DesperatelyObvious.com

Tuesday, the New York Times reported Lebanon civilians suffered a terrorist attack from internal forces. They report that the attack “was the first such attack — directed at ordinary civilians, not public figures — since the end of Lebanon’s 15-year civil war.”

The Times’ emphasis on this attack being the first in years rewrites the record of recent events from last summer when Israel directly attacked hundreds of civilians. These attacks include the types of crimes that the Times reported on August 3, 2006:

On a mountain road just south of here, a convoy of Lebanese villagers was fleeing north shortly after the war began. They had heard Israeli soldiers telling them to evacuate. Suddenly, a rocket struck a pickup truck full of people. Twenty-one people were killed, more than half of them children.

The Times goes on to explain that “Israel said it believed the convoy was transporting rockets.” Apparently Israel’s admission of a belief is sufficient evidence for these journalists as the title of the article, “Civilians Lose As Fighters Slip Into Fog of War,” reveals which party the Times thinks is really to blame.

According to the same report, Israel’s attacks were not limited to rural villages: “In Beirut…the scale of destruction in the southern Shiite suburbs is breathtaking.” In the suburbs of Beirut, the United Nations estimated that at least 2,500 housing units were destroyed and twice as many damaged. The damage against Beirut and the rest of the country is too extensive to discuss here, but several human rights organizations have begun to assess the destruction.

To say that the recent attacks in Beirut were the first directed against civilians in 15 years is a brazen lie that defies countless pages of evidence documented by human rights organizations over the past year. Including the fact that at least a third of the civilians Israel killed in Lebanon last summer, were caused by bombs dropped in areas where there was no evidence of Hezbollah forces.

The New York Times and the rest of the corporate media refuses to see attacks carried out by the United States and our allies as acts of terrorism. The Times understands that America and Israel may slip up, and sometimes there is collateral damage, but viewing our attacks in the same light as those we label terrorists is simply unthinkable. Although the thought is never seriously entertained, they quickly dismiss any notion of such an idea in favor of repeating rhetoric that explains the true intentions of our attacks.

Hitler, as well as virtually every other state criminal, professed nothing but good intentions as he carried out the most hideous crimes in history. Americans, who already recognize that politics is a game played between elites in their own interests, will do well to look past the meaningless rhetoric of our leaders and take an honest look at their actions.