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Taylor Marsh has been writing on line since 1996, with the archives provided here a representation of that work.

Tag Archives | Israel

ISRAEL – LEBANON: Doctored Carnage Not Required

By on 06 August 2006

ISRAEL – LEBANON: Doctored Carnage Not Required
cross-posted on Huffington Post

We need this type of fakery like we need John Bolton at the United Nations.

Exhibit A, the UN resolution that wasn't meant to succeed in the first place.
Hezbollah has to disarm, but Israel doesn't have to withdraw from southern Lebanon; yeah, that'll
work. What's the Bush motto? Oh, right, mission accomplished.

Today you also
had a long-time Lebanese activist saying on CNN this morning that Washington
needs to get out of the negotiations, because the Lebanese don't trust Bush
or Bolton. Where's an honest broker when you need it? In France, swell.

But that's not the worst news today. As if we needed more corporate media disrespect,
we've now got Reuters' propaganda. They've now admitted to actually doctoring
a picture to show more smoke and disaster in Lebanon than was happening in a
certain snapshot. It's bad enough in Beirut, so we surely don't need to push
this envelope, not to mention heighten mistrust of the media. There are not that many corporate outlets willing to risk their people in war zones as it is.


A Reuters photograph of smoke rising from buildings in Beirut has been withdrawn
after coming under attack by American web logs. The blogs accused Reuters
of distorting the photograph to include more smoke and damage.

The photograph showed two very heavy plumes of black smoke billowing from
buildings in Beirut after an Air Force attack on the Lebanese capital. Reuters
has since withdrawn the photograph from its website, along a message admitting
that the image was distorted, and an apology to editors.

Reuters
admits altering Beirut photo

Beirut has been leveled, with daytime Israeli strikes now targeting the
suburbs on Lebanon. Bombing suburbs = killing civilians, lots of them.

Meanwhile, Haifa has been hit hard.

Ceasefire? It's getting further away instead of closer. The Arab states need to get involved and do it now.

This is an expanding catastrophe, with the conservatives trying to fan the flames, and
Reuters faking photos doesn't help. The wingnuts are going crazy, led by Charles Johnson of LGF, Ms. Malkin and her WWIII gang, plus many others.

What we need is truth not political propaganda and one-sided signals.

The United States and Britain continue to stand by and encourage Israel by
their unwillingness to demand Israel withdraw from southern Lebanon, while demanding
Hezbollah disarm. This is untenable because Hezbollah is being strengthened
by Israel bombing indiscriminately, while the west doesn't want to admit that democracy has put Hezbollah within the Lebanese legitimate government. Voting is all.

Now, if you really want to get your mind working, read Juan
Cole's provocative post today.


The wholesale destruction of all of Lebanon by Israel and the US Pentagon
does not make any sense. Why bomb roads, roads, bridges, ports, fuel depots
in Sunni and Christian areas that have nothing to do with Shiite Hizbullah
in the deep south? And, why was Hizbullah's rocket capability so crucial that
it provoked Israel to this orgy of destruction? Most of the rockets were small
katyushas with limited range and were highly inaccurate. They were an annoyance
in the Occupied Golan Heights, especially the Lebanese-owned Shebaa Farms
area. Hizbullah had killed 6 Israeli civilians since 2000. For this you would
destroy a whole country?

It doesn't make any sense.

Moreover, the Lebanese government elected last year was pro-American! Why
risk causing it to fall by hitting the whole country so hard? …

One
Ring to Rule Them

Why the “wholesale destruction” of Lebanon, when the newly elected government was pro-American? Cole offers an argument that points to one thing: energy, oil and the
rush to get it, keep it and control it. Read it.

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Sunny Saturday with the Middle East at War

By on 05 August 2006

Sunny Saturday with the Middle East at War –updated

UPDATE (11:00 a.m.): The headline is now U.S., France OK U.N. Mideast truce pact. I can't wait to hear the cluck-cluck-cluck of Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. The French saved our bacon, and Israel's too on this one. …Let me also add that the idea of disarming Hezbollah is one thing, but to make this work the Hezbollah fighters need to be integrated into the Lebanese army, no easy task. Nothing else will work, because they must have a stake in the “new” Lebanon, which will also make the Siniora gov. stronger. As for Nasrallah, he isn't going anywhere. Oh, and one more thing, AMEN! TO THIS.



The draft, obtained by The Associated Press, “calls for a full cessation of hostilities based upon, in particular, the immediate cessation by Hezbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations.”

(snip)

One crucial element is an arms embargo that would block any entity except the Lebanese government from buying weapons.

That is presumably meant to block the sale of arms to Hezbollah from Iran and Syria, believed to be the militia's main suppliers.

Other principles spelled out in the resolution include the disarmament of Hezbollah; the creation of a buffer zone from the U.N.-demarcated border between Israel and Lebanon north to the Litani River; and the delineation of Lebanon's borders, especially in the disputed Chebaa Farms area. … AP

UPDATE II (1:30 p.m.): I've been going through some Stratfor information, via Sean-Paul, and came upon something very interesting. As an fyi, all power has been knocked out in the Kiraoun area at the southern end of the Bekaa Valley, but there's more. Cue show tunes: “Something's Comin'.”



… A week ago, Israeli foot patrols in Lebanon were spotted using llamas, an especially quiet beast of burden that can go several days without eating while carrying about as much weight as one Israeli soldier can carry. This, combined with an airstrike on a power station supplying an area of the southern Bekaa Valley, signals Israel is about to make a significant move.

At first glance, it appears like an odd role-reversal when Israeli reconnaissance units are leading pack animals into battle while Hezbollah fighters are wielding modern anti-tank weapons. But as U.S. special operations forces calling in airstrikes from horseback in Afghanistan showed, mountain and fourth-generation warfare present new challenges that must be met on the ground. …

Israelis hit Lebanese Christian areas.



A strange thing happened on the way to Senator Chris Dodd helping his friend
Joe Lieberman yesterday. Appearing on “Hardball,” Dodd said he delayed
his trip to Iraq to help Joe save his flailing campaign. However, in the interview,
Dodd seemed more interested in saying the war was a disaster and we should pull
out now, than talking about Joe Lieberman. It was telling, especially when Dodd repeated over again that he disagreed with Lieberman on Iraq. Message sent
and received, Mr. Dodd, our message to you, that is.

Meanwhile, our Middle East policy is in shambles and even the RNC
is running from Bush. It's bad, people. But Paris all
over again? You remember the Paris peace talks to settle Vietnam, right?
Yeah, those talks. Same type of screw up, different war. But now even Israel is spinning from the realization that they may be faced with yet another Lebanese quagmire (h/t Billmon).

But if you want screw
ups, listen to this out of Iraq.


Is there any way to read this other than that some significant portion of
the Iraqi media which emerged after Saddam's fall was in fact a fully funded
and operational Psychological Operations campaign? If that's the case, then
this would seem to quite a revelation. Which newspapers, radios and TV stations
were actually PSYOP operations, one might want to know. While I'd imagine
that most enterprising journalists are either in Lebanon or on vacation, this
still might be worth somebody following up on.

Information
Operations: What Went Wrong?

The pdf on the Army's
IO is an incredible read. Phrases like “a commander must
visualize the information environment” pepper the report. It will
be years before we understand and weigh what we actually asked of our soldiers
in Iraq opposed to the duties they were actually trained to execute. Army leaders
found IO a “nebulous” concept. Well, no kidding. The U.S. Information
Operations in Iraq was nothing less than a total and complete fiasco. But remember
when we shut down Sadr's newspaper, which began the hell? We not only shut him
down, but we started up a huge mechanism that was devoted to PSYOPS, which isn't all that shocking, however none of it worked, or when it did it worked poorly. Read the report, but have a tall cold one handy.

Fast forward… Via Huffington Post,
the picture accompanying this
article just makes you want to scream. The text doesn't help either.

Israeli Prime Minister Olmert doing take no prisoner bombings in Lebanon while
we were barely hanging on in Iraq are not the actions of an ally. Taking into
account the civilian casualties the brutal barbarity is all the more stunning.
But it's Olmert's actions while Iraq was imploding that really ticks me off.
It's been very difficult for me to get my head around that one; especially with
Bush ignoring it like it doesn't matter. It's unfathomable. But now the Israelis are hitting the Christian areas of Lebanon.

Hezbollah's heinous terrorist acts in the past also doesn't excuse the slaughtering of
Lebanese civilians. It sure doesn't erase the reality that Hezbollah has seats
in the Lebanese government, won in a democratic election.

Memo to Bush and the conservatives: democracy is sometimes messy and unpredictable
(see Connecticut, though there hasn't been fisticuffs just yet).

But to hear our brave and valiant U.S. troops talk about Iraq, with no way
out for them, because our president would rather vacation in Crawford than hunker
down and find solutions for the imploding Middle East, well, dereliction of
duty about covers it. I honestly don't know how President Bush sleeps at night. That he's back in Crawford rubs salt in our soldiers wounds.


… “It's to the point of being irreconcilable; you know, we've found a
lot of bodies, entire villages have been cleared out, we get reports of entire
markets being gunned down – and if that's not a marker of a civil war, I don't
know what is,” said Ramon, 33, of San Antonio, Texas.

Driving back to his base, Johnson watched a long line of trucks and cars
go by, packed with families fleeing their homes with everything they could
carry: mattresses, clothes, furniture, and, in the back of some trucks, bricks
to build another home.

“Every morning that we head back to the patrol base, this is all we
see,” Johnson said. “These are probably people who got threatened
last night.”

In Taji, an area north of Baghdad, where the roads between Sunni and Shiite
villages have become killing fields, many soldiers said they saw little chance
that things would get better.

“I don't think there's any winning here. Victory for us is withdrawing,”
said Sgt. James Ellis, 25, of Chicago. “In this part of the world they
have been fighting for 3,000 years, and we're not going to fix it in three.”

Iraqi
civil war has already begun, U.S. troops say

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Israel – Lebanon: Bombs and Resolutions

By on 04 August 2006
Vacation time!

Larry King got Condi last night. She's ready to move in “phases.”
Big of her, really, especially since the United States has no leverage whatsoever.
According to CNN, the resolution that the U.S. is working to get with France
will call for a cessation of the fighting, with the rest of the details to be
worked out later. Later, right; about the time Bush decides to speak to Prime Minister Olmert. That's right, Bush hasn't even spoken to the Israeli leader since the escalation began.

Meanwhile, Israeli troops are massing for something big. A push to the Litani
River, then hold the space until… we talked about this already. Again, why
in the hell didn't Israel go in with ground troops in the first place? Now Hezbollah
is in the driver's seat, especially now that everyone is pushing for a cease
fire.

Nasrallah showed up to salve the wounds on his fighters yesterday, threaten
Tel Aviv, while hoping to convince Israel to go man to man on the field of battle.
You see, Nasrallah isn't afraid of losing his fighters, because he'll always
have more. Israel's in a tougher spot, for many reasons, one of which is tactical.
They blew it from the start.


Like the US Armed Forces, the IDF has not done as well against Arab guerrillas.
America's messy, prolonged struggle in Iraq is a lot like Israel's last messy,
prolonged struggle against Arab guerrillas in Lebanon that lasted 18 years
and only ended in 2000.

Now, the IDF is back in Lebanon, fighting Arab guerrillas again. Its initial
strategy this time was the use of minimal ground combat and maximum air and
artillery bombardment. This strategy appears to have accomplished little.
A dug-in, hardened, fanatic, and well-equipped army fighting on its own ground
cannot be “rooted out” with firepower alone. …

Israeli Defense
Forces – all they can be? (h/t Sean-Paul)

According to Patrick
Lang, just the latest in a slew of accumulating IDF slams, the reluctance
of the Israelis to lose soldiers is party of what's gotten them in this situation. The
sloppy airstrikes were also ill conceived, which turned the world against them, but Olmert just didn't want to put his people on the ground.


Israel is a small country, with a population of about 6 million, mainly made
up of descendants of immigrants from across the world. Israel does not believe
that it can afford to lose its children fighting Muslim zealots in the stony
hills of south Lebanon, and therefore has tried to find a way to fight that
does not involve pitched, or ground-war, battles.

This gives the Lebanese Hizbullah guerrillas a marked advantage. They are
indifferent to losses and are evidently quite willing to slug it out with
IDF infantry and armor.

I'm just catching up on Lang's entries from earlier in the week and I have
to tell you that this
piece of analysis is the most disheartening yet… for us all.

Though nothing can top the infuriating gall of Condi the Incompetent blaming
the current Middle East mess on previous administrations. I thought Queen Noor was going
to jump out of her seat and either scream or applaud when former Senator George Mitchell slammed
Condi's assessment. Next time a president wants to hire an academician for a
national security position someone needs to stop him/her.

But Israel has new problems today, because Olmert may be in trouble, too. One
neocon just called him a wimp.


… … The United States has gone far out on a limb to allow Israel to win
and for all this to happen. It has counted on Israel's ability to do the job.
It has been disappointed. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has provided unsteady
and uncertain leadership. Foolishly relying on air power alone, he denied
his generals the ground offensive they wanted, only to reverse himself later.
He has allowed his war cabinet meetings to become fully public through the
kind of leaks no serious wartime leadership would ever countenance. Divisive
cabinet debates are broadcast to the world, as was Olmert's own complaint
that “I'm tired. I didn't sleep at all last night” (Haaretz, July
28). Hardly the stuff to instill Churchillian confidence. …

Israel's
Lost Moment, by Charles Krauthammer

Bibi must be hyperventilating about now; dreaming of pitched battles of glory
in his future. Israel's lefties better speak up. The neocons are getting restless.

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EXPERT ANALYSIS: Charles Peña on Lebanon

By on 03 August 2006

EXPERT ANALYSIS: Charles Peña on Lebanon

The following is a guest post from Chuck Peña, whom I
heard speak at Steve Clemons' New America
Foundation in Washington, D.C. not too long ago. I was struck by Pena's
amazing candor, his blunt analysis and his unemotional clarity on the issues.
At the time he
was discussing Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Darfur. He was joined by
Peter Bergen and Christopher Preble. Preble and Peña are both involved
with the Coalition for a Realistic
Foreign Policy.

Well, one thing led to another, because of new friends, which led to Chuck
agreeing to lend his expertise in guest blog posts when his time permits. One
post you may have seen recently was for Steve
Clemons regarding Why Liberals (like Peter Beinart) Can't Win the War
on Terror. Seriously, it's a must read.

Oh, but one thing you need to know. Mr. Pena is a libertarian. (NOTE: That's a small “l,” because Chuck is not a member of the party.) That should
set your brain afire. I hope you enjoy Chuck's first blog post, which is clear,
blunt and unequivocal. He's a former Director of Defense Policy Studies
for the Cato Institute, and is currently, well, you'll see. He's like a splash
of cold water in the face on a sleepy morning; an awakening in a world gone
dumb on political correctness and tired, outworn political conveniences.

“Un-war” is right and many others feel the same way too.

Coming from me this will probably come as a surprise to Taylor, but it is impossible
for the United States to adopt a do-nothing approach to the conflict in Lebanon.
On the one hand, the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah does not directly
threaten U.S. national security. Strictly speaking, it is an Israeli security
issue. Unfortunately, because successive U.S. administrations have needlessly
made Israeli security a component of U.S. security policy, what Israel does
has ripple effects all the way back to our shores. The fact that so many innocent
civilians – many of them Muslims – are being killed or displaced
affects Muslim opinion of the United States (which was already well below sea
level), which in turn affects U.S. security in the post-9/11 world. The growing
anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world (driven largely by opposition to
U.S. policies) is the foundation for hatred which is the steppingstone to violence
and the basis for a vast recruiting pool of would-be terrorists.

Because the Bush Administration is not advocating an immediate cease fire and
instead repeats the standard refrain (with many Democrats joining the chorus)
that Israel has the right to defend itself, many Muslims believe that the United
States does not care about the lives of innocent Muslims being killed as a result
of Israeli military operations. This impression is further reinforced by the
fact that the United States provides over $2 billion in military grants to Israel,
including a recent shipment of precision-guided bombs. Thus, the United States
is seen as complicit in the deaths resulting from Israeli military action –-
such as the attack on Qana. And it does not help when President Bush says, “We
care deeply about the people whose lives have been affected in Lebanon… And,
yes, we want to help people rebuild their lives” — implying that the United
States cares less about stopping the destruction, which is not lost on Muslims
around the world.

Although the United States may not be able to stop the conflict, it must take
steps that are in America's strategic interests. First and foremost, this means
recognizing that Israeli security is not a U.S. strategic interest — it is
a parochial interest not worth risking American security. Second, the United
States should support an immediate cease-fire rather than a conditional cease-fire
based on achieving broader Middle East goals, which will be more difficult (if
not impossible) and take longer to achieve. Third, the United States should
stop supplying the Israeli military with the precision weapons being used against
targets in Lebanon, which makes America an accomplice in the deaths of innocent
civilians. Fourth, U.S. rhetoric must stop holding Hezbollah responsible for
Israeli military action resulting in the deaths of innocent civilians — the last thing the United States needs to do is make Hezbollah a direct terrorist
threat. Finally, the United States cannot afford to use the conflict in Lebanon
as an excuse to take action against other targets unrelated to the al-Qaeda
terrorist threat, such as Iran and Syria (recently advocated by former CIA
director and neoconservative luminary James Woolsey).

Charles
Pena

Via WashingtonNote:
Charles V. Peña is an adviser on the Straus Military Reform Project,
senior fellow with the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy, senior fellow
with the George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute, and
analyst for MSNBC television. He is the author of Winning the Un-War: A New
Strategy for the War on Terrorism (Potomac Books, 2006), co-author of The Search
for WMD: Non-Proliferation, Intelligence and Pre-emption in the New Security
Environment (Dalhousie University, 2006), and co-author of Exiting Iraq: Why
the U.S. Must End the Military Occupation and Renew the War against al Qaeda
(Cato Institute, 2004).

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ISRAEL – LEBANON: Baalbek Yields Little

By on 02 August 2006

ISRAEL – LEBANON: Baalbek Yields Little –updated–

Excuse me, but what were the Israeli's thinking on this one? Or was their intelligence
that bad? IDF is saying the hospital was a base for Hezbollah. No one has verified
this claim so far.

I also have to ask why Israel didn't send troops in from the start. If they had, Qana would might not have happened. It's disorganized chaos leading to a deal: Golan Heights going once, twice…

Hearing several TV news reports, as well as reading about it, is seems that
the Israelis went around 80 miles into Lebanon, just 7 miles away from Syria,
in the Bekaa Valley, to get a bunch of low level thugs.

Earlier reports said that there were signs of gunfire going into the hospital,
but none coming out of it. The image isn't good. Via Max Blumenthal (where I also got the graphic) comes a great article about the Middle East pr war.

It seems obvious that the Israelis were hoping (or had information) that high
level Hezbollah fighters were in the hospital.

However, Michael Ware of CNN, who is as good as they get on the ground, did
another report saying there was some evidence that gunfire came out of the hospital,
too. He's the only one I've found to be reporting this information. In addition,
Ware reported that civilians were killed as the Israelis made their way out
of Baalbek, with the article below counting the civilian death toll at around
13. Thankfully, no Israeli soldiers were killed.


None of those seized were high-ranking Hezbollah officials, however, as the
IDF had hoped. Halutz said Wednesday that the soldiers had not aimed to take
any individuals in particular, but rather to demonstrate that the IDF could
reach any part of Lebanon.

Hezbollah denied that any of its fighters had been captured, but Lebanese
security sources confirmed that the commandos had snatched five low-ranking
members of the guerilla group.

IDF commandos nab
five low-level Hezbollah men in Baalbek raid

Hussein Nasrallah (same name, but no relation to the Hezbollah leader), Hussein
al-Burji and Ahmed al-Ghotah were the militants captured. Reports claim that
the hard drives of the computers in the hospital have revealed good intelligence.
One can hope.

But you've got to ask yourself, why did the Israelis risk an 80 mile quick
incursion into deep Lebanon for these thugs? The outcome ending up a dangerous gamble for little pay off.
They certainly didn't do it for show, because what it illustrates isn't all
that good.

Meanwhile, Reuters is reporting that 750,000 Lebanese have been driven out
of their homes.

As for Hezbollah, they're now firing the Khaybar-1
or Fajar-5
(aka Fajar-5) all the way into the West Bank. It's the longest range they've
reached yet. Over 200 Katyusha rockets have been fired today.

But is there also movement on a cease fire?


Asked about when a ceasefire could be agreed, White House spokesman Tony
Snow said: “I don't want to make a promise on it … but I think it's
safe to say days.” – Reuters

It's about waiting for the international calvary if you ask me. Right now it's the
conventional IDF versus the Hezbollah guerilla force. According to CNN, the U.S.
and France are working off the same page, though the French want an immediate
cease fire, but Bush does not. Also, the French forces, who may be the ones on the ground, will not disarm Hezbollah, but will
instead only support the Lebanese government. The disagreement… er, confusion has led to another
postponement of the decision, likely until next week CNN is reporting, but that could change
because this situation is nothing if not fluid.

Lastly, I was invited to the Monday event Steve
Clemons had for the Saudi Ambassador to the US Prince Turki Al-Faisal, but
couldn't make this dinner, unfortunately. (I have been to the New American Foundation, which is where I met Charles Pena.) But Steve
posted on it, so please check out what was discussed, as well as John
Dickerson's comments, also found on Slate. It's interesting and focused on the fact that the Saudis believe U.S. foreign policy
is woefully off track in the Middle East.

No kidding. As for Congress, silence, oh, except for Chuck Hagel.

UPDATE (3:35 p.m.): Top U.S. commanders, speaking on “Hardball”, with Mike Barnicle substituting for Matthews, weigh in on Israel's campaign against Hezbollah. The reviews are negative.

VIEW THE VIDEO

UPDATE II (7:11 p.m.): One thing we learned tonight from Michael Ware, not too long ago, was that the Israel's believed the hospital in Baalbek treated the Israeli soldiers that had been kidnapped. The video below is from earlier today from Wolf Blitzer's Situation Room, regarding aerial bombing, as well as video from the Baalbek attack.


WATCH THE VIDEO

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Israel and Lebanon Ready for More

By on 31 July 2006
The troops are getting restless.
via my friends at The Agonist

The latest lunacy from conservative blogs: Qana was staged. Ho-boy.

Hezbollywood?
Frankly, I simply don't know what to say about this,
this or this.
The conservative blogs have taken to calling it “death porn.” They're
also pointing to this
article, which states the bombing happened hours before the building actually
fell. So why the delay in the building collapsing?

I offer the conservative blogs so everyone understands the wingnut radio tactics online. This is what right-wing radio has done successfully for years: misinformation to spike emotion. (A late link you will definitely find interesting.) It's immoral, but it often works and makes people feel like their side is righteous.

We're part of the reality-based community, so you won't hear conspiracies here.

There is also a
video supposedly showing that Hezbollah fires rockets out of Qana. That's not a shocker.

But it's a tale of two wrongs make two wrongs. Hezbollah shelling Israel doesn't
excuse Israel for bombing a civilian sanctuary.

We need a cease fire. Both Hezbollah and Israel need to stop the escalation
now. The fate of Lebanon lies in the balance. In fact, Israel's hope for some
peaceful neighbors, amidst Hezbollah, may too.

Senator Chuck
Hagel agrees and said so today on the Senate floor. He's been quite feisty
and even more
independent than usual these days. He's now undecided on John Bolton. As
for his comments today regarding the Israeli – Lebanon escalation, he was greeted
by a collective silence from everyone else in Congress. Spine alert.


VIEW THE VIDEO

As for America's image, we couldn't look worse. Olmert is ignoring Condoleezza
Rice, and Bush won't push.

When the subject turns to Iran you get a varied response, though this New York
Times article is all over the map. Frankly, I find the beginning sections of
the article absolute rubbish. This isn't:


… Iran has also worked hard to convince the Lebanese, and Muslims around
the world, that Hezbollah is not to blame for the destruction in Lebanon and
that it is a legitimate resistance force. That is viewed here as essential
to preserve Hezbollah’s influence in Lebanon after the war, and with
it Iran’s in the region.

Even as Iranian officials fret about the potential risks, they are savoring
the ideological boost. If Hezbollah emerges as the primary political force
in Lebanon, Arab governments, which have not pressed hard for a cease-fire,
may find that in order to deal with Hezbollah they will have to work through
Iran.

One foreign policy expert who is a sometime consultant to the government
said that if Hezbollah continued to lob missiles into Israel for another six
months to a year, the resulting turmoil in the region could make Iran a power
to reckon with in Lebanon as it is in Iraq. …

Iran
Hangs in Suspense as War Offers New Strength, and Sudden Weakness

The whipsawing from one philosophical point to another illustrates the WHO
KNOWS? quotient of this current battle. It also illustrates something very
odd about New York Times reporting.

Since the 48-hour cease fire, Israeli attacks have gone from 172 attacks per day to 2.

Hezbollah launched around 152 rockets yesterday, none today.

There will be no permanent cease fire from Israel until they've accomplished their goals:
disarm Hezbollah, and get their two soldiers back. But even knowledgeable Israelis
admit that Israel's military objectives have not been accomplished. But the
Times actually got this
one right.

And now we've got the
son king popping off. Puh-leaze.

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Investigation of Qana Pauses Bombing

By on 30 July 2006

Sunday snark alert, sorry, but this is just madness.

The UN Security Council just expressed “extreme shock and distress”
over the Qana slaughter. A 48-hour
pause has been agreed upon. However, if Hezbollah lobs another rocket, all
bets are off.

There is also distinct tension between Prime Minister Olmert and Secretary
Rice, according to John King of CNN. Rice looked shell shocked earlier today.
Frankly, if the Qana slaughter doesn't send your sensibilities reeling nothing
will.

Hey, but let's get real. This is a beer break for Hezbollah, if they drank
beer; while Israel takes it on the chin for this military, political and humanitarian
catastrophe. What a colossal screw up the Qana bombing has been for Israel. Frankly, it's Keystone Cops stuff, only with added carnage; oh, and lots of dead children, too. You don't hit a building filled with poor people because Hezbollah is nearby.

Hey, but there's a temporary lull in this lunacy, so take heart. Give me a break.



Late Sunday, Israel agreed to suspend its airstrikes for 48 hours while it
investigates the bombing of Qana, a State Department spokesman said. The spokesman,
Adam Ereli, told reporters in Jerusalem that Israel would coordinate with
the United Nations to provide a 24-hour period during which residents of southern
Lebanon could leave area safely.

“Israel has, of course, reserved the right to take action against targets
preparing attacks against it,” he said.

Israel said the Qana strike was aimed at Hezbollah fighters firing rockets
into Israel from the area, but an explosion caused a residential apartment
building to collapse, crushing Lebanese civilians who were spending the night
in the basement, where they believed they were safe. The Israelis raised the
possibility that munitions stored in the building blew up hours after the
airstrike, destroying the building.

(snip)

Mr. Olmert told his cabinet on Sunday: “We will not blink in
front of Hezbollah and we will not stop the offensive despite the difficult
circumstances.”

He added: “Israel is in no rush to reach a cease-fire before
we get to that point where we could say that we reached the main objectives
we had set forth. This includes the ripening of the diplomatic process and
preparing the multinational force.” …

Israel
Halts Bombing After Deadly Strike

To hear the line above from Mr. Olmert, saying Israel is in no rush, is pretty
close to the dumbest tactical statement I've heard so far, not to mention being
callous. Hey, but considering Israel has played this like rank amatuers I'm not surprised about anything anymore. However, I have simply lost patience.

The Israeli's need to get out of the heat. Their decisions keep going
from bad to worse. Meanwhile, Hezbollah and Iran are just waiting until the international community stops Israel's campaign. The day that happens the outcry against Israel and the U.S. will get louder, particularly when we all sit down to decide who's going to pay to rebuild Lebanona again.

One thought to add… another possibility is that I'm wrong-wrong-wrong, and this is a fake out to finish it up, so Israel and the U.S. can forget it ever happened. Boy, would I like to be wrong.

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THE WAR COMES HOME: Hate Crime of Terrorism?

By on 29 July 2006


The war came home today in the form of a hate crime, pure and simple.

Or is it?

If a Palestinian walked into a Jewish center in Israel would the Israeli's
call it a hate crime or would they call it terrorism?

What do you think?


The gunman, who employees said claimed to be a Muslim angry at Israel, forced
his way through the center's security door after an employee had punched in
her security code, said Marla Meislin-Dietrich, a co-worker who was not at
the building at the time.

Staff members said they overheard him saying "'I am a Muslim American,
angry at Israel,' before opening fire on everyone," Meislin-Dietrich
said. "He was randomly shooting at everyone."

6
Shot, 1 fatally, at Wash. Jewish center

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America will be Blamed for Israel’s Actions

By on 26 July 2006

It's official. They've cracked.

Ed Rogers called the Israeli – Lebanon conflict a “side-show”
today on “Hardball.” He went on to say, “when in trouble make some rubble.” The man thinks
this carnage will help the Republicans politically, especially in November.
Like I said above, they've
cracked.

Out of the mouth of a Bushie.

Someone needs to give Ed a reality check.

Frankly, Condi doesn't do the ventriloquist thing very well. She stands up
there as the doll mouthing words straight out of neocon land and doesn't look
very convincing doing it either. Her position has been untenable from the start;
first as National Security Adviser, in which she failed miserably, now as Secretary
of State, which isn't going so well either. Nobody doubts she's a smart woman,
but an academecian just isn't equipped for The Art of War, especially with Rummy
– Cheney breathing over your shoulder and whispering in the king's ear.

But if the Bush administration thinks keeping a hard line will work, they've evidently forgotten they're up against the hardest case of all.



I'm watching al-Jazeera's live coverage of the Rome conference right now.
Al-Jazeera bumper sticker summary: Rome conference fails because United States
rejects a ceasefire. The camera captured Condoleeza Rice looking visibly uncomfortable
as Lebanon's Prime Minister Seniora calmly but angrily denounced “Israel's
aggression against Lebanon”, and visibly upset when he quietly said that
“everything which delays a ceasefire is something which exacerbates the
suffering of the Lebanese people” (not an exact quote, just a sense of
what I heard him say). Rice expressed grave concern about the Iranian role
in Lebanon, and concern for the humanitarian situation – which, at a time
when her government is pretty much solely responsible for allowing the bombing
to continue, is pretty the definition of adding insult to injury. …

(snip)

America is totally alone on this. And more than most Americans might realize,
America is being blamed for Israel's actions. The shift in Arab public discourse
over the last week has been palpable. For the first few days, the split between
the Saudi media and the “al-Jazeera public” which I wrote about
at the time. Then for a few days, horror at the humanitarian situation, fury
with the Arab states for their impotence, speculation about the endgame, and
full-throated condemnation of Israeli aggression. But for the last few days,
the main trend has been unmistakable: an increasing focus on the United States
as the villain of the piece. (That the Israeli bombing of Beirut stopped just
long enough for Condoleeza Rice's photo op certainly didn't help.) …

Rome
conference fails – Marc Lynch

Prime Minister Siniora looked apoplectic today, as he pleaded for a cease fire.

Condi played the ice queen, the United States of America Ice Queen, unfortunately.

The other problem is that President Bush didn't want anyone in the region until
they had to go, so we're late to this party.

Meanwhile, the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld trio are prodding Israel on to blast away.
You know who gets hurt most in all this, besides the Lebanese and the familes
of the dead and maimed? America's image, our force for peace and our relationship
with the entire Middle East.

Bush backed into sending Rice. He's also going to back into dealing with Syria.
But by then it may be too late for the Siniora government, because Hezbollah
will have gained the hearts of the Lebanese because of Israeli bombs that continue
to rain down.

That spells even worse news for the Israeli people who have had to endure far
too much for far too long. This latest expedition in Lebanon may be shorter,
but it's going to be devastating to the Israeli cause for peace.

Also, let me just say to the people who believe that Israel has to degrade
Hezbollah enough to prepare for the peace to come. Wake up and smell the burning
corpses of Lebanese civilians and children. Each day Israel continues the bombing
she gets further away from “winning,” because the Lebanese people
get further away from the Israelis, closer to Hezbollah and more determined
than ever to fight for Lebanon. Meanwhile, the Siniora government gets weaker,
with a greater chance of collapsing.

Got failed state?


graphic via

NOTE: I've been very busy today on deadline for a story, as well as doing some terrific tech upgrades, which you see if you clicked on the links at the top. It's been a long day, but a good one, at least in what we've accomplished. Audio, video and much more, are now a part of our world here. We should have some fun in the days to come.

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Dead Peacekeepers

By on 25 July 2006

Do not miss Steve Clemons' post on National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinksi. I've had the pleasure of visiting Clemons' digs in D.C., where important work is done. Here's Steve's headline: Brezinski: Israel's Actions in Lebanon Essentially Amount to “the Killing of Hostages”. You can find remarks here. Read the interview.

You know, surprises sometimes blow up in your face.

There's no excuse for this, none whatsoever. That is, the killing of U.N. personnel.

Just read the article below, then get a load of the headline. It illustrates the lack of truth and honesty in this debate.


Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other key Mideast players gathered
in Rome for a meeting Wednesday to discuss proposals for ending the fighting
that has claimed more than 400 lives. Key issues were how to disarm Hezbollah
and assemble an international peacekeeping force to enforce the peace along
the Israel-Lebanon frontier.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the strike on a clearly marked U.N.
border outpost was “apparently deliberate” and demanded Israel investigate.
A bomb dropped by an Israel warplane scored a direct hit on the post in the
town of Khiyam, near the eastern sector of the border, U.N. officials said.

Annan said two observers were killed with two more feared dead. Later, a
U.N. official confirmed that a third body had been recovered. The official
spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly
discuss the issue.

One of the dead was identified as Chinese U.N. observer Du Zhaoyu, China's
official Xinhua News Agency reported. The other three were from Austria, Canada
and Finland but it wasn't clear which two were confirmed killed, U.N. and
Lebanese military officials said. …

Israel
widens control of southern Lebanon

Given the reality and carnage, that AP headline is surreal

Since when does the killing of U.N. officials designate a widening of “control”
over the country you're currently leveling?

I sincerely want to be a friend to Israel, but they're making it impossible.

Then I started going through some of my emails to come upon one quoting Billmon's
latest, delivered by reader JH. Perfect. I'll quote it. It's easier.


The last time the Israelis and Hizbullah went at it in a major way, in 1996,
the IDF accidentally (I think) lobbed an artillery shell into a U.N. compound,
killing 102 Lebanese civilian refugees. It brought the whole operation to
a crashing halt — just as the 1982 massacres at the Sabra and Shatila refugee
camps in Beirut brought the curtain down on Ariel Sharon's big production.
…

Billmon

The last thing Israel wants to do is to occupy southern Lebanon. The last time they were there the Lebanese threw them out and Hezbollah was born. So I'd make
sure I wasn't wiping out peacekeepers and neutral parties. Frankly, Israel's
current behavior is more like giving the world the finger.

There's only one reason Israel thinks she can get away with what's happening, which includes ignoring the world crescendo over
the carnage. It's the man currently residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He
calls himself a Christian, but must have missed Jesus's message about peace.

Oh, and by the way, tempers are still boiling in Turkey.

Oh, and p.s., T.Rex isn't too happy, either.

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Who’s for a Cease Fire?

By on 25 July 2006



Oh, and by the way, nobody wants to send troops.

Who's shocked? Question is what do we call the nations who will be drafted?
They're not a coalition of the willing. They won't even be a coalition of the
coerced. I think we've got only one reality left, thanks to Bush.

Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you the coalition of the dragged kicking and
screaming. Victims to be announced at a later date.


The United States has ruled out its soldiers participating, NATO says it
is overstretched, Britain feels its troops are overcommitted and Germany says
it is willing to participate only if Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia which
it would police, agrees to it, a highly unlikely development.

“All the politicians are saying, ‘Great, great’ to the
idea of a force, but no one is saying whose soldiers will be on the ground,”
said one senior European official. “Everyone will volunteer to be in
charge of the logistics in Cyprus.”

There has been strong verbal support for such a force in public, but also
private concerns that soldiers would be seen as allied to Israel and would
have to fight Hezbollah guerrillas who do not want foreigners, let alone the
Lebanese Army, coming between themselves and the Israelis.

There is also the burden of history. France — which has called the
idea of a force premature — and the United States are haunted by their
last participation in a multinational force in Lebanon after the Israeli invasion
in 1982, when they became belligerents in the Lebanese civil war and tangled
fatally with Hezbollah. …

(snip)

For the moment, at least, Israel is laying out an ambitious, if perhaps unrealistic,
view of what the force would do. Israel wants it to keep Hezbollah away from
the border, allow the Lebanese government and army to take control over all
of its territory, and monitor Lebanon’s borders to ensure that Hezbollah
is not resupplied with weapons.

(snip)

The Europeans, by contrast, including Britain, France and Germany, envision
a much less robust international buffer force, one that would follow a cease-fire
and operate with the consent of the Lebanese government to support the deployment
of its army in southern Lebanon. …

Nations
Reluctant to Commit Troops to Lebanon

Yeah, this will work. Britain said it will not go; America can't (see Iraq).

Dr. Rice, time for that birthing
epidural.

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Condi: NO CEASE FIRE

By on 25 July 2006

Israel stopped the bombing for Condi. I'm touched.

Last night, Anderson Cooper frankly admitted that Hezbollah had ambulances
waiting for the right moment for the cameras, with Nic
Robertson admitting Hezbollah had control
over his piece, too.

Welcome to war in the digital, pr age. State sponsored, freedom fighters, or terrorist, image
is all and it's crafted and timed, too.



But there's no doubt about it. They had control of the situation. They designated
the places that we went to, and we certainly didn't have time to go into the
houses or lift up the rubble to see what was underneath.

So what we did see today in a similar excursion, and Hezbollah is now running
a number of these every day, taking journalists into this area. They realize
that this is a good way for them to get their message out, taking journalists
on a regular basis. This particular press officer came across his press office
today, what was left of it in the rubble. He pointed out business cards that
he said were from his office that was a Hezbollah press office in that area.

So there's no doubt that the bombs there are hitting Hezbollah facilities.
But from what we can see, there appear to be a lot of civilian damage, a lot
of civilian properties. But again, as you say, we didn't have enough time
to go in, root through those houses, see if perhaps there was somebody there
who was, you know, taxi driver there… (CNN)

Condi came, she did her photo ops, and she never once removed her sunglasses
from atop of her head.

That's Bush diplomacy for you. Been there. Done nothing. What's next?

If you want to hear what's happened to our diplomatic status under Bush, just
listen to Senator
Tom Harkin. As for our “honest broker status,” what Condi did
by making a surprise trip to Beirut was give the appearance of diplomacy,
without offering up the goods.

Nobody was terribly impressed with what Rice had to offer. Her appearance in
Beirut was all show, which fooled no one. Nice try, take my Katyusha, please.

Is it any wonder that the wingnuts are upset that John Kerry said if he were
president we wouldn't be in this mess? Besides being true, it's embarrassing
for the president's WWIII bring it on crowd.

Meanwhile, John
Bolton continues to diss the only man Hezbollah trusts. And Bolton is going
to help us out of this mess? Only if WWIII is your goal. If it is, then Bolton's
your man.

Lebanon's Nabi Berri, the speaker of the Lebanese
parliament, thought Rice's proposal a joke. Berri used to compete with Hezbollah,
as well as be very close to Syria, but is now their main guy in the government. If you don't get Berri to listen to you, Hezbollah is out
of reach.


Lebanon's parliament speaker, Hizbullah's de facto negotiator, rejected proposals
brought by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday, insisting a cease-fire
must precede any talks about resolving Hizbullah's presence in the south,
an official close to the speaker said.

Rice's talks with Prime Minister Fuad Saniora also appeared to have been
tense. Saniora told Rice that Israel's bombardment was taking his country
“backwards 50 years” and also called for a “swift cease-fire,”
the prime minister's office said.

Lebanese
parliament speaker rejects Rice proposals

As was said on the News Hour last night on PBS, “Hezbollah is much more
than a terrorist organization.” They deliver a lot to the Lebanese people:
religiously, empowerment, as well as socially and politically. There are thugs
in their midst, but the Lebanese people respect their leader, Nasralla.

Bush and Bolton want to diminish Hezbollah's role, which only makes navigating
the situation worse. Bush/Bolton don't care, because they don't want solutions.
They want war. Newt made it clear: WWWIII or bust, baby. That's the Republican
line. It feeds their bottom line.

In the midst of it you have 700,000 Lebanese homeless. You have $150 million
needed to again rebuild Lebanon.

Forgive me, but I'm sick of paying other country's debts because of the conservatives'
unending dreams of war. Enough.

Hey, but Condi shows up to pretend she's offering something to the Lebanese,
while backing more bombing by the Israelis; who have a right to go after Hezbollah,
but not at the expense of the entire civilian population of Lebanon.

Nobody was fooled by Condi's photo op in Beirut.

But even in the midst of it, there are stories that stick out. An American
family trying to get out of Lebanon got some help, but not from Bush, Bolton
or Condi. It came from two Democratic senators from New Jersey.


D. HAIDAR: Can I just say one thing, please.

Throughout all of this, we had Senator Menendez, Senator Lautenberg,
Senator (INAUDIBLE), they all worked with us so, so hard to help us get our
children evacuated from the area they were. They worked with us since 6:00
a.m. …

CNN
transcript

If Bush, Bolton and Condi wanted to they could end the fighting right now.
But they don't, so they aren't, while civilians continue to die. That's not
leadership. But it's what Republicans do best: war.

Where is the humanity? The Christianity.

If you want to know how we got where we are today, read on. It's fascinating.


… Armies are criticized because the excess of power that they accumulate
enables them to dictate steps of political significance during a time of crisis.
In these situations, military contingency plans become the principal alternative
available to the politicians, which is why they tend to accept the army's
viewpoint. But this time we have before us a particularly extreme case. Not
only was the military plan the only one, but the political leadership voluntarily
relinquished its duty to discuss it thoroughly. This places political thinking,
to which military thinking is supposed to be subordinate, in a particularly
inferior situation.

This inferiority stems, paradoxically, from the “civilian” label
of the present leadership. The term “civilian” does not relate in
this case only to the biography of the leaders, but to their political agenda
as well – i.e., the convergence plan. A civilian leadership often tends to
increase the army's freedom of operation, particularly when it operates in
a cultural-political environment in which half of the voters favor the use
of force to solve political problems. Under these circumstances, the civilian
leadership needs the army as a political instrument for the purpose of implementing
the civil agenda. After all, the “disengagement” plan was implemented
thanks to the support of the army, and the same will be true of the convergence
plan in the future. …

A voluntary
'putsch'

We haven't
learned a thing since Vietnam.

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Bush Flip Flops: Condi Arrives in Lebanon

By on 24 July 2006

I feel so much better. Condi's in Beirut. Nothing like a photo op to make the Middle East calm down.

Bill Scher offers some interesting insight into the conflict.


On June 20, the Associated
Press reported that “Hamas is drawing close to a compromise on a
document that would implicitly recognize Israel” for the first time.
This political effort was spearheaded by Palestinian Authority Prime Minister
Ismail Haniyeh, a pragmatist. But Hamas' militant wing, led by politburo chief
Khaled Meshal from exile in Syria, did not approve.

As a Syrian political analyst reported in last Saturday's Asia
Times, Haniyeh was reaching out to Israel because he “wants to run
a country” and seeks “to prove that he was not in power to combat
Israel but to improve the livelihood of the Palestinians.” Meshal, however,
“leads the anti-pragmatism fold in Hamas that still wants to destroy
the Jewish state.”

So five days after the AP report, an Israeli soldier was abducted in an operation
believed to have been directed by Meshal. The Jewish
Week reported that the kidnapping had “caught Haniyeh by surprise,”
and that the prime minister attempted to order the soldier's release, but
was “ignored” by those from his party's militant wing involved in
the operation.

How did Israel react? It retaliated with military force. Just what Meshal
and the militants wanted. …

Bill
Scher

Reading the rest of Scher's post, you also find this statement from him: Truly
befuddling is why the Bush administration did not use its leverage with the
Israeli government to shore up Hamas pragmatists.

Bill knows his stuff and is a pragmatic man. He truly believes heads of state
should have deep thought processes and understand the complexities of the Middle
East.

Unfortunately, we have George W. Bush in office, a man who does not do nuance,
so I don't find it “befuddling” at all that Bush is ignoring the pragmatists
who want peace. Our president long ago proved he is not a man of peace; nor
is he a man of deep thinking. If he were we wouldn't be in this mess.

Oh, and we wouldn't have Condoleezza Rice showing up doing photo op, light
switch diplomacy a week late. As one of my dearest friends wrote me this morning:



(we) just noticed that ms. condi rice wore her SUNGLASSES ON HER HEAD during
her weekend meetings in lebanon.

that's really poor form. did she forget where her plane landed?

Exactly.

Now, evidently understanding how obtuse the Administration has been on Israel's
escalation, we get this today. Light switch diplomacy has turned into a
flip flopping foreign policy, because they don't know what they're doing. Again, yes, Israel has every right to defend herself
against Hezbollah, but Olmert's been baited into oblivion, with world opinion against Israel's overreaction.


Today, that message took on a notably different focus, one of concern for
the future of Lebanon. Short-term, the Bush Administration is worried about
a growing humanitarian crisis. Long-term, it fears that unchecked damage done
to Lebanon could create a failed state that would pose even more of a threat
to Israel.

That was the emphasis of secretary of state Condoleezza Rice's surprise stop
in Beirut today, as she sought to make a dramatic show of support for Lebanese
leaders staggering under the Israeli bombardment and siege. Rice had planned
to fly to Jerusalem, but she diverted to Cyprus at about noon local time,
boarded a Chinook helicopter manned by the U.S. Marine Expeditionary Unit
24, the same unit that was the target of the Marine barracks bombing in 1983.
Rice's chopper, armed with tripod-mounted machine guns, landed on U.S. embassy
grounds in Beirut at about 1 p.m. local time. She was driven in an armored
SUV to the office of Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. Afterwards, another
fast, bumpy ride took her to the home of the speaker of the parliament, Nabih
Berri, a Shia leader. Outside Berri's residential office, Rice said, “I'm
deeply concerned about the Lebanese people and what they are enduring. I'm
concerned about the humanitarian situation. President Bush wanted me to make
this the first stop.”

Rice's appearance here in Beirut was aimed as much to send a signal to Israel
as one to Lebanon. Although Rice has never wavered from the Administration's
position that the U.S. supports Israel's right to defend itself, her rhetoric
has taken on a cooler edge as Israel has continued to bombard Lebanon's infrastructure
and has blockaded land and sea routes into the country. …

The
Message Behind Rice's Surprise Visit to Beirut

Bush is backtracking as fast as he can.

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Saudis to Bush: Time for a Ceasefire

By on 23 July 2006

Uh-oh, Mr. President, trouble in paradise?

The headline came through right before I saw Sean-Paul‘s
post, as well as Patrick
Lang’s.

Every wingnut pundit was spouting off last week about how so many Arab rulers
were criticizing Hezbollah. However, what the conservatives didn’t say was that
these Sunni Arabs were actually pushing back at the Shia in their region. No
more.



Saudi Arabia asked President Bush on Sunday to intervene in Israel’s military
campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon to stop the mounting deaths.

“We requested a cease-fire to allow for a cessation of hostilities,”
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said after an Oval Office meeting
with Bush.

Saud said he gave the president a letter from Saudi King Abdullah asking
that Bush help seek an immediate cease-fire in the Middle East conflict.

Saud, the Saudi Ambassador to the United States, Prince Turki al-Faisal,
and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, chief of the Saudi National Security Council,
met with Bush for more than an hour Sunday.

Saudis
ask Bush to intervene in Mideast

We mustn’t forget the Saudis have substantial money invested in Lebanon. They’ve
seen it reduced to rubble.

Today, on “Face the Nation,” we also had Israeli Ambassador Daniel
Ayalon stating that there would be no ground invasion of Israel; that at best
what would happen would be brief incursions into Lebanon to push back Hezbollah.
Clearly, the civilian casualty count has caused Israel to hear from their friends
that they’re going to lose this even if they win, which they won’t.

On top of this add that Jan Egeland, the United Nations emergency relief coordinator,
said today that Lebanon needs $100
million in relief. The criticism
aimed at Israel today has been total. Frankly, they’ve take a righteous
action against Hezbollah, and through Olmert’s overreation, have turned it into
an international disgrace.

As for the Bush administration’s “war on terror”, Harper’s
has the humiliation.

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MIDDLE EAST: Another Brilliant Idea

By on 22 July 2006

–updated–


But not to worry. The arms we're shipping to Israel are not to be compared with
the “emergency resupply” of 1973. Holy mother of God, but this has
got to be the most fly by night foreign policy strategy in U.S. history, coupled with hints of a longer war.


The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to
Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its
air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said
Friday.

The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively
little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said. Its disclosure
threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the appearance that
the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way
that could be compared to Iran’s efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah.

The munitions that the United States is sending to Israel are part of a multimillion-dollar
arms sale package approved last year that Israel is able to draw on as needed,
the officials said. But Israel’s request for expedited delivery of the
satellite and laser-guided bombs was described as unusual by some military
officers, and as an indication that Israel still had a long list of targets
in Lebanon to strike.

(snip)

The decision to stay away from Arab countries for now is a markedly different
strategy from the shuttle diplomacy that previous administrations used to
mediate in the Middle East.

(snip)

Before Ms. Rice heads to Israel on Sunday, she will join President
Bush at the White House for discussions on the Middle East crisis with two
Saudi envoys, Saud al-Faisal, the foreign minister, and Prince Bandar bin
Sultan, the secretary general of the National Security Council. …

U.S.
Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis

Ah, yes, please do talk with the Saudis about all this.

The good news: Germany and Russia will contribute to the international peace
keeping forces, which are inevitable after this insanity stops. What choice
does everyone have at this point?

I'll have to find out the rest a little late today, because I'm sleeping in. God bless my perfect bed, the quiet and the American peace we enjoy “over
here.”

UPDATE (12:25 p.m.): Devastingly accurate editorial by neocon and veteran Ralph Peters today. To say that Israel has blown this gives me no pleasure, however, they have; from the moment they started bombarding Lebanon's civilian infrastructure. CNN just showed a mass grave of civilians being buried, which drives the point home. With George W. Bush's feckless foreign policy aiding and abetting the slaughter of Lebanese, as well as Israeli soldiers, let me add, America has never come across more biased, weaker and less a world leader in our entire history.

As Christiane Amanpour just said, quoting an Israeli soldier: “Israel going back into Lebanon is like America going back into Vietnam.”



ISRAEL is losing this war. For a lifelong Israel supporter, that's a painful thing to write. But it's true. And the situation's worsening each day.
A U.S. government official put it to me this way: “Israel's got the clock, but Hezbollah's got the time.” The sands of the hourglass favor the terrorists – every day they hold out and drop more rockets on Israel, Hezbollah scores a propaganda win.

All Hezbollah has to do to achieve victory is not to lose completely. But for Israel to emerge the acknowledged winner, it has to shatter Hezbollah. Yet Israeli miscalculations have left Hezbollah alive and kicking. …

CAN ISRAEL WIN?
NOT THE WAY IT'S FIGHTING (emphasis added)

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Survivor Lebanon

By on 21 July 2006


This destruction panorama of Lebanon is stunning.

In response, Condi
rules out a cease-fire. I say, send these sadists to the front.

Larry Johnson weighs in.


Condi Rice still holds the crazy belief that Lebanon's Army, which is 50%
Shia, will magically deploy and confront Hezbollah. She also deluded herself
into believing that the radical groups, like Hezbollah and the insurgents
in Iraq, are stirring up trouble because the US mission of speading democracy
is actually working. Maybe Condi also believes that the Tooth Fairy passes
out coins for lost teeth, but believing in fantasies does not make fantasies
come true.

So far Condi has ruled out talking with Hezbollah about any issue. They are
a terrorist organization and we don't talk to terrorists. Following our lead,
Israel is will rebuff any UN entreaty to negotiate a ceasefire. The table
is set for the next evolution of bloodshed.

(snip)

Although Hezbollah uses terrorism as a tactic, it is not primarily a terrorist
organization. It has evolved over the years into a genuine political movement
and conventional military force. This is a reality we can ignore at our peril.
If we choose to view Hezbollah strictly as a terrorist threat then we convince
ourselves that we have only one option–fight. But understand this–if we
fight Hezbollah we will unleash a new war front that we are not prepared to
pursue. At a minimum we can expect to face the fury of Shia militias attacking
our troops and personnel in Iraq.

There are some other options. …

The
Rut Becomes a Grave, by Larry Johnson

Meanwhile, Israel is about to invade southern Lebanon to eviscerate Hezbollah's
stronghold on their border. I bet they're dreading this one. Memories of 1982
have to come flooding back. The last thing Israel wants is to occupy Lebanon.
But once you send ground forces in things have a way of escalating.

But let me get this straight. Israel's planning a ground invasion of southern
Lebanon, and they're telegraphing it to the whole world via satellite TV. Israeli
security is renowned, so why are they showing us the ground build up? Ho-boy,
here we go.

Via Juan Cole:


Thousands of Lebanese were trying to flee the south after Israeli warplanes
dropped leaflets warning people to leave, stirring fears that an Israeli ground
invasion was imminent. But hundreds of thousands more remain stranded in villages
and towns across the south, unable to leave their homes because of the intensity
of the sustained Israeli bombing campaign. United Nations and Lebanese officials
warned of an impending humanitarian disaster unless food and medical supplies
are allowed to reach the stricken area and called on Israel to establish a
“humanitarian corridor” to allow aid to get through.

Humanitarian
toll hits southern Lebanon as violence continues

From Lebanon…


Dozens of buildings were demolished in Haret Hreik and Bir al-Abed in the
southern suburbs, where 200,000 people formerly resided. Lebanon
Daily Star

If you haven't seen it, be sure to check out Marc Lynch's Abu
Aardvark, which has an analysis of some of the issues I addressed regarding
Lebanon.

Meanwhile, I wonder what our Groper in Chief will be doing this weekend? Nice,
relaxing time at Camp David, I suppose. Pass the butta.

Was it Bush's idea to drop leaflets
on Lebanon? You never know, because they're the ones who originally held
Americans stuck in Lebanon hostage to a promissory note in the middle of a war
zone.

It's been a tough week all 'round. I don't know about you, but I need a massage.

graphic compliments of Bob Geiger.

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While Lebanon Burns

By on 20 July 2006

cross-posted at firedoglake



I'd like to get Joe Lieberman's opinion on the Middle East escalation going on right now. I bet he'd back Bush all the way.

First we had Bush's lackluster Katrina response, Lebanon-style, which held Americans hostage to a promissory note in a war zone. MSNBC just talked about people driving to the Syrian border to get out because they're afraid of what tomorrow will bring. Still, we've got continuing hands off diplomacy. I guess we can just be thankful that Condi wasn't caught shoe shopping. What will it take for the president to engage? Waiting until more children are killed and Lebanese civilians die is not the answer.

President Bush is allowing the current Middle East escalation to continue, because he's hoping Israeli Prime Minister Olmert can take out Hezbollah in a week. Outsourcing American foreign policy isn't the answer. Olmert has a duty to defend Israel against Hezbollah, but Olmert has overreacted badly and miscalculated horribly by pummeling the Lebanese government's infrastructure, including water purification plants, electrical grids, as well as the airport, which is why we leased a cruise ship. The collective punishment of Lebanon is endangering this fledgling government, which has been given absolutely no backing by Bush except his ad nauseam speeches about “democracy.” It would have been nice to actually put efforts behind Resolution 1559 during all these months, instead of expecting Lebanon's Siniora to do it on his own, with Hezbollah breathing down his neck. Meanwhile, because of Bush's light switch diplomacy, which has blown a fuse, things get ever more dangerous in Iraq.

For those of you keeping score, here's the breakdown, as far as I can tell. Hezbollah is Shia (Shiite), with support and backing from Iraq, Syria and the Iraqi government sitting inside the Green Zone. Hamas is Sunni, with the support of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Palestinians, Syria (playing all sides), Iraq insurgents and Egypt. That's simplistic, but you won't hear it explained on cable, with the nitwits and wingnuts cackling about how Arab leaders are condemning Hezbollah. Well, no kidding, because most of them doing the condemning are Sunnis. The Sunni – Shia showdown could one day be the Israeli – Palestinian conflict on steroids, if we're not careful. The situation is getting more complicated by the minute.

One of Saudi Arabia's leading Wahhabi sheiks, Abdullah bin Jabreen has issued a strongly worded religious edict, or fatwa, declaring it unlawful to support, join or pray for Hezbollah, the Shiite militias lobbing missiles into northern Israel.

The day after Hezbollah abducted two Israeli soldiers on July 12, Sheik Hamid al-Ali issued an informal statement titled “The Sharia position on what is going on.” In it, the Kuwaiti based cleric condemned the imperial ambitions of Iran regarding Hezbollah's cross border raid.

The surprising move demonstrates that Sunni Muslim fundamentalists in the Middle East are deeply divided over whether Moslems should support Hezbollah, Iran's Shiite proxies in the war raging in Lebanon.

Leading Saudi Sheik Pronounces Fatwa Against Hezbollah

The real problem right now is that America has no credibility in the Middle East. George W. Bush isn't trusted, because America is no longer seen as an honest broker. Continue Reading →

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U.S. Ships at Hell’s Gate

By on 18 July 2006

–updated below–

Today during the press briefing, Tony Snow said he preferred to “kick
the can” down the road on the whole Israeli – Hezbollah thing. We now have the
definitive Bush strategy for the Middle East. As for when Condi will show up,
well, a week or so, you know, no hurry.

As I wrote a few days ago, the USS Iwo Jima (pictured here) is on its way from maneuvers in
the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. Now we find out that it's not just one ship,
but also the USS Gonzalez. I'm feeling worse by the minute. A navy destroyer
escort for a great big boat filled with juicy targets?

When I heard this news yesterday a cold chill ran down my spine. Here's
the upshot: The Orient Queen, a commercial ship hired by the government,
will sail into a Beirut port Tuesday escorted by the destroyer USS Gonzales
and possibly the USS Iwo Jima. The cruise ship will try to rescue the estimated
5,000 citizens who are so far wanting to leave.

Israel is currently blockading Lebanon, though after first refusing to do so,
is now allowing evacuee ships through.

There's more. Bush is also planning or prepared to put around 2,200 U.S. Marines
“in the area” to protect Americans, if need be, but that's not the worst of it. We're watching a Middle East Katrina unfold before our eyes. Via MSNBC comes the news that the U.S. State Department can't handle the job:
McCormack said the cost of a massive evacuation was beyond U.S. resources.

So to review, we've got a war in Iraq, with Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah
going after one another, as the Lebanese government becomes weaker every day.
Meanwhile, the indiscriminate bombing by Israel has the Lebanese people moving
closer to Hezbollah, with the U.S. admitting we can't handle the situation, which the White House has chosen to kick down the road.

As for Israel's role, it's 1982 deja vu.

Hey, but that hasn't stopped the neocons from wanting more of it, war, that is. Man, these
guys are never satisfied.

Maybe that's why George Will took out after them today, and when I say went
after them I mean it. Steve Clemons has an
analysis. But George gets brutal.


“Grotesque” was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's characterization
of the charge that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was responsible for the current
Middle East conflagration. She is correct, up to a point. This point: Hezbollah
and Hamas were alive and toxic long before March 2003. Still, it is not perverse
to wonder whether the spectacle of America, currently learning a lesson —
one that conservatives should not have to learn on the job — about the limits
of power to subdue an unruly world, has emboldened many enemies.

(snip)

But there also is democratic movement toward extremism. America's intervention
was supposed to democratize Iraq, which, by benign infection, would transform
the region. Early on in the Iraq occupation, Rice argued that democratic institutions
do not just spring from a hospitable political culture, they also can help
create such a culture. Perhaps.

But elections have transformed Hamas into the government of the Palestinian
territories, and elections have turned Hezbollah into a significant faction
in Lebanon's parliament, from which it operates as a state within the state.
And as a possible harbinger of future horrors, last year's elections gave
the Muslim Brotherhood 19 percent of the seats in Egypt's parliament. …

(snip)

“We might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a
military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone
think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate
in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there
would be repercussions — and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong
America that has rejected further appeasement.”

“Why wait?” Perhaps because the U.S. military has enough on its
plate in the deteriorating wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which both border
Iran. And perhaps because containment, although of uncertain success, did
work against Stalin and his successors, and might be preferable to a war against
a nation much larger and more formidable than Iraq. And if Bashar Assad's
regime does not fall after the Weekly Standard's hoped-for third war, with
Iran, does the magazine hope for a fourth?

Transformation's
Toll, by George Will

Oh, I almost forgot. Speaking of hell… (p.s. – Billmon just cross-posted this at firedoglake.)

UPDATE (2:12 p.m.): One of the things I've been thinking about lately is something that Madeleine Albright writes about in her book. Billmon lays it out today, which I excerpt below. The reality, it seems to me, is that the Israelis and the Palestinians are worn out. The other reality is that Bush has not done the work needed to make the Siniora government in Lebanon strong enough to stand up against Hezbollah. Until Lebanon's central government can push back at Hezbollah, this is all just history repeating itself, especially since Olmert took the bait. Something to keep in mind is who's on each side: Hamas is Sunni and is aligned with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraqi insurgents, Palestinians and Syria; Hezbollah is Shia and aligned with the Iraqi majority and Iran. That's simplistic, but gives you an idea of the players besides Israel and the U.S. Another important point is that Israel, in my opinion, is now backing off because Hezbollah's strength, rocket power and the new distance of their rockets took Olmert and Bush, let me add, by surprise. Now to billmon:



… How far such a realigment could go is anybody's guess. A friend (see above) told me today that he'd heard through the grapevine that the other King Abdullah, of Jordan, recently told Shrub he believed the Sunni-Sh'ia showdown would soon supplant the Israeli-Arab conflict as the defining grudge match in the Middle East.

UPDATE II (2:45 p.m.): Here's an important link: US Embassy Beirut Lebanon

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What About the Israelis

By on 15 July 2006

UPDATE II (11:01 p.m.): Robin Wright writes: Hasan Nasrallah is exactly where he always wanted to be. And Israeli Prime Minister Olmert helped put him there. That is, long after he joined Hezbollah, after the Israelis invaded Lebanon so long ago. Lessons learned: 0.

UPDATE (10:25 p.m. PDT): Read this earlier. Cujo359 in the comments excerpted it, so I thought I would put it up front. I spoke with Larry Johnson in Las Vegas recently, after Zarqawi was captured. Today, he nails Israel with point blank precision. Feel the backlash from the bombs, baby. … by the way, my friend Ian has a very interesting post about Hezbollah I suggest you check out. Now, here's Larry…



… While most folks in the United States buy into the Hollywood storyline of poor little Israel fighting for it's survival against big, bad Muslims, the reality unfolding on our TV screens shows something else. Exodus, starring Paul Newman, is ancient history. Hamas and Hezbollah attacked military targets–kidnapping soldiers on military patrols may be an act of war and a provocation, but it is not terrorism. (And yes, Hezbollah and Hamas have carried out terrorist attacks in the past against Israeli civilians. I'm not ignoring those acts, I condemn them, but we need to understand what the dynamics are right now.) Israel is not attacking the individuals who hit their soldiers. Israel is engaged in mass punishment. … – Larry Johnson

I have stated unequivocally that I think Prime Minister Olmert is not being
our ally in his overreaction to the current crisis escalating with Hezbollah.
Their rhetoric on Iran
is not only hyperbolic but calculated, I believe.

Now I want to share with you a little tidbit from just one of the American neocons.
It needs very little introduction, no explanation. It will illustrate why I've been saying,
especially in the comments, that Israel is up to no good, with a lot of
help from the AEI faction.

Many people believe that Michael Ledeen is one of the people behind the Niger documents,
though no one can conclusively prove it. No doubt, if he is, it was part of
jump starting the neocon premise of “creative destruction” through
preemption. This is the mindset of Mr. Ledeen.



… Ledeen repeatedly urged war or destabilization not just in Iraq but also
in Iran, Syria, Lebanon, even Saudi Arabia. “One can only hope that we
turn the region into a cauldron, and faster, please,” he wrote. “Faster,
please” became his mantra, repeated incessantly in his National Review
columns.

Rhapsodizing about war week after week, Ledeen became chief rhetorician for
neoconservative visionaries who wanted to remake the Middle East. “Creative
destruction is our middle name, both within our own society and abroad,”
he wrote after the attacks. “We must destroy [our enemies] to advance
our historic mission.”

The U.S. must be “imperious, ruthless, and relentless,” he argued,
until there has been “total surrender” by the Muslim world. “We
must keep our fangs bared,” he wrote, “we must remind them daily
that we Americans are in a rage, and we will not rest until we have avenged
our dead, we will not be sated until we have had the blood of every miserable
little tyrant in the Middle East, until every leader of every cell of the
terror network is dead or locked securely away, and every last drooling anti-Semitic
and anti-American mullah, imam, sheikh, and ayatollah is either singing the
praises of the United States of America, or pumping gasoline, for a dime a
gallon, on an American military base near the Arctic Circle.” …

The
War They Wanted, The Lies They Needed

That we are in real trouble in Iraq goes without saying. So to see Israel launch
such a provocative offensive is not only dangerous but puts our efforts in Iraq
in further jeopardy (if that's possible at this point). It's not what nations
do when their friends are fighting and struggling a losing battle; mind you, I know Israel had to do something about the abducted soldiers, but this?

You simply must read Steve Clemons' latest post, which offers real insight on the Israelis, I believe. To say that many of the theories I've been offering here were substantiated during reading is not wholly comforting. The snippet below will give you only
one section of his thesis, which simply must be read in its totality.


… The Israeli response to the Hezbollah incursion is exactly what Hezbollah
wanted. Adversaries rarely give each other the behaviors the other actually
desires unless there are other objectives involved.

My view is that three broad threats were evolving for Israel from the American
side of the equation. One one front, the U.S. will be attempting to settle
some kind of new equilibrium in Iraq with fewer U.S. forces and some face-saving
partial withdrawal. To accomplish this and maintain any legitimacy in the
eyes of important nations in the region — particularly among close U.S. partners
among the Gulf Cooperation Council states — America “might have”
tried to do some things that constituted a broad new bargain with the Arab
Middle East. The U.S. had even previously flirted, along with the Brits, in
trying to get Syria on a Libya like track and out of the international dog
house.

There was also pressure building to push Hamas — or at least the “governing
wing” of it — towards a posture that would move dramatically closer
to a recognition of Israel. Abbas was becoming increasingly entrepreneurial
in creating opportunities for the constructive players in Hamas to squirm
towards eventual negotiations with Israel that could possibly be packaged
in terms of “final status negotiations” on the borders and terms
of a new Palestinian state.

(snip)

The flamboyant, over the top reactions to attacks on Israel's military check points and the abduction of soldiers — which I agree Israel must respond to — seems to be part establishing “bona fides” by Olmert, but far more important, REMOVING from the table important policy options that the U.S. might have pursued. …

Some Questions
Regarding Israel's Objectives: Is Israel Trying to Curb America's Deal-Making
in Middle East?

When I checked in on the news earlier today, multiple reports said that Olmert
was hell bent on finally taking out Hezbollah; that this was his ultimate goal. I offered it up, but something didn't
feel right about it.

The hunch that U.S. interests and Israeli interests are
colliding in the Middle East has got to be seriously considered. However, I
still think there is too much in play to know anything for sure right now. But the neocons certainly would like to aid Israel, which we'll likely see through Bill Kristol tomorrow on Fox “News.”

One thing on which Olmert didn't count and neither did Bush is that Hezbollah has proven they're now a real player. Israel needs to decide
what that means. Bush is too busy in Iraq to care right now. Olmert is using this fact to make our situation worse.

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Saturday Middle East Kaboom Edition

By on 15 July 2006

–updates below–

Hey, baby, we know how you feel!

Good morning, enjoy your coffee?

According to CNN, Israel has struck the Lebanese side of the Syria-Lebanese
border, with strikes continuing in Beirut.

Here, let me clean that up for you… Oh, why bother, because Israel is still
pushing
the obvious, without any facts to back it up. Again, we simply do not know.

There's also this: Aljazeera has just reported that Israeli jets attacked
4 Syrian military posts near the Lebanese Syrian border (on the Syrian side).
Both Israel and Syria deny
that report.

See, lots of misinformation right now.

The other topic of discussion is the disarming
of Hezbollah, which is drawn out by From Beirut to the Beltway. But if you
believe Hassan Nasrallah
will disarm I want what's in your coffee. Seriously, I really do. I've said it before,
it's not going to happen, though it's been called for since the “cedar
revolution,” when Syria withdrew from Lebanon. That's when the pressure
mounted for Hezbollah
to become a political organization and disown its violent militancy. That's
what 1559
was all about. The people, as far as I can tell, are split about Hezbollah.
They resent the current bloodshed, as they are a fledgling democracy, but they
will never forget Hezbollah chasing, so to speak, Israel from Lebanon in May
2000. That's the short version, believe me.

This post from Defense Tech is worth a look because it runs down Hezbollah's
rocket capabilities, in short. From 14 miles into Israel to hitting Haifa,
20 miles in.

Also, if you watched the story yesterday about the
Israeli ship being hit by an armed drone you likely have whiplash by now.
The crawlers across the cable networks went wacky about half way into late afternoon
on it. It went from armed drone to Lebanese missiles, now back to UAVs.
Get a dart board out and play the game; you'd be as accurate. Roggio
has more.

As for what the bombings have done to Lebanon's tourist season, one Lebanese
blogger is evacuating today and you can be certain he's not alone.

Another Lebanese blogger
screams: The Tripoli Port has been shelled by Israelis! OH MY GOD!!! THAT'S
MY HOME CITY. MY FAMILY IS IN THE CAR RIGHT NOW LEAVING THE CITY UP TO THE MOUNTAINS.
THEY WERE SCARED WHEN I LAST CALLED THEM. I SHOULD CALL THEM RIGHT NOW TO DOUBLE
CHECK ON THEM. YA ALLAH!!!!!

The following is offered as a report, but I'd feel more comfortable offering it as rumor. The wingnuts for war seem to be buying it, though. I'm a lot more cautious on this whole regional war thing, frankly. It is predicated, it seems to me, on the factor that Iran, Syria and Hezbollah are stupid. They're not. It's like the canard that Iran is going to hit Israel. Really? Then we can kiss their butts goodbye, because Israel would level them and if they didn't we would. As for Syria, it just makes me laugh. They're saving thousands of Christians and others right now. But the issue of the IDF troops is real, though Israel has got to know that Hamas and Hezbollah are very capable of acting on their own. Truth be told, Asad is a wimp. Hey, but this is the Middle East so I could be wrong on all counts; everybody else has been lately.



Report: Israel gives Syria ultimatum

London-based Arabic language newspaper Al-Hayat says Israel gave Syria 72 hours to stop Hezbollah’s activity, bring about release of kidnapped IDF troops. ‘Israel will not end military activity until new situation created that will prevent Syria, Iran from using terror organizations to threaten its security,’ newspaper quotes Pentagon official as saying

The London-based Arabic language newspaper Al-Hayat reported Saturday that “Washington has information according to which Israel gave Damascus 72 hours to stop Hezbollah’s activity along the Lebanon-Israel border and bring about the release the two kidnapped IDF soldiers or it would launch an offensive with disastrous consequences.”

The report said “a senior Pentagon source warned that should the Arab world and international community fail in the efforts to convince
Syria to pressure Hezbollah into releasing the soldiers and halt the current escalation Israel may attack targets in the country.”

Report: Israel gives Syria ultimatum

Then there's the thing nobody
is covering. Read up. Got to go, Fouad Siniora is addressing the nation on CNN… Okay, he's done, very emotional address; the message is RESCUE Lebanon. It is a “disaster zone,” but we will survive. Cue the disco – drop the bombs.

…now it's time for a laugh!

UPDATE: Holy Allah, grab your burka, the Arab League lives! They're actually meeting today for “discussions,” in Cairo. Wonders never cease. The Middle East peace process is “dead” were the words from the Arab Leagues' Secretary General, according to CNN. U.N. is rumored to be their next stop, in order to get a solution to the, er… crisis. Hope they dress for the heat. The humidity is murder.

UPDATE II: See map, as well as comments, understanding that one of the main countries involved in all this, as you know, is Iran, though as I said above, I don't believe for a second they're involved in the current escalation.

UPDATE III (2:30 p.m. PST): It's official (or as official as anything is right now), Israeli ship hit by a missile (via Billmon).


What Israel's over-reaction means to our efforts and troops in Iraq, not to mention the Iraqi people.
As for the region itself, see here.

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