Changing the rules of war

Editor's note: Michael Ackley's columns may include satire and parody based on current events, and thus mix fact with fiction. He assumes informed readers will be able to tell which is which.

Dust from a near-miss bomb filled a south Lebanon basement, but a pair of Hezbollah guerrillas hiding inside remained thus faruninjured.

''Phew!'' exclaimed one of the fighters, named Muhammed. ''That was a close one. I wish those Zionists would stop using airplanes and fight us face-to-face.''

''You got that right,'' said the second guerilla, also named Muhammed. ''I don't mind being a martyr – in fact I look forward to it – but I'd like to go out fighting.

''What got into the Zionists anyway? Usually when we snatch a Jew, they negotiate a prisoner exchange. I think they must be breaking some kind of rule.''

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''I couldn't say,'' replied Muhammed. ''Maybe we shouldn't have killed those eight soldiers to kidnap the two we're holding. But I still think the Israeli response has been disproportionate. After all, our rockets haven't killed nearly as many Jews as their bombs have killed Lebanese. It's just not fair.''

Whump! Another nearby explosion shook the basement.

''Was that a bomb or artillery?'' asked Muhammed.

''Beats me,'' said Muhammed. ''What do you hear about a cease-fire?''

''I don't know, and I don't care,'' his comrade responded. ''Just let me at 'em!''

The first Muhammed crawled to the basement wall and peeked out a shattered window.

''It looks like you're going to get your wish,'' he said. ''There's an Israeli tank coming up the street with infantry behind it.''

''Maybe we ought to move up a floor, where that family has taken shelter,'' replied Mohammed.

''Yeah,'' said the first. ''Any port in a storm.''

''What was that you said about a cease-fire?'' asked the second.

The Spanish prime minister isn't yet in the same league with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who expelled the Jews from Spain in 1492, but his declaration last week on the Lebanon conflict was in the same spirit.

Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapetero said, ''No one should defend themselves with abusive force which does not protect innocent human beings.''

Bring this guy to California. He could join the few who weep over the ''injustice'' of the state's three-strikes law, or the chorus of those who believe war never is the answer.

A little more of this kind of thing, on top of the nation's collective wimp-out following the terrorist train bombings, and the image of the fiery Spaniard will be lost forever.

On to other matters: I don't know. I just thought a speech to a joint meeting of Congress by the prime minister of Iraq was pretty newsworthy. Fox News and CNN carried the speech live, but ABC, CBS and NBC went on with their usual happy talk: fluff features and lots about the weather. The New York Times didn't think Nouri al-Maliki's speech was worthy of page one, and the McClatchy-owned Modesto Bee (the nearest thing we rural residents have to a metropolitan daily) put it on page A-14. Apparently many news editors don't think the violence in Lebanon and Gaza and the violence in Iraq are related.

Even losers get lawyers: Opponents of California's high school exit exam continue to consume court time, fighting for the right of failures to receive diplomas. The matter now rests with the state's Court of Appeal, which must deal with the argument that those who failed to pass the ridiculously easy test just didn't get a fair chance.

Make that chances. Students were given 13 years of public education and multiple tries at the test, which should have given them some idea of what was required of them. For example, they have to be able to sound out the word ''hamburger'' and to make change by pushing picture buttons on a cash register – and that's really not too hyperbolic.

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