Bush's Enemy du Jour

By Marjorie Cohn, AlterNet. Posted August 1, 2006.

On television broadcasts, the word "Hezbollah" is seldom mentioned in a sentence unaccompanied by the word "terrorist." Commentators speculate about whether al Qaida or Hezbollah is a worse threat to the United States. Richard L. Armitage, deputy secretary of state during Bush's first term, has said Hezbollah might be "the A-team of terrorists," and that "Al Qaida is actually the B-team." Former CIA agent Robert Baer admits there is no evidence Hezbollah is operating in the United States, but in response to questioning by a Fox News anchor, speculates that Hezbollah "could" attack on U.S. soil.

Hezbollah is George W. Bush's enemy du jour. Although suspected of complicity in the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jet, Hezbollah denies ever attacking anyone outside of Lebanon and Israel. The group, which comprises the Shiite brand of Islam, doesn't even attack other sects inside Lebanon. Its leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah claims Hezbollah is "like Jesus," citing the group's 2000 action in Lebanon, where Hezbollah did not take vengeance within Lebanon.

There is overwhelming support for Hezbollah in Lebanon. According to a poll by the Beirut Center for Research and Information, 87 percent of Lebanese support Hezbollah's fight with Israel. The level of support for Hezbollah is high among non-Shiite communities; 80 percent of Christians, 80 percent of Druze and 89 percent of Sunnis polled support Hezbollah.

These numbers are likely to rise in the wake of Israel's bombing of Qana yesterday, which killed over 60 civilians, mostly children. Thousands in the Middle East have taken to the streets, outraged at the carnage.

Unlike Osama bin Laden, who targets pro-Western Arab countries, Nasrallah tells Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan to just stay neutral in this conflict. In a televised speech on Saturday, Nasrallah said, "The Israelis are ready to halt aggression because they are afraid of the unknown. The one pushing for the continuation of the aggression is the U.S. administration. Israel has been exposed as a slave of the U.S."

Noam Chomsky says we should always call it the "American-Israeli destruction of Lebanon." Although he thinks Israel started with proportional force as in the past, the United States began pushing its one-sided view of the conflict at the G-8 summit. Bush reportedly told Israel: "You can't stop now; you're acting for all of us."

That was a green light for Israel, acting on orders from the United States. If not, why is so much attention focused on Condoleezza Rice's every move? Because her boss is in charge of this war.

While the rest of the world calls for an immediate ceasefire, Bush-Rice's excuses just don't wash. They blame Iran and Syria. They say they want a "sustainable" ceasefire to build "a New Middle East."

Bush started his dangerous folly in another Middle Eastern country; the former "central war on terror:" Iraq. Bush has created such a disaster there that many Iraqis who hated Saddam Hussein wish he were still in power.

According to a United Nations report, 14,338 civilians died violently in Iraq in the first six months of this year. That tally is based on figures from the Iraqi Ministry of Health and Baghdad's central morgue. An average of more than 100 Iraqi civilians were killed per day last month, the U.N. reported. The overwhelming majority of the casualties in recent months took place in Baghdad. The report said, "Civilians are reported to be severely affected by heavy MNF (Multi-National Force) bombing."

Samuel W. Bodman, the U.S. energy secretary, must've had his rosy-colored glasses on when he recently met with Iraq's oil and electricity ministers in Baghdad. "The situation seems far more stable than when I was here two or three years ago. The security seems better, people are more relaxed. There is an optimism, at least among the people I talked to," he said cheerfully. Of course, Bodman gave his interview from the heavily fortified Green Zone, the only place in Iraq other than the Kurdish north that has any security at all.

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild, and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists.

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