The US: Ally or Diplomat?
What exactly does the US think its role in the middle east-crisis is?
On one hand, the US government seems keen to defend Israel’s ‘right to defend herself’ against Hezbollah attacks, as an ally of the state of Israel.
On the other hand, Condoleezza Rice seems determined to function as some sort of negotiator between Israel and Lebanon.
There seems to be a conflict, not only within the people of America, but even within the US government, as to whose war this is - and what the US role in it should be.
With the president seemingly seeing the Lebanon-crisis as just one independent situation, to which all you need to do is to employ strict military force - and as we all know by now, George W. believes that where the US bombs, freedom and democracy TM © ® will grow prosperously...
And the fact that the middle eastern conflict has been going on for well over fifty years, and is far more complicated than anything that can be solved by either more bombing, nor by sending Condi down for talks, seems completely lost in translation.
Because, there’s no way any diplomatic talks, led by the united states in the middle east will be taken seriously - as long as the US government seems to have so little understanding of the conflict, and yet so much sympathy for Israel.
As for the US-Israel alliance; to be quite honest, Israel has such a large military force - it hardly needs the US to fend its battles for them...
Not to say Hezbollah is in any way without blame here. Rather the opposite. Hezbollah keeps targeting civilian targets at random, in an effort to try force Israel to its knees. Of course such behavior - downright terrorism - leave Israel with no other choice but to react.
But perhaps fighting fire with fire isn’t exactly the way to go..?
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought; but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”(Albert Einstein)
It’s always interesting to get a foreign perspective on U.S. policy.
For the most part, if you look at the US map, the majority of the north east and the entire west coast of the country can’t stand Bush and his administration, especially Condi. Unfortunately the prarrie lands and the bible belt which consist of the entire middle and south of the country are all Bush supporters and mainly still follow the “America is the superpower and must set an example for freedom by peace or force” edict.
What’s sad is Isreal and its Arab neighbors dislike each other today because they’ve always disliked each other in the past. I believe part of the problem is hating the “other” country has almost become “normal.” Military force and peace talks aren’t going to solve this one. I say we send Oprah, Dr. Phil, and a slew of theraphists to the Middle East, get to the root of the problem, hold hands and sing. This fighting is insane and everybody wants to hide behind the veil of politics when the root of the problem are race, cultural differences, and religion; the same type of shit most of the world’s wars have been about.
The problem the US seems to miss over and over again is that managing negotiations between Israel and Lebanon is meaningless. Hizbolla is not Lebanon. It is simply a terrorist organisation sitting within Lebanon’s borders.
Lebanon dosn’t act agains Hizbolla, which is why it got caught up in this crisis in the first place…
electro^plankton: “Hug each other to death”…
Gidi: Very true. But then again, the Bush admin has never been very keen to seperate between groups operating within a country, and the country itself.. (Afghanistan, anyone?)
Yes, that’s very true. There are suspicions of a civil war starting in Iraq because of the sectarian violence occurring there. I wonder if the US military will even be able to stabilize that if something along those lines were to happen.
I agree with Gidi in that Israel needs to realize that they are killing innocent Lebanese with their airstrikes, when they should be actively attempting to find Hezbollah and destroy them in a means that is the least debilitating to Lebanon’s innocent.
One man’s terrorist is an other man’s freedomfighter. I am shure that Santa Ana considered the texan ‘feedomfighters’ to be terrorists as well. The big problem is: the US decides. US is the biggest threat to world peace. The UN’s hands are tied, and feet. To quote Mr.Bowie: ‘I’m afraid of americans’…
I think you would do good to look at things more differentiated.
Paaskeharen first phrase reminds me of an article I recently read. According to this article the United Nations, the European Union, governments of different countries like Russia or China define the Hezbollah differently.
One says it’s a terrorist organisation, one says it’s a political party (which it actually has become and it is therefore part of the Lebanese goverment) and one says there’s a political party and a militant party of the Hezbollah, the later to be defined as terrorist organisation.
The European Union for example writes about its relations with Lebanon: “The main political forces in Lebanon are Amal, Arab Socialist Baath Party, Hezbullah …” (http://ec.europa.eu/comm/external_relations/lebanon/intro/)
You can also take a look at the article about Hezbollah on Wikipedia. (I know that Wikipedia is not hundred percent reliable, but you are able to read carefully and re-think, before you swallow all the information given.)
Philipp: I am not saying that Hezbollah is purely a terrorist organization - I don’t think they are. But when a group, be it as political as it may, keeps targeting civilian areas at random - those are acts of terrorism, in my opinion.
One may, of course, argue (and indeed many do) that Israels bombing of Lebanese civilian sites are equal acts of terrorism.
So while Israel tries to defend their actions, by pointing at Hezbollahs acts, Hezbollah tries to defend their by saying it is simply retaliation.
You are perfectly right, of course, that there are many more aspects to this conflict then what this brief article is able to highlight.
The main point of my article was that the United States, may not be the best diplomat in this conflict, considering the strong ties between the US and Israel… (Jerusalem)
Thank you very much for your comments comments - please keep them coming.
to understand the problem between the so called “israel” we should go to the root of the problem.
where was “israel” a hundred years ago?, did this “paceful” USA ally exist? the western media wants everybody to think in clock that goes only for fifty years ago forgoten that this state was established on the land of palastine after killing,raping and kicking palestenians out of there lands and since then it didn’t stop it continued expanding and occupying other land in the same way in egypt,lebanon,seryia.and they are not afraid of saying it in puplic that they are doing this because God promised them a country that goes from the nile to the furat (thats what the blue lines stand for) and they will do anything to get there promised land. how can arab love such a nation? how can any body?
jews used to live pacefully among us and nobody hold them back from doing any religion ratiuals but the problem in zionisim that say it’s ok to kill women and childrens if it’s in the benefit of geting the promised land blowing away all human rights or UN decisions which have reached 40 that was not done by “israel”.
hizbullah didn’t targeted a city in america or england even that they support the zionist invasion they only targeted civilians when zionist did the same they are not a terrorist organization or poltical party they are a national resistance that will end when “israel” leaves all the lebanese soils including shabaa farms and free all the hostages they toke from prevuios wars.
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