I wonder if there isn’t an important military lesson for the United States in this. Rockets continue to rain down on Israel after three weeks of intense efforts by an elite air force to knock them out. This doesn’t make it a very good bet that — if the U.S. does attack Iran — the U.S. Air Force will be able to shut down Iran’s anti-ship missile capability. In other words, the Straits of Hormuz could be closed to shipping for a long time. Iran is believed to have Sunburn missiles , which carry a large warhead at mach 3 speeds, are deadly accurate, and are almost impossible to defend against once launched. Not only could these take out oil tankers, they could take out an aircraft carrier.
I shudder to think what the U.S. response would be if Iran sank an aircraft carrier.

Posted by: kaleidescope | Aug 6 2006 22:03 utc | 4

@ab – Read the article. It is dated 5/25/06 & says that interest in the proposal is still very much alive.

Posted by: jj | Aug 6 2006 22:59 utc | 6

Not sure if Billmon reads these comments (and does anyone have a public email address for him?);
Otherwise, a good read here;

Posted by: moeman | Aug 6 2006 23:46 utc | 8

the lebanese have been making their demands clear since day one of this war
they have since elaborated on that with their 7 point proposal
i don’t see what deal they are being offered. either they are hit today or they are hit tommorrow. the political class in lebanon are standing steadfast for a number of reasons. like the israelis they did not expect either the ferocity or the courage of hezbollah. they did not expect the horrific nature of israel’s response which has given that class no real breathing room than to stand behind nasrallah – nor did they expect the kinds of victories the hezbollah have been offering
their 7 point proposal is reasonable
it is reasonable for the empire also because each day it is a no win situation for them. if the israeli defence forces escalate what is already at an intense level then the possibility of the empire’s puppets functioning whether it is in egypt or jordan becomes extremely limited
each day that passes the arab people fear the empire less & will use the means at their disposal – tho it will not be immediately noticeable i believe the accumulative effect will be enormous
in iraq, the generals must be shitting their pants
& the iranians, inventors of chess – win whatever way the wind blows

Posted by: r’giap | Aug 7 2006 0:43 utc | 10

Moeman’s link above is important. Thanks for the link, Moeman.
Eric Margolis has been reporting about the Middle East for decades.
The Kuwaiti insult to Hussein re Iraqi war widows was supposed to have really enraged him. He was negotiating for debt relief from the Kuwaitis after the Iran-Iraq war. He considered that he had helped Kuwaiti interests in this war.
And then he hears that he can reduce the debt to Kuwait by selling the war widows.
Now, add that to Kuwaiti slant drilling into Iraqi oil fields, and the US ambassador’s stated indifference if Hussein settles scores with Kuwait ,…

Posted by: Owl | Aug 7 2006 0:56 utc | 12

One important point in Eric Margolis’ column:
But few nations will send troops without prior agreement with Hezbollah. Israel battled Hezbollah for 18 years, losing nearly 800 men, and ultimately lost the war it began.

Posted by: Owl | Aug 7 2006 1:26 utc | 14

Has anyone heard how those Raytheon Patriot missile defense systems are working?

Posted by: biklett | Aug 7 2006 1:37 utc | 16

Israel has singlehandedly united the different Lebanese sects behind Hezbollah. Even Jumblatt the Druze leader a vehement opponent of Hezbollah has stated that Hezbollah has gained major popular support. It has in fact become the de facto Lebanese army. And Nasrallah has become more powerful politically. He could shake up lebanese politics by demanding real representation based on a new census which would put Hezbollah right on top. The Christian and Sunni factions know they would lose a civil war. So Hezbollah will determine the Lebanese position on the cease-fire.
Billmon makes a persuasive case why its in Hezbollah’s interest to accept the cease-fire. But, IMO, Nasrallah can afford to be patient. With the Hezbollah rockets still raining down on Haifa and the latest attack killing 12 IDF soldiers, the domestic pro-war consensus in Israel will start to break down. Olmert will come under more political pressure for screwing up this war effort and will not gain any support to escalate further.
On the other hand the US aligned Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt are wilting under the glare of TV video showing the civilian carnage and destruction of Lebanese infrastructure.
Hezbollah by showing the inability of the IDF to stop their rockets and capture large swathes of southern Lebanon will make their own demands. They have won the PR war and by still standing have removed the myth of the invincible IDF. The cease-fire that will be agreed to will only increase Hezbollah’s stature.
This escalation by Israel has been a strategic blunder just less in scale than Shooter’s Iraq quagmire. Instead of defeating the islamic extremists, neocons Shooter and Olmert have only emboldened them.

Posted by: ab initio | Aug 7 2006 1:52 utc | 18

Panama was about drug money and the canal
@Malooga, First & Foremost its importance was as another rung up the ladder of mass re-acceptance of foreign military invasions. They needed something between Grenada & Iraq. Grenada didn’t involve mass slaughter, so something more was needed to numb Am. citizens. As part of that package, they wanted to test some nifty new weapons, and find effective ways to introduce the essential military censorship of the press.

Posted by: jj | Aug 7 2006 2:21 utc | 20

@jj
jj, can you point to where Scowcroft & Zbig have been talking this issue about all week? I haven’t run across it, nor heard anything of it. And I suspect, it is because the Governments of the U.S. and Israel do not want peace; way to many folks are making bank, It’s like Chalmers Johnson said, in 2005, “The Defense Department budget last year was three-quarters of a trillion dollars. I guarantee you that when war becomes that profitable, there will be more of it.” I think we all know, that this machine is just getting warmed up. There is to much “adrenaline” to stop it now; I can’t recall whom sd, it recently, maybe it was you, but these guys display the full onset of a process addiction, which in many cases, is more subtle and thereby more dangerous and insidious than overt addictions.
What are process addictions? First coined by Anne Wilson Schaef. Process addictions are a series of activities or interactions that “hook” a person, or on which a person becomes desperately dependent. Process addictions include but are not limited to: work, shopping, sex, money, exercising, eating, gambling, religion, relationships, greed and power.
“The time has come to admit, without reservation, that society is an addict and functions on a systemic level the same way as any decompensating or deteriorating drunk. In order to tolerate this system you have to be addicted (Dr. Anne Wilson Schaef, 1987)”.
WHEN SOCIETY BECOMES AN ADDICT
(San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987)
From the book’s introduction: “Our society is deteriorating at an alarming rate. As we watch the news and read the newspapers, we are increasingly made aware of corruption in high places, financial collapse, and a lack of morality in settings ranging from preschools to meat packing plans. Our planet is being destroyed by acid rain and pollution. Hunger and wars rage over the planet.
“As a society, we are responding not with action but with a widespread malaise. The market for antidepressants has never been better. Apathy and depression have become synonymous with adjustment. Rather than looking for ways to change, to save ourselves, we are becoming more conservative, more complacent, more defensive of the status quo.
“Those few individuals who notice and draw attention to these growing problems are met with massive denial. When they run for public office, they are not elected. When they confront us with what they know, they are ignored, dismissed, or discredited.”
Finally, she writes, “Since the White Male System/Addictive System defines itself as reality, everything else is unreal by definition. Since its referent is the external referent, the internal referent is unreal and nonexistent by definition. The process of invalidating that which the system does not know, understand, cannot measure, and cannot thereby control is so extreme that large areas of perception and knowledge are lost. We give the system the power to make the known unknown.” futher, “Whole areas of knowledge and information have been defined into nonexistence because the system cannot know, understand, control, or measure them.”
She understands that the institutions of society perpetuate addictive behaviors; “The Addictive System operates out of a “scarcity model” and is quite institutionalized. When Society Becomes an Addict is an easy read, peppered with true stories and funny examples. The content is so true it’s terrifying… all the more so because it was written almost twenty years ago.
Prior to this book, Schaef had broken some interesting ground about how gender and culture work in mainstream American society. In “Women’s Reality,” she broached the idea that men and women have different realities – that is, different cultures with different values and experiences. In fact, she proposed that there were several, including a white women’s culture which is complicit with the corrupt parts of white male culture, and an “emerging female system” which has begun to define and explore itself and defy mainstream societal corruption.

Basically, Schaef has realized something. She has society’s problems all figured out, but she’s targeting the wrong people.
Our society responds to crises “not with action, but with a widespread malaise.” With each crisis, moreover, it’s becoming increasingly “conservative, complacent (and) more defensive of the status quo.” The worse things get, the deeper we sink into denial. And when we do try to do something, we consistently pick our favorite part of the problem, take it out of context, and begin a misguided uphill battle to fix things.
There are two big questions raised by this: What’s missing in this picture that would let us deal with problems more effectively? And how do we escape the denial and lack of information that pulls us in like quicksand?
Addiction: The Missing Piece
Anne Wilson Schaef has a simple and amazing explanation: Society itself has become an addict.
Addiction theory has not yet hit the mainstream, nearly twenty years after this book’s publication. Fortunately, Schaef’s book understands this and sets out to explain exactly what addiction looks like, how it works on a societal level, and what that means to all of us.
She starts out by presenting the four myths that our system believes about itself and which perpetuate it:
1. This system is the only thing that exists. I chose to go to a women’s college. One of the unexpected side effects of this was that I had to endure three and a half years of many people telling me over and over that I wasn’t in “the real world,” that I’d better prepare myself for “the real world,” that “the real world” wouldn’t be like this, that my education wasn’t going to be applicable in “the real world.” They seemed to imagine that Mills was a hermetically sealed environment in which no men were allowed (instead of having many men on the staff and faculty as well as in the graduate school and in classes which were open to grad students) and, most importantly, that nothing I could learn while surrounded by women would be worthwhile, important, or valued. Fortunately, I knew even then that there was no single “real world,” and that I was making the right choices for myself.
2. This system is innately superior. As Schaef points out, this idea is confusing because it directly contradicts the idea that a given system is the only system… much like the statement that you mustn’t worship other gods is confusing when it comes from people who insist that there is only one God. But it is a useful thought, because it allows us to insist (with no direct experience and little knowledge of other cultures) that we are the best country in the whole entire world.
3. This system knows and understands everything. This belief is often seen coming from doctors who think that whatever they’ve learned is all there is to learn. It is the fuel behind the idea that we are the best and we are always right. It is what lets us erase other people’s cultures, experiences, and realities.
4. It is possible to be totally logical, rational, and objective. If we believe this, we can ignore any ways in which we’re not being objective, or rational, or logical – any areas in which we don’t have all the information – and most importantly of all, anyone who disagrees with us. Even worse, it cuts us off from important information and from our own senses and feelings.
5. It is possible to be God as defined by the system. This is the fifth of the four myths – that is, it’s the overriding myth that includes them all. It’s the idea of being always right, of being in control of and responsible for everything, of having or being able to have total power.
Throughout the book, she explains what behaviors are characteristic of addicts, and how they fit into her theory. She explains the processes used by an addicted system, and some ways in which we can work toward systemic recovery. The following is a list of the main issues she raises:
The need to create crisis: Addicts are universally addicted to drama and adrenaline. Many of us have a hard time feeling alive without a crisis. Not only does it break through our numbness, but it gives us something to control and, often, an excuse to use one of our substances of choice. It keeps our lives from feeling safe, because that confuses us. Safety and peace don’t feel right or normal. As Schaef explains, “Even when the situation gets out of control, it is satisfying to us because it is OUR situation and WE made it…. There is no doubt that a crisis is good for the economy and keeps the public believing that our government is ‘doing something.’ Sometimes we need to create a crisis to give ourselves a role and feel needed.”
Lying: Schaef says, firmly, that “an addiction is anything we feel tempted to lie about. An addiction is anything we are not willing to give up (we may not have to give it up and we must be willing to do so to be free of addiction.” Addicts are deeply invested in lying, especially to ourselves, about what our lives feel like, what we are doing, and why we are doing it; denial is a huge part of this.
And what does our government do? Our public figures lie to us and each other about the evidence for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in order to invade it, lie about their affairs, about their drunk driving arrests, have their driving records erased…. Our government agencies have engaged in roughly a hundred years of torture and other nonconsensual human experimentation and repeatedly attempted to shred the documentation about it so that even Congress doesn’t hear about it for decades. Politicians lie so much, as Schaef later points out, that their speeches are often well-nigh unintelligible. On a more personal level, there’s advertising, faked orgasms, and Fox News.
A sense that something is very wrong – but it can’t possibly be our fault: And, equally importantly, a sense that we can’t possibly make things right. We pick someone else who is supposed to fix things, and when they can’t, (and of course they can’t, because we’re not taking care of our part), we blame them for what is happening. We blame our spouses for all the problems in our relationship. We blame the economy for our debt. If only France had backed us up, we would have had everything under (our) control in the Middle East in no time. It’s all everyone else’s fault. As Schaef says, “On a system level, we believe we are not causing the unrest in the world. If others would only behave, we would not have to retaliate.” This book was written in 1987, but it describes most of the United States’ history over and over.
Self-centeredness: As addicts, we become increasingly focused on our fix. We can’t hear what others are saying to us; all we can hear is whether they are supporting our addictive behavior or not. In other words, “Everything that happens is perceived as being either for or against the self.” And on a national level, we perceive everything that happens in the world as being either for or against the United States. We perceive ourselves, moreover, as a sort of police officer to the rest of the world; we have to take sides in everything, no matter how little it has to do with us or how little the rest of the world wants our involvement. And that’s easy when we perceive every country and every group in terms of whether or not they are on our side. It also leads to the inabilty to see others’ perspectives or be objective, because the idea of our selves, or ourselves as a country, is a concept so large that it blocks everything else out.
Arrogance: The addictive person or system “assumes that it has the right to define everything… (and) really believes that it is possible to be God as defined by our system.” Addicts believe, on some level, that we are God. The world revolves around us; we think we have total control over everything that happens in our lives, or in many cases, in the world.
This comes out in a scary way on the governmental level. One “question” asked of George Bush at a sycophantic press conference (at which he screened everyone to decide who could ask the questions) was, “This is the first time I’ve ever felt that God was in the White House!” Questions of the separation of church and state aside, this is a pretty terrifying image in its own right. And as Schaef remarks, “the outstanding characteristic of that particular God is that ability to control everything. He is white, male, and in charge.”
Control Issues: Oh, my, yes. Addicts have serious boundary issues. We can’t tell where others end and we begin. And that has some pretty serious effects. It makes it feel like “everything is me and everything starts coming at me and is either for or against me.” It’s an overwhelming and terrifying sensation — which leads to paranoia and the need to control everything around us. On a national level, we want to control the whole world, and we need constant reassurance that other countries are on our side and willing to collaborate on whatever we want. For that matter, our government sees its entire purpose as regulation and control. “Consider our political leaders: We have a president and a cabinet who believe firmly that they can control everything…. One of our greatest fears is that of losing control of ourselves, our families, our surroundings.”
Perfectionism: This is the equally destructive flip side of all of our control issues. Schaef calls addicts “conscientious, concerned people with high aspirations and high expectations of themselves.” Being an addict doesn’t mean being a bad person — it’s just unhealthy.
And as a country, we are all of these things. There is that aspect of America which sees itself as noble, which tries so hard to be a conscientious world citizen, full of people who volunteer and give money to good causes and help lost children find their parents. We want to be the world police and the world’s helping hand, often to the point of delusions of grandeur. And unfortunately, this perfectionism sets a standard for ourselves that we can and should never reach.
“Stinking Thinking”: In Alcoholics Anonymous, it is often said that alcoholism is the symptom, not the problem. An alcoholic can stop drinking and still behave just as chaotically and irresponsibly as if they had just finished off a six-pack. “Stinkin’ thinkin'” is the kind of fast-moving, circular justifications we make to ourselves to excuse behavior we know is wrong or harmful. It comes out of fear, and then Schaef identifies this as the experience of being a person, or a system, with “confused, alcoholic thinking… dishonesty, self-centeredness, dependency, and need for control at its core.”

So What?: That’s Just the Beginning…
Also see: The Global Crisis of Addictions
” Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing. This concentration is seriously impairing the economic effectiveness of private enterprise as a way of providing employment for labor and capital and as a way of assuring a more equitable distribution of income and earnings among the people of the nation as a whole (US President Frank Delano Roosevelt, 1938).”

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Aug 7 2006 3:10 utc | 22

Alaska Pipeline Shutdown to Drive Gas Prices Higher
http://cbs2chicago.com/consumer/consumer_story_218205409.html
With barely over 1/3rd of its Prudhoe Bay crude oil
distribution lines already inspected after the 275,000
gallon oil spill last March, G-P has found sufficient
irremediable damage to shut down portions of the Alaskan
Pipeline indefinitely for repairs.
Large sections of pipeline must be completely replaced,
in a race against a rapidly approaching winter freeze up,
and against a looming Western Hemisphere shortage of
qualified welders, (many of whom are in Alberta on tar
sands projects), as well as large diameter oil pipe.
B-P has issued no statement yet when work can begin, but
with long lead time for environmental permits and steel
pipe supply, as well as shortage of qualified tradesmen,
repairs could easily last through the winter into 2007.
The shut-down is expected to reduce US West Coast gasoline
supplies by 8%, causing a multiplier effect in the face of
the Gulf hurricane season, and renewed intensive futures
speculation, which may drive gasoline over $4.00 a gallon.
B-P apologizes for the inconvenience and wishes you the
best of good mileage on your new Yukon Denali.

Posted by: Anonymous | Aug 7 2006 4:26 utc | 24

Yes, the BushDaddy was anchored enough in reality to have the “realist” faction clustered about him. Scowcroft in particular must be frightened by The Son. He said while he opposed invasion of Iraq, he’d stand by; however, if they moved on Iran, he’d move for impeachment…imagine his surprise to discover Repugs in Congress had become brown shirts & their adherents…14 yrs. is a long time, Brent…
Don’t you seriously wonder if the realists are hudding w/sane generals off on some summery island discussing whether they should stage a military coup of some sort to head off the Catastrophe the NeoNuts portend?

Posted by: jj | Aug 7 2006 4:36 utc | 26

There are two Lebanese parties here, Hezballah and the Lebanese govt. It’s an academic question at this point, but who would actually sign on the dotted line if this resolution were adopted? The UN has recognized only states in the past, so could Nasrallah even be allowed to formally agree to the resolution under existing protocols?
One more academic point: Hezballah’s status within Lebanon, including it’s right to bear arms (how can a wingnut oppose that?), is officially recognized by the Taif accords as I understand things. Doesn’t this technically make the UN resolution a Lebanese constitutional issue? By agreeing to disarm, wouldn’t Hezballah forfeit not only it’s ability to fight Israel but it’s constitutional rights – and accompanying political leverage – within Lebanon as well? Wouldn’t that be a prescription for domestic discontent among Lebanese Shia? (I recognize how, um, quaint the legal questions are.)
It seems to me that the Lebanese govt’s refusal to agree to the resolution is somewhat important. Had the govt said yes and Hezballah no, that might have created division in Lebanon, a significant segment of the population that felt they could have had peace if not for Hezballah while the Shia would feel betrayed by the other groups. If the resolution’s authors’ were hoping to create this result, they now understand the level of popular support for resistance across Lebanon. As things stand, with the govt refusing to go along with the resolution, Israel is at war with Lebanon, not Hezballah, and the Lebanese people overwhelmingly support that war.
Hezballah is a popular movement with an effective organization and capable leader that represents the interests of the Lebanese Shia. They are also, as Margolis says, Lebanon’s de facto military. If Hezballah is disarmed, Lebanon is disarmed and all the Lebanese people know it. Having seen again what Israel is willing to do to their country, it’s hard to imagine that the Lebanese people would support any resolution that leaves them defensless against Israel. This means that Hezballah now represents the interests of all the Lebanese people. The Lebanese govt’s rejection of the resolution means this war is actually a state vs state affair despite the US/Israeli posturing that only Hezballah is the enemy. If divide and conquer was the plan in Lebanon, it has failed for now with all of Lebanon, govt and people, united against Israel.

Posted by: lonesomeG | Aug 7 2006 5:09 utc | 28

Here’s my question: What happens when Lebanon runs out of oil in the next 2-3 days? Will Hezzbullah be able to keep fighting, or is Israel trying to starve the defense machine out so that they can over-run it.
What thinkest thou, Billmon and others.

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 7 2006 5:15 utc | 30

Well, Uncle, that’s what military guys are for – fighting. I just can’t believe they’ll surrender/lose everything carrying out the NeoNut agenda.
@Malooga, it’s not clear from what I’ve read of Hezb- that they’ll be that seriously inhibited – anymore than Giap & Co. would have been. It’s not like they’re using tanks & planes. Also, they may have stashes sufficient for their cars etc. But the civilian population is another matter. I read that the Lebanese President/Premier said he considered Israel’s strategy was to starve the nation to force them to agree to Israels terms. Precision bombs have redefined laying siege to a country/city. Stalingrad Redux …?

Posted by: jj | Aug 7 2006 5:32 utc | 32

Hezbollah read the manual: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/07/world/middleeast/07hezbollah.html?hp&ex=1155009600&en=f5a5acb4fe90c083&ei=5094&partner=homepage
BTW – there is absolutely no excuse for Israel being surprised by the Hezbollah resistance.
Or rather, given Israel’s extremely racist attitude towards the Arab nations, and their perception of Arabs as Untermenschen, it was pretty clear that they couldn’t have a perception of parity with Hezbollah. Again – we see their cakewalk hubris ending up as pie in the face.

Posted by: SteinL | Aug 7 2006 6:15 utc | 34

It’s gonna get Uglier, according to Haaretz:
The Israel Defense Forces plan to ramp up their offensive in Lebanon in response to Sunday’s rocket attacks on northern Israel.
A senior General Staff officer told Haaretz that for the first time since the fighting began, Israel plans to attack strategic infrastructure targets and symbols of the Lebanese government.
Other than bombing the Beirut airport to prevent arms transfers to Hezbollah, Israel has hitherto not targeted Lebanon’s infrastructure, insisting that it is only at war with Hezbollah, not with the Lebanese government or people.
However, the officer said, “we are now in a process of renewed escalation. We will continue hitting everything that moves in Hezbollah – but we will also hit strategic civilian infrastructure.”
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz will meet with senior defense officials this morning to discuss the continuation of the operation.
…
Sources in the IDF General Staff said that until the chances of a UN-sponsored cease-fire become clearer, which is expected to happen in the coming days, Israel will continue to press its offensive. If Hezbollah has not ceased its fire by this weekend, they added, the IDF will recommend an additional significant expansion of the operation, including the conquest of most of Lebanon south of the Litani River, including the area around Tyre, and a significant increase in air strikes on infrastructure targets. “It could be that at the end of the story, Lebanon will be dark for a few years,” said one.

They haven’t targeted the infrastructure – who are they kidding? Or do they mean they’ve merely devastated the physical infrastructure, so now it’s onto the governmental infrastructure that holds the society together – govt. buildings, schools, hospitals, anywhere there are essential records…
Israel is on a serious suicidal trip here…

Posted by: jj | Aug 7 2006 7:53 utc | 36

Indeed, jj, what do they mean by starting to target civilian infrastructure, when they’ve already destroyed it?
Israel bombing schools and hospitals, yeah, fine, going down to the level of Mladic in Bosnia. They’d be insane to do this, because pretty much everyone in the West, apart a big chunk of US people, will definitively turn against them and will consider them as a bunch of rampaging mad dogs. Of course, some there are already insane to openly and publicly threaten to commit war crimes that should send them to the Hague.

Posted by: CluelessJoe | Aug 7 2006 12:03 utc | 38

There is always the distressing option that the goal here is to goad Muslims into a counteraction in the West that will legitimize Bush/Cheney and help them in both midterms and the 2008 elections.

Posted by: SteinL | Aug 7 2006 12:42 utc | 40

lonesome
i think that is exactly the policy. as has been pointed out here on numerous occassions. the neocons prefer chaos over order & they prefer violence over negotiation
this is not a serious negotiation – it is another slap of contempt across the face of the arab people
it is an insult to the lebanese
what has to be concretised – practically & conciouslly is the proven facts – the empire & its vassalls can be beaten – militarily & morally
& the only lessons imperialism has ever understood are those that hurt -physically or morally
the myth of american power & the invincibility of israels armed forces are exactly that myths
& they have to understand – never to seek legitimacy in the west because that legitimacy is really just another word for humiliation & there has been more than enough of that
in 1967 it is clear that israel was involved in a large scale murder of egyptian troops in their keeping. they were murdered as if they wer nothing. & that murder of the arab people has continued apace
an arab life is not considered
not in the least
unless that arab takes others down with him or her – when they become what we in the west have called ‘suicide bombers’ – they have turned a key in the western mind because the western mind is attached to life, no matter how decadent, no matter at what cost that life comes. so when someone walks towards death for something as precious as land or freedom – then the western mind shakes. because it has forgotten those instincts, perhaps irreperably
only the indigenous people of nearly all cultures ‘know’ what the relations are between men, earth & their destinies
it is clear tha in arabic culture, destiny is a complicated thing best exemplified in the esoteric but earthbound music they create, organically
in the west, that ‘destiny’ has been turned into both a commodity & a nightmare. that its path can be determined by privelege, inequality, ‘knowingness’ – when the opposite is in fact true – what the hindu call samhardi & the buddhists satori – that moment when instincts will & destiny meet
western cultures have destroyed those instincts irreperably. here in europe that makes us just fodder for any third rate populist who can sell fear & lock us into our cages at night
& that is what has happened to america – its instincts for life has gone but it does not yet know death, it has not fallen in love with death yet as a culture what it presents is already in a state of putrefaction
as an aside here – the focus on ‘health’ is an awareness of that putrefaction. a putrefction that cannot be stopped
i think the other day that was more less what i was trying to say about the american miterature i know is that the best of it is aware of that putrefaction
you do not call a novel ‘the day of the locusts’ for nothing
& it is true that this is an empire of locusts, stripping all that is good in humanity & turning it on its arse & calling the everyday murders of haditha or qana – a necessary activity in the defence of christian civilisation
the lebanese should distrust the west, totally
as even occassional enemoes berri a wamblatt are commencing to comprehend
this is not a deal
the us & israel will think they have won another battle because nearly all the means of communication lie in their hands but what will truthfully happen is that in iraq, in afghanistan, in lebanon & elsewhere they will be taken down, further, much further than they ever wanted to go
& i am extremely pessimistic & see in this parlous piece of paper they are trying to sell – not then end of one war but the beginning of many others
the shopeeper in tyre understands that as well as i do

Posted by: r’giap | Aug 7 2006 22:45 utc | 42

there is absolutely no excuse for Israel being surprised by the Hezbollah resistance.
for the life of me i can’t imagine why anyone would expect hezbollah to accept that deal. the constant meme from US/israel is that israel is protecting its homeland, defending itself. an agreement that proposes israel cease offensive action means nothing if they posit their attacks are defensive. idiotic and transparent. meanwhile hezbollah is supposed to cease attacks. what a joke.
an arab life is not considered
not at all.

Posted by: annie | Aug 7 2006 23:18 utc | 44

the refugee’s fury

Posted by: r’giap | Aug 8 2006 0:00 utc | 46

uri averny war junkies

Posted by: r’giap | Aug 8 2006 2:03 utc | 48

nadja hijab

Posted by: r’giap | Aug 8 2006 2:08 utc | 50