Actions and Words

The administration's words on the Israel/Lebannon/Hezbollah situation have not been clearly understandable. It isn't just the President who sounds like he's talking with his mouth full. But the New York Times provides us with a clearer indication of the administration's policy on the conflict.

WASHINGTON, July 21 — The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.

The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said. Its disclosure threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Iran’s efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah.

(That last sentence is a doozy of journalistic gymnastics. It's "the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign" (emphasis mine) that threatens to anger, not the actuality that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign? It's not that we're rushing arms to the Israelis that would anger Arabs, it's the moral equivalency with Iran? They're real sticklers on hypocrisy? What? Is this just bad writing, or was the reporter trying to softpedal our involvement by describing it as the "appearance" of active aid, as if it wasn't the very thing?)

In the debased rhetoric and political calculations of our Rovean world, an inordinate amount of time is spent worrying about 'messaging' and about how to spin things to make them appear other than they are. But if I were an innocent in Lebannon whose neighborhood was just hit by one of those rushed-over laser-guided bombs, I think it wouldn't be the appearance of US support that would bother me.

If we really didn't want Israel to keep fighting, we wouldn't be sending them the bombs to drop. But that's not the point, as Ms. Rice tells us:

What we're seeing here, in a sense, is the growing -- the birth pangs of a new Middle East and whatever we do we have to be certain that we're pushing forward to the new Middle East not going back to the old one.

This morning we hear that Condi has gone to Beirut. I'd like to think she was there to stop the fighting, but I think she just wants to be in the delivery room. I hope she brought her video camera.

(By the way, if you're wondering why the Secretary of State might have used an odd metaphor like "birth-pangs" to describe all the war and killing, you might want to check out Digby's post on coded language.)