Gyroscope

The fatwa by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Iraq in regard to the massacre at Qana (translation by Juan Cole). Cole believes this is an explicit warning that there will be consequences if there is not an immediate cease fire.

The scale of the tragedy that has befallen Lebanon is a result of the continuous Israeli attacks, which have reached the point where patience can no longer bear more. It is not possible to stand with folded hands before them. The international community must take the intitiative to impose an immediate ceasefire and to halt this horrific tragedy.

The Muslim world and all peace-loving people will not excuse the parties that put obstacles in the way of this. There will be severe consequences in the entire region.

Isrealie prime minister Olmert in Haaretz, taking a page from the Bush "if at first it blows up in your face, do the exact same thing only more so" playbook:

Olmert reiterated on Monday that Israel would continue its offensive until the arrival of an international stabilization force in Lebanon. "Israel is continuing to fight," Olmert told a mayors conference in Tel Aviv. "There is no cease-fire, and there will not be a cease-fire in the upcoming days."

Once again, only a humor blog (Whatever it is, I’m against it) noticed that the empress has only old Prada clothes:

So what is the Israeli government up to? Yesterday when the Israeli 48-hour aerial ceasefire was announced by Condi, it looked like she was being given credit she didn’t deserve. But less than an hour after she got on her plane and left, the prime minister and defense minister said, “Ceasefire? What ceasefire?”, resumed their bombing raids, and within a few hours the cabinet voted to expand the war. It looks very much like Condi was played. Did they really lie to her face about their intentions? Did they do so just to make her go away, thinking she’d accomplished something? And how can she return to the region now?

Two blowhards deny that civilians are really innocent, as posted on Whiskey Bar:

Rush Limbaugh: July 31, 2006 "Until civilians -- frankly, I'm not sure how many of them are actually just innocent little civilians running around versus active Hezbo types, particularly the men -- but until those civilians start paying a price for propping up these kinds of regimes, it's not going to end, folks. What do you mean, civilians start paying a price? I just ask you to consult history for the answer to that.”

Osama bin Laden March 1997 "We declared jihad against the US government, because the US government is unjust, criminal and tyrannical. It has committed acts that are extremely unjust, hideous and criminal . . . As for what you asked regarding the American people, they are not exonerated from responsibility, because they chose this government and voted for it despite their knowledge of its crimes in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and in other places."

This seems to be the new move by the crypto-fascists: to deny that Lebanese are really innocent. Alan Dershowitz made that argument earlier as well.

These differences and others are conflated within the increasingly meaningless word "civilian" — a word that carried great significance when uniformed armies fought other uniformed armies on battlefields far from civilian population centers. Today this same word equates the truly innocent with guilty accessories to terrorism. … The Israeli army has given well-publicized notice to civilians to leave those areas of southern Lebanon that have been turned into war zones. Those who voluntarily remain behind have become complicit. Some — those who cannot leave on their own — should be counted among the innocent victims.

So, if Osama warns us about another terrorist attack, then those who don’t leave would be guilty? Palestinians have warned Israel to leave either Palestine or Israel itself for years – so does that mean the Israelis are not totally innocent either? Hasn’t the Israeli population chosen governments that continue to occupy Palestine – and finance those governments – so are they now not totally innocent if they are killed in what people like me would call terrorist attacks?

Better to keep civilians innocent – those getting shelled by Hezbollah rockets and those buried under IDF bombs.