Wringing Hands in Annandale

Alright, I don’t know my butt from my elbow, but I’m a citizen and still must indicate to my governmental leaders that they have my consent – or not - for what’s going on. That’s how governments derive their just powers, right? At least that’s what those boys in Philly said in 1776.

This much I know; Hezbollah and Hamas started this fight and Israel is more than happy to take it to them.

This much I’ve been told and agree that Hezbollah is being armed and encouraged by Iran and Syria as a means to further occupy America by diverting U.S. pressure from them.

This much I think; the U.S. has a plan. We’re quite content to have Israel demolish the ability of Hezbollah to make organized war against Israel. Most of the rest of the world’s nations are concerned that the fighting could spread beyond Lebanon and Gaza; I doubt that.

In wars, innocents in the way of the warriors suffer horribly. In Israel and especially Lebanon, civilian casualties are high and climbing, and the Lebanese infrastructure is taking a terrible beating. Neither we nor Israel seem to care at all about this. Israel uses the consent of the governed that I used earlier on the Lebanese as the basis for its aggressive action.

Right wingers in the U.S. are screaming for the Israelis to destroy Hezbollah and liberals and most of the world’s governments are calling for restraint. It is my view that President Bush is in the former camp and wants to degrade Hezbollah and send a strong message to Syria and Iran that they’ve made a horrible mistake. I’m for that!

But I’m in both camps. Where to? I want to see Hezbollah – and Hamas – tamed, even destroyed. But I don’t want to see innocent Israelis and, again, especially Lebanese suffer. I kind of agree with the president in this fight, but he has a credibility problem with me: Iraq and all that we’ve done to that country.

I also see the possibility of a Pyrrhic victory for Israel. Its army appears fully capable of smashing Hezbollah to a point that it will take years for it to recover. While they will never be loved, there comes a point with the disproportionate Israeli response that the horrible rhetoric of the Iranian president vowing to destroy Israel becomes acceptable to the vast majority of moderate Muslims who see the suffering of the innocent in Lebanon.

Disclaimer: the oldest one in the world – some of my best friends are Lebanese and Jews. I was raised in a neighborhood in Brockton, MA that was about half Irish and half Lebanese. They are Arabs who are Maronite Christians and I keep in friendly contact with them to this day. And, of course, many of my closest friends in adult life have been and are Jews.

I want no dog in this fight.

I think the Israelis are right to take on Hezbollah, but I think they’ve gone too far in destroying the Lebanese economy and infrastructure and in not caring about innocent civilians.

I’m for an early halt to this incursion, and I think the U.S. president has been slow to call them on it.

Blog on!

Not nearly as wild as usual, Wild Bill