Monday, July 31, 2006

Welcome to the Triple B Ranch (Bin Laden, Bush & Bombing).

The following thanks to Whiskey Bar:

"Until civilians -- frankly, I'm not sure how many of them are actually just innocent little civilians running around versus active Hezbo types, particularly the men -- but until those civilians start paying a price for propping up these kinds of regimes, it's not going to end, folks. What do you mean, civilians start paying a price? I just ask you to consult history for the answer to that.”

Rush Limbaugh
On the Qana Massacre
July 31, 2006

"We declared jihad against the US government, because the US government is unjust, criminal and tyrannical. It has committed acts that are extremely unjust, hideous and criminal . . . As for what you asked regarding the American people, they are not exonerated from responsibility, because they chose this government and voted for it despite their knowledge of its crimes in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and in other places."

Osama bin Laden
On His Fatwa Against America
March 1997

Bin Laden's words have been on my mind for days. Folks, what happened on 9/11 is a war crime because it was tantamount to collective punishment against a civilian population. Bin Laden needs to be tried in the Hague. But so too does Bush and, now, Olmert. It was Bush who (in)famously declared "Let heads roll" in April 2004 just before the Fallujah campaign in which an entire city was decimated and attacked as collective punishment over the deaths of four PRIVATE security workers (i.e., not even U.S. soldiers but corporate mercenaries).

What clearer statement of intent to collectively punish a people for the crimes of a few does one need? And not content with that, Bush proceeded even more violently to finish off the city in a cynical move after the elections in the fall of 2004. In the course of that campaign white phosphorous was used; hospitals were shut down and the injured denied medical treatment; in a Melos type move, the city was cordoned off, and everyone told to leave; when men of military age tried to evacuate as ordered, only women and children were allowed to depart. The entire male population was placed in harm's way.

Now, adding crime upon crime, Bush and Olmert (and Rice) should stand trial for the Lebanon campaign - as should a number of members of Hizbullah. You don't shoot random rockets at civilians - and you don't tell people to evacuate because you are about to flatten their village and then cut off their means to do that. Hizbullah is making war on civilian targets; so too is Israel, with American support (and, one suspects these days, even pressure). It is time for some accountability on all sides.

Now Qana takes its place next to Fallujah, Haditha, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and a legion of other rampant demons we've unleashed.

If and when terror is again visited on our country, the vapid media will again gnash its teeth and pull its hair asking, "Why do they hate us?"

And some equally vapid politician will respond, "Why for our values of course".

He'll be right.

HE

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