Condi Flies In

Well now. It seems that the Styate department has realized that something is going on in the Middle East. Our Condi is off to smooth things over. Or at least that’s what I like to think. Reality is somewhat different. Here’s the news from the New York Times: Rice Outlines Plans for Trip to Middle East – New York Times

Seems like the Americans deliberately stood on the side while Israel pummeled the Lebanese and extracted biblical retribution for the kidnapping of a couple of soldiers. After all the Israelis have a right to defend themselves. Now after the blood has been sufficiently spilled to teach those Lebanese a lesson Condi can go off and speak to her contacts about a “lasting peace”.

Fat chance. Hezbollah has not been wiped out. Nor will it be. But a lot of angry locals now have no homes or jobs, so they may be more likely to support Hezbollah in the future. Southern Lebanon has been reduced to a wasteland, a parched and destroyed buffer zone that the Israelis can watch over so it never grows back. Rather like the state they left Gaza in. But it’s nice to see that the US will help out in reconstruction assistance. Maybe. Sometime. And would that be at the same rate of support that the Israelis get? Just asking.

Note the bias: Israeli occupation of the West Bank, a violation of UN dictated international borders, elicits not a word of objection from the US. Daily Palestinian deprivation is “their own fault”. But a couple of Israeli soldiers? How dare Hezbollah cross the border in defiance of the UN! And notice the reference to “hundreds of Israeli and Lebanese deaths”. Excuse me that would be hundreds of Lebanese deaths and dozens of Israeli deaths.

I suppose that’s the Boltonian moral equivalency thing at work.

And we should all notice that the Arab nations who are rallying to the Israeli/American cause are all authoritarian dictatorships. Do I assume we don’t advocate democracy in the Middle East any more?

What a mess. And still no policy.