48 hours?

[alvarezadams]

Ooops: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060731/ap_on_re_mi_ea/lebanon_israel_624;_ylt=Amx_iHeLm8OIWUxBHsMdboAUvioA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

"Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agreed to a 48-hour halt in the airstrikes beginning at 2 a.m. Monday while the military concludes its inquiry into the attack on the south Lebanese village of Qana.

But Israel left open the option it might hit targets to stop imminent attacks or if the military completed its inquiry within 48 hours."

So what the hell does the agreement mean? Nothing at all?

Yep, nothing.

[eFriendly]

1. Israel is waiting on its wmd-dealer to arrive

Perhaps Israel has already used all of its stockpiled U.S.-provided weapons and needs 48-hours for the two U.S. planes to re-supply them. Then the terrorism of the people of Lebanon will resume... :shrug:

[Totally Committed]

2. That was the shortest 48-hour cease-fire in history...

I am disappointed and disgusted.

TC

[fasttense]

3. When is a ceasefire not a ceasefire?

When Rice cakes gets in the middle of it and only uses spin to negotiate it.

"If you look carefully at the wording of the Condoleezza Rice announcement, it emerges that the supposed cessation contains two very large loopholes. It states that Israel can continue to use its warplanes in support of its ground forces, and it can also use them to attack Hezbollah rocket launchers.

"This effectively allows Israeli air strikes to continue unchecked in the border areas where its troops are active. Here, the Israeli army has its full arsenal is still available. The only parts of Lebanon which would notice a halt in air strikes would be Beirut and areas further back from the Israeli border."

[alvarezadams]

4. What really disgusts me

is that the concepts of international law--- nay, of morality... are thrown to the winds on the basis of spin and PR. The very concept of a "cease fire" being dependent on any pre-conceived conditions is repellent. Yet here our "elected" government is calling for specific conditions before the most humane concept conceivable --- the ceasement of violence so that diplomacy can have a chance.

In the background we have the Bolton anti-UN crowd rubbing their hands together... this can only end with a firther erosion of international law and of the UN. Mishun akomplished yet again.

I put myself in the position of a moderate American... an educated American... of the 1940's, contemplating this Hitleresque manipulation. I become sick to my stomach, I wretch as I dry heave over the patent manipulation of special interests against anything and everything altruistic.

My Wilsonian responses are numbed. Hell, even my Teddy Roosevelt instincts are rubbed raw as sense and sensibility are overrun by spin and Machiavellian manipulation. I don't see the Founding Fathers or Jesus Christ anywhere... I see Merrernicht and Goebbels, I see death of innocents justified by the incredibe stretching of logic.

The last years of my primary education were under the aegis of Franco. I learned, by rote, the "organic laws". I was taught a series of values that I personally didn't accept... but that I later recognized when I returned to the US to "pledfe allegience" and to "salute the flag".

When I was 13 I saw the spin and rebelled. That was in Francoist Spain, in an Opus Dei school. But when I returned to the good ol' USA, I saw and felt the same damned thing.

Franco played the "victim" card as the world turned against the last true fascist regime. What I see in the US' pro-Israeli spin is a facsimile of Franco's manipulation of his "electorate". Spain's Civil War and subsequent "genocide" fostered a political apathy that is common amongst all regimes that oppress in favour of special interests... the same thing is happening in the US of A, and the US' subservience to Israeli propaganda as they perpetrate war crimes is symbolic.

I am sickened. I would place "my" government in the Nuremburg docks and have them tried and hung in a heartbeat.

The fact that this is impossible is symbolic of the tyrrany that we're suffering.