Lebanon

Some years back I read Jared Diamond's excellent book Collapse. It covers a wide range of issues and locations in its analysis of the collapse of civilizations and draws parallels with modern soceity and past societies with the intent of finding ways in which our society can survive rather than collapse.

One of the most important points to me in the book was the critical role of forests in ANY society's economic well being and long term stability. A contrast between Haiti and the Dominican Republic dramatically showed the difference between a nation that was nearly completely deforested and one that preserved its forests. Preserving forests maintained soil productivity as well as protected fisheries that were downstream.

Global warming gives us added reason to be tree huggers. Trees are the most effective long term way of removing carbon from the atmosphere. Nothing else can do so much at such low cost. Combine their protection of the soil, water resources, downstream fisheries, etc. with their ability to sequester carbon, and preservation of forests and tree planting are about the best thing any of us can do to stabilize human society in the face of current challenges.

An area where this is most critical is one that is dear to my heart: the Middle East. I am a pro-Israel Jew. I am also pro-Palestine. But having read a great deal of history, I know that the existance of a Jewish nation is very important to me and to my children. Even the most welcoming of nations has turned anti-Semitic in the past, and so the well being of Israel seems to me kind of like an insurance policy for all Jews. It gives us a place where we can go if and when the nations that hold the diaspora turn on us...again.

I try to get my news from several sources, and that can lead to some interesting discoveries. It seems that in the early days of Israel's attack on Lebanon, Jacques Chirac wanted Israel to go into Syria as well. This is from Guysen Israel News:

Jacques Chirac had urged Israel to attack Syria in the first few days of the war in Lebanon. According to the army radio Galei Tsahal, the French president sent a message to Jerusalem, via a secret channel. He proposed that Israel launch an offensive against Damas and bring down the regime of Bashar al-Assad in exchange for total French support in the war. According to the message from Paris, Syria was held responsible for sparking the war on the northern border and encouraged Hizbollah to act. (Guysen.Isra×›l.News)

I have found no confirmation of this. Most of the coverage of Chirac's view of Israel's attack on Lebanaon is of his condemnation of Israel's "disproportionate actions," as in here:

President Jacques Chirac said Friday that Israel's military offensive against Lebanon is "totally disproportionate" and asked whether destroying Lebanon was not the ultimate goal.

However, he also said that rockets fired on Israel by Hezbollah and Hamas are "inadmissible, unacceptable and irresponsible."

Chirac implicitly suggested that Syria and Iran might be playing a role in the expanding crisis in the Middle East which, along with the Iranian nuclear issue, creates "a truly dangerous situation in which we must be very, very careful."

I wonder sometimes what this whole blogging thing really amounts to. You write your little posts, people agree or do not, and at the end of the day, maybe you make an impact, maybe not. Sometimes, however, blogs matter in ways that nobody seems to have thought of before, as in this case.

Some good news to come out of the current war in the Mideast is that there is an ongoing conversation between Lebanese and Israeli bloggers. This is probably the first time in human history that civilians on opposing sides in a cinflict can freely communicate, and nobody has any idea what effect this will have.

From the link above, perhaps the most astonishing blog I've ever come across:

The internet has also been offering some surreal experiences, like the ability to have a Beirut-Tel Aviv online IM chat in real time while the missiles are falling. That's what happened to me and this blogger a few nights ago. We chatted while he was sitting on the roof of his apartment building in Beirut, watching missiles from Israeli planes fall on his city and describing it to me. He was carrying on an online conversation with another Israeli at the same time. And he was able to describe his feelings and the atmosphere in a human, personal way that no newspaper article or television news segment could achieve.

Now, given that a critical part of any war is the dehumanization of the enemy, how is that going to work when all you have to do to look at the people on the other side is log on the internets?

Much to ponder, it seems.

I have been absolutely horrifed by how the world is decending into chaos, even as our great leader is giving unwanted massages to the German Chancellor, and how so few people can find the compassion and balance to sympathize with Israelis, Palestinians and Lebanese alike. Our world leaders, from Hamas to Kadima to Hezbollah to Bush, are failing. The result is death and chaos. The solution...just may be you and me and a thousand other regular people who care.

Sometime back I began a project that I called an Integrated, Grassroots Development project for East Africa. People responded well to it and one of the beneficiaries was Kiva.org whose efforts to generate microloans to small businesses originally in East Africa, now globally, were greatly aided by the blogsphere. Inspired by this I tried generating interest in a more global effort, which didn't get as much attention. I now want to apply my ideas regarding Integrated, Grassroots Development to the horrible situation in the Middle Easte. If not now, then when? If not us, then who? It is up to us.

For those paying attention, the current crisis in the Middle East is once again showing the true face of conservative government in all its ineptitude and squalor. The dazzling performance standards we all came to know and love during hurricane Katrina are on full, lavish display on the Levant.

First, the delayed reaction time. As MSNBC reported on Saturday, Americans in Lebanon, including students at Beirut's American University, were caught completely unprepared by the outbreak of hostilities. The reaction of the Department of State was to say, almost in as many words, that the 25,000 Americans in Lebanon were on their own.

"There aren't any ... reliable ways to get out by air, land or sea," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday. U.S. citizens are being told to "assess what is best for their own personal security."

Savor that for a second. You're trapped in a war zone, and the government says you're on your own. Does this principle sound at all familiar?

But as always, it gets better.

Cowboy diplomacy

Some points about these comments :

1. Bush does not know the correct use of the term 'ironic'.

2. He talks about Condoleeza Rice as if she knows exactly what do : You don't know if he talks about her as an expert in diplomacy or the woman that cleans after he's done crapping all over the world.

3. Bush believes the fighting will be over if Syria tells Hezbollah to stop picking fights with Israel?!?!?

4. Tony Blair is actually trying to have a dicussion about policy and diplomacy with Bush?

Oy.

[via YouTube - war]:

A lifetime ago, when I was a young and relatively carefree college student, I had an International Politics professor at New York University who non-chalantly declared that in 20 years time the United States would be fighting World War III and that it would not be in Europe and against Russia but in the heat of the dessert and against guerrillas in the Middle East.

I am notoriously bad with names --I guess because, if he had any, I didn't read any of books. Bertell Ollman's Alienation was a must given I was still a Marxist; but this guy (Silverman? Silverstein?) I blocked out of my mind but for his prediction. In a classroom filled with no neck jocks** that gushed over Ronald Reagan's hairdo, those words stuck with me like glue. The Berlin wall was 3 years away from being torn down, so the idea that a war of that magnitude could be waged in the Middle East and, even more incredibly, spearheaded by Israel .... well, let's just say I was young and naive.

It's happening.

When I was ready to publish this post, 24 hours ago, three major incidents had happened. In an alleged attempt to snuff out a senior Hamas activist (whatever that means), Israel dropped a missile in the middle of a residential area, killing 6 people, including 2 children. 48 hours before that report, Israel not only had bombed the residential area but they bombed Lebanon's airport by midnight EST and now, at 3:45 EST reports are coming in that they've also bombed the Palestinian foreign ministry in Gaza City.