Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Americans Being Forced To Sign Blank Promissary Notes To Be Evacuated From Lebanon

Americans who have been stranded in war-torn Lebanon have been grumbling for several days about the delay by the U.S. government in arranging for their evacuation.

European countries have been getting their citizens out more promptly.

It turns out that the evacuation of Americans--unlike the Europeans--is to be a remunerative operation.

Unlike the US, the British government is not charging its citizens for the evacuation. Americans in Beirut are complaining that they have been asked to sign forms agreeing in advance to pay unspecified sums to cover the cost of their evacuation. Some said they had been told they will not be allowed to use their passports again until they pay.

One of the prospective evacuees said on CBS Radio that he will be sending the bill to Israel.

It is likely that the delay in arranging transport for the stranded Americans was to allow time for a U.S. government contractor to sub-out the leasing of an appropriate cruise ship in order to turn a fast buck amidst the chaos of the hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.

Milo Minderbinder would have done the same thing.

7 Comments:

Blogger M1 said...

Swedish sea route evacuees are being singled out and stopped by Israel who refuse to grant them guarantees for safe passage.

Despite Raoul Wallenberg's efforts, Sweden is getting bitch-slapped for pulling out of air force exercises, that to the Swede's purported surprise, were to include Israeli participation. Swedish intel knew the Israeli's were up to something big and nigh upon us all and did not want to lend legitimacy to it by war gaming with Israel in the months preceding what now is obvious to all.

Raoul might have have been forgiven for believing his heroics be reciprocated by more than the gnarling and gnashing teeth of a dog gone rabid. Those poor victims of the Holocaust. First they were ravaged by the Nazis. Now these silenced souls are being exploited by a new crew of thugs in the perpetuation of greed, contorted psyches, and horrible death.

Shame upon you, Israel. And shame upon us. Nothing has been learned by the armed and able but how to exploit one great crime to further another.

7/18/2006 5:05 PM  
Blogger Effwit said...

M1:

Swedish sea route evacuees are being singled out and stopped by Israel who refuse to grant them guarantees for safe passage.

Nice.

BTW, the prime proponent of 4th Generation Warfare (Lind) is saying that Israel is going to lose this war.

"Given that Israel is unlikely to achieve its strategic objectives (the destruction of Hamas and Hezbollah). Lind suggests the result is likely to be an unprecedented defeat for the Jewish state, with implications that will be felt worldwide:

A powerful state will have suffered a new kind of defeat, again, a defeat across at least one international boundary and maybe two, depending on how one defines Gaza’s border. The balance between states and 4GW forces will be altered world-wide, and not to a trivial degree."


And also discusses what might happen if the war escalates:

"The key question, of course, is whether Israel will then proceed to fail upwards -- turning its frustrating cat and mouse game with Hezbollah into a more satisfying, if equally indecisive, air war against Syria or Iran. Lind paints the possible results of a war with Iran in apocalyptic terms, although more for the first 50 states than for the 51st:

If Israel does attack Iran, the “summer of 1914” analogy may play itself out, catastrophically for the United States. As I have warned many times, war with Iran (Iran has publicly stated it would regard an Israeli attack as an attack by the U.S. also) could easily cost America the army it now has deployed in Iraq. It would almost certainly send shock waves through an already fragile world economy, potentially bringing that house of cards down. A Bush administration that has sneered at “stability” could find out just how high the price of instability can be."

7/18/2006 5:28 PM  
Blogger M1 said...

Wholehearted agreement from this M1. And that's what unnerves moi cuz Israel will end up nuking the shit out of it's enemies. Scorched earth, so to say...and how ironic - first Hitler and soon the Jewish State. That, is my worry. I don't want dust in my wind.

7/19/2006 5:55 PM  
Blogger Effwit said...

M1:

Methinks that Israel will only use the nukes if their actual existance is in question. But you are probably right. It is clearly not unheard of to have Israel over-react to provocations.

The drumbeat from the vile neo-cons to take the war to Syria and Iran is a typical--albeit grossly reckless--response from the chickenhawk element. Their wild success in driving policy tells me that this will probably be the next act.

The big skirmish at Har Megiddo looms.

7/19/2006 7:03 PM  
Blogger M1 said...

For all my empathy for underdogs and my natural inclinations to despise injustices and search for subtextual clarity in newspeak, it's the radioactive winds that worry me - and as you pointed out, Israel can't win this one if it cascades too far and it's in that position of being cornered and swamped that they, IMO, will resort to nukiness.

I agree wholeheartedly with you that it won't happen until that squeeze is in. They too must worry about unfavourable winds.

7/20/2006 4:41 AM  
Blogger Effwit said...

M1:

I have plenty of empathy for underdogs too. But my immediate concern here is about the reactions of those who will violently act upon their empathy for the underdogs in this fight.

Such acts will spawn more reprisals--which will lead to even more reprisals, etc.

Blind idiot chaos may indeed blow Earth's dust away.

7/20/2006 8:24 AM  
Blogger Effwit said...

M1:

The Israelis definitely know the limitations of their position. There is no way that they can defeat a Hezbollah insurgency that has all the tools of--and near perfect conditions for--guerilla warfare. (Hizzy must have studied Mao Zedong on how to deal with the indigenous population).

That's what makes this whole thing so sinister. Israel's explanation of what they are doing makes no sense.

So there must be other motivations and goals.

And they are likely to involve the U.S.

7/20/2006 4:02 PM  

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