All Hank, all the time.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I agree that there is no way to verify what they say. When a consumer wanders into the marketplace of ideas, he or she must be wary and prudent. But that doesn't mean he or she doesn't buy anything at all.

OK. I think that anything you buy from an "anonymous" seller, you should assume there is a strong chance it is defective. But we have beat that one to death.

On the other subject, if you were running Israel how would have you responded to the kidnapping of the two soldiers? Or how would you have handled it differently?

To me it seems the goals are getting the soldiers back, stopping the shelling of northern Israel but at the same time not distabilizing the Lebanese government and not killing a lot of civilians. It seems to me that you can't accomplish all these goals so you have to pick and choose. Am I wrong?

[Adder]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch

Because, let's face it -- the Palestinians have not exactly applauded Israel when it has killed its enemies in exactly the way that you propose. Instead, such killings have simply brought new recruits to the cause. And because they are painless for the people who might not personally volunteer for suicide attacks, they only increase support for the militants who do.

Serious question: How can you make this observation without making the equally obvious observation that bombing also causes converts to the cause? Do you really think that assassination leads to fewer converts, and, just as importantly, sympathizers, as bombing (whether targetted or indiscriminate)?

As for the suggestion that, by advocating for Israel's right to defend itself,.

Are they really defending themselves? Didn't this whole thing start over the kidnapping of a single Israeli soldier? Is invading Gaza and targetting its democratically elected (if despicable) government really proportionate? I have not seen reliable numbers, but it seems safe to assume that tens of Palestinians were killed in effort to save one soldier. Regardless of the fact that such killing were directly counter productive, doesn't it seem at all unjust to you?

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Shouldn't you be helping Wonk lube up?

Oh, go fuck yourself.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Spanky
My personal experience (which is not a scientific poll) is that I have never met an Arab that thought Israel had a right to exist. That includes Christian palestians from Israel and Lebanon, and coptic Christians from Egypt. I mention them because before I met them I always assumed Christian Arabs would be more sympathetic to the Israeli cause. I have lived all over the world and worked and socialized with a lot of educated and affluent Arabs and they all have the same opinion. Arabia may not exist as a political reality but it is a reality in most Arabs minds. Arabia runs brom Baghdad to Morrocco and Israel is occupying a center portion of it. As most would say, "the Zionist are occupying the heart of Arabia".

I always thought that Moroccan royalty was somewhat sympathetic towards Israel, but my landlord in Law school was a Morrocan prince, and his whole familly looked forward to the day that Israel dissappeared. Arabs don't seem to agree on much, but that is one thing they all seem to agree on.

I now have many Persian employees, very well educated and seemngly rational, but they all think Israel has no right to exist and needs to go at the earliest possible convenience. So it also seems that the muslims off the world don't agree on much, but they all agree on the Isreali issue.

The Arab people (and Muslims) may be forced to to accept the reality of Israel, and they may even acknowledge it in treaties, but in their hearts they will always want it gone.

If the middle east became truely democratic and responded to its people wishes, I would believe they would all band together and take out Israel. The only thing that stops them from doing that is that they are all autocratic, are divided have other agendas and don't care what their people think.

If people have had a different experience than me, by all means, let me hear about it.

You really are a moron aren't you?

I would suggest you talk to more Arabs and Persians.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Adder
You really are a moron aren't you?

I would suggest you talk to more Arabs and Persians.

What good would it do to talk to more Arabs and Persians? Have you come across swaths (or even a few) Arabs or Persians that are supporters of Israel or even support Israel's right to exist?

Am I a moron because I don't think there are that many Arabs and Persians that support Israel or am I a moron by thinking that there may be a few out there (which seemed to be the opinion of the Derriere in the face guy)?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Adder
Is invading Gaza and targetting its democratically elected (if despicable) government really proportionate?

I have never understood the logic of a "proportionate" response. It seems to me that a proportionate response just encourages whomever you are responding to, to transgress again. If your goal is to stop them from seizing soldiers, or if you are trying to get your soliders back, isn't the disproportionate response what you want?

After the Japanese attacked us, was it a "proportionate response" to ask for the total and unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan, and completely refusing all their attempts at a negotiated peace.

Why would anyone ever want to use a "proportionate response"? What possible use could that serve?

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by taxwonk
Again, to clarify, my comments were addressed to Hamas in
Gaza.

Although I will take a moment to address your point about assasination being "terribly difficult and terribly dangerous." The assassins would be either IDF or Mossad. Either way, they would be military men who knowingly and voluntarily undertook to risk their lives fighting in defense of their country. The same cannot be said for Lebanese, Palestinian, or Israeli civilians currently caught in the artillery war.

Umm, isn't there forced military service in Israel?

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Spanky
I have never understood the logic of a "proportionate" response. It seems to me that a proportionate response just encourages whomever you are responding to, to transgress again. If your goal is to stop them from seizing soldiers, or if you are trying to get your soliders back, isn't the disproportionate response what you want?

After the Japanese attacked us, was it a "proportionate response" to ask for the total and unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan, and completely refusing all their attempts at a negotiated peace.

Why would anyone ever want to use a "proportionate response"? What possible use could that serve?

A big fat 2.

Was our response in Aphganisan to 9/11 proportionate? AQ killed 3000. Does that mean we are only permitted to kill 3000 AQ? Fucking moronic.

The other thing that bugs me is why no one on the world stage goes after Hezbolla for targeting civilians, but when Israel has collateral damage (due to the fact that Hezbolla purposes integrates among civilians for protection) the world (read: EU) goes apeshit.

I swear to god I feel like I'm living in bizarro universe or Alice in Wonderland.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
I have never understood the logic of a "proportionate" response. It seems to me that a proportionate response just encourages whomever you are responding to, to transgress again. If your goal is to stop them from seizing soldiers, or if you are trying to get your soliders back, isn't the disproportionate response what you want?

After the Japanese attacked us, was it a "proportionate response" to ask for the total and unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan, and completely refusing all their attempts at a negotiated peace.

Why would anyone ever want to use a "proportionate response"? What possible use could that serve?

We didn't invade China during the Korean War, or use nuclear weapons. So it's not like we never accept limitations on our use of force.

And I'm not sure "proportionate" is the right word (though it is on the front page of the NYT today). If Israel continues to see Hezbollah targets to shoot at, they should keep shooting. My issue is with the damage they're doing to Lebanon's infrastructure. We were talking about the airport the other day. Power stations. I could understand why Israel would want to destroy roads and bridges leading to the south if it were planning to move in ground forces, but since that doesn't seem to be in the cards it more appears that Israel is trying to punish Lebanon for what Hezbollah is doing. Is that appropriate?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

I just saw this, by Michael Walzer:

• Israel is now at war with an enemy whose hostility is extreme, explicit, unrestrained, and driven by an ideology of religious hatred. But this is an enemy that does not field an army; that has no institutional structure and no visible chain of command; that does not recognize the legal and moral principle of noncombatant immunity; and that does not, indeed, acknowledge any rules of engagement. How do you--how does anyone--fight an enemy like that? I cannot deal with the strategy and tactics of such a fight. How to strike effectively, how to avoid a dangerous escalation--those are important topics, but not mine. The question I want to address is about morality and politics.
  
  The easy part of the answer is to say what cannot rightly be done. There cannot be any direct attacks on civilian targets (even if the enemy doesn't believe in the existence of civilians), and this principle is a major constraint also on attacks on the economic infrastructure. Writing about the first Iraq war, in 1991, I argued that the U.S. decision to attack "communication and transportation systems, electric power grids, government buildings of every sort, water pumping stations and purification plants" was wrong. "Selected infrastructural targets are easy enough to justify: bridges over which supplies are carried to the army in the field provide an obvious example. But power and water ... are very much like food: they are necessary to the survival and everyday activity of soldiers, but they are equally necessary to everyone else. An attack here is an attack on civilian society. ... [I]t is the military effects, if any, that are 'collateral.'" That was and is a general argument; it clearly applies to the Israeli attacks on power stations in Gaza and Lebanon.
  
  The argument, in this case, is prudential as well as moral. Reducing the quality of life in Gaza, where it is already low, is intended to put pressure on whoever is politically responsible for the inhabitants of Gaza--and then these responsible people, it is hoped, will take action against the shadowy forces attacking Israel. The same logic has been applied in Lebanon, where the forces are not so shadowy. But no one is responsible in either of these cases, or, better, those people who might take responsibility long ago chose not to. The leaders of the sovereign state of Lebanon insist that they have no control over the southern part of their country--and, more amazingly, no obligation to take control. Still, Palestinian civilians are not likely to hold anyone responsible for their fate except the Israelis, and, while the Lebanese will be more discriminating, Israel will still bear the larger burden of blame. Hamas and Hezbollah feed on the suffering their own activity brings about, and an Israeli response that increases the suffering only intensifies the feeding.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Umm, isn't there forced military service in Israel?

Yes, but the special forces units and Mossad are both voluntary and highly selective.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by sgtclub
A big fat 2.

Was our response in Aphganisan to 9/11 proportionate? AQ killed 3000. Does that mean we are only permitted to kill 3000 AQ? Fucking moronic.

The other thing that bugs me is why no one on the world stage goes after Hezbolla for targeting civilians, but when Israel has collateral damage (due to the fact that Hezbolla purposes integrates among civilians for protection) the world (read: EU) goes apeshit.

I swear to god I feel like I'm living in bizarro universe or Alice in Wonderland.

I would have no objection to Israel going after Hezbollah and their camps and training bases, as I have previously stated. Hezbollah is self-identified as a combatant organization and anyone who chooses to live with them is in effect throwing in with their fate.

What you are ignoring (or perhaps it didn't happen in Bizzaro universe where you're hanging out) is that (i) Israel's stated provocation was the killing of six soldiers and the kidnapping of two more and (ii) Israel's attacks on targets in Lebanon generally, not just Hezbollah strongholds.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by taxwonk

What you are ignoring (or perhaps it didn't happen in Bizzaro universe where you're hanging out) is that (i) Israel's stated provocation was the killing of six soldiers and the kidnapping of two more and (ii) Israel's attacks on targets in Lebanon generally, not just Hezbollah strongholds.

By all accounts Hezbolla committed an act of war by crossing the border and killing and capturing soldiers. What is the proper response to an act of war?

Israel's attacks have been in southern Lebanon. Hezbolla controls southern Lebanon. Ergo . . . .

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
By all accounts Hezbolla committed an act of war by crossing the border and killing and capturing soldiers. What is the proper response to an act of war?

Israel's attacks have been in southern Lebanon. Hezbolla controls southern Lebanon. Ergo . . . .

Israel's attacks have hardly been limited to places Hezbollah controls. E.g., the Beirut airport.

[Not Bob]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
let me ask you, pre-2003 did you have respect for dan Rather? what if he told you something now?

No. I thought that he was a nut-job. But then again, having read too much Hunter Thompson in my youth, I thought that most mainstream political reporters (Dan made his bones at CBS covering the White House during Watergate) were either lazy hacks who didn't give a shit about what was going on, or brilliant and perceptive students of the game who couldn't tell us what they really knew.

I think that he liked John Chancellor, though.