Civilian casualties of war

TIM RUTTEN is right to criticize the media’s use of doctored photos of the aftermath of Israeli airstrikes [“Lebanon Photos: Take a Closer Look,” Aug. 12] and to wonder why the media are so uncritically publishing some photos that are just too perfect to be true and may well have been staged by photographers intimidated by or sympathetic to Hezbollah.

However, when Rutten says that “every Lebanese casualty, tragic as he or she is, was killed or injured as an unavoidable consequence of Israel’s pursuit of terrorists who use their own people as human shields,” it is a remarkably uncritical moment in an otherwise thoughtful piece.

It parrots the neocon view that Israel’s response to Hezbollah is measured, moral and just, and all Lebanese civilian deaths are simply “collateral damage.”

I never thought Rutten could possibly sound so much like George Bush and company. I hope this is a one-time aberration.

TOM JESSOR

Los Angeles

*

BRAVO to Tim Rutten for his excellent and informative article exposing the deception of Reuters in its publication of doctored photographs. I applaud his courage and ethical position in his castigation of news services that grant a moral equivalence to terrorists targeting innocent civilians and a people under siege trying to deter the ravages of terrorism.

SUSAN EHRLICH

Beverly Hills

*

TIM RUTTEN comes out swinging in defense of Israel’s war in Lebanon. He goes over the top with all the War-Party jingo that the “democratically elected government of Israel” has a right to kill the civilians that The Times asserts Hezbollah is using as human shields.

What kind of reptilian logic is that? Under what circumstance are we allowed to conduct a war in which three-fourths of the casualties are civilians? What right does anyone have to shoot a human shield in order to kill the culprit?

And where did Rutten get the idea that the war or the killing of civilians is “unavoidable”? That is complete nonsense, an obscene lie. There were many alternatives to Israel invading Lebanon in response to the Hezbollah intrusion and capture of two Israeli soldiers.

WILLIAM DUBAY

Costa Mesa