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Escalation in the hezbollah media war

Arab commentators are now saying that it wasnt just children in the building that was bombed in Qana, but that they were handicapped children.

Oh, of course. I'm also sure they were handicapped children of lesbian double amputee mothers who were suffering from Adult Attention Deficit Disorder as well.

You would think that Hezbollah would care more for their children than to allow them to be exposed to harm by housing their dangerous and unstable missiles in a day care center.

UPDATE: Apparently further explanation is necessary, because some people don’t understand what it was that is I was trying to say, and have taken offense.

Do I think that the death of children is funny? Nope.

Do I think that double amputee lesbians who have kids that go on to die in explosions are funny? Nope.

I didn’t write it to be funny, I wrote it to illustrate a point about what the “Hezbollah spokesman” was saying in regards to the relative value of human life, set to a hierarchical standard of victimhood. (Hezbollah spokesman? There’s a job that’s right up there with Satan’s proctologist…).

So to better illustrate my point, let’s step out of the case at hand and use a hypothetical case to help diffuse the raw emotions of what is being discussed.

Let’s say a man is struck by a truck and killed, while crossing a large inner city intersection.

If I were an average everyday person, I would just say;

“ A man was killed by a truck”.

However, if I were another certain type of person, let’s say a professional writer, I would go through great pains to establish the level of the tragedy by ascribing value to the person beyond that of being just “a man”. For example, Lets say the man in the accident was also a writer! “A man” dying from a traffic accident may be considered unfortunate for this person, but if he were also a writer? Well, that would be a tragedy! In this person’s worldview, humans are not all at the same level; some people are better than other people.

So this person would take pains to tell to us:

“A writer was killed by a truck”.

To this person, it’s not just that “a man” who died, but it was “a writer” who died.

It’s not just an accident that has occurred, it’s a tragedy! A writer! Don’t you understand!

This type of person is implying by their choice in language that “just a man” would somehow be less of a loss than “a writer”. This type of person says one is worth more than the other.

You can almost imagine an alternate case where this sort of person would say;

“ A man was killed by a truck. Luckily, he wasn’t a writer”.

And now we can go back to the case of the choice of language by the “Hezbollah spokesman”.

It isn’t enough that children were killed, but that they were “handicapped” children. Implying (by my skeptical logic) that “normal” children would be less of a tragedy than that presented by the image of handicapped children being killed. For me in my little world, kids are kids; you don’t need to segregate them into categories, unless…

And here’s were I get myself into trouble because having a sister who is also handicapped, I think I know something of the logistics of handicapped children.

In a nutshell, they are hard to get around. You tell me you’ve got a building in war zone with 60 handicapped children, I’m looking for 120 adults in very close proximity to help keep them together, and I don’t think I need to point out that 60 kids in close proximity with solid rocket fuel and explosive warheads is a really bad idea, but apparently not because Hezbollah thinks its just “a-ok”. When someone takes a situation like this and slips in a little fact like “ and all 60 of them were handicapped too!” I find myself a being a bit of a skeptic on the situation, I find myself asking “all of them were handicapped? or just some of them”? If its only some of them, then how many? And why mention it at all?

However, lets entertain the thought, (radical though it may seem to some people who are always more than willing to assign heroic status to decidedly unheroic people, like Hezbollah and virtually every other terrorist organization) that the “Hezbollah Spokesman” was just “guilding the lilly” as it were, in regards to the story of the bombing.

Why? Isn’t the death of 60 children enough of a tragedy to gather my emotions and put forth my sympathy? Well, apparently to some people, its not. This man decided that he had to assign more value as victims to these children to make me feel sorry for them as if I wouldn’t feel sorry for them if they were ”just children”. Who could not feel sorry for handicapped children? What kind of uncaring snot would not care for the lives of handicapped children? Even the “hated Zionist enemy” would feel sorry for handicapped children, wouldn’t they?

You can almost see the page of the Hezbollah Media Manual:

Snip…

Page 5:

All Children are Handicapped Children.
Alternate: Be sure to mention the following optional situations to generate sympathy:

A) Victims were attending a birthday party
B) Victims were attending an innocent family gathering and celebration.
C) Victims were attending a wedding.

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES MENTION THE KAYTUSHYA ROCKETS STORED IN THE BASEMENT OF BUILDING

End Snip…

So suddenly, it wasn’t just children in the story, but “handicapped children”, and the story just moved on from there. But for me, it was a big indication that someone didn’t feel the story was genuine enough, that it had to be “punched up a bit”. At that point my bullshit indicator went right off the scale.

You don’t have to “punch up the truth”, unless of course you wish to make the tragedy more than it really is and by doing that it then becomes “propaganda”. And that ladies and gentleman, is what I find revolting. Double amputee lesbians who’s children die in missile attacks have my complete and total sympathy. Craven rat bastards who wish to move the deaths of children into a totem for the “righteousness for their cause”, a cause that involves the killing of other people’s children as a regular, desired and accepted course of the day, can kiss my bubble gum pink ass!

You’d like another good example of this sort of rationalization of death you say? Well let’s try this on for size because it seems relevant to the case at hand.

A week ago, Hezbollah launched katushya missiles at Nazareth and they killed two children. Do you know what the Hezbollah leadership called the kids who were killed?

“Martyrs”

You see, the children were Arab Muslim children living inside Israel. The leader of Hezbollah apologized to the families for killing their children.

To me, children are children. But to some people, it’s more important that children belong to the right class of victimhood before sympathy can be emoted. Kill Jews in Nazareth? then hand out candy in celebration! Kill Muslims instead? say I’m sorry, loft the kids into “martyr” status and try again tomorrow.

Clear enough? Ok then, I thought so.

Posted @ July 30, 2006 09:54 AM | Current Affairs

Posted by: Kim Hartveld at July 30, 2006 10:40 AM

Posted by: _Jon at July 30, 2006 03:10 PM

Posted by: Max Muller at July 30, 2006 05:18 PM

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Posted by: _Jon at July 31, 2006 03:09 PM

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Posted by: TC at August 1, 2006 01:38 AM