Tag Archives: lebanon

Lebanon tells Rice “Don’t bother, you aren’t welcome here”

30 Jul

Israel kills 60 civilians and continues their official terrorist activity in Southern Lebanon

An Israeli air strike killed more than 60 Lebanese civilians, including at least 37 children, on Sunday, fuelling world pressure for an ceasefire in
Israel’s war in Lebanon against Hizbollah guerrillas.

So since the US continues to fail to condemn Israel’s blatantly terroristic actions, the US has lost all street cred in the Middle East.

The raid on the southern village of Qana — the bloodiest single attack during Israel’s 19-day-old war on Hizbollah — prompted Lebanon to tell U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice she was unwelcome in Beirut for talks.

Really, is it any wonder?

Rice said it was “time to get to a ceasefire,” but insisted this required changing the status quo before the war, which erupted after Hizbollah seized two Israeli soldiers on July 12.

The United States says the priority is to remove the threat posed to Israel by Hizbollah, which is backed by Iran and Syria.

So in order to apply any pressure to Israel to stop killing civilians, first we have to give them something to which they have no right? What kind of logic is that? The kind of logic that wants any effort at diplomacy to fail, I think.

It’s no wonder that US diplomatic efforts are so ineffectual. The only thing that surprises me is that it took this long for Lebanon to tell us we weren’t welcome.

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How stupid can Israel get?

25 Jul

How’s this for an answer?

BBC: Israeli bomb kills UN observers
Excerpt:

The UN in Lebanon says the Israeli air force destroyed the observer post, in which four military observers were sheltering.

It said the four, from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, had taken shelter in a bunker under the post after it was earlier shelled 14 times by Israeli artillery.

A rescue team was also shelled as it tried to clear the rubble.

“I am shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defence Forces of a UN Observer post in southern Lebanon,” Mr Annan said in a statement from Rome.

What in the h*** can they be thinking? How can even Bush support them after this outrage?

EDIT: Per this CNN story, the body count has been updated to two dead and two missing, believed buried in the rubble of the post. So far, the only Israeli response has been:

… The Israel Defense Forces said it was looking into the report … [excerpted from the CNN story]

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When Iraqis are texting from Baghdad to see if you’re OK, you know it’s not good.

15 Jul

Fear and Shopping in Beirut
Annia Ciezadlo in The Nation

The first warplanes sheared through the sky at about 3:30 am Friday, just as the call to prayer wavered out from the mosque, the faint, pre-recorded voice of the muezzin drowned in the rising growl of their engines. The bombings began soon after, and the anti-aircraft guns kicked in at about 4 am; we didn’t get to sleep until dawn. I woke up at 9, when a text message bleeped into my cell phone. It was from a friend in Baghdad, who wrote “I hope U R OK and fine. We all here in Iraq feel worried about U.” I was glad to hear from him, but it his message didn’t make me feel any better: When Iraqis are texting from Baghdad to see if you’re OK, you know it’s not good.
Continue reading →

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