You have to appreciate the savage beauty of it. Israel has been continuing its offensive into Lebanon despite mounting international pressure for a ceasefire. Whatever implied moral high ground inherent for being motivated to rescue soldiers taken as hostages and/or kicking the crap out of terrorists now expended, the Israelis do the absolute last thing anyone expects them to do:
They call and raise.
Ehud Olmert, Israel's Prime Minister has said that the offensive will end as soon as a multi-national force arrives on Lebanon's southern border, the force's purpose being to disarm remaining Hezbollah terrorists.
Stand in wonderment at the crystaline beauty of what Olmert has done. They agree to bow to international pressure as soon as those nations agree to get off their collective ass and do what they have all kinda/sorta agreed to do: strike a blow in the war on terror, taking weapons away from those who clearly have them and insist on doing terroristy stuff with them.
And surprise surprise: the nations of the world are busy hemming and hawwing and generally not committing anyone to anything. They don't want to send troops in prior to having a ceasefire already in place. Or, more candidly, they appear not to want to risk troops in a fight having nothing to do with their own countries. Its almost like they suspect Hezbollah wouldn't just freely surrender their AK-47s and rocket propelled grenades to any passing non-jewish tourist who happened to ask for them.
Not that this has stopped international pressure on Israel to either cease offensive operations, or to find a way to reduce the number of civilian casualties. I guess the artillery shells and airplane-dropped munitions that only kill terrorists got lost in a warehouse someplace. Israel should have known better than proceding without them, I guess.
Back to the point. Israel has demonstrated their willingness to fight in the war on terror, regardless of cost. The nations of the world have visibly, tangibly, declined until doing so is safer. Yay, Nations of the World.
For what it's worth, I intend to write an e-mail to my MP and Prime Minister. If Israel wants a multi-national force to show up and take over the fight, I'm willing to volunteer to be the Canadian contingent of that force. Not because I favor either faction. But because it would hold the Israelis to their word, get them out of Lebanon, and possibly save some Lebanese civilian lives. And if at that time, wandering through the desert, someone should shoot me as I attempt to take weapons away from gangs of men who would use them indiscriminantly on other, Israeli civilians, and my death might somehow galvanize the western world (or at least the readers of this blog) to some sort of action where, despite some inevitable short-term conflict between armed forces and terrorst gangs, eventually there might be an easing of tensions and lasting peace between the peoples of Israel and Lebanon.
Mr. Olmert, I hereby volunteer. Send a car around to pick me up. I bet you weren't expecting that, were you, Ehud?
No comments:
Post a Comment