The Final Say
Israeli soldiers are again being sent into the quagmire of Lebanon, being used as battering rams by the U.S. against Syria and Iran
by Eric Margolis
The spreading war in Lebanon has bared the bizarre contradictions and self-destructive nature of U.S. Mideast policy.
With one hand, the U.S. sends $30 million of food and blankets to Lebanon for the 20% of its population made refugees by Israel's bombing.
With the other, it rushes planeloads of precision bombs to Israel, one of which may have destroyed a UN border observer post, killing four, including a Canadian major.
In Rome, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week blocked international efforts by Europe and Washington's Arab allies to halt the war. Not since Colin Powell's grotesque lies to the UN about Iraq has American diplomacy so debased itself. Small wonder hatred for America is surging across the Muslim world.
Rice also proclaimed the U.S. was going to midwife the birth of a "new Middle East" by means of the Lebanon war. This latest absurdity comes from the same fools and right-wing ideologues that fathered the Iraq debacle.
However, Canadian PM "Steve" Harper has no doubts. He suggested the deceased Canadian major and his UN-mandated post may have been at fault for being in the way of Israeli bombs, and that Israel's destruction of the southern third of Lebanon was a "measured response." Many Canadians must suspect they elected a prime minister who actually may be George Bush's intellectual equal.
In Washington, Vice President Dick Cheney and his neocon Praetorian Guard's true agenda is becoming clear. Israel's attempted destruction of Hezbollah is the first step in a long-planned bid to strip away Iran's allies and effectively turn Lebanon into a joint U.S.-Israeli protectorate. The second step will no doubt be an assault on Syria. Step three: Isolating and crippling Iran by a massive bombing campaign accompanied by renewed efforts to overthrow its government.
Attacking Hezbollah also serves as the long-predicted (by this column) "November surprise" to boost sagging Republican fortunes in U.S. mid-term elections.
Americans, steeped in deep ignorance and prejudice about the Mideast, are now being misled by the administration and its media allies that Lebanon is a new front in the so-called war on terrorism. As I recently learned doing radio shows across the U.S., a great many Americans cannot distinguish between Hezbollah, al-Qaida, Taliban, the PLO, Hamas, etc. All are terrorists. Listeners even called in to ask if the fighting in Lebanon was the prelude to Armageddon.
Bush has failed to stop al-Qaida and is stuck in lost wars in Iraq and Afghanistan costing $300 billion. His answer: Start a new crusade in Lebanon against the latest bogeyman, Hezbollah, and its Syrian and Iranian allies. War fever wins elections.
Having covered Israel's disastrous invasion of Lebanon in the 1980s, I am appalled it is again getting sucked into another bloody, dirty, pointless war there. Hezbollah, which represents as much as a third of Lebanon's population, won't be defeated by bombing or limited ground assaults: It fought Israel for 18 years and won.
Hezbollah's 3,000 tough fighters just battled Israel's mighty armed forces to a standstill for two weeks. Only the ethnic cleansing of southern Lebanon's Shias will push it back.
Israel's new government under Ehud Olmert is allowing itself to be used by Washington as a battering ram against Syria and Iran. It could likely have avoided this war and Hezbollah's rocket barrages by a low-key response, some ritual artillery fire, and the usual prisoner swap.
But Olmert allowed the chief of defence staff, an air force general, to take charge and go destroy much of Lebanon, guided by emotions, not sense. Now Israeli soldiers are being once again sent into the Lebanese quagmire.
The bitter lessons of Israel's 1980s disaster in Lebanon are forgotten, just as the U.S. military in Iraq forgot the lessons of Vietnam. A triumphant Hezbollah may even emerge as the victor of this battle. The big winner? Osama bin Laden.
Published on Sunday, July 30, 2006 by the Toronto Sun |
