I just watched a televison news broadcast of Beirut celebrating the cease fire with Israel! My heart goes out to those brave people and how they have suffered. They are flowing back into Southern Lebanon, to their ruined cities and destroyed homes. Perhaps that's the best way to insure that Israel doesn't start anything soon! A country full of people working with the rest of the world to put it back together.
I'm sure that in the days ahead, the real damage inflicted on Lebanon will be come more apparent and it will be the real news story that eclipses everything else. The Media will be hypnotized by the real survivor drama that has been enacted there. There will be an outpouring of sympathty and support for the Lebanese people from all of the caring people on the planet.
The other story will be the fallout for Israel...reality will set in and they will see what they have wrought and it will destroy the Olmert government. They are already blaming the USA in the Jerusalem press for goading Olmert into into the war in the first place. This was the gravest tactical error Israel ever made and only one in a continuing series of insanely blundered foreign policy by the Bush Administration.
You know, Bush has a real opportunity now to do something that might give him the "legacy" he so desires. He could actually start talking to Syria and Iran and all the parties involved in the mideast nightmare, but he won't. Another tragically blundered and wasted opportunity to do something positive!
BRAVO LEBANON!!!!!!
2 comments:
Just me checking to see if my posts work!
The bravery of the Lebanese people? How does total helplessness translate to bravery? Lebanon is a victim of the indifference of the dictators and radical lunatics who rule the Mid-East, as are the Palestinians. Both groups are cruelly exploited for the public relations value of their victim status. Easily exploited too, cause they’re uneducated, and the products of a culture which has not yet evolved to the point of embracing the concept of political compromise. Or woman’s rights. Or etc., etc., etc..
Talking to Syria is pointless. There is no possible political or military solution to the Mid-East problem. Only an evolutionary one. And evolution, as we all know, takes loooong time. The people of Lebanon will demonstrate bravery, and political sophistication, when they demand a government which pays as much attention to their welfare as do the governments of the western nations. Not a terribly high standard to aim at, I’ll admit, but certainly an improvement over what currently exists.
This ain’t Muslims versus Christians/Jews. It’s dictatorship vs. democracy. When societies of differing levels of development interact, conflict is inevitable, because the these societies have incompatible systems to address conflict. Democracies, which recognize each other’s governments, and recognize each other’s courts (to some degree), have an easier time of it, and, to date, no democracy has found it necessary to make war on another democracy.
Unfortunately, the Bush Administration’s “plans” to bring democracy to Iraq, were not merely misguided and stupid, but insane to the point of psychosis. It’s no more possible to spread democracy at sword point than it was to try and spread Christianity at sword point. We can only sit back, wait and hope. We can try to be a genuine friend to the peoples of the region, instead of the exploitative jackasses we’ve been to date.
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