Just what the world needs - another ranty blog

"I'm sure we all agree that we ought to love one another, and I know there are people in the world who do not love their fellow human beings, and I hate people like that"

Tom Lehrer

It's another day of bombing Lebanon by Israel. Death toll is now up to 60, and 2 Israelis have died from rocket attacks in the North by Hezbollah. Bush says that Israel is "defending itself from terorrists" and Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said Israel had every right to respond to the provocation in a "proportionate and measured way".

Excuse me - but since when is killing non-combatant civillians anything other than barbarism?

Perhaps Beckett and Bush are so inured their respective foreign policies ("we are going to steal your oil and drop cluster bombs on your crowded towns and cities") that the fact that 62 people who probably had better things to worry about than whatever bunch of corrupt religious fanatics were in charge have just been blown into mincemeat seems almost prosaic.

A writer in the Guardian notes that we shouldn't kid ourselves and that Israel is facing opponents who want it destroyed. That's true, but I'm less convinced about these "courageous moves that proved that Israel was willing to work with the international community and make compromises" . . . Israel's withdrawal from Gaza territories went hand-in-hand with a scorched earth policy . . . and it still kept up its area denial harrassment by shelling civillians. I'd be more convinced about these "courageous moves" if the Knesset still didn't have a hard-on for prosecuting the Israeli jet pilots who refused to attack civillian targets.

In fairness though, what nation isn't going to have a paranoid and over-aggressive military when its neighbours have this perverse notion that shredding people in cafes and restaurants is morally approvable?

The Middle East Options, then:

1. Kill eachother
2. Work something out.

The reason there is any speculation about the area is that all parties are saying (2) when they actually mean (1). Including Israel: you don't go firing flechette missiles at ambulances or sniping children if you're committed to peaceful relations.

So let's have a little honesty here: do we (and by "we" I mean "they") really want peace? Really? Honestly? Hand-on-your-heart and no lies to Allah or tetragrammaton or whatever?

Because, you know . . I suspect the answer is "no". One side has publicly said as much, but lacks the military capability to do so, the other has been a little more coy but using its superior war machine to try and get the job done on the sly.

So let's all be honest about killing one another because lying, after all, is a terrible sin.