The darker side of present Lebanon crisis is that Mr. George W. Bush wants to turn it into an opportunity, if he had not carved the opportunity itself, for the so called ‘New Middle East’ constructed on the lines of his erstwhile ‘New World Order.’ He terribly failed in the first and is bound to fail in the latter.

However, the most unfortunate aspect of this game of terror is that each day human suffering, loss of life and property, disregard to human institutions, integrity and honesty is augmented. In the maze of hasty political and military gains humanity is lost irrecoverably.

With rating as low as 30 percent at home Mr Bush does not fear anything, as nothing is at stake. His jingoism may bring a change of heart at home among Americans who are fascinated by cowboy image of their leaders abroad.

He has an ally in that, Israel, who is equally unscrupulous, daring, unsparing, uncompromising and desperate to realize its own ambitions with tunnel vision of Lady Macbeth. Mr. Blair is not a partner; he is a porter, only carrying the thankless burden of responsibility in this tragedy with mounting masochism that has no parallel in history of the leadership of nations.

Since 13th July every leader across the globe has been calling for cessation of hostilities in Lebanon but Mr. Bush/Blair see things differently. Talking to newsmen last Friday just after his meeting with Mr. Blair, who feeling the pressure at home and abroad had to travel to Washington to bring some sense home to Mr. Bush on the conflict, Bush told the reporter that ‘the stakes are larger than just Lebanon.’

He said, ‘The root cause of the problem is you’ve got Hezbollah that is armed and willing to fire rockets into Israel; a Hezbollah … that I firmly believe is backed by Iran and encouraged by Iran.’ Dilating upon his line of thinking, thinking if he did, he said, ‘This is a moment of intense conflict in the Middle East, yet our aim is to turn it into a moment of opportunity and a chance for a broader change in the region.’

What has made it obvious is that only leaders like Mr. Bush can first make humanity suffer than turn their sufferings, loss of life and property, their dignity and integrity into an opportunity for something greater than what they have already lost.

Mr. Bush needs to know that nothing is greater than humanity itself. What’s greater than human institutions, its culture, civilisation and history? What’s left if human integrity, ideals and honesty are gone? What’s left in a country when its unity, sovereignty and society have been destroyed for some diabolical gains?

The events of 12th July are being exploited as a ruse for some inconceivable bigger thing. Hezbollah that has backing of more than 98 percent of Lebanese in the present conflict is being branded as a terrorist organization. What acts of terrorism Hezbollah has committed in the last twenty years? Who has the right to define terrorism? Certainly not Mr. Bush and Israel as their own hands are 
soaked in innocent blood of Palestinians and Lebanese.

Quite in line with the agreement reached on 13th April 1996 between warring parties, which was reached in the wake of Qana tragedy in which more than 100 innocent lives were lost, Hezbollah never involved civilians in their survival fight with Israel and respected that accord whereas disrespecting that agreement Israel kept civilians, old men, women and children, in its jails and never released them.

On 12th July Hezbollah fought and captured two of Israeli soldiers. It was a fight between soldiers who were at borders to fight and kill whereas technically Lebanon/Hezbollah and Israel are at war with each other. Hezbollah treated the prisoners of war well and only demanded to swap them for Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails. That was in line with Geneva Convention as long as the prisoners were treated well.

Israel in cahoots with the US carved out an opportunity to wage a proxy war on Iran and Syria. It disrespected and violated the agreement of April 1996 and started bombing Lebanese civilians, cities, roads, offices, houses, prayer places, places of social services as well as civil airport of Lebanon. It did not end here.

On 22nd July it attacked UN outpost and killed four UN observers. It attacked columns of peoples streaming out of cities and villages running away from Israeli aerial attacks to places of safety, mostly in vain. Hezbollah in retaliation to Israeli bombardment of civilian areas in Lebanon has been firing Russian made Katyusha rockets into northern Israel to pinch the aggressor to certain extent.

Then on 19th day of war in the night on last Saturday came the attack on Qana. Israeli warplanes blasted a residential building of southern village Qana and killed more than 60 civilians, most of them children, huddled inside the three-story building. At the United Nations, humanitarian coordinator Egeland was already blunt in his criticism of the civilian casualties.

‘There is something fundamentally wrong when there are more dead children than armed men,’ he said. Egeland pressed for at least a short- term truce ‘so that those who want to escape can escape…. This can be done in the spirit that children have nothing to do with this conflict and firing should stop at least until this is solved.’

But that is in line with the grand objectives of the supreme power. According to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, ‘What we’re seeing here, in a sense, is … the birth pangs of a new Middle East. And whatever we do, we have to be certain that we’re pushing forward to the new Middle East, not going back to the old one.’ Does she want New Middle East san humanity? According to its 
own self avowed goal Mr. Bush wants to defeat Hezbollah by all means and at all cost thereby defeating Iran as well as Syria together in one go.

The White House seems to have decided that the United States’ strategic objective is the same as Israel’s. Mr Bush was wrong in his assessment when he had attacked Iraq in 2003 to transform the entire Middle East; and now his blatant disregard to humanitarian principles for the same objective will not bring any laurels to America but a united opposition and rancor from across the globe.

Information

With rating as low as 30 percent at home Mr Bush does not fear anything, as nothing is at stake. His jingoism may bring a change of heart at home among Americans who are fascinated by cowboy image of their leaders abroad.

First appeared in Pakistan Observer on August 03, 2006