My Current Events Post

I'm going to link to stuff...and try to give more than just a point to what I think is important about it...

Israel (stupid Salon site, by the way. They made me pay money (watch an ad) to see a three paragraph AP article. Thanks) is blowing up lots of stuff. So is Hezbollah.
I haven't seen reports with a total of civilian casualties in Lebanon, but from what I can find, it sits around 75-100 civilians, and slightly more confirmed militia deaths. And, probably some of the civilians were also Hezbollah, but we don't know because they don't wear uniforms (jerks, more on that later). One article I've seen puts the death total in Israel at 15, but that's old, and the sentance is misleading. (the first half says that there were 100 casualties in Lebanon, and 15 civilian deaths in Israel. The point is to make you REALIZE how disproportional Israel's reaction is...but when you think about it, casualties are also injuries, so we're not comparing like things...plus, the deaths in lebanon also include the militia's that Israel is fighting against, so it doesn't make sense to compare strictly civilian deaths in Israel. If we include military casualties, there were about 50 from the boat that Hezbollah (or Iran; also here) hit yesterday. Hopefully that adds a bit of perspective to the whole thing.)

On the whole, I think that Israel is doing a good job limiting casualties. I don't like to see anyone get hurt...but I also don't want Israel to have to deal with Iranian-supplied Hezbollah missle emplacements that can reach Tel-Aviv, and those missles are all over the south of Lebanon. I'm going to have to agree with Op-For that the Israeli's are prepping the terrain for a ground war. And I can't say I blame them...and I'm not sure that Lebanon does either. (What the Hell is wrong with Hezbollah? - Free Cedar, Lebanese blogger.)

The Diplomats are starting to intervene and do their job (not that they hadn't been trying before), but I'm not sure that anything short of a destruction of Hezbollah's capabilities will do anything productive.

Some good news in India, and some bad news. The peace talks between India and Pakistan need to continues, because we need that area of the world to be stable right now. There is just too much other activity at the moment. Also, Pakistan's president needs to start living up to his promises, or we need to stop giving him money. India should really like US at the moment because of the nuclear priviledges we gave them (or talked about giving them) a few months ago, so we could use them as a base against Afghanistan. I know this would suck, but it also sucks to use jerks like Musharef, and that's the same mistake we made the first time we were involved in Afghanistan. We need to do things right the first time, otherwise they come back and bite us in the backside.

North Korea is correct when they say that they aren't bound by this UN Security Council agreement...but that doesn't mean they aren't affected by it. The declaration says that no country can trade with NK and give them deadly weapons, essentially. That doesn't really say anything to NK. But it does show how much of a joke China thinks the Security Council is...they are true realists. (and kids, realize, they still haven't started a "war" ever in their communist history.)

The rest of the current events stuff belongs in a real post, so you've probably already read that stuff...