Speak Out (send postings to mosaad@mac.com)

"Speak Out" and be heard through saveleb.org. Share your ideas and thoughts on how you think this war may develop. Send your entries to mosaad@mac.com

Monday, July 31, 2006

Geoffrey Daniel Greene

Washington D.C. | July 16

 I don't have much free time these days, unfortunately.  And fuck I'd love it if I could hop a plane and be there right now.  Because this shit is what destroys not just Lebanon, but hope in troubled regions of the world for a brighter future.  Israel has raped "the Paris of the Middle East," and in the process established more evidence that might makes right.  The "world community," in standing by passively while it unfolds, has committed another Munich.  They have proved that when grievous injustice is committed in the inconvenient midst of larger geopolitical maneuvering concerning Iran and North Korea, that "we must be realistic" and "measure our response."
The fact that Bush can stand up and shrug that "Israel has the right to defend herself," in the midst of this juvenile, warlike, and dangerously impulsive response by Israel, is troubling in the extreme.Everyone involved with this has merely accepted the dubious Old Testament principle of collective guilt.
Hezbollah attacks, kill a hundred civilians that happen to share their nationality.  A terrorist group lashes out, destroy the entire nation which is its home base.  If that is functional logic, then why aren't we rolling our tanks across the sands of Saudi, home of the majority of the September 11th hijackers, an event described then and now as an "act of war?"  Why aren't we flattening Pakistan, which shelters the Taliban, Osama bin Laden, the men guilty of the Mumbai massacre, and until his 2004 arrest, the man responsible for a nuclear North Korea, Lybia, and Iran?  
No, instead we flood their respective governments with monies and diplomatic support, lauding them as willing allies on the War on Terror, tragically beset by an interior cancer of terrorism which they daily wrestle.
I agree, the world cannot stand by.  We must contact our Congressmen and MPs. Those in Lebanon must point their camera lens at Israel, broadcasting to the world the unadulterated truth about this violence committed.  We must debate bitterly with the blindly jingoistic supporters of Israel first.  We must take even more care to appeal to the apathetic masses, for which this is just another act in the long and confusing saga of the ever-violent Middle East.
If Israel is not stopped, is not prevented from committing this travesty of international law and universal human dignity, then at the least her guilt must be made clear.  At least, as the tank tracks recede, the world must recognize and assume greater surveillance of her silent crimes against her neighbors.  The watch man is the honest man.
And, as for Lebanon, I hope that this war can unite a divided nation in the rebuilding process.  Hopefully it will provide an opportunity for a people to rally around their government in a time of crisis, empowering it to assume leadership and control over all of Lebanon.  The world must stand beside her as she struggles to heal again.
We are the future generations, untainted as yet by cynicism.  We are the generation who gave wing to the Cedar Revolution, who linked arms with
Solidarity, who turned out to the polls in record numbers to nudge Kuwait towards democracy, who risk lives and freedom every day for human rights in China, who fought and deposed the dictatorial reign of the Nepalese king.  We are change.  If we do nothing, and we CAN do something, then nobody else will and more people will die.
Best regards and good luck.
posted by SAVE LEBANON, @ 8:05 AM, , (0) comments