By launching rockets from densely populated civilian areas, we are told, Hamas is guilty of using "human shields." It is deliberately conducting military operations near civilians in order to deter Israel from responding, for fear of killing civilians. There is one problem with this formulation: Israel has not been deterred. The humans are not shielding Hamas. The Israeli Defense Forces are killing them. They're not "human shields." They're just dead.

Click to viewCNN correspondent Nic Robertson has a bone or two to pick with Fox News, which reported today that he and other journalists were used by the Libyan Ministry of Information as human shields, in a successful bid to block a coming, second attack on a compound in Tripoli, supposedly controlled by Qaddafi.