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Now!
Just when I thought he had shown a glimmer
of statesmanship, Stephen Harper, Canada's prime minister courtesy
of just over one-third of the vote, reverted to character. Following
Israel's apparently-deliberate targeting of four UN observers
in Lebanon, including one Canadian, Harper thought it appropriate
to ask, not why Israel killed them, but why the observers were
there?
His inspired question reminded
me of nothing so much as a rape-case lawyer attacking the victim
with questions along the lines of why was she in such a place?
at such a time? wearing such a dress?
Condoleezza Rice, Bush's official
idiot-savant, gave us a memorable quote last week concerning
Israeli barbarism in Lebanon: "We are witnessing the birth
pangs of a new Middle East." I wonder what would have been
press reaction in America to some high official saying, as the
World Trade Center toppled in flames, "We are witnessing
the birth pangs of a new America"?
Of course, Condi was keeping
her eyes on the big picture, as she tends to do, the picture
as viewed from high above the earth where human beings become
unseen bacilli in a vast fabric of coastlines and geometric patterns,
not close-up where you can distinguish blood-spattered ruins
and childrens' limbs snapped like broken bird wings.
You might want to ask Condi
why America's murderous assault on Vietnam, where it dropped
more bombs than in World War Two, was such a miserable failure
rather than the birth of anything? Or why Baghdad, after experiencing
American Shock and Awe, has sewers that work only to catch run-off
blood from the streets? Perhaps Condi would say they just needed
a little topping-up on the bombing to complete the miracle of
birth?
Her words came near to the
time an Israeli source explained to the world that Israeli pilots
were operating now on the principle that ten Beirut apartment
blocks would be bombed for every Hezbollah missile launched.
A few days after, an Israeli pilot struck gold, killing fifty-seven
civilians, including thirty-seven children.
From Israel, came only Goebbels-speak:
Hezbollah always hides in just such places. Left unasked and
unanswered in the soulless repetitions of this point is: then
what kind of a human being would still fire on them?
Israel insists that Hezbollah's
missiles are a horror not to be endured.
I'll remind readers that Hezbollah's
main "missile" is the Katyusha artillery rocket, not
a missile at all, because it is not guided. The Katyusha was
designed to be fired in large barrages from mobile, multi-tube
launchers to blanket an area, but Hezbollah does not posses these
- they would quickly be destroyed if they did - and uses Katyushas
as single-launch rockets. Used this way, the Katyusha is a glorified
firework, totally inaccurate with a short range and a small explosive
charge. Ninety-nine percent of these "missiles" land
in the desert or on garage roofs or in parking lots. The few
times they have killed anyone were accidents.
Hezbollah has managed to fire
a few clusters now in response to Israel's horrific bombardment,
but apart from one dramatic incident, killing eight, they have
killed few Israelis. We have heard a great deal about a new longer-range
rocket, but this is just a bigger Katyusha with a bigger warhead.
It also is totally inaccurate.
By comparison, Israel drops
500-pound, high-explosive bombs which are deadly accurate, being
hooked into American satellite-guidance systems. It drops them
from some of the world's most sophisticated fighter-bombers.
An order of American 5000-pound, "bunker-busting,"
laser-guided bombs was rushed recently to Israel to help in the
good work. Israel also uses American Hellfire missiles, mounted
on helicopters or fighter planes. These really are missiles,
highly accurate, in the slick words of their manufacturer's sales
pitch, they feature "dual warheads for defeating reactive
armor, electro-optical countermeasures hardening, semi-active
laser seeker, and a programmable auto-pilot for trajectory shaping."
Israel uses some of the world's
best long-range artillery pieces, and it fills their breeches
with deadly depleted-uranium shells which bring the added gift
of long-lived vaporized uranium after exploding. It uses American
cluster bombs, the horrible things that dismembered or crippled
thousands of Iraqi children. And it now appears to be using the
white-phosphorus shells or bombs Americans used in Fallujah to
burn flesh in much the same way they used napalm in Vietnam.
Tony Blair, known to Bush insiders
as Fluffy the toy poodle, made a showy trip to Washington about
his concern over events in the Middle East, the concern apparently
focusing on a revolt by his own cabinet. As usual, he got nothing
from Bush, except the honor of standing at a podium next to America's
first certified-moron president. Blair also got to do a little
choreographed turn with Bush at the end of the press conference,
allowing the pair to stride out with a ceremonial flourish after
somber moments of saying nothing.
British journalists apparently
miffed the American crowd because they didn't follow the mindless
ritual of standing up when the president is announced, it not
being the practice to stand for Blair in London. Even worse perhaps
was one British journalist's description of the event as a "press
availability" rather than a press conference. It was undoubtedly
the most informative comment of the week.
John Chuckman lives in Ontario.
Now
Available
from CounterPunch Books!
The Case
Against Israel
By Michael Neumann
CounterPunch
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