"Go it alone"

So, let me see here -

a country that was so recently fought to a standstill by a guerilla army barely twenty or so miles over its Northern border is now planning how to take on a country 600 miles away:

[One senior Israeli source] said there was a need to understand that "when push comes to shove," Israel would have to be prepared to "slow down" the Iranian nuclear threat by itself.

I mean, not that I'm questioning their capability to do so. Even though it would mean violating Jordanian airspace, at the very least - or Syrian, which would undoubtedly cause some kind of retaliation from Syria. Iraq we can discount - they're too busy fighting each other to worry about airspace.

Then they'd have to worry about the possibility of bombers being shot down (Iran, unlike Iraq, hasn't been through 13 years of sanctions and retains an anti-aircraft capability) and the sticky problem of POWs that would offer.

Never mind the inevitable retaliation from Iran, which even if its WMD programs were "degraded" retains a large conventional military, as well as support for Hezbollah.

And I'm sure there's no way the U.S. could be sucked into the conflict, even though some in Washington are working overtime to that very end:

"We are creating a situation where everything we're going to try short of military force is going to fail," said Ilan Berman, an Iran expert at the American Foreign Policy Council, which favors an aggressive approach. "By the spring of next year, we're going to be looking at very serious discussions about next steps, including military options."

(By the way, from that last link:

"The mullahs have terribly mismanaged the economy. They're economically vulnerable," said Peter Brookes, an Iran specialist at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research center.

Doesn't that sound so much like the sort of "Saddam will be overthrown by his own people" arguements floated just before the invasion of Iraq? "All we'll have to do is impose sanctions and the Iranian people will rise up against their oppressors and a new day of democracy and peeance freeance and kitties for all will reign in the Middle East...")

Meanwhile the U.S. Congress releases a highly questionable report on Iran, including this interesting graphic:



which not only shows the range for a missle the Iranians DON'T EVEN HAVE (the Shahab-4) but is also inexplicably centered on Kuwait. (Is this a mere recycling of a similar map of Iraqi missile ranges from 1990?)

Oh, jeez, you THINK so?

Well, if most Americans can't locate Afghanistan (or pretty much any other given country) on a map, we DO know the gobbluns'll git us if we don't watch out:

(CNN) -- As the five-year anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks approaches, nearly three-fourths of those responding to a CNN poll said they believe Osama bin Laden is planning another significant attack against the United States.

Seventy-four percent of the 1,033 adult Americans polled said they believe an attack is being planned, according to the poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporation on behalf of CNN.

So nice Bush let him escape at Tora Bora, isn't it? And isn't it such a coinkydink that the "news" channel which has been breathlessly advertising FEAR! TERROR! FEAR! the last few weeks has an audience that's scared whizless?

An example:

Michael Scheuer, who once headed the CIA's bin Laden unit, says bin Laden has been given permission by a young cleric in Saudi Arabia authorizing al Qaeda to "use nuclear weapons against the United States ... capping the casualties at 10 million."

Now I don't want to sound like I'm diminishing the threat from bin Laden. Nope, that's the Bush regime's job:

So I don't know where [bin Laden] is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you.
Bush news conference, March 13, 2002

Q Second question: The President's speech today at the Pentagon as far as terrorism and fighting terrorism is concerned, do you think that Osama bin Laden is still in -- is running the al Qaeda business?

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry, who?
Scott McClellan press briefing, January 4, 2006

But don't worry - they hated us plenty already:

And so my question -- my answer to your question is, is that, imagine a world in which Saddam Hussein was there, stirring up even more trouble in a part of the world that had so much resentment and so much hatred that people came and killed 3,000 of our citizens.

So evidently the clever plan here is to soothe the hatred that killed almost 3000 Americans by, um, creating more hatred for the United States. Whee!

(And of course, that last exchange leads to this immortal comment:

Q What did Iraq have to do with that?

THE PRESIDENT: What did Iraq have to do with what?

Q The attack on the World Trade Center?

THE PRESIDENT: Nothing [. . .]

But nevertheless, you can see from Bush's previous comments how the process of taking specific threats and turning them into a mush where bin Laden = Saddam = Hezbollah = al Qaeda = WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE! works, aided in large part by that aforementioned American ignorance of the world.)

Bite me, CNN

At the end of a typically content-free story on a typically content-free Bush "press conference" (LOOK! He answers QUESTIONS and EVERYTHING! How prezential!) we get this lil' gem:

Meanwhile, new poll numbers Monday give Bush a bit of a boost.

Forty-two percent of respondents in the Opinion Research Corporation poll released Monday approve of the way Bush is doing his job, up from 40 percent in an early August poll but still within the poll's 3 percent margin of error.

So we'll claim it's a boost, even though the "boost" is within the margin of error. Real journalismic there, guys.

Back in the war we "won"...

... the Taliban is slowly re-conquering Afghanistan:

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- "If we die, we are martyrs - if we live, we are victors," say the Taliban in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province. They have taken control of the area in less than two weeks. For, with ever accelerating speed, the Taliban are reconquering south-west Afghanistan from the government, American and NATO forces sent to fight them.

[snip]

Hamid, another villager from Panjwai, says that the Taliban in his district have little money but they have mobile phones. "They are all Afghans. I haven't seen a single outsider among them. But they talk to Pakistan two, three times a day on the phone." Hamid says that the goal of the Taliban is to re-establish their government. "They trust us and tell us a lot of things. They say that once they take Kandahar, they will continue onwards to Kabul till they take all of Afghanistan," he says.

Whee! But remember - Bush says we can't abandon Iraq 'cause it'll turn into a terrorist training camp.

Like Afghanistan. When the Taliban controlled it. Like they're accomplishing now.

Great job there, George.

"Second round"

From Ha'aretz:

Senior IDF officers: Hezbollah hostilities liable to restart soon

Members of the Israel Defense Forces General Staff say that "round two" between Israel and Hezbollah could begin within months or even weeks, probably over the renewal of arms deliveries to the organization from Iran and Syria.

One senior officer told Haaretz on Sunday that throughout the month-long war with Hezbollah, Iran and Syria attempted to smuggle large quantities of weapons to Lebanon. He said that the efforts were stepped up over the past week, following the cease-fire and the end of Israel Air Force sorties deep in Lebanese territory.

The officer noted that while UN Security Council Resolution 1701 calls for an embargo on arms shipments to Hezbollah, no mechanism has been put in place to enforce this embargo, and said that Israel will have to intervene if the deliveries continue unchecked.

Well, I guess that answers my question about disarming Hezbollah. And according to this article, Lebanon will take it on the chin again:

"It is the Lebanese who are to be blamed for allowing the weapons transfer... The one responsible is (Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad) Siniora. We should give him an ultimatum -- either he stops the weapons transfer or we target his infrastructure," [Trade and Industry Minister] Yishai said.

All I've got to say on the subject

Would that the media would have been half as willing to doubt the invasion/occupation of Iraq, terror alerts, the outing of Valerie Plame or the NSA wiretapping program (to paraphrase Doonesbury, "That's ILLEGAL, ILLEGAL, ILLEGAL!") as they evidently are to doubt the JonBenet Ramsey killing confession.

Um...?

This has every indication of not going well:

Jerusalem - Israel would resume operations in Lebanon if a United Nations force being assembled to deploy in the south of that country did not disarm Hezbollah guerrillas, the Jerusalem Post daily reported Wednesday, quoting 'an official in the prime minister's office.'

Well, Condi's saying the U.N. isn't going to do it:

WASHINGTON — The 15,000-member U.N. force being created for southern Lebanon will keep the peace and enforce an international arms embargo, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday, but it won't be charged with disarming Hezbollah guerrillas.

And the Lebanese Army says they're not going to do it:

The government said in a statement that only the army would be allowed to carry weapons in the area. "There will be no authority or weapons besides those of the state," Information Minister Ghazi Aridi said in explaining the decision. But the declaration skipped over the question of whether Hezbollah's weapons, many of them hidden underground, had to be removed or destroyed. Aridi said there would be no confrontation with Hezbollah fighters, who in any case do not carry weapons except in battle and often live in the border villages.

So it remains - what the hell was the last month-or-so all about?

Things you must NEVER do

...set timetables for withdrawl:

NABATIYE, Lebanon (CNN) -- The Israel Defense Forces will complete their pullout from southern Lebanon within 10 days, giving way to U.N. and Lebanese troops, Israel's army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, said Tuesday.

So if they can do it, why can't we?

Drawing the wrong lessons

Seymour Hersh, New Yorker Magazine, 8/14/06:

The surprising strength of Hezbollah’s resistance, and its continuing ability to fire rockets into northern Israel in the face of the constant Israeli bombing, the Middle East expert told me, “is a massive setback for those in the White House who want to use force in Iran. And those who argue that the bombing will create internal dissent and revolt in Iran are also set back.”

Nonetheless, some officers serving with the Joint Chiefs of Staff remain deeply concerned that the Administration will have a far more positive assessment of the air campaign than they should, the former senior intelligence official said. “There is no way that Rumsfeld and Cheney will draw the right conclusion about this,” he said. “When the smoke clears, they’ll say it was a success, and they’ll draw reinforcement for their plan to attack Iran.”

George W. Bush, press conference, 8/14/06:

He said the conflict was a win for his administration's policy of encouraging democracy in the Middle East and a defeat for Hezbollah, discounting a claim of victory issued by the Shiite Muslim militia's leader earlier Monday.

"Hezbollah suffered a defeat in this crisis," Bush said during a news conference at the State Department.

Hersh called it.

What's Hebrew for "Pyhrric"?

Well, it looks like there's a possible cease-fire in Lebanon and, mirable dictu, all sides seem to be agreeing to it.

From the Yahoo link:

U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution seeking a "full cessation" of violence between Israel and Hezbollah, offering the region its best chance yet for peace after a month of fighting that has killed more than 800 people and inflamed Mideast tensions.

The resolution, adopted unanimously, authorizes 15,000 U.N. peacekeepers to help Lebanese troops take control of south Lebanon as Israeli forces that have occupied the area withdraw.

Um - so, in effect, this is pretty much what was the case back in 1978, with UNFIL in place (but supposedly stronger) and both sides sent back to their corners. Which lasted until 1982 last time, so it might at least calm things down for now if not in the long run.

Which seems kind of an odd result for people who started out so determined that "we cannot return to a status quo".

So some 1000 dead, almost a million Lebanese refugees, and over $2 billion in damages to get right back to where things stood before all this happened.

Hopefully, as I said, this will mean an end to the bloodshed, at least for now. But from a historical perspective I'm not so sure.

THAT didn't take long

Bush Seeks Political Gains from Foiled Plot

US President George W. Bush seized on a foiled London airline bomb plot to hammer unnamed critics he accused of having all but forgotten the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

[snip]

"Weeks before September 11th, this is going to play big," said another White House official, who also spoke on condition of not being named, adding that some Democratic candidates won't "look as appealing" under the circumstances.

Imagine how much better they'd look if it HAD gone through.

Really. These people are sociopaths.

Another turning point!

No, not in Iraq - here on the blog! I've had my first detractor leave a message, and to commemorate I'm going to address the concerns in a post instead of in comments.

Obviously overwhelmed by the significance of the occasion, (he) humbly signed (him)self "anonymous". I'll refer to him as "Chucko", for convenience's sake.

Chucko is evidently unhappy with me for reporting what Robert Fisk had to say about the broadcast/printing of Lebanese civilian casualties in Arab media:

Is that the same Arab media that does't make a peep regrading the daily slaughter taking place in Iraq?

I'd like to see what evidence he has for this; my personal exposure to Arab media has been either through the Internets or from LinkTV's MOSAIC (which I highly recommend, BTW). I don't know if they covered the situation in Iraq more before the Lebanon war; I don't know what priorities they have - probably they consider the Lebanon situation more important to cover than Iraq. (God knows that seems to be the case with the American media, at least before the present almost 24/7 "AIR TERROR" coverage.) Perhaps Chucko would prefer to take the issue up with the Arab media - I know al Jazeera for one has an English-language web page with a feedback section. Maybe he's afraid of catching Islamofascist cooties or something.

There are far more people being suicide-bombed in Iraq every day, than any supposed Lebanese casualties, without much word from regional leaders.

First part is probably true; god knows there's a bloodbath going on in Iraq right now (exacerbated of course by the American/British occupation, but nemmind that!). But "supposed Lebanese casualties"? WTF?

Maybe that's a reference to the "Qana was FAKED!" conspiracy theory floating around. I don't know - if you're going down that road you might as well assume there's not even a war going on, and it's all some sort of media plot. Maybe BOTH sides are faking casualties, and the IAF is really dropping all those bombs in the sea. I suppose solipsism is easy and all, unless and until the effects of what's happened come back to stare you in the face, as happened almost 5 years ago.

While a few dead people in Lebanon because Israel decided to payback Hezbollah for the past 6 years of unprovoked Katyusha fire, and all hell breaks loose.

I had thought the attacks on Lebanon were caused by the kidnapping of IDF soldiers. And there was a long history of provocations on BOTH sides. And if Israel had been attacked for 6 years, why the massive retaliation now? And if Hezbollah is the target, why so much destruction to Lebanon's infrastructure and continuing attacks on the Lebanese army which Israel wants to take over the "buffer zone"?

Keep it in perspective, buddy.

Well, isn't THAT patronizing. A "few dead people" (almost 900 Lebanese, mostly civilians) but, after all, those are "supposed" casualties anyway so it's no big concern. And anyway more people are dying in Iraq than Lebanon, which means what I don't know but it's evidently significant. (With an unspoken racialist air of "that's what THOSE people do".) And we wonder why they hate us.

(ADDENDUM: First version of this post got eaten yesterday when Opera crashed while I was researching links. Irritated, I decided to let responding go until today.

Actually it's good that I waited, as I TiVo the aforementioned LinkTV's MOSAIC and got a chance to watch the 8/10 edition yesterday afternoon.

Surprise, surprise! The last segment had - guess what - a news report on a suicide bombing in Iraq, exactly what Chucko asserts NEVER happens.

To be fair, though, the report was from IRIB2 TV in Iran - PERSIAN news, not ARAB, but there you are.)

Now with 20% less peaceiness!

Well, I was wrong about the draft UN resolution on the Israel/Lebanon Whatever It's Called; one of the sides WAS indeed involved in the negotiations - Israel:

What is more surprising is that, according to Aluf Benn, “Israel was very involved in its formulation. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's chief of staff, Yoram Turbowicz, conducted talks with the Americans and French from Jerusalem; Tal Becker, an advisor to Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, flew to New York to take part in talks conducted at the UN.” These Israelis surely knew that the resolution they helped to draft would be rejected. They knew that this would delay an end to hostilities. That means more days, perhaps weeks or even months, of Hezbollah rockets falling on Israeli Jews. Yet they call this a diplomatic victory.

Condi Rice, meanwhile, feels this draft resolution will prove "who is for peace and who isn't":

In a clear message to Lebanese and Syrian leaders who have spoken out against the draft resolution, she said, "We'll see who is for peace and who isn't."

The resolution does not demand that Israeli troops pull out of Lebanon.

Israel has not expressed opposition.

Gosh, imagine that.

The draft U.N. resolution, written by the United States and France, calls for "the immediate cessation by Hezbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations."

The resolution includes "a political basis for creating those conditions ... in which Lebanon can flow its authority south," said Rice.

...uh? "Flow its authority south"? She's been spending 'WAY too much time around Bush, evidently.

Meanwhile the bombs and rockets continue to fall and Arab media continues to show its viewers and readers the unfortunately abundant carnage we work so hard to ignore. As Robert Fisk writes in The Independent yesterday:

More gruesome photographs of the dead in the Lebanese papers. We in the pure "West" spare our readers these terrible pictures - we "respect" the dead too much to print them, though we didn't respect them very much when they were alive - and we forget the ferocious anger which Arabs feel when these images are placed in front of them. What are we storing up for ourselves? I wrote about another 9/11 in the paper this morning. And I fear I'm right.

The violence you have done to Lebanon will overwhelm you,
and your destruction of animals will terrify you.
For you have shed man's blood;
you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them.
--Habbakuk 2:17

Truceiness

U.S., France draft truce deal goes to U.N.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- France and the United States agreed Saturday on a draft U.N. Security Council resolution aimed at stopping the 25-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Members of the 15-member Security Council will hold a 3 p.m. ET closed-door meeting to discuss the proposal backed by the U.S. -- Israel's strongest ally -- and France, which historically has close ties to Lebanon.

But it may be several days before the council votes on the plan to address the violence which has killed more than 750 people in Lebanon and Israel and then it would require cooperation on the ground.

Great idea, then, except for that "cooperation on the ground" problem, seeing as neither of the sides actually fighting seems willing to, you know, stop. Or were included in the consulations. There's a little problem there, I think.

Wolcott...

...has a good one on the fount of sociopathy calling itself Roger Simon:

After delivering one of his trademark beats-me, your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine shrugs ("No one really knows what is happening and how it will turn out"), Simon nevertheless urges everyone on the boardwalk to stand firm and let Israel bomb whatever it needs to bomb with our anxious blessings: "...it strikes me that we are now at a moment that is going to take great courage on the part of the Israelis on both military and diplomatic fronts - and great courage in the latter from the US, because Israel has no choice but to continue in the face of what will undoubtedly be mounting negative public opinion. This is a time for all friends of freedom to hold their noses and pray. It is not the moment for second-guessing. It is a moment for pressing on."

Isn't that NOBLE of him. We have no choice in the matter but to hop in the SUV, pick up a couple packs of Bud at Wal-Mart, and steel ourselves for the horrors to come. And regardless of what you see on your teevee, know that your sacrifice in having your day slightly inconvenienced in seeing a bloody child before you flip over to the All-Rambo Marathon on Spike TV was well worth it for the inevitable freedom it will bring. Yea, and our children will sing our names with pride.

Wolcott also picks up on Simon's cavalier dismissal of the dead in Lebanon being "still only about a third of those who died on 9/11":

What idiotic moral yardstick is this? Lebanese civilians weren't responsible for 9/11, neither was Hezbollah, so why draw the analogy? Is 3000 dead the Roger Simon cut-off point for how many civilians it's acceptable for Israel to kill?

It's as if Simon would have us adopt the "9/11" as the measure for how justifiable a war is now. Never mind that the Iraq SNAFU is slowly edging up on 1 full "9/11" for the American side, and is almost 14 "9/11"s for the Iraqi side.

Wisdom

Wise words from, suprisingly enough, a Time article about an Israeli secret serviceman captured by the Syrians in 1984:

[ . . . ]The Syrian prisoners were men like me with families and mothers. They weren't terrorists or murderers. Today there is a difference, but I would still exchange terrorists to get our soldiers back. It's a very expensive price, but it should be paid. We've never had success by using force. We've always had negotiations.

But why should he know any better than some American warblogger?

History Lesson: 1978

'Defence Minister Ezer Weizman told a press conference early today that after last Sunday's guerilla attack near Tel Aviv in which more than 30 Israelis were killed it had been decided to "clean up once and for all terrorist concentrations in Southern Lebanon".' Page two of the flimsy green sheet from the Agence France Presse report was still stuffed into my pocket as we drove south from Beruit.[ . . . ]

'I hope,' Weizman said in that agency tape, 'that Syria will understand that it is an operation limited to southern Lebanon, that the Lebanese government will understand that it is a preventative operation, and that the rest of the civilised world will realise that it is aimed essentially at preventing fresh attacks against Israel's civilian population like the ones we have suffered.'[ . . . ]

[ . . . ]It seemed an extraordinarily large army to commit to Lebanon if the eradication of a few PLO bases was all that was at stake. Menachem Begin, the Israeli prime minister, spoke about Israel's determination 'to root out the evil weed of the PLO'. This sort of metaphor became constant refrain in Israel. [ . . . ] Above all else, they were terrorists. Terrorists, terrorists, terrorists. The word was ubiquitous, obsessive, cancerous in its own special way. Terrorists were animals. Animals had to be put down. [ . . . ]

[ . . . ]The Israelis occupied all but this narrow strip of territory below the Litani. But they were now coming under rocket fire from Palestinian positions north of the river. The Israeli-Palestinian line had merely moved a few miles north - at a cost of up to 2,000 Lebanese and Palestinian lives and 20 Israelis.The Americans had agreed to support a United Nations force in southern Lebanon, an international army which was to carry the acronym UNIFIL. This stood for United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. The catch, of course, was the word 'interim'. { . . . ]

(from Pity The Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon, by Robert Fisk, pp. 123-132)

And thus the UN was stationed in south Lebanon under the auspices of UN Resolution 425:

3. Decides, in the light of the request of the Government of Lebanon, to establish immediately under its authority a United Nations interim force for Southern Lebanon for the purpose of confirming the withdrawal of Israeli forces, restoring international peace and security and assisting the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area, the Force to be composed of personnel drawn from Member States;

But don't fret.

It'll all work out just fine THIS time.

The left hand diddles, while the right one goes to work

I'd love it if someone could clear all this up:

U.N. Talks Focus on Terms of Cease-Fire

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 2 -- Lebanon's acting foreign minister, Tarek Mitri, said Wednesday he doubts that his government would agree to invite a European-led intervention force into southern Lebanon, citing fierce opposition from Hezbollah and its key foreign backers, Syria and Iran.

Meanwhile:

U.N. Again Postpones Peacekeeper Meeting

(AP) The U.N. announced Wednesday that it was again postponing a meeting of nations that could send peacekeepers to south Lebanon, saying talks about sending troops were pointless before there was progress on peace between Israel and Hezbollah.

Meanwhile:

Olmert asks UN for 'real' soldiers

ISRAELI Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has warned the UN not to send a "Dad's Army" of peacekeepers to enforce a ceasefire in southern Lebanon and insisted on a combat-trained garrison of up to 15,000 soldiers to monitor Hezbollah guerillas.

Meanwhile you have the story from the previous post about the U.S. plan to train the Lebanese Army to cover this "buffer zone".

Meanwhile:

Bush and Blair are ready to back plan for peace

The transatlantic allies, which had resisted pressure to support an immediate cessation of hostilities, were “very close” last night to agreement with France on a UN resolution that could be adopted as early as this weekend.

Meanwhile:

Hezbollah vows revenge attacks

BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday vowed to strike Tel Aviv in retaliation for Israel's bombardment of the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

Meanwhile:

Israel warns of consequences of Tel Aviv attack: TV

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel will destroy Lebanon's infrastructure if Hizbollah fires rockets at Tel Aviv as Hizbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah threatened on Thursday, a senior Israeli defense source told Israel's Channel One television.

Meanwhile, from Billmon:

This is not much of a buffer zone -- more like a series of small pockets poking a couple of kilometers into Lebanon. And the IDF appears to be moving very slowly and deliberately to try to hold down its own casualties -- successfully so far, but at what cost in terms of the mission?

This isn't just "fog of war", here - this is sheer chaos, even on a diplomatic level.

No buffer zone but a buffer zone with a multinational force but a multinational force acceptable to "Syran" but a Lebanese force which the U.S. will train. At some point. Maybe. When there's peace. By this weekend. Unless there isn't. Which both sides seem to be pretty damn far from.

Those who can't do, teach

This should go just swimmingly:

(08-03) 13:38 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --

The United States plans to help train and equip the Lebanese army so it can take control of all of the nation's territory when warfare between Israel and Hezbollah eases, the State Department said Thursday.

Great! We can teach them all the useful information we've learned about occupying hostile areas. After all, Iraq and Afghanistan have gone SO well... (and all those Iraqi soldiers we've successfully trained!)

And of course, details are, as ever with the Bush crowd, nonexistent:

McCormack provided no details on what equipment the United States might provide, the training that would be conducted, how many U.S. personnel would be involved, or possible costs.

I can't see how this could POSSIBLY go wrong.



[1983]: A mushroom cloud rises from the rubble of a U.S. barracks at Beirut International Airport after a suicide bomber drove a truck into its lobby and detonated it, collapsing the structure and killing 241 American servicemen.

"Petrol in the hands of declared pyromaniacs"

Oh, good, I have the feeling things are about to get worse:

Israel's high court Tuesday upheld a request by far-right Jewish activists to enter Islam's third holiest shrine, the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, in a move likely to spark riots in Israel and the Occupied Territories.

THAT'S going to be REALLY constructive, on top of what's already going on.

A similar court decision in July 2001 sparked bloody clashes in Jerusalem in which 15 Israeli policemen and 18 Palestinians were wounded.

Well, that was before 9/11, before the new Intifada, before the war in Iraq and before the shiny new FUBAR in Lebanon.

Arab Israeli MP Mohammad Barakeh said in reaction that allowing the activists to enter the compound would lead to a flare-up.

"The decision is petrol in the hands of declared pyromaniacs and could lead to further violence," he said.

I'm afraid given the present situation, that's understating what could happen. As Juan Cole (thanks for the link!) says, this belongs in the "They'll be so o o o ry department". I hope to hell it's not ALL of us who'll be sorry over this one.

Fit for doody

CNN.com:

Doctors poke and prod Bush, find him 'fit for duty'

"I find him to be fit for duty and have every reasonable expectation that he will remain fit for duty for the duration of his presidency," they said in a written statement.

Oh, well, jeez, thank god for that. I was SO worried he wasn't fit for another 2 1/2 years of clearing brush, ignoring briefings, and alienating the world while finding exciting new ways to embarrass us here in the States.



"Hear that, honey? Ah'm ready for duty!"

Okay, this is just WEIRD

CNN this morning (about 8:30 EDT) had a charmingly surreal lil' story about a couple of kids in Israel who have found a new hobby - collecting shrapnel from landed Katyusha rockets. (Whee! Think of the collections all those Lebanese kids could do if they were as enterprising! And not dead.)

I've tried to find a transcript for the damn thing on CNN.com so's I can link to it here, but no dice.

All I can figure is this whole thing has finally gotten to me and I'm starting to hallucinate.

EDIT: Nope, I found a link to it on the transcript for Anderson Poochscrew:

ELISHEVA SILVERBERG, COLLECTS KATYUSHAS: It's kind of cool that you have all these remainings of Katyushas. It's like evidence to what's happening.

COOPER: Their father, Barry a teacher, thinks his kids' collection is a way for them to cope with their fears.

BARRY SILVERBERG, FATHER: In collecting the rocket fragments, it gives them a bit of a feeling of control over something that was trying to kill them.

COOPER: Control over something trying to kill them.

Well, isn't THAT lovely.

Meanwhile, 20 or so miles West in Tyre, their peers are getting blown to shreds and learning to "cope with their fears" the hard way.