Further Friedman Fabrications

Tom Tom continues to spin spin tales; this time the story is that Hezbollah is wholly responsible for starting the current war with Israel. "After all," says Friedman, "it was Iran, Nasrallah’s master, that ordered up this war to distract the U.N." from imposing sanctions on her.

Nice story, but it leaves out reports that Israel had planned for this war for years and, with the U.S. egging them on, used the kidnapping of a few soldiers as an excuse to dust off those plans and put them into action. Never mind that Israel had kidnapped civilians prior to the Palestinian and Hezbollah kidnappings.

Tom Tom further ignores the fact that the U.S. is the only country preventing an immediate cease fire between Lebanon & Israel, in an effort to draw Syria and Iran into the fray as part of their long standing plan to reorder the Middle East to their own liking.

Tom, I honestly don't know how you can keep writing this stuff, knowing your fictions prolong immoral wars and contribute to untold deaths. How the Hell do you and your editors sleep at night?


The Morning After the Morning After
By Thomas L. Friedman
The New York Times

With every war there are two days to keep in mind when the guns fall silent: the morning after, and the morning after the morning after. America, Israel and all those who want to see Lebanon’s democracy revived need to keep their eyes focused on the morning after the morning after.

Here’s why.

The only way that the fighting in south Lebanon will be brought to a close is if all the parties accept a cease-fire and the imposition of a robust international peacekeeping force, led by France, along the Israel-Lebanon border — supplanting Hezbollah.

The morning after that cease-fire goes into effect, everyone knows what will happen: Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah — no matter how battered his forces and how much damage his reckless war has visited on Lebanon — will crawl out of his bunker and declare a “great victory.” Hezbollah, he will say, fought the Israeli Army to a standstill inside Lebanon and rained rockets on northern Israel. Meanwhile, military analysts everywhere will write that Israel has “lost its deterrence” vis-à-vis Arab forces, and blah, blah, blah.

Sorry, been there, heard that, and I don’t buy it. What matters in war, alas, is the balance of destruction on the ground and the political weight it exerts over time.

On the morning after the morning after, Lebanese war refugees, who had real jobs and homes, will start streaming back by the hundreds of thousands, many of them Shiites. Tragically, they will find their homes or businesses badly damaged or obliterated. Yes, they will curse Israel. But they and other Arabs will also start asking Nasrallah publicly what many are already asking privately:

“What was this war all about? What did we get from this and at what price? Israel has some roofs to repair and some dead to bury. But its economy and state are fully intact, and it will recover quickly. We Lebanese have been set back by a decade. Our economy and our democracy lie in ruins, like our homes. For what? For a one-week boost in ‘Arab honor?’ So that Iran could distract the world’s attention from its nuclear program? You did all this to us for another country?”

As Michael Young, opinion editor of The Beirut Daily Star, put it an article in Slate: “Hezbollah’s ... test will be to rapidly alleviate the suffering in its own community and, therefore, avoid losing its base. The party still has substantial backing among its coreligionists, and it is not about to see this disappear. But soon the fate of the hundreds of thousands of Shiites now living in schools, tent cities, and even public parks will be an overriding concern for Nasrallah. Many have fled areas partly or wholly destroyed, to which they might not return for months or years. ... Hezbollah will have to provide funding for reconstruction and rehabilitation that is likely to run into the billions of dollars. ... The party will have a monumental task to revive not only Shiite morale but confidence that Hezbollah can take care of its own. ... Even the party’s most optimistic interpretation of the current war — that it is a heroic achievement — will not spare it having to tiptoe very carefully through Shiite trauma.”

Moreover, if and when a French-led international force is placed along the Israel-Lebanon border, it will be a big loss for Hezbollah. The Shiite militia will no longer be able to directly touch Israel and start a war for Iran or Syria whenever it chooses. And, if Hezbollah tried to lob missiles over the peacekeeping zone, or penetrate it, it would clash with forces from France, Italy and Turkey, the likely peacekeepers. That means Hezbollah, Iran and Syria would not be able to hurt Israel without also hurting their own relations with the European Union.

Israel needs to keep its eyes on the prize. It’s already inflicted enormous damage on Hezbollah and its community, but Nasrallah will only have to pay the full price for inviting all that destruction once the guns fall silent on the morning after the morning after. So let’s get there as soon as possible. That will deter him. What would deter him even more, though, would be if the U.N. would go ahead and impose sanctions on Iran for its illicit nuclear bomb program. After all, it was Iran, Nasrallah’s master, that ordered up this war to distract the U.N. from doing just that. It would be nice to say to Iran: You ravaged Hezbollah for nothing.

Beyond those two limited objectives, there’s no storybook ending for Israel in Lebanon, and it shouldn’t throw more good lives after some elusive knockout blow. It’s just not that kind of neighborhood. As they say in the movies, “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.”

Photo credit: Thomas Friedman. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

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