General Chat / Bush Pre-Planned War on Lebannon

http://www.truthring.org/?p=1922

honestly what the fuck is wrong with our government?

Edit: New Yorker Article

Edit: http://www.youtube.c...h?v=_5eBrfrWoTk

Edited by chapelz, 13 August 2006 - 11:06 PM.

Too long; didn't read.

Summary (besides the topic title)?

the guy is basically saying we helped Israel come up with plans and pushed them before Hezbollah attacked to attack back when they did basically pushing Israel to go to war with Iran for the littlest thing. After thinking about it for a while it's not really that shocking with the mindset of this administration.

the guy is basically saying we helped Israel come up with plans and pushed them before Hezbollah attacked to attack back when they did basically pushing Israel to go to war with Iran for the littlest thing. After thinking about it for a while it's not really that shocking with the mindset of this administration.

Well, still a little shocking. Just kinda like not surprising.

Eh, I'll believe it when there's undeniable proof. I don't mean to be ignorant about it, but you have to remember, the world is in a bit of turmoil now, especially with the US being one of the primary targets. When a couple of months or years pass by, then I hope to have a story that I may believe to be more acceptable to myself; until then, I'll just stand back and watch things unfold.

honestly what the fuck is wrong with our government?

With regard to the Middle East, that has been the burning question since the inception of Israel.

Didn't read the article, but isn't it normal that governments have plans for possible wars. How would they be able to react otherwise?

Basically, once Israel was attacked, our government silently backed Israel and gave them the go-ahead to bomb the crap out of a terrorist group. Well, the crap out of Lebanon, to kill members of a terrorist group.

The fact that I don't doubt this is the case and am not surprised is probably a little sad, but I've been saying all along that this goes hand in hand with Bush's failure to distinguish among different types of terrorists. Hizbollah poses zero direct threat to the U.S. (or at least did not before this incident; we'll see if they start to target us in the future). They pose a direct threat only to our ally, Israel.

So technically, when Bush lumps them together with Al Quaeda, a global organization that DOES target us, he's being absurdly ignorant.

Well, there's nothing said there that shouldn't have been obvious before if you were following along as events happened. Hezbollah kidnaps two Israeli soldiers - two - and demands Israel return imprisoned Hezbollah members in exchange.

July 12th Israel condemns the kidnapping as an act of war and launches an air assault on Lebanon. That's the country of Lebanon, which is in no way connected to Hezbollah other than they lack the necessary resources to drive them out of their country.

July 13th a vote is taken in the UN security council to impose sanctions on Israel and demand an end to the offensive. The only nation to vote against the resolution is the US.

July 14th, reports out of Beirut suggest the politically divided populace of Lebanon, now subject to daily bombings from the Israeli airforce, is starting to shift it's support to Hezbollah.

Amidst reports that Israeli bombing in lebanon is destabalizing the nation comes this article suggesting that the US response will continue to be no response:

In the past, eruptions of violence centred on southern Lebanon have been curtailed, in part, by discreet American restraints on Israel.

But given the political proximity of the current Israeli and US administrations, their common animosity towards Syria and Iran, and the blurring of issues under the broad slogan of the shared "war against terror", Israel appears to have more leeway this time around - hence, perhaps, the declaration that "the rules have changed".

Meanwhile Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes the following statement:

"If the Zionist regime commits another stupid move and attacks Syria, this will be considered like attacking the whole Islamic world and this regime will receive a very fierce response," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying in a telephone conversation with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Recalling earlier threats from Ahmadinejad that he would use a nuclear bomb against Israel. --- Likely your root cause right there.

July 20th, Israel vows to begin full-scale ground invasion of Southern Lebanon. The response from Lebanon? Do so and we join with Hezbollah. Clearly Israel's response is in no way improving Arab-Israeli relations in the Middle East.

July 21st, while the bombardment of Lebanon intensifies, the US and UK begin evacuating foreigners from Lebanon. Every other major nation in the UN security council has already issued a statement against the actions of Israel at this point, except the US and UK which continue to support Israel's actions under the pretense of promoting peace.

Meanwhile Condoleezza Rice continues to do her part to ensure the continuation of the Israeli offensive by suggesting that any kind of premature cease-fire would only prolong violence in the region. Support for Hezbollah amongst Palestinians continues to grow by the day.

July 26th -- as the invasion of Lebanon continues, and this report about an apparently deliberate bombing of UN peacekeepers grabs headlines, the civil war in Iraq continues to deteriorate quietly in the background gaining almost no attention at all. Remember Iraq? Three years after "Mission Accomplished" and the violence in Baghdad is worse than it's ever been.

Is there any rational person who honestly believes Israel hasn't had US support from day one? Even after the US and UK quite visibly refused to ask Israel to stop it's attack while every other nation demanded a ceasefire almost immediately? Is there any rational person who believes a monthlong aerial bombardment and ground campaign is a justified response to the kidnapping of two soldiers? Then there's this article from August 1 stating that Israel is now ready to negotiate a prisoner exchange. WHAT?! Now? What was the massive invasion for if you're just going to make the prisoner exchange now. That was all they demanded in the first place. This is the biggest piece of evidence that the whole invasion was a staged response and totally out of line with the severity of the situation.

And I love this report from the news today that Hezbollah is refusing to disarm. No shit. You guys have created a monster now. The entire anti-Israel Palestinian faction is one unified force now. Brilliant. Just brilliant.

It's my opinion that the current administration has basically hijacked this country and they're using their authority to carry out foreign policy in secret, answering all inquiries only with misdirection and denial after the fact. But then that's nothing new with the US. This has basically been the case since day one with few exceptions. It does tend to blur the lines quite a bit though and the question is, are we really a democracy anymore? Are we really a democracy when we're ashamed to reveal ourselves as Americans when visiting other countries because of actions undertaken in our name that we completely disagree with?

Is there any rational person who honestly believes Israel hasn't had US support from day one?

I would think much of the American public is too stupid to reach that conclusion or hasn't been able to sift through the propaganda the U.S. news media force feeds us. Sadly.

Is it 2008 yet?

That's exactly the problem ekimmel. All of that information was there. I read it all and posted it to my site (which is why I have all the links) so none of it is shocking to me. If people are shocked it's only because they haven't been watching what's going on. And that is exactly why they can get away with it. Exactly why they have gotten away with it and will continue to get away with it. Because for the most part, people aren't watching. People are too busy with their own lives. Hell, a lot of the time I'm too busy with my own life to spend time reading this stuff. And I think that calls into serious question the whole notion that we're living in a democracy. How much time does the average person devote to politics? One day a year when they vote perhaps? And the rest of the time you just trust that everything is going along alright? That these people I voted for are (or in my case, didn't vote for -- in fact, expressly voted against) still serving my (our) best interests? I think the real problem with representative democracy is that over time it sorts of disintegrates (call it entropy) into a situation where there are these people who run things and these people who don't. It generates a political class. A political elite. Look at the Bush family, the Kennedy family, the Adams family (you know, John Adams), the Roosevelt family. Great American political dynasties. Oh sure it works fine in a small community where everyone involved takes a turn being the leader but in a nation? Over 200 years? What we've got now is an inevitable result of the system put in place. And personally, I think the time is ripe to question whether the system we've got is really the best one. Instead of treating the constitution like the Bible, perhaps which should just call it what it is -- a 230 year old political document. Do we still study 230 year old textbooks? Do we listen to 230 year old music? Perhaps the current state of the world calls for a revision of our political system.

...and yet the foreign policy of this (and really every other) presidential administration is to spread our "perfect government" throughout the world. Is it any wonder it hasn't worked too well everywhere we've tried to set it up? We're trying to apply a 200 year old solution to a modern problem. No shit it doesn't work!

thank you ed this is truly my problem i just don't have the time to read about every thing going on over there and when i read one article like this one it surprises me when really had i read about it more i wouldn't. that is the problem with our government we our being governed by the extremists. i refuse to believe our entire country or even half of the people that voted for bush believe we should "nuke those motherfucking sand niggers." yet this is what gets across and the problem is the extremists aren't even the ones that have to fight the fight. everyday Americans get sent over there to deal with some problem that would probably never ever effect them if it wasn't for our cowboy president and his rough riders voted in only because that ordinary everyday American is to busy going on with his life that the last thing he wants to do when he gets home at night is become more depressed by reading about the shit hole his country is turning into.

I have one problem with what you said there Ed. Japan, Germany, France--All nations setup as democracies after world war 2. All functioning quite well..

Other than that I agree with you totally. We live in two party tyranical system that disguises itself by wrapping around the notion of democracy, but in reality who the two parties want to win will inevitably. This may not be the days of party bosses and whatnot, but that type of thinking and action still goes on, just in a different way.

Edit: Personally as far as Israel is concerned, I say let the middle east beat the shit out of each other. Neither side is going to make concessions, so the idea of peaceful negotiations and relations is just proposterous. The only way you will ever have an end to hostilities there is if both sides take the other out. Plain and simple. Israel pulled out of Lebanon, and Giza (which they rightly won when they were attacked by the Islamic nations), and what do they get? An increase in hostilities. Rockets were being fired at them before the whole soldier issue, so that was just the spark...

Edited by minnimee85, 14 August 2006 - 01:16 PM.

Is it 2008 yet?

Amen.

I have one problem with what you said there Ed. Japan, Germany, France--All nations setup as democracies after world war 2. All functioning quite well..

Other than that I agree with you totally. We live in two party tyranical system that disguises itself by wrapping around the notion of democracy, but in reality who the two parties want to win will inevitably. This may not be the days of party bosses and whatnot, but that type of thinking and action still goes on, just in a different way.

Edit: Personally as far as Israel is concerned, I say let the middle east beat the shit out of each other. Neither side is going to make concessions, so the idea of peaceful negotiations and relations is just proposterous. The only way you will ever have an end to hostilities there is if both sides take the other out. Plain and simple. Israel pulled out of Lebanon, and Giza (which they rightly won when they were attacked by the Islamic nations), and what do they get? An increase in hostilities. Rockets were being fired at them before the whole soldier issue, so that was just the spark...

Well, I don't know enough about the governments of Japan, Germany, or France to really respond to that critisizm, but if I did do the research, what I suspect is that the particular conditions existing in those countries at the time, along with certain changes to the political model to adapt to those conditions is what has allowed those nations to thrive. All of them recieved considerable economic support in their early stages. Also they were developing in a global situation which is much different from what we have now. None of them had to deal with foreign billion dollar mega-corporations setting up shop there, at least not in the formative stages. And there's also a great deal of interpretation involved in assessing to what extent they have thrived and who's better off or worse off for it. You could easily make a case for the US being a thriving democracy right now as well if you don't see the massive levels of homeless, unemployed, uneducated, and those unable to afford proper healthcare. Not to mention the plain ignorance of a population that would rather watch 'American Idol' than take an interest in their nation's politics.

But as for the Middle East, you're right that somebody has got to budge at some point. The real problem is that both sides think they can solve the problem through threat of violence so there's very little in the way of genuine negotiation going on. But the truth of the matter is that if we aren't able to find a political solution whereby Palestinians and Israelis can share the land they both have a claim to in peace, the only other lasting solution is complete and total genocide. Because you aren't changing anyone's mind by bombing them into subjectivity. All you're doing is limiting their ability to fight back -- for a time. And while genocide might in fact be a "final solution" it's no kind of solution I would support. Much of the world seems interested in helping to find a diplomatic solution. It's sad that the US government thus far has pretty much chosen genocide as their preferred solution.

That's the country of Lebanon, which is in no way connected to Hezbollah other than they lack the necessary resources to drive them out of their country.

Just to be nitpicky, Hizbollah also has a few political office seats in Lebanon. Also, Hizbollah does have moderate support within the country.


Other than that, spot on. What now angers me is that since we've declared war on terrorism, we've united the terrorists even more. It's completely idiotic: we attack Hizbollah and Hamas, two groups that pose zero threat to us, just like we did to Iraq. Meanwhile, North Korea, a country that technically does pose a direct threat to us, is only criticized.

Our choice of who to attack and how to ignore completely contradicts our supposed mantra. It's this blatant lie the Administration continues to weave that makes me mad.

The sad thing is that most people are either to ignorant or too stubborn to believe this. And the Democrats are too disjointed to mount any strong attack, even though the arguments are theirs for the taking.



This whole situation was ripe for a shoot out. Both sides had valid reasons for attacking the other, and once the straw broke the camel's back, that was all the excuse needed to unleash hell. And this time, neither side was going to back down unless an outside party gave them the excuse to do so. To retreat without an international ceasefire would be loss of face. A disgrace, basically.

And that's why this crisis was fucked from day one.

Bush saw the phrase terrorist group stapled on to Hezbollah, and immediately saw an opportunity to save his Republican party from all of his past wrongdoings during midterms by pulling out the same old bs about how we must stop the terrorists or else they win. Fortunately the American public isn't falling for it again. Like Cork said, Bush has no fucking idea which groups are actually posing a threat to us and which ones aren't, he just sees EVERY terrorist group as a chance to defeat them and declare his war on terrorism a success. I almost would take Cheney over Bush in office right now, he'd probably be too busy shooting buddies in the face to worry about wars on terrorists groups and the like.

That's the country of Lebanon, which is in no way connected to Hezbollah other than they lack the necessary resources to drive them out of their country.

Just to be nitpicky, Hizbollah also has a few political office seats in Lebanon. Also, Hizbollah does have moderate support within the country.

No, you're right. I wasn't very clear before and I was going to revise that statement, but I wasn't sure how best to word it and I guess I got a little lazy and left it in there. Before the whole incident, Hezbollah was a political party with some represenation in the Lebanese government. They had a strong presence in southern Lebanon which they'd set up as their base of operations and the Lebanese government was unable to drive them out, and had little reason to besides -- even though Israel would have liked them to -- so they let them be. Since the Israeli offensive, support for Hezbollah in Lebanon has increased tenfold. And even after the UN resolution effectively handed authority back to the Lebanese government, they are still unable to make Hezbollah disarm. Compared to the forces Hezbollah can draw from, the Lebanese army is insignificant. And so it's questionable how much real power the Lebanese government has in it's own nation.

My point is that this whole thing started with Israel bombing Beirut, which is a Lebanese city. They didn't bomb Hezbollah headquarters, they bombed Beirut. And then they proceeded to target other Lebanese domestic targets along with bridges, freeways, airports. Not Hezbollah secret headquarters, but Lebanon's international airport. That's like somebody saying they are going after a gang in southcentral L.A. and then bombing LAX, the 405 freeway, and the L.A. harbor. Sure it does have the effect of limiting how fast aid can get to the real targets who are harder to find, but it's not really an effective way to wage a war against terror. If anything it causes far more terror than it potentially prevents. You're talking about ending the ability of terrorist organizations to potentially cause terror by causing a great deal of actual terror on your own. Not to mention it just looks bad politically. Israel declared war on Lebanon, not the other way around.

The basic problem is that most Americans, myself included, don't have enough time to collate the information like you have, Ed. The Big News Media doesn't seem to have an interest in doing so because it won't make them any money. The small media that actually does take the time are usually viewed as unreliable crack pot organizations by the general public because they're not big. After all, bigger is better, right?

Of course, much of this would be a moot point of the current regime was in the least bit competent and didn't screw up just about everything.

Well I don't know if this helps or not, but what I do basically is I have a Google homepage with all the news sources on it and I scan through the headlines every day and read whatever jumps out at me. I don't have time to do it every day, but I try to as much as I can. And you'll probably find, as I have, that if you follow a story like this Israel war for a few days or more you start to see the trends and anticipate events before they happen. And then it's more like you're watching history being made than simply reading the news. It gets easier to do, and less of a chore, the more you do it. It seems like a lot of time, but it's not too much. It's like exercising. If you do it every day, it becomes routine. And it's a good routine to get into.

Much of the argument I hear from Democrats or liberal-mind people is that we just need to get Bush out of office and get somebody intelligent in there to do the job. Which is why I was commenting on the problem being more widespread than that. The problem is apathy. We want to get someone in office we think we can trust so we can go back to not worrying about this kind of thing. And from that perspective, the biggest problem with the Bush administration is that they're so bumbling that no amount of spinning will make them seem trustworthy anymore.

If we get a good president in there, that doesn't excuse the rest of us from doing any work. If we really want to call ourselves a democracy, we've got to wake up a little bit and take on some personal responsibility. There's an enormous amount of information out there which makes it a full-time job to stay well-informed about everything. No one is capable of that. But there are certain things you can stay informed about, wars and genocide for example, and that's where your influence is really needed the most I think. I know it's hard. I've got all sorts of things to do too, and it's hard to give yourself the time to read the news everyday. But it's getting to the point now where we have to. And besides, it's good for you. It's like exercise for your brain.

EDIT: Here, read Bush's response to the end of fighting in Lebanon. That makes it pretty hard to ever take this man seriously again. Hezbollah suffered a sound defeat? What by fighting off the nation of Israel for a month until they agreed to a ceasefire and eventual prisoner exchange? Southern Lebanon will no longer be occupied by Hezbollah? I just read today that the Lebanese goverment is unable to make Hezbollah forces disarm. I don't even have to leave my chair to know that he's just listing lie after lie. I can read it just by clicking here and here.

EDIT: President Bush today described the struggle in Lebanon as part of a historic clash between the forces of freedom and those of terror. Wow this guy is seriously deluded. Does he expect anyone to believe that?