Salon has a short but insightful piece (written by a long-time ABC corespondent in Lebanon) about the recent Israeli bombing in Qana. While I don’t disagree that Hezbollah taunted Israeli into this fight, I was struck by one of the “letters to the Editor” (as Salon dubs its comments) that closed: “When 9/11 II happens, remember the destruction of Lebanon and how little anyone did to stop it.”
Red Bank Calendar
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Is that supposed to mean that if one is angry about a perceived injustice its okay to kill people who have nothing to do with it?
It would seem to me that adopting such an attitude will only increase the amount of injustice in the world. It would also be a form of self-harming.
Is that supposed to mean that if one is angry about a perceived injustice its okay to kill people who have nothing to do with it?
Surfer, this is precisely what happened in Qana. Isreal hit (intentionally or not) an apartment building full of civilians because of what some nutjob militants were doing to them.
I think the point is more to the fact that the US has great influence over what Isreal does and yet is doing nothing to stop the killing of non-combatants in Lebanon. But, then again, we’re on the hook for a minimum of 30K dead Iraqis (Bush’s own estimate a while back before they started dying 100 a day), so it’s pretty much pot and kettle here, isn’t it?
It would seem to me that adopting such an attitude will only increase the amount of injustice in the world. It would also be a form of self-harming.
Indeed. For instance, why would you invade a country that never attacked you and didn’t support those who did?
ky
But in Israel’s case, how do you fight an enemy that throws bombs into your marketplace then hides behind civilians? I just see it all as one big bloody conundrum.
@nav:
you’re right. I’m not sure how, exactly, Israel should best be defending itself. Though I’ve got a pretty deep gut feeling that they should make a better effort at not killing women and children. And at the very least when they do totally screw up as they did here, they should make some better motion towards apology and empathy as opposed to, say, shit like this:
“Everyone who is still in south Lebanon is linked to Hezbollah,” [Israeli Justice Minister Haim] Ramon said, suggesting that “maximum firepower has to be used.”
I didn’t realize Hezbollah was recruiting toddlers.
Yes, “the US has great influence over what Isreal [sic] does”, but let’s not forget about the pro-Israeli neoconservatives in the U.S. who have an enormous influence over our foreign policy. They’re licking their chops right now, since this conflict will most likely escalate and be spun as Iran and Syria’s proxy war, justifying interminable U.S. military involvement in the entire region.
Israel took the bait, and now we’re all on the hook. But why this time? Because they know that this administartion has been planning war in Iran and/or Syria and that both the American public and the U.N. have repeatedly proven innefectual to resist. This “grace period” that the U.S. is “giving” them is just a way to let the kindling catch a little more wind. Here is an article from The Jerusalem Post:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1153291988615&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Finally, with no personal offense meant to the contributors of this blog (both left and right), but attempting to apply our affluent, insulated mores to this or any other desperate cycle of murder and retribution is pointless and self-serving. Neither the hawks in the Israeli government nor their enemies give a rat’s ass about what the American (non)voters think, much less feel.
innefectual [sic] - ha ha. I’ll stick to writing about music…
Seriously, Ken, my apologies. I may disagree with these POV’s from time to time, but pointing out a simple spelling error was over the top - and hypocritical, as you can see. I guess I’m pretty worked up about this just like everyone else, and I haven’t had much practice writing about “current affairs”. I was up half the night thinking about this stuff and sweating my faux pas (I even emailed Jim asking why we can no longer edit our comments - does anyone else have this problem?).
Essentially, I stand by my point: that we have long been living with a government in this country who’s foreign policy agenda (when disclosed) is at odds with the majority of its populace, and which is influenced more by well-financed lobbyists than any critical mass of public opinion. No big news there, I suppose.
Poking around a little I found this. I usually ignore political articles that appear in Rolling Stone - I usually ignore Rolling Stone altogether, but I could have saved myself a lot of time last night by simply posting this link:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/10962352/iran_the_next_war/
Another blog that says essentially the same thing in fewer words:
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2006/07/15/israel-invasion-of-lebanon-us-iran-proxy-war/
Rich,
No worries on the comment. I enjoyed the links, though it’s hard to read what I already feel and know — I’ve predicted on this very blog long ago that we’d invade Iran as soon as enough lies could be fabricated and sold. 2008 seems so very, very far away. My only hope is for a Democratic takeover of the House this year and perhaps some articles of impeachment.
ky