More on the Israeli-Lebanese conflict...

Many, many sources for this week's cartoon... check out:

• An Amnesty International report summarizing the war crimes committed or possibly being committed by both sides in the current Israeli-Lebanese conflict


• An article in Salon by Mitch Prothero, who claims that it is a "myth" that Hezbollah "hides among civilians," and says that Hezbollah actually avoids civilians for fear of betrayal (a claim that now seems to be wrong or outdated given the CNN footage of rockets being fired from behind an apartment complex -- which, of course, should not be an excuse for Israel to turn that building into rubble and kill everyone inside)


• Gideon Levy on the childish underlying motivations for this bloody war, such as rectifying "humiliation" and "restoring lost dignity"


• An extraordinary post by Juan Cole, who says that Israel's war on Lebanon has been planned for at least a year, with Rumsfeld's input, and that powerpoint presentations were being shown to right-wing DC think-tanks last year detailing a "Three Week War" that would happen during the summer (so as to minimize the possibility of protest demonstrations on university campuses in the U.S. and Europe)


• A speech given by Zbigniew Brzezinski, where he equates the Israelis' actions in this conflict to the "killing of hostages"


• Robert Parry on Israel's proud use of disproportionate force (quoting their ambassador to the U.N., who, when asked if Israel was overreacting, replied, "You're damn right we are")


• Joe Conason, Glenn Greenwald, and Michael Lerner on the "bloodthirsty" rhetoric used by neocon war advocates like William Kristol and Newt Gingrich, who've seized on these events to eagerly push for "World War III: War of Civilizations" (partly as a means of providing ex post facto justification for the failed war in Iraq)


• Robert Parry again on the possibility that the conflict will put the nuclear option back on the table with regards to a pre-emptive attack on Iran


• Frank Rich on the P.R. challenges that the conflict poses for the Bush administration, which, of course, has always been their sole concern


• An older Robert Parry article on Condi's propensity for justifying war crimes in the pursuit of grand, sweeping neocon foreign policy objectives


• Martin van Creveld on the Bush administration's Clausewitzian war philosophy