A Lebanese woman and her son walk past scores of Hezbollah flags and pictures of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut's southern suburb, Aug. 29. (AFP File Photo)

As the smoke clears from the battlefield of the 34-day war in Lebanon, it would be a mistake to count the cost only in fallen masonry and fresh graves. All is changed, changed utterly, by the defeat that the whole of Israel is now debating, from the Cabinet through the lively press to the embittered reservists at the falafel stall. Practically the only person in the world who claims Israel won the war is George Bush--and we all know his definition of the words “mission accomplished“.
The main--and maybe the most welcome--shift in the 40-year-old paradigm of the Israeli-Arab conflict is the puncturing of the belief in a permanent and unchallengeable Israeli military superiority over its neighbors and the hubris this has induced in Israeli leaders--from the sleek Shimon Peres through the roughhouse of Binyamin Netanyahu to the stumbling Mr. Magoo premiership of Ehud Olmert.
The myth of invincibility is a souffle that cannot rise twice. Over the past week I have picked my way through the rubble of Dahia in downtown Beirut, now resembling London’s East End at the height of the blitz, and across the south of Lebanon in towns such as Bint Jbeil whose centers look as if they have been hit by an earthquake. Here the litter of banned weapons lies like a legal time bomb--evidence of war crimes alleged by the UN and Amnesty International that in a genuine system of international justice would put Israel in the dock at The Hague. This, together with the beating Israel has received in international public opinion, is the collateral damage suffered alongside military humiliation.
Israel announced the capture of Bint Jbeil several times, but in truth it never held the town--or anywhere else for that matter--throughout the war. Despite raining down thousands of tons of high explosive on homes, schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, ambulances, UN posts, oil storage depots, electricity plants and virtually every petrol station south of Beirut (the bombers seemed to have a crazed thirst for petrol stations, while telling the world that they were kindly inviting the residents of south Lebanon to get into their cars and leave their homes for a little while), the Israelis were given a severe mauling by Hezbollah fighters when it came to boots on the ground.
Paradoxically, some believe that all this has blown open a window in which it is possible to glimpse the possibility of a comprehensive settlement of the near-century-old conflicts which lie behind the recent war. Now that the status quo ante has been swept away, we may even see an FW de Klerk moment emerge in Israel (and among its indispensable international backers).
The leader of the white tribes of apartheid South Africa waited until the critical mass of opposition threatened to overwhelm the position of the previously invincible minority, and sold the transfer of power on the basis that a settlement later, under more severe duress, would be less favorable. Israel’s trajectory is now heading toward such a moment.
A comprehensive settlement now would of course look much like it has for decades: Israeli withdrawal from land occupied in 1967; respect for the legal rights of Palestinian refugees to return; the emergence of a real Palestinian state with east Beit-ul-Moqaddas as its capital--a contiguous state with an Arab border, with no Zionist settlements and military roads, and with internationally guaranteed Palestinian control over its land, air, sea and water.
The Arab world is waking up to its potential power. It has seen the Iraqis confound Anglo-American efforts to recolonize their country, the unbreakability, whatever the cost, of the Palestinian resistance, and now the success of Hezbollah.
George Galloway
COMMONDREAMS.COM

In the world of mainstream media, there is always something “breaking.“ Who wants to hear about old news when there are so many new disasters to keep up with?
As a new hurricane threatens, the watch is on and reporters get out their storm gear. JonBenet is still getting massive coverage, and Tom Cruise is back in the news--always good for a story or three.
But there is one word missing, and that word is, class?
Iraq!
Watch the Katrina specials and see how many references there are to the Louisiana and Mississippi National Guards bringing “freedom“ to Iraq when they should have been helping with relief and rescue in their hometowns.
How many references will there be to the costs of the war compared to the costs of the monies allocated to reconstruction but not yet sent or spent?
One recent report placed the costs of the war at $1.75 billion per week. The cost of Iraq war calculator is set to reach $318.5 billion on Sept. 30, 2006. With the skyrocketing costs of the war in Iraq, worldwide military spending soared.
Wouldn’t you think that that alone would have our news media all over the story?
If you think that, think again.
Flashback to March 2003 and remember the 24-hour war-a-thon with round-the-clock coverage and all the war all the time. Remember all the “experts“ who told us how we were going to “go in and get it over with.“ Remember President Bush’s “Mission Accomplished“ speech. It felt so great to be American when we seemed to be winning.
And then look at most of our news reporting today. What do you see just three short years later?
Iraq has been reduced to a litany of bloody incidents and body counts. For many, it is both boring and hard to follow, and so they tune out. Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, terrorists, insurgents, private militias? Whatever happened to “us“ and “them?“ No wonder that when the JonBenet Ramsey story resurfaced the TV channels flocked to it like flies to a flame. When I worked for network TV, we had a term for stories we lost interest in. We would say, “Been there, done that!“
In the nation’s newsrooms, the triage has begun--with Iraq sounding more and more like something that happened long ago. Besides, covering Iraq is so dangerous.
Few reporters want to take so many risks for so little “face time“ on TV. And there are hardly any “positive“ stories to report--even though the conservative media keep beating the bushes for them.
Meanwhile, the death count rises with the Iraqi summer heat.
To read this whole sordid story in gripping black and white, check out Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber’s new book “The Best War Ever.“ It is filled with facts but reads like fiction because it’s hard to believe that Americans have put with this abysmal, disastrous failure. All the flag waving and 9/11 cheerleading can’t put this tragic Humpty Dumpty together again.
And part of the reason is that much of our media has been asleep at the switch, still taking President Bush’s and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s pronouncements at face value. Rumsfeld visited Baghdad last month and, with a straight face, talked about the “great progress“ made since last year. How many times can that broken, out-of-tune record be played?
Thankfully, it’s been several months since Vice President Cheney has re-declared that the insurgency is in its “last throes,“ and it appears that “winning the hearts and minds of ordinary Iraqis“ has been dropped from the official Whitehouse list of talking points.
Isn’t time for the networks to pull the plug on presidential press conferences and Bushian blather like they have on political party conventions? If there was ever a case for admitting the emperor has no clothes, this is it. Who in the press corps(e) will have the courage to turn their backs on the Rumsfeld Comedy Hour once and for all?
Now there are some media outlets beginning to draw these lessons and tell the truth. Now is the time for all good news consumers to come to the aid of their media and demand coverage and courage to stop the bloodletting and save what’s left of our national honor. We need to find the news that is there to be found and keep the Iraq war issue alive.
ZMAG.ORG

What is the International Monetary Fund for? It has reinvented itself once: its original role was guardian of the Bretton Woods system’s fixed exchange rates. It will have to do so again.
The Fund’s problems are partly that it is searching for a role and partly that it is searching for legitimacy. Those problems are connected. The Fund should be the lender of last resort in a crisis, and a trusted advisor bringing undoubted expertise and lessons learned across the globe. Yet those who might need to rely on it do not seem to trust it.
Asian governments seem determined to make the Fund irrelevant: if fiscal discipline is the Fund’s medicine, they have been overdosing. Their foreign exchange reserves now dwarf the Fund’s resources. This is a waste of their potential, but surely in part is a response to the feeling that they cannot necessarily rely on the Fund.
Improving the governance and the legitimacy of the IMF cannot be separated from making it more relevant. Reform should begin with a reweighting of IMF quotas to reflect the economic power of member states. Quotas determine the responsibility of each nation to deposit money with the Fund, the right to borrow cash when needed, and voting power.
The original quotas, carefully shaped by an arcane formula, now look absurd. Gallant little Belgium does not have a currency of its own but enjoys more votes than India and nearly as many as China. So far attention has been devoted to increasing Asia’s share of the votes to reflect its growing weight in the world economy. Rodrigo Rato, the IMF’s managing director, has been proposing a two-stage reform process that will begin by doling out a few extra votes to China, South Korea, Turkey and Mexico. That seems likely to be approved at the Fund’s annual meeting this month.
But more fundamental reform has to redefine the quota formula, allowing adjustment on a regular basis and taking voting power away from Europe, which is over represented in quotas and on the IMF’s board.
That looks unlikely. Europeans are unlikely to relinquish their votes willingly and those votes cannot be taken away by force. But quota reform is not a zero-sum game: the European stranglehold on the IMF is no use to them if it chokes the life out of the institution.
The Fund also needs to give its professional staff a freer rein, with less day-to-day interference from member countries’ executive directors. Without the perception that the Fund is giving the best possible advice, free from political influence, that advice is likely to fall on deaf ears.
That process could begin with a declaration that in future the top job will no longer be reserved for a European with an American deputy. Mr Rato benefited from that cosy arrangement. He must now defend interests wider than those that put him in place. FT.COM

A general view of makeshift shelters for newly-arrived internally displaced people at El Fasher Camp in northern Darfur, Sudan Aug. 27 (Reuters File Photo)

Another senior minister in the Sudanese government Friday expressed his strenuous opposition to any attempt by the UN to follow through a Security Council Resolution replacing the African Union peacekeepers in strife-torn Darfur with a 17,300-strong UN force. This is further evidence of the remarkable blind spot the Sudanese authorities have for the continuing tragedy in their western Darfur region.
Unfortunately, the Sudanese government is the architect of its own problems in Darfur, which have seriously damaged its international reputation and disappointed both friends and allies in the Arab world and beyond. An administration which had the wisdom and statesmanship to end the bloody 21-year rebellion in the south of the country seems incapable of deploying the same political savvy to a far less intractable problem in another part of the country.
The facts are simple. Three years ago, two rebel groups began attacks on government targets, claiming that their region was neglected by Khartoum. At the heart of the problem were long-standing disputes between Muslim farmers and largely nomadic Arab communities over grazing and water rights. The government’s response was to condone and arm local Arab militias to enforce their rule. Tragically these militias, known as the Janjaweed, went far further, beginning a reign of terror. In 2003 and 2004 alone, fighting among government forces, Janjaweed henchmen and other rebel factions are responsible for at least 180,000 deaths. The death toll could easily be into the hundreds of thousands, or even breach a million, before peace settles on the region. This could put the eventual death toll of Darfur on par with the 1994 Rwandan genocide, where 800,000 to a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred.
For the UN, the lesson from Rwanda was the need to respond faster and with greater force to break up the violence. Sadly, it appears that the Darfur crisis is being dealt with by all sides with the same lack of urgency that plunged Rwanda into a horrible bloodbath. The May Lagos peace deal brokered by the Nigerians was only signed by one of the rebel groups and there has since been fighting among the insurgents. The African Union force, woefully ill-equipped to deal with a range war covering a vast area, has been unable to enforce, let alone monitor a peace, either among the rebels themselves or against the Janjaweed.
The hard truth is that the UN Security Council would never have proposed its peacekeepers had the Sudanese government exerted proper control in this part of their country. Yet for almost two years the authorities have seemed unwilling or incapable of acting decisively to enforce the rule of law. The UN action has been prompted by humanitarian, not imperialist, ambitions. In threatening dire consequences for a peacekeeping intervention that could not happen without their approval, government ministers are merely underlining their failure. When you are in a hole, it is best to stop digging.
ARABNEWS.COM