 Are there no longer any Rules of
War? What happened to the Geneva Conventions, what happened to the moral
rudder of the world? Israel and its lackey, the United States of America,
are defying all the rules of civilized behavior; and virtually daring the
rest of the world to: "Just try and stop us now!"
One of the things that this
stance has produced was a coup d'etat in Lebanon yesterday:
"Ammar Huri, Ahmad Fatfat,
Samir Al-Jisr, among others). Bahiyya Hariri yesterday criticized the US
"green light" on AlJazeera TV. Many of these politicians called
AlJazeera live to express their condemnation of Israel and US. Many of
them sounded as if they were pleading for their lives. The demonstrators
yesterday, who stormed the UN building in downtown Beirut where my sister
works, chanted angry slogans not only against Arab regimes, Israel, and
US, but also against Hariri. One chant went like this: "Beirut shall
always be free, free; Hariri get the hell out." The demonstrators
were planning to head to the US embassy, but Hizbullah and Amal members of
parliament present prevented them. They clearly were afraid of things
getting out of hand." (1)
Israel is not a country in the
conventional sense of that term; it is a military enclave that masquerades
as a state. It has no economy to speak of and it could never afford to
spend the kind of money that it takes to own such a criminal arsenal of
weapons. From hundreds of nukes all the way down through the outlawed
weapons of phosphorus and the biological weapons group, along with many of
the outlawed gases. It has one of the most powerful Air Forces in the
world, complete with all the latest American fighters, helicopters and
radar. It has gun ships, and mines for use on both sea and land. It uses
cluster bombs on civilians, its tanks and drones and armored bulldozers
alone would break most healthy economies and yet Israel continues to
amass armaments like a kid snatching candy on Halloween.
This was all made possible by
secret gifts from the USA's overburdened taxpayers. Now all of this is
being called into play on three fronts: In Iraq, where "regime-change" was
demanded of the Bush administration; In Palestine where Arab blood flows
like water and now in Lebanon, where the world is seeing the depth of
Israeli contempt for those that they do not consider to be human.
This is not "a distraction" or "a
spike in violence" as most of the mainstream press would prefer. This is
the beginning of a real and very deadly War, and that fact ought to be
printed in 48 point type on the front page of every American newspaper in
this land. Why is that not happening? Because US policy is in lockstep on
this one: We are Israel, and they are US. We created the power vacuum that
they have now occupied. Initially we defended their survival and by way of
thanks - they now use us to keep them alive, and to protect their
interests in every conceivable way.
What is happening in Iraq, in
Palestine and in Lebanon is all ours, whether Americans like it or not:
because the Senate voted unanimously, and the House vote was 410 to 8 for
what is happening in Lebanon! All the weaponry is ours, the financial
support is ours even the strategy is something that the US government
supports, because it is we who are preventing a unilateral cease-fire. We
may be "over here" while Israeli's are pulling the triggers and targeting
the villages, but these blood stains are not confined to the battle fields
~ the world has seen this with their own eyes! Unless the spineless US
congress finally hears the global outcry and reverses itself now: this
cozy little partnership just may end in a major disaster for both Israel
and for the already overly-tarnished USA.
If this sound extreme, then just
look at the behavior: This is an excerpt from an interview with Robert
Fisk that aired today on Democracy Now:
"What's going on in southern
Lebanon is an outrage. It's an atrocity. The idea that more than 600
civilians must die because three Israeli soldiers were killed and two were
captured on the border by the Hezbollah on July 12, my 60th birthday --
I've spent 30 years of my life watching this, this filth now, you know
it's outrageous. It's against all morality to suggest that 600 innocent
civilians must die for this. There is no other country in the world that
could get away with this.
You know, when -- I wrote in my
paper last week, there were times when the IRA would cross from the Irish
Republic into Northern Ireland to kill British soldiers. And they did
murder and kill British soldiers. But we, the British, didn't hold the
Irish government responsible. We didn't send the Royal Air Force to bomb
Dublin power stations and Galway and Cork. We didn't send our tanks across
the border to shell the hill villages of Cavan or Monaghan or Louth or
Donegal. Blair wouldn't dream of doing that, because he believes he's a
moral man, he's a civilized man. He wouldn't treat another nation like
that.
But when the Israelis treat
Lebanon like that, it's okay, and Blair doesn't want a ceasefire. You
can't have a real ceasefire. In other words, we've got to have the
Lebanese on their knees to sign the dotted line, before we give them a
ceasefire. And that dotted line means the disarmament of Hezbollah, which
will be impossible for the Lebanese to do without restarting the civil
war, because to disarm Hezbollah, you must use the army, and most of the
Hezbollah are, of course, Shiite Muslims, and most of the army are Shiite
Muslims. So you're going to have brothers assaulting brothers to take
their weapons away. It will not happen. However much you may wish it and
however much I may wish it, it won't happen. And, again, this double
morality: Blair wouldn't dream of attacking the Irish Republic because the
IRA crossed the border from Ireland, but it's quite in order for Israel to
attack the Lebanese Republic because the Hezbollah crossed the border from
Lebanon." (2)
I think Mr. Fisk is right
there is no morality in the leadership of either the USA or Israel not
at this time and certainly not in this war! What kind of nation drops
leaflets on a population telling them that they must get out or they'll be
killed, and then destroys all exits before they can leave? Their villages
are then bombed the ambulances are targeted, the aid workers and the UN
monitors are targeted and many are wounded or killed. But the attacks do
not stop until their homes and villages are leveled and their lives are
reduced to rubble while the bodies of the dead are left inside the
wreckage for the dogs to devour.
Does that sound like a nation
with a moral compass? When the world demanded an immediate Cease-Fire
the US blocked it because Israel claimed to need "two more weeks" to
murder more people, so that they can claim that they have been victorious
over the women and children of Lebanon. Hezbollah their target will
only become stronger as this onslaught against civilians continues. Today
the Israeli Cabinet voted to unanimously denounce any Cease-Fire and
announced that they will be widening the ground invasion, beginning
immediately. This is something that the Nazi's would have tried in WWII,
it is not something that those who supposedly were victims of those Nazi's
should be doing now to the Lebanese people, who they say are their
friends. If this is how Israel treats her friends, imagine what she'd like
to do to her enemies! And of course that's the point to create pure
terror among those who are powerless to stop what is happening to them.
This is a perfect situation for
diplomatic intervention but our Department of State has only Bushmen,
the YES-people of the twenty-first century. We never talk to those we are
about to attack because the USA now only uses weapons to achieve what we
cannot begin to negotiate for. To the rest of the world we are deranged
and drunk with a false sense of our own power. At the same time we are too
soft, too wrapped up in our silly toys, too stupid to listen to reason, or
to even see that we are entering a cul-de-sac of our own making. We have
supported, protected and defended this most-rabid of pit-bulls, among
nations, and when the neighborhood and the wider world begins to
understand what's happening they will insure that neither the US nor
Israel will ever have the chance to do this again.
What we're planning to do instead
of even trying to reign in our outlaw-savage protégé is to once again
try and change the subject. Watch very closely, because the Neo-Conn's
have already cast their webs of spin and now we want Israel to attack
Syria, to eventually trigger another war with Iran as well.
We can't afford the war in Iraq,
the one we've been at for three years now that openly US war that we
are continuing to lose. In addition to Iraq, we're also paying for the
latest invasions in Palestine and now Lebanon: Bush's solution "Let's add
two more wars to the three we've already got!" How could congress ever
justify the expense of a military that could even contemplate five wars at
the same time? Congress is critical because they are the ones that will be
using our money to finance all this death and destruction
not-to-mention the deaths of all those innocent lives that will continue
to go up in flames, along with all that money that Bush wants to throw
into this insanity just to give Israel its "New Middle East"! (3)
There are rumors on the wind, and
whispers in the halls of power and woe to those who fail to pay
attention.
Jim Kirwan
NOTES:
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