Politics

The Israelis are finding harder than they expected to dislodge Hezbollah. The fighting remains heavy according to the New York Times: Israel Suffers Bloodiest Day of Fight With Hezbollah

The Israelis will no doubt prevail in some sense. They will “sanitize” whatever area they want to and then will leave behind a scorched zone that they expect someone else, other than Hezbollah, to occupy. So it looks like our tax money will have to pay for Israel’s security zone.

The problem they have is that they have just made militants out of thousands of Shiite Arabs who happen to be Hezbollah’s recruiting base. So this round of “sanitization” surely won’t last long.

Plus I imagine that they are concerned that they have met this much resistance. The fight being put up is an indication that the Israelis, even with all the weapons that the Americans ship to them, are not as overwhelming as they thought. Yes they’ll “win” in the short term. But in the longer term the various terrorists and resistance groups will be encouraged that the massive asymmtery between the American backed Israelis juggernaut and the Iranian/Syrian backed terror groups has been evened out a bit.

Elsewhere over there I see that Condi’s great initiative is getting nowhere. No one can agree on a peace proposal. The US is isolated diplomatically because of its Israeli bias. Everyone else is an uproar over the UN deaths. And George is home riding his bike waiting for the Israelis to kill everyone in southern Lebanon.

This will drag on a bit longer I think. The US doesn’t want it to stop just yet.

Who are these idiots called Hezbollah? One of their spokesmen is now reported to have been taken aback by the Israeli response to the kidnapping of two soldiers. Here’s the report posted on Yahoo: Hezbollah Surprised Apparently Hezbollah, who does this kind of thing all the time just to tweak the Israeli’s noses, was shocked when the bombs began to fall. How dumb can you get? All they had to do was look at Gaza and see the devestation the Israelis have left behind there. These people are nuts. Their visceral response to the continued attacks against them was always going to escalate out of hand. Especially as the new administration there is bereft of top soldiers who can look tough without actually shooting too many people. The new PM, Olmert isn’t a retired general, so he needed to prove his security credentials. And the dimwits at Hezbollah walked right into it. Duh!

Reuters reports that the Israelis were warned about the danger that their attacks represented to the United Nations force in the region. Here’s the report, via the New York Times: Irish Officer Warned Israel on Threat to U.N. Staff The Irish Foreign Ministry is the source being quoted so I imagine this is genuine. If it is: why did the Israelis persist? Killing four UN troops is hardly the kind of thing that will endear them to the international community. Not that Israel pays much attention to the UN. They have the US veto, in the person of the mad John Bolton, to protect them from any recriminations there.

Naturally the Israelis have “apologized” for the “error” and will conduct an “investigation”. Tony Snow says that “of course the attack wasn’t deliberate”. Well now, don’t we all feel much better. Those nice Israelis have apologized for killing four totally innocent and unarmed people, who had repeatedly warned them of their presence. Killed them with a precision guided missile no less. But by accident. I assume we are to believe that the missile wasn’t accurately guided. Or maybe that the Israelis who answered the six phone calls warning them about the presence of the UN troops were deaf. Six times deaf. Or maybe incompetent. Or just plain stupid. Anyway there’s going to be an enquiry and no doubt the “error” will be proven to be just that. Yes I know I feel much better.

Arlen Specter, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee has woken up to George Bush’s unconstitutional behaviour. USA Today is reporting that he intends to submit legislation allowing Congress to sue Bush. Here’s the report: Specter prepping bill to sue Bush

At last Congress is beginning to take the first feeble steps toward restraining the runaway antics of this uncinstitutional administration. After rolling over and playing dead for Bush for six years Congress is paying heed to the disgust of the electorate. The pity is that only the threat of losing their majority was sufficient to focus the Republicans on the wilful illegality of Bush and his cronies. They are not acting from a position of principle, simply one of expediency. So we cannot expect a serious effort unless the polls turn out to be correct and the Senate falls to the Democrats.

I think it is legitimate to ask any presidential hopeful, form either party, what their position is on these so-called “signing statements”. Bush has issued nearly 800 in six years, more than all the previous presidents combined.

And Specter only just noticed? Shame on him. And shame on us for not being outraged sooner.

John Bolton is a lunatic. Here he is again arguing against “moral equivalence”. On CNN: CNN.com – Bolton defends Israel’s actions in Lebanon – Jul 23, 2006

How else are we to read this? He is clearly arguing that an Israeli life is worth more than a Lebanese life. He couldn’t be more clear. Where is the morality in that?

It’s even worse than that: he’s saying that two kidnapped, and not yet dead, Israelis are worth several hundred decidedly dead Lebanese.

That is sick. No wonder the Arab world hates America.