Media bias

your right like, if they wrote the information on the girl on pages three's tits i would probaly know, but as it goes i don't know either.

You're correct, I should have been clearer - assuming he was firing out in to the street though?

Clearly the correct course of action is to disable him, whilst leaving the hostages alive.

My point was the the force used by the israelis is grossly disproportionate. When they killed those 50 odd people the other day, military analysts are unanimous that the weapon used was far larger than that required to disable a launcher.

And if you watch the israelis own videos of the rocket launches, you can clearly see they were being launched from behind the building anyway, no iside it.

There was no justification for the murder of those civilians - the isaraelis should stop misuing the term 'surgical' to describe their offensive as it is clearly not appropriate.

You're not in Israel or Lebanon. How do you know which is getting even/accurate/fair coverage?

I commented on the American media bias that I do have versus what appears to be a more balanced BBC online coverage?

Andy how else do you propose they weed out Hizbullah targets? Hizbullah use UN and civilian shields - why are you not writing 5 page posts criticizing their actions?

Isnt it not likely that the highest body counts gain the most media coverage?

Fair enough hizbullah launched 200 rockets today and i think they killed one person. No one on the fence remembers this joe. When Israel kill (accidentally or not) scores of lebanese (innocnet or not) it sticks in peoples heads.

I read Haaretz, the Jerusalem Post, Ynet, etc.

I have friends in haifa and the northern regions.

I'd think I have access to a more rounded information base than yourself.

Not at all, how many Afghans have fallen and how much media coverage has this recieved?

A media tends to follow the cause the majority sympathize with... This is why America has an Israeli bias and the UK has an anti-Zionist stance.

Yes well the Israeli press will be undisputably impartial. As will your friends in Haifa.

Why do you assume your information base is more rounded than mine? I speak to people in Beirut almost daily (or as close to daily as possible).

In this campaign, the Israelis have been responsilbe for far more civilian deaths than Hezbollah.

Read my earlier posts: I've said they're terrorists (which would explain why they're not 'playing fair', you seem so surprised), and I've said they need to be disarmed (by an international force), and the Lebanese government empowered to be the sole provider of defence for the country.

How do they weed them out? If they can't destroy launchers without massacring civilians, in short they shouldn't. You'll never destroy all the launchers - you should be targetting the stock piles of the rockets they fire, and awaiting a ground force sufficient to do the task, without the same scale of civilian death.

Whatever they're doing now clearly isn't working, or else the number of rocket attacks would be decreasing, not increasing. Besides, it sounds like the Americans will have ordered you to stop by the end of the week, so this huge offensive looks a bit like a desperate move to try to have something to show for the whle misguided campaign.

Im sorry but from my pov the coverage is fair.

BBC have coverage from both sides of the border, have input from both hizbullah and israeli informants and footage on the ground from both scenes of fighting.

Out of intrest have you watched any israeli coverage of the conflcit?? From a neutral could you class this as bias?

Israeli coverage is on the whole far fom neutral...

If you want to work out whether the BBC is neutral or not count the stories that paint Israel in a negative light, then count the stories that paint Hizbullah in a negative light.

How the fuck are Hezbollah not responsible? Hizbullah choose to use human shields - Israel have no other alternative.

Andy you live in a fantasy world, why would an international force succeed? The rockets would still rain down on Northern Israel, the only difference being Israel would be relying on an inferior military force to protect it citizens.

What?!?!?

Why the fuck would ANY nation allow a militia to fire over 200 rockets into their cities every day?

300 dead militants is a success in my eyes.

fair point

Stories like the above are rare on the bbc.

good call... I hope I don't have to eat humble pie