.

Perhaps, if he changed his party label to “I,” since being a Republican that needs to in some fashion consistently support the President means you are part of the problem/atrocity, it would actually mean something.

I’m sympathetic to the “not care” hopes. Thus, the idea that “well they are mostly killing non-Americans, so that’s something” sentiment of some people. Childhood teaching respecting humanity and so forth ruined me, I guess.

“If anyone has examples (links) of similar propaganda from Israeli television, or British or French or German, please send it along ”

Having admonished his readers for their lack of historical reading, he might consult the canonical Israeli history that has been so deconstructed by the ‘New Historians’ in Israel as well as by people like Norman Finkelstein (such as his Image and Reality of the Palestine-Israel conflict), for such examples.

It is also interesting that he commends Michael Walzer’s, ‘Just and Unjust Wars’. Walzer was motivated to write this book following the US’s actions in Vietnam as well as his growing concern with Israel’s growing use of force. In fact, in his subsequent book ‘Arguing about War’ he addresses Israel’s over-reaction to the first Intifada, and the difference between acts of terrorism (which Yitzhak Rabin similarly recognised) and a popular movement for self determination. One might extend this to an uprising or resitance against an invading force, which is certainly what Lebanon has now become if opinion polls can be trusted. In which case- are all Lebananese now terrorists, as this suits a more and more careless (perhaps even criminal) indescrimate force by Israel ? Walzer’s argument seems to suggest otherwise, and Col Bob’s first example of propoganda might just be he willingness of some in the Western media (himself included so it seems) to suggest otherwise- afterall, it all comes down to “the number of casualties is not supposed to be measured, the means and ends are” doesn’t it.

Still, he seems more concerned with the fact that a reporter is ignorant of the fact the Katushka rockets cannot be ‘shot down’ and so leave Israeli towns vunerable, and it the ‘ends’ justify the indescriminate bombing of civilian targets, then so be it. No worry that there is little reporting (in context) of the Israeli incursions across the ‘blue line’ the extra judicial killings of suspected Hizbullah leaders, no mention of the fact Israel refuse to give details of the landmines they laid during their occupation (one that took them onver 20 years to comply with a UN resolution to withdraw).In short, no context. Col Bob- propoganda can be as much by ommission as by commission- and to exclude Israeli press releases, official statements etc from the catagory of propoganda, is absurd in the extreme. Having just asked us to believe that Israel never intentionally targets civilians, he now commends us to ignore anything they say in support of this claim as an example of propoganda.

He also seems somewhat confused over the application of the Geneva convention as opposed to its drafting. No one is entitled to their own facts, and thankfully, neither is Col Bob, which is why such issues as war crimes are tied by a court, to consider whether such actions were unintentional, or were a deliberate policy. Like all matters legal, what may be written in black and white on a page, is still subject to legal interpretation.

Israel’s problem is its disproportionate use of lethal force. Granted, as he points out, war is an awful business and we should not be spared from seeing its consequences (which to be fair, he does not shy from), but there comes a point when the ordinary person just says ‘this is enough !’ and any further use of force turns someone from being sympathetic about self defence, to suspecting something more sinister. Such perceptions are not helped by Israeli military officials talking about ‘setting back Lebanon by 20 years’, of ‘cleansing’ and- as of today, claiming that an attack on Tel Aviv will result in the destruction in ALL Lebanese infrastructure. But of course, such official pronouncememnts aren’t ‘propoganda’, so don’t qualify. I would rather hope that this might be propoganda and not a threat, but given Israel’s recent actions, one can only conclude that the latter is the more likely. It seems Col Bob’s readership are not the only ones that might benefit from reading a little more widely, perhaps even of the very authors the writer commends to his audience.

Then:

Clarify, clarify, clarify.
Purge self, purge self, purge self.
Be reader’s host, servant, slave.
Put reader’s interest above your own.
Always, always, always.

And good luck to you.