Last I heard, imposing a blockade is an act of war. Hizbollah says it will not resume imposing its own economic blocade upon northern Israel (i.e., raining rockets onto Haifa to keep ships away) unless the Lebanese government asks it to do so, but this could turn into a hot war again at any time.
Meanwhile, not only Lebanon is suffering, but Jordan (our "ally") and Syria are suffering too. Most of their shipping came in via Beirut and Tyre. We are talking about ancient cities that have been seaports since before the first war-like Arabs drifted up out of the southern deserts into ancient Palestine, conquered large parts of the place from the Phoenicians, adopted features of the surrounding region's religions into their monotheistic sheep-herder's religion, and called themselves "Israelites". (Yep, the historical Israelites are *ARABS*). We are talking about cities that pre-date *BIBLICAL* Israel -- yep, cities older than the Bible. They exist for one reason only -- trade. And Israel is cutting that off, resulting in much hardship all around.
Meanwhile, the French refuse to deploy the 5,000 troops they earlier promised because of some sort of bullshit political crap, the Italians are deploying on an Italian schedule (i.e., slow, slow, slow), and people are suffering. And nobody gives a shit. Because, of course, they're only untermenschen, unseemly mud people. Not real people, God's Chosen People, Republicans. Will the hereditary regime of No Republican Millionaire Left Behind intervene to clean this shit up and get people back to normal life? HAH! We're talking about the same goddam gang that still, a year later, has only managed to clean half the debris out of New Orleans! Ask them to FIX something? F***, all they can do is destroy and kill. That's all they know how to do. "Ugh! Me Bush! Me bash baddy with club! Ugh!". Fix something?! Yeah right...
-- Badtux the "It ain't over yet" Penguin
it's not even close to over, and the bushies that were so concerned about not returning to "status quo" can claim that they did not do that. they haven't managed to attain "status quo" yet. or even a reasonable facsimile of it.
ReplyDeleteWill it ever be over? I wonder. I recall reading in some book (or on the web, it gets fuzzy after a while) some years back about a man that went to Lebanon.
ReplyDeleteAt the entrance to a little hotel was a sign that said, "Welcome to Lebanon. Fuck you."
Actually, until Israel bombed it and blockaded it, Beirut was the tourist hotspot of the Middle East. It's where the wealthy elite of the repressive Arab states would go to drink, party, and have sex with nubile young women and the occasional nubile young boy. If the sign said "Welcome to Lebanon. Fuck you." it most probably meant that prostitutes were available there (heheh!).
ReplyDeleteHey, you remember all those foreigners evacuated during the first week of the war? They were vacationing there. It was a peaceful, pretty country with one heck of a night scene, lots of fine restaurants including the most French restaurants outside of Paris, and generally a nice place to visit other than the far southern part where Hizbullah and Israel kept tossing rockets and bombs at each other, but everybody was sure that the situation there would eventually get worked out.
Instead, Israel decided to take out the rest of Lebanon because they had a problem with one group running their own mini-state in the south of the country... and proved why Lebanon couldn't disarm Hizbullah -- because if Hizbullah could hold off the IDF for over a month, it certainly could take on any military force that the rest of Lebanon, half the size of Israel, could put together.
-BT
Come to think of it, I was thinking of Liberia.
ReplyDeleteHey, don't be knocking Liberia. I'm due to be receiving US$20million any day now from a long lost, unknown relative there that was killed in a tragic plane accident years ago (minus 27.3 percent for my new banker friend).
ReplyDeleteDave
P.S. Yeah, right. ;-)