How Many Lives Are Lives Worth?

Last month, while Israel was making war against Hezbollah, I kept wondering whether the death toll of Israelis and Lebonese was worth the lives of the two Israelis who were kidnapped at the beginning of the war. After all, it was their lives that started it all.

Is there a point where the cost of innocent civilians and the lives of patriotic soldiers outweighs the original loss? What I mean is, do the lives of the few outweigh the lives of many? What makes the lives of those two soldiers worth more than those Israel was willing to kill or send to die for them?

Closer to home, how many Americans lives need to be lost before we’ve spent more than it was worth to invade Iraq?

As The Martian Anthropologist reminded me today (not that I could forget), President Bush has repeatedly linked the tragedy of September 11th with the invasion of Iraq. According to him, the two are irreversibly intertwined in the War on Terror.

Whenever he invokes those emotional memories of the loss of lives on September 11th, he’s telling us that every American life he sends to die in Iraq is for those lives lost that day. He’s telling us that he’s sending more Americans to die, to kill innocent and not-so-innocent people in exchange for those lives already lost. Those are what the lives are worth.

I think it’s something to ponder today of all days consindering as of today more Americans have died in the War in Iraq than on September 11th.

(CNN) — As the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attack on the United States approaches, another somber benchmark has just been passed.

The announcement Sunday of four more U.S. military deaths in Iraq raises the death toll to 2,974 for U.S. military service members in Iraq and in what the Bush administration calls the war on terror.

The 9/11 attack killed 2,973 people, including Americans and foreign nationals but excluding the terrorists. The 9/11 death toll was calculated by CNN.

Tags: Israel, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Iraq, American soldiers, War on Terror, 9/11, George W. Bush

The Middle East Crisis: The Biggest Loser

So, Monday and Tuesday was filled with news of various world leaders patting each other on the back as to who won in the latest Middle East Crisis, this Israel/Hezbollah Conflict.

“We are today before a strategic, historic victory, without exaggeration,” Hezbollah’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, said in a televised speech that was met with celebratory gunfire in the Shia suburbs of Beirut.

“We emerged from the battle with our heads high, and our enemy is the one who is defeated.”

In an impassioned address to the Knesset, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said “the IDF warriors always had the upper hand,” and promised to hunt down Hezbollah’s leaders. [“Israel, Hezbollah claim victory” (globalandmail.com)]
“Hezbollah attacked Israel, Hezbollah started the crisis, and Hezbollah suffered a defeat in this crisis,” Bush said. [“U.S. ‘freedom agenda; big winner in Lebanon War, Bush says” (Canada.com)]

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed Hezbollah had emerged the winner in Lebanon and called the battles with Israel “God’s promise”. [“Iran president hails Hezbollah victory” (Ireland Online)

The President of Syria said today that the map of the Middle East had been redrawn by Hezbollah’s “victory” in its five-week war with Israel.

In a rare public speech, Bashir al-Assad said that the once invincible Israeli army had been humiliated and that the Jewish state would do well to seek peace and hand back occupied Arab land - or risk more defeats if it tried to pursue “terrorist policies” in the future.[“Syria declares victory in Lebanon conflict” (TimesOnline.co.uk)]

Probably the silliest thing to come out of Israel’s mini-war with Hezbollah in Lebanon is the posturing over who “won.”

Nobody won.[“No ‘winner’ in the conflict, but Palestinians are losers” (PensacolaNewsJournal.com)

This morning NPR was interviewing a family of Israelis returning to their homes for the first time since last Friday after it had been hit by a Hezbollah rocket. The father/husband/man of the house said what I think none of the news, military and government analysts get — except maybe The Pensacola News Journal — when asked about who he thought won the war, he basically said, “No one wins wars, there are only losers and losers.”

In the end, I wonder if governments and world leaders and terrorists and ideological fanatic folks and such stopped to ask those of us who are just trying to get through our lives every day if we would be interested in going to war and killing and destroying, I wonder how many of us would really be interested in the whole idea.

The king of Zor, he called for war
And the king of Zam, he answered.
They fashioned their weapons one upon one
Ton upon ton, they called for war at the rise of the sun.
Out went the call to one and to all
That echoed and rolled like the thunder.
Trumpets and drums, roar upon roar
More upon more.
Rolling the call of Come now to war.
Throughout the night they fashioned their might
With right on the side of the mighty.
They puzzled their minds plan upon plan
Man upon man
And at dying of dawn the great war began.
They met on the battlefield banner in hand.
They looked out across the vacant land.
And they counted the missing, one upon one,
None upon none.
The war it was over before it begun.
Two little kings playing a game.
They gave a war and nobody came.
And nobody came.
And nobody came.
And nobody came.
And nobody came.
[repeat and fade]
There is no pause:
The king of Zor, he called for war
And the king of Zam, he answered.
They fashioned their weapons one upon one
Ton upon ton, they called for war at the rise of the sun.
Out went the call to one and to all
That echoed and rolled like the thunder.
Trumpets and drums, roar upon roar
More upon more.
Rolling the call of Come now to war.
Throughout the night they fashioned their might
With right on the side of the mighty.
They puzzled their minds plan upon plan
Man upon man
And at dying of dawn the great war began.
They met on the battlefield banner in hand.
They looked out across the vacant land.
And they counted the missing, one upon one,
None upon none.
The war it was over before it begun.
Two little kings playing a game.
They gave a war and nobody came.
And nobody came.
And nobody came.
And nobody came.
And nobody came.
[”Zor and Zam”, The Monkees, 1968, The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees]

Tags: Israel, Lebanon, NPR, Hezbollah, The Monkees, Ehud Olmert, IDF, Hassan Nasrallah, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran, George W. Bush, Syria, Bashir al-Assad, Middle East, politics

comments See also in Politics & Causes, In the News, Books, Music, Movies, & T.V., Geekery, The World, Featured, The Middle East

A Fear To Give

Humanitarian Aid Charities collecting for Lebanon have run into difficulties collecting in the United States. It’s not that there’s a lack of desire to give, but it turns out there’s a fear to give…apparently, Americans are a little afraid of what their government might have to say if they donate…because after all the NSA is watching and what if you accidently donate to the wrong charity and your name ends up in a database somewhere listing you as a supporter of terrorists? Remember, if you’re doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about.

Some people want to get around that by donating goods, but this complicates matters because it’s expensive to the charities — goods have to be sorted by people which takes time and shipped which also takes time …and also costs the charity money…

Charities prefer that people send money rather than food, medicine or other goods, because in-kind donations force the charities to pay for shipping, delay the arrival of the aid, and saddle relief workers with the task of sorting and distributing items that may not be needed.

The problem, according to relief groups, is that many people who are inclined to write checks for emergency aid and reconstruction in Lebanon are afraid of ending up in some government database of suspected supporters of terrorism.

Arab American leaders say this is one of the unintended consequences of the U.S. government’s crackdown on charities run by Muslims. Though aimed at cutting off illicit funding for terrorist groups, the crackdown has complicated legitimate humanitarian relief efforts in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank.

“Dozens of people have approached me. They want to help, they want to send money to buy medicine, and they’re afraid of the government reaction to their contribution,” said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations. “Some do it anyway. They can’t sit idly. But they worry that one day they’ll hear a knock on the door.”

CAIR, which is one of the country’s largest Muslim organizations, reluctantly is encouraging donations of goods, on the grounds that they are better than nothing. Its Web site, http://www.cair-net.org , lists needed items, such as rice, sugar and cooking oil, along with detailed instructions on how to pack and send them.

“We’re forced to go the least effective route, which is sending actual relief supplies, because of the restrictions on, and the problems associated with, sending financial relief to the Middle East,” CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said. “If you send lentils, at least no one can accuse you of supporting terrorism.”

Some other groups, such as the Arab American Institute, are taking the opposite tack, recommending against in-kind donations.

“We’ve been encouraged not to do that by the Lebanese Embassy and others — not to send goods, because it’s inefficient and it takes money to sort it out and decide what to do with it. What’s needed is cash so people on the ground can buy what they need, when they need it,” said James J. Zogby, president of the institute, a Washington-based advocacy group.

[…]

“In the context of the NSA monitoring everything under the sun, people are afraid,” he said, referring to the National Security Agency’s monitoring of international phone calls and e-mails. He added that he has repeatedly urged U.S. officials to publish a list of legitimate charities, to no avail.

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. government has shut down three major U.S.-based charities for allegedly funneling support to terrorists, and it has designated more than 40 charities internationally as terrorist financiers. Last week, the Treasury Department barred U.S. citizens from contributing to two more groups: the Philippine and Indonesian branches of the Saudi Arabia-based International Islamic Relief Organization.

Treasury Department spokeswoman Molly Millerwise said that the department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control maintains a “one-stop shopping” list of banned entities, known as the Specially Designated Nationals List, on its Web site, http://www.treasury.gov/ofac .

But she said the department has declined to produce a list of approved charities in the Middle East “for two reasons: No. 1, any charity that we deemed clean, we could not guarantee that it would always remain so. And No. 2, it would put the government in the position of playing favorites.”

[…]

” United Jewish Communities, an umbrella organization for 155 Jewish charities across the country, announced last week that it will raise at least $300 million in emergency aid for Israel. The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington alone intends to raise $10 million toward that goal.

By comparison, the flow of private U.S. donations for humanitarian aid in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories is a mere trickle, estimated by relief groups at a few million dollars. Donors who fear giving to Muslim charities can contribute to the International Committee of the Red Cross or groups such as CARE and Mercy Corps — large, international relief groups that are the major conduit of such aid.

Laila Al-Qatami, a spokeswoman for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said the organization has decided to funnel its Lebanon relief contributions through Mercy Corps, an Oregon-based group that she pointedly noted “is not an Islamic charity.”

But some Muslim groups are intent on proving that they, too, can collect money and distribute it without problems.

Ziad J. Asali, a retired physician in Illinois who heads the American Task Force on Palestine, said his group is giving $20,000 each to Makassed Hospital in Jerusalem and St. Luke’s Hospital in the West Bank city of Nablus. After consulting with the State Department, he said, the task force decided to pay the bills for medical supplies that the hospitals order from their regular suppliers. [“Muslim Charities Say Fear Is Damming Flow of Money” (WashingtonPost.com)]

How free do you feel now? Free to feel as compassionate as you want to whomever you want? You can’t even write a check to help someone without worrying that you might wind up on the wrong side of an interrogation table one day under the current Administration’s game plan…

Tags: Humanitarian Aid, Lebanon, Arab, charity, spying on Americans, Treasury Department, United Jewish Communities, CAIR, Arab American Institute, NSA, International Islamic Relief Organization, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, American Task Force on Palestine, State Department

comments See also in Politics & Causes, In the News, The World, Featured, The Middle East

Recommended Reading - 08/04/06

• Tin Foil Hats And Tiaras For Everyone! — The (liberal)Girl Next Door talks about the recent poll revealing that 1/3rd of Americans believe that 9/11 was “an inside job” and what that staggering fact could or should mean for our future as a country.
  

  One out of three people think the Bush administration could very well have organized the deaths of 3,000 innocent Americans for the sole purpose of furthering their foreign policy objectives. In other words, a third of this country’s citizens believe that the Bush administration is a terrorist organization. How is it possible that impeachment isn’t even on the table if that many Americans think he’s a killer? Yes, it’s a rhetorical question and we can all say in unison, “it’s possible with the help of a lapdog press.”

• Internet “Conspiracies” — In contrast Red Bull uses the same poll to champion Net Neutrality. More

  Tags: Conspiracy Theories, 9/11, net neutrality, gay hate crimes, Homeland Security, FAS, disaster preparedness, Israel, U.S., Hezbollah, Lebanon, Middle East, Military Families Speak Out

  2 comments See also in Politics & Causes, In the News, Geekery, Blogging & Other Blogs, The World, Featured, 9-11 & Terrorism, Conspiracy Theories, Natural Disasters, The Middle East

Recommended Reading - 08/01/06

• An Epidemic of Hatred — Shakespeare’s Sister has written an excellent must-read piece on the lack of media attention on the war against homosexuality in America.
  

  Consider for a moment the stories you see on the nightly news. Try to recall the scare stories that are built up around two children nationwide getting injured by a faulty toy, or three people nationwide having died from side effects of a medication, or ten people in your city having been attacked by pit bulls over the last twenty years. “A rash of incidents.” “An epidemic.” “What can we do?” “What you need to know to protect yourself.”

  Consider that after two women died after taking RU-486 (after it has been dispensed over half a million times), two anti-choice Senators jumped to propose legislation that would suspend the use of the drug.

  Consider that as the Senate passed legislation to federally criminalize the evasion of parental notification laws, the Republican Senator who wrote the legislation justified it by saying, “If it is happening 20 times a year, it is still worth doing to protect those parental rights and to protect those children from being in these kinds of situations.”

  Consider that the flag-burning amendment was deemed a necessity, though only something like five flags have burned in decades.

  Consider that the Pledge Protection Act was deemed a necessity, on the possibility that someone might bring a legal challenge based on the phrase “Under God.”

  Consider that one of the primary rationales among opponents of marriage equality is that it must be prevented lest preposterous hypotheticals about men wanting to marry dogs come to fruition.

  How little it takes to whip up the media into an exploitative frenzy, all in the name of “protecting” us. How little it takes to move our Congress to pay attention to an issue and pass legislation to “protect” us. (Which is, of course, ever an excuse to limit our rights, but they nonetheless claim it’s about “protection.”) One or two incidents, or, sometimes, just an imaginary scenario of what might happen. That’s all it takes.

  But in the course of two months, there have been at least six vicious attacks on the LGBT community, and the media is silent. And Congress, well, they were pushing for an amendment to deny equal rights to same-sex couples. Their focus was “protecting the sanctity of marriage.” They’re more concerned with protecting an institution, an abstract concept, than protecting people.

  When churches throughout the South were being burned, it was national news. When a hate crime at Seattle’s Jewish Federation claimed the life of someone the other day, it was national news. And it should have been, in both cases. But an epidemic of hatred against the LGBT community in this country is not garnering the same attention—even as Congress pursues discriminatory legislation and courts are ruling against challengers to marriage inequality.

  Think there’s a correlation?

  The anti-gay hysteria that’s leading to an epidemic of hate crimes against the LGBT community is constantly being inflamed by the GOP’s use of gay rights as a wedge issue, their use of anti-gay rhetoric, their exploitation of anti-gay sentiment. And even with people being attacked and their homes being burned, the Dems can’t be arsed to take a bloody principled stand. And the media doesn’t care. They’ve finally got a real epidemic on their hands and it’s utter silence.

  Read the whole thing…

  And then do something about it.

  Write your Congress members and your local media and tell them to pay attention to this Epidemic of Hatred against the LGBT community. Donate to LGBT advocacy groups. Straight people, register your support with Atticus Circle and PFLAG. And keep talking about this. Blog this issue. Tell anyone who will listen and get them involved.

  Hatred flourishes in silence. Let’s make some noise.

• Israel, anti-Semitism, and the experience of being a lapsed Secular Jew in America — Jill @ Brilliant at Breakfast brings us her unique viewpoints from a lapsed American Jew on Israel, Lebanon, Mel Gibson and recent remarks by Ron @ Middle Earth Journal.
  

  These are tough times to be on the left side of the fence with even a marginally Jewish identification. Sometimes the left is as knee-jerk in its “Israelis are butchers” generalizations as the right is in its “everything Israel does is justified” attitude. I’m disgusted at the nearly 60-year-long battle on the part of the Arab world to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Right now I feel like a parent with two squabbling kids in the back seat of the car. I don’t give a shit who started it. I just want it to stop. As Bill Cosby once said about HIS kids, I don’t want justice, I want quiet. Deal with it and find a way to live with it. It’s not that the Arab world is so fond of the Palestinians

  I’m equally appalled at the Israelis thinking they can prevent another Holocaust by behaving like Nazis. I’m doubly appalled because these are supposed to be arguably “my people.” These are the people who are really the public face of worldwide Jewry.

  There is plenty of blame to go around here. I don’t think we need to choose up sides.

  I understand that opposition to Israel doesn’t necessarily mean hatred of all Jews.
  So why does it FEEL as though it does? Why, even when I agree with the anti-Israel blog rant, does my stomach knot up?

• Wise Old Toddlers. — Michael Reynolds @ Donklephant wrote this excellent piece which perfectly describes the state of the government as I’ve come to understand it. It’s made my head hurt. I’ve felt as if my brain was seeping out of my ears over the last few years but this piece is exactly the way I’ve pictured it.
  

  Toddler: We always said it would be bloody.

  Adult: No, you said it would be a cakewalk.

  Toddler: Everyone knew there would be difficult patches.

  Adult: The Iraqi police are militia death squads, refugees are fleeing the killing that takes place right under our noses, the Iraqi army keeps ’standing up’ and yet we’re sending more guys, our army is overstretched, our own intel admit that Iraq is the new jihadist training ground and that it’s been a boon to terrorist recruiting, the Syrians are less afraid of us and the Iranians are laughing as they process fissile materials right next door.

  Toddler: Yes, of course, exactly what we always said would happen. And a good thing, too.

  Adult: Oh, and it’s cost us hundreds of billions.

  Toddler: Yes, just as we said: it’s paying for itself. Why, it’s working out marvelously. Just you don’t lose heart. You’ll see.

• We’re Afraid! Please Spy On Us More! — Becky @ Preemptive Karma writes about Fox News “scaremongering” efforts to assist the Bush Administration to easily scare American citizens into giving up their freedom not to be spied upon by thier government. Fox News went so far as to suggest that an American city would be nuked by Hezbollah (remember al-Qaeda?).
  

Tags: Israel, Lebanon, Mel Gibson, Bill Cosby, Palestinians, Jew, Arab, Nazis, Iraq, George W. Bush, politics, Fox News, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda

Day 1,230

Today is Day 20 of the “Crisis in the Middle East”.

Do you know how many days it’s been since the U.S. invaded Iraq?

According to Frank Rich in yesterday’s New York Times, yesterday was Day 1,229, making today a nice even 1,230.

According to CNN, “there have been 2,802 coalition deaths, 2,576 Americans, two Australians, 114 Britons, 13 Bulgarians, three Danes, two Dutch, two Estonians, one Fijian, one Hungarian, 31 Italians, one Kazakh, one Latvian, 17 Poles, two Romanians, two Salvadoran, three Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, two Thai and 18 Ukrainians in the war in Iraq as of July 31, 2006.”  1,000 plus Iraqis per month have lost their lives in Baghdad alone the last few months.

However, according to Frank Rich:

On the Big Three networks’ evening newscasts, the time devoted to Iraq has fallen 60 percent between 2003 and this spring, as clocked by the television monitor, the Tyndall Report. On Thursday, Brian Williams of NBC read aloud a “shame on you” e-mail complaint from the parents of two military sons anguished that his broadcast had so little news about the war.

This is happening even as the casualties in Iraq, averaging more than 100 a day, easily surpass those in Israel and Lebanon combined. When Nouri al-Maliki, the latest Iraqi prime minister, visited Washington last week to address Congress, he too got short TV shrift — a mere five sentences about the speech on ABC’s “World News.” The networks know a rerun when they see it. Only 22 months earlier, one of Mr. Maliki’s short-lived predecessors, Ayad Allawi, had come to town during the 2004 campaign to give a similarly empty Congressional address laced with White House-scripted talking points about the war’s progress. Propaganda stunts, unlike “Law & Order” episodes, don’t hold up on a second viewing.

The steady falloff in Iraq coverage isn’t happenstance. It’s a barometer of the scope of the tragedy. For reporters, the already apocalyptic security situation in Baghdad keeps getting worse, simply making the war more difficult to cover than ever. The audience has its own phobia: Iraq is a bummer. “It is depressing to pay attention to this war on terror,” said Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly on July 18. “I mean, it’s summertime.” Americans don’t like to lose, whatever the season. They know defeat when they see it, no matter how many new plans for victory are trotted out to obscure that reality.

So much for supporting our troops, eh?  What happened to reporting all of that good news that was supposed to be happening in Iraq?

I’m upset about Israel and Lebanon too.  Heck, I’m outraged; however, remember, Iraq and Afghanistan are our wars and our messes and our soldiers are dying over there.  Shame on our media for a lack of patriotic priority.

Hat tip AmericaBlog.

Tags: Iraq, Israel, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Baghdad, American soldiers, New York Times, ABC, Fox News, NBC, Nouri al-Maliki, Frank Rich

Israel & The U.S. Uniting the Middle East

Secretary of State Condi Rice’s prediction of a “New Middle East” may have been dead on, but I don’t think what’s happening over there now is what the White House and Israel had in mind. As a result of the US’s refusal to publically support any call for any sort of cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah and in fact, the US’s apparently brazen and seemingly hypocritical encouragement of Israel to bomb the hell out of a weaker country on the very verge of the kind of democracy the US supposedly promotes, the U.S. and Israel may have finally done what no one has been able to accomplish in the Middle East in ages — Unite the Middle East.

Well, unite most of the Middle East against Israel and the U.S. anyway. It seems like organizations and countries and religious groups who would normally never consider cooperating are rushing to Lebanon’s aid and Hezbollah’s defense.

(emphasis mine)

At the onset of the Lebanese crisis, Arab governments, starting with Saudi Arabia, slammed Hezbollah for recklessly provoking a war, providing what the United States and Israel took as a wink and a nod to continue the fight.

Now, with hundreds of Lebanese dead and Hezbollah holding out against the vaunted Israeli military for more than two weeks, the tide of public opinion across the Arab world is surging behind the organization, transforming the Shiite group’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, into a folk hero and forcing a change in official statements.

The Saudi royal family and King Abdullah II of Jordan, who were initially more worried about the rising power of Shiite Iran, Hezbollah’s main sponsor, are scrambling to distance themselves from Washington.

An outpouring of newspaper columns, cartoons, blogs and public poetry readings have showered praise on Hezbollah while attacking the United States and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for trumpeting American plans for a “new Middle East” that they say has led only to violence and repression.

Even Al Qaeda, run by violent Sunni Muslim extremists normally hostile to all Shiites, has gotten into the act, with its deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, releasing a taped message saying that through its fighting in Iraq, his organization was also trying to liberate Palestine.

Mouin Rabbani, a senior Middle East analyst in Amman, Jordan, with the International Crisis Group, said, “The Arab-Israeli conflict remains the most potent issue in this part of the world.”

Distinctive changes in tone are audible throughout the Sunni world. This week, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt emphasized his attempts to arrange a cease-fire to protect all sects in Lebanon, while the Jordanian king announced that his country was dispatching medical teams “for the victims of Israeli aggression.” Both countries have peace treaties with Israel.

The Saudi royal court has issued a dire warning that its 2002 peace plan — offering Israel full recognition by all Arab states in exchange for returning to the borders that predated the 1967 Arab-Israeli war — could well perish.

“If the peace option is rejected due to the Israeli arrogance,” it said, “then only the war option remains, and no one knows the repercussions befalling the region, including wars and conflict that will spare no one, including those whose military power is now tempting them to play with fire.”

The Saudis were putting the West on notice that they would not exert pressure on anyone in the Arab world until Washington did something to halt the destruction of Lebanon, Saudi commentators said.

American officials say that while the Arab leaders need to take a harder line publicly for domestic political reasons, what matters more is what they tell the United States in private, which the Americans still see as a wink and a nod.

There are evident concerns among Arab governments that a victory for Hezbollah — and it has already achieved something of a victory by holding out this long — would further nourish the Islamist tide engulfing the region and challenge their authority. Hence their first priority is to cool simmering public opinion.

But perhaps not since President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt made his emotional outpourings about Arab unity in the 1960’s, before the Arab defeat in the 1967 war, has the public been so electrified by a confrontation with Israel, played out repeatedly on satellite television stations with horrific images from Lebanon of wounded children and distraught women fleeing their homes. [“Tide of Arab Opinion Turns to Support for Hezzbolla”(The New York Times)]

Hat Tip: Brilliant at Breakfast

Tags: Israel, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Egypt, Arab governments, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Sunnis, President Hosni Mubarak, Iran, al-Qaeda, al-Zawahiri, Palestine, Condi Rice, Shiiti, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, King Abdullah II of Jordan

Recommended Reading — 07/26/06

• The Godless West — The (liberal)Girl Next Door has a post about the religious breakdown of the U.S. based on a map that appeared in USA Today. It’s kind of a surprise actually.
  

  It’s interesting to see the geographical differences, Lutherans in the North, Baptists in the South, Catholics in the Northeast and a bunch of non-religious folks out West. What I found most interesting though is that no-religion places in the top three in just about every state while Evangelicals, if they rank at all, top out at 2%. How is it that such a small minority has so much influence on our government?

• It’s Official, We’re All Living in A Kafka Novel — The All Spin Zone points to an article that originally appeared on The Denver Channel about how Air Marshalls have quotas to make and they’ve been adding people to watch lists for doing things like taking photos on airplanes. You can also read about it at Pam’s House Blend. More

  Tags: politics, Air Marshals, religion, American Bar Association, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon

  comments See also in Politics & Causes, In the News, Geekery, Blogging & Other Blogs, The World, The Middle East

The American Taxpayer Pays For 20% Of Israel’s Military

When you’re hearing and reading about the dead Lebanonese civilians, remember than your tax dollars helped to pay for their deaths even though it’s not our soldiers pulling the trigger. Keep that in mind when you hear about the trapped and dead Americans caught in the conflict too.

• “Almost all of the weapons used by Israel are from the United States. There might be a couple French fighter planes that they’re using, but its F-16s made in Fort Worth, Texas; its Apache helicopters; its Sparrow and Sidewinder missiles; it’s all from the United States.”
• There has been no real “discussion of the fact that all of the Israeli arsenal is from the United States, and that that is in contravention to U.S. law. to the Arms Export Control Act, which says that U.S.-origin weapons are only to be used for self-defense and for internal security.”
• “Israel has always been the largest recipient of military aid from the United States, [and] that that’s actually increased since 2001.”
• “Military aid stands at about $3 billion a year. That’s about $500 for every Israeli citizen that the United States provides on an annual basis. And then, weapons sales, most recently, since the Bush administration came into power, we’re looking at $6.3 billion worth of weaponry sold to Israel.”
• “…essentially the United States provides 20% of the Israeli military budget on an annual basis, and then about 70% of that money that is given from the United States, from U.S. taxpayers, to Israel is then spent on weapons from Lockheed Martin and Boeing and Raytheon. Most other countries don’t have that sort of cash relationship, where they go straight to U.S. corporations with U.S. money to buy weapons that are then used in the Occupied Territories and against Lebanon.”
• “In 1981, the last time there was a full-on invasion by the Israeli government into Lebanon, the Reagan administration cut military aid and froze weapons sales to Israel, while it did an investigation of whether or not the weapons were being used for self-defensive and internal security purposes.”

Source: DemocracyNow! Transcript of U.S. Arming of Israel: How US Weapons Manufacturers Profit From Middle East Conflict

Tags: Middle East, Israel, American taxpayer, Lebanon

Recommended Reading

• Censorship is “Just a Policy” — All Spin Zone blogged about how FEMA won’t let trailer residents give media intervies without a FEMA chaparone.
• Third time’s not the charm: Sunday-morning talk shows still imbalanced — Media Matter’s study proving that Sunday talk shows are far from so-called liberal media. In fact, it’s been over a decade since they’ve been anywhere near balanced near that direction. The statistics clearly show that if it’s Sunday, it must be a Conservative guest.
• There was another report of Homeland Security’s TALON database being misused to store student anti-war and anti-military recruitment protestors in the news. (Hat tip AmericaBlog)
• Right-Wing Attacks American Evacuees: ‘Ingrates,’ ‘Whining,’ ‘Spoiled-Rotten Little Children’ — ThinkProgress.org reported on Fox News childish, incompassionate, extremely unprofessional journalism. No wonder, the average right-winger thinks this is appropriate behavior. The comment section is worth a read, but be sure you have some time set aside to sit and read it all.
• Israelis and Lebanese talking…on the net — ThinkProgress.org also reports abouts about Israelis and Lebanese who would rather not be bombing each other but would instead prefer something more peaceful reaching out to each other via the Internet. Too bad those aren’t the ones in charge…
• 128 — the number out of 400,000 frozen embryos that have been adopted, according to ThinkProgress.org. I suppose that leaves 399,872 that could be used to help find cures for cancer, AIDS, and who knows what else that’s killing Americans and other people across the globe.
• Italy is considering serving the US with extradition papers for 26 CIA agents for the abduction of an Islamist cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, known as Abu Omar, who was seized from Milan 3 years ago, taken to Egypt, and tortured. [Guardian Unlimited]

Tags: FEMA, liberal media, TALON, Homeland Security, Fox News, Israel, Lebanon, Veto, World Peace, stem cell research, Middle East, Italy, Abu Omar

Someone Just Killed The Neighbors

Lenin’s Tomb has a link to a video clip of a bomb going off in Beirut. With macabre humor, the post is titled “someone just killed the neighbors”. While somewhat jarring, this title is actually very insightful: war generally is not something that happens on some sterilized battlefield away from innocent children and bystanders; rather it’s something that happens on the way to the market and in people’s kitchens. [“Regarding Our Dead Neighbors” (Swerve Left)]

This is what I’ve been talking about for years. We Americans don’t seem to truly grasp that those are actual people dying. I guess because it’s over there. The Middle East is like some twisted evil NeverNeverLand where we send our little boys and they come back in boxes and never grow up, but there aren’t real live people over there. When the news reports bombings and attacks and more dead in the Middle East every day, I just don’t think Americans realize those are real people dying. To us, they’re just numbers, statistics, faceless unknown movie extras.

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Tags: Israel, Pat Buchanan, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Middle East, Lebanon

Update On Americans Fleeing Lebanon

I’m not a big fan of Secretary of State Condi Rice. That’s no secret. However, I do give props when they are deserved and I must say that I was quite stunned when I read this morning that she had made the decision to waive the transportation fee to Americans evacuating from Lebanon. Kudos to her!

I will add a comment that a number of bloggers were blaming the Republicans solely for the transportation fee in the first place, but a little research does reveal that while “un-fucking-believable,” it is apparently a leftover U.S. policy from a 1956 law. Maybe it’s out of date and we should look to the governments of France, Ireland, Britain and Italy who didn’t delay in evacuating their citizens or worry about charging them for the trip.

It did seem a bit outrageous of the U.S. considering all the money we have to throw about in the Middle East.

“A nation that can provide more than $300 billion for a war in Iraq can provide the money to get its people out of Lebanon,” the California Democrat said in a statement earlier Tuesday.

I saw a cartoonist’s take on this earlier today who questioned whether the American people were even on the American agenda anymore. Good question. Especially considering the complaints from people trying to find out what’s going on from their government and finding out more information from the media…

Several of the Americans in Lebanon wrote e-mails to CNN, expressing their frustration with the evacuation process.

“We are desperately trying to evacuate and have become more and more disappointed and angry with the way the evacuation is being handled,” said Lina Fleihan, of Greensboro, North Carolina. “We hear more about what’s going on from CNN than we do from the U.S. government and the American Embassy here.”

Natalie Kerlakian of Denver, Colorado, wrote that she had not heard from the embassy in a week.

“I hope this response will be better than that of Katrina,” she wrote, referring to the heavily criticized government response to the hurricane that struck the Gulf Coast in August.

Susan Omar, of Clifton, New Jersey, wrote that she has family stuck in the southern Lebanese city of Maryajoun, and her phone calls to various governments’ offices have been fruitless.

“We have begged and pleaded with anyone and everyone, but our kids still don’t have water, food or medicine,” she wrote. “The media is telling everyone that those with medical necessity have already been evacuated. I guess that only means those lucky enough to be near Beirut!”

Kellee Khalil of Los Angeles, California, wrote that she was trapped in Lebanon while vacationing with her father, who has diabetes and a heart condition.

“The embassy has not put him on a priority list,” she wrote. “It has been several days of airstrikes and the United States seems to care little about the 25,000 Americans that are trapped here.” [“U.S. waives fee to flee Lebanon” (CNN.com)]

Tags: Lebanon, U.S. Embassy, CNN, Condi Rice

US Charges Citizens To Evac From Lebanon

Un-fucking-believable!

The Department of State reminds American citizens that the U.S. government does not provide no-cost transportation but does have the authority to provide repatriation loans to those in financial need. For the portion of your trip directly handled by the U.S. Government we will ask you to sign a promissory note and we will bill you at a later date. In a subsequent message, when we have specific details about the transporation arrangments, we will inform you about the costs you will incur. We will also work with commercial aircraft to ensure that they have adequate flights to help you depart Cyprus and connect to your final destination.

The Department of State continues to work around the clock and will continue to send updates as appropriate. [“Lebanon Situation Update - July 15, 2006″ (Embassy of the United States Beirut, Lebanon)]

So, if you’re an American citizen and you’re in need of help, be sure to have your credit card handy. Doesn’t it make you feel warm and fuzzy? I mean I was pissed off because the US waited until yesterday to start rescuing people from the area after Israel started bombing Lebanon — an extreme overreaction, in my opinion, to the original offense. People are dying and the US is charging people who knows how much to get out — isn’t this something we would call a criminal or at least questionable act if any individual or company tried it?

Hat Tip: State of the Qusan.

Tags: Lebanon, Israel, U.S. Embassy, Beirut