The Daily Background

The Middle East Crisis
The United Nations is warning that if a ceasefire or de-escalation does not occur between Israel and Hezbollah, a “major humanitarian disaster” may be unpreventable. Shortly before a UN observation outpost was caught in the crossfire, the international federation estimated that 500,000 Lebanese civilians have fled their homes, with an additional 150,000 fleeing out of the country all the way to Syria.

Meanwhile, the White House, which does not want a ceasefire, is rushing a large delivery of bombs to the Israeli military, the New York Times reported yesterday.

According to a new CNN/OPR poll, a plurality of Americans disapprove of the way that President Bush is handling the middle east crisis. Also from that poll which was complete on the 19th, 35% of Americans think that Israel’s military action has been appropriate, while 31% believe it has gone too far. Look for the 31% to go up if a significant ground force enters Lebanon.

A plurality of Americans also favors a ceasefire: at odds with the White House’s stance.

Speaking of significant ground forces, according to reports on the ground, if Israel continues building up troops on its Lebanese border at the rate it is now, they may have as many as 20,000 troops there by Monday. Read more about a possible ground invasion of southern Lebanon by Israeli troops in my special Middle East update from yesterday evening.

Israeli military sources are now saying that they plan to “step up incursions into southern Lebanon” however are not planning a full scale invasion of its Northern neighbor.

While the full scale American evacuation out of Lebanon is now ongoing, and the State Department has dropped its ridiculous demand that Americans pay for their own emergency evacuation (despite Republican’s wishes that they do so), the evacuation is not without flaw. True, it did begin a full week late after bombing began, but there’s more wrong with it than just that, ABC News reports:

When fighting broke out in Lebanon, college students studying there for the summer anxiously awaited their turn to evacuate. As it turns out, if you were an Ivy League student in Beirut, your turn came first.

Among those enrolled in the summer Arabic program at the American University of Beirut, students told ABC News, those from Harvard, Yale and Princeton were in the first group evacuated – by high-end private security firms. Students from other American schools were left behind, waiting it out for days while the U.S. embassy formulated its plan.

[…]
Customer satisfaction with the American government: not quite so high. The Beirut situation “has shown how horrible the State Department has been in evacuating people…keeping people informed and not causing a state of panic,” wrote Leventhal in an e-mail to ABC News.

The Washington Post also screwed up and printed a sex-line phone number instead of an emergency evacuation number. Whoops.

Israelis-Palestinians: Israeli military forces have killed a Palestinian nurse on the West Bank.

Bits and Pieces
It looks as though the investigation into defiant Representative William Jefferson (D-La, almost certainly corrupt) is creating problems for a certain Nigerian Vice President because of their close ties.

United States UN Representative John Bolton is finally going to get Senate confirmation hearings. A controversial choice for the role (he once said “there is no such thing as the United Nations), he was recess-appointed by the President a year ago after it became apparent he would likely not have passed through confirmation hearings. If he isn’t formally confirmed by the Senate now however, he reportedly risks losing his salary under US law. Hearings are scheduled for Thursday, and Bolton is set to make the rounds on the talk shows this weekend.

At least 659 people are now known to have been killed by a disastrous tsunami which hit Indonesia a few days ago.

A man who was held (one charge involving identification were dropped after a judge sternly admonished the FBI regarding them) by the US government for five years after 9/11 has been cleared of any wrongdoing, after the United Nations called for his release.

A manager at the defense contracting firm MZM, tainted by the downfall of corrupt Republican Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham earlier this year has filed a guilty plea in a Washington D.C. Court, the FBI announces. The firm’s CEO Michael Wade was brought down earlier this year on corruption charges related to Cunningham as well.

And finally…
Is the President really this desperate to raise his poll numbers?

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