Monday, July 17, 2006
Death on Monday
Kofi Annan called for a cease fire and the installation of UN peacekeepers in Lebanon, a call Israel rejected. Miri Eisin, an Israeli government spokeswoman, said: "I don't think we're at that stage yet. We're at the stage where we want to be sure that Hezbollah is not deployed at our northern border."
In their efforts to ensure that Hezbollah was not deployed at their northern border Israel invaded Lebanon. Israel’s airstrikes continued, killing 17 civilians overnight and another 17 early in the day. Factories and power stations have been targeted. Hezbollah retaliated with rocket strikes into Haifa that killed 8.
In Turkey the Turkish government has vowed to punish the PKK, the Kurdish Workers Party, that is apparently responsible for a raid on a Turkish army post that left 13 soldiers dead. The PKK is considered a terrorist organization by the US, Europe, and Turkey. The PKK has been active in attacks on the Turkish government before, including bombs in Istanbul recently. The PKK and the Turkish government have a long history of violence: in the 1990s the Turkish government cracked down on PKK areas in the southeast of the country, killing tens of thousands.
Things are not going so well in Iraq. A car bomb killed 55 in a town 30 miles from Baghdad yesterday, following the suicide bomber that killed 26 in a Baghdad café and other sectarian violence, including the recent massacre (reported this morning) of another 50 or so people in a town south of Baghdad.
Lebanon’s Daily Star editorial sounds an ominous warning. It points out that Ehud Olmert and Washington are on the same side, reminding the reader that the “bombs and missiles raining down”on their heads are “American-made,” warning that a new generation of militants is being born, and reminding the reader that “Lest we forget, it was during Israel's bloody invasion of Lebanon in 1982 that a young Osama bin Laden watched the destruction of high-rises in Beirut and first resolved to take down the towers of the World Trade Center.” Jonathan Cook, another editorial writer at the paper, also mentions the United States as Israel’s “paymaster.” Al-Ahram (one of Egypt’s main media organizations) is regularly full of vitriol directed towards America regarding the Iraq War or Israeli alliance.
There are and will be concrete repercussions from US political and military action in the Middle East. Perhaps if anther terrorist attack takes place on US soil Americans will not ask themselves “Why do they hate us?” They will already know.
# posted by BitterHarvest @ 8:25 AM 
