Bush: 'Israel Has Right to Defend Itself'

[bigtree]

Does Lebanon? Syria?

from VOA: http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-07-13-voa6.cfm

"Bush noted that Syria, Lebanon's neighbor and a major backer of the Hezbollah group, "needs to be held to account" for its role in the current crisis."

my view:

Right on the cusp of what could be a war against Lebanon Bush starts throwing unfounded accusations at Syria, as if Syria was holding the missing soldiers. Instead of at least attempting to defuse the crisis, Bush appears to want to inflame and widen the conflict.

No matter what he does, he will be viewed by almost all in the region as an agent and enabler of Israeli aggression. Now he's taking an opportunistic swipe at Syria, giving lip service to defense of the Lebanese government (the Hizbollah faction in the Lebanese govt. will almost certainly be demonized by Bush.)

He'll make it up as he goes along, having all but abandoned any role as an honest broker in the region. Thanks to Bush's militarism in Iraq and Afghanistan, every U.S. action will be seen as the muckraking scheming of an aggressor nation bent on Mideast dominance. Unless Bush replaces the State Dept. cronies who brought us here with credible figures actually concerned with peace and justice in the region, his pleadings and admonitions (given as afterthoughts in his transparent defense of Israel's 'right to defend itself') will only inflame the violence and recriminations and further encourage Israel in its arbitrary military assaults on its neighbor's sovereign territory.

[BOSSHOG]

1. Should anybody be held to account

for its role in the current crisis in Iraq? Or is it just somebody else's fault. Anybody's fault except a member of bush's administration. Cheer them on "conservatives." More death, destruction and despair that you are not intimately aware of.

[saltpoint]

2. Tensions in the Middle East are already running dangerously high.

I can't think of anything George W. Bush can say that would assuage the misgivings of the various players or shift the context away from sectarian hostilities toward peaceful resolution.

As for the role the U.S. should play in peace-making in that region, I think we'd be in far more capable hands with a President Gore or a President Kerry.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted sub-thread

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[cantstandbush]

4. What role did Syria play? Any proof? Jesus, get this man out of my

world! I guess Israel is the only nation (save the US) that has a right to defend itself? After being threatened by both the US and Israel, I guess Iran does not have a right to defend itself either. Only westerners (whites) have a right to defend themselves and make no mistake about it, most of the Jews inside Isarel are from EU and the west. Especially the saber rattlers and warmongers.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

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[redirish28]

5. My wife is screaming this point exactly! It's okay in the mask of fightin

Terrorist BUT Isreal is basically right this second invading Lebanon much like we invaded Iraq.. But the media in this country is refering to Hezbolliah instead of Lebanon. They just bombed the Beruit airport. Yet it is okay?


My wife is deeply upset. She said Bush's invasion of Iraq started this and now the world must suffer because of it's looking the other way. I hope Bush and Company are happy I know the end of the worlders are.

[Robbien]

6. 49 Palestinians Killed and 136 Injured by Israeli Attacks Last Week

According to a report issued by the Palestinian National Information Center
http://www.ipc.gov.ps/ipc_new/english/details.asp?name=16823

Yeah right defend.

[Canadian_moderate]

8. Sorry to go against the opinions here, but

Israel does not normally instigate the aggression. Why should they have to sit back and have rockets and missiles lobbed into their communities?

If American or Canadian natives started enforcing their land claims through similar terrorist actions actions, would you accept that? Let's not be such hypocrites! Also remember that most Jews are fellow liberals while Hamas and Hezballah are not. Have a nice day!

[bigtree]

9. Hypocrites? No one here is defending ANY violence, from any side

"Last night, the Lebanese Government said it was not responsible for Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers, and demanded an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council after what it called Israel's "aggressive" retaliation."
http://www.gulf-news.com/region/Middle_East/10052999.html



that's what this is about . . . the danger of Israel using the abhorrent actions of some splinter group as a pretext for war against Lebanon; using the aggression of Palestinian 'militants' that occured in late June as justification for their attacks and repression of the Palestinians; as a justification to re-invade Lebanon.

Where do the innocent civilians in Gaza and in Lebanon who are the inevitable targets of Israel's "shock and awe" campaign go for justice? They have a right to defend themselves against unwarranted aggression. Now that our government has completely abandoned any meaningful diplomacy, Israel feels free and obligated to resume their systematic destruction of the autonomy they pretended to accept for Palestinians.

You don't have to support Hamas and Hizbollah to recognize the rights of those caught in the middle to the freedom and liberty the Bush regime is always harping about. The trouble here is that some folks consider American lives and those of our allies and agents to be more important than the lives of those folks who happen to be in the way of these 'democracy's' mindless flailing of their nation's military forces.

Any and all actions can easily be couched in the justification of 'security'. The problem is that the American govt. and the Israeli govt. seem to know how to perform nothing else but this blustering militarism which has the effect of creating more 'enemies' with every 'collateral' casualty they inflict. No one would deny the barbarism of the 'militant's' actions, but our great nation, humbled by bloody wars and tempered by our own struggles for justice, should be a model of restraint and comity for these nations we seek to influence away from systemic violence.

We used to have a government that understood this.

[The Magistrate]

10. The Government Of Lebanon Is Responsible, Sir

Whether Israel's actions are the best response to these events is open to question from a number of directions, but there is no question that the government of Lebanon has a responsibility and a duty to prevent armed private bodies based on its soil from crossing its borders to attack another state. The Lebanese government can make pious noises of denial concerning this all it wants, but cannot alter the fact of it. To state it is not responsible is to announce that it is not, in fact, the government of a state.

[bigtree]

14. It's precisely that standard Bush applies to his cross border attacks

The government of Lebanon must certainly be held accountable for its own actions and response to the violence, but to suggest that they should be wantonly targeted for military strikes everytime some militant group acts against Israel takes away from the right against attack for the many disparate groups and sects that live there. Hizbollah isn't a major part of the Lebanese govt. that Bush has spent so much time praising.

Time magazine has an article that mentions 'Israel's signature strategy of collective punishment.'

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1213344,00.html?promoid=rss_world

'Line in the sand', sending a message, shock and awe . . . nothing has been learned from the folly in Iraq, nothing has been learned from the years the Israelis let agitators draw them into counterproductive reprisals. That's what makes up the conflict there, reprisals and recriminations on both sides. It's not just that Israel should have a right to defend themselves, it's HOW they intend to do so that's the concern. We used to have an interest and ability to manage that, but we've ceded that authority or influence with our own mindless aggressions.


Lebanese Social Affairs Minister Naila Mouawad said the two men should be returned to Israel.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5177178.stm

She told the BBC the government was not aware of the Hezbollah operation and did not support it, but this did not excuse Israel's actions.

"We think that the Israeli response is too hard ... on the people of Lebanon, who have been taken hostage," she said.

She said Lebanon was in a catastrophe, but the government was unable to disarm Hezbollah by force.

[The Magistrate]

16. You Seem To Miss The Point,Sir

It is the reponsibility of the government of Lebanon to prevent any attacks from its soil on another state that it does not order made. The government of a state is expected to maintain a monopoly on the use of violence for political ends within its sovereign territory, and is held responsible for failing to do so: such failure is treated exactly like an overt act of the state which fails in this duty. If the Lebanese govenment wishes not to be attacked over the attacks against another state mounted by groups from its soil, then it must maintain order in the country it claims to rule. No group, anywhere, has a right to attack a state without being attacked in return, and no state has the right to expect that if it does not prvent attacks against another state from its soil, it will not be the object of attack by the state so assailed.

All this is quite seperate from whether the Israeli response is the best means available to it, and that question it is not my purpose to address.

[bigtree]

18. But, the response is everything. The rest is always good for pretext

to war. It's the response that Lebanon is objecting to. At what point is Israel responsible for their own violence. When does 'defense', as potentially pernicious as any 'terrorist' attack, become unwarranted aggression?

Just making a declaration of responsibility doesn't excuse ANY and all responses in the name of defense. That's the nub. How do you separate that, especially if the response involves invasion and more?

And, how far will Israel be allowed to take their response? To Iran?

[The Magistrate]

19. It Is Worth Seperating, Sir

Because the claim is often pressed that the response by Israel to this provocation has no sound root. It does.

Herzbollah has been conducting a campaign of violent harrasssment against the north of Israel for some while, and this recent incident is merely the capstone. The Israeli government may have decided it is time to liquidate the capability of Hezbollah to conduct any such operations, and if it has, the actions it is taking would be aimed at a goal that it is within its right to seek to achieve. No government is required to tolerate such activities indefinitely.

[bigtree]

22. The missile lobbing into Israel is ridiculously wrong. Innocents killed

so is this:

"Some 40 Lebanese civilians have reportedly been killed in Israeli air strikes and artillery shelling against villages in South Lebanon since yesterday’s cross-border attack by Hizbullah’s armed wing, in which two Israeli soldiers were captured and eight others killed.

Among the Lebanese victims were a family of ten, including eight children, who were killed in Dweir village, near Nabatiyeh, and a family of seven, including a seven-month-old baby, who were killed in Baflay village near Tyre. More than 60 other civilians were injured in these or other attacks.

Israeli forces have also launched deliberate attacks against civilian objects throughout Lebanon, including Beirut international airport, 10 bridges and an electricity power station, as well as against Hizbullah targets, notably the offices of its al-Manar television station in Beirut and its relay station in Baalbek."

http://www.commondreams.org/news2006/0713-06.htm

I'll go with Amnesty on this:

JULY 13, 2006
11:30 AM

Israel / Lebanon: End Immediately Attacks Against Civilians
Israel/Occupied Territories: Deliberate attacks a war crime

response is everything . . .

[The Magistrate]

23. Several Points, Sir

No Hezbollah facility or asset is civilian: it is a fighting body.

The interdiction of arteries of communication brings direct military benefit to a force engaged in operations against a body of men in arms, it is not mere wanton destruction.

It is horrible that persons with no involvement in the hostilities have been killed and injured. There is insufficient knowledge available yet to draw the conclusion that they were killed and injured by a violation of the laws of war, though it may emerge that they were.

Amnesty International is an excellent organization, that we certainly both respect. It would very much surprise me if they did not denounce the Israeli action; they set their face against most violence, and make a valuable contribution by doing so. Their interpretation of the Geneva Accords is generally the strictest that a legal mind can contrive, and is not necessarily the construction a serving prosecutor or a sitting tribunal would employ, and certainly not what a defense attorney would urge.

[bigtree]

25. I trust that you believe that their targets are legitimate 'arteries'

I'm a bit taken aback by your seeming advocation of 'war' against Lebanon; no 'laws of war' relevant without a legitimate 'war'.

But, the facts of civilians caught in the aggression and resulting crossfire is hardly in dispute. This cowboy crap across borders in the past is what has fueled a great deal of the back and forth violence of today. I don't expect much from folks who hurl missiles indiscriminately into populated areas of Israel, but I expect more from nations that profess to be so concerned with the loss of innocent life.

I hope for better from all. I expect to have some influence over my own govt. and its allies and agents, though. Just what DO we expect restrains these from 'wanton destruction'? Certainly not trust; not in the Bush era.

[The Magistrate]

26. Actions, Sir, Bring Consequences In Their Train

To accept this is neither advocacy nor support: it is part of being alive in a world much larger than myself.

[Swamp Rat]

15. It is possible that the government of Lebanon has little control over,

nor the practical ability to control the armed private bodies responsible for terrorist attacks in Israel. Nevertheless, it is their responsibility to stop it whenever possible. The recent Israeli response may be counterproductive as well. Cooperation between the two governing bodies would be much better than to continue the violence, as civilians are being killed right now.

[The Magistrate]

17. Indeed, Sir

You have put the actual circumstance in a nutshell, and certainly the ideal way to resolve the situation would be co-operation between the two governments.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

27. Give that Lebanon captured prisoners, then demanded...

a prisoner exchange...

Doesn't that sort of imply that Israel has some sort of Lebanese prisoners?

[Laughing Mirror]

30. The line always goes dead when you ask that question

Hello? Hello?? Anybody there?

[dogday]

33. I would like to know the answer to that

one myself.....

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[SoCalDem]

28. The middle east is a land of LONG memories

and Israel is still seen as an interloper...a country carved out of other people's land...

I know I'll get flamed, but think about it..

The UN mandate that created Israel MOVED people who had been living there...and gave land to people who had never even lived in the middle east (most of the "new" Israel)..

How would YOU feel if some entity came along and made YOU move out of your house (a house that your grandfather built, and had been your family home/farm for a few hundred years)...

A fight was inevitable, and hurt feelings and downright rage has been the norm ever since.

Of course Israel has been "under attack"..the people who got moved out, want their land back. The common people who got moved, did not sign their land away.. they fact that their leaders may have, is of no consequence to them. They only know their family lands were taken from them..

Look back a few hundred years in our own history.. Had the Native Americans been more cohesive and better armed, WE would be going through the same thing right now..

as for the "instigation" argument.. Israel is provoking aggression by just BEING there, and by being armed to the teeth by US.

[Canadian_moderate]

29. Just BEING there?

So all Jews should pack up and leave?

That's hardly a fair solution given that many Jews have lived in the area for several generations now, if not longer. The original Jewish settlers legally purchased their land and property from the Ottoman Empire, which ruled most of the region until WW1.

The fact remains that many hostile Arabs will never tolerate the Jews in their midst.

[SoCalDem]

31. Never said that... There is no "fair" solution

The actions of 1919 and 1947 will never end peacefully.. the men who created the mess we have now, are long-dead, but we suffer their legacy of hastily cobbled-together "countries"

[Canadian_moderate]

34. True enough

[npincus]

35. thanks

you are correct. Let all the Israel-bashers pack up their belongings and sign over their deeds to the native Indian tribes that 'owned' the land they are living on now, stolen by the US gov't in the 18th and 19th centuries. Surrender your ill-gotten terittory and property right now!

Israel, surrounded by enemies, gets attacked- a provocation that Hezzbolah understands will cause a swift and severe counter-attack- and everyone gets on Israel for defending herself. There is a strong anti-Israel sentiment over here and I've chosen to stay out of it, but your sane post in the wilderness prompted me to post.

Good for you!

[bigtree]

36. I hope you aren't reducing my argument to 'anti-Israel'

that would be too simplistic . . . and misleading.

The issue for me is who Israel chooses to attack as a reprisal. Their actions are clearly designed to prod Lebanon to do what the Lebanese government says they are unable to accomplish.

Is Rice anti-Israel as she calls for them to exercise restraint?

The provocation is one matter, Israel's response is another. There's talk of holding Iran and Syria accountable. Do these involve military action against Syria or Iran? For what purpose and to what end?

There's also the issue of how the U.S. response will be viewed and respected in the face of our own regional aggression.

[Canadian_moderate]

38. No problem

I've never understood why many "liberals" are so keen on making excuses for neanderthal terrorists who would like to impose an authoritarian system that does not respect human rights and religious freedom. Hamas and Hezbollah are Islamic fundamentalists for fuck sake and some people here need to get that through their thick skulls before criticizing Israel for each and every action it takes in response to Arab aggression.

[BurtWorm]

11. Does Iran? Or North Korea?

Of course not. They're not "Judeo-Christian." :eyes:

[malaise]

12. Does Iraq?

[Terran1212]

20. Bush is just happy that his enemies are being killed

He knows that the hundreds of mostly Arabs who will die here and thousands more terrorized will not make Israel safe, if anything much more unsafe.

[Hubert Flottz]

21. Taxpayers should too!

[milkyway]

24. So if a Minuteman went across the border and killed a Mexican, Mexico

has the right to bomb Reagan International Airport in D.C. All in self-defense, of course.

[Balbus]

32. If Mexico had a population of only 7 million people

and the U.S., with it's population many times that, stated repeatedly that we wanted Mexico wiped from the face of the earth and every Mexican destroyed, and the U.S. repeatedly sent in to Mexico suicide-bombers on a weekly basis to strike terror and death to the Mexican citizens then I'd say yes, Mexico would have the right to launch an air-strike at the Reagan International Airport.

edit: spelling

[Clarkie1]

37. Yes, they do. nt