Soemtimes I just get so exasperated with the Middle East that I wish they would just blow themselves all up:
Hizbullah will not hand over its weapons to the Lebanese government but rather refrain from exhibiting them publicly, according to a new compromise that is reportedly brewing between Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Seniora and Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
The UN cease-fire resolution specifically demands the demilitarization of the area south of the Litani river. The resolution was approved by the Lebanese cabinet.
In a televised address on Monday night, Nasrallah declared that now was not the time to debate the disarmament of his guerrilla fighters, saying the issue should be done in secret sessions of the government to avoid serving Israeli interests.
“This is immoral, incorrect and inappropriate,” he said. “It is wrong timing on the psychological and moral level particularly before the cease-fire,” he said in reference to calls from critics for the guerrillas to disarm.
Every time I look at the Middle East I see nothing but seething hatred, conniving, backstabbing, dishonesty, maneuvering, leadership concerned only with self-promotion and self-preservation, and, ultimately escalating levels of violence.
It is just depressing.
Pb
…and sometimes they try to oblige you.
…today’s GOP?
zzyzx
I don’t want them to blow up as much as I’m rooting for the discovery of an uninhabited Earth in an alternate dimension that we could export everyone to.
capelza
Tom Friedman had/has a show running on the History Channel about our addiction to oil. It’s really pretty good. There’s an interesting Coalition that’s formed with such disparate characters as former COA dude Woolsey, Gary Bauer (gag) and environmentalists from the “Left”.
The whole idea is to try to figure out how to rid ourselves of the oil addiction that chains us to the ME. Of course, I’ve been hollering about this for years and years, but whatever.
For a second there, I thought you were talking about the break=up of Alexander’s empire. There’s nothing new under that ancient sun. Nothing. Except the helicopter pad we built on the ruins of Babylon.
capelza
That should be CIA, not COA…
The Other Steve
Interesting. When Democrats proposed this in 2000 and 2004 they were attacked for giving aid and comfort to the terrorists.
Maybe because it’d hit Halliburton’s bottom line.
The Other Steve
Anyway, it’s understandable why Hezbollah doesn’t want to give up weapons. Just as it’s understandable why Israel wants them to.
The question is, what is Lebanon going to do about it?
Capitulate, and insure another Israeli attack in the future, or try to solve the problem?
Mac Buckets
Poor baby — such a victime of those mean old Republican bullies!
Another reason why we can’t take you seriously, TOSser. I’ve lost track: Are you delusional, ignorant, or just lying so you can pretend to be a victim? I can assure you that the only “traitor” talk you heard in response to energy policy (of all things) was entirely in your own head. First of all, no one was talking about anyone giving aid and comfort to terrorists in 2000, so that’s easily exposed as a blatant lie.
Secondly, in our reality, here on Earth, Bush himself campaigned in 2004 on the need for the US to become more energy independent. Alternative energy development, hydrogen fuel for cars, expansion of nuclear energy, conservation legislation — all were repeatedly mentioned. Anything ring a bell? Of course not.
Go listen to some more Journey.
Tim F.
Funny, I think that this particular issue could work itself out given the ideal alignment of stars. It doesn’t even require one of those Friedmanesque solutions where things would be fine if only everybody followed Friedman’s advice.
Until now the Lebanese army has basically avoided the south because it couldn’t hope to compete with Hezbollah. Now that the ceasefire terms mandate that they enter the region they will have no choice but to stand toe-to-toe with Hezbollah. For now that is a losing proposition, which is why the UN forces will be obliged to back them up. But (Major ‘IF’ statement to follow) if the Lebanese central government receives enough aid to build its army into a respectable force, their central prerogative as a government will motivate them to either disarm Hezbollah or fold them into government control. A strong government simply cannot tolerate independent armed groups within its borders. Even if the new Lebanese state ends up strongly unfriendly to Israel, they can be dealt with on state-to-state terms which are much more favorable to Israel than the current shadow war.
RSA
From a 2002 NOW press release:
HTH.
p.lukasiak
The question is, what is Lebanon going to do about it?
well, the first thing that Lebanon should do is get itself a shitload of big missiles and big bombs that it can shoot at tel aviv the next time Israel starts bombing civilian targets in Lebanon.,….
Marty
The Other Steve,
Heazbollah is a terrorist organization.
Israel is a sovereign country.
Do not compare the two as equals.
Israeli proverb: “Don’t start nuthin’… won’t be nuthin’.”
dlw
Santorum was running an ad along these lines: we need to reduce the use of oil so we don’t have to rely on crazy Mideast terrorists. I’m not sure I understand the logic. Are the terrorists going to like us when we stop buying oil? I don’t think they hate us because we buy oil.
I’m all in favor of reducing oil consumption, I just don’t see where that lets us close the book on Mideast craziness or end the mythological War on Terror.
John S.
LMAO – Most unintentionally funny post I’ve seen in a while.
Bush talked about going to Mars, too.
The Other Steve
LOL! It must be nice living in your fantasy world.
Bush’s idea of energy independence was drilling for oil in Alaska’s ANWR.
As RSA so aptly pointed out
The Other Steve
The problem as I see it…
In Saudi Arabia there are reasonable people, and there are extremists.
The extremists are pissed off at just about everybody, but the reasonable people keep them off their backs by giving them cash. In exchange the extremists attack someone else, and the reasonable people don’t worry about the extremists because they’re off their backs.
If we stop buying oil, this will dry up the funding source to the reasonable people, who in turn will no longer be able to give money to the extremists… which will force all of them figuring out a way to challenge their creative energies into something productive instead of blowing things up.
There’s nothing we can do that will get terrorists to like us. What we need to do is change the focus so that they are fighting each other over there, instead of us over there.
Anyway, that’s pretty funny that Santorum is running ads like that, when Moveon.org and such ran ads like that in 2004 they were called radical fruitcakes by people such as Santorum and Mac Buckets.
Edmund Dantes
And yet people thought it would be a great idea for the United States to stick it’s hand into the middle of it all, and thought we’d be able to remake that corner of the globe through sheer military strength alone.
Pb
Correct. And then what do you think they’ll do?
Right. Because when BCCI collapsed in 1991, depriving Osama bin Laden of his main source of funding, he decided to channel his creative energies into something productive instead of blowing things up. And that’s how John Kerry prevented 9/11.
ThymeZone
I went down that thematic road on the first thread here to the topic, and got called every name in the book including
“anti-semite” for it. But of course, any reasonable person would, in fact, wish that they would just blow themselves all up. All the fanatics and “God is on our side” and “Chosen people” advocates, on both sides … fuck them all. Why should our world go up in flames because they’re crazy? Let them put their children in the homes of families who will care for them, and go off to some neutral space somewhere and kill each other with sticks and bare hands. Maybe then the rest of us can live in peace.
But as soon as one says a sensible thing like that, here come the absolutists who have to pimp up one side of another of an endless conflict. THEY started it. WE are just defending ourselves.
My favorite line was, “What else can we do?”
What else can they do. As if perpetual mutual destruction were the pinnacle of human thought and the end product of civilization.
I’ll tell you what else you can do: Walk into the sea and drown yourselves, you crazy fucks.
The Other Steve
Right When Israel invade, Hezbollah should have said “Ok, right. You guys win, here’s our weapons. We’re sorry, really we are. Dreadful mistake, really. Won’t happen again, sir.”
Oh come on. Let’s stop worrying about Political Correctness and just make things happen.
The Other Steve
A bit different, really. The idea here is that the reasonable people decide that they can’t survive if the extremist people are still around and they do something about it.
Or there’s the other method. We start up the Draft and we call up 10,000,000 soldiers to occupy the region.
Which do you think costs the US less?
The Other Steve
As I recall that was because you were blaming all the problems on Israel, while pretending Hezbollah didn’t exist.
Darrell
Just curious Tim, when have UN forces ever provided reliable military “back up”? Rwanda? Srebrenica? In 1967 when they stepped aside to let arabs attack Israel? Most recently, when they were stationed in Southern Lebanon doing fuck all while Hezbollah launched missiles into Israel?
Tell us please, when have UN forces provided back up security?
ThymeZone
That’s a lie, and you are a lying fuck.
I blamed the problems caused by Israel on Israel. I put both sides in the same category of shitheads from my first post to the subject. The fact that I didn’t wrap every Israel bash in a similar Heabollah bash to please you doesn’t give you the right to lie about it.
Shove it up your ass, I know what I said and you are flat wrong.
You’re a goddammed liar and we can stand here all day and go back and forth about it if you want to. All week and all month.
Mac Buckets
My fantasy world has links. Yours, not so much. Tell me more about how those mean old Republican bullies called Dems traitors in 2000 because they wanted to import less oil. Or even 2004. Can’t substantiate it? Just pretend! It doesn’t matter — your hurt widdle feewings are all that matters. There, there. It’ll be OK.
Wrong again. The rightwing-fascist-Bush-apologists at NPR have a few clips you should listen to from the 2004 campaign.
Or you can just take their Cheney-fellating, Rovian-implant word for it:
A quick tip: If John S. has your back, you must realize that you are in Idiot Country, right?
There was nothing in RSA’s post about my point. I just skipped it and assumed it had nothing to do with me, since, well…it didn’t have anything to do with me. Try reading his post again.
Anyway, you may now continue your revision of history.
ThymeZone
You know what, Mac? If Bush wants to go back and re-govern in accordance with “clips” from his campaigns, that would be fine with me. That would be a huge improvement over the clusterfuck government we actually got. Just let him stay within the bounds of his own campaign remarks. We’d all be a lot better off.
Mac Buckets
You mean, like this, from the Condi-loving, Religiofascists at MSNBC:
At least try to get connected to reality, even though it’s much easier to stay in the Frankensteinian “Bush bad… everything Bush say bad” mindset.
Pb
Indeed. If Bush had stuck with his 2000 campaign promises, for example, ah, those were the days. He had a lot of sound military advice for himself back then, that he completely ignored later.
skip
When measuring the lethality of the weaponery in Lebanon our channels spent a great deal of time on WWII-era stuffed with ball bearings by Hezzbollah. We all saw the footage more than once. But did we see a mention along the way of Israeli use of US-produced cluster bombs? As I recall, providing cluster bombs for such use is against the law, yet we recently read of a rush re-order from Israel about to be okayed by the Pentagon. All out in the open–business as usual. This isn’t the first time Israel has used cluster bombs in military operations either.
Cluster bombs make K-bearing bombs look like spitballs, yet we hear nothing of them, even though unexploded mini-bombs are now being found in destroyed homes in Tyre and elsewhere.
Had Hezzbollah used a cluster bomb against Haifa there would be no end to the story.
Pb
The Other Steve,
Well, it hasn’t happened yet, but who knows, right. However, I thought when you said “all of them”, you might have actually meant… “all of them”. Silly me.
False dichotomies aside, at the rate we’re going, even that would be more cost-effective than our current policy, because it’d at least have a chance of getting the job done. Or, there’d finally be a massive backlash against this idiocy, and Democrats would run things for the next 40 years or so.
Mac Buckets
And I’m not going to get distracted from my original point, which is that TOSser is lying again, creating fantasies where he and his comrades got called “traitors” by imaginary meanie Republicans in scenarios that are too pathetic for words. Were those mean old GOPpers calling Bush a traitor in 2000 and 2004, too, since Bush was openly for reducing dependence on foreign oil?
Darrell
Do you have evidence/links outside of Al-Jazeera source info. that Israel used cluster bombs in urban areas in Lebanon?
Tim F.
Mac,
It is too convenient to simply declare the situation hopeless from the outset. In fact I did not even point out that the UN troops have to do any actual fighting, just prevent the Lebanese army from being wiped out until it builds up enough infrastructure to stand on its own. I know that knee-jerk UN bashing feels real real good but right now Israel doesn’t have much else going for it. If she didn’t know already Israel now understands that the IDF will never dislodge Hezbollah by itself. Lebanon has to do it, with somebody’s help. Who will that be, Israel? Right. Maybe we can spare a division or two…I bet the Louisiana NG isn’t doing anything useful. Either the smurfs do the job or we give up and rebuild Haifa underground.
Darrell
Tim, it’s not UN “bashing” if it’s true.. and it is true. More to the point, those UN troops can potentially do a lot of harm ala Srebrenica or 1967 Israel type abdication of duty in which Israel is lulled into a false sense of security with international troops ‘protecting’ them, then when the rockets start firing, UN troops drop their weapons and run like hell. Historically, that’s pretty much what has typically happened when UN troops are involved in military security operations.
If the forces are in UN control, there is no realistic hope that they can help disarm and/or fight Hezbollah terrorists. It won’t happen. It will have to be a NATO controlled force to have any hope. I know you UN worshipers don’t like to hear it, but it is a more reality based idea than relying on the UN.
ThymeZone
No, I meant just what I said. Not your version of it.
VidaLoca
Darrell,
This article from HRW discusses artillery-fired cluster munitions:
Mac Buckets
Fire bad.
ThymeZone
Your progress from Doofus to Hipster Doofus is on track.
ThymeZone
As only Darrell can explain, the greatest danger in the world is not people who will shrug at burning the faces off kids in front of their mothers.
It’s people wearing uniforms who are nothing but “peacekeepers.”
If it weren’t for the peacekeepers, we’d HAVE peace in the world, in Darrellspeak.
ThymeZone
Did I make that clear?
Okay, what I meant was, if we’d turn the world over to the people who burn the faces off kids, we’d have peace.
The way to peace lies in burning off the faces of kids.
Not with funny-looking “peacemakers.”
In Darrellspeak.
chopper
yes, links. to campaign speeches. honest to god speeches. what more can you ask for?
bush also talked about going to mars, ending steroid use in baseball and fighting sex slavery. i’d ask you to let us all know when we get to mars, but it looks like you’re already there.
oh, but he has a proposal now! nice news link, i like how it’s from a year and a half after the 2004 campaign you speak of. i can’t imagine why it took a year and a half for bush to come up with an actual plan, i’m sure it was because he spent all that time thinking so, so hard on it.
what a joke. the dems have been pushing energy independence for god knows how long. bush comes up with a plan in 2006 after consumers get pissed enough about gas prices and suddenly the goopers start acting like it was their idea. typical.
John S.
A quick tip: If this is the best “response” Mac has to offer, you know you’re right.
So tell us, Mac, what is more important: What Bush says or what Bush does?
There’s an old saying, a man of words…no, a man of deeds, well, he’s a garden of flowers – no, no – well the point is, he’s like a bunch of weeds.
ThymeZone
This is the man who gave you the Terror Threat Level Alert System Color Codes.
Just remember that the next time you see that we have been on “yellow” every day for four years.
Krista
As in yellow-bellied?
DougJ
I can’t imagine what that must be like.
The Other Steve
Someone please explain to Mac Buckets that Drilling for Oil in ANWR is not a “policy” for eliminating our addiction to oil.
I don’t have time to teach people acting like whiney little two year olds today.
The Other Steve
It’s interesting, how everybody was bamboozled and didn’t realize that Bush was really for breaking our dependence upon oil until his born again moment during his 2006 SOTU address.
According to Mac, this has been Bush’s position all along.
Wishful thinking? Selective Imagination?
Slide
Cole:
and yet John supported the United States invading Iraq to spread democracy. Go figure.
Beej
A couple of points:
1. The UN does have an abysmal record as peacekeepers, especially in the Middle East. Is it fair to judge them on their record? I think so.
2. A fairly large proportion of the Lebanese army is made up of Shia Muslims. How effective and motivated is this army going to be in disarming and containing Hezbollah? I don’t know, but I do have to wonder.
3. (Okay, I know I said a couple of points, but what the hell) Has anyone noticed that we haven’t been talking about Iran’s nuclear program since the Israel/Hezbollah brouhaha started? Chalk one up for Iran.
4. (Just this one more, I promise) A scenario for your consideration-The peacekeepers move in but are unable to disarm Hezbollah. Hezbollah uses the cessation of hostilities, which was costing them dearly, to resupply, re-arm, and gain new converts by helping to rebuild southern Lebanon. At some time down the road, the whole miserable cycle starts again-Hezbollah or Israel does something which causes the other side to attack, the world wrings its collective hands, peacekeepers are sent in with much hoopla and sighs of relief, the warring parties use the cessation of hostilities to resupply, re-arm, etc. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Beej
John, I’m with you. Sometimes I wish they would all just blow themselves up and be done with it!
JSmith
Something we in the Enlightened West need to spend more time on is ensuring that the Sunnis never forget that the Shiites are heretics, and that the Shiites always remember that the Sunnis murdered Ali and Hussein. (That was back in the 7th century, of course – a long time ago for us, but only yesterday in the fun-filled Middle East!)
I don’t think the cease-fire will last very long. If Hezbullah wants to launch some rockets the Lebanese Army will provide targeting information and the UN peacekeeping “force” will be sure to stay under cover.
Mac Buckets
That’s entirely irrelevant to the point, of course, although I’ve been able to show (you know, with actual links to actual news stories — albeit from Rethuglican-Rove-mind-controlled-wingnuts like NPR-burton and MSNB-Diebold) that in this particular regards, the two are at least roughly the same. You guys, on the other hand, have shown zilch. Nada. Not one link. Nothing but pointless and baseless whining. But I’m used to holding myself to a higher standard, of course, so no biggie.
The point is that your functionally retarded little friend is lying (the pathological motivation for which makes me a little sad inside) about imaginary meanie Republicans bullying poor widdle imaginary Democwats and calling them imaginary nasty names about some imaginary policy in a fantasy that not only has zero chance of being true, but doesn’t stand the first test of logic (in short, why would the GOP call the Dems “traitors” for doing what Bush was openly advocating? The answer is in found only TOS’s world of illusion and mist).
So I called him on it, and instead of manning up and admitting he was lying or providing any shred of evidence, he essentially posted (get this) that since he didn’t know about Bush’s alt-energy stance until SOTU 2006, then it didn’t exist, and therefore (I guess) the GOP did call Dems “traitors” because of the oil dependence issue, even though he can’t find a single instance.
Still got his back?
yet another jeff
Didn’t the Powers That Be qualify that bit in Bush’s speech the next day?
Mac Buckets
Being smart? Paying attention? Citing real news sources?
Tip: Your own ignorance isn’t really a great defense for lying about something that even you must admit can’t possible have been true.
scs
You know, that reminds me of a little anecdote. I briefly worked, maybe about a month, as a receptionist for a large, professional-looking, “personnel” agency over the summer while in college. The owner was a guy in his 30’s from Egypt. Well it didn’t take me long to figure out that the whole place was a scam. And that was before the reporters busted him.
One converstaion I had with the owner before I quit struck me. I remember him saying how the only thing he cared about was his family, and the rest of the world could go to hell. I suppose that explained his mind-set that allowed him to rip-off people for a living with elaborate schemes when he could probably with a little more effort have made money the same way legitimately.
If this is a common attitude in the Middle East, then no wonder we have so many problems there. Perhaps it stems from the harsh desert climate, when it was either your family- or the other guy’s family.
yet another jeff
Follow us home? They want us to leave so they can fight us here instead of fighting us there? Is Bush saying that Iraq plans to have a civil war here in the US?