I was listening to BBC Radio yesterday for a recap of events on Israel and Lebanon. If you don't know, the bombing is still going on, civilians have been killed, and Condi Rice has been carrying the influence of the United States into cease fire negotiations.
Oh wait, un-check that last item. After two weeks and international pleading, Israel is still continuing with bombings and in fact have proceeded further with ground troops. So it begs the question...why is Israel still doing this?
In my last post on this subject, I guessed that Israel is basically taking a "don't fuck with us" attitude. Which doesn't help the Lebanese, but certainly makes a statement. But the path these cease fire "negotiations" have been going has made just as big of a statement.
BTW, before I proceed, I should say that I made a couple of mistakes in my last post on this subject. Hezbollah obviously doesn't run Lebanon...they have seats in the parliament, but not a majority, far from. Also, the US didn't support an election there. In both cases, I was confused with Palestine & Hamas. Anyways....
The duplicity of this situation is really amazing. The BBC Radio reporter (can't recall his name) really got me kind of pissed off - bot he himself, but just because of how this is being portrayed. In response to some questions by the show host, the reporter stated that Condi Rice is in some really tough negotiations and the temporary pause on aerial bombings (which they've already renegged on) are a way for Israel to give some to Condi for all her negotiations.
My ire was raised the fact the the US apparently has no pull with Israel. Seriously, we're the biggest supporter of Israel. Without all of the arms that we provide to Israel, the country would have been under seige from Day 1. Without our support, there's no way Israel would have any place in the world.
So despite all of this, we're in "tough negotiations" with Israel. Dude, fuck that. The country owes is complete existence to us and they don't listen to a word we say?
I don't actually think there are tough negotiations at all. I think Condi has gone in there and essentially confirmed that it's okay for Israel to destroy Lebanon. Anything else would mean that for all its support, the US is Israel's bitch. And W would have none of that.
In reality, I think the situation is much worse: The US supports Israel's destruction of Lebanon. Afterall, Hezbollah is a terrorist organization (albeit it, with parliamentary seats) and they need to be removed, right? And the US is too tied up with Iraq to do anything else. So letting Israel do its bidding would seem a really smart choice for Condi and W. The public pronouncements by this administration pretty much back this up since the US has not called for a cease fire. They've called for a negotiation to address the root causes of the situation. That's all fine and good. Addressing the root causes is obviously the only way to solve this once and for all. But how can one faithfully enter negotiations when you're bombing the fuck out of the other country?
And that just disgusts me.
So either the US is Israel's beeyotch (which I completely doubt). Or this is a much more disappointing and maddening situation where the US is supporting the utter destruction of another Middle Eastern country. Sometimes, I wonder about diplomacy. The real deal here is pretty clear, and yet diplomats every where can't call it for what it is. Heck, at the beginning of this, when someone said that Israel had bigger aims with its bombings than simply to gets soldiers back (which is totally the case), he was ridiculed! Why can't you call a spade a spade and be done with it?
Seriously, we got the idea. Don't fuck with Israel. Stop the bombing already!
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