Israel Invades Lebanon 2006: Was It Cheney's Practice Drill for Iran?

Remember 2006, when Israeli bombers decimated the Beirut airport, along with a significant number of innocent civilians - men, women, children, the elderly - while Condi Rice played Head Cheerleader? Remember the news coverage that wept at an Israeli woman's shattered nerves and dented car, but barely managed a quick pan of the human debacle, the decimated infrastructure, the wailing mothers, the dead children, that was on the ground in Lebanon? Remember how Hezbollah brought the Mighty Israeli Military Machine of Legends Past to its knees? Remember how the Middle East saw Nasrallah as a hero conquering the oppressors who kill thousands because of two?

No wonder the U.S. was whistling Dixie and looking in the other direction... it was their idea! With friends like that.... what was Israel thinking??? And guess who was the sinister mastermind behind the carnage? Who else? The ominous Dick Cheney...well, sort of, as an enabler.

Adding to the growing list of war crimes committed by Dick Cheney is a report by Sy Hersh that Cheney actually planned the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon. He also considers it "a prelude to a potential American preemptive attack" on Iran. Ominous times, these...

In the days after Hezbollah crossed from Lebanon into Israel, on July 12th, to kidnap two soldiers, triggering an Israeli air attack on Lebanon and a full-scale war, the Bush Administration seemed strangely passive.

Glad to hear someone of Sy Hersh's stature noticed!

The Bush Administration ... was closely involved in the planning of Israel’s retaliatory attacks.President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced, current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials told me, that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah’s heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel’s security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American preëmptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations, some of which are also buried deep underground.

According to Hersh, a middle east expert stated:

“The White House was more focussed on stripping Hezbollah of its missiles, because, if there was to be a military option against Iran’s nuclear facilities, it had to get rid of the weapons that Hezbollah could use in a potential retaliation at Israel. Bush wanted both. Bush was going after Iran, as part of the Axis of Evil, and its nuclear sites, and he was interested in going after Hezbollah as part of his interest in democratization, with Lebanon as one of the crown jewels of Middle East democracy.”

Note the pattern: YOU WILL BE A DEMOCRACY. But not until we demolish you first! It's crush and convert, the new Holy War, a right-wing "love-fest", sort of like their own Woodstock, except instead of rapes and orgies with women, they assault whole nations, especially middle eastern nations, whom they learned they can call "terrorist" and get away with murder... literally! Instead of drugs, they have Rovespeak, always the perfect way to disconnect reality and "turn on, tune out, drop the opposition off", preferably at the morgue.

A Pentagon consultant said that the Bush White House “has been agitating for some time to find a reason for a preëmptive blow against Hezbollah.” He added, “It was our intent to have Hezbollah diminished, and now we have someone else doing it.”

And who else but Israel could do it? Not that Israel minded being the "workhorse" for Bushco's military designs, of course. Now, to be fair to ol' Cheney, the idea to bomb Lebanon was Israel's brainchild, and they actively pursued U.S. involvement. And they were also pretty cool with the idea of bombing Iran, an idea both parties cling to (along with their guns, presumably) to this very day. In spite of all evidence that both ideas are really bad news:

According to Richard Armitage, who served as Deputy Secretary of State in Bush’s first term—and who, in 2002, said that Hezbollah “may be the A team of terrorists”...If the most dominant military force in the region—the Israel Defense Forces—can’t pacify a country like Lebanon, with a population of four million, you should think carefully about taking that template to Iran, with strategic depth and a population of seventy million,” Armitage said. “The only thing that the bombing has achieved so far is to unite the population against the Israelis.”

Yes, it succeeded to unite the population - Shi'a, of course, but also Sunni, Christian, Druze, and others - against Israel, and in a sense, also the United States, whose pretend non-chalant "Infrastructure? What infrastructure? Civilians? What civilians? Invasion? what invasion?" didn't exactly win friends. Except among the Saudi royals and their ilk, and apparently among Sunni anti-Shia extremists in - who else? - Al-Qaeda. Both of them were remarkably friendly and sympathetic with the U.S.-Israeli invasion of Lebanon, as were their websites and spokespersons. Guess it's times like these that let you know who your real friends are.

Cheney’s point, the former senior intelligence official said, was “What if the Israelis execute their part of this first, and it’s really successful? It’d be great. We can learn what to do in Iran by watching what the Israelis do in Lebanon.”

Yes, Cheney may not have come up with the idea of invading Lebanon, but he was one of its most passionate cheerleaders. Same is true of the always almost-impending invasion - and an air war against Iran IS an invasion - of Iran. Let's hope he's far, far away from the Oval Office before that debacle and its horrendous consequences could ever get off the ground.

Isn't it time to bury Cheney's crazy, security-bashing ideas and elect someone who won't "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran"???