A Thought Experiment (originally posted Aug. 19)

Israel's raid deep in Lebanese territory raises an interesting philosophical question: what is the distinction between an offensive action and a defensive action?Israel says it carried out this raid to stop arms shipments to Hezbollah from Syria and Iran, and therefore counts as "defensive". Does it? Let's try a little thought experiment:During the war the United States expedited shipments of bombs and missiles to Israel, because Israel had dropped so many on Lebanon that it was running low. Suppose that Lebanon had attacked these shipments. Or, even better, suppose it had attacked IDF weapons storage facilities and airbases within Israel. Would this have counted as self-defence?Of course, this thought experiment is outlandish. If Lebanon had the ability to attack shipments of American weapons to Israel and disable Israel's airbases and weapons facilities, then it could also shoot down Israeli bombers, and Israel wouldn't dare to conduct raids deep into Lebanese territory, "defensive" or otherwise. Once again, we are faced with reality- Israel can defend itself; Lebanon can't. But suppose if someone could have destroyed those arms shipments. Suppose some of those bombers had been shot down from the sky before they could drop their bombs. Suppose a large number of Israeli aircraft had been destroyed on the ground by raids into Israel. Imagine how many lives could have been saved.What a pity there was no one to defend the civilians of Lebanon.