Bush Administration Complicit in Israel’s Attack on Lebanon?

While the world is expressing its dismay at Israel’s attack on Lebanon in retaliation for the militant Hezbollah’s kidnappings and missile strikes, the Bush administration is strangely silent about the issue.

Maybe the reason is that the Bush administration is in on the whole deal. This “overreaction” by the Israelis may not be what it appears to be, but in reality could be action calculated to goad Iran and Syria into a response that will give Israel and the U.S. a pretext for major strikes on those two countries.

Unfortunately, innocent civilians in Lebanon are being terrorized, and in many instances are ending up dead or maimed. Roads, bridges, and buildings are being destroyed, which will seriously, negatively impact the economy of that tiny country.

Nobody questions that Israel has a right and an obligation to protect its citizens from factions that would harm them. But to attack an entire country and its people for the actions of a relative few is reprehensible.

There have to be ways to neutralize terrorist organizations like Hezbollah, al Qaeda, and others without the massive destruction currently going on in Lebanon and Iraq. The same country that tracked down Adolf Eichmann in the sixties in South America and spirited him off to Israel, to be tried, convicted, and executed, should be able to send special units into the south of Lebanon and the Gaza Strip to quietly snag the perpetrators and imprison them without killing innocent bystanders. As it is, the current aggressive actions, far from defeating terrorism, will recruit more angry young men into the ranks of extremist organizations and make everyone less safe.

A Gesture of Peace Lost in the Violence

Israel’s attacks on Gaza and Lebanon came on the heels of an announcement that the Fatah and Hamas parties of Palestine had come to an agreement to recognize Israel and enter into negotiations. That announcement ended up not even being a blip on the screen of world politics, due to Israel’s aggressive actions, first into Gaza and then into Lebanon. The fact that Israel ignored the announcement in favor of a major military offensive is suspect in itself. While it is impossible to know if this announcement was a serious gesture on the part of the Palestinians, a more measured response to the most recent series of attacks on Israel might have set the Israelis on the road to peace, and one has to wonder why they would choose not to explore the possibility.

There is something not being said in this whole debacle; there’s a hidden agenda here. This situation has the same feel as the lead-up to the war in Iraq, and I suspect that George W. Bush and his corrupt administration have their sticky little fingers all over this mess.