LATEST NEWS FROM PERDANA GLOBAL PEACE ORGANISATION

LANGKAWI, July 29 (Bernama) — Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad Saturday urged countries in the world to stop using the US dollar in their international trade in order to pressure Washington to end its support for Israel’s savage attack on Lebanon.

He said the oppression and cruelty of Israel against the Lebanese and Palestinians would not end so long as the United States continued to support and give aid to the Jewish regime.

“Switching out of the US dollar to using other currencies such as the euro and yen or gold will somewhat weaken the US and put pressure on it,” he told reporters after visiting several development projects here.

He was asked to comment on the fierce land, sea and air bombardment of Lebanon in the past few weeks which had destroyed much of southern Lebanon and killed more than 600 Lebanese.

Dr Mahathir said Israel would not have dared to attack Lebanon without the financial and arms support given to it by America.

He said Israel was definitely wrong in attacking Lebanon but the bigger wrong was committed by the US in supporting the Israeli action.

“If the world is sincere in helping the Lebanese and Palestinians, they should reject the use of the dollar in international trade.

“When the demand for the dollar falls, America will be weakened and it will lack the ability to act as a bully in the global stage,” he said.

He said the suggestion to stop using the dollar in international trade would be difficult to implement because many countries relied on it and they were also afraid of offending the US.

Even the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) did not have the courage to take on the US because its members were divided in their stand, with some supporting the US while others were opposed.

“We cannot hope for OIC to do anything. Only when the Western world acts, then the OIC might follow suit,” he said.

Please check out this site and watch the videos.

News.com.au

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan today said he was “shocked” at Israel’s “apparently deliberate targeting” of a UN post in Lebanon, in which up to four UN observers were killed.

Mr Annan described the strike as a “co-ordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long established and clearly marked UN post.”
He said it took place “despite personal assurances given to me by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that UN positions would be spared Israeli fire.”

“Furthermore, General Alain Pelligrini, the UN Force Commander in south Lebanon, had been in repeated contact with Israeli officers throughout the day on Tuesday, stressing the need to protect that particular UN position from attack.

“I call on the Government of Israel to conduct a full investigation into this very disturbing incident and demand that any further attack on UN positions and personnel must stop.

“The names and nationalities of those killed are being withheld pending notification of their families. I extend sincere condolences to the families of our fallen peacekeepers.”

By Mike Whitney

07/19/06 “Information Clearing House” — – The most shocking thing about Israelā€™s assault on Lebanon is the dispassionate precision with which the bombardment has been carried out. From bridge to granary, from granary to power plant, from power plant to factory, from factory to mosque, from mosque to hospital, from hospital to apartment building; each decimated with the calm disdain of a surgeon removing a cancerous tumor. We get no sense of rage in Israelā€™s behavior, just the calculated savagery of men who see their duty as systematically decapitating an entire civilization and leaving it in ruins.

The destruction of Lebanon is the work of robots not men; unfeeling, remorseless bundles of skin and bone.

No one could have done what these men did in just seven days and be a part of the same human family as you and I.

So far, there is no indication that the captured Israeli soldiers have been hurt or mistreated. The leveling of a once-bustling and prosperous metropolis has been executed while the victims are still safely tucked away in some unknown hiding place. Thereā€™s no purpose for Israelā€™s rampage, the terms for release could have been negotiated in a ā€œprisoner swapā€ as they have many times before. The bombing is purely a gratuitous act of violence intended to destroy a nation that just recovered from 18 years of Israeli occupation. Now Lebanon has been returned to the Stone Age.

Why?

Have the soldiers been tortured or abused as they would have been in American or Israeli care?

I hope not. I hope they are being treated well. I hope they are set free and allowed to walk southward through the scattered-rubble and body parts so they can appreciate what their leaders have done in their names. I hope they are released so that Hezbollah can claim a moral victory over the forces of inhumanity and cynicism that have infected the seats of government in Tel Aviv and Washington.

Whatever chance there may have been for peace is gone now. We have to be realistic. The next generation of Muslims will despise us and everything we stand for. No capital or city will be safe. The US and Israel are sowing dragonā€™s teeth throughout the Middle East and their bloody harvest will come in the decades ahead. Cheney was right, this war could last 50 years and not end in our lifetime.

Lebanon was the last straw. It proves that everything Bin Laden said was true: ā€œThey have come to take your land and your resources; they have come to shame your women and disgrace your culture; they have come to humiliate you in front of your children and heap ignominy on your religion.ā€

Where was he wrong?

Author and writer Pepe Escobar said it best: ā€œThe effect of the Israeli bombing barrage will be to draw newer, thicker waves of moderate Muslims toward political-and radicalā€“Islam. The perception in the Arab street- as well as for most of the worldā€™s 1.4 billion Muslims-has been reinforced: the U.S./Israel axis seems to hold a license to kill Arabs with impunity.ā€ (Pepe Escobar, ā€œLeviathan Run Amokā€ Asia Times)

Escobarā€™s right. The lives of Muslims mean nothing. Theyā€™ve become the ā€œexpendableā€ people whose security simply doesnā€™t matter. Their wholesale slaughter appears regularly on the evening news while heart-wrenching stories are spun about the suffering of Israeli fathers and mothers who lost loved ones in retaliatory attacks.

Donā€™t Muslims have mothers and fathers? Is it so important to demonize them that they must be stripped of every trace of humanity including parents?

Where will these ā€œexpendableā€ people go as the worldā€™s resources continue to dry up and their homelands are increasingly besieged?

Indonesia, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Afghanistan; where will they all go? Will they be shunted off to refugee camps or live as prisoners in their own land; be shot like dogs or stand and fight until the end?

How many will chose to join the growing ranks of jihadis and resistance groups plotting and planning to strike back in any way they can? How many will figure that itā€™s better to die on your feet than live on your knees?

Lebanon has paved the way for a century of war. Itā€™s been ravaged and its people evacuated to settle scores with Hezbollah and create a buffer zone on Israelā€™s northern flank. The ruined lives are of no consequence. The city will be rebuilt by loans from the World Bank and IMF and the work will be contracted by Halliburton and Bechtel. Weā€™ve seen it all before; the utter destruction of a society so that it can be placed in the hands of the global corporatists. Lebanon will be no exception.

Now that Israelā€™s northern flank has been ā€œpacifiedā€ Olmert can turn his eyes eastward towards Damascus where the ophthalmologist Bashar Al-Assad will have to be toppled to secure pipeline routes from northern Iraq to Haifa. That way Israel will become a major player in this centuryā€™s resource wars and a leader in the region.

The geopolitical chess match is unfolding just as it was written years ago by neoconservatives who were dismissed at the time as radicals and lunatics. No one is laughing now. The 12 villagers who were massacred in Srifa yesterday by Israeli bombs arenā€™t laughing nor are the parents of the 11 children who were vaporized by an Israeli missile while taking a swim in a canal at Oasmia refugee camp.

This is the calculus of human misery; the deliberate killing of innocent people to achieve political objectives. It is no different than terrorism. Bush and Olmert are two men who have absolute confidence in the ability of violence to shape behavior. They are not concerned about the rivers of blood that feed their dreams. After all, those people are ā€œexpendable.ā€

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Information Clearing House has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Information ClearingHouse endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

Source: Information Clearing House

Tariq Ali

With US support, Israel is hoping to isolate and topple Syria by holding sway over Lebanon?

Thursday July 20, 2006

In his last interview - after the 1967 six-day war - the historian Isaac Deutscher, whose next-of-kin had died in the Nazi camps and whose surviving relations lived in Israel, said: “To justify or condone Israel’s wars against the Arabs is to render Israel a very bad service indeed and harm its own long-term interest.” Comparing Israel to Prussia, he issued a sombre warning: “The Germans have summed up their own experience in the bitter phrase ‘Man kann sich totseigen!’ ‘You can triumph yourself to death’.”

In Israel’s actions today we can detect many of the elements of hubris: an imperial arrogance, a distortion of reality, an awareness of its military superiority, the self-righteousness with which it wrecks the social infrastructure of weaker states, and a belief in its racial superiority. The loss of many civilian lives in Gaza and Lebanon matters less than the capture or death of a single Israeli soldier. In this, Israeli actions are validated by the US.

The offensive against Gaza is designed to destroy Hamas for daring to win an election. The “international community” stood by as Gaza suffered collective punishment. Dozens of innocents continue to die. This meant nothing to the G8 leaders. Nothing was done.

Israeli recklessness is always green-lighted by Washington. In this case, their interests coincide. They want to isolate and topple the Syrian regime by securing Lebanon as an Israeli-American protectorate on the Jordanian model. They argue this was the original design of the country. Contemporary Lebanon, it is true, still remains in large measure the artificial creation of French colonialism it was at the outset - a coastal band of Greater Syria sliced off from its hinterland by Paris to form a regional client dominated by a Maronite minority.

The country’s confessional chequerboard has never allowed an accurate census, for fear of revealing that a substantial Muslim - today perhaps even a Shia - majority is denied due representation in the political system. Sectarian tensions, over-determined by the plight of refugees from Palestine, exploded into civil war in the 1970s, providing for the entry of Syrian troops, with tacit US approval, and their establishment there - ostensibly as a buffer between the warring factions, and deterrent to an Israeli takeover, on the cards with the invasions of 1978 and 1982 (when Hizbullah did not exist).

The killing of Rafik Hariri provoked vast demonstrations by the middle class, demanding the expulsion of the Syrians, while western organisations arrived to assist the progress of a Cedar Revolution. Backed by threats from Washington and Paris, the momentum was sufficient to force a Syrian withdrawal and produce a weak government in Beirut.

But Lebanon’s factions remained spread-eagled. Hizbullah had not disarmed, and Syria has not fallen. Washington had taken a pawn, but the castle had still to be captured. I was in Beirut in May, when the Israeli army entered and killed two “terrorists” from a Palestinian splinter group. The latter responded with rockets. Israeli warplanes punished Hizbullah by dropping over 50 bombs on its villages and headquarters near the border. The latest Israeli offensive is designed to take the castle. Will it succeed? A protracted colonial war lies ahead, since Hizbullah, like Hamas, has mass support. It cannot be written off as a “terrorist” organisation. The Arab world sees its forces as freedom fighters resisting colonial occupation.

There are 9,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli gulags. That is why Israeli soldiers are captured. Prisoner exchanges have occurred as a result. To blame Syria and Iran for Israel’s latest offensive is frivolous. Until the question of Palestine is resolved and Iraq’s occupation ended, there will be no peace in the region. A “UN” force to deter Hizbullah, but not Israel, is a nonsensical notion.

tariq.ali3@btinternet.com

A demonstration against the Middle East war has been called by the Stop the War Coalition and others on Saturday

Wednesday July19th 2006- 8th day of attack
HELP LEBANON BY DONATING NOW!!!!
The Higher National Council of Relief:
Bank of Lebanon- Account number 411150067

The Lebanese Ministry of Finance set up two accounts for money donation:
Bank of Lebanon- account number 0/700362123 for Lebanese Pounds
Bank of Lebanon- account number 02700362123 for US dollars.

And the death toll increasesā€¦.At least 55 civilians were killed and scores wounded in a series of Israeli raids across Lebanon Wednesday in the deadliest day since the bombardment began one week ago. A total of 310 people, mostly civilians, have been killed and hundreds injured.
Another massacre! Twenty-one Lebanese civilians were killed and 30 others wounded in raids on the Southern village of Srifa, where 10 houses were destroyed. “Fighter-bombers and helicopters carried out a series of raids lasting two hours between 1:00 am and 3:00 am (22:00 GMT-midnight Tuesday) on the same sector in the centre of the village, part of which was completely destroyed,” one resident reported. Israeli gunboats also took part in the attack on the village.
Oops, wrong target! Israeli helicopters fired four rockets on a residential neighborhood of central Beirut- the first direct strikes in the heart of the Lebanese capital. The rockets hit a piece of water-bore drilling equipment in a parking lot behind a police station. They thought it were a missile launcher! (From the Lebanese daily newspaper www.dailystar.com.lb)

The United Nations human rights chief Louise Arbour said that the scale of killing in Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories could involve war crimes. “The scale of the killings in the region, and their predictability, could engage the personal criminal responsibility of those involved, particularly those in a position of command and control,” she said.

There are “serious questions” over Israel’s conduct in Lebanon said the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRD) on Wednesday, as civilians bear the brunt of the Jewish state’s strikes on Lebanon. “The high number of civilian casualties and the extent of damage to essential public infrastructure raise serious questions regarding respect for the principle of proportionality in the conduct of hostilities,” ICRC director of operations Pierre Kraehenbuehl told journalists at the organizationā€™s Geneva base. (From AFP)

Today was relatively quite compared to the seven previous days. This was because foreigners were evacuating from Lebanon and Israeli gave them space to finish that. Moreover, the European Union delegation headed by Xavier Solana met with the Israeli Prime Minister, who assured Solana that the official decision of the Israeli government is that the war against Lebanon will continue until the two soldiers captured by Hezbollah will be released. Today, Lebanese Prime Minister convened the diplomatic missions to Lebanon to launch an urgent appeal to the international community for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and assistance to our war ravaged Lebanon.

Warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe are on the rise, with 500,000 people displaced by the Israeli onslaught and blockade through air and sea.
Israeli Rabbis Claim: the Torah allows the assassination of women and children in Gaza and Lebanon (Al Arabiya new); the council of rabbis in occupied West Bank invited Israeli government to order the killing of the civilians in Lebanon and Gaza, referring to the Torah which they claim allows the killing of children and women during wartime. According to Saudi newspaper ā€œAl Riyadhā€ of Tuesday 18/7/2006, the seventh Israeli channel referred to the statement issued by the meeting of the rabbisā€™ council saying that every person who feels sorry for the Lebanese and children from Gaza is a person that looks at the Israeli children in a savage way. The statement asked the Israeli government to order the killing of the Lebanese and Palestinian civilians since they are allies of the enemy.

For more updates on what is happening in Lebanon, please check:

http://www.saveleb.org
http://inquisitor.com/NYDiary/
http://fromisraeltolebanon.info/
(the last website contains harsh photos)

Thursday July 20, 2006 at 11 am: the first civil society demonstration against Israeli War on Lebanon since the beginning of the attacks.

Bush ‘gave green light’ for limited attack, say Israeli and UK sources

Ewen MacAskill, Simon Tisdall and Patrick Wintour
Wednesday July 19, 2006

The US is giving Israel a window of a week to inflict maximum damage on Hizbullah before weighing in behind international calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon, according to British, European and Israeli sources.

The Bush administration, backed by Britain, has blocked efforts for an immediate halt to the fighting initiated at the UN security council, the G8 summit in St Petersburg and the European foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels.

“It’s clear the Americans have given the Israelis the green light. They [the Israeli attacks] will be allowed to go on longer, perhaps for another week,” a senior European official said yesterday. Diplomatic sources said there was a clear time limit, partly dictated by fears that a prolonged conflict could spin out of control.

US strategy in allowing Israel this freedom for a limited period has several objectives, one of which is delivering a slap to Iran and Syria, who Washington claims are directing Hizbullah and Hamas militants from behind the scenes.

George Bush last night said that he suspected Syria was trying to reassert its influence in Lebanon. Speaking in Washington, he said: “It’s in our interest for Syria to stay out of Lebanon and for this government in Lebanon to succeed and survive. The root cause of the problem is Hizbullah and that problem needs to be addressed.”

Tony Blair yesterday swung behind the US position that Israel need not end the bombing until Hizbullah hands over captured prisoners and ends its rocket attacks. During a Commons statement, he resisted backbench demands that he call for a ceasefire.

Echoing the US position, he told MPs: “Of course we all want violence to stop and stop immediately, but we recognise the only realistic way to achieve such a ceasefire is to address the underlying reasons why this violence has broken out.”

He also indicated it might take many months to agree the terms of a UN stabilisation force on the Lebanese border.
(more…)

Jonathan Cook, Electronic Lebanon, 19 July 2006

Israel has opened “windows” for the foreign powers to evacuate their terrified nationals from Lebanon. Obligingly, the foreign media have turned these “windows” into an opportunity to avert their gaze further from the death and destruction in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank.

On BBC World, for example, we have been following the progress of one 12-year-old British boy fleeing Beirut. When he observed that he was worried for the Lebanese family members he was leaving behind, reporter Clive Myrie noted his was a “very mature attitude”.

If only the BBC was demonstrating such maturity.

I have to keep reminding myself that this is BBC World, not its domestic news service. You would hardly know it watching the coverage of the past couple of days.

On Tuesday, when at least 35 Lebanese were killed — possibly many more as no one seems to know who is lying under the rubble or has been incinerated in their fleeing cars — we had the BBC’s Ben Brown in Beirut giving a blow-by-blow account of every facet of the evacuation of foreign nationals in general and British nationals in particular.

If anyone doubted the racism of our Western media, here it was proudly on display. The BBC apparently considers their Beirut reporter’s first duty to find out what meals HMS Gloucester’s chef will be preparing for the evacuees. Lebanese and Palestinian civilians die unnoticed by the Western media (though not by the Arab channels) while we learn of onboard sleeping arrangements on the ship bound for Cyprus.

Did we really need to hear a lengthy live speech from the commander of HMS Gloucester telling us how “delighted” he was to be in Beirut? With the long minutes of rolling news to fill this might have been justified had the other minutes been stuffed with reports from the areas where civilians are dying by the dozen each day. But such reports are the mean filling in the thick sandwich of the main story of the evacuees.

In the 4pm GMT broadcast, I watched 45 mins of coverage, most of it dedicated to “live” footage of the British warship’s arrival and the relieved faces of the Brits about to leave.

Even so, the BBC still managed to squeeze in other bits of reporting in the lulls in the drama of evacuation. At different points there was a interview from Tel Aviv with former Israeli cabinet minister Yossi Beilin and a live link-up between Ben Brown and Lyse Doucet in Haifa. She informed us of the “barrage” of 50 Katyushas that had landed on northern Israel that day, killing one man. Supportively, Ben Brown, added that there was “shock” at the death and destruction spread by Hizbullah’s rockets and opined that what the Israeli army was “really after” was Hizbullah’s long-range missiles.

So we had the BBC in Haifa and Beirut speaking with one voice — that of Israel.

Back in Beirut, Brown repeated with bafflement statements by the British ambassador that some British nationals preferred to stay put for the time being and would not be taking advantage of Israel’s “window”. It occurred to neither of them that many of these British nationals have loved ones in Beirut and may not want to leave them in the coming desperate hours.

Ben Brown also told us that it was “understandable” that the British evacuees were “pretty scared” because they were not accustomed to this kind of bombing. Not like, he added, war correspondents such as himself or the people of Beirut, who had grown used to such assaults.

The outrageous racism implicit in this comment was clear the moment one paused to consider its possible meanings. Did Brown mean that the Lebanese do not mind being bombed? Did he mean that Lebanese children understand from birth that it is their fate to be attacked by Israel, that they get used to the explosions around them? Did he mean that their parents are less terrified than a British mother and father by the thought that their family might be obliterated at any moment? Or did he mean that Lebanon’s civilians will not be as traumatised by their experiences as other human beings would be?

This is the racist subtext of the foreign media’s evacuations story. That once the foreigners have been moved to safety, we in the West can leave those who understand only the language violence — the Israeli army and, apparently, the whole population of Lebanon — to carry on with their unfinished business.

And we can be sure that this is exactly what will happen as soon as Israel’s “window” is shut. When the foreign powers no longer have even a small vested interest in the safety of Beirut, can we expect the coverage to improve? Don’t hold your breath.

Source: electronicintifada.net

Dear colleagues and friends over the world,

We are appealing to you today, as activists and loud voices in your country and the world alike, to take action within the capacities and resources available to you, to say NO and STOP to what is proving to be one of the most brutal, violent, and inhuman act of aggression and murder by Israel on Lebanon and its people.

Upon the sixth day of war attack by Israel on Lebanon, over 180 civilians,including children and elderly, have been killed. More than 26,000 of the Lebanese have been displaced and forced to leave their homes under the threats of Israeli aggression. Still the situation is continuously deteriorating, the military attacks escalating, and the death toll increasing.

Under these circumstances, we call upon you, in your capacities as activists and in the capacity of your organization as an active entity, to take action and refuse what we all agree is a direct violation of our right to life,protection, and security.

In Beirut and its surroundings, Lebanese civil society organizations, including non-governmental organizations and individual activists, are directing all their efforts to answer to the direct needs of displaced people. But also, we are working to spread the word about the reality of the severe situation on the grounds. A media center has been organized by several civil society organizations and is currently producing updated information about the situation in Lebanon under attack.

We at ANND have taken upon ourselves to disseminate this information to all our partners, colleagues, and friends around the world trusting that you will get the word out and spread the information. We suggest, if possible,that you take upon your self some of the following activities, which need not take much of your daily time, to help us stand up in refusal of this brutal attack on Lebanon, for the sake of all what we have been working on worldwide towards the enhancement of our rights as humans.
(more…)

By Philip Webster

WHAT Hezbollah is doing in Lebanon is ā€œshitā€, according to the most powerful man on the planet.

President Bushā€™s uncomplicated view of world events was laid bare yesterday when his unguarded conversation with Tony Blair at the end of the G8 morning session in St Petersburg was picked up by a microphone and broadcast around the world.

Thus we learnt that Mr Bush and Mr Blair get on so well that the President greets the Prime Minister as a mate with the words ā€œYo, Blair. How are you doinā€™?ā€

In ā€œBush and Blair unpluggedā€ we could also hear Mr Bushā€™s delight at being given a present, apparently a Burberry sweater, by his British friend and Mr Blairā€™s less than convincing claim that he had chosen it himself.

But on the issue of the moment, the Middle East conflagration, Mr Bush had a straightforward solution. ā€œThe thing is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and itā€™s over,ā€ he told Mr Blair. The ā€œtheyā€ was widely presumed to be Russia.

A transcipt of their exchange also reveals that Mr Blair volunteered for the task of going to the Middle East and taking the temperature.

Mr Bush tells him that Condoleezza Rice, his Secretary of State, will be going out to the region but that he has told her of Mr Blairā€™s offer. Mr Blair says: ā€œItā€™s only if she needs the ground prepared as it were. Because obviously if she goes out sheā€™s got to succeed, whereas I can go out and just talk.ā€ It emerged later that a trip by Mr Blair had not been ruled out.

So clipped and familiar were their exchanges that at times it was difficult to work out what or whom they were talking about.

Who, for example, is the man Mr Bush calls ā€œsweetā€ and Mr Blair calls ā€œhoneyā€? Mr Blair speaks of this mystery figure musing about Lebanon turning out fine, a solution being achieved in Israel and Palestine and Iraq going the right way.

At first the hot money was on it being Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary- General, but some believed that they meant President Assad of Syria. They were right, said officials: Mr Assad was the figure both leaders had in mind.

Asked what Mr Bush said when told his comments were overheard, White House spokesman Tony Snow said: “His reaction first was ‘What did I say?’, so we showed him the transcript, then he rolled his eyes and laughed.”

ā€˜Yo, Blair. How are you doinā€™?ā€™

Bush Yo, Blair. How are you doinā€™?
Blair Iā€™m just . . .
Bush Youā€™re leaving?
Blair No, no, no, not yet. On this trade thingy . . .(inaudible)
Bush Yeah, I told that to the man. Thanks for (inaudible) itā€™s awfully thoughtful of you.
Blair Itā€™s a pleasure.
Bush I know you picked it out yourself.
Blair Absolutely (inaudible).
Bush What about Kofi? (inaudible) His attitude to ceasefire and everything else . . . happens.
Blair Yeah, no I think the (inaudible) is really difficult. We canā€™t stop this unless you get this international business agreed.
Bush Yeah.
Blair I donā€™t know what you guys have talked about, but as I say I am perfectly happy to try and see what the lie of the land is, but you need that done quickly because otherwise it will spiral.
Bush I think Condi is going to go pretty soon.
Blair But thatā€™s, thatā€™s, thatā€™s all that matters. But if you . . . you see it will take some time to get that together.
Bush Yeah, yeah.
Blair But at least it gives people . . .
Bush Itā€™s a process, I agree. I told her your offer to . . .
Blair Well, itā€™s only if, I mean, you know. If sheā€™s got a, or if she needs the ground prepared, as it were. Because obviously if she goes out, sheā€™s got to succeed, if it were, whereas I can go out and just talk.
Bush You see, the thing is, what they need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and itā€™s over. (inaudible)
Blair Syria.
Bush Why?
Blair Because I think this is all part of the same thing.
Bush Yeah.
Blair What does he think? He thinks if Lebanon turns out fine, if we get a solution in Israel and Palestine, Iraq goes in the right way . . .
Bush Yeah, yeah, he is sweet.
Blair He is honey. And thatā€™s what the whole thing is about. Itā€™s the same with Iraq.
Bush I felt like telling Kofi to call, to get on the phone to Assad and make something happen.
Blair Yeah.
Bush We are not blaming the Lebanese Government.
Blair Is this . . .? (he taps the microphone in front of him and the sound is cut.)