Office of the Independent Blogger

Britain is rightly breaking with the United States over the Israel-Lebanon War (citing Israel’s disproportionate and uncalled for assault of Lebanon) while Syria is sending a double-edged message: first, they’ve announced their desire to talk to us about a cease-fire in Lebanon; second, they’re threatening to intervene is Israel invades Lebanon. I’m not sure what to make of that threat, as Israel’s already invaded Lebanon. I think it’s diplomatic posturing aimed at keeping Israel in shallow Lebanon rather than deep inside it, although it’s clearly serious. I have no doubt that Syria would intervene if Israel went too far, and I think that “too far” isn’t that far off from Damascus. Iran, for its part, is saying that Israel has sealed its doom and should pack its bag and leave the Middle East before it’s too late. This is typical of Islamacist rhetoric — “You have ensured your downfall!” — but it should be taken as serious as Syria is.

All I can do, right now, is observe the world and jot notes, and from my point of view, we’re witnessing something that could lead to the most dramatic unraveling of peace since 1914. Before it gets too far, Condi Rice needs to work some magic, but before that can happen, George Bush needs to ask her to. I’m not so sure that his mission has been “End the conflict,” but it should be. Oh, I wish I were a fly on the wall in the White House Situation Room right now, because I wonder how many members of the Administration are telling Bush that Syria would never intervene, or that, if they did, it wouldn’t amount to much because Israel’s strong. I’d like to know who is telling Bush to let Israel fight it out, because “a show of force” can “send a message” better than words can. Of course, I suspect that everyone in the Cabinet is giving him the wrong advice, and he’s taking it happily. We’ll see what happens, but for now, I’ve got a couple other things to talk about.

The independent investigation into Chicago Police Torture in the 1980s (I mentioned it weeks ago, here) ended, and you can read about the report here. No one is going to be prosecuted, unfortunately, and I’m confident that it’ll never happen again on anything resembling a widespread basis (as Illinois has laws that are effective at preventing it, namely mandatory videotaping of interrogations) but it’s important to note what happened, and I’m glad that the Chicago Reader brought the matter to my attention before it became big news. Similarly, I’m thankful for their latest feature story about recycling in Chicago, and it’s a good read about what works and what doesn’t. I recommend it.

Now, about Stem-Cells: a Congresswoman is calling Bush’s veto of it “cynical” and claimed it’s a political motivation. While I’m sure that didn’t hurt him when he took it into consideration, I know he genuinely opposes the measure. That is the problem!

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 23rd, 2006 at 2:43 pm and is filed under Outside Retort (Current Affairs).