Thomas Sowell writes with clarity and succinctness on one unusual and especially troubling characteristic of the enemy we now face: its undeterrability (hat tip: Pajamas Media). Undeterrability makes this fight different from previous ones. It makes efforts at peaceful negotiation directly with that enemy worse than futile; it makes them dangerous.
There was one sentence in Sowell's column that especially caught my attention. In describing the nature of the enemy, he harked back to the 1985 Achille Lauro incident, in which 69-year-old wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer was murdered by Palestinian hijackers and his body dumped overboard.
Sowell asks:
What kind of people would throw an old man in a wheelchair off a cruise liner into the sea, simply because he was Jewish?
What kind, indeed? Human beings, for starters, not devils. But that doesn't mean we need to sympathize with them. And certainly we would be well within our rights to call Klinghoffer's murderers Nazi-esque, in targeting this particular man and treating him with such brutality merely because of his Jewishness.
I recall hearing the news of the hijacking and the shocking manner of Klinghoffer's death. At the time I had no context in which to place it; it seemed an inexplicable atrocity that chilled my blood. But it was incomprehensible, and so its significance as a signpost to the nature of the enemy was muted and blurred. It's only in retrospect that I'm able to say, "But, of course."
There's another thing I neither noticed nor comprehended at the time, but that I'm certainly aware of now. And that was the almost immediate post-modern interest of some in understanding--empathizing with, and even sympathizing with--Klinghoffer's murderers.
The opera "The Death of Leon Klinghoffer," produced in 1991 and written by composer John Adams and librettist Alice Goodman, includes beautiful arias for the terrorists. It was received with accusations by some that it glorified terrorism, and kudos by others for its evenhanded treatment of the perpetrators' grievances.
In previous years, an opera on such a theme might have featured the terrorists as traditional villains steeped in evil, with thunderous and dissonant music to signify the horror of what they did. But in this version, they were given sonorous and lovely melodies to sing and sympathetic words to portray, whereas the Klinghoffers and their associates were apparently portrayed as petty and materialistic bourgeoisie.
To have taken this particular incident--in which a helpless and innocent man in a wheelchair was murdered in cold blood, his body dumped overboard--and somehow turned it into a vehicle for Palestinian grievances seems to me to be multiculturalism gone mad.
Who wrote the opera? The librettist, Alice Goodman, is an interesting tale herself. Born and raised as a Jew in Minnesota, educated in literature at Harvard, married to a British poet, she became an Anglican priest and opera librettist.
You can listen to Ms. Goodman discussing the opera here, in a BBC interview that features part of an aria from it by one of the terrorists (or maybe it's a recitative; I'm no opera expert). Despite having read about the opera fairly extensively prior to hearing the clip, I was still surprised at the emotional tenor of the singing. Yes indeed, without even being able to decipher the words of the libretto, just hearing the music and the voice of the kidnapper made it clear that he was being given a respect and a certain esthetic elegance and dignity that could only serve to elevate him in the eyes of the listener.
Then I listened to Ms. Goodman speak (an aside: why does she have a British accent? Is this some sort of affectation, is it a requirement for the Anglican clergy, or has she resided in Britain so long she's taken on the speech patterns?).
Ms. Goodman's answer to the question of whether the opera is anti-Semitic or an apology for terrorism is an interesting one. She says no (no surprise there); she believes that the charges of anti-Semitism and the rest are a result of her showing the terrorists as "human beings."
I disagree. I happen to think that terrorists are most decidedly human beings, as were Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, and--well, every other human being who's ever lived. We all know how Hitler loved dogs, and was a vegetarian. To be evil does not require that one be a devil; being a human being who does evil will suffice. I believe in treating people as human beings, but that does not require giving evildoers a forum and writing lovely arias for them to sing.
Ms. Goodman says she speaks not just as the librettist, but as a priest, when she recognizes the perpetrators as human beings with ideals--wrongheaded, yes, but idealistic nevertheless--as though idealism somehow has a value in and of itself. Perhaps she's never heard about the road to hell, and what it's paved with.
Ms. Goodman acknowledges that the music and the words Adams and she wrote for the terrorists who committed this atrocity were lyrical and heartfelt, and she understands that this fact created "a dissonance difficult for some people to take."
Count me in as one of those people. I guess I'm just not highly evolved enough to understand the convoluted mental gymnastics required in comprehending how that doesn't constitute some sort of sympathy and apology--if not for the devil, then for the human beings who perpetrated this heinous act.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Who's got it tougher, men or women?
Fausta has written a new riff in an attempt to answer that ancient question: is it a man's world, or is it a women's? Who's got the better right to sing the blues?
In the end, though, I consider the question truly unanswerable. Unquantifiable, unmeasurable, and unknowable.
My own take on the matter? Everybody Hurts (click on the link and scroll down, then click on "Watch" under "Everybody Hurts." Enjoy a good cry.)
In the end, though, I consider the question truly unanswerable. Unquantifiable, unmeasurable, and unknowable.
My own take on the matter? Everybody Hurts (click on the link and scroll down, then click on "Watch" under "Everybody Hurts." Enjoy a good cry.)
Snakes on a plane, spiders in the house?
Nope, I haven't seen the movie "Snakes on a Plane." I just wanted to get your attention, and the subject matter is actually tangentially related to the topic of this post. The ads for the movie are quite enough for me, thank you very much.
Not that I'm especially afraid of snakes. I'm not. But neither am I a good candidate for "Fear Factor." I've never liked horror movies, either, ever since I was allowed as a five-year-old child to attend one, taken to a Saturday matinee by my eight-year-old brother. Too much information, far too soon, for this imaginative youngster.
And those uniformed matrons who patrolled the theater aisles with whips (remember them, folks of my tiresome boomer generation?) didn't help, either, although the thirty-five cent admission was a great attraction. And, by the way, my brother always got Good and Plenty (yuk and double yuk) whereas I was a Nonpareil gal.
But I digress.
It's spiders I'm interested in, because this is spider season in my home. Living in the semi-country within a small city, near a wooded area with deer and wildlife and all that good stuff, I tend to forget how much of that wildlife intrudes on the house in the summer. Despite the obligatory screens, spiders and insects (see; I'm aware that spiders are not insects; I looked it up) find their way inside quite readily, to make themselves at home.
I am happy to say I'm not one of those people afflicted with arachnophobia. I can even kill one if need be, without flinching or carrying on (no chickenhawk, I). I believe that any spider who comes into my house uninvited (and they are all uninvited) is fair game.
Today I noticed that, almost overnight, my house had turned into a maternity ward for spiders, particularly the ground floor--I guess they don't do stairs. Little hanging egg casings had burst to reveal small dark particulate mounds of--something or other.
And here's where the mystery deepens, and I must humbly ask, once again, for the help of my wonderful readers. I'm stumped, because those small dark mounds don't look all that spiderlike. In fact, they look somewhat like ants. And they look dead. But that's not the way ants reproduce, is it? Nor, according to this, is it the right time of year for little ant babies to be hatching. And why would they be hatching dead?
At any rate, they're gone now, swept away by that great broom which no doubt features prominently in their nightmares--or in the horror movies ants and spiders would make, if they only could.
Not that I'm especially afraid of snakes. I'm not. But neither am I a good candidate for "Fear Factor." I've never liked horror movies, either, ever since I was allowed as a five-year-old child to attend one, taken to a Saturday matinee by my eight-year-old brother. Too much information, far too soon, for this imaginative youngster.
And those uniformed matrons who patrolled the theater aisles with whips (remember them, folks of my tiresome boomer generation?) didn't help, either, although the thirty-five cent admission was a great attraction. And, by the way, my brother always got Good and Plenty (yuk and double yuk) whereas I was a Nonpareil gal.
But I digress.
It's spiders I'm interested in, because this is spider season in my home. Living in the semi-country within a small city, near a wooded area with deer and wildlife and all that good stuff, I tend to forget how much of that wildlife intrudes on the house in the summer. Despite the obligatory screens, spiders and insects (see; I'm aware that spiders are not insects; I looked it up) find their way inside quite readily, to make themselves at home.
I am happy to say I'm not one of those people afflicted with arachnophobia. I can even kill one if need be, without flinching or carrying on (no chickenhawk, I). I believe that any spider who comes into my house uninvited (and they are all uninvited) is fair game.
Today I noticed that, almost overnight, my house had turned into a maternity ward for spiders, particularly the ground floor--I guess they don't do stairs. Little hanging egg casings had burst to reveal small dark particulate mounds of--something or other.
And here's where the mystery deepens, and I must humbly ask, once again, for the help of my wonderful readers. I'm stumped, because those small dark mounds don't look all that spiderlike. In fact, they look somewhat like ants. And they look dead. But that's not the way ants reproduce, is it? Nor, according to this, is it the right time of year for little ant babies to be hatching. And why would they be hatching dead?
At any rate, they're gone now, swept away by that great broom which no doubt features prominently in their nightmares--or in the horror movies ants and spiders would make, if they only could.
Monday, August 21, 2006
The Israeli left takes a hard right
I've quoted William Lloyd Garrison before, and I'm going to do it again:
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plea; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.
A while back I wrote about a group of Israeli peace activists whom the recent war in Lebanon has changed into hardliners convinced that Israel is now in an existential war against an implacable enemy dedicated to its destruction.
Well, it's not just an isolated peace activist here and there; it seems to be a trend. Allison Kaplan Sommer offers a piece that appeared in the British Daily Express by Michael Diamond, telling of the shift to the right on the part of a great many Israelis who had previously considered themselves members of the "sane left."
Diamond speaks for many who once considered the Palestinian position to be a case of a reasonable grievance against an injustice. Believing that "with reasonable men I shall reason," these Israelis therefore advocated the return of the territories and the 2000 pullback from southern Lebanon, strategies they predicted would be met with a softening on the part of Israel's enemies.
But it didn't work out that way, although it seemed to the left as though it should have. Instead, the pullout from Lebanon six years ago, and the more recent withdrawal from Gaza, led to a moment of clarity that crystallized as the Katushas rained down on Israel and the press of the world mourned the plight of the Lebanese and ignored the context of what was actually happening there.
The intent of the enemy was exposed, and it turns out it was not the end of the "occupation;" it was the end of Israel. The two-state solution that had been pursued so vigorously was a sham, because the "reasonable men" were not in charge on the other side.
Where were those reasonable men? Perhaps they'd all been killed off a while back by the tag team of Yassir Arafat and the mullahs of Iran, as well as a few decades of civil war in Lebanon. Perhaps they were terrified and silent. Perhaps they'd emigrated. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
So Diamond and others on the Israeli left found to their surprise and shock that they were dealing with tyrants, after all. And in dealing with tyrants, as Garrison said, there's only one way to deal, and that's to give them no quarter. But the Olmert government was neither willing nor able to do that.
"Give no quarter?" Aye, there's the rub. When the Jacksonian impulse to wage all-out war is unleashed against aggressive enemies--a resolve that drove the Allies to wreak carnage on the Axis powers in order to utterly defeat them in World War II--it can lead to results that are hideous to contemplate, especially in the age of nuclear weapons.
Take a look at the comments in response to Sommer's post. Most of them are from people wrestling with the consequences of their newfound knowledge that the current Mideast situation is not going to be solved by diplomacy, by half-measures, by wishful thinking, by restraint--or, in Garrison's words, by reason or by pleading. But oh, how much we (and they) would like it to be!
Here is an example of the questions being asked:
...people continue to talk about "We have to win this war" without really explaining HOW. Ok, so appeasement doesn't work. Let's concede that point. Now what? Nuke the crap out of the arab and muslim worlds? All 2 billion of them? Will that solve the problem? (I'm thinking not) I think it's hard time to stop pointing out the obvious, and start offering some realistic, pragmatic and constructive solutions.
But no one can come up with them; the cupboard appears bare at the moment. So the following is the reluctant response. It's a description of the terrible choices faced by those who find they are dealing with tyrants rather than humane or reasonable men. These choices were faced, and made--first for appeasement, and then, reluctantly, for war--many years earlier by the members of "The Greatest Generation":
The Allies fought, not because they wanted a fight or were sure they could win one, but because it had become understood that the consequences of not fighting were impossible to accept. To an apparently increasing number of us, there is a sickening feeling that we are now in a situation analogous to the 1930's. Our side has not yet reached the conclusion that another great upheaval is inevitable, and we are casting around in increasing despair for the alternatives—which is why there is so much division amongst us. But war it may be, whatever we all want.
How to defeat an ideology? First, by presenting a compelling one of your own and second, by showing would-be supporters of your enemy the hollowness and evil of the one they are now tempted by...the rotten fact is that an ideology that places triumph of arms at its center will probably have to experience at least several shattering military defeats. I'm afraid I don't see much chance of anything less transforming it into something that can live with the rest of the world.
Try as I might, I don't see it either.
[NOTE: It seems that the stock of the Likud Party has risen.]
[ADDENDUM: Ralph Peters says, "You can't win if you won't fight." Get ready for Round Two.]
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plea; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.
A while back I wrote about a group of Israeli peace activists whom the recent war in Lebanon has changed into hardliners convinced that Israel is now in an existential war against an implacable enemy dedicated to its destruction.
Well, it's not just an isolated peace activist here and there; it seems to be a trend. Allison Kaplan Sommer offers a piece that appeared in the British Daily Express by Michael Diamond, telling of the shift to the right on the part of a great many Israelis who had previously considered themselves members of the "sane left."
Diamond speaks for many who once considered the Palestinian position to be a case of a reasonable grievance against an injustice. Believing that "with reasonable men I shall reason," these Israelis therefore advocated the return of the territories and the 2000 pullback from southern Lebanon, strategies they predicted would be met with a softening on the part of Israel's enemies.
But it didn't work out that way, although it seemed to the left as though it should have. Instead, the pullout from Lebanon six years ago, and the more recent withdrawal from Gaza, led to a moment of clarity that crystallized as the Katushas rained down on Israel and the press of the world mourned the plight of the Lebanese and ignored the context of what was actually happening there.
The intent of the enemy was exposed, and it turns out it was not the end of the "occupation;" it was the end of Israel. The two-state solution that had been pursued so vigorously was a sham, because the "reasonable men" were not in charge on the other side.
Where were those reasonable men? Perhaps they'd all been killed off a while back by the tag team of Yassir Arafat and the mullahs of Iran, as well as a few decades of civil war in Lebanon. Perhaps they were terrified and silent. Perhaps they'd emigrated. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
So Diamond and others on the Israeli left found to their surprise and shock that they were dealing with tyrants, after all. And in dealing with tyrants, as Garrison said, there's only one way to deal, and that's to give them no quarter. But the Olmert government was neither willing nor able to do that.
"Give no quarter?" Aye, there's the rub. When the Jacksonian impulse to wage all-out war is unleashed against aggressive enemies--a resolve that drove the Allies to wreak carnage on the Axis powers in order to utterly defeat them in World War II--it can lead to results that are hideous to contemplate, especially in the age of nuclear weapons.
Take a look at the comments in response to Sommer's post. Most of them are from people wrestling with the consequences of their newfound knowledge that the current Mideast situation is not going to be solved by diplomacy, by half-measures, by wishful thinking, by restraint--or, in Garrison's words, by reason or by pleading. But oh, how much we (and they) would like it to be!
Here is an example of the questions being asked:
...people continue to talk about "We have to win this war" without really explaining HOW. Ok, so appeasement doesn't work. Let's concede that point. Now what? Nuke the crap out of the arab and muslim worlds? All 2 billion of them? Will that solve the problem? (I'm thinking not) I think it's hard time to stop pointing out the obvious, and start offering some realistic, pragmatic and constructive solutions.
But no one can come up with them; the cupboard appears bare at the moment. So the following is the reluctant response. It's a description of the terrible choices faced by those who find they are dealing with tyrants rather than humane or reasonable men. These choices were faced, and made--first for appeasement, and then, reluctantly, for war--many years earlier by the members of "The Greatest Generation":
The Allies fought, not because they wanted a fight or were sure they could win one, but because it had become understood that the consequences of not fighting were impossible to accept. To an apparently increasing number of us, there is a sickening feeling that we are now in a situation analogous to the 1930's. Our side has not yet reached the conclusion that another great upheaval is inevitable, and we are casting around in increasing despair for the alternatives—which is why there is so much division amongst us. But war it may be, whatever we all want.
How to defeat an ideology? First, by presenting a compelling one of your own and second, by showing would-be supporters of your enemy the hollowness and evil of the one they are now tempted by...the rotten fact is that an ideology that places triumph of arms at its center will probably have to experience at least several shattering military defeats. I'm afraid I don't see much chance of anything less transforming it into something that can live with the rest of the world.
Try as I might, I don't see it either.
[NOTE: It seems that the stock of the Likud Party has risen.]
[ADDENDUM: Ralph Peters says, "You can't win if you won't fight." Get ready for Round Two.]
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Fiddler on the okugai
It may not exactly be traditional, but it's "Tradition." proving once again that, although translations may be imperfect, we still speak the same language.
One caveat: I really think this particular Tevye is too thin for the role. Maybe if he eats more sushi, he'll grow into it.
[Okugai.]
One caveat: I really think this particular Tevye is too thin for the role. Maybe if he eats more sushi, he'll grow into it.
[Okugai.]
Friday, August 18, 2006
Idle idyll on the asphalt
Two days ago I got a flat tire.
I was in a hurry, as usual, racing to meet a friend for dinner, and as I pulled out of my driveway I immediately heard the sickening "flub" and felt that pulling to the side that signaled the nasty news. Drat.
Off to the gas station, which was still open. But the tire wouldn't fill with air. This was much worse than the usual flat--this tire was a goner. Finito.
No, of course they didn't have one in stock that matched the others. And these days spare tires are those little doughnut thingees that don't allow you to go over fifty-five miles per hour, and the next day, as luck would have it, I needed to do a lot of highway driving. So the doughnut fix would be a very temporary one.
Yesterday I resentfully resigned myself to spending time I didn't think I could spare driving over to the discount tire place. I resentfully resigned myself to spending money I didn't want to fork over purchasing the mate to the others.
Plus, the waiting room in a discount tire place was not exactly where I wanted to be. There were the usual plastic chairs and car magazines from 2003 (it was a very good year), along with the gumball machine and the water cooler. There was a woman chattering on her cellphone, laptop perched in a place one doesn't usually see it--her lap--frantically doing business, multitasking away.
I went outside for a moment to get my own cell phone before returning to settle in for the wait. But before I reentered the room I stopped for a moment. And when I stopped, I realized something: even though I was in a strip mall gazing at acres of asphalt, a Lowe's, a Radio Shack, and all the usual trimmings, it was a beautiful beautiful day.
And not just a beautiful day. It was a glorious day, a spectacular day. It wasn't just the blue sky and the fluffy white clouds and the perfect seventy-two degree temperature. There was something in the air, some freshness and cleanness, some mix of ions and light and smells that made it seem like air from a different time and place, a better one. It struck me that I needed to stay outside and simply breathe in that air, and relax.
So that's just what I did. And when my car was ready, it seemed as though the wait hadn't been nearly long enough.
I was in a hurry, as usual, racing to meet a friend for dinner, and as I pulled out of my driveway I immediately heard the sickening "flub" and felt that pulling to the side that signaled the nasty news. Drat.
Off to the gas station, which was still open. But the tire wouldn't fill with air. This was much worse than the usual flat--this tire was a goner. Finito.
No, of course they didn't have one in stock that matched the others. And these days spare tires are those little doughnut thingees that don't allow you to go over fifty-five miles per hour, and the next day, as luck would have it, I needed to do a lot of highway driving. So the doughnut fix would be a very temporary one.
Yesterday I resentfully resigned myself to spending time I didn't think I could spare driving over to the discount tire place. I resentfully resigned myself to spending money I didn't want to fork over purchasing the mate to the others.
Plus, the waiting room in a discount tire place was not exactly where I wanted to be. There were the usual plastic chairs and car magazines from 2003 (it was a very good year), along with the gumball machine and the water cooler. There was a woman chattering on her cellphone, laptop perched in a place one doesn't usually see it--her lap--frantically doing business, multitasking away.
I went outside for a moment to get my own cell phone before returning to settle in for the wait. But before I reentered the room I stopped for a moment. And when I stopped, I realized something: even though I was in a strip mall gazing at acres of asphalt, a Lowe's, a Radio Shack, and all the usual trimmings, it was a beautiful beautiful day.
And not just a beautiful day. It was a glorious day, a spectacular day. It wasn't just the blue sky and the fluffy white clouds and the perfect seventy-two degree temperature. There was something in the air, some freshness and cleanness, some mix of ions and light and smells that made it seem like air from a different time and place, a better one. It struck me that I needed to stay outside and simply breathe in that air, and relax.
So that's just what I did. And when my car was ready, it seemed as though the wait hadn't been nearly long enough.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
What do you get when you cross Jeremiah with Cassandra? Solzhenitsyn
Richard Fernandez of Belmont Club has posted the entire text of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's 1978 Harvard Commencement speech, in which the then-exiled Russian warned the Western world that its time might be up soon if it didn't get religion.
That's a flip summary of Solzhenitzyn's message--his speech is actually much more than that. It's an indictment of many of the flaws of Western society, and when I read it just now I could only imagine how the students, faculty, and guests at that occasion almost thirty years ago received his stern and gloomy Jeremaid.
Solzhenitzyn is a strange figure, a man of a complexity that belies facile description. His speech must have been shockingly strange at the time. Today it is shocking in another way, because the first two-thirds of it--a critique of the flaws of Western society--seems shockingly familiar.
That makes him somewhat prescient; he's both a Jeremiah and a Cassandra, although I don't necessarily agree with his suggested solution to the problem because, paradoxically and ironically, Solzhenitzyn's remedy--a return to religion--gives at least the appearance of resembling the remedy of the Islamicist fundamentalist jihadis.
First, a few excerpts from his speech, to give you some of its flavor:
On courage:
The Western world has lost its civil courage...Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite...
The individual's independence from many types of state pressure has been guaranteed; the majority of people have been granted well-being to an extent their fathers and grandfathers could not even dream about...So who should now renounce all this, why and for what should one risk one's precious life in defense of common values, and particularly in such nebulous cases when the security of one's nation must be defended in a distant country?
On politics:
A statesman who wants to achieve something important and highly constructive for his country has to move cautiously and even timidly; there are thousands of hasty and irresponsible critics around him, parliament and the press keep rebuffing him. As he moves ahead, he has to prove that every single step of his is well-founded and absolutely flawless....
When a government starts an earnest fight against terrorism, public opinion immediately accuses it of violating the terrorists' civil rights.... Such a tilt of freedom in the direction of evil has come about gradually...
On the press:
The press can both simulate public opinion and miseducate it. Thus we may see terrorists heroized, or secret matters, pertaining to one's nation's defense, publicly revealed, or we may witness shameless intrusion on the privacy of well-known people under the slogan: "everyone is entitled to know everything."...Such as it is, however, the press has become the greatest power within the Western countries, more powerful than the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. One would then like to ask: by what law has it been elected and to whom is it responsible?....
On the consequences of the Vietnam War:
However, the most cruel mistake occurred with the failure to understand the Vietnam war. Some people sincerely wanted all wars to stop just as soon as possible; others believed that there should be room for national, or communist, self-determination in Vietnam, or in Cambodia, as we see today with particular clarity. But members of the U.S. anti-war movement wound up being involved in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in a genocide and in the suffering today imposed on 30 million people there. Do those convinced pacifists hear the moans coming from there? Do they understand their responsibility today? Or do they prefer not to hear? The American Intelligentsia lost its [nerve] and as a consequence thereof danger has come much closer to the United States. But there is no awareness of this. Your shortsighted politicians who signed the hasty Vietnam capitulation seemingly gave America a carefree breathing pause; however, a hundredfold Vietnam now looms over you.
So, what is Solzhenitzyn's remedy? A return to the overarching influence of religion--specifically, Christianity--in Western society. He believes that godless humanism, elevating the individual above all else, and eliminating the context of a greater and transcendent meaning to human life, has led inexorably to the societal flaws he described so well in his speech.
This is where Solzhenitzyn appears to circle round to a position that resembles that of our current enemies. Because isn't that exactly what they're saying? Counter the flaws of the Western Enlightenment with a return to the hegemony of religion in human life?
The issues are huge, and worthy of a book, or perhaps several books. But I'm only going to briefly touch on them; this is in the nature of a quick sketch.
Solzhenitzyn falls in the tradition of Russian thought known as "Slavophile" (a personal aside: back in the late 60s when I was in college, I learned of the movement in a course entitled "Russian Intellectual History," which I've written about here). His return to Russia in 1994, where he now resides, is no surprise in that context, nor is his devotion to religion.
I agree with Solzhenitzyn that some sort of higher meaning seems necessary to get us out of the trap into which we've fallen. But religion can be another trap, and the jihadis are perhaps the best example of where that can lead.
I have no way of knowing what Solzhenitzyn really thinks or feels. But it's my contention that the difference between what he is advocating and what the jihadists are advocating is profound, although there is a superficial resemblance in that they both rely on religion to save us. This difference goes back to a fundamental (pardon the pun) difference between Islam and Christianity, as I understand it.
People are fond of saying that religion is the problem; it's caused no end of trouble on earth. While that's true, it's also true that it's caused no end of good on earth. That paradox is resolved by understanding that religion is a malleable tool that can be used to many purposes.
One extremely important dimension on which religions--and divisions within religions--differ greatly is on how much personal freedom they advocate. Fundamentalists in all religions lean strongly to the side of unquestioning obedience, whereas those in other wings emphasize individual freedom of choice.
Another very important difference between religions is on the dimension of whether that particular religion should be spread, and, if so, how it should be spread. Islam (which means "submission") has historically been a religion that doesn't shy away from the idea of forceable and coercive conversion, whereas the forceably coercive strain in Christianity (never as much a part of its holy texts as in Islam) has now shrunk virtually to the vanishing point.
So there are differences between religions, and differences within each religion. Right now the fundamentalist, coercive, triumphalist, and violent strain of Islam is growing. Thus the special danger that this segment of Islam represents to the world, a danger that no other religion currently presents in anywhere near its numbers, strength, goals, weaponry, and aggressiveness. Fundamentalists in many religions may resemble each other in the rigidity of their obedience to the rules of their respective religions, but they don't necessarily resemble each other in how they view the rights of the rest of the world to practice a different one.
What does mainstream Christianity have to say about freedom? To cite another famous Slavophilic Russian writer, Dostoevsky, in his remarkable work "The Grand Inquisitor," although freedom is part of Christ's message to the world, it has at times been subverted and undermined by Inquisitors who don't trust humanity with freedom.
If you've never read "The Grand Inquisitor," which is actually a chapter from The Brothers Karamazov, you owe it to yourself to do so. Here's the text.
Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor doesn't just stand for the historical figures of the past who were the actual Inquisitors. He represents all attempts by religions and belief systems--including secular ones such as Communism--to perfect humanity by denying people their freedom in the hopes of creating a better world.
I cannot believe that Solzhenitzyn, with his experience in the Russian Gulag, meant to advocate a return to a religion that denies that individual freedom. At any rate, it's not Solzhenitzyn's particular views that are important, it's the questions he raises. The dilemma remains, and it's an ancient and exceedingly important one: how to foster and protect freedom without leading to anarchy and loss of meaning, including the loss of the courage to protect ourselves?
The answer is still unclear, but the hour is getting late--much later than it was in 1978.
That's a flip summary of Solzhenitzyn's message--his speech is actually much more than that. It's an indictment of many of the flaws of Western society, and when I read it just now I could only imagine how the students, faculty, and guests at that occasion almost thirty years ago received his stern and gloomy Jeremaid.
Solzhenitzyn is a strange figure, a man of a complexity that belies facile description. His speech must have been shockingly strange at the time. Today it is shocking in another way, because the first two-thirds of it--a critique of the flaws of Western society--seems shockingly familiar.
That makes him somewhat prescient; he's both a Jeremiah and a Cassandra, although I don't necessarily agree with his suggested solution to the problem because, paradoxically and ironically, Solzhenitzyn's remedy--a return to religion--gives at least the appearance of resembling the remedy of the Islamicist fundamentalist jihadis.
First, a few excerpts from his speech, to give you some of its flavor:
On courage:
The Western world has lost its civil courage...Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite...
The individual's independence from many types of state pressure has been guaranteed; the majority of people have been granted well-being to an extent their fathers and grandfathers could not even dream about...So who should now renounce all this, why and for what should one risk one's precious life in defense of common values, and particularly in such nebulous cases when the security of one's nation must be defended in a distant country?
On politics:
A statesman who wants to achieve something important and highly constructive for his country has to move cautiously and even timidly; there are thousands of hasty and irresponsible critics around him, parliament and the press keep rebuffing him. As he moves ahead, he has to prove that every single step of his is well-founded and absolutely flawless....
When a government starts an earnest fight against terrorism, public opinion immediately accuses it of violating the terrorists' civil rights.... Such a tilt of freedom in the direction of evil has come about gradually...
On the press:
The press can both simulate public opinion and miseducate it. Thus we may see terrorists heroized, or secret matters, pertaining to one's nation's defense, publicly revealed, or we may witness shameless intrusion on the privacy of well-known people under the slogan: "everyone is entitled to know everything."...Such as it is, however, the press has become the greatest power within the Western countries, more powerful than the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. One would then like to ask: by what law has it been elected and to whom is it responsible?....
On the consequences of the Vietnam War:
However, the most cruel mistake occurred with the failure to understand the Vietnam war. Some people sincerely wanted all wars to stop just as soon as possible; others believed that there should be room for national, or communist, self-determination in Vietnam, or in Cambodia, as we see today with particular clarity. But members of the U.S. anti-war movement wound up being involved in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in a genocide and in the suffering today imposed on 30 million people there. Do those convinced pacifists hear the moans coming from there? Do they understand their responsibility today? Or do they prefer not to hear? The American Intelligentsia lost its [nerve] and as a consequence thereof danger has come much closer to the United States. But there is no awareness of this. Your shortsighted politicians who signed the hasty Vietnam capitulation seemingly gave America a carefree breathing pause; however, a hundredfold Vietnam now looms over you.
So, what is Solzhenitzyn's remedy? A return to the overarching influence of religion--specifically, Christianity--in Western society. He believes that godless humanism, elevating the individual above all else, and eliminating the context of a greater and transcendent meaning to human life, has led inexorably to the societal flaws he described so well in his speech.
This is where Solzhenitzyn appears to circle round to a position that resembles that of our current enemies. Because isn't that exactly what they're saying? Counter the flaws of the Western Enlightenment with a return to the hegemony of religion in human life?
The issues are huge, and worthy of a book, or perhaps several books. But I'm only going to briefly touch on them; this is in the nature of a quick sketch.
Solzhenitzyn falls in the tradition of Russian thought known as "Slavophile" (a personal aside: back in the late 60s when I was in college, I learned of the movement in a course entitled "Russian Intellectual History," which I've written about here). His return to Russia in 1994, where he now resides, is no surprise in that context, nor is his devotion to religion.
I agree with Solzhenitzyn that some sort of higher meaning seems necessary to get us out of the trap into which we've fallen. But religion can be another trap, and the jihadis are perhaps the best example of where that can lead.
I have no way of knowing what Solzhenitzyn really thinks or feels. But it's my contention that the difference between what he is advocating and what the jihadists are advocating is profound, although there is a superficial resemblance in that they both rely on religion to save us. This difference goes back to a fundamental (pardon the pun) difference between Islam and Christianity, as I understand it.
People are fond of saying that religion is the problem; it's caused no end of trouble on earth. While that's true, it's also true that it's caused no end of good on earth. That paradox is resolved by understanding that religion is a malleable tool that can be used to many purposes.
One extremely important dimension on which religions--and divisions within religions--differ greatly is on how much personal freedom they advocate. Fundamentalists in all religions lean strongly to the side of unquestioning obedience, whereas those in other wings emphasize individual freedom of choice.
Another very important difference between religions is on the dimension of whether that particular religion should be spread, and, if so, how it should be spread. Islam (which means "submission") has historically been a religion that doesn't shy away from the idea of forceable and coercive conversion, whereas the forceably coercive strain in Christianity (never as much a part of its holy texts as in Islam) has now shrunk virtually to the vanishing point.
So there are differences between religions, and differences within each religion. Right now the fundamentalist, coercive, triumphalist, and violent strain of Islam is growing. Thus the special danger that this segment of Islam represents to the world, a danger that no other religion currently presents in anywhere near its numbers, strength, goals, weaponry, and aggressiveness. Fundamentalists in many religions may resemble each other in the rigidity of their obedience to the rules of their respective religions, but they don't necessarily resemble each other in how they view the rights of the rest of the world to practice a different one.
What does mainstream Christianity have to say about freedom? To cite another famous Slavophilic Russian writer, Dostoevsky, in his remarkable work "The Grand Inquisitor," although freedom is part of Christ's message to the world, it has at times been subverted and undermined by Inquisitors who don't trust humanity with freedom.
If you've never read "The Grand Inquisitor," which is actually a chapter from The Brothers Karamazov, you owe it to yourself to do so. Here's the text.
Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor doesn't just stand for the historical figures of the past who were the actual Inquisitors. He represents all attempts by religions and belief systems--including secular ones such as Communism--to perfect humanity by denying people their freedom in the hopes of creating a better world.
I cannot believe that Solzhenitzyn, with his experience in the Russian Gulag, meant to advocate a return to a religion that denies that individual freedom. At any rate, it's not Solzhenitzyn's particular views that are important, it's the questions he raises. The dilemma remains, and it's an ancient and exceedingly important one: how to foster and protect freedom without leading to anarchy and loss of meaning, including the loss of the courage to protect ourselves?
The answer is still unclear, but the hour is getting late--much later than it was in 1978.
Trolls and comments
Periodically I get an infestation of trolls here. It's always interesting to me to note that trolls tend to proliferate any time Israel is being discussed.
Those of you who've been following this blog know what I'm referring to when I say "trolls," but for others I'll just summarize by saying that trolls are not just those who disagree with me. Trolls are people who come to a blog only to stir up trouble, move goalposts, get the commenters agitated, instult (sometimes quite viciously and/or obscenely), and ultimately ruin a blog and its comments section by causing commenters to leave or the blogger to shut down the comments function.
I ask the serious, nontroll commenters here, whom I highly value, to please bear with me as this gets corrected. It may take a while since I'm very busy and I use a friend to deal with technical matters such as these. In the meantime, please don't respond to trolls in any way.
I instituted Haloscan comments rather than Blogger some time ago in order to have better control over trolls. This worked for a while, and it still works to a certain degree. But it's relatively ineffective against what I will now refer to as semipro trolls--meaning trolls of a certain sophistication, who use proxies and other forms of hiding in order to avoid being banned.
I am in the process of considering another comments system that will be more effective against this type of troll as well. In the meantime, I will be deleting comments from those trolls who use proxy IP numbers and IP shields, as well as those who post under multiple identities (sock puppets). One example of the first category is "justaguy," and an example of the second is Robert and Dave the Rabbit.
Robert/Dave the Rabbit is an interesting case, because many of his/their comments are not really trollish. But by definition, posting under multiple identities is troll behavior, unless it's done only once in a while for reasons of humor.
Those of you who've been following this blog know what I'm referring to when I say "trolls," but for others I'll just summarize by saying that trolls are not just those who disagree with me. Trolls are people who come to a blog only to stir up trouble, move goalposts, get the commenters agitated, instult (sometimes quite viciously and/or obscenely), and ultimately ruin a blog and its comments section by causing commenters to leave or the blogger to shut down the comments function.
I ask the serious, nontroll commenters here, whom I highly value, to please bear with me as this gets corrected. It may take a while since I'm very busy and I use a friend to deal with technical matters such as these. In the meantime, please don't respond to trolls in any way.
I instituted Haloscan comments rather than Blogger some time ago in order to have better control over trolls. This worked for a while, and it still works to a certain degree. But it's relatively ineffective against what I will now refer to as semipro trolls--meaning trolls of a certain sophistication, who use proxies and other forms of hiding in order to avoid being banned.
I am in the process of considering another comments system that will be more effective against this type of troll as well. In the meantime, I will be deleting comments from those trolls who use proxy IP numbers and IP shields, as well as those who post under multiple identities (sock puppets). One example of the first category is "justaguy," and an example of the second is Robert and Dave the Rabbit.
Robert/Dave the Rabbit is an interesting case, because many of his/their comments are not really trollish. But by definition, posting under multiple identities is troll behavior, unless it's done only once in a while for reasons of humor.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
The opportunities presented by the failed state
Ah those helpful young men of Hezbollah! See this.
For those of you without access to the NY Times, here's the gist of the article:
Hezbollah’s reputation as an efficient grass-roots social service network — as opposed to the Lebanese government, regarded by many here as sleek men in suits doing well — was in evidence everywhere. Young men with walkie-talkies and clipboards were in the battered Shiite neighborhoods on the southern edge of Bint Jbail, taking notes on the extent of the damage.
“Hezbollah’s strength,” said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a professor at the Lebanese American University here, who has written extensively about the organization, in large part derives from “the gross vacuum left by the state.”
So Hezbollah starts the war, puts civilians in jeopardy, and then gets credit for cleaning up the mess. Sweet.
The most important part of the article is the quote by Saad-Ghorayeb: "the gross vacuum left by the state." After decades of civil war and outside influence, Lebanon is now teetering on the brink of being a failed state. In fact, it may be a failed state already. And in a failed state, evil rushes in where angels fear to tread, and evil does it in the guise of good.
I'm reminded of how the Taliban got started in the yawning vacuum left by the withdrawal of the Soviets after their lengthy and destructive war there. The Taliban seemed like helpful young men at first, too, trying to create order out of chaos.
This, however, from the blog Lebanese Political Journal (via Pajamas Media), sounds a faint--very faint--note of hope.
For those of you without access to the NY Times, here's the gist of the article:
Hezbollah’s reputation as an efficient grass-roots social service network — as opposed to the Lebanese government, regarded by many here as sleek men in suits doing well — was in evidence everywhere. Young men with walkie-talkies and clipboards were in the battered Shiite neighborhoods on the southern edge of Bint Jbail, taking notes on the extent of the damage.
“Hezbollah’s strength,” said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a professor at the Lebanese American University here, who has written extensively about the organization, in large part derives from “the gross vacuum left by the state.”
So Hezbollah starts the war, puts civilians in jeopardy, and then gets credit for cleaning up the mess. Sweet.
The most important part of the article is the quote by Saad-Ghorayeb: "the gross vacuum left by the state." After decades of civil war and outside influence, Lebanon is now teetering on the brink of being a failed state. In fact, it may be a failed state already. And in a failed state, evil rushes in where angels fear to tread, and evil does it in the guise of good.
I'm reminded of how the Taliban got started in the yawning vacuum left by the withdrawal of the Soviets after their lengthy and destructive war there. The Taliban seemed like helpful young men at first, too, trying to create order out of chaos.
This, however, from the blog Lebanese Political Journal (via Pajamas Media), sounds a faint--very faint--note of hope.
The passive voice in the news: anything but passive
Commenter Tatterdemalian calls my attention to this AP news item.
Take a look. Take a good look.
It's a well-known fact that many newspaper readers only peruse the headlines, and this one--"Rockets hit Lebanon despite cease fire"--would lead one to believe that Israel had fired rockets at Lebanon in violation of the cease fire. Wouldn't it?
The first paragraph--"Tens of thousands of Lebanese jammed bomb-cratered roads Monday as they returned to still-smoldering scenes of destruction after a tenuous cease-fire ended 34 days of vicious combat between Israel and Hezbollah"--is devoted to the destruction the Lebanese people have suffered. It's only in the second paragraph that the writer reveals what the headline refers to, which is the fact that the rockets fired "despite cease fire," the ones that fell short of their targets in Israel and landed in south Lebanon, were fired by Hezbollah.
The use of the passive voice in this headline is far from an isolated instance, and is emblematic of the rot that has taken over news services such as the AP and Reuters. And don't for a moment think that the passive voice would have been used if it had been the Israelis doing the firing.
[In case you've missed all the studies that show consistent MSM bias in its coverage of the Middle East, here's one.]
[CORRECTION: Those who wrote that the headline is not in the passive voice are correct. The problem with the headline is that the rockets are considered the actor rather than those who launched them. Thus the true actor is disguised, and it's left to the reader to fill in the blanks, which most would naturally do by assuming the actor was Israel.]
Take a look. Take a good look.
It's a well-known fact that many newspaper readers only peruse the headlines, and this one--"Rockets hit Lebanon despite cease fire"--would lead one to believe that Israel had fired rockets at Lebanon in violation of the cease fire. Wouldn't it?
The first paragraph--"Tens of thousands of Lebanese jammed bomb-cratered roads Monday as they returned to still-smoldering scenes of destruction after a tenuous cease-fire ended 34 days of vicious combat between Israel and Hezbollah"--is devoted to the destruction the Lebanese people have suffered. It's only in the second paragraph that the writer reveals what the headline refers to, which is the fact that the rockets fired "despite cease fire," the ones that fell short of their targets in Israel and landed in south Lebanon, were fired by Hezbollah.
The use of the passive voice in this headline is far from an isolated instance, and is emblematic of the rot that has taken over news services such as the AP and Reuters. And don't for a moment think that the passive voice would have been used if it had been the Israelis doing the firing.
[In case you've missed all the studies that show consistent MSM bias in its coverage of the Middle East, here's one.]
[CORRECTION: Those who wrote that the headline is not in the passive voice are correct. The problem with the headline is that the rockets are considered the actor rather than those who launched them. Thus the true actor is disguised, and it's left to the reader to fill in the blanks, which most would naturally do by assuming the actor was Israel.]
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
The Sanity Squad: we're baaack!
The second podcast of the illustrious Sanity Squad is now up at the new and redesigned Pajamas Media site.
My "s" and "f" sounds aren't really as hissy as they sound; I'm still trying to find a good mic position that doesn't distort my voice. I'm also trying to rid myself of my new and inexplicable love affair with the word "um" (is it a word? Well, at least I sound contemplative).
Guess the origins of Siggy's accent, and you may be the one to win our prize.
My "s" and "f" sounds aren't really as hissy as they sound; I'm still trying to find a good mic position that doesn't distort my voice. I'm also trying to rid myself of my new and inexplicable love affair with the word "um" (is it a word? Well, at least I sound contemplative).
Guess the origins of Siggy's accent, and you may be the one to win our prize.
Israel's broken heart
A piece by Israeli journalist Yossi Klein Halevi entitled "Israel's Broken Heart," in the current New Republic (subscription only), places the blame squarely on the Olmert administration for mishandling the opportunities of the last month.
Israeli public opinion was united as never before; only the furthest reaches of the far left failed to see this war as an existential one--and that's "existential," not in the sense of some arcane Satrean philosophy, but in the original sense of "a battle for its very existence."
In such struggles, it's useless to pretend that one can fight halfheartedly, or with one hand tied behind one's back because of PC considerations. Halevi describes a political cartoon that appeared in Maariv showing Olmert as a boy playing with a yo-yo inscribed "Israel Defense Forces." Halevi writes:
None of Israel's wars was ever fought with greater micromanagement by a government, and no government was ever less qualified to manage a war as this one.
But it wasn't just Olmert. In recent years, Israel experienced cutbacks in its defense forces much like the US did in the Clinton years. Lulled by Oslo and Camp David and a vision of its own strength, as well as the dream of peace that seemed close at hand, the state of military readiness that Israel had maintained for so many years seems to have softened.
And who can blame them, really (oh, I know; many people can blame Israel for just about anything and everything)? As others have stated before, Israel was tired, bone-tired and weary, of being Sparta all the time.
The immediate post-World War II generation in Israel had no such illusions. They were used to the idea that they would have to struggle against the world merely to be allowed to exist. Subsequent generations lost some of that edge. But events are conspiring to force them to resharpen the swords they were so eager to beat into plowshares.
Halevi ends his article on a note of hope; he believes that this is only one round in a lengthy battle, and that Israel will ultimately be victorious.
But what does "victory" mean in this context, I wonder? How bad will it get before this is over? Will it go nuclear on Iran's part? And how much time is left before it does? If so, what sort of preemption is necessary, what sort is effective, and what sort is possible?
Israeli public opinion was united as never before; only the furthest reaches of the far left failed to see this war as an existential one--and that's "existential," not in the sense of some arcane Satrean philosophy, but in the original sense of "a battle for its very existence."
In such struggles, it's useless to pretend that one can fight halfheartedly, or with one hand tied behind one's back because of PC considerations. Halevi describes a political cartoon that appeared in Maariv showing Olmert as a boy playing with a yo-yo inscribed "Israel Defense Forces." Halevi writes:
None of Israel's wars was ever fought with greater micromanagement by a government, and no government was ever less qualified to manage a war as this one.
But it wasn't just Olmert. In recent years, Israel experienced cutbacks in its defense forces much like the US did in the Clinton years. Lulled by Oslo and Camp David and a vision of its own strength, as well as the dream of peace that seemed close at hand, the state of military readiness that Israel had maintained for so many years seems to have softened.
And who can blame them, really (oh, I know; many people can blame Israel for just about anything and everything)? As others have stated before, Israel was tired, bone-tired and weary, of being Sparta all the time.
The immediate post-World War II generation in Israel had no such illusions. They were used to the idea that they would have to struggle against the world merely to be allowed to exist. Subsequent generations lost some of that edge. But events are conspiring to force them to resharpen the swords they were so eager to beat into plowshares.
Halevi ends his article on a note of hope; he believes that this is only one round in a lengthy battle, and that Israel will ultimately be victorious.
But what does "victory" mean in this context, I wonder? How bad will it get before this is over? Will it go nuclear on Iran's part? And how much time is left before it does? If so, what sort of preemption is necessary, what sort is effective, and what sort is possible?
The ultimate in piercings
This is beyond description. So I won't bother to describe it.
I'll just add this commentary: what hath the Sixties wrought?
And this caveat: please, readers, DO NOT try this in your home! Or anywhere else, for that matter.
I'll just add this commentary: what hath the Sixties wrought?
And this caveat: please, readers, DO NOT try this in your home! Or anywhere else, for that matter.
Monday, August 14, 2006
Tet Two, Brute?
Here's what Powerline has to say about the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon so far, and the present ceasefire:
So Hezbollah goes out on top. My guess is that the IDF has had quite a bit of success in killing terrorists, but that will go largely for naught as no one knows about it, and Hezbollah's claims of victory will be deemed credible.
Tet, anyone?
There was a famous comment by an NVA Colonel in Vietnam during the final negotiations of that long ago but still hugely influential war, which I wrote about in this segment of my "A Mind is a Difficult Thing to Change" piece. I offer the quote once again:
"You know you never beat us on the battlefield," I [Harry G. Summers Jr., American negotiator] said to Colonel Tu, my NVA counterpart.
"That may be so," he said, "but it is also irrelevant."
My observation:
Lessons learned from Vietnam: all that is necessary to win a war against the US is to turn domestic public opinion against it, even if you are militarily outclassed, even if you are defeated in every battle. It's a lesson that was not lost on our current opponents.
Nor on Israel's current opponents, as well. Although in the present case I would emphasize "international public opinion" rather than domestic.
So Hezbollah goes out on top. My guess is that the IDF has had quite a bit of success in killing terrorists, but that will go largely for naught as no one knows about it, and Hezbollah's claims of victory will be deemed credible.
Tet, anyone?
There was a famous comment by an NVA Colonel in Vietnam during the final negotiations of that long ago but still hugely influential war, which I wrote about in this segment of my "A Mind is a Difficult Thing to Change" piece. I offer the quote once again:
"You know you never beat us on the battlefield," I [Harry G. Summers Jr., American negotiator] said to Colonel Tu, my NVA counterpart.
"That may be so," he said, "but it is also irrelevant."
My observation:
Lessons learned from Vietnam: all that is necessary to win a war against the US is to turn domestic public opinion against it, even if you are militarily outclassed, even if you are defeated in every battle. It's a lesson that was not lost on our current opponents.
Nor on Israel's current opponents, as well. Although in the present case I would emphasize "international public opinion" rather than domestic.
Lebanese army receives its marching orders: from Hezbollah
The Lebanese army received its marching orders today.
Actually, it received two sets of marching orders: one from its own commanders, and then another from Hezbollah, superceding the original command.
Though we hardly needed any more clarity on the impotence of the Lebanese government, we've gotten it. Hezbollah has pulled rank on the Lebanese.
The Lebanese army was ready to head south to form a large force in a buffer zone south of the Litani River, but the two Hezbollah Cabinet ministers took control of a Cabinet meeting and made it clear to the de jure (but not de facto) Lebanese government that the troop movement just wasn't going to be happening.
The result? Humiliation of the Lebanese government and its armed forces. Its lack of power cannot be denied in any sort of face-saving move. And humiliation is an especially negative and intolerable emotion in the Arab world's shame-based culture.
Captain Ed believes this dynamic will work to force a civil war in Lebanon (another one; the country has had more than its share of civil wars, I'm afraid):
The humiliation traveled from the generals to the troops, as everyone understood exactly why their orders to move out got countermanded. Government officials finally gave voice to the conundrum that all of us knew existed during this entire conflict, complaining that the Hezbollah "political party" would not abide by government decisions.
Hezbollah is a shadow ruler in control of Lebanon, and it's coming out of the shadows, emboldened. Heretofore it had a great deal of support among many Lebanese, but has that changed? I've written about this possibility before, here, based on Michael Totten's predictions that the Hezbollah/Israeli war would be followed by a Lebanese civil war against Hezbollah.
I question whether this ceasefire will hold and, if it does hold, whether it will further the cause of a probably illusory "peace process," or merely serve to give Hezbollah more cover to burrow ever deeper into Lebanon.
If one studies the rise to power of Hitler in Germany, it becomes clear that his ascendance was far from inevitable. There were many forces arrayed against him; unfortunately, they were all incompetent, miscalculating, double-dealing, or just plain unlucky.
But it's clear that when Hitler came to power he did not have the support of the majority of Germans. Nevertheless, come to power he did--and the rest, as they say, is history. And if you read the linked article, please note the role of paramilitary groups such as the Storm Troopers in his rise, as well as the fatal flaw of an extremely weak central government in Germany.
The combination of the paramilitary Hezbollah troops taking the ascendance in Lebanon and the weakness of the Lebanese government bodes ill for the future of Lebanon and the world. Like our parents and grandparents before us, who watched the events of the 1930's unfold, we do indeed live in "interesting times."
[More:
The [Lebanese] army's equipment is poor, and no match for the Israelis. Lebanon has no air force or navy. One soldier said Hezbollah was better armed and organised, and that he was reluctant to confront "the resistance fighters". Another soldier said his brother and a cousin were fighting for Hezbollah. "I can't turn a gun on the resistance, because they are family," he said.]
Actually, it received two sets of marching orders: one from its own commanders, and then another from Hezbollah, superceding the original command.
Though we hardly needed any more clarity on the impotence of the Lebanese government, we've gotten it. Hezbollah has pulled rank on the Lebanese.
The Lebanese army was ready to head south to form a large force in a buffer zone south of the Litani River, but the two Hezbollah Cabinet ministers took control of a Cabinet meeting and made it clear to the de jure (but not de facto) Lebanese government that the troop movement just wasn't going to be happening.
The result? Humiliation of the Lebanese government and its armed forces. Its lack of power cannot be denied in any sort of face-saving move. And humiliation is an especially negative and intolerable emotion in the Arab world's shame-based culture.
Captain Ed believes this dynamic will work to force a civil war in Lebanon (another one; the country has had more than its share of civil wars, I'm afraid):
The humiliation traveled from the generals to the troops, as everyone understood exactly why their orders to move out got countermanded. Government officials finally gave voice to the conundrum that all of us knew existed during this entire conflict, complaining that the Hezbollah "political party" would not abide by government decisions.
Hezbollah is a shadow ruler in control of Lebanon, and it's coming out of the shadows, emboldened. Heretofore it had a great deal of support among many Lebanese, but has that changed? I've written about this possibility before, here, based on Michael Totten's predictions that the Hezbollah/Israeli war would be followed by a Lebanese civil war against Hezbollah.
I question whether this ceasefire will hold and, if it does hold, whether it will further the cause of a probably illusory "peace process," or merely serve to give Hezbollah more cover to burrow ever deeper into Lebanon.
If one studies the rise to power of Hitler in Germany, it becomes clear that his ascendance was far from inevitable. There were many forces arrayed against him; unfortunately, they were all incompetent, miscalculating, double-dealing, or just plain unlucky.
But it's clear that when Hitler came to power he did not have the support of the majority of Germans. Nevertheless, come to power he did--and the rest, as they say, is history. And if you read the linked article, please note the role of paramilitary groups such as the Storm Troopers in his rise, as well as the fatal flaw of an extremely weak central government in Germany.
The combination of the paramilitary Hezbollah troops taking the ascendance in Lebanon and the weakness of the Lebanese government bodes ill for the future of Lebanon and the world. Like our parents and grandparents before us, who watched the events of the 1930's unfold, we do indeed live in "interesting times."
[More:
The [Lebanese] army's equipment is poor, and no match for the Israelis. Lebanon has no air force or navy. One soldier said Hezbollah was better armed and organised, and that he was reluctant to confront "the resistance fighters". Another soldier said his brother and a cousin were fighting for Hezbollah. "I can't turn a gun on the resistance, because they are family," he said.]
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Crafts, mountains, friends
Yesterday I made one of favorite my annual treks to get away from it all, driving a few hours to the western part of New Hampshire to the Sunapee Crafts Fair.
That website doesn't even begin to do it justice, nor do the words "Crafts Fair," which conjure up macrame planters viewed by granola-chumping strollers in Birkenstocks.
No, not this one. The crafts are as sophisticated as they come, and as beautiful (also, alas, as expensive--I spent part of the day trying on the most spectacular suede coat in the world, priced at $1450, and then sadly bidding it adieu. A person can dream, right?).
The setting is a state park in the mountains near a lake. The weather was unusually glorious--and, just as unusual, somewhat chilly. The exhibitors (all 200+ of them) are set up in a series of huge tents: fiber artists and jewelers and printmakers and iron forgers and furniture artisans of indescribable flair and grace. One picture is worth a thousand words, but the photos at the website don't express how stupendously and splendiferously beautiful these wares are.
There are also the usual overpriced sausage sandwiches and pizza slices, not all that lovely--I had one of the former. And I managed to purchase three gifts for others (wedding and two birthdays), all wonderful, all unique.
I noticed once again, as I've noticed many times before, that craftspeople at this level tend to look quite striking. Visually and artistically inclined, of course, as well as individualistic, they pay attention to colors and textures and uniqueness. Many of them have a calm and centered quality that must come from the Zen-like concentration required to work this way, day after day.
This is in contrast to what I've noticed when groups of writers get together (bloggers, of course, are in a different category altogether). About 20% of writers seem to be visual people, as well, and pay some attention to how they look (I count myself among their number). The other 80% appear to have emerged from their garrets resembling nothing more than a bunch of moles blinking from the unaccustomed light of day. Their clothes are thrown together from a ragtag grab bag--styleless and formless and shapeless; their bodies something only tentatively inhabited, poorly tended housing for their vast and overworked brains.
Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration. But it's not really all that far off; I've been to a bunch of writers' workshops in my time. And a more colorless-looking lot of people you'd be hard pressed to find.
But I digress; back to the Crafts Fair. Best of all, I always meet my old college roommate there (we always joke about that word "old," too, especially as the years go by and we edge closer to being just that). She lives in western New Hampshire, and I don't get to see her all that often, so the Fair is a good venue for a get-together.
There's nothing, nothing, nothing like a friend for life, a best friend, a true friend. We've been there for each other through all the considerable ups and considerable downs of the last--well, who's counting?--years, through sickness and health and through not-all-that-rich and poorer and through love and marriage and kids and even changes of politics.
Afterwards we ate in a dreadful restaurant with a beautiful view on the shores of Lake Sunapee, until the sun set and we went our respective ways, she to the northwest and me to the northeast. But the friendship remains.
That website doesn't even begin to do it justice, nor do the words "Crafts Fair," which conjure up macrame planters viewed by granola-chumping strollers in Birkenstocks.
No, not this one. The crafts are as sophisticated as they come, and as beautiful (also, alas, as expensive--I spent part of the day trying on the most spectacular suede coat in the world, priced at $1450, and then sadly bidding it adieu. A person can dream, right?).
The setting is a state park in the mountains near a lake. The weather was unusually glorious--and, just as unusual, somewhat chilly. The exhibitors (all 200+ of them) are set up in a series of huge tents: fiber artists and jewelers and printmakers and iron forgers and furniture artisans of indescribable flair and grace. One picture is worth a thousand words, but the photos at the website don't express how stupendously and splendiferously beautiful these wares are.
There are also the usual overpriced sausage sandwiches and pizza slices, not all that lovely--I had one of the former. And I managed to purchase three gifts for others (wedding and two birthdays), all wonderful, all unique.
I noticed once again, as I've noticed many times before, that craftspeople at this level tend to look quite striking. Visually and artistically inclined, of course, as well as individualistic, they pay attention to colors and textures and uniqueness. Many of them have a calm and centered quality that must come from the Zen-like concentration required to work this way, day after day.
This is in contrast to what I've noticed when groups of writers get together (bloggers, of course, are in a different category altogether). About 20% of writers seem to be visual people, as well, and pay some attention to how they look (I count myself among their number). The other 80% appear to have emerged from their garrets resembling nothing more than a bunch of moles blinking from the unaccustomed light of day. Their clothes are thrown together from a ragtag grab bag--styleless and formless and shapeless; their bodies something only tentatively inhabited, poorly tended housing for their vast and overworked brains.
Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration. But it's not really all that far off; I've been to a bunch of writers' workshops in my time. And a more colorless-looking lot of people you'd be hard pressed to find.
But I digress; back to the Crafts Fair. Best of all, I always meet my old college roommate there (we always joke about that word "old," too, especially as the years go by and we edge closer to being just that). She lives in western New Hampshire, and I don't get to see her all that often, so the Fair is a good venue for a get-together.
There's nothing, nothing, nothing like a friend for life, a best friend, a true friend. We've been there for each other through all the considerable ups and considerable downs of the last--well, who's counting?--years, through sickness and health and through not-all-that-rich and poorer and through love and marriage and kids and even changes of politics.
Afterwards we ate in a dreadful restaurant with a beautiful view on the shores of Lake Sunapee, until the sun set and we went our respective ways, she to the northwest and me to the northeast. But the friendship remains.
Insider tip, eavesdropped phone call
As some of the details of the airplane attack case are revealed, it seems clear that the investigation proceeded slowly and painstakingly over a period of months. But several interesting facts stand out so far.
The first is that breaking the case involved a strong degree of international cooperation, especially between the UK and Pakistan, as well as the US. Although for some this may conjure up thoughts of James Bond, the work no doubt was decidedly unglamorous. It started on a tip from someone in the Moslem community in Britain following last year's London bombings, the informant being an example of one of those "good Moslems" many people search for, Diogenes-like (it's my contention that they are not so very hard to find).
The investigation seems to have picked up steam as a result of a phone call from Pakistan to a plotter in the UK, intercepted by the police, on the arrest of his brother in Pakistan. Both were British citizens, as were all the conspirators arrested in Britain so far. I'm curious to know whether this phone call was monitored as the result of a search warrant. At any rate:
This telephone call intercept in Karachi and the arrest of Rashid Rauf helped a lot to foil the terror plan," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The first is that breaking the case involved a strong degree of international cooperation, especially between the UK and Pakistan, as well as the US. Although for some this may conjure up thoughts of James Bond, the work no doubt was decidedly unglamorous. It started on a tip from someone in the Moslem community in Britain following last year's London bombings, the informant being an example of one of those "good Moslems" many people search for, Diogenes-like (it's my contention that they are not so very hard to find).
The investigation seems to have picked up steam as a result of a phone call from Pakistan to a plotter in the UK, intercepted by the police, on the arrest of his brother in Pakistan. Both were British citizens, as were all the conspirators arrested in Britain so far. I'm curious to know whether this phone call was monitored as the result of a search warrant. At any rate:
This telephone call intercept in Karachi and the arrest of Rashid Rauf helped a lot to foil the terror plan," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Friday, August 11, 2006
No need to imagine: these terror attacks were deja vu all over again
Yesterday I wrote that the word "unimaginable" makes no sense in terms of the thwarted terror attacks. After 9/11, they were not only imaginable, but eminently so.
But it turns out it's even worse than that. Not only were they imaginable, there was even something vaguely familiar about them. It didn't take long to realize that the plot resembled what is known as Oplan Bojinka, an aborted 1994-95 al Qaeda plan to blow up a group of airliners in flight.
On further study, it turns out that the details of the most recent plot were not just vaguely similar to Bojinka. The resemblance was far greater than that: take a look.
Oplan Bojinka was conceived by our old friends Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, both now in custody and the designers, respectively, of WTC attacks #1 and #2. The details? Blow up eleven airliners using nitroglycerine packed into contact lens solution bottles. It is estimated that, had the plan gone into operation, about 4,000 people would have died and air travel would have been disrupted for weeks.
The similarities to the current plot are profound, but the apparent differences are interesting, as well--the main one being that the Bojinka operation was to be carried out by the higher-up planners themselves rather than by underlings, and that they would not be committing suicide--although there's evidence that at least one part of the plot involved suicide: a terrorist pilot would commander a plane and crash it into the headquarters of the CIA (sound familiar?)
Bojinka was meticulously planned: the bombers would plant the explosives in life vests and then disembark from the planes at scheduled stops, before nearly simultaneous detonation over the South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The timers for the bombs were in Casio watches.
To give you an idea of Bojinka's scope, here are the airports that were to be affected:
* Kai Tak International Airport, Hong Kong
* New Tokyo International Airport (Now Narita International Airport), Narita, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, near Tokyo
* Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Pasay City/Parañaque City, National Capital Region, Philippines, near Manila
* Chiang Kai Shek International Airport, Taoyuan, Taiwan, Republic of China near Taipei
* Singapore Changi Airport, Singapore
* Gimpo Airport, Gimpo City, South Korea (Now a part of Seoul)
* Bangkok International Airport, Bangkok, Thailand
* Honolulu International Airport, Honolulu, Hawaii
* JFK, New York, New York
* LAX, Los Angeles, California
* Portland International Airport, Portland, Oregon
* San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco, California
The plot was foiled through what might be called a "work accident." The bombers' experimentations started a fire in their apartment and they fled while authorities were on the way, leaving behind a precious laptop with all the information about the plot. A confederate who was later sent to retrieve it was caught, and his cell phone led to the capture of some of the others.
The entire story reads like a movie. But if it does, it seems to be a movie that wasn't viewed very often or with much attention. Because the question remains: how, with all of this history, could the present-day attacks have been called "unimaginable" by the British police? And, semantics and hyperbole aside, why weren't bans on carry-on liquids in airplanes instituted long ago?
Oh, I know; it's a risk-benefit ratio. Passengers don't like being inconvenienced; I don't like it myself.
One reason all of this may have been ignored is that the way the perpetrators of Oplan Bojinka were caught made them seem like a pack of bumblers. The same was true of the first WTC bombings in 1993. The result? No one took them seriously.
But after 9/11, Bojinka needed careful attention and thoughtful revisiting. All of the previous modi operandi used by al Qaeda should have been studied in great detail, and policies instituted to circumvent them in the future.
It's a well known fact that Al Qaeda has a marked propensity for recycling its ideas, and it appears that the present-day plot was tantamount to deja vu all over again. It wouldn't have taken a particle of imagination for authorities to have known that. All it would have taken was the study of history--which, like al Qaeda, has a tendency to repeat itself.
But it turns out it's even worse than that. Not only were they imaginable, there was even something vaguely familiar about them. It didn't take long to realize that the plot resembled what is known as Oplan Bojinka, an aborted 1994-95 al Qaeda plan to blow up a group of airliners in flight.
On further study, it turns out that the details of the most recent plot were not just vaguely similar to Bojinka. The resemblance was far greater than that: take a look.
Oplan Bojinka was conceived by our old friends Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, both now in custody and the designers, respectively, of WTC attacks #1 and #2. The details? Blow up eleven airliners using nitroglycerine packed into contact lens solution bottles. It is estimated that, had the plan gone into operation, about 4,000 people would have died and air travel would have been disrupted for weeks.
The similarities to the current plot are profound, but the apparent differences are interesting, as well--the main one being that the Bojinka operation was to be carried out by the higher-up planners themselves rather than by underlings, and that they would not be committing suicide--although there's evidence that at least one part of the plot involved suicide: a terrorist pilot would commander a plane and crash it into the headquarters of the CIA (sound familiar?)
Bojinka was meticulously planned: the bombers would plant the explosives in life vests and then disembark from the planes at scheduled stops, before nearly simultaneous detonation over the South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The timers for the bombs were in Casio watches.
To give you an idea of Bojinka's scope, here are the airports that were to be affected:
* Kai Tak International Airport, Hong Kong
* New Tokyo International Airport (Now Narita International Airport), Narita, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, near Tokyo
* Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Pasay City/Parañaque City, National Capital Region, Philippines, near Manila
* Chiang Kai Shek International Airport, Taoyuan, Taiwan, Republic of China near Taipei
* Singapore Changi Airport, Singapore
* Gimpo Airport, Gimpo City, South Korea (Now a part of Seoul)
* Bangkok International Airport, Bangkok, Thailand
* Honolulu International Airport, Honolulu, Hawaii
* JFK, New York, New York
* LAX, Los Angeles, California
* Portland International Airport, Portland, Oregon
* San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco, California
The plot was foiled through what might be called a "work accident." The bombers' experimentations started a fire in their apartment and they fled while authorities were on the way, leaving behind a precious laptop with all the information about the plot. A confederate who was later sent to retrieve it was caught, and his cell phone led to the capture of some of the others.
The entire story reads like a movie. But if it does, it seems to be a movie that wasn't viewed very often or with much attention. Because the question remains: how, with all of this history, could the present-day attacks have been called "unimaginable" by the British police? And, semantics and hyperbole aside, why weren't bans on carry-on liquids in airplanes instituted long ago?
Oh, I know; it's a risk-benefit ratio. Passengers don't like being inconvenienced; I don't like it myself.
One reason all of this may have been ignored is that the way the perpetrators of Oplan Bojinka were caught made them seem like a pack of bumblers. The same was true of the first WTC bombings in 1993. The result? No one took them seriously.
But after 9/11, Bojinka needed careful attention and thoughtful revisiting. All of the previous modi operandi used by al Qaeda should have been studied in great detail, and policies instituted to circumvent them in the future.
It's a well known fact that Al Qaeda has a marked propensity for recycling its ideas, and it appears that the present-day plot was tantamount to deja vu all over again. It wouldn't have taken a particle of imagination for authorities to have known that. All it would have taken was the study of history--which, like al Qaeda, has a tendency to repeat itself.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
"Unimaginable" terror attack foiled: denial
A planned terrorist attack to destroy airliners in flight through explosives hidden in carry-on luggage has been thwarted in Great Britain.
The police described the plot as involving "mass murder on an unimaginable scale." My reaction: unimaginable to whom? Folks, where've you been for the past five years?
Of course, you might say it shouldn't have been "unimaginable" even before 9/11. But for most of us, it was. At the time, it was easier to be in denial of the intent and the capability of the jihadis because they'd never managed to pull it off before.
But at this point, the use of the word "unimaginable" is either a case of rhetorical hyperbole, or the reflection of an attitude of unfortunate denial in the face of clear and uncontrovertible evidence and statements of intent. Nothing of this sort should be unimaginable these days, and one doesn't even need a very active imagination to envision it.
It's also true that some still find it almost impossible to do so. One of my first thoughts on hearing the news--after I'd heard some of the details of what, where, how, who (I didn't need the "why" since we're all-too-familiar with that)--was to wonder how long it would take for someone to imagine the whole thing a conspiracy by the authorities to scare the public.
Preliminary reports aren't saying all that much about the perpetrators, except that they are "home-grown" and part of the Pakistani community. This is the trend in terror attacks lately--not foreign nationals but locals, which is especially worrisome to authorities and, I would imagine, to the local communities as well, who could experience a backlash against them by the public at large. Not that the perpetrators care; it's not "unimaginable" to me that generating such a backlash might even be desirable to them. After all, if their own community feels more oppressed, it could gain them more dissatisfied and disgruntled potential jihadis to martyr themselves in the cause of blowing up innocents.
[ADDENDUM: Dean Bartlett wonders about that word "unimaginable" as well.
And Alexandra has a nice list of reactions from the Left that are about as predicted.]
The police described the plot as involving "mass murder on an unimaginable scale." My reaction: unimaginable to whom? Folks, where've you been for the past five years?
Of course, you might say it shouldn't have been "unimaginable" even before 9/11. But for most of us, it was. At the time, it was easier to be in denial of the intent and the capability of the jihadis because they'd never managed to pull it off before.
But at this point, the use of the word "unimaginable" is either a case of rhetorical hyperbole, or the reflection of an attitude of unfortunate denial in the face of clear and uncontrovertible evidence and statements of intent. Nothing of this sort should be unimaginable these days, and one doesn't even need a very active imagination to envision it.
It's also true that some still find it almost impossible to do so. One of my first thoughts on hearing the news--after I'd heard some of the details of what, where, how, who (I didn't need the "why" since we're all-too-familiar with that)--was to wonder how long it would take for someone to imagine the whole thing a conspiracy by the authorities to scare the public.
Preliminary reports aren't saying all that much about the perpetrators, except that they are "home-grown" and part of the Pakistani community. This is the trend in terror attacks lately--not foreign nationals but locals, which is especially worrisome to authorities and, I would imagine, to the local communities as well, who could experience a backlash against them by the public at large. Not that the perpetrators care; it's not "unimaginable" to me that generating such a backlash might even be desirable to them. After all, if their own community feels more oppressed, it could gain them more dissatisfied and disgruntled potential jihadis to martyr themselves in the cause of blowing up innocents.
[ADDENDUM: Dean Bartlett wonders about that word "unimaginable" as well.
And Alexandra has a nice list of reactions from the Left that are about as predicted.]
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Paleodems
Lieberman's been drummed out of the Democratic Party, the party he refused to abandon on his own.
I wrote here about how difficult it is ordinarily to change party affiliation, quoting Zell Miller's remark that it's almost like trying to remove a birthmark. Lieberman seems to have undergone a sort of radical surgery to remove that birthmark against his will.
Today, people such as Lieberman--Democrats who are foreign policy hawks-- must align themselves more closely to Republicans than Democrats on those issues, leaving them open to charges of party disloyalty. But 'twas not ever thus. One only has to think of such Democratic luminaries as FDR, Harry Truman, and JFK to realize how different mainstream Democratic thought on these issues used to be.
But that was before the watershed experience of Vietnam, which changed the Democratic Party. Following that era there originated the term "Scoop Jackson Democrats," after Henry M. ("Scoop") Jackson, a Democratic Senator who was hawkish in the mold of Harry Truman. He's also considered by some to be the father of neoconservatism, although he remained a Democrat his entire life.
I hereby propose a new term for Democrats who remain in the party but are hawkish on security and foreign policy matters: paleodems. It lacks the heavy baggage of "neocon," and it's more descriptive as well, because such people are not conservative in most senses of the word (nor am I, by the way). It also retains a reference to the Democratic Party, reflecting the 20th century history and tradition of that party as muscular on defense.
Of course, I may be too late, because paleodems are becoming an endangered species. If extinction occurs, the "paleo" prefix becomes even more apropos.
A historical note of interest on Scoop Jackson himself, with some resonances to today:
Coincidentally, Jackson in 1970, like Lieberman in 2006, faced a primary challenge from left-wing Democrats unhappy with his support for a controversial war; Jackson fended off Spokane lawyer Carl Maxey in a fiercely-contested primary, and went on to win the general election by a record margin.
Hmmm.
I wrote here about how difficult it is ordinarily to change party affiliation, quoting Zell Miller's remark that it's almost like trying to remove a birthmark. Lieberman seems to have undergone a sort of radical surgery to remove that birthmark against his will.
Today, people such as Lieberman--Democrats who are foreign policy hawks-- must align themselves more closely to Republicans than Democrats on those issues, leaving them open to charges of party disloyalty. But 'twas not ever thus. One only has to think of such Democratic luminaries as FDR, Harry Truman, and JFK to realize how different mainstream Democratic thought on these issues used to be.
But that was before the watershed experience of Vietnam, which changed the Democratic Party. Following that era there originated the term "Scoop Jackson Democrats," after Henry M. ("Scoop") Jackson, a Democratic Senator who was hawkish in the mold of Harry Truman. He's also considered by some to be the father of neoconservatism, although he remained a Democrat his entire life.
I hereby propose a new term for Democrats who remain in the party but are hawkish on security and foreign policy matters: paleodems. It lacks the heavy baggage of "neocon," and it's more descriptive as well, because such people are not conservative in most senses of the word (nor am I, by the way). It also retains a reference to the Democratic Party, reflecting the 20th century history and tradition of that party as muscular on defense.
Of course, I may be too late, because paleodems are becoming an endangered species. If extinction occurs, the "paleo" prefix becomes even more apropos.
A historical note of interest on Scoop Jackson himself, with some resonances to today:
Coincidentally, Jackson in 1970, like Lieberman in 2006, faced a primary challenge from left-wing Democrats unhappy with his support for a controversial war; Jackson fended off Spokane lawyer Carl Maxey in a fiercely-contested primary, and went on to win the general election by a record margin.
Hmmm.
No shelter for hawks under the shrinking Democratic tent
Joe Lieberman was defeated last night in the Democratic primary in Connecticut, thus proving (as if it needed any proving) that the Democratic Party has veered to the left.
The Democrats seem to have abandoned the "big tent" concept--the idea that a party shouldn't position itself so far to either side that it becomes marginal and exclusive.
Who is Ned Lamont? A deep-pocketed novice--very deep-pocketed indeed. We'll see what happens in the statewide election. I haven't yet been able to locate what the polls say at this point on Lieberman's chances of winning as an Independent--only this:
It will be days before the polls can measure a three-way race with accuracy. A Quinnipiac survey in mid-July suggested Lieberman would head into the campaign in a strong position, finding 51 percent support for him, 27 percent for Lamont and 9 percent for the Republican.
With his primary victory, Lamont almost certainly will gain support, at least intially, in a three-way matchup. In defeat, Lieberman will lose it, and the next poll could produce far different results than the last.
If Lieberman does go on to win as an Independent, the Democratic Party will have shot itself in the foot. And if Lamont wins? Will the Party go the way it did post-Vietnam, perceived as soft on security issues? Or will antiwar sentiment trump that perception?
And now for some good news: Cynthia McKinney is toast. You know you're in trouble when even a supporter says, "She makes us look bad."
The Democrats seem to have abandoned the "big tent" concept--the idea that a party shouldn't position itself so far to either side that it becomes marginal and exclusive.
Who is Ned Lamont? A deep-pocketed novice--very deep-pocketed indeed. We'll see what happens in the statewide election. I haven't yet been able to locate what the polls say at this point on Lieberman's chances of winning as an Independent--only this:
It will be days before the polls can measure a three-way race with accuracy. A Quinnipiac survey in mid-July suggested Lieberman would head into the campaign in a strong position, finding 51 percent support for him, 27 percent for Lamont and 9 percent for the Republican.
With his primary victory, Lamont almost certainly will gain support, at least intially, in a three-way matchup. In defeat, Lieberman will lose it, and the next poll could produce far different results than the last.
If Lieberman does go on to win as an Independent, the Democratic Party will have shot itself in the foot. And if Lamont wins? Will the Party go the way it did post-Vietnam, perceived as soft on security issues? Or will antiwar sentiment trump that perception?
And now for some good news: Cynthia McKinney is toast. You know you're in trouble when even a supporter says, "She makes us look bad."
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Reuters and CYA journalism: the mystery of the disappearing terrorists
Now that Reutergate has caught our attention, it's informative to look at certain other questionable aspects of Reuters policy.
For example, Reuters is famous for refusing to use the word "terrorist" in its copy or headlines.
Two years ago, Reuters made an amazing admission about this practice. I missed it at the time, but now it takes on greater significance. I had always thought that the failure of Reuters to use the "t" word was based on some abstract principle of "innocent till proven guilty," combined with an incomprehensible bias in favor of those in the Mideast with grievances against the West.
But it turns out I was wrong. Reuters's motivations are not even that lofty. They could best be described under the general rubric "CYA."
Oh, but let me present it in Reuters's own words--that is, the words of Reuter's managing editor David A. Schlesinger. Back in September of 2004 when CanWest, the owners of a large Canadian newspaper chain, decided to substitute "terrorists" for "militants" in Reuters's mealy-mouthed articles, Schlesinger said CanWest would be required to remove the Reuters label from such demonizing pieces:
"Our editorial policy is that we don't use emotive words when labeling someone," said David A. Schlesinger, Reuters' global managing editor. "Any paper can change copy and do whatever they want. But if a paper wants to change our copy that way, we would be more comfortable if they remove the byline."
Mr. Schlesinger said he was concerned that changes like those made at CanWest could lead to "confusion" about what Reuters is reporting and possibly endanger its reporters in volatile areas or situations.
"My goal is to protect our reporters and protect our editorial integrity," he said.
So, it's Eason Jordan all over again. The words "editorial integrity" used to mean telling the truth; at least I thought so. But truth? Fahgetabout it, says Reuters. What does matter, instead? Press access: Reuters's ability to bring you all the news that's not fit to print.
How has it come to this? Oh, believe me, I understand the need for journalists to live to write another day. But if telling the truth is too dangerous, then it's time to get out and tell it from another place.
Because you've outlived your usefulness as journalists if you compromise that much. You've become the tools of terrorists--and I doubt even Mr. Schlesinger had that particular goal in mind when he chose his profession.
For example, Reuters is famous for refusing to use the word "terrorist" in its copy or headlines.
Two years ago, Reuters made an amazing admission about this practice. I missed it at the time, but now it takes on greater significance. I had always thought that the failure of Reuters to use the "t" word was based on some abstract principle of "innocent till proven guilty," combined with an incomprehensible bias in favor of those in the Mideast with grievances against the West.
But it turns out I was wrong. Reuters's motivations are not even that lofty. They could best be described under the general rubric "CYA."
Oh, but let me present it in Reuters's own words--that is, the words of Reuter's managing editor David A. Schlesinger. Back in September of 2004 when CanWest, the owners of a large Canadian newspaper chain, decided to substitute "terrorists" for "militants" in Reuters's mealy-mouthed articles, Schlesinger said CanWest would be required to remove the Reuters label from such demonizing pieces:
"Our editorial policy is that we don't use emotive words when labeling someone," said David A. Schlesinger, Reuters' global managing editor. "Any paper can change copy and do whatever they want. But if a paper wants to change our copy that way, we would be more comfortable if they remove the byline."
Mr. Schlesinger said he was concerned that changes like those made at CanWest could lead to "confusion" about what Reuters is reporting and possibly endanger its reporters in volatile areas or situations.
"My goal is to protect our reporters and protect our editorial integrity," he said.
So, it's Eason Jordan all over again. The words "editorial integrity" used to mean telling the truth; at least I thought so. But truth? Fahgetabout it, says Reuters. What does matter, instead? Press access: Reuters's ability to bring you all the news that's not fit to print.
How has it come to this? Oh, believe me, I understand the need for journalists to live to write another day. But if telling the truth is too dangerous, then it's time to get out and tell it from another place.
Because you've outlived your usefulness as journalists if you compromise that much. You've become the tools of terrorists--and I doubt even Mr. Schlesinger had that particular goal in mind when he chose his profession.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Israel and Lebanon: let's play dominoes
To some, the war in Lebanon and Israel may look like just another skirmish in that long-running "cycle-of-violence" film. To others--and I count myself among them--something quite different is going on. And it's a different "something" than has been going on until now in that region, and that "something" is the growing power and reach of Iran.
Those who support Israel have always seen the Mideast wars as fights for Israel's existence against those ranged to destroy it. But Israel always prevailed. Its enemies seemed unable to fight effectively, or to be in disarray, despite periodic help from powers such as the once-mighty USSR. Those who prefer to think Israel culpable--and even evil--still saw it as powerful compared to its enemies. In fact, that's one of the reasons those people supported those enemies--in sympathy for what was perceived as their weakness and downtroddenness. It certainly couldn't have been their glorious devotion to human rights.
At the beginning of this war many people (including myself) wrote of the Lebanese people as being held hostage by Hezbollah, as having been reluctantly dragged into this fight against their will. But, although that is certainly true for many Lebanese, it's become more apparent that there are a vast number of Hezbollah supporters in that country.
What else has become apparent? The extent to which the Lebanese government has been coopted by Hezbollah, and by its masters Syria and especially Iran.
Take a look at Alexandra's an excellent post on the subject. Iran is behind a great deal of the turmoil in Iraq, via al Sadr; it is behind Hezbollah. And Iran has declared itself boldly: it is dedicated to the destruction of the great and little Satans, the US and Israel.
So here's another domino theory for you, updated: Iran is bent on hegemony, and Lebanon is a pawn in the game. Take a stand here, and it might help stop Iran. Give in, and more than Lebanon may be lost. Think Czechslovakia in World War II.
The situation is further complicated by the fact that we are now in an atomic age. Previous tyrants never had access to destructive means of this magnitude. But now they do. This particular marriage of tyranny, religious megalomania, and nuclear physics has never been consummated before. But get ready: that horrific menage a trois is about to take its vows.
At the moment, Israel is fighting for its life. Some care about that, some don't. Some would cheer if the entire country were wiped off the face of the earth. But make no mistake. The words of Eric Hoffer, written in 1968, resonate with eerie prescience:
I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel, so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us.
Is this another siege of Vienna, one of those pivot points in history? If so, let's fervently hope it pivots in the right direction.
And the first step towards that goal is recognition that this is not a minor skirmish. Israel is fighting for its life, but not only for its life. It's fighting for the West and the Enlightenment against formidable and implacable forces of darkness and religious tyranny.
Language like that is easy to mock in our postmodern world. So very apocalyptic, so over-the-top, so un-PC! But ignore and minimize this situation at your peril. Some day, the bell may toll for thee.
[ADDENDUM: Siniora, a man without a country.]
Those who support Israel have always seen the Mideast wars as fights for Israel's existence against those ranged to destroy it. But Israel always prevailed. Its enemies seemed unable to fight effectively, or to be in disarray, despite periodic help from powers such as the once-mighty USSR. Those who prefer to think Israel culpable--and even evil--still saw it as powerful compared to its enemies. In fact, that's one of the reasons those people supported those enemies--in sympathy for what was perceived as their weakness and downtroddenness. It certainly couldn't have been their glorious devotion to human rights.
At the beginning of this war many people (including myself) wrote of the Lebanese people as being held hostage by Hezbollah, as having been reluctantly dragged into this fight against their will. But, although that is certainly true for many Lebanese, it's become more apparent that there are a vast number of Hezbollah supporters in that country.
What else has become apparent? The extent to which the Lebanese government has been coopted by Hezbollah, and by its masters Syria and especially Iran.
Take a look at Alexandra's an excellent post on the subject. Iran is behind a great deal of the turmoil in Iraq, via al Sadr; it is behind Hezbollah. And Iran has declared itself boldly: it is dedicated to the destruction of the great and little Satans, the US and Israel.
So here's another domino theory for you, updated: Iran is bent on hegemony, and Lebanon is a pawn in the game. Take a stand here, and it might help stop Iran. Give in, and more than Lebanon may be lost. Think Czechslovakia in World War II.
The situation is further complicated by the fact that we are now in an atomic age. Previous tyrants never had access to destructive means of this magnitude. But now they do. This particular marriage of tyranny, religious megalomania, and nuclear physics has never been consummated before. But get ready: that horrific menage a trois is about to take its vows.
At the moment, Israel is fighting for its life. Some care about that, some don't. Some would cheer if the entire country were wiped off the face of the earth. But make no mistake. The words of Eric Hoffer, written in 1968, resonate with eerie prescience:
I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel, so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us.
Is this another siege of Vienna, one of those pivot points in history? If so, let's fervently hope it pivots in the right direction.
And the first step towards that goal is recognition that this is not a minor skirmish. Israel is fighting for its life, but not only for its life. It's fighting for the West and the Enlightenment against formidable and implacable forces of darkness and religious tyranny.
Language like that is easy to mock in our postmodern world. So very apocalyptic, so over-the-top, so un-PC! But ignore and minimize this situation at your peril. Some day, the bell may toll for thee.
[ADDENDUM: Siniora, a man without a country.]
Reuters rides again
The plot thickens.
[ADDENDUM: Could it be that Reuters is finally concerned about its own dwindling reputation, if not the state of the Western World? Perhaps.
Reuters also said today it had put in place a tighter editing procedure for images of the Middle East conflict to ensure that no photograph from the region would be transmitted to subscribers without review by the most senior editor on the Reuters Global Pictures Desk, according to a Reuters spokeswoman.
Now if only they could do the same for their editorial policy, and their headlines.]
[ADDENDUM: Could it be that Reuters is finally concerned about its own dwindling reputation, if not the state of the Western World? Perhaps.
Reuters also said today it had put in place a tighter editing procedure for images of the Middle East conflict to ensure that no photograph from the region would be transmitted to subscribers without review by the most senior editor on the Reuters Global Pictures Desk, according to a Reuters spokeswoman.
Now if only they could do the same for their editorial policy, and their headlines.]
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Reutergate: the blogosphere fact-checks your ass; what do you fact-check?
Kate of Small Dead Animals has given the story the perfect name: Reutergate.
Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs (he of "Rathergate" and the superimposed forged memos fame) has caught Reuters red-handed in allowing a Photoshopped image of the war in Lebanon to pass muster. Once again, the blogosphere is living up to its unofficial motto: "we fact-check your ass."
Reuters--unlike Rather--has admitted the fraud and removed the photo. And perhaps the most interesting factoid about the entire story is the identity of the photographer, one Adnan Hajj, who was also the Reuters photographer at Qana.
The original "gate"--Watergate--was huge news at the time. But as the years have rolled by, and nearly every scandal has been given the "gate" appellation, most of them have been of little or no consequence.
Reutergate should be important, but not just because of this particular incident--which, in isolation, would not matter a whole lot. Its importance lies in the fact that it's part of a larger pattern in which once-respected news agencies and newspapers have become compromised. Not only do they regularly violate the cardinal rule of journalism--fact-checking and photo-checking: in short, truth--but they have become the willing or unwilling, ignorant or knowledgeable, tools of the enemy (see this).
Second Draft is a website devoted to explaining how the media has disseminated the lies of "Pallywood" around the globe, creating a fictional reality that has influenced perceptions about the Middle East, especially in Europe, where the most famous Pallywood oeuvre, "Caught in the Crossfire" (otherwise known as "the death of Mohamed al Durah"), was widely publicized and fueled anti-Israel sentiment. It's since become clear that in Qana the press coverage of the aftermath was at least partly a Pallywood production, as well.
I wonder how much coverage this incident will get outside of the blogosphere. And the blogs, unfortunately, are preaching mainly to the choir. Just now, for instance, I Googled "reuters photoshop lebanon," and all that came up in the way of news stories was an article in the Jerusalem Post, and a short one at that.
It remains to be seen if the MSM will even see this as a wakeup call to vet their stringers better, or whether it will end with the suspension of Adnan Hajj. But it's about much more than Hajj; the truth is that this photo wasn't even a good example of Photoshopping. As many observers have pointed out, it was crude and obvious and should have been caught--if anyone had been looking.
The same, of course, was true of the Dan Rather memos. Anyone familiar with the difference between a typewriter and a word processor could--and should--have seen the forgery. But one had to have been looking. And the press has stopped looking.
So it's not just about stringers, although that's part of it. Whether or not it's also about bias (and I happen to believe it is), at the very least it's about standards. The MSM needs to raise them, and to fact-check and photocheck and proofread itself in a new way. It needs to realize that it is now one of the major fronts in the war in which we are currently engaged, and that it's being co-opted by forces that are not only the enemy, but are the enemy of a free press as well.
Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs (he of "Rathergate" and the superimposed forged memos fame) has caught Reuters red-handed in allowing a Photoshopped image of the war in Lebanon to pass muster. Once again, the blogosphere is living up to its unofficial motto: "we fact-check your ass."
Reuters--unlike Rather--has admitted the fraud and removed the photo. And perhaps the most interesting factoid about the entire story is the identity of the photographer, one Adnan Hajj, who was also the Reuters photographer at Qana.
The original "gate"--Watergate--was huge news at the time. But as the years have rolled by, and nearly every scandal has been given the "gate" appellation, most of them have been of little or no consequence.
Reutergate should be important, but not just because of this particular incident--which, in isolation, would not matter a whole lot. Its importance lies in the fact that it's part of a larger pattern in which once-respected news agencies and newspapers have become compromised. Not only do they regularly violate the cardinal rule of journalism--fact-checking and photo-checking: in short, truth--but they have become the willing or unwilling, ignorant or knowledgeable, tools of the enemy (see this).
Second Draft is a website devoted to explaining how the media has disseminated the lies of "Pallywood" around the globe, creating a fictional reality that has influenced perceptions about the Middle East, especially in Europe, where the most famous Pallywood oeuvre, "Caught in the Crossfire" (otherwise known as "the death of Mohamed al Durah"), was widely publicized and fueled anti-Israel sentiment. It's since become clear that in Qana the press coverage of the aftermath was at least partly a Pallywood production, as well.
I wonder how much coverage this incident will get outside of the blogosphere. And the blogs, unfortunately, are preaching mainly to the choir. Just now, for instance, I Googled "reuters photoshop lebanon," and all that came up in the way of news stories was an article in the Jerusalem Post, and a short one at that.
It remains to be seen if the MSM will even see this as a wakeup call to vet their stringers better, or whether it will end with the suspension of Adnan Hajj. But it's about much more than Hajj; the truth is that this photo wasn't even a good example of Photoshopping. As many observers have pointed out, it was crude and obvious and should have been caught--if anyone had been looking.
The same, of course, was true of the Dan Rather memos. Anyone familiar with the difference between a typewriter and a word processor could--and should--have seen the forgery. But one had to have been looking. And the press has stopped looking.
So it's not just about stringers, although that's part of it. Whether or not it's also about bias (and I happen to believe it is), at the very least it's about standards. The MSM needs to raise them, and to fact-check and photocheck and proofread itself in a new way. It needs to realize that it is now one of the major fronts in the war in which we are currently engaged, and that it's being co-opted by forces that are not only the enemy, but are the enemy of a free press as well.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Understanding the 30s: a new Serenity Prayer
Victor Davis Hanson has written a compelling piece on the current moral malaise in the West and its pernicious effects. It's a topic many of us have been hammering home lately, although Hanson--as usual--says it especially well.
Hanson makes a point I've thought about many times recently, which is that previously it seemed difficult to understand how so many people of the 1930s could be blind to what was happening in Germany--what it meant, what it would lead to, and why it was so important to stop Hitler before his power had grown.
How could they have not seen, not known? Ah, we would have been so much smarter than they were, if faced with the same circumstances!
But lately, along with Hanson, I'm having no difficulty imagining the mindset of the 30s, and how it must have felt to watch, as Churchill put it, The Gathering Storm.
And I keep thinking of the poet William Butler Yeats's masterpiece "The Second Coming" (written in 1919 after World War I), which presciently foretold the events of the 30s, as Yeats himself acknowledged. I've quoted it before, I'm quoting it now, and I probably will quote it again, with emphasis on two especially important and famous lines:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Perhaps those two lines expresses a common truth of human nature, one that comes to the fore when a terrible danger is building: those doing the threatening are passionate and intense, and the majority of those reacting are confused and in denial. For who among us wants to face a truth so harsh, to look true evil in the eye and understand that to fight it will require great suffering on the part of innocent people?
But evildoers (in Bush's famous and much-maligned phrase) don't care about the anguish of innocents--although they pretend to, if it suits their propaganda purposes. Whereas the enemies of evil do care, and very much.
That's part of what gives many of those who would combat evil their lack of conviction: the need, at times, to fight fire with fire, to kill to prevent worse killing from happening, is something that is very difficult for compassionate people to accept.
It's almost as though we need a new version of the Serenity Prayer:
God grant us the serenity to change those things that can be changed with talk and diplomacy, the courage to fight for those things that require it, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Hanson makes a point I've thought about many times recently, which is that previously it seemed difficult to understand how so many people of the 1930s could be blind to what was happening in Germany--what it meant, what it would lead to, and why it was so important to stop Hitler before his power had grown.
How could they have not seen, not known? Ah, we would have been so much smarter than they were, if faced with the same circumstances!
But lately, along with Hanson, I'm having no difficulty imagining the mindset of the 30s, and how it must have felt to watch, as Churchill put it, The Gathering Storm.
And I keep thinking of the poet William Butler Yeats's masterpiece "The Second Coming" (written in 1919 after World War I), which presciently foretold the events of the 30s, as Yeats himself acknowledged. I've quoted it before, I'm quoting it now, and I probably will quote it again, with emphasis on two especially important and famous lines:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Perhaps those two lines expresses a common truth of human nature, one that comes to the fore when a terrible danger is building: those doing the threatening are passionate and intense, and the majority of those reacting are confused and in denial. For who among us wants to face a truth so harsh, to look true evil in the eye and understand that to fight it will require great suffering on the part of innocent people?
But evildoers (in Bush's famous and much-maligned phrase) don't care about the anguish of innocents--although they pretend to, if it suits their propaganda purposes. Whereas the enemies of evil do care, and very much.
That's part of what gives many of those who would combat evil their lack of conviction: the need, at times, to fight fire with fire, to kill to prevent worse killing from happening, is something that is very difficult for compassionate people to accept.
It's almost as though we need a new version of the Serenity Prayer:
God grant us the serenity to change those things that can be changed with talk and diplomacy, the courage to fight for those things that require it, and the wisdom to know the difference.
It bears repeating: Eric Hoffer on Israel
It was written in 1968, and perhaps you are familiar with it: Eric Hoffer's piece on what he referred to as the "peculiar" position of Israel.
Hoffer's essay is not only still astoundingly pertinent today, but it's also notable for its brevity and clarity. So I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to present it here in its entirety, as food for thought.
ISRAEL'S PECULIAR POSITION
By Eric Hoffer (LA Times 5/26/68)
The Jews are a peculiar people: Things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.
Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people, and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it. Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey threw out a million Greeks, and Algeria a million Frenchmen. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese--and no one says a word about refugees.
But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab. Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world.
Other nations when they are defeated survive and recover, but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed. Had Nasser triumphed last June, he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews. No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on. There is a cry of outrage all over the world when people die in Vietnam or when two Negroes are executed in Rhodesia. But when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one remonstrated with him.
The Swedes, who are ready to break off diplomatic relations with America because of what we do in Vietnam, did not let out a peep when Hitler was slaughtering Jews. They sent Hitler choice iron ore and ball bearings, and serviced his troop trains to Norway.
The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts and Jewish resources.
Yet at this moment Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general. I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel, so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us.
[Via Pajamas Media.]
[ADDENDUM: Change "the Arabs and their Russian backers" in Hoffer's essay to "the Arabs and Iranians and their (fill in the blanks) backers."]
Hoffer's essay is not only still astoundingly pertinent today, but it's also notable for its brevity and clarity. So I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to present it here in its entirety, as food for thought.
ISRAEL'S PECULIAR POSITION
By Eric Hoffer (LA Times 5/26/68)
The Jews are a peculiar people: Things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.
Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people, and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it. Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey threw out a million Greeks, and Algeria a million Frenchmen. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese--and no one says a word about refugees.
But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab. Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world.
Other nations when they are defeated survive and recover, but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed. Had Nasser triumphed last June, he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews. No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on. There is a cry of outrage all over the world when people die in Vietnam or when two Negroes are executed in Rhodesia. But when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one remonstrated with him.
The Swedes, who are ready to break off diplomatic relations with America because of what we do in Vietnam, did not let out a peep when Hitler was slaughtering Jews. They sent Hitler choice iron ore and ball bearings, and serviced his troop trains to Norway.
The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts and Jewish resources.
Yet at this moment Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer had the Arabs and their Russian backers won the war to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general. I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel, so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us.
[Via Pajamas Media.]
[ADDENDUM: Change "the Arabs and their Russian backers" in Hoffer's essay to "the Arabs and Iranians and their (fill in the blanks) backers."]
Friday, August 04, 2006
Israel: Athens or Sparta or Masada
Here's an astounding article (via Belmont Club) about three of the four founders of the Israeli peace movement (called "Four Mothers") that was largely responsible for the shift in Israeli attitudes leading to the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000.
Revisiting the views of these women now, six years later, provides a sort of "where are they now?" of the mind.
In the 1990's, they had lost children fighting the war in Lebanon. They felt that the war was being waged to little or no good, and became devoted to a withdrawal of forces from the country and to the cause of peace. These women not only gave peace a chance, they believed in it with a fervent zeal, they lived it and fought for it (metaphorically speaking), and thought they won it.
But read what they have to say now. It's not only a story about the process of how minds and opinions change (one of the themes of this blog), it's one of the best examples I've found of the fact that Israelis see the current war as a fight for their very survival--a grim necessity offering no alternatives.
One of the women, the eloquent Zohara Antebi, says of her previous commitment:
So if you are saying now that I was wrong when I believed that it would be possible to ensure far fewer casualties and far more quiet after leaving Lebanon, you're right. I was wrong. I'm afraid of those who are incapable of saying 'I was wrong' in the first person. I lived on the border, in Malkiya, and I saw the small tobacco plots of the farmers in southern Lebanon, and I believed that prosperity on both sides of the border would ensure quiet. That Nasrallah would aspire for his people to have a good life. In that I was wrong. I was definitely wrong.
And she says of the present war, and how it followed that previous withdrawal she helped engineer:
And leaving Lebanon then was not a military move. It was a civilian move. It was meant to enable us to be Athens, not Sparta. And precisely because of that there is now no choice. Now we have to change the diskette. This time we are fighting for our home. This time we are fighting so that we will have lives here.
Not all the women regret that initial withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, nor connect it inexorably to the present war. But all are united in believing that the present war is absolutely necessary. As one of them, Orna Shimoni, says, it's an "existential war," fought for their very lives. The enemy has made it clear that the goal is to eliminate Israel. And Shimoni, who has always been affiliated with the left, and who abhors killing with all her being, is now angry at her former comrades in the left in Israel. Since she sees this war as a fight for Israel's very life, and the consequence of losing would be the slaughter of the Israelis, she sees the left as aiding and abetting that slaughter.
The article is eloquent about the intensity of the suffering the deaths of Israeli soldiers cause the Israeli people. Israel is a small country with universal conscription, and Jews are famously known--as many Arab commenters so succinctly put it--to "love life." The Jewish mother is legendary in her protective maternal instincts, so much so that in the US she's always good for a laugh in that regard--but just imagine those instincts coupled with the constant threat of losing so many young adult children in war.
The earliest wars in Israel, however, were very clearly for survival, and the mothers of the soldiers who fought in those wars were--if not actually Spartan--part of the tough and pioneering group who founded that country. The mothers of today's soldiers and the soldiers of the previous decade came of age in a different Israeli climate-- one that, if not exactly secure, was at least more secure, or perceived as such. As Antebi puts it, it was more Athenian and less Spartan.
The Lebanese occupation was ultimately perceived by that generation as unnecessary and even counterproductive and wrong, and the deaths as simply not worth it--much like the Vietnamese War came to be perceived here in the late 60s and early 70s, and much as the Afghan-Soviet War came to be perceived by the Russians. Thus, the 2000 pullout from Lebanon was widely supported throughout Israel.
But the events of recent years have taken away the dream of Oslo and the Camp David era. It's no longer about the Palestinians, either; not this war. This war is about Iran and its plan to dominate the Arab world, a plan that does not include the existence of Israel. And this is true whatever Israel does or does not do, whatever steps it takes or does not take--short of the entire country reenacting the legend of Masada and committing mass suicide.
[ADDENDUM: Listen to this podcast, an interview with Caroline Glick, available through Politics Central at Pajamas Media. Her contention is that Israel must win this war not only for its own sake, but to save the country of Lebanon from becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of Iran.]
Revisiting the views of these women now, six years later, provides a sort of "where are they now?" of the mind.
In the 1990's, they had lost children fighting the war in Lebanon. They felt that the war was being waged to little or no good, and became devoted to a withdrawal of forces from the country and to the cause of peace. These women not only gave peace a chance, they believed in it with a fervent zeal, they lived it and fought for it (metaphorically speaking), and thought they won it.
But read what they have to say now. It's not only a story about the process of how minds and opinions change (one of the themes of this blog), it's one of the best examples I've found of the fact that Israelis see the current war as a fight for their very survival--a grim necessity offering no alternatives.
One of the women, the eloquent Zohara Antebi, says of her previous commitment:
So if you are saying now that I was wrong when I believed that it would be possible to ensure far fewer casualties and far more quiet after leaving Lebanon, you're right. I was wrong. I'm afraid of those who are incapable of saying 'I was wrong' in the first person. I lived on the border, in Malkiya, and I saw the small tobacco plots of the farmers in southern Lebanon, and I believed that prosperity on both sides of the border would ensure quiet. That Nasrallah would aspire for his people to have a good life. In that I was wrong. I was definitely wrong.
And she says of the present war, and how it followed that previous withdrawal she helped engineer:
And leaving Lebanon then was not a military move. It was a civilian move. It was meant to enable us to be Athens, not Sparta. And precisely because of that there is now no choice. Now we have to change the diskette. This time we are fighting for our home. This time we are fighting so that we will have lives here.
Not all the women regret that initial withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, nor connect it inexorably to the present war. But all are united in believing that the present war is absolutely necessary. As one of them, Orna Shimoni, says, it's an "existential war," fought for their very lives. The enemy has made it clear that the goal is to eliminate Israel. And Shimoni, who has always been affiliated with the left, and who abhors killing with all her being, is now angry at her former comrades in the left in Israel. Since she sees this war as a fight for Israel's very life, and the consequence of losing would be the slaughter of the Israelis, she sees the left as aiding and abetting that slaughter.
The article is eloquent about the intensity of the suffering the deaths of Israeli soldiers cause the Israeli people. Israel is a small country with universal conscription, and Jews are famously known--as many Arab commenters so succinctly put it--to "love life." The Jewish mother is legendary in her protective maternal instincts, so much so that in the US she's always good for a laugh in that regard--but just imagine those instincts coupled with the constant threat of losing so many young adult children in war.
The earliest wars in Israel, however, were very clearly for survival, and the mothers of the soldiers who fought in those wars were--if not actually Spartan--part of the tough and pioneering group who founded that country. The mothers of today's soldiers and the soldiers of the previous decade came of age in a different Israeli climate-- one that, if not exactly secure, was at least more secure, or perceived as such. As Antebi puts it, it was more Athenian and less Spartan.
The Lebanese occupation was ultimately perceived by that generation as unnecessary and even counterproductive and wrong, and the deaths as simply not worth it--much like the Vietnamese War came to be perceived here in the late 60s and early 70s, and much as the Afghan-Soviet War came to be perceived by the Russians. Thus, the 2000 pullout from Lebanon was widely supported throughout Israel.
But the events of recent years have taken away the dream of Oslo and the Camp David era. It's no longer about the Palestinians, either; not this war. This war is about Iran and its plan to dominate the Arab world, a plan that does not include the existence of Israel. And this is true whatever Israel does or does not do, whatever steps it takes or does not take--short of the entire country reenacting the legend of Masada and committing mass suicide.
[ADDENDUM: Listen to this podcast, an interview with Caroline Glick, available through Politics Central at Pajamas Media. Her contention is that Israel must win this war not only for its own sake, but to save the country of Lebanon from becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of Iran.]
Kind to the cruel: how Khomeini's life was spared
[NOTE: I'm aware that the following information comes from Wikipedia, a somewhat suspect source at times. I can't independently correborate or refute the information, and I'm wondering whether anyone else can find another more reliable source that can shed light on its truth or falsehood.]
Recently I happened to come across this little tidbit from history. Read it and weep:
In 1963, [Khomeini] publicly denounced the government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. He was thereby imprisoned for 8 months, and upon his release in 1964, he made a similar denunciation of the United States. It is well known that General Hassan Pakravan saved Ayatollah Khomeini’s life in 1963. Khomeini was condemned to death but General Hassan Pakravan felt that his execution would anger the common people of Iran. He knew that the most influential portion of the population was not its elite. He presented his argument to the shah. Once he had convinced the shah to allow him to find a way out, he called on Ayatollah Mohammad-Kazem Shariatmadari, one of the senior religious leaders of Iran, and asked for his help. [Ayatollah Shariatmadari] suggested that Khomeini be made an ayatollah. So, they made a religious decree which was taken by General Pakravan and Seyyed Jalal Tehrani to the Shah. After the Iranian Revolution, Pakravan was among the first of the Shah's officials to be executed.
Another illustration of the old adage that no good deed goes unpunished, as well as a demonstration of the wisdom of the ancient saying:
Those who are kind to the cruel will end up being cruel to the kind.
Recently I happened to come across this little tidbit from history. Read it and weep:
In 1963, [Khomeini] publicly denounced the government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. He was thereby imprisoned for 8 months, and upon his release in 1964, he made a similar denunciation of the United States. It is well known that General Hassan Pakravan saved Ayatollah Khomeini’s life in 1963. Khomeini was condemned to death but General Hassan Pakravan felt that his execution would anger the common people of Iran. He knew that the most influential portion of the population was not its elite. He presented his argument to the shah. Once he had convinced the shah to allow him to find a way out, he called on Ayatollah Mohammad-Kazem Shariatmadari, one of the senior religious leaders of Iran, and asked for his help. [Ayatollah Shariatmadari] suggested that Khomeini be made an ayatollah. So, they made a religious decree which was taken by General Pakravan and Seyyed Jalal Tehrani to the Shah. After the Iranian Revolution, Pakravan was among the first of the Shah's officials to be executed.
Another illustration of the old adage that no good deed goes unpunished, as well as a demonstration of the wisdom of the ancient saying:
Those who are kind to the cruel will end up being cruel to the kind.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
That's Entertainment: the seamless web of war and propaganda and media
I've been thinking and writing about the war in Lebanon lately almost to the exclusion of other topics. In this I'm not alone; much of the media and the blogosphere is focused on the conflict, and rightly so.
And much of this discussion and thought isn't just about the war itself--strategy and battles and goals--but on the coverage of the action.
At first this fact puzzled me a bit, including my own emphasis on the media coverage--after all, isn't the conflict and what's behind it far more important than how the MSM chooses to frame it? The answer is yes, it should be--but the latter isn't just an unimportant side issue, either. It is absolutely essential to the war itself and can be instrumental in determining its outcome.
Morale, will, the perception of how essential it is to win a certain war and the justness of the cause--all have been part of war since time immemorial. Leaders have always had to inspire their armies; and now, in democracies, they have to inspire their people as well.
Before the advent of the 24-hour news cycle, and certainly prior to the 60s, the media used to be both less ubiquitous and more supportive of government efforts. During the Vietnam War, the media found its power as an antiwar force and a gadfly (see this for my views on the matter).
And since then, the media has never looked back. The irony is that the war in Vietnam probably was far more tangential to our interests than the present wars in Iraq or Lebanon, which are vital. But the media, like a junkie on a high, keeps going back for a fix of action and sensation and visual effect and almost kneejerk criticism of the US and Israel, without realizing the destructive potential of its own actions.
And those elements--the pursuit of sensation and effect--have become, I believe, at least as potent a motivator for the media's actions as any possible political bias of journalists. Perhaps even more.
On this point, Betsy Newmark cites an article by Noah Pollak that appeared today in National Review, "Video Made the Terrorist Star." In the piece, Pollak comments on the decline of "serious journalism," which was embedded in context and history and facts, and the ascendance of journalism as entertainment, designed to entertain and stimulate, looking for interesting "stories" and personal dramas.
Pollak doesn't even see journalists as especially biased, but rather as ignorant of the consequences of their actions, and intent on telling telegenic stories. And in doing so they have become, as he points out, codependent enablers of terrorists themselves.
In a far less important arena, I've noticed the same thing in coverage of sports events such as the Olympics. Over the years, fewer and fewer minutes were spent just showing us the unadorned action, and more and more time was devoted to fancy features about the personal lives of the athletes, usually highlighting tearjerker soap-opera type details designed to make it seem all the more "up close and personal." Pretty soon the sport became almost tangential to the story.
Well, it doesn't matter much with the Olympics, does it? I liked them better the old way, but who cares, really?
But war is different, and it matters, terribly. Because the truth is that the stupidity and short-sightedness of the media has worked to change the face of war. When, as Pollak puts it, "Hezbollah does not have a military strategy; it has a media strategy that so far has been chillingly effective," we understand that his words are true: Hezbollah doesn't need a military strategy. Military strategy has become increasingly irrelevant in today's modern, limited wars, every sensational detail of which is beamed around the globe at lightening speed.
Of course, if Israel ever decided to pursue a goal of all-out, total, war, the issue might become irrelevant. Israel could utterly destroy Hezbollah and Lebanon and even Iran if it so desired. But that has not happened so far, and Hezbollah and Lebanon and Iran are well aware--despite their demonizing of Israel as Satanic--that it's unlikely to happen.
So the media, pursuing its own selfish ends, has become the handmaiden of terrorists. And, in its shortsighted pursuit of sensation and "stories," the media could well be a participant in sowing the seeds of its own destruction, since the protection of a free press is not exactly the goal of Islamic jihadis.
Ironic, indeed.
And much of this discussion and thought isn't just about the war itself--strategy and battles and goals--but on the coverage of the action.
At first this fact puzzled me a bit, including my own emphasis on the media coverage--after all, isn't the conflict and what's behind it far more important than how the MSM chooses to frame it? The answer is yes, it should be--but the latter isn't just an unimportant side issue, either. It is absolutely essential to the war itself and can be instrumental in determining its outcome.
Morale, will, the perception of how essential it is to win a certain war and the justness of the cause--all have been part of war since time immemorial. Leaders have always had to inspire their armies; and now, in democracies, they have to inspire their people as well.
Before the advent of the 24-hour news cycle, and certainly prior to the 60s, the media used to be both less ubiquitous and more supportive of government efforts. During the Vietnam War, the media found its power as an antiwar force and a gadfly (see this for my views on the matter).
And since then, the media has never looked back. The irony is that the war in Vietnam probably was far more tangential to our interests than the present wars in Iraq or Lebanon, which are vital. But the media, like a junkie on a high, keeps going back for a fix of action and sensation and visual effect and almost kneejerk criticism of the US and Israel, without realizing the destructive potential of its own actions.
And those elements--the pursuit of sensation and effect--have become, I believe, at least as potent a motivator for the media's actions as any possible political bias of journalists. Perhaps even more.
On this point, Betsy Newmark cites an article by Noah Pollak that appeared today in National Review, "Video Made the Terrorist Star." In the piece, Pollak comments on the decline of "serious journalism," which was embedded in context and history and facts, and the ascendance of journalism as entertainment, designed to entertain and stimulate, looking for interesting "stories" and personal dramas.
Pollak doesn't even see journalists as especially biased, but rather as ignorant of the consequences of their actions, and intent on telling telegenic stories. And in doing so they have become, as he points out, codependent enablers of terrorists themselves.
In a far less important arena, I've noticed the same thing in coverage of sports events such as the Olympics. Over the years, fewer and fewer minutes were spent just showing us the unadorned action, and more and more time was devoted to fancy features about the personal lives of the athletes, usually highlighting tearjerker soap-opera type details designed to make it seem all the more "up close and personal." Pretty soon the sport became almost tangential to the story.
Well, it doesn't matter much with the Olympics, does it? I liked them better the old way, but who cares, really?
But war is different, and it matters, terribly. Because the truth is that the stupidity and short-sightedness of the media has worked to change the face of war. When, as Pollak puts it, "Hezbollah does not have a military strategy; it has a media strategy that so far has been chillingly effective," we understand that his words are true: Hezbollah doesn't need a military strategy. Military strategy has become increasingly irrelevant in today's modern, limited wars, every sensational detail of which is beamed around the globe at lightening speed.
Of course, if Israel ever decided to pursue a goal of all-out, total, war, the issue might become irrelevant. Israel could utterly destroy Hezbollah and Lebanon and even Iran if it so desired. But that has not happened so far, and Hezbollah and Lebanon and Iran are well aware--despite their demonizing of Israel as Satanic--that it's unlikely to happen.
So the media, pursuing its own selfish ends, has become the handmaiden of terrorists. And, in its shortsighted pursuit of sensation and "stories," the media could well be a participant in sowing the seeds of its own destruction, since the protection of a free press is not exactly the goal of Islamic jihadis.
Ironic, indeed.
The definition of joy, Palestinian-style
It's hard to comment adequately on a tale that resembles something from the Onion.
This story says a great deal, however, about how the thirst for destruction that's become commonplace in Palestinian society has joined the homicidal and suicidal impulses so closely that the two have become almost as one.
And, in line with that fact, I want to call your attention to an extraordinary article by Richard Landes.
Landes begins with an exploration of the cult of death in Arab Moslem society, ties it into the current war in Lebanon and in particular Qana, and describes the role the unwitting Western press plays in promoting that cult.
His essay is so rich with thought that, once again, I suggest you read the whole thing.
One particularly striking example he gives of the press's ineptitude (or malevolence--take your pick) is the following truncated quote by journalist William Orme of the New York Times.
Israelis cite as one egregious example [of Arab hated of Jews] a televised sermon that defended the killing of the two soldiers. “Whether Likud or Labor, Jews are Jews,” proclaimed Sheik Ahmad Abu Halabaya in a live broadcast from a Gaza City mosque the day after the killings.
It sounds fairly innocuous: "Jews are Jews." Who could object to that? What's all the fuss about?
Here are the Sheik's actual words--and those that followed them--in his televised "sermon" (and it ain't no Sermon on the Mount, let me tell you):
The Jews are the Jews. Whether Labor or Likud the Jews are Jews. They do not have any moderates or any advocates of peace. They are all liars. They must be butchered and must be killed… The Jews are like a spring as long as you step on it with your foot it doesn’t move. But if you lift your foot from the spring, it hurts you and punishes you… It is forbidden to have mercy in your hearts for the Jews in any place and in any land. Make war on them any place that you find yourself. Any place that you meet them, kill them.
This utterly egregious example of misuse of the truncated quote can't possibly be the result of ignorance or incompetence. So what is it? Stupidity or malevolence? Take your pick.
This story says a great deal, however, about how the thirst for destruction that's become commonplace in Palestinian society has joined the homicidal and suicidal impulses so closely that the two have become almost as one.
And, in line with that fact, I want to call your attention to an extraordinary article by Richard Landes.
Landes begins with an exploration of the cult of death in Arab Moslem society, ties it into the current war in Lebanon and in particular Qana, and describes the role the unwitting Western press plays in promoting that cult.
His essay is so rich with thought that, once again, I suggest you read the whole thing.
One particularly striking example he gives of the press's ineptitude (or malevolence--take your pick) is the following truncated quote by journalist William Orme of the New York Times.
Israelis cite as one egregious example [of Arab hated of Jews] a televised sermon that defended the killing of the two soldiers. “Whether Likud or Labor, Jews are Jews,” proclaimed Sheik Ahmad Abu Halabaya in a live broadcast from a Gaza City mosque the day after the killings.
It sounds fairly innocuous: "Jews are Jews." Who could object to that? What's all the fuss about?
Here are the Sheik's actual words--and those that followed them--in his televised "sermon" (and it ain't no Sermon on the Mount, let me tell you):
The Jews are the Jews. Whether Labor or Likud the Jews are Jews. They do not have any moderates or any advocates of peace. They are all liars. They must be butchered and must be killed… The Jews are like a spring as long as you step on it with your foot it doesn’t move. But if you lift your foot from the spring, it hurts you and punishes you… It is forbidden to have mercy in your hearts for the Jews in any place and in any land. Make war on them any place that you find yourself. Any place that you meet them, kill them.
This utterly egregious example of misuse of the truncated quote can't possibly be the result of ignorance or incompetence. So what is it? Stupidity or malevolence? Take your pick.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Neo is hot
I can attest to the truth of this. It's one of the hottest days I can ever remember in these parts.
Back of my neck gettin dirty and gritty. Although, actually, I've got one of these.
Back of my neck gettin dirty and gritty. Although, actually, I've got one of these.
Bush's blood pressure: the man has ice water in his veins
In keeping with the modern taste for intimate disclosure, the White House has released the results of President Bush's most recent physical.
First, the bad news: he's shrunk a quarter of an inch. Haven't we all? And gained five pounds, although he still has very little body fat, especially for a man his age (sixty, prime of life!).
The rest of the statistics are astounding, especially for a man under the sort of stress a post-9/11 war president endures. Blood pressure? 106/68, a level usually achieved only by young children, and by yogis who've attained nirvana. Pulse? 46 beats per minute, the sort of thing usually only found in elite athletes. His cholesterol is a very respectable 174, although I'm puzzled by the article's emphasis on the fact that he's lowered his cholesterol: down from 178 last year. Big deal; well within the range of test variation.
Because he had a precancerous lesion removed, doctors reminded him to wear sunscreen. If he's like most of the men I know, he'll promptly and totally ignore that advice.
Meanwhile, another leader isn't doing quite as well.
First, the bad news: he's shrunk a quarter of an inch. Haven't we all? And gained five pounds, although he still has very little body fat, especially for a man his age (sixty, prime of life!).
The rest of the statistics are astounding, especially for a man under the sort of stress a post-9/11 war president endures. Blood pressure? 106/68, a level usually achieved only by young children, and by yogis who've attained nirvana. Pulse? 46 beats per minute, the sort of thing usually only found in elite athletes. His cholesterol is a very respectable 174, although I'm puzzled by the article's emphasis on the fact that he's lowered his cholesterol: down from 178 last year. Big deal; well within the range of test variation.
Because he had a precancerous lesion removed, doctors reminded him to wear sunscreen. If he's like most of the men I know, he'll promptly and totally ignore that advice.
Meanwhile, another leader isn't doing quite as well.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
The sleep of reason--and moral agency--produces monsters
Here we have Goya's famous etching"The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters."
It came to mind while I was reading Melanie Phillips, who is presently writing some of the finest analysis of the British (and, by extrapolation, general Western European) reaction to the war in Lebanon that I've read.
Phillips makes sobering reading. It does appear that, among a certain rather large segment in Europe, reason has indeed gone to sleep and monsters are afoot. The West, the birthplace of the Enlightenment and its dedication to reason, seems to have lost the ability to do so.
Read most especially and particularly this; (and also this, and this, if you have more time).
Phillips writes with an air of astonishment as well as outrage, the astonishment of the child who points out the obvious fact that the emperor has no clothes, and yet no one will listen. Her "J'accuse" will no doubt be rejected by those she's criticizing in the press, the intelligentsia, and the Left.
Ms. Phillips writes that the West is in the grip of "a profound moral breakdown." Some of this is fed by the lies and distortions of the BBC, which provides most of the information for the British populace; the BBC seems to have abandoned not only it's vaunted objectivity but reason itself.
The consequences are dreadful, because, as Phillips points out, this isn't about Israel anymore. This is about a genocidal intent on the part of Iran and certain Arab states to obliterate Israel, and to establish an all-encompassing caliphate. If the Jews have always been the canary in the mine (and I believe they have), we're all in dire trouble. One of the troubles is that so few in Europe seem to recognize their own potentially suicidal defense of their enemies and their refusal to recognize their friends.
I could quote at great length from Phillips's piece, but I'll try to be as brief as possible and give you the essence of it. Please ponder this:
But the moral crisis in Britain extends far wider and deeper than the wretched BBC and other media. The surreally distorted response by so many to Israel’s attempt to destroy the would-be purveyors of genocide raises the question of whether Britain will ever again support a just war — because it no longer knows what a just war is, and no longer has the intellectual capacity to know. This is in large measure because moral agency has disappeared altogether from the analysis. Intention, the essence of moral actions, is now tossed aside as of no significance. All that matters are the consequences of an action. This is in accordance with the prevailing amoral consensus which has negated moral agency altogether in order to remove the burden of personal responsibility. What someone intends to do is therefore held to be of no account. All that matters is the consequences of their action.
So the fact that Israel is at war solely to prevent the deaths of innocents is dismissed. All that matters is that the consequences of its actions are that Lebanese civilians are dying. The fact that the Israelis do not intend them to die is irrelevant. Those deaths are deemed to be the equivalent of the deaths caused by Hezbollah. The fact that Hezbollah deliberately sets out to murder innocent Israelis is irrelevant. Thus the only thing that matters is which side has more dead people. The fact that there are more dead Lebanese than dead Israelis settles the matter. The Israelis are in the wrong, are behaving disproportionately, are committing war crimes, are the villains of the piece. The fact that they are actually the victims of unprovoked genocidal aggression is deemed irrelevant. Thus the moral bankruptcy of Britain’s post-modern cultural desert...
Such prejudice [towards Israel] is not only despicable. It is also nationally suicidal. For such is the hatred of Israel that — fantastically — a world war is under way in which the designated victims don’t even realise it is happening.
If Iran succeeds in developing nuclear weapons and wipes out Israel--thus coming a long way to finishing the job Hitler began--will Western Europe mourn, or rejoice? I begin to wonder. Phillips does offer some hope, however--evidence that the middle-class "man in the street" gets the situation better than the intellectuals--and despite the efforts of the press to shape opinion otherwise.
_-_Sleep_of_Reason.jpg#/media/File:Goya_-_Caprichos_(43)_-_Sleep_of_Reason.jpg){kind=link}
It came to mind while I was reading Melanie Phillips, who is presently writing some of the finest analysis of the British (and, by extrapolation, general Western European) reaction to the war in Lebanon that I've read.
Phillips makes sobering reading. It does appear that, among a certain rather large segment in Europe, reason has indeed gone to sleep and monsters are afoot. The West, the birthplace of the Enlightenment and its dedication to reason, seems to have lost the ability to do so.
Read most especially and particularly this; (and also this, and this, if you have more time).
Phillips writes with an air of astonishment as well as outrage, the astonishment of the child who points out the obvious fact that the emperor has no clothes, and yet no one will listen. Her "J'accuse" will no doubt be rejected by those she's criticizing in the press, the intelligentsia, and the Left.
Ms. Phillips writes that the West is in the grip of "a profound moral breakdown." Some of this is fed by the lies and distortions of the BBC, which provides most of the information for the British populace; the BBC seems to have abandoned not only it's vaunted objectivity but reason itself.
The consequences are dreadful, because, as Phillips points out, this isn't about Israel anymore. This is about a genocidal intent on the part of Iran and certain Arab states to obliterate Israel, and to establish an all-encompassing caliphate. If the Jews have always been the canary in the mine (and I believe they have), we're all in dire trouble. One of the troubles is that so few in Europe seem to recognize their own potentially suicidal defense of their enemies and their refusal to recognize their friends.
I could quote at great length from Phillips's piece, but I'll try to be as brief as possible and give you the essence of it. Please ponder this:
But the moral crisis in Britain extends far wider and deeper than the wretched BBC and other media. The surreally distorted response by so many to Israel’s attempt to destroy the would-be purveyors of genocide raises the question of whether Britain will ever again support a just war — because it no longer knows what a just war is, and no longer has the intellectual capacity to know. This is in large measure because moral agency has disappeared altogether from the analysis. Intention, the essence of moral actions, is now tossed aside as of no significance. All that matters are the consequences of an action. This is in accordance with the prevailing amoral consensus which has negated moral agency altogether in order to remove the burden of personal responsibility. What someone intends to do is therefore held to be of no account. All that matters is the consequences of their action.
So the fact that Israel is at war solely to prevent the deaths of innocents is dismissed. All that matters is that the consequences of its actions are that Lebanese civilians are dying. The fact that the Israelis do not intend them to die is irrelevant. Those deaths are deemed to be the equivalent of the deaths caused by Hezbollah. The fact that Hezbollah deliberately sets out to murder innocent Israelis is irrelevant. Thus the only thing that matters is which side has more dead people. The fact that there are more dead Lebanese than dead Israelis settles the matter. The Israelis are in the wrong, are behaving disproportionately, are committing war crimes, are the villains of the piece. The fact that they are actually the victims of unprovoked genocidal aggression is deemed irrelevant. Thus the moral bankruptcy of Britain’s post-modern cultural desert...
Such prejudice [towards Israel] is not only despicable. It is also nationally suicidal. For such is the hatred of Israel that — fantastically — a world war is under way in which the designated victims don’t even realise it is happening.
If Iran succeeds in developing nuclear weapons and wipes out Israel--thus coming a long way to finishing the job Hitler began--will Western Europe mourn, or rejoice? I begin to wonder. Phillips does offer some hope, however--evidence that the middle-class "man in the street" gets the situation better than the intellectuals--and despite the efforts of the press to shape opinion otherwise.
"You and what army?" redux
I was going to write a midlength post on the absurdity of the UN's call to Ahmadinejad to suspend Iran's nuclear program or face sanctions. The resolution was considered "mandatory" and "binding," words that are essentially meaningless in the context of the UN and Iran. Or perhaps the UN and anything.
Well, Tammy Bruce called this one. Not that it was so difficult to call. But she did it with special flair and verve.
And Ahmadinejad finessed me--and the UN. He already has responded by rejecting the UN resolution. Surprise, surprise!
"Binding," indeed! The UN has no power except by the consent of its member nations, and the threat of sanctions. And the latter is almost amusing after the Oil for Food scandal in Iraq.
Another irony: putting teeth into the UN's ability to halt the nuclear programs of rogue and tyrannical states is actually one of the things the buildup to the war in Iraq was meant to accomplish. But in the rush to tear down that effort, the UN itself lost whatever legitimacy it might have gained through that avenue.
Well, Tammy Bruce called this one. Not that it was so difficult to call. But she did it with special flair and verve.
And Ahmadinejad finessed me--and the UN. He already has responded by rejecting the UN resolution. Surprise, surprise!
"Binding," indeed! The UN has no power except by the consent of its member nations, and the threat of sanctions. And the latter is almost amusing after the Oil for Food scandal in Iraq.
Another irony: putting teeth into the UN's ability to halt the nuclear programs of rogue and tyrannical states is actually one of the things the buildup to the war in Iraq was meant to accomplish. But in the rush to tear down that effort, the UN itself lost whatever legitimacy it might have gained through that avenue.
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