Condi's in La La Land

The last couple of weeks has seen some of the most brutal attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure in Lebanon by an army backed, funded and encouraged by the US government. When Bush first publicly talked about Israel's over the top reaction to 2 of their soldiers being kidnapped, all he had to say was to keep the civilian deaths to a minimum. Keep civilian deaths to a minimum. Jesus. What in the hell does that mean?

The kidnapping of the soldiers was wrong. Don't get me wrong. But the retaliation was abominable. It took the Israeli army 3 days...3 days to target the Hezbollah headquarters. In the meantime they bombed bridges, power stations and fuel depots in order to stop the Hezbollah. What they were doing were fuelling recruitment to the Hezbollah. Just like the Brits did in Northern Ireland in the 70's by killing Catholics...the perfect recruitment drive to join the resistance. But that's another story. I have been trying to keep a breast of the happenings, reading outside the main news feeds and also the mainstream news. While they were bombing the main bridges, many civilians were killed and just like the sonic booms that the Israeli Air Force are tormenting the Palastinians with, the targets are surely not military. If so, where are the military casualties?? The first 3 days was were predominantly killing civilians.

Here's an exerpt from Robert Fisk writing in the Independent yesterday:
"The Shia Muslim refugees of southern Lebanon, driven from their homes by the Israelis, are arriving in Sidon by the thousand, cared for by Sunni Muslims and then sent north to join the 600,000 displaced Lebanese in Beirut. More than 34,000 have passed through here in the past four days alone, a tide of misery and anger. It will take years to heal their wounds, and billions of dollars to repair their damaged property. And who can blame them for their flight? For the second time in eight days, the Israelis committed a war crime yesterday. They ordered the villagers of Taire, near the border, to leave their homes and then - as their convoy of cars and minibuses obediently trailed northwards - the Israeli air force fired a missile into the rear minibus, killing three refugees and seriously wounding 13 other civilians. The rocket that killed them is believed to have been a Hellfire missile made by Lockheed Martin in Florida. Nine days ago, the Israeli army ordered the inhabitants of a neighboring village, Marwaheen, to leave their homes and then fired rockets into one of their evacuation trucks, blasting the women and children inside to their deaths. And this is the same Israeli air force which was praised last week by one of Israel's greatest defenders - Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz - because it 'takes extraordinary steps to minimize civilian casualties'." So, where are the Hezbollah fighters in that lot?? At the moment, the death toll ratio is 11 Lebanese to every 1 Israeli. 600,000 Lebanese are fleeing and heading to Beirut where the people are taking them in with open arms...humanity amongst the destruction.

Anyway, I am sorry for going off-line about me here, but the appalling scenes and shocking situation in Lebanon is just too horrific to ignore. Now Condi Rice is over there, unplanned, unannounced, in order to bring a "lasting peace" to the Middle East...christ, which speech writer got lazy and just lifted that horseshite off the standard quotes they use. If they actually stopped backing Israel financially, militarily (Israel are the largest arms customer the US has) and in the UN, then maybe it will be possible. Israel are still an occupying army in a country that is not theirs. UN Security Council Resolution 242 should be upheld and not quashed by the US...then may be, just may be, peace could begin to be established.

On that note, the rant herein ends...