In Lebanon we are witnessing a crime. The nation is being systematically destroyed in retaliation for actions perpetrated by a radical fringe group, actions that, before the escalation, could only be described as harassment.
In response to the kidnaping of two military personnel by Hizb'Allah, the Israeli Defense Force has engaged in a full-scale war against Lebanon. This unwarranted and completely disproportional response by Israel will have ramifications not only in the Middle East, but for the US for years to come.
Israel has responded to rocket attacks by Islamic militants based in the south of Lebanon by systematically bombing the infrastructure throughout Lebanon. This includes the international airport, freeways, cloverleaf intersections, and port facilities. The physical damage being inflicted upon the whole of Lebanon will run into the billions of dollars, will take years to recover from, and will set the budding economy back a decade at least. It is the progressive Lebanon of the future, a commercial centre and thriving democracy, that is suffering, not the radical fringe.
Our president's inability or unwillingness to restrain Israel in the midst of global condemnation actually makes the US less secure. In much, if not most, of the rest of the world, Israel is viewed as a client state of the US. Israel is the number one recipient of US foreign and military aid. Israel has access to US military technology and hardware that no other nation has access to. Many of the war machines raining death on innocent Lebanese civilians were manufactured in the US, were produced under licence from US companies or were developed with US technology.
Thus the US is viewed as an accomplice in an unwarranted attack on a sovereign nation, a struggling democracy in which a grassroots movement expelled its Syrian occupiers earlier in the year. Lebanon is the only other democracy in the Middle East. Like it or not, the US will be held accountable. This will manifest itself not only in threats to the physical security of Americans both at home and abroad, but also in our political and economic dealings with other nations.
Israel does indeed have a right to defend herself and assert her right to exist. But this cannot come at the expense of another nation. Israel has become a bully. Our nation's own policy of reflexive war based on a 'shoot-first-ask-questions-later' view of the world has set the stage for Israel's action.
They seem to have learned the lesson that the best way to soothe the fears of their population is to concoct pretexts based on questionable logic in order to wage war against a weaker and culturally remote adversary. It is a shame that Lebanon has become a tool of Israeli domestic policy. It is shameful that the US is allowing it to happen.
Speaking as an American with family trapped in Beirut, a family suffering from Israel's actions, I deplore this one-sided war.
