Another turning point!

No, not in Iraq - here on the blog! I've had my first detractor leave a message, and to commemorate I'm going to address the concerns in a post instead of in comments.

Obviously overwhelmed by the significance of the occasion, (he) humbly signed (him)self "anonymous". I'll refer to him as "Chucko", for convenience's sake.

Chucko is evidently unhappy with me for reporting what Robert Fisk had to say about the broadcast/printing of Lebanese civilian casualties in Arab media:

Is that the same Arab media that does't make a peep regrading the daily slaughter taking place in Iraq?

I'd like to see what evidence he has for this; my personal exposure to Arab media has been either through the Internets or from LinkTV's MOSAIC (which I highly recommend, BTW). I don't know if they covered the situation in Iraq more before the Lebanon war; I don't know what priorities they have - probably they consider the Lebanon situation more important to cover than Iraq. (God knows that seems to be the case with the American media, at least before the present almost 24/7 "AIR TERROR" coverage.) Perhaps Chucko would prefer to take the issue up with the Arab media - I know al Jazeera for one has an English-language web page with a feedback section. Maybe he's afraid of catching Islamofascist cooties or something.

There are far more people being suicide-bombed in Iraq every day, than any supposed Lebanese casualties, without much word from regional leaders.

First part is probably true; god knows there's a bloodbath going on in Iraq right now (exacerbated of course by the American/British occupation, but nemmind that!). But "supposed Lebanese casualties"? WTF?

Maybe that's a reference to the "Qana was FAKED!" conspiracy theory floating around. I don't know - if you're going down that road you might as well assume there's not even a war going on, and it's all some sort of media plot. Maybe BOTH sides are faking casualties, and the IAF is really dropping all those bombs in the sea. I suppose solipsism is easy and all, unless and until the effects of what's happened come back to stare you in the face, as happened almost 5 years ago.

While a few dead people in Lebanon because Israel decided to payback Hezbollah for the past 6 years of unprovoked Katyusha fire, and all hell breaks loose.

I had thought the attacks on Lebanon were caused by the kidnapping of IDF soldiers. And there was a long history of provocations on BOTH sides. And if Israel had been attacked for 6 years, why the massive retaliation now? And if Hezbollah is the target, why so much destruction to Lebanon's infrastructure and continuing attacks on the Lebanese army which Israel wants to take over the "buffer zone"?

Keep it in perspective, buddy.

Well, isn't THAT patronizing. A "few dead people" (almost 900 Lebanese, mostly civilians) but, after all, those are "supposed" casualties anyway so it's no big concern. And anyway more people are dying in Iraq than Lebanon, which means what I don't know but it's evidently significant. (With an unspoken racialist air of "that's what THOSE people do".) And we wonder why they hate us.

(ADDENDUM: First version of this post got eaten yesterday when Opera crashed while I was researching links. Irritated, I decided to let responding go until today.

Actually it's good that I waited, as I TiVo the aforementioned LinkTV's MOSAIC and got a chance to watch the 8/10 edition yesterday afternoon.

Surprise, surprise! The last segment had - guess what - a news report on a suicide bombing in Iraq, exactly what Chucko asserts NEVER happens.

To be fair, though, the report was from IRIB2 TV in Iran - PERSIAN news, not ARAB, but there you are.)