I guess we all saw this post coming...

The above cartoon was published last week in Harper's Magazine and on the Harper's website. I'm a firm believer in the old adage that a picture is worth 1,000 words, but every now and then a one-panel political cartoon can be worth thousands of years worth of commentary. Before I go on, I want to say that this isn't an attack on Israel, a defense of Lebanon or grandstanding for one side of complicated political grievances that have been raging even before history books were written.

I'm not going to convince you to accept my opinions on the Israeli government or it's involvement in certainly military campaigns throughout the region. I'm CERTAINLY not going to defend the actions of Hezbollah or any other organization that's primary method of message disbursement requires explosives and civilian casualties. This is none of those things, but rather an indictment on war and the media in modern society.

The sterilized images of warfare, be they from Iraq, Afghanistan or now Lebanon, that pour across our television screens night after night tell not of what really happens on the ground in this type of battle... they tell a different story. Cookie-cutter shots of a wailing ambulance, a soldier firing at a target that we never see and Anderson Cooper in a flak jacket are supposed to represent what the fighting on the ground actually is. These journalists risk their lives to bring us the story from the front lines, but then edit the front lines right out of the story. Honestly, is there anything about the broadcast that is no doubt on CNN as we speak that couldn't have been done from a soundstage in Atlanta? If it's so important to send these men and women into these hot-zones, then shouldn't it be equally important to broadcast pictures of what's really going on? Pictures like this...

That's a much better representation of what the Israeli assault on Lebanon looks like. Imagine now, just for a second, that you're looking at an image of your city. Imagine that your home, your business or your family was sitting in the exact spot that is now a smoldering hole in the ground. You didn't ask for this, you aren't in control of your government and you most certainly aren't in control of those individuals that kidnapped Israeli soldiers and re-ignited this entire mess. So why are you being destroyed?

Those are perfectly normal questions, and above all they're the kind of questions that any sane person would or should ask him or herself while looking at that kind of destruction. So, with enlightenment only an image away, why does the world media choose to show only sugarcoated images of warfare in the Middle East? Are they afraid of offending us? Maybe they don't want to scare us or give the children nightmares. Or could it be that it's much easier to keep us watching the television when we aren't confronted with any real issues or any real fears... just empty threats of gloom and doom.

However, the bigger question at hand here is one of war in general. I'll be the first to admit that groups like Hezbollah have roundly proven that they're not exactly susceptible to influence at the negotiation table. Throughout history ALL terrorist organizations have proven that very statement time and time again. So, how has it worked in the past? We've managed to calm tensions between the UK and the IRA, President Carter brought peace to the Egyptians and Israelis and the Ku Klux Klan is all but a distant memory here at home. How did those groups fade into the distance? They disappeared when the people of their specific nations stopped giving them power. When the attitudes and beliefs of any given nation change, when the people are lifted from poverty and when the weakest among us are given a voice, terrorism dies. It doesn't die through marches and public outcry; it dies of starvation, requiring that type of hatred, ignorance and intolerance to feed.

War, on any level, is terrorism. I'm not commenting on who struck first or who's at fault. Israel and Lebanon are well within their rights as nations to defend themselves from any sort of attack. I do, however, worry that the doctrine of pre-emptive attack subscribed to by the Bush Administration has given carte blanche to many nations that would have otherwise exercised some restraint. "If the U.S. did it, why can't we," could be the motto of the 21st century, and that motto is only going to lead to more of what we're seeing on our televisions night after night.

There are enemies in wars, and the goal of any war is of course to kill the enemy. But with small terror cells moving into highly populated urban areas the cost of warfare in the 21st century is becoming higher with each round fired. Long gone are the days of elaborate battles between nations on deserted battlefields with willing participants. Today's warfare takes place in your backyard, and when a daisy cutter lands in your backyard it isn't going to discriminate between you and your militant counterparts. The results are tragic, actually, tragic fails to even come close to describing the results.

Once again, a picture is worth a thousand words, and I'm not Anderson Cooper, so I'll show you what's going on.

WARNING! EXTREMELY GRAPHIC CONTENT BELOW, SCROLL DOWN AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION.

Is that child's life, that child with his Mickey Mouse blanket at his feet's life worth two captured Israeli volunteer soldiers? What about this one?

These are just the pictures I was able to find on a very quick Google search. If for some reason you seek more, it's only a click away.

To close, I want to make two points.

None of us get to pick where we're born or to whom. Whether you choose to believe in God, science or a combination of both, you're here and you didn't get to pick your parents or your country. We're fortunate enough to live a relatively comfortable life here in the United States with very, very minimal fears of rockets sailing across the border and into our neighborhoods. The people in these photos didn't choose to be born in their situations either, and they're people just like you and I. Those children enjoy the same things your children enjoy and those parents cry just as hard as you would if something happened to one of yours. This is what war does.

Secondly, we should all be calling for the heads of our major news networks. It's absolutely not unpatriotic or treasonous to inform yourself of each and every detail that you can dig up about any given situation. Feeling sympathy for innocent people being killed by any army, including your own, doesn't in any way downgrade your opinions of the soldiers sent to fight. I care deeply about our soldiers, but I also care deeply about human life in general. The loss of innocent human life is just simply a terrible but unavoidable fact of war. We can't ever assume that military engagement in any nation will result in death tolls of only willing participants, those days are gone. But maybe we'd be less bloodthirsty and more eager to work things out with words if the six o'clock news let us know what was really happening all those miles away.

I guess I've said my piece, and I fully expect rebuttal... hell, I welcome intelligent rebuttal. But after all this if you're still interested in reading up on the history of this terrible conflict, here's a great essay by Noam Chomsky that everyone should read at their earliest convenience.