All Hank, all the time.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Sexual Harassment Panda
This one's for Spanky.

OH MY - THERE IS A GOD - I think I am taking the rest of the day off. Best news I have heard in a long time. Thanks SHP.

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Originally posted by Spanky
OH MY - THERE IS A GOD - I think I am taking the rest of the day off. Best news I have heard in a long time. Thanks SHP.

At first I was going to ask how this could be better than the Bilbray win, but then I realized what a sour taste that must have left in your mouth. This one tastes clean and sweet.

It's good for America that the left and the right can still find common ground. In this case, that Ralph Reed is a pasty-faced dickhead who deserves to fade into obscurity.

[Not Bob]

Originally posted by Spanky
Unfortunately none of my political experiences have ever been even remotely similar to Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail.

I love that book. I think that it is HST's best book by far (sebby disagrees).

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
eta: Larry Johnson says that Hezbollah's key backers are Iran, not Syria.

Sure -- because Iran has the money, people, and technology, as well as the motivation, to fund, train and support Hezbollah.

Syrians are tough mothers with all the motivation they need, but since the Soviet Union fell they've been lagging militarily and they're dirt poor.

However, Syria is the major facilitator and middleman. The Hezbollah camps have for years been in the Bekaah Valley in Lebanon -- which until very recently was occupied by Syrian troops. Also, Syria effectively controlled Lebanon while Hezbollah grew and flourished.

Iran drives the train, but the operation could barely happen without Syria.

S_A_M

P.S. This whole mess is one of the stranger unintended consequences of the asassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, isn't it?

[creamy_ass_face]

Originally posted by Sexual Harassment Panda
At first I was going to ask how this could be better than the Bilbray win, but then I realized what a sour taste that must have left in your mouth. This one tastes clean and sweet.

It's good for America that the left and the right can still find common ground. In this case, that Ralph Reed is a pasty-faced dickhead who deserves to fade into obscurity.

I couldn't care less about a regional election in some southern hellhole like Georgia, but I did sort of encounter this Reed character once.

Back in the early 90s I knew a guy whose brother was an officer or some crap position in the FedSoc and would always invite us to receptions in DC. The chicks were fuglier than the worst of Adder's scores, but the booze was free. So at one of these things, I think it was at the Mayflower, I go to men's room and there is Ralph Reed standing right in front of me waiting for the pisser to open up. He looks like a geeky little kid even though he was in his 30s at the time. So the pisser next to him frees and there I am relieving the lizard right next to the voice of the Jesus wingdings himself.

So, this seems like a pretty boring story eh, but here's the twistedness, the geek never breaks off from staring at his dick when he's watering the urinal cake. His head and eyes are locked down on it like he's terrified its gonna run away. And then he starts to sing. Barely audible. Like a hymn or something. I couldn't make out the words but I was freaked out. He finishes up and leaves, still sort of singing under his breath. Surreal. No wonder he fucking lost.

[Anntila the Hun]

Originally posted by creamy_ass_face
I couldn't care less about a regional election in some southern hellhole like Georgia, but I did sort of encounter this Reed character once.

Back in the early 90s I knew a guy whose brother was an officer or some crap position in the FedSoc and would always invite us to receptions in DC. The chicks were fuglier than the worst of Adder's scores, but the booze was free. So at one of these things, I think it was at the Mayflower, I go to men's room and there is Ralph Reed standing right in front of me waiting for the pisser to open up. He looks like a geeky little kid even though he was in his 30s at the time. So the pisser next to him frees and there I am relieving the lizard right next to the voice of the Jesus wingdings himself.

So, this seems like a pretty boring story eh, but here's the twistedness, the geek never breaks off from staring at his dick when he's watering the urinal cake. His head and eyes are locked down on it like he's terrified its gonna run away. And then he starts to sing. Barely audible. Like a hymn or something. I couldn't make out the words but I was freaked out. He finishes up and leaves, still sort of singing under his breath. Surreal. No wonder he fucking lost.

Ralph Reed is a true gentleman and a warrior in the Holy Crusade against the infidels and the elitist self-hating anti-American media machine. He lost not because he was fascinated by his massive hunk of manmeat, but because of the lies perpetrated against him by the traitorous left and their booty-licking media lackies. I knew as soon as I saw your picture that you are a G-dless communist traitorous self-hating liberal in disguise, but this post proves it for all to see. At least the Hillarys and Kennedys and Tys and fringeys and SHPs of this world do not deny their twisted demented freedom-hating natures, so that they can be identified and someday neutralized, but you pretend to be that which you are not. Honestly, you squick me out.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Not Bob
I love that book. I think that it is HST's best book by far (sebby disagrees).

Have you read his early 60s stuff- before he learned his formula?

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Have you read his early 60s stuff- before he learned his formula?

His magazine pieces, like his stuff for Colliers on South America is probably his best work.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by taxwonk
His magazine pieces, like his stuff for Colliers on South America is probably his best work.

The Rum diary- 1959

it's like reading Sebby before he started phoning in these formula Mad-libs

[Adder]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man

P.S. This whole mess is one of the stranger unintended consequences of the asassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, isn't it?

Indeed

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Adder
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)?

Bombing probably does create some converts. It also may create some pressure or desire to have Hezbollah not operate from a particular area. For the last several years, supporting Hezbollah has been painless.

But this wasn't really my point. I wasn't trying to compare the recruiting benefits of bombing and assassination. I was pointing out that targetted assassinations, even if possible, are difficult, expensive, risky, and time-consuming, and they don't bring any commensurate benefit to Israel. And, I fundamentally disagree with the view that Israel can damage Hezbollah as easily with assassinations as it can with bombing.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Adder
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?

Sorry, forgot to respond to this one.

I reject the notion that the victim of attacks needs to respond with what you call "proportion". Israel does not have to limit its actions to "you kidnapped one person, so we'll kidnap one" or "you killed one, so we'll kill one." No more than I think the US should have limited operations in Afghanistan to killing 3000 people or knocking down a few buildings -- after all, that's "all" they did to us.

I believe in very heavy and painful retaliation to these sorts of attacks.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by 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.

Both Hamas and Hezbollah are political parties, not just military/terrorist groups. Citizens of Lebanon and Gaza have voted for Hamas and Hezbollah. Does Israel's response -- making life for those citizens very difficult, in direct response to Hamas and Hezbollah attacking Israel -- create any political pressure on Hamas and Hezbollah to stop?

In the next elections in Lebanon, will Lebanese voters consider that maybe voting for Hezbollah -- a political party that maintains a private army, that attacks and provokes Israel but is incapable of protecting civilians on the territory it controls -- is a mistake? Will Palestinians reconsider the wisdom of voting for a party that insists on annihilating a vastly stronger adversary?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Both Hamas and Hezbollah are political parties, not just military/terrorist groups. Citizens of Lebanon and Gaza have voted for Hamas and Hezbollah. Does Israel's response -- making life for those citizens very difficult, in direct response to Hamas and Hezbollah attacking Israel -- create any political pressure on Hamas and Hezbollah to stop?

In the next elections in Lebanon, will Lebanese voters consider that maybe voting for Hezbollah -- a political party that maintains a private army, that attacks and provokes Israel but is incapable of protecting civilians on the territory it controls -- is a mistake? Will Palestinians reconsider the wisdom of voting for a party that insists on annihilating a vastly stronger adversary?

1. Calling Hezbollah a political party is a little misleading, since the political parties in Lebanon are based on religion. Hezbollah is more like a state within a state.

2. Maybe it creates pressure to stop, but maybe it creates solidarity and rage at those doing the bombing. Proponents of aerial bombing often hope that it will cause civilian populations to throw in the towel -- usually it has the opposite effect (see, e.g., Britain, 1940; Germany, 1944; Vietnam, 1970, etc.).

3. I understand the logic of bombing Lebanese civilians to pressure them to see Hezbollah differently. I don't think it's a whole lot different from attacking civilian populations with other kinds of bombs to pressure them to, e.g., support a withdrawal from Northern Ireland or Iraq, etc. It might work, but it seems wrong.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
It also may create some pressure or desire to have Hezbollah not operate from a particular area.

Sadly, I am not optimistic that it will.

And, I fundamentally disagree with the view that Israel can damage Hezbollah as easily with assassinations as it can with bombing.

I just don't believe that Israel can really defeat Hezbollah with bombing, even it bombing causes some short term damage.