First Iraq, now Lebanon

..US media, especially in the case of Fallujah, referred to Iraqi cities where fighting against occupation troops had erupted as "strongholds". The most popular definition for this term alludes to a militarised area akin to a fortress, populated by military or militia-affiliated personnel. The civilian component is therefore removed from the collective psyche. By performing such a sleight of hand definitions, Fallujah, once home to 400,000 Iraqi men, women and children, was then considered a legitimate target -- an area upon which open warfare and the many horrors thereof was permitted. This, too, is the semantic strategy for qualifying the destruction of entire neighbourhoods in Beirut and all outlying villages and towns in South Lebanon. Villages dotting the Lebanese side of the border with Israel are now referred to as strongholds. The influx of such reasoning worked so well in Iraq (civilians continue to die by the busload in the war-ravaged country due to sectarian militia warfare and US military action) that it is now being applied in identical fashion to erase civilian considerations civilised countries must apply to areas of conflict...

continua / continued