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Originally posted by taxwonk
I don't know if I've lost the ability to communicate, or you're willfully ignoring my message. What I have been saying is that:
1. Israel is, and always has been, both brutal and ruthless in their defense of their territory;
2. Long before it was "their" territory it was a land shared by Jews and Palestinians alike;
3. We need Israel to exist as much as Israel needs Israel to exist and therefore we need to support Israel; but
4. Speaking as a Jew who lost family in the death camps, I can champion Israel while at the same time finding it reprehensible that they are willing to so casually ignore the line between terrorist and civilian; and
5. Their actions in doing so will prolong the conflict and we need to exert some pressure to reign them in at the same time as we lend them support to maintain at least one pocket of relative stability in the Middle East.
I don't buy the "my country, right or wrong" crap when it's used to counter criticism of American actions in the Middle East and I'm not going to turn a blind eye to the fact that Israel sometimes prefers to shoot itself in the dick by responding to Arab attacks with undue ferocity.
Even if we don't agree, I havee faith that you will at least understand my position. I doubt Diane will be able to read the post in its entirety before being distracted by something shiny.
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I do understand your position. I agree with some of it. Disagree with 5. Don't really get the last part -- I am hardly in the "my country, right or wrong" camp. Particularly with respect to the middle east, where I think Bush has gotten it pretty much all wrong. (Incidentally, I spent some time today, unsuccessfully searching for one of My Favorite Bilmore posts -- where he chastised Ty for not giving the Bush Doctrine II enough credit for bringing peace and democracy to Lebanon and Palestine.)
My position? I believe in a policy of fierce retaliation against terrorists, including countries and populations that willingly harbor and support them. This is why I believed that attacking Afghanistan was right, despite the civilian deaths. But attacking Iraq was wrong -- sort of like Israel invading Detroit, or Berkeley, on the grounds that the population and even the leadership there agree with the people who attack Israel.
Lebanon has been directed by the UN to disarm Hezbollah. It has failed to do so -- and failed because Lebanon is too beholden to Hezbollah, and to Syria, to do so. The attacks will never stop until Lebanon realizes that the cost of not doing something outweighs the cost of doing something. And that realization will never come -- apparently, and very sadly -- without strong military action by Israel.
What I was saying, though, related to this statement of yours:
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The terrorists use their tactics because they have nothing else. And they learned their tactics from men like Ariel Sharon and his predecessors, who used the same tactics against the British.
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I was commenting on the last part, which seems to me to be historically inaccurate (terror tactics go back many centuries -- and if you accept Ty's definition include all warfare from the beginning of time), factually inaccurate (Arab terrorists have introduced some new elements), and irrelevant ("so what?")
