Friday, July 14, Bastille Day, the week ending with the third day of Israel bombing Lebanon - after the airport the main roads and fuel depots, then the bridges, and then the naval blockade of all shipping in and out - and that war widening, and the third day of massive losses on Wall Street, as oil moved over seventy-eight dollars a barrel and many are saying it looks like it will hit one hundred dollars come election time here in the states. Hezbollah managed to nearly sink an Israeli frigate with a drone filled with explosives, and things just aren't looking good. War everywhere, and the economy tanking. Bad times.
As for the new war, Rami G. Khouri calls it The Mideast Death Dance - You need to understand the relationship among four pairs of actors to grasp the meaning of the escalating attacks by Hamas, Hezbollah and Israel in recent days. The four pairs are Hamas and Hezbollah; the Palestinian and Lebanese governments; Syria and Iran; and Israel and the United States.
Simplistically, President George W. Bush has depicted this latest round of war as a clash between good and evil, while the Israeli government has tried to blame Palestinians and Lebanese who only want to make war against a peace-loving Israel. The more nuanced and complex reality is that, collectively, these four pairs of actors play roles in the ongoing fighting, as we witness the culmination of four decades of failed policies that have kept the Middle East tense, angry and violent.
Hezbollah and Hamas emerged in the past decade as the main Arab political forces that resist the Israeli occupations in Lebanon and Palestine. They enjoy substantial popular support in their respective countries, while at the same time eliciting criticisms for their militant policies that inevitably draw harsh Israeli responses. We see this in Lebanon today as the Lebanese people broadly direct their anger at Israel for its brutal attacks against Lebanese civilian installations and fault Palestinians, other Arabs, Syria and Iran for perpetually making Lebanon the battleground for other conflicts - but more softly question Hezbollah's decision to trigger this latest calamity.
It is no coincidence that Israel is now simultaneously bombing and destroying the civilian infrastructure in Palestine and Lebanon, including airports, bridges, roads, power plants, and government offices. It claims to do this in order to stop terror attacks against Israelis, but in fact the past four decades have shown that its policies generate exactly the opposite effect: They have given birth, power, credibility and now political incumbency to the Hamas and Hezbollah groups whose raison d'être has been to fight the Israeli occupation of their lands. Israeli destruction of normal life for Palestinians and Lebanese also results in the destruction of the credibility, efficacy and, in some cases, the legitimacy of routine government systems, making the Lebanese and Palestinian governments key actors in current events - or non-actors in most cases.
And so on and so forth. The detailed analysis is depressing. You might want to read it, or not.
And as for the fourth pair of actors, the United States and Israel, they "find themselves in the bizarre position of repeating policies that have consistently failed for the past forty years" - Israel has this to show for its track record of being tough: It is now surrounded by two robust Islamist resistance movements with greater striking power and popular support; Arab populations around the region that increasingly vote for Islamist political movements whenever elections are held; immobilized and virtually irrelevant Arab governments in many nearby lands; and determined, increasingly defiant, ideological foes in Tehran and Damascus who do not hesitate to use all weapons at their means however damaging these may be to civilians and sovereignty in Lebanon and Palestine.
The United States for its part is strangely marginal. Its chosen policies have lined it up squarely with Israel. It has sanctioned and thus cannot even talk to Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, and it has pressured and threatened Syria for years without any real success. The world's sole superpower is peculiarly powerless in the current crisis in the Middle East.
Other than that, things are fine.
Tim Grieve in Salon here summarizes the sense of urgency at the White House - George W. Bush is apparently open to scaling back his usual summer vacation in Crawford, Texas, in order to look more engaged with his job, but it seems that he'll take this whole hands-on presidency idea only so far. On a day on which Israeli airplanes hit the home and office of Hezbollah's leader, White House press secretary Tony Snow revealed that the president hasn't actually, you know, talked to anyone in the Israeli government about its widening military campaign in Lebanon.
Asked whether Bush has any plans to speak to Israeli officials, Snow said: "At this point - look, I think - the Israeli leaders have been consulted, and they've been consulted by the secretary of state and the national security advisor. And they'll continue their conversations, and there is no - I don't want to say there's no need, I'd just say the president has not expressed any plans to speak with the prime minister, but should it become necessary, he will." And with that, a member of the White House press corps asked Snow about the president's plans for a bike ride this afternoon.
Of course, this isn't the usual case of Bushian inattention. We assume that the president wasn't hoping for an attack on the United States when he brushed off a warning about Osama bin Laden in August 2001. And we'll presume that he wasn't looking forward to a disaster in New Orleans when he fiddled away the early days of Hurricane Katrina. But Bush hasn't picked up the phone to call Ehud Olmert precisely because he has nothing to tell him - or, at least, nothing he wants to be seen telling him. Bush approves of what Israel is doing in Lebanon, but the White House must know that Americans find new violence in the Middle East deeply unsettling. The best way to walk that line: Stay away from it entirely.
We vetoed the UN resolution condemning Israel for overreacting. That's something. We refused to call for a cease fire, but said the Israelis should be careful about not killing too many civilians. And that's something. And we said that since we engineered the Syrians leaving Jordan and say they have a real democracy there now, it would be a shame if the new shaky government there fell. That's something, and we had spent a lot of effort setting it up. So it's not exactly inattention, but something more like indifference, or frustration that it's all so complicated.
And that leads to the pig, as summarized here - With the world's most perplexing problems weighing on him, President Bush has sought comic relief in a certain pig.
This is the wild game boar that German chef Olaf Micheel bagged for Bush and served Thursday evening at a barbecue in Trinwillershagen, a tiny town on the Baltic Sea.
"I understand I may have the honor of slicing the pig," Bush said at a news conference earlier in the day punctuated with questions about spreading violence in the Middle East and an intensifying standoff with Iran about nuclear power.
The president's host, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, started a serious ball rolling at this news conference in the 13th-century town hall on the cobblestone square of Stralsund. But Bush seemed more focused on "the feast" promised later.
"Thanks for having me," Bush told the chancellor. "I'm looking forward to that pig tonight."
This 13th-century setting and formal news conference may seem an odd stage for presidential banter. The 21st-century problems that Bush confronts often prompt him to attempt to defuse the tension in the room with a dose of humor.
Reporters from Germany and the U.S. peppered him with questions about the standoff in Iran, violence in the Middle East and flagging democracy in Russia. He answered all in earnest but leavened it all with pig talk.
"Apart from the pig, Mr. President, what sort of insights have you been able to gain as regards East Germany?" a German reporter asked.
"I haven't seen the pig yet," Bush said, sidestepping the question about insights gained from his two-day visit to this rural seaside region that once rested behind the Iron Curtain.
And when an American reporter asked whether Bush is concerned about the Israeli bombing of the Beirut airport and about Iran's failure to respond to an offer for negotiations, Bush replied with more boar jokes before delving into the substance of the questions.
"I thought you were going to ask about the pig," said the president. "I'll tell you about the pig tomorrow."
Ah, he was just diffusing tension with humor. You cannot take this regional war and clash of civilizations too very seriously. Neither side there eats pork. They should loosen up. This is supposed to be reassuring. You don't have to answer questions. That's for people who worry too much.
So we should relax. It's just potential world war among the major religions on the planet. See Jon Stewart being amazed at this "no big deal, let's eat pork" approach here (Windows Media) or here (QuickTime) - this just can't be so and all that. Satire gets harder every day, or easier.
Digby over at Hullabaloo here calls the man a middle-ages delinquent and asks an interesting question. Can't somebody medicate him?
It's a thought. And Digby is reminded of that presidential photo-op a few years ago, that testy one where the humor put the reporters in their place. The president visited a rib joint and got behind the counter to play at being a real working person. And it went like this - THE PRESIDENT: I need some ribs.
Q Mr. President, how are you?
THE PRESIDENT: I'm hungry and I'm going to order some ribs.
Q What would you like?
THE PRESIDENT: Whatever you think I'd like.
Q Sir, on homeland security, critics would say you simply haven't spent enough to keep the country secure.
THE PRESIDENT: My job is to secure the homeland and that's exactly what we're going to do. But I'm here to take somebody's order. That would be you, Stretch - what would you like? Put some of your high-priced money right here to try to help the local economy. You get paid a lot of money, you ought to be buying some food here. It's part of how the economy grows. You've got plenty of money in your pocket, and when you spend it, it drives the economy forward. So what would you like to eat?
Q Right behind you, whatever you order.
THE PRESIDENT: I'm ordering ribs. David, do you need a rib?
Q But Mr. President -
THE PRESIDENT: Stretch, thank you, this is not a press conference. This is my chance to help this lady put some money in her pocket. Let me explain how the economy works. When you spend money to buy food it helps this lady's business. It makes it more likely somebody is going to find work. So instead of asking questions, answer mine: are you going to buy some food?
Q Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: Okay, good. What would you like?
Q Ribs.
THE PRESIDENT: Ribs? Good. Let's order up some ribs.
Q What do you think of the democratic field, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: See, his job is to ask questions, he thinks my job is to answer every question he asks. I'm here to help this restaurant by buying some food. Terry, would you like something?
Q An answer.
Q Can we buy some questions?
THE PRESIDENT: Obviously these people - they make a lot of money and they're not going to spend much. I'm not saying they're overpaid, they're just not spending any money.
Q Do you think it's all going to come down to national security, sir, this election?
THE PRESIDENT: One of the things David does, he asks a lot of questions, and they're good, generally.
Digby's comment - It's not humor - it's inappropriate, sophomoric diversion designed to intimidate the reporters. It works. They are unwilling to come right out and say that Junior is an ill mannered, tasteless, middle aged delinquent.
How I long for the day when we might once again have a president with the maturity of someone who has already passed through puberty.
Who? Al Gore? That was decided long ago.
And Digby notes this news from Iraq, Friday, July 14 - Bombs and mortars struck Shiite and Sunni mosques in the Baghdad area Friday, the latest in a week of tit-for-tat sectarian attacks that have killed more than 250 people.
The deadliest explosion came as worshippers left services at a Sunni mosque in northern Baghdad, killing 14 people and wounding five, police said.
The bomb, planted near the door of the mosque, exploded during a four-hour driving ban starting at 11 a.m. Fridays in the capital, aimed at preventing car bombs that have frequently targeted weekly prayers.
Earlier Friday, five mortar rounds fell near the Shiite Imam al-Hussein mosque in Balad Ruz, 45 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing two people and wounding six, provincial police said.
Shiite clerics, meanwhile, denounced Israel's attacks on Lebanon during Friday prayers, and hundreds of Iraqis demonstrated to show solidarity with the Lebanese. Israel began its assault after guerrillas from the Shiite group Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a raid inside Israel.
Thousands of Iraqis also demonstrated in the Shiite district of Sadr City in Baghdad and the southeastern cities of Kut and Amarah, praising the leader of Hezbollah and denouncing Israel and the United States. Some protesters said they were ready to fight the Israelis.
"No, no to Israel! No, no to America!" demonstrators chanted in Sadr City.
"Let everyone understand that we will not stand idle," read one of the banners carried by the demonstrators. "Iraq and Lebanon are calling. Enough silence, Arabs," read another.
Oh crap. Don't tell the president.
And there's this from two years ago, Tomas Freidman in the New York Times - I was speaking the other day with Scott Pelley of CBS News's ''60 Minutes'' about the mood in Iraq. He had just returned from filming a piece there and he told me something disturbing. Scott had gone around and asked Iraqis on the streets what they called American troops - wondering if they had nicknames for us in the way we used to call the Nazis ''Krauts'' or the Vietcong ''Charlie.'' And what did he find? ''Many Iraqis have so much distrust for U.S. forces we found they've come up with a nickname for our troops,'' Scott said. ''They call American soldiers 'The Jews,' as in, 'Don't go down that street, the Jews set up a roadblock.'''
This war is getting very wide. It's all the same war.
Of course, some are happy about it all. That would be the Rapture crowd - End Times, Armageddon and the antichrist, and then Jesus returns. Everyone is quoting what's being said on that side, like this - Is it time to get excited? I can't help the way I feel. For the first time in my Christian walk, I have no doubts that the day of the Lord's appearing is upon us. I have never felt this way before, I have a joy that bubbles up every-time I think of him, for I know this is truly the time I have waited for so long. Am I alone in feeling guilty about the human suffering like my joy at his appearing some how fuels the evil I see everywhere. If it were not for the souls that hang in the balance and the horror that stalks man daily on this earth, my joy would be complete. For those of us who await his arrival know, somehow we just know it won't be long now, the Bridegroom cometh rather man is ready are not.
... If He tarries, I will just have time to get my hair and nails done (you know let all I come into contact with know of my Bridegroom and what He has/will do). So I am all spiffied up for Him when He does arrive to take me home. No disappointment, just a few last minute details to take care of to be more pleasing to look at.
... I too am soooo excited!! I get goose bumps, literally, when I watch what's going on in the M.E.!! And Watcherboy, you were so right when saying it was quite a day yesterday, in the world news, and I add in local news here in the Boston area!! Tunnel ceiling collapsed on a car and killed a woman of faith, and we had the most terrifying storms I have ever seen here!! But, yes, Ohappyday, like in your screen name, it is most indeed a time to be happy and excited, right there with ya!!
Okay then. It's the end of everything and Jesus is coming.
Digby comments here - Ok fine. Religious fundamentalists are nutty.
But what do you make of someone who writes this: "Can you imagine being a hate-filled person that 'preaches' tolerance but really, really hates Christians when the rapture does happen. It must be sad to live like that. I feel sorry for them and feel we should pray for them. Their tolerance doesn't include anyone but themselves, and all they preach is hate."
Hey, I'm one of the tolerant haters. These folks can believe whatever kooky nonsense they choose. The world is full of fruitcakes. I do wonder, however, if Uncle Karl is calculating that George the Pig Slicer will cause the GOP to lose seats in the fall if he doesn't appear to be helping his base achieve the Rapture. That's got me a little bit worried.
Why worry? Have some baby-back pork ribs. Things will be fine.
But the war with Israel, Hamas to the south, Hezbollah to the north, and the major powers lining up, continues or grow.
Here's some interesting comment from Bill Montgomery, who always is thoughtful (an economist by training, so maybe he's just "dismal").
First there's this - Three days in, and it looks like Israel is losing the war.
Not militarily, of course - The IDF could turn Lebanon into a parking lot if it wanted to, and if it's willing to take enough casualties it can probably push Hezbollah away from the Israeli border and suppress the rocket attacks (or at least most of them.)
No, Israel is losing this war the same way it "lost" the October 1973 War - by not crushing its enemies swiftly and completely, and then rubbing their faces in their own impotence and humiliation.
Just the opposite: Today it was Israel that suffered the humiliation of nearly losing one of its missile frigates to a warhead-carrying Hezbollah drone - a threat the IDF apparently didn't even know existed.
... This should give an enormous boost to Hezbollah's prestige and popularity in the Arab world - just as the initial success of the Egyptian attack across the Suez Canal in '73 helped erase the humiliation of the Six Day War and made Sadat, for a time, a regional hero. That prestige, in turn, could make it more dangerous for "moderate" (i.e. U.S. dominated) Arab countries to move against the group or criticize it publicly. The same goes for Hezbollah's domestic enemies inside Lebanon.
... For the Israelis, all this only increases the urgency of delivering a knock out blow quickly - lest the voices of caution inside the Cheney administration prevail and Washington steps in and imposes a cease fire. It's possible, of course, that the opposite will happen: The Cheneyites may be just as rattled by Hezbollah's resilience as the Israelis, and may insist that the IDF finish the job, no matter how much time and blood it takes. After all, whatever raises Hezbollah's prestige also raises Iran's, and whatever raises Iran's lowers Cheney's. That may be more than the gang can stand.
... If I were the IDF general staff, I wouldn't count on having more than a few weeks to complete the operation - whatever it is.
But given how well Hezbollah is doing so far, it doesn't look the Israelis can deliver a knock out blow - not in a few weeks, or a few months and probably not even in a few years. And a Hezbollah that takes whatever Israel dishes out, and emerges not just intact, but with a few notches in its own gun, would be a Hezbollah that looks like a real winner.
Earlier he had written this - There is something qualitatively different about the latest cycle of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although I'm having trouble in my own mind hanging a label on it.
Maybe it's the fact that the Israelis have more or less abandoned the pretense that they're fighting specific "terrorist" groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, and are openly waging war on the Palestinian people (and now the Lebanese people) as a whole.
Maybe it's because the proximate triggers for the current fighting – the Palestinian raid on an Israeli outpost on the Gaza frontier and Hezbollah's ambush of an Israeli patrol just inside the Israeli border -- were both military attacks against legitimate military targets, instead of explicit acts of terrorism, like the 2000-2001 Palestinian suicide bomb offensive. This suggests a major change in both tactics and capabilities (although terrorism, in the form of rockets randomly shot into Israeli towns and cities, obviously remains a key part of the Hezbollah and Hamas arsenals)
Maybe it's simply the speed and scale of the escalation, which has progressed from a limited incursion in the Gaza Strip to the wholesale dismantling of the Hamas government to a full-scale blockade of Lebanon in just two weeks. If the Israeli expectation was that an initial display of overwhelming force would send a message to the other side that there are red lines that must not be crossed, then the operation has already failed. Indeed, the other side has sent some surprising messages of its own - one of which landed yesterday in downtown Haifa.
If I had to pin it down, I would say the big difference between this crisis and similar past episodes is how completely off balance the Israelis seem to be – lurching from reaction to reaction without any clear plan or strategy. The Gaza incursion was thrown together, more or less on the fly, which led to some embarrassing public squabbling within the Israeli cabinet. The attempt to decapitate Hamas's civilian leadership by arresting the entire Palestinian cabinet smacked of improvisation, and largely failed. Hezbollah's intervention clearly took Jerusalem by surprise, which is probably why the response has been so disproportionate: the Israelis are rather desperately trying to regain the initiative.
... I'm not passing moral judgments here. I've never been able to turn a blind eye to the war crimes of one side or the other – rationalizing the suicide bomb that blows a bus full of Israeli civilians to bloody bits while crying tears of outrage over the destruction of a power plant that provides clean water to tens of thousands of Palestinian mothers and infants, or vice versa. To me, the conflict has long since come to resemble a war between lunatics, and one doesn't pass moral judgments on the behavior of the insane, not even the criminally insane.
But it is clear to me that the Israelis, through their own actions (plus some help from their clueless allies in the Cheney administration) have put themselves in trap they can't escape. They've reached a strategic dead end, one that doesn't even leave them enough maneuvering room to turn and go back. A return to the pre-Oslo status quo – full military reoccupation of the territories – is out of the question. The peace process (a pointless squirrel wheel, but one that at least kept the squirrels, both Palestinian and Israeli, busy going through their paces) is dead. The Palestinian Authority is shattered; Fatah's legitimacy and President Abbas's credibility flushed down the toilet. And Hamas - the only viable alternative - has been officially defined as Public Enemy Number One by the Israelis, the Americans and the Europeans.
... In a sense, the crisis has been coming down the pike since last year's Palestinian elections unexpectedly put Hamas in charge of the PA. The Israelis never wanted the election, and only agreed to it because the Americans insisted. The Americans, in turn, relied on assurances from Abbas (underwritten by the Egyptians and the Jordanians) that the results were in the bag – or could be put there, if need be. Democracy boy, in other words, only embraced democracy for the Palestinians because he was sure the "right" guys would win, and I know what a shock that must be to the reader. But Fatah, being Fatah, couldn't stop its candidates from running against each other and splitting the non-Hamas vote, while Hamas smartly ran on a platform of honest government instead of endless holy war. In the end, the fix could only deprive Hamas of the even bigger majority it was probably entitled to.
If the Israelis had fully thought things through, I have to believe they would have defied democracy boy and vetoed the election. Why didn't they? In addition to the traditional desire to stay on the hegemon's good side, my guess is the Israelis in general and Prime Minister Olmert in particular were still too captivated by the dream of unilateralism. The whole point of disengagement was that it was supposed to make the other side irrelevant. Israel would decide what land and settlements it wanted to keep, build fences around the rest and let the Palestinians stew in their own poverty and rage. With that as the plan, the risk of a Hamas victory, while undesirable, may not have seemed catastrophic.
... In the past, no matter how bad things got in territories, Israeli governments always have had the option of backing off and leaving bad enough alone - relying on the Army or, post-Oslo, the PA to keep a lid on the situation. That was fine as long as the objective was to grow the settlements and quietly tighten Israel's control over the land and all its resources. But now that the goal is essentially a second partition, Israeli politicians are finding out the hard way that they no longer have the luxury of malign neglect. After six years of pretending they don't need a Palestinian negotiating partner, they've suddenly discovered, much to their horror, that they need one desperately - but have managed to eliminate all the possible candidates.
And that's only part of it. But then, he's a worrier. The Rapture folks think his sort should welcome Jesus, or die. The president wants to hand him a pork chop, or sell him some ribs.
It's all in how you look at things. "Thanks for having me," Bush told the chancellor. "I'm looking forward to that pig tonight."
