Oh really? Hmm. Apparently you never heard of an event that took place on April 18, 1996 at Qana, also know as Cana (as in the "Wedding Feast of Cana" -- the site of Jesus' first miracle). That was during "Operation Grapes of Wrath." Remember that one? It was a 16 day Israeli military blitz in Lebanon whose objective was to subdue Hezbollah. It ended just like the one in 1993 and the one in 2000 and the one that is hopefully just now concluding: i.e. with 118 Lebanese civilians killed, 350 wounded, hundreds of thousands forced to flee their homes, the Lebanese infrastructure destroyed yet again, and Hezbollah still intact and and newly re-energized with a fresh crop of people who have learned to hate Israel after experiencing Israeli aggression. The incident at Qana took on April 18, 1996, when at least seventeen Israeli high explosive artillery shells hit a UNIFIL compound where over 800 Lebanese civilians had taken shelter. Some 102 civilians were killed. A U.N. inquiry found that it was "unlikely that the shelling of the United Nations compound was the result of gross technical and/or procedural errors," strongly suggesting that the base had been deliberately targeted.
"Amnesty International conducted an on-site investigation of the incident in collaboration with military experts, using interviews with UNIFIL staff and civilians in the compound, and posing questions to the IDF, who did not reply. Amnesty concluded, "the IDF intentionally attacked the UN compound, although the motives for doing so remain unclear. The IDF have failed to substantiate their claim that the attack was a mistake. Even if they were to do so they would still bear responsibility for killing so many civilians by taking the risk to launch an attack so close to the UN compound."[full report]
Human Rights Watch concurred, "The decision of those who planned the attack to choose a mix of high-explosive artillery shells that included deadly anti-personnel shells designed to maximize injuries on the ground — and the sustained firing of such shells, without warning, in close proximity to a large concentration of civilians — violated a key principle of international humanitarian law."[full report]
In light of the above, you'll forgive me if I don't share your certainty about Israelis not seeking to harm civilian casualties. But if that's not enough, then why not take them at their own words:
"Everyone in southern Lebanon is a terrorist and is connected to Hezbollah," roared Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon on July 27."Every village from which a Katyusha is fired must be destroyed," bellowed an Israeli general in a quote bannered by the nation's largest newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth.
The Israeli paper then summarized what the justice minister and general were saying: "In other words, a village from which rockets are fired at Israel will simply be destroyed by fire." That was Thursday (7/27/06).
Sunday (7/30/06), in Qana, 57 of Haim Ramon's "terrorists," 37 of them children, were massacred with precision-guided bombs. Apparently, Katyushas had been fired from Qana, near the destroyed building.
"One who goes to sleep with rockets shouldn't be surprised if he doesn't wake up in the morning," said Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman.
Today, we hear unctuous statements about how Israel takes pains to avoid civilian casualties, drops leaflets to warn civilians to flee target areas and conforms to all the rules of civilized warfare.
But Israel's words and deeds contradict her propaganda. As the war began, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accused Lebanon, which had condemned Hezbollah for the killing and capture of the Israeli soldiers, of an "act of war." Army chief of staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz publicly threatened "to turn back the clock in Lebanon by 20 years."
Gillerman, at a pro-Israel rally in New York, thundered, "[T]o those countries who claim that we are using disproportionate force, I have only this to say: You're damn right we are."
"His comments drew wild applause," said the Jerusalem Post.
Though Israel is dissembling now, Gillerman spoke the truth then. No sooner had Hezbollah taken the two Israeli soldiers hostage than Israel unleashed an air war – on Lebanon. The Beirut airport was bombed, its fuel storage tanks set ablaze. The coast was blockaded. Power plants, gas stations, lighthouses, bridges, roads, trucks and buses were all hit with air strikes.
Within 48 hours, it was apparent Israel was exploiting Hezbollah's attack to execute a preconceived military plan to destroy Lebanon – i.e, the collective punishment of a people and nation for the crimes of a renegade militia they could not control. It was the moral equivalent of a municipal police going berserk, shooting, killing and ravaging an African-American community because Black Panthers had ambushed and killed cops.
If Israel is not in violation of the principle of proportionality, by which Christians are to judge the conduct of a just war, what can that term mean? [go here to read the complete article, by Pat Buchanan]
now Israel has declared a cease fire. So, what did their detestation of Lebanon reap? Hezbollah is not only still intact, it's been legitimized by being invited to the negotiating table! Yes, the Israelis are now discussing a prisoner swap with Hezbollah. Can you say "Yassir Arafat all over again"? Will they ever learn? Will our government ever learn?
How many more 9/11s do we have to have before we figure out that "they" hate us for a reason, and it's not because they don't have MTV, Starbucks, Hugh Hefner, abortion on demand and all the other "joys" of our democracy. The rest of the world sees what we do and recognizes our hypocrisy. If any other nation behaved the way Israel did (i.e. exacting collective punishment on innocent people for the actions of a rogue entity that the whole world knew that they could not control and for which they asked for help), we would rightly call them terrorists. But Israel does it, and we fed-ex them more bombs! And we dismiss their hatred by labeling all of them "Islamo-fascists". Here's a Newsflash, folks: the Maronite Catholics, the Greek Catholics, the Eastern & Syrian Orthodox Christians, and the Armenian Christians of Lebanon are not Islamo-fascists. And yet I have no doubt that they loath, and even hate, our country now. And they have a good reason to.
Do you want to know what they see? Do you even care? Do you even consider them human beings anymore? I'm using the term "they" and "them", but "they" are really me. I am a Lebanese Maronite. And there but for the grace of God, I could have been lying under the rubble -- just as the family of my Christian Lebanese friend was. We are not Islamic extremists. They are human beings who want to live in peace. They don't have the means to "remove" Hezbollah.
A lot of Freepers seem to make the assumption that the Lebanese deserved the ruin that rained down on them because they "harbored" Hezbollah. That's like accusing a sea captain of "harboring" rats aboard his ship. Hezbollah came without being invited and have proven very difficult to remove!
And while people are quick to point out Lebanon's mistakes, they're awfully silent when it comes to acknowledging Israel's own failures and shortsightedness. This whole situation might have been different if the Israelis had listened to SLA members like Etienne Saqr (surely the Cassandra of Lebanese politics!) when they asked Israel to aid them the same way that Syria and Iran are aiding Hezbollah and thereby empower the Lebanese to remove Hezbollah themselves. Instead, Israel abandoned its Lebanese allies when they pulled out in 2000. They left them to face a fate of either forced exile or imprisonment by the Syrian puppet government on charges of "collaborating with the Zionist enemy". Thousands of them were sent to Syria and remain "lost" in Syrian prisons. Saqr himself rebuked Israel's leaders before their Knesset for making "heroes out of Hezbollah."
But they are not the only ones who failed by lack of foresight. The United States also betrayed the democracy-loving and peace-aspiring Lebanese. In 1990 during the build-up to the first Gulf War, George Herbert Walker Bush lobbied Syria to join his UN-backed coalition. Syria agreed, but had one small request. Bush 41 had to promise not to meddle in Syria's handling of Lebanon. So, in exchange for Syria's help (such as it was) in the first Gulf War, Bush sold Lebanon to Syria. The puppet government was put in place. The various militias disarmed with the understanding that everyone was going to disarm. And everyone did... everyone but Hezbollah that is. The puppet government let them keep their weapons. Now, fast forward to 2006 where historically illiterate posters make snide comments about how the Lebanese should have taken care of this problem themselves.
How?! How exactly were they supposed to do this with a Syrian controlled government in place that was systematically raping and pillaging their country? How were they supposed to do this with no weapons and no militias? How were they supposed to do this when all of their militia leaders and soldiers either disappeared in Syrian prisons or were forced into exile?
And even if Lebanon had a well-armed and operational army, it still would be very difficult to get Hezbollah out. Israel has been trying to do that for the last 18 years! And lest we all forget, this isn't the first bombing offensive Israel has launched to get rid of Hezbollah. Remember 1996 and “Operation Grapes of Wrath”? And don’t forget about “Operation Accountability” in 1993. That one was a seven day strike to remove Hezbollah. Needless to say, that one didn't work out either.
It would be churlish of me to belittle the Israelis by taunting them with their failure to get rid of these thugs just as it is churlish of them to taunt the Lebanese with this. The Lebanese army is only slightly larger than the Vatican's Swiss Guard and is trained to do about as much (i.e. guard monuments and try to look sexy in their uniforms). Israel has the fourth largest army in the world and 200 nuclear missiles in its arsenal! If they haven't been successful, how can they expect an abused unarmed civilian populace to be? The Lebanese had enough to worry about trying to get their war-torn country in order with little or no help from the rest of the world. And sure enough, every damn time the Lebanese rebuild their country, their neighbors (from all sides) march right in and transform it into Belgium circa 1915.
But, perhaps this whole argument depends on who we mean when we say the "Lebanese". By Lebanese, I'm referring to the people who are historically from Lebanon (of all sects & sub-sects of Christians, Druze, and Muslims), who own the land and have done so for centuries. They have learned the lessons of their civil war, and now want to build a secular Lebanon without sectarian set-asides and divisions.
As Pope John Paul II says, 'Lebanon is more than a country, it is a message of fraternity for the entire world.'
As the editor of America magazine put it in an editorial this month:
Christians, and Catholics in particular, have reason for acute concern, because Lebanon has been the last country in the Middle East where Christians play a significant role in society. The Lebanese experiment in multireligious co-existence, what the Lebanese call conviviality, a promising alternative to government by the mullahs, has been dealt a crippling blow. The weakening of Lebanon means fading possibilities not only for Middle Eastern Christianity but also for interreligious coexistence.
The other day, a Lebanese journalist pointed out on C-Span that the most popular leaders in Iran, Iraq (think of the Shiite al-Sistani), and now in Lebanon (Nasrallah) all wear turbins, not Western suits. I fail to see how allowing the destruction of the infrastructure and economy of westernized, multi-ethnic, multi-religious Lebanon serves the American interest.
How?! How exactly were they supposed to do this with a Syrian controlled government in place that was systematically raping and pillaging their country? How were they supposed to do this with no weapons and no militias? How were they supposed to do this when all of their militia leaders and soldiers either disappeared in Syrian prisons or were forced into exile?
And even if Lebanon had a well-armed and operational army, it still would be very difficult to get Hezbollah out. Israel has been trying to do that for the last 18 years! And lest we all forget, this isn't the first bombing offensive Israel has launched to get rid of Hezbollah. Remember 1996 and “Operation Grapes of Wrath”? And don’t forget about “Operation Accountability” in 1993. That one was a seven day strike to remove Hezbollah. Needless to say, that one didn't work out either.
Thank you!, GipperGal, for the history lesson!
You're not allowed to question Israel here. Ever. Or neo-conservative objectives in general. That's just how this site works.
It just wasn't kidnapping. It was missles being shot into Israel. An outpost was attacked and hostages were taken.
Basic message: Whatever fantasies may motivate the Islamolooneytunes in their desire to kill every last Jew and destroy Israel, they lose. Christians, Lebanese or otherwise, have no business giving aid and comfort to the Islamic enemies of Western Civilization.
Additionally, I will never accept the notion that Saddam Hussein had no WMD until reliable folk excavate the Bekaa Valley and every square inch of Syria, preferably from the sky with bunkerbusters and daisy cutters.
I bet that I am not the only American who is fed up to the eye teeth with paying attention to these lunatics. It is time for them to sit down, shut up, leave civilization alone, and understand that there are unlimited consequences to further resistance. We spend a lot on our military and its job is to kill bad guys and break their things.
BTW, there is already a Palestinian state. It is called Jordan.
As to Cana, bear in mind the desecration of the Catholic Church at Bethlehem by armed Islamolunatics using it as a hideout.
If the UN site was deliberately targeted, it was probably for good reason like collaboration of UN "observers" with Islamofascisti. The UN denies the Oil for Food cornucopia of corruption and reality generally. Amnesty International?????? I'll take them seriously when they take abortion for the slaughter of the innocent that it is. They are also knee-jerk anti-American and anti-Israeli.
If you deny that Lebanon tolerated the presence and growth of Hezbollah in their midst, thereby earning the recent unpleasantness, you are not toting a full six-pack. Ideas have consequences and so does the harboring of Hezbollah and so does hatred of America. If Lebanese of any religious stripe side with Ahmadinejad and Hamas and Hezbollah against the US and Israel, well, God gave them free will and they will suffer the earthly consequences of its misuse.
America magazine is a reliably leftist rag not fit for Catholic consumption. I was educated by the Jesuits so long ago that they were still Catholic.
Paleos.
Just as with the left, the paleo right believes it does not need the luxury of outlining concrete positions apart from a vague wish that the followers of Pat Buchanan can join with those of Ralph Nader to effect a united coalition. But one can deduce what paleos believe by reading its magazine, The American Conservative. The latest issue (July 31) starts off cheering the Supreme Court for ruling against the Bush administration to try Guantanamo detainees (as does the left)…It then supports the fact that Hamas now wants “a two-state solution,” mourning that “millions of Palestinians have no electricity, no services, no government,” ignoring all the excesses of Hamas that have blocked negotiations in the past (as does the left)…Then it is depressed by the defeat of immigration hard-liner John Jacobs in the Utah Republican primary to Congressman Chris Cannon, ignoring the statement by Jacobs that Satan is involved with Jacobs’ opposition…
…A column by Buchanan recommends we get out of Korea now (“The way to Guam and home lies open”) which is also supported by the left…Economist Paul Craig Roberts, a paleo new recruit, worries about the looming deficit but was caught blind-sided after publication with the announcement that the deficit has dropped from $423 billion to $296 billion, largely due to the Bush tax cuts which Roberts in his former incarnation used to celebrate. No mention of the tax cuts in his pessimistic piece which apes the left…It minimizes any information turned up by the NSA that has been data-mining telephone, fax and e-mail transactions (as does the left)…It pronounces the Afghanistan effort as “a model only for disaster” (as does the left)…It defends The New York Times in publishing the facts of the Terrorist Finance Tracking program, saying that “today’s conservatives are eager to trade freedom for security” warning that the Bush administration cannot be trusted to defend our freedoms (as does the left).
…It publishes approvingly an article by liberal Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) attacking Wal-Mart’s low prices that have come from free trade, warning that these prices come at “a high economic cost” and declaring that “corporate greed is selling out America” in small towns where Mom and Pop stores cannot compete with the giant and hence are closing, the recommendation being that Wal-Mart must be stopped and prices hiked…
…The same issue of the magazine reviews a book Where Did the Party Go? . It’s a book that bashes Hubert Humphrey for being too anti-Communist. The reviewer, Bill Kaufman, says Humphrey “hated pacifists, isolationist and radical American dissenters and purged them with the fervor of Tailgunner Joe.” As one who knows something about Humphrey and knew him, I would say that’s correct-and not a derogation, although Kaufman insists it is. He says Humphrey persecuted drove harmless populist Farmer-Laborites out of his Democratic party and what a shame that was. The only ones who say this now are the few radical leftists still alive in Minnesota who rue the day the followers of pro-Communist governor Elmer Benson were shown the gate by Humphrey. As I knew who they were and Kaufman doesn’t, I can congratulate him on buying the old Commie jargon that Humphrey was a conservative in sheep’s clothing. You will find that same estimate in the favorite organ of the left, The Nation…
…Finally, as a final piece, a snide put-down of conservative scholar and intellectual Paul Johnson for his book The Creators. So in one issue just about the entire panoply of issues favored by the left is glowingly presented (one exception: it is pro-life). The attack on Humphrey particularly appalls me: “Humphrey never was found on the populist side of an issue.” As one who covered him, particularly on the farm issue, I was so mis-led I didn’t recognize it? “He red-baited ferociously in the late `40s and sponsored legislation to outlaw the Communist party USA.” That’s a criticism now in Pat Buchanan’s magazine as it most assuredly would be in any leftist publication. “He opposed the traditional Farmer-Labor party in the mid-`40s.” That group was supporting Henry A. Wallace against Harry Truman. [He opposed] “the Mississippi Freedom Democratic party in the mid-1960s, the New Left and counter-culture in the late 1960s…” Guilty as charged. Then the reviewer projects a hope for realignment between the paleos and the Green Party on the left. There would be trouble fusing it together because of social policy, he says, but then brightly recommends the fusion anyhow. “Let San Francisco be San Francisco and let Utah be Utah. Mind your own damn place.”
Wonderful. Elect the paleos and the Greens and let `er rip. To those who occasionally write here in defense of paleo-conservatism (and you’re welcome) what do you have to say about that? All that’s missing is an article by Kevin Phillips denouncing our theocracy-but he was in last month’s issue.
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*BTW, Ol' Pat is in favor of giving foreign aid to Hamas