Lebanese Civilian Deaths

This leads me to my favorite under reported topic in the media lately; what is a proportionate response? Those making the charge that Israel has responded "disproportionately" never bother to tell you what level of response would be appropriate.

For instance, if Hezbollah sends 100 unguided rockets blindly into Israel, should the Israelis fire 100 artillery shells blindly into Lebanon? Somehow I don't see the media writing stories lauding Israel if they just randomly shelled Lebanon. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't see it.

I often wonder how the media would react if we were to be treated the same way by our neighbors as Israel is by theirs. For instance, I live on the southern border of the U.S. A few years ago, three or four months after 9/11, a high school kid exploded a small pipe bomb at a local bank. The blast did not kill or injure anyone, and only managed to shatter one window. The story made NATIONAL news.

Now imagine if drug lords (the Zeta's or the MS-13's or myriad others) in Mexico decided they had had enough of U.S. law enforcement and started to lob THOUSANDS of unguided rockets into the cities and towns along the Texas - California border (and yes that is how many rockets Hezbollah has fired at Israel in the last three weeks). Would the people on the border ask the President to come down and do something, but make sure it is only proportional? "Hey, George, please come help us out with these rockets, but try not to anger anybody on the other side when you do it...we have to be fair you know."

I can't see that either. The hue and cry would be simply deafening for us to stop an nothing to end the attacks. I even think the dominant media would join in the call (particularly if they figured the President was hurt by his "response" to the attacks). Nonetheless, there would be no call for us to be "nice." Why, then, does the same logic not hold for Israel?