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?