Condolezza brings condolences - maybe more

Would Condi be doing Condolences?

One can only begin to wonder what Condolezza Rice would be attempting to achieve when she gets to the Middle-East today.

There is no argument that Israel does have the right to defend itself and it should be done vigorously, however, the manner and strategy at play does leave one wondering what they intend on achieving.

I am still of the view that focus has shifted – if that was ever the focus - from dealing with Hamas and Hezbollah militarily to the point that it is looking like the economic obliteration of those societies and psychological propaganda with the hope that wanton destruction of all types of infrastructure would make people withdraw support from those organisations.

Whose terrorists are they anyway?

Until we move from the view of looking at those organisations through the blinkered view of terrorists, because only Israel, America and Europe labels elements of Hamas and Hizbollah as terrorist – we would fail to realise that these groups also represent the aspirations of people who have been deprived and wronged on the one hand, they are also the least corrupt of the leaderships emanating from their peoples.

There is no doubt that Europe and America are very well at variance on the matter in the Middle-East, it was evident in the eavesdrop between Bush and Blair – where Bush thought Syria held the keys to stopping the shit and Blair saw a bigger issue.

Arms away

To now hear that in the midst of the outrageous abuse of military might Israel is acquiring new precision weapons from America leaves one completely gob smacked – America is helping to add fire to an untenable situation which might now go on for another few weeks.

The Arabs would take good note of that and hopefully would give a Condi a stern view of this atrocious development.

I could be that it is American weaponry that is used to cause suffering, pain and loss in the Middle-East, the availability of which feeds Israeli bravado to the drunken swagger of believing there is a military solution to this conflict.

I think NOT.

Peace born of negotiation

Like it or not, Israel would have to negotiate with these “terrorists”, if they do succeed to eliminating military threat of Hezbollah by bombing television stations amongst other things, they had better be ready for guerrilla warfare.

Taking a foothold in Lebanon might bring in a less desirable grouping of terrorists – Al Qaeda in Lebanon on the border of Israel would be the least acceptable conclusion to this military escapade.

I have my doubts any of the proponents can achieve the objective of peace with this indiscriminate bombing and the possibility of new arms from a seemingly rotten cause.

Who pays the price? Boxer versus Rice

Boxer and Rice again

This is not the first time that Barbara Boxer a Democratic Senator from California has had pugilistic exchanges with Condoleezza Rice the US Secretary of State, when Rice was being confirmed the fiery exchange ended on a curt note, but sometimes the gloves do have to come off to know when you have been hit hard.

As we know with any political exchange that lifts the veneer of niceness to reveal the deep truth, people would fall on either side of the battlefront in America it become the ground for conservatives and liberals to castigate, denigrate, condemn and fulminate against each other.

Let us take sides

In the blue corner is Barbara Boxer and the red corner Condoleezza Rice – no low punches, no holding each other, fight fair – may the best girl win.

The latest exchange between Boxer and Rice can be read in all sort of ways from a straight lunge for an understanding that people who have no personal family in the Iraqi debacle may not fully understand the price of the sacrifices being demanded; through the backward leap for women’s rights if a single unmarried woman has her judgement impaired which leaves her unqualified to serve her nation; to an inconsiderate and despicable personal attack highlighting another woman’s childlessness.

I remember during the Israeli-Lebanon skirmish, Rice talked about witnessing the birth-pangs of a new Middle East, this is from a woman who just like me, a male, has no inkling about what the pain of birth can be. The Boxer exchange is not out of place.

People have taken their sides already, I feel there is a bit of all in the matter, but it takes away from where in all objectivity the inquisitor intended, what the respondent understood and how people want to see it.

Ring-side I see an upper cut

This is the statement that started the furore, make in the context of the escalation and troops surge that Dr Rice redefined as an augmentation – really, an unfortunate choice of words – however, this is the upper-cut – “Who pays the price? I'm not going to pay a personal price. My kids are too old and my grandchild is too young,” Boxer said. “You're not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family. So who pays the price? The American military and their families.”

Well, it does look like a upper cut from where I was viewing the match, however, there is a possibility that some judge might see a punch below the belt, hey, judging a boxing match can be subjective and three subjective judges does not an objective result create – rather it is one of aligned perception.

Facts as they lie

Fact 1: Neither Boxer nor Rice have immediate family in the Iraqi war.

Situation 1: Only two congressmen have had their children deployed to Iraq, these kids are currently back in less volatile assignments, it is valid to ask if any politician or influential person is suffering the anxiety, fear, uncertainty and potential loss by having blood relations running the gauntlet of a merciless insurgency in a foreign land.

Fact 2: There is a price being paid for this war in Iraq and since the day war started on March the 20^th 2003, it is a daily average of the death of just over two American soldiers and $2 billion.

Situation 2: Besides the seemingly demigod-like reverence that the President of the United States sometimes commands that people can see him do no wrong, are people really aware of the cost of this war in terms of lives and resources and if that has been justifiably accounted for?

Situation 3: It is clear that no one even the most optimistic of the President’s men can certify that the new plan would be successful and what additional cost would be borne. The concern is that the sacrifice being asked for is to get the President out of a rut rather than solve the problem that grew out of American belligerence.

Fact 3: One patriotic minority of the American People who definitely need the support and back of the populace at large is paying a disproportionately high price in the Iraqi war and something it is not clear if they are sure the freedom they are fighting for is the freedom they should be fighting for.

Fact 4: Neither Boxer nor Rice can send their kids to Iraq, a fact that Boxer acknowledged – Boxer will not offer to bear that sacrifice and Rice cannot bear that sacrifice – the devil however, is the detail of whoever wants to explore the reasons why neither can send their children.

Twisting the facts

With all guns and vitriol blasting out the conservative press like some mega-volcano, the emotion of the moment that highlighted singleness and childlessness rather than the underlying hard questions that need real answers.

The care for those affected by war has to move beyond sympathy and the occasional opportunistic chat to family and relations of those fallen or wounded at war.

Both Barbara Boxer and Condoleezza Rice are seriously smart women, but when it is comes to the politics where decisions send men to war, the gloves do have to come off sometimes sailing very close to the wind and someone has to take it to the limit.

Barbara Boxer has never shied from addressing issues in matter-of-fact words that everyday man can understand, it is a duty to be expected of legislature in which they have grossly underperformed until now.

If the Republican controlled congress had asked tough questions then, it is unlikely that we would be ending up with almost indecent questions now.

Sentiments aside – who really pays the price?

Obviously, conservative commentary is apoplectic with rage about what is termed an intemperate slap on a childless woman, rivers of almost pity might want to flow from many to Dr Rice and that is the prerogative of the many that have “feelings”.

But the question at the end is the most important question at all, given all said and done, given the grand schemes and ideologies that pus h them, given the goals after extensive deliberation that discounts the advise of many for some narrow perspective that probably would take the day, for all those who are in power and have the power to call men to arms and send them to victory, détente, defeat, incapacity, pain or even the ultimate – Death.

Boxer said. “I know you feel terrible about it. That's not the point. I was making the case as to who pays the price for your decisions.”

Exactly, who really pays the price for all the mistakes in Iraq that the President has taken responsibility for in word but does not seem to sacrifice anything for apart from the musical chairs of personnel that report to him?

Who pays the price?

References

Dems burn ‘kidless’ Rice – New York Post

Sec. Rice Attacked by Sen. Boxer Over Childlessness – Mens News Daily

White House Spokesman Blasts Sen. Boxer's Exchange With Secretary Rice – Fox News

Senator’s utterance to Rice sets off uproar – The Kansas City Star

Exchange Turns Into Political Flashpoint – The New York Times

[Most of the guns have been firing on the conservative wires and hardly any on the liberal ones.]

Left with the bread crumbs of Middle East diplomacy

I’m not doing dinner

It probably was an expression of glee that came across my face when last night we learnt that the Prime Minister of Iraq had decided not to join George W. Bush and the King of Jordan for dinner.

I should know the feeling, I should have been having dinner with my agent when for some “personal” reason she pulled out of the arrangement and then invited me for one of those dastardly Christmas parties where, I end up being the only sober one at 1:00AM listening to the drivel of inebriated colleagues – No thanks!

Every which way it was spun; it was a clear snub to the leader of the Free World who had squandered every opportunity to make a positive difference to world as his non-Midas touch begins to turn golden opportunities into cack-handed diplomacy.

We can, without America

There seems to be an “in spite of America” development in the Middle East; the Palestinians have negotiated a ceasefire with Israel which seems to be holding. Iraq has renewed diplomatic ties with Syria, and whilst Dubya was busy sulking about being blown out, the President of Iraq was being feted in Iran.

America should have been speaking to these countries for the peace and stability of Iraq, but their myopic sense of hubris has personalized what can only be realized through deliberation and consensus.

In the end, the country that used to be the mediator of grand Middle-Eastern handshakes was left trying to gather the crumbs of diplomacy falling from the table of self-determinant negotiations between neighbouring countries that recognize their need for each other.

So, Condoleezza Rice is on a scurry between Israel and Palestine, giving assurances and offering lame support, those are circumstances that America has with adept created for themselves.

It all comes out – sooner or later

Beyond that, 35 years before, as the India-Pakistan war came to be, some rather unpalatable things (bitch) were said of one of the principals in conversation, that recorded conversation made the light of day in 2005, tensions rose, with anger expressed, profuse apologies after from Henry Kissinger to the heirs of Indira Gandhi and the Indian people.

It did not stop the President of that time – a Richard Nixon from referring to her as an old witch – historians would be at pains not to consider the views of the President and his Secretary of State as policy or the standard with which they had dealings with India despite protestations to the contrary.

Leaks and no plumbers about

As we humans are the poorest students of history as a means of learning to do things better, Mr Nouri al Maliki’s snub came just when a leaked document from the National Security Adviser questioned the ability for the Iraqi leader to handle the mess that America created in the first place.

Obviously, there was the little issue of supporters at home in Iraq not keen on this Iraqi-American summit.

Mr. Stephen Hadley must have thought his advice would be covered by some official secrets diktat such that the dramatis personae would only have learnt of this poor vote of confidence 30 years on.

At the risk of sounding cynical, one can only wonder what they also think of their man in Afghanistan and beneath of the public veneer of great freedom and democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, the lesser known reality is the bluster is really an attempt to stage a suitable “cut and run”.

For now, it is too late to send any of these American diplomats for a course in Diplomacy 101 – What you never want discovered must never be thought, let alone spoken, if published, you are damned.

Now, taking applications for “How to be nice 001”.

Is Rice on bootlegged rice alcohol from North Korea?

If you are wondering what they are on, make sure it does not come near you, it is pathogenically lethal.

So, Condoleezza Rice says, “We will not accept a nuclear North Korea” – where has she been all this time?

We already have a nuclear North Korea and they have been testing the stuff – Wake up!, M’dear, denial is no substitute for urgently needed diplomatic and bilateral engagement of a fellow nuclear power, that, I am afraid is today's reality. Smell the coffee ...

Many U-turns Required - II

The comment below was made anonymously in response to my article on Many U-turns Required; I try to address the issues raised with interspersed comments as follows.

[Comment] So the U.S should talk to every perceived enemy in the world-and that solves it and makes GW Bush a good world leader - Condi should jet out on and talk to them all.

[Response] I think there is no point trying to stress that the US and the kind of policies that GW Bush has espoused over the last 6 years are predicated on the fact that a country like the US in the absence of a Cold War does need an enemy to serve as a foil to project power and influence around the world.

North Korea, Syria, Iran, Sudan and Venezuela all offer opportunities to project fear on the American people about dangers at home as much as their getting stuck into the quagmires that are Iraq and Afghanistan.

If they had ever even tried to talk to them, there would have been a point, they have not.

[Comment] I think this position oversimplifies things. We must appreciate that the rhetoric of "no discussion with evil men/dictators etc" often belies the backroom discussions that go on all the time.

[Response] If there are backroom discussions why does the front room rhetoric resound with increasing animosity and frosty relations?

The fact is America is selective about the so-called evil men/dictators that it deals with; there is no balance in their projection of foreign influence that it now makes them literally ineffective in many places.

Be it Israel, Lebanon, Sudan and Zimbabwe, them not condemning the military coup in Venezuela, aligning with the military dictatorship in Pakistan, ignoring the democratic mandate of the Hamas, fostering Nuclear proliferation in India and condemning it in Iran with is under threat from two sides of its territory.

The oversimplification as it appears is primarily a commonsense diplomatic stance that the Bush administration find too simple to adopt.

[Comment] The lack of overt high level contact in the full glare of the cameras does not necessarily mean the absence of all contact. Anyway a lot of people, for example, criticised the US for not talking to Syria and conveniently forgot the existence of a US embassy in Damascus.

[Response] Yes, and they also have an Embassy building in Iran, what is the point of having the building without a full-fledged ambassador? Having office administrators handle serious diplomatic issues is hardly the way to deal with countries that could seriously impact your safety in proximity countries and allies.

[Comment] You forget that the deal Madeline Albright negotiated with the North Koreans was badly defaulted on by the North Korean government.

[Response] Indeed, it was flawed but North Korea did not get nuclear during the Clinton era and if Bush had tried to correct the flaws and not unfortunately hurt the sensibilities of the “dwarfish” leader, we probably would not be where we are at now.

At least we had inspectors in North Korea and were able to monitor and report what they were doing, we no more have that advantage apart from satellite pictures and measuring seismic activity after the event.

[Comment] You forget that Rwanda happened under Clintons watch

[Response] Agreed, it did, but should the lessons of “never again” not now apply to Darfur? Should the Bush regime now try to outdo the Clinton administration in being ineffective in the face of great human injustice considering they are the only ones who have called Darfur - a genocide.

[Comment] You forget that Somalia happened under Clinton’s watch

[Response] And now, it is happening again, with the Islamic “overthrow” of a UN supported government which is getting compared with the Taleban.

[Comment] You forget that the first attack on the WTC was under Clinton’s watch

[Response] And the blind sheik implicated as the instigator of that activity is in prison, they are even not prosecuting his lawyer for treason-type offences.

The people responsible for WTC II or 9/11 still send us home videos five years after and we have lost more lives in Iraq and Afghanistan – only yesterday, we were receiving messages from Mullah Omar.

[Comment] You forget that Al Qaeda was formed under Clinton’s watch

[Response] This is disingenuous, yes; it was formed under Clinton’s watch but instigated in the aftermath of Gulf War I [an earlier Bush era, I would think] when America was seen to occupy the Islamic Holy Lands and propping up Middle East regimes that do not attend to the clamour of their peoples.

[Comment] You forget that the planning for 911 started under Clinton’s watch

[Response] And what did Condi do with the dossier she was handed about the Al Qaeda threat – I think the 911 Commission drew a good few conclusions about the new regime’s inactivity.

You forget that the attacks on the USS Cole, the US Kenyan and Tanzanian embassies were under Clinton’s watch. You forget that Afghanistan fell to the Taliban under Clinton’s watch. You forget that Clinton never formally made the existence of a Palestinian State US Policy.

[Response] Considering the way the Republicans highlight that there has been no other attack on US soil since 911, I could commend the Clinton administration for keeping their guard up after WTC I that Al Qaeda had to find soft targets elsewhere – hence, the USS Cole and the African embassy disasters.

Afghanistan became a vacuum of power once the Russians were driven out, I would suppose the Taleban represented a form of peace after 20 years of war and as they grew more unacceptable they would have remained in power if they had handed over Osama bin Laden – but that was a difficult decision for them that they offered to send him to a neutral country.

They had just fought along side their Muslim brother to liberate their country from the Russians; they probably had a blood oath with Osama never to deliver him to anyone which is why they risked their demise than garner opprobrium.

Now that the Bush administration have created a terrorist haven in Iraq, Americans are still getting killed almost everyday only that they are being killed in Iraq. That seems to be great comfort to your public.

I see two handshakes in the Middle-East moving towards peace which was progressing and could have been improved upon rather than being left dormant till the Bush administration was embarrassed into saying something radical and where is the progress still?

Yasser Arafat shaking the hand of Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn and Jordan through King Hussein recognising Israel, all happening under Clinton’s watch – they created the forum to talk, that other Arab states at least now recognise the right for Israel to exist.

However, the attitude to the democratically elected Hamas who won election on a platform of not recognising Israel such that sanctions are about to make that government collapse helps feed the rhetoric that questions the legitimacy of Israel from Iran.

We have never had a more strident Iran and this is one of the countries that the US would have to talk to directly and respectfully, as well as Syria if they are going to extricate themselves from Iraq – Mr Bush is waking up to this reality.

[Comment] The list goes on - I cite these examples not to detract from Clintons legacy but to make the point that its no use idealising the Clinton era and that the context and circumstances of the two presidencies are significantly different.

[Response] You are not doubt right, we can all do convenient lists depending on what part of the political spectrum we are on, but rather than build on the Clinton legacy to forward the fledgling deals or plans that were in place, they were all discarded for a neo-conservative doctrine that put Bush at variance with the world before 911 and then Bush squandered the post-911 goodwill on the Iraqi escapade just as Americans are governed through fear into what is no less a police state.

[Comment] In fact, there is a growing consensus amongst Historians that the Clinton presidency was an inconsequential one as far as global events go.

[Response] I think we need a need a bit more time to see where history would place Clinton and Bush, there is no doubt that Bush has his place in history, how he would be judged would be revealing to all concerned before revisionists have a field day.

Besides, my blog has broached many of the issues I have covered in here concerning American foreign policy and its ineffectiveness – Bush may be able to do a better job, if he has the will to do better is debatable.

References

Iraqi Tags Iran Tags Bush Tags Israeli Tags

Condi is not welcome in Lebanon

This represents the kind of propaganda we are fed about the Middle-East conflict. I read on CNN a headline, that Condoleezza Rice has cancelled her trip to Lebanon.

Well, the BBC television news, tells me Lebanon has snubbed Condoleezza Rice and told her not to visit Lebanon till a ceasefire has been agreed.

Indeed, Dr Rice would have had cancel her trip, because she has been told quite clearly, you are not welcome, I must say, that appears in the body of text.

Like I said in an earlier blog, regardless of the American aid which is a sop in expiation for seriously letting Lebanon down, Lebanon knows this for sure, America is definitely not a friend in time of need.

Unfortunately, the UN building in Beirut is now taking the brunt of a violent protest as Israel argumentum ad consequentiam passes the blame for bombing up civilians to Hezbollah.

As I am writing, the culmination of events had now lead Dr Rice to request an immediate unconditional ceasefire. So, much for doors and bolted horses – this doctor is some mean gambler.

References

Sky News: Airstrike 'Kills Or Injures Dozens'

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Dozens killed in Lebanon air raid

No talks with Rice before ceasefire

Rice says "time for ceasefire" after Qana bombing

A poker hand of unintended consequences

A snowflake fascination

I have ranted, riled and disparaged with vehemence the fight-on-till-victor-and-vanquished policy that has spewed forth from Rice, Bush and Blair, but wait a minute; it appears we might be reaching a case of seriously unintended consequences.

Just like what would happen when you shake that fascinating Christmas snowflake glass ball, you deliberately and violently shake it, creating a chaos of flakes, then set it down and watch the snow settle, I see the same in this instance.

You cannot determine where the flakes would fall, though we assume it falls evenly on the Christmas landscape, it is probably a more sophisticated science than the simplicity belies.

It is a resolutions rat-race

So, back at the Middle-East where elaborate but historically futile plans are being put across in trying to introduce a new UN Resolution to bring about a ceasefire and the deployment of a multi-national peace-keeping force in the South of Lebanon.

We really should stop this circus of using resolutions to enforce or chase other resolutions and concentrate on the context that shaped the original ones and forcefully implement them.

Once again, the UN Security Council Resolution 1559 appears to be the gold-standard of implementing a ceasefire. That is fine, now, let us be honest, about implementing the totality of that resolution which is first really about Israel before it is about Lebanon.

Give back first

The first part refers to Lebanon having complete sovereignty over its territory, and then gradually exercising democratically managed military authority over their entire.

The bitter pill in this situation is Shebaa Farms; it is occupied Lebanese territory which Israel contends belongs to Syria as part of their annexation of Golan Heights in 1967.

That is beside the point, between Syria and Lebanon, they have agreed since 1964 that Shebaa Farms is Lebanese and Syria continues to abide by that 42-year old agreement. So, the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory in 2000, regardless of technicalities people might proffer was incomplete. Simple!

The Lebanese plan for peace leading a ceasefire which Hezbollah acquiesces to, includes the return of Shebaa Farms for a viable and enduring ceasefire. Any, right-thinking person would consider that, just and fair, I would suppose.

Stop the occupations

It also means we move on from this idea of new occupations; like a peace-keeping force to assure security, it would be expensive, fraught, dangerous and ineffective if the Shebaa Farms issue is not conclusively resolved.

That Shebaa Farms issue, would help in ensuring that Resolution 1559 is fully implemented to include the disarming of Hezbollah.

Before you heave a sigh of relief, the issue of Shebaa Farms is somewhat inter-twined with Golan Heights in the Israeli psyche. So, why just relinquish one part of illegally annexed and nominally occupied territory?

We have already been sickened and amused by the microphone tête-à-tête between Bush and Blair about Syria telling Hezbollah to stop all this shit going on in Lebanon.

Syria says

Well, Syria has given us the key to all this shit-stopping – the occupation of Arab lands. That would primarily be Shebaa Farms and Golan Heights, these fuel the frenetic activities of Hezbollah in that area, the Palestinian settlement is a distant allusion in this matter.

So, once again, the move is Israel’s – in accordance with UN Resolution 497, conveniently forgotten and dormant since it was unanimously passed in 1981; the return of Golan Heights to the rightful owner – Syria.

In two pre-existing resolutions we have the recognition and implementation of a ceasefire from the current hostilities; the end of Hezbollah’s militancy, such that they can be fully subsumed in Lebanese politics.

The child looks different

That, I submit is the unintended consequence of the “new Middle-East” as alluded to by Condoleezza Rice – the birth pangs would in the end bring forth a child in no likeness to the expected baby.

The bigger picture is more unsavoury for the West than it seems, because the price for peace exerts a serious climb-down from Israel in terms of its legacy of occupied Arab lands, and it also indicates that Western appeasement has continually allowed Israel to act with impunity when they should be adhering to their international obligations.

The Israeli protestations regarding Syria and Lebanon over the years would definitely become a shrill-sounding discomfort to all well-meaning people.

A poker hand bitter lesson in expected outcomes

Better still, if this becomes the final result of this 3-week war, you will have to give it to Hezbollah as they would have deftly out-manoeuvred all those crocodile-tear diplomatic efforts to bring about a just settlement for their struggles.

The other negotiations about the release of prisoners are just minutiae.

America, Britain and Israel, turned this issue into a game of poker thinking they had the best hands, methinks, Hezbollah only started with a Jack and might clear the pot with a Royal Flush – such is the life of gamblers.

References

A prediction of this war

US envoy foresees 'hard decision'

The Israeli conflict blog archive

Condi knows nothing about birth pangs

No clue about the pain of birth

When Condoleezza Rice visited the Middle-East earlier in the week, we were introduced to a supposedly new role of her being a midwife to a new Middle-East with the expression “Birth Pangs of a New Middle East”.

Birth pangs have pain, great agony and more, especially, if after so many hours of labour, the woman is exhausted in the breathing, pushing and panting. She holds her mate’s hand and crushes the bones as she probably curses that swears never to do this again.

If as the waters break, the baby is found in breach, that, could become a major complication probably requiring more that the regulatory epidural and definitely a Caesarean Section.

I am sorry to say, Condoleezza Rice just like me, a male, does not half know what a birth pang is, or else, she would to advocating an immediate stop to this labour that has already had the baby’s foot stuck somewhere in the pelvis – on the verge of killing the mother.

Not fooled with the supposed outrage

This is sufficient notice to Israel, reading between the lines and taking the cue which now has the US is expressing outrage that the strategic “no immediate ceasefire” concept is being read as an untrammelled sanction to Israel to continue bombing Lebanon.

We, we are not fooled, the non-imposition of a ceasefire in the light of the overwhelming disproportionate military force that seems to be achieving more in terms of humanitarian mystery and destruction.

In the light of this, we also learn that the tide of Arab opinion is turning towards supporting Hezbollah as neighbouring governments are beginning to sound more strident about Israeli aggression.

Dishonest and insincere

The lectures we received from Mr George W. Bush and Mr Tony Blair, left me askance in disbelief as they launched into the psychology and philosophy of Hezbollah trying to win people to their cause through playing the underdog.

These 2 men have not been entirely honest and sincere and this is an utter shame.

If UN Security Council Resolution 1559 is the standard for ensuring peace by allowing Lebanon to have total sovereignty over its lands, then the disputed Shebaa Farms has to come into the equation as to whose territory it really is between Israel, Syria and Lebanon.

History would place that territory in the hands of Lebanon according to a 1964 border agreement with Syria, requiring Israel vacate that territory in entirety; then the need for any militia in Southern Lebanon would be obviated. Hezbollah can return home or move to Golan Heights where another land dispute still awaits action on the part of Israel in favour of Syria.

Partnership with “terrorists”

There is no point continuing to talk down to Syria and Iran, if they are critical to resolving the current crises then America and Britain would have to engage them in some sort of dialogue.

This stony faced mantra of terror, terrorism and terrorists is wearing thin; they are labels of convenience without addressing the core issues at hand. Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorists in the same vein as those that terrorise Iraq – to lump them in the same basket as Al Qaeda is disingenuous.

I find that exaggeration portrayed by the America, Britain and Australia quite offensive and far from the truth, these organisations have a political and democratic mandate and a militant dimension related to a struggle for justice for their people.

This should be incompatible with being in a democracy, but in a situation when Israel represents an untamed aggressive hegemony, occupying territories which fuel dispute and threaten Israeli security, we cannot have America delivering bombs to Israel and blankets to the occupied territories and naively expect these organisations to disarm to the point of complete defenceless.

It just does not add up.

With Condoleezza Rice returning to the Middle-East again, this midwife is probably not going to deliver a healthy baby, regardless of the hopes and fears, the “new Middle-East” is on to becoming a still-born baby, taking the mother along with it.

A double tragedy nursed by America – is there a real doctor in the house, before this gets seriously out of hand?

References

The battles each day

Birth pangs of a new Middle-East

Condolezza condoles with aid

Another American security quagmire

Having paid generous if not effusive and concerned lip service to the protection and support for the fragile and fledgling Lebanese democracy, which was still trying to garner the benefits of Syrian withdrawal and a new coalition government; America put its money far from where its mouth is yesterday.

There are only two other places where American dignitaries use Star Trek teleportation to make unannounced appearances to media excitement. Baghdad and Kabul, we can now add to that Beirut.

Having, in all those places allowed security to deteriorate to the state that a pre-notification might endanger the chief of the entourage and their retinue, surprise is the only strategy they have in pretending to becalm the storm they have nurtured.

Take more pain and have some pills

So, as Condolezza Rice make a surprise call on Beirut and the Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, all she could offer was deep concern, no ceasefire, more pain for now and the balm of American aid.

Many might think that was a deft diplomatic hand, hardly, it was a complete sell-out of an almost defenceless people against an onslaught carrying out a scheme that America hopes would weaken Hezbollah and humiliate both Syria and Iran.

The wrecking of Lebanon would bring respite to no one, especially Israel where losses are beginning to mount in what is becoming a war where the victory would at best be Pyrrhic.

More to the terrorist and their aims

The cost to each side can now only be recouped through some negotiated settlement and this would be a test of Dr Rice's ability to really cool the tensions in the Middle-East.

The inordinate quest to get rid of the "terrorism" without resolving the underlying Israeli-Palestinian problem is a fallacy and the sooner that is realised, the earlier we can stem the flow of blood and begin to work on bandaging the wounds.

As for Lebanon, they might have a friend in America, but they are in need of better friends - the lesson here is, indeed America is no friend in the time of need, when Israel features in the matter.

We can all agree that the Lebanese have not been impressed.