pseudo-civilians

Submitted by Andy B. (United States), Aug 16, 2006 at 14:02

This is truly a new kind of warfare in Lebanon.

In the classic guerilla warfare style of Vietnam, the VietCong wore uniforms and camped in the woods, often sneaking into villages at night. Some villages supported them, some did not. Ambushes, tunnels, mines and booby traps were their standard techniques.

While Hezbollah does all this, too- the thing that really distinguishes them from old-style guerilla warfare is that their strategy is based upon the human shields concept. There is no attempt to physically separate guerillas from civilians, or wear uniforms. The entire goal is to utilize the all-too-willing mainstream media to boost the "civilian" casualty count as high as possible.

Shi'ite villagers boast to the media 'We are all Hezbollah". What reason is there to doubt them if they are storing missiles in their basements?

The bottom line is that casualty counts contain some mix of legitimate civilians, "pseudo-civilians" and actual trigger-pulling guerillas, but there is no way of determining what the true count of civilian dead actually is.

The whole conflict becomes a propaganda sucker-game that is rigged in advance against Israel.

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