Hostile Takeover

Israel expands attack
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Israel’s pounding of Hezbollah positions across Lebanon expanded Friday with missiles targeting bridges in the Christian heartland north of Beirut for the first time, an attack that further isolates Lebanon from the outside world...

Israel’s United Nations ambassador, Dan Gillerman, said that Sheik Hassan Nasrallah’s offer of a truce was “a sign of weakness ... and he may be looking for a way out.”

Obviously a sign of weakness. Or sanity, which amounts to the same thing to the Likudniks.

Gillerman warned against Hezbollah threats to launch rockets on Israel’s commercial center of Tel Aviv. “We are ready for it, and I am sure that he (Nasrallah), as well as his sponsors, realize the consequences of doing something as unimaginable and crazy as that,” the Israeli ambassador told CNN early Friday...

Crazy is as crazy does.

...However, the strikes early Friday hit the affluent Christian locality of Jounieh, north of the capital, for the first time. The bombing against the picturesque coastal resort marked a sharp expansion of Israel’s attack on Lebanon, which now threatens Christian areas where Hezbollah has no support and no presence.

I wonder how long MSNBC will leave that paragraph unedited.

In the hills of southern Lebanon, Israeli artillery intensified bombing overnight, sometimes sending as many as 15 shells per minute against suspected Hezbollah strongholds.

On the second front of its offensive against Islamic militants, Israel began pulling tanks out of southern Gaza after a two-day incursion, after aircraft fired at clusters of militants. The heavy clashes killed 11 Palestinians, including an 8-year-old boy.

Despite Hezbollah’s truce offer and continuing diplomatic efforts to broker a cease-fire, the Israeli army prepared to push up to Lebanon’s Litani River, about 20 miles north of the border, as part of its campaign to force the guerrillas away from the border and make room for a planned international force to patrol the area.

In the 24th day of Israel’s punishing onslaught, Hezbollah has shown surprising strength and has found its support in Lebanon — and among the larger Arab world — vastly bolstered. With calls for a cease-fire growing more intense, it appeared likely that Hezbollah would emerge damaged but far from destroyed by the fighting...

Since the fighting started, an Associated Press count shows that at least 530 Lebanese have been killed, including 454 civilians confirmed dead by the Health Ministry, 26 Lebanese soldiers and at least 50 Hezbollah guerrillas. Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said that 1 million people — or about a quarter of Lebanon’s population — had fled the fighting.

Seventy-two Israelis have been killed — 43 soldiers and 29 civilians. More than 300,000 Israelis have fled their homes in the north, Israeli officials said...

In his televised speech broadcast Thursday night, Hezbollah’s Nasrallah for the first time offered to stop firing rockets into Israel if it stops its airstrikes. But he also threatened to launch missiles into Tel Aviv if Israel hits Beirut.

“Anytime you decide to stop your campaign against our cities, villages, civilians and infrastructure, we will not fire rockets on any Israeli settlement or city,” he said in a taped statement broadcast on Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV.

That sounds more like a promise than plea to surrender.

As always, Billmon is ahead of the game:

...the fact remains that the U.S. Army is the only significant force standing between Iran and it's closest allies, and thus between Iran and Israel. If, as it now seems, Washington and Jerusalem both perceive Iran as the primary threat (and/or target for aggression) in the region, then there is no real distinction between America's occupation of Iraq and Israel's intended re-occupation of southern Lebanon. They are, in essence, both part of the next war.

It seems increasingly probable that that war will come soon -- perhaps as early as November or December, although more likely next year. Israel's failure to knock out Hizbullah with a rapid first strike has left the neocons even deeper in the hole, enormously ratcheting up the pressure to try to recoup all losses by taking the war to Damascus and Tehran.

In other words, it's almost time for the ultimate "flight forward" -- the one that finally pushes the Middle East into World War III.

What's become clear to me is that the Democratic Party (even it's allegedly anti-war wing) will not try to stop this insanity, and in fact will probably be led as meekly to the slaughter as it was during the runup to the Iraq invasion. Watching the Dems line up to salute the Israeli war machine, hearing the uncomfortable and awkward silence descend on most of Left Blogistan once the bombs started falling in Lebanon, seeing how easily the same Orwellian propaganda tricks worked their magic on the pseudoliberals -- all this doesn't leave too much room for doubt. As long as World War III can be sold as protecting the security and survival of the Jewish state, I suspect the overwhelming majority of Democratics will support it.

And it is being sold, ferociously. A number of wealthy pro-Israel donors, including Ronald Lauder, the perfume heir, have given millions to something called the Israel Project -- a "public education" cum PR cum grassroots lobbying machine -- to fund a program specificially aimed at building support for a military strike on Iran. You can't turn on Fox News these days without finding James Woolsey or Newt Gingrich or Bill Kristol or some other pro-Israel mouthpiece demanding war with Syria and/or Iran, and painting it as the only way to stop the rockets falling on Haifa.

I think the moment when I realized the Dems once again were going to be -- would always be -- dutiful spear carriers for the neocons was after Howard Dean and company treated the Iraqi prime minister's recent visit to Washington as an opportunity to do a little pro-Israel pandering of their own. To my eternal shame, I initially defended this ploy as a necessary bit of Machiavellian cynicism -- a way for the Dems to protect their right flank from a president who not only thinks Israel is the 51st state but a red state to boot.

Cynical it certainly was. And in another situation I might have been justified in making allowances. It's a stinking, corrupt system, and to expect purity is to expect defeat. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that a party leadership that really cared about bringing the troops home probably wouldn't be so cavalier about trashing a guy who is actually a pretty crucial part of making that possible.

Of course, you can argue that smearing Maliki as an anti-Semite probably helped him back home rather than hurt him, but I doubt Dean and the gang understood the nuances. They just saw a chance to score a few political points with Jewish voters and donors while at the same time embarrassing the Republicans. (As if Republicans were even capable of being embarrassed at this point.)

The lesson learned from the Democratic reaction to the Israel's war of choice is that the Dems are only likely to oppose war as long as the war in question can be framed as a fight against Iraqi insurgents and/or Shi'a death squads, rather than a fight for Israel. But the Iraq occupation isn't going to fit neatly into that frame much longer. In fact it's already slipped out of it. The Dems -- always a little slow on the uptake -- just haven't realized it yet. But when the time comes to choose (for Israel, or against war with Iran) I fully expect to see Ned Lamont in the front ranks of the pro-war phalanx, right next to the last great white Democratic anti-war hope, Howard Dean.

People tell me I shouldn't get hung up on this because, you know, if the Dems get in they'll make sure the seniors get their Social Security checks a little faster -- or they'll keep the Supreme Court out of the hands of legal madmen or do something about global climate change or save the whales or whatever else it is that's supposed to make the Democratic Party infinitely preferable to the Republicans.

It's not that I discount these differences entirely -- although they're easily oversold. But compared to the fate that awaits the republic, and the world, if the United States deliberately starts a war with Iran, those other considerations start to look pretty insignificant. I mean, we're talking about World War III here, fought by people who want to use tactical nuclear weapons. I'm supposed to put that out of my mind because the Dems might be a little bit more generous about funding the VA budget??? I'm sorry, but that's fucking nuts.

The truth is that on the most important issue of our time -- the cliff that drops into total darkness -- the only real opposition left in this country is in the Pentagon, where, according to Sy Hersh, at least some of the generals are trying to stall the march to war. Plus whatever scattered resistance is left in the intelligence agencies following the purges of the past couple of years.

It is a stunning testament to the political devolution of this country that the most effective anti-war movement in America is inside the walls of the Pentagon or buried deep in the bowels of the CIA! But that is the reality, thanks in no small part to the Dems and the Israel lobby...

That's because there are still people in the Pentagon and the CIA who are concerned with the United States of America actually winning the increasing conflagration.

That's far from the concern of the Company and a certain private equity group, who have real money riding on their outcome of choice.