Tonight's questions

In the midst of the ever-intensifying Lebanon-Israel catastrophe:

* Why does Bush think that the whole rest of the planet calling for an immediate cease-fire is wrong and he is right?

* Why won't Bush talk directly with Iran and Syria?

* How is placing an international force just inside Lebanon going to stop Hezbollah's rocketing of Israel when Hezbollah today fired off a rocket that went 30 miles into Israel? (Hmm, fire them over their heads--very complicated tactic indeed.) And since we have seen a triple increment in rocket trajectory just in the last few weeks, how far into Israel will the next iteration reach?

* With their Iraq-debacle credibility blown to smithereens, how can the Neo-cons have the bloody gall to foster attacking Iran and/or Syria? (Answer: they are nuts.)

* With Israelis and Lebanese living in basement bomb shelters and the raging civil war in Iraq killing 100 civilians a day, did Bush expect the world would not scratch its head when he posed today with the grinning celebrities of American Idol? (No, I haven't watched the program, but I hear they garner more voters than our national elections. Ye gods.)

This is civilization?

Three rich, interconnected religious traditions, ancient philosophers and modern scientists, astounding global communications, all the miracles of modern medicine, and yes, the lessons of history.

So where have we arrived with all this help?

Gazing at this dangerously warming and ecologically devastated planet, we can zoom in on the lands that those three religions call holy. Israelis flee south, another Israeli dies. Lebanese flee north, 10 Lebanese die. Politicians argue over the timing of a cease-fire, and more children are buried, sometimes in mass graves. Three quarters of a million people are suddenly homeless.

In Baghdad, people kill one another in the name of God at a rate of 100 victims a day. (Tell me again, how did this all start?) Distant politicians argue about whether Iraq is already in civil war. (Everybody else knows it already is.)

Back in the capital of the Empire, a president makes a fool of himself, still delivering proclamations of great achievement in front of an eye-rolling world. In the halls of Congress, way too many are worried about stroking the lobbyists and bringing home the pork. Schools rot, teens drop out, jobs ship out, health coverage runs out, bridges and roads deteriorate--and the elegantly-suited illegitimate sons of Paul Revere cry out, "The gays are coming! The Mexicans are coming! The flag burners are coming! The Rapture is coming!"

Civilization. Right. Now pass the Prilosec.

Call the whole region Hell

Only a horrendous mess like Lebanon could distract us from this week's not-very-much-reported downturn in Iraq.

Nobody can minimize the horror sufffered by Israelis when rockets continue to come down from the sky. But at the same time, Lebanon looks like a country falling apart. About an hour ago, I learned on the news that Israel had gone beyond bombing Hezbollah's TV station and was blowing up the general telephone and TV structure of the country. A bit later I saw footage of a nursery in a hospital, abandoned because a bomb had exploded next door. Then there was a picture of a vacated hospital bed with the remnants of a blown out window on it. The number of displaced Lebanese is now nearing a million people. I just cannnot see how all of this can be called anything but collective punishment.

Seeing the heaps of rubble on both sides of the dividing line, I am surprised that the casualty numbers are not much higher: the Lebanese death toll of the last eleven days has just passed 350, and 34 Israelis have been killed--15 of them civilians killed by Hezbollah rockets.

In the meantime, while Condoleezza Rice is taking her own sweet time, the New York Times has cited US officials saying the US is rushing a delivery of satellite and laser-guided bombs to Israel.

Once again the circle of violence is spinning out of control and with it the circle of insanity. Why can't the three monotheistic religions born in that region become one voice crying out in the desert for sanity and a just peace?

Reverse evolution?

The big US media right now can find no room for the genocidal rape and murder in Darfur or the massive starvation in North Korea. We are all focused--I suspect with universal near-despair--on Lebanon, Israel, Syria and Iran (minus the Iranian nuke element.) Even the latest massacres in Iraq and the chaos in Gaza have been back page stuff in the last two days.

In the midst of these latest "holy land" horrors--with rockets bringing terror from the north and bombers bringing terror from the south--one has to desperately ask where the hell we are devolving to (literally.)

But wait, my sisters and brothers in encroaching global depression. There is yet more madness to observe, right here at home.

The Neocon satraps of quasi-President Cheney--scorned by just about everybody until they got hold of the puppet strings of young King George in the first days of his reign--apparently have not learned anything from the Iraq morass into which they dragged us. It seems that at least some of them, like ex-CIA honcho Woolsey and imperial scribe William Kristol, now want to do a re-run of Iraq and attack Syria and/or Iran.

Insanity of insanities. And all things Neocon are insanity.

Middle Eastern Lament

As I write this, it is morning in the Middle East, and the latest warfare continues to rage from Gaza to Israel to Lebanon, with Iran and Syria barely in the shadows. It seems to me impossible to summarize this seemingly eternal mess. But at least a few observations:

* When Bush had to stop extemporizing about WMDs in Iraq, he turned up the volume on his grandiose dream of bringing about democracy in the whole region.
* Elections have happened there. In Iran, the result was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president. He has denied that the Holocaust ever took place and has said he wants to see Israel destroyed. And then there is the Iranian nuclear standoff...
* The much-touted election in Lebanon gave substantial slots to Hezbollah, which operates a militia in Lebanon that is much more powerful than the Lebanese army. Now, while Israel bombards southern Lebanon and Beirut, Hezbollah is firing longer range missiles into Israel and threatening all out war. (Hezbollah gets about $100,000,000 a year from Iran, along with thousands of rockets.)
* In Gaza the election put Hamas in charge. Their incursion into Israel brought fire down even on the impoverished Palestinians' infrastructure.
* Now Shiite Hezbollah and Sunni Hamas have turned from their mutual antipathy and formed a coalition.
* Despair is not an option. But it is sure a big temptation.

Bushworld, ever weirder

Homeland what?

Anybody over the age of five who has been driven around San Diego, California, in any kind of a vehicle with windows knows that that beautiful city and its shoreline are about 101% military. But Homeland Security has removed San Diego from the list of places feared to be targets of terrorism.

The potential targets HLS does list include a petting zoo, a "Mule Day" parade and a popcorn factory.

Full disclosure: this is not a joke, folks. Real stuff from the real zoo in Washington, D.C. (with humble apologies to the more intelligent species inhabiting traditional zoos.)

Morphing Cowboy?

CNN online has just posted a summary of Time's current cover story (Time.com). Here is how the article starts:

"All the good feeling at the White House at President Bush's early birthday party on July 4 couldn't hide the fact that the president finds himself in a world of hurt. A grinding and unpopular war in Iraq, a growing insurgency in Afghanistan, an impasse over Iran's nuclear ambitions, brewing war between Israel and the Palestinians -- the litany of global crises would test the fortitude of any president, let alone a second-termer with an approval rating mired in Warren Harding territory. And there's no relief in sight."

But the article proceeds to give credit to Condoleezza Rice for transforming Bush from ideological cowboy into realistic diplomat. Well, it seems the princess has indeed kissed the frog and something has happened, at least in Bushspeak. In the near term we shall see how much the Bushpolitik actually transforms. In a sense, one can still say it is never too late.

But in any case, Bush's Iraq war and occupation remain the heart of the matter, and we have to ask how much of the ghastly damage he and his cabal have done there is redeemable.

How can so many be so duped so long?

Tonight I received an email piece about US citizens who still believe the Rovian verbiage that has come out of the mouth of George W. Bush for the last five and a half years. Due to a particular colloquialism used in each and every paragraph, I'm not about to go a-quoting on this venerable page. But the question at hand is one that most of the world has been asking since the Bush cabal started its announcing and pronouncing: Why do people with actual brains believe all the baloney? Why oh why oh why?

Maybe it is because they are in sync with the distractions the Rove machine is contantly stirring into the pot. To quote a G-rated sentence from the above-mentioned article, the Bushites ardently believe that in order to have blind obedience to their imperial nostrums, "We should be talking about homosexual illegal immigrants burning flags."

That and The Rapture.

In the meantime, it seems that a great number of Americans still believe that Iraq was involved with 9/11, that there really were WMDs there (Is that you, Senator Santorum?), that al Qaeda is "on the run" (even after Bin Laden immediately appointed a successor to the dead Zarqawi), that there is not a civil war in Iraq, that "we are winning the war on terror," that -- the latest doozy -- Bush is "solving global warming."

Duped to the max? Duh.

And they call it religion

In the current issue of The Week, editor-in-chief William Falk quotes Bill McCartney, co-founder of the evangelical group Promise Keepers: "Our whole purpose is to hasten the End Times." Falk writes that McCartney is "doing his part by trying to convert mass numbers of Jews to Christianity as quickly as possible. Those who fail to heed Christ's message, McCartney warns, are 'toast.' Iran's alarming prresident, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is just as eager to see infidels turned to toast. Within two years, he says, the Mahdi, the last of the Propet Mohammed's heirs, will return to Tehran, ushering in a bloody, cataclysmic confrontation with the non-Muslim world."

Falk points out that crackpots have been predicting the end of the world for thousands of years, but "it really now is possible for some true believer like Ahmadinejad to make radioactive toast of large portions of the human race. Even in our own, enlightened nation, 40 percent of the population believes the End Times are nigh, according to several polls... If a bloody cataclysm in Israel is all part of a vengefujl God's grand plan, why bother trying to negotiate a peace? Why not welcome a global religious war between Christianity and Islam? Strange questions for a species that's come so far over the past two millennia, and yet has not."

I think that, if the number of adherents to these apocalyptic visions continues to grow wildly, religion itself is going to be toast.