Lebanon Situation Goes From Bad to Worse

On Sunday the Israeli air force bombed a building in Qana and killed 57 people, mostly women and children. These people were sheltering in the basement of the building so that they would not face death at the hands of Israeli bombs. The fact that the Israeli armed forces would blatantly drop a bomb on a building full of women and children on the excuse that there might have been a few Hezbollah fighters in the building is absolutely unconscionable. Once again, the government of claims that the strike was not deliberate and that it feels "deep regret" but if they really felt any remorse for what they did, all bombing of Lebanon would cease forever, not just the forty-eight hours promised by Israel. Killing the civilians of Lebanon is not the way to disarm Hezbollah; it is not a good way to ensure the security of the people of Israel. All that killing innocent people in Lebanon will do is provide more recruits for Hezbollah and build more antipathy towards Israel among the people of the Middle East.

And yet the U.N. Security Council, stuck firmly in the pocket of the Bush Administration, refuses to condemn the crimes that Israel is committing in Lebanon. All they do is call for a ceasefire that will create the conditions for a lasting peace. What that means is that Israel gets everything it wants: Hezbollah disarmed, soldiers returned and part of Lebanon occupied while Lebanon gets nothing, just the hope that Israel might one day withdraw. While a lasting peace in the region is of course desirable, the people of Lebanon need a cease fire now. The United States wishes to buy more time for Israel to reshape the Middle East in an image pleasing to Washington. Well guess what, that isn't going to happen. Resistance to the aggression of Israel and the U.S.A. will strengthen and yet more people, on both sides, will die. It is not acceptable that this should continue.

Every government in the world should denounce the aggression of Israel in Lebanon for what it is, blatant expansionism and imperialism. The capturing of two Israeli soldiers, who may or may not have been inside Lebanese territory, is not grounds for the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands of Lebanese civilians.

How can the death of children ever be justified? How can the capturing of soldiers justify the deaths of innocent people? How would we feel if we saw our children dead in the rubble every day?

STOP AGGRESSION NOW!

JUSTICE FOR LEBANON!

Days Remaining In Bush Presidency: 904

Harper's Crackpot Response

Just a quick post since I am on break at work (yes, I work evenings). I heard that Harper was on record today questioning why the U.N. observers that Israel blew up on Tuesday were still in South Lebanon, which is (to put it mildly) a war zone. Well, Mr. Harper, it is because they are U.N. observers. They are there to observe and that is why they are staying. Honestly, the Prime Minister needs to pull his head out of his ass in short order.

Cheers

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 908

U.N. Observation Post Destroyed

So, Israel is now bombing the United Nations personnel in southern Lebanon. An Israeli air strike on a UN observer post killed four unarmed UN personnel, including a Canadian, Major Paeta Derek Hess-von Kruedener. This is absolutely unacceptable. There is no reason for Israel to bomb the U.N. observers, unless they don't want their invasion and bombardment to be observed. The Israeli government is actively denying that they had any role to play in the murder of the observers, claiming that the post was hit by accident. But I prefer to take the word of the Secretary General of the United Nations over that of the Israeli government thank you very much. Kofi Annan stated that numerous calls had been made from the observation post to the Israeli government saying that the bombardment had come much to close, until, at about 7:30 pm local time the U.N. lost contact with the post. I find it very difficult to believe that such a thing could have happened by accident after so many warnings.

Of course, Canada's boot-licker of a Prime Minister has decided that Israel can't have possibly targeted the U.N. post for bombing. All he had to say on the matter when asked about Mr. Annan's statement was "I certainly doubt that to be the case." What a fatuous jackass we have in charge of our country. First, Israel's slaughter of the Lebanese is "measured" and second that Israel could not possibly have deliberately bombed the U.N. post. This is a perfect example of the binary thinking that I mentioned in a previous post. Israel can do no wrong, so obviously it could not have possibly even conceived of deliberately bombing the U.N. observers. How disgusting.

And now the Prime Minister of Israel cries crocodile tears for the people killed, expressing "deep regret" over the deaths of the observers. Oh well, at least its better than the treatment that the dead Lebanese civilians get out of the Israeli government, the line that, well, if they were near a site that we wanted to bomb 'cause we think it might possibly, maybe, have had something to do with Hezbollah so they deserved to be bombed into oblivion. This all makes me so sick.

Days remaining in Bush presidency: 909

EnMasse

The EnMasse discussion forum is a great new online place for discussion of all things progressive. It is a largely Canadian site focused on current events in a variety of areas and on building a progressive community online. There are many very articulate voices from the Canadian left, as well as contributers from places as diverse as South Korea, the Netherlands, the United States and Japan. I hope that every person who reads the posts on my blog and is concerned about the issues I mention here will visit enmasse.ca and join the discussion there.

Cheers

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 912

Harper's Photo Op

Well, it has just been brought to my attention that when Harper flew to the Middle East for his dramatic rescue of stranded Canadians, he flew home on his plane with only sixty-three evacuees when he could have carried over one hundred. (See the story at this page from CBC.ca.) This seems to demonstrate that Harper was only interested in the need to have enough people for a photo op. The illustrious Prime Minister seems to have felt the need to "prove" that he is doing something to help the thirty to fifty thousand Canadians stranded in Lebanon. It has also emerged that Mr. Harper brought along three members of his communications staff on his little jaunt. What possible purpose could their being there serve except to show the Canadian public what a great and magnanimous man our Prime Minister is. HAH!

This whole exercise has been to try to divert attention from the fact that the evacuation of Canadians from Lebanon has been a day late and a dollar short. The fact that the first ship to leave Beirut was fifty people under capacity should show that the evacuation has been badly organized and managed. The government also did nothing until people began to shout and make noise about the situation. It is a travesty that the first ship to carry more than one thousand Canadians out of Lebanon just left TODAY. The Canadian government ought to be embarassed of its handling of the evacuation and of the whole current situation in the Middle East.

Thanks to West Coast Tiger at EnMasse.ca for bringing this story to my attention.

Cheers

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 912

The Israeli Army Moves In

So, the Israeli army has decided to launch a ground invasion of Lebanon. This is a depressing and disturbing development. When Israel pulled out six years ago I thought that things might finally be on the right path. But as I watched developments unfold over the last couple of weeks, I have become very depressed about the situation. It is not fair that Israel punishes the entire nation of Lebanon for the actions of a few in Hezbollah. I don't see why so many people are locked into an immovable and binary view on the issues of the Middle East suggesting that one side or the other can do no wrong, and that the other side can do no right.

Personally, I believe that there is wrong enough to go around on both sides. It is wrong for Israel to occupy to the lands of other nations, be it Palestine, Lebanon, Syria or whatever nation. It is wrong that Israel causes the deaths of over 300 (as of Saturday, July 22) civilians in Lebanon to achieve the return of two prisoners taken by Hezbollah or one prisoner taken by Hamas fighters in Gaza. It is wrong to blow up the infrasructure that citizens need to carry on their lives, for example water treatment plants, generating stations and bridges to try to pressure for the return of prisoners.

It is also wrong that those fighting for the liberation of Palestine target the civilians of Israel. When fighting an occupation, one must fight the soldiers of the occupation, not kill citizens of the occupying power who might be opponents of their country's occupation. There is a significant peace movement in Israel, and the indiscriminate killing of civilians sets back the cause of this peace movement by years.

Ultimately, the right of Palestine's people to a state and to the right to live in peace without occupation must be respected. The right of Israel to exist and for its citizens to live in peace within their own borders must be recognized as well. I can't comprehend why the majority of the people in either country backs the continued fighting. The violence has accomplishing nothing. Occupation begets violence, which begets more violence, which begets further violence. And the fighting is not confined to Israel and Palestine. Now Lebanon, and Lebanon's four million innocent citizens have been drawn into the conflict and more people are being killed.

The role of the United States and the West in general is also fair game for consideration here. The headline in the Globe and Mail newspaper on Saturday, July 22 included the phrase "US revs up diplomacy" and yet part way through the article it was mentioned that the US is rush delivering precision guided weapons to the Israeli armed forces. How the Americans can believe they have a right to intervene here is beyond me. That is like asking the best friend of one party to a fight to decide who is in the right and what steps should be taken to resolve the fight. The fact that the Americans have said that Israel should be given a free hand to do what it likes to Lebanon is appalling. And the responses of other heads of state and government have been equally appalling. Stephen Harper, prime minister of Canada said that Israel's response is "measured." In what way is the killing of over three hundred people proportionate to the capture of two soldiers? In what way is it measured Mr. Harper?

A way must be found to move forward recognizing that continued fighting gets nowhere. The end to this dispute will not be found through one side blowing the other side into smithereens. Peace can only come when the leadership of this region realizes that there is more to be gained from peaceful cooexistance then there is from continued bloodshed and violence. I realize this sounds like a pipe dream, but only by dreaming of a better future can a better future be realized.

I have edited this post to reflect spending some more thought on the issue.

Cheers

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 913

My New BLog

Hello everybody. This is not my first time running a blog, but my previous one was on my MSN space, and that seems to have been unceremoniously dumped by Microsoft. So here I am.

I am (at the moment) a 21 year old student living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I live here with my family during the summer months, and during most of the year I live in Peterborough, Ontario where I attend Trent University. I will be going into my fourth year in September, studying Politics and Classical History.

I will be posting here mainly on the topics of politics and current events, since those are my main areas of interest, but occasionally there may be rants about things in my life, such as exams and essays (hate them so much). I consider myself to be somewhere between a social democrat and a democratic socialist (update in 2008: definitely a democratic socialist now), and I have a major dislike of all things right-wing and/or conservative. I also have major issues with the government of the United States of America (current and former) as well as with the most of the governments of Canada, though the current one in particular.

I look forward to posting here for a long time, and while it may be intermittent, I will do my best to keep it up.

Cheers

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 913