Left I on the News

The Los Angeles Times reports:

The Bush administration is scrambling to assemble a plan to help rebuild Lebanon, hoping that by competing with Hezbollah for the public's favor it can undo the damage the war has inflicted on its image and goals for the Middle East.

Oh yeah, that'll happen. Either the rebuilding itself, or the "undoing the damage" part if they actually did manage to make a serious contribution to the recontruction.

Well, at least they realize the irony of the situation:

A major rebuilding investment would put the United States in the position of subsidizing both the Israeli munitions that caused the damage and the reconstruction work that will repair it.

And you have to love statements like this, from "a former State Department official who is head of Middle East studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington":

"We're coming in when there's a sense that we stood by the destruction of Lebanon by an ally, with U.S. weapons, and didn't complain. So we may be too late."

Yes, it's just a "sense" that the U.S. stood by. God forbid he should just say that "we stood by" and leave out the "sense" nonsense. Or that he should make it clear that the U.S. did a little more that just "not complain." Like blocking ceasefire resolutions and shipping replacement fuel and weapons to Israel while the shooting was going on. Well, that's my "sense" of things, anyway. And I suspect it's the "sense" of the people on whose heads and houses those bombs were falling.