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Anna Baltzer's Book

Iraq's salvation depends on this action:

The Iraqi government recently reported that 85,000 civilians were killed between 2004 and 2008 during the worst of the sectarian violence that pushed the country to the brink of full-scale civil war. Thousands more were seriously injured.
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GFA Article(s)

• ENOUGH IS ENOUGH: It’s Time For The U.S. To Respond To Israeli Insults
  

Articles/Issues

• America and the Future - Summer 2008
• Iraq
• Palestine
• Israel
• Foreign Policy
• Interviews
• Plain Talk (Citizen Paul)

WINNERS, LOSERS, and VICTIMS: The Legacy and Future of the War in Lebanon

A Lebanese evacuee arriving in Siddon, south Lebanon, on August 1 holds her child close and cries.

The Legacy and Future of the War in Lebanon
09/06/2006

We are now far enough into the fragile cease-fire in Lebanon, as a result of UN Resolution 1701, to draw some conclusions from this brief but tragic war. As the United Nations works to patch together a peacekeeping force that will secure the border area, stark and depressing new realities have emerged — realities that will reverberate for years to come.
The first reality is that the invincible Israeli Defense Forces are indeed vulnerable, and just as capable of mistakes, miscalculations, and pointless mayhem as any military force. And their leaders are just as capable of denial, evasions, ineptitude, and scapegoating as the other guy.
The Israeli Defense Forces are the surprise losers in this conflict.
The massive overkill that the Israeli military punished the citizens of Lebanon with will be debated in Israel for years. The political fallout could come much sooner, as Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz come under increasing criticism for their orchestration of the war.
The overwhelming majority of victims of the war were Lebanese civilians, many of them cowering in their basements to escape the bombing or killed while trying to escape their communities and villages, which were being shelled or bombed by the Israelis.
In spite of the horrendous firepower unleashed on Lebanese communities during the 34-day war, Israel failed to achieve its two main goals: to destroy Hezbollah and to somehow inspire the release of their two soldiers, captured by Hezbollah raiders in a cross-border raid.
From victim to perpetrator, Israel’s reckless retaliation against all of Lebanon, for the sins of Hezbollah, represents a failure of moral and compassionate leadership.
This failure — this shame — reflects on us as well, because not only did we help plan and authorize this attack, but we alone stood against the world and refused to support an earlier call for a cease-fire. We alone stood on the sidelines for 34 days while Israel shelled and bombed selected targets across Lebanon, the casualties mounting day by day.
Our failure — our refusal — to throw our considerable weight behind a cease-fire initiative very early in this unnecessary war was but another blatant example for many that the United States favors Israel over all others in the Middle East.
In this sense, our reputation as an honest broker for peace in the region has been shredded. And the credibility and sincerity of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been buried beneath the rubble of Lebanese villages.
The Bush administration sent Secretary Rice around the globe to kill time while Israel killed Lebanese, and that will not be soon forgotten in that part of the world. Bush may very well have squandered away his remaining presidential powers — powers he might have applied in his last two years in office to solve the Palestinian problem.
In that tragic sense, the Palestinians have once again become the victims of a conflict beyond their horizon, to decisions made by others, of wars not of their making.
Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos of Spain recently said, “It’s time for Europe to awaken U.S. leadership.” His optimism is admirable, but the reality is unavoidable. The Bush administration, trapped in the quicksand of Iraq, has no inspiration, no passion, and no serious interest in promoting its own “Road Map” to peace. The creation of an independent Palestinian state has just been sidetracked by Israeli cluster bombs in Lebanon and Hezbollah rockets into northern Israel.
Ehud Olmert came into power with a mandate to remove West Bank settlements and to move toward a just solution to the problem, but the Lebanese war has put an end to that. Like Bush trapped in Iraq, Olmert is now fighting for his political life, trying to justify his leadership in that war and his post-war plans for northern Israel’s depressed economy.
If we are to salvage our reputation in this affair, it will only come if the Bush administration finds the courage and conviction to jump-start the “Road Map” initiative, and to pressure Olmert’s government to move forward on the promised dismantling of settlements within the West Bank — and to finally create an Independent Palestinian State.
We have the leverage if we have the will! Bush and Rice are now seen as feckless apologists for the Israelis — in Gaza as well as in Lebanon. This perception will only end if Bush steps out of the shadow of Israel and acts for the good of everyone in the region, especially the Palestinians and finally for America, after making us look so terribly bad.