WB: Package Deal – Moon of Alabama

August 22, 2006

WB: Package Deal

Billmon:

[S]o far I haven’t seen anything that looks even remotely like accountability — just the by-now familiar mixture of Orwellian lies, PR spin, carefully rigged investigations and phony rhetorical tricks (like Olmert’s, which could have been ripped right from the lips of Donald Rumsfeld).

If Israel is still different from America, it sure the hell isn’t apparent in the behavior of its political and military elites, from the Prime Minister on down.

Package Deal

Posted by b on August 22, 2006 at 05:41 UTC | Permalink

Comments

“We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore.”
Israeli reservists are demanding resignations and accountability – though the leadership has spun and spun it appears the truth is known.
Olmert who?

Posted by: SteinL | Aug 22 2006 6:36 utc | 1

A good comment in the Guardian: The Arab world’s silence has left the last word to those we call extremists

The wars against the Palestinians and Lebanese are parts of the same strategy, which seeks to impose a solution that only satisfies Israeli interests. Yet never in the past 40 years has Israeli policy received such unanimous western support. We have heard only a few voices of dissent, notably from the Vatican.
Again the Arab world has demonstrated its inability to intervene – so far. Arab states allied with the US feel unable to exert pressure on Washington. What they have done is to condemn Hizbullah and Hamas, implicitly justifying Israeli incursions. The Saudi foreign minister, Saud al-Faisal, asked non-Arab parties to keep out of the conflict, obviously not referring to the US, but to Iran.
Abd al-Wahab Badrakhan, an al-Hayat columnist, wrote: “All the Arabs, from the Atlantic to the Gulf, know that the peace process is well and truly dead. However, the Arabs have never acknowledged that the peace process was dead, out of obstinacy and because they do not know how to get out of the swamp they have sunk into. Therefore, whether we like it or not, the final word has been left to those we call extremists or adventurers.”

Posted by: b | Aug 22 2006 7:27 utc | 2

Ceasefire???
IDF paratroopers shoot 3 Hezbollah militants near border

Israel Defense Forces paratroopers shot three Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon Monday evening. It was not clear as of press time whether they had been wounded or killed.
A paratroopers’ force noticed a group of three armed gunmen at the village of Shama, some four kilometers north of the border. The soldiers opened fire and reported three hits.
Since the cease-fire was declared last Monday, several such incidents have occurred. Altogether 12 Hezbollah men have been killed.

Posted by: b | Aug 22 2006 7:50 utc | 3

Can we somehow refine our hiring practices so inept managers can’t so easily talk their ways into the corner and oval offices?

Posted by: ferd | Aug 22 2006 8:49 utc | 4

Why ferd?
Sounds as If your one of those, “Henny Penny” the sky’s a-falling, types. Oh, “The system is broken!”
No it’s not, it’s just the way they want it. The sky is not falling, it’s already at our feet. It suits them just fine.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 22 2006 9:55 utc | 5

I don’t know how much more goading Hezzbollah will put up with. But, if they decide to retailiate, it will be at their chosen time and place.

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 22 2006 13:38 utc | 6

Accountability is a quaint notion apparently, and not just in Israel.
I remember Colin Powell crowing after Abu Ghraib how the world needed to watch as our system meted out punishment to those responsible.
I watched. And all I saw was a few low-level goons take the fall for a policy green-lighted in the White House.

Posted by: ran | Aug 22 2006 14:10 utc | 7

@Uncle $cam: you’re so right. For us regular humans, when something is broken, we fix it. If there is disorder, we organize. So it’s hard to get our heads around the concept that for the neocons, disorder and chaos is the goal.
One of the points of the excellent but slightly incomprehensible Syriana was that stability and peace were the last things the neocons wanted in the Middle East. To paraphrase the Matt Damon character speaking to the reform-minded sheik’s son: “The goal is: someday the oil is all gone and you’re still herding camels.”
OTOH, the Iraq clusterfuck isn’t completely the result of some fiendish Bizarro-world plan; much of it can still be attributed to hubris, cluelessness, and incompetence.

Posted by: montysano | Aug 22 2006 14:55 utc | 8

Back to the Israel amerika nexus. What other place in the Middle East can you walk down a street and see so many sweaty, obese, synthetic cloth wearing, pasty faced assholes waddling up it than Israel?
This is why they will ultimately lose. When the war comes into their territory and so many ordinary citizens who are only fit for lifting a spoon to their mouths, can’t survive without the lectricity, not for the labor saving devices, but the respirators and ozone generators and all the other crap a consumerist society makes it’s huge legions of drones dependent on, then lose that electricity it will all be over, red rover.
This is the chief reason why things went so badly in the Lebanon. Back in the 60’s and 70’s when the Kibbutzim culture was alive and well the army was downing their scythes and picking up their swords but that is no longer the case. The fitness within the population that feeds the army is the basic healthiness of young people before a life of consumerism begins to take it’s toll. That means there are fuck-all ‘wise old heads’ who believe in what they are doing and can lead by example.
When the historic victories of the 60’s and 70’s were paraded around the world the influx of Brooklyn misfits turned into a tidal wave and swamped the culture with their me me me attitude and unhealthy lifestyles.
Moshe Dayan was an asshole but I wouldn’t have wanted to get into a blue with him because he was mean enough to try any stunt and strong enough to pull it off. Probably the fat fucker who ran the joint before Olmert was determined enough to fight but as we saw his indulgences brought him undone as they will the entire zionist enterprise.
Olmert is just like most of the US and other western politicians in that he can pose with a real worker or even hold a tool and not look too much like a masturbator but if he had to do anything with it he wouldn’t have a clue.
The deprivation that Israel has imposed on it’s neighbors while they grow fatter and less sleek off theft and parasitical behaviours has made the Arabs stronger and weakened themselves. Karma is a wonderful thing. The zionists will kill themselves with or without help from Arabs. Keep the money pumping in AIPAC you’re doing a wonderful thing for the indigenous people of the Middle East!

Posted by: Debs is dead | Aug 22 2006 21:10 utc | 9

A steady take-over by neo-connish forces doesn’t help either. Cutting aid to schools for the handicapped and single mothers angers people. All the crowing and posturing is tiresome. The false over confidence created by the US’ endless support kills off local enterprise, grass roots, alternative politics.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if one day the Arab Israelis, the Russians, and the lower-ranked Jews, or the poor ones, came together and made strong ties with their Muslim brothers. All of them disapprove, in their own ways, of Western over-consumption (even if only because of jealousy), Western sexual displays, crappy right wing Gvmts, etc. The divisions in Israeli society are well known but I think that particular fault line is covered up, because that is the line that really menaces Israeli cohesion, which is usually taken for granted by the likes of us.

Posted by: Noirrette | Aug 23 2006 10:44 utc | 10

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