A war by any other name…

14 July 2006, 2227 EDT

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Hizbollah’s chief pledged open war on Israel on Friday after it bombed his home, saying “look at it burn” when an Israeli warship that had earlier rocketed Lebanon was attacked and set ablaze.

“You wanted open war. We are going to (wage) open war,” Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a telephone message broadcast live on Hizbollah television after his house was hit as Israel ramped up the assault it launched after Hizbollah fighters seized two Israeli soldiers and killed eight.

This is what war looks like.




I heard a news reporter yesterday describe how camera crews had decided not to release footage of a nine-month old girl dismembered by an Israeli bomb: “too graphic.”

Rockets pour into Israel.

Certainly puts Yossi Klein Halevi’s article or Glenn Reynold’s “instapunditry” in perspective….

As academics and virtual commentators, I think all of us tend to distance ourselves from the reality of war. Let’s please remember that real costs of violence, whatever our particular slant may be.

(Photos from the AP, Reuters, and AFP.)

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