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Dobbs:
Americans Not so smart when it comes to the Middle East
From
CNN |
July 21, 2006
By Lou Dobbs
NEW YORK (CNN) -- We Americans like to think
we're a pretty smart people, even when evidence to the contrary is
overwhelming. And nowhere is that evidence more overwhelming than in the
Middle East. History in the Middle East is everything, and we Americans
seem to learn nothing from it.
President Harry Truman took about 20 minutes
to recognize the state of Israel when it declared independence in 1948.
Since then, more than 58 years of war, terrorism and blood-letting have
led to the events of the past week.
Even now, as Katyusha rockets rain down on
northern Israel and Israeli fighter jets blast Hezbollah targets in
southern Lebanon, we simultaneously decry radical Islamist terrorism and
Israel's lack of restraint in defending itself.
And the U.S. government, which wants no part
of a cease-fire until Israel is given every opportunity to rescue its
kidnapped soldiers and destroy as many Hezbollah and Hezbollah armaments
as possible, urges caution in the interest of preserving a nascent and
fragile democratic government in Lebanon. Could we be more conflicted?
While the United States provides about $2.5
billion in military and economic aid to Israel each year, U.S. aid to
Lebanon amounts to no more than $40 million. This despite the fact that
the per capita GDP of Israel is among the highest in the world at
$24,600, nearly four times as high as Lebanon's GDP per capita of
$6,200.
Lebanon's lack of wealth is matched by the
Palestinians -- three out of every four Palestinians live below the
poverty line. Yet the vast majority of our giving in the region flows to
Israel. This kind of geopolitical inconsistency and shortsightedness has
contributed to the Arab-Israeli conflict that the Western world seems
content to allow to perpetuate endlessly.
After a week of escalating violence, around
two dozen Israelis and roughly 200 Lebanese have died. That has been
sufficient bloodshed for United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and
British Prime Minister Tony Blair to join in the call for an
international security force, ignoring the fact that a U.N. force is
already in Southern Lebanon, having failed to secure the border against
Hezbollah's incursions and attacks and the murder and kidnapping of
Israeli soldiers.
As our airwaves fill with images and sounds
of exploding Hezbollah rockets and Israeli bombs, this seven-day
conflict has completely displaced from our view another war in which 10
Americans and more than 300 Iraqis have died during the same week. And
it is a conflict now of more than three years duration that has claimed
almost 15,000 lives so far this year alone.
An estimated 50,000 Iraqis and more than
2,500 American troops have been killed since the insurgency began in
March of 2003, which by some estimates is more than the number of dead
on both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict over the past 58 years of
wars and intifadas.
Yet we have seen no rescue ships moving up
the Euphrates for Iraqis who are dying in their streets, markets and
mosques each day. French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has not
leaped to Baghdad as he did Beirut. And there are no meetings of the
Arab League, and no U.S. diplomacy with Egypt, Syria and Jordan directed
at ending the Iraqi conflict.
In the Middle East, where is our sense of
proportion? Where is our sense of perspective? Where is our sense of
decency? And, finally, just how smart are we?
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