The Middle East II: View From Baghdad

River, who blogs at Baghdad Burning, awoke to televised images of corpses being hauled from the wreckage from the Israeli air strike in Qana, Lebanon and assumed it was Iraq.

She writes that:

Although the sun is blinding this time of year in our part of the world, the Middle East is seeing some of its darkest days . . .

I just sat there and cried in front of the television. I didn’t know I could still feel that sort of sorrow towards what has become a daily reality for Iraqis. It’s not Iraq but it might as well be: It’s civilians under lethal attack; it’s a country fighting occupation.

I’m so frustrated I can’t think straight. I’m full of rage against Israel, the US, Britain, Iran and most of Europe. The world is going to go to hell for standing by and allowing the massacre of innocents. For God’s sake, 34 children??? The UN is beyond useless. They’ve gone from a union of nations working for the good of the world (if they ever were even that), to a bunch of gravediggers. They’re only good for digging mangled bodies out of the ruins of buildings and helping to identify and put them into mass graves. They won’t stop a massacre- they won’t even speak out against it- they’ll just come by and help clean up the mess. Are the lives of Arabs worth so little? If this had happened in the US or UK or France or China, somebody would already have dropped a nuclear bomb . . . How is this happening?

I suppose that River can be forgiven for not noting that Hezbollah has fired an estimated 150 rockets into Israel from a site hard by the buildings demolished in the Israeli air strike site.

ISN'T IT IRONIC

Omar at Iraq the Model is struck by an irony:

[Iraqi Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri] was talking about "jihad against the Americans and the Zionists" and how Muslims must rise up and fight back then he mentioned Iraq and considered Iraq's proximity to Israel an advantage that makes Iraq the best candidate country where "the Islamic Emirate can be established and the mujahideen would then move from this Emirate to Palestine to fight the Jews."

That's strange isn't it? Because Iraq is several hundreds of miles away from Israel while Syria and Jordan directly share borders with Israel!

I will leave the Jordanians out of this because they already are considered traitors by Zawahiri since Jordan signed a peace truce with Israel, but what about Syria which shares borders with Israel, is not at peace with Israel and has territory occupied by Israel since 1967?

Wouldn't it make better sense to establish the Islamic Emirate in Syria? I mean that would allow the mujahideen to literally walk into Israel and save a lot of effort and time. Let alone that it sounds so difficult to establish the Islamic Emirate in such a hostile environment as Iraq which now, by al-Qaeda standards, is full of infidel Americans, heretical Shia and treacherous Sunni!