billmon's latest-- excellent-- "The Portmanteau Resolution...." [View All]

[mike_c]

Posted for scarletwoman, who cited it in this thread but asked me to post to GD: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2438740 Mods, move if appropriate, but this should be timely enough to meet at least the spirit of the GD requirements.

This is an excellent essay discussing the brand spanking new U.N. resolution crafted by the U.S. and French ambassadors, an unholy alliance if ever there was one :-).

Article link: http://billmon.org/archives/002638.html

An excerpt:

(snip)

An immediate ceasefire in place, without preconditions, is what the French and the rest of the world have been begging for since the war started, while Bush and his British butler have been holding out for a "comprehensive" or "lasting" ceasefire with many preconditions, including the disarming of Hezbollah and extension of Lebanese government authority and Lebanese army control to southern Lebanon.

The first part of the resolution contains none of these supposedly indispensable conditions. It appears to call quite clearly for an immediate cessation of hostilities on both sides -- although with slightly different phrasing applied to each. It's not clear to me whether this word play is simply a fig leaf to try to obscure the fact that the resolution essentially treats Hizbullah as a legitimate combatant, or whether it's some sort of loophole designed to allow the IDF to continue its "offensive operations" while the Israelis and the Cheney administration pretend that they've been halted.

(snip)

The unnamed spinner is, of course, correct: the resolution does not call for an "immediate cessation of violence," it calls for a "full cessation of hostilities based upon . . . the immediate cessation of . . . attacks offensive operations." I'll leave it to the UN resolution freaks to determine whether there is any material difference between the two. I suspect there is not, except in terms of Israel's wounded pride.

But words can only go so far to salve those wounds. Obviously, a ceasefire that leaves Hizbollah unbeaten and defiant after nearly a month of fighting would constitute an unprecedented defeat for the Jewish state -- particularly in light of the Olmert government's original Hizbullah delendo est rhetoric. And so the second part of the resolution -- the slimy part of "slithy" -- constitutes a bid to recoup at the United Nations what could not be won on the battlefield. It calls on Israel and "Lebanon" (Hizbullah is now neatly expunged from the picture) to support a "permanent" ceasefire and a "long-term solution"....

much more@link