Apparently not all of my intended audience is keen on my musical taste. While deeply disturbing, it nonetheless shows the prudence of diversified content. So Scott, this is for you; also, die. I suppose you all heard of Isreal's "48 hour cessation of major air bombing" which was kinda reported as a ceasefire to deal with the Qana bombings that killed at least 19 children, among others. But of course 48 hours turned into about oh, zero, as bombings continued and in fact, Isreali generals decided to step-up the ground war. Well, thanks for that bit of kindness and compassion, Isreal.
Some interesting things about how Isreal is trying to spin it's targetting of civilians, I've heard several times now the justification that by law (the Geneva Convention? too lazy to find the reference) if an opposing army operates puprosely in and around a civilian population then they are legally held responsible for their welfare. In other words: "It's nor our fault!" Now of course the problem with this doctrine, as it has been Iraq as well, is that after you've blown something to pieces, it's really hard for someone else to prove, one way or another, that there actually were enemy combatants right beside these civilians. Maybe they got away just at the last moment, right? But of course, it usually is all too easy to tell if there were civilians, because they're the ones lying dead in the rubble of a collapsed apartment building--or better still in red cross ambulances. Now things like bombing ambulances are where this smokescreen really starts to fall apart. As Michael Warschawski explains:
In these wars, the lives of civilians are not only of very limited value -- as in all wars -- but considered as a legitimate target, actively or passively guilty of supporting terrorism: a terrorism which is, in fact, part of their very culture. In ten years, we witnessed a gradual evolution of the dominant discourse: from terrorist groups, to terrorist states, to terrorist peoples. The ultimate logic of the global war is full ethnicization of the conflicts, in which one is not fighting a policy, a government, or specific targets, but a "threat" identified with a community. Fear is the starting point of the new era, hatred is its finality.
I keep thinking of these kind of things as "the new racism," where in your words and in your mind you believe yourself to be thoroughly un-racist (as opposed to, for example, a KKK member), yet in your actions you prove to be thoroughly racist. We've just manage to create better justifications. Though really, this is hardly "new," it's much more of an extension of the old imperial racism of things like English Empire.
A few other fun points:
-Isreal warned Lebanese citizens south of the Litani River to evacuate in order to avoid the massive bombing campaign that was to come, but suprisingly many of them were unable or unwilling to do so for a variety of reasons. Good to see that the US is not the only country not to learn the lessons of hurricane Katrina.
-The "consensus" view seems to be that there needs to be a peace-keeping force of some sort in the south of Lebanon to keep Hezbollah under wraps. Great idea. But it's missing one teeny-weeny little detail: who the hell is actually going to be in this force? So far absolutely no country has stepped forward to lead it, the US doesn't want to do it, neither does NATO, and no UN countries are quickly volunteering, leaving the Lebanese army, which has been bombed thoroughly by the Isrealis. Hmmmmmm, bit of a stumper, that one.
okay, i've decided to split this into two posts, sad post and happy post. that was the sad post, happy post is next.
No comments:
Post a Comment