We welcome the Aug. 23 Amnesty International report taking Israel to task for massively targeting Lebanon's civilian infrastructure. But there is an ominous Achilles' heel to Amnesty's arguments. Contrasting Israel's actions to the "lawful targeting of military objectives" implicitly loans legitimacy to the concept of "collateral damage." In 1977, following the outcry over US carpet-bombing of Vietnam, Protocol II was added to the Geneva Conventions, with Part IV stating: "The civilian population...shall enjoy general protection against the dangers arising from military operations... The civilian population as such...shall not be the object of attack." The concept of "collateral damage" has served as a loophole to permit the targeting of the civilian population merely de facto rather than de jure—as the Pentagon's "Shock and Awe" plans for Iraq made nearly explicitly clear. In the actual event, the "Shock and Awe" plans were considerably scaled down due concerns about its "political consequences." This is evidence that protest is effective—it saves lives, at least sometimes, even if it falls short of its aims of stopping military aggression completely. But we should be wary of allowing the aggressors to set the terms of the debate.

From page 5, below the fold, of the New York Times, Aug. 25:

8 Killed in Raid by U.S. Forces in Afghanistan

KABUL — Eight civilians, including a child, were killed in an operation by American forces in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, an Afghan police official said. United States forces acknowledged killing a child and injuring a woman but said the seven men also killed were “Qaeda facilitators” who had opened fire on them as they approached a compound.

This report from India's northeastern Bihar state is analogous to situations we have noted in Colombia. Caught bewteen the government and guerillas, self-governing peasant communities are finding a voice of their own via village-based radio. From the Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 25:

From Newsday, Aug. 24:

Muslim, Arab and South Asian passengers are being profiled by Homeland Security officers at Kennedy Airport, civil liberties groups said Wednesday, citing a New Jersey family that was detained and interrogated after a flight from Dubai last week.

From the Indiana Daily Student, Aug. 23:

Officers killed in charity ride accident

A traffic accident during a charity bicycle ride killed two police officers Tuesday afternoon and injured three others.

Don't dismiss this as a local story, as similar reports are growing around the world. From the New York Times, Aug. 23:

NEWPORT, Ore., Aug. 17 — On the north shore of Yaquina Bay rests the rusty fishing fleet of this small Pacific port, scores of boats whose captains seek salmon or rockfish, shrimp or crab.

Directly across the bay, on the south shore, sits the Hatfield Marine Science Center, a small campus of Oregon State University that provides a seaside outpost for scientists who study the water and the life within it.

The natural divide has seemed particularly fitting this summer, with the two groups, who rarely share the same view anyway, drawn farther apart by a recent discovery. In a large section of shallow ocean water near the shore, scientists at the university measured record-low levels of oxygen this month, so low that most marine life cannot be sustained there. Countless crabs and other crustaceans have died, and fish have simply disappeared from some spots.

Jennifer Pagonis, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees offered the following comments on the situation in Colombia Aug. 8 at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. From the UNHCR website:

To mark World Indigenous Day tomorrow, UNHCR in Colombia will call on all armed groups in the country to keep the country's indigenous population out of the armed conflict and respect the distinction between combatants and non-combatants. UNHCR has repeatedly warned that indigenous groups in Colombia are increasingly at risk of violence and even disappearance as a result of the ongoing conflict. Indigenous groups are increasingly forced to flee their ancestral lands into neighbouring countries to find safety.

"With the world's eyes on Iran's nuclear ambitions, the deteriorating human rights situation in the country is being forgotten," writes Robert Tait for the UK's Guardian, Aug. 23 (emphasis added):

Seven years ago, he was the symbol of a brave new dawn of student protest in Iran. Famously featured on the cover of The Economist waving the bloodied T-shirt of a fellow demonstrator beaten by security forces, Ahmad Batebi seemed emblematic of the raw courage of the country's pro-reform student movement in its clamour for greater freedoms from a repressive Islamist government.