A rant I sent to a Friend
Hi,
been out of touch lately, its been a bit of a rough summer but things are much better now.. where to begin? well your intuitions and gut reaction are quite correct about the repugnancy. as you may know i went to many places across lebanon last year, it WAS a stunningly beautiful country. lebanon has about 20 or 22 distinct religious groups. its extremely diverse. teh Shiite Lebanese have relied on hezbollah to provide them very basic things (healthcare, education) at times when the government in lebanon was essentially non existant. they were responsible , almost singlehandedly driving out the israeli occupation army (the 4th strongest army in the world with about $4 billion in US MILITARY aid annually since 1967-- do the math) after an israeli occupation essneitally lasting since 1978-2000. When the israeli's first, actually the second time they invaded lebanon, in 1982, within the first week of invasion theykilled about 20,000 lebanese and palestinian civilians, christian muslim, etc. this is on the collective memory of every single lebanese. to call hizbollah or the lebanese "terrorists" is a sham. the israeli government with FULL complacency and physical support from their Jewish population (~75% of the population of Israel proper), has invaded lebanon again and slaughtered and destroyed on a massive, massive scale. the scale of the environmental disaster is horrendous, eclipsing exxon valdez, etc.
i don't feel right speaking for people there but my take on it is that israel and the U.S. have demonstrated through their military adventures that they have absolutely no interest in allowing Arab peoples to have normal, healthy lives and a chance at the fruits of success and "democracy.". Locally in that region, I think many people are either resigned to a very low quality life, OR are fully committed toward resisting the Israeli military onslaught that has effected Lebanon and Palestine so acutely. Nearly every single child there has watched a mother, father, brother or sister killed before their eyes by Israeli soliders and weaponry. So many children and parents, sometimes have become refugees not once, not twice, but three times in their life due to Israel. They will not forgive this or forget this. In cold political terms, i believe Israel will have a very difficult time surviving in a place where they've sought to make as many enemies as possible for generations to come and inflicted so much horrendous atrocities on people, women and children. The people will never, ever forget the complicity of the so called "international community" and the U.S. whose U.S. congress sought to send emergency shipments, not of food, water and medicine to civilians, but additional weaponry, laser guided bombs, cluster bombs, etc to Israel so it could "defend itself." No one will forgive or forget this treachery against humanity.
for bush to characterize this as a fight cagainst "islamo-fascists" (A fox news term essentially) its fucking insane and ignorant and dangerously reckless as our foreign policy. a recent academic survey in lebanon found that 80+% of the christian population of lebanon (some 40% of the lebanese population) fully suported Hezbollah. Does that mean they're Christian Islamic Facists?? Does that mean we shold kill them too?
What can you do?
Read www.juancole.com for sober commentary/analysis. he's a history professor at university of michigan and "American." Go to www.linktv.org/mosaic and watch streaming satellite television translated into English from the middle east and at least get a FEELING for what people are going through here from their perspective, rather than filtered through u.s. boring media.
www.counterpunch.org is an unabashedly "leftist" news source but with high quality writing and journalism from england and u.s. www.guardian.co.uk and www.independent.co.uk are more worth your time than cnn.com or nytimes.com. go to www.democracynow.org and listen to their streaming news cast each day for a different , again, American, viewpoint.
and when you're ready, go to www.electronicintifada.net..and www.electroniclebanon.net. and www.electroniciraq.net.. for eye wittness accounts, alternate view points, etc. keep in mind what we call "radical, crazy, alternate' here is the norm fo the majority of the world, including the arab-islamic middle east.
let me know what you think... or if you have additional questions, i can bombard you with tons of information.
sorry if this came out a rant.. i trust you'll do something good with the info!
been out of touch lately, its been a bit of a rough summer but things are much better now.. where to begin? well your intuitions and gut reaction are quite correct about the repugnancy. as you may know i went to many places across lebanon last year, it WAS a stunningly beautiful country. lebanon has about 20 or 22 distinct religious groups. its extremely diverse. teh Shiite Lebanese have relied on hezbollah to provide them very basic things (healthcare, education) at times when the government in lebanon was essentially non existant. they were responsible , almost singlehandedly driving out the israeli occupation army (the 4th strongest army in the world with about $4 billion in US MILITARY aid annually since 1967-- do the math) after an israeli occupation essneitally lasting since 1978-2000. When the israeli's first, actually the second time they invaded lebanon, in 1982, within the first week of invasion theykilled about 20,000 lebanese and palestinian civilians, christian muslim, etc. this is on the collective memory of every single lebanese. to call hizbollah or the lebanese "terrorists" is a sham. the israeli government with FULL complacency and physical support from their Jewish population (~75% of the population of Israel proper), has invaded lebanon again and slaughtered and destroyed on a massive, massive scale. the scale of the environmental disaster is horrendous, eclipsing exxon valdez, etc.
i don't feel right speaking for people there but my take on it is that israel and the U.S. have demonstrated through their military adventures that they have absolutely no interest in allowing Arab peoples to have normal, healthy lives and a chance at the fruits of success and "democracy.". Locally in that region, I think many people are either resigned to a very low quality life, OR are fully committed toward resisting the Israeli military onslaught that has effected Lebanon and Palestine so acutely. Nearly every single child there has watched a mother, father, brother or sister killed before their eyes by Israeli soliders and weaponry. So many children and parents, sometimes have become refugees not once, not twice, but three times in their life due to Israel. They will not forgive this or forget this. In cold political terms, i believe Israel will have a very difficult time surviving in a place where they've sought to make as many enemies as possible for generations to come and inflicted so much horrendous atrocities on people, women and children. The people will never, ever forget the complicity of the so called "international community" and the U.S. whose U.S. congress sought to send emergency shipments, not of food, water and medicine to civilians, but additional weaponry, laser guided bombs, cluster bombs, etc to Israel so it could "defend itself." No one will forgive or forget this treachery against humanity.
for bush to characterize this as a fight cagainst "islamo-fascists" (A fox news term essentially) its fucking insane and ignorant and dangerously reckless as our foreign policy. a recent academic survey in lebanon found that 80+% of the christian population of lebanon (some 40% of the lebanese population) fully suported Hezbollah. Does that mean they're Christian Islamic Facists?? Does that mean we shold kill them too?
What can you do?
Read www.juancole.com for sober commentary/analysis. he's a history professor at university of michigan and "American." Go to www.linktv.org/mosaic and watch streaming satellite television translated into English from the middle east and at least get a FEELING for what people are going through here from their perspective, rather than filtered through u.s. boring media.
www.counterpunch.org is an unabashedly "leftist" news source but with high quality writing and journalism from england and u.s. www.guardian.co.uk and www.independent.co.uk are more worth your time than cnn.com or nytimes.com. go to www.democracynow.org and listen to their streaming news cast each day for a different , again, American, viewpoint.
and when you're ready, go to www.electronicintifada.net..and www.electroniclebanon.net. and www.electroniciraq.net.. for eye wittness accounts, alternate view points, etc. keep in mind what we call "radical, crazy, alternate' here is the norm fo the majority of the world, including the arab-islamic middle east.
let me know what you think... or if you have additional questions, i can bombard you with tons of information.
sorry if this came out a rant.. i trust you'll do something good with the info!
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