Category: Archive

Frustrated by Hezbollah, Israel is lashing out at hapless civilians, knowing that the US will protect Israel from UN Security Council condemnation.

Frustrated by Sunni insurgents, the US has instigated sectarian strife.

Bush has stonewalled the UN, our European  allies, and the Lebanese prime minister, all of whom are calling and pleading for Bush to pressure the Israelis to stop their cowardly slaughter from the air of Lebanese civilians.

The Guardian (July 19) reports that Bush gave Israel the green light to attack Lebanon and has given Olmert another week to pound Lebanon.

US Secretary of State Condi Rice has announced that she will go to the Middle East to resolve “the crisis” when it is appropriate.  Apparently, the appropriate time is not when people are dying and a country, which had only just recovered from the last Israeli invasion, is again being bombed into rubble.

How many more war crimes must Israel commit before Bush and Condi Rice put aside their indifference?

On July 19 the Israelis turned their air attack on the Christian area of Beirut.  The Lebanese Christians can thank the American evangelical Rev. John. Hagee, who has thrown his 18,000 member Texas church behind Israeli aggression.

Bush cannot claim public support for his indifference.

As of noon July 19, 800,000 people had participated in CNN’s Quick Vote, with the result that 55% oppose Israel’s attack on Lebanon. This result is despite the fact that US television reporting explains the news from the Israeli perspective.

Similarly, in Israel a survey published by Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth showed 53 per cent of Israelis polled said Israel should hold negotiations to secure the release of the Israeli soldier captured in Gaza, while 43 per cent backed a military operation.

A poll taken by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that 28 per cent of Israelis believe Israel should immediately stop bombing Lebanon, compared to 7 per cent who believe that the bombing should continue until the captured soldiers are freed, and 14 per cent who believe bombing should continue until Lebanon agrees to disarm Hezbollah–a task that Israel’s invasion has made more impossible than ever.

If these polls are reliable, one can conclude that the US and Israeli populations are more moral, and more concerned with human life, than are the leaders of the two countries.

Neither can Bush claim that he is supporting Israel because he is Israel’s friend. If Bush were Israel’s friend, he would not have given a green light to Israel’s aggression, which will create more hatred of Israel.

As a number of Israeli writers have pointed out, Israel has shown tooth and claw to its Arab neighbors for decades to no avail.

Writing in Haaretz (July 19) Yitzhak Laor notes that Israel’s problems are not the result of insufficient bombing and destruction of Arab populations.  Yet, once again Israeli militants are “enlarging the circle of hostilities, including harming civilians.  What Israel’s ‘strategists’ have to offer is the destruction of yet another country.”

Laor says the Americans can do this in Iraq with less consequence for themselves, because “the Americans do not intend to live in this region.”  Israelis cannot afford to show only tooth and claw to its neighbors, because “we do live here.”

It sometimes seems Bush goes beyond indifference to contentment with the slaughter of Muslim civilians.  Bush has even come across as gleeful as if he is on a dove hunt in a baited Texas field where joy resides in the killing of countless birds.

Many Muslims believe that Bush and Israel see them as animals to be slain. On July 17, neocon John Bolton, Bush’s unconfirmed ambassador to the UN, gave credence to this Muslim belief when he announced that Israelis killed by terrorists were more important than the Lebanese civilians killed by Israel.  Bolton said that there is no “moral equivalence” between Lebanese civilians killed by Israel and Israeli civilians killed by Muslim terrorists: “It’s simply not the same thing to say that it’s the same act to deliberately target innocent civilians, to desire their deaths, to fire rockets and use explosive devices or kidnapping versus the sad and highly unfortunate consequences of self-defense.”

In Bolton’s sick mind, Lebanese civilians are not experiencing terrorism when Israel deliberately targets them and drops high explosives on their apartment buildings, streets, bridges, power plants, and bombs the Beirut International Airport.  This, says Bolton, is Israel acting in self-defense.

If Israel grabs Palestinian or Lebanese land and murders civilians, that is “self-defense,” but if someone responds to Israeli aggression with a rocket, that is “Muslim terrorism.”

The world is sick of this double-standard.  Unfortunately, not enough Americans and Israelis are.

Consequently, conflict will continue and escalate. Laor writes that “the director of the American Jewish Committee’s Israel/Middle East Office, Eran Lerman, is already recommending going to war against Syria.”

And so are the American neoconservatives who control  the Bush administration, Washington think tanks, and media positions once held by true American conservatives.

Isolated in their evil, the neoconservatives are frantically and shrilly demanding that Bush join Israel in military attacks on Syria and Iran in order to “build democracy” and to clear the Middle East of any opposition to Israel’s unbridled self-interest. The crazed David Horowitz writes that “Israel is doing the work of the rest of the civilized world.”

Neoconservatives believe that the US and Israel can extirpate Islam with fire and sword and that the present opportunity to escalate the current conflict into generalized war in the Middle East must not be missed.

Neocon warmongers have stolen the conservative name, the Republican Party, and a portion of the evangelical movement.

Are Americans too inattentive and too brainwashed to prevent their moronic president and his neocon government from initiating a dangerous war?

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration.  He is coauthor of The  Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com

More than an idiot’s profanity

The worldwide media, Bush’s damage control apparatus, has spun the Bush-Blair exchange, in the most deceptive Bush-friendly manner. The New York Times spun it as a "blunt call for diplomacy", while another New York Times piece refers to "wise-guy Bush’s blunt and coarse chit-chat". Other headlines hailed the performance as "straight-talking Dubya", Bush "lets fly", "curses Hezbollah actions", "Bush urges Assad to end fighting", etc. All false.

First, Bush demonstrated what seasoned observers already know: Bush is a grotesque simpleton suffering from some mental afflication, who is also a ruthless intimidator wielding violence and power without intellect, and without regard. In short, a gangster. Gangsters do not need a great intellect to successfully conduct criminal activities, or head criminal empires. (In fact, intellect gets in the way.) Bush (and Cheney) routinely speaks using profanity.

More importantly, the Bush-Blair exchange was not a "call for peace". They were caught talking in practical and casual fashion about covert back door deals, and geostrategic plans that are either in the works, or in process.

The precise nature of their plan is hard to ascertain, but what can be interpreted should be cause for alarm. The key passages, from the complete transcript from the Washington Post [my comments in italics-LC]:

Bush: What about Kofi? That seems odd. I don’t like the sequence of it. His attitude is basically ceasefire and [then] everything else happens. You know what I’m saying?

Bush finds it "odd", and "doesn’t like" how UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has apparently put ceasefire ahead of "everything else". What is this "everything else" that will "happen"? Conditions for ceasefire? Or a new attack by some party or another? Has this "everything else" already been put into place? What are the US,UK, Israel and the UN really up to? Bush is not liking the choreographed order, of some future event. What is the event?

Blair: Yeah. No, I think — the thing that’s really difficult is we can’t stop this unless you get this international presence agreed. Now, I know what you guys have talked about but it’s the same thing.

What are they seeking to"stop" with "international presence"? Does "stop" refer to ending the current violence, or "stopping" as in a multinational conquest (of Syria, Iran or both)? What have they "talked about"? Does the international "presence" refer to diplomatic talks, or military forces? If it applies to military force, are they talking about a peacekeeping force in Lebanon, or a new multinational operation that has been "agreed" upon?

Blair : . . . see how reliable that is. But you need that done quickly.

What is "reliable"? What needs to be done quickly?

Bush : Yeah, she’s going. I think Condi’s going to go pretty soon.

Condi is going to do what? Given the known Bush administration position, she is not going to negotiate a ceasefire that offers anything whatsoever to Hamas and Hezbollah "terrorists", nor will she make overtures towards what she and the Bush administration have insisted are their masters, Syria and Iran. What back door deal is Rice cooking up?

Blair : Right. Well, that’s, that’s, that’s all that matters. If you — see, it’ll take some time to get out there. But at least it gives people a –

What "people"? Is he referring to political players, who need time to negotiate something, or is he talking about creating the propaganda illusion of diplomacy for the benefit of the masses ("people")? If it is the latter, it would be a political cover for what?

Bush : A process, I agree. I told her your offer too.

Should this be read at face value as "diplomatic process", or a process towards something else? Is he talking about a real or fake (propaganda) process? More importantly here, some sort of "offer" has been made between Blair and the US, and Rice is aware of it. What is it?

Blair : Well, it’s only if it’s — I mean, you know, if she’s gotta — or if she needs the ground prepared, as it were. Obviously, if she goes out, she’s got to succeed, as it were, whereas I can just go out and talk.

She (Rice) needs the ground prepared to "succeed" doing what? "Whereas I can just go out and talk" suggests that Blair intends for him and the UK to take a back seat, and let the US and Rice lead the way —towards what? Peace, or more war? A ceasefire, or an opportunistic maneuver of some kind?

Bush : See, the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit, and it’s over.

This is a key passage. What is "ironic"? Is the irony that they must ask for Syrian cooperation—or is it ironic that they are setting up Syria to take the blame (for "Hezbollah’s shit")? What is "over"— the current violence, or any remaining obstacle to a full-blown Middle East war?

Blair : Who, Syria?

Bush : Right.

Blair : I think this is all part of the same thing. What does he think? He thinks if Lebanon turns out fine, if we get a solution in Israel and Palestine, Iraq goes in the right way, he’s [inaudible ] . That’s what this whole thing’s about. It’s the same with Iran.

The inaudible word is critical. Without the word, the passage is hard to interpret. Blair seems to be characterizing Syrian president Bashar Assad as somewhat naive (a "solution in Israel and Palestine", and happy endings in Iraq, as well as Iran are far fetched), as well as a .dupe who is willing to play along with Anglo-American and Israeli plans.

Bush : I felt like telling Kofi to get on the phone with Assad and make something happen. We’re not blaming Israel. We’re not blaming the Lebanese government."

What does Bush want the UN to "make happen"?

Apocalypse ahead

As noted by William Arkin, in his Washington Post analysis of Bush-Blair exchange, "Early Warning" :

"As I’ve been watching the latest Middle East saga unfold, I’ve been struck by the almost universal insights being offered by pundits and talking heads that Iran or Syria planned the Hamas and Hezbollah kidnappings of Israeli soldiers and also control what happens now.

"In this narrative, Iran is trying to divert attention from its nuclear weapons program; Syria is seeking revenge against American isolation and seeking to enlarge its power base.  The two countries provide missiles and supply lines and sanctuary for Hezbollah and Hamas.  Iranian ‘soldiers’ are even secretly in Lebanon, aiding Hezbollah in its Friday attack on the Israeli naval vessel, an attack that Hezbollah could not have otherwise mounted. 

"In this telling, Hamas and Hezbollah are reduced to almost unimportant terrorist dupes of Iran and Syria, Lebanon is just a poor victimized country, and Israel is only defending itself.  The United States and the international community are also absolved of any responsibility for their failures of diplomacy because what is unfolding is part of a grand conspiracy that no amount of intervention could have an impact on. 

"In this version of history, Iran and Syria can also just snap their fingers and ‘stop’ the fighting.  Even if this is a false characterization, their failure to do so confirms that the Bush administration’s approach towards them is the only option.  The two are thus confirmed as rogue nations and new axis of evil."

"In this world, various leaders and factions plot their next moves, plan covert operations, undertake assassinations, decide on who to support and how based upon inside information. 

"The danger of this type of intelligence, and of leaders obsessed with gossip and the lurid details of world events, is that pretty soon the geopolitical double dealing crowds out any true picture and any sense of State responsibility."

With all due respect, there is not simply "double dealing". There is also blackmail and extortion, with violent military ramifications. Outright thuggery is the basis of much imperial geostrategy.

It remains to be seen what Bush, Blair, and the brutal Israeli government have in store. The gates of hell have already been opened. Only the naïve would think they have any desire to close them. 

Of course, Israeli officials talk about murderous crimes against civilians by Hezbollah and Hamas. And Hezbollah and Hamas officials talk about murderous crimes against civilians by Israel. Plenty of real crimes to go around. At the same time, by any measure, Israelis have done a lot more killing than dying. (If you doubt that, take a look at the website of the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem and its documentation of deadly events.)

In American media, the current mumbling about the need for "restraint" is little better than window-dressing for bomb-dropping. The prevalent dynamic is based on a chain of rarely spoken lies, however conscious or unconscious: none more important than the lie that a religion can make one life worth more than another; render a human death unimportant; elevate certain war-inflicted agonies to spiritual significance.

"Israel has overwhelming military superiority in both southern Lebanon and Gaza," the New York Times noted in mid-July. A pattern is deeply entrenched in U.S. media and politics: the smaller-scale killers condemned, the larger-scale killers justified with endless rationales.

Stripping away the righteous rhetoric, media manipulation and routine journalistic contortions, what remains in joint U.S.-Israeli policy is the unspoken assumption that might makes right. Myths spin around as convenient. Israel ceremoniously "withdraws" from Gaza, only to come back with missiles and troops however and whenever it pleases. The West Bank also continues to be a place of subjugation and resistance. And, as W.H. Auden observed, "Those to whom evil is done / Do evil in return."

The Israeli leaders who launched this month’s state-of-the-killing-art air assault on Gaza and Lebanon had to know that many civilians would be killed, many others wounded, many more terrorized. The smug moral posturing that Israel’s military does not target specific civilians is moldy political grist — and, in human terms, irrelevant to the totally predictable carnage.

"There are terrorists who will blow up innocent people in order to achieve tactical objectives," President Bush said on July 13. Of course he was referring to actions by Hezbollah and Hamas. We’re supposed to pretend that Israel does not also "blow up innocent people in order to achieve tactical objectives."

Israel calls itself a Jewish state, and its leadership often claims to represent the interests of Jewish people. Killers who terrorize often claim to be acting on blessed behalf of others of the faith. Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus… By now, such demagoguery ought to be transparent.

In the 40th year of Israel’s unconscionable occupation of Palestinian territories, Israeli leaders have their agenda. What’s ours?

It should include clearly opposing the most dangerous alliance in the world.

In the United States, evading the "might makes right" core of the alliance is easy. The dodge makes dropping bombs on Lebanon and Gaza that much easier for the Israeli government. As usual, you can hear it in the weasel-worded statements from even the better politicians on Capitol Hill. You can read it in New York Times editorials. Instead of saying that aggressive war by Israel "is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy," the message is that aggressive war by Israel is accepted and embraced as an instrument of policy.

Most of all, you can hear it in the silence.

Norman Solomon is the author of the new book " War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death." For information, go to: www.WarMadeEasy.com