Promoted by Steven D.
It is an open question which nation of bullies is more insane: us or Israel. We share a couple of common tendencies. Both nations tend to place outsized attention the lives of its own citizens while discounting the worth of our “enemies” and the innocents who get caught in the crossfire. Second, both nations lecture others about the rule of law while almost gleefully ignoring it themselves.
We’re seeing this again in Lebanon. If the Israeli tendency to punish everyone for the crimes of a few continues in this current expansion, it seems only logical that the entire Muslim world will pay for the actions of Hezbollah and Hamas militias. The bald-faced attempt to draw the US into their war of aggression with assertions that Hezbollah is planning to transfer captured IDF soldiers to Syria or Iran threatens to set the entire world ablaze.
All of this because some home-made rockets were launched into Israel, arguably in response to Israeli provocations. Can any sane person deny that this is a horrible over-reaction?
The insanity of these two nations, these two nuclear states ruled by men who worship only profit and hegemony, is a grave danger to the world. Dahr Jamail observes, from Amman:
The next day, Thursday, we awoke with our eyes glued to al-Jazeera on the television. Israeli warplanes bombed Beirut’s Rafiq al-Hariri airport. At least two air strikes were reported while Lebanese anti-aircraft guns fired feebly at the jets, according to witnesses. Israeli jets also bombed bridges linking south Lebanon to the rest of the country, and 22 civilians were killed last night by Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon.
In response to the bombings, Hezbollah claims to have fired 60 rockets into northern Israel.
The Israeli justification for bombing the airport in Beirut and pushing into southern Lebanon is that two of their soldiers were captured. In classic newspeak, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said of the incident, “It is an act of war by the state of Lebanon,” conveniently omitting the bombings in the occupied territories, including civilians on a beach, by Israeli forces over the last weeks.
“This is going to be a big war,” Abu Talat tells me while we watch plumes of smoke billowing from locations within Lebanon, “This is even more important for us to cover than Iraq, and you know how much I love Iraq.”
If Ohlmert has his way, it will be one large war, aflame from Gaza through Syria and into Iraq and Iran. It seems that he will settle for nothing else other than total capitulation, and I think that Muslims despite all of their internal divisions are unlikely to give it.
Let me start off by saying that I’m both scared and heartbroken over what is happening in the Middle East.
But on a more pragmatic side, I keep wanting to ask those in charge of the killing what they think they are accomplishing. Do they really think that killing people will help them reach their goals? After all we have seen about the so-called “terrorists” it seems they are more than willing to die for their cause. If we want to stop them, aren’t there more effective ways than giving them exactly what they are looking for? Seems we are working out of a paradigm that has been proven faulty for a long time now. I can’t help but think of that old definition of what demonstrates psychosis, repeating the same thing over and over, and expecting different results.
Or as the obnoxious Dr. Phil would rightly ask,”How’s that workin for ya?”
After all we have seen about the so-called “terrorists” it seems they are more than willing to die for their cause. If we want to stop them, aren’t there more effective ways than giving them exactly what they are looking for?
Please see the/my comments to the previous story from yesterday. Your question above closely relates to my theoretical question/proposition at least from the Israeli perspective. Maybe this deterrence on a societal scale by the Israelis is wrong, but at least it does provide one possible answer to your above inquiry!
I guess I was looking for something that would DE-escalate the violence and killling, not something that would ramp it up, which your idea would most certainly do.
Somebody, (I forget who), just yesterday used the famous quote: “Madness is defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result each time”, in reference to Israel’s behavior over the last several decades.
Clearly the policy of massive retaliations for relatively simpler and smaler scale transgressions has only succeeded in making things worse for Israel, it’s citizenry, and the region at large.
Clearly too, Hamas and Hizbollah operatives play into this whole dynamic also. It’s sort of a “men with guns” syndrome; having the weapons means they don’t have to obey the law, and having this “freedom” to flaunt the law and ignore restraint further corrupts them by inhibiting any desire to think rationally or to actually seek solutions to the problems. It becomes a cyclical, “shoot and be shot at” situation that only deteriorates under the weight it’s own dysfunctionality.
The problem we have is that we look at each and every action separately and also condemn them separatey. Recognize the totality for what it is: The US and Israel are conducting a long-time campaign amounting to genocide.
Sure, not so often they try to persuade the world that they want peace and once among times a seemingly real step forward towards peace is taken. That step forward is more often than not very soon replaced by two (or more) steps backward on the flimsiest of pretexts.
Bait and switch. The only conclusion you realistically can draw is that there’s a long-time stealth campaign of genocide running.
“Over reaction?”
In the winger world, the war pimping has already begun, and in earnest too.
See the posted piece about Putin, and what he said.
what was that last bit? “Why would Putin say he’s not joining some holy crusade?”
Gang, I think Bush wants to see if he can trigger the “end times.” YES, he is that goofy! Try and imagine Gomer Pyle telling an analyst, “this is the great battle for civilization.” This is what I’m worried about….Bush is losing it.
It just keeps spreading, and getting getting worse.
The abused are now the abusers.
I read a good article yesterday blaming Olmert’s lack of military credentials for the severity of Israel’s military response. He can’t afford to look weak through a measured response because he would risk having his coalition fracture apart. Now, if a Yitzhak Rabin or Ariel Sharon proposed a less inflamatory response, it would be impossible to brand them as soft on defense.
Sort of the opposite of US politics, where the media brands the chickenhawk as tough and the veteran as weak… 🙂
Barely effective rockets fired by Arabs into Israel = terrorism.
Israeli artillery & rocket fire into Gaza & Southern Lebanon, targeted assinations, & “kidnapping” of Palestinians held without charges = “reasonable security measures” & self=defense.
Israel continues to squat illegally on Palestinian land in violation of UN calls to retreat to its pre-’67 borders & refuses to even talk about the fate of the ’48 refugees. Anyone concerned with those issues is an “Enemy of the Peace Process” (intended to entomb those issues permanently from consideration) and thus “with the terrorists.”
Collective Punishment of a civilian polulation is an explicit violation of the Geneva conventions, but of course those conventions are a little quaint when applied to peoples of color.
It’s really that simple. Solutions, of course, are anything but . . .