Thursday, July 20, 2006
Torn to shreds. posted by Richard Seymour
Your war crimes digest:
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The oleaginous hypocrite Shimon Peres (inexplicably called a "dove") reckons that it's all Iran's fault, evokes WWII, and claims "Hezbollah attacked us". How effective is Israel's PR machine? If you're a very, very close watcher of the news, then you know this is a crock, but if you're not, then from the media coverage - which continually repeats Israel's lie that it is retaliating - you could swallow any old shit. Example: yesterday, I was giving out leaflets for Saturday's antiwar demo, and asking people to sign petitions and what have you, and this middle-aged posh geezer stormed up to me and said "NO! NO! Israel should not stop until they stop attacking Israel!" I tried to make a contrary case, but as usual with people who temporarily develop the confidence to expostulate in the middle of the street, his courage dried up rather quickly and he ran off. I was crestfallen. There was, it has to be said, a lot more explicit anger about Israel's action - I suspect Saturday's demonstration could be very big indeed.
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Finally today, when the war broke out in the Middle East, the first thing I thought about was the old story of the frog and the scorpion who were trying to cross a river there. The scorpion couldn't swim, the frog was lost. So the scorpion proposed a deal, ‘Give me a ride on your back, and I'll show you the way.’ The frog agreed, and the trip went fine until they got to the middle of the river, and then suddenly the scorpion just stung the frog. As they were sinking, the frog asked, in his dying breath, ‘Why would you do that?’ To which the scorpion replied, ‘Because this is the Middle East.’
...
It is worth noting that the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip did not kidnap that Israeli soldier and provoke all of this because the Israelis were invading Gaza. No, all this happened in the wake of the Israeli withdrawal, which was what the Palestinians supposedly wanted. But this is the Middle East. Why would fundamentalists in Gaza and Lebanon choose to provoke this war at this time? There is no real answer except this is the Middle East.
8:18:00 am |
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