The bombing halt

Laura Rozen has been following the Israel-Lebanon war closely at her War and Piece blog, with many links.  She reported on the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, and she's done a lot of work on intelligence issues.  So she knows what to look for.

She's cautioning us not to read too much into the 48-hour bombing pause.  As of her post of 07/30/06, it wasn't even clear how much of Lebanon - or which parts - it was supposed to cover.  In her reading, the Cheney-Bush administration actually pushed for whatever bombing halt there is:

What is interesting: all the signs are that it was Washington that pressured Israel into suspending air strikes in certain areas. That it was described as being in order to allow an investigation into what happened at Qana seems a way to call it anything else but a temporary partial ceasefire. One that there is hardly a word directly from Israel to explain. State did very little to disguise that Israel's agreement to suspend air operations was written hastily on State Department stationery. What's the suggested subtext? I'm just guessing but it seems Rice may genuinely be disturbed that her repeated calls for restraint to avoid civilian casualties were not heeded, and Israel is not happy about what it has been asked to agree to.

I don't want to give any of the administration's senior officials too much credit for normal sensibilities.  They seem to be too much caught up in group think and self-delusion to assume too much humanity on their part.  But it does seem to me at least possible that Condi-Condi, an African-American who is a native of Birmingham, Alabama, may have had a flicker of genuine concern about the civilian casualties in Qana.  Maybe, just maybe, some image of those three little girls killed in Birmingham in their church bombed by some Klan scum occurred to her in connection with the Qana deaths.

Like I said, I don't expect much from this crowd in the way of common humanity or legality.  So even that may be giving her too much credit.

Rozen's reading of the positioning of the US and Israel the last few days is not encouraging at all.  As she sees it, the US has been eager to have Israel deliver a major setback to Hizbullah.  And the Cheney-Bush administration is getting upset with the Israelis for not having delivered militarily.

After the adminstration's performance against the Iraqi insurgency, it's strange to say the least to think of them berating the Israelis for not making more progress against Lebanese Hizbullah.