I’m not prepared to say so yet, but if it is, the mainstream media will have disgraced itself beyond words. At the best, they were so initially unquestioning about this event as to have shown themselves to be both incompetent as journalists and contemptibly biased as human beings. Meanwhile, this article from Ynet News is worthing noting. It details a report from a Lebanese Website called LIBANOSCOPIE.
The Lebanese website LIBANOSCOPIE , associated with Christian elements in the country and which openly supports the anti-Syrian movement called the “March 14 Forces,” reported that Hizbullah has masterminded a plan that would result in the killing of innocents in the Qana village, in a bid to foil Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora’s “Seven Points Plan”, which calls for deployment of the Lebanese army in southern Lebanon and the disarming of Hizbullah.
“We have it from a credible source that Hizbullah, alarmed by Siniora’s plan, has concocted an incident that would help thwart the negotiations.
Knowing full well that Israel will not hesitate to bombard civilian targets, Hizbullah gunmen placed a rocket launcher on the roof in Qana and brought disabled children inside, in a bid to provoke a response by the Israeli Air Force. In this way, they were planning to take advantage of the death of innocents and curtail the negotiation initiative,” the site stated.
Someone with a trendy stubble has turned up in an extraordinary number of the photos coming out of Qana, posed in various manners and dressed in a variety of ways at different times, all oddly theatrical. It would be very interesting to know who he is and whom he works for. Does anybody recognize him?
Ahmadinejad & company have a new friend (or maybe not so new). French Foreign Minister Phillipe Douste-Blazy called Iran a “respected” and “stabilizing” force on his visit to Beirut:
““It was clear that we could never accept a destabilization of Lebanon, which could lead to a destabilization of the region,” Douste-Blazy said in Beirut.
“In the region there is of course a country such as Iran – a great country, a great people and a great civilization which is respected and which plays a stabilizing role in the region,” he told a news conference.
This is beyond comment, of course. I would have canceled my trip to France this summer, except I don’t have one. [Maybe when France turns Islamic, we just let it go this time.-ed. What about La Coupole? A memory. Maybe I should title this post "No Longer 'A Moveable Feast.'" Enough.]
I have not, needless to say, become converted to the divinity of Christ – or the divinity of anybody for the matter. Nor do I believe it is always wise to turn the other cheek (yes, on occasion, it’s a good idea). But there is one sentence reputedly uttered by Jesus for which I am eternally grateful: “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s.” From that one line comes hope for civil society. It is what we are battling over today.
And instant war is Instant Hell. Of course all this was inevitable.
And… ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
A number of people have been complaining about the ambivalent conduct of the Israelis in their war against Hezbollah. They are losing, say these people, both on the battlefield and in public opinion. Maybe so….
But maybe not. Today, we saw the smiling face of Ehud Olmert after his meeting with Condi Rice. Ms. Rice agreed once again there could be no cease fire until the Israeli soldieers are freed (in other words, after Hezbollah is destroyed). We learned almost simultaneously that for the first time the Syrian border with Lebanon has been shut down by Israel missiles. Tonight we hear that more IDF tanks are crossing into Southern Lebanon. Where are they headed?
There are several possibilities. Earlier the Central Command left Bint Jbeil and Maroun Al Ras and headed toward Tyre and Sidon. Are these new tanks going to replace them or are they bound elsewhere? Like the Bekaa Valley? We shall soon see. My guess is that Hassam Nasrallah, who, from his hiding place, today called Israel a “temporary nation,” is at the command of a very temporary movement.
UPDATE: Some fascinating analysis by Varifrank.
The war in the Middle East has never seemed that far way to me because I am tracking it all day long in my work and constantly in communication with people over there, as I have been today with my friend Allison who just did her first podcast with Politics Central, an extremely interesting interview on the state of Israeli politics with Professor Reuven Hazan. It seems their Left has just had a reality check, according to the professor. They backed pulling out of Lebanon and Gaza all their lives – and then when it finally happened, the roof fell in.
So I didn’t quite need the gunplay in Seattle this afternoon to bring things home to me. Of course such activities are normally dismissed as the work of lone crazy people. And to a great extent they are. But this particular crazy person, a Pakistani, was simply mimicking the actions of his co-religionists, which are seen elsewhere as almost routine political acts. Why not in Seattle?
I have to admit I am beginning to view the whole world as a battlefield, a far cry from my outlook during my more traditionally liberal “give peace a chance” days. So I wince when I see various rightthinking folk putting the squeeze on Israel for a cease fire, because I have no reason to believe that spells anything but disaster. Hezbollah, a collection of vastly better armed and better trained religious psychopaths with the exact same values and attitudes as the Seattle Pakistani, will simply take the opportunity to resupply and attack again. Why wouldn’t they? It’s what they are sworn to do and what they believe. God told them it’s so.
And yet Israel is expected to stand down. After all, they are the superior “developed” nation. The grown-ups. Actually the whole thing is inherently racist on two levels at once. Jews are treated anti-Semitically (differently from other nations) and the Arabs are treated as irresponsible “Wogs”, children essentially. These two are incapable of solving their own problems. Only a multi-national force will save the day.
Oh, really? We know the record of such forces. Why would they change now? Money? Whose? Perhaps theirs.
Ah, that will solve thngs.
I think I will sign this “Sleepless in Los Angeles.”
UPDATE: Gerard was closer to the scene of the crime. As Trotsky so famously said, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”
Remember when it was a big deal to be on the cover of Rolling Stone? It’s not anymore – not for a helluva long time. We all know that. Rolling Stone has evolved into a fuddy-duddy publication that is about as cutting edge as, well, the procrustean boomer who owns it. [Weren't your books once published by Rolling Stone?-ed. Yes, but that was in another country and the wench is dead.]
So the irrelevance of Rolling Stone is the good news for my pal Michael Ledeen. The bad news is that they have just published an article by James Bamford that rakes him over the coals pretty good – in fact it pushes the envelope of slander, according to Michael, and I tend to agree with him. And Rolling Stone being the dead tree outfit that it is (they don’t publish replies on their website), Michael can only set the record straight with a letter to the editor which will run who knows when or if in the magazine. Maybe for ski season if he’s lucky.
So in the interest of fair play, I am posting Michael’s letter to Rolling Stone here. It will give people a chance to evaluate for themselves. The letter follows:
Jeez, I thought it was only coffee in that cup Jim Bamford drank from at my house, but apparently he slipped something stronger into it when I was opening the box of cookies he brought over. Anyone who thinks I have any influence on the Bush Administration is regularly swallowing something more powerful than caffeine.
I’ve been writing for years now to encourage the government to support democratic revolution in Iran, but nothing of the sort has been done. I’ve openly and consistently opposed military invasion, yet Bamford says I’m trying–and on the verge of succeeding–to cause a “bloody war.” He says that Douglas Feith brought me into his “cabal,” but I have never worked for Feith, or Rumsfeld’s Pentagon (Indeed I called for Rumsfeld to be replaced two years ago), or anyone else in this administration. As I told Bamford–and I have a recording of our conversation–I have no access to this administration, let alone sway over it. But he insists that I am Svengali to George Bush’s Trilby. Any fact checkers left at the “Stone”?
He can’t even run a decent “Nexis” search. He claims that our conversation was the first time I had discussed the meeting in Rome in 2001 that enabled the United States to obtain detailed information about Iranian plans to kill our soldiers in Afghanistan. In fact it was the umpteenth time I had been interviewed, in American and European publications and blogs, most recently in “Raw Story.” I have written about it several times myself. And why not? That information saved American lives, as Bamford could have confirmed if he had been willing to work harder.
As for the endlessly maligned Mr. Ghorbanifar, who looks more reliable today, the CIA who described him as the world’s greatest liar and refused to look at his information about murderous Iranian activities in Afghanistan and Iraq, or Mr. G himself? Nowadays his picture of Iran’s role in the terror war against us is almost universally accepted. And by the way, the information Ghorbanifar gave me in the fall of 2001had to do with events inside Iran. Nothing secret, just unnoticed information about the widespread Iranian hatred of the regime. That, too, is now conventional wisdom. Bamford claims to be an independent critic of the Intellience Community, but here he has swallowed the company’s bait en toto.
Whatever that stuff was in the coffee cup had long-lasting effects, because it totally knocked out the little grey cells in his frontal lobes. Somehow imagining that I want to invade Iran, he quotes an article of mine in “National Review Online” in which I call for the United States to support regime change in Syria and Iran, as if that meant a military campaign. If he had looked up a few lines he would have found these words:
“Give them a chance to fight for their freedom, as we did with the Georgians. The longer we dither, the more likely it becomes that we will sadly and unnecessarily find ourselves in a military confrontation of some sort, with all the terrible consequences that entails.”
That’s the actual context. The opposite of what Bamford says.
For the sake of brevity and bandwidth, I have omitted several other inaccuracies in Bamford’s article which Michael cites. Bamford is welcome to reply here if he wishes.
While others blither on, Wretchard continues to write the most interesting analysis of the war, in or out of the blogosphere. He should be required reading for mainstream media columnists, although it might make them anxious to encounter thinking on a level so much more complex than theirs. He is the only writer I know of publicly taking the position that the Israeli campaign against Hezbollah strongholds in South Lebanon is being successful (and he has interesting reasons). The stunning conventionality of what you hear on television now is mind-numbing. The only person I can bear to listen to is Newt Gingrich because he talks fast. Watching that English deadhead (Hunt?) on Fox last night mindlessly repeating Lebanese government figures (straight from Hezbollah?) on the number of dead civilians, dividing up Hezbollah soldiers and “civilians” unquestiongingly with the exact stats someone told him, was almost comic. Where does Roger Ailes get these people?
Wretchard, at least, thinks for himself. Speaking of which, I will go out on a small limb and say this morning’s report from the Israeli cabinet meeting – to wit, they do not intend to extend the war – is, if not complete disinformation, completely irrelevant. Why would the Israeli government telegraph their intentions at this moment?
… at least as of yesterday, according to this post at Vital Perspective (it includes a map). If true this further corroborates what propaganda we are being fed from Hezbollah and their many sympathizers at home and abroad. But we know that, don’t we?
UPDATE: Of course it’s always hard to know how accurate anything is during the fog of war. Nasrallah himself may be confused.
