Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Israel bombed too much

* xymphora:
"We will continue to be fooled by the politicians as long as they need to hide behind the ‘war on terror’ in order to stay in power. In this case, we have upcoming American elections coupled with Tony’s pressing problem of unpopular support for Israel’s massacre of Lebanese civilians. Therefore, everyone else gets to pay with increasing inconvenience at the airports. The joke is that the inconvenience stays at its highest levels until the airline executives manage to get their phone calls through to the politicians, when suddenly the terrorist threat is reduced a shade or two, just in time to save the airlines from bankruptcy."

* nyt op:
"The ruling that stopped the Florida recount and handed the presidency to George W. Bush is disappearing down the legal world’s version of the memory hole, the slot where, in George Orwell’s “1984,” government workers disposed of politically inconvenient records. The Supreme Court has not cited it once since it was decided, and when Justice Antonin Scalia, who loves to hold forth on court precedents, was asked about it at a forum earlier this year, he snapped, “Come on, get over it.”
[]
There are several problems with trying to airbrush Bush v. Gore from the law. It undermines the courts’ legitimacy when they depart sharply from the rules of precedent, and it gives support to those who have said that Bush v. Gore was not a legal decision but a raw assertion of power."
* olbermann does his politics and terror 'coincidences' again. Raw has the video.

* arkin:
"It is in pursuit of some theory about punishment of Hezbollah and its Lebanese supporters that the Israelis followed the wrong course. The Israelis -- specifically the Israeli Air Force -- undertook an intentionally punishing, destructive and ultimately counter-productive air campaign, wielding high technology to Neanderthal levels of precision. Israel bombed too much, bombed the wrong targets and conducted its campaign with inexcusable abandon. What is more, Israel satisfied itself with conventional measures of "success" in the campaign -- counting rockets hit, dead fighters, destroyed infrastructure -- with utter disregard for the day after.
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I'm not suggesting that Israel, as part of its military campaign, didn't have the "right" to strike objects distant from the battlefield, only that it needs to account now for what targets it struck. Of course there were missile launchers and ammunition depots and Hezbollah barracks and depots and even Hezbollah "leadership" offices and residences far from southern Lebanon.

But no object in lawful targeting is sacrosanct. Take the Beirut civilian airport, for example. In the opening salvo of the war, Israel precisely bombed the intersections of the runways and aprons, making it impossible for aircraft to take off and land. No human rights or international organization particularly condemned the bombing as illegal, but it was: This was not bombing of Hezbollah's air force, it was not directed at Hezbollah fighters, it was not intended to disable the airport's radars and communications. It was pure punishment.
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I'm asserting though now that had Israel limited its strategic bombing to purely military objects, it might have -- might have -- engendered more sympathy and support in some circles in Lebanon (or at least in the West) for its efforts. It might have achieved another objective, not creating even more fighters tomorrow."

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amen!

lukery said...

i've long dreamt of a "ctrl-z" that would take us back to those days

(rimone is a mac-y - but i suspect that LeeB might understand the ref!)

Anonymous said...

bah, i was on a PC for six gruelling, virus-filled, defragging, windoze-updating, keystroke-logging Trojan-bugged, blue screen o' death years.

um, nyah. :-b

but really, i just wanna hit my Escape key and do the entire six years over in a President Gore kinda way e.g., 'whoa, we've got a huge surplus--every public library open 10 hrs/day, every public schoolroom totally equipped, New Orleans is almost totally rebuilt' and so on and so on. obviously, i could go on but it pains me muchly to even remember any of bu$hCo's fuckups.

Anonymous said...

HA! Indeed, Rimone!!

I spoke with a staffer at Sen. Patty Murray's office yesterday and assured her that I tried really hard to limit my calls to congresscritters to one outrage per day, which was really hard to do since there seem to be six or eight to choose from on any given day. She laughed, but she knew what I was talking about. One's personal internal memory chip is simply in overwhelm.

lukery said...

LeeB - that's funny. you must be on first name terms with everyone in every office :-)

Anonymous said...

good for you, LeeB. i admire your stamina and the work you're doing for US.

i, on the other hand, would need a valium the size of a ferris wheel. every day, even.

Anonymous said...

That is very kind of y'all . . . this has had me obsessed since the middle of the night on election day, November 2000. I've always been a responsible kind of citizen, but when they brazenly, in broad daylight, and with the assistance of the former supremes (note purposeful lowercase) and that wretch of a James Baker, III, stole the gawdamm election, that did it.

It is the most bizarre feeling . . . that if I, personally . . . ME! LeeB!! . . . don't stay focused on this madness every damned minnit, the entire world is going to blow up. I'm so grateful that with all of you on board, at least it's permissible to get a little sleep now and again, since somewhere on this planet at all times at least one of us is keeping an eye on things.

P.S. Get some Valerian. I've been pushing it a lot over the last few days. Goes by the nickname, "God's Valium" . . . relaxing, calming, herbal. And it's easier to swallow than a Ferris wheel. ;-)

P.P.S Do you suppose that the Dems keep saying the idea of impeachment is just nonsense is a strategery to calm the neocon twits and their Talibangelist base long enough to turn the tables? I'm having a very difficult time wrapping my head around the notion that impeaching the bastards for all their crimes is "nonsense" when I look at what these same neocons did to Bill Clinton over nothing!

Anonymous said...

LeeB: 'It is the most bizarre feeling . . . that if I, personally . . . ME! LeeB!! . . . don't stay focused on this madness every damned minnit, the entire world is going to blow up.'

same here--i feel like i have to read everything to stay informed and be more wary of what they could be up to next--and if i don't i feel like i'm letting our side down.

about Valerian, i;ve tried it many times over my life. last tried it a year or so ago in a teahouse in Bristol. however, the last six years has totally increased my drugs/booze intake. maybe that's why the last Valerian didn't do anything really. i'm not recommending it for normal people, but i'll stick w/my Valium as it totally does the trick.

re: Do you suppose that the Dems keep saying the idea of impeachment is just nonsense is a strategery to calm the neocon twits and their Talibangelist base long enough to turn the tables?

that's occurred to me as well--i certainly hope so. as an adjacent thought, if they--Dems, in light of the Clinton impeachment--don't push impeachment, i'm so outta there.

Anonymous said...

Rep. John Conyers was a guest on Thom Hartmann's show this morning. If you act fast -- like before 2:00 a.m. GMT, TODAY, you can hear it for free on the internet toobz at the Seattle Air America affiliate I listen to. Thom specifically asked him about plans for impeachment.

Note when you go there that you can subscribe to the podcast which is free for each show -- it just updates to the current one every day. You also have the additional choices of streaming it or downloading it. See what you think; I liked it.

Also, in case you're interested, the Friday shows (Saturday, 2:00 a.m. GMT)first hour is called "brunch with Bernie" and features Bernie Sanders almost every week. Pretty cool.

Anonymous said...

Okay, I see I screwed up the damned time zone part. I'll let y'all do the counting, since I have never - NEVER - managed to get numbers right in my entire natural life . . . the show airs at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time. To aid your computations so you have something to compare to the date/time stamp on this post, it is now 6:14 p.m. here in the Pacific Northwest. Jeez!

lukery said...

LeeB - you rock. a lot.

btw - i dont think that you need to convert to gmt. if you give us PDT we can work it out. i certainly dont think in terms of gmt.

Anonymous said...

lukery: 'i certainly dont think in terms of gmt.

you elitist Australian fuck! (lol, kidding)

John Convers is GOD AFAIC. thank hell for his principles, convictions, intelligence and here's hoping he sticks to his guns, so to speak.

LeeB, you rock, bigtime--thanks for ALL your input.