Cluster Bombs and Civilian Areas

Ok I'm confused. Seems to be an ongoing theme when I read the papers.

"We are finding many cluster bombs in the rubble -- they just blend in," he noted. One type commonly being found, he said, is shaped like a small green ball, larger than a golf ball and smaller than a tennis ball.

Clarke said the State Department was investigating whether Israel had violated U.S. guidelines for American-made cluster munitions that ban their use in civilian areas.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are also looking into the use of cluster munitions, he said. In a report released this week, Amnesty International said it had found huge craters in roads linking southern villages, attributing them to Israeli aerial bombardment and artillery fire.

Civilian areas? What is a civilian area during a war? Some place a civilian will be after the conflict? I don't understand how Israel could agree to that in the first place considering that vast majority of the areas in and around their country would fall under this vague definition.

Then there is the knee jerkers of the Human Rights groups and what a surprise, they're railing against the use of cluster bombs. Well guess what? Munitions in war aren't 100% effective or accurate. Some munitions will fail and leave risks on the field of battle. If the enemy chooses to fight from "civilian areas" then the collateral damage of the failed munitions should be expected.

I'm fascinated by human rights groups and their understanding of war. What other group expects, nae, demands that there be no collateral damages in battles where one combatant intentionally hides among non-combatants? Then they blame the defender for the casualties. Must be nice to live in their world.

Then you really get the point of the WaPo article.

But they really wanted to play again. Hassan unearthed a ball covered in dust and asked Sikna to throw it his way. It exploded between them. Hassan's intestines spilled out, splattering blood.

"I started screaming," Hassan recalled. "The bomb threw me two or three meters away. My legs, my clothes were soaked in blood."

and

"We are still afraid," she added. "The Israelis are still there, and the children cannot play there anymore."

Now you tell me why they went to this detail to tell this story. What was the end result? I'll tell you, the vilification of Israel. Note that no where in the article does the writer add any perspective of why the cluster bombs were used in these areas. All you get here is that Israel has intentionally poised extreme hazards on the Lebanese children.

Hezbollah is mentioned twice in the article, and once is a juxaposition of their deaths with the deaths of civilians.

Read the article for yourself, and tell me that this is a responsible and accurate piece of journalism.