| |
 |
Monday, July 24, 2006 |
JuanCole: "Matthew Kalman reveals that Israel's wideranging assault on Lebanon has been planned in a general way for years, and a specific plan has been in the works for over a year. The 'Three Week War' was shown to Washington think tanks and officials last year on powerpoint by a senior Israeli army officer.
That this war was pre-planned was obvious to me from the moment it began. The Israeli military proceeded methodically and systematically to destroy Lebanon's infrastructure, and clearly had been casing targets for some time. The vast majority of these targets were unrelated to Hizbullah. But since the northern Sunni port of Tripoli could theoretically be used by Syria or Iran to offload replacement rockets that could be transported by truck down south to Hizbullah, the Israelis hit it. And then they hit some trucks to let truck drivers know to stay home for a while.
For the Bush administration, Iran and Hizbullah are not existential threats. They are proximate threats. Iran is hostile to US corporate investment in the oil-rich Gulf, and so is a big obstacle to American profit-making in the region. Rumsfeld is worried about Iran's admission as an observer to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which is to say, that he is worried about a budding Chinese-Islamic axis that might lock up petroleum reserves and block US investments.
The Bush administration's perceived economic and geopolitical interests thus overlap strongly with Israel's perceived security interests, with both benefitting from an Israeli destruction of Hizbullah. It is not impossible that the US Pentagon urged the Israelis on in this endeavor. They certainly knew about and approved of the plan.
The chief outcome of the 'war on terror' has been the proliferation of asymmetrical challengers [usually called 'terrorists']. Israel's assault on the very fabric of the Lebanese state seems likely to weaken or collapse it and further that proliferation. Since asymmetrical challengers often turn to terrorism as a tactic, the 'war on terror' has been, at the level of political society below that of high politics and the state, the most efficient engine for the production of terrorism in history."
Those purporting to fight 'terrorists' are themselves terrorists. If Bush thinks the shit will stop with a regime change in Syria and Iran, he is gravely mistaken. First, we know the result of this in Iraq, it creates chaos. Second, states don't play great roles in politics any longer. Asymmetrical challengers are not controlled by governments, they spring up from the people, they are the people. Figthing the entire population has never worked and it is genocide.
ThinkProgress: "Yesterday, the speaker of the Iraqi Parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, said 'We know there was a corrupt regime in Saddam, but a regime should be removed by surgery, not by butchering. The U.S. occupation is butcher's work under the slogan of democracy and human rights and justice.'"
11:16:12 AM 
|
|
Zmag: "Today in the Latvian capital of Riga, a crowd of fascists laid siege to and attacked a meeting called by the Latvian gay organization Mosaika at the four-star Reval Hotel to celebrate Gay Pride, after Pride March planned for today in Riga was banned on Wednesday this past week by the Riga City Council, a ban upheld on Friday by a Latvian court.
Today, Latvia does not show the face of a modern and democratic country. Instead, Riga is showing the face of homophobic facism, threatening its citizens and their guests, including members of the European Parliament."
The fascists apparently did not need any permit to demonstrate and attack the gay pride supporters.
The decision to let those Eastern countries join the EU, was a bad one. Maybe it was calculated to boost the right-wing tendencies in Europe.
10:49:03 AM
|
|
© Copyright 2008.
|
|
|
|
|
