'It is madness. Why is no one doing anything to stop this?'

[Purveyor]

AS DIRECTOR of the Jabel Amel hospital in Tyre, Ahmad Mrowe is no stranger to the violence that has racked this area for decades.

But as casualties soared and even ambulances and his own hospital were targeted by Israeli warplanes, the doctor said that the latest Israeli onslaught was the worst he had ever seen. “It is incomparable, much worse than anything before,” he said, as he stood in a sweltering corridor packed with relatives of the victims.

A humanitarian disaster is unfolding in southern Lebanon where the Israeli war machine, determined to destroy Hezbollah once and for all, has been pounding the scruffy villages that dot these stony hills and valleys.

It has warned Lebanese civilians to leave the area, and tens of thousands have been streaming north in battered cars, eight, nine or ten to a vehicle, to escape the fighting. But the Israelis have also destroyed the main roads and all the bridges over the Litani river, forcing many of the refugees to abandon their cars and wade across.

Jan Egeland, the UN Emergency Relief Co-ordinator, spoke yesterday of an imminent humanitarian crisis and feared that the destruction of water, sewage and other infrastructure could compound the problem. The UN force in southern Lebanon said it could no longer deliver aid because the Israelis had failed to guarantee its convoys safe passage.

--end of excerpt--

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2274521,00.html

[derby378]

1. The nations of the world allow whatever they will...

...which also explains the Hutu genocide campaign against Tutsis in Rwanda and Burundi, the systematic killings by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the sterile, famine-wracked tyranny of Kim Jong Il, etc.

[Drum]

9. Amen to that.

To think that "turning a blind eye" is brand new is absurd. I appreciate you reviving those instances from the Memory Hole.

Nevertheless, it is never too late for anyone to reverse a course of past omissions. The ones who are brave enough are the true leaders. Any brute can live to wage war (and brutes with smart handlers can use this for even more evil purposes,) but the voices for peace and end-of-genocides are the ones we ought to be listening for.

W, and his ilk, are quickly disqualified from this good sort of person...I wish the other type was more obvious and more numerous.

[LisaM]

2. I don't know, but was shocked by the picture of Bush, Blair, and Putin

all laughing uproariously at something yesterday. Are they just inured? Do they WANT this to happen? It was absolutely bloodcurdling. I saw it on MSNBC on their "First Look" - they showed pictures of cities burning, then showed the three of them laughing. It certainly provided a stark contrast to Roosevelt, Churchill, and even Stalin.

[AlamoDemoc]

5. Putin got what he wanted from the US...we will allow you to butcher

...chechnia and stop Chaney talking about Russia, but you would have to be quiet about Palestine and Lebanon, and on top of that Russia getting membership at the WTO. DONE DEAL!

[Deja Q]

7. Leaders get bomb shelters. We just get the bombs.

You bet they don't care.

[wordpix2]

16. yes & * stuffing his face while speaking to Blair today was shocking too

It's Bush face-stuffing and bad manners in contrast to people made destitute, homeless, or killed and maimed by war. The world's fatcats are having an uproariously good time feasting and partying at the G-8 Conference as teh rest of the world goes hungry, falls apart and burns.

Bush's slogan: "What, Me Worry?" Come to think of it, he looks like Alfred E. Newman, too.

[Purveyor]

18. And the dolt chews with his mouth open. Putin

looked amused by the oaf, sort of like when a unmannered relative shows up for Thanksgiving dinner and starts eating with their hands.

[melnjones]

3. So glad that targeting hospitals and ambulances by warplanes

is part of "defending" oneself.

Does Hezbollah have some blame in this? Yeah, I think so. However, I'm amazed at some of the response I've seen on DU. If the US were targeting (or even accidentally hitting) hospitals and ambulances in Iraq, everyone on here would throw a fit...but some people still honestly think this is a normal and acceptable part of "defending" oneself? Unbelievable...

[leftchick]

6. now I read today from an erudite DUer that

these are "surgical strikes" directly aimed at Hezbollah. :puke:

[leftchick]

4. this is the worst fucking shit I have read yet!

STOP KILLING THESE POOR PEOPLE!!! :argh:


<snip>

The Israeli offensive has been largely conducted away from the eyes of the foreign media, which has been stuck north of the Litani. To reach Tyre, normally an hour’s drive from Beirut down the coastal highway, required a tortuous and tense five-hour ordeal via the Chouf mountains yesterday. The winding mountain roads were clogged with traffic coming the other way as refugees inched to the relative safety of Beirut, where commandeered schools were overflowing with the displaced.

But beyond the southern market town of Nabatieh, the roads were ominously empty and the skies filled with the roar of Israeli jets and the whine of drones. A nerve-racking half-hour drive along an old road beside the Litani led to a newly built earthen causeway across the river, now the only lifeline connecting the south to the rest of the country.

The Israeli military said that it was hunting down Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrillas, but it is the civilian population that is bearing the brunt of the conflict. Survivors interviewed by The Times said that Israel was bombing homes, schools, the centres of villages and towns and vehicles including ambulances. Even the Jabel Amel hospital was struck early on Sunday morning by a missile that demolished an entire wing and killed a family of nine.

Dr Mrowe said: “We have recovered five of the bodies. There are another four under the rubble. We have many people in the basement downstairs. If they hit the hospital again it will be a massacre.”

By late yesterday his hospital alone had received 196 casualties, 25 of them dead.

[Camp_Democracy]

14. STOP KILLING THESE POOR PEOPLE!!!

I thought that needed to be repeated.

This 'response' makes no sense whatsoever. How is killing innocents helping find missing soldiers? Am I stupid? I don't get it. This over-reaction happens to be something Israel wanted, perhaps had already been planning? I have heard it refered to as "Israel's reward" on the news. WTF! It seems very orchestrated. Also seems to be connecting up to what the US maniacal gov't has been planning. There are just too many damn coincidences.

[Fozzledick]

8. I just heard a Lebanese Arab comentator sum up the problem

"Syria is willing to fight to the last Lebanese.
Iran is willing to fight to the last Lebanese and the last Syrian."

[melnjones]

12. ...

:scared:

[Fozzledick]

10. dupe - self delete (same as #8)

[LiberalPartisan]

11. And Israel is willing to fight

to the last Lebanese, Syrian and Iranian....:)

[melnjones]

13. this is unrelated...

but, nuke a gay whale for Christ? :spray: :rofl:

[Fozzledick]

15. and support the right to arm bears!

:hide:

[Igel]

17. One paragraph is intriguing.

"The bombing has generated fear and deep anger that the West has not intervened to halt the bloodshed. “Bush and Blair are breeding future generations of suicide bombers here. You will see. Is it right to destroy a country for just two soldiers?” asked Mustafa Safieddine."

It clearly shows the problem.

"Was the capture of two soldiers worth the destruction of the country that's occurred so far? Is not returning the soldiers worth what will occur?"

Always the other's fault.