Author: admin

The figures don’t lie. At the end of the eighth day of fighting, a total of 29 people had been reported killed on the Israeli side of the border, including 14 soldiers and 15 civilians. But the majority of Lebanese deaths have been civilian – and only a very few, less than a handful, according to any number of Lebanese-based news media, were Hezbollah military.

Civilian Lebanese are thus being killed, in proportion to Israelis, at a rate of more than 10:1. This implies that Israel is not targeting Hezbollah, but above all Lebanon’s infrastructure.

Israel’s war has nothing to do with Hezbollah’s ideology, as the Israeli public relations machine spins non-stop; it’s already configured as collective punishment unleashed over the Lebanese civilian population. Israel officially ordered the entire population of southern Lebanon in essence to become IDPs (internally displaced persons). Southern Lebanon’s population, overwhelmingly poor Arab Shi’ites, overwhelmingly supports Hezbollah.

Hezbollah for its part may have fired about 1,000 Katyusha rockets toward Israel. Hezbollah may possess 12,000 rockets in total. At the current rate, it could keep firing rockets non-stop for more than two months – while Israel bombs Lebanon back to the Stone Age. The decision anyway has been made. According to diplomatic leaks in Washington, London and Brussels, the Israeli offensive will last at least for another week to 10 days.

You deserve to die
Although there is no direct evidence pointing to Iran and/or Syria behind Hezbollah’s strategy, US President George W Bush has blamed Syria ("What they need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit" – as overheard during the Group of Eight summit in St Petersburg on the weekend).

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for his part has blamed Hezbollah as being in cahoots with Iran. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said there were no "conducive circumstances" for a ceasefire; she will land her Ferragamo-clad feet on Middle Eastern soil only when it’s "appropriate", "necessary" and "helpful to the situation" (perhaps "appropriate" would mean the "international community" waiting until Lebanon is totally destroyed and hundreds or thousands more Lebanese are dead).

At any rate, Lebanon is fast joining Bush’s "democratic" Iraq. The latest UN report states that more than 3,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in June, and no fewer than 14,338 civilians were killed in the first six months of 2006.

The US ambassador to the UN, notorious neo-con John Bolton, believes "it would be a mistake to ascribe moral equivalence to civilians who die as the direct result of malicious terrorist acts". Israel’s bombing for its part is "self-defense" that has had "the tragic and unfortunate consequence of civilian deaths".

Translation: dead Lebanese civilians are collateral damage, expendable and not worth the life of a single Israeli. After all, the Israeli foreign minister had the gall to proclaim that "many civilians in southern Lebanon have Katyusha and other rockets under their beds".

Former Israeli congressman and committed pacifist Uri Avnery, on the Israeli website Gus Shalom, says that Israel’s real objective is "regime change in Beirut, and the installation of a puppet government". It’s what Israel wanted – and didn’t get – with the 1982 invasion led by Ariel Sharon. Israeli journalist Gideon Levy goes one step further, accusing Israel of being a society in "moral collapse". Israelis overwhelming support the bombing of Lebanon to dust.

Even if you survive, no one will help you
The tragedy is that the "international community" has totally deserted the Lebanese people; they are the new Palestinians. The minutes at the recent Arab League meeting in Cairo were leaked. The Arabic-language press could not fail to notice what Egyptians, Jordanians, Saudis and Kuwaitis were up to; basically a united front to smash and "disarm" Hezbollah. The specter of the Shi’ite crescent – brandished by Washington neo-cons and dictatorial Sunni Arab governments – is alive and kicking.

The ultra-wealthy Persian Gulf emirates could not give a damn – their only interest is oil at US$80 a barrel. Both Egypt and Jordan are US client regimes – and non-North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies – and in addition have signed peace treaties with Israel. Turkey is also a US-Israel-axis ally. And US-controlled Iraq is smashed, destroyed and mired in its own "Lebanonized" civil war.

Even by its own standards of irrelevance, the European Union has excelled – with the added spectacle of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Angela Merkel meekly toeing the US line. Britain, France, Germany and Italy may condemn – rhetorically – the gulag established by Israel in occupied Palestine. But they are afraid of Hamas and they are also afraid of Hezbollah – what if these Arabs started striking right at the heart of Fortress Europe? Under this rationale, the indiscriminate killing of Lebanese civilians would never rate as a priority.

All according to plan
The world has seen this movie before. The seed for understanding the New Middle East war was sown 10 years ago, in 1996. Everything keeps pointing back to the infamous paper "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm", prepared by neo-cons such as Richard Perle, David and Meyrav Wurmser and Douglas Feith for Likud hardliner Benyamin Netanyahu. [1]

The "getting rid of Saddam" part has already been accomplished. The total degradation of the Palestinians is ongoing. The "destabilizing of Syria in Lebanon" took place last year. The next step would be hitting at both Syria and Iran via Lebanon.

Five months ago, Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, warned in a public speech that if Israel did not release the Lebanese prisoners it was holding, "we will try to get an Israeli soldier". That’s exactly what happened. Israel knew it and had five months to prepare for an invasion and/or the current "pinpoint" bombing of Lebanon’s infrastructure – something that any military strategist knows cannot be prepared in a day or two.

The fact that the Bush administration and the Olmert government in tandem blame both Syria and Iran follows the Clean Break plan to the letter. And the plan could have been fine-tuned very recently. Former Likudnik Olmert went to the US in May and Likud chairman Netanyahu followed him in June – and landed in neo-con heaven, participating in a meeting with US Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at a conference organized by the American Enterprise Institute in Colorado.

As far as Bush’s "get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit" is concerned, it makes absolutely no sense: it was Bush himself who forced Syria out of Lebanon last year, to clear the way for Israel to attack Lebanon facing no resistance. As for the Israel-Iran confrontation, it has nothing to do with ideology, as the Bush administration puts it. It’s pure power play. Israel and Iran are two regional military powers entangled in a battle for regional supremacy. And even the guessing game on Syria and/or Iran supporting Hezbollah is also irrelevant.

The US/Israel axis has historically supported plenty of Islamist groups all over the Arab world – in tune with the supreme objective of fighting what it always considered the real enemy, pan-Arab and secular nationalism. Hamas has been supported by Israel in the past. The US supported the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. And the US (blowback, anyone?) also supported the Afghan mujahideen in the anti-Soviet 1980s jihad.

Give me a (Clean) Break
There is simply no solution whatsoever to the ongoing Middle East disaster until "David" Israel (with its nuclear weapons) stops stealing Arab lands and returns all occupied territory to the "Goliaths" – the Sheba Farms to Lebanon, the Golan Heights to Syria, the West Bank and East Jerusalem to the Palestinians.

Arab puppet regimes will inevitably fall, by the force of their population’s rage. The Washington elite may even realize one day (no one is counting on it, though) that the US gains absolutely nothing from Israel’s wag-the-dog tactics. Israel inevitably will be forced to negotiate with its neighbors. Then and only then, if still no peace can be reached, Israel might find some legitimacy to keep attacking Arabs at random.

There are diplomatic rumblings about a peace agreement of sorts. Israel and Hezbollah would exchange prisoners; the Lebanese army (what army?) would be deployed up to the Israeli border, and Hezbollah would pull back north of the Litani River; and a new, bigger, UN monitoring force would step in.

There are reports that Israel "might" accept these blue helmets – but only temporarily. Israel, though – as Clean Break rules – does not feel any incentive to accept this solution. Its military logic points to a devastating preemption of both Hamas and Hezbollah – so Iran would have much reduced means to retaliate against Israel in the (likely) event of a US or US/Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear installations.

No one at this point may predict with certainty what the Bush/Blair/Olmert troika is actually cooking. But there is the terrifying possibility that these may be the early stages of the Great Middle East war outlined in A Clean Break; the chance for the US/Israel axis to strike at both Syria and Iran – with no one, be it Russia, China or the cowardly EU, being able to stop it.

Note
1. Readers can access the essential points on www.iasps.org/strat1.htm.

The official lines of the US and Israeli governments are that the destruction in Lebanon and Gaza are due to two Israeli soldiers being taken prisoner. This incredible display of willful amnesia omits the fact that at least 9,000 Palestinians are currently being held in Israeli prisons, 1,000 of which have had no charges brought against them. It also conveniently omits the fact that over 14,000 Iraqis are languishing in US prisons inside Iraq, most of whom have been charged with approximately nothing.

While the slaughter of innocents continues unabated, we must be very clear as to who is responsible for creating the conditions for it. "Israel has been the largest recipient of US foreign aid every year since 1976," Frida Berrigan, a senior research associate at the Arms Trade Resource Center at the World Policy Institute in New York told Inter Press Service recently.

On top of providing Israel with billions of dollars of sophisticated weaponry, in 2005 alone the US provided the Israeli government $2.2 billion. This amount is expected to increase incrementally in the coming years.

Israel has the largest fleet of F-16 fighter jets in the world, outside of the US. Thanks to the US, these deadly warplanes are responsible for most of the death and destruction we’ve seen thus far in Lebanese cities, suburbs, and ports.

Most of the critical infrastructure of Lebanon has been reduced to smoldering ruins, as countless Lebanese are now living by generators and scavenging for food wherever possible. Bombings have included electrical stations, fuel storage depots, gas stations, hospitals, ambulance convoys, ports, factories, bridges and roads. As of this writing, the death toll in Lebanon is now over 350, all but 14 of which were civilians. There are over 1,000 wounded.

It’s called collective punishment. It is a war crime. It is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions.

An entire country is being collectively punished while the world sits by and watches.

The US military did it and continues to do it as you read this in Iraq, and now the Israeli military, after practicing it for decades in the occupied territories of Palestine, is carrying out this tactic /en masse/ against the country and people of Lebanon.

Let me be clear about which international laws are being violated by the Israelis.

Article 51 from the 1949 Geneva Conventions states, very clearly, that, "The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited."

Al-Jazeera, who has been doing a remarkable job of covering the catastrophic situation in Lebanon, had one of their journalists shot in the leg while reporting in Israel. Jazeera showed the footage-of his colleague in front of the camera jumping out of the way so as not to be run down by an Israeli military vehicle-then she raced over with others to assist her shot colleague into an ambulance. The day before, Jazeera reported on the convoy of ambulances, along with civilian cars, being bombed by the Israelis.

Israeli warplanes are bombing ambulances and cars in Beirut.

The Geneva Conventions clearly specify that, "/Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited/."

According to Protocol I, Article 85, Section 3 of the Geneva Conventions, "An indiscriminate attack affecting the civilian population or civilian objects and resulting in excessive loss of life, injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions."

Hezbollah militants are also guilty of war crimes by targeting civilians in Israel, where at least 12 have been killed by their indiscriminate rocket attacks into Haifa and other locations. However, 12 Israeli military personnel have been killed by Hezbollah attacks. Thus, Hezbollah fighters have been approximately 50% accurate in their attacks against the Israeli military, when in contrast the Israeli military, according to latest figures, have killed 14 Lebanese soldiers, lending a 4% accuracy rate by comparison. Overall, for every one Israeli killed, 14 Lebanese die.

This disparity is due to the fact that people like the prime minister of Israel, George W. Bush and "Democrats" like Hillary Clinton clearly do not value the lives of the Lebanese people on par with those of Israelis.

Underscoring this stance are the recent remarks of the UN "Ambassador" for the US, John Bolton-who the Jewish lobby group JINSA nominated for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize.

Bolton told reporters that there was no moral equivalence between Lebanese civilian casualties generated by Israeli air raids and Israelis killed by "malicious terrorist acts," as if there is a difference in these two "terrorist acts."

"I think it would be a mistake to ascribe moral equivalence to civilians who die as the direct result of malicious terrorist acts," he said.

Recently at the northern border of Lebanon and Syria, a 25 year-old American social studies teacher who was staying with his family in downtown Beirut before fleeing for the border, told me, "Everything is being bombed. It’s a terror! We’ve literally been terrorized!"

The teacher, Abdul Rahman, added, "We have not slept for three days because we were living in terror and never new when the Israelis would bomb us since they were hitting everything. If they want to hit Hezbollah, let them hit Hezbollah, but not the civilians-but civilians are all that they are hitting!"

Article 48 from the 1949 Geneva Conventions states that the "basic rule" of the Geneva Conventions is to protect the civilian population:

"In order to ensure respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives."

Bolton also said, in defense of the Israeli military, "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."

Cannot the same be said of Hezbollah?

Bolton went on to show his true colors-that the lives of westerners are of value, whereas the lives of the Lebanese are not. He was asked to comment on the deaths of eight Canadian citizens as the result of an Israeli air strike. "it is a matter of great concern to us …that /these/ [emphasis mine] civilian deaths are occurring. It’s a tragedy."

The Canadians had three of their Lebanese relatives die as well, but Bolton wasn’t speaking about /those/ deaths.

Let me clear about this-Bolton is a war criminal. Cheney/Bush, with their shameless aiding and abetting of the Israeli military and Prime Minister Olmerts’ policy in Gaza and Lebanon, are war criminals and should be treated as such. Several other past US presidents, including Bill Clinton and his golfing buddy Bush Senior, are war criminals for this same aiding and abetting.

Others who aid and abet and cheerlead, like the corporate media in the US, are Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, Condoleeza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld, to name but a select few.

The slaughter continues day and night. Today, in one air strike alone, Israeli warplanes killed 13 civilians, all from two families in southern Lebanon. Nine of the dead were children.

It’s going to continue for at probably "a few weeks," according to Israels’ deputy army chief, Major General Moshe Kaplinsky. "We need more time to complete our very clear goals. When we fight terror it is a war that needs to be very accurate, very schematic and it takes time," he said hypocritically in his radio address, before adding that a ground invasion of Lebanon was not being ruled out.

"Very accurate," he says.

On Tuesday, Israeli air raids struck the Christian coastal town of Byblos north of Beirut and the eastern city of Baalbek.

At the northern border I also interviewed a man named Abud Aziz, a 31 year-old Lebanese pastry chef from Beirut who carried his suitcase under a sweltering sun as he crossed the border into Syria for refuge. Having just fled Beirut, Aziz told me, "Lebanon is in a terrible state. I left everything but some cash and the clothes on my back. I ran for my life because of the hellish bombing!"

Aziz said there was no water or electricity since yesterday, anyone who could was leaving Beirut for the borders or mountains, and the bombing from Israeli war planes was rampant. "Yesterday I saw two hospitals bombed with my own eyes," he told me, "Nobody who remains in Beirut can be safe. No way."

A 25 year-old construction worker named Hamed also told me he witnessed war planes bomb a hospital in Beirut. "I left just hours ago, and I saw them bomb a hospital yesterday. They are bombing everything-houses, casinos, fuel stations and so many bridges."

"Very accurate," said Kaplinsky.

In 1946, in Nuremberg, an American Judge wrote: "To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.

And this is exactly what Israel is doing in Lebanon. And this war of aggression which "contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole" is being aided and abetted by the leaders of the US government and all those who support them.

_______________________________________________

(c)2006 Dahr Jamail.

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The offensive against Gaza is designed to destroy Hamas for daring to win an election. The "international community" stood by as Gaza suffered collective punishment. Dozens of innocents continue to die. This meant nothing to the G8 leaders. Nothing was done.

Israeli recklessness is always green-lighted by Washington. In this case, their interests coincide. They want to isolate and topple the Syrian regime by securing Lebanon as an Israeli-American protectorate on the Jordanian model. They argue this was the original design of the country. Contemporary Lebanon, it is true, still remains in large measure the artificial creation of French colonialism it was at the outset – a coastal band of Greater Syria sliced off from its hinterland by Paris to form a regional client dominated by a Maronite minority.

The country’s confessional checkerboard has never allowed an accurate census, for fear of revealing that a substantial Muslim – today perhaps even a Shia – majority is denied due representation in the political system. Sectarian tensions, over-determined by the plight of refugees from Palestine, exploded into civil war in the 1970s, providing for the entry of Syrian troops, with tacit US approval, and their establishment there – ostensibly as a buffer between the warring factions, and deterrent to an Israeli takeover, on the cards with the invasions of 1978 and 1982 (when Hezbollah did not exist).

The killing of Rafik Hariri provoked vast demonstrations by the middle class, demanding the expulsion of the Syrians, while western organizations arrived to assist the progress of a Cedar Revolution. Backed by threats from Washington and Paris, the momentum was sufficient to force a Syrian withdrawal and produce a weak government in Beirut.

But Lebanon’s factions remained spread-eagled. Hezbollah had not disarmed, and Syria has not fallen. Washington had taken a pawn, but the castle had still to be captured. I was in Beirut in May, when the Israeli army entered and killed two "terrorists" from a Palestinian splinter group. The latter responded with rockets. Israeli warplanes punished Hezbollah by dropping over 50 bombs on its villages and headquarters near the border. The latest Israeli offensive is designed to take the castle. Will it succeed? A protracted colonial war lies ahead, since Hezbollah, like Hamas, has mass support. It cannot be written off as a "terrorist" organization. The Arab world sees its forces as freedom fighters resisting colonial occupation.

There are 9,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli gulags. That is why Israeli soldiers are captured. Prisoner exchanges have occurred as a result. To blame Syria and Iran for Israel’s latest offensive is frivolous. Until the question of Palestine is resolved and Iraq’s occupation ended, there will be no peace in the region. A UN force to deter Hezbollah, but not Israel, is a nonsensical notion.

Email to: tariq.ali3@btinternet.com

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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

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.

Note: some media reports, including the San Francisco Chronicle, have the last line of this passage as "It’s the same with Iraq." An error, or an intentional lie?

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"?

Is Bush talking about an Anglo-American diplomatic stance (don’t blame Israel or Lebanon) towards a ceasefire, or he is talking about the creation of a political cover by which a larger "anti-terror" war targeting Hamas and Hezbollah, and their alleged masterminds in Syria and Iran, will be conducted?

Is Assad complicit, or is he being set up?

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. 

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