Some thoughts...

When are our leaders going to realize that until there is a fundamental change in our foreign policy, our reputation in the Middle East is not going to get any better? Our history in the region is already riddled with dark spots, from the ousting of the democratically-elected Iranian PM Mossadeq, to over thirty years of vetoing international calls in the U.N. to end the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory, our ventures are already looked upon with suspicion. But one does not need to turn to this long and dark history to realize that we are not only fueling the fire that heats the cauldron of fanaticism, but we are adding new ingredients into the pot every day.

The world laughed at our attempts to manufacture a war in Iraq, knowing full well that our reports on 'weapons of mass destruction' were fabricated and our diplomatic attempts nothing but a performance to allow us to say that we tried. Once we realized that the WMD-line would no longer serve our purposes we cried "freedom" and "democracy," proclaiming new aims for the region while we massaged the feet of the Saudis, the most corrupt regime of them all. But, the orgy of cries for democracy were silenced when we cut off aid to the Palestinians for electing Hamas. After four years in which the peace-process had been ignored by our leaders, leaving the Israelis to redeploy the occupation of Gaza such that it became a walled-in prison, barred from access to neighboring countries, the Palestinian people, 1/3 of whom are Christian and another large segment who are simply secular, voted Hamas' political wing--which had become increasingly removed from it's military wing--in a symbolic gesture to protest the occupation. Non-plussed, our leaders decided to ignore the situation, demanding that all international banks cut ties to Palestine, leaving the Palestinian population to suffer another humanitarian crisis. Meanwhile, at home the Bush administration reminded the world of the hypocrisy of our stated aims by refusing to accept the Geneva Conventions, instead placing as the head of our Federal government's law-enforcement agency an Attorney General who called them "quaint" and "obsolete."

Today, after 17 days in which the Lebanese civilian population have faced the absolute demolition of their country as a result of the Israeli response to the actions of Hezbollah, our leaders are again defying the international community by allowing the destruction to continue. This has become the hallmark of our foreign policy, to disengage when negotiations would be difficult, and to unilaterally bomb countries into submission when we are determined to have our way.