I wasn't trying to bust your chops for poor grammar. I was suggesting that you -- and Hank, if I recall correctly -- were using double negatives rather than make simple declarative statements about why Lebanese citizens had it coming to them. The fuzziness was sympomatic.

You've said things that make it sound like you think Lebanese citizens are getting what the deserve -- e.g., what you say right here, after trying get away from the word "deserve" -- but you don't want to say it. It's all well and good to support Israel's right to drop bombs just so long as you don't have to think about where they land?

The Lebanese state has rarely functioned as such. Which makes it hard -- in my view, if not yours -- to think that the Lebanese deserve -- oops, there's that word again -- what they're getting for its failures.

No, not really. If in 5 or 6 years they went from several hundred to 13000 and the ability to mount the defense that they have, I think that in 5 more years with another 13000, plus invariably a more armed Gaza, plus, maybe, nukes in Iran, Israel might have some real existential issues facing them. It's a small country. Surrounding by a world of armed enemies, and that world is growing, population and technology wise at a much faster rate. Demographics do not work in Israel's favour.

I was unclear. My point was, a war with Syria is a bad idea because it would topple the current regime and what would come next would probably be worse.

Nukes are one thing. These rockets are another. Double, triple or quadruple the damage they've done, and Israel is still "functioning" -- with nowhere near the damage it's done to Lebanon.

We can agree to disagree, I think that there is a difference between "deserve" as in they deserve to die and asserting that there are consequences for their behaviour, passive and active. Death is the most extreme consequence. It's also the most indiscriminate. Which is unfortunate. What is also unfortunate is that in the last 25 years, Syria and portions of the Lebanese people (including leaders of certain powerful factions) and Iran have declined the possibilities to seek out long term peaceful strategies for their region and the more produtive governance of their lands. Now, that 25 years of making a choice to acquire and stockpile better and more arms, and create and foster larger, more aggressive and better armed paramilitary/terrorist groups within their borders, all for the singular purpose of aggressive action towards Israel, there are some consequences coming to bear.

In that backdrop, I don't have a problem with Israel carrying out its current strategy and I think that its prmature for any cease fire.

You sound like Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, blaming the Russians for going meekly like sheep when the KGB knocked at the door, or like those who don't necessarily deny the Holocaust, but blame the Jews for not rising up against the guards and storming the walls of the camps.

I agree that the problem calls for a significant military component if it is to be solved. However, I don't really think you can say that the Lebanese children deserve to die because some people who live in their villages shoot rockets that kill Jewish children.

I will submit, once again, that neither Israel nor the Arabs have proven themselves capable of solving the crisis. Withdrawal from the Gaza doesn't count for shit when they use it as an excuse to wall off the area, split up families, and send in the tanks and helicopters under the guise of "maintaining security."

Israel goes into Gaza to kill members of Hamas. They don't particularly care how many civilians get killed in the process. Two soldier get kidnapped and taken over the Lebanese border, and Israel softens up the countryside with a couple weeks of bombing, then sends in the troops.

Israel needs to be there. Israel needs to be safe. But Israel will never be safe until there is a Palestine that is also safe. They can't do it on their own. Sidd and Club have scoffed at this notion, but the only way this problem will be solved is if we go in and take it all, then make both sides go stand in opposite corners while we separate out the troublemakers.

It will take decades. It will be incredibly expensive. So what. Britain and France created the problem, just as they did in so very many parts of the world. Maybe we should bill them for the clean up. But we either live (or die) with the conflict or we solve it.

We need to find a rational way to divide the territory. We need to help create infrastructure. We need to adminster schools and hospitals, build kibbutzes, and shelter families so that they have hope for their children. We need to maintain order with just enough force that legitimate debate can take place without degenerating into war.

If we succeed there, then maybe we can try to do the same thing at home.

Given the chronic problems over the last 60 years how much worse is worse?

That's nuts. Israel is a relative democracy, willing to live in peace. You asserting that is not big deal to their survival if they have an enemy force on every border, including tens of thousands of missles, some of which periodically get fired on their cities. They should have to "function" like that? Why not just give the Arabs free reign and arms to drive them into the sea, it would be more efficient.

The chances of that happening, and of it having any real effect, are basically zero. (And that would be true even if the Bush Doctrine had not rendered the US incapable of accomplishing anything in the UN.

As for diplomacy on our part, what would the US offer Syria? Even leaving aside the practical reality of how the Bush Doctrine has alienated most of the world, Syria is not a country with which the US has any negotiating leverage. And if ever Assad were tempted to let the US buy him off, he would only have to think about Sadat, and about the radical Shiite power that will emerge (if anything cohesive emerges) to the east, and he'll be un-tempted fast.



Surely you understand that the number of Arabs who want Israel destroyed, and who would change their minds if Israel pulled out of Golan, approaches zero.

And don't call me Shirley.



Take the cruise missile Hezbollah launched at an Israeli ship. Multiply the quantity by a few hundred. You want to live in the target zone?


Gee, let's wait and see. I'll bet "military power that can do serious damage, and that is far too dug in to be dug out with anything short of a massive invasion that kills tens of thousands."

You'll bet "peace-loving group of guys who, after Israel gave up Golan, finally realized that the nation deserved to exist."

Yes, there are. The point I was making with the original post is that the consequences aren't going to benefit anyone, in the main. Specifically, many of those consequences are being borne by Lebanese who did not do the things you describe.

The current leadership is rationally interested in its own preservation. E.g., they arm Hezbollah, but do not attack Israel themselves. Radical Islamists would be worse.

But isn't it kind of their fault for allowing him to stay in power?

When the majority of the populaces of the ME over a significant number of years manifest and continue to manifest the expression, through words and actions, of the desire that Israel should be eradicated, then I think they have to take responsibility for the actions that come out of that expression.

Again, I did not say any iinocent civilians, or civilains generally deserve to die. Nor am I advocating that Israel just killl all the lebanese, syrians et al indisriminatetly. I am saying that to date, I generally think that their prosecution of this military action is reasonable and justifed.

I am not in favour of us going in there. I don't think it will work and I think that the Arab nations needs to come to accommodation with Israel on their own. We can't force it on them and I wuld rather spend the money on our citizens, eg education for one. In the interim, until certain Arab nations can act responsibily, Israel has to defend itself and its borders. Which it is doing.

I didn't say it was a great situation, I said it was not an existential threat to Israel. And so far you haven't offered a solution either. If the current war was going to solve anything, then we could take about its costs and benefits, but Israel is creating ill will generally and unifying the Arab world (despite Sunni and Shi'a tensions), but at the end of the day we're going to have a (more) hostile Lebanon north of Israel. And a lot more dead people.

Hence my crack about the Kobayashi Maru.

The Soviets stacked the deck.

Living in blissful ignorance of the problem on the theory that Israel is invicible ultimately is hubris. I think there is a benefit and Israel will be more secure. For the time being.

As for the lebanese, half of their country is a terrorist camp. somehow it happened and to some extent the local populace allowed. As a means to the end of being more secure from/destroying israel.

Right. Syria is radical islamist free and not doing business with Iran on this one. Got it.

I think the current action will make Israel more secure and Hezbollah weaker in the near term. My solution might be for Israel to keep going until Hezbollah is destroyed I am not sure how you measure that but I am sure the Israeli militaru could tell me and I trust them. and then turn Lebanon over to the UN with an express warning to Syria that Damascus is the next target unless it keeps its hands off lebanon.

See, here's the problem.

* Israel drops flyers saying "Get the Fuck Out."

* Some people leave, most stay. (As to why at least some stay, think about why people stay home in the face of hurricanes.)

* Israel bombs the shit out of Beirut's infrastructure, kills more people.

* Israel drops more flyers saying "No, really, Get the Fuck Out."

* Israel bombs every piece of infrastructure in Lebanon.

* People think about leaving but there's no infrastructure to get them the fuck out. Some people try to leave on the roads, and they get bombed. Reports suggest that those remaining in the territory are fucking terrified.

* You're left with the choice of leaving everything you have, trying to traverse bombed-out roads and, evidence suggests, getting bombed there, and heading to some place you've never been before, probably to live in a converted school or a tent or something for many months. Or you can stay home and try to tough it out.

* So, for making that choice, those who stay home die. And are told that because they lived among Lebanese who thought bad things, and failed to leave over the bombed out roads, they are less than an "innocent civilian," and share some intangible degree of culpability.

I will continue to scoff at this notion. Leave aside that the US military is already overextended. Leave aside that our current nation-building efforts are not going so well.

Do you think Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc. would not be as happy to kill American soldiers as they are to kill Israelis? And do you think that American soldiers will not kill as many civilians in retaliation?

OTOH, for awhile there we seemed to be uniting the Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis in their hatred for us. Maybe forcing ourselves into Israel would do the same thing?

And fewer Hezbollah fighters, with fewer weapons, further from the border, and not able to be resupplied so easily.

You were looking for a permanent solution? Good luck.

can you quantify "more?" It's the question I've been asking you for years- what does "more against" us or Israel mean.

Maybe he meant 90,000 tons of diplomacy:

http://www.visi.com/~jweeks/carriers...riermoving.jpg

War is hell?

I don't think anyone is advocating blissful ignorance. And I guess we'll have to see about the benefit. As I recall, you thought the Iraq fiasco would work out well too.

To some extent the local populace allowed and to some extent they are dead now.

Who's between them and the border? Israel? They tried that before, and it didn't work so hot. The UN? If Israeli didn't want to occupy Lebanon, why do you think UN troops would do better? The US? As you said, not an option.

Ultimately, the only solution is a Lebanese government with some legitimacy, but we are farther from that world now.

When I say Lebanon will be more hostile, I have something in mind analogous to the way we became more hostile to Al Qaeda after 9/11. Does that help, or are you still having a hard time understanding why bombing the crap out of Lebanon might be counterproductive?

Syria might invade France?

At this point "diplomacy" is a euphemism for "blissful ignorance" no offence.

As for Iraq, the jury is still out. give it 5 years, as long as we get a solid wartime President at 44. Jeb?

Exactly. The entire argument on the left presuppose that Israel is going to win this conflict, because Israel always has won due to its military superiority. At some point that presumption may not be the case, only then it will be too late.

It's not our problem. American lives should not die to inforce this peace.

Exactly my point.

And at that moment in history, when Israel no longer exists other than at the bottom of the Mediterranean with Atlantis, will the American left, the UN and the Euros be willing to stand up and apologise to history for their naive pacificism and myopic optimism and the role such dunderheadedness played in allowing the second Holocaust to occur?

I'm guessing no. Instead they willl try to blame it on then President Jeb Bush's failure to support the UN in its plan to relocate Israel to the mojave desert.

Die Castro, Die!
 

Is this guy a fucking vampire!??! Die already!!!!

By the by, Hank's wife made me a funnie Castro phottoshoppe for my birthday, in addition to other party favours (iygmd, wwnn) which, I will note is more than any of y'all got me. Because the new kinder gentler more well behaved Penske is generous, I will share here, for your amusing pleasure:




http://www.photopile.com/photos/dead...ons/262432.jpg

You just don't get it. Ty's point is that if Israel would just go back to waiting, and burying its dead from the homicide bombers, then it could lock the percentage of ME Islamic peoples that want Israel destroyed at a manageable 80%. Oh. 1 of them might have a button to launch nukes, but at least he'll act rationally for an insane murderer and be goaded into striking.

Japan got hit with nukes and was still functioning. I think that is his point. A couple of nukes and 26000 other missiles do not have to pose a existential threat. The glass is half full.

I think Israel is losing this conflict, in the sense that Quiggin described, but not in a conventional military sense. No other country in that region has a military close to Israel's.

If that's my argument, then Hank's is that Lebanese children should be tortured and then executed publicly at the Palace at Auburn Hills for the pleasure of the American people.

My point about the nukes -- which I've mentioned twice and to which neither of you has bothered to respond -- is that the current conflict will make it harder to do anything about the biggest problem in the region, Iran's nuclear program.

Do we have nukes that small anymore?

earlier today you said i dodged your big point. from now on all I will post on PB is this repeated question to you, until you answer it.

What harm is there to Israel in making it's Islamic neighbors hate it, when the leader of the most powerful neighbor is on record wanting Israel gone and most of the people in the region couldn't agree more. how does killing some bad mixed in with some innocent make it worse? not asking for "is it right to kill innocents," "simply is Israel worse off," and if so why.