Why
Must The Right Wing
Sound So Brutally Stupid?
By John Chuckman
31 July, 2006
Countercurrents.org
Just
when I thought he had shown a glimmer of statesmanship, Stephen Harper,
Canada's prime minister courtesy of just over one-third of the vote,
reverted to character. Following Israel's apparently-deliberate targeting
of four UN observers in Lebanon, including one Canadian, Harper thought
it appropriate to ask, not why Israel killed them, but why the observers
were there?
His inspired question reminded
me of nothing so much as a rape-case lawyer attacking the victim with
questions along the lines of why was she in such a place? at such a
time? wearing such a dress?
Condoleezza Rice, Bush's
official idiot-savant, gave us a memorable quote last week concerning
Israeli barbarism in Lebanon: "We are witnessing the birth pangs
of a new Middle East." I wonder what would have been press reaction
in America to some high official saying, as the World Trade Center toppled
in flames, "We are witnessing the birth pangs of a new America"?
Of course, Condi was keeping
her eyes on the big picture, as she tends to do, the picture as viewed
from high above the earth where human beings become unseen bacilli in
a vast fabric of coastlines and geometric patterns, not close-up where
you can distinguish blood-spattered ruins and childrens' limbs snapped
like broken bird wings.
You might want to ask Condi
why America's murderous assault on Vietnam, where it dropped more bombs
than in World War Two, was such a miserable failure rather than the
birth of anything? Or why Baghdad, after experiencing American Shock
and Awe, has sewers that work only to catch run-off blood from the streets?
Perhaps Condi would say they just needed a little topping-up on the
bombing to complete the miracle of birth?
Her words came near to the
time an Israeli source explained to the world that Israeli pilots were
operating now on the principle that ten Beirut apartment blocks would
be bombed for every Hezbollah missile launched. A few days after, an
Israeli pilot struck gold, killing fifty-seven civilians, including
thirty-seven children.
From Israel, came only Goebbels-speak:
Hezbollah always hides in just such places. Left unasked and unanswered
in the soulless repetitions of this point is: then what kind of a human
being would still fire on them?
Israel insists that Hezbollah's
missiles are a horror not to be endured.
I'll remind readers that
Hezbollah's main "missile" is the Katyusha artillery rocket,
not a missile at all, because it is not guided. The Katyusha was designed
to be fired in large barrages from mobile, multi-tube launchers to blanket
an area, but Hezbollah does not posses these - they would quickly be
destroyed if they did - and uses Katyushas as single-launch rockets.
Used this way, the Katyusha is a glorified firework, totally inaccurate
with a short range and a small explosive charge. Ninety-nine percent
of these "missiles" land in the desert or on garage roofs
or in parking lots. The few times they have killed anyone were accidents.
Hezbollah has managed to
fire a few clusters now in response to Israel's horrific bombardment,
but apart from one dramatic incident, killing eight, they have killed
few Israelis. We have heard a great deal about a new longer-range rocket,
but this is just a bigger Katyusha with a bigger warhead. It also is
totally inaccurate.
By comparison, Israel drops
500-pound, high-explosive bombs which are deadly accurate, being hooked
into American satellite-guidance systems. It drops them from some of
the world's most sophisticated fighter-bombers. An order of American
5000-pound, "bunker-busting," laser-guided bombs was rushed
recently to Israel to help in the good work. Israel also uses American
Hellfire missiles, mounted on helicopters or fighter planes. These really
are missiles, highly accurate, in the slick words of their manufacturer's
sales pitch, they feature "dual warheads for defeating reactive
armor, electro-optical countermeasures hardening, semi-active laser
seeker, and a programmable auto-pilot for trajectory shaping."
Israel uses some of the world's
best long-range artillery pieces, and it fills their breeches with deadly
depleted-uranium shells which bring the added gift of long-lived vaporized
uranium after exploding. It uses American cluster bombs, the horrible
things that dismembered or crippled thousands of Iraqi children. And
it now appears to be using the white-phosphorus shells or bombs Americans
used in Fallujah to burn flesh in much the same way they used napalm
in Vietnam.
Tony Blair, known to Bush
insiders as Fluffy the toy poodle, made a showy trip to Washington about
his concern over events in the Middle East, the concern apparently focusing
on a revolt by his own cabinet. As usual, he got nothing from Bush,
except the honor of standing at a podium next to America's first certified-moron
president. Blair also got to do a little choreographed turn with Bush
at the end of the press conference, allowing the pair to stride out
with a ceremonial flourish after somber moments of saying nothing.
British journalists apparently
miffed the American crowd because they didn't follow the mindless ritual
of standing up when the president is announced, it not being the practice
to stand for Blair in London. Even worse perhaps was one British journalist's
description of the event as a "press availability" rather
than a press conference. It was undoubtedly the most informative comment
of the week.