Personal Message on Marjayoun
Dr. Khalil Mouchantaf writes from the US Northeast:
'Dear Mr. Cole,
Today I received very sad and shocking news. Three of the civilians who died out of the seven in the convoy escaping Southern Lebanon were from my mother's town of Marjeoun, a town that has been in the news recently.
I cannot find a way to express my grief but to write, write in a journal or maybe to someone who might understand.
The Israelis stormed violently into the town, destroying what is left of the fallen place. They were supposedly looking for Hezbollah operatives in my uncles' house, where my aunt and three young children live (he lives in St. Lucia earning a living). I have come to the realization that Israel looks at all of Lebanon and the Lebansese cvilians as Hezbollah operatives, without any disregard for children, women, men, human life or human dignity. I ask if these actions are not war crimes, then what is??
They have not only killed a thousand civilans, but they are killing people I know, people my family knows. Is this what America supports and sees as the "birth prangs" of the new Middle East Have Israel and the US really lost their moral compass? How can I ever be sympathetic to Israel's cause and right to exist and defend itself if it means systematically murdering civilians? And I ask all for what, two soldiers who were kidnapped Yes, I have lost the objectivity to see that what Hizbollah did is wrong, but so have millions of people inside and outside the Arab world. And can you blame them?
This war has claimed too many lives, including people who matter to me. Israel's actions are nothing short of war crimes, crimes against humanity. The Lebanese people will survive. '
posted by Juan Cole @ 8/12/2006 07:16:00 AM
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11 Comments:
Yes, Isreal seems to have forgotten Warsaw and the other ghettos of Europe. There must be a hidden moral story here.
Men, women, children and babies. Muslims and Christians. It only proves that Israel is indiscriminate in their killing.
Thanks for an informative piece, iot's good to see this from a different perspective than the forced perspective of the American media.
My deepest sympathies to Dr. Khalil Mouchantaf.
I wish I knew how to stop Slaughter House Bush and the Republican Congress of the Insane - or at least, wake up the United States of the Amazingly Dumb - but I don't know what will work.
Thank you Dr. Cole for at least providing information to those who do not wish to be a member of the Amazingly Dumb association.
Israel, thanks to America, is a Rogue State answerable to no one!
In order to satisfy its own imperial and religious ambitions it is happy to become both the proxy of America and the Regional Policeman.
In ensuring that oil flows across the Atlantic, it satisfies its own demands while maintaining American support. Israel will kill anyone who tries to thwart its ambitions.
I'm so sorry to hear of your loss. Like Juan, I'm doing all I can on my blog to protest the killing and genocide. Sadly, we seem to be voices crying the the ugly capitalist wilderness!
Terrorism, defined in Wikipedia, is "the systematic use or threatened use of violence to intimidate a population or government and thereby effect political, religious, or ideological change." The part I just can't get my head around is why state-sponsored terrorism is okay, when the exact same thing by outfits like Hezbollah is the incarnation of evil. Especially since the former, starting with Hiroshima, has destroyed so many more people than any crazy band of amateurs has ever managed to do.
Hezbollah's weaponry surprises Israelis: "There were some weapons which we did not know about," said IDF Gen. Ido Nehushtan. "There were others, such as the unmanned aerial vehicles which we had detected before."
"The main threat is the use of sophisticated anti-tank weapons against our armoured vehicles."
IDF Merkava main battle tanks are facing a serious challenge in the recent war between Israel and Lebanese Hezbolla. The Merkava, designed to confront fleets of opposing tanks head-on, with heavy frontal armour, are operating in rocky and mountainous terrain ~ made all the more treacherous by their own air and artillery support forces' rubble; and they are facing a variety of threats, including advanced anti-tank weapons, from all directions.
Hezbollah's arsenal includes: IEDs and heavy belly charges and RPGs to the latest generations ATGWs, including the Russian Metis-M and Kornet E missiles.
"We have been very surprised by the quantity of weapons and the incredible building that has been carried out in the last six years. We have found trench systems and 40-metre deep bunkers. We knew they were preparing for war, but we did not realize to what extent."
Soldiers have discovered bunkers with air-conditioning, electricity generators and sophisticated listening and observation devices working in tandem with computers.
The bunkers meant that Hezbollah fighters could shelter from Israeli air and artillery bombardment and then surprise advancing Israeli forces. Often the bunkers were so well hidden that the fighters could wait until IDF soldiers had passed, and then attack them from behind.
The Israeli army has historically relied on highly mobile armour and air support to dispatch its enemies...
...However, air power is less effective against [a "network" of] guerrilla fighters who operate in small, dispersed groups...
...While Israeli armour has been neutralized by Hezbollah's acquisition of state-of-the-art anti-tank weapons.
Should the conflict end on Monday at 0500 hours GMT, it is surely now possible the issue of war crimes will be followed-up, especially since the democratic government of Lebanon has survived. For as David Clark, a former adviser to the British Government, observed in The Guardian,"How can "terrorism" be condemned while war crimes go without rebuke?"
Dr. Khalil Mouchantaf's comments are unbearably sad to read,and I would like to extend my deep sympathy.
There is little else to be said other than please be aware that there are hundreds of thousands of us around the world who agree that this war and all wars are obscene.
It is a sad state of affairs when otherwise good intentioned people fall prey to a false doctrine of state worship. I am a Christian but I can say with certainty that the entire notion of state worship and protectionism for the political entity of Israel displayed so forcefully by evangelicals is the very root cause of all of this. The neoconservatives are able to practice their warped foreign policy of selective enforcement of democracy and protection of some terrorist while punishing others.
I would like to add my sympathies to Dr. Khalil Mouchantaf, his family, and all the peoples of Lebanon.
Feeling helplessness and frustration (tho how much less than those whose loved ones are involved) just compounds the shame I feel for my country. We have tossed away our humanity and play geo-politics like a video game.
Terror is now permitted from those who are our allies. We are not fighting a global war on terror anymore. It is a war against islamic fascism.
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