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July 25, 2006

Tony Snow, mindless drone

Tony Snow at yesterday's news conference

"At the order of the president, humanitarian supplies will start arriving in Lebanon tomorrow by helicopter and by ship," Snow announced at the White House.

...

Asked why the aid has taken two weeks to deliver, Snow said, "The fact is, that we're first to the scene."

The fact is, to borrow Tony's own phraseology, the Swiss were "first to the scene" with humanitarian aid.

Kevin Sites reports that a ship chartered by a French NGO (Premiere Urgence) to deliver the Swiss aid arrived yesterday morning in Tyre, Lebanon. By Tony's own stated timeline the American aid won't arrive until today. And the aid isn't expected to reach southern Lebanon, which is where Tyre is located, until tomorrow.

Snow's later comments, on behalf of President Bush, about Lebanon were what really caught my attention.

"Look, we would like a cease-fire tomorrow," he said. "We would like a cease-fire immediately. But it has to be a cease-fire that is going to stand the test of time so the people in that region and people in Lebanon particular, a country that has been hard hit by occupying forces and by frustrations of its democratic aspirations, deserve a shot at having the freedom and democracy its people deserve. And the only way that's going to be possible is if there is no longer an internal threat of the sort that we've witnessed in recent weeks." (emphasis supplied)

While I know that Tony was talking about Lebanon there, I was struck by the sentence in bold because it describes the Occupied Territories in Palestine perfectly. And it underscores the hypocrisy of both the Bush administration and of the Israeli government.

Tony's boss, George W. Bush, is the one who insisted that the PLO-controlled Palestinian Authority hold new elections to foster democracy. And Tony's boss is also the one who insisted that Hamas ought to participate as candidates in the election. They did and look what happened? The Palestinian people have been punished because they took President Bush at his word. No sooner had Hamas won the election under conditions explicitly condoned by Bush then Bush turned around and cut off all aid, citing the fact that Hamas had won and encouraged every other country to do the same.

And they wonder why the violence rages on in the region?

Posted by Kevin at July 25, 2006 10:24 AM