Too Difficult to Reconcile

Today I am a bit too preoccupied and a bit too numb to launch into any critique of the often misguided conduct of the Bush Administration. Instead, I would ask those who follow this Blog to read the following news reports of the past few days. At times, I question whether my outlook and perspective are sufficiently objective. I review the facts and reports coming in concerning the current situation in Lebanon from multiple and independent sources, including eyewitness accounts. Try as I might, I cannot seem to reconcile these accounts and any rational or humane course of conduct by any country pretending to any semblance of decency, integrity or adherence to international standards of human rights. The Israeli military, the Israeli government and its people, those who support the current Israeli assault and those who would be apologists for their actions are all responsible.

When I think of the current plight of the civilians, especially the children in southern Lebanon and Beirut, I am painfully reminded of the US attack on Fallujah in Iraq. In that assault, purporting to oust an insurgent stronghold, the town and surrounding area was decimated by US use of the same munitions, including white phosphorous on civilian population areas. There too, the US claimed “officially” to be using legal weapons, while hard evidence on the ground established the use of internationally banned inhumane incendiary weapons resulting in charred bodies and horribly maimed women and children.

Whatever "justification" or excuse the Israeli’s may try to pose, including the argument that Hezbollah “terrorists” started the current stage of the conflict, cannot justify the unnecessary and incredibly inhumane carnage to civilians being wrought upon the Lebanese people by the Israeli assault. No facile expression of "regret" about civilian casualties can ring true in the face of deliberate attacks upon hospitals, ambulances, cvars containing families with small children and clearly marked UN observation posts. These attacks are being carried out, with the blessing, encouragement and armaments of the US and the Bush Administration. Bush is not my President, but this is my country. And I, for one, am deeply ashamed for what is being done purportedly in my name.

Consider the following:

New York Times - Washington- July 22, 2006:
The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.
The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said. Its disclosure threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Iran's efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah.
The munitions that the United States is sending to Israel are part of a multimillion-dollar arms sale package approved last year that Israel is able to draw on as needed, the officials said. But Israel's request for expedited delivery of the satellite and laser-guided bombs was described as unusual by some military officers, and as an indication that Israel still had a long list of targets in Lebanon to strike.
Pentagon and military officials declined to describe in detail the size and contents of the shipment to Israel, and they would not say whether the munitions were being shipped by cargo aircraft or some other means. But an arms-sale package approved last year provides authority for Israel to purchase from the United States as many as 100 GBU-28's, which are 5,000-pound laser-guided bombs intended to destroy concrete bunkers. The package also provides for selling satellite-guided munitions.
An announcement in 2005 that Israel was eligible to buy the "bunker buster" weapons described the GBU-28 as "a special weapon that was developed for penetrating hardened command centers located deep underground." The document added, "The Israeli Air Force will use these GBU-28's on their F-15 aircraft."
________________
By Dahr Jamail - Iraq Dispatches - Monday 24 July 2006
Hundreds of Lebanese refugees languish in a city park in downtown Beirut. Fleeing southern Lebanon, as well as south Beirut, thousands have already made their way through this camp as they are farmed out to schools, abandoned buildings and anyone willing to take them in.
"Aren't people seeing all of this," asked Supinesh, a 50 year-old woman sitting with her family while children collected water from a nearby UNESCO water tank, "They should see the massacres, then they can decide who is just in this conflict."
After spending about an hour there, we decided to go see some of the damage in southern Beirut. Not wanting to go too deep into the demolished area, our driver said he could show us some of it without taking much risk. It still wasn't in the Dahaya district of Beirut, which is the area which has, according to many observers, been 75% destroyed. Thus, I felt reasonably settled inside about having a look.
The roads were mostly empty, as we drove past bomb craters and several overpasses which had been bombed. Some of them, still on the outskirts of the areas most heavily bombed, lay shattered with metal bars and chunks of blasted concrete hanging listlessly in the tense air. A hospital, blasted by shrapnel, sat empty near one of the blasted bridges.
Several building fronts were blasted by bomb shrapnel, and as we drove a little further several Hezbollah fighters were buzzing by us on scooters with M-16 assault rifles slung over their backs.
After passing by another blasted bridge we came upon several journalists running towards their cars in an area heavily damaged by bombs. Smoke languidly drifted down the street towards us from a smoldering building as journalists and their Lebanese fixers, in a panic, jumped in their cars as tires began to squeal.
"One of our spotters just told us he has seen Israeli jets coming," a panicked Hezbollah fighter on a scooter told our driver, "Get out of here now!"
We wheeled around and drove straight out of the area, managing our way through a couple of bottlenecks of cars as we all fled.
Once clear, my colleague, our driver and I decide to go have lunch and catch our breath. After a falafel sandwich and sharing a Nargeela pipe, we decided to go visit one of the main hospitals in the area.
Astoundingly, the assistant director of the Beirut Government University Hospital, Bilal Masri, told me today that there was a 30% casualty rate thus far-meaning that of all the people struck by bombs, 30% of them are killed.
"This is a higher percentage than we had during the civil war," the haggard assistant director told me while patients shuffled through the lobby of the busy hospital, one of the largest in Beirut, "And 55% of the casualties are children under 15 years of age."
So far, the official count of dead Lebanese civilians is nearing 400, with over 1,200 wounded.
Masri, himself holding US citizenship told me that his hospital was now operating with only 25% of its staff, as the rest of the employees had either been unable or unwilling to return to work.
"The Israelis are bombing everything that moves, along with cutting so many bridges and roads, so people have been unable or too scared to come back to work," he said, "So those of us who have stayed are eating, sleeping and working here 24 hours a day. I myself have barely slept in the last 13 days."
It was still sinking in that the casualty rate was so incredibly high, so I asked him how that could be.
"The Israelis are using new kinds of bombs, and these bombs can penetrate bomb shelters," he explained sternly, "They are bombing the refugees in the bomb shelters!"
Just then an irate man was yelling maniacally nearby. Several security guards went and began to escort him from the lobby of the hospital.
"My son who was wounded, was treated and now discharged, but where are we to go," he yelled, "Our home has been pulverized! We do not want to go to a city park, or a school to sleep on the ground!"
He continued pleading to anyone who would listen as he was walked outside.
Masri shook his head, not wishing to comment, as he turned back to me.
"We have kid here who don't know their parents are dead yet," he said while shaking his head. "And recently the Ministry of Interior has confirmed that the Israelis have used white phosphorous in the south."
I showed my surprise at this confirmation. Seeing this, he added, "We also have unconfirmed reports that they are dropping cluster bombs as well, along with other types of illegal weapons."
Before leaving he explained that his hospital was already beginning to run short of medicine and supplies, and thus far had had no help from any international organization.
"We are ok today, but soon we will face big problems if this situation continues," he said tiredly, "We're already going to the Ministry of Health to get extra supplies we are running out of. We hope the UN manages to convince the Israelis to open a safe passage to the south, but at the same time, when that happens, we will be deluged with patients and I don't know how we'll be able to handle all of them."
____________________
Associated Press -July 25, 2006
Jawad Najem, a surgeon at the hospital, said patients admitted Sunday had burns from phosphorous incendiary weapons used by Israel. The Geneva Conventions ban using white phosphorus as an incendiary weapon against civilian populations and in air attacks against military forces in civilian areas. Israel said its weapons comply with international law.
"Mahmoud Sarour, 14, was admitted to the hospital yesterday and treated for phosphorous burns to his face," Najem said. Mahmoud's 8-month-old sister, Maryam, suffered similar burns on her neck and hands when an Israeli rocket hit the family car.
The children were with their father, mother and other relatives when the car was hit by an Israeli missile. Their father died instantly.
The Sarour family was evacuated from Tyre to Cyprus on Monday aboard a ferry chartered by Germany.
The Sarours had to go to the port by taxi because the Lebanese Red Cross suspended operations outside Tyre after Israeli jets blasted two ambulances with rockets, said Ali Deebe, a Red Cross spokesman in Tyre.
In the incident Sunday, one Red Cross ambulance went south of Tyre to meet an ambulance and transfer the wounded to the hospital.
"When we have wounded outside the city, we always used two ambulances," Deebe said.
The rocket attack on the two vehicles wounded six ambulance workers and three civilians - an 11-year-old boy, an elderly woman and a man, Deebe said.
"One of the rockets hit right in the middle of the big red cross that was painted on top of the ambulance," he said. "This is a clear violation of humanitarian law, of international law. We are neutral, and we should not be targeted."
Kassem Shalan, one of the ambulance workers, told AP Television News nine people were injured. "We were transferring the wounded into our vehicle and something fell, and I dropped to the floor," he said.
Amateur video provided by an ambulance worker confirmed Deebe's account of damage to the vehicles, showing one large hole and several smaller ones in the roof of one ambulance and a large hole in the roof of the second. Both were destroyed.
The Israeli military said it was investigating the incident.
________________________

AP - BEIRUT, Lebanon – July 25, 2006
An Israeli bomb destroyed a U.N. observer post on the border in southern Lebanon Tuesday, killing three observers and leaving another feared dead, officials said. U.N. chief Kofi Annan said Israel appeared to have struck the site deliberately.
The bomb made a direct hit on the building and shelter of the observer post in the town of Khiyam near the eastern end of the border with Israel, said Milos Struger, spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon known as UNIFIL.
Annan said two observers were killed with two more feared dead. Later, a U.N. official confirmed that a third body had been recovered.
Rescue workers were trying to clear the rubble, but Israeli firing “continued even during the rescue operation,” Struger said.
U.N. officials said four observers were in the post when the bomb hit, and the building had been destroyed. Two bodies had been recovered and two were unaccounted for, apparently still in the rubble. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.