Leadership Needed
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora called Saturday for an immediate cease-fire with Israel, and asked for help in deploying the country's army in the south, from where Hezbollah has for days pounded northern Israel with Katyusha rockets.This seems eminently reasonable. The major powers -- including especially the United States -- desperately need to step up to the plate here. Offering verbal condemnations of either Israel or Hezbollah or both or in any proportion, or vague calls for "restraint" don't actually do anything. Israel has a legitimate complaint about Hezbollah operating with a free hand in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese government has a legitimate concern that it can't take control of the region. And the Lebanese government has a very legitimate concern about not have Israeli bombs dropping all over the country.
"We call for an immediate cease-fire backed by the United Nations," said Siniora in an address to the nation. "We call to broaden the state's control over all of its territory, in cooperation with United Nations forces, in southern Lebanon."
The Security Council members, by contrast, almost certainly do have the capacity to both make Israel stop its attacks and to work with the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah. That's the only way this situation can possibly get resolved.
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J. McCutchen "JmacSF"
San Francisco. CA
It was heart-rending. But "leadership". For the USA, that question is answered in Jerusalem. Don't take my word for it.
Ask Condi Rice, Coliin Powell, AIPAC...
-Dianne Feinstein
July 15, 2006 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
J. McCutchen "JmacSF"
San Francisco. CA
Bush: Iran, Syria to Blame for Lebanon
July 15, 2006 2:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I find it hard to believe anything we or the UN says would make any difference. The peoples of the middle east have been fighting for a couple thousand years, perhaps just stopping the flow of US weapons to Israel and destroying a few oil fields would level the playing field. Sure we would have an energy crisis but were gonna have one anyway. Ask any working class american and we'll all tell you were already experiancing crisis on every level.I say we pull completely out of the middle east,let them fight it out on their own, americans should be concerned with fixing america.
July 15, 2006 3:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
The US hasn't stepped in because Israel is one of our closest allies and they can handle themselves on the battlefield very well...judging by past Israeli military operations. And Israel is taking on "terrorists" by the administration's prefered method, militarily, which is Bush's stated end game of the GWOT. I am not very surprised by the administration's lack of action...though gravely disappointed.
July 15, 2006 9:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
The situation in Lebanon is similar to the situation in Gaza or the West Bank. With a lot of help the Christians & Druze could possibly disarm Hezbollah, but Hezbollah would remain a large and powerful part of Lebanon, and they would remember who sided with the Israelis and US against them. And Hezbollah would eventually rearm.
You are setting up another decade of civil war in Lebanon.
July 15, 2006 10:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I question the notion that ANYBODY can "disarm" Hizballah without the consent of Hizballah.
Certainly it can't be done by threat of force.
It MIGHT be done by some sort of negotiations, giving them greater influence in the Lebanese government, addressing their issues about the Shia in lebanon, and undoubtedly by addressing their conflict with Israel.
I don't see any of that happening, first because nobody has the credibility with Hizballah except perhaps Iran, and secondly, because nobody cares enough to try.
As for the first option, sending troops to Lebanon to back up the Christians and Druze in forcibly disarming Hizballah - do the words "civil war" ring a bell?
Do you want to put ten thousand US troops back in the barracks in Beirut, waiting to get their butts blown up yet again?
What is the difference between Israel putting thousands of troops in Lebanon to "back up the Christians and Druze" and the US or anybody else doing so? Israel ended up CREATING Hizballah by those actions, and Hizballah is not going away if the US tries it.
If the Lebanese Prime Minister REALLY wants to see his country evaporate, just wait until ten thousand US troops try to "disarm" Hizballah...
July 16, 2006 2:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hizbollah functions as a sovereign state and what state in history has ever disarmed when surrounded by enemies? Between the Lebanese Christians, Israel, and the Sunnis, talk about Hizbollah disarming is a pipe dream.
July 16, 2006 6:34 AM | Reply | Permalink