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| Iraq + war on terrorism + Middle East conflict + critical perspectives |
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SATURDAY NEWS ROUNDUP A terrible thought occurs to me - that there will be another 9/11 (Robert Fisk) U.S. ripped for inaction on Israeli, Syrian front (The Forward) Israel disappoints the neo-cons: more on Lebanon as a U.S. proxy war (Tony Karon) One day in the life of Bush-Blair democratization (Rami G. Khouri) In Israel, public support, once nearly unanimous, begins to fray (WP) Waiting for the U.N. (Robert Rosenberg ) Iranian official admits Tehran supplied missiles to Hezbollah (Haaretz) Iran to supply Hezbollah with surface-to-air missiles (AFP) U.S. treads softly over Iran's role in crisis (NYT) Israeli commandos stage Tyre raid (BBC) In South Lebanon, a fierce fight for every yard (WP) 'Hezbollah aren't suckers, they know how to fight. You're scared all the time' (The Times) The underground voice of Hezbollah that Israel is still unable to silence (The Times) Protests erupt across the Muslim world (The Independent) Iraqis march to support Hezbollah (LAT) Iraqi civil war has already begun, U.S. troops say (McClatchy) U.S. troops face 'war crimes' claim (BBC)  A history of miscalculationsBy Mark Perry, Conflicts Forum, August 3, 2006 When Ehud Olmert responded to the killing of three Israeli soldiers and the kidnapping of two others by saying that Israel would "destroy" Hezbollah, he meant it. When, five days later, Olmert said that he would hold the Lebanese government responsible for disarming Hezbollah, he meant that too. And when, just fourteen days into the war, he said that Israel would push Hezbollah north of the Litani River he also meant that. Now, on Day 23 of The War for Lebanon, it's clear that Ehud Olmert does not exactly know what he means -- an uncertainty that is resulting from an internal Israeli cabinet debate about the war's goals: something that, we would have thought, might have been decided on the night of July 12. The Israeli cabinet debate is the result of the less-than-stellar military results handed to Olmert by the IDF senior leadership. It is no secret that IDF senior commander Lt. General Dan Halutz believed that the vaunted Israeli Air Force would have little problem chasing Hezbollah from the Lebanese border. As recently as July 28, Halutz was telling the international press that the IAF had inflicted "enormous" damage on Hezbollah "at the strategic level" and that "hundreds of [Hezbollah] fighters" had been killed. After a short lull -- purposely corresponding to the a U.S. call for a 48-hour cessation in Israel's air campaign -- Hezbollah responded, firing 230 rockets at Israel on August 2 and 160 on August 3. This is not the first time that Halutz has miscalculated. Shortly before midnight on July 23, 2002, Halutz ordered a bombing mission that destroyed the house of Hamas militant Salah Shehada -- as well as every member of his family: 15 people in all, including six children. The attack took place after Hamas announced that any cessation in Israeli activities would be followed by a complete end to Hamas operations. When he was killed, Shehada was actually in the process of initialing a ceasefire order for all members of Hamas's brigades, due to take effect immediately. Shehada's killing ended whatever chances for a ceasefire remained and Hamas continued its campaign targeting Israeli civilians. Asked how he felt knowing that his order resulted in the killing of innocent people, Halutz answered by saying that he was undisturbed: "...if you want to know what I feel when I release a bomb, I will tell you: I feel a light bump to the plane as a result of the bomb's release. A second later it's gone, and that's all. That is what I feel." Halutz is now caught in a similar situation. While the U.S. press treated Hassan Nasrallah's recent (August 3) speech saying that Hezbollah would attack Tel Aviv if Israel attacked Beirut as a threat, the Hezbollah leader's clear intent was to limit the war. Condi Rice, touted as an intellectual heavyweight, didn't get it: "The international community needs to say to Hezbollah that these kinds of threats are also not helpful at a time when the international community, the Lebanese people, the Israeli people, all want an end to the hostility," she told CNN. Nasrallah went further, saying that Hezbollah would stop its rocket attacks if Israel stops its "aggression." Halutz, who is still apparently confident in IDF capabilities, apparently agrees with Rice. He told the Israeli cabinet that any attack by Hezbollah on Tel Aviv would result in an attack on the Lebanese infrastructure -- or what's left of it. As in July 2002 -- when an antagonist held out an olive branch -- Halutz may live to regret his words. Hezbollah is alive and fighting well, according to one of the movement's leaders in contact with European officials in Beirut. "The leadership wants to report that it is intact at the very top," one of these diplomatic officials reports, "and was not surprised by the Beirut bombing of last night [Wednesday evening, August 2]." These officials say that Hezbollah's leadership claims that its communications systems -- "though somewhat degraded" -- are still "working well" and that Hezbollah's command and control of its units in the south "remains surprisingly resilient." How long can Hezbollah hold out? According to the European diplomat, the Hezbollah official laughed when he heard the question: "The real question is how long can Israel hold out." Mark Perry is U.S. director of Conflicts Forum. Ending the neoconservative nightmareBy Daniel Levy, Haaretz, August 4, 2006 The key neocon protagonists, their think tanks and publications may be unfamiliar to many Israelis, but they are redefining the region we live in. This tight-knit group of "defense intellectuals" - centered around Bill Kristol, Michael Ledeen, Elliott Abrams, Perle, Feith and others - were considered somewhat off-beat until they teamed up with hawkish well-connected Republicans like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Newt Gingrich, and with the emerging powerhouse of the Christian right. Their agenda was an aggressive unilateralist U.S. global supremacy, a radical vision of transformative regime-change democratization, with a fixation on the Middle East, an obsession with Iraq and an affinity to "old Likud" politics in Israel. Their extended moment in the sun arrived after 9/11. Finding themselves somewhat bogged down in the Iraqi quagmire, the neoconservatives are reveling in the latest crisis, displaying their customary hubris in re-seizing the initiative. The U.S. press and blogosphere is awash with neocon-inspired calls for indefinite shooting, no talking and extension of hostilities to Syria and Iran, with Gingrich calling this a third world war to "defend civilization." Disentangling Israeli interests from the rubble of neocon "creative destruction" in the Middle East has become an urgent challenge for Israeli policy-makers. An America that seeks to reshape the region through an unsophisticated mixture of bombs and ballots, devoid of local contextual understanding, alliance-building or redressing of grievances, ultimately undermines both itself and Israel. The sight this week of Secretary of State Rice homeward bound, unable to touch down in any Arab capital, should have a sobering effect in Washington and Jerusalem. [complete article] See also, Bush's attachment to Israel started with trip to the Holy Land (McClatchy). To win peace, cut off road from DamascusBy Daniel Pipes, The Australian, August 4, 2006 At this point, the Government of Bashar al-Assad should be told immediately to cease supplying Hezbollah, and warned that future violence from south Lebanon will be greeted with what The Wall Street Journal calls an "offer that Syria cannot refuse", meaning military reprisals. As David Bedein explains in Philadelphia's The Evening Bulletin, "for every target hit by Syria's proxy, Israel will single out Syrian targets for attack". Such targets could include the terrorist, military and governmental infrastructures. This approach will work because Hezbollah's stature, strength and skills depend on Syrian support, direct as well as indirect. Given that Syrian territory is the only route by which Iranian aid reaches Hezbollah, focusing on Damascus has the significant side benefit of restricting Iranian influence in the Levant. This plan has its drawbacks and complications - the recent Syrian-Iranian mutual defence treaty, or its giving Hezbollah the option to drag Syria into war - but it has a better chance of success, I believe, than any alternative. Recalling how a similar approach worked in 1998, when the Turkish government successfully pressured Damascus to stop hosting a terrorist leader, the Israeli strategist Efraim Inbar rightly suggests "the time has come to speak Turkish to the Syrians". [complete article] Israel's lost momentBy Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, August 4, 2006 The United States has gone far out on a limb to allow Israel to win and for all this to happen. It has counted on Israel's ability to do the job. It has been disappointed. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has provided unsteady and uncertain leadership. Foolishly relying on air power alone, he denied his generals the ground offensive they wanted, only to reverse himself later. He has allowed his war cabinet meetings to become fully public through the kind of leaks no serious wartime leadership would ever countenance. Divisive cabinet debates are broadcast to the world, as was Olmert's own complaint that "I'm tired. I didn't sleep at all last night" (Haaretz, July 28). Hardly the stuff to instill Churchillian confidence. His search for victory on the cheap has jeopardized not just the Lebanon operation but America's confidence in Israel as well. That confidence -- and the relationship it reinforces -- is as important to Israel's survival as its own army. The tremulous Olmert seems not to have a clue. [complete article]  Comment -- So here we witness a two-pronged strike from the neocons. Daniel Pipes is trying to fuel the fire by encouraging threats against Syria, while Charles Krauthammer -- sounding like a mafia boss -- wants the Israelis to know how much they have disappointed their American backers. After all our generosity... this is what we get in return?!! Krauthammer is correct in suggesting that the risk of an American loss of faith constitutes a major threat to Israel, but wrong to say that this is a threat to Israel's surival. What is potentially under threat is Israel's ability to sustain its unilateralist, militaristic posture under the umbrella of U.S. protection and that constitutes a threat to the whole neoconservative enterprise.And is all of this of interest to the American liberal blogosphere -- an arena that never used to tire of neocon-bashing? Apparently not. The pressing issue of the day is not neocon-inspired mayhem burning up the Middle East; it is whether Joe Lieberman loses his primary.  Israel smashes bridges, roads into BeirutCNN, August 4, 2006 Israeli aircraft blasted main roadways north of Beirut for the first time in the three-week conflict on Friday, knocking out four key bridges. The attacks severed the last major overland route for relief supplies into Lebanon, international aid agencies told The Associated Press on Friday. "This is Lebanon's umbilical cord," Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Program told AP. "This [road] has been the only way for us to bring in aid. We really need to find other ways to bring relief in." Israeli ambassador to the U.N. Dan Gillerman told CNN that Israel is cooperating with the United Nations' relief program. [complete article] See also, Lebanon: Israel wages war of starvation (AP) and Rice signals possible Lebanon compromise (AP). Traumatised and afraid - 300,000 children who want to go homeBy Anne Penketh and Kim Sengupta, The Independent, August 4, 2006 "I don't want to die. I want to go to school," says Jamal, a four-year-old Lebanese boy scarred by the Israeli bombing of his country. Home for Jamal is now a "displacement centre" in the southern town of Jezzine, where his family fled in fear for their lives. "We've had our picnic, and we want to go home now," says another child,staying in a makeshift refugee camp in the Sanayeh public gardens in Beirut. "We are bored and afraid and we want to go home," says another. These are the voices of the dispossessed of Lebanon, the hundreds of thousands of children whose world was changed forever in the seconds that followed the explosion of a bomb. "Mummy, what is a massacre?" another child asks. [complete article]  Lebanese sovereignty: Will it be restored?By Joshua Landis, Syria Comment, August 3, 2006 The three leading politicians in the Lebanese government are the President, Prime Minister, and Speaker of the Parliament. Only one of these officials, PM Siniora, is a friend of the US, and he does not command the Lebanese Army. The other two are friends of Syria. President Emile Lahoud is the Commander in Chief of the Lebanese Army. In theory, he has constitutional control over military affairs. He was appointed by Syria, and his term as President runs for another year. The Presidential contender most likely to replace him is General Michel Aoun, who has allied with the Shiites of Lebanon and has sought to blunt the anti-Syrian attacks of the Siniora government over the last two years. It will be very difficult for the West to build up the Lebanese army under these conditions, to say nothing of the often mentioned fact that the Lebanese Army has a large proportion of Shiite soldiers serving in its ranks, who may not be happy about the task of shooting at fellow Shiites and at Hizbullah members. When PM Siniora and Jumblatt traveled to Washington earlier this year, they went to ask for money and arms to build up the Lebanese Army. Washington promised them a trifling 4 million dollars. This insult was an indication that Washington believes the army is a useless instrument so long as Lahoud is president. The main task of the Lebanese officials was to force Lahoud's exit from the office during the National Dialogue meetings that took place in March and April. Hariri's bloc failed to accomplish this task. In fact, it became clear that they preferred Lahoud to Aoun, his main contender. Hence, Washington gave no money to the army at the time. Nothing has changed in the leadership of the army or presidency of Lebanon to suggest that Washington can now expect the Lebanese government to deploy the army against Hizbullah. How will it ever be able to replace a French led UN force? How will Lebanon regain its sovereignty should Israeli and European troops be placed on its soil to take over the task of policing national and border security. Lebanon rid itself of Syrian troops last year. It looks like it has merely exchanged them for some combination of Western and Israeli troops. [complete article] Israel suffers highest toll yetBy Jonathan Finer and Molly Moore, Washington Post, August 4, 2006 A new wave of Hezbollah rockets killed eight Israeli civilians Thursday, and four soldiers died in ground combat in southern Lebanon, Israel's highest daily death toll in the three-week-old war. Israeli jets blasted targets in Beirut for the first time in almost a week. Israeli forces appeared to be struggling in efforts to control villages and towns across the Lebanese border and push deeper into the country, according to U.N. observers in Lebanon. Most of the day's fighting took place within two miles of the frontier and sometimes only a few hundred yards from it. Hezbollah said its guerrillas destroyed four armored vehicles with antitank missiles during combat in the Aita al-Shaab region, about 15 miles from the Mediterranean, and in the hills around Taibe, about 20 miles to the northeast. In that town, a missile slammed into a house, killing a married couple and their daughter, Lebanese officials said. [complete article] See also, Israel admits air war has failed to end the Hezbollah rocket threat (McClatchy) and For residents of northern Israel, life is reduced to a bomb shelter (McClatchy). Arab despots, not Israel, are now under a greater threatBy Jonathan Steele, The Guardian, August 4, 2006 Hizbullah's victory may do less damage to Israel than to other Arab regimes. The success of a Shia insurgency will encourage other Shias around the region, including those in Saudi Arabia. To the consternation of his American protectors, Iraq's Shia prime minister, Nuri al- Maliki, did not condemn Hizbullah. But the Sunni/Shia issue should not be exaggerated. Hizbullah's appeal across the Arab world is a wider matter of Islamism and the struggle against corrupt despotism. Egypt and, to a lesser extent, Jordan - and even in the medium term Syria, which has backed and armed Hizbullah - will feel the shockwaves running through the Arab street. Those who argue from their pulpits in the mosques that secular modernity inevitably means decadence and selfishness will have gained new followers. Those who say that only Islam can provide the pride and backbone needed to confront the west's cultural and military interventions will be stronger. Israel's Lebanese adventure, and the Bush/Blair folly in supporting it, have done the west damage that will last for many, many years. [complete article] 'The U.S. is the kiss of death' in the Arab worldBy Jim Lobe, IPS (Asia Times), August 5, 2006 After almost four weeks of fighting between Lebanon's Hezbollah militia and Israel, the US administration's ambitions to transform the Arab Middle East into a pro-Western, more democratic region are fading fast. Not only is Washington's thus far staunch support for Israel losing Arab "hearts and minds" at an astonishing pace, but the "moderate" governments and non-governmental forces the administration had hoped would act as catalysts for reform are increasingly isolated across the region, according to Middle East specialists. "I have never seen the United States being so demonized or savaged by Arab commentators, by Arab politicians," Hisham Melham, veteran Washington correspondent for Lebanon's An-Nahar newspaper, told a conference this week at the Brookings Institution, an influential think-tank. [complete article]  Israeli attacks amount to war crimesHuman Rights Watch, August 3, 2006 Israeli forces have systematically failed to distinguish between combatants and civilians in their military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Human Rights Watch said in report released today. The pattern of attacks in more than 20 cases investigated by Human Rights Watch researchers in Lebanon indicates that the failures cannot be dismissed as mere accidents and cannot be blamed on wrongful Hezbollah practices. In some cases, these attacks constitute war crimes. The 50-page report, "Fatal Strikes: Israel's Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Lebanon," analyzes almost two dozen cases of Israeli air and artillery attacks on civilian homes and vehicles. Of the 153 dead civilians named in the report, 63 are children. More than 500 people have been killed in Lebanon by Israeli fire since fighting began on July 12, most of them civilians. "The pattern of attacks shows the Israeli military's disturbing disregard for the lives of Lebanese civilians," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "Our research shows that Israel's claim that Hezbollah fighters are hiding among civilians does not explain, let alone justify, Israel's indiscriminate warfare." [complete article] Iraqis gather for pro-Hizbollah rallyAP (via The Age), August 4, 2006 Thousands of Shi'ite youths, some armed and many covered in white shrouds, gathered in Baghdad for a pro-Hizbollah rally, amid increasing sectarian violence that senior US generals warn could lead to civil war. The Shi'ites arrived from southern provinces, heeding the call of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr who will preside over the rally after Friday prayers in the Sadr City slum to show support for the Lebanese Shi'ite Hizbollah group in its fight against Israel. Buses carrying rally participants were plastered with pictures of Hizbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, who has assumed a hero status for many Arabs for confronting the Israelis. The men waved the yellow flags of Hizbollah and carried banners proclaiming "Here we are Lebanon." "This is all to demonstrate our support for the Lebanese people and to condemn the aggression of the Israeli enemy," said Saheb al-Ameri, an al-Sadr aide in the southern city of Najaf. "They are willing to face death even if it's on the road" to Baghdad. Iraqi government television said the Defence Ministry had approved the demonstration, a sign of the public anger over Israel's offensive in Lebanon and of al-Sadr's stature as a major player in Iraqi politics. [complete article] 21 killed by suicide bomber in Afghan southBy Carlotta Gall, New York Times, August 4, 2006 A suicide bomber blew up his car in the center of a small-town bazaar in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing himself and 21 civilians and injuring 14 others, among them children. Hours earlier, 4 NATO soldiers were killed and 10 wounded in two attacks in the same area, Afghan and NATO officials said. In a nearby village, Afghan police officers clashed with insurgents. One policeman was killed and three were wounded, a doctor in a hospital near the village said. The violence, while following several months of increased attacks by Taliban insurgents, appeared to be intended to rattle the NATO forces, which took over military command of the region from the United States on Monday, officials said. Three British soldiers were killed Tuesday in the area, and eight people were killed Monday by a car bomb. [complete article] Yet more proof of the limits of Israeli unilateralismBy Christoph Bertram, Daily Star, August 3, 2006 The current discussion surrounding an international force for Southern Lebanon has focused almost exclusively on which countries and organizations - NATO, the European Union, the United Nations - will provide the troops. This is an important issue, to be sure, but the real question concerns the changes that Israel must undertake in exchange for this force being put in place and assuming the risk of such a mission. No international force will simply protect Israel from Hizbullah rockets while Israel continues its current strategy. After all, the recent military escalation in the region is at least partly due to that strategy. If an international force simply allows Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government to pursue its plans further, the countries that provide troops for the international force will not only be seen as rubberstamping Israeli policy, but will also be dragged into its failure. To criticize Israel's strategy as flawed is not to condone the acts of Hamas or Hizbullah or to deny Israel's right to self-defense. It is merely to point out what should be obvious: Israel's efforts to find a unilateral solution to its security problems - whether occupation, withdrawal, or separation - have failed. [complete article] See also, Critics debate if Israel's response to Hezbollah ambush is justified (McClatchy), Israel begins carving buffer zone (CSM), and The Times interview with Ehud Olmert. Going the distanceBy Robert Padavick, Yahoo, August 2, 2006 Has Hezbollah emerged as a victor of sorts after three weeks of fighting with Israel? Milt Bearden says yes. And he's in a good position to address the question. Now retired, he serves on the board of directors of Conflicts Forum, a U.K.-based nongovernmental organization that works to foster dialogue between Islamist groups and the West. In that role he says he has been in talks with Hezbollah officials about the group's transition to a more politically-focused party, both before and after the 2005 Lebanese elections in which Hezbollah won 14 parliament seats nationwide. [complete article] Between two friendsBy Tom Segev, Haaretz, August 3, 2006 ...as we approach the fifth anniversary of the attack on the Twin Towers, it is possible to say that the country many Israelis adopted as their beacon of values, almost a second motherland, has lost a great deal of its moral authority in the past few years. This is a good opportunity to rethink our relationship with Europe. During the past 39 years since the Six-Day War, the United States did not force Israel to pull out of the West Bank, but more than once acted to block Israeli military actions. Over time, we have grown accustomed to the Americans saving us, not only from the Arabs, but from ourselves too. Not in this war. It is still unclear whether this war was coordinated with the United States; only the release of government records of the past three weeks will shed light on this. Whatever the case may be, the impression is that the Americans are linking the events in Lebanon to their failing adventure in Iraq. [complete article] Who is winning the peace in Lebanon?By Tony Karon, Time.com, August 2, 2006 Even as Israel extends its military's reach deeper into Lebanon, the war there may now increasingly be more about perception than position. After three weeks of fighting, the tenacity of Hizballah's fighters in the face of fierce Israeli air and ground assaults, and their continued ability to lob rockets into Israel, has created a problem of perception for both Israel's leaders and the Bush Administration. The Israeli public has been questioning whether the war is actually being won, while Hizballah's survival as a fighting force and its ability to exact a price from Israel has boosted its standing not only in Lebanon, but throughout the Arab world. Indeed, if international demands for a truce are heeded on the basis of the present battlefield reality, the outcome would look more like a hard-fought tie than a decisive victory for Israel. And that would be bad news both for the domestic political prospects of the current Israeli government and for the Bush administration's "new Middle East" agenda. [complete article] France moves in to fill the U.S. vacuumBy Bronwen Maddox, The Times, August 3, 2006 The U.S. took a long step towards the position of France yesterday in drawing up a United Nations resolution on the Lebanon crisis. The text, which could be presented to the UN Security Council as early as today, represents concessions by France, the US and Britain, but its centre of gravity is closest to French views. In a week when Tony Blair delivered his sharpest ever criticism of the US’s conduct of the War on Terror, this reflects a realignment of loyalties and some weakening of US influence, which may extend beyond this crisis. [complete article] Ground to a haltBy Robert Pape, New York Times, August 3, 2006 Evidence of the broad nature of Hezbollah's resistance to Israeli occupation can be seen in the identity of its suicide attackers. Hezbollah conducted a broad campaign of suicide bombings against American, French and Israeli targets from 1982 to 1986. Altogether, these attacks -- which included the infamous bombing of the Marine barracks in 1983 -- involved 41 suicide terrorists. In writing my book on suicide attackers, I had researchers scour Lebanese sources to collect martyr videos, pictures and testimonials and the biographies of the Hezbollah bombers. Of the 41, we identified the names, birth places and other personal data for 38. Shockingly, only eight were Islamic fundamentalists. Twenty-seven were from leftist political groups like the Lebanese Communist Party and the Arab Socialist Union. Three were Christians, including a female high-school teacher with a college degree. All were born in Lebanon. What these suicide attackers -- and their heirs today -- shared was not a religious or political ideology but simply a commitment to resisting a foreign occupation. Nearly two decades of Israeli military presence did not root out Hezbollah. The only thing that has proven to end suicide attacks, in Lebanon and elsewhere, is withdrawal by the occupying force. Thus the new Israeli land offensive may take ground and destroy weapons, but it has little chance of destroying the Hezbollah movement. In fact, in the wake of the bombings of civilians, the incursion will probably aid Hezbollah's recruiting. [complete article] See also, Among Militia's Patient loyalists, confidence and belief in victory (WP), Hezbollah leader Nasrallah reaching 'legendary' status (McClatchy), and Hizbullah guerrillas await fight amid ruin (CSM). Comment -- Israel and its Western supporters have a vested interest in emphasizing Hezbollah's Islamist identity over and above its being a resistance movement. Many Americans - and Israelis for that matter - nevertheless have no trouble identifying with the motto live free or die.But the Israel-Lebanon border is internationally recognized and Israel ended its occupation in 2000... Are we supposed to have forgotten that the context for the current war is an enduring occupation of the West Bank, a renewed Israeli military incursion and onslaught on Gaza and an utter refusal by Israel, the US and Europe, to accept the democratic expression of the will of the Palestinian people? Entire Lebanese family killed in Israeli attack on hospitalBy Robert Fisk, The Independent, August 3, 2006 An attack on a hospital, the killing of an entire Lebanese family, the seizure of five men in Baalbek and a new civilian death toll - 468 men, women and children - marked the 22nd day of Israel's latest war on Lebanon. The Israelis claimed that helicopter-borne soldiers had seized senior Hizbollah leaders although one of them turned out to be a local Baalbek grocer. In a village near the city, Israeli air strikes killed the local mayor's son and brother and five children in their family. The battle for Lebanon was fast moving out of control last night. Lebanese troops abandoned many of their checkpoints and European diplomats were warning their colleagues that militiamen were taking over the positions. Up to 8,000 Israeli troops were reported to have crossed the border by last night in what was publicised as a military advance towards the Litani river. But far more soldiers would be needed to secure so large an area of southern Lebanon. [complete article] Israeli troops raid south Gaza; 8 killedAP (via NYT), August 3, 2006 Israeli troops raided southern Gaza early Thursday, killing at least eight Palestinians, including four militants and an 8-year-old boy, Palestinian officials said, as Israel pressed ahead with its two-front offensive against Islamic militants. [complete article] Worry about Iran, but also engage itBy Michael Young, Daily Star, August 3, 2006 As the war in Lebanon metastasizes into ever more tortuous strands, we are nearing the point where the conflict's aftermath might resolve nothing at all. In that context, the meeting between French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy and his Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki, on Monday at least had the merit of opening a diplomatic channel that will be needed to pave the way for a broader political resolution. On the surface, nothing suggests the Bush administration welcomes such an opening, or that Iran will deal with Lebanon's predicament responsibly. The Israeli onslaught in Lebanon is an American effort to clip Iran's wings, while Mottaki's "reservations" about Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's peace plan suggest the Iranians are willing to cause trouble (and won't hesitate to shape Hizbullah's response to the government's proposal, grudgingly endorsed by the party's ministers). The situation recalls what happened in April 1996, when Israel launched its "Grapes of Wrath" operation in Lebanon. Then as now, American diplomacy was in a rut, and since the Qana killings last Sunday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has seemed bewildered in offering a path out of the mounting mess. A decade ago, during "Grapes of Wrath," both the Clinton administration and the French government had proposed separate resolution plans. After the then-Qana massacre, Syrian President Hafez Assad embraced the French plan - which became the April Understanding - proposed by Foreign Minister Herve de Charette, leaving US Secretary of State Warren Christopher out in the cold. The Americans had wanted to enforce harsher conditions, but they entered the negotiation process too late, openly on Israel's side, and this allowed France to fill the breach through more timely, more evenhanded intervention. That's why, whatever Washington's anxieties today, it would be a mistake to ignore contacts with Tehran. The French are providing a useful service, and if they are doing so mainly for their own purposes, it also makes sense for the Bush administration to use this to explore ways to open a channel of its own. [complete article] Iraq civil war warning for BlairBBC News, August 3, 2006 Civil war is a more likely outcome in Iraq than democracy, Britain's outgoing ambassador in Baghdad has warned Tony Blair in a confidential memo. William Patey, who left the Iraqi capital last week, also predicted the break-up of Iraq along ethnic lines. He did also say that "the position is not hopeless" - but said Iraq would remain "messy and difficult" for the next five to 10 years. [complete article] In Iraq, it's hard to trust anyone in uniformBy Damien Cave, New York Times, August 3, 2006 "Whenever I see uniforms now, I figure they must be militias," Mr. Hamid said in a recent interview. "I immediately try to avoid them. If I have my gun, I know I need to be ready to use it." Such is the attitude of Iraqis in this capital shellshocked and made fearful by violence that seems to be committed almost daily by men dressed as those who are supposed to protect and serve. The audacious kidnapping on Monday was just the latest case of men using the signals of law and safety -- a uniform, a vehicle with blue lights, a patch on the sleeve -- to attack and abduct. Everywhere Iraqis in uniform go, from ice cream shops to checkpoints, people now flee. The mottled mix of green, blue and khaki camouflage, along with the blue shirts of the local police, have all blurred into a flag for alarm. "En eles," Iraqis in Baghdad now say when a friend has been taken; in traditional Arabic it means chewed up, but in the streets it has come to mean taken by mysterious men without explanation. [complete article] Officers allegedly pushed 'kill counts'By Borzou Daragahi and Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times, August 3, 2006 Military prosecutors and investigators probing the killing of three Iraqi detainees by U.S. troops in May believe the unit's commanders created an atmosphere of excessive violence by encouraging "kill counts" and possibly issuing an illegal order to shoot Iraqi men. At a military hearing Wednesday on the killing of the detainees near Samarra, witnesses painted a picture of a brigade that operated under loose rules allowing wanton killing and tolerating violent, anti-Arab racism. Some military officials believe that the shooting of the three detainees and the killing of 24 civilians in November in Haditha reveal failures in the military chain of command, in one case to establish proper rules of engagement and in the other to vigorously investigate incidents after the fact. [complete article] White House asks Congress to redefine war crimesBy Kate Zernike, New York Times, August 3, 2006 ...senators said Congress should not endorse any treatment it would not want used on American soldiers. "We must remain a nation that is different from, and above, our enemies," said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona. The differences between the administration and the Senate were most pronounced when Mr. McCain asked Mr. Gonzales whether statements obtained through "illegal and inhumane treatment" should be admissible. Mr. Gonzales paused for almost a minute before responding. "The concern that I would have about such a prohibition is, what does it mean?" he said. "How do you define it? I think if we could all reach agreement about the definition of cruel and inhumane and degrading treatment, then perhaps I could give you an answer." [complete article] Top military lawyers oppose plan for special courtsBy R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post, August 3, 2006 The military's top uniformed lawyers, appearing at a Senate hearing yesterday, criticized key provisions of a proposed new U.S. plan for special military courts, affirming that they did not see eye to eye with the senior Bush administration political appointees who developed the plan and presented it to them last week. The lawyers' rare, open disagreement with civilian officials at the Pentagon, the Justice Department and the White House came during discussions of proposed new rules for the use of evidence derived from hearsay or coercion and the possible exclusion of defendants from the trials in some circumstances. The administration has said such juries -- to be established within a new system of military "commissions" tailored for trying war crimes in an age of terrorism -- are the only appropriate forum for bringing to justice members or associates of terrorist groups and those accused of anti-U.S. acts in conjunction with such groups. [complete article] Israel hit by Hezbollah barrageBBC News, August 2, 2006 Hezbollah fighters have launched more than 230 rockets from Lebanon, the biggest single-day barrage since the conflict began, Israeli officials say. One person was killed and dozens injured as some rockets landed up to 70km inside Israel, the deepest so far. The upsurge came as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel had destroyed Hezbollah's infrastructure. [complete article] Israel's strategic impasseBy Paul Rogers, OpenDemocracy, August 1, 2006 In recent years a complex system of movement sensors, CCTV monitors, physical barriers and patrol routes has been established, enabling the entire [Israel-Lebanon] border to be monitored on a continual and detailed basis, so much so that any action, no matter how small, can be checked and countered. The establishment of these frontier defences has been at the core of a reorientation of the IDF described in 2006 by the chief-of-staff, General Dan Halutz. According to Defense News, Halutz "cited Israel's sensor-fused network along the northern border as an example of how the nation is achieving 'full situational awareness through intelligence superiority'. Halutz said Israel's operational concept of 'knowing first, understanding first, deciding first and acting first' allows Israel to choose the time, place and conditions when it will act'" (see Barbara Opall-Rome, "Raid Reveals Hole in Israeli Net", Defense News, 17 July 2006 [subscription only]). Such an approach is accompanied by an extensive reconnaissance capability designed to provide near-total information superiority and a stand-off capacity to respond to perceived threats with air strikes, naval bombardment and, in some circumstances, the use of special forces. The entire approach is seen to be supremely high-tech, very modern and able to ensure Israel's security without having to maintain expensive ground forces of a size and at a level of training that was necessary in the past. Almost everything about this approach has been found wanting by the events of 25 June onwards. Hamas's capture of Gilad Shalit was bad enough, but Hizbollah's incursion near Za'arit on the Lebanese border on 12 July was far worse. As Defense News puts it: "Evading dozens of eyes trained on computer screens in the base's combat information center, the operatives disabled at least one camera, penetrated a so-called dead zone of the border fence, and ambushed reservists despatched to investigate alarms." A number of senior retired Israeli military officers are now deeply critical of the IDF's embrace of technocentric warfare, and profess the belief that this has been achieved at the expense of what is often termed "basic soldiering". There is also recognition that the Hizbollah militia have become far more competent in their understanding of the Israeli moves towards high-tech warfare and have recognised some of the weak points in the entire system. [complete article] See also, Wooing Lebanese hearts, one leaflet at a time (CSM). Nasrallah and the three LebanonsBy Sami Moubayed, Asia Times, August 3, 2006 Nasrallah has outgrown his Shi'ite identity and transformed himself into a pan-Lebanese, pan-Arab and pan-Islamic leader. The fact that he is a cleric, a Muslim and a Shi'ite is actually of little importance at this stage of his war with Israel. One Lebanon, mostly in the south, is that of Hezbollah, a Lebanon of Shi'ites and the epicenter of anti-Israeli rhetoric and action. This Lebanon is co-shared by the Amal movement of Nabih Berri. Not all inhabitants of this Lebanon are members of Hezbollah, but all of them respect and love Nasrallah. In the 1960s, this Lebanon used to receive no more than 0.7% of the state budget for public works and hospitalization, while the other two Lebanons were being described as the "Switzerland of the East". This is the no-alcohol Lebanon of veiled women, bearded men, poverty-stricken districts and ubiquitous posters of ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the late leader of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. This is the Lebanon we see on Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV. This Lebanon is anti-American and anti-Israeli to the bone. Many here, Nasrallah included, speak fluent English, but prefer to converse, think and write in Arabic. French culture in this Lebanon is minimal. A friend of this correspondent lived in the Jnah district of Beirut. When he wanted to move out and sell his furniture, a member of Hezbollah visited him, saying he would buy all of the furniture and appliances and donate them, in the name of Hezbollah, to needy families in the Shi'ite community. And he did. Another story of Nasrallah's Lebanon is that of a poor woman from the Shi'ite community. She was finding a hard time making ends meet until a member of Hezbollah visited her home in al-Dahiyyieh, a Shi'ite suburb of Beirut. He presented her with a brand-new sewing machine, telling her to work on it and produce sweaters and scarves, promising that all of her output would be bought by Hezbollah. Many hundreds of families in Shi'ite Lebanon live off monthly stipends delivered to their homes at the start of every month, in a sealed envelope, from the secretary general of Hezbollah. The families of the wounded, the arrested in Israeli jails and those who died in combat receive free education and hospitalization, at the expense of Hezbollah. This is the Lebanon that is being targeted by Israel. For the reasons mentioned above, among others, it will be difficult - if not impossible - to turn the tables against Hezbollah and Nasrallah in their Lebanon. Simply put, Nasrallah is king in his Lebanon. Disarming him by force would be impossible. [complete article] Refugees overwhelm LebanonBy Scott Peterson, Christian Science Monitor, August 2, 2006 Once the enchanting tree-lined preserve of sweethearts and families alike, Beirut's small Sanaya Park has been turned into a campground by hundreds of Lebanon's war refugees. "God help us, we did not even take our shoes," cries Halima Doughan, who brought her eight children here when the Hizbullah-Israeli conflict erupted July 12 and bombs fell close to her home near the airport. As workers Tuesday assembled water and shower facilities - bracing for swelling numbers coming here as on-the-ground fighting spreads - the displaced know they are just one small part of a severe humanitarian crisis now engulfing Lebanon. In hardest hit areas, the level of destruction resembles that of the Chechen capital Grozny. The UN estimate of 700,000 displaced resembles, in scale, the mass exodus from Rwanda in 1994, Kosovo in 1999, and for years from Sudan and Central Africa. [complete article] Battling the arc of extremismBy Tony Blair, World Affairs Council (via BBC), August 2, 2006 We will continue to do all we can to halt the hostilities. But once that has happened, we must commit ourselves to a complete renaissance of our strategy to defeat those that threaten us. There is an arc of extremism now stretching across the Middle East and touching, with increasing definition, countries far outside that region. To defeat it will need an alliance of moderation, that paints a different future in which Muslim, Jew and Christian; Arab and Western; wealthy and developing nations can make progress in peace and harmony with each other. My argument to you today is this: we will not win the battle against this global extremism unless we win it at the level of values as much as force, unless we show we are even-handed, fair and just in our application of those values to the world. [complete article] See also, Blair urged to take Lebanon back seat (FT). Comment -- I'm sure there was a glow of warm satisfaction radiating through Downing Street when they came up with the phrase, "arc of extremism" - so much more sophisticated than Washington's crude "axis of evil." Unfortunately for Blair, he seems oblivious to the fact that he already occupies a place in the detritus of global politics. Cute phrases are no substitute for credibility and integrity.
Palestinians in Gaza find heroes in Hezbollah as it inflicts harm on a common foeBy Greg Myre, New York Times, August 2, 2006 As Palestinian deaths mount in the fight with Israel in the Gaza Strip, many here say they take a measure of satisfaction in the pain Hezbollah has inflicted on Israel in Lebanon. At the P.L.O. Flag Shop, a local store that specializes in Palestinian souvenirs, the best-selling items for the past couple of weeks have been posters, T-shirts, buttons and coffee mugs featuring Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. "If anyone fights Israel, we will support them," said one customer, Ahmed Youssef, an engineering student at the Islamic University, who bought a Nasrallah poster and a Hezbollah flag. "I'm here because I sympathize with Hezbollah. It's the least we can do." [complete article] Chebaa Farms: Important location, but little strategic valueBy Matthew Schofield, McClatchy, July 31, 2006 At first glance, the area known as Chebaa Farms doesn't look like the kind of place that would be a key issue in a Lebanese-Israeli peace process. The landscape is covered in gray sand and dust-tinted scrub brush. Its strategic value is debatable. It's not even clear to which country the area really belongs. But for the past six years, since Israeli forces ended their 18-year occupation of Lebanon, Chebaa Farms has been a focal point of much of the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. Before the current fighting began July 12, 15 Israeli soldiers had died in clashes since 2000 with Hezbollah. Seven of those deaths happened at Chebaa Farms. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has demanded that Israel withdraw from Chebaa Farms. Lebanese officials in Beirut say they're certain that the fate of Chebaa Farms will be on any negotiating agenda - and that U.S. officials finally have agreed to talk about the matter. [complete article] Syrians give the Lebanese VIP treatmentBy Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times, August 2, 2006 The barbershop here on a shady side street says it's for VIPs, and a cut could set you back a hefty $20 or more. But not if you're from Lebanon. A sign lets customers know that Lebanese refugees get trimmed and shaved for free. Barber Tarek Hammami has also hit up his clients, the well-to-do kind who can afford his elite haircuts, and talked them into delivering truckloads of fans, small refrigerators and food to shelters for those who have fled the violence in Lebanon. "All the Lebanese who ended up here in Damascus, they're poor people who have nowhere else to go. That's one reason we help," Hammami said Monday. "But there's another reason. We feel that maybe what they're doing to the Lebanese people, maybe they'll do to us, to all the Arab people, next. Maybe next year is our turn." [complete article] Lebanon crisis deepens Israeli Arabs' rift with the stateBy Ron Bousso, AFP (via Yahoo), August 2, 2006 Traditionally torn between an Arab identity and a reluctant loyalty to Israel, the nation's sizeable Arab minority has taken a clear stand against the lethal offensive in Lebanon, deepening the rift with its Jewish compatriots. The families and neighbors of the three Israeli Arab children who have been killed by Hezbollah rockets during the three-week offensive have blamed Israel instead of the Shiite militia for the deaths. "We are not the Hezbollah's victims. We are the victims of Israel," Suleiman Abu Saluk told AFP shortly after two Israeli Arab brothers, aged three and seven, died in a rocket attack on his neighbour's house in Nazareth on July 19. "We are the victims of Israel's aggression against Lebanon," he said. [complete article] 9/11 panel suspected deception by PentagonBy Dan Eggen, Washington Post, August 2, 2006 Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon's initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate. Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, according to several commission sources. Staff members and some commissioners thought that e-mails and other evidence provided enough probable cause to believe that military and aviation officials violated the law by making false statements to Congress and to the commission, hoping to hide the bungled response to the hijackings, these sources said. In the end, the panel agreed to a compromise, turning over the allegations to the inspectors general for the Defense and Transportation departments, who can make criminal referrals if they believe they are warranted, officials said. [complete article] 9/11 Live: The NORAD TapesBy Michael Bronner, Vanity Fair, August 2, 2006 The story of what happened in that room [in the Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS), of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)], and when, has never been fully told, but is arguably more important in terms of understanding America's military capabilities that day than anything happening simultaneously on Air Force One or in the Pentagon, the White House, or NORAD's impregnable headquarters, deep within Cheyenne Mountain, in Colorado. It's a story that was intentionally obscured, some members of the 9/11 commission believe, by military higher-ups and members of the Bush administration who spoke to the press, and later the commission itself, in order to downplay the extent of the confusion and miscommunication flying through the ranks of the government. The truth, however, is all on tape. [complete article] Losing hope in IraqGhaith Abdul-Ahad interviewed by openDemocracy, August 1, 2006 openDemocracy: Do you think Iraq can remain unified? Ghaith Abdul-Ahad: Of course Iraq can stay unified. There's a huge crisis at the moment, but the problem is not Shi'a militia killing Sunnis or Sunni insurgents bombing Shi'a mosques, but rather, it's the hatred inside the communities. The two communities are looking at each other with so much distrust and anger – the barriers are already there. It took maybe a hundred years for Iraq to come from that kind of sectarianism into a situation where it's fine if you're Sunni, Shi'a, or protestant or Catholic – it's just cultural differences. Now we've regressed to that mentality of 100 or 150 years ago where it's not fine. I don't know what will undo this situation. I believe that sectarian fighting and civil war has its own mechanism and momentum, and it's already going in that direction. People always compare Iraq to Lebanon but I think it's more similar to former Yugoslavia. It's a bit like a Croatia-Serbia-Bosnia situation that you're talking about in Iraq because it's easy to imagine the three states. This is why people couldn't divide Lebanon, because it was so impossible to divide. But it's very easy to divide Iraq into Kurds, Shi'a, Sunni. The real fighting, the "Sarajevo of Iraq", will be around Kirkuk, Baquba, this belt around Baghdad. There are six million people in Baghdad, and the ethnic composition is not straightforward. Now we're talking about the east part of the city being predominantly Shi'a, and the west mostly Sunni. It didn't just get like this over night, it had its roots and it's been happening in the last three or four years. If you came to me in 2002 with a map of Baghdad and asked me to pinpoint the Shi'a-Sunni neighbourhoods, apart from Sadr (formerly Saddam) city and Adhamiya (where the holiest Sunni shrine in Iraq is), you couldn't really distinguish which was which. Now I can draw clear lines, even streets, though not houses, which totally define Sunni from Shi'a neighbourhoods. This is what is happening in Baghdad at the moment, the neighbourhoods are pretty much barricaded. [complete article] U.S. troops 'smiled before killing'BBC News, August 2, 2006 Four US paratroopers charged with murdering three detainees in Iraq smiled before shooting them, a military court has heard from a fellow soldier. Private First Class Bradley Mason told the hearing at a US base near the Iraqi city of Tikrit that one of the accused threatened to kill him if he talked. He also said soldiers had been ordered to "kill all the male insurgents" in the operation on 9 May of this year. [complete article] Troops fight to expand foothold in RamadiBy Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post, August 2, 2006 Under a blistering sun, 1st Lt. Matthew Arabian gripped his M-4 rifle and sprinted across a Ramadi intersection cratered by bombs, ducking through a hole blasted in an adjacent brick wall. "We call that the circle of death," said Arabian, 34, of Vienna, Va., crouching to avoid snipers who target the crossroads from as far away as 900 yards. Around him were gutted buildings and trash-strewn streets, evidence of more than two years of combat in Ramadi. "We're in the heart of an insurgent hotbed," said Arabian, his face streaked with sweat. "We've walked into their back yard." [complete article] Audit: Corruption in Iraq a 'pandemic'By Pauline Jelinek, AP (via Yahoo), August 2, 2006 Corruption is "a virtual pandemic in Iraq," threatening rebuilding efforts, international aid and citizen confidence needed for a fledgling democracy, a government report said Tuesday. One Iraqi official has estimated that corruption costs the country $4 billion annually. A recent survey indicated a third of Iraqis polled had paid a bribe to get products or services in the past 12 months and that they had a "core mistrust" of the army and police. The details are cited in the quarterly report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. [complete article] Four British soldiers die as army fights on two frontsBy Richard Norton-Taylor and Ben Hammersley, The Guardian, August 2, 2006 Four British soldiers were killed yesterday in Afghanistan and Iraq, driving home a stark reality that the army is now facing an insurgency violently opposed to its presence on two fronts. In one of the worst days for the army in recent years, three British soldiers were killed, and another critically injured, in an ambush in southern Afghanistan. In Iraq a soldier from the 1st Battalion, Light Infantry, was killed by a mortar fired into the old State Building, which serves as a base for the multinational force in Basra. It is the first time a British soldier in Iraq has been killed inside a base. [complete article] The most unsuccessful warBy Ze'ev Sternhell, Haaretz, August 2, 2006 No situation can continue to exist for long without an ideological reason. That's how when once it was clear that it was not achieving its aims, an unsuccessful military campaign was upgraded with the wave of a magic wand to the level of a war of survival. When everyone understood that a moral reason had to be found both for the dimensions of the destruction sowed in Lebanon and the killing of the civilian population there, and for the Israeli dead and wounded (nobody is even talking about the exposure of the entire civilian population in the North of Israel to enemy fire while people are kept in disgraceful conditions in bomb shelters), a war of survival was invented, which by nature must be long and exhausting. That is how a campaign of collective punishment that was begun in haste, without proper judgment and on the basis of incorrect assessments, including promises that the army is incapable of fulfilling, turned into a war of life and death, if not some kind of second War of Independence. In the press there have even been embarrassing comparisons to the struggle against Nazism, comparisons that are not only a crude distortion of history, but disgrace the memory of the Jews who were exterminated. [complete article] IDF commandos nab five low-level Hezbollah men in Baalbek raidBy Amos Harel and Yoav Stern, Haaretz, August 2, 2006 Israel Defense Forces commandos completed a raid of the Hezbollah stronghold of Baalbek in east Lebanon at daybreak Wednesday, in what Lebanese security sources described as a major operation against suspected Hezbollah positions. In Baalbek, the commandos captured five Hezbollah militants and killed at least 10 others before completing the operation and safely returning to Israel, IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz said. The IDF confirmed that its troops returned from the operation to their base in Israel unharmed and that several militants were captured by the raiding forces and taken back to Israel. None of those seized were high-ranking Hezbollah officials, however, as the IDF had hoped. Halutz said Wednesday that the soldiers had not aimed to take any individuals in particular, but rather to demonstrate that the IDF could reach any part of Lebanon. [complete article] Man killed by Katyusha fire on kibbutz north of NahariyaBy Amos Harel, Jack Khoury and Eli Ashkenazi, Haaretz, August 2, 2006 An Israeli man was killed Wednesday when a Katyusha struck Kibbutz Saar, north of Nahariya, as Hezbollah marked the resumption of strikes on northern Israel with a record number of over 200 rockets. The strike brings to 19 the death toll from the rocket attacks since they began on July 12. [complete article] Comment -- With the IDF's commando raid in Baalbek, the war has turned full circle. Hezbollah took its hostages and now the IDF has theirs. Of course, in the language that legitimizes the actions of one side while delegitimizing the actions of the other, Israel's prisoners will not be referred to as hostages. IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz's claim that they were not going after anyone in particular is hardly credible and the fact that one of the men captured happens to be called Hussein Nasrallah, begs the question: On a flimsy piece of intelligence, did the IDF imagine that they were on a mission to kill or capture Hassan Nasrallah?With the death toll in Lebanon now reaching 828 with an estimated 3200 wounded, there are those who insist that Israel still holds the moral high ground. Nadav Shragai, writes from Israel: We cannot become confused and allow the world and ourselves, and particularly the Arab citizens of Israel who live among us, to turn things upside down. Hezbollah, like Palestinian terror, harms women and children with malice in a systematic fashion. We do it rarely and by mistake. These things must be said just because things that are self evident tend to be forgotten.Israel's military forces distinguish themselves from their foes and perhaps every other fighting force on the planet by their code of Purity of Arms. It states: The IDF servicemen and women will use their weapons and force only for the purpose of their mission, only to the necessary extent and will maintain their humanity even during combat. IDF soldiers will not use their weapons and force to harm human beings who are not combatants or prisoners of war, and will do all in their power to avoid causing harm to their lives, bodies, dignity and property.And if the IDF actually upheld this code perhaps it could reasonably claim that it sets a moral standard for warfare. Yet through its actions, "purity of arms" has become the definition of Israeli hypocrisy. The IDF's onslaught on Lebanese civilians over the last three weeks has already been well documented. And when writers such as Shragai assert that the IDF would never hide behind civilians, they need look no further than a recent report by the Israeli human rights group, B'Tselem, to read about the latest example of Israeli soldiers using Palestinian civilians as human shields. Although it can be argued that warfare, by definition, constitutes a fundamental breakdown of morality, the most insidious loss of moral sensibility arises in those who are convinced of their own virtue. The self-righteous construct their own tower of moral invulnerability. All those who lie outside its protection are regarded as lesser beings who lack moral authority - they can safely be ignored. In truth, virtue should be measured by effect - not declaration - while those who most vigorously assert their own goodness do so most often simply because they are intent on hiding their own failings. 'You go a bit crazy when you see little body after little body coming up out of the ground'By Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, The Guardian, August 2, 2006 What is obvious to everyone covering this conflict is that children are bearing the brunt of it. The few official figures collated so far seem to support this. Unicef says that 37 of the 60 dead in Qana on Sunday were children, and everywhere you go, it seems that it is the children who are being killed, injured and displaced. Yesterday the Lebanese government said that of the 828 of its civilians killed in the conflict so far, around 35% have been children - that's around 290. Unicef also estimates that about a third of the dead have been children, although it bases that figure on the fact that an estimated 30% of Lebanon's population are children, rather than any actual count of the dead. There are no official figures yet for the number of wounded children, but they will certainly exceed the number killed; as for those displaced, Unicef says that 45% of the estimated 900,000 Lebanese to have fled their homes are children. Aid agencies believe that the reason children are suffering so much in this conflict is because of the big families that are traditional in south Lebanon. "You are not talking about nuclear families, you are talking about families huddling together with four, five or six children. Inevitably, a high percentage of children are killed," says Anis Salem, a Unicef spokesman. "We estimate that before Qana, 30% of the deaths were children, but it is a very fluid situation and that figure can quickly become redundant." It is not just a matter of many children huddled together, of course: with numbers come all sorts of problems. If an air raid is coming, and you are running, how many children can you pick up and carry with you? How many do you have to leave behind? Children often suffer most in wars like this - wars in which civilians suffer heavy casualties. They are weaker, they may be too small to run or walk, they may suffer more on long journeys by foot. And as Amelia Bookstein, head of humanitarian policy at Save the Children, points out: "Children who are wounded, separated from their families, or traumatised, may be too frightened or unable to flee their homes." [complete article] Israel moves thousands of soldiers into LebanonBy Jonathan Finer and Molly Moore, Washington Post, August 2, 2006 Israeli officials said both air and land attacks would accelerate in the next few days as the military pushes deeper into southern Lebanon in an effort to clear a broad swath of villages and towns of Hezbollah fighters and the equipment they use to fire missiles into Israel. Israel has ordered its army to punch all the way to the Litani River, Israeli officials said. Israeli military leaders said they were bracing for some of the toughest fighting in the 21-day campaign against Hezbollah. "They are very hard to identify, very hard to know where they are," Brig. Gen. Shuki Shachar, deputy commander of the Israeli army's northern forces, told reporters Tuesday. "And it's very hard to hit them and not hit the population that they use in a cynical way." Shachar said about six combat brigades, most of them infantry units, were involved in the fighting. Israeli brigades vary in size, but military analysts estimate that the force now fighting in Lebanon is at least 10,000 soldiers and could be more than 18,000. Military officials said the number of troops sent into Lebanon could soon triple. [complete article] Hezbollah says hi-tech tanks and jets are no match for its fighting spiritBy Nicholas Blanford and Daniel McGrory, The Times, August 2, 2006 Up to a thousand of Hezbollah's best-trained fighters are still deployed around the rocky hills and valleys of Lebanon's border district, most of them locals who know every contour of this forbidding terrain. Their commanders have had six years since Israel's withdrawal to prepare for this campaign. They have dug tunnels to hide their armoury and provide escape routes that electronic surveillance cannot penetrate. A senior Hezbollah official told The Times yesterday: "We knew this day was coming, and this time we were ready." [complete article] Might in the air will not defeat guerillas in this bitter conflictBy Charles Heyman, The Times, August 2, 2006 ...the great military question of our time is how do you defeat an asymmetric warfare grouping such as Hezbollah? The reality is that you are unlikely to defeat it on the battlefield, simply because its fighters will refuse to fight on the battlefield of your choosing. If they did, they would be destroyed by a military machine such as Israel's. Your counter-guerrilla doctrine has to be much smarter. For a start, think of a 20-year time frame -- because there are no quick fixes. Be prepared to spend an ocean of money. Identify the political grievance at the heart of the problem and prepare a comprehensive policy embracing political, economic, social, media and military means that will address that grievance over a generation. No matter what happens, proportionate, and where possible minimum, force is absolutely necessary. In this type of campaign, large body counts are never a sign of success; they are nearly always a sign of failure. In the short term the Israeli Defence Forces will win its campaign in southern Lebanon. It will chip away at Hezbollah's infrastructure until something that passes for control is imposed. There will be incessant patrolling by Israeli troops on the ground and drones in the sky, supported by good Israeli intelligence. After about a month, southern Lebanon is unlikely to be an area where Hezbollah can operate at will and, apart from the occasional ambush, the IDF will have the upper hand. But the long-term winners will almost certainly be Hezbollah. The Israelis will withdraw from southern Lebanon at some stage, because they cannot afford to keep large numbers of reservists on a war footing indefinitely. Hezbollah |