Saturday, July 22, 2006

When children are bombed in the name of freedom, who really is freed?


The pt of this post is not to debate who is right/ who is wrong. Both sides are wrong, but when we (we = US & Israel-- and the NYTs says that the US is rushing precision-guided bombs to Israel as we speak) claim that we are bombing terrorists in the name of freedom, who wins when we are killing 100s of children? Any of the surviving family members will hate us with a white hot vengeance, will want the blood of the enemy for their loved ones' blood, will embrace Hezbollah, Hamas, or al Qaida to seek that vengeance, and the nation's survivors will tell the tales of how the other guy is so evil that they bomb children on purpose. See the impossibility of ever winning hearts and minds that way? And I know that, tragically, many Israeli children have been killed too, but this from the NYTimes is truly gut wrenching b/c you have to wonder how many of these disproportionately dead people are simply Lebanese citizens who have no connection to/ no support for Hezbollah: "In the city of Tyre, Lebanon, carpenters are running out of wood for coffins. Bodies are stacked 3 or 4 high in a truck at the local hospital morgue. The stench is spreading in the rubble. Just a few miles from the Rest House hotel, where the UN was evacuating civilians on Thurs, wild dogs gnawed at the charred remains of a family bombed as they were trying to escape the village. Officials at the Tyre Govt Hospital inside a local Palestinian refugee camp said they counted the bodies of 50 children among the 115 in the refrigerated truck in the morgue." The Guardian UK reports: 86 of the 150 corpses in the truck were to be buried in the afternoon. Watching the burial was Qasim Shaala, the chief medic at Tyre's Red Cross offices. "Most of the casualties are women and children," he said. "They [Israel] are not letting us save them. Ambulances aren't allowed into areas after they are shelled." If true, that is beyond despicable. It is criminal. And it appears that this plan (that is unfolding now in Lebanon) has been in place by Israel since they w/drew from Lebanon in 2000 and it is now coming to fruition. Shockingly, more than a yr ago, a sr Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off the record basis, to the US, diplomats, journalists & think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail. As Israel prepares for ground forces to move in, ya know how useless Condi Rice and all US officials keep saying they'll give Israel a few wks to take care of this before we even consider stepping in? Well, that's b/c they've all seen the Israeli 3 Wk Plan: In his PowerPt presentations, the officer described a 3 wk campaign: 1st wk concentrated on destroying Hezbollah's heavier long-range missiles, bombing its command & control centers, and disrupting transportation & communication arteries. In the 2nd wk, the focus shifted to attacks on individual sites of rocket launchers or weapons stores. In the 3rd wk, ground forces in large numbers would be introduced, but only in order to knock out targets discovered during reconnaissance missions as the campaign unfolded. There was no plan, according to this scenario, to reoccupy southern Lebanon on a long-term basis." Well, that is awfully generous of them, no? Why don't they ask the loved ones of these dead Lebanese and Palestinians in this video if they truly feel liberated from Hamas and Hezbollah? (very graphic). I'm sure the loved ones of dead Iraqis would give a very similar answer. Oh never fear dear fellow Americans: Just turn that doubting frown upside down b/c UPI reports that al-Qaida has regrouped in the region & they are badder than ever (so much for that crapola about the war on terrorism working, huh?) and b/c Reuters reveals: Israel's campaign to destroy Hezbollah is a foreign policy windfall for the Bush admin, which hopes it will boost the war on terrorism and heap pressure on its nemesis Iran, and launch that so longed for war. At least usually crazy Pat Buchanan has the balls to call the Neo-Con/ PNAC plan to launch a million wars batshit crazy... b/c it is batshit crazy war mongering. And I have a theory on why the west is really scrambling to get their citizen's out of Lebanon: It is in part b/c they don't want a PR nightmare on their hands about turning their backs on their citizens in crisis, but I think the real reason is this: They do want western eye-witnesses to relay to us & the media in their native countries what is really going on in Lebanon.
Posted by Tina :: 12:56 AM :: 28 Comments:

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