Do As I Say, Not As I Do

With typical hubris, Dubya is now telling the U.N. that he wants peacekeepers sent to Lebanon “quickly.”

Gee, where was all of this interest in a peaceful resolution to the Israel-Hezbollah war when hostilities first broke out a few weeks ago? As Sy Hersh reported...

In the days after Hezbollah crossed from Lebanon into Israel, on July 12th, to kidnap two soldiers, triggering an Israeli air attack on Lebanon and a full-scale war (again, Len Hart has something different on that), the Bush Administration seemed strangely passive. "It's a moment of clarification," President George W. Bush said at the G-8 summit, in St. Petersburg, on July 16th. "It's now become clear why we don't have peace in the Middle East."

Yes, partly because you had decided to help Israel blow the crap out of Hezbollah instead of trying to mediate between the two sides in keeping with the precedent of past administrations; I know Hezbollah was “armed to the teeth” as Hersh reports, which as far as I’m concerned is all the more reason to pursue a diplomatic solution, but it was more important for Dubya to have a trial run at attacking Iran than do all he could to pursue peace and maintain whatever democracy existed in Lebanon, which surely is now endangered because of the war’s destruction (look for a Nasrallah/Hezbollah ascendancy now along with implementation of something like the Shia nutsiness that “governs” Iran).

This quote from Hersh’s story (and I’m still making my way through it) caught my eye also…

"The Israelis told us it would be a cheap war with many benefits," a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said. "Why oppose it? We'll be able to hunt down and bomb missiles, tunnels, and bunkers from the air. It would be a demo for Iran."

“A cheap war with many benefits,” huh? I wonder where I’ve heard that one before (maybe from Bush economic advisor Glen Hubbard)?

As I thought about Dubya’s call for U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon, I wondered what was going on with the “peacekeepers” (I guess that’s what the role is now pretty much) in the war that Bushco doesn’t want us to think about right now, and of course that would be Iraq.

(By the way, the CNN Quick Vote question earlier today was “Who do you support for President, Hillary Clinton or John McCain? The vote was 53 percent McCain and 47 percent Clinton when I checked. I’m mentioning this because, though I think HRC needs to join “the reality-based community” on the war, I think McCain does also, as Atrios noted yesterday.)

Concerning Iraq, this story from the Christian Science Monitor states the following...

In terms of military operations on the ground, the withdrawals (of forces from other countries, including the phased withdrawal of Italian forces) mean little, analysts say. Only Britain has a substantial security role, and so far it has remained steadfast. Yet each country's commitment to Iraq - however small - is a significant token to an administration that has long sought global support for the conflict.

And of course, Bushco would never stoop so low as to make it sound like countries are participating when they’re really not, right?

Also, here is an article on how Bushco is laying the groundwork for the attack on Iran (though you would think they would reconsider this for a number of reasons, one of which is the fact that Israel has been roundly condemned as a result of the war with Hezbollah and, as stated earlier, Nasrallah’s “stature” has been enhanced as a result). As you can read from Dr. Gordon Prather’s article, Bushco is criticizing Iran for noncompliance with the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) treaty. Considering this excerpt from Prather’s article, Bushco’s bald-faced hypocrisy is breathtaking…

Although supported by Clinton, two action steps on that agenda (of the 2000 Review Conference of the NPT Treaty) – early entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and negotiation of a multilateral and internationally and "effectively verifiable" Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) – have not been supported by his successor.

So, instead of an attempt at diplomacy between Israel and Hezbollah (a hugely difficult task because of fault on both sides, I’ll admit), we take sides with the Israelis to try and use Lebanon as a test ground for invading Iran (under the flimsy diplomatic cover of noncompliance with the NPT, which this administration isn’t seriously supporting anyway).

“A cheap war with many benefits,” huh?

Idiots!

Update: If he were a child, you could force him to make admissions like this at long last by withholding a privilege or taking away a prized toy or something, but unfortunately, this waste of space is an adult (chronologically, anyway, and how nice for him to say this when we're just about at the five-year anniversary).