Think of them. Are they going to forget their experience? Will they grow up forgiving those responsible for the deaths and devastation ? Are they going to love those who were responsible?
When we consider what is happening in Lebanon we must not forget the role of the United States and Britain in not only supporting the Israeli actions but also supplying them with the means to continue the massacre of civilians. Some of the images of the casualties depict the horrendous effects of weapons used. Now there is talk of financial aid to rebuild Lebanon and the Lebanese army! The neocons have the gift of erasing their memory; they don't remember Iraq. After destroying their country and killing hundreds of (perhaps thousands before the shooting stops) they expect the Lebanese to roll over and follow their bidding because they offer financial aid.
Traumatised and afraid - 300,000 children who want to go homeBy Anne Penketh and Kim SenguptaThe Independent,UKPublished: 04 August 2006
- "I don't want to die. I want to go to school," says Jamal, a four-year-old Lebanese boy scarred by the Israeli bombing of his country. Home for Jamal is now a "displacement centre" in the southern town of Jezzine, where his family fled in fear for their lives.
- "We've had our picnic, and we want to go home now," says another child,staying in a makeshift refugee camp in the Sanayeh public gardens in Beirut. "We are bored and afraid and we want to go home," says another.
- These are the voices of the dispossessed of Lebanon, the hundreds of thousands of children whose world was changed forever in the seconds that followed the explosion of a bomb. "Mummy, what is a massacre?" another child asks.
- About 300,000 Lebanese children have been displaced by Israel's three-week war against Hizbollah - a third of the number of people who have abandoned their homes. In many cases they were ordered out by Israeli army leaflets. They are living in open-air camps, like the one in the Beirut park, or in schools, where many sought refuge. Many children have been housed with host families - in the port of Sidon, 48km (30 miles) south of the capital, 40 per cent of the 22,700 children in temporary accommodation are doing so. The rest are in displacement centres.
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- On August 3rd, Reuters reported: "BEIRUT - Israel's military appears to have deliberately bombed civilians in Lebanon and some of its strikes constitute war crimes, U.S.-based rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday.
- HRW said Israel's contention that Hizbollah fighters were hiding among Lebanese civilians did not justify its "systematic failure" to distinguish between civilians and combatants."
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Democrats Smelling Blood In The WaterYes, there are signs that the conservatives have problems. Their past is catching up with them. Hubris vanquished is always cause to rejoice. E.J. Dionne writes in the
Post: "Is conservatism finished?"
- What might have seemed an absurd question less than two years ago is now one of the most important issues in American politics. The question is being asked -- mostly quietly but occasionally publicly -- by conservatives themselves as they survey the wreckage of their hopes, and as their champions in the Republican Party use any means necessary to survive this fall's elections.
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# posted by musafir @ 9:11 AM
