July 24, 2006...8:30 am
The Mad Hatters: Olmert and Bush
I don’t understand what Olmert is trying to accomplish. What does levelling entire urban blocks in Beirut have to do with fighting Hezbollah? And the civilian death toll is vastly higher than announced so far, because it’s not even safe to dig through the rubble to rescue people and recover bodies. Not to mention how many people will die because of the destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure. When people can’t move around and their utilities are cut off; people, mostly babies, die because of lack of access to water, food, and medical care. This is why attacking a nation’s infrastructure is a war crime.
Surely Olmert can see how much this is hurting Israel (and the US) in the court of world opinion, especially in the Arab/Muslim world? Israel has almost always practiced some restraint in the past, if the IDF had launched a massive blitz against Hezbollah’s positions in the south the world for the most part would have cheered them on. Hell, many Arabs would have, Hezbollah is primarily a Shiite group unlike the Sunnis in most of the Arab world. They could have announced they were doing Lebanon a favour and many Lebanese might very well have joined them! If Olmert wants to get Israel’s enemies to put aside their differences and work together, this is how to go about it. This war seems deliberately designed to destroy the fragile Lebanese democracy and put anti-Israeli extremists in power. Madness.
Then there’s Bush’s response which is just plain bizarre, though predictable. If he wanted to give the world the impression that he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about Arab/Muslim lives…he’s done a great job. Not that there was much doubt after years of coalition carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is going to help the USA how? Condi’s lip service efforts at diplomacy are just that. It’s clear that Bush is Olmert’s bitch, possibly the first time in history that an Empire has done a small countries express bidding instead of vice versa. Again, stupidity bordering on insanity.
All I can conclude is that Israel has fallen prey to the same fate as the USA, it’s being run by militant ideologues who live in a self deluded fantasy world. They think they can reshape the region to suit their agenda if they just drop enough bombs. Blinded by their own mind numbingly destructive military machine, they have confused powerful with all powerful. Nineties Dot Com thinking except with bombs. And this time the dot com bust is going to be a regional or world war. God help the people of Israel and Lebanon.
War is not the solution, it’s the problem.
1 Comment
July 25, 2006 at 5:21 am
I don’t understand what Olmert is trying to accomplish. What does levelling entire urban blocks in Beirut have to do with fighting Hezbollah?
I think the Israelis would say that Hezbollah has occupied most of Southern Lebanon and Southern Beirut, that much, at least, isn’t really in dispute. But they would go on from there to tell us that Hezbollah purposely hides much of their command structure, offices et cetera within civilian areas. In stores, apartments and the like. That, of course, is disputed by Hezbollah. I am sure there is some degree of deception on both sides of this conflict.
I think you hit the nail on the head with your description of the American reaction. Personally I have never seen such a large and supposedly “powerful” nation as the U.S. dangle on puppet strings like this.
But that isn’t necessarily the only explanation. Israel could be acting as an American proxy, carrying out a U.S. backed policy at the request of friends in the back channels. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if the U.S. policy was to wage war on Hezbollah through Israel. I guess everyone’s doin’ that these days.
Leave a Reply