Former US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, is “damned proud” of the fact that he was instrumental in blocking ceasefire resolutions at the UN during the 2006 Israel war with Hezbollah.
Bolton captures the arrogance and total hypocrisy of the Bush war on terrorism. In a meeting last August, Bolton “implied that because Lebanon harbored Hezbollah, Lebanese lives were forfeit,” according to a UN official who heard Bolton commenting in meetings at the time.
As far as Bolton is concerned, the innocents were a justifiable expense in the name of destroying Hezbollah. This is the language and logic of ethnic cleansing, of blind nationalism, of firebombing Dresden and Tokyo. This is the same man that even with a Republican majority in the Senate, was unable to secure enough votes to confirm him for the post of UN Ambassador, which is why George Bush was forced to appoint him as a recesses appointment.
Bolton shares the sentiment with a famous academic, famous for advocating torture. Those familiar with Alan Dershowitz would be aware that whatever is good for Israel, goes. Period. War crimes, civilians slaughtered, torture, you name it.
During the conflict, Dershowitz argued that Lebanese civilians were legitimate targets because Hezbollah are Lebanese nationalists who live in Lebanon.
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.
How compassionate of him. Those who are bed bound or incapacitated are blessed by Deshowitz, but as luck would have it, they still have to die.
Of course the Nazis argued that all of the Jews they killed in Russia during WW2 were really partisans. If I remember correctly, the Germans tried this line of reasoning in trying to explain why they killed so many Frenchmen during their occupation – they were Resistance sympathisers, not civilians.
Bolton and Dershowitz should know that that argument didn’t work then, and it won’t work now.… They have lost both their minds and their soul.