[WCUSP] Editorial: US Policy in Lebanon

[Kate Zaidan]

The Daily Star

America has another opportunity to show goodwill toward Lebanon
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&article_id=79164&categ_id=17

Friday, February 02, 2007

Editorial

The same US administration that was so publicly enamoured with Lebanon's 
Democratic Spring in 2005 may soon demonstrate yet again that it is 
colluding in the murder of Lebanese civilians. According to a 
preliminary report prepared by the US State Department, Israel likely 
violated arms agreements with the United States when it littered 
civilian areas in Lebanon with American-made cluster bombs last summer. 
But every indication suggests that the US will not take a firm stand 
against a crime that has killed or maimed nearly 200 Lebanese civilians.

There ought to be no need to even question whether Israel's 
well-documented use of the weapons was unlawful and morally 
reprehensible. Nearly half of the weapons failed to explode on impact, 
and an estimated 1 million bomblets still litter streets, homes and 
orchards in South Lebanon. Human Rights Watch has stated that Israel's 
use of cluster munitions in civilian areas in South Lebanon was the most 
extensive the organization had seen anywhere in the world since the 1991 
Gulf war and has urged "an immediate cutoff of all US cluster munitions 
sales to Israel."

Yet Israeli officials openly admit that while they expect a mild and 
private chiding from the US government over the use of the weapons, they 
do not foresee a harsh public response. They, like all people from the 
region, are aware that the US tends to blindly back Israel's practices - 
no matter how barbaric or inhumane. Any professed "support" for Lebanon 
will inevitably be trumped by an ironclad and unwavering commitment to 
the Jewish state.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb

This is not to say that the US administration has done nothing to help 
Lebanon. It recently promised the country a hefty financial aid package 
of $770 million at the Paris III donors conference. However, nearly 
two-thirds of the money that the US has pledged is being donated for 
military, security and peacekeeping purposes - i.e. activities related 
in one way or another to securing Israel's border. The meager $5.5 
million donated by the US for clearing mines and cluster bombs will not 
even cover a fraction of the cost of ridding South Lebanon of unexploded 
US-made munitions.

The current US administration has often professed its support for 
Lebanon, but President George W. Bush lacks the moral fortitude of his 
predecessor Ronald Reagan, who in 1982 banned the sale of cluster 
munitions to Israel for six years after a congressional investigation 
found that the Israeli military had misused the weapons during its war 
on Lebanon that year.

What Lebanon needs from the US more than financial backing or empty 
words of friendship is genuine political support. The Bush 
administration has had numerous opportunities to demonstrate goodwill 
toward Lebanon by taking a firm stand on issues such as daily Israeli 
overflights of Lebanon and the status of Shebaa Farms, or by assisting - 
instead of blocking - efforts to secure a cease-fire during the summer 
conflict. The issue of cluster bombs represents yet another one of those 
opportunities that Bush and his administration will likely miss.

-- 
Kate Zaidan
Program Coordinator
The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
1213 Race Street
Philadelphia, PA  19107
215-563-7110 [ph]
215-563-5527 [fx]
www.wilpf.org

Never have the armies of the North brought peace, prosperity, or democracy to the peoples of Asia, Africa, or Latin America. In the future, as in the past five centuries, they can only bring to these peoples further servitude, the exploitation of their labor, the expropriation of their riches, and the denial of their rights. It is of the utmost importance that the progressive forces of the West understand this.

— Samir Amin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samir_Amin