» Archive: August 2006
Galloway vs. SKY NEWS
A stunningly good interview about Lebanon between George Galloway (Respect MP for the UK) and SKY NEWS
Putting Words in Ahmadinejad's Mouth
Virginia Tilley: "In this frightening mess in the Middle East, let's get one thing straight. Iran is not threatening Israel with destruction. Iran's president has not threatened any action against Israel. Over and over, we hear that Iran is clearly "committed to annihilating Israel" because the "mad" or "reckless" or "hard-line" President Ahmadinejad has repeatedly threatened to destroy Israel. But every supposed quote, every supposed instance of his doing so, is wrong."
This has been your leftist in-fight
It seems that Counterpunch's Alexander Cockburn and by As'ad AbuKhalil of Angry Arab News Service are having a little spat over the authenticity of an interview that CP ran with Hezbollah's Nasrallah.
Letter to the Editor
So the one letter of mine that the Globe published was a late-night toss-off in which I very delicately suggest that Michael Ignatieff is a whore to power. They don't seem to like the ones with actual facts in them.
What's fun about this, is that we get a first-hand look at what it's like to be edited by the good people at the Globe. The original letter follows. The bits in red were removed by the editor.
* * *
In his fascinating, epic monograph on "Iggy," Michael Valpy illustrates the candidate's tendency to make major shifts in his thinking, gaining him a great deal of attention. Not explicitly said, but nonetheless evident from Valpy's account, is that in each case, Ignatieff's turns have been in favour of those in power: Thatcher during the coal strike, then Bush with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and now the ruthless bombing of Lebanon. In the interceding years, surely there have been occasions for controversial, nuanced intellectual stands that turn away from those with money and power. On such occasions, Mr. Ignatieff has been absent. We should endeavor to find out why this is so--that is, if we find the obvious answer to be insufficient.
* * *
In all, I'm a bit embarassed that this letter made it in, though it was the only one one of two they printed that was even vaguely critical of Iggy. Let this be a lesson to all who care to listen: don't write letters to the editor at 3am that you don't want to be seen by thousands of people. Obvious, I know, but it's easy to get used to letters not being printed.
Gentrification and Vandalism
CBC: "Vandals left an unwelcome message in a Halifax neighbourhood last weekend, angering homeowners who say they're being unfairly targeted as rich."
Wikipedia: "This was taken as an excuse for interference by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, who declared war on the Vandals. The armies of the Eastern Empire were commanded by Belisarius, who, having heard that the greatest part of the Vandal fleet was fighting an uprising in Sardinia, decided to act quickly, and landed on Tunisian soil, then marched on to Carthage."
Congo Elections
WSWS: "Even before the ballot takes place, however, the real victor is certain. A number of reports have been published which, according to the German magazine Der Spiegel, make clear 'that the Western powers and the International Monetary Fund are seeking to exert massive influence on Congolese policy after the elections. They have already met several times in Kinshasa--in the absence of representatives of the Congo. At these meetings an obligatory "market-orientated economic program" was developed, which the new government would be obliged to follow. Otherwise, the country will be threatened with the withdrawal of financial support.'"
The Occupier Defines Justice
Amira Hass: "These three detainees/abducted join about 10,000 other Palestinian prisoners and detainees. As with the prisoners of the Hebrew resistance, who saw themselves as POWs regardless of their actions (killing British soldiers or Arab civilians), some Palestinians request that their prisoners be declared POWs. Others prefer the definition of political prisoners. Let's let the definitions rest. In any case, from the offense to the jailing, Israel, as an occupying force, plays around with the definitions as it sees fit."
Israel Must Win
This Israeli Army is not trained to win wars anymore. Instead, its tank battalions are mainly engaged in daily shelling of schools and hospitals. Its Air Force uses the best American fighter planes to flatten neighborhoods and shoot deadly rockets at cars in the streets of Gaza. Its command units are expert in abducting democratically elected middle-aged Palestinian politicians. The IDF is basically a heavy army specializing in merciless regional bullying. Yet, it cannot win a war, and as such it has nothing to offer the American empire.But the Israeli military defeat has some further implications. Israel without a victorious army, has nothing to offer to world Jewry either.
Mining
BBC: "The world's largest mining firm, BHP Billiton, will post record profits of over $10bn (£5.3bn), analysts say"
Blogging
Things will be quiet here for the rest of the week while I'm at the Tatamagouche Free School, maintaining the Free School Weblog.
Hezbollah Cheering Squad
Hezbollah has an unlikely cheering squad.
Via Billmon: "What can you say? Everybody loves a winner."
Depleted Uranium: harmless stuff, really
Wired News has a report on Depleted Uranium rearing its ugly head. Afghanistan and the former Yugoslavia have also been pumped full of the stuff, though given that it's officially benign, we're not hearing about any of its effects on the local populations.
UN Resolution
There's a lot of discussion of the UN "ceasefire" resolution over at Angry Arab News Service.
Beirut by Satellite
The source of the previous comparison, GeoEye, has an interactive satellite overview of Beirut. Words, as they say, fail.
Beirut: Before and After
Via This Modern World, via Aftenposten, from the New York Times, comes this image of Beirut before and after the Israeli bombing campaign.
Batsignal
A Tiny Revolution: "Apparently there's some kind of batsignal for the U.S. punditocracy that tells them all what to write each week."
Hiding among civilians
Jonathan Cook: "The claim being made against Hizbullah in Lebanon -- that it is "cowardly blending" with civilians, according to the UN's Jan Egeland -- can, in truth, be made far more convincingly of the Israeli army. While there has been little convincing evidence that Hizbullah is firing its rocket from towns and villages in south Lebanon, or that its fighters are hiding there among civilians, it can be known beyond a shadow of a doubt that Israeli army camps and military installations are based in northern Israeli communities."
Ethnic Cleansing on the Agenda in the Globe
The Globe and Mail is talking in a mighty casual way about ethnic cleansing of Shi'a Muslims in Lebanon.
Eradicating Hezbollah-land, the Iranian-backed statelet inside politically fragile Lebanon, won't be easy and it certainly won't be "peacekeeping."Not just displacement based on ethnicity, which definitely qualifies as ethnic cleansing, but eradication. And the subject of that verb is most certainly not Hezbollah guerillas. It's the "statelet". The place where hundreds of thousands of people live.
I think we can conclude that the Globe doesn't support Lebanese Shi'a peoples' right to exist. In fact, it would appear that it is dedicated to their destruction.
(Imagine, if you will, what the response would be to the following sentences appearing in the Globe:
"Hezbollah was in Israel for 18 years from 1982 to 2000 and couldn't finish off Israel. An international army is not going to be able to do it," Shibley Telhami, a University of Maryland professor specializing in Arab-Israeli conflicts told a Brookings Institution panel on resolving the crisis.)
Of course Hezbollah did no such thing. And it's a political party, not a state. That said, Hezbollah is the legitimate elected representative of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese Shi'a, something which Paul Koring's analysis recognizes in its use of the term "statelet" over a myriad of alternatives.
Hate crimes legislation, anyone?
The New Paradox
Uri Avnery: "Thus a paradoxical situation has arisen: the Israeli government is rejecting a proposal that reflects its original war aims, and instead demands the deployment of an international force, which it objected to strenuously at the start of the war. That's what happens when you start a war without clear and achievable aims. Everything gets mixed up."
Asia Times
Hezbollah's lack of structure its strength: "There are also predetermined operations. They have a lot of local autonomy but they will not launch an operation unless it is all part of a plan. There is a local leader, there is a regional leader system, but they don't report to [any military headquarters in] Beirut. It is not cumbersome, there are no levels like in a normal army, [such as] companies, battalions, regiments, nothing like that. It is a very flat sort of organization, not a pyramid sort of organization."
Iraq's downward spiral toward partition: "From the vantage point of the domestic politics of Iraq, it would only lead to even further violence and mayhem. The Sunni groups - especially those who are now participating in the national-unity government - might decide that their best strategy is to support the insurgency."
Clearing the path for US war on Iran: "In planning for the destruction of most of Hezbollah's arsenal and prevention of any resupply from Iran, Israel appears to have hoped to eliminate a major reason the US administration had shelved the military option for dealing with Iran's nuclear program - the fear that Israel would suffer massive casualties from Hezbollah's rockets in retaliation for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities."
How soon we forget
Asia Times: "President George W Bush himself had listed in his 2005 State of the Union address the 'Orange Revolution' in Ukraine as one of the 'landmark events in the history of liberty'. "
The Double Standard, part #798 in a series
George Monbiot: "Since Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000, there have been hundreds of violations of the 'blue line' between the two countries. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) reports that Israeli aircraft crossed the line 'on an almost daily basis' between 2001 and 2003, and 'persistently' until 2006. These incursions 'caused great concern to the civilian population, particularly low-altitude flights that break the sound barrier over populated areas'. On some occasions, Hizbullah tried to shoot them down with anti-aircraft guns."
End the Occupation, End the Crisis
Gideon Levy: "For years, Israel has waged war against the Palestinians with the main motive of insistence on keeping the occupied territories. If not for the settlement enterprise, Israel would have long since retreated from the occupied territories and the struggle's engine would have been significant neutralized. Not that a non-occupying Israel would have turned into the darling of the Arab world, but the destructive fire aimed at Israel would have significantly lessened, and those who continued to fight Israel would have found themselves isolated."
Billmon: WWIII, Iran vs. Israel, won't be stopped by the Dems
I guess it's not news if you put it like that, but BillMon has an ominous post about next year's war.
What's become clear to me is that the Democratic Party (even it's allegedly anti-war wing) will not try to stop this insanity, and in fact will probably be led as meekly to the slaughter as it was during the runup to the Iraq invasion. Watching the Dems line up to salute the Israeli war machine, hearing the uncomfortable and awkward silence descend on most of Left Blogistan once the bombs started falling in Lebanon, seeing how easily the same Orwellian propaganda tricks worked their magic on the pseudoliberals -- all this doesn't leave too much room for doubt. As long as World War III can be sold as protecting the security and survival of the Jewish state, I suspect the overwhelming majority of Democrats, or at least the overwhelming majority of Democratic politicians, will support it.
Someone, somewhere is taking this seriously
Tony Blair, apparently without irony: "We need to make clear to Syria and Iran that there is a choice: Come in to the international community and play by the same rules as the rest of us, or be confronted. Their support of terrorism, their deliberate export of instability, their desire to see wrecked the democratic prospect in Iraq, is utterly unjustifiable, dangerous and wrong. If they keep raising the stakes, they will find they have miscalculated."
Seriously, though.
Demers on Updike
Charles Demers in Seven Oaks: "Updike's frequent forays into Islamic imagery are hand-held excursions for non-Islamic readers, and as such Ahmad's tutelage under his imam, Shaikh Rashid, reads like Catcher in the Rye crossed with Islam for Dummies."
Dissent
Asia Times: "Israeli intelligence admitted to the ruling establishment before the war began that it had failed to penetrate the tightly knit folds of the ideologically and religiously motivated cadre and leadership of Hezbollah. Therefore, they opposed the war until their proxy network could gather more information on Hezbollah's military strength, manpower, logistics and positions."
The American Street
Stanley Rogouski: "In other words, the American street is starting to get restless. We don't like the idea that those same beautiful Lebanese girls we saw last year protesting the Syrian occupation might now be the targets of Israeli bombs. The hype around the elections in Iraq and in Palestine in 2005 failed to achieve their objective of putting dependable American/Israeli puppets in power, but they did succeed in calling into question Israel's claim to be 'the only Democracy in the Middle East'."
This is also interesting: "A 'moderate' Arab politician is allowed to give blood curdling, anti-Semitic rants about Israel that stay inside the Arab world. He's not supposed to speak in a way that both the Arab street and the American anti-war left can both understand."
Uri Avnery: "Not one single military target has been reached. The same army that took just six days to rout three big Arab armies in 1967 has not succeeded in overcoming a small "terrorist organization" in a time span that is already longer than the momentous Yom Kippur War."
Robert Fisk gets the prize for most ominous headline: The Family That Stays Together Dies Together.
Alexander Cockburn: "Halutz has efficiently united all Lebanese in loathing of Israel, while being an effective propagandist for Hezbollah. What better recruiter of sympathy for Lebanon than Halutz screaming "we're going to turn Lebanon back into what it was 20 years ago," and threatening to blow up a 10-floor building for every missile."
Report on the PR war
Matthias Gebauer: News on a Platter
The phone rings at 9 a.m. -- right on time. "Hello, this is the Government Press Office," pipes a woman's voice. "What are you planning to do today? Do you need an idea?" And then the suggestions just keep coming -- interview partners; a tour to the houses in Haifa that were struck by Katyusha rockets, complete with victim interviews. An expert will come along too, one who explains the nature of the rockets -- "in clean sound bites, if you want."
Gaza Crisis in Context
by Alex Hemingway
As the bombs rain down on Beirut, the ongoing assault against the Gaza Strip has been overshadowed. In Lebanon, the civilian infrastructure is being destroyed, as precision-guided weapons demolish houses, bridges, roads, television stations, farms and medical vehicles. The UN's top humanitarian official describes Lebanon as "block by block, levelled to the ground," denouncing the Israeli attacks as "a violation of international law." Yet, these conditions would not be unfamiliar to residents of occupied Palestinian territories. Moreover, throughout the Gaza crisis, as in the attacks on Lebanon, the sequence of events has been obscured, and crucial information ignored, by both Western leaders and pundits.
To develop an accurate analysis of the situation in any conflict zone, the elementary facts must be addressed. The aim of this article is to: (1) examine how the current crisis in Gaza began and progressed; and (2) consider the broader context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
read more...The Professor of Human Rights
Michael Ignatieff: "Qana was, frankly, inevitable, in a situation in which you have rocket-launchers within 100 yards of a civilian population. This is the nature of the war that's going on."
Avnery Q&A
Uri Avnery answers questions...
Q. Would an international force help?Also, this sounds familiar:Ditto. That is a slogan especially tailored for diplomats, who look for an idea they can easily agree on. It sounds nice, especially if one adds the word "robust".
True, Hizbullah was created by us. When the Israeli army invaded Lebanon in 1982, the Shiites received the soldiers with rice and sweets. They hoped that we would evict the PLO forces, who were in control of the area. But when they realized that our army was there to stay, they started a guerilla war that lasted for 18 years. In this war, Hizbullah was born and grew, until it became the strongest organization in all Lebanon.