"Tikrit Tommy" Alcoverro, La Vanguardia's Beirut correspondent, has this to say in Sunday's Vangua:

Three weeks into the war, around 2000 Hezbollah guerrillas courageously resist deadly and devastating Israeli aerial bombings and land incursions, and their strategists continue launching rockets at objectives of the Jewish state, farther and farther away. Hezbollah leadership, despite the devastation and the exodus of the Shiite population, is still decided on continuing the war, and boasts of having stopped the plans of the Israeli general staff. In the south, as occurred before, one of the most powerful armies in the world is facing a guerrilla organization, which, like a fish in water, is fighting on its own terrain. If Sheik Nasrallah committed an undeniable error in challenging Israel by capturing two of its soldiers, not foreseeing these disproportionate reprisals, the Jewish military leaders have had to reduce their offensive projects before (Hezbollah's) surprising armed resistance and the hecatomb and destruction caused to this innocent and unprotected populace. Lebanon is a small country of only 10,000 square kilometers with some 4 million inhabitants. We must also recognize that this war is almost exclusively carried out against Hezbollah, established among the Shiite population of the south, of the Bekaa, and of the Beirut suburbs. It is, therefore, the Shiite community that suffers in its flesh the incessant reprisals of the Tsahal.

Not hard to see whose side Tikrit Tommy is on, is it?

My question about Alcoverro is the same as my question about Beirut Bob Fisk. Both these guys live in Beirut and have done so for many years. Who, exactly, are they paying their insurance costs to? And in what form? I don't for a moment believe that any Westerner could live for so many years in Beirut without the risk of being kidnapped or having his house blown up, unless he had an insurance policy, and I don't mean the kind you get from State Farm or Prudential.