There are so many homo sapiens that engage in killing we can slice the pie anyway we want. We can cut it by Islamo fascists, Americans, the Crusades, the Thirty Years Wars; Christians, or Turks. We do it for God, for Allah, democracy, country, freedom, honor, revenge, to support a drug habit or for $20 and a watch. We used to do it for sport, e.g., Roman Colliseum, but then we got "civilized" and had to come up with civilized rationale. I think we killed fewer people before we were civilized. Though technology allows us to bring the sport back into it. We have our computer games that allows us to blow them to smitherings; and we use similar technology in real wars to blow them to smitherings. We're really getting technologically civilized.
Back to the point. The Isralis had only two options, as many people seem to think. Do nothing or do what they're doing now. I might have thought that Israeli homo sapiens were evolved enough to think of more than two options but I guess not.
But let's look at the results of their option of choice. The Israelis have killed some 800 Lebanese; some Hezbollah, some civilians. Hezbollah has killed some 100 Israelis, some military, some civilians. You might find additional precision important, I don't. In spite of claiming they're only attacking Hezbollah and not the Lebanese or Lebanese Government, the Christians, Sunni and Shia are now united in their support for Hezbollah. It appears that the Lebanese people think Lebanon is under attack, not just Hezbollah. Not sure what Israel expects the 700,000 Lebanese refugees to think when they return to their homes which are now rubble. I don't believe they'll be sending the Israelis any thank you notes.
I imagine the Lebanese aren't very thrilled with their government/military. Lebanon is under attack and the Lebanese government/military does nothing. They don't seem to know that they have a right to defend their country. Sure they would be decimated by the Israeli military; but they are doing nothing, the cowards. I wonder if at the next election the current government is going to run on their do nothing response to the Israeli invasion.
Presumably, Israel didn't think that the attack on Hezbollah would be noticed by anyone outside of Lebanon. Or if they did, they would all know that it was a just cause.
Hezbollah is Shia; Al Qaeda is Sunni. They weren't all that keen on each other. Some use the word "hate". AQ now supports Hezbollah.
Large demonstrations in Baghdad supporting Hezbollah and death to Israel and the US. The DoD prefers to characterize the demonstrations as pro-Lebanese failing to mention the Hezbollah ,death to America and Israel parts. As long as they don't mention it maybe it will all go away.
Iran has risen as the central Muslim power in the mid-east and now the entire Muslim world. The President of Iran calls an emergency meeting of the Muslim countries and as you might expect calls for the destruction of Israel. No one disagrees.
In a poll I saw a week or so ago, 60% of British want the British goverment to stop selling arms to Israel. Not a big deal as the US can fill the gap. But it's a signal of where the British people are and where they might be headed for the next election.
It would be interesting [and time consuming] to search through the European op ed pieces and polls to see how they are stacking up for Israeli support/condemnation. The bits and pieces that I've been seeing don't stack up that well for Israel. Not enough pieces to be conclusive.
Maybe Israel doesn't care what the rest of the world thinks as long as it has big daddy sending $4B/year and all the weapons it wants. If worse comes to worse it can nuke the rest of the mid-east.
You can make your own list of what Israel is getting or likely to get out from the choice it made against what it is losing. Ironically, at the end of the day, there will be one result that every one seems to predict. There will be an exchange of the two captured Israelis for some number of Lebanese. And if history is to be repeated, it doesn't make any difference whether the two Israelis are dead or alive, they'll make the exchange.
jttmab |
