It’s week three of Israel’s assault on Lebanon, and once again it appears certain that the international community is unwilling to make any meaningful effort at restraining Tel Aviv. The Rome conference was a total waste of time, offering no relief to those whose lives are being torn apart by this attack and, in effect, sustaining (or at least not challenging) Washington’s veto of intervention towards a cease-fire.  With probably 600 dead in Lebanon and close to a million driven from their homes, the Bush cabal is still saying let the killing continue. Word has it that they are rush-shipping more highly sophisticated munitions to Israel to replenish an arsenal probably somewhat depleted by a hysterical use of firepower both in Lebanon and in Gaza. One would think that this might constitute a breach of the Arms Export Control Act since both civilians and non-military infrastructure are being targeted, but honestly… what law is there in times such as these?

With an almost palpable air of disingenuousness, press secretary Tony "tar-baby" Snow declared there to be "no daylight" between the U.S. and its European allies on the question of a cease-fire. Not exactly true, but here again, a U.S. veto means no action will be taken, so we can pretend. One thing is for certain – Israel’s actions are demonstrating in very graphic fashion that there is no daylight between the U.S. and Israel when it comes to tactics, military hardware, and total disregard for Arab civilians. The IDF has attacked fleeing civilians, blown up clearly marked ambulances, hit residential buildings in crowded neighborhoods. Who does that sound like? Lebanon’s cities are getting the Fallujah treatment, to say nothing of what Gaza is facing. As Dubya robotically repeats his stock phrases about "terrorists" and "wanton killers" and Condi Rice stumbles about aimlessly in Southeast Asia, Lebanese, Palestinians, and Iraqis continue to die in disproportionately high numbers as a result of his policy. 

Israel’s strikes on Lebanon are a highly premeditated effort to do lasting damage to the nation’s social infrastructure and economic viability. There is no way in hell these actions can be justified as directed against Hezbollah alone. The fact is, the broad nature of this military campaign is itself an implicit recognition of the fact that Hezbollah is a deeply integrated part of Lebanon’s Shi’ia community and its political/social landscape. No amount of U.S.-supplied munitions will make Hezbollah go away. Israel is simply laying the groundwork for a more virulently anti-Israeli sentiment in Lebanon and elsewhere in the region. This, too, resembles U.S. policy in Iraq. Just like the people of these stricken countries, we will be living with the consequences of these wars of choice for decades to come. It is likely that future jihadists will make no distinction between those who execute our military policies and the quiescent millions back home who blandly allow the killing to continue. 

Prove them wrong: tell your government to put a stop to this now. [White House: 202.456.1111; Congress: 202.224.3121] 

Bombastards. Israel’s hysterical use of largely U.S. supplied firepower continued unchecked this week, deepening the humanitarian crisis in the prison known as Gaza and raining destruction on a virtually defenseless Lebanon. On this side of the pond, pundits, ex-pols, and talking heads of every stripe are blathering their support of the indefensible. Long discredited ex-Speaker Newt Gingrich joined fellow armchair reactionaries Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity in describing this as World War III. (Hallucinogenic neo-con Michael Ledeen took time out from lobbying for war with Iran to announce the advent of something he calls “World War IV” – did I miss something?) Meanwhile, from his impregnable pillbox in the editorial pages of hundreds of U.S. newspapers – a safe distance from the fighting, to be sure – Chuck Krauthammer fulminated about how Israel is fighting for its life… though how a resistance organization of maybe 1,000 full-time fighters with second hand munitions can pose an existential threat to the world’s 4th most powerful military state (one with perhaps 300 nuclear weapons) is a bit of a mystery, frankly. 

The U.S.’s position on this severe breach of the peace is clear – let the killing continue. Presidential spokesman and First Cousin Tony Snow told reporters that the president was not in favor of a cease fire that would leave Hezbollah in place, a sentiment later echoed by Secretary Rice. True to the traditional American position regarding Israel, we have blocked any meaningful action by the Security Council. So much for the Bush doctrine of promoting democracy in the Middle East. How many times have we heard junior babble on about how democracies don’t attack their neighbors? Well, the Israeli democracy is now destroying what was recently hailed by the administration as a budding democracy in Lebanon, effectively ensuring that the dominant political force in southern Lebanon, whether Hezbollah or some successor, will be even more hostile towards Israel. Meanwhile in Gaza, Israel is busily attacking the democratically elected Hamas government, killing its constituents and kidnapping its ministers – essentially an escalation of its ongoing policy since the “disengagement” from Gaza. Clearly our support for democracy is based more on outcomes than on principles. No surprises there. 

Admiral Krauthammer’s second column of the week lamely attempted to frame Israel’s action in Lebanon as similar to the U.S. expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait in 1991. That’s probably the most ass-backwards analysis I’ve heard yet this year. If anyone here resembles Saddam Hussein’s wehrmacht it’s the IDF, unleashing the full fury of its arsenal on a far weaker nation, targeting civilian infrastructure, and killing hundreds of non-combatants so far. Not the first time, either. Furthermore, Hezbollah is anything but a foreign occupier of southern Lebanon, much as it may serve the neo-con paradigm to paint them as terror legions under orders from Tehran and Damascus. Hezbollah is an indigenous political organization deeply rooted in Lebanon’s Shi’a community, the nation’s single largest religious group comprising 40 percent of Lebanon’s population. Like Hamas, they are an Islamist group that has both political and military wings, and provides some level of basic services to a population that has been neglected by its own government and battered by the Israelis. It is Israel that is the invader, and it is they who will ultimately be driven out — now or ten years from now. 

Oh…. and Iraq is going septic. But lucky for Rumsfeld, now there’s another major conflict squeezing it off of the front page.