�To confront this accursed plan, to thwart the goals of
this war, to fight the battle to liberate, what remains of our land and our
prisoners, I state categorically under no circumstances will we accept any term
that is insulting to our country, our people, or our resistance. We will not
accept any formula at the expense of the national interest, national
sovereignty and national independence, especially after all these sacrifices,
no matter how long the confrontation lasts and no matter how numerous the
sacrifices may be. Our main and true slogan is �Honor First.� --Sheik Hassan
Nasrallah
�The resistance is a weapon at the service of the entire
nation. It has never acted against anyone but the Israeli occupation.� --Talal
Salman �A
Guarantee of Victory."
One picture tells
the whole story. The photograph shows a long column of Israeli soldiers, grimy
and bedraggled, limping southwards towards the Israeli border. The lead soldier
looks vacuously at the camera with an expression of pure gloom and fatigue. In
the background, a soldier is seen comforting another who is crying
inconsolably.
This is what defeat
looks like.
Back in Israel, the
headlines are splattered with every detail of the ongoing withdrawal from
Lebanon. The op-ed pages and talk shows lash out at anyone even remotely
involved with the month-long debacle. Prime Minister Olmert has become
the favorite target of the media�s scathing criticism and the brunt of every
joke. His public approval has dipped from a pre-war high of 80 percent to a
meager 40 percent. Meanwhile, political rival Benjamin Netanyahu�s
popularity has soared to a hearty 57 percent making him the likely successor if
Olmert is forced to step down.
Israel is drowning
in collective angst and self-pity. The defeat has shattered the national sense
of self-confidence and well-being. A joke that is circulating in Tel Aviv
opines that Ariel Sharon�s condition suddenly worsened �when he found out what
was happening in Lebanon.�
The punchline
epitomizes the general state of malaise in Israel.
The coverage of the
Lebanon fiasco in the Israeli media is alternately narcissistic and hysterical.
The details of the massive destruction to Lebanon�s civil infrastructure and
environment are brushed aside as inconsequential; the 1,300 civilian deaths,
irrelevant. The only thing that matters is Israeli suffering; everything else is
trivial. While Lebanon is busy digging out another 300 or so corpses from the
rubble of their destroyed homes, Israel is preoccupied with its loss of
�deterrents� or its battered sense of �invincibility.�
It is an
interesting study in the prevailing megalomania of Israeli society, a culture
as pathologically self-absorbed as its American ally. It�s no wonder
security is so hard to come by when people are so lacking in empathy.
In Lebanon, the
extent of the damage is just beginning to be grasped. Whole cities in the south
have been laid to waste and most of the vital infrastructure has been ruined.
Barucha Peller summed it up this way in a Counterpunch article, �This Pain has no
Ceasefire�:
�The walls of homes
that once protected families and cradled their lives are now in pieces, shreds,
fine dust. Sift through the rubble. Kick the rubble. Stand still, silent, alone
with the absoluteness of destruction and accompanied by the millions of shattered
pieces of everything that was here before. Leave the rubble. Try to forget.
Walk away from the terrible sight. But your mind is in pieces, lives in pieces,
people who never again will stand in the doorway with greetings. You can walk
away. There is a ceasefire. But missiles fall, they fall, not from the skies,
but behind Lebanese eyes, they fall forever in memory, they are still crashing
into what once was.�
�The absoluteness
of destruction�; the faces that will never reappear �in the doorway�; this
nagging, life-long suffering goes unrecorded in the Israeli media where the
national obsession has turned to finger-pointing and empty recriminations. The
lives and the civilization that�s been decimated are a mere footnote to
Israel�s violated sense of security and the humiliation of losing to an Arab
adversary. Looking at the papers, it�s easy to believe that the entire
population is completely unaware of the misery they�ve caused. Instead, one
gets the uneasy feeling that the anger is just beginning to mount and could
wash across Lebanon in a second wave of hostilities.
Lebanon has been an
embarrassing defeat for Israel, but this is probably just Round One. As public
rage grows, it will be more and more tempting for Olmert to disregard the
ceasefire and go on the offensive. He needs some way to acquit himself in the
eyes of his people and revenge is an unfailing cure-all. He also needs to prove
that he can be a reliable ally to the Bush team who gave him carte blanche to
pulverize Hezbollah while they stalled the ceasefire at the UN. Israel needs to
show that they can hold up their end of the bargain by cleaning up matters in
their own back yard. Olmert�s failure will not go down well with the Washington
neocons who�ve worked tirelessly to provide him with all the weaponry and
support he needed.
According to
Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Israel originally planned an attack on
Lebanon for September or October. This would have added an element of surprise
to the war which could have been disastrous for Lebanon. It also may have
affected the results of the 2006 congressional elections in the US.
The Bush
administration has made no effort to conceal their involvement in the conflict.
They provided logistical and material support in the form of satellite-intelligence
and precision-guided missiles, and they blocked all efforts at the UN for an
immediate ceasefire. Bush has stubbornly portrayed the war as �part of a
broader struggle between freedom and terror,� but his platitudes have had less
impact on public perceptions than the photos of bombed-out airports, bridges
and factories which appear daily in the media.
The biggest
champion of the war has been Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who
characterized the vast and premeditated devastation as �birth pangs.� There now
hangs a banner in downtown Beirut with a ghoulish picture of Rice with fangs
dripping with blood which says, �The massacre of children at Qana is a gift
from Rice.� The Farragamo-draped princess has quickly become the most reviled diplomat
in US history. Move over Henry Kissinger.
It�s no surprise
that she was rebuffed by President Siniora and told she wasn�t welcome in
Lebanon until the terms of a ceasefire were in place.
Rice�s most
revealing statement appeared in a USA Today article when she admitted that the
Bush administration saw the conflict as an �opportunity to create a
fundamentally different situation� in the Middle East.
�Opportunity�? Is
that how the Washington mandarins see the utter destruction of an
American-friendly ally?
Condi�s bromides
only confirm Nasrallah�s claims that the plan to invade Lebanon is actually
part of a broader strategy for establishing US/Israeli hegemony throughout the
region so that they can �exclusively manage its affairs and resources.�
The main obstacles to this �New Middle East� are the resistance organizations,
Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as Syria and Iran. Bush and Olmert conspired to
disarm Hezbollah by pushing Syria out of Lebanon and creating a political
climate where (they believed) Hezbollah would be forced to give up their
weapons.
Their plan failed.
Hezbollah joined the government but maintained their guerilla network at the
same time; accumulating the Katyushas and sophisticated anti-tank rockets they
needed to take on Israel�s advancing army. It should be noted that Hezbollah
was the only entity in Lebanon that wasn�t swept up in the heady revival of
Beirut and vigilantly awaited Israel�s next rampage.
Their success in
battling Israel is due in large part to the Russian-made Kornet anti-tank
rockets they obtained from Syria. As reported in the UK Telegraph, the rockets
are �some of the best in the world� and �require serious training to operate,
which could be beyond the capabilities of some supposedly regular armies in the
Middle East. . . . It is laser-guided, has a range of three miles and carries a
double-warhead capable of penetrating reactive amour on Israeli Merkava Tanks.�
Hezbollah used
their anti-tank missiles with lethal efficiency during the campaign taking out
an estimated 20 tanks, armored vehicles and buildings where troops were
located. It was a critical part of the conflict and had a profound effect on
the outcome.
Still, there�s
little chance that Hezbollah�s victory will stop Israel from restarting the
war. America and Israel are ideologically committed to establishing their
mutual hegemony throughout the Middle East and they won�t be deterred by a
bloody nose in south Lebanon. Israel will retool and return with greater
determination to crush the resistance and set up a proxy government in Beirut.
So far, they�ve enlisted the support of Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal,
France and Denmark to patrol the southern border while Germany has offered �a
rather substantive maritime component which could patrol and secure the whole
of the Lebanese coast.� The German ambassador said, �We could also offer a
substantial border patrol along the Syrian border.� (Al Jazeera) Germany
certainly understands that their actions will establish a de-facto blockade,
which serves US/Israeli interests alone. This illustrates how Olmert and Bush
have manipulated the UN to compromise Lebanon�s sovereignty and create a
permanent state of siege. If Israel is able to cut Hezbollah�s supply-lines
they can easily move in and crush them at a later date.
So, the US and
Israel have found accomplices they need to help them achieve their goals of
reshaping the Middle East and extending America�s dominance throughout the
oil-rich region. If they succeed, they will have a stranglehold on the world�s
most crucial natural resources and will be able to control the growth of China,
India, Japan, and other potential rivals in the 21st century. Israel will also
play a central role as regional leader in the oil trade; opening pipeline
routes from Ceyhan to the Far East and from Kirkuk to Haifa. (check �Triple
Alliance�: The US, Turkey, Israel and the war on Lebanon� Michel Chossudovsky)
But we shouldn�t
underestimate the growing strength of non state actors and guerilla forces. In
Iraq, the resistance has brought the world�s only superpower to a grinding
standstill; frustrating all attempts to establish security, rebuild
infrastructure, or transport vital resources.
Similarly,
Hezbollah has won a stunning victory against a high-tech and well-disciplined
Israeli army. They have shown the world that they are resourceful and ferocious
fighters capable of forcing a fully-armed modern army of 30,000 men to
withdrawal. That�s no small feat.
They have shattered
the illusion of Israeli invincibility and emboldened a new generation of Arab
youths to see beyond their present subjugation and despair and aspire to
reclaim their countries from the corrupt US-backed regimes.
The imperial
juggernaut will continue lurching recklessly through the Middle East until it
is worn-down piecemeal by the bold actions of the resistance. Iraq and Lebanon
foreshadow an even wider war extending from the Caspian to the Red Sea;
destabilizing oil supplies and overturning the teetering Arab monarchies.
Bush and Olmert
have thrown open Pandora�s Box thinking they can contain the chaos within, but
have failed to achieve any of their objectives. They continue to misread the
lessons of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon. High-altitude bombing and
trigger-happy soldiers only swell the ranks of the resistance and feed their
determination. If Bush and Olmert choose to fight a generation-long 4-G (4th
Generation) war, they should at least consider the modest goals set out by
their adversary, Hassan Nasrallah, in a recent public statement:
�We are not a
classic army. We are waging guerilla warfare Therefore what is important
is the number of losses we inflict on the Israeli enemy. No matter how deep the
incursion the Israeli enemy might accomplish, and the enemy has great
capabilities in this area, it will not accomplish the goal of this incursion,
preventing the shelling of the settlements in north of occupied Palestine, This
shelling will continue no matter how deep the ground incursion and the
reoccupation the Zionist enemy is trying to accomplish. The occupation of any
inch of our Lebanese land will further motivate us to continue and escalate the
resistance . . . In the ground war we will have the upper hand. In the ground
war , the criterion is the attrition of the enemy rather than what territory
does or does not remain in our hands because we are not fighting with the
methods of a regular army we will definitely regain any land occupied by the
enemy after inflicting great losses on it.�
Bush would be wise
to pay attention to Nasrallah�s warnings. The conflict that the US and Israel
are facing has no central battlefield and no timeline. It is war against men
who know every street and every alleyway, and every cave in every mountain. It
is �death by a thousand lashes�; engaging and killing the enemy and then
disappearing into the shadows. The conflict only ends when every American and
Israeli soldier has left Arab soil. This is a �no win� situation. Our leaders
should recognize this and withdrawal.
As the resistance
continues to mushroom in Iraq and Lebanon, we�re bound to see more devastation,
more retreating armies, and more hand-wringing in Washington and Tel Aviv.
It could all be so
easily avoided.
Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com.