Sunday, August 13, 2006

Robert Parry | Israeli Leaders Fault Bush on War. Robert Parry reports that amid the political and diplomatic fallout from Israel's faltering invasion of Lebanon, some Israeli officials are privately blaming President George W. Bush for egging Prime Minister Ehud Olmert into the ill-conceived military adventure against the Hezbollah militia in south Lebanon. Bush conveyed his strong personal support for the military offensive during a White House meeting with Olmert on May 23, according to sources familiar with the thinking of senior Israeli leaders. [t r u t h o u t] 10:05:40 PM    comment []

FOCUS | Seymour M. Hersh: Watching Lebanon. According to Seymour Hersh, President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced, current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials told me, that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah's heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel's security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American pre-emptive attack to destroy Iran's nuclear installations, some of which are also buried deep underground. [t r u t h o u t] 10:04:36 PM    comment []

Bruce Kluger: In the Shadow of the Towers. Last month, I took my 11-year-old daughter to see The Devil Wears Prada. She loves anything having to do with fashion design, so I figured that the film--PG-13 rating notwithstanding--would be right up her alley. I guessed right. She loved it. I, too, came away from our afternoon trip to the movies transported, but in an entirely different way. Shortly before the film began, the two-minute trailer for Oliver Stone's 9/11 epic, World Trade Center, appeared on the screen. Halfway through it, I realized that my eyes were filled with tears. "Are you crying?" I heard my daughter ask. I nodded yes. That a film trailer could emotionally broadside me is not such a big deal. I cry at the movies all the time. What surprised me, though, was that this movie could land with such an impact. Until that moment, I had believed that I'd long ago absorbed the lessons of 9/11, and now carried them with me, both in my work and in my day-to-day life. I genuinely thought I was no longer vulnerable to those devastating images, or the bleak memory of that awful time. But in the darkened movie theater, I suddenly realized that over the past five years, like millions of Americans, I'd become politicized about 9/11, and had somehow forgotten the true meaning of that day--just the way the President had hoped I would. This made me feel ashamed. The next day I emailed my editor at USA Today, and asked him if I could write a piece about World Trade Center--about how this country has been led down a path of destruction and distraction since 2001, and how, as a result, many of us have lost touch with what 9/11 was really about. My editor gave me the green light to write the piece. That essay appeared in USA Today this past Wednesday--the same day World Trade Center premiered across the country. I hope you'll give it a read. I also encourage you to see the movie. As Arianna notes, "the film serves as a reminder of....what has been squandered by the Bush administration in terms of money, lives, and global goodwill." It is also a beautifully made movie. [The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed] 6:44:11 AM    comment []

Israeli Cabinet approves cease-fire resolution. The Israeli Cabinet Sunday approved a U.N. cease-fire resolution aimed at stopping the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that has raged for more than a month, according to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office. [CNN.com - World] 6:35:05 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2006 Patricia Thurston.