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Editorial: Discourse of the Mean Spirits: False Mantras, Euphemisms and Naked Hypocrisy
by Paul de Rooij
www.dissidentvoice.org
August 14, 2006
In the face of a major Israeli war of aggression against Lebanon many politicians and pundits have sought to justify the Israeli actions, throwing in an occasional lame rebuke. It is instructive to dissect some of the commonly heard mantras that have been repeated ad nauseam, before being replaced by others.
When Defense is Offensive
"Israel has the right to defend herself" has certainly been one of the most often repeated insufferable mantras. In recent weeks, nearly all US Congressmen and Senators are on record stating this, and none did so in a more craven fashion than US Senator Hillary Clinton. [1] A bit of context may be useful to interpret this mantra. What these Congressmen and Senators are justifying is not the "defense" of Israel, but an obscene Israeli war of aggression that may actually destroy an entire country. When General Dan Halutz, the Israeli military supremo, states that Israeli bombing is going to turn back the clock twenty years on Lebanon, then it is very clear what this war is about: terrorizing the civilian population (a.k.a, "draining the swamp"), destroying villages, creating hundreds of thousands of refugees, demolishing the infrastructure (electricity generators, telephone exchanges, water filtration and pumps), demolishing key industrial plants (milk factories, pharmaceutical plants), bombing refugee camps, dropping 24 tons of explosives on a populated area [2]... this constitutes war crimes (or worse), and the generals and politicians responsible for this belong in a war crimes tribunal. The United States politicians who proffered the "green light" and expedited the delivery of more bombs also belong in the same dock, because they are abetting Israeli war crimes. The leaders of the Jewish-American organizations lobbying to stretch out Israel's carte blanche period also deserve to be indicted for serious crimes. [3]
It is important to note that aggressors don't have a right to "self-defense." [4] Israel is not entitled to "defense" when it has invaded Palestinian, Lebanese or Syrian land and has dispossessed the native Palestinian population. Any violence used to perpetuate Israeli conquests is at best illegitimate, but most likely a serious crime.
The corollary to Israel's "right to defend herself" (which really means that Israel is allowed to attack others) is that Israel's victims are not granted the right to defend themselves (this is portrayed as attacking Israel). Using the pervasive racist language, there are calls to "defang" Hezbollah since it is intolerable for ziocons and their media surrogates to consider any Lebanese or Palestinian groups having any weapons, let alone missiles that can land on the other side of the border. And to boot, any act of resistance is labeled "terrorism", and an entire people are branded likewise. The ziocon/Israeli insistence on labeling Hezbollah or Hamas "terrorist" organizations is massively hypocritical, yet both the United States and Europe have played along with this charade.
The Shallow Dip
The only US or European official admonishment against Israeli depredations is that they aren't "proportionate". Politicians and some of the principal human rights organizations prefer this type of language because it enables them to support the main transgression, yet appear to utter some criticism. [5] However, a simple analogy may elucidate Western ("our") hypocrisy. The calls for proportionality are akin to cautioning a rapist not to penetrate too deep. The rape as such isn't denounced, but a suggestion is made that maybe the rapist should engage in a shallow f***. If the rapist does transgress, then there will be polite calls to pull it out a bit; this is known in the parlance as "calls for restraint". Again, the "proportionate" admonishment grants the right for the principal crimes to be perpetrated; it just urges Israel to be more circumspect about its depredations in order not to embarrass its American and zionist cheerleaders.
The calls for proportionality are actually even more hypocritical because they are often paired with calls for the resistance forces to stop fighting back. [6] In terms of the rape analogy, the victim is told to shut up and cooperate.
Did Anyone Say "War Crimes"?
It is almost impossible to find any US or European official commentator willing to suggest that the Israeli actions amount to war crimes. When Jan Egeland, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, toured Southern Beirut he could only state that what he witnessed suggested that Israeli actions had "violated humanitarian law". This is a common euphemism to avoid the use of the term "war crimes". The contrast with how Serbian transgressions were dealt with is instructive; here without an investigation or confirmation, the "war crimes" accusation was readily used. A different standard applies when it comes to Israel.
Not only did Egeland use euphemisms to describe the destruction he saw, but he then stated that an investigation was necessary to determine if there were military targets under the rubble. Rows of apartment buildings were flattened but Egeland still manages to utter this type of nonsense. Again, this is a simple ruse used to avoid issuing a clear accusation against Israel. One explanation for Egeland's unwillingness to be more categorical may be that if he manages to avert any serious criticism of Israel, then maybe he will be in contention for the UN Secretary General position. [7]
Admonishing "Both Sides"
Amnesty International, the Mother Theresa of human rights, issued a few press releases about the Israeli attacks on Gaza and Lebanon. With ample evidence of Israeli crimes, any meaningful criticism of Israel should include clear references to specific war crimes. However, true to form, AI avoids accusing Israel by issuing a legalistic paper on the laws of war, and then stating that a prohibition for a given act applies to "both sides"! Even though Israelis have virtually destroyed Lebanon and caused massive damage to the entire infrastructure on which civilian life depends, AI issues a generic list of possible war crimes without direct references to actual deeds. [8] AI is not an anti-war organization, and in these press releases it doesn't oppose the war per se or condemn the Israeli acts of aggression, instead it pontificates on how the belligerents should conduct war. AI's statements are not much different from those urging proportionality.
Amnesty International is a lame organization with a curious propensity for remaining virtually silent when confronted with crimes perpetrated by the United States, Britain or Israel. Despite occasional posturing, AI has virtually ignored the crimes perpetrated against the Palestinians. [9] Furthermore, AI's stance pertaining to Lebanon or Iraq is also muddled: it doesn't condemn and oppose the acts of aggression against these countries; instead it simply seeks to circumscribe the means of war.
Pinpoint vs. Indiscriminate Hypocrisy
Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have condemned Hezbollah's use of Katyusha missiles. These are considered "indiscriminate" in effect due to the nature of the weapon and the fact that it can't be aimed accurately; AI has gone so far as to state that the use of Katyushas constitutes a war crime. [10] On the other hand, Israel demonstrates that its weaponry is very precise, to the extent that two ambulances were hit with missiles through the center of the Red Cross symbol. [11] It is clear that even with accurate weapons one can commit indiscriminate destruction -- and certainly this has been on display in Lebanon. However, because Israelis use precision weapons some observers aren't willing to condemn Israeli bombing attacks and hide behind suggestions that military targets may have been in the vicinity -- the victims are portrayed as "collateral damage". Thus the massacre in Qana was not immediately condemned because the various pundits appearing on CNN or BBC suggested that Hezbollah targets may have been nearby. In other words, one can easily find categorical denunciations of "indiscriminate" weaponry (i.e., Hezbollah's Katyushas) while one will only hear very cautious statements about Israeli "precision" weapons.
They are Hiding! Now Blame the Victim
An often-heard absolution of the Israeli bombing of civilians is that Hezbollah or Hamas "hide among civilians". It is very easy to determine what would happen to Palestinian or Lebanese resistance groups if they were exposed, and thus suggestions that any group should fight the Israelis while standing in an open field are hypocritical. The mantra "hiding among civilians" is all about justifying Israeli bombing of civilians. It also blames the victim -- because they should never have allowed the "militants" to stand next to them, etc. We have witnessed this type of justification for the murder of civilians before: during the intifada when Israeli soldiers started to kill many Palestinian children there were similar suggestions that "militants" were using children as shields, or that the children had been ordered to confront the soldiers. Presto! In Israeli eyes and those of their apologists it was now justified to murder children.
Amnesty International weighs in by categorically stating that Hezbollah military presence in civilian areas amounts to a war crime. [12] Yet AI's pontificating ignores the fact that current Israeli (and US) military tactics require the widespread use of terror against the population. This was certainly confirmed when Gen. Dan Halutz stated that "no one will be safe in Lebanon." [13] While AI considers the presence of resistance fighters in Lebanese, Palestinian or Iraqi cities a war crime, it has yet to issue a pixel of criticism of the overall Israeli policy of terrorizing the Lebanese or Palestinian population. AI "understands" war; it only seeks the aggressors to comply with its silly list of restrictions.
Juicy Ironies: Where was the Weasel?
The current war against Lebanon has given rise to a series of amusing ironies. When Elie Wiesel, the professional holocaust survivor, discusses the holocaust, he often admonishes Europeans' failure to intervene when it became evident that the holocaust was taking place. There is a collective responsibility for preventing crimes -- fine, point well taken. However, in late June 2006 the Israeli military attacked Gaza, killing many, demolishing the infrastructure, imposing a siege, etc. Here in plain view were crimes perpetrated against 1.5 million Palestinians, and yet "we" didn't move to do something about it. At the same time, it is highly likely that the Hezbollah action against some Israeli soldiers was a response to the Israeli crimes against Palestinians. While the Wiesel-stripe moralizers didn't have anything to say about Israeli crimes, it was Hezbollah that responded -- they acted against the crimes perpetrated against their Palestinian brothers. [14] Applying the weasel logic about the holocaust, maybe we should be applauding the Hezbollah actions; instead, Wiesel and his ilk's response have been mostly silent about Israeli crimes. A perusal of statements issued by various Holocaust Studies centers reveals virtually no statements about Israeli crimes; the only statements in evidence are about the crimes in Darfur. If one were to shut down all the Holocaust Studies centers, one wouldn't notice the difference -- they are irrelevant.
Cruel Irony: No More Prisoners
Israelis justify their attacks against Gaza and Lebanon on the basis of a few soldiers who were captured. It quickly became apparent that this was a propaganda ruse used to justify its attacks, and soon afterwards mention of the captured soldiers was dropped. However, one of the ironies of the Israeli reaction to the capture of its soldiers is that it encourages others to kill Israeli soldiers instead of taking them prisoner. From now on the best course of action for resistance fighters is to simply shoot the soldiers they manage to vanquish. But, then, Hezbollah or Hamas will be demonized for "not taking any prisoners"...
It is the Premises, Stupid!
Western media and political discourse have demonstrated an avoidance of responsibility for crimes by hiding behind euphemisms, false mantras, or naked hypocrisy; there is ample evidence of this during the recent Israeli attacks against Gaza and Lebanon. In order to stop the war of aggression against the Palestinians and the Lebanese, it is important to highlight the hypocrisy, replace euphemisms with clear words and to debunk the false mantras. The demolition of the latter requires overturning the premises of the commentary about the war and about Israel itself.
One often finds American or British politicians reciting false mantras, and this is a major part of the problem; they operate on the basis of illegitimate premises. Possibly the most pernicious false mantra -- recited almost as in a trance-inducing ritual -- is that "Israel has a right to exist". American, British and other Western politicians have rubbed Palestinian noses in the dirt because their politicians haven't swallowed the pernicious demand that they also accept "Israel's right to exist". However, it is curious that Israel is the only country for which "a right to exist" is an issue and it reveals a well founded sense of insecurity. Israel has simultaneously ethnically cleansed the native population (the Palestinians) and threatened or attacked its neighbors. What Israeli depredations make evident is that it is a colonial state that doesn't belong to the area; Israel is a cruel historical aberration in the 21st century. It is high time that the key false mantra, "Israel has a right to exist", be replaced with "Israel has a right to exist only if it addresses the injustices it has perpetrated and stops attacking its neighbors". If Israel fails to do this and continues on its present path, then the only decent solution is to dissolve that state. Pariah states don't deserve to exist.
Paul de Rooij can be reached at: proox@hotmail.com. (NB: all e-mails with attachments will be automatically deleted.) Copyright © 2006 Paul de Rooij
ENDNOTES
[1] Hillary Clinton's support for Israel knows no bounds -- it must be interpreted by her as a requirement to stand for office and "become presidential material".
[2] The initial report about major blasts in South Beirut stated that 25 tons of explosives had been dropped... subsequent reports reduced this number, and one can now find accounts of 24, 23, and 22 tons of explosives.
[3] Ori Nir, "Bush Urged To Give Israel More Time for Attacks", Forward, 21 July 2006. What the Jewish leaders are lobbying for is for the period of unrestrained terror against the Lebanese population to be extended. And then they worry that someone might hate them, but this is then called "anti-semitism".
[4] Michael Mandel, How America gets away with Murder: Illegal wars, collateral damage, and Crimes against humanity, Pluto Press 2004.
[5] Kim Howell, a British diplomat, was featured for his emotional outburst and disgust at the Israeli demolition of Lebanon. However, in the same passage he stated that "Israel has a right to defend herself". Howell may express his disgust, but then he should be consistent -- he should be against Israeli aggression, and then not justify any level of aggression by suggesting it is "defense". A few days later Jack Straw, the former British Foreign Secretary, made similar remarks. NB: the man who was co-responsible to launch the war of aggression against Iraq in 2003 was now adding his lame protestations against Tony Blair. What makes Straw special is that he doesn't seem to notice his own hypocrisy.
[6] See for example MDE 15/064/2006, where AI states: "... Israel must also respect the principle of proportionality when targeting any military objectives or civilian objectives that may be used for military purposes," said Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International's Middle East Programme. "Hizbullah must stop launching attacks against Israeli civilians and it must treat humanely the two Israeli soldiers it captured on 12 July and grant them immediate access to the International Committee of the Red Cross."
[7] NB: The leading contender is Terje Roed-Larsen who is known for his outspoken pro-Israeli stance. See: Azmi Bishara, "Blackmail by Bombs," Al Ahram, 20 July 2006.
"Roed-Larsen's visit was not a fact-finding mission. Sending Roed-Larsen was in itself a political statement. He is not only the Israeli Labour Party's man on the conflict with the Palestinians, he is also the spokesman of the Israeli position with respect to the Lebanese resistance. He is the one who is after blood-money to compensate for Barak's loss of honour after withdrawing from Lebanon and the one who was called in to supervise the implementation of Resolution 1559. Larsen has not only drawn a red line at crossing the blue line, he regards the Lebanese resistance as a local militia. He is also a foremost exponent of that now old term, 'the New Middle East', by which is meant, at best, the normalisation of Arab relations, i.e. according inter-Arab relations no more priority than bilateral relations between individual Arab states and Israel."
And then Roed-Larsen is the principal UN operator to arrive in Beirut for shuttle diplomacy with the Israelis. While meeting the Israelis Roed-Larsen was in a jovial all-smiles mood -- just the attitude needed to stop a war of aggression.
[8] AI, Israel and Hezbollah must spare civilians, MDE 15/070/2006, 26 July 2006. There is also a summary issued by Irene Khan, the AI supremo.
[9] To verify this statement one can read these articles:
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Dennis Bernstein and Francis Boyle, "Amnesty on Jenin: an interview," CovertAction Quarterly, Summer 2002, pp. 9 -- 12, 27. (important article).
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Paul de Rooij, "Amnesty International & Israel: Say it isn't so!," CounterPunch, 31 Oct. 2002.
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Paul de Rooij, "Amnesty International: The Case of a Rape Foretold," Dissident Voice, 23 Nov. 2006.
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Paul de Rooij, "Amnesty International: A False Beacon?," Dissident Voice, 22 Oct. 2004.
[10] Amnesty is utilizing a wrong description for the Katyushas; they are not very accurate -- but that is very different from "indiscriminate". Precision weapons can also be "indiscriminate". Thus areas can be blanketed with cluster bombs, yet these could have been delivered with pinpoint accuracy. Unfortunately, AI and HRW's use of the word "indiscriminate" is meant to convey an emotive reaction to the use of Hezbollah weapons; Israeli weapons are seldom described in this fashion. For example, many Lebanese were killed by landmines planted by Israel in Southern Lebanon -- it is estimated that there are 300,000 of them. However, one seldom finds reports on the landmine fields, and the language used to describe them is factual, not emotive.
[11] The reason the ICRC (Red Cross) had for many years rejected the Israeli application for the membership of its Magen David Adom (MDA) society was the frequent destruction and obstruction of the Palestinian ambulances, and general interference with the delivery of emergency medical attention. Although in Lebanon Israel has demonstrated that it is still willing to target ambulances and demolish hospitals, the ICRC has yet to issue a peep about this -- there is nothing about reviewing or reconsidering the MDA's ICRC membership.
[12] AI, Israel and Hezbollah must spare civilians, MDE 15/070/2006, 26 July 2006. See section under "Human shields".
[13] NB: this is the same terminology used at the beginning of the "Shock and Awe" campaign against Iraq in 2003.
[14] Note that Hezbollah has in the past responded to Israeli depredations against Palestinians. For example, Sharon's provocation at the Al Aqsa mosque also elicited a response from Hezbollah. See here: George Monbiot, "Israel responded to an unprovoked attack by Hizbullah, right? Wrong,"
The Guardian, 8 August 2006.
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Editorial: Desert of trapped corpses testifies to Israel's failure
By Robert Fisk
The Independent
08/15/06
They made a desert and called it peace. Srifa - or what was once the village of Srifa - is a place of pancaked homes, blasted walls, rubble, starving cats and trapped corpses. But it is also a place of victory for the Hizbollah, whose fighters walked amid the destruction yesterday with the air of conquering heroes. So who is to blame for this desert? The Shia militia which provoked this war - or the Israeli air force and army which has laid waste to southern Lebanon and killed so many of its people?
There was no doubt what the village mukhtar thought. As three Hizbollah men - one wounded in the arm, the other carrying two ammunition clips and a two-way radio - passed us amid the piles of broken concrete, Hussein Kamel el-Din yelled to them: "Hallo, heroes!" Then he turned to me. "You know why they are angry? Because God didn't give them the opportunity of dying."
You have to be down here with the Hizbollah amid this terrifying destruction - way south of the Litani river, in the territory from which Israel once vowed to expel them - to realise the nature of the past month of war and of its enormous political significance to the Middle East. Israel's mighty army has already retreated from the neighbouring village of Ghandoutiya after losing 40 men in just over 36 hours of fighting. It has not even managed to penetrate the smashed town of Khiam where the Hizbollah were celebrating yesterday afternoon. In Srifa, I stood with Hizbollah men looking at the empty roads to the south and could see all the way to Israel and the settlement of Mizgav Am on the other side of the frontier. This is not the way the war was supposed to have ended for Israel.
Far from humiliating Iran and Syria - which was the Israeli-American plan - these two supposedly pariah states have been left untouched and the Hizbollah's reputation lionised across the Arab world. The "opportunity" which President George Bush and his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, apparently saw in the Lebanon war has turned out to be an opportunity for America's enemies to show the weakness of Israel's army. Indeed, last night, scarcely any Israeli armour was to be seen inside Lebanon - just one solitary tank could be glimpsed outside Bint Jbeil and the Israelis had retreated even from the "safe" Christian town of Marjayoun. It is now clear that the 30,000-strong Israeli army reported to be racing north to the Litani river never existed. In fact, it is unlikely that there were yesterday more than 1,000 Israeli soldiers left in all of southern Lebanon, although they did become involved in two fire-fights during the morning, hours after the UN-ceasefire went into effect.
Down the coast road from Beirut, meanwhile, came a massive exodus of tens of thousands of Shia families, bedding piled on the roofs of their cars , many of them sporting Hizbollah flags and pictures of Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbollah's chairman, on their windscreens. At the massive traffic jams around the broken motorway bridges and craters which litter the landscape, the Hizbollah was even handing out yellow and green "victory" flags, along with official notices urging parents not to allow children to play with the thousands of unexploded bombs that now lie across the landscape. At least one Lebanese child was killed by unexploded ordnance and another 15 were wounded yesterday.
But to what are these people returning? Haj Ali Dakroub, a 42-year old construction manager, lost part of his home in Israel's 1996 bombardment of Srifa. Now his entire house has been flattened. "What is here that Israel should destroy all this?" he asked. "We don't deny that the resistance was in Srifa. It was here before and it will be here in the future. But in this house lived only my family. So why would Israel bomb it?"
Well, I did happen to notice what appeared to be the casing of a missile hanging from the balcony of a much-damaged house facing the rubble of Ali Dakroub's home. And a group of Hizbollah militiamen, one of them with a pistol tucked into his trousers, walked past us nonchalantly and disappeared into an orchard. Was this, perhaps, where they kept some of their rockets?
Mr Dakroub wasn't saying. "I am going to rebuild my home with my two sons," he insisted. "Israel may come back in 10 years and destroy it all over again and then I'll just rebuild it all over again. This was a Hizbollah victory. The Israelis were able to defeat all the Arab countries in six days in 1967 but here they could not defeat the resistance in a month. These resistance men would come out of the ground and shoot back. They are still here."
"Come out of the ground" is an expression I have heard several times these past four weeks and I am beginning to suspect that many of the thousands of guerrillas did indeed shelter in caves and basements and tunnels, only to emerge to fire their missiles or to use their infra-red rockets on the Israeli army once it made the mistake of sending troops into Lebanon on the ground. And does anyone believe that the Hizbollah will submit to their own disarmament by a new international force of UN and Lebanese troops once - if - it arrives? There was a symbolic moment yesterday when Lebanese soldiers already based in southern Lebanon joined Hizbollah men in Srifa to clear the rubble of a house in which the bodies of an entire family were believed buried. Lebanese Red Cross and civil defence personnel - representatives of the civil power which is supposed to claw back its sovereignty from the Hizbollah - joined in the search. The mukhtar, who so blatantly regarded the Hizbollah as heroes, is also a government representative. And at the entrance to this shattered village still stands a poster of Nasrallah and the Iranian President Ali Khamenei.
Far from driving the Hizbollah north across the Litani river, Israel has entrenched them in their Lebanese villages as never before.
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Editorial: Apologists with evil minds
By James J. Zogby, Special to Gulf News
08/14/2006 12:00 AM (UAE)
There appears to be a direct relationship between the increasing ugliness and immorality of this war and the extreme lengths to which Israel's supporters will go to justify it.
This was brought home to me recently in three separate debates, one in print, two on television. What I clearly saw at work in these exchanges was how Israel's apologists use verbal overkill paralleling Israel's use of overwhelming military force. They will admit no wrong. They attempt to bully opponents into submission. They deny history and morality. And, maybe most disturbing of all, they seek to present this war (as they have sought to present many of Israel's previous wars) in exaggerated and near apocalyptical terms.
One of my antagonists, Abe Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, objected to a piece I had written charging the Bush administration with "criminal negligence", for not acting quickly and decisively to end the carnage in Lebanon. I went further in my piece noting that this administration's policies and/or neglect had made a mess of much of the Middle East, resulting not only in catastrophe for the Arab world, but in a deepening of anti-American sentiments throughout the region.
Ignoring my point, Foxman deliberately miscast my views, accusing me of standing by while Hezbollah and Iran armed themselves and became a threat to the entire Middle East. After absolving Israel from all blame in the killing of hundreds of Lebanese civilians, Foxman weirdly concluded that, "[i]n the end, though Zogby won't admit it, the Arab world needs an Israeli victory over Hezbollah and Iran as much as Israel and the US. Maybe then, Lebanon can truly become one nation and be rebuilt and the region can begin to change for the better."
In my rebuttal, I noted that it was not I who stood by while Iran and extremists were strengthened in the Middle East. It was the policies pursued by the Bush administration that are responsible for the nightmare unfolding before us. It was the disastrous war in Iraq that empowered and emboldened Iran, creating a new haven for terrorists and the dangers of civil war. And it was the US's abandonment of Lebanon and the Palestinians, followed by support for the Israeli onslaught against both that is making the Middle East more dangerous and more anti-American with Iran sitting on the sidelines "licking its chops". Unlike Foxman's apocalyptical fantasy, I see no cheering in the Arab world for Israel's behaviour and I do not see how any compassionate or sane person can argue that the outcome of an Israeli "victory" will leave Lebanon better or whole.
My two televised exchanges, one with noted criminal attorney Alan Dershowitz and the other with magazine publisher Mort Zuckerman, were debates that focused on issues of morality and war. Both of my antagonists claimed that Israel always fought its wars using moral means. When Arab civilians were killed, it was because: these civilians forfeited their rights by not fleeing as they had been told to; or because they were terrorist supporters; or because they were deliberately used as shields; or because ... and on and on. The point being that Israel is never guilty, someone else always is.
This is such madness. Denying history and morality in the defence of atrocities is, however, par for the course for Israel's apologists. It took Israeli historians four decades to admit that they deliberately falsified the history of the 1948 war and to acknowledge that it was their ethnic cleansing campaign in 1948 that produced the first wave of Palestinian refugees.
Now only four weeks into the Lebanon war and they want us to forget that from the first days of this conflict Israeli military leaders were warning that they would "turn Lebanon's clock back 20 years", or that nothing and no one south of the Litani river would be safe. And this is precisely what they have done. Not only have entire swaths of the southern suburbs of Beirut and much of Tyre and Bint Jbail and other smaller communities been reduced to rubble, but the airport and oil depot and ports, north and south, and much of the infrastructure of the country have been destroyed as well. In the process, thousands of homes have been levelled and hundreds have been killed, by "smart bombs" that "repeatedly miss" their targets. The moral justification? "Hezbollah made us do it."
What is galling is that the Israelis said what they were going to do, they did it, and now they send forth their minions to deny their responsibility for their actions.
Hyperbole
In the end, my opponents fall back on hyperbole to buttress their defence. For Zuckerman the argument becomes Israel fighting for its survival this, presumably, justifying any and all atrocities. More disturbing, Dershowitz argues, "[t]his is the beginning of a world war in which this kind of terrorism will be used against democracies. And the question is are democracies going to be impotent in the face of this or will the international community finally say to Hezbollah and others 'You cannot hide behind civilians. You cannot use civilians as a shield. If you do, you are responsible for every death ..."
I grew up in an environment where I was taught that "you reap what you sow". For that reason, while I have supported Palestinian rights and opposed the occupations of Palestine and Lebanon, I have never been an uncritical apologist when terrorist acts against civilians were used in the name of resistance. I, therefore, am outraged by the immoral apologetics of those who uncritically excuse all of Israel's behaviour. It is a dangerous game.
When my antagonists see only their history and deny that of their adversaries, and when they insist that morality and humanity are defined exclusively by their needs and behaviour, they become dangerously solipsistic. Defending a guilty client only serves to legitimate bad behaviour, guaranteeing that it will continue. Worse still is attempting to fantasise some larger good coming out of evil the consequences of all this denial will haunt us for generations to come.
Dr James Zogby is the president of the Arab American Institute in Washington, DC.
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Editorial: Mad Dog On A Leash
By Sheila Samples
08/15/06 "Information Clearing House"
"We should prepare to go on the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Moslem regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan; Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai."~~David Ben-Gurion, May 1948
I have been stunned by many things on the US political scene since I was jerked violently awake on Nov. 22, 1963. However, one thing that simply flew under the cuckoo's nest of my awareness was the total influence on our Congress; the control of our media, our courts, our universities, our entire society -- even our religion -- by the state of Israel. I had no idea.
I've learned a lot about both Israel and the United States in the last five years -- most of which I fervently wish I didn't know. I learned very quickly in the wake of 9-11 that the neoconservatives in the US claim an ideological right -- the Zionists in Israel a theological right -- to do whatever they want to whomever they want whenever they want, and those who question their increasingly bloody aggression are labeled "anti-American" or "anti-Semitic." Those who protest are ostracized from both religious and patriotic society (not to be confused with "civilized" society) and are immediately bombarded with ridicule and vicious ad hominems. Some receive death threats. Some receive death.
I learned that there is a vast difference between Jews, or people of Israel, and the warmongering Zionists who control the state of Israel, just as there is between most American citizens and the cowardly neo-fascist chickenhawks who control the United States. The people of both regimes cry out against the barbaric genocide and ethnic cleansing perpetrated in their name -- they shriek, they march in protest, but the world media pushed the "mute" button long ago, and no sound emerges from the weeping masses. As these two "democracies" force their way across the Middle East, it's as if Charles Manson is stalking the innocent with a mad dog on a leash. Neither can be reasoned with, and no living creature in their path is safe. But it is easy to tell where they've been, because the landscape is littered with rotting corpses of innocent men, women and children, with mass graves and displaced millions fleeing for their lives.
From the Frying Pan...
The current conflict raging in Lebanon and Palestine has less to do with self-defense or protecting the homeland than with zionist politics, Christo-fascist talking points and corporate media spin. It is a war of extermination -- a carefully planned crusade for world dominion, and it has been simmering on US and Israeli back burners for decades.
Every writer addressing this subject since George Bush was fraudently installed in the White House has pleaded with Americans to pay attention to the plan,
"Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century" penned by Dick Cheney while he was defense secretary, by Donald Rumsfeld, Scooter Libby, Paul Wolfowitz and Jeb Bush, which calls for seizing the world's resources and establishing permanent military bases throughout the Middle East. That plan was immediately put in place and is being relentlessly carried out.
Ninety pages too formidable? Okay, try the September 2002 "National Security Strategy of the United States of America," whose 35 pages puts in place a barbaric pre-emptive war policy that destroys 230 years of honor, dignity, decency -- and democracy. This manifesto was also written by Cheney and Wolfowitz, and is a direct result of behind-the-scenes input from then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Colin Powell.
In his article, "DickCheney's Song of America," David Armstrong writes, "In early 1992, as Powell and Cheney campaigned to win congressional support for their augmented Base Force plan, a new logic entered into their appeals. The United States, Powell told members of the House Armed Services Committee, required "sufficient power" to "deter any challenger from ever dreaming of challenging us on the world stage." To emphasize the point he (Powell) cast the United States in the role of street thug. "I want to be the bully on the block," he said, implanting in the mind of potential opponents that "there is no future in trying to challenge the armed forces of the United States."
Armstrong's article is 11 easy-to-read, eye-opening pages and was entered into the Congressional Record by Rep. John Larson (D-CT) in Oct. 10, 2002 -- one month after Cheney's National Security Strategy was released.
If you're wondering what these homework assignments have to do with what's going on in Lebanon, Israel and Gaza today, take a look at
"A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," a document written in 1996 by neoconservatives Douglas Feith, Richard Perle and David Wurmser, among others, for incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. No more Mr. Good Guy when dealing with the Palestinians, "A Clean Break" calls for a hot pursuit policy -- in effect, a familiar smoke 'em out, get 'em on the run and chase 'em clean out of the realm. Those who choose to stay and fight for their land will die. It's their choice.
"Clean Break," although the Likudnik game plan, was written by American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) power-mad neocons, who fantasized that Israel could seize the "strategic initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hizballah, Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon," and suggested that after these wars, which would all be successful, of course -- Israel could reshape "the strategic balance in the Middle East" by attacking Saudi Arabia and Egypt. "Clean Break" is a mere six pages, and is a Zionist's wet dream...
Into The Fire...
They can't stop now. They wouldn't, even if they could. The neo-cons' thirst for blood has reached unquenchable proportions. No one has worked more feverishly for total Middle East war than the Weekly Standard's ghoulishly grinning editor, Bill Kristol, who wrote in his July 24 "It's Our War" that Hezbollah is intent on wiping Israel off the map for Iran, and now is the time to strike Iran's nuclear facilities. "Why wait?" Kristol asked. "Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions-and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement."
Then there's Dick Cheney, the madman who pulls the levers, who is chillingly indifferent to suffering and -- being bloodless himself -- doesn't see what all the fuss is about. Cheney's plans go beyond just controlling the world's resources; he knows he won't be here much longer, so he's desperate to seize all the riches, if you will, and take them with him. In this administration, Cheney is the "go to" guy for arrogant, barbaric murder.
According to journalist Seymour Hersh, whose article,
"Watching Lebanon," will be published in the Aug. 21 issue of the New Yorker, Israeli officials came to Washington earlier this summer "to get a green light for the bombing operation and to find out how much the United States would bear."
Hersh writes that "Israel began with Cheney. It wanted to be sure that it had his support and the support of his office and the Middle East desk of the National Security Council." After getting Cheney's blessing, Hersh said he was told, "persuading Bush was never a problem, and Condi Rice was on board."
And evangelical Zionists, such as Pat Robertson, who are lusting for Armeggedan, at last see an opportunity to rid the Holy Land of the Palestinians. Only after a crusade wherein the entire Middle East explodes in a tsunami of blood -- only then will Robertson be swept up in glory, leaving the rest of us below to choke to death on depleted uranium dust and to drown in the blood of the innocent.
Those of you who don't know Robertson are, well, damn lucky. Robertson makes Charles Manson look like a pussy. As far back as 1985, Robertson told his brain-dead followers that God wants all Palestinians exterminated. "God told the Israelites to kill them all -- men, women and children -- to destroy them," Robertson said.
What are we to think of that? Robertson, God's most vocal confidant, says Palestinians are an abomination -- a contagion for which there is no cure and whose only function is to "cause trouble for the Israelites, and pull the Israelites away from God, and prevent the truth of God from reaching the Earth." He explained it was "more merciful" to kill Palestinians sooner rather than later because if they continue to reproduce, Israel will be burdened with having more to kill in the future. According to Robertson, the only way to look at such mass extinction is, "God, in love, took away a small number so that He might not have to take away a large number."
Last, but not least, we have Israel's militant leaders -- and America's Decider, George Bush. The Zionists are very good at what they do, whether blowing things apart with US bombs and missiles or crushing everything in their path with US bulldozers. But don't take my word for it. In his book, "You Gentiles," Maurice Samuels (p.155) wrote, "We Jews, we are the destroyers and will remain the destroyers. Nothing you can do will meet our demands and needs. We will forever destroy because we want a world of our own."
One has only to stumble through the ruins of Sabra, Shatilla, Jenin, Gaza and Qana -- recall the torture, assassinations, collective punishment of civilians, destruction of infrastructure, denying sustenance to those dying of thirst and hunger -- to realize that Israel is the cod piece of the Middle East. The Zionists who control it make Charles Manson's mad dog look like a pussy.
And, what of George Bush -- what part is he playing in all of this? It is incomprehensible to believe he is in charge of, even aware of, anything. In recent weeks, I have watched Bush, the man at the helm of the most powerful nation on earth, run and hide, blather and bumble his way thorugh fund-raising speeches, make an ass of himself at the G8 Summit gathering in Russia, crudely grope another world leader, and refuse to discuss anything more serious than "slicing the pig."
Two weeks into the Lebanon crisis, wherein "Condi," as he crudely calls this nation's Secretary of State, lurched around the Middle East and was sent home empty-handed -- twice -- Bush was finally backed into a corner and asked about the bombs dropping on Lebanon and the Hezbollah rockets raining down on Israel. He responded inanely that Israel was merely exercising its right to defend itself," before launching into a familiar, Texas-style "Remember the 9-11 Alamo..."
Are We Done Yet?
These widely different factions have divergent goals but they need each other to achieve them, and their eyes are riveted on the prize -- Iran. This oil-rich nation must be brought to its knees before the neo-cons can have their New World Order, before Cheney can control the world's resources, before Israel can have its final solution in the Holy Land, before Bush can spread freedom and democracy and death and rid the world of yet another safe haven for plotters and planners and evil terrorists.... Iran is all that is standing between true believers and their ascension into Heaven. The same people who lied us into the Iraq war are telling the same lies about Iran -- the WMDs are now nuclear bombs, and no UN resolution, no US Congress, no US media will stop the madness.
They will have their war, knowing full well that an assault on a nation fully capable of retaliation will sign the death warrants of millions of innocents as well as of every US service member on the ground in the Middle East. Unfortunately, such losses carry little weight with all but a handful of the members of the US Congress and the majority of the American people who blindly support Zionist Israel and who advocate ethnic cleansing as a final solution to the problems of the Middle East.
Edward Said, the late Palestinian-American theorist, wrote one month before the Iraq invasion, "We cannot in any way lend our silence to a policy of war that the White House has openly announced will include three to five hundred cruise missiles a day (800 of them during the first 48 hours of the war) raining down on the civilian population of Baghdad in order to produce "Shock and Awe", or even a human cataclysm that will produce ... a Hiroshima-style effect on the Iraqi people... What sort of God would want this to be a formulated and announced policy for His people? And what sort of God would claim that this was going to bring democracy and freedom to the people not only of Iraq but to the rest of the Middle East?"
Said pleaded with the American people to speak out before it's too late. "Who knows what more evil will be done in the name of Good?" Said asked. "Every one of us must raise our voices, and march in protest, now and again and again. We need creative thinking and bold action to stave off the nightmares planned by a docile, professionalised staff in places like Washington and Tel Aviv and Baghdad. For if what they have in mind is what they call "greater security" then words have no meaning at all in the ordinary sense...The question is, how long can they keep getting away with it?"
How long, indeed. Look around. They have come for the others. Only we the people remain, and most of us are blind to our shame, our national disgrace. If we do not raise our voices now and again and again, we will be done. Then, God help us, we will realize -- too late -- that we are all Charles Mansons now.
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites. Contact her at: rsamples@sirinet.net. © 2006 Sheila Samples
Original
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Editorial: Hezbollah's Victory and the Coming Shock and Awe of Iran
Tuesday August 15th 2006, 9:39 am
Kurt Nimmo
Another Day in the Empire
It is said the United States has "scaled-back" its "expectations" now that the United Nations has declared a "ceasefire" in Lebanon. "The U.N. agreement is only the most recent example in which Bush's second-term doctrine of spreading freedom has run into the realities of international and domestic politics," notes the Baltimore Sun.
Actually, Bush's doctrine, which has nothing to do with democracy as most people understand the word, ran into the reality of Hezbollah, the most effective resistance movement in the world. Israel's defeat at the hands of the Shia resistance group, forged and tempered into steel hard resolve over many years by the experience of a brutal Israeli occupation, has dashed the "expectations" of the neocons, who are cut from the same cloth as the Jabotinksyite fascists in Israel. Consumed with racist hubris, both the Israelis and the American neocons expected a decisive victory over Hezbollah. But it didn't work out that way.
As the Baltimore Sun writes, "many analysts said the U.N. resolution is vague about how Hezbollah would be tamed. The agreement also is vague, they said, about how Iran and Syria would be prevented from continuing to send weapons, including rockets, to Hezbollah. And though the pact calls for Hezbollah to leave southern Lebanon, it remains unclear how the group would be stopped from operating north of the Litani River, about 20 miles from the Israeli border."
Flip this around. How will the United States be prevented from sending high-tech armaments to Israel, including cluster bombs and DU-tipped bunkerbusters? Does the U.N. "pact" call for Olmert and his gang of war criminals to leave Israel? Hezbollah will not leave southern Lebanon-or as the above seems to indicate, leave Lebanon, period-because the people of southern Lebanon, primarily Shia Muslims, are Hezbollah. The U.N. "agreement" is vague because it is sincerely absurd to believe Hezbollah will leave their country.
"Some analysts said the truce, with its lack of clarity on key points, could turn out to be exactly what Bush said he did not want. And many said Israel's failure to gain an outright victory has strengthened the political clout of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah.... As it became clear that the Israelis were not going to wipe out Hezbollah, support in the White House shifted from the hard-liners, typically led by Vice President Dick Cheney, to the advocates for more diplomacy."
Of course, this was to be expected, as it is impossible to defeat a resistance movement short of killing every last one of its members and those who support it, that is to say just about everybody in southern Lebanon and a good deal of people in the rest of the country. Israel would like to finish the job of killing large numbers of Lebanese, all considered members of Hezbollah, but for the moment the "hard-liners" (Israel First fanatics in the Pentagon and White House) have lost out to "the advocates for more diplomacy," that is to say the neolib faction more accustomed to subverting national resistance and liberation movements in less dramatic ways.
In reality, the neocons have a few tricks up their sleeves.
In essence, the U.N.-brokered "ceasefire" is little more than a public relations stunt, as Israel fully intends to continue targeting Hezbollah, that is to say the Shia of Lebanon. "We will continue to pursue the leaders of Hezbollah everywhere and at all times," Ehud Olmert told a special Knesset session. "This is our moral duty to ourselves, and we have no intention of apologizing or asking anyone's permission." Likudite Benjamin Netanyahu threw in his two cents. "There is a danger that threatens our people. Not only us, our soldiers and our economy.... Since Hitler, there has not been an enemy like Ahmedinejad.... He has Hamas in the south, and Hezbollah in the north. This is an existential peril."
In the world of Jabotinsky fanaticism, up is down and black is white. Ahmedinejad is no Hitler, although the ancestors of Olmert and Netanyahu attempted to snuggle up to the Nazis. In 1941, Avraham Stern, the founder of the Zionist terrorist group Lohamei Herut Israel, proposed intervening in the Second World War on the side of Nazi Germany. Lehi's partner in terrorism, Irgun, eventually became Herut, and Herut Likud, and now Likud has mutated into Olmert's Kadima.
It is said, in the wake of the shock and awe invasion of Lebanon, Olmert will soon be history. However, the failure of Olmert will not lead to a reassessment, but rather renewed fanaticism and warmongering, echoed on the "civilian," that is to say neocon, side of the Pentagon. "A new Israeli regime will not withdraw from any more land, nor shut down any more settlements, nor vacate any part of Jerusalem, nor negotiate with a Palestinian Authority led by Hamas, or by a PLO that is unable to disarm Hamas," writes Patrick Buchanan.
Where does this leave us? With Israel's failure to achieve its strategic objectives in Lebanon and America having failed to attain its strategic objectives in Iraq, Nasrallah emerges triumphant, and Syria and Iran emerge unscathed and gloating.
What comes next? That is obvious.
With our War Party discredited by the failed policies it cheered on in Lebanon and Iraq, there will come a clamor that Bush must "go to the source" of all our difficulty-Iran. Only thus can the War Party redeem itself for having pushed us and Israel into two unnecessary and ruinous wars. And the drumbeat for war on Iran has already begun.
"[T]he dangers continue to mount abroad," wails The Weekly Standard in its lead editorial. "How Bush deals with Ahmadinejad's terror-supporting and nuclear-weapons pursuing Iran will be the test" of his administration. Yes, the supreme test.
Bush is on notice from the neocons and War Party that have all but destroyed his presidency: Either you take down Iran, Mr. Bush, or you are a failed president.
For a psychological basket case such as Bush, this taunting may be too much to endure. Regardless of the "realities of international and domestic politics," Bush may heed his neocon taskmasters and push for a shock and awe invasion of Iran.
At this point, the question is: will the neocon free side of the Pentagon be able hold off Bush's ruinous push for an invasion against Iran?
Probably not.
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Lebanon in Tears
Hizbollah says disarmament not an option
Reuters
16 Aug 06
TYRE, Lebanon - Hizbollah said on Wednesday the idea of disarming its guerrillas "was not on the table" -- especially with Israeli forces still in south Lebanon.
Sheikh Nabil Kaouk, the group's top official in the south, reiterated Hizbollah's right to fight Israeli troops remaining in Lebanon before the deployment of the Lebanese army and U.N. peacekeepers, expected in the coming days and weeks.
"Today, the issue of Hizbollah relinquishing its weapons is not on the table. There are priorities and obligations that the state should do first before that," Kaouk told reporters in the port city of Tyre.
"The presence of Israeli tanks in the south is an aggression and the resistance reserves its right to face such aggression if it persisted," he said.
The Shi'ite Muslim group has cast doubts on the Lebanese army's ability to defend the country against Israel, saying its guerrillas are better placed to fight any aggression.
A U.N.-brokered truce on Monday halted a 34-day war between the Jewish state and the Iranian-backed group in which more than 1,100 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, were killed.
At least 157 Israelis died in the conflict, which was ignited by Hizbollah's kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.
Kaouk said Hizbollah welcomed the Lebanese army's deployment south of the Litani river. He also said Hizbollah would not keep a visible armed presence in the border area.
Israeli troops have begun preparations to make way for U.N. peacekeepers, who are expected to help the Lebanese army enforce the truce.
However, Israeli army chief Dan Halutz said on Wednesday his troops would stay in southern Lebanon for months if that was how long it took for a bigger U.N. force to be deployed.
© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.
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Israeli troops could stay in Lebanon for months: army chief
www.chinaview.cn 2006-08-16 16:51:35
JERUSALEM, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Dan Halutz said on Wednesday that his troops would remain in southern Lebanon for months, Israel Radio reported.
Halutz made the remarks as reacting to an observation presented by an army intelligence officer who told parliament's foreign affairs and defense committee that it would take months for a large contingent of the U.N. force to arrive in southern Lebanon, according to the radio.
"Israel will leave forces in Lebanon until the multinational force arrives, even if it takes months," Halutz said.
A UN-brokered cease-fire in Lebanon took into force at 0500 GMT on Monday morning following both Israeli and Lebanese approval.
On Friday, UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution calling for Israel's withdrawal and authorizing an increase of the existing UN force in Lebanon to 15,000 troops to help Lebanese government troops take control of south Lebanon as Israel withdraws.
Comment: Israeli forces have never left Lebanon since the invasion in 1982. When they talk about "leaving", it means to those positions they have been holding since 2000.
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World backs off disarming Hezbollah
Allan Woods, CanWest News Service
Published: Wednesday, August 16, 2006
WASHINGTON - The countries tasked with upholding the shaky truce in Lebanon appeared unwilling on Tuesday to force the disarmament of Hezbollah, a development that has threatened to add delays to the assembly of a massive United Nations peacekeeping force and that could ultimately set off fresh conflict in the region.
France, the United States, the UN and Lebanon itself have all refused to accept responsibility for stripping the fighters of their weapons, despite a key element of the UN resolution that calls for the group to give up its firepower and vacate southern areas of Lebanon.
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Monday his force will not been intimidated and pressured into disarming, and he gained key support on Tuesday from Lebanon's defence minister, Elian Murr, who has refused to take up the task of disarmament.
The Lebanese cabinet agreed to the UN resolution on Saturday, but Murr explained his job is not disarmament, but rather to "ensure the security of the (Islamic) Resistance and citizens, to protect the victory of the resistance."
The Islamic Resistance is the armed wing of Hezbollah, and London's al-Hayat newspaper reported Tuesday the Lebanese government was considering allowing fighters to keep their weapons in the southern border zone, in violation of the UN resolution.
The about-face is giving the rest of the world cold feet as well, particularly France, who lost 58 French soldiers to Hezbollah suicide attacks the last time it was on patrol in Beirut, in 1983.
Phillipe Douste-Blazy, the foreign minister of the country that is expected to contribute 4,000 troops and lead the UN mission, warned Tuesday France will stay out of Lebanon until receiving guarantees Hezbollah has disarmed. He is expected to further discuss security issues at meetings in Beirut Wednesday.
Similarly, both the U.S., who does not plan to send troops to Lebanon, and Maj.-Gen. Alain Pellegrini, the French commander of the UN peacekeeping force currently on the ground, said it is up to the Lebanese government to strip Hezbollah of its weapons.
"It is Lebanon that is responsible for determining its own future in this regard," David Welch, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, told reporters in Washington on Tuesday. "By passing this resolution 15 to 0, unanimously in the Security Council, the world's voice has been made crystal clear."
A spokesman for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said in New York it is up to Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah, but that the UN would offer help to enforce the process.
The latest crisis in the Israel-Lebanon conflict comes as the international community scrambles to determine which countries will contribute to the promised 15,000-troop UN peacekeeping force, and how soon they can get there.
A senior UN official told the BBC it is aiming to get an advance force of peacekeepers in to Lebanon within two weeks that could include up to 3,500 troops.
Lebanon plans to start moving 15,000 of its own soldiers into the southern part of the country this week, and Israel said it could pull out of Lebanon within 10 days.
But Pellegrini told France's Le Monde newspaper Tuesday that it could take up to one year to get the full force in place in southern Lebanon.
However, Sean McCormack, a U.S. State Department spokesman said "this needs to be done on a much more urgent basis than that."
"Nobody believes that deploying the force in months is acceptable," he said.
The question of how quickly the UN force can be in place is vital because last Friday's resolution calls for the withdrawal of the Israeli forces in southern Lebanon at the same time as the international force moves to takes up its positions.
For the time being, both Hezbollah fighters and Israeli soldiers remain on high alert in the area, a situation that led to the shooting of five Hezbollah members Tuesday because they were reportedly acting in a threatening manner.
Formal offers of troop contributions are expected to start coming in on Thursday from nations, although the bulk of the force is expected to be made up of French, Italian soldiers, along with other European countries.
Yet as much of the world watches the slow diplomatic process of cleaning up after a war, Israel has already set its sights on what it considers the larger threat to Middle East peace - Iran.
Shimon Peres, the country's deputy prime minister, said in Washington Tuesday that his country welcomes the UN resolution because it was supported by Arab countries, condemned Hezbollah and agreed to an embargo on weapons shipments into Lebanon.
But he warned that Iran is intent on dominating the unstable region, and he called on Israel's Arab neighbours to help put a stop to Iranian aggression.
"Whether we are partners in full or partners by need, I know that most Arab countries wouldn't like to convert the Middle East from an Arab space to an Iranian domination," he said.
Both Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad delivered speeches Tuesday celebrating what they called Hezbollah's victory over the Israeli army, and warning of "constant instability" unless Israel gives way to the Arab countries surrounding it.
Peres said Israel looks upon Hezbollah as an "Iranian armed division" or its "foreign legion" because it receives training, weapons and $100-million annually from Iran. Syria, which borders on Lebanon, has acted as an arms conduit for Hezbollah.
Asked why Israel did not set its considerable strength at Iran and Syria rather than Lebanon, he said that those two countries are a "world problem."
"We are not running the world," he said.
Peres was meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to discuss the situation in the Middle East ahead of a North American tour to raise what is expected to be hundreds of millions of dollars for reconstructions efforts in northern Israel.
U.S. President George W. Bush has been equally strident about what he calls the destabilizing role that Iran plays in the Middle East, particularly since the Israel-Lebanon conflict began last month. Earlier this week, he warned that it would have been much worse had Iran possessed "the nuclear weapon it seeks."
Comment: Among a media that is completely uncritical of Israel, CanWest has a place of honour. No one spouts the Israeli line with more vigour.
One question to Mr Peres: if the US and its "coalition of the willing" head on for war with Syria and Iran, in order to protect Israel, will that not show that, if Israel isn't running the world, they are certainly weilding an awfully large amount of power?
Syria and Iran are threats to no one except Israel. And they are only threats to Israel because Israel wants to invade them both, preferably using other nations to do it for them. That is, Syria and Iran need to protect themselves from a neighbour that is an aggressor: Israel, the country that just invaded Lebanon and has been stealing land from the Palestinians for the last century.
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US gave green light to Israel: Attack on Lebanon essential precursor for military options against Iran
Craig Murray
August 15, 2006
From Democracy Now
"In this week's issue of the New Yorker, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reports Israeli officials visited the White House earlier this summer to get a "green light" for an attack on Lebanon. The Bush administration approved, Hersh says, in part to remove Hezbollah as a deterrent to a potential US bombing of Iran. A government consultant said the Bush administration also saw the attack on Lebanon as a "demo" for what it could expect to face in Iran."
From the New Yorker
"The Middle East expert said that the Administration had several reasons for supporting the Israeli bombing campaign. Within the State Department, it was seen as a way to strengthen the Lebanese government so that it could assert its authority over the south of the country, much of which is controlled by Hezbollah. He went on, "The White House was more focussed on stripping Hezbollah of its missiles, because, if there was to be a military option against Iran's nuclear facilities, it had to get rid of the weapons that Hezbollah could use in a potential retaliation at Israel. Bush wanted both. Bush was going after Iran, as part of the Axis of Evil, and its nuclear sites, and he was interested in going after Hezbollah as part of his interest in democratization, with Lebanon as one of the crown jewels of Middle East democracy."
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Diplomats head to Lebanon to discuss peacekeeping plan
Last Updated Wed, 16 Aug 2006 05:46:54 EDT
CBC News
Foreign ministers from several countries are arriving in Beirut Wednesday to work out details of an international peacekeeping force that will oversee the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy and his Turkish counterpart, Abdullah Gul, arrived in Beirut Wednesday for talks. The foreign ministers of Pakistan and Malaysia were also expected.
There are currently 2,000 UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon. Although putting together a UN peacekeeping force can take at least three months, the UN hopes 3,500 international troops can reinforce the UN contingent within 10 to 14 days.
Israel is due to gradually evacuate southern Lebanon upon the arrival of 15,000 Lebanese troops supported by up to 15,000 UN peacekeepers as part of the ceasefire plan that put an end to 34 days of fighting.
France, Italy, Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia have indicated they will contribute troops, but the UN has not yet received any formal offers.
France was expected to lead the international force.
Those soldiers will patrol a 30-kilometre buffer zone in southern Lebanon from the Litani River to the Israeli border. But Israel wants a Hezbollah-free zone created quickly.
Some Israeli troops began pulling out of southern Lebanon Tuesday and Lebanese troops prepared to move across the Litani River to take control of the region from Hezbollah guerrillas. That move is expected Thursday.
Hezbollah has warned of more attacks as long as Israeli forces remain in Lebanon. The Lebanese government, with support from international troops, is expected to implement a September 2004 UN resolution calling for the disarmament of all militias, including Hezbollah.
But Hezbollah has indicated it will not give up its weapons and some countries including France have said they will not disarm Hezbollah fighters.
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Lebanese army prepares to move south
Wednesday 16 August 2006, 11:57 Makka Time, 8:57 GMT
Lebanon's army is preparing to move into south Lebanon as the United Nations plans to send an initial force of 3,500 troops to the region to enforce the truce between Israel and Hezbollah.
The Lebanese army will begin moving 15,000 troops south of the Litani river on Thursday in line with a UN resolution to end the fighting, a senior Lebanese political source said on Wednesday.
"As we speak, the army is readying the force," the source said, adding that Lebanese units would stay out of areas occupied by Israeli troops until UN peacekeepers move in.
In New York, the UN has pressed ahead with plans to send troops from France, Turkey, Malaysia and Germany to southern Lebanon.
Hedi Annabi, an assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping, told reporters on Tuesday: "It is our hope that there can be a deployment of up to 3,500 troops within 10 days to two weeks.
"That would be ideal to help consolidate the cessation of hostilities and start the process of withdrawal and of deployment of the Lebanese forces as foreseen in the resolution."
A French general and colonel are scheduled to meet with UN peacekeeping officials on Wednesday to discuss a "concept of operations" - how the force's mandate, set by the UN security council last Friday, would be implemented.
Rules of engagement
While several European Union nations have expressed interest in contributing troops, they are waiting to see what France - which is expected to provide the backbone of the contingent - will do before making any firm commitments.
In addition to the Europeans, Turkey, Indonesia and Malaysia are potential troop contributors.
"The French would like to know what others are prepared to do and the others would like to know what the French are prepared to do," a UN official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the talks.
About 40 nations interested in contributing soldiers to the new UN force are meeting on Thursday to hear the rules of engagement.
Israeli officials said that the Israeli army plans to withdraw from southern Lebanon in seven to 10 days and to hand over some of its forward positions to UN troops within 48 hours.
However on Wednesday Dan Halutz, chief of staff of Israel's army, reportedly said Israel would stay in the border zone until an international force deployed, "even if it takes months".
The mission
The first step for UN troops is to consolidate the current shaky truce and help set up the phased withdrawal of Israeli troops as the Lebanese army deploys some of its 15,000 soldiers, with the support of the 2,000 member UN observation force known as UNIFIL.
A UN official said that the next step is to try to create a demilitarised zone between the Israeli border and the Litani river, some 20km north, after the Lebanese government deploys its troops in the south.
Once the Lebanese army controls most of the south, the aim is to implement a September 2004 resolution, which calls for the disarmament of Hezbollah.
This is to be done by the Lebanese army, assisted by UN troops. But Elias al-Murr, the defence minister of Lebanon, said the army would not disarm Hezbollah.
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Hezbollah Fighters Better Trained, Equipped Than Chechens - Russian-born Israeli Soldiers
Created: 16.08.2006 15:26 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 15:26 MSK
MosNews
The 20 soldiers from Israel's elite Golani Brigade moved through the darkness over the rocky hills of Lebanon until they arrived at the outskirts of this Shi'ite town that until last month contained 35,000 residents. The unit entered an unfinished house to prepare for combat within a few hours.
The troops, however, never advanced beyond their two-story hideout. Hezbollah gunners, believed to have been hiding in the ruins of Bint Jbail, spotted the Israeli force and directed mortar, anti-tank and machine gun fire that trapped the elite Israeli unit for 36 hours in an area thought to have been cleared of the enemy.
Russian-born Israeli soldiers said Hezbollah fighters were better trained and equipped than the Chechens. They added that Hezbollah's tactics reminded them of Chechen rebels, The World Tribune daily reported.
"Hezbollah is tougher," Vladi, an infantry sniper, said.
On Tuesday, Hezbollah escalated ceasefire violations and fired artillery shells toward retreating Israeli soldiers, Middle East Newsline reported. At the same time, parliamentarians called for the resignation of Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, who acknowledged that he sold his investment portfolio hours after the Hezbollah abduction of two Israeli soldiers on July 12.
Military sources said numerous Israeli combat units, without effective air or armor support, spent most of their time in Lebanon paralyzed by Hezbollah fire. They said hundreds of soldiers were often overwhelmed by as few as a dozen Hezbollah mortar and anti-tank gunners within sight of the Israeli border.
In all, Israel sent 30,000 soldiers to Lebanon. At least 118 soldiers were killed in the 33-day fighting. The military said 530 Hezbollah operatives were killed.
"From the point of view of the individual soldier, they are better than the Arab armies that surround us," Col. Omri Bar-David, a reserve battalion commander, said.
In several cases, Israeli commanders, citing Hezbollah squads, dismissed orders to advance. The military reported the detention of five Engineering Corps soldiers, including a reserve company commander, for refusing to embark on a mission in Lebanon.
"There is a lot of confusion," Anon, a soldier not involved in the courtmartial, said. "We go in, we come out. We go in, we come out."
The 20-man unit from the Golani Brigade's 51st Battalion arrived in Bint Jbail on Aug. 10. Hezbollah first disabled a Merkava Mk-3 main battle tank with an AT-14 Kornet anti-tank missile.
Then, Hezbollah gunners directed anti-tank fire toward the building that contained the Israeli force. The unit, which sustained eight casualties in Bint Jbail on July 26, huddled in a first floor bathroom, deemed the most secure part of the building.
"It's been ugly," Dudi Levisohn, a member of the Golani squad, said. "But it's our job. We have to do it. We suffer so the people in Tel Aviv can enjoy themselves."
Military sources said Hezbollah also forced Israeli units to turn off their communications and tracking equipment. They said Hezbollah deployed systems designed to identify a range of signals, including those of cell phones.
"During the day, Hezbollah sees us perfectly and we can't see them," another officer said. "The only time we conducted operations were at night because we believed our night vision systems were better than theirs."
In another battle, an infantry battalion fought 24 hours to advance three houses in a Shi'ite village. The soldiers were pinned down by heavy Hezbollah anti-tank fire from a network of tunnels and bunkers.
"You don't have to worry about bullets," an officer, identified only as Eyal, said. "It's the anti-tank missiles."
Military sources said Hezbollah has been trained in guerrilla tactics by Iranian and Syrian instructors. They said the tactics were developed from lessons learned by the Vietcong in the war with the United States. "They have studied Western armies to see how we make war and they have prepared themselves for six years," Yossi, an officer, said.
With the onset of the United Nations-arranged ceasefire, Israeli soldiers, particularly reservists, have expressed increasing criticism of senior commanders. On Monday, reservists were angered when Northern Command chief Maj. Gen. Udi Adam termed Hezbollah a terrorist group.
"They are professionals," a soldier who returned from Lebanon said. "They have new weapons. There have been no improvement in our tanks in 10 years. Their mission is clear - to hurt us. And they can do this very well. Don't say they are not soldiers. They are soldiers."
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Seymour Hersh: U.S. Helped Plan Israeli Attack, Cheney "Convinced" Assault on Lebanon Could Serve as Prelude to Preemptive Attack on Iran
Monday, August 14th, 2006
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reports in this week's issue of the New Yorker that Israeli officials visited the White House earlier this summer to get a "green light" for an attack on Lebanon. The Bush administration approved, Hersh says, in part to remove Hezbollah as a deterrent to a potential US bombing of Iran. [includes rush transcript]
Israel and Lebanon saw continued violence on the last day before a UN ceasefire. South Lebanon continued to come under intense Israeli bombardment Sunday. In the most lethal attack, fifteen Lebanese were reported killed after Israel bombed the village of Rachat. Meanwhile, Hezbollah launched more than 250 rockets into Northern Israel. It was the highest number of rockets Hezbollah has fired into Israel since fighting began. At least one Israeli was killed.
The past month's violence broke out after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others. Israel rejected Hezbollah's demand for a prisoner exchange, and launched a full-on attack targeting Lebanon's vital infrastructure, including a power station, the main airport and scores of roads and bridges. An estimated 1,000 Lebanese have been killed and more than one million displaced. At least forty Israeli civilians have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced under a daily barrage of Hezbollah rockets.
The Bush administration has openly backed Israel's campaign. The administration resisted international efforts for a ceasefire and rushed arms to the Israeli military.
A major new article says U.S. support for the invasion of Lebanon has gone even further than we already know. That in fact, White House support for the massive bombing of Lebanon even predates the day those two Israeli soldiers were seized.
In this week's issue of the New Yorker, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reports Israeli officials visited the White House earlier this summer to get a "green light" for an attack on Lebanon. The Bush administration approved, Hersh says, in part to remove Hezbollah as a deterrent to a potential US bombing of Iran. A government consultant said the Bush administration also saw the attack on Lebanon as a "demo" for what it could expect to face in Iran.
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
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AMY GOODMAN: Seymour Hersh is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. He joins us in Washington, D.C. His latest piece is called "Watching Lebanon: Washington's Interests in Israel's War." We welcome you to Democracy Now!, Seymour Hersh.
SEYMOUR HERSH: Hi.
AMY GOODMAN: Hi. Can you just start off by telling us what you know at this point of what Washington's interests in Israel's war are?
SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, when you say Washington, you have to talk about Dick Cheney. I can tell you pretty firmly that it's his office. I guess you could say it's sort of the home of the neoconservative thinking in Washington -- some of his aides and the people close to him in the White House: Elliott Abrams, David Wurmser, others.
What I understand is this: our military, our Air Force has been trying for a year to get plans for a major massive bombing assault on Iran pushed through the Pentagon, pushed through the process. And there's been sort of an internecine fight inside the Pentagon over just basically the idea of strategic war against Iran. They're very dug in Iran. The Persians have been digging in for -- what? -- centuries and centuries. And the Marines and the Navy and the Army have said, No way we're going to start bombing, because it will end up with troops on the ground. So there's been a stalemate. I've written a lot about it.
And in this spring, as part of the stalemate, the American Air Force approached the Israeli Air Force, which as you know is headed by General Dan Halutz, who is an Air Force -- I think the first IDF commander, the commander of the Israeli Defense Forces, to be an Air Force guy, and another believer of strategic war, and the two had a lot of interests. And so, out of these meetings in the spring became an agreement, you know, sort of we'll help you, you help us, and it got to Cheney's attention, this idea of Israel planning a major, major strategic bombing campaign against Hezbollah. And for -- I can't tell you where Bush is, but you have to assume he's right with him. Obviously everything he's done makes that clear.
Cheney's idea was this, that we sort of -- it's like a three-for. We get three for one with this. One, here we're having this war about the value of strategic bombing, and the Israeli Air Force, whose pilots are superb, can go in and -- if they could go in and blast Hezbollah out of their foxholes or whatever they are, their underground facilities, and roll over them, as everybody in the White House and I'm sure everybody in the Israeli Air Force thought they could do, that would be a big plus for the ambitions that I think the President and Cheney have for Iran. I don't think this president, our president, is going to leave office with Iran being, as he sees it, a nuclear threat.
The second great argument you have, of course, is if you are going to do Iran, you're going to need -- you can't attack Iran without taking care of the Hezbollah missiles or rockets. They're really rockets. They're not independently guided. Even their long-range rockets that go a few hundred kilometers, you cannot attack Iran without taking them out, because obviously that's the deterrent. You hit Iran, Hezbollah then bombs Tel Aviv and Haifa. So that's something you have to clean out first.
And thirdly, of course, is if you get rid of Hezbollah and Nasrallah, why, you get rid of a terror -- a man who's considered to be, as somebody famously said, Richard Armitage, the "A-Team of terrorism."
So on that basis, there was a tremendous interest in Israel going ahead. There were meetings. There were an enormous amount of contacts. I should add, Amy, that of course -- and this is reflected in the story -- Israel doesn't need the United States to know they have a problem with Hezbollah. And so, they were going to do something anyway. But it's a question of timing, and that's one of the big issues.
This summer, earlier this summer, there was -- and late, I guess after the Israelis began their reoccupation -- occupation of Gaza, after the first Israeli soldier was captured, a soldier named Shalit, I think, June 28th, after he was captured, the traffic, the signals traffic that the Israeli signals community gets showed an enormous amount of talk about doing something on the northern border. That is, on the border between Syria -- I mean between Lebanon and Israel.
And so, on that basis, it was clear this summer, the next time Hezbollah made a move, and there's been a cat-and-mouse game between Israel and Hezbollah for about six years, since the Israelis were kicked out or driven out by Nasrallah in 2000. It's been cat-and-mouse. Both sides have been going against each other, nickel-dime stuff. And the next time Hezbollah made a move, the Israeli Air Force was going to bomb, the plan was going to go in effect. The move came very quick. It came about ten days after or twelve days after the first Israeli soldier was captured.
AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, his latest piece appears in this week's issue of the New Yorker magazine. You say the Israelis told us it would be a cheap war with many benefits, quoting a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel.
SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, sure. I mean, believe me, Israel thought, you know -- I guess the only other time in history where you can look back on such misguided optimism or one of the more recent times was, of course, us going into Iraq. Shades of Iraq, deja-vu or however you want to put it. Israel was convinced it would be easy. The Air Force was going to go and clean them out.
There was another element, and you mentioned that in your intro and also in your news report. One of the things that struck me right away, as soon as I saw how Israel was bombing, and my instinct told me there was something there, because in one of the Air Force plans that I knew about but didn't write about, one of the Air Force options for taking out Iran was, of course, shock and awe, a massive, massive bombing well beyond any of the nuclear facilities. Go hit the country hard for 36 hours, drive people into underground bunkers. Don't target civilians, necessarily, but hit their infrastructure, hit the roads, hit the power plants, hit the water facilities.
And so, when they come out of their bunkers after 36 hours, they look around. In the American neo-con view, they were going to say to each other, "Oh, my god, the mullahs did this to us, the religious mullahs who run the country. We're going to overthrow them and install a secular government." That was the thinking for the last year. That is the thinking for the last year inside some elements of the Pentagon, the civilian side, and also in Cheney's shop.
So when you watch what Israel did in its opening salvo, the first targets, I remember vividly, was -- and everybody should -- they took out the civilian airstrip. They took away civilian -- the ability to use aircraft to travel. They took out highways. They took out roads. They took out petrol stations. They basically isolated Southern Lebanon. But I think part of the reason they did so much damage to the infrastructure was they believed -- and I think the Israelis have been very clear about it -- that the Christian population and the Sunni population -- don't forget Hezbollah is Shia -- would rise up against Hezbollah, and it would be a great feather in the cap, etc., etc., etc.
AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. His latest piece is called "Watching Lebanon: Washington's Interests in Israel's War." We'll come back with him in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: We continue our conversation with Seymour Hersh. His piece in the latest New Yorker is called "Watching Lebanon: Washington's Interests in Israel's War." So, can you take us through the timeline, as you understand it, that started before the capture of the two Israeli soldiers, the meetings that were taking place?
SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, I don't know an awful lot about it, because, obviously, this is secrecy cubed here in this town, Washington, this White House. I don't even know how much Bush was involved in the direct planning. Certainly he's carrying out the policy. The best guess I have is that this spring there was a tremendous fight in the Pentagon over a nuclear option for Iran, with the generals standing up, standing up quite a bit against this White House. And I think it's a sign, I guess, of the perceived weakness, political weakness, of the Bush administration at this point. And nuclear option was taken off the table for Iran.
Iran's underground. The nuclear facilities, the alleged nuclear facilities, I've also written, we can't find any evidence of a significant weapons program. But in any case, they're certainly doing research in Iran, and they may indeed have intentions, but they're deep underground, buried under a lot of rock, 75 feet, etc. etc. We've all heard that. And at that point in the spring, when the nuclear option was gone and there was a lot of concern about how do you drive down 75 feet and guarantee knocking out a potential weapons system, it was then that our Air Force began to talk with the Israeli Air Force, because the Israelis have been shipped -- we have sent them an awful lot of large 5,000-pound bunker busters. And they've done a lot of research into the idea of using two or three bombs on top of each other, etc.
And so, spring is when I began -- I think you can really trace the American military involvement with the Israeli military. And the way it was described to me, eventually this talk, the planning between the two of them, the sharing of intelligence, which is sort of normal -- we and Israel are very close, a lot of stuff is shared with their military and their intelligence service -- eventually it bubbled up, is the way it came to me, into the Pentagon, into the top leadership, Donald Rumsfeld, and eventually got to Cheney, whose idea was, "Let's push this. This is a great idea."
I'm not suggesting that Washington forced Israel to go more quickly than it wanted to, but I don't think there's any question that the Israeli Defense Force, the Air Force, was surprised by how quickly Nasrallah, Hezbollah moved into the business of capturing. As I said, the first Israeli soldier was captured in Gaza on June 28. There was traffic about going, heating up the north. But for Nasrallah to move on 12th of July was very quick. But it was agreed that the next step he made, whenever, and I think the best guess people had is it could have been as late as fall, September or October, that they would go. They went quickly. And people I talked with in Israel -- I spent a lot of time in this story talking to people in Israel -- one of the things that everybody remarked on was the quickness with which the Air Force moved, not that they didn't have plans in effect, but it was very quickly.
AMY GOODMAN: You also talk about Elliott Abrams, and you talk about Donald Rumsfeld's role.
SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, what's interesting about Rumsfeld, because for the first time -- and not everybody agreed, but people that -- you know, I'm long of tooth, Amy, and I've been around this town a long time, and obviously, since 9/11, a lot of people talk to me. And for the first time, Rummy doesn't seem to be on board, is what I'm hearing. Actually, somebody even suggested he's getting a little bit like Robert McNamara. If you remember, McNamara, the Secretary of Defense who, under both Kennedy and Johnson, was a great advocate of the Vietnam War and its chief salesman, basically, one of its chief salesmen all during the '60s, and by '67, he decided it wasn't winnable and ended up being shoved out and put in the World Bank.
Rumsfeld is very concerned about the 150,000 American troops on the ground in Iraq, who are potentially in a very untenable position. There's no question Iraq's lost. There's a lot of question about what we're doing in Afghanistan. We're sort of 0-for-2 in those two. And so, Rumsfeld was not happy about this policy, about going in in a protracted war in Southern Lebanon with Nasrallah, because, of course -- I think Nasrallah is his own man. None of us really know. I think he decides what he wants to do. I don't think Syria and Iran control him the way Washington, this White House seems to believe everything comes from Iran. You know, anybody who meets Nasrallah, as I have a couple of times, he's rather formidable. In any case --
AMY GOODMAN: Seymour Hersh, when did you meet him?
SEYMOUR HERSH: Oh, I've met him a lot. I mean, I've interviewed him. I've interviewed him in the New Yorker. And I just spent time with him over this winter.
AMY GOODMAN: In Lebanon?
SEYMOUR HERSH: Yeah, sure.
AMY GOODMAN: And can you describe your sense of him?
SEYMOUR HERSH: I think he believes in -- he's religious, in the sense that -- I've met religious leaders, Archbishop O'Connell here in New York. One of these people who you really, you know -- for an agnostic like me, you come away from a meeting with those people believing that there is something to this business of religion, because these people are so devout. He is very much a believer, Nasrallah, in his own religion, and he doesn't have dead eyes. He's got alive eyes, and he's got humor.
The reason I started seeing him, I see intelligence people around the world and some of the intelligence people in the Middle East, when the Iraqi war began to start, they encouraged me to see him, on grounds that this guy has a better feel for what's going on in Iraq, as a Shia -- he's very close to the Shia leadership, to Sistani, also to the Iranians, who have a lot of juice inside Iran. So just as a reporter, I would go see him, and we'd talk about mostly Iraq in the beginning, and obviously.
In any case, the whole point here is, Rumsfeld -- to get back to Rumsfeld, there's no question that Iran has enormous influence inside Iraq, dominated now by the Shia, Shia Iran, and I think Rumsfeld's concern, I was told, is that a protracted war against Nasrallah will only cause the Iranians, in support of Hezbollah, to start squeezing our troops in Iraq.
And we're -- you know, as I say, it's an untenable position in Iraq. And nobody quite knows -- this government has no idea on how to get out, just like I don't think the Israelis -- you know, the same pattern you saw in Israel as you saw with this Bush White House going into Iraq: they were so sure of victory that they never looked at the downside. Actually, I quote somebody in this article in the New Yorker, a really high-level guy in one of the military services, saying, "You can't get this White House to think about the downside of anything." And you saw that with the Israelis. They had no idea, once they got into the quagmire, of how to extract, except to add more forces and increase the death toll to themselves, too.
AMY GOODMAN: Seymour Hersh, you've also written about the U.S. rejecting overtures from Syria in dealing with the war on terror. Can you talk about that, as, of course, you can't talk about Lebanon or Iraq with this administration without talking about Syria and Iran?
SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, look, this is an administration that still refuses to deal with people it doesn't like. You know, I don't know. When my children were in pre-nursery, you know, little boys will get into a fight, and the nursery school teacher would take the two little boys who were fighting and say, "You two shake hands and go back to the sandbox," and they would. And so we have a president that won't talk to the Iranians, although they've wanted to, and there's been a lot of stories written about that. And they won't talk to the Syrians.
And I've obviously -- maybe not so obviously, but I've interviewed the President of Syria, Bashar al-Asad, a couple of times. And one of the last times, with great pain he told me -- I think he showed me, even showed me, he was -- this was in 2005. He's written letters to George Bush, saying, "Let's get together. Let's talk. We have a lot in common. We can help you. We and Iran basically both have more -- we can do more for you in Iraq than any other country. Why aren't you using us? We don't need a Somalia on our borders. We're not interested in chaos there." And this White House doesn't believe it. And the letters weren't answered, he told me. His ambassador here in Washington, Imad Mustafa, is absolutely isolated. All this talk that the White House has made, Condoleezza Rice, about having openings to Iran, to Syria, are just, you know -- they're not worth much. There's been some low-level talk. Nobody has made any efforts.
Syria has, as I've written in the New Yorker years ago, was one of the biggest helpers we had after al-Qaeda struck us, because Syria is -- the old man Asad, the father of the current president, hated Jihadism. He did not like the Muslim Brotherhood. They were his opponents. And he kept the best books going on the Muslim Brotherhood, which is very closely connected to al-Qaeda. In fact, we learned more about al-Qaeda from Syria after 9/11 than from any other country. Asad, the president, gave us thousands access -- agreed to give us access to thousands of files. And I wrote a story, I think in '02 or '03 for the New Yorker, in which I quoted a senior intelligence official of Syria saying, "We're willing to even talk about our support for Hezbollah with you. We want to see you win the war on terror."
So it's been an amazingly horrific performance by this White House, which is of par. You know, I don't think any of us -- I certainly won't breathe easy until we get to 2009, inauguration of a new president. But there's just no question that if we were to approach Syria right now, something else I didn't write at the time -- that's because I wasn't writing about it -- I don't think there's any question that Israel was interested in talking to Syria in '03, even about the Golan Heights, which is a tough issue for them, and --
AMY GOODMAN: In fact, Sy --
SEYMOUR HERSH: Let me finish this. And we discouraged Israel from doing it.
AMY GOODMAN: Why?
SEYMOUR HERSH: I don't know. I guess we didn't want our friends to talk to our enemies.
AMY GOODMAN: You wrote in 2003 about the U.S. bombing of a convoy inside Syria that once and for all smashed the attempts of Syria to communicate with Washington.
SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, it didn't really. At the time, it did. But there he is again, the President of Syria, Mr. Asad, tried again and certainly in '05, the letter he sent me, I saw, had just been written. He was still trying to make contact with Washington, because, obviously, in his view, he had a lot to offer us about resolving the crisis in Iraq. And it's a crisis for Syria, too, in Iraq, because there's now 400,000 or 500,000 Iraqi refugees living in Damascus and elsewhere, a couple hundred thousand now of Lebanese. And so real estate property has gone out of sight there.
The irony is that as much as we can't stand Syria, for the first time in their life, the Syrians are getting an awful lot of foreign investment, because, you know, with the oil at $75 a barrel, all of the Gulf countries, which are -- they're just washed with money. They don't know what to do with the money they're making every day. And they don't want to invest anymore in America, because some of them have contributed money to charities that have been put on a watch list by the United States. So there's a fear in some of the Gulf countries that if they invest the hundreds of billions of dollars they've collected in Washington or real estate here, they might have the property seized for being aiders and abetters of terrorism, so they're dumping money into Syria right now. They were dumping a lot of money into Lebanon, too, but not any more.
AMY GOODMAN: Bob Parry writes at "Consortium News," that it was U.S. neo-cons who pushed Israel even further than Israel wanted to go around this issue of the attack of Hezbollah. Do you agree with that?
SEYMOUR HERSH: The Israelis I talked to said, "Look, you know, there might have been a question being pushed on timing, but Israel certainly wanted to go." I just don't -- Bob Parry was right in so many things back in Iran-Contra. I just don't have the same information he does on that. But that there was certainly a decision that -- I quote somebody as saying, we told them basically, "You know, guys" -- in this article I quote somebody as saying in effect -- the Americans telling the Israelis, "Sooner than later, we want this to happen before this president is out of office," -- that is, taking out Hezbollah so you can take out Iran.
AMY GOODMAN: Just a few months ago, you wrote the piece, "The Iran Plans: How Far Will the White House Go?" talking about the U.S. plans to bomb Iran. Where do you think the current situation now leaves the United States and the Middle East?
SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, you can't apply rationality to it, because I think it's simply something Bush and Cheney want to do. As I said earlier, they want to take out Iran. They don't want to talk to it. They believe it's, you know, the axis of evil cubed. And so, frankly, my real worry is what's going to happen -- I think nothing's going to happen before this election. That's impossible. My real worry is what's going to happen when George Bush is a lame duck. He's talking about, privately now, so I'm told and so I've written, about Winston Churchill. If you remember, after leading England to war in World War II, he was turned out by the voters, and he wasn't fully appreciated until years later. So I think he sees himself in the position of "I know I'm right. They don't quite believe me. But I'm going to do the thing I think is right, the right thing. And maybe in 30 or 50 years, they'll come to accept me for the great president I think I am." And so, that's what we really have as leadership right now.
AMY GOODMAN: And where does Condoleezza Rice fit into this picture?
SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, you know, my guess is that she was smart enough to know this going -- this last trip she made to the Middle East, I've written that she didn't want to go, because she knew she had nothing to offer anybody. And I think there was a story the other week in the New York Times that was, clearly she inspired to her people about how Cheney is plotting against her, and Elliott Abrams, when he was on the trip with her, he was constantly calling up the White House behind her back and filling them in.
You mention Abrams. Abrams is sort of the key intellectual player, I think, of this policy that Cheney's involved in. He's not in Cheney's office. He works directly for the President as a Special Assistant in the National Security Council office, but there's no question, his influence is enormous on this.
AMY GOODMAN: And Seymour Hersh, for young people who don't remember Iran-Contra, can you just fill people in on who Elliott Abrams is, his history?
SEYMOUR HERSH: Elliott Abrams was one of the key players in this incredibly wacky scheme we had in the Iran-Iraq war of two decades ago. Between 1980 and 1988, Iran and Iraq fought each other, and we supported Iraq. We supported Saddam Hussein, the United States did, with a lot of secret arms, secret intelligence, even shipping him secret formulas that could be used to make biological weapons and chemical stuff and intelligence, etc, etc. And that was because of course, Khomeini -- we had been kicked out of Iran, when our Shah, the Shah was overthrown.
We were terrified of the Shiite leadership there. And so, one of the plans, one of the schemes was, in the middle of all of this hostility, Ronald Reagan was so committed to the Contra War in Latin America, that is, defeating what he thought was a communist-led insurgency in Nicaragua in an election there, that he cut a deal to ship arms -- let's see. It's complicated. They sold arms to Israel, which they were shipped, I think, into Iran. You help me out on this.
Anyway, the bottom line was that it was a policy that brought us into contact with Iran, secret trading. We were going to get weapons that were going to -- the Israelis were going to buy weapons. Money was -- they were going to sell weapons to Iran. Money was going to be generated from that sale to support covertly, outside of Congress's knowledge, to support aid for the opposition in Nicaragua that we favored --
AMY GOODMAN: For the Contras.
SEYMOUR HERSH: The Contras, yes, and so there we are. It was totally a crazy policy. When it unraveled, it should have probably led to, in a normal process, an impeachment proceeding for Ronald Reagan, but by that time, he was -- everybody understood he was -- he wasn't well with Alzheimer's or whatever.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you think that some of the weapons Hezbollah is using today could have come from that sale from the United States?
SEYMOUR HERSH: No. I think what's happened is, if you really want to know, I think the best guess is, and again, this is -- I quoted somebody to this effect, Vali Nasr, who is a professor at one of the Navy post-graduate schools, very competent guy. What really probably happened is this: once we made our move, the Bush administration and the French, to drive the Syrians out of Lebanon, that famous 1559 you always hear about -- we always hear about 1559. We never hear much about UN Resolution 242, which called for Israel to go back to its original borders. Anyway, 1559 called for Syria to get out of Lebanon and Lebanon to take control, a civilian government come in and also take -- disarm Hezbollah. That was what it called for. Well, of course, it's impossible in Syria, because the Lebanese army is probably 50% Shia and very close to Hezbollah. It was -- that's an impossibility. And so -- wait, I've lost my track of thought. What was I saying?
AMY GOODMAN: You were just saying that after --
SEYMOUR HERSH: Oh, yes, I remember. I'm sorry, Amy. So what happened is, once it was clear that the White House and French were getting our way with the UN, and Syria was going to get out, which only could only be interpreted by Iran and by Syria and by Hezbollah, as the pressure was going to be on them to be disarmed -- at that point, Iran really began to step up its support for Hezbollah, not so much in terms -- yes, there's always been close support of aid and arms, but they sent a lot of technicians into Hezbollah to help them dig and help them to improve their ability to mask what they were doing, hide their weapons, their launchers for their rockets, go deeper underground, build command and control bunkers, build a lot of facilities that fooled the Israeli's intelligence.
The Israelis -- some commando units did go into the war early on and hunter-killer teams, and they were completely bamboozled and hurt hard, because everything they thought would be in place was not. The intelligence stunk, and I think Iran, in the last 18 months, probably played a role in improving Hezbollah's intelligence or its capability to withstand a bombing attack.
AMY GOODMAN: Seymour Hersh, I want to thank you very much for joining us. His latest piece, "Watching Lebanon: Washington's Interests in Israel's War" is in this week's issue of the New Yorker magazine.
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Israel to halt pullout unless Lebanon army deploys
By Alistair Lyon
Reuters
16 Aug 06
BEIRUT - Israel said on Wednesday it would stop withdrawing from south Lebanon unless Lebanese troops moved there within days, as diplomats worked on plans for a stronger U.N. force to bolster the truce with Hizbollah guerrillas.
The Lebanese cabinet will order an immediate army deployment in the south when it meets later in the day, a senior political source said, adding that a 15,000-strong force would start taking up positions south of the Litani River, about 20 km (13 miles) from the Israeli border, on Thursday.
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy, holding talks in Beirut, urged Lebanon to send the army south rapidly to move alongside U.N. peacekeepers into areas vacated by the Israelis.
"The withdrawal of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) within 10 days is dependent upon the deployment of the Lebanese army," Israel's army chief Dan Halutz told parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, according to a spokesman.
"If the Lebanese army does not move down within a number of days to the south ... the way I see it, we must stop our withdrawal," Halutz said.
The U.N. Security Council last week adopted a resolution calling for a truce. It authorized up to 13,000 well-armed troops to augment the 2,000-strong UNIFIL force now in Lebanon.
The United Nations said on Tuesday it wanted to deploy up to 3,500 new soldiers in south Lebanon within two weeks.
"It seems to me vital that the deployment of the Lebanese army takes place as quickly as possible," Douste-Blazy said after meeting Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh.
Hizbollah, which fought an Israeli onslaught for 34 days until a U.N. truce took hold on Monday, has said it has the right to attack Israeli forces remaining on Lebanese soil.
"The presence of Israeli tanks in the south is an aggression and the resistance reserves its right to face such aggression if it persisted," Sheikh Nabil Kaouk, Hizbollah's top official in south Lebanon, told reporters in the port city of Tyre.
He said the idea of disarming Hizbollah guerrillas "was not on the table" -- especially with the Israelis still in Lebanon.
Hizbollah has shown no willingness to vacate the area south of the Litani, where its guerrillas have roamed for two decades.
The group has promised to cooperate with Lebanese and U.N. forces, but has made clear it will keep its weapons -- although political sources say it has offered to keep them out of sight.
Douste-Blazy said France, which might lead the strengthened UNIFIL, was ready to play an important role in the force, but said it was vital that many other countries contributed.
"LIFT THE BLOCKADE"
Douste-Blazy also urged Israel to end an air and sea blockade imposed on Lebanon at the start of the war.
Israel has indicated it will keep up the blockade until measures are in place to prevent Hizbollah from rearming.
Two tankers carrying fuel were due to arrive in Lebanon, where the blockade has caused shortages and power cuts.
"Two ships have got permission and guarantees to dock today and one should be coming in tomorrow," said Bahij Abu Hamze, head of Lebanon's Association of Fuel Importers.
Prime Minister Fouad Siniora hosted a lunch for Douste-Blazy and his counterparts from Turkey, Malaysia and Pakistan, some of which may also contribute troops to UNIFIL.
Germany could contribute to the force but will not decide whether to participate until the exact nature of the operation is known, a government spokesman said in Berlin.
Indonesia is ready to send 1,000 troops as part of the U.N. force for Lebanon, officials in Jakarta said.
At least 1,110 people in Lebanon and 157 Israelis were killed in the conflict that erupted after Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.
In Tyre, hospital workers struggled to deal with an overflowing morgue, as more bodies were found in the ruins of buildings and other corpses remained unclaimed.
A temporary mass grave was dug in the city for more than 100 unclaimed bodies, but the burial was postponed.
"There are names which are not clear," said Dr Moustafa Jradeh. "There are people who want to bury them in their villages. If we bury them here it will cause a lot of problems."
The hospital had been planning a mass burial of 126 bodies in a grave near an army barracks unless relatives claimed them. Seventy-two corpses were buried there on July 21.
Israel may have ended its Lebanon offensive, but it continues to attack Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, where an air strike killed one militant and his father on Wednesday, witnesses and medics said.
(Additional reporting by Jerusalem and United Nations bureaus)
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What happened during the last battle? Israeli Troops Killed by "Friendly Fire"?
By ANSHEL PFEFFER
15 Aug 06
During the last few hours of daylight on Sunday, the last day of fighting in Lebanon, a reserve paratroop battalion took up positions in Kantara.
The battalion's medical company set up its equipment on the ground floor of one of the houses. The company, commanded by the battalion's doctor, was comprised of about 20 soldiers, half of them medics and the other half the evacuation platoon, whose job it is to stretcher out the wounded and dead. Two other platoons from the support company occupied the second floor.
The battalion had seen its first action on Friday, when two of its soldiers were badly wounded. It was taken out for a short rest of 10 hours on Shabbat and went back in again that night. According to the procedure designed not to expose the troops to anti-tank missile fire, they went in on foot, the medics carrying 40-kilo loads on a 15-km. night march to the advanced position in Kantara.
They were not short of work. A short while after they had taken up their position, an anti-tank missile hit a D9 bulldozer operating near the building. Its heavy armor didn't stand up and its two-man team was immediately killed. Soldiers of the medical company rushed to the D9, despite the heavy fire, but were unable to extricate the bodies of St.-Sgt. Yevgeny Timofeyev, 20, and another soldier whose name hasn't yet been released.
"We had to restrain our doctor from rushing out to the D9," one of the medics said on Monday. "It's not his job to evacuate and we have to protect him. If something happens to him, we're lost."
The soldiers returned to the building, and at about 4:30 p.m., an explosion hit the building, and then two others. The team whose job it was to tend to the battalion's wounded suddenly had to treat itself.
"It was an awful feeling," he said. "We didn't know even where to shoot back. Suddenly the radio was full of shouting, 'Don't shoot, it's our own forces.'"
Two soldiers were killed and nine others wounded in the explosions. Warr. Ofc. Amitai Yaron, 44, of Zichron Ya'acov was the registry-medic of the company. A father of three, Yuri, as the other soldiers called him, was the oldest medic in the battalion. He was already exempt from reserve duty but had volunteered. St.-Sgt. Peter Ohatosky, 24, from the evacuation platoon, was also killed.
"One of our company commanders told us that it was one of our tanks which had fired at us," said the medic.
Reporters who had spoken with the division command had been told that it was probably a case of "friendly fire" from IDF tanks. But on Monday morning, Deputy Chief of General Staff Maj.-Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky said that it had been a Hizbullah anti-tank missile, and the IDF Spokesman's Office told the press that battle debriefings had determined that it was not friendly fire.
The soldiers of the medical company were angry at what they saw as a whitewashing of the circumstances of their comrades' deaths.
Attempts by The Jerusalem Post to obtain a more comprehensive account of the battle from the IDF were unsuccessful.
IDF experts have said in the past that during wars, up to 20 percent of casualties are caused by friendly fire. In this war, there has been at least one confirmed death of a soldier from friendly fire and at least a dozen wounded. A number of other cases are still under investigation.
The deputy commander of the Herev Battalion told the Post on Monday that in at least two cases, his soldiers narrowly escaped mistaken fire from IDF tanks.
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Israel's Other Aggressions
Assad defends the resistance to Israel
by Roueida Mabardi
AFP
Tue Aug 15, 2006
DAMASCUS - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad hailed Hezbollah in its fight against Israel, describing resistance against the "enemy" as legitimate even as Israel said it should prepare for talks.
"I say to all those who accuse Syria of taking the side of the resistance that this is, for the Syrian people, an honor," he said in a wide-ranging speech that also took aim at Washington and anti-Damascus figures in Lebanon.
Assad, whose government the United States accuses of sponsoring Hezbollah, paid tribute to the "men of the resistance" in a reference to the Shiite guerrillas who fought Israeli soldiers on the ground in Lebanon and fired daily barrages of rocket fire over the border during the conflict.
"This resistance is a medal to pin on the chest of every Arab citizen, not only Syria," he said, adding that the Lebanese guerrillas had "shattered the myth of an invincible army."
A total of 160 Israelis have been killed since July 12, most of them soldiers who lost their lives in combat with Hezbollah.
Assad's speech led German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to cancel a planned visi