Salon's War Room points out this Orwellian Headline:
In Mideast Strife, Bush Sees a Step To Peace
The story isn't much better:
President Bush's unwillingness to pressure Israel to halt its military campaign in Lebanon is rooted in a view of the Middle East conflict that is sharply different from that of his predecessors.
When hostilities have broken out in the past, the usual U.S. response has been an immediate and public bout of diplomacy aimed at a cease-fire, in the hopes of ensuring that the crisis would not escalate. This week, however, even in the face of growing international demands, the White House has studiously avoided any hint of impatience with Israel. While making it plain it wants civilian casualties limited, the administration is also content to see the Israelis inflict the maximum damage possible on Hezbollah.
Where does this thinking come from? I'm not the type to say that "War doesn't solve anything" but I'm think I'm on pretty safe ground to say that in the Israel-Arab conflict, war isn't going to solve anything. The simple fact is that Israel has already won. It's beaten the Arab States again and again. No Arab state is attacking Israel. All that's left are the Arab guerilla groups - Hamas and Hezbollah, that formed as a result of Israeli occupation. And as we have learned in Iraq, guerrillas groups are hard to destroy and hardly ever worth it. So unless Israel wants to kill every Hezbollah sympathizer in Southern Lebanon and every Palestinian, of course this is going to to turn into diplomacy. If we know that it always end in peace talks, why wait? (To Quote Bill Kristol)
3 comments:
Well it's good to know ahead of the game Erin!
And as for Laura... I can't believe you actually had to think "pretty hard" about what was obviously a joke. You have no sense of humor.
Just for that, one day in the not so distant future I'm gonig to post something so f-ed up and offensive that you'll be mis-spelling every other word you type in your response because you're so furious and agitated that I had the audacity to write such a thing.
It'll be so bad that you'll wish upon me that I go straight to hell, where I will eat naught but burning hot coals and drink naught but burning hot cola... Where fiery demons will punch me in the back... Where my soul will be chopped into confetti, strewn upon a parade of murderers and single mothers and my tongue torn out by ravenous birds.
If a simple question gets that kind of reaction out of you, why not just push you to the absolute brink of unadulterated outrage and disgust? It'll be so much more fun.
Get ready....
okay, yes, Wahabis are a Sunni sect. Just like fundamentalist christians are also protestants. *Shudder* I hate to think that they are in my branch of religion. Thanks Jess (although I think we've confused more people than helped them, crazy obsessed researchers that we are)!
Tyler, "a parade of murderers and single mothers"? Is there some association between murderers and single mothers in your mind? Says something interesting about your psyche. But since there's truly nothing worse than drinking hot cola, I'll just wait in patience until you get your just reward.
Bwah-hah-hah!
-Ahead of the Game Erin
I'm going to ignore the internecine warfare between the other readers of this blog and try to answer Craig's question.
Everyone here knows my opinion of GWB, but I wonder if, in his childish and stubborn way, he may be on to something. There's been no resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict for nearly 60 years. An immediate cease-fire, while saving some lives in the short term, won't change a thing.
Egypt and Jordan, for whatever reasons, decided many years ago that it was no longer worth it to continue fighting Israel. They figured, whether justified or not, that Israel was there to stay and they might as well make peace and go forward. (And it cost Anwar Sadat his life...)
Iran and Syria have refused to do that. Through their Hamas and Hezbollah proxies, they have been waging war on Israel for many years. What George Bush is saying to the world is - it's time for a change. It's time for all of us to get Iran and Syria to cool their heels and remove their support of the guerrillas, and let Israel exist in peace. And, dear world, until you do that, we're going to let Israel defend themselves in the only way they know how.
So the goal is not to kill every Hezbollah sympathizer, which is indeed impossible. The goal is to remove their support, and without that support, Hezbollah will either concentrate on its social activities or disappear of its own accord.
There are several problems with this, most notably that since the US is weakened by the Iraq folly and since Bush and his neocon cronies have about as much diplomatic skill as Atilla the Hun, the chances of getting Iran and Syria to change their tune are slim to none. But even though the Israelis are hardly angels, I gotta give Bush some credit for trying to break the 60 year stalemate.
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