Monday, November 29, 2010
Wikileaks and the Hezbollah war: Ambulances as ammunition trucks
Longstanding blog readers will remember the controversy that erupted during the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah over alleged war crimes by the combatants (my post on the subject here), including charges, abetted by the media and Human Rights Watch, that Israel had targeted ambulances. While various analysts, including one brilliant blogger, convincingly showed that at least some of these accusations against Israel were fraudulent and founded on manufactured evidence, Human Rights Watch has continued to assert that Israel's attacks on ambulances were criminal (see pages 5, 37, 39, and 43, among others).
Today, courtesy Wikileaks and French wire service AFP, we learn that Iran and Hezbollah were indeed using ambulances to smuggle munitions during that very war.
Iran used Red Crescent ambulances to smuggle weapons and agents into Lebanon during Hezbollah's 2006 war with Israel, a leaked US diplomatic cable showed on Monday.
The 2008 classified cable which originated in Dubai quotes an Iranian source as saying the Iranian Red Crescent was used as a cover by members of the elite Revolutionary Guard to enter Lebanon during the conflict.
We await a retraction from Human Rights Watch with bated breath.
5 Comments:
By 
RYSpeed, at
Mon Nov 29, 06:33:00 PM:
Back during the Israeli Lebanon incursion when the general mayhem and Israeli attack was inflicting damage in all quarters most Americans were indifferent to almost every Israeli inflicted atrocity. The vocal minorities that opposed the Israeli unilateral action were usually from Urban centers and did not resonate with the majority who still support Israel whatever they do so long as they do it over there.
By 
, at
Mon Nov 29, 09:42:00 PM:
Okay, is it me, or does it seem to happen daily - some facts, revelation, occurrence, etc., reveals the Democratic Partisans were WRONG all along?
How about the reality this Democratic Partisan Administration is pushing Missile Defense now?
Irony? Hypocrisy? What do you call it?
Now these same anti-Israeli folks, the same mindset that is so lost, stuck on seeing Israel and the USA as the monsters of the World, are revealed again to be wrong again.
So Human Rights Watch was mistaken? What a shock.
Still, seeing these Wiki Leaks, learning how the entire Region was so concerned with Iran gaining NUKE Power, why did Hillary and the Obama Administration focus so much on Israel building on it's own soil? What were they thinking? How could they possibly be so lost on such a simple priority?
"Smart Power" is not only a failure, it is a joke.
By Don Cox, at
Tue Nov 30, 04:02:00 AM:
Smart Power would be a good idea if the people exercising it were smart.
The big "secret" revealed by these leaks is the incompetence of the US government, especially the State Department.
By joated, at
Tue Nov 30, 10:13:00 AM:
"We await a retraction from Human Rights Watch with bated breath."
Just so long as you're not holding your breath. That could be fatal.
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Tue Nov 30, 09:33:00 PM:
RYSpeed - it's become rather a game. Someone defends Israel, even partially or timidly, on any point whatsoever. The criticism arises that "Yeah, well you bastards defend Israel no matter what it does."
Do you guys have any other arguments? Or just that one, that people don't agree with you because they are bigots who reflexively support Israel?
Maybe it sounds really convincing when you say it to each other, or declaim it in a mirror or something. But are you really unable to see that even if Israel were uniquely and horribly culpable in the ME, that line of reasoning isn't going to work? That it is not, in fact, an argument of any sort?
