Nasty Little Man

The continued strategy of pillage and plunder

Ah, it's great to see Israel doing its best to win the hearts and minds.

NY Times: Israel Extends Strikes North of Beirut, Hitting Village

Israel unleashed airstrikes across Lebanon Friday, severing the last major road link to the outside world and killing more than 30 people.

The bombs destroyed four bridges along the main north-south highway in what had been the largely untouched Christian heartland north of Beirut and far from Hezbollah territory. With the road from Beirut to Damascus already cut at several points, this was the only practical way to bring in relief and other supplies from Syria, tightening the sense of siege here.
(snip)
"Where are the Katyushas of the Hezbollah here?" asked Joseph Abihana, referring to a type of rocket that has been fired at Israel from the southern part of Lebanon. He said he was awakened by four bomb blasts. "We are used to being a safe area here, but now there is no safety. I blame the Israelis."
(snip)
In the Bekaa Valley, hard against the Syrian border, an airstrike killed at least 28 seasonal farm workers loading fruit and vegetables into a refrigerated truck. Ali Yaghi, the head of the rescue service in the tiny village of Qaa, told reporters that others may be buried in the rubble. Israel has frequently fired upon vehicles it suspected of carrying fighters or weapons, but these have also included water drilling rigs, convoys of medical supplies and minivans of fleeing civilians.
(snip)
The wave of bombings was yet another crippling blow to Lebanon’s infrastructure, painstakingly rebuilt over the past decade after years of civil war. Lebanese officials say 71 bridges have been destroyed — including elaborate overpasses on the Damascus road — and estimate the damage at $2 billion and rising.
(snip)
While many Lebanese Christians have long distrusted Hezbollah and other Muslims and Druse (there were, after all, 15 years of civil war along sectarian lines), and many criticized the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers on July 12 that touched off the conflict, comments Friday indicated that the damage Israel has inflicted on Lebanon has shifted that equation.
(snip)
"Public opinion is 100 percent against Israel from this area," said Camille Chamoun, scion of one of the three major Christian families who mounted militias against the Muslim and Palestinian forces during the civil war and whose faction was aligned with Israel during its 1982 invasion.

"This is just an excuse to hit more of our infrastructure," said Manal Azzi, a 26-year-old health worker who lives next to the destroyed bridge.

"I'm here speaking as a Christian," she went on. "Israel is our main invader and has been for the last 50 years. Right now we're getting more civilian casualties, so we'll have another war in 10, 15 years.

"They talk about a new Middle East. To serve who? Israel and the United States. Israel is itself a terrorist state backed up by the United States."
(snip)
More than 400 fishing boats and trawlers, most of them moored in a dock, others stored in a nearby field, were destroyed in the bombings in an hour-long barrage by helicopters, aircraft and warships off the shore, residents said.

"The planes came from above, and then we heard ships shooting too," said Jihad al Hoss, who lived across the road. "They hit 30 or 35 rounds into the area. But what fault is it of the fishermen in all this?"
(snip)
"They've destroyed our homes, and now they've destroyed our livelihood," said Fadel Alami, who dove into the water to salvage parts from his wooden fishing trawler. He managed to recover the registration booklet for the boat and pieces of a sonar device, but, he said, the rest is all gone.

"We still have our dignity, and Seyed Hassan will help us get the rest back," he said, speaking of Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
(snip)
She had escaped the house the night before as planes began circling overhead, she said, and stayed with relatives in another part of town. Her son, who only gave his name as Claude, climbed over a fence to help his mother.

"Why are you crying mom?," he asked as she came up the stairs. "We have to be steadfast."

"How can I not cry, just look around you," she said. "But we have to persevere. Hassan Nasrallah will change this."

People, people, people. Come on. Haven't you heard what PM Ohlert and President Bush have said? Blame Hezbollah. The firepower was supplied by the U.S., and it was the Israelis who decided that fishermen and farmers needed to die and have their industry destroyed, but blame Hezbollah. You didn't hear those speeches?

Before some wise guy comes along to justify this madness...

But Hezbollah's ability to fire rockets into Israel remained intact. By nightfall, Israeli officials said, 195 rockets had landed, killing at least four people. The Israeli police said that 2,500 rockets had been fired into Israel since the war began.

If you justify Israel's actions by claiming self-defense, then you would be hard-pressed to not say the same about Hezbollah. But Israel knows best. Completely obliterating a country is a good way to ensure security. Like Afghanistan in the '80s and '90s.

Seriously, when people say, "Blame Hezbollah," there's an underlying assumption that I haven't heard verbalized yet. If one is to say that Hezbollah's actions caused what Israel is doing, the assumption then is that Israel cannot control itself. Come to think of it, based on its actions, that's a safe assumption to make.

posted by Kinder Gentler Little Man @ 6:47 PM