Monday, July 24, 2006
The Butcher's Work
The Butcher’s Work continues. Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament Mahmoud al-Mashhadani castigated the US war effort as “the work of butchers” done “under the slogan of democracy.” Josh Bolten, the president’s chief of staff, as part of their unending efforts to put a happy face on the disastrous and unpopular war, described the speaker as appreciative of the “sacrifices Americans have made.” In other words, Bolten lied his ass off.
As a part of this effort to put lipstick on a pig, the White House released a fact sheet that was simply saturated with lies. This issue is linked to the upcoming confirmation hearings on Ambassador Bolton. It would do us well to remember the advocates of Bolton last year, like the Wall Street Journal, who ignored the evidence against him and took time to smear Bill Clinton, of course, with a lie.
Orifice continues his peddling of conservative lies. Bob Geiger has a decent deconstruction of the incredibly fair and scientific polls of Fox News and Hannity here.
Israel and our administration (through Secretary Rice) have made it clear that there must be no ceasefire for now. Israel maintains that it must be allowed to continue to hammer Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah…in other words, to somehow accomplish what they failed to do after twenty years of occupation. The US and Israel, in the face of the mounting humanitarian disaster (previously described on this blog) have belatedly decided to send relief to the war zone…but to continue to hammer it. Secretary Rice maintains that after this Israeli bombrdment peace will be “sustainable,” magically enough, for the first time in the modern history of the Middle East.
I have previously asked the question “how disproportionate must the slaughter be before the US or Israel decides enough is enough?” The current conflict has resulted in ten times as many Lebanese dead as Israelis. It turns out that my question has been answered by the unknown amount of relief that is going to be sent to Lebanon by the US and Israel. I’m sure these politicians think that this relief will salve the weeping wounds of Lebanon and legitimize the aggression as it has happened so far, but this thinking is what has sustained the violence in the Middle East for generations. James Zogby echoes my opinion here.
Israel still isn’t allowing the UN to ship relief into the area, a curious decision. I can’t help but wonder if the decision is based on spite, seeing as Israel has been the target of more Security Council resolutions than any nation in history. The efforts of conservatives to discredit the UN as an impediment to their desire to trample international law are in close alignment with those desires in Israel.
# posted by BitterHarvest @ 3:22 PM 
