I'm a military historian and a working analyst. If you really were reading media in other languages (Der Spiegal in German, for instance), you'd recognize most of what I discussed is mainstream in the national security community.

I would like to see a discussion here without knee jerk screams of anti-semitism or knee jerk Israeli bashing. That would be truly amazing.

I thought I saw Dayenu and did a cut and paste. my mistake.

Dear readers, read the following tid bits from different news sources and you'll soon realize that this article is one big myth:

Rebuttal number 1) "But for some of the Christians who had made it out in this convoy, it was not just privations they wanted to talk about, but their ordeal at the hands of Hezbollah.

“Hezbollah came to Ain Ebel to shoot its rockets,” said Fayad Hanna Amar, a young Christian man, referring to his village. “They are shooting from between our houses.” “Please,’’ he added, “write that in your newspaper.”

"Mr. Amar said Hezbollah fighters had come into Ain Ebel, less than a mile from Bint Jbail, where most of the fighting has occurred. They were using it as a base to shoot rockets, he said, and the Israelis fired back."

"One woman, who would not give her name because she had a government job and feared retribution, said Hezbollah fighters had killed a man who was trying to leave Bint Jbail."

“This is what’s happening, but no one wants to say it” for fear of Hezbollah, she said.

Rebuttal number2) "United Nations humanitarian chief Jan Egeland Monday harshly criticized Hezbollah for using Lebanon's civilian population as cover in its fight with Israel."

"Speaking to reporters following a visit to Beirut, the AP quoted Egeland as saying, "Consistently, from the Hezbollah heartland, my message was that Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending ... among women and children."

Rebuttal number 3) "Israeli troops returning from the front described Hezbollah guerrillas hiding among civilians and in underground bunkers two or three stories deep, evidence, they say, that Hezbollah has been planning this battle for many years."

"The soldiers, most of whom declined to give their names under orders from superiors, described exchanges of gunfire in between houses on village streets, with Hezbollah guerrillas sometimes popping out of bushes to fire Kalashnikovs, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank missiles."

In short,Mr. Prothero, your article is one big myth. Oh well, hopefully the readers of your article - or I should say your "myth" - will read this rebuttal and will find out the truth.

Mr. Prothero, did you ever think of co-authoring a book together with James Frey? I have a great title for the book. How about "A Million Little Myths?

...it's probably worth a read, no?

“Hezbollah came to Ain Ebel to shoot its rockets,” said Fayad Hanna Amar, a young Christian man, referring to his village. “They are shooting from between our houses.”

“Please,’’ he added, “write that in your newspaper.”

Yikes....How embarrassed are you?

Hezbollah doesn't trust civilians, because there are lots of collaborators, but, everyone knows where they are anyway?

Hezbollah fighters are very secretive about their training, even with their own families, but Prothero knows somehow that the claims of 600 civilian dead and almost no Hezbollah fighters is accurate?

No mention of the leaflets that warn everyone, including Hezbollah, to clear the area before bombing? Why not? Not important?

Hezbollah is secretive and distrustful of the civilian population, but they clearly mark all of the buildings they occupy? Seems a little contradictory... that they're so afraid of collaborators they put a big Hezbollah sign on the buildings they steal.

In your world, Prothero, is it okay to mix military buildings and civilian buildings all together in a neighborhood? Are you familiar with the international laws of war?

It's okay to be a Hezbollah politician, because of a "firewall" between the thugs and the suits?

When a fighter leaves for "training," without specifying where he's going, why isn't he turned in by all the collaborators? And who would he be turned in to?

Prothero knows, as well as anyone does, that states are required to keep their military strictly separate from civilian areas, and that their soldiers must wear uniforms recognizable at a distance, and that southern Lebanon is a quasi Hezbollah state that the Lebanese government has not the will, and perhaps not the ability to control.

He also knows that Hezbollah does not confine its missile launchings to a military zone, but fires them from all over southern Lebanon.

He most certainly knows that Hezbollah cannot afford to be as open and above board as he attempts to portray them, or they would be utterly destroyed by now. So he writes an incredibly awkward piece, stating his conclusion in the beginning, immediately contradicting it by example, and offering very little in the way of fact, and a lot in the way of Hezbollah propaganda.

Maybe he's under duress and he's writing this nonsense to soothe his captors. Or, maybe he is the real collaborator.

Very interesting, in an article about the 'myth' of Hezbollah fighters among civilians, that the author would start off with an example of Hezbollah setting up in a civilian area. So the point is....?

On the statement, 'Throughout this now 16-day-old war, Israeli planes high above civilian areas make decisions on what to bomb', most people who actually follow these events are aware that pilots don't get in their planes, take off and decide what they are going to bomb. In every case the decisions on targets are set by regional and local commanders based on intelligence reports. No pilot ever gets to decide what his target will be, nor is he given choices of targets.

So how accurate is the rest of this article? With the number of mis-statements I've found, not worth the effort of reading.

just because the political wing of an organization keeps itself shielded from the military wing's tactical decision-making, presumably does not mean that they have no power to control their military wing. By definition, the rhetoric they espouse and their calls to murder Israelis are a central, underlying feature of the organization's military strategy. As in the GWB regime in America, the sloganeer and politicians are just as responsible as the foot-soldiers, if not more so.

I'd note that Salon made a great deal of noise about the soldiers guarding Abu Ghraib not being the only ones responsible for the torture that went on there; that in fact, people who never held weapons, who were merely politicians in positions of power, were responsible for inciting a culture of violence. If this is true, and I believe it is, then it is hard for me to understand how Hezbollah politicians cannot be held responsible for their military wing's activities. And to take it further, if Americans as a whole are expected to be held responsible, as Salon has implicitly suggested, for our government and soldiers' actions in Iraq, then how is it that the Lebanese Shiites are not to be held responsible for the extremely popular, and extremely violent political organization that they allow to operate in their midst?