Zion! Hear Me!

At one point, this was going to be a Braffy Nomination post for "World's Worst War Criminal." Since devising that category and beginning work on the post, an actual war has broken out, making the entire concept significantly less amusing. Okay, an additional war has broken out on top of the many previous wars that continued to rage. For reference, here's Billmon's attempt to list all the conflicts currently going on in the Hellscape Formerly Known as the Sovereign Nation of Iraq and the Greater Middle East.

We've got: Israeli Jews fighting Lebanese Shi'a and Palestinian Sunnis; Palestinian Fatah militants who've stopped fighting Hamas militants, but only because they're both fighting the Israelis; Saudi Sunni fundamentalists issuing fatwas against Hezbollah Shi'a fundamentalists; Egyptian Sunni fundamentalists backing those same Hezbollah Shi'a fundamentalists; Iraqi Sunnis killing Iraqi Shi'a and vice versa; Iraqi Shi'a (the Mahdi Army) jousting with Iraqi Shi'a (the Badr Brigade); Iraqi Kurds trying to push Sunni Arabs and both Sunni and Shi'a Turkomen out of Kirkuk; Turks threatening to invade Kurdistan; Iranians allegedly shelling Kurdistan, Syrian Kurds rebelling against Syrian Allawites who are despised by Syria's Sunni majority but allied with the Lebanese Shi'a who are hated and feared by the House of Saud and its Sunni fundamentalist minions. Oh, and American and Israeli neocons threatening to bomb both Syria and Iran.

So, yeah...Even though I had a great amusing summary all set to go for the Dick Cheney nomination...I'm going to have to give that idea a pass, and delay this year's Braffies even further while I come up with some fresh category ideas. Hardly the greatest tragedy of the week, but disappointing to me personally nonetheless.

Honestly, it's hard for me to even write about the horrors going on in Iraq and Lebanon any more. I feel limited in a number of ways. Mainly, I try to keep things somewhat light and funny around here. I figure no one comes to check out my blog for hard-hitting socio-political commentary but instead seek a platter of snide commentary featuring only a small side dish of actual current events.

Also, I can't help but feel like, in these war posts, I've begun to repeat myself. Crushed by Inertia began in November of 2004, already a year-and-a-half after the armies of freedom marched into Baghdad. (You can tell they're the armies of freedom because they're the ones bumping Limp Bizkit albums while they blow up your house.) I was already experiencing what some more clever bloggers than I have deemed "outrage fatigue." 4 years of President Curious George had put my shrillometer into a kind of permanent overdrive. There aren't many crimes I haven't (rightfully) accused the GOP and its sycophantic followers of committing (I'm looking at you, Sean Hannity), and I'm afraid the time when I will run out of synonyms for "asshole" is drawing nigh.

Posts about Israel enhance my discomfort. I am a Jew and I frequently differ from other Jews, even close family members, about the attitude and behavior of the state of Zion. For example, I feel that underground raves take up vital time and resources that should be focused on keeping out robotic squid monsters, whereas others prefer to live for the moment, de-emphasizing the mechanized tentacled threat by dancing the night away.

NO, I'm kidding. I feel that, despite Israel's right to exist, neighbors and enemies have genuine and legitimate greivances that are routinely ignored not only by Israel but also the United States. We're talking about an apartheid state. Americans couldn't tolerate the notion of apartheid when it was happening in South Africa. Yet not only does the second-class citizenry of Palestinians not seem to upset anyone unduly, to voice any opposition to the practice earns one the proud label of "anti-Semite."

Now we have Israel responding to a terrorist action by Hezbollah with a full-on assault on the people of Lebanon. I have seen some images from Beirut over the last few days and they are absolutely some of the most vomit-inducing, reprehensible glimpses of inhuman cruelty imaginable. I will not post them here because then I wouldn't be able to load up my own blog for fear of seeing them again. You can look at them here, if you so desire. Be warned: war is icky and gross.

Law perfesser Alan Dershowitz doesn't seem to think so. He's too busy defending everything Israel does than considering the consequences of lobbing missiles into residential neighborhoods for several weeks at a time. In the LA Times, he has argued that anyone not elderly or crippled currently living in South Lebanon in in league with terrorists and therefore fair game for Israeli Death from Above. What's fascinating is that Dershowitz employs exactly the same excuse for killing Lebanese civilians that Ben Stein offered for the government ignoring Katrina victims.

"Hey, they could have left! But they didn't! So who cares if they die?" I think it's helpfully dehumanizing for these guys to think of those remaining in disaster/war zones as ignorant clods, helpless Victims of Choice flailing about in the wildnerness waiting for some kindly Good Samaritan to come along and give them a handout. It plays into that old "welfare queen" fiction perfectly, as if anyone would opt to remain in a war zone or a disaster area or to live on public assistance.

Normally, when these sorts of things happen in the Middle East, you can count on the Americans to step in and try to negotiate an immediate cease-fire. Just to help stop the killing, even if it's only temporarily. Our War President, loving war as he does, has decided to sit back, enjoy a delicious buttered roll and wait for Jesus to come and whisk him away up to Heaven.

"I wonder," George thinks as he slathers some more imitation margerine on his bread and takes a moment to admire the German Chancellor's ass as she passes by, "When the Rapture comes, will I just suddenly find myself standing in Heaven? Or will I actually feel my soul rush up through the clouds and into God's Kingdom? Because I do get kind of motion sick, and it would be awfully embarrassing to have my first meeting with Jesus and then have to leave to go throw up."

After all, why would Bush intercede if there's even a chance our guys are going to kick a lot of brown-people ass? Let the Israelis take our American weapons and use them on Hezbollah for us! Brilliant!

We’re looking at incredible increases in U.S. military aid and weapons sales to Israel. Military aid stands at about $3 billion a year. That’s about $500 for every Israeli citizen that the United States provides on an annual basis. And then, weapons sales, most recently, since the Bush administration came into power, we’re looking at $6.3 billion worth of weaponry sold to Israel.

Israel's relationship with the United States is unique in a number of ways. And one of those ways is that essentially the United States provides 20% of the Israeli military budget on an annual basis, and then about 70% of that money that is given from the United States, from U.S. taxpayers, to Israel is then spent on weapons from Lockheed Martin and Boeing and Raytheon. Most other countries don't have that sort of cash relationship, where they go straight to U.S. corporations with U.S. money to buy weapons that are then used in the Occupied Territories and against Lebanon.

That's from an interview on Democracy Now.

So there you have it...For perhaps the first time in CBI history, I'm left speechless. This war in Lebanon is our war. Israel's fighting it, but we've given them the weapons and the go-ahead. It's on us.

Damn, we're smooth.