Salim el Hoss, former Prime Minister of Lebanon / The Daily Star – 2006-08-08 09:06:14
http://tinyurl.com/qw92o
Salim el Hoss, the former Lebanese Prime Minister, has sent an open letter to George W Bush as a counterweight to the mainstream Western media’s one-sided coverage of Israel’s war of aggression against Lebanon. The letter is followed by added links to five essays that further clarify the situation plus the situation. — Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D.
An Open Letter to the American President
Salim el Hoss, former Prime Minister of Lebanon / The Daily Star
BEIRUT, Lebanon (August 3, 2006)
Dear Mr. Bush,
We heard you express your regrets regarding the casualties inflicted by Israel’s ravaging war against my country, Lebanon.
I hope you have been furnished with a true profile of the atrocities being perpetrated in my country. You pose as being at war with terrorism. Let me honestly tell you: Charity starts at home.
“Israel” is wantonly indulging in the most horrendous forms of terrorism in Lebanon: indiscriminately killing innocent civilians at random; not sparing chiredn, elderly or handicapped people; demolishing buildings over their residents; heads; and destroying all ingrastructure, roads, bridges, water and power arteries, harbors, airstripts and storage facilities.
Nothing moving on the highways is spared, not even ambulances, trucks, trailers, cars or motorcycles, all in violation of the Geneva Conventions and universal human rights.
The displaced population has reached more than one-fourth of the total population of my country — all suffering the harshest and most miserable of conditions.
THE VICTIMS INCLUDE THOUSANDS OF KILLED AND MAIMED.
IF THIS IS NOT TERRORISM, WHAT IS?
“Israel’s” savage assault has been labeled retribution for Hizbullah’s abduction of two Israeli soldiers. This smacks of collective punishment, which constitutes a brazen violation of the Geneva Conventions and universal human rights.
Furthermore, their alibi is far from plausible. The two Israeli soldiers were abducted for the express purpose of negotiating a swap of hostages with “Israel”. In fact, “Israel” had acceded more than once to such swaps in the past.
Why would a swap of prisoners be acceptable at one time and taboo — indeed, a casus belli — at another?
This created a conviction among the Lebanese that the sweeping assault
against them was premeditated, and the abduction was only a tenuous excuse.
Israel is induling in terrorism at tis worst, at tis ugliest, using the most lethal and sophisticated weapons you have supplied them.
We, the Lebanese people, are justified in seeing in Israel a most atrocious terrorist power, and seeing in you a direct partner. Mr. President: You are indeed a terrorist, practicing the worst variant of terrorism as you condone the annihilation of my country, precluding a cease-fire to be announced, supporting the aggression against my people politically and diplomatically, and bolstering “Israel’s” destructive arsenal with the most lethal weaponry.
Mr. President: You are not fooling anybody with your alleged “war against terrorism.” In our perspective, you and Israel are the most unscruypulous sterrorists on Earth. If you really want to fight terrorism, we suggest that you start with your administyration and your hideous ally, Israel.
You repeatedly claim that Israel is acting in “self-defense.” How preposterous!
“Self-defense” by militarily invading and massively bombarding another people’s long-occupied territory is tantamount to one thing: blatant aggression.
You call Hizbullah a “terrorist organization.” We call it a legitimate resistance movement. There would have been no military wing of Hizbullah if there had been no Lebanese territory under Israeli occupation, if there had been no Lebanese hostages languishing in Israeli jails, and if Lebanon had not been exposed to “Israel’s” almost daily hostile intrusions into our airspace and territorial waters, and its sporadic incursions into Lebanese land and bombardment of Lebanese civilian targets.
You cannot eliminate a party by demolishing a whole country. This would have been achieved peacefully by Israel withdrawing from the land it illegally occupies, releasing Lebanese prisoners, and desisting from further acts of aggression against Lebanon.
Israel is the most horrendous terrorist power and you, Mr. President, are unmistakably a direct partner and, hence, a straight terroriest.
Resources:
• 1] Robert Fisk’s 8-7-06 CounterCurrents essay, “This Draft Shows Who Is
Running America’s Policy: Israel” [So the great and the good on the East River
laboured at the United Nations Security Council — and brought forth a lemon. You could almost hear the Lebanese groan at this UN draft resolution, a document of such bias and mendacity that a close Lebanese friend read carefully through it yesterday, cursed and uttered the immortal question: “Don’t these bastards learn anything from history?”]:
http://www.countercurrents.org/leb-fisk070806.htm
• [2] Bill Van Auken’s 8-7-06 CounterCurrents essay, “UN Resolution On Lebanon: Blueprint For Intensified War And Colonial Occupation” [The US-French
resolution that is to be voted on by the United Nations Security Council early this week represents an imperialist diktat to the people of Lebanon and an attempt by Washington to legitimize and consummate the geo-strategic goals pursued in the last month of US-Israeli war of aggression.]:
http://www.countercurrents.org/leb-auken070806.htm
ç[3] Rick Kelly’s 8-7-06 CounterCurrents essay, “Israel Tightens The Siege Of
Gaza” [While the world’s media has focused attention on Israel’s four-week
offensive in Lebanon, a no less ferocious Israeli assault is also underway in
Gaza.
The Palestinian territory’s 1.4 million residents have been subjected to an unrelenting Israeli military offensive, as well as an air, land, and sea
blockade which threatens a humanitarian catastrophe.]:
http://www.countercurrents.org/pa-kelly070806.htm
• [4] George Beres’ 8-7-06 CounterPunch essay, “A New Kind Of Religious
Bigotry: The War In Lebanon Exposes Strange Religious Bedfellows” [It’s a mistake to assume that Lebanon and Palestine are all Islamic.
More than 30 percent of Lebanon is Christian, virtually all of the Eastern Orthodox faith. While most of Palestine’s four million people are Islamic, 50,000 are Eastern Orthodox, 25,000 Roman Catholic, 25,000 Protestant, and 1,000 Armenian Orthodox. However, their is nothing benign about the contemporary mistreatment of these vulnerable Christian minorities at the hands of what they see as Western religion: American Christianity with a fundamentalist jaundice, and Judaism colored by Zionist extremism.]:
http://www.counterpunch.org/beres08072006.html
• [5] Dr. Michel Chossudovsky’s 7-22-06 Global Research essay, “The War In
Lebanon And The Battle For Oil” [The amoral leaders of the Anglo-American-Israeli Axis have never grasped the mind-boggling disutility of their great wars.
These leaders are intellectual adolescents, playing blood-for-oil war games on the world checkerboard, with no grasp of the fact they are toying with real civilizations, real masses of humanity, and real peoples’ lives. This must-read essay has great explanatory power, so don’t skip it if you want to understand what’s going on in the Middle East!]:
http://tinyurl.com/h5j8c
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We are stumbling toward WWIII because international law cannot restrain wars of aggression (i.e., state-sponsored terrorism).
We could go a long way toward curing the world’s ills if we would adopt the following principles.
1. All life is sacred and must be treated as such (this alone would eliminate
many of the world ills and protect the environment; derived from Buddhism,
Taoism and some indigenous peoples’ religions, such as Aboriginal Australians
and Native Americans).
2. Love every person and have reverence for every living thing (this provides
relational guidance; principally derived from Jesus’ agape love, Buddha’s compassion, and Mohammed’s charity).
3. Do good, harm no one, eschew war and other acts of evil (this provides
social guidance; derived from the Judeo-Christian “Golden Rule” and
Hindu-Buddhist “Karma”).
