US to give Israel another week for attacks: paper (Haaretz)

[norml]

US to give Israel another week for attacks: paper

Sat Jul 22, 2006 10:34pm ET

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli officials believe they have approval from the United States to keep up attacks on Hizbollah guerrillas in Lebanon for at least another week, an Israeli newspaper said on Sunday.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is due to leave for the Middle East on Sunday for talks on resolving the crisis, but Israel's main ally has resisted growing calls for a ceasefire.

"Senior officials believe Israel has an American nod to continue operations against Hizbollah at least until next Sunday," the Haaretz newspaper said on its Web site.

U.S. officials in Israel were not immediately available for comment on the report.

Israel's onslaught in Lebanon to cripple Hizbollah, after the group abducted two soldiers from Israel on July 12, has claimed 355 lives, mostly civilians. Hizbollah attacks and rockets have killed 34 Israelis.


snip


http://today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-07-23T023434Z_01_L23270458_RTRUKOC_0_US-MIDEAST-US-OFFENSIVE.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsHome-C1-topNews-5

[iconoclastic cat]

1. It will be another week after that, and so forth.

And then the bombing of Syria and Iran will begin.

[journalist3072]

2. Is Israel the 52nd state?

It seems to me that we have two more states added to our union: Iraq and Israel.

[IndianaGreen]

3. Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on September 28, 1939.

The invasion of Poland began on September 1, 1939, on the pretext that Poland had attacked Germany!

[partylessinOhio]

4. All those against ceasefire should rot in hell, without shoes.

[ThsMchneKilsFascists]

5. how benevolent

Any mention of how many innocents the US feels comfortable in having maimed or killed in the ensuing week, or is that a blank check item at this point? :sarcasm:

[mom cat]

22. Judging from Iraq and Vietnam, the sky is the limit on civilian

casualties. Onw minute of a war crime is too much!

[ixion]

6. pathetic and barbaric

really. We sink lower every day. :-(

[Monkeyman]

7. Smart bombs are on the way any ???? WHY A WEEK

[rodeodance]

8. This whole thing is becoming so surreal!!

[lostnfound]

13. It IS surreal. This 'give it a week' approach

is reminding me of something creepy that I can't quite put my finger on.

Like the "rule of thumb"..
Or like a punishment where a person in jail is labelled "fair game" for an hour to other prisoners..


Either the attack on Lebanon is justified, and the Bush administration should say that Israel is defending its sovereignty;
OR
the attack on Lebanon is not justified, and the Bush administration should unequivocably state opposition to it.

Giving Israel an artificial timetable is just bizarre.

[Sterling]

23. agree war is not a half ass undertaking like Bushco seems to think.

You are either threatened and have to fight for your survival or you should not be at war. If you are at war you have to fight with everything you have. This Vietnam style warfare seems to be real popular with the big money players that run our colonial wars like a business, not a struggle for survival.

[HuffleClaw]

9. an utter disgrace

i guess they are STILL doing their best to provoke syria and iran. funny how they can't bring themselves to actually attacking syria though. i guess attacking syria outright would destroy the myth that israel is the victim in this mess.

[daleo]

10. Hezzbollah wont' be crushed

They, or a group with a new name will come back after a while. It's like Afghanistan or Iraq - military force can keep the occupied country unstable and militarily nonthreatening, but it can't actually enforce stability in the way the occupier desires ("regime change"). But the military forces the occupier has to use to keep the other country militarily impotent get taken out of the game too. So, I don't know if the occupying power really gains much.

Look at the U.S. - Saddam's "threat" has been canceled, but a huge proportion of the U.S.'s military is tied up doing it. The result is that it can't project much power or threat in other regions, and its civilian population goes begging (New Orleans).

Israel has the same problem with Lebanon. It can occupy, but at the price of the call-up of tens of thousands of conscripts and the expenditure of billions of dollars.

[confludemocrat]

11. not buyin it: Olmert is the real Commander-in-Chief, NOT Bush

plus he gets 100% acquiescence from both Repubs and Dems on whatever he wants to do, how do ya like that? He does what he fuckin well pleases, calls the shots. How else do you explain the mess there.

[Pachamama]

12. How thoughtful of the Bush Administration! Give Israel another week to

annihilate Lebanon and send it back into the dark age....

Guess that is the new strategy of the "War on Terror"....pre-emtively invade countries (all in the name of "defending oneself" and flatten and destroy them completely and call it "Mission Accomplished"....and then never leave....

:applause:

[Eugene]

14. Reuters: Israel to move more troops into S.Lebanon: radio

Israel to move more troops into S.Lebanon: radio

Jul 23, 2006 — JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel will move more troops into southern Lebanon
on Sunday as it presses an offensive to drive Hizbollah guerrillas away from the border,
Army Radio said.

This would amount to a broadening of ground operations just inside the border, Army Radio
said.

The army declined to comment on the report, but said forces were continuing to carry out
"pinpoint" operations at specific locations close to the Israeli border in southern Lebanon.

<snip>

Full article: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2225481

[Ghost Dog]

15. News & pictures from on the ground are often available

at Indymedia Cyprus, in English here: http://english-cyprus.indymedia.org/

[AngryOldDem]

16. Another week, then what? n/t

[w4rma]

17. Burning as the Republican leadership fiddle. (nt)

[leftchick]

18. and all of the middle east knows this

we give winks and nods to Israel's reign of terror. :puke:

[saigon68]

19. Winks and lots of New Bombs are on the way

And a few of these too.

[leftchick]

20. yes indeed

:(

[Henny Penny]

21. If Israeli ground forces go into Lebanon there will be big trouble.

"Syria, blamed by the United States for stoking the conflict, warned that if Israel invaded Lebanon it would have no choice but to respond.

"If Israel makes a land entry into Lebanon, they can get to within 20 kilometres (12 miles) of Damascus," Information Minister Moshen Bilal told the Spanish newspaper ABC.

"What will we do? Stand by with our arms folded? Absolutely not. Without any doubt Syria will intervene in the conflict."

Israel, which has called up thousands of reserve soldiers and massed its troops on the border, seized control of the strategic town of Marun Al-Ras on Saturday after sending tanks, bulldozers and armoured cars rolling across the border."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060723/ts_afp/mideastconflict