FACTS
hizbollah was created to fight the israeli occupation of lebanon, while it was under partial syrian control. israelis withdrew under the pressure of hizbullah, syria took over the whole country, and allowed /helped hizbullah to grow in influence. this ragtag group of lebanese shia-muslims were able to inflict damage onto the israeli army, more than all the ridiculously unqualified to be called armies of all the arab countries surrounding israel. syria left lebanon with help from the US a little over a year ago. the lebanese government just got formed after a democratic election (summer of 2005, almost a year). hizbulla representative won seats in the leabnese parliament. hizbulla is not an army, they're militia, which means they live among the rest of the lebanese civilian population. it's not like they have barraks or army posts. the leabnese army is so badly equipped, it shouldn't be even called an army (many soldiers don't have weapons) no navy, no air power, few WWII era tanks, well, bottom line, you get the picture, they can't fight hizbolla, the lebanese government doesn't have any money, the syrians stole whatever lebanese wealth they had. hizbollah is better equipped than the lebanese army, they receive aid from iran, and they put a lot of that money to good use. they helped the usually very poor lebanese shia-muslims, when the lebanese government couldn't help. they built for them schools, hospitals, clinics, etc they won the hearts and minds of the lebanese shia community, which in turn made hizbolla even stronger.
PUNCHLINES:
1- you can accuse hizbolla of years past as a terrorist organization which they where. the current hizbolla is a party and part of a democratically elected government (verified by the way, by our own American politicians, who were there in lebanon to monitor the election) they hizbolla was going to win parliamentary seats. but, they maintained a strong militia, which is a government within a government, that's a dangerous situation. since they were trying to act as a party instead of terrorists, from what I know they only tackled israeli army. israel negotiated with them many times on prisoners swap. so israelis, you knew that all along, you know they are among civilians, you know they are well liked, you know the newly formed lebanese government is powerless, but you still make the claims otherwise; but this is the standard propaganda of war, and the pea-size-minded americans and israelis will believe all the PR, conveyed without any intervention from the american media icons, for the fear of the name calling you mastered: anti-semitic, terrorist of all who disagree with you.
2- you could have done to the palestinians and the shias what hizbolla have done. help them get on their feet: educate them, open schools, hospitals, jobs, etc it would cost israel and the american tax payer ultimately paying for all this, a lot less than what the cost of killing have accomplished. every family member you kill, you create 10 terrorists, and it will go on and on. obviously there are certain people, israeli, american and arab who want to see this thing go on forever. this is how you keep in constant fear the simpleton minded americans, especially the ones who listen to the likes of pat robertson and rush limbaugh, under your thumbs so they can keep you in power.

to the second comment below mine titled:
WHY DO WE CARE?????
it scary that morons like you are on the internet to type messages, but doesn't take the time to educate him/herself. Lebanon does not have oil. it actually imports the same gasoline israel does.

As Katie Couric said when she left "Today," Ann Curry's passion for humanitarianism, people and larger causes, is very inspiring. Thank you for keeping the human side of this in focus.

WHY DO WE CARE????? I have yet to see anywhere on the news why we should care. We do nothing in Africa when we should have, why should we care anymore with Lebanon and Israel. Lebanon does not need aid from us, they make enough off us buying oil, use their own money.

As someone who has long admired Ann Curry's reporting style, this time, I must say shame on you Ann for not doing this conflict justice! With hundreds of innocent Lebanese civilians being killed in the 12 days of this conflict, how can you seriously and accurately claim that the Israeli targets have only hit Hizbollah strongholds and targets? In reality it seems that the IDF has hit very few Hizbollah targets and with the heavy civilian causulty toll decided to enter ground troopes. The bottom line for me is no matter what your views are of Hizbollah-- there is disproportional use of force on the Israeli side and frankly, the abduction of two Israeli soldiers from disputed land that is Lebanese territory does not justify declaring war on an entire country!

Ann,
I hope you are safe.

No peace be unto Israel. How can they justify their actions. They are, with conciousness killing a whole entire people. President Bush said the terrorist kill innocent people to acheive their goal.
Question, What is israel doing if not but the same thing. Please tell me.TOaverage labanese, Israel are the terrorist. I guess It depends on who looking in to the barrel of the tank. The word terrorist is just relative. The three year old with her head blown off or the mini van hit by missles was in fact an act of terrorism. Do you not think that they were terrified. Revelations: Some people call themselves Jews but they are not, for they are the synagouge of satan.

Saalaam, Shalom, Peace
Mustaafa Abdel Aziz Al Waliyudin

Ann Curry,
You are doing a wonderful job. You are very brave and very good at what you do. Thanks for the reports. Be safe and continue to put your heart into your work. Jennifer

To Frank, from Waldwick, NJ, who said:
"What makes absolutely no sense, however, is how American parents of Irish, English etc extraction are sending their kids to college in Beriut... why would any sane parent think it's a good idea to send your little genius to Beriut to study."

What, should people of European descent only visit European countries? Why would anyone have thought they should NOT go to a country President Bush had held up as a success after the "Cedar Revolution." Don't you think it's important for US students to go overseas and learn Arabic, for example? Not all of us are inward-looking with no concept of the outside world. How are we to understand the world if we don't visit places outside your comfort level?

Another thing, Lebanese people have close ties with this country! Why would they have thought they shouldn't visit family? Lebanon was a modern, western country before being bombed back 50 years.
How about read a little.

It is the responsibility of the Government of Israel to defend it's citizens. Hezbollah missles from Iran (delivered through Syria) are being lobbed over daily. The only rational response is to root out the bomb "lobbers". This makes perfect sense to me and to most of the rational world.

What makes absolutely no sense, however, is how American parents of Irish, English etc extraction are sending their kids to college in Beriut. The other day they are interviewing an Irish kid from Lousiana at the college in Lebanon. Now I know Katrina left a lot of folks in a bit of a pickle, but c'mon, why would any sane parent think it's a good idea to send your little genius to Beriut to study.

My solution. Send the dopey parents of these kids over to Beriut and let them attend the Lebonese prom and send the kids back to the states.

I would like just anybody to know that at this moment in life WAR is such an anachronism,as we put together an organisation to keep peace,UNO,let us join in dismantling the capacity to wage war,that is to say everybody destroys their weapons of mass destruction...NO MORE WAR PLEASE!!!LET"S LOVE!!!

I am constantly amazed at how many Americans buy into the nonsense that Israel is some poor vunerable country that is threatened with destruction by a small group like Hezbollah, and therefore should be given a blank check to destroy Lebanon.

Israel has total military superiority over every other country in the Middle East thanks largely to billions of dollars in American aid and military hardware. Israel is also the only country in the region to possess WMDs (nuclear weapons). Hundreds of them, developed in secret, with not one UN inspection. (If Israel were an Arab country, we would have invaded long ago).

As long as this military superiority exists and the US provides a blank check, Israel is free to commit whatever atrocities it likes in the name of "defense." It can kill 10 or 30 people for each Israeli that is killed, can slaughter innocent Lebanese in residential neighborhoods, and there is nary a peep out of all of the "moral" people in America as long as it isn't Jews or Christians being killed.

The real reason that Israel's supporters and the Bush administration have been raising cain about the possibility of Iran developing nuclear weapons is not that the Iranians will nuke everyone in sight with them, but that then Israel will lose its military superiority.

Imagine if Israel masses troops on the Lebanese border on some future day and the mullahs say "not so fast, attack Lebanon and we will nuke you." The Israelis reply that they will nuke them right back. The result is an old style Cold War checkmate. Both sides paralyzed. And poor Israel may have to finally talk to the Arabs, instead of kill them.

I agree strongly with CA's comment. It is unbelievable how news reporters lean all to one side.

When will this world prevail to understand that religion is the root cause in the Middle East. Religion is what causes war to become violent and creates terrorists. Look at America and its use of religion in the different regions of our "freedom land". We all fight amongst each others due to our different skin colours. God did not create man, it is an evolution. We are all animals of some kind. The settlers here stole the land from the American Indians and provoked war. Come on people, we are now caught in our own world of criticism and between. This country is no longer using a democratic way of life. We are becoming prisoners within our own land due to the aftermath of 9/11. Lets live today and not yesterday. Look at others around you and take notice on how they react, when you say something to them. Be friendly to thy neighbors across the oceans. Live and Let Die.

There should be published on TV a timeline of all the terrorist activities the Hezbollah have committed or participated in over the years.

Innocents always get killed in wars, don't forget how many were killed on 9/11.

To everyone who thinks Israel can eliminate Hizboalland by air strikes and bombing infrastructure please do yourself a favour, wake up and stop dreaming. Matter of fact Israel is doing Hizboallh a big favour, Israel is doing the PR work for Hizboallah. As much as some Lebanese dont like Hizboallah now they have a good reason to join. So unless Israel is willing to eliminate all Lebanese then they can not eliminate Hizboallh.
Even if Israel was able to eliminate Hizboall leaders and its military power what guarantees does Israel have that they will not be another group like Hizboallh in the future. For each innocent live that has been lost in Lebanon there are tens or hundreds of ppl who may join Hizboallh. Fair peace agreement will save lives on both sides

Before I say anything I am in no way well qualified to comment on this issue other than to express my opinion like many of us here do. I see a lot of conflicting arguments in favor and against both sides. Though the Israel's response is outright disproportionate, we have to agree that we kept a deat ear for years while Isreal is being pounded by home-made (I'm stressing HOME-MADE) rockets. If firing rockets randomly into Israeli civilian households, hiring suicide bombers to sit inside a public bus and detonate himself/herself, an [ir]responsible middle-eastern leader publicly announcing that Israel should be completely wiped off and thousands of his countrymen along with other countrymen chanting ho-hos to this, is NOT DISPROPORTIONATE, Israeli response today is also NOT DISPROPORTIONATE. Yes, we all agree killing innocent civilians is very uncivilian but what happened to these nay-sayers when Israeli civilians, and for that matter civilians in US, UK, Spain, India and several other countries, were killed by random but planned terrorist attrocities. Terrorists are none but members of ordinary civilians. They don't brandish themselves to be terrorists. How many of us had actually seen a terrorist and a soldier. Chances are none that we seen the former and 100% that we have seen the later. The point is, terrorists are invisible and rooting them out cannot be done without some civilian casualities. I wish they are put to minimum or none but the reality is cruel. Terrorists are just a sore of the society. If they have a valid reason to fight, they better come out and fight. We cannot let this go forever. But, again, this is reality and we may have to live with this forever.

All conversations invite the level-headed ones and the ignorants. old human wisdom: anytime certain people consider others as lesser than they are, they always feel tempted to hurt and abuse. As an American Indian descendant, I know too well how Europeans saw my ancestors as savages, so it was OK to kill them and take their land. They saw the Africans as savages and used them as slaves. Ottoman/Turks did the same to Armenians. The protestants saw it was OK to the catholic Irish. Nazis saw Jews as something bad and killed them. now the Jews see the Arabs as idiots and savages, so it's OK to take their land and kill them. Somewhere in the Arabs/Islam history a similar event must have happened (my knowledge of their history isn't great, i'm sure someone is going to volunteer a lot of info) So many similar examples in history. The isreali arab problem doesn't seem to go away. as from what i can see, they're the most stubborn ethnic groups, i've known. But I've known many level headed-ones, here in the USA and living next door to each other peacefully. my grandfather does not agree with the israelis on the middle east issue. he said, the jews went back to israel after 2000 years to claim land they have left (forcefully) can you imagine the american indians going into newyork and asking the newyorkers to leave because they owned this land 300 years ago. there are so many ironies in this jewish/islamic problem. terrorists are always created from the ranks of the oppressed by the ranks of the oppressors. the bottom line, I wish some hawkish level-headed people would just kill-off all the stubborn ignorants, because they are seen as lesser human-beings. oh by the way, good job Ann and i do see a lot of pro-israeli coverage in all the american news media. that's why I rely a lot on foreign news services, where i learn how much the rest of the world think of america and israel as ignorant bullies, which scares me a lot, now that china and russia and most of europe see american and israeli as lesser people (though they're still scared of our nukes, i'll sleep tonight)..

God gave his chosen people the land from the Jordan River to the Sea. it is the Land of Milk and Honey. The Hezbolliah have no right to start a war and then have the world say it is some one else to blame. Leave Israel to do its work. We can supply them with the Bombs they need to take care of business. Iran and Syria should be trying to find a hole and get into it, They are next, this will not stop until all terrorism is gone from the face of the world. The Lebbnon Army should attack the Hezbolliah from the North so they can live in peace with Israel.

Peace is anti-semitic in this context. Should the Jews lay down for their own destruction by an internationally recognized terrorist organization? Israel has no desire to defeat the Lebanese government or re-occupy Lebanon. The military campaign will end when Israel is no longer being rocketed and having her soldiers kidnapped on Israeli soil. Ehud Olmert promised our reprisals would be "very, very, very painful" and he meant it. Hezbollah will not exist before we're done.

I think the israelis should just go in there and take out hizzobella. If any other extremists want to interfere, take them out also. This is the only way they can have peace in the middle east.

Many of you seem to not understand what hezbollah is. They are a terrorist group aimed at ridding the middleast of Israel and the jewish people. Any country attacked has the right to defend itself and go after those responsible. Especially one with such hostile neighbors. Neighbors which continue to attack innocent Israelis with rockets, suicide bombs, etc. Furthermore, if Lebanon would have a tougher policy on terrorism I would imagine this wouldn't have happened at all. Lets keep in mind Hezbollah started this whole conflict by launching rockets and abducting soldiers and holding them for ransom.

One thing we all have to realize is the fact that Peace is not an option when dealing with terrorism. Israel did exactly what the world wanted by withdrawing from lebanon and the West Bank. What did it get for it's efforts, a closer launching pad into Israel. Yet Israel is the bad guy. As far as the Lebanon citizens are concerned, hezbollah feeds most of them and provides basic care for them. How do you break this when you have hungry children to think about? If I were Israel, I would not stop until Hezbollah and Hamas are no longer a threat to their existence. If it takes years, sobeit! Note to Iran and Syria, don't F with Israel. You will only get your feelings hurt on the end and expose how weak your militaries truly are.

Please excuse me, but Israel didn't start this! It has been going on for years, with Hamas' shelling Northern Israel for years from within their "safe havens" in Gaza. It was expanded when the Palestinian voters elected the Hamas terrorists as their offical government. It was made even worse when the various European countries actually sent money and other aide to the Palestinian's, essentially funding these terrorist attacks on Israel. And, the entire situation exploded when Hizbolla, acting as agents of Iran, kidnapped and murdered Israeli soldiers and civilians. And, please note two things - (1) Hizbolla was **elected** and is a part of the government of Lebanon and (2) in their attacks, they **target** Israeli civilians whereas the IDF at least attempt to avoid civilian casulties.

So...what do you expect? Lebanon and the Palestinian's are reaping the wind and deserve that and worse. If they don't like it, they ought to have prevented the Hamas and Hizbolla thugs from starting it. As for Europe and any chance of a ceasefire, Europe has blood on it's hands. They funded the fanatical killers that represent the people of Lebanon and Palestine. What I cannot understand is why, especially seeing all that has happened, the EU and the U.S. doesn't enter this mess and completely level Iran and Syria, and clean out the rats nets of terrorists in Southern Lebanon and Gaza. No ground troops needed or even wanted. Use bombers and missiles. Unless and until this is done, you will see a repeat of this mess right up until these monsters obtain the means to wipe out Israel or muder tends of thousands of her people in a biological, chemical, or nuclear attack. Then, expect the U.S. to turn those countries into glowing rubble, which just might spark World War III.

Why can't the world come to a common denominator and establish a peaceful resolution. We are all human beings and can decide amongst ourselves how to be friends with the neighbors. The middle east crisis was created by the United Nations in the mid 1940's(?), when they decided to give Jewish people land to live on. It was first thought to give them land in Africa, but to no avail. Everyone in the region are of Arab descent and should be free from the terrorist. I feel that the US should avoid any interaction and tell the other nations how to become a democracy. I am not sure we (Americans) are living in a democracy world. This is or was supposed to be the land of the FREE, but I found that travelling in Europe, there is more hope for freedom. I have friends who live in Beirut and was able to speak with them via mobile phone over the weekend. The Israelis need to stop their bombing campaign and pay for the repairs that they have done.