Not only have the Bush-‘n-Blair bunch pooh-poohed the proposed UN cease fire between Israel and Lebanon (their argument is to let Israel flush out the Hezbollah baddies, no matter what the toll on the Lebanese people or on that country’s infrastructure — let Israel do its worse for a while) but now the Bush team is also supplying high-tech arms to Israel — hastening the destruction of the Lebanese infrastructure… and probably cementing the hatred directed towards the U.S. by not only the Arab world but by much of the 3rd world populace as well.
Commentators wonder what Hezbollah was thinking when they provoked Israel to a predictable reaction. Israel, whose hawks invoke the Holocaust as a justification for decimation of their neighbors. “We may have been powerless and had few defenders then, but now we have missiles, tanks and technology, and the backing of the Imperial USA, so fuck with us at your peril, we won’t be pushed around any more, never again.” An understandable, if somewhat impracticable, sentiment.
Other commentators have pointed out that previous Israeli invasions and “security measures” all but created — as in gave popular support to — both Hamas and Hezbollah, just as recent U.S. policies in the “war against terrorism” has had the effect of serving as a recruiting poster for anti U.S. causes. Similarly, the “war against drugs” in Latin America — a policy that was perceived locally as an attack on poor rural farmers rather than on drug kingpins — might also be seen as the seed that grew into the current wave of anti-American leaders and popular sentiment. The blowback isn’t always immediate or an exact mirror of the policy or action — it sometimes takes years to manifest and may pop up in wildly unexpected forms.
