I got an email today from someone I consider a friend, currently in her home in Israel. She paints a scene just like CNN portrays it, hoping that the IDF can do something to make Hezbollah stop. To be honest, I don't know what to do, say or think in this situation, save taking the cowards way out and say "this is Israel's problem - let Israel handle it". But that's not the way these things end up, is it?
Couple side notes:
I didn't see this when emailing back my friend, but you gotta blame the neocons for this mess:
In 1996 a group of then opposition U.S. policy agitators, including Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, presented a paper entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" to incoming Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The "clean break" was from the prevailing peace process, advocating that Israel pursue a combination of roll-back, destabilization and containment in the region, including striking at Syria and removing Saddam Hussein from power in favor of "Hashemite control in Iraq." The Israeli horse they backed then was not up to the task.
It's a horrible situation all around - I can only hope the moderate to liberal Israeli's realize that occupying Lebanon is the surest way for Israel to inherit it's own Iraq-like quagmire.
I feel horrible because of my conflicted feelings over this mess and my friendships with Israelis and Jewish Americans. I have a feeling, just like 9/11 and Iraq, or for that matter the Gulf of Tonkin and Vietnam, or Pearl Harbor, or any other modern tragedy, the truth behind the current events will only get revealed over time, or maybe not at all.
So many interesting things - both sides heavily fighting a propaganda war, innocent citizens on both sides being targeted when war should be happening to combatants only, the "convenient" incapacitation of Sharon, the substory revolving around Iran, Syria, WMD, Israel, neoconservatives, and AIPAC, and of course, what it all means to the US and Iraq (the Bushies should be pleased - it gives them a chance to get the bad new about Iraq off the front pages and sets the stage for all the disaster porn will be seeing come the 5-year anniversary of 9/11). It also shouldn't be much of a suprise that there is supposedly a lot of oil off the cost of Lebanon.
Bush was accidentally recorded on mic a couple of weeks ago saying "Hezbollah just needs to knock this shit off". I hate to see he's right, but he could stand to exert a little more insight and leadership. My real fear is that Israel's actions are really turning world opinion against themselves, and despite their actions, nothing is really going to change with Lebanon. I think we need to support everyone, as in the people of Lebanon (not terrorist organizations) and Israel. I think if Israel doesn't have a strong endgame, we are looking at WW4 (the Cold War really was WWIII) - Syria, Iran leap to Lebanon's defense, then what about the more "moderate" countries, or China, Russia. If it wasn't for the damn oil (or more appropriately, our addiction to it) holding everyone hostage, none of this would be an issue.
I really just want to cry, not for me, not for Israel, or for Lebanon, but for my kids, and the children of the Middle East, both Jew and Muslim. I can't help feeling that the endgame here has long been decided, what we're watching now is strategic, not tactical. Islam is going to have a humongous proportion of the world's population, and therefore all the influence. The Western World doesn't like it. So a nice medium to large sized war, with something like a 100:1 kill ratio (with, us, the "good guys" losing one life for every 100 muslims) might prolong Western civilization a half-century or so. These neocons are thinking that defeating Russia was the solution to our problems. And we should handle all adversaries the same way. So, if we stop appeasing the terrorists, we'll defeat them then the problem will go away. But the road to success and failure is paved in unintended consequences.
The Middle East was at an uncomfortable and occasionally bloody detente for a while, while the USA and USSR battled it out. And the guys we backed and armed kept the guys they backed and armed in check, because mutually assured destruction kept people from being stupid. Well, now half that equation is missing. And the world, as we see it, is the result.
0 responses so far ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.
Leave a Comment