Posted on 07/16/2006 8:26:37 AM PDT by Heartofsong83
Wildly disproportionate attack on Lebanon seems like pretext to confront Iran, says Linda McQuaig
Jul. 16, 2006. 01:00 AM
As Israeli firepower rained down on Lebanon last week, pundits here in the West wasted no time pinning the blame on — Iran.
"Iran and its radical allies are pushing toward war," wrote Washington Post columnist David Ignatius.
Washington defence commentator Edward Luttwak weighed in: "Iran's leaders have apparently decided to reject the Western offer to peacefully settle the dispute over its weapons-grade uranium-enrichment program."
In fact, Iran's leaders haven't rejected the "Western offer;" they've said publicly they will respond to it by Aug. 22. This isn't fast enough however to satisfy Washington, which considers the "offer" more of an ultimatum.
Is it really Iran that is pushing for war? Think about it. Why would Iran want to provoke a war with Israel and the U.S. — both heavily armed nuclear powers — when it has no nuclear weapons itself?
The U.S. and Israel, on the other hand, are very keen to attack Iran. In a recent series of articles in New Yorker magazine, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has detailed Washington's plans to attack Iran. Israel has called Iran a "major threat" that "must be stopped" from developing nuclear weapons.
But the U.S. and Israel don't want to look like aggressors. They insist their intentions are purely defensive. Recall that Washington also claimed its invasion of Iraq was purely defensive — to protect itself from Iraq's arsenal of deadly weapons, which, it turned out, didn't exist.
So when Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon seized two Israeli soldiers last week, a perfect opportunity arose. Since Hezbollah has links to Iran, presto, here was a prima facie case that Iran was gunning for confrontation.
Did the Western pundits who quickly embraced this theory ever consider that the Hezbollah militants, as well as the Palestinian militants in Gaza who captured a single Israeli soldier last month, might have had their own motives for striking Israel?
Certainly the Palestinians have endless grievances against Israel. In addition to four decades of Israeli military occupation of their land, Israel has attempted to destroy the Hamas government, which was democratically elected by Palestinians last January.
Hezbollah's seizure of the two Israeli soldiers was probably an act of support for the Palestinians in Gaza, who have been under Israeli military siege since the capture of the first soldier. Hezbollah also said it seized the soldiers because it wanted to trade them for Lebanese prisoners held in Israeli jails. A similar Israeli-Hezbollah prisoner exchange took place in 2004.
Abandoning Canada's traditional role as an honest broker in the Middle East, Prime Minister Stephen Harper unabashedly supported Israel last week, calling its devastating attacks on Gaza and Lebanon "measured."
If Israel is simply trying to "defend" itself, its actions are wildly disproportionate.
On the other hand, if Israel and the U.S. are looking for an excuse to attack Iran, the capture of the Israeli soldiers is as good as any.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linda McQuaig is a Toronto-based author and commentator. lmcquaig@sympatico.ca.
Marxist bitch placemarker.
The author/authors are to be pitied.
Thanks for the "Barf Alert." The liberal/left is panic stricken that they're allies, the islamofascists, may be nearing the eventual endgame of being consigned by the US and Israel, to the trash heap of history. The trash heap over at the DUmpster DUngheap are quacking in their stinking boots at the elimination of their brothers-in-arms.
If the offices of the Toronto Star are invaded by a crazed lunatic tossing firebaoms around during office hours, I hope the TPD just sends one cop and he sits outside and waits 'till the lunatic calms down, or runs out of molotovs. I'd hate to see a violent disproportionate attack mounted.
Peace.
Correction. Linda McQuaig is a Toronto-based dupe and apologist for terror.
Why is immaterial - the evidence is clear that Iran is indeed provoking conflict. But that doesn't stop this nitwit from asking why in order to discredit Israel's retaliation.
It's time to review the rules:
If he pulls a knife, you pull a gun.
If he sends on of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue.
Everything was fine until the last paragraph.
Then she suddenly went south on us.
A confrontation with Iran is necessary I wouldn't mind stomping out the Syrian problem although I believe that going into Iran itself would be too broad a war.
I think that Iran would 'shut up' rather than 'put up' if Israel went into Syria.
>>>>>On the other hand, if Israel and the U.S. are looking for an excuse to attack Iran, the capture of the Israeli soldiers is as good as any
If she has any family members who still speak to her, someone should take that person and lock them in an S&M dungeon for three days and see if she is in any way provoked by those actions.
Because the man is truly dillusional and believes that the US MSM, the Murthas, Kerry's, Kennedy's, etc. will side with Iran in condeming Bush as a loose cannon if we attack Iran.
All you need to know about this correspondent is found in the title and the publicity quote for her book.
Ok... on Friday I hear there were over 300+ missiles that hit Israel. I had also heard that Isreal retaliated by blowing a hole in the airport, blocking a port, and blowing up at least one bring. This does not seem like over reaction.
So, the question is... does anyone have a scorecard? Number of missiles or bombings on Israel vs. what Israel has done in response? Let's get these listed so these comments can be put to rest (while also showing us just how things are going).
The northern front has to be taken care of, now. Iran's threats are empty -- Hizbollah is Iran's proxy, and it is going to be defanged and perhaps destroyed (the latter being my preference -- every last one of the Hizbollah devoured by buzzards).
Syria's regime is on the to-do list, and it is going to get done.
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Disproportion. Sounds good to me.
Poor Hezbollah.
It is psychopathic to keep taking the same act under the same circumstances while expecting different results.
"Proportionate response" is a law enforcement doctrine, not a military doctrine. Police officers are expected to apply minimum necessary force. Soldiers, and the nation states that employ them must use maximum available force.
To do less is to fail to honour the threat.
The peculiar thing about applying maximum available force is that in cases of war, insurgency or insurrection, it actually reduces the eventual aggregate of violence.
In other words, bringing overwhelming force to bear will, in the long run, result in a reduced butcher's bill.
Actually, if you are talking about kill-ratio, the US would be in a close race with the Spartans at Thermopylae. If you are looking at the sheer volume of people killed, the US military isn't even coming close to other events like Mao's 40m or Stalin's 26m... but those were against their own people. How about Hitler vs. Russia in WW2... 2m+ in Stalingrad alone.
It is amazing how little history people seem to carry with them...
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