Lebanon War Update

Just some updates and interesting links on the current war.

Hizballah use Human Shields (not exactly news, but this confirms what we know)

‘The IDF has found that Hizbullah is preventing civilians from leaving villages in southern Lebanon. Roadblocks have been set up outside some of the villages to prevent residents from leaving’

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Lebanese PM, Siniora, says world must help disarm Hizballah.

‘It's not a mystery that Hezbollah answers to the political agendas of Tehran and 'Damascus...The entire world must help us disarm Hezbollah. But first we need to reach a cease-fire’.

– Well, partially true but Hizballah aren’t going to disarm voluntarily so the only thing to do is engage them in battle while we can and try and wipe out as much of their arsenal as possible.

He continued...

‘The important thing now is to restore full Lebanese sovereignty in the south, dismantling any armed militia parallel to the national army...The Syrians are inside our home and we are still too weak to defend ourselves. The terrible memories of the civil war are still too alive and no one is ready to take up arms’.

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G8 statement blaming Hizballah and its supporters...

‘The root cause of the problems in the region is the absence of a comprehensive Middle East peace...The immediate crisis results from efforts by extremist forces to destabilize the region. These extremist elements and those that support them cannot be allowed to plunge the Middle East into chaos and provoke a wider chaos’.

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Interesting op-ed from the Daily Telegraph

‘Syria and Iran are all too happy to stoke the conflict, support Hizbollah, and fight Israel to the last Lebanese. Lebanon is burning, on the Golan Heights the ceasefire line with Syria is the quietest of Israel's borders’.

At risk of repeating the point made in a couple of previous posts, I'd just like to re-iterate what a poor decision is has been not to strike Syria. As pointed out in this op-ed, Syria and Iran are laughing. They've successfully stirred up a whole hornets nest, initiated a small scale war which they are at this very moment supporting, supplying and encouraging, diverted international pressure and resilience from Iran's nuclear programme and are frankly as snug as a bug in a rug. They have got off scott free. I can't help thinking that if we pounded Syria a bit Assad and his minions would have more incentive to tell Nasrallah (if he's still alive) to stop firing the rockets at the very least.

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See George Bush utter these immortal words - ‘See the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it’s over’

Navigate to this CNN page and hit the link in the third paragraph. The friends-shooting-the-breeze style of conversation is quite amusing and almost surreal as it’s two of the most powerful men in the world discussing the problem like the rest of us do. I like the kind of guilty expression on Bush's face after Blair turns the mic off at the end, as if he knows he's just been caught.