Crimes against
Humanity
Bush and Blair give the green-light.
The New York Times
ran a photograph of a dead Lebanese mother cradling her dead
child under the rubble, a picture does paint a thousand words,
and I think we all knew what we were staring at. Terror is
terror, and by definition, is sanctioned and committed by
terrorists. It makes no matter if the order came from Tel Aviv,
Washington, or militants in the Bekah valley, and I don’t
suppose an innocent civilian would be comforted knowing that at
least his brains were going to be splattered by an official
state, using precision-guided missiles supplied by the leader of
the free world.
The offensive and
invasion of Lebanon was as wanton, as it was barbaric,
criminally disproportionate, and shamefully backed by the US and
UK alliance. The IDF committed a campaign of indiscriminate high
altitude bombing, treating innocent civilians as sub-human
creatures, not deemed worthy for protection by the universal
standards of human rights. In the space of four weeks the IDF
were responsible for escalating an orgy of violence that has
killed 1,300 of our fellow human beings. They created 750,000
refugees, demolished wholes cities in southern Lebanon,
destroyed infrastructure of a nation, and inflamed the entire
region for the release of two captured Israeli soldiers! Are
these the actions of a civilized nation and our ally? I
certainly don’t think so; they are the actions of a government,
devoid of moral sense, guilt or responsibility. They are the
prima facie war crimes committed by an Israeli government
against the innocent civilians of Lebanon, and yes the Hezbollah
response of lobbing rockets into northern Israel is also a
blatant war crime.
The fact though,
that Hezbollah crossed into Israel to kill Israeli soldiers, did
not give Israel the right to chastise the entire civilian
population of southern Lebanon. When the IRA would cross the
Irish border to kill British soldiers, the government of the
United Kingdom did not order air strikes on the village of
Donegal or begin a full blown ground invasion of Dublin!
We all waited for the United
States to speak up; surely the standard bearer for human rights
would stand up to this mad affront to the civilized world you
asked? The US is always the first to speak out on China’s human
rights abuse, or to point out Russia’s abuse of international
law. The US would not allow Israel to trash international law,
or hurl the Geneva Convention out the window without condemning
it, would they? The first few days of Israel’s offensive was met
by a deafening silence from Washington, not a word. It took 11
days before Condoleezza Rice was sent to the region, where she
philosophically pointed out that a short term ceasefire “would
be meaningless”; meaningless to whom? Is it meaningless to the
750,000 refugees, meaningless to the wounded victims of
phosphorus? the civilians living like rats
underground? Or to the mothers of children murdered by
cluster bombs? www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/07/24/isrlpa13798.htm
Condoleezza Rice,
drunk with power, arrived in Rome to meet with UN, EU, and
Middle East officials. Ms Rice then served up more mindless
pulp; “We have to have a plan that will actually create
conditions in which we can have a cease-fire that will be
sustainable," the translation from zombie into English is; we
(the US) will complicity stall a ceasefire at the UN, giving
Israel ample time to decimate Lebanon and finish off Hezbollah,
and if you think that we’re going to let a few hundred
inconveniently dead women and children get in our way, then look
out, here’s another American made missile with your name on it.
Then the world was rudely awakened by the
news that Israel had committed a war crime in Qana. The IDF
slammed an American made missile into the building, killing 28
civilians; mostly women and children who were sleeping in the
basement. They were crushed and suffocated under the rubble.
Rescue workers were overcome with emotion, as they pulled out
the little bodies of children from the bricks and sand. They
wrapped the bodies in plastic bags and when they ran out of
bags, they wrapped the dead children in carpets. The families
were terrified of leaving town for fear of being hit on the road
by Israeli air strikes; they couldn’t afford the $1,000 for the
cost of taxis, and instead, gathered in the basement. New York
based Human Rights Watch called this the “"latest product" of
Israel's indiscriminating bombing.
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/08/02/lebano13899.htm
In the face of this
carnage, with so many children’s lives cut short. The fanatical
President Bush and his pathetically compromised side kick Tony
Blair still couldn’t bring themselves to call for an immediate
ceasefire! These children are dead because Bush and Blair were
busy playing diplomatic word games to ensure that Israel could
continue their air campaign. The US and UK governments made it
painfully obvious, they simply didn’t value Lebanese blood, in
fact, they encouraged the IDF to carry on spilling it (an
acceptable price), as long as they could simultaneously defeat
Hezbollah.
With the US acting
as handmaiden for a bloody civil war in Iraq, and Israel’s
illegal and brutal occupation of Palestine, this latest
barbarity in Lebanon was always going to be fraught with danger
of engulfing the entire Middle-East in war. The state sponsored
atrocities committed in Lebanon by the IDF, and America’s
unflinching support for Israel has been an unmitigated disaster
for Israel and for US foreign policy in the region.
The Israeli US, and
UK government’s played Russian roulette, gambling that the air
campaign on Lebanon would cause the Sunni and Christian
population to rise up against Hezbollah, (presumably the same
wizards who told us the Iraqis would welcome the American troops
with flowers) And what a messy backfire! The CIA name for a
short term policy that has negative long term ramifications is
blowback. Hezbollah are now are the most popular movement in the
Islamic world, they have faced down the worlds 4th
powerful army, fought them to a standstill, and given them a
bloody nose. Their enigmatic leader Sheike Hassan Nasrallah is
now perceived as a mythical champion by the Shia, Sunni, and all
Arabs, who feel he has restored Islamic pride and dignity. al
Qaeda leaders are practically blowing kisses at Hezbollah,
united by their complete and utter hatred of the United States
and Israel. This could have same emboldening effect for Islamism
that the Muhajadeen victory over Soviet forces in Afghanistan
did in the 1980’s
.
With the region on
the verge of a meltdown, Ms. Rice told us not to worry; all we
are seeing is the “birth pangs of a New Middle East”
Well, Thanks for
setting me straight Condi. Because from my vantage point, it
looks like a nasty vicious creature is sticking its head out of
the womb of America’s foreign policy, and it’s a very ugly one
indeed.
|
PANORAMA