Rightwingers say that Bush's "strategy" in the "war on terror" has been a success because "we haven't been hit again" since 9-11.
READ MORE: Iraq, 2006, New York Times, Fox News, Bill O'Reilly, Israel, Karl Rove, Lebanon, George W. Bush
The Lebanese government says that 603 of its citizens have been killed, with perhaps 200 corpses still in the rubble. More than 700,000 people have been displaced. Fifty-five Israelis have also died in the current violence between Israel and Hezbollah. The "sideshow" in Gaza has claimed the lives of 150 Palestinians since the June 25th capture of young Corporal Gilad Shalit.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's declaration that Israel will never exchange prisoners is stoic, yet my guess is that the families of the captured soldiers might disagree. Hezbollah seems to be able to fire as many rockets into Israel as it could during the opening days of the conflict. The United States continues to block a ceasefire.
The US-Israeli military actions in Iraq and Lebanon have alienated and divided our closest allies (especially in the Muslim world), while at the same time they have united and energized our enemies. When George W. Bush told us he was a "uniter" not a "divider," he was telling the truth. He has brought together disparate groups that have little in common against America and its citizens. It has been a strategic catastrophe sure to plague us for years to come.
On July 31st, President Bush proclaimed: "The current crisis is part of a larger struggle between the forces of freedom and the forces of terror in the Middle East." Does he mean to say that the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip are rising up because they are against "freedom?" And this notion also applies to Hezbollah?
When Al Qaeda destroyed the World Trade Center, The New York Times ran personalized obituaries (with photographs) of each of the victims, humanizing the tragedy for its readers. A few days ago, CNN ran a highly critical report claiming that the Arab media was fueling anti-Western sentiment. One of the reasons given: Al Jazeera and other Arab television networks were running personalized accounts of the victims and their families of the July 30th Qana II massacre in southern Lebanon.
On August 1, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appeared on The O'Reilly Factor where she repeated her inspirational call for not stopping the killing in Lebanon and Israel. The evening before, on the same television show on which the Madam Secretary had leant her gravitas, the "Fox News Analyst," Michelle Malkin, argued that the photographs of the massacre in Qana to her "looked staged." She said the murder of fifty-six Lebanese civilians had become an issue only because the "members of the religion of perpetual outrage" were "ginning [it] up." In her view, the reaction to the massacre had been "manufactured." "I mean, if it's not Qana it's something else," she said, to Bill O'Reilly's fulsome approval.
What would be the response if Hezbollah fired a rocket into a shelter killing fifty-six Israeli civilians ranging in age from a ten-month-old baby to a 95-year-old woman as happened in Qana? What if Hezbollah apologized, saying it was a "mistake," but had made a similar "mistake" ten years earlier in the same Israeli village, killing 106 civilians? Would Ms. Malkin and others like her be on the public airwaves spewing forth such brutish views of the innocent dead?
Rightwingers say that Bush's "strategy" in the "war on terror" has been a success because "we haven't been hit again" since 9-11. But when we do get "hit again" these same rightwingers will turn around and blame Liberals for forgetting that we live in a dangerous world. They will forcefully remind us that only Republicans know how to deal with terrorists. (Next time at least they will have to dispense with the question: "Why do they hate us?") Karl Rove and much of the political press tell us that in 2006 "national security" issues, such as stopping the war in Iraq, are losers for the Democrats. Let's hope that Rove, the "boy genius," is wrong. The outcome of next week's Lieberman-Lamont race in Connecticut might tell us something.
Link Here
The Lebanese government says that 603 of its citizens have been killed, with perhaps 200 corpses still in the rubble. More than 700,000 people have been displaced. Fifty-five Israelis have also died in the current violence between Israel and Hezbollah. The "sideshow" in Gaza has claimed the lives of 150 Palestinians since the June 25th capture of young Corporal Gilad Shalit.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's declaration that Israel will never exchange prisoners is stoic, yet my guess is that the families of the captured soldiers might disagree. Hezbollah seems to be able to fire as many rockets into Israel as it could during the opening days of the conflict. The United States continues to block a ceasefire.
The US-Israeli military actions in Iraq and Lebanon have alienated and divided our closest allies (especially in the Muslim world), while at the same time they have united and energized our enemies. When George W. Bush told us he was a "uniter" not a "divider," he was telling the truth. He has brought together disparate groups that have little in common against America and its citizens. It has been a strategic catastrophe sure to plague us for years to come.
On July 31st, President Bush proclaimed: "The current crisis is part of a larger struggle between the forces of freedom and the forces of terror in the Middle East." Does he mean to say that the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip are rising up because they are against "freedom?" And this notion also applies to Hezbollah?
When Al Qaeda destroyed the World Trade Center, The New York Times ran personalized obituaries (with photographs) of each of the victims, humanizing the tragedy for its readers. A few days ago, CNN ran a highly critical report claiming that the Arab media was fueling anti-Western sentiment. One of the reasons given: Al Jazeera and other Arab television networks were running personalized accounts of the victims and their families of the July 30th Qana II massacre in southern Lebanon.
On August 1, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appeared on The O'Reilly Factor where she repeated her inspirational call for not stopping the killing in Lebanon and Israel. The evening before, on the same television show on which the Madam Secretary had leant her gravitas, the "Fox News Analyst," Michelle Malkin, argued that the photographs of the massacre in Qana to her "looked staged." She said the murder of fifty-six Lebanese civilians had become an issue only because the "members of the religion of perpetual outrage" were "ginning [it] up." In her view, the reaction to the massacre had been "manufactured." "I mean, if it's not Qana it's something else," she said, to Bill O'Reilly's fulsome approval.
What would be the response if Hezbollah fired a rocket into a shelter killing fifty-six Israeli civilians ranging in age from a ten-month-old baby to a 95-year-old woman as happened in Qana? What if Hezbollah apologized, saying it was a "mistake," but had made a similar "mistake" ten years earlier in the same Israeli village, killing 106 civilians? Would Ms. Malkin and others like her be on the public airwaves spewing forth such brutish views of the innocent dead?
Rightwingers say that Bush's "strategy" in the "war on terror" has been a success because "we haven't been hit again" since 9-11. But when we do get "hit again" these same rightwingers will turn around and blame Liberals for forgetting that we live in a dangerous world. They will forcefully remind us that only Republicans know how to deal with terrorists. (Next time at least they will have to dispense with the question: "Why do they hate us?") Karl Rove and much of the political press tell us that in 2006 "national security" issues, such as stopping the war in Iraq, are losers for the Democrats. Let's hope that Rove, the "boy genius," is wrong. The outcome of next week's Lieberman-Lamont race in Connecticut might tell us something.
Link Here
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 4:14 PM
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