I really don’t like the direction this conflict is going. Josh Marshall points out that being a lifelong civilian Israeli PM Olmert doesn’t have the freedom to downplay things that an old war horse like Sharon did. Kidnapping a foreign soldier is pretty obviously an act of war so I have precisely zero sympathy for the people who did it, but on the other hand provoking a wider conflict is precisely the point of what they did. Hezbollah had their big day when they kicked Israel out of Lebanon (in their own minds at least) and clearly they want a chance to do it again, plus bloodletting with Syria and Lebanon proper if they can finagle it. Bringing Iran into the fray would practically kill them with glee.
Needless to say the US very much does not need Israel in a shooting war right now and we really don’t want Iran in the mix. The latter case would pretty much precipitate our fast, bloody exit from Iraq and its fiercely Iran-friendly Shiite population.
So what now? I have no idea. Our leaders cannot very well ask Israel to measure its reaction to blatant terrrorist provocations while an unmeasured response pushes the entire middle east still farther towards chaos. Somewhere the old, marginalized bin Laden is rubbing his hands together and laughing hysterically.
***Update***
A brief sample of the most recent headlines:
Israel hits Beirut airport for 2nd time
Israel says it hit hundreds of Lebanon targets
Rockets hit Israeli city of Haifa
Israel blockades Lebanon, kills 53 civilians
Ech.
Mr Furious
I think it’s clear that Saddam is orchestrating all this from his jail cell. He sent his lawyer to meet some people in Prague.
Punchy
The fact that the U.S. is militarily unable to respond and diplomatically unwilling to help speaks volumes about how bad this Admin. is at identifying, measuring, and acting upon the conflicts that really matter.
God help us all if Hezbollah actually succeeds in getting these captured soliders to Iran and provides the evidence thereof. Israel will pretty much demand we help them attack…
mrmobi
Mr Furious, you bastard, you just made me spit coffee all over my new shirt!
I agree, though. It must be Saddam. Otherwise, why would we have invaded Iraq?
Mr Furious, you are a smart man.
Perry Como
Who was it that said we’d be in Iran by August? I was beginning to lose faith.
Perry Como
Hmmm. It looks like some good Christians are happy about this thing.
Ancient Purple
Sadly, we are in no position to advise Israel to pull back and not enter Gaza or Lebanon.
God bless President Bush for setting the new international standard.
Mr Furious
Send me the bill
Par R
Armageddon is nigh, moving inexorably toward a climax.
capelza
4000 year old tribal conflicts…I am sick of the place. Why do we care again?
This just makes me so sick of the whole fucking thing. I think I’ll go watch my roses bloom and pet the cat. Really. Human beings are collectively insane.
Perry Como
Hrm. Israeli troops may have opened fire on a Fox News crew.
VidaLoca
Perry,
You are right. Very disturbing. We must call on all the right-wing blog commentators to disassociate themselves from this.
Pb
When has that ever stopped them from trying, though. I remember when it was India and Pakistan. And of course before (and after) that, we were busily ignoring North Korea…
jaime
Whoo Hoo! Armageddon!!!!!!
What happens to all the Jews once Jesus has his landing strip in Jerusalem?
Steve
Oh man. Go post that at DU and see how many inappropriate responses you get.
LITBMueller
And shelling a beach where a family was simply enjoying a sunny day was what? Murder? The way Israel denied they ever did it was something worse.
Don’t believe everything you see on TV – this new conflict did NOT start with the kidnapping of the soldiers. The chronology is this, as I understand it (and please correct me if I’m wrong): Israel launches artillery shells at Gaza that strike a beach, killing innocent Palestinians on June 9 (remember the video of the crying girl on the beach?); Hamas responds days later by publicly calling off their ceasefire with Israel, which had lasted for 16 months; Hamas begins shelling northern Israeli towns; Hamas captures two Israeli soldiers at the end of June; Israel responds with shelling, incursions into Gaza, arresting Palestinian officials, buzzing Bashar al-Assad’s summer home with warplanes, etc., etc…..
So, did Hezbollah or Hamas really start all this? I think that’s debatable. What is NOT debatable is that Israel intends to finish it, and, lucky for them, all the chess pieces are in place: Saddam is out and Iraq is neutered; al Qaeda and other terrorist organizers/financers have been focusing on Iraq; Iran is cornered politically; Syria has no allies left and was already forced to move their troops out of Lebanon; the death of Rafiq Hariri removed any last reason for the US to give a shit about Lebanon; Arafat’s death lead to the rise to political power of Hamas, and the Palestinian’s further isolation….
It don’t look good…
Rusty Shackleford
I’d rather burn in hell for eternity then spend 10 minutes in the company of those people.
Pb
Perry Como,
Thanks for the clip–the cognitive dissonance at the end was priceless!
LITBMueller,
And finally, Sharon is out of the picture, which I think was really the last straw here. :(
Pb
Agreed–but I will say this: if The Rapture does come and gets rid of them, then I’ll be just as happy then as they appear to be right now!
HyperIon
or as Yeats wrote:
“we who are but weasels fighting in a hole”
Punchy
Wasn’t it Mary Magdalene who had the landing strip?
Yeah, I said it.
capelza
LOLOLOLOLLLL…..you’re bad.
Well, if this IS the Rapture, I’m going to start smoking again. Fuck it. One good thing though, if it means that Robertson, Falwell, Kirk Cameron and that twit that writes the excreable “Left Behind” books will be gone…yahoo!!!!!!
Vlad
“Hrm. Israeli troops may have opened fire on a Fox News crew.”
So what you’re saying is that every storm cloud has a silver lining?
Even if they are with Fox, I’m glad they’re OK.
Zifnab
Wasn’t Lebanon supposed to be the newly Democratized, freshly de-Syrianized, liberated good loving people of the Middle-East?
LITBMueller
True enough, Pb.
Also add to the list not the end of “Cowboy Diplomacy,” but the end of “Bully Diplomacy”: sure, we could kick Afghanistan’s and Iraq’s ass – they were easy targets. But, right during all the tough talk about Iran, “Man of Action” Bush has been able to do little to respond to N. Korea, and has sounded like a total pussy now:
Andrew
Yeah, terrorism doesn’t occur in democracies.
Steve
Uh, Bush didn’t really crack a joke in response to a question about the bombing of the Beirut airport, right? I ask this question with a heavy heart, but please, please tell me you omitted something from that quote, or something.
LITBMueller
‘Fraid not, Steve. As Froomkin notes in his column today, Bush seemed particularly…obsessed…with the pig roast:
What we are seeing is George W. Bush in the face of a crisis his administration did not create itself.
Krista
Steve, does that even surprise you? This is the man who cracked jokes about not finding the WMDs…
He’s a disgrace. An absolute disgrace.
capelza
“My Pet Pig”…
Punchy
There’s an easy Clinton joke in there somewhere…but I’ll forego humor to express outrage that someone would ask him–point blank–about a very, very serious military outburst today and his response is to joke about a roasted pig.
HE IS INCAPABLE OF USING TACT AND HUMILITY. It’s no wonder why other countries just shake their heads in collective disgust.
Pharniel
Remember kids, in just about every translation of the bible the Rapture only takes up about 120 to 130 thousand people (about 10,000 from every tribe of isreal, so, basically 120k jews get into heven first…), not the millions of jumpy little death-cultists waiting for the ressurection and working for it. They have been sold snake oil that they will be saved and spared the tormentations they are working so hard to create. it’s why they’re so fundimentally anti-progress when it doesn’t allow them to wallow in sloth and convienence, because progress of any other sort is pointless, because god is a comn’ back soon. And i’m not lazy. Really.
*grump*
(The differnces are usually on WHO is saved according to various faiths, but the people who take it seriously are pretty sure of the 120k number. Specifically the Jehovas Witnesses and Mormons)
So yha…..creepy death cultists cheering on the middle east into WWIII……if there is a good hopefully he’s just planning on weeding out the people who don’t understand what growing up is.
Also, i’m reminded of the book “Job: A comedy of justice”.
Steve
I think that’s much worse than the WMD thing, which I really wasn’t offended by. This is really bad, and I’m not any more impressed by the press corps which was apparently just standing there yukking it up with him.
Perry Como
Iran threatens Israel.
Perry Como
Saudi Arabia blames Hizbollah. We’re in bizarro world now.
HyperIon
Regarding
According to Wiki (and this jives with what those crazy old bible reading Southern Baptists taught me growing up…before the idea became “fundy fashionable”):
capelza
Wasn’t the Rapture thought up by some con man about a century ago…why does the Scofield Bible ring a bell? I have to go look that up.
I thought it was 144,000 people that would be saved?
Sam Hutcheson
I thought it was 144,000 people that would be saved?
That’s a Jehovah’s Witness thing, I think.
Meantime, someone riddle me this:
1. Engaging military targets militarily is “war.”
2. Engaging civilians militarily is “terrorism.”
3. Actor 1 kidnaps _soldiers._
4. Actor 2 knowingly destroys civilian infrastructures.
Which Actor is the “terrorist” here?
s/
Steve
Hm, are you saying that if another country commits an act of war against you, you’re not allowed to blow up their airport, because civilians use the airport too?
Civilians may have died at Pearl Harbor, but I don’t think that makes it an act of terrorism. It was an act of war.
Israel may be guilty of a disproportionate response but “terrorism” is a tough pill to swallow.
Zifnab
To at least take a stab at defending Isreals overzealous retaliation policy:
1) Military targets engaging military targets is “war”. People… say… ramming a boat full of dynamite into the USS Cole for instance, would not be an act of “war” in the classic sense.
2) Engaging civilian targets that assist military agents is not terrorism. Otherwise, every bridge bombing in WWII and invasion of a domestic building in Operation Mission Accomplished could be considered a terrorist attack.
3) Actor 1 ambushed soldiers on a routine patrol
4) Actor 2 is in the process of reclaiming said soldiers, and in the process producing an unconsciounable amount of collateral damage.
jg
Rapture is a song by Blondie.
Zifnab
This is probably the biggest croc in the whole “we hate Isreal” scam the radical clerics have been pushing for the past fifty years. Suddenly, everyone who hates Isreal is the Palestinians’ best friend. Palestinians rank right about with the Kurds in terms of “arab peoples that other arabs love to hate”. What a big sick joke. The idea that Iran is going to come in guns blazing as the benevolent saviors of the Palestinian people. I’ll bet good money if Iran ever does manage to push into Isreal, it’ll be Jews in the gas chamber first, and Palestinians followed shortly there after.
Sam Hutcheson
3) Actor 1 ambushed soldiers on a routine patrol
Who were taken in retaliation for a shell that killed a civilian family, including children, vacationing on a beach.
4) Actor 2 is in the process of reclaiming said soldiers, and in the process producing an unconsciounable amount of collateral damage.
An unconsciounable amount of collateral damage that is being inflicted purposefully and with malice aforethought. Israel is not bombing electricity plants in order to locate a couple of soldiers. Israel is bombing infrastructure in order to reak vengance on the civilian population of its enemies. I don’t care how you slice it, that’s the working definition of “terrorism.” It doesn’t matter if it’s a bomb in a night club or a missle launched into a densely packed neighborhood or the willful destruction of water treatment capabilities — it’s terrorism.
Steve
You’re dumbing down the definition of “terrorism” to the point where it will cease to have any meaning. Launching missiles into civilian neighborhoods is one thing. Destroying infrastructure – even if you want to call it “civilian infrastructure” – has always been considered a standard act of war. Proportionality is another issue.
As for the kidnapping of the Israeli soldiers, it was clearly done in an attempt to facilitate a hostage exchange with Israel. What does it have to do with Israel’s shelling of the beach?
Paul Wartenberg
The feeling I have is this helpless-on-a-roller-coaster-to-hell sensation that the ride is indeed straight to doom and there is nothing we can do now to stop it with all the lunatics in charge… :(
Par R
One can only pray for Israel in these difficult times in which much of the US Left is clearly anti-semitic.
Stu
First time posting a comment here- great blog, the only one I check every day. Keep up the good work.
Agreed.
John S.
Well, sort of.
Technically, it’s a book of Revelation thing, but the Witnesses are really the only ones that talk about it.
Stormy70
Sorry, the Pals can have no moral authority when bitching about civilian casualties. None at all. They have killed women and toddlers by stopping their cars and shooting everyone inside in the head. Some of you need to peddle that anti-Semitic shit on Daily Kos, where you are among fellow lunatics. This is not an anti-semitic crowd you are trying to convince with your defense of two of the worst terrorist groups in the world.
The Pals deserve their fate for choosing the wrong government, who could have governed a state instead of committing an act of war on a sovereign state.
This was predicted and once the terrorists are killed off, the moderate Pals who want to just live their lives in peace will pick up the pieces. My sympathy meter is on zero with the Palestinians at this point, though.
Iran would treat the Palestinians like Jordan treated the Palestinians, once their usefulness is gone. Iran should be condemned for damning the Palestinians as cannon fodder, and using them as their pawns in their hatred of the Jews. Pathetic showing by Syria and Iran.
I will not post on this subject again, as I have said all I am going to say.
Perry Como
Par R, Stormy, et al.
J. Michael Neal
Who were taken in retaliation for a shell that killed a civilian family, including children, vacationing on a beach.
Which, it should be pointed out, was in retaliation for Palestinians using civilian territory in Gaza to launch rocket attacks on Israel. You can keep going back like this, of course.
What is very clear to me is that the Hizbollah attack was not provoked, and is the really dangerous escalation here. Someone, almost certainly Syria or Iran, pressured Hamas to back out of Egyptian sponsored talks about ending this crisis. I think that there is a very good chance that one or the other of them was involved in sanctioning the Hizbollah raid, and has committed an act of war against Israel. If proof of it shows up, I’m sure that that’s how Israel is going to treat it.
The fighting in Gaza is tragic, a humanitarian disaster, and pretty much the fault of both sides. Unfortunately, in terms of long term consequences, it is trivial compared to the fighting in Lebanon.
LITBMueller
Kinda, Perry. I think SA knows they have a hell of a lot more to gain by not supporting the Palestinians (financially) than by taking on Israel/the US. Think: oil.
Stormy, for me, its not anti-semitism to criticize the actions of the Israeli government (actually, their military, who I reckon want this fight (and Olmert is no Sharon, so he is powerless to stop the hardliners)). For me, BOTH sides are equally to blame, and no one “started” it. It’s all fucked up, on both sides. What is needed is real leadership. Someone needs to grow the fuck up and just say “no” to the continuing violence.
No matter who anyone supports or thinks is right or wrong, history clearly shows that a violent response to a violent provocation only leads to more and more violence. The current pace of escalation, unabated, can lead to only two things: the US eventually being dragged into the conflict as the fighting and violence spread; and a huge impact on the US economy as oil prices skyrocket.
Personally, I think its our own interest to try and get both sides to lay down their arms as soon as possible more than it is to just blindly support Israel in whatever they decide to do.
Zifnab
Look at what happens when the US acts like this. When soldiers, hit daily with roadside bombs, finally snap and let loose on Iraqi civilians. Who looks bad? The Iraqis?
So now we’ve got some kidnapped Isreali soldiers and how does the Isreali military react? Like a bunch of children, smashing up every ounce of infrastructure between them and their quarry without a second thought to any other living person in their path. You think Isrealis would stand for it if the Prime Minister ordered Tel Aviv bombed so they could catch a terrorist? You think Americans would stand by if the President ordered the Brooklyn Bridge demolished – citizens be damned – because they were tight on the tail of a 9/11 hijacker?
How many Palestinians and Lebonese do you think they’re going to maim or kill or financially ruin on their little warpath? So far we’ve got 50 Palestinians dead. How many of them were “terrorists” and how many were “moderate Pals who just wanted peace”?
LITBMueller
Holy crap, J. Michael. That is some of the most callous revisionist history I have ever seen…
So, blowing up innocents picnicing on the beach is a proper response? Especially when the militants who had previously launched a (an ineffective) rocket from that beach had already been killed?
Not to mention the FACT that Hamas had entered into and adhered to a cease fire that began in February 2005? That cease fire did not end until the beach attack.
rbl
Of course, more important is the following:
How many of those deaths will lead to formerly moderate Pals coming to the conclusion that Israel isn’t going to let them live in peace, so they might as well go down fighting?
Sam Hutcheson
The fighting in Gaza is tragic, a humanitarian disaster, and pretty much the fault of both sides. Unfortunately, in terms of long term consequences, it is trivial compared to the fighting in Lebanon.
I agree wholeheartedly.
And anyone who thinks anything in this thread has been anti-Semitic in any way is an idiot. Which we already knew.
The Other Steve
Your chronology and description is leaving out considerable information.
First, it’s not conclucive that the IDF fired on the beach. They fired on a target half a kilometer away. Best case scenario to support this as fault of IDF, is that it was an older Israeli shell, or one of there shells went wildly off course.
But there’s no evidence that this attack was purposeful, and not HRW or any other group is claiming such.
You also didn’t answer the question of why the IDF was shelling gaza to begin with. It certainly wasn’t because they were hunting rabbits.
Rather it was in response to rocket attacks.
Both sides of this conflict have created much of their own problems. But I will say this. History has shown, that the Palestinians will manufacturer evidence and play off of western sympathies. Given the history, I really doubt their side of the story.
But the claim that they did not break a cease fire until after this beach attack is patently false. They’d been firing rockets at Israel since Gaza had been abandoned.
The Other Steve
That, I would have to agree. I don’t know where the fuck Stormy get’s off with this. Her and her republican buddies have frequeently tried to troll dKos with anti-semitic bullshit, and we’ve always resorted to troll rating them into oblivion. She’s pretty fucking clueless, I’ll say that.
She should stick to watching Big Brother reruns and lay off the sauce.
The Other Steve
I will say this.
First of all, while I’m saddened by the capture of the Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah and Hamas. I will give Hezbollah and Hamas credit, in that these captures resulted from attacks on legitimate military targets. I use the term capture rather than kidnap because it is more accurate in this context.
The conflict in this way has changed. These groups apparently have come to realize that terrorizing civilian targets is not only a war crime, but is counter productive to their cause.
I can’t help but wonder if hizbollah didn’t start this latest little battle, prompted by Syria or Iran.
The goal of these groups appears to always be the same. They launch an attack, then run back into civilian centers with the hopes that civilians will be caught in the response attack. (This is also a war crime under Geneva)
Although I think Israeli’s response unfortunately plays right into what Hizbollah wanted. So I don’t think this is a good thing.
Steve
Is this bullshit acceptable on this site? I’m asking seriously.
Kirk Spencer
Normally I argue on the side of the libs on this thread but the Other Steve’s got it more or less right. Depending on your source the number of rockets are between 1000 and 3000, but they’ve been fired pretty from Gaza into Israel pretty constantly since Israel left the strip. And some of the Qassam rockets have been reaching towns instead of military outpost areas.
It’s pretty much a case of both sides have worked very hard to ensure that irregular offers of peace and mutual … respect for lack of a better word … are not trusted.
Stormy70
Gee, why would anyone think Kossists are anti-semitic?
I find it telling that Hamas has been firing rockets into Israel for over a yeat, without a peep from the left. When Israel defends itself after an act of war, some posters rush to condemn them, they think they deserve it. Israel is bombing legitimate targets and the northern civilian population of Israel is facing more rockets, yet all I see from some is only the palestinian suffering. Please, they wanted a terrorist government, now they get to see where that road has led. The Palestinians are the authors of their own destruction. Hitler is their hero, for God’s sake.
Ancient Purple
John and Tim F. have allowed Stormy, Par R, scs, Darrell and MacBuckets to post freely, so the answer to your question is a big, fat YES!
Ancient Purple
Stormy, you are without a doubt the most intellectually dishonest fuck this website has ever seen. You even surpass Darrell, and that is damn near impossible.
Your link is to a diary to somehow show that this person represents the dKos community, while conveniently leaving off the part where the comments skewer the person who wrote it.
Here’s a hint for you, clueless: when they start posting recipes in your diaries at dKos, you are considered a troll and a waste of human flesh.
So, here’s something just for you, Stormy:
Banana Bread
1/2 cup margarine, softened
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed banana
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour one 9×5 inch pan.
2. Cream margarine and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs, then bananas. Add flour and soda, stirring just until combined.
3. Pour into prepared pan and bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for about 1 hour (or till toothpick comes out clean). Remove from pan and let cool, store in refrigerator or freeze.
Nutcutter
NYT Thursday
Freedom, as you can clearly see, is on the march?
And, can the dunderheads say things like “the left is anti-semitic” around here?
You bet. You can advance any idea here, as long as (a) it doesn’t tread on one of John’s pet topics, like the military, or (b) you don’t use a forbidden word.
Here, words are banned, but toxic ideas and lies are just fine.
Sorry, that’s the way it is.
Sam Hutcheson
Depending on your source the number of rockets are between 1000 and 3000
Could you drop a link to a source for these numbers? I’m interested.
Andrew
Stormy, since you love Jews so much and are willing to sacrifice so much to support them, could you come over and mow my lawn?
Otherwise, you race baiting, half wit troll, you could bother to read that Kos thread, all see that almost everyone calls the poster a genocidal fool.
Nutcutter
Oh, and AP, Stormy, like Mac and Darrell, is just a troll.
Nutcutter
You are damning Stormy with faint praise …..
Steve
There’s a literal fuckton of anti-Semitic organizations on the far right, and you want to use one fucking dkos diary to try and score some cheap partisan point?
I’m honest enough not to go around claiming my political opponents are anti-Semites just because there’s some wacko extremists on their side of the ideological spectrum. Try fucking joining me in the land of honesty sometime, you assholes.
Zifnab
Qrswave is not the first person to consider that planting Jews smack dab in the middle of the middle east might have been somewhat of a political blunder on everyone’s part. Jews wanted a nation all their own, and now that they’ve got it there’s very little chance they’ll leave. But Isreal isn’t cheap. It isn’t easy. And it doesn’t go without ruffling alot of feathers.
I think Qrswave is completely on crack if he believes “Isreal” is the reason Palestinians and Jews don’t get along. The political and geographic realities of the holy land make peace far more difficult than it appears, regardless of whether one errects a Jewish run government or a Palestinian run government or a ‘unity’ government (which would work about as well as making Al Sharpton and Newt Gingrich co-Presidents of the US). But calling his anti-Semetic? Please.
Andrew
You could pitch one hell of a TV show.
Perry Como
When do we get to see The Protocols of the Elders of Stormy?
Wickedpinto
Israel RETALIATED.
DecidedFenceSitter
Now we have the traditional problem with generational conflict, both sides can point to the last thing the other did. I know that my views on this have vacillated on the years, from “A pox on both their houses,” to being really pissed off that Hamas said that that Israel had broken the truce when there had been a bombing, done by Hamas I do believe, a week previous.
The problem here is the week central state. And it makes me twitch to say that, the confederalist that I am. The central state does not have the power nor the will to cease these actions. I remember years ago, that the statement was that if the Palestinian Authority tried to disarm Hamas there would have been a civil war.
And unfortunately there’s been too much blood under the bridge for there to be a solution that anyone in the world can agree on. Following the Afghanistan doctrine, Israel would be justified in demanding the return of the soldier and those who took them, and if not, declaring war and invading. Unfortunately, there’d be no way to get this as declared as legitimate action by the world community. And we’ve all seen where near-unilateralism gets us.
My other twisted thought is to have Israel unilaterally pull back to the “accepted” borders. Then close them to anyone who isn’t in a semi hauling goods or flying in. No more workers crossing the border, no more outflow of cash. Unfortunately, that just lets the groups get closer to rocket and mortar Israel. But at least they couldn’t be blamed for shutting their borders down. That’s a legimitate state action.
Until the central powers can obtain the will and the ability to restrain their people I do not see any actual solution arising, because as long as there is at least a few rogue groups outside of the control of the central state, there will be no peace.
Krista
By the way, LITBMueller?
Agreed. Completely. You have read my mind.
As well, I’m very disappointed that my prime minister has blindly backed Israel, calling their response “measured” instead of urging both sides to stop the violence and resolve this like adults.
Sherard
You people are fucking retarded. It’s just that simple. If Mexico or Canada were kidnapping US border soldiers and firing hundreds of rockets at El Paso, Texas or Buffalo, NY, the US military would be stomping the SHIT out of them. To suggest that Israel should hold back against these terrorist fucks is typical of the nuanced progressive idiocy that this blog traffics in daily now.
Fucking morons.
Richard 23
Sherard, thank you for offering your enlightened and informed opinion on this important topic without wallowing in cobaggery. You are an inspiration to us all.
DecidedFenceSitter
I’m going to quote a piece from Hilzoy
LITBMueller
Besides the “lefties are anti-semitic BS, am I wrong to consider this a big fat red herring? First, Hamas and Hezbollah have no proper military, and absolutely no ability to conquer Israel. But, most hypocritically of all, many are reacting as if this is the first time EVER that militants have captured Israelis in an effort to force a prisoner exchange. Those who think that are completely ignorant of history:
So, what’s different now? Well, certainly there must be those within the IDF and the government who think that such negotiations have never worked out to Israel’s favor, so they’d rather go on the offensive. Really, it is hard to argue with that logic…except when you think about the potential for a much wider, and costlier war!
But, let’s not kid ourselves into thinking this is a justified response to an unprecedented attack by a military force that has a hope of a fart in a windstorm of actually defeating Israel militarily.
Oh, and Sherard: your analogy would be much more accurate like this: It’s like bombing El Salvador because of the actions of the drug gang MS-13 in our own country.
And, that, would be “fucking retarded.”
Slide.
In the Middle East what we are watching unfold daily is the complete abject failure of the Bush foreign policy.
keatssycamore
I have an honest question, after the first kidnapping/capture how is it that Israel has it happen again in less than a month?
This is the same military that everybody over at the Tom Maguire’s open thread about this is saying should just take on it’s neighbors and finish them off. Because their military is so superior to any other in the region. But somehow this same military can’t keep some militants from taking soldiers.
Is it that Israel is spread to thin on her borders? How would this change in the least if they go to war and have to hold down even more fronts? I just don’t understand how they can be the big dog and still let Hamas/Hez up on the porch.
And, not that anyone cares, but I agree with several of the above posters about all these corrupt Arab governments and their lip service to the Palestinians. These governments could stop all this within 6 months if they wanted to by just getting together and saying two words, “Oil embargo.” Gas at $5, and I bet we yank Israel’s chain hard. Not disporportionately hard. But still.
LITBMueller
In the interest of preventing the Qassam rocket from becoming “The New WMD,” this is what Wikipedia has to say:
The Wiki entry also has this interesting quote from Norman Finkelstein, a professor of political science at DePaul University in Chicago and author of “Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History”:
Finally, the entry points to this interesting statement by Shimon Peres in late June 2006:
Steve
See, I’m a big fan of the U.S.’s full-throated support of Israel, even though they can obviously make bad decisions as easily as the next guy, because no one else will do it for them. If the U.S. ever condemns or criticizes Israel, the legit Israel-haters in the world are just going to use it as an excuse to pile on, and pile on some more. So even though you can make a case that Israel’s response was disproportionate, I didn’t mind one bit when Bush’s position was that Israel has the right to defend itself, period.
But I was sure hoping that when U.S. officials were off the record, they were talking to the Israelis frankly, trying to defuse the situation. Israel’s response was likely the exact thing the terrorists were trying to provoke. That’s why I was so upset yesterday to read this:
We have been there for Israel, time and time again. We give them necessary support in the U.N. and elsewhere. We deliberately avoid criticizing them in public, even when we wish they would take a more measured position. And they need to show us a little more respect in return than “back off.”
Nate Merchant
So, the score now is, plus or minus a family or two:
Israel: 65 Lebanese civilians
Hezbollah: 2 Iraeli civilians
No red flag for Israel, apparently. Do you conservative dumbfucks think for a moment that Hezbollah was any kind of a threat to Israel? And don’t you think that Hezbolloh’s provocation garnered *exactly* the response intended? Stupid warmongers. What does bombing the Beirut airport and blockading the city have to do with stopping terrorism? Are you telling me that the massive IDF can destroy infrustructure at will and blockade an entire nation but cannot stop some nigh-harmless rockets? Do you think for a moment that the impotent Lebanese government has *any* control over Hezbollah? And, once again, it is the Lebanese people who pay, while we all make “measured” responses. Idiots!
For some reason, Lebanon was one of GWB’s Middle East success stories. That joke isn’t funny anymore.
Krista
I wonder, however, if a small part of the animosity towards Israel might be caused by the U.S’s unquestioning support of everything they do. I think that when other countries see the U.S. benevolently turning a blind eye to (or outright supporting) anything and everything done by Israel or Saudi Arabia, I think it creates a bit of resentment.
mitch
To quote Michael Ledeen who absolutely gets it fight:
“…Your options are narrowing. You cannot escape the mullahs. You must either defeat them or submit to their terrible vision. There is no other way.”
link
Embed your damn links. – Ed.
The Other Steve
I’ll note that that diarist has not written any comments, at all. Not just in their diary, but nowhere. That’s generally the sign of a troll, cause if they had posted comments those would have been troll rated and the software would have auto-banned them.
I’m assuming you wrote the diary, so that you could link to it here and claim dKos was anti-semitic. It’s a pretty common tactic amongst the looney-right.
Anyway the responses to the thread clearly disprove your whacko claim.
LITBMueller
Ah, yes… Mr. Michael “Faster, Please!” Ledeen. I bet he’s creaming his pants in anticipation of the World War III he’s been dreaming of for all those years. Seems that forging those Niger documents has really paid off, Michael!!!!
Steve
Maybe a small part, but I think the cause and effect are mostly the other way around. More people hate the U.S. for supporting Israel than hate Israel for being supported by the U.S., I think that’s clear.
Uh, is al-Qaeda a “threat” to the U.S. by your definition? I supported the war in Afghanistan and still do, even though I’m sure the body count was greater than 9/11. That’s not really the point.
Pharniel
Revelations thing is actually from Revelations 7
“then i heard how many people were sealed. there were 144,000 from all the tribes of isreal.”
and it goes 12,000 per tribe: Judah, reuben, gad, asher, naphtali, manasseh, simeon, levi, issachar, zebulun, joseph and benjamin.
rev 14 just brings back the 144k and states that htey’re, y’know, jesus boyz that he rolls with. it’s also kinda freaky ’cause they’re male and virgins.
*shrug* it just bothers me that supposedly pios people could scheme to hasten the hour and the day. it seems to be a supreme act of Pride and arrogance.
The Other Steve
How so? US has only had unquestioning support of Israel since the late 1970s. Prior to that we sat on the sidelines…
You know, through the ’48 war, the ’56 Sinai campaign, the ’67 six-day war, the ’73 Yom Kippur war. It wasn’t really until the ’82 Lebanon invasion that we supported them.
So the claim that this has something to do with the US is simply not credible, and strikes me as rather dishonest.
The Other Steve
More specifically. Hamas and Hezbollah do not have a Regular army. However they do have a large contingent of Irregulars forming militias.
Is this relevant to the discussion? No
Because Hezbollah cannot conquer Isreal with their irregulars, but can only cause a small amount of damage and destruction, does this prevent Isreal from retaliating under International law? No
Richard 23
Mitch’s unembedded link reminds me to plug a Firefox extension which takes care of this problem. It rox!
MR Tech Link Wrapper:
I couldn’t live without it on long latenite Balloon Juice threads!
The Other Steve
I guarantee you that we won’t defeat anybody by acking like whiney ass wanker cowards.
So Ledeen can go hide back under his desk, where he feels most comfortable.
Andrew
Michael Leeden is one of the top contenders for dethroning Doug Feith as the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth.
I’m all for waging war on Iran if the first thing we launch is the staff of the National Review.
Krista
First of all, it wasn’t a claim. It was simply a theory that I was wondering about. I was simply going by what I have seen in regards to US-Isreal relations in my lifetime. If I was in error, then that’s fine.
By the way, can I just state for the record that I am getting really goddamned tired of everybody accusing everybody else of being dishonest, when in many cases, it’s simply that they either have a different viewpoint, or they were unaware of certain aspects of the argument? Just because I am unaware of all of the pertinent history about this, it does not make me a liar, and I really don’t appreciate being called one.
Ancient Purple
Congratulations, Sherard. You officially fail at nuance.
Here’s the story for you – very slowly – so that you can get the nuance.
The U.S. is not in any position to criticize Israel for crossing into Lebanon or Gaza. Ever. Why? Because we set the bar so low on justification.
In fact, according to GWB, all you need is to really believe that the bad guy is going to hurt you and you can invade their home and take over. That is the new international standard. The fact that Israel had two people kidnapped is irrelevant.
Due to our Idiot King, Israel doesn’t even need to wait until the kidnappings. They can justify going into Lebanon or Gaza or Egypt or Syria simply because they really believe that someone may kidnap Israeli citizens.
Don’t blame me for pointing it out. Blame your King for being so stupid.
mitch
Say what you want about Ledeen – you’re not addressing his central issue – One may want to lead a live and let live life. By their own statements, the Iranian mullahs and the nutcase Ahmadinejad won’t let you. Go ahead – let your prejudices about Ledeen blind you to the reality of their beliefs and the actions they are taking to bring them to fruition.
Ancient Purple
Fair enough, Krista.
However, I will fully stand by my claim that Stormy was intellectually dishonest in posting the link to a dKos diary that called for Israel’s extinction and claimed that represented the dKos community.
If that wasn’t blatant intellectual dishonesty, I don’t know what is.
db
I understand that the majority of Palestinians are Sunni. Where are the “hezbollah palestinians” on this? Mostly Sunni or Shiite?
The reason I ask is that shouldn’t this play some role in anticipating how far Iran is willing to go in playing games with Israel through the Palestinians?
We keep hearing about how significant the gap is between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq? Is the same difference between Palestinians (majority Sunni) and Iran (majority Shiite) a gap worth considering here? Is the split between Sunnis and Shiites in the Palestinian population an important consideration?
No clue here. Just lots of questions.
Krista
Ancient – There are cases of people being dishonest, absolutey. But it just seems that certain people like to throw that label at anybody who a) disagrees with them, or b) might still be learning about a given subject.
Andrew
Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from intellectual dishonesty.
Nutcutter
The combination of it being you, plus the nature of the post, leaves me wondering whether this is just sarcasm.
We’ve “only” had an apparently rigid, knee-jerk policy in place for thirty years or so? Well, why even mention it then?
I’m no expert on the middle east, so feel free to bash me as desired on that score, but when I hear the two “sides” in this endlessly tedious dispute talk, I hear them both saying exactly the same thing: God intended US to have this land.
Here’s a war, for all intents, that has been going on in my awareness zone for around fifty FUCKING YEARS that is entirely grounded in a superstition. That’s it, a fucking emotional argument based on superstition.
And I am supposed to be logical and rational in my appraisal of the the two sides, and thereby judge the events? Fuck that. I have no respect for either side in this dispute, at all. They act like a bunch of crazy self-interested sociopaths, all of them.
And US policy? My opinion of US policy toward the middle east in general is that it’s every bit as nutty as the middle east is. From having the Shah of Iran to dinner in the East Room, to kissing up to Saddam Hussein, to the Iraq war …. one collossal stupid monkeyfuck move after another for as long as I can remember.
Bob In Pacifica
It was mentioned at the BBC site but I haven’t heard or seen it in the American media. The two soldiers seized were stationed in the Golan Heights. By international law the Israelis should not be occupying it.
Israel is supposedly occupying the Golan Heights to protect Israel from being attacked by rockets. They’ve been there, violating international law, since I shagging flies in the outfield back when I was in high school and I am now retired. They expelled a hundred and fifty thousand people from that piece of real estate. A hundred and fifty thousand pissed off people and their offspring.
How much of a no man’s land is needed around Israel, considering the general advances in rocket science, for Israel to be safe?
Eventually the radicals will succeed Murbarak and Israel will have to break out the nukes and soon thereafter when we fill up our tanks our gasoline will glow.
I have absolutely no idea how this mess will be resolved. I have no sympathy for people who think God told them to steal someone else’s land and I have no sympathy for people who think God wants a permanent war against non-believers. I’d say God help us, but I think he’s done quite enough already.
The Other Steve
Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.
But it’s a constant problem in these debates that people just completely utterly ignore that which conflicts with their preconceived notions.
The Hilzoy point above is accurate, that neither side is blameless in this conflict. Each reaction is a reaction to something that happened before.
The Other Steve
Ledeen makes the arguments of a coward.
Which is why you confuse responding to his arguments with responding to him personally.
The problem with acting like a coward, is you just empower that which you are afraid of. That’s the fundemantal failure in his arguments.
If you cannot see that, then I’m sorry for you. Go hide under your desk and let the adults take care of things for you.
Nutcutter
Nothing is more frustrating than human nature, when you get right down to it.
Luckily we have “Balloon Juice,” a metaphor for “reasoned discourse,” to get it all straight.
LITBMueller
Granted, but responding with completely disproportionate force, attacking civilian targets (such as airports) that have little to do with responding to kidnapping, etc., is simply not justifiable.
Therein lies the problem: is this simply “retaliation,” or using an incident to extend Israel’s sphere of influence, or what? There’s a halfway decent analysis over at MSNBC, “Crisis Allows Israel to Pursue Strategic Goals.”
Nutcutter
When God is on your side such distinctions are …. for sissies, aren’t they?
The Other Steve
I have to admit that I was surprised by the scope of the counter attack, but I’m not sure we know everything that has happened.
One of Lebanon’s chief problems is having this rogue army running around causing problems. Perhaps eliminating Hezbollah from Lebanon will allow the Lebanese people to control their own country.
I’m willing to give Isreal the benefit of the doubt, because I do not see their motives as unjust.
Nutcutter
And how could they be?
The Other Steve
Ok, speaking of being dishonest.
Nutcutter
Look in the mirror, man.
See my upthread post. Both sides of this “dispute” say exactly the same delusional, sociopathic CRAP to justify their actions.
Fuck off.
Pb
Bob In Pacifica,
Now that’s interesting, if true–I hadn’t heard that either. At all.
Nutcutter
How quaint.
Andrew
An airport is not a civilian target, legally speaking, if it is used to bring in troops or supplies, or in this case, potentially transfer kidnapped soldiers. It is a completely justifable target under the laws of war.
I think that there is a sensical argument to be made that Israel should not target the airport or other infrastructure for poltical purposes.
However, the notion that force should be proprotionate to an attack is not a serious concept. Force should be appropriate to achieve given objectives and to minimize political fallout. But to simply respond in kind with proportionate attacks is the worst of eye-for-an-eye philosophy, retaliation just to retaliate. Either you have a real objective and you do what you need to do, or shouldn’t do it at all.
Pb
Nutcutter,
Boy, you’ve got that right. I was having a discussion with one yesterday, and he gave me this gem:
To which I responded:
The Other Steve
Isreal holds the Golan Heights because of their strategic position in terms of defense. Read the history of the Yom Kippur war to understand better.
Steve
If you want to make sure your kidnapped soldiers stay in the country, destroying airports and highways to isolate southern Lebanon isn’t the stupidest way to go about it.
Intentionally targetting civilians is wrong and unjustifiable. But in the last few days I’ve seen a lot of people acting like targetting “civilian infrastructure” is equivalent to targetting civilians. Not really. There are justifiable military reasons for that sort of action.
LITBMueller
Lebanon has had a TON of problems: from Israeli occupation, to Syrian occupation/domination, to having its anti-Syrian PM blown up… Bush was only half-right when he referred to Lebanon as a “fragile democracy” – its more like fragile state that could easily collapse altogether.
“Eliminating” Hezbollah can only create more problems due to the resulting power vaccuum. Plus, how do you do it? The failed Iraq “experiment” shows how nearly impossible it is to “eliminate” a militant/guerrilla force – you start hitting where you think they are, and they just scatter. Meanwhile, the civilians take the brunt of the attack.
The Other Steve
Technically, I’m not sure how true that is. The UN has passed resolutions claiming Isreal should give it back.
However, Isreal has never claimed it has been annexed, and even Bob admits that it is in a state of occupation. So technically speaking, it’s occupied because the war is not complete. That is, no formal peace treaty has been signed between the state of Isreal and Syria.
Isreal and Syria have talked about a formal treaty, but one Isreali condition is that Syria disarm Hezbollah in Lebanon. Granted, that was when Syria was in control of Lebanon.
Nutcutter
God directs me.
Pb
The Other Steve,
Ugh. Technically speaking, The Korean War is not complete, either. Actually, technically speaking, it wasn’t a war, either. I hate geopolitical technicalities, and you won’t more of them anywhere else, but in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Punchy
I’ve always wondered how Darrell handles it…getting it on a daily basis.
And I’m tired of people accusing Hamas for starting this–Israel lobbed a shell on a Gaza beach, wiping out a bunch of innocent civilians. Hamas/Palestine retaliated. Israel then went fucking crazy, killing scores in the name of 3 soliders. Sick…
LITBMueller
What?!?! A civilian airport is a civilian target. Laws of war?!?!? So, Israel has declared war on Lebanon? Must have missed that. And, I also missed the part where Hezbollah was importing soldiers and weapons by the plane load into Rafiq Hariri International Airport. As for the “trasnfer to Iran” excuse – got any evidence? The Israelis sure don’t. Its just an excuse.
Right there, the nail gets squarely hit on the head: this isn’t about the captured soldiers (such prisoner exchanges have gone on for decades) and this isn’t about rocket attacks. This is about destabilizing Lebanon, making it impossible for Hezbollah to operate and impossible for Syria to have any meaningful influence or gain any economic benefit from Lebanon.
This is an attempt to expand of Israel’s sphere of influence, plain and simple.
The Other Steve
You missed the part about Palestinians firing rockets into Isreal from Gaza, which was the catalyst for the IDF firing shells into Gaza.
Slide.
I thought our going into Iraq was going to scare all the bad guys into being good? Wasn’t that the plan? You know, the right wing mantra, “the only thing the terrorists understand is force”. But alas the naive simplistic thoughless concepts of the right wing morons have kinda backfired. Rather than projecting strength, our failure in Iraq showed our weakness. Rather than intimidating our enemies, it has emboldened them. Bush has demonstrated the impotence of military power in our current world. (Hell it didn’t work too well in the last century either did it.)
Bush’s foreign policy is an abject failure. Afghanistan is getting worse not better. We have lost in Iraq. Iran openly confronting the West. N. Korea disgregarding our tough threats. China not helping. Putin making fun of our vice-president, mocking him for his shooting accident. Genocide in Dafur. Somalia taken over by Islamists and probably the next terrorist’s safe haven. US pretige around the world at the lowest point in memory.
Good job Bush.
DecidedFenceSitter
Mueller,
You can have an illegal conflict carried out legally, and you can have a legal conflict carried out illegally. Jus in Bello law is complicated and flexible.
I have to disagree that this is an attempt to expand the sphere of influence, it is too haphazard for that, it may become that, but for the moment it is emotional lashing out.
And considering that the prisoner exchanges continue to happen on such an asymmetrical scale, I would argue that they are also, not working.
Pb
I missed the part where taking “an eye for an eye” (or more) in civilian casualties somehow became an acceptable foreign policy response instead of just terrorism.
Slide.
thats kinda the problem in a nutshell. Either side can ALWAYS point to a prior atrocity perpetrated by the other side. Both sides can easily convince themselves that they are the aggrevied party. Its been so for thousand of years and I doubt anything will change in my lifetime.
The Other Steve
I see no evidence that this is only about Israel trying to expand their sphere of influence.
The only thing Israel wants right now is to be left alone.
If people would accomodate them on that, we’d have a hell of a lot less problems.
Pb
Well join the club–he probably just saw it on Leno or something and figured it was ok.
Pb
They’ve got a funny way of showing it.
Zifnab
Firstly, if this was an open war between Isreal and Lebanon then, yes, leveling bridges and highways and airports to prevent the kidnappers from fleeing makes perfect military sense. It does not make perfect sense if you want to foster good will with the people living alongside those highways, running business deals across those bridges, and traveling on those airways. Again, how would you feel if Mexico bombed I-10 because it was persuing a cocaine trafficer, or blew up Bush Intercontinental Airport to keep smugglers from escaping to Canada.
Secondly, don’t turn this into a Jewish Power Play for Mid-East Domination. Calling Isreal’s actions reckless and foolish is one thing. Claiming that they’re trying to destroy the Lebonese government by rallying anti-Isreali forces within the country with an airstrike? That’s ridiculous. Isreal’s actions are foolish primarily because they only serve to hurt Isreal. Bombing your next door neighbor is NOT the ideal way to expand your sphere of influence.
DecidedFenceSitter
Pb,
Depends on the intent, to paraphrase under the Just War laws, collateral damages is acceptable as long as it is taken into account and not aggravate and the target of the operation is deemed important enough.
What does that mean? Well through a 1,000 lawyers, academics, and international law professionals on a listserv or an annual meeting and you’ve got yourself an explosive flame war that’s on par with the worst I’ve seen anywhere. [/Personal Experience]
Punchy
Now THAT’S a mature way to handle it. Kill some civilians only because they’ve killed a few of yours. And make sure to kill indiscriminately, by placing it on a beach. Nice. Glad to see Israel is WAY past playing tit-for-tat, similar to how a third-world country might react.
Slide.
Pb a terrorist has been re-defined by this administration to mean anyone that you are fighting. I love when we describe the insurgents as terrorists. We are in THEIR country. We invade THEIR country. We topple THEIR governement. We occupy THEIR country. We’ve killed counteless civillians (conveniently called collaterial damage) in THEIR country. And when they fight back we label them terrorists. Amazing isn’t it?
Andrew
Punchy, what should Israel do if they are being rocketed?
Pb
DecidedFenceSitter,
That may be the case, but I personally disagree with that line of reasoning. There may be cases where choices like that have to be made, but I’d be in favor of avoiding them wherever possible, and still never claiming that you were somehow in the right because whatever building you were bombing was more important to the war than those people’s lives were to them.
However, all that aside, I don’t think that even those just war laws would apply here–for example, even conceding that the airport was an important target, surely there were other options to disable it while still avoiding all the civilian casualties it entailed.
But of course that’s just my opinion, and I’m not a lawyer, an academic, or an international law professional–just a human being with a conscience and some empathy.
The Other Steve
Not even Human Rights Watch claims Israel fired on the beach on purpose.
One explanation was that one of Israels shells targetting a half klick away went astray. The other likely case is that it was an unexploded shell from a previous time that was buried under the sand. There’s also claims to it being a Palestinian explosive, either set on purpose or going off accidentally.
But there’s absolutely no evidence that Israel targeted the beach.
So why do you claim so?
Again, i will use the words intentionally dishonest.
Nutcutter
This is bordering on spoof.
Remember, when you’re right, you’re right. Period.
Steve
I didn’t say it was necessarily the smartest move. I said it’s justifiable in a military sense.
As for the people talking about the kidnapping being “retaliation” for the Israeli shelling of Gaza, guys, I don’t think you’re thinking this one through. Hezbollah, last I checked, is a terrorist group. They have a political arm which holds seats in the Lebanese parliament, and it’s appropriate to expect the Lebanese government to exercise control over them. But Hezbollah is not Lebanon. They are a private terrorist group and they have no right to go around “retaliating” against whatever they feel aggrieves them.
If the government of Lebanon, or the PLO for that matter, wants to take retaliatory action against Israel we can talk about what they’re justified in doing. But Hezbollah has no more right to exact revenge than al-Qaeda does.
Pb
Slide.,
That’s how they use the term, but that’s not how they’ve defined it in the past. However, in practice, they flagrantly ignore such technicalities as it suits them.
Slide.
Few would dispute Israel’s right to take military action against those areas where the rockets are being fired from. Bombing residential areas in South Beirut, the airport, roads, bridges, fuel supplies to a government that has no control over the terrorists that fired the rockets. Israel seems to belive in collective punishment which I do belive is ultimately self-defeating. How many MORE terrorists do actions like this create than eliminate? Its all a question of proportionality. Israel certainly gives the impression that the life of one of their citizens is much much more valuable than the life of an arab. I don’t think the rest of the world (especially the Muslim world) views it quite the same way.
The Other Steve
What civilian casualties?
They damaged the runway and hit the fuel tanks. I can find nothing about the terminal or any airplanes being hit.
Punchy
Fuck off. I don’t just make shit up. I found it here, from a guy that’s pretty damn knowledgeable (I’m sorry if he’s on the other side of your ideological spectrum).
As for what Human Rights Watch said:
How dare you imply that I’m intentionally making this stuff up. I’m just waiting for the “anti-semetic” comments that have yet to fly.
Steve
There’s a couple very good posts on this conflict here. Recommended reading.
Slide.
if that is the case then the USA is a terrorist nation:
Steve
Okay, what that refers to is that Israel tried to deny it was their shell that blew up the beach. They were most likely full of shit about that. But it still doesn’t mean they were intentionally targeting the beach. There doesn’t appear to be any evidence for that.
DecidedFenceSitter
Pb,
That’s fine to disagree. I have no problem with normative statements, but I wanted to make a few declarative with the Just War.
And I’m no academic, lawyer, or professional, just spent 3+ years around them, listening to them and reading and editing the laws. (International Law Legal Editor)
The end problem is that there’s no overarching power. American law is effective because it has a judicial system, supposedly backed with the physical force, if needed, that the laws state this, and this is what they mean.
However, when you turn to international law, there is no determining authority, at best you get things such as the ICJ, and at worst Chapter VII resolutions from the UNSC.
Punchy
From WaPo:
Nutcutter
Steve
What is wrong with you people?
TOS asked what civilian casualties occurred in the attack on the airport. Citing the death toll across the entire country isn’t an answer.
Nutcutter
But remember, when you’re right, you’re right.
Slide.
Oh, THOSE civilian caualties.
The Other Steve
If the rockets are coming from Lebanon, the Lebanese government is responsible for taking action against them. That they do not, probably has something to do with Hezbollah having seats in the national assembly and the government turning a blind eye.
Which is the same as they sanctioning it.
Therefore, Israels actions are justifiable. Whether they are wise or not is another question.
I’m not aware of any nation who doesn’t feel this way.
Nutcutter
That’s right, Darrell. Until we have an absolutely verifiable casualty count at each location, we are not allowed to respond to TOS. He, of coourse, can claim that there were “no deaths at the airport” because, you know, we can’t prove that there were.
What are you two today, Darrell and his other brother Darrell?
Pb
Steve, The Other Steve, etc.,
Perhaps I got that bit wrong, if so, I apologize. I saw a lot of news reports yesterday that weren’t exactly clear on that point–I thought it was just one attack on the airport that resulted in the 50 civilian casualties, not an attack on the airport and then a bunch of other attacks at the same time on other places that resulted in the civilian casualties. For the record, I’m not morally opposed to blowing up airports, necessarily–just civilians.
skip
“Sorry, the Pals can have no moral authority when bitching about civilian casualties.”
Even when the ratio is usually about 4-1? Or in this case, 12-1?
“The Pals deserve their fate for choosing the wrong government,”
Really ! Well, I think YOU chose the wrong government in 2000 and 2004. Does that give me the right to blow up your bridges and jail 1/3 of your parliament? Who decides “wrong.” You?
Go anywhere else in the world and you hear a wholly different take on all this. Are they ALL antisemites? Even the countries with no jews? That sets a new standard: a ‘blood libel” of humanity itself.
None of this, of course, is ever Israel’s fault. When Sharon swaggered into the Dome on the Rock, with troops in tow, he was shopping for a flying carpet. When Israel introduced nukes into the Middle East, lying to the US all along, it was an innocent, unprovovactive act. When Israel gave some of these nukes to apartheid South Africa it was all in good fun. When Israel spies on the US it is all a misunderstanding—they are seeking secrets they “should” have anyway.
And when no US newspaper so much as mentions these transgressions, I am imagining things, just as I am imagining the fact that Wolf Blitzer is a former Washington Correspondent of the likudnik Jerusalem Post.
Eric Alterman (himself pro-Israeli) had a list a while back showing that there were 42 pro-Israel columnists in US media, but just 3 Palestinian ones. Yet even this imbalance it is never enough for the Stormys of the world in the Amen Corner.
Take heart, Stormy, Now there are just 2. Edward Said is dead.
The Other Steve
These are at the airport?
[sound of crickets chirping]
That’s what I thought.
Punchy
They don’t report the causulties in terms of location. Nobody is reporting the presence or lack thereof of civilian bodies at the airport. It’s a misleading question to ask since there’s no available data.
Andrew
I think that, even though civilians were killed on that beach, it is a long stretch to suggest that Israel intentionally shelled the area to kill civilians. It is perfectly legal under the international laws of war to attack enemy positions, and it is not a war crime if civilians are killed in that process.
However, the mere act of deploying weapons in a civilian area, as Hamas and Hexbullah have done, is a war crime, to say nothing of purposefully targeting civilian areas.
Will you argue that Israel cannot legally retaliate but that Hamas and Hezbullah can illegally attack?
Nutcutter
But you forgot Rule Number One: When you’re right, you’re right.
Punchy
Maybe I’ll just say “yes”. You’ll ask me to prove it, I’ll demand you prove it’s false. And you’ll just continue to ask questions that have no verifiable answer, and ASSUME the default answer is WHAT YOU WANT IT TO BE.
Talk about intellectually dishonest discourse. This is the Ann Coulter Method of argument.
Steve
Uh, no, you’re the one being a Darrell in this case.
Pb said this:
TOS responded by pointing out that there hasn’t been any reporting of civilian casualties from the attack on the airport, as far as he knows.
TOS’s question “What civilian casualties?” was specifically in reference to the airport, in response to a point that was made about the airport, and there’s no other honest interpretation.
Trying to play “gotcha” by pointing to all the civilian casualties across the country is, seriously, right out of Darrell’s book. TOS wasn’t claiming that there have been no civilian casualties anywhere in Lebanon.
Pb
The Other Steve,
Woo, vigilante justice! You didn’t do anything about it, so therefore, you must support it, so therefore, I can attack you! I’ll remember that the next time a woman reports a rape to a police officer and he doesn’t believe her, so she firebombs the police officer’s house–obviously, the police officer shouldn’t have been supporting the rapist!
The Other Steve
Not even Juan Cole claims Israel purposefully targeted civlians. He only talks about culpability and such. I looked into this a few weeks ago, and the evidence is nowhere near as clear as you and Juan would like it to be.
While it’s true the IDF tends to look the other way, it’s also true that the Palestinians make ridiculous accusations to play off western sensibilities. Just go back and look at how they distorted what happened at Jenin.
Then don’t make false statements.
The Other Steve
Don’t be obtuse.
Andrew
Pb, you win the worst analogy of the day award.
Let’s try something a bit better:
Your neighbor’s dog keeps coming into your yard and digging it up. Who do you hold responsible? The dog or the neighbor?
If the neighbor fails to act, you call animal control and you deal with the dog yourself.
The Other Steve
What the fuck are you talking about? Every article that has talked about civlian causualties has referenced the bombing going on targetting hezbollah groups in shiite suburbs.
Steve
I wish you had taken a little more time to try and come up with a better analogy.
We are talking about a terrorist group launching attacks from within the borders of a sovereign nation. A terrorist group that is not some shadowy entity which hides in the shadows, but which is actually permitted to hold seats in the government.
Do you really find it so outrageous to simply declare that the host nation has some responsibility to take care of the terrorists operating within its borders?
If you go too far with this line of logic you’re going to end up condemning Afghanistan as a response to 9/11. There’s not some surgical way to go after these terrorists groups, particularly when they’re on good terms with the local government.
Pb
The Other Steve, Andrew,
Given the huge logical fallacy I was lampooning in the first place, of course I could come up with all sorts of analogies. I figured a 9/11 analogy might be in poor taste, though.
Andrew, what if the neighbor says it isn’t his dog? And to be a proper analogy, wouldn’t the retaliation be against the neighbor in this case, and not the dog?
DecidedFenceSitter
Pb, were you against the Afghanistan war? Not trying to incite anything, but that is a similar case of another state harboring enemies of the state. If you weren’t, then what is the difference between these two situations, if you were, then carry on, no apparent contradiction.
IMO, the closer deal would be – friends of your neighbor have holed up in your neighbor’s host, having taken your sons. In retaliation, you have gone over, kicked in the door, started shooting up furniture and appliances and demanded that your sons be returned to you. All the while hoping that 1) the sons haven’t been killed and 2) they haven’t been snuck off to another neighbor who has a lot more firepower. And btw, there are no police that you can call upon.
Slide.
Like I said, both sides can point to reprehensible actions on the other side. While Israel may not “target” civillians specifically, they sure as hell have little concern for Palistinian civilians that may end up very dead when they try to take out a militant. Sending a rocket into an apartment building to kill a top Hamas guy and killing 14 residents in that building, 9 of which were children, is terrorism as far as I am concerned.
.
Punchy
Steve, please tell me where all the civilian causalties occured. I’ll take it in map form, spreadsheet, or just a listing. But I want to know where every civilian was put down…because…perhaps only THEN can you actually claim you’re right.
Having some trouble finding that data? Really? Of course, even though you cannot find such data, it’s CLEAR that no one was killed at the airport. Just crystal. The No Data says so. Got it?
Pb
Steve,
I don’t find that to be outrageous, necessarily, to the extent that said nation can control or deal with those terrorists in the first place. I do find the response to be both misplaced and outrageous, though.
Actually, if you go too far with The Other Steve’s original line of reasoning, you’re going to end up condemning the United States as a response to 9/11–for not stopping the terrorists within their borders in the first place.
The Other Steve
Obviously, civilians should not be targeted. That’s generally agreed by all adopters of the Geneva conventions.
That’s why I was puzzled, when I saw the news reports on the airport it appeared the targets were limited in scope to cripple the airport but not take it out completely.
Nutcutter
I’m aware of that. It was a Darrellesque response, for the reasons already stated, but since you aren’t paying attention, I’ll restate for you: The casualty information we have isn’t location specific, so the suggestion that there were none at the airport is disingenuous, misleading, and …. Darrellesque.
Besides, the real point here is that you have two sides in conflict who have been acting and talking like delusional crazy people for fifty fucking years. Maybe the constant refrain of “who struck John” is just a little TEDIOUS at this point?
But as I say, when you’re right, you’re right.
Because that’s what’s going on here: Yet another stick up the ass of the world shoved there by fanatics and fundamentalists and absolutists who have God on their fucking side. The “no casualities at the airport” jackalope is worthy of Donald Rumsfeld, for crissakes.
Steve
The reason we find it reasonable to doubt there were any civilian casualties at the airport is that Israel basically just blew up the runways. They didn’t hit the terminal or any planes.
None of this has anything to do with whether some of the other civilian casualties throughout Lebanon should have been avoided – but since your original point was basically “they could have taken out the airport without so many casualties,” I think it was appropriate to note that, in fact, there’s no evidence that there were a bunch of casualties. Why that isn’t a simple and straightforward point to everyone, I don’t know, but I appreciate you acknowledging that you were confused by the news reports. I agree that it’s hard to keep all these things straight.
Nutcutter
Because you aren’t listening, that’s why you don’t know.
Steve
So let me get this straight. You think it’s appropriate to argue “even if Israel was entitled to attack the airport, they could have done it without so many casualties,” even when you actually have no evidence there were any casualties at the airport.
Pb has already taken back that argument. Yet you’re defending it to the death.
Pb
DecidedFenceSitter,
I was for hunting down the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11–but I wasn’t paying that much attention at the time, really. Given the results, I’m somewhat ambivalent about the Afghanistan war at the present.
Well obviously I’m for going after the people who actually attacked us in the first place, not some unrelated group. So the questions to ask in both cases would be the same.
Yeah, that’s a pretty crappy situation as well–given an introduction like that, I’d expect that (1) or (2) or something equally bad would most likely happen.
The Other Steve
Actually firing a rocket from a civilian apartment building with the purpose of using the civilians as a shield against reprisal is a war crime according to the Geneva conventions.
Punchy
I’m having a hard time understanding why we’re all arguing about civilian airport deaths…
For the pro-Israel crew…curious for your take on this:
Specifically, this:
Is this Blank-Check Diplomacy, or what? Does this mean we’re going to just sit back and enjoy the fireworks?
Nutcutter
so let me get this straight: You guys think that haggling over which if any casualties occurred at the airport, as opposed to … I dunno, across the road from the airport? Or down the lane from the airport? Or a mile from the airport? …. that’s what’s important. The actual longitude and latitude at each place of a civilian death.
That’s what is really important here. Not the big picture, not fifty years of this tedious shit?
Punchy
I’ve never argued that. Never said that, never typed it, never mentioned it. My only beef is much more specific: that the lack of accurate data does not automatically make your side of the argument true.
Steve
Except the argument didn’t start with an assertion that there were no casualties at the airport. The argument started with an assertion that there were a lot of casualties at the airport! And when TOS said “Hey, back that up” you decided to be like “hey, you can’t PROVE there were no casualties at the airport.”
Now, you’re obviously going overboard by saying that the casualty information we have isn’t location specific, because there are plenty of stories that say “X location was attacked and there were Y casualties.” Let’s look at one such story…
Now, if there was any doubt whether the 22 deaths in the first paragraph occurred at the airport or in the other strikes, I think the last paragraph resolves it.
If there WERE any known casualties at the airport at the time the article was written, they surely would have been mentioned.
Is this conclusive proof that there were no casualties at the airport? Of course it’s not. But like TOS said, if you’re going to make a statement like “it would have been possible to attack the airport without so many casualties,” you should at least have something to back up the claim that there were “so many casualties.”
Right. I’m just sitting here, taking cheap shots, not talking about facts or addressing what anyone else has to say. Perfect characterization of my role in this discussion.
Pb
Yeah, I agree, let this one die, everyone. Obviously we don’t know where *all* the dead civilians were, but it seems clear that it wasn’t necessarily tied to the airport bombing, as I had initially thought. For example, acording to The Daily Star (Lebanon), for whatever that’s worth:
So those deaths don’t appear to be airport related at all. To be fair, that same article isn’t entirely one-sided–it also covers Hizbullah’s attacks on Israel, but of course that wasn’t what we were talking about in this case.
LITBMueller
Zifnab, I think the IDF’s generals and other experts disagree with you:
There’s no denying that over the past five years the balance of power in the Middle East has been radically altered – mostly by US hands and influence: from neutering Iraq, to forcing Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon, to politicially isolating Syria and Iran. The Israelis are clearly taking advantage of this.
The danger of a wider conflict is great – on that we can all agree. The risks for the US are twofold: besides the economic impact on the US due to rising oil prices, we also have to worry about increased attacks on our soldiers in Iraq. Seems to me that this sort of Israeli aggression could be what causes Sunni and Shiite militants in Iraq to unite in an effort to strike at the US.
And a wider war that draws first Syria, and then Iran, into conflict with both us and Israel would be a disaster.
DecidedFenceSitter
Actually, yes, if discussing the possibility of war crimes and violating Jus Bello, then yes where the casualties happened, and in what relationship is very important to the discussion.
If no casualities happened from the airport attack, then we can say that the just war doctrine was followed, and civilian casualities were minimized/eliminated in that particular operation.
Each operation, if we are discussing just war doctrine and war crimes (which is, IMO, what we are edging around here) then each needs to be discussed individually on its own merits.
Krista
Sort of like how Bush “should try” to get a warrant before spying on American citizens? Mm-hm. Israel’s really going to want to resolve this and work on ending the bloodshed after hearing a strong rebuke like that. “OK boys. Go ahead and burn the place to the ground — just try to not kill TOO many innocent people, m’kay?”
The Other Steve
I don’t believe the US is responsible for the actions of any other country. If Lebanon wants Israel to stop, they should negotiate with Israel.
They have bargaining chips. They could return the Israeli soldiers. They could promise to disband Hezbollah.
So yes, I’m more than willing to sit back and watch.
Steve
Full recap, one more time.
Pb referred to a bunch of civilian casualties at the airport. TOS asked him what civilian casualties at the airport he was talking about. You jumped in to rebut TOS by pointing out that there have been casualties somewhere in Lebanon, when he had only asked if there had been any reports of casualties at the airport.
It seems you jumped into an ongoing discussion with a knee-jerk response to the question “What civilian casualties?” without realizing that what was under discussion was whether there were any civilian casualties at the airport. My “side of the argument” is simply that it makes no sense to say “the airport could have been attacked without so many casualties” if you don’t even know there were casualties. Since no one has asserted that there absolutely, positively weren’t any casualties at the airport, nor is that assertion relevant to the point TOS was making when you jumped into the conversation, you can stop congratulating yourself on beating down a strawman at this point.
The Other Steve
True. It appears that Israel’s objective is to eliminate Hezbollah.
We can argue whether or not that will work. But I think it’s clear from everything we have argued thus far, that Israel is justified.
The Other Steve
I gotta go. Have fun!
LITBMueller
That’s pretty silly, TOS. Check out Juan Cole’s site for an explanation of why the Lebanese government has absolutely no ability to control, disarm, or otherwise control Hezbollah. In fact, for years, it was the Syrians who tried to keep the lid on Hezbollah – until they were forced out of Lebanon:
Pb
Ugh.
Actually, Juan Cole, he thought you were going to ask him about the pig…
Nutcutter
Heh. Well, proof that one can say absolutely anything around here. A flat earth argument wouldn’t meet much resistance.
Jus Bello? WTF? Fifty goddammed years of this shit, and we are talking about whether there were or were not casualties at this airport this week?
You know what, those people deserve the world of shit they are in, if that’s the best they can do. Several thousand years of culture and education, leading to this? How long do we have to wait before they all kill each other and the world can go on about its business?
Maybe the End Times devotees are right. There is no hope for the fucking world.
Pb
And they’re thrilled about it, too–which I’d cite as further evidence in favor of that conclusion.
Steve
Dude, someone made a very specific argument about the attack on the airport, there was a response, and then you jumped in waving a bloody shirt that had nothing to do with what they were talking about.
Without your seven, now eight, posts on the airport issue, we would have been past this point long ago. Pb, who made the original argument, retracted it 40 posts ago. It’s you and Punchy who have kept it alive by defending Pb’s point to the death. Now you’re playing the “how can you worry about these details when there are children starving in Africa?” card.
I don’t see how your brand of frustration, and repeated links to whatever it is you keep linking to, is any more productive in solving the Arab-Israeli conflict than a discussion about the attack on the Beirut airport. You’re the one who’s constantly reminding us that we can’t expect substantive discussion because of the name of the blog, and now you’re castigating us for not having a more substantive discussion. I guess, in a way, you’re proving your own point.
Nutcutter
As well they should be. Just watch the rantings of the supporters of the two sides in the endless conflict here, and you can have more entertainment than you can get from the Comedy Channel.
Delusional sociopathic motherfuckers. I’d lobby for just standing back and letting them all kill each other, if I didn’t think the world would be screwed in the process.
Pb
Steve,
So where were we…
DecidedFenceSitter
Nutcutter,
It’s more then 50 years of this shit, it several thousand years of this shit. Of warring over resources, over ideas, over ideals, for vengeance, for justice, this is the patchwork of our history.
At every turn, be it ransom, weregild, or the Geneva Conventions man has done his poor best to make it a little less terrible, a little more just, to humanize it.
And that is why I argue for legal bullshit, for the exacting definitions, because otherwise we get closer and closer to the Hobbesian state of nature.
The fact that we can have the discussion as to whether the military action was just or unjust shows how far we’ve come.
Nutcutter
You know what, man? Give it up. I know what the context was, and I know what I said, and I don’t agree with your fucking characterization. Is that not clear by now?
You think this is about where somebody got killed. I think it’s about fifty years of sociopathic bullshit that stupid arguments such as the one you are so worried about only prolong and foster and make worse.
You take your version, I’ll take mine. Mine is about kicking all of those fucking people in the ass. Yours is apparently about who wins a subthread in Balloon Juice.
Steve
Well, this is a very solid point, but let’s work with it. If no one is capable of disarming Hezbollah, does that make it any easier to understand why Israel would say, “No matter how much everyone wants us to call a cease-fire, it’s clear the overall situation isn’t ever going to improve unless we disarm Hezbollah ourselves”?
CNN is now reporting that Israel has destroyed Hezbollah’s headquarters in south Beirut. I don’t know what else Israel is supposed to do, confronted with a group which wants to destroy them, and which no one else is in a position to do anything about.
Pb
Nutcutter,
We’d need some ground rules, and a battlefield. Maybe we could hoax up some archeological discovery showing that the original home of Christianity / Judaism / Islam is actually somewhere in Siberia, and whoever gets there first will find The Holy Grail, or massive oil reserves, or something, so obviously there needs to be a massive holy war there to defend it from the infidels etc. etc.
Nutcutter
Israeli: “God wants us to have this land.”
Palestinian: “God wants us to have this land.”
The effect is more convincing if you picture each speaker with a tear in his eye. Because that’s the way I actually saw it. With the tear.
DecidedFenceSitter
In response,
Pb
Steve,
Woo, Mission Accomplished!
Nothing? Declare victory, get the hell out, and not mess with Syria and Iran? Sounds good to me!
Steve
Well, you’re doing an awesome job, with your ninth post now continuing a subthread I would have been happy to leave behind an hour ago. Way to show us how you’re the only one around here with your priorities in gear.
Is your plan to achieve peace in the Middle East by banging your shoe on the table? Keep up the good work, Nikita.
Steve
Get the hell out of where? Israel?
Hezbollah is a terrorist group. They do not want to achieve peace with Israel. They do not want Israel to live a happy and prosperous life with, perhaps, a slightly different set of borders. They want to see Israel gone.
We can readily criticize specific actions by the Israelis but I really don’t see the basis for arguing that a nation can’t even take action against a terrorist organization that launches attacks against it.
srv
You paid for those planes dropping the bombs and the bombs themselves. You always avoid responsibility>
srv
Hezbollahs influence is a result of Sharon’s first invasion of Lebanon to drive the PLO out. Hezbollah came in a filled the vacuum left behind.
Sharon broke Lebanon, and now Olmert is going to break it some more. And in 20 years, you’ll still be whining about the result.
Pb
Steve,
Lebanon. Duh.
Pb
Steve,
Gee, I don’t either. So WYFP? My problem is when they start attacking other people instead.
LITBMueller
To me, no, Steve, because the danger of creating a much wider conflict with much higher casualties is just too great.
Steve
Right, and al-Qaeda is a result of blah blah blah, and so here we are whining about them when they’re our own fault, blah blah blah. More to the point, the past is often unfortunate but we’re still stuck with living in the present.
“Both sides need to grow up.” Okay, good call. No one can accuse Nutcutter of taking the easy way out.
Hypothetically, if one side grows up and the other doesn’t, what should they do? Give up their silly claim to the land, and move somewhere else?
One problem is that there always seems to be someone who has a problem with the Jews occupying whatever land they’re currently occupying. Centuries of moving around really hasn’t changed that a whole lot. But yeah, we’re very hospitable here in the U.S., so maybe we could give them Texas or something.
Nutcutter
What’s your plan to achieve peace in the Middle East, motherfucker?
Steve
Maybe yes, maybe no. I didn’t say Israel was making the right judgment. I said their motivations are pretty understandable.
I confess, you lost me with this one. Hezbollah is going to leave Israel alone, as long as Israel gets out of Lebanon? I’m kind of scratching my head. I don’t think Hezbollah is cool with Israel in general.
Pb
Sweet–that’d have to be an improvement! However, I think it’d be more likely for us to give them Mexico or something. :)
Steve
Is this like asking for the Democrats to have a plan on Iraq? Because I’ll consult an Ouija board and I still think my strategy has a better chance of success than railing against both sides in a blog comment section.
Nutcutter
One side grows up?
The two quotes I showed you slightly upstream are about a year old. Which side has grown up?
What a crock.
Nutcutter
No, fuckhead. It’s like you suggesting that I don’t have a plan for peace. Do you have one?
“Banging your shoe on the table” is Steve-ese for “saying stuff I don’t like.”
Tough shit. I don’t care if you like it or not.
Pb
Steve,
I think I totally lost you, and then you totally lost me. I was cheering that Israel had “destroyed Hezbollah’s headquarters in south Beirut”. Then you said, “I don’t know what else Israel is supposed to do”, and I was agreeing with you that Israel didn’t have to do anything else, besides declare victory, get out of Lebanon, and not attack Iran and Syria, as some had been speculating.
Israel’s goal was to strike at, to get rid of, Hezbollah’s presence there, right? And they did that, right? I mean, that’s great, if only they had just managed to do that in the first place.
Nutcutter
Oh, you think it’s about “two sides in a comment section?”
I think it’s about two much bigger sides with their heads so far up their delusional and sociopathic asses that they have lost contact with reality.
But like I say, you have your context, and I have mine.
Punchy
Give ’em southern Indiana. The collateral damage alone would take out a shitload of meth labs….
Punchy
Wow…Hezbollah owed the Beruit International Airport? Who knew?
Punchy
sorry…”owned”
Pb
Yeah, but Israel 0wn3d it…
Nutcutter
Oh, and Steve? My awful “nine posts to this thread?”
My quick and dirty post count from this thread:
You: 25
Me: 24
TOS: 27
That’s as of 1:00 by the thread clock.
Any other lame-ass browbeating tricks you want to use on me today?
Steve
I don’t see how you could be much more juvenile in this discussion. Part of fighting an enemy is to destroy their supply lines. Yes, Hezbollah gets its reinforcements and munitions through the same airport that civilians use to fly into and out of Lebanon. But Israel’s goal is to disarm Hezbollah and that’s why they are hitting Hezbollah and its supply lines.
Perry Como
Time out. At least we can all agree that things are going great in Iraq.
Mission accomplished!
Steve
Uh, you’re sitting here swearing a blue streak at me, and you want to accuse me of browbeating?
What I said is that you had made nine posts on the airport issue that had been dead for an hour, and that you were complaining about a subthread when you were the one keeping it alive.
Glad to see you kicking all those fucking people in the ass by tallying post counts and such. Makes you a lot better than those silly jerks who worry about winning subthreads in Balloon Juice.
Seriously, have a substantive discussion if you like, or sit there and call it all a bunch of bullshit if you prefer, but don’t act like you’re the poor guy being browbeaten.
Punchy
Steve–
You said SPECIFICALLY that they ought to be able to fight the terrorist organizations. Let me repeat that–terrorist organizations.
Since when does that include every and all “supply lines”? By your logic, all airports, roads, bridges are game? (whoops…that’s juvenile). Can Israel simply destroy everything that may provide “munitions” including warehouses, storage facilities, and gas tank facilities?? By you logic, sure. Why not then just completely wipe out Beruit…ya know…just to be safe?
So…are they fighting Hezbollah, or Lebanon in general. And yes, that’s a serious question, b/c if it’s the former, than tell me how all the non-Hezbollah residents of Beruit are supposed to accept this destruction of roads and bridges, etc.
DecidedFenceSitter
Cause under most peoples interpretations of Jus Bello that would not be a reasonable trade off for collateral damage (which is not just civilian casualities) to operational payoff.
Punchy
Is it sick and twisted to believe that the Bush Admin may actually welcome this Israeli attack as a way to completely wipe out all coverage of the complete meltdown of “order” in Iraq in the past few days?
Pharniel
they sure did show those n00bs
Kirk Spencer
Way back upthread I was asked for sources for the thousand to three thousand qassam rockets coming from Gaza since the ceasefire. Those were the outer ranges of numbers being reported when I did a news.google search on the subject. The news sources included the Toronto Star, the Kuwait Times, Ynetnews (Israel), the AP, the UPI, and several others.
Pb
Punchy,
This is where that 9/11 analogy that I had avoided making before would also be quite apt. We just didn’t go after enough airports, roads, bridges, etc., etc., to stop the terrorists from blowing things up themselves, apparently.
The Other Steve
That’s actually very funny. :-)
srv
Complete propaganda. They have as much chance of breaking supply lines as killing Zarqawi would have any impact on the insurgency. I’m sure Hez picks the most expensive way to get arms. Perhaps they should bomb the Baghdad airport for us, since that must be how the insurgents get their RPGs?
Their goal is to collectively punish everyone in Lebanon in an attempt make life more difficult for Hezbollah, and give Olmert the bona fides as a tough guy with the local wackos. It’s what Sharon tried 24 years ago, and it didn’t make them any safer then.
In the mean time, they’ll recarve the West Bank and people won’t be talking about the wall. Mission accomplished.
Steve
Do you see a way to surgically disarm Hezbollah without affecting the civilians of Lebanon? If you do, the world wants to know.
Let’s think of this in terms of a traditional conflict between nations. If you want to create a distinction between military and civilian targets, such as by using military airports for all your military missions, then you have a legitimate complaint when the enemy strikes your civilian airports. But if you’re going to launch military airstrikes from the civilian airport, you have no grounds to complain when your enemy decides to take the airport out.
When you’re talking about terrorist organizations, things aren’t quite that simple. For example, if the Minutemen shoot some Mexican, Mexico can’t decide to destroy LAX just because the Minutemen sometimes fly out of there. But in the case of Hezbollah, they are the preeminent military force in Lebanon, which is why they can’t be disarmed except by an outside force. So when they choose to intermingle with the civilian population, to use the civilian facilities to advance their military objectives, they bear the responsibility.
The laws of war, which have been worked out over time among the nations of the world, recognize this. If my soldiers shoot at the enemy from inside a civilian apartment building, and the enemy returns fire and destroys the building, the responsibility for the death of those civilians isn’t theirs. It is mine.
None of this means that collateral damage is hunky-dory, you don’t have to try and minimize civilian deaths, and so forth. But if Hezbollah builds its facilities among the civilian population, uses civilian airports and roads to serve its military purposes, then it bears the responsibility when that infrastructure is destroyed. They’ve created a situation where it’s impossible to strike Hezbollah militarily without endangering civilians and civilian infrastructure; that doesn’t mean that no one can ever do anything against Hezbollah.
Steve
I’m fairly certain we control the Baghdad airport. Why, I’m fairly certain that was among our first orders of business! I guess no one told us that controlling the supply lines is just “propaganda.”
But Israel didn’t exactly have the option of simply commandeering the Beirut airport and controlling what goes in and out, now did they.
LITBMueller
Face it: what Israel really has is a raging hard on for Syria and Iran – and it was at “full mast” today at UN Security Council today:
I’m getting more and more worried that this isn’t about Hezbollah at all, but a final push by Israel to start a regional war. A war to decide all wars kind of scenario.
Darrell
Has Kofi Anan demanded that Hezbollah stop firing rockets into Israel, hiding among civilians, and kidnapping Israelis?
or have the condemnations run only in one direction as usual?
jg
Hezbollah recieves support from Iran. The support comes to Lebanon from many ways but air and sea are two of the more likely and effective ways. Block the ports, blow up the runways and you have them under seige. Is this really that hard to follow?
In Iraq you don’t disrupt the insurgents supply line by holding the airport you do it by minding the borders. Same concept different threatre.
Some of you guys are Darrelling in order to stay on point.
Pb
Steve,
Hmm, let’s see…
I’d say that was a pretty good way to do it. Sure beats that whole ‘bombing families in their homes’ approach to fighting Hezbollah, in my opinion.
jg
Any chance they are seeing one side as the one most likely to end the conflict by backing down a touch? It doesn’t have to be about who’s rigth or wrong. Only about what is the most effective way to stop whats going on.
DecidedFenceSitter
So if someone bombs the White House/Pentagon/Congress, the soldiers are suddenly leaderless and unable to mount a resistance? Yes the resistance may be less coherent, may be more confused, more distracted, less coordinated, but removing the HQ is but another step.
Especially not knowing who or what was done in the HQ.
Pb
LITBMueller,
Yeah, I think they had the Israeli ambassador on Hardball last night, saying much the same thing.
DecidedFenceSitter
Question, if you feel like you are the wronged party, and you get into a scuffle with the person that you feel is the aggravator of the conflict, if several outsiders tell you that you are wrong, and you must stand down, does this make you more likely or less likely to listen?
Darrell
You know, TOS summed it up really well upthread – Israel just wants to be left alone. They’ve given up Gaza just like they gave back oil rich Sinai decades ago so that they could be left alone.
And now they’re under attack by dishonorable foes who hide among civilians, and who are determined to rid the world of Israel’s existence.. I think it’s a bit of stretch to assert that Israel is the aggressor here, looking for a war to end all type of confrontation. I think Israel just wants to be left alone
Nutcutter
Nothing peps me up like a good lawyerly discussion of war.
Especially after FIFTY YEARS of listening to this stuff. I am really looking forward to the briefs from both sides on the King David Hotel bombing of 1948. Are we sure that we’ve fully explored all the angles of that one?
Punchy
Very good post. But then I ask (without expectation of an answer, b/c no one knows…)…how does this reduce the Hezbollah influence? Doesn’t civilian deaths prompt revenge-filled populations, i.e., terrorists hell-bent with vengence?
My take is that Israel’s objective (and this could be wrong) is to so destroy Hezbollah’s infrastructure as to destroy it’s capability. But Israel sure isn’t destroying it’s spirit–much the same way in Iraq, these attacks would seem to expand this “victim-hood” aura…this “us against them” mentality that is a gold-mine for recruiting. It’s no wonder this has festered for 50+ years…there just isn’t a good solution anywhere.
Pb
DecidedFenceSitter,
What comparison do you think you’re making here? Hezbollah HQ = Pentagon, families in their homes = soldiers? Look, there may be leadership or soldiers in the Hezbollah HQ, I don’t know. But civilian casualties are not military casualties, get it straight.
jg
In sept 01 it could be said that we had a raging hard on for Afghanistan. It both cases though its more likely the hard ons were actually directed at the terrorist organization that recieves support from the those countries. But I guess perspective rules all.
LITBMueller
Certainly, most of the Israeli people want to be left alone, but the public statement of Israeli government representatives seems to indicate…otherwise.
Nutcutter
When God wants you to win, questions like that are irrelevant.
When God is making the rules, you will see lefty and Darrell
lie down togetheragree.It’s a miracle.
Darrell
That’s one way to look at it. Another take would be that Hezbollah was already unpopular in Lebanon, and that ordinary Lebanese are outraged at the violence and destruction which Hezbollah has now again brought upon their country, emboldening them to do something about Hezbollah.
Pb
Darrell Says:
And as I said upthread, they’ve sure got a funny way of showing it.
Hey Darrell, let’s say I want you to leave me alone. What’s a good way to do that–should I not say anything, or tell you to stop, or ignore you, or take you prisoner, or bomb your house, or bomb your neighbor’s house? I mean, I have a right to my privacy, and a right to defend myself, and I want to keep all options on the table here. And that ‘neighbor’s house’ option might just send the right message.
The Other Steve
I don’t understand what point there is in arguing this position.
It appears that either… Only Lebanon is responsible for going after Hezbollah. Lebanon can’t go after Hezbollah because they are not strong enough. Therefore nobody can go after Hezbollah.
Or… possibly you’re arguing. neither Hezbollah or Lebanon are responsible for any attacks launched upon Israel from Lebanese territory. Since nobody is responsible, it is not justifiable for anybody to demand responsibility.
I just don’t understand this argument, and I don’t understand why anybody uses it. It’s illogical.
As for Syria… Hezbollah supported Syria during the “Cedar Revolution”, organizing protests in support and such. If Syria had been clamping down on them, wouldn’t they have wanted Syria out?
jg
Can I take option C and just attack Canada?
What the hell does this question have to do with my opinion of why the UN chose to ask Israel to back down and not Hezbollah? My point was they asked the grown up in the conflict to maybe be a grown up, they didn’t ask the child.
Punchy
How does Israel take out Iran, sans nukes? I’m not familiar with relative military sizes, but it would seem illogical and quite difficult for Israel to attack Iran, no? Surely they cannot expect us to step up, and surely they know what such attack on Iran would do to the “stability” (quit laughing) in Iraq…
LITBMueller
TOS, it would probably help if you actually read the Juan Cole page.
Nutcutter
It would probably disrupt the flow of refugees in Iraq who are fleeing from, um, the advancing march of freedom.
The Other Steve
Perhaps the two sides should line up on opposites sides of a field and charge each other with horse cavalry?
Pb
The Other Steve,
As usual, I’m with you up until your conclusions.
Maybe so, check, no. I’m fine if Israel goes after *Hezbollah*, but that doesn’t give them a blank check to go after *Lebanon*. Clear?
Not really, no, no. Hezbollah is repsonsible for whatever attacks they launch. To the extent that Lebanon can stop them, they should. To the extent that Lebanon is actually complicit, they should be held accountable (but establishing this would require more than mere hand-waving here).
Pb
The Other Steve,
Fine by me–it sure beats bombing civilians in their houses.
The Other Steve
Frankly, I don’t think that matters given it was your illogical argument I was responding to.
The Other Steve
Given that Hezbollah is part of the government of Lebanon, it’s not clear to me that you can disconnect them so logically.
Punchy
This has been my argument all along. Israel claims to be going after Hezbollah, but then attacks the airport which is not owned or controlled by Hezbollah. Steve says that they use the airport, and that gives the Israelis the right to bomb it…but I find it difficult to believe that Israel can claim any and all transpo options for Hezbollah a “military target”…if so, that blank-checks them into destorying all roads, bridges, etc…in effect, attacking the whole country of Lebanon.
DecidedFenceSitter
Pb,
Got it quite straight, nope, I’m saying that just because Israel has destroyed the HQ doesn’t mean that Hezbollah will capitulate and the fighting can end, which was the implication that I received from your statement that bombing the HQ was a good way to surgically disarm Hezbollah, and it is, and probably the preferable way for Israel armed forces except that Hezbollah has interwove itself in the civilian population.
And as long as Hezbollah is amongst the civilians, which means that civilians will be hurt and killed when Israel attacks them.
Steve
Interesting summary of perspectives on Syria and Iran here from the generally useless Garance Franke-Ruta.
I don’t know yet whether the linkages between Iran and the Hezbollah kidnapping are real or a total nothing. But one thing we know for sure is that the connections between Iran and Syria, on the one hand, and Hezbollah, on the other hand, aren’t some shadowy Saddam-Osama bullshit. I’m not trying to advocate for action against Iran or Syria, I’m just saying that the linkages are real. It’s a complex place, this Middle East, and we kinda have a way of making it complexer.
Andrew
The only people you need to convince of this are Hamas and Hezbullah. The Israeli’s would much rather engage an opposing army instead of terrorists who hide amongst civilians.
Steve
Well, right, I’m not saying it’s an utterly blank check. Somewhere between the polar options of destroying all the homes and salting the earth, and forcing the airport to delay all outgoing flights for an hour for additional maintenance checks, there’s a reasonable middle ground of what Israel can do to Hezbollah without unacceptable levels of collateral damage.
But frankly, I think all of us know so little about Hezbollah’s operations, capabilities, locations and such, as well as Israel’s military options for dealing with same, I think it would be flatly impossible to form an educated opinion as to how much is too much, unless things clearly go to extremes. Is Israel striking the right targets? Are they doing enough to minimize collateral damage? Are there less important targets that could be skipped over because the risk of civilian casualties is too great? None of us know, and that’s the thing.
The Other Steve
Actually that’s something that’s always bugged me about the UN.
Their one-sidedness on this issue has completely undermined their credibility.
It has also been the problem for Human Rights Watch, although to a lesser extent with Amnesty International.
If your to have credibility as a neutral arbitrator, you condemn all wrong. You don’t pick sides.
jg
Its just sad that the civilians who are being bombed will blame Israel instead of the group that is using their country as a launching pad for attacks agaisnt Israel.
srv
You obviously don’t know history, otherwise you would know that Israel blockaded Lebanon and the Beirut airport was shut down during most of the last occupation. Exactly how did that stop Hezbollah before?
It’s much easier to get arms via roads, and there is a thriving truck market from Turkey and Jordan. Syria couldn’t stop arms merchants even if they wanted to. Hez unloaded freighters via zodiacs.
Hezbollah isn’t under seige. Lebanon is. Get a clue.
Pb
DecidedFenceSitter, Andrew, etc.,
So here’s the distinction–was Israel, as reported, bombing civilian families in their homes in Lebanon, or were they, as you speculate, bombing Hezbollah? I’m going to go with the former until I see at least some evidence of the latter, thanks.
Pb
jg,
Is that snark? I can’t tell anymore. :(
Anyhow, personally, if someone bombs my house, I’m going to fucking blame them for it. Maybe that’s ‘simplistic’ of me, but that’s just how it is.
The Other Steve
you have evidence to support this?
Darrell
What if your neighbor took another person hostage and then fired at police to provoke a shootout, in which stray bullets hit someone in your house. Would you blame the police?
Tom in Texas
Darrell;
quite a few people do blame the cops in these situations. That’s why departments nationwide had to redo their chase and hostage procedures.
Punchy
After looking at the price of oil today, I’m beginning to think that a bunch of ExxonMobile employees actually kidnapped the Israeli soliders. Either that, or a bunch of savvy short sellers in the market. Jesus…there WENT my mutual fund.
Darrell
A lot of Lebanese civilians are outraged at the destruction which they blame on Hezbollah. From what I’ve read, Hezbollah is unpopular in Lebanan. I’m not sure on what basis you are so confident that Lebanese will blame Israel rather than Hezbollah and Hamas.
Pb
The Other Steve,
My god man, see above, or read through the news yourself. It’s those ‘civilian casualties’ we were talking about, remember? Do *you* have any evidence to support your contentions?
So far, we’ve got air strikes against villages and at least 22 dead civilians in one report, and in the other report (from Lebanon, consider the source, of course) 15 dead children and at least 40 other civilians, and a Shiite prayer house that may also have been a ‘Hizbullah stronghold’. I’m not sure if the 12 family members bombed in their house at the end are included in the earlier casualty estimates there. Feel free to comb through, but really this is all just specifics on the civilian deaths we already knew about.
jg
I didn’t say Lebanon wasn’t under seige.
Who siad it did? Did I say anywhere in my post that this was an effective seige? Its a tactic to go after airports and ports first.
If anyone else said this I would bother to answer it.
Pb
Darrell,
I would if they fired the bullet.
srv
WTF do you read? Sheesh, here’s Fox:
Fox News on turnout for Syria organized by Hezbollah
They’re ‘unpopular’ if you mean only a huge minority of the population finds them only wildly popular.
Nutcutter
More likely, what if the police were chasing a stolen car and it ran a red light and killed a family of four?
Who do you blame? I blame the police, entirely. A stolen car is not a reason to put the public at that kind of risk. Unfortunately, the laws in many places are so out of whack, the stolen car driver will get charged with murder and the cop will not even get a slap on the wrist.
But anyway, the point is, God is on the side of the cop, and the righteous. So no matter what boneheaded thing they do or who they kill, it doesn’t matter. Whether it’s the cop in the police car, or the cop in Israel going after the “bad guy.” The cop gets a pass, right?
That’s why we can kill people right and left in Iraq, and it’s on Saddam. We can’t be blamed. God is on our side.
Pb
Sort of like how Bush is ‘unpopular’?
jg
Anyone who pisses off Israel is popular anywhere in the Middle East, except Saddam, he’s pretty much hated by everyone.
Tom in Texas
Nutcutter;
In Darrel’s defense (did I just say that?) I think his choice of taking a hostage as a metaphor was quite deliberate, and I think it is appropriate.
jg
I won’t even try to compare the actions of civilian police to the military. Different rules of engagement.
Nutcutter
I’m sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed.
srv
Fixed.
Steve
Righty blogger David Bernstein has this account of the bombing activity up through today, from Ha’aretz (which I believe to be a left-leaning Israeli paper).
Unlike Mr. Bernstein, I certainly don’t suggest that one Israeli paper has a monopoly on the truth regarding an ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, but it’s a data point.
Pb
Steve,
In my (limited) experience with their reporting, Ha’aretz is a pretty decent Israeli paper–of course, it’s not like I could confirm or deny any of it, except with other people’s news accounts. But, thanks for the info!
Nutcutter
I always rent my cars from them, too.
Pb
I’d be embarrassed to say how long it took me to get that joke.
Nutcutter
Time you can never get back ;-)
Steve
Digby reminds us of this Tom Friedman anecdote from 2004, which I missed the first time around…
Wow.
The Other Steve
The issue under contention is whether you give benefit of the doubt.
We all recognize that civilians have been killed. The question was were they targeting civilians, or were they targeting hezbollah and the civilians were unfortunate collateral damage.
You argued that they were targeting civilians alone. I choose to give the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.
I’ll wait for that proof.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a Darrell. If there is evidence to support your claims, I may change my mind. But I’m not going to immediately assume the worst.
Nutcutter
Remarkable.
I for one know that when I’m killed, it feels a lot better when I’m just unfortunate collateral damage!
Of course, what do I know, I’m lefty scum, as they say.
The Other Steve
Remarkable.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/7/14/142433/998
This rather succinct history of the Israeli conflict made it to the recommended list of dKos. I wonder if Stormy will condemn it as anti-semitic?
The Other Steve
Why do you keep trying to queer this thread?
Nutcutter
Oh gee, diddums get his feelers hurt?
Fuck off.
Nutcutter
Why don’t you stop sounding like a complete asshole?
Then I’ll stop making you look like a complete asshole.
Nutcutter
Why does Bush keep trying to queer this nice little war?
Bob In Pacifica
Pb, the soldiers were seized in an area called Shebaa Farms, which is either part of the Golan Heights or part of Lebanon next to Golan Heights, depending on whose claim is to be believed. I think at various times Syria’s land claims have gone all the way to Beruit, I am not sure who was occupying prior to Israel. In either case, when Israel withdrew from the rest of Lebanon they stayed there at Shebaa Farms and that has been a constant irritation to Hezbollah. In essence those Israeli soldiers, in the eyes of the Hezbollah, were in Lebanese territory (or Syrian territory), not across a border in Israel.
Since Hezbollah are given props among even Christian Lebanese for getting the Israelis out of the rest of Lebanon, and since they have about a third of the members of the national assembly, it’s unlikely that the central Lebanese government can or will take any effective action against Hezbollah’s military wing. To do so would crash the country into another civil war.
Also, Israel’s widespread attacks on Lebanon’s infrastructure and civilian population is radicalizing all of Lebanon against it. In the short run blowing up the airport will prevent parts for the Katyusha rockets from being flown in. In the long run it’s breeding more enemies and more rockets.
And one day Israel will have to crack open its Dimona stockpile and then the end-of-timers will be happy.
Nutcutter
Why, they are being downright Rumsfeldian in their approach to the Hezbollah problem, then?
Well, we Americans should be foursquare behind them.
You kill the civilians and alientate the population you have, not the population you wish you had. That’s what I always say.
The Lebanese will be Better Off Without Hezbollah. That’s official.
Nutcutter
The way to peace is thru war.
Surely we don’t have to quibble over that, do we?
War Is Peace.
Where are the Republicans when we are singing their tune?
Chickenshits! Get out here and support me!
The Other Steve
No, you fuck off.
Let’s see if we can get this diary to 500 posts by midnight!
Nutcutter
Okay. Why don’t you kick it off with a few more references to “unfortunate collateral damage?”
We can kinda make that a theme thing.
Later, we can talk about the King David Hotel. I mean, there’s 50 years of material here. 500 posts should be a cakewalk.
Nutcutter
I mean, we should examine the whole history of the place, don’t you think? Put everything in context.
Nutcutter
You see, the modern history of the region is steeped in blood.
People who actually think that “God wants us to have this land” are not going to piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining. God does not want anyone to have the fucking land. God wants the lot of them to fuck off and stop using his name in vain.
People who think God wants them to have that land are no less crazy than the motherfuckers who think they are going to heaven straight out of their pickup trucks one of these days.
Israeli, Palestinian, or Martian, I don’t care, all the same to me.
Nutcutter
Get it Steve, and your other brother Steve?
jg
All I was doing was giving was a general reason why you would target the airport. You took this to be me saying all you have to do to lay total siege to any country is bomb the runways and blockade the ports. You’re an idiot.
Too bad you didn’t grasp that when I used the word ‘effective’, the one that’s giving you the vapors, I was talking about the support from Iran and Syria, not the seige.
Nutcutter
I think the main thing is, Israel is really nice by giving us a war to keep us glued to the tv during the summer rerun period.
I mean, I’ve seen some of those King of Queens episodes two or three times already.
Even with the pesky unfortunate collateral damage where the occasional kid gets his head blown off or something, it’s good tv.
skip
I have friends who exude contempt for those who would explain the formation of the world on the basis of biblical accounts, yet the very same people will tell me with a straight face that the same documents establish Israel’s claim to other people’s land in the biblical lands of “Judea and Samaria.”
Arguing with such illogical zealots is like spitting against the wind, except the latter only gets you wet–it doesn’t get you accused on antisemitism.
Finally, as for the “linkages” between Hezzbollah and Iran/Syria, fine, get them out in the open. “Millions” of dollars I hear! But as for the Israeli tanks and helicopters, they came from nowhere I assume, and the BILLIONS the US gives Israel all went to archaelogy and Jaffe oranges.
But by all means, let’s get that Israeli soldier freed–or “set back Lebanon twenty years.” As for the Palestinian MPs (1/3 of the Parliament) in Israeli custody , the US media can’t be bothered.
Nutcutter
A good explosion that is real, and not one of those phony made-for-tv explosions, is really satisfying. The whole War on Terror thing has a certain … well …beauty to it, I think. The orange and black of the flames against the sky, that sort of thing.
It’s almost as good as Shock and Awe all over again.
If there is one thing the world needed right now, it was some more war, death, and explosions. Thank goodness somebody over there in the Middle East is willing to make the committment to war.
And damn the naysayers! They’re either pussies, or they love the terrorists, or else they’re anti-synthetic, or whatever the phrase is. Anyway, they’re not us.
jg
Its on tv?
skip
“We’d need some ground rules, and a battlefield.
Give ‘em southern Indiana. The collateral damage alone would take out a shitload of meth labs….”
Very tidy, given that the “Russian mafia,” now in Israel, already control the meth trade through Miami.
Nutcutter
Everybody over to my place on Sunday, for the Maxwell Klinger Memorial Beirut Bombing and Brat-n-Brew Party!
Noon sharp.
Steve
What I get is that Darrell has contributed far more of value to this thread than you have.
Also, how come I have to work all day on Friday and you get to stay home drinking. It’s really not fair.
Nutcutter
Why does Newsweek want to rain on the war parade?
Nothing ruins a good war like this kind of stuff.
Again the media are for the terrorists.
When did President Bush start to get a yellow streak?
This is no time to go wobbly in the knees.
I think he should recuse himself and let President Cheney handle this.
Nutcutter
Of course you would think that, he agrees with you.
Any port in a storm, eh?
Andrew
Steve is right. Darrell is a much better written character than Nutcutter in this episode of Balloon Juice.
Nutcutter
Wow, not only do you share Joe Lieberman’s politics, but you’ve also got his razor-wire sense of humor.
Hate to tell ya, I don’t drink (cardiac patient, you see) and I worked today from 7 to 4 and went to three horrible meetings, and still managed to whip your sorry ass in here without even breaking a sweat. And oh yeah, it’s 115 fucking degrees here.
You’re beaten by a guy with five stents in his chest, you sorry loser. How does it feel?
Steve
I wasn’t making a joke. I was dead serious. You should be ashamed to admit you act like this when sober.
As far as “you sorry loser,” “whip your sorry ass,” and so forth, I understand that you think you “win” by hurling taunts like that. So be it. I can’t argue with the reality you’ve defined for yourself, but I won’t live there.
And “sharing Joe Lieberman’s politics”? What a laugh that is. You probably think Amir Peretz is a Likudnik.
Quit embarassing yourself.
Nutcutter
Who owns the Holy Land?
See, even with God firmly on your side, I whipped your Joe Loserman sorry butt.
If I were you I wouldn’t operate any heavy machinery tonight. You might injure yourself.
Nutcutter
Fuck off, man. I think you and TOS are totally full of shit here, and I am going to keep saying so as long as you stay here and keep this crap up.
If you don’t like it, go fuck yourself.
Seriously. You are so full of shit I don’t know how you can even stand up.
Nutcutter
I guess I misunderstood. I didn’t think I was going to have to get us to 500 all by myself.
Apparently you Steves aren’t really up to this.
With God on your side, I expected thunderbolts of righteous righteousness. All I get is “you stayed and home drank all day.”
Very weak.
jg
It was 118 earlier when I was out driving. At least thats what the guage read in my car.
Nutcutter
On the ppGaz scale, we have hot, very hot, too damned hot, and nasty hot.
Today is in the nasty hot category.
Good day to stay indoors and watch the
fireworkswar on tv. Great stuff except for them dang ol’ unfortunate collateral child decapitations. But, you gotta take the bad with the good.Beer me, Marge!
Krista
Mon dieu…you guys are still here, and still at it. I don’t know whether to be impressed or appalled…
Nutcutter
I’d say appalled, but I’m biased.
moflicky
most of you guys are completely nuts or blind.
first, you buy that pallywood production of the family picnicing on the gaza beach watching the isreali gunboats. One family, all by itself, and a cameraman from the local TV station. Then, the beach was completely cleaned up of all debrie so forensics of the site was impossible.
second, you condemn the “disporportional response” when hizbullah’s got 300+ and counting missiles raining into israeli cities and towns, being supplied by Iran and Syria thru the beruit airport and others.
third, hizbullah is part of the Lebanese government. Israel has taken pains to attack only infrastructure and hiz strongholds. they even took the precaution of dropping leaflets in beruit warning civilians that hiz hq was going to be bombed.
ever moderate arab country in the region understands what all this means – Iran and Syria are making their play, and SA, Egypt, the emirates and Jordan do not like it.
there’s a chrystal clear choice here. which side are you on?
Steve
Actually, when you taunted me at 5:52pm, I hadn’t posted on the thread for an hour and a half. Nor did I have any intention of posting again. But yeah, way to tell me off for “staying here and keeping this crap up!”
You sure nailed me as the religious fanatic that I am, too.
Have fun, getting to 500 comments by yourself, convincing yourself the whole time that you’re “telling me off.” If you like, I’ll email you a picture so you can tape it to your computer and pretend you’re talking to me.
Nutcutter
The dirty little secret of BJ …. exposed.
Well, it was fun while it lasted ……..
Steve
Uh, I’m on the side that at least tries to be fair about the facts. Wow, that stuff about the Gaza incident, what site did you even get that from?
In the meantime, perhaps you and Nutcutter can keep each other company for a while. You seem to be the invisible man he’s been arguing against all day, in any event.
Nutcutter
You.Are.So.Full.Of.Shit.
You cannot stand the idea that somebody would come in here and piss on your righteous little parade of correctness, and then laugh at you for doing it.
What’s your problem? If am just “embarassing myself” then what are you so riled up about? When did you start caring whether I am lookin’ good?
Nutcutter
Sorry Steve, the King David Hotel just called and said your time has expired.
The game, set and match go to me.
Your Joe Loserman Second Place Trophy will be forthcoming.
My Jamie Farr Lebanon Love It or Leave It League winner’s trophy will embellish my trophy case quite nicely.
If you have any questions, please send for my free booklet, “Why Calling Dead People ‘Unfortunate Collateral Damage’ Makes Your Whole Family Look Like A Bunch of Assholes.” That’s a $39.95 value, yours for just $49.95.
If you and that other Steve both order, I’ll add five dollars to the price. If you call in the next 15 minutes.
So long, and have a pleasant evening.
Punchy
And what’s so fucking GREAT about this site is that tomorrow, these guys will be friends again, tag-teaming on Darrell and Mac about some new revelation on the widespread use of horse amphetemines (sp?) among teen-agers in Sinapore.
Punchy
This statement may be a harbinger for the soon-to-come-cant-believe-they’re-not-here-yet anti-semetic denouncements should we choose a side not in agreement with Jackie Mason and Mel Brooks.
Nutcutter
Jackie Mason is on the side of Christ
Warms your heart, doesn’t it?
Pb
The Other Steve,
Fair enough, I suppose, but just to be clear: I don’t assume facts that aren’t in evidence, and then treat them as facts and argue with them–you do. If it turns out that Israel was only targeting Hezbollah, and somehow a couple of families’ houses jumped in front of the terrorists or whatever, then I’ll admit that I was wrong, and I’ll rail against my sources (“bad intelligence!”), etc., etc. But until then, I suggest that you start looking for some of that proof before you go shooting your mouth off once again.
Perry Como
Syria says fully backs Hizbullah against Israel
This is getting ugly…
srv
Maybe this is him
You guys couldn’t keep it up. Must be your age.
The Other Steve
I don’t know why you keep repeating this crap, as it’s not applicable to most people.
I’m sure you probably also feel we oughta give Arizona back to Mexico, since it was stolen from them as part of our Manifest Destiny program. You know, where God said the land should be ours.
The Other Steve
I think you misunderstand.
This goes back to a point that’s been argued repeatedly on this website. From phosphor weapons, to massacres in Iraq.
Whether to believe the worst, or hope for the best, until evidence says otherwise.
Quite clearly you are hoping for the worst, despite all the evidence over the years that has shown Israel’s military does a great deal to limit collateral damage. Think about it. Going door to door on the ground? Why would they do that?
You ever see an artillery barrage? Todays modern artillery is computer controlled. Program the coordinates, and a bank of artillery can lay waste to a football field, destroying every square meter in a matter of minutes. Hardly any randomness to the event, it’s systematic.
That’s all I’m saying. Until evidence shows otherwise, I believe the best of my friends.
skip
“First, you buy that pallywood production of the family picnicing on the gaza beach ”
Pallywood! Yeah, that’s it. The vast pro-Palestinian media empire. The cabal that is so successful in keeping Gaffney. May, Gerecht, Perle, Adelman, Ledeen, Krauthammer, Will, Ben Stein (!), off the editorial pages. The one that picked Wolf Blitzer (former Washington correspondent of the lunatic Jerusalem Post) to be anchor on CNN.
Meanwhile, on the Pallywood side we have, er, . . . . .
Andrew
Pb says:
It is well known that Hezbollah hides rockets in civilian houses. Therefore, these house are legitimate military targets.
How many other militaries have dropped leaflets on areas to get civilians to evacuate, as the Israelis did in south Beruit? If the Israelis wanted to kill thousands of civilians, they could easily do so with conventional weapons.
Nutcutter
If that statement doesn’t mark the official death of irony, then I don’t know what would.
But meanwhile, I don’t about you guys, but I am just so grateful that I can get up on this Saturday morning and see all the news of a new war in the world!
Not only can I see the footage of the smoke, flames, and destruction, I can read of the death and the fear being experienced by people caught in the middle of it, and know that maybe I had some small part in all this. I got the read the excellent lawyerly dickslaps arguments in here yesterday, and see the great intellectual integrity of an argument about whether civilians were killed at a particular location as if that were somehow important in the middle of new war, death and destruction. That was uplifting. The two Steves really showed their mettle on that one. Really, I was humbled.
See, and war is so much more enjoyable when it’s attended by a Public Relations firm that knows how to win the hearts and minds. I’m sure that this war will turn out to be a great PR success not only for Israel, but for the United States, too. Just another step forward in the march of freedom and democracy in the middle east! Those lovable folks over there are so much better at this than our bumbling Rumsfelds and Feiths, I think.
Well, our powerful and dynamic panel of Steve, Steve and their other brother Darrell will be here shortly to tell you how this is another grand day in the latest grand war in the grand 60-year history of the peaceful nation of Israel …. and don’t forget, God is on their side. You don’t have to take my word for it, it’s on the internet .
When God is on your side, it’s like getting a free pass for all kinds of stuff. I wish I had one!
Nutcutter
That’s just one of the things that makes their wars so much more enjoyable than the ordinary war.
Nutcutter
I have no idea what that incoherent statement means. And even if I tried to figure it out, I’d have to stop at the point where you appear to speaking for “most people.”
Only Darrell is authorized to speak for “most people” on this blog.
I think most people are attracted to the idea that when God is on your side, you can do things like start wars and get a free pass on Judgement Day. I mean, this is the land of the End Times believers, you know.
Now, you have to keep in mind, “most people” might refer to Americans, and Americans are all of about 4.5% of the world’s population. So if we are going to pursue this “most people” theme we might have to expand the size of the statistical sample a little. Just so you know.
Only the bottom third of Arizona was stolen from Mexico. As for God, I think he is still working on his final solution. Have you read the immigration threads?
Nutcutter
Steve and Steve, don’t let the fact that I’m up and I’ve had my coffee deter you. Go ahead and pimp your fine war as if I weren’t here. That’s what God wants you to do.
I never fuck with the Almighty ….. if I don’t have to.
Pimp away, my friends. Just ignore me.
Andrew
Shorter Nutcutter:
Shit, I’m being out-argued by Darrell. Must revert to al Maviva-esque protestations!
Nutcutter
Now this comes from an article on CNN today called an “Explainer.” That’s their term for it. It’s kind of a quick fact rundown on Hezbollah, for people who want to enjoy the war and follow it along at home but don’t have the full war fan package yet. Or, maybe there will be a Middle East War Rotisserie League thing where people can draft their own players and then have their own virtual wars going.
In any case, it looks like I have found the whole problem.
The Hezbollah guys are the Party of God.
Well, it’s pretty clear to me that Israel, which as we know is God’s Chosen Country, can’t stand by and let a bunch of ragtag (if you’ll pardon the expression) people call themselves the Party of God!
That would be like two fighters both proclaiming “I’m the greatest!” or Bush and Cheney both saying “I’m the decider.”
I think we need to settle this once and for all. Maybe we could do it with a contest like this?
Nutcutter
Jesus, how pathetic, man. You are going to need some material if you want to stay in this game.
Nutcutter
Hey, you think it’s easy going up against you guys, when I know that God is on your side?
I can’t put enough lightning rods on my roof to really feel safe right now.
Bob In Pacifica
Could we have God/Allah/Jehovah come on down from wherever he’s been hanging and give a live, written affidavit as to the ownership of this land?
Nutcutter
A great and sensible idea, but as near as I can figure out, God seems to prefer the endless mindfuck.
Nutcutter
Okay, I overstated. Endless is probably too harsh a word. Even though I am tightening the fixtures on my lightning rods just in case.
I’m thinking …. at least a sixty-year mindfuck. I start my calendar from the King David Hotel bombing in 1946.
The King David Hotel changed everything, as they say.
But anyway, if the mindfuck isn’t the official strategy then you have to wonder.
Nutcutter
I just love that part.
But, mice and men, and all ….
Oh well, at least their hearts were in the right place.
Nutcutter
Was there every any doubt that this was God’s chosen hotel?
Nutcutter
It is only through hotel bombings and constant wars and reprisals that God is able to show the way to peace for his chosen people.
Nutcutter
Because of the way I clipped this, I added a comma in the first sentence for readability. It’s from Justin Raimondo’s antiwar.com. Whether you agree with him or not, it’s interesting to see that even when God is totally on your side, other views of His handiwork might exist out there. You know, contrary to the apparent rule here that no disagreement with the Steve-Steve-Darrell view will be tolerated. I’m just saying.
Sure, I don’t have God on my side, that’s clear. But even Jimmy Carter, man of God that he is, thought Begin was an ass.
Anyway, the whole history over there is rooted in absolutism and terrorism. Which makes me gag a little on my cornflakes when I hear these people talking as if God himself is acting through them. I dunno, whenver I am around people who think that God is on their side, I get nervous. It’s the kind of nervous you get around truly crazy people when they are acting normal. Because, you know, the normal thing is only an act. That’s what makes you nervous.
People who think God is on their side are crazy. I know damned well that God is not on my side. My first marriage proved that. But my point is, I’m not crazy.
Nutcutter
See, I think God never wanted us to have the strikethrough. Because if you use it like a weapon, you can get the most amazing results that God might not like.
See, when God is on your side, you can put lipstick on the ugliest pig on earth and turn it into something that is made up to look beautiful.
It’s no wonder to me that people are rallying to Israel in this current war business. Israel is acting just like the United States acts … as if God were on its side.
Which of course, He is, don’t get me wrong! Heh heh!
Pb
The Other Steve, Andrew,
What part of “assuming facts not in evidence” didn’t you understand? You aren’t “hoping for the best”, you’re making shit up that isn’t being reported, period–and I see no reason why it wouldn’t be reported.
See, that’s the problem. Both sides believe the best of *their friends*. Well, I don’t. I don’t know either side, neither one is my friend, and given their actions, I don’t think I’d want to know or be friends with either side.
Fuck you, asshole. “Quite clearly” you don’t know the first goddamned thing about me.
Putting aside your little leap of logic there, did you see anything in the news reports about hidden rockets being found, or just about civilian houses being bombed? There’s a novel excuse–they were hiding WMD, so we had to bomb them! I’ve never heard that one before…
The Other Steve
Wow, interesting post over at talkingpointsmemo
Read the whole thing to see where he’s coming from.
The Other Steve
I was simply responding to the claim you made… That you assume Israel is targetting civilians rather than militants, until you see evidence to the contrary:
Anyway, gotta go back to cleaning the house.
Pb
The Other Steve,
Thanks, that was interesting, especially the bit about “Indians and English settlers in mid-17th century New England”, and the similarities to “what happened between Jews and Palestinians in the 20th”–now that would make an interesting dissertation!
Nutcutter
Oh come on, asshole. Go ahead and call us “anti semitic.”
What are you waiting for? Go ahead, do it, you know you want to.
You are fucking dying to do it. So do it.
Nutcutter
I must say, you as the new Darrell is going to be a real improvement over the old one. You are much more cosmopolitan than the old Darrell.
Nutcutter
I am going to give the first n who write me and ask for one, a free carwash coupon. n will be equal to the number of days that TOS or Steve both do not resort to calling me or some other antagonist on this topic “anti semitic.”
Pb
The Other Steve,
Er, yes, when it’s reported that they bombed a family of civilians, and there’s no evidence that any militants were killed in that attack, and no report that they were going after militants, etc., etc., I stick with what’s reported. I don’t just make up facts and stick them *into* the news reports. If you want to demonstrate to me that they were going after militants in those cases, then find some evidence that they were, but don’t blame me for not giving *your friends* the special treatment that you give them.
Incidentally, I’d also like to know the extent of influence that Lebanon, Syria, and Iran actually have over terror groups like, say, Hezbollah. From what I’ve been able to determine, it goes something like, hardly any, maybe some, and quite a bit, in that order, but really that’s just my speculation based on the little I’ve seen about the topic–that Lebanon’s military probably couldn’t oppose Hezbollah successfully if they tried, that Syria had more influence with them, and that Iran has supposedly been supplying them with weapons.
However, if you listen to Israel on the topic, they’ll just tell you that they need to go after Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, because they’re evil and blood-soaked or whatever–the same bullshit you’d get from both sides, and totally fact-free to boot! Now, they might be right, but I prefer to have a fact or three about the actual threat along with the speechifying. Otherwise, it makes about as much sense as our invasion of Iraq did.
Nutcutter
Oh man, this is a tough room. You know damned well that line was fucking GOLD. And I get nothing, not even a grin.
Even my ex wife thought it was hilarious.
(She’s Hispanic, so you have to factor that in).
Nutcutter
Justin Raimondo has some thoughts …
Well, what to do on this lovely Saturday morning? Almost too hot now to work on the yard …..
Oh sorry, the “Lobby” Raimondo refers to is …
Me? I’m opening an End Times bookstore. Clearly that’s where the money is going to be.
Nutcutter
Via DKos.
The author of this article goes on to say:
Proof, if you ask me, that the new war is God’s will.
How else could you, overnight, get BJ lefties to start talking exactly like the binary thinkers in our Potemkin government, and pimping the use of force just like they do?
I think we’re talking miracle here.
Nutcutter
Kevin Drum’s thoughts on blogging on this new war
Hmm. Why does that sound familiar?
Drum is probably the nicest guy in the blogosphere. But I’m not, so I have no reason not to say this:
All the participants in this Israel-Arab mess are a bunch of crazy, delusional sociopathic fuckers who would gladly watch the world go up in flames to make their stupid points.
Just something to keep in mind when you are reading about this story. They’d all gladly kill you to make their points. Because God is on their side. And God wants us all to die so that his chosen people can be right.
So, who wants to go in with me on the End Times bookstore?
Darrell
This seems positive
When was the last time you ever heard arab leaders criticize other arabs for attacking Israel? I blame Bush.
Nutcutter
Nah, ya think?
Nutcutter
Is this one of the guys who gets his hand kissed by Bush when he goes to the ranch?
Boy I’ll tell ya, Darrell, as much as I despise and distrust Bush, I really have to tip my hat to him when he kisses those Arabs on the hand. That’s the mark of a true gentleman.
Slide
Slightly off topic but revealing:
Laughter erupted after Putin’s comment. Bush is either in one of the most inpenetrable bubbles ever, or he is just… errr…. well… fuckin stupid. To hold up Iraq, for Christ’s sake, as a role model for Putin, while in Russia no less, is priceless. This is of course on the heels of his famous “pig” comedy routine/press conference in Germany while the entire world sits on edge watching the escalating Middle East crisis. I’m embarassed for my country. Bush is an international joke. Would it be constitutional for Congress to pass a resolution prohibiting Bush from leaving the coutry?
jg
Sorry I must have missed it. Was it a part of the string of post you and only you made this morning? Strong coffee huh?
Dude when you make more than threee posts in a row and especially if you’re quoting yourself in them you are trolling.
Nutcutter
I’m posting. If you don’t like my posts, refute them. Criticize them. Or, shove them up your ass.
You have choices. Nobody has been posting here. What the fuck do you care how many posts I make? Are collecting a toll?
Nutcutter
I’d prefer one that prohibited him from coming back.
Nutcutter
The warbirds must be having one happy day today. Two weeks ago we were bored out of our skulls. Now the promise of real, wider war is right on our doorstep.
I certainly hope that Fathi’s question doesn’t make it into the evening news where a lot of people might hear it. There’s nothing worse than embarassing questions when you are trying to get your “God is on my side” war on.
Punchy
Did I miss a World War, or something? This is a typo, right?
Nutcutter
NO, I think that WW3 was a placeholder for the US-USSR thing, the big nuclear thing, that we feared for a long time.
WW4 is a new scenario, which is based on a middle east meltdown and doesn’t involve an exchange between nuclear superpowers.
They’re both namespaces for complex sets of scenarios, I’d say, and both valid.
Or, it could be a typo. But I think my version is more interesting, and probably correct.
skip
Darrell asked: “When was the last time you ever heard arab leaders criticize other arabs for attacking Israel?”
Dunno. Maybe around and about the last time anyone in the US media criticized the Israelis.
But not in 1982, when the Israel’s drive to create a “buffer zone” in s. Lebanon ended up with the IDF in Beirut. I expect this time they’ll attack Syria to turn it into a buffer zone against the Swiss Guard.
skip
“The suggestion, by Professors John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, in their now famous “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” that the Iraq war was fought for Israel’s sake, and against our own interests in the region, was received in many quarters with outright horror”
But not widespread refutation. Unless, against all reason, you want to count Alan “Torture Warrant” Derschowitz.
Darrell
Yeah, that’s why so many in the media believed and reported the Jenin lies spread by Palestinians.. because, you know, nobody in the media ever criticizes Israel
Yeah, that paper hailed by David Duke, the PLO and the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood, all of whom use it as part of their propaganda to ‘prove’ how the Jews control our foreign policy.
Steve
Yeah, man, it’s like you can’t get a word in edgewise or something. I feel for you.
Isn’t this the exact same thread where I went off on Par and Stormy for lobbing around bullshit accusations of anti-semitism?
At some point, maybe you’ll realize that you’re just making up my position in order to have something to argue against.
Darrell
UNSCR 1559 required Hezbollah and other militia groups to disarm. The toothless enforcement on the part of the UN is at least in part responsible for the current situation. Incredible that the UN, having permitted Hezbollah to thumb its nose at them refusing to disarm.. that the UN now focuses its condemnations on Israel’s ‘overreaction’ to Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israeli neighborhoods.
Hezbollah, like Al Queda, has shown itself again to be a terrorist organization whose jihadists need to be killed, not negotiated with.
srv
Put a nail in that theory.
Darrell
Mussolini and Hitler were both democratically elected. What are you suggesting srv?
CaseyL
Darrell, is it possible that you missed who srv was quoting?
Darrell
What I would like to know is whether, in the context of this thread on what’s going on now in Israel and Lebanon.. in that context, is srv asserting that Hezbollah’s attacks and/or Israel’s response constitutes a democracy attacking another democracy? Don’t get me wrong, although I think democracies are less likely to attack each other, historically it HAS happened before, WWII being an example..so Bush is mistaken to suggest it could never happen. But what I fail to see is how this current situation is such an ‘obvious’ refutation of that theory as srv seems to suggest. Also, is there dispute that democracy is almost always superior to dictatorship? I ask, because srv seems so strongly in disagreement with the President’s assertion.
Nutcutter
That’s ynetnews.com, which is …
Apparently not even Jewish media are getting into lock step with the thirst for blood.
What’s wrong with them?
Nutcutter
You have a position?
Do you think I have one?
Can you state each?
Go right ahead.
Nutcutter
That George Bush can’t construct a sentence by himself?
Pb
woo, we’re up to 400 posts, thanks in no small part to Nutcutter here, *and* Darrell is back! 500, here we come!
Incidentally, I love it that Darrell appears to be arguing that Germany under Hitler during WWII was a ‘Democracy’. I might just concede the point to Darrell just for sheer entertainment value, and then bring it up the next time someone (especially Darrell) talks about spreading Democracy (“Yeah, that sure worked for Germany back in WWII…” :))
Nutcutter
It should be obvious EVEN TO YOU that I’m arguing against a war, and a policy. You are just …. here, trying to make some lame fucking point or another, or some stupid lawyerly argument about the war, which, you know, when the fucking bombs are falling, is really a comfort. It really helps.
My point is about the war. Only you know what your point is.
Nutcutter
I was here by myself most of the morning.
Steve and Steve were employing their devilish tactic of saying nothing after yesterday’s Sigfried and Roy routine of apparently brooking no criticism of whatever it is they were saying, which as far as I know, is still being figured out by the decryption section.
srv
Hitler was not elected. He never won a majority in the national election or the runoff. The Nazi party failed to reach a majority in the Reichstag to outright appoint him. After quite a bit of backroom games, threats of a coup, etc, Hindenburg appointed Hitler Chancellor.
Andrew
That’s “elected” to a modern day Republican.
Stormy70
Wow, I think I will print this thread out and show it to my Jewish friends. Very enlightening, with the Blood libel being played by Nutcutter. Thirst for blood, indeed. They will not be voting for a Democrat this November, that’s for damn sure.
Too Moonbatty, by far.
War breaks out, and Nutcutter has a psychotic break with reality. I liked watching the meltdown of such an prolific shitspewer. John must be so proud to have you here.
This should get you to 500 now. NC won’t be able to resist posting 55 comments hurling personal insults. I will see how it goes in the morning.
BAHHHHHHHHH! – Gollum
ppGaz
Well, he clearly likes having you here, a drunken slob who talks about “lighting up Palestine.” So who knows what bakes his cookie? I could care less.
As long as I have to watch injured, crying kids on tv, and see shitstains in here referring to them as “unfortunate collateral damage,” I will be here to call all of these crazy fucks in the middle east what they are: Crazy, delusional sociopathic fucks. Jew, Arab, or Martian, if they talk like crazy people, I will take them to be crazy. Period.
And that includes you.
Steve
Amazing. You know my position is the exact same as Darrell’s… except you don’t even know what it is. Genius.
You must really think your Jewish friends are a bunch of fucking idiots, don’t you? Yeah, that’s us… just show us a random comment from the Internet, and we’re like “wow, liberals are anti-semitic, we’ll never vote for a Democrat again!”
It’s amusing to me how you guys just don’t get it. You’re like “what, we support everything the hardliners in Israel want to do, how come the Jews keep voting for the other guys?” Classic stuff. Jews voted 3-1 for Kerry over Bush, and you can’t understand why we don’t see just how goshdarned anti-semitic the Democrats are. We must be really, really stupid.
Steve
I wonder what “toothful” enforcement would have looked like to you, Darrell. I mean, I really don’t think anyone expected the UN to send the UN Army in and disarm Hezbollah themselves.
There are serious limits on the ability of the UN to accomplish anything militarily because of what they are, but everyone understands that. I’m just puzzled why you think they’ve done something wrong here, by passing a resolution and then not ‘enforcing’ it. Am I wrong, does the UN often go around the world disarming militant groups?
Nutcutter
Did I say your position was the same as Darrell’s? Cite, please.
Um hm. So what is it? Can you state it in one or two brief sentences?
srv
Be sure to include some of your own End Times literature with that.
Nutcutter
Hmm. I bite my tongue.
Anyway, it just popped into my head, reading your reply to Stormy there, I think it was …. I didn’t know you were Jewish. I thought TOS was, sort of, not entirely sure. But I didn’t have it stuck in my head that you were, and if you are going to respond that I should have picked it up either from posts or from emails, all I can say is, it’s not something I tend to pay a lot of attention to. The jewishness of people is not something I pay a lot of attention to unless they make a big deal of it. And even if I did, I might not make the connection to your handle, because as anyone who has dealt with me around here knows, I tend to be lousy with names and personal details. Stormy will testify, if she remembers, that for a long time I thought she was a guy.
Why am I bringing this up? Just to make sure that you don’t think that anything I’ve said to you here is because I took you to be a jew. And even if I had, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. My view of this issue isn’t about jews, or arabs, or muslims. It’s about crazy people and a sixty year history of crazy fuckheadedness by all parties. It’s about trying to lay down a rational and lawyerly veneer on a bunch of crazy delusional shit, no matter which side it comes from. I won’t do it. I won’t give the crazy delusional fucks a veneer of rationality and logic and fairness and good faith. I am sick of crazy delusional fucks, whether they fly airplanes into American buildings, or any other crazy shit. And AFAIC, this little war in Lebanon, which threatens to turn into a larger war, is just more of the same …. just another tedious bunch of shit after sixty years of tedious shit. The whole history of the middle east after WWII is steeped in radicalism, terrorism, and blood. The key word there is “whole.” No demographic gets a pass.
It’s time for the bullshit to stop. This war is not justified, AFAIC, and nobody involved is on any moral high ground. God is not on either side. And if any of this rubs you the wrong way, take it up with God. I’m not interested.
srv
Stormy, here’s what your FW-built F-16I’s did to some bad people in Lebanon:
Freedmon on the march
Stormy70
Ahhh, we didn’t quite make it to 500. I am disappointed.
Of course, you brilliant bulbs already knew about the UN peacekeepers deployed in southern Lebanon. They are easy to miss since they do nothing to stop the Hezzies. Typical of the UN, but interesting how many people have forgotton they were put in place to secure the border. Heck of a job, feckless UN.
I don’t think all of you are anti-semitic, to the contrary, but there are a couple on this board who have a track record of it. But I don’t see them posting but once every two months or so. That’s why I told them that we don’t truck with that nonsense here. I don’t think PPgaz is anti-semitic, just misanthropic.
Hez, who is part of the Lebanon government should not have unilaterally committed acts of war on Israel on behalf of Lebanon. And the brave Hezzies hiding in the sewers are wimps and deserve to be in an environment of rats, feces and urine. It is their home. Not so tough, are they?
Stormy70
srv – as if you actually give a shit about all the rockets and missiles killing Israelis. Oh, I see you don’t want to talk about jihadis killing civillians or you would have mentioned it at some point. Please, we now what side you are on here. No word about Iran or Syria’s culpabilities here. I guess it doesn’t fit into the Democratic plan, too hard to face the state-sponsored jihadi threat. Better to focus your rage on domestic concerns and leave the heavy lifting to others.
Nutcutter
“Lets light up Palestine …. all the good (people) have left.”
Who said that?
Oh, you did.
Goodbye.
Nutcutter
Nothing will deter him, apparently, including even the extent of his own moral turpitude. A nation that does not intend to harm civilians doesn’t wage war on civilians.
But of course, he thinks that God is on his side.
Pb
And Glenn Greenwald chimes in, with his usual excellent discussion and commentary, *and* with links to more excellent discussion and commentary…
Nutcutter
Children die in convoy attack as Israel widens Lebanon assault
Inigo Gilmore in Nahariyah, Patrick Wintour in St Petersburg and Tracy McVeigh
Oh, that makes it okay then.
If you ever wondered what the term “moral turpitude” really meant, this situation might help clear it up.
Nutcutter
I think the word a poster here used to describe such things was “unfortunate.”
I wonder if he shook his head and went “tsk” when he wrote that?
Unfortunate.
Nutcutter
There is something really lovable about the people who are in the business of pimping war.
The fresh forthrightness, the clear-headedness of it, that’s what attracts me.
Peace is for the muddle-headed. Clear thinking leads to war. That’s ….. quite clear.
Zifnab
How about we just call it a tie?
Zifnab
Oh. Wow. I thought the “… but [Clinton] did it first” rhetoric only worked between Dems and Republicans. Now, apparently, it extends into the Mid-East too. If Hezbollah kills an Isreali citizen, Isreal is fully in its right to kill a dozen Lebonese citizens. And if the Lebonese want to be killed, they shouldn’t be… what? Living in Lebanon? Isreal is blowing up southern Lebanon. Blowing it up. Because of a rocket strike and a couple of kidnappings. Tens of thousands of people are having their lives and livelihoods destroyed to sate the honor of their southern neighbor. How on god’s green earth is this acceptable?
Stormy70
Yes, the children. But you have failed to mention the toddlers shot point blank by terrorists in Israel for the past 5 years. Women and children killed by rockets or suicide bombings are A-ok by you since they are Israeli. You are crystal clear in your allegience. Palestinian terrorists should be lit up, poste haste.
I know you like to coddle terrorists, so how about we send them to your house for tea and cookies. I mean, you just think they are desperate and misunderstood. Not sociopathic butchers who kill women and children to get sex from virgins in heaven.
What a great Islamic sect.
Nutcutter
Oh sure, to the warmongers, there’s always a “but.”
Think of all the perfectly good wars that wouldn’t have happened, if it weren’t for the buts.
“Let’s light up Palestine. All the good ones have left.”
— Stormy
Shut up, and goodbye.
Nutcutter
I must say, this is something between a hoot and just pathetic.
The sharp-tongued war pimps all cower silently in the corner in face of opposition here, and send out Stormy — Stormy! — to speak for them?
How do you know when you’ve destroyed your opposition in this blog? When nobody but Stormy shows up to talk for the other side.
Jesus. Who could invent this?
Stormy70
You can’t be serious. Rockets have been lobbed into Israel for 5 years. 5 years. You are too ignorant to even enter this discussion. Hezbollah is repsonsible for the shitstorm raining down on Lebanon. They committed an act of war, on more than one occassion. I have no sympathy for terrorists or their complicit facilitators in the Lebonese government and the Shia population. I have seen reports that the van carrying civilians was interspersed with Hezbollah. They hide among civilians, which is against the Geneva conventions. But I guess it only applies to the US, noone else in the world will be held to that standard.
FOR THE HYPOCRISY. ISRAEL SHOULD WILLINGLY BE BOMBED SO AS NOT TO HURT THE POOR TERRORISTS! You guys are really the laughing stock of the blogs. Like firedoglake or the Kossites in their tin foil helmets.
Stormy70
How can someone send me to a blog that I was reading before all you Terry maniacs showed up?
Did you pose for this picture?
Nutcutter
But you can:
“Let’s light up Palestine.”
Goodbye, Stormy.
Stormy70
Darrell
No, only delusional leftists “understand” that, and this is one hell of divide between how the ‘reality based’ leftists think, and how average Americans think. To most Americans, the main purpose of the UN is to provide international security. What the hell do you mean they can’t enforce binding resolutions because of “what they are”? The UN’s main purpose for existence is, or should be, to enforce international security. Otherwise, help us understand what good they are. Do you see the UN as some grand social experiment unaccountable to results or what? This is another issue where I wish you leftists would more vocally speak you minds on how you really think, so that Americans can see how disconnected from reality so many of you leftists truly are.
Well if they are so utterly unwilling and/or incapable of disarming terrorists, then the UN should STFU about disarming them, don’t you think? as it destroys what little credibility the UN has left to make demands they have no intention or ability to enforce. Furthermore we’re not talking about non-binding resolutions like the type routinely passed against Israel and the US, which are actually more like recommendations which cannot be enforced. But we are talking about BINDING UNSCR Chapter 7 resolutions such as 1559. Did you know there was a difference? Because judging by your response, you don’t appear to.
Nutcutter
And there you have it, folks. This is what happens when you pimp up a viewpoint that ultimately can only be defended by Stormy.
Time to push the dirt over this thread?
Nutcutter
So who’s happy and excited this morning! Hands?
Nutcutter
Uh, besides Stormy, I mean?
Pb
Stormy,
Funniest thing I’ve read all day!
Zifnab
To the first, it seems that Isreal has survived for five years while weathering said rockets – of which the latest never even reached a civilian target resulting in zero casaulties – and not felt the need to invade their northern neighbor. Isreal was happy to respond with gunships and helicopters. The aforementioned rocketers were killed in retaliation before they even left the beach.
To the second, you seem to take a very broad and very disturbing definition of “terrorist”, going so far as to equate it with “Lebonese resident”. Apparently, if a terrorist is standing next to an 8-year-old Lebonese girl, you should feel free to open fire because that damn terrorist just needs to die and the girl should have known better than to stand too close.
That Hezbollah, like any crime syndicate, likes to blur itself into the mainstream population gives no country a right to bomb the population to get Hezbollah. No more than the US Government should bomb LA to get rid of gangs or Mexico City to get rid of drug trafficers.
But “terrorist coodler” and “horrified witness of civilian causalties” are two very different beasts. If Hezbollah was nice enough to line up in a little concrete box to be blown away apart from their civilian constituency… yeah, sure, fire away. But this vile policy of kill, kill, kill and sort out the terrorists when we’re through… it makes me sick. I would have thought a nation formed from the living refugees of the slaughterhouses of Germany would have more compassion for their fellow humans than this. I would have thought that you, Stormy, a god-loving Christian who values life from embryo to elder, would have a little more concern for a Lebonese man who’s only sin is choosing the wrong zip code.
The Other Steve
Wow, this is incredible… Apparently rockets aren’t harmless after all.
Eight killed in rocket barrage on Haifa
Israeli grandmother, 5 year old grandson, killed in rocket attack
But then, they probably deserved it since they were Jews, eh?
The Other Steve
Given that the United Nations does not have an army, exactly how are they to enforce anything?
The UN exists as a body for discussion and debate. From this you get treaties and other aspects of International Law. You also get resolutions. Things like economic embargos and boycotts. And sometimes when it’s really bad the UN can be used as a meeting place where countries can get together and form a coalition.
What I find interesting is that it’s righties such as Darrel who were screaming about black helicopters from the UN coming and taking over the United States. It was righties such as Darrell who were just recently screaming about how the UN was going to come and take all the guns away from the US on the 4th of July.
And now Darrell is complaining about the UN not having it’s own army?
Talk about being off in whacked out la-la land.
The Other Steve
While Stormy is a drunk lunatic.
I do have to say that you feed into her notions when you spend all your time calling Israel evil, and ignoring what Hamas and Hezbollah have done.
Punchy
Wow…it took to 400+ comments for the “you’re just anti-semitic” comments to FINALLY come out. I guess Stormy just figured her argument was lost and decided to fire-bomb this thread with the most outrageous, vindictive, acerbic vitriol that she could muster. Congrats to her for demonstrating her lack of debate skills as she simply turns to the easy nuke and detonates the “AS” label and tries to include as many as possible in the fallout.
Credibility. Shot.
Zifnab
*sigh*
No. This is why the Middle East sucks. Because there doesn’t seem to be a way to protect anyone.
But what do you want me to say? It’s wrong? No shit its wrong. A preschooler could have told you firing rockets at old women and children is wrong.
This is sick. Horrible. Embittering.
And it’s not going to make Isreal go away either. It’s just going to leave a horrified parent, a horrified child, who’ll be asking for Hezbollah blood – and with every good reason. Hezbollah doesn’t win when it does shit like this. That rocket strike just killed a Jewish grandmother and her grandson, but it also just killed a whole bunch of Arabs too. That rocket strike killed a few more people’s will to keep Isreal in check. So now that happy little rocketer will have Lebonese blood on his hands too. And we’ll get to see another ten years of bloodshed, until everyone can learn to just chill the fuck out again.
Nutcutter
What a fucking asshole thing to say.
Who has suggested that anyone in this conflict “deserves” violence?
Nutcutter
That depends on what you think their strategy is, and what their goals are.
It can be argued that they are playing Iran, Syria and Egypt like a fucking violin. What better way to pimp themselves than to goad Israel into “taking the stupid pill” as some have called it, and launching this disproportionate and unnecessarily cruel attack that has killed mostly civilians? By mostly, I mean all but three fatalities as of the numbers I read this morning.
Hezbollah isn’t playing to the American audience that tsks tsks over this stuff while eating their Eggos in the morning. They are playing to a Middle East audience.
The Middle East, where you can do anything as long as you can claim that God is on your side.
Steve
I’m pretty confident you don’t speak for “most Americans,” Darrell, or even a decent minority of Americans. “Most Americans” think the UN provides international security? Most Americans think this because, why, if you disobey the UN then the UN comes and kicks your ass with the UN Army? Is there a long track record of that, is that why “most Americans” expect it to happen?
I really don’t see the point of your little rant, other than to prove you’re not capable of simply talking about an issue without launching into some diatribe against those oh-so-terrible “leftists,” the worst people on earth.
It is refreshing, though, to get bitched at from both sides for a change.
Steve
Here’s my early nominee for reprehensible comment of the day:
Pb
Nutcutter,
Let’s tally it up.
Stormy did:
You did (conditionally):
The Other Steve did:
Did I miss anyone?
Nutcutter
Well, something we can agree on.
When I first read it, I thought it was “Light up Palestine” Stormy.
Nutcutter
In that case, I withdraw any portion of my statement which can be taken to mean that anyone deserves this violence.
They don’t.
srv
ppGaz, let’s just start calling this ploy the Deb Frisch defense, OK?
If I weren’t paying for it, I wouldn’t give a rats ass what either side was doing to each other. But I am paying for one side, and I’m not going to let the likes of Stormy tell me what is moral.
I remember a time not that long ago when her country club didn’t have any jews.
Always ready with that card. Always the victim.
Zifnab
For my own personal sanity, I’m going to assume that was tongue-in-cheek.
I think the general consensus is that, as usual, both sides are completely out of line. Hezbollah diplomacy is done entirely at rocketpoint. Isreali response is overkill in the worst sense of the word.
The American response, in my opinion, should be to withdraw support – to at least a token degree – until Isreal reigns in its cowboy invasion into Lebanon. In exchange, we redeploy some troops from Iraq as peacekeepers to help stabalize the situation and strongarm the UN until it agrees with us on this.
Do I think that’s the path the US will take? Hell no. We’ll probably sit on our kesters, pick our noses, poo-poo Hezbollah while dining on roast pig, and try to find a way to work this into our Iranian invasion.
But in a sane world, I’d like to see us take a more proactive approach.
Nutcutter
Alas, if the last few days are any indication of the future, you are probably right. Or worse …. encourage this crap so as to make it easier to gin up the Iran war.
Playing right into the hands of our enemies AFAIC. Which appears to be the official policy of our government now.
Nutcutter
Okay. As long as everyone reads the whole thread and sees that I detest both sides in this endless clusterfuck.
“God wants us to have this land.”
I just can’t over it. Here we are in the 21st century and people are still mindfucking each other with that kind of superstitious barf.
Zifnab
An excellent read
Excerpt:
srv
Stormy and TOS can rejoice:
Got some more bad guys
Krista might have a problem with this, though.
srv
Oh, and I forgot this one –
Stormy, I know they all look the same to you and TOS, but Hezbollah really isn’t a bunch of Palestinians.
Nutcutter
Also, that’s the revisionist version of her original outburst. It was “Palestine” that needed lighting up, not “Palestinian terrorists.”
In fairness, I think Stormy regrets having said the stupid thing a year ago. In fact she may have said she regretted it, months later. But she’s such a wanker, I like to wallpaper her with it anyway. Light her up, so to speak.
skip
Two new Arab entities held two democratic elections recently. Now Israel has invaded both, kidnapping 1/3 of the Palestinian parliament. Mind you, this was the Israeli Army doing this, not some ragtag border militia nabbing a stray soldier.
CNN ‘s Wolf Blitzer, former AIPAC employee, can’t be bothered with the latter. Instead, utterly unproven statements are made and repeated about alleged “control” by Syria and/or Iran. How tidy. Israel buzzes Åssad’s home and routinely violates Lebanese airspace BEFORE the solders were taken. One can easily imagine the media reaction if Syria were to buzz Olmert’s house or if Iran made regular flights over Israeli territory.
Polls are alway cited sayin the American public supports Israel, and I suppose it does. But were they to know what other nations know from uncaptive media, that support would melt away overnight. That is why Wolf is at the mike, along with hundreds of other zealots. There is nothing illegal about this, as Walt and Mearsheimer stressed, but it is terribly unfortunate.
Along with bases in Saudi, Israel IS the problem, not the answer.
Zifnab
Isreal routinely buzzes Assad’s home, but they haven’t dropped any bombs yet. The general American consensus (and one I honestly can’t help but share) is that Iran would not show such restraint. If Syria could buzz Olmert’s house, he’d be dead right now.
That is (or was) the big difference between Isreal and the Arab nations.
Stormy70
srv – I don’t belong to a country club, but nice try, but I eat club crackers. Does that count in your reality-based world, where terrorists should be treated like bunny rabbits. Oh, and last I checked Hamas started this from Gaza. Or have you forgotten how this started.
This just reiterates the left’s utter lack of National Security bonafides, unless the threat is from another Democratic hawk. They must be purged, but terrorists given a free pass. Sweet. November will be interesting. Try playing the Tom Delay card while the country is focused on Iran, North Korea, and Syria.
Having the US smack dab in the neighborhood has already calmed the vaunted Arab Street. The Arab League meeting proved it. Darrell noticed this groundbreaking meeting, while the rest of you were hurling insults on anyone who was pro-Israel.
Of course, Palestinians voted overwhelmingly for a terrorist government, so my sympathy meter is on zero. ppgaz, think of them as Republicans, dressing their kiddies up for Christian War while sending them to Fundie schools. Only now imagine it with suicide belts, and being sent off when you are 15 to blow up some innocent people. What a great death culture, they really deserve to be treated like everyone else.
Gotta go, big week ahead. I think I will apply to the country club now that I think about it.
Nutcutter
I’d imagine to a kid in the middle east, the distinction about whether death comes out of the muzzle of a tank gun, or from an F-16, or from an explosive belt, isn’t quite as significant as it is to the barbecque-grill set down in Dallas.
Just a hunch.
Nutcutter
Or, now that I think of it, to fake-ranchers who get visits from Saudi royalty and kiss their hands.
Zifnab
I… I don’t even know where to begin.
Steve
Yeah, there’s no link between Hezbollah and Syria or Iran. Seriously. Wolf Blitzer dreamed up the whole thing to push his Zionist agenda.
Nutcutter
Well, just do what she does. Drink heavily.
Andrew
If only we could get rid of those dirty Jews. Oh sorry, everyone loves Jews. I mean, get rid of all the Israelis, except the Arab ones. There’s a big difference, you know!
mrmobi
Stormy:
That’s great, Stormy. I guess you and Darrell believe there isn’t any difficult foreign policy situation that we can’t kill ourselves out of, eh? So the fact that some people are so desperate that they will, at a young age, strap explosives on themselves and murder innocent civilians means they all should die, right? Their parents and siblings should all be killed, incinerated preferably, no? You both must also be pretty darned comfortable with babies being shot through the head, because they were “nearby” and must have been guilty (in Haditha).
You and Gruppenfuhrer Darrell should get together and work for Newt “World War III” Gingrich to be elected the next president. He’s ready to pre-emptively do whatever is necessary. We couldn’t possibly afford to provide health coverage for every American, but we can DEFINITELY afford to turn the Korean penninsula into an uninhabitable dead zone. He’s not alone, either, some former members of the Clinton administration thought we should have sent cruise missiles against the North Korean missile tests. Yum! Tasty South Korean radioactive crispy kritters!
You guys keep this up, please! In November, we’ll see if the rest of America thinks that “shoot first and fuck the collateral damage,” represents the best strategery we can come up with as a society.
One last thing Stormy: YeeeeeHaaaw! IS NOT A FOREIGN POLICY.
The Other Steve
Amen to that.
The Other Steve
Hezbollah was behind the Khobar Towers bombing in ’96, as well as the Beirut barracks bombing in ’83.
No fucking way do we get in the middle of that. If we go in again, we go in hot.
The Other Steve
My feelings on this remain the same.
It strikes me from looking at the history of the middle east that the problems result from a war that has never ended.
After years of studying this, and realizing that the war has never ended, what I’ve been struck by is a pattern of someone attacking Israel, Israel responding and then suddenly there are cries of “stop stop stop!”. So Israel backs off.
On top of this, there has been a general pattern of prisoner exchange. They take two israelis and in return get 400 terrorists.
Thus we are at a place, whereby the actors of learned two lessons.
#1. If you take prisoners, you can get much more from the Israelis.
#2. If you attack Israel, the world community has your back.
Unfair stereotyping? Maybe, but I don’t give a fuck any more.
The only way for this war to end, is for the war to end. That means, we step out of the fucking way, and we let the sides fight it out.
If the Palestinian or the Hezbollah factions don’t like that, they have a choice in the matter. They can surrender.
If the Lebanese don’t like it, they also have a choice in the matter. They can kick the Hezbollah out of the country. They’ve got an army, and from everything I’ve heard the last several days their army is powerful enough to take on Hezbollah. They haven’t done that because it was political suicide. Well now the stakes have been raised.
The only fear that I have is that this may destablize the rest of the middle east. Other than higher gas prices, why would I give a shit? If anything, I think a little destablization of the middle east is good. Knock over these unrepresentative, fucked up dictatorships established by an imperial system that no longer exists.
Let them choose their own borders, not have them chosen for them by some elitists in France or England.
But the main point remains. War that is not fought all out is the worst kind of war. This would have been over 40 years ago if we’d just let Israel finish the job in ’67.
Nutcutter
You’re crazier than fuckng Stormy.
Pb
Steve,
Usually you’re pretty good at this, so… spot the logical fallacy.
Hint: it has something to do with ‘unproven statements’ vs. ‘no link’.
Also, a slightly related, serious question: do you trust the Israeli government to tell you the truth about what’s going on in their conflicts more than you’d trust the US government to tell you the truth about what’s going on in their conflicts right now? Because before we went into Iraq, I didn’t buy into the US rhetoric–in large part because they were unable to show any evidence or proof of what they said. And, like it or not, they’re *my* government, so of course I wanted them to be telling me the truth, I wanted it all to be right–but I still couldn’t just let myself uncritically buy into whatever they were saying without at least some evidence, not with so much at stake.
Pb
Nutcutter, crazier than Stormy? Is that even possible?
Well, maybe you’ve got a point there, Nutcutter… Man. All-out war. How crazy would you have to be to rant and rave about that?
Gotcha.
Nutcutter
Well, sure. Fact is, Stormy is not really crazy, she does a crazy act. She’s actually doing schtick, and it’s own hideous way, it’s pretty good.
Steve, OTOH, sounds drunk.
Yeah, let’s have all out war. Let’s fuck up the whole world so one side in a monkeyfuck that two sides haven’t been able to resolve in sixty fucking years can get their rage on. Makes sense to me.
Ugh.
Steve
But the link is beyond serious dispute. You’re criticizing Blitzer for failing to prove something that I don’t think is in question.
Now if you mean there’s no proof yet of a direct link between Iran/Syria and the recent Hezbollah actions, yeah, absolutely.
I’m just saying, I don’t like to see people questioning the Syria-Hezbollah relationship like it was some bullshit Saddam-Osama thing. That was my only point.
Pb
Steve,
Right, and that’s what I’d definitely want to see Blitzer substantiate, if he’s going to take that position.
Darrell
You know Steve, you can make your point without spewing your crap over the “bullshit Saddam-Osama thing” as if it’s really bullshit. If you’re looking for credibility, calling the Saddam-bin Laden link “bullshit” really demonstrates how full of shit you truly are. From the Clinton Justice Dept.:
Andrew
Darrell, STFU. Your stupidity-sphere is starting to brush up against me.
A hypothetical scenario:
Wouldn’t it be better if Israel had bombed the crap out of Syria instead of bombing targets in Lebanon?
Darrell
Oh my, thanks for your deep thoughts explanation. You’ve really made a ‘solid’ point there halfwit
Pb
Darrell,
Happy? Now fuck off.
Nutcutter
This thread is about disconnects. Cognitive disonance. So I thought this particular one would fit right in.
Oh, Israel and its tormentors? Israel is a nation born out of radicalism and terrorism, in a part of the world whose history is dominated by radicalism and terrorism. There has been maybe one very recent marginal democratic success in the Arab world, and you are witnessing the first stages of its collapse in Lebanon right now.
Rational-sounding rage is the theater that the sociopaths on both sides who obviouslly want to perpetuate this endless clusterfuck use to …. advance the clusterfuck.
Sixty years. That’s twice as long as a lot of you have been alive. July, 1946: King David Hotel, and Menachem Begin. Google it. Saturday is the anniversary.
Somebody in here said that only one side in the Israel-Arab dispute has grown up. Well, grownups don’t destabilize the world over an affront. That’s the kind of thing we expect from George Bush, who as near as I can tell, attacked Iraq because they “tried to kill (his) daddy.”
If the world is going to act like George Bush, then we could be fucked.
Darrell
That a discredited fired Clarke has objections means next to nothing, except to those who ‘need’ to believe that the Clinton Justice Dept had no basis in their assessment. Now go fuck yourself Pb and let us know how that works out
Nutcutter
Antiwar.com on the war in Lebanon
excerpt:
Read it all.
Pb
Darrell,
Look, man. You’re a fucking hack. I know that you’re a fucking hack, and that there’s no point in trying to enlighten you out of your fucking hackishness, but sometimes I try anyhow. Fortunately, you inevitably (and quickly) show me the error of my ways, which I appreciate–at least you’re reliable about that.
Mmm-hmm. You believed Clarke 100% when you agreed with his conclusions, but the moment he changes his mind, he suddenly has no credibility with you. Hence, the fucking hackishness. By the way, I do find it hilarious that you of all people seem to put so much stock in the Clinton Justice Dept’s assessment of this one issue (or perhaps it was a “U.S. Federal Grand Jury in New York”, but you’re Darrell, so what’s the difference)–same hackish pattern, same hackish results.
Oh my, thanks for your deep thoughts explanation. You’ve really made a ‘solid’ point there halfwit.
:)
The Other Steve
Limited warfare is impossible. War is messy, it’s bloody, it sucks. Trying to make it clean and predictable just results in 40 years of back and forth killing.
Darrell
What makes you such a certified fucking hack Pb, is that you project what I “believed” without having the first fucking clue. ‘Nuff said jackass
Nutcutter
Not quite. Setting aside a few spoofs and trolls here and there, no poster on BJ takes less time or exerts less effort to explain himself or to take unabiguous positions than you do. Your weasel act is well known here.
Your snippy lecture really doesn’t feed the bulldog, sport.
The Other Steve
I believe that was someone trying to claim it wasn’t the Arabs responsibility to stop the violence, that Israel had to do it because they were the only grownup in the region. This in response to my point that Lebanon could end this easily by simply forcing Hezbollah to return the hostages.
Yeah, it didn’t make sense to me when I first heard it either.
Nutcutter
Wow … nine posts to 500. Is this a record?
When do we get paid? Page views don’t grow on trees.
John, Tim?
Nutcutter
Via WaMo, this excellent piece on the new war
Excerpt:
Wow. Weak, confused and vaguely pathetic is a better look on Bush than batshit crazy. Is that called damning with faint praise?
Two and a half more years of this idiot’s term. I’d say “God help us” but why should he?
The Other Steve
Actually you nuts should read this from Larry Johnson
Israel takes a stupid pill
It’s a good essay on how to speak opposition to this action without making ridiculously anti-semitic arguments or resorting to fantasy such as Hezbollah is not connected to Iran, rockets are harmless, etc. Actually quite good, especially in connection with the Marshall post I linked to earlier.
The Other Steve
One of the more insightful things said all day.
Steve
No, I didn’t say that.
The question was, if one side were to suddenly grow up (let’s say it’s Israel), what would you have them do?
Because, I mean, you can criticize the current situation all you like, but it does seem like there aren’t many good answers.
Yeah, I know, in your world Richard Clarke is “discredited” and Saddam and Osama were good buds. I’ll just say this, it’s very, very odd to see you quoting an indictment as though it’s proven fact.
Was Valerie Plame covert? Did Tom DeLay launder money? But gee, it’s in an indictment!
The difference being, of course, Saddam and Osama working together is what you want to believe, so you’ll accept any shred of evidence as rocksolid proof.
Pb
The Other Steve,
“you nuts”? If you say so. Anyhow, I had already read it, and thought it was quite good.
Yeah, keep pushing that caricature of yours–there have been so few (if any) “ridiculously anti-semitic arguments” pushed here that you had to start making them up yourself. So if you don’t like that sort of rhetoric, you really have only yourself to blame for putting it out there in the first place.
Pb
I have it on good authority that that ham sandwich was covert, though.
Krista
No shit. Canada has a very strong Lebanese culture, and I can say very honestly that they’ve enriched our country in multiple ways. Those poor bastards who were killed were probably just over there visiting family, and certainly hadn’t voted for any government over there.
Look, nobody’s saying that Hezbollah’s the good guy here and Isreal is oh-so-bad. This isn’t George Bush’s cowboy-movie mindset where the world is cleanly delineated into good vs. evil. We can all agree that Hezbollah is very dangerous and wrong-minded, while STILL disagreeing with Israel’s response.
Krista
From the CBC.
A “measured response” indeed…
Andrew
What does this mean? That Israel should kill exactly as many Lebanese as Israelis?
The entire notion of proportinate response is the worst kind of equivalence.
Punchy
“Discredited”? Link? Otherwise, STFU. “Fired”? No, he resigned. Thanks for bullshitting, though.
Shorter Darrell: since he worked for Clinton, he must be wrong.
Pb
Andrew,
Or less… I’d vote for less civilians, anyhow, as opposed to, say, 10x more. And last I checked, this wasn’t a war between Israel and Lebanon, or at the least, it shouldn’t be.
Actually I’d argue that a disproportionate response is worse.
Andrew
Should the U.S. have invaded Afghanistan after 9/11?
Andrew
What is a (dis)proportionate response? If you have soldiers kidnapped, should you kidnap their soldiers? If bombing is disproportionate, so is diplomacy. These things are not at all commensurate with the original act.
No matter what your opinion, whether you think Israel should bomb Lebanon back to the stong age, or whether to think they should be purely diplomatic, the notion of “proportionate” is ridiculous and dangerous. It has nothing to do with achieving objectives or ending the conflict.
Pb
Andrew,
See above; I think we covered that one.
First, the only person talking about having a “proportionate” repsonse is *you*. Second, what Israel is doing right now (bombing Lebanon back to the stone age) doesn’t appear to have anything to do with achieving objectives or ending the conflict, either. And finally, as to what I was saying–all other things being equal, given a situation where you can either choose to kill 10 civilians or 150 civilians, I’d have to go with the former. Not that either one is a good choice, mind you, but I think it’s clear now that there was a choice made here.
Krista
Andrew, all that I meant was that it was completely ludicrous for the Canadian Prime Minister to call Israel’s response “measured”.
I’m not asking for a proportionate response — just a sensible one, with an eye towards ending this conflict.
The Other Steve
I suppose the allies should have responded to Germany proportionately. After all it would only have been fair.
I thought it was better when we showed up at their doorstep with twice as many troops, planes and tanks.
The Other Steve
Sigh. you cannot debate, for you are not an honest participant.
Pb
The Other Steve,
Oh, that’s rich, coming from you. Fuck you, man, you can’t back that up at all. You’ve had a horse in this from the beginning, and you’re calling *me* out? Grow up.
Punchy
Uh oh. A comparison of this conflict to the very diff, much more broad and international WORLD WAR II?? Crikey…
I smell a non sequitur in the house. A really bad one, actually.
Andrew
Hizbullah is commiting war crime by launching rockets at population centers. Not to mention they started a war.
Israel is not comitting war crimes and did not attack Lebanon before the kidnapping. Under the UN charter, c. 51, Israel’s response is legal under international law.
Discuss.
Andrew
Pb, re:Afghanistan
You said you are now ambivalent but were in favor of hunting down the terrorists. Israel isn’t justified in hunting down the terrorists?
What do you think hunting down terrorists who hide amongst civilians entails? Look, either you accept civilian casualties or you don’t attack them. You must try to minimize civilian casualties, but you cannot avoid them completely.
Pb
Andrew,
Check.
Maybe.
You sure about that?
Check.
Which says in this case, essentially, “Israel has a right to defend herself”. Yeah, I agree with that. I disagree that that’s clearly all that they’re doing.
Your turn.
Steve
Right, well, here’s where we make the Iraq Fallacy all over again. You can believe Israel was 100% justified in striking Hezbollah – just as you can, if you like, believe we were 100% justified in invading Iraq – yet still believe that it was not done in the right way, or that the course of action chosen was self-destructive and contrary to the national interest.
I’m not sure I see Michael Totten as an expert on much of anything, but I thought this was an interesting post.
Steve
Oh, and if you wonder what Totten was talking about in the first paragraph, just click here to see some of the worst blog comments ever made. Seriously. Don’t miss comment #2 from one of John’s corporate masters.
Pb
Andrew,
For the last time: Israel is justified in hunting down the terrorists, all the terrorists, and only the terrorists. And the same goes for everyone else.
I agree. So what tells you that this minimization is taking place here? Is it when they bomb a family in their house, or when they bomb a bus full of civilians? So far, fucking *Hezbollah* has a better track record of killing Israeli army members instead of civilians than Israel has of killing Hezbollah members instead of civilians. Look, I think that Israel could be doing way more to actually minimize the civilian casualties here, and way more to actually hunt down the terrorists. Bombing civilians from 30,000 feet just isn’t the way to do it.
Pb
Steve,
Wow. Thanks for those links. It’s incredible how some people can be so totally lacking in empathy.
Steve
It seems to be an article of faith among some staunch Israel supporters, like the insane David Bernstein from volokh.com, that every time Israel bombs a house, the occupant was assuredly a paid human shield who was housing Hezbollah missiles in his home. Further, the reason we hear about all these civilian casualties is that Hezbollah is very secretive about its own casualties, thus the media makes it sound like it’s a bunch of civilians getting blown up as opposed to some civilians and some bad guys.
Mind you, I wouldn’t doubt Hezbollah uses the human shield tactic, but it’s a bit crazy to think Israel has perfect intelligence regarding the location of each and every Hezbollah missile.
I don’t know that they have a lot of better options. Yes, bombing runs are going to kill a lot of people. But should Israel invade and go house to house? That sure wouldn’t be pretty. If Israel has really decided “ok, this time we’re going to make sure Hezbollah is disarmed once and for all” then I don’t think there’s a clean way to go about it, or anything close to clean. For some, that would lead to a rethinking of the overall objective; for others, it’s irrelevant since if the objective is permissible then you can achieve it by any means necessary.
Pb
Steve,
I suggested a couple, elsewhere, but of course I’m no military strategist. To quote myself:
I guess I’ve just never been a fan of the “shock and awe” approach of fighting terrorism (and/or civilian populations)…
Krista
Has anybody here said that Israel’s response is illegal? I know I certainly haven’t. Have we said that we don’t think Israel has a right to defend itself? Not to my recollection.
What many here ARE saying, if people would just open their ears and forget ideaology for all of two seconds, is that Israel does not appear to be making any sort of effort to minimize civilian casualties.
Or, I can put it into simpler terms, if you like.
Defending yourself: good
Going after terrorists: good
Using intelligence to determine the best ways to go after these terrorists: good
Bombing a country indiscriminately, with no apparent efforts to minimize civilian casualties: bad.
Steve
Well, I mean, dropping leaflets and such telling civilians to evacuate, it’s hard to construe that as “no effort.”
The truth is that we really don’t know what is going on behind the fog of war. All we can really do is check out the media reports and develop this vague discomfort that the bombing campaign “seems” to be going overboard, or, if you’re on the other side of the issue, you can go on faith that Israel is surely doing everything it can to avoid civilian casualties. But not only do we not really know, odds are we will never know. There is not going to be some 9/11 commission to pick through the rubble and tell us, this strike was justified, this strike was unjustified.
The Other Steve
Steve is the smartest guy in the room.
Nutcutter
It’s an excerpt from TOS’s link above.
Yes, it’s a good essay. I read it two days ago. And I don’t think I’ve made any anti-semitic remarks, or resorted to the fantasy you reference.
Again, this:
That’s a decent paraphrase of my position here from the get-go.
The only thing I’d add is that our government appears to be clueless at the moment. This is looking like the 2006 version of Katrina. About the only thing the potatoheads are good at is propping the little alcoholic up in front of some sloganized backdrop or a bunch of uniforms and having him make the same stupid speech over and over again. Unscripted, he does about as well as I’d expect Homer Simpson to do.
Okay, Homer would do better.
The Other Steve
Because you play the Republican game of dishonest debate tactics.
You know… Like how can you possibly be against the occupation of Iraq? Do you want Hussein back in power!?
Same thing with your “given a situation where you can either choose to kill 10 civilians or 150 civilians, I’d have to go with the former.”, implying that Israel is making decisions to kill 150 civilians instead of 10.
I’ve called you on this a number of times, to support with evidence, and you keep whining about me demanding you back up your claim.
Therefore, you are a dishonest participant in the debate.
Pb
And perhaps the sanest; go Steve! :)
I guess I’ve just never been a fan of taking things on faith, either. :)
Andrew
You contradict yourself, and make ridulous claims to do so.
Indiscriminate bombing is illegal. It is equivalent to targeting civilians.
However, it is foolish to suggest that Israel is doing this. Why would they attack targets indiscriminately? To what end? What targets have they attacked without thinking that they are legitimate?
A 6 day bombing campaign has indeed produced a few hundred civilian casualties. However, the Israelis are easily capable of killing thousands in a few hours. So, perhaps the Israelis are conducting limited indiscrimate bombings?
Says one Israeli general to the other, “Let’s just drop a few bombs, but randomly! Because it is to our great advantage to get horrible press world wide!”
Krista
Extremely well-put.
Pb
The Other Steve,
Do tell.
Nope. Although I’ve seen a few whoppers from you…
Well they manifestly are, and I have supported it with evidence. Whereas, when I called upon *you* to find evidence of your claims, I’ve gotten… crickets.
Now you’re just projecting. Maybe you have some weird psychological disorder where you actually think that you’re me and I’m you? I don’t know what your problem is, but I’m not about to waste any more time trying to figure it out.
Mmm-hmm. By your standards, *you’re* the dishonest participant. But don’t let that stop you.
Andrew
And in what fantasy world is it possible to do these “good” things, without harming civilians, when the terrorists hide among them?
Whether it is bombing or ground troops, civilians will die. This is entirely the fault of the terrorists, according to the laws of war. Hizbullah is legally and morally culpable for these deaths to a far greater degree than the Israelis.
Pb
Andrew,
So if I drop a bomb on your house, it’s a-ok, just so long as I thought you might have been a terrorist? Hey, maybe a terrorist might live next door! Whoops, not my fault!
Krista
Andrew, you’re being simplistic.
Regardless, I will admit that “indiscriminate” was a poor choice of wording.
I certainly am not envisioning a scenario like what you described. However, I am envisioning your aforementioned Israeli general receiving word that a terrorist might be hiding at a certain house, and then immediately sending out the order to bomb that house, without trying to further determine the veracity of that report.
Pb – I’m with you on this one. I take very little on faith, particularly when governments are involved.
Steve
Ezra Klein:
Andrew’s point is something I think we hashed out above. Yes, if you use civilians for human shields, you are culpable in their deaths. However, that doesn’t mean that because Hezbollah makes a habit of using human shields, Israel simply has a blank check.
The simplistic form of the argument tends to boil down to this: either you think Israel (substitute the US in Iraq, if you like) is intentionally targetting innocent civilians, and what kind of monster would do such a thing, or else any time an innocent civilian dies it’s an unintended accident, and well, accidents happen in war. Many of us have a gut feeling that the analysis ought to go a tad deeper than that.
This growing practice of using human shields does tend to create situations with no easy answer. I mean, let’s say Iran bundles all its widows and orphans into a big group home, and starts building a nuclear bomb in the basement. Kind of a sticky wicket, no?
Nutcutter
In the fantasy world where great restraint is at work, and where the imperatives associated with a desire not to plunge the world into a wider war take precedence over the easy rationalization of challenge-response, tit-for-tat and “We have a right to defend ourselves.”
That rationalization ranks right up there with “They tried to kill my daddy” as a basis for war, AFAIC.
It’s quite easy for me to imagine a world in flames, and those guys sitting there going “We had a right to defend ourselves.”
The Other Steve
How is this even helpful to a debate regarding the strategic purposes of this operation?
We are all in pretty much universal agreement that strategically what Israel is doing doesn’t make sense.
But accusing them of war crimes poisons the well of discussion.
Krista
Oh for crissakes, Andrew, get your head out of your ass. Of course there are going to be civilian casualties. We know that. The entire world knows that.
But why so damn many?
Could anything have been done to minimize that number?
What is Israel actually doing to minimize those numbers?
Those are the questions that I’m asking.
Andrew
Actually, that is entirely justified under the laws of war.
If you are acting in good faith, and you have intelligence that I am a terrorist, or that terrorists are operating in my vicinity, then you cannot be held responsible for war crimes even if I am an innocent civilian.
Furthermore, fault for the act lies with the terrorists who have hidden among civilians and operated from civilian areas.
If you target me without any intelligence, or for purposes of punishing civilians, then that is indeed illegal and morally wrong. I have not seen any evidence that the Israelis have acted indiscrimnately or have purposefully bombed civilians intentionally.
Of course, Hizbullah has launched indiscriminate rocket attacks at civilians, so they are guilty of war crimes.
The Other Steve
Where? Where’s your evidence that Israel is committing war crimes?
I think we’d all love to see it.
Just seeing news reports of civilians being killed is not evidence of war crimes, nor is it evidence that Israel is specifically targeting civilians.
srv
Of course they are. That’s the whole point. Dropping bombs in a major metropolitan city = kill alot of people. This isn’t rocket science.
I guess Totten realizes many of his former allies consider the Cedar experiment as an expendable sacrifice because someone wants to flail for domestic political points over pinpricks. Too bad he’s just figuring that out now.
Nutcutter
Like I said, world in flames, and these guys patting themselves on the back in furious self-justification.
Great. That’s just fucking great.
Pb
The Other Steve,
I possess and require no such evidence, as I did not make that accusation. Keep your words in your own mouth.
That’s true, but the news reports I did see (and cite!) were also a bit more specific than just xx civilians killed. What I’d like to see from you is some information–*any information*–that Israel had a legitimate target when they, say, bombed a family in their home, or a bus full of civilians, or some Canadians, etc., etc. But you don’t have it, because all your evidence is ‘faith-based’, because Israel is your friend, and you trust them.
Andrew
Krista,
There have not been many civilian casualties at all. Sorry, but 200-300 in 6 days of massive bombings is among the lowest civilian casualty rates in the history of aerial warfare. Virtually no civilians have been killed in the infrastructure attacks through the use of precision weapons, because Hizbullah is not hiding there.
Almost all civilian deaths have occured when Hizbullah has been hiding amongst civilians. Israel is left with the option of killing Lebanese civilians to stop Hizbullah or allowing Hizbullah to attack Israeli civilians.
Israel has dropped leaflets and issued evacuation warnings to almost every area that they have targeted.
Israel is not carpet bombing nor are they purposefully targeting civilians.
With head firmly in ass, andrew
Pb
*groan*
Nutcutter
It looks better when you call them “unfortunate collateral” like you were the other day.
The Other Steve
Why do you say there are so damn many?
What criteria are you using to determine “many”?
Nutcutter
Let’s try to keep our terminology consistent.
Nutcutter
What criteria are you using?
Krista
And TOS, I certainly had no intention of accusing Israel of war crimes, so you can relax. You said it yourself that strategicaly, what they are doing does not make sense. Fair enough. I agree. I am just very, very skeptical of ANY country’s government’s concern over their enemy’s civilians, and at the moment, feel that Israel has not used as much prudence and restraint as they should have, in their evident desire for retribution. No, they’re not going to do everything perfectly, and yes, there are going to be civilian casualties. But to use that as an excuse to not even LOOK at the numbers, is very irresponsible, AFAIC.
The Other Steve
Not taking care to limit civilian casualties is a war crime under Geneva.
Don’t throw accusations around so casually if you don’t understand their meaning.
Nutcutter
What criteria are used to determine the amount of care required to make the action legal, as opposed to being a war crime?
srv
Pure, faith-based BS. Whether that’s true or not, there’s no possible way you would know it. What, you’re getting realtime casualty reports from an independent authority Lebanon?
The Other Steve
I think the belief that you can fight a war with 0 civilian losses is a fantasy.
Israel has shown every bit as much concern for preventing civilian losses as the United States military. It is a GREAT DEAL more concern than the Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda has shown considering those groups do specifically target civilians.
As was noted by Ezra Klien. These groups have a habit of hiding within civilian populations to upset the rules of war.
It places you in a catch-22. I don’t know how you respond to this, but you certainly cannot allow attacks to continue on your country and forces without response. It is the actions of these groups who place civilians at risk when they use them as shields.
I think what most of us are asking for is a simple acknowledgement of that. That much of the blame here lies with hezbollah, hamas, etc. and to simply not fall blindly into the terrorist desires of allowing your western sensibilities blind you to what is really going on.
Krista
Duly noted.
It might be justified under the laws of war, but it still doesn’t make me feel any better to know that there are an awful lot of civilians whose food supplies are running out because of the roads being destroyed.
Steve
What I said above
could probably be applied to most of the comments made since then. I think “war crime” gets thrown around as an incendiary discussion-ending term by both sides.
Some of the similarites between Israel’s predicament in Lebanon and our own situation in Iraq are pretty remarkable. Israel’s enemy is not Lebanon, any more than our enemy is Iraq; the battle is against terrorists/insurgents who hide among civilians.
In both cases, it’s very hard to do anything about the enemy without civilian casualties. And in both cases, civilian casualties are a PR boon for the enemy.
Above, I think it was Pb who argued that Israel probably wouldn’t be killing as many civilians if they had strike forces on the ground or somesuch as opposed to bombing from high altitudes. Well, in Iraq, we have troops on the ground, and yet we see how difficult it is to avoid civilian casualties even so.
Perhaps it’s time for someone to criticize the Democrats for not having a plan for Lebanon. Who knows, maybe it will all turn out for the best and Hezbollah will be eliminated, leaving Israel to end up living in peace with its democratic neighbor Lebanon, but from where I sit it seems like the evidence is mounting that there is no good solution to situations like this one.
Nutcutter
Why do I hear the voice of Shrub?
“Uh, heh heh, uh, war is … hard work. Look, I am protecteen the Amurrican Peeple. Our intelligence wasn’t perfect.”
Someday, maybe right before the light from the sun goes out from exhaustion of fuel, maybe the world will be run by people who aren’t all a bunch of fucking self-justifying weasels.
Krista
And Andrew? Sorry about the head-in-ass thing. Thanks for keeping your sense of humour about it. I just got very cranky when hearing about that Canadian family (including 4 little kids)who were killed…
Warfare just really depresses me.
Andrew
Technically, this would be determined by a war crimes tribunal by weighing the evidence on a case-by-case basis.
Perhaps I misspoke. I should have said that “Almost all civilian deaths have occured where Israel thought Hizbullah has been hiding amongst civilians.” However, this is entirely legal and morally justified, if the Israelis have actual intelligence that Hizbullah is co-located with the civilians.
Because the only alternative is that Israel is intentionally targeting civilians. There is no evidence of this, and there is substantial evidence that Israel is doing quite a bit to warn civilians of impending attacks.
Steve
Meanwhile, in Iraq, another major group has endorsed Bush’s stay-the-course strategy.
Andrew
Pffft. That was down right Canadian politesse compared to the usual tone around here.
Steve
Juan Cole argues:
I think it’s possible to accept that Israel is not intentionally targetting civilians, and still believe that its motives seem more complex than simply taking out Hezbollah and Hezbollah alone. I don’t know much, but these strikes in northern Lebanon don’t seem to fit in with the standard storyline.
The Other Steve
There’s a difference between allowed under laws of war…
and being fuel for bad press.
That’s a point that the Bush administration does not seem to understand with all it’s legalism regarding torture and what not. It doesn’t matter whether or not you think it’s legal if it’s a bad idea.
But we can argue that point without resorting to hyperbole.
Nutcutter
Especially in the our new Bushworld, where use of force is the standard of care in foreign policy. And of course, when Shrub squeaks out of the side of his mouth that Israel should “show restraint” both he, and they, know it is just for show. He doesn’t mean it, and he isn’t going to do anything if they don’t show restraint.
Bush talking about Israel “showing restraint” is like Bush talking about conservation of oil. Or Bush talking about reducing government spending. Or Bush talking about “saving” Social Security. Or Bush talking about “avoiding nation-building.” Or Bush talking about “protecting liberties.” Or Bush talking about “following the Constitution.”
Yeah, so it’s “very hard.” So what? So do it anyway.
Nutcutter
A tribunal would determine the criteria? What determines whether there will be a tribunal, and what the rules of its engagement are?
The Other Steve
Actually that’s somewhat good news.
American withdrawl from the fighting seems to be working. The more we make Iraqis to take responsibility for themselves, the more reasonable they become regarding their future.
That’s certainly not Bush’s strategy which was going to have has act as the patriarch of Iraq for years to come until we started calling him out on it and he backed off.
Andrew
Nutcutter
Iraq appears to be in total chaos.
Nutcutter
Right.
So, the way is clear for bloggers everywhere to state that there are no war crimes involved …. in whatever action is going on that day, undertaken by whatever actors …. without fear of being refuted.
I think we have some people here who would make good White House staffers.
This is what I like to call the “No controlling legal authority” defense.
Darrell
TOS, the UN has security forces stationed in S. Lebanon, Bosnia, Africa, Haiti (?) and other countries across the world. Most Americans consider the UN’s #1 job to be international security. The UN has demonstrated themselves time and time again to be abject failures at this job.. meanwhile leftists like Steve and TOS try and skirt around these failures with dumbass comments like “everybody understands” the UN isn’t supposed to provide military security, completely ignoring the multitude of UN security forces which are deployed, and which have been deployed over the years
You know TOS, sometimes you can express yourself intelligently, but that type of strawman crap really makes you look like a stupid ass who can’t argue honestly or intelligently…show me where I ever said shit about the UN taking away our guns.. another ‘reality based’ comment I suppose
Nutcutter
Crap that you, yourself, never employ, of course.
You are the king of straw. I am going to call you Alfalfa.
Nutcutter
“Fighting to stop when soldiers freed” says Olmert.
According to CNN at this hour.
How does that statement play this way:
“Killing of civilians to stop when soldiers freed.”
How many civilians are dead now? How many soldiers are we talking about?
Where are the lawyers who are speaking on behalf of this action?
We’ll need your briefs within the hour, counselors.
Nutcutter
CNN’s list of organizations helping civilians in this crisis
I assume that for balance, they’ll put up a list of links to lawyers who can argue in favor of the continued destruction of civilians. That would be only fair.
The Other Steve
LOL! After a diatribe about how most americans think the UN military will save them.
That’s sweet.
But sadly, the claims of black helicopters and UN coming to take away our guns did come from the right-wing lunasphere.
Steve
As usual, Darrell’s characterization of my position bears little resemblance to what I actually said. What’s ironic is that he went on in the very same post to rail against strawmen.
Of course the UN has peacekeeping forces in all kinds of places. I never said “the UN isn’t supposed to provide military security.” All I said was that there are “serious limits” on what the UN can accomplish militarily, a position that I don’t think is open to dispute. In particular, I don’t think any reasonable person believes that the UN has the wherewithal to disarm a militant group that doesn’t want to be disarmed.
But I’ll let Darrell have the floor. Senator, how will John Bolton’s reformed UN go about disarming terrorist groups like Hezbollah? I want to know how this would be accomplished, in a world where the UN actually does its job.
Pb
Steve,
Or, in this thread, by one side. You know, I couldn’t care less what does or does not constitute a “war crime” under international law, and–I’ll go further–I don’t think that that will effectively matter in the slightest, in this conflict. I’ve been making a moral argument, not a legal argument, this whole time. It’s not about paper-pushers, it’s about right and wrong.
True. However, this isn’t an occupation of Lebanon yet (right?); there are definitely parallels, but this is much more like the initial stages of the Iraq war. Of course, that was *really* bloody, what with all the air strikes and ‘shock and awe’ tactics. Then again, Iraq also has like 7x the population of Lebanon.
ROFL… :)
Let’s hope so. :(
I’ll posit now that if there is a good solution, this probably isn’t it. It might not even show up on the list of ok solutions (although it’d be nice to compose such a list).
Nutcutter
Humanitarian crisis in Lebanon — Reuters
Of course, we all know that it’s hard to wage a war, I mean defend yourself, without creating a humanitarian crisis.
How many Israeli soldiers are to be freed, again, before this can stop?
Okay, this numbers thing is confusing. Are they saying that we have 200 people dead because two soldiers were captured? In today’s currency, then, one soldier is worth a hundred dead civilians? I thought soldiers were to protect civilians?
Punchy
Thanks, TOS. My Spoof-o-meter just blew up. The first sentence had it pegged all the way to “Spit-food-out-on-desk-in-disbelief Spoof”, but the second sentence just finished it off.
Darrell
John Bolton kicks ass, which is another reason to question Democrats’ judgement in opposing him. He’s much better than Madeline Albright, wouldn’t you agree?
thanks for the clarification, much more reasonable than TOS’ kook claim that the UN “can’t enforce anything”. militarily. But UN peacekeepers have been mandated to disarm militant groups before… I agree the UN blue helmets have a horrible track record in actually carrying out what they are supposed to do
Punchy
I guess if TOS hadn’t busted my Spoof-o-meter, Darrell would’uve with this gem.
Yeah…Bolton at the helm, and the ME in flames. If this is success, I cannot WAIT to see failure.
Krista
It’s definitely food for thought, isn’t it?
My heavens…civility AND gentlemanly behaviour at Balloon Juice. How utterly refreshing.
Thanks for being so gracious, Andrew.
Steve
But Darrell, sorry, I must prod you a little more. I think UN security forces have been given a mandate, on various occasions, to oversee the disarmament of folks who have agreed to be disarmed; but Hezbollah, unless I’m mistaken, isn’t giving up their guns without a fight.
You criticized the UN for “toothless” enforcement of the resolution requiring Hezbollah to disarm. My question to you is, what more do you believe the UN should have done to bring about that goal? You’re not suggesting the UN should “declare war” on those who disobey its resolutions, and disarm groups like Hezbollah by force, I assume – or are you?
skip
“Who knows, maybe it will all turn out for the best and Hezbollah will be eliminated, leaving Israel to end up living in peace with its democratic neighbor Lebanon”
Let me remind you that Hezzbollah was brought into existence by the Israeli 1982 invasion and long-term occupation of Lebanon.
The only solution lies in an equitable, albeit painful, land settlement— in Lebanon and the occupied territories. Anything less will just give rise to another Hezzbollah or another Hamas, even if the IDF were able to reduce the current iterations to dust.
Israel has 200+ nukes but they avail her little when her rivals are quite literally a stone’s throw away. The barely disguised radical Eretz solution is an ethnic cleansing through a combination of linked settlements and ocassional displacements by war. The problem is, the world is wise to it, and the birth rate is working to the contrary.
Darrell
As I spelled out in my initial post on this subject, if the UN isn’t willing to back up its demands with force, it should STFU with the demands, because such demands are toothless with no credible threat of enforcement. Clear now?
skip
“To quote Michael Ledeen who absolutely gets it right:
“…Your options are narrowing. You cannot escape the mullahs. You must either defeat them or submit to their terrible vision. There is no other way.”
Oh, The same Michael Ledeen who was up to his ears in the phony Niger documents? Er, how did that work out?
Darrell
Hezbollah is an organization with a charter calling for the destruction of Israel. Hezbollah is a terrorist organization funded by Syria and Iran. Lebanon was a haven for terrorists groups back in the late 70’s and 80’s and it still is. Israel was fully within her rights to fight a DEFENSIVE war in Lebanon then, as now.
Nutcutter
Well, as we all know, being fully within rights is the last word on any subject. It’s similar to the “No controlling legal authority” defense.
The last time Israel went into Lebanon, as has been pointed out, they got stuck there for 18 years and spawned Hizbollah, among other things.
Maybe after 60 years of fucking up the region, neither side here has a lot of credibility any more?
Nah, that would make too much sense.
Steve
No, not really. You said: “The toothless enforcement on the part of the UN is at least in part responsible for the current situation.” Are you now saying that if the UN hadn’t made its demands in the first place, the current situation would somehow be better? Because I’m not sure how a toothless demand from the UN has actually “harmed” anything.
Yes, if the UN had forced Hezbollah to disarm against its will, maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess, but you and I seem to agree that the UN has no ability to do that. So again, you can take all the shots you want at the UN for having limited military power, but at the end of the day, what do you contend the UN did to make the situation worse?
Darrell
I’m making justified criticism of a feckless UN organization whose main purpose is to provide international security, but doesn’t provide that security worth a shit. They made a binding chapter 7 resolution on Hezbollah to disarm and then did little or nothing to make it happen. This wasn’t a chapter 6 UN ‘recommendation’.. it was a UN Security council chapter 7 resolution, which is supposed to have teeth, ie. enforced militarily and/or sanctions.
Darrell
You know, if you want to draw equivalencies between bloodthirsty terrorists who intentionally target civilians, and Israel responding to those attacks.. knock yourself out. Just don’t pretend that such comparisons “make sense”
skip
Darrell on Walt/Mearsheimer’s paper:
“Yeah, that paper hailed by David Duke, the PLO and the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood, ”
Yeah, and Darwin was hailed by Hitler. Your point? Darrell has one thing in common with David Duke. He damn sure hasn’t read the paper either.
Later Darrell says, “if the UN isn’t willing to back up its demands with force, it should STFU with the demands, because such demands are toothless with no credible threat of enforcement.”
Fine, but why stop with the Hezzbollah resolution? What about the innumerable UNSC resolutions demanding the Israel with draw from the land taken in 1967? Had Israel done so there might never have BEEN a Hezzbollah OR Hamas.
Nutcutter
I see little difference between them at the end of the day. Both sides think God is on their side. Both sides employ the same rhetoric. Israel was not born out of the antiseptically-described “Jewish uprising” after WWII, it was born out of violence and terrorism. Unless you want to argue that Menachem Begin and the King David Hotel bombing were not terrorism? Please, go right ahead.
Like I said, you can’t sustain a stupid dispute like this for six decades without a bunch of lying, crazy sociopaths ON BOTH SIDES pounding the drums of revenge and war at every fucking turn. No, I do not give Israel a pass, I hold them to the same standard as everybody else.
200 people dead so that Israel can thump its chest and demand its soldiers back? Fuck them.
Darrell
Unlike Syria and Hezbollah, Israel has never had a UNSC chapter 7 resolution passed against it.. only chapter 6 resolutions championed by the arab league. Presumably you are too ignorant to understand the difference
Darrell
And that says it all
Nutcutter
Yep. They both sound just as sociopathic as you do.
Nutcutter
From a discussion of sociopathy I found on the Web.
Two hundred dead the last time I looked. Two soldiers abducted.
“Sociopathy is chiefly characterized by something wrong with the person’s conscience.”
Yeah, Darrell, that’s what I said. Sociopaths, just like you.
Andrew
Wow, that is sort of a weird anti-Israeli reading of history. It smacks of a distinct lack of semitism.
There was definately terrorism involved in the creation of the modern state of Israel, but to ignore the rest of history is a little too Darrell-ish for my taste.
See: Hertzl, The Bible, Dreyfus Affair, First Aliyah, Balfour Declaration, etc.
Nutcutter
How does pointing out the former translate into “Ignoring the rest of history?”
My premise from the first post here was that both sides are full of shit. If you want to argue that the last sixty years of violence and death can all be laid at the feet of only one side in the conflict, be my guest. Go ahead, Darrell.
Oh, you’re not Darrell. My mistake.
Nutcutter
Oh, correction. I refer to my Friday at 9:31 a BJ time as my first post to this argument, but not to the thread itself.
There was an earlier exchange that preceded the big argument, which had nothing to do with the current theme.
Andrew
I guess you’re right. There were no other actors involved in Jewish statehood besides the Irgun.
Steve
Ok, this got me to thinking. I’ll let one of our leading neocons summarize the history (my apologies for the long post):
Okay, so the U.S. says in 2002 that Hezbollah is the “A-team” of terrorism and that we have a “blood debt” to them and will be “taking them down.”
In the four years since those statements, what have we done about Hezbollah, an avowed enemy of the U.S.? By the sound of it, we’ve done some investigations, we’ve prosecuted some people here and there. Bob Graham says “Frankly, we don’t really have a strategy to prevent trained operatives from entering the U.S.” Do we? You’d think he would know.
Oh, and we stopped the Hezbollah TV station from broadcasting in the U.S. That’ll show them.
And now that our ally Israel has launched a military assault against Hezbollah, we are, of course, wholeheartedly supporting this effort to disarm our enemy, right? Yeah, if you count mealy-mouthed declarations about how Israel has the right to defend itself, but they should be careful about the civilians.
If this was the track record of a John Kerry administration, we wouldn’t hear the end of it from partisans like Darrell. Why, it’s like a caricature of viewing terrorism as a “law-enforcement problem,” which we’ve all been told is so, so awful. But we’re not living under a Kerry administration. We’ve had 6 years of Republican control, headed by Bush, the man who takes the terrorist threat seriously.
So really, when we talk about the U.N.’s “toothless enforcement” of its resolution, we should keep it in context. What has the U.S. done to disarm Hezbollah, exactly? Shouldn’t we look at the Bush Administration as a paper tiger that talks tough about “blood debts,” but doesn’t follow through unless your name is Saddam?
Why, I haven’t even seen Bush reminding people that Hezbollah is, in fact, a sworn terrorist enemy of the U.S. Isn’t that odd? When he was asked about the current conflict on his overseas trip, his first reaction was to make a joke about the upcoming pig roast. Now we hear him tell Tony Blair off the record that he wishes Syria would just tell Hezbollah to back off so the problem would be solved.
Remind me again why I’m supposed to believe this administration is serious about defending America against the terrorist threat?
Nutcutter
Oh, no, clearly you’re right. The entire sixty year history is just a sad tale of travail and victimhood for Israel, the angel in the story.
After all, they’re God’s chosen people.
Darrell
You know Steve, we’ve been kind of busy fighting terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq since then, so it might have been nice if the UN could have actually enforced, or attempted to enforce, its binding resolution in Southern Lebanon.. how about Sudan?.. Of course not, because libs like Steve tell us everyone “understands” that the UN can’t be expected to actually do any such enforcement. Incredible when you think about it
Nutcutter
A simple reading of history and current events shows that the UN only does what its major members want it to do.
Are these members pushing for the UN to wage the GWOT?
Write me when they do.
Andrew
Jesus, enough the stupid Christianist crap. Every Jew I know hates those fuckers.
No one is claiming that Israel is pure and saintly. But it is certainly more progressive, friendly to the U.S., and modern than any of the surrounding states, so I am willing to give them slightly greater benefit of doubt than the surrounding actors.
And to say that the state of Israel is born from terrorism is straight out of the International-ANSWER playbook. (Jesus, I do sound like Darrell. I blame you, nutcutter, for this fall from grace. Bastard.)
Steve
Sure, it “might have been nice.” Are you saying Bush barely did anything about Hezbollah because he honestly expected the U.N. to disarm them itself?
We’re talking about an organization that supposedly has dozens of would-be terrorists right here in the U.S., an organization that proudly boasts “Death to America.” And your answer is “we’re busy in Iraq, so the U.N. should take care of that one.”
Didn’t Bush specifically promise us he would never outsource our national security to the U.N.? Do you want to rethink your answer?
skip
Darrell says, “Unlike Syria and Hezbollah, Israel has never had a UNSC chapter 7 resolution passed against it.. only chapter 6 resolutions championed by the arab league. Presumably you are too ignorant to understand the difference”
You presume, all right. The difference being the US veto, cast countless times in Israel’s interest.
When I was a little kid our Public Radio used to talk proudly about how only the Soviet used the veto in the SC. Now the US holds the record, and hint: it hasn’t just been over mining Nicaraguan harbours.
But do tell, are the Marianas or Marshall islands with us in the next GA vote? Antisemites seem to have siezed control everywhere else. Roll in garlic, shut the windows, call in Wolf and the other AIPAC shock troops.
Darrell
Andrew, go fuck yourself and let us know how it all works out.
Nutcutter
Except the Israelis. Eh? Or did I miss something?
I’ve been listening to this crap for fifty years. I have yet to hear an Israeli (an official, let’s say) say “Yeah, you know, we were all wrong when we ……”
Wake me up when we hear THAT coming from Israel. Or from any official of any government in that region.
These people can’t get out of their own fucking way for sixty years but to hear them talk (either side, pick one) it’s all somebody else’s fault.
I have words for such people: C-r-a-z-y. L-i-a-r-s.
Words like that.
Darrell
Vetoed that is, resolutions advocated by unelected arab despots
Andrew
It’s hard to go fuck myself, because my head is already stuck up my ass.
Darrell
Steve, could you direct to you credible sources which say that the US is ignoring Hezbollah terrorists in the US? because I’d like to read about that. And yes, it would be nice if libs like you would actually hold the UN accoutable for enforcing it’s binding chapter 7 resolutions.
Pb
Nutcutter,
I haven’t been listening to this crap for fifty years, but the Israelis are definitely touchy about some subjects, for obvious reasons. I remember this one:
Nutcutter
Just like BJ! Only words themselves, not ideas, have power. Only words, not ideas, can be banned.
I think this is the future. Words will have the ultimate power, and reality will mean nothing.
Oh wait, we already have our own government following that policy. So I am just catching up here.
Identity uber alles!
Darrell
Kind of like all those who are touchy about Israel’s right to exist.
skip
Darrell: “Vetoed that is, resolutions advocated by unelected arab despots”
As opposed to benvolent expansionist theocracies?
Whoever advocated them, the resolutions were embraced by nearly everyone else in the world–time and again, over decades. And you know it. In many cases the US and Israel were the only two opposing.
BTW, whoever mentioned the US marines killed by Hezbollah in Beirut conveniently forgot how they got there. Another Israeli invasion of Lebanon, opposed by that notorious antisemite Ronald Reagan. And it is well known within the US intel community that Mossad knew the attack was coming.
Steve
Bob Graham, quoted above, is plenty credible. But you’ve ignored the more fundamental point, which is that viewing terrorism as a law-enforcement problem is the failed Clinton approach, or so we’re told.
We now know that the FBI and CIA ignored any number of clues regarding the 9/11 attacks. But you could have asked me on 9/10 to direct you to credible sources which say the US is ignoring al-Qaeda terrorists in the US, and guess what, there wouldn’t have been any.
Here’s something interesting. The UN hasn’t called me for advice lately. The US, via its ass-kicking ambassador John Bolton, is supposedly out to hold the UN accountable for its failures, regardless of whether I’m on board with the plan. So what has Bolton done, for the record, to get the UN to crack down on Hezbollah? I’m sure he’s done plenty, I’m just curious.
Anyway, I’ll remind you yet again that Bush said he would never outsource our national security to the UN. That was supposed to be a major difference betwen him and the other guy, remember? So assuming you’re 100% right that the UN has dropped the ball on Hezbollah, I don’t see how that absolves the Bush Adminstration of the responsibility to do something about them. If Hezbollah blows up an office building tomorrow, is that really what we’re going to hear? “The UN should have done more”? I guess it beats blaming the whole thing on Jamie Gorelick.
What blows me away is that after 6 years of Republican control, these guys still have nothing except finger-pointing to offer. It’s all the fault of the media, or the Democrats, or the UN. Or “libs like me” who won’t hold the UN accountable.
Again, what has this administration done to help disarm Hezbollah, after telling the American people that we owe them a “blood debt”? If your answer is that the FBI has opened up a bunch of domestic investigation files, then okay, I’ll accept that as your answer.
Steve
Steve Clemons has some interesting ideas about where the disconnect between American and Israeli interests might lie in this conflict.
If you believe in the concept that we should be taking out terrorist organizations before they get a chance to do us further harm, I do have to wonder, why isn’t our government enthusiastically cheering for, let alone assisting, Israel’s efforts against Hezbollah?
Darrell
Steve, are those of you in the ‘reality based’ community actually suggesting that our anti-terrorist efforts are focused only on Al queda while ignoring all other terrorists groups? Last I checked, none of those hundreds or thousands of Hezbollah terrorists were able to pull off an attack here in the US, so the administration must be doing something right.. wouldn’t you agree?
You’ve already told us that we dare not tap the phone calls of overseas terrorists.. and your side has even criticized Bush for daring to track terrorist finances. But you libs can be trusted to fight terrorism, right? Kind of like when Clinton went after them so aggresively after Khobar and the USS Cole.. oh, wait
Darrell
I think history has conclusively demonstrated the results of Clinton’s approach to terrorism.
Andrew
Darrell, see, this is why you are an idiot.
Pb
Darrell,
And I’ve got this rock that keeps away tigers… Would you like to buy it? You don’t see any tigers around, do you…
Steve
This kind of sounds like the “head in the sand” approach, or what someone once called the pre-9/11 mentality. After all, we took out Saddam even though he wasn’t an imminent threat. Our test is now “as long as we haven’t been attacked on U.S. soil, everything must be fine”?
Wrong.
Wrong.
Again, we’re not talking about powerless liberals, we’re talking about the Republicans who have been in charge of the country for the last 6 years. What have they done to stop Hezbollah, other than pure law-enforcement tactics? After 6 years of power, it’s not enough to blame liberals and the UN for not having done more.
Where is this administration, reminding Americans of the serious threat posed by Hezbollah, supporting Israel in their efforts to disarm that dangerous terrorist organization by any means necessary? Will President Bush ever get around to reminding us that a lot more is at stake in the war against Hezbollah than “Israel’s right to self-defense”?
Pb
Steve,
Here’s an interesting link from ’97 regarding “ISLAMIC TERRORIST GROUPS OPERATING IN THE UNITED STATES”…
Darrell
Yes, it’s just been lucky coincidence that there hasn’t been another terrorist attack here in the US. Kind like how it’s always a “coincidence” when crime rates drop, not more effective policing
Steve
With the benefit of hindsight, would you say the fact that we had no attack on U.S. soil between the first WTC bombing and the 9/11 attacks was (a) the result of effective Clinton Administration policies or (b) a lucky coincidence?
Nutcutter
Damn you guys and your stupid moderation scheme.
After a year and a half, a person ought to be able to post more than one or two links once in a while.
Nutcutter
I think history has conclusively demonstrated the results
So, I’ll post them separately.
—–/
So, that would make Bush the granddaddy of all terrorist lovers, since the rise in worldwide terror has skyrocketed under his tenure.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5889435/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7643286/
Nutcutter
http://www.btcnews.com/btcnews/1002
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/07/05/terror.site/index.html?section=cnn_latest
Oh, uh, Darrell? It looks to me like our State Dept has ceased putting up worldwide terror numbers on its website.
For some reason, their whole reference to the WOT seems to be “Our war on terror begins with al-Qaida” and a photo of the WTC collapse. Not much else there. Hmmm.
Andrew
Thank god we’ve managed to push all of the terrorism overseas to our allies. And our soldiers seem to be getting killed by a bunch of Islamists in Iraq. But that’s okay, because they’re American over there, not at home.
Oh, except, you know, for this one and this one and this one.
Nutcutter
But this is definitely good for some laughs. Check out the “Structure of Terror” diagram. And figure 2, the Transational Terrorist Networks
No question, these lying incompetant monkeyfuckers have it under control.
Right Darrell?
Darrell
I think Clinton’s response to the first WTC bombing really demonstrated that he meant business, and his law-enforcement approach was definitely the way to go. And for those remaining doubting Thomases who questioned Clinton’s resolve, his response to Khobar Towers and USS Cole really showed them, as talking tough with little or no action is what really stops the terrorists.
Andrew
Oh yeah, you asshole right wingers demanded that we call this crazy bastard a terrorist. But I guess that doesn’t count as terrorism if you’re pretending the Bush administration as perfect.
Nutcutter
Oh, Darrell, the State Dept cartoon says that their plan is to “return terrorism to the Criminal Domain.”
Return it to the criminal domain. Did you catch that?
Nutcutter
And what does “really stop” them, Darrell? Inasmuch as terrorism seems to be flourishing.
Andrew
Well, I’m awaiting moderation for my links, but I’d also like Darrell to explain how the anthrax attacks, the D.C. sniper, and the LAX attacks weren’t terrorism. You know, attacks in the U.S. since 9/11.
Steve
Let me change the topic slightly, since I think Darrell has made it pretty clear that Bush hasn’t done much to show we take the threat from Hezbollah seriously – certainly, he can’t point to any policies other than Clinton-style law enforcement efforts. But Darrell, if you do come up with an argument about what we’ve done to fight Hezbollah since 9/11, or what we’ve done to urge the UN to take action against Hezbollah, or even some kind of plan to fight Hezbollah going forward, please, let me in.
My thought is this. Darrell brought up the argument we’ve all heard, that we haven’t been attacked on U.S. soil since 9/11. Now, maybe you think Bush deserves some credit for this, or maybe you don’t. But politically, I see the argument as a no-brainer, since when it comes to a terrorist attack you’re effectively “all in” already. If we lost a city (oops! bad choice of words) on the Republicans’ watch, they’d be screwed anyway. So you might as well look tough, and act like Bush’s brave policies are keeping us safe, because if something happens to prove you wrong then you’d be discredited one way or the other.
But it makes me wonder. Imagine if, God forbid, we had another major attack like 9/11. We know the Republicans’ thoughts turn first to politics, and we know they won’t simply be like “you were right, Republicans can’t be trusted on national security, give the other guys a shot.” Of course not. Surely they’d try their hardest to scapegoat anyone and everyone, just as you see Darrell blaming liberals and the UN for the fact that Hezbollah is not already disarmed. After all, if they can blame 9/11 on a random Clinton lawyer like Jamie Gorelick, they can blame anything on anyone.
So who, in this scenario, would the primary villain be? Would it be, for example, the seditious New York Times, which reveals our national security secrets? Would it be treasonous liberals who have emboldened the terrorist enemy with their careless talk? Would it be… President Clinton, after all these years? I’m curious who people think the primary scapegoat would end up being. It’s certainly more interesting to indulge this thought experiment then to go round and round the Darrell bush yet again.
Darrell
Yes, our anti-terrorism efforts have specifically excluded Hezbollah, Hamas, Chechens and others.. “Don’t touch those Hezbollah terrorists, only Al Queda” is what Bush ordered our military and homeland security to do. I remember when Bush said that
srv
Darrell is quick to point out that Clinton was all namby-pamby about AQ (as we all clearly remember, Republicans everywhere were vocally supporting invading Afghanistan in 1996 – unlike the Dems of today, they had a plan – NOT), but can’t point to a single thing Bush has done about Hezbollah.
No doubt, George has been furiously working for 6 years on vengence in our “blood feud” and we just don’t know about it yet because the NYT’s hasn’t leaked it yet.
Nutcutter
Well, I am developing an answer, but let’s look at the examples we have from current events:
Darrell says it’s libs, dems, and Clinton.
Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertsons said it was Americans in general.
Bill Frist will say it’s the doctors who didn’t give Terri a fighting chance to go from following the balloons, to signing her own insurance card.
Bill O’Reilly will say it’s Keith Olberman.
Rush Limbaugh will say it’s Hillary Clinton.
According to Al Franken, there’s reason to believe that the Antichrist, who, according to Falwell, is alive now, is actually Marvin Hamlisch.
Ted Kennedy thinks it’s Osama Obama.
Steve
Darn, I wish Kerry had run on a platform of “I’ll order our military and homeland security to deal with Hezbollah,” to show he was serious about fighting terrorism just like the Republicans.
So, I gather from your sarcasm that you think the 8 years we went with no attack on our soil, between February 1993 and September 2001, really tells us nothing about whether Clinton’s anti-terror policies were effective? Yes, I assumed that would be your argument. You’d have to be an idiot to argue that just because we weren’t attacked for 8 years, Clinton’s anti-terrorism policies were effective. And you’d similarly have to be an idiot to argue that just because Hezbollah hasn’t attacked us on our own soil to date, “the administration must be doing something right.”
I’ll give you a great example.
Yeah baby! Awesome tough talk… and yet we can’t even manage to give Israel our unqualified endorsement when they’re out to disarm a terrorist group that has killed Americans and which proclaims, “Death to America.” But the tough talk back in 2002 is working great… at least so far.
Nutcutter
Personally, I have always thought that it might be Gilbert Gottfried.
Gilbert said this in an interview:
I am Gilbert’s biggest fan. I like to think of myself as the Gilbert Gottfried of BJ, even though I am not Jewish.
Steve
By the way, since we’re taking a walk down memory lane talking about Clinton’s weak response to terrorism – which do you think was weaker, Clinton’s response to the Khobar Towers bombing, or Reagan’s response to the Beirut barracks bombing?
“We will not be cowed by terrorists” – followed by withdrawing all the Marines 4 months later! Yes, the great wingnut saint really showed the bad guys how Republicans do it. Seriously, if a Democrat had pulled this “cut and run” maneuver, not a day would go by that we wouldn’t still hear about it, 20 years after the fact.
Where have you gone, Saint Ronnie? The Middle East turns its lonely eyes to you.
Nutcutter
Darrell, my question is, given the way these events fit into the End Times predictions that I assume you live by, is this a good time to be planning a vacation?
Yours in rature, ppG.
Darrell
Even the TNR, which leans heavily Dem, acknowledges that Dems, particularly liberals, have become weak on national defense
Darrell
Unfortunately, Reagan’s response was weaker.. a stain on his record and a stain on our country.
Fortunately, Reagan toughened up and won the cold war, opposing liberals who were on the wrong side of history (as usual) screaming that Reagan’s tough talk would result in a nuclear shootout with the Soviets..
Andrew
He definately is.
“Forearms of a longshoreman!”
Pb
Fixed.
Pb
Gilbert Gottfried gets mad props from me for this:
I’ve never seen him funnier than that…
Steve
Ouch. It actually was too soon.
Pb
Steve,
Probably so, but if you can’t laugh anymore, then the terrorists have already won(r). But in any case, the really funny part of it was his performance of The Aristocrats, at that time, in that place.
skip
Darrell latest hilarity: “Even the TNR, which leans heavily Dem, acknowledges that Dems, particularly liberals, have become weak on national defense”
Where the hell have YOU been. The New Republic has been throughly neocon in the middle east for years. Their views on Israel correspond closely to your own. That is to say, they would happily nuke Iran while turning the Arab countries into buffer zones for Eretz Israel.
skip
“I think Darrell has made it pretty clear that Bush hasn’t done much to show we take the threat from Hezbollah seriously ”
Hezzbollah was born of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which Reagan opposed. Why would Hezzbollah attack us in the US . . .
unless we give them a reason to?
Steve
YMMV. I recall thinking it was too soon at the time, but I certainly didn’t want to march him off a pier like Bill Maher or anything. In hindsight, it all seems irrelevant anyhow.
If you haven’t seen it, here is the best evidence I can offer of the difficulty of comedy post-9/11.
Steve
Well, your definition of a “reason” might differ from the terrorists’ definition. The fact that they only attack us in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia doesn’t really give me that much comfort, particularly in light of the evidence that there are substantial numbers of Hezbollah agents in this country. I realize “Death to America” may seem like a trite slogan at this point, but when it’s a known terrorist group going around chanting it, I take it seriously.
skip
“particularly in light of the evidence that there are substantial numbers of Hezbollah agents in this country.”
I Iive in DÇ and have countless friends in Intel. None ever heard of “substantial numbers Hezzbollah “agents” in the US–unless you count Arab-Americans who supported charities tied to, among other things like soup kitchens, Hezzbollah’s efforts to push Israel out of Lebanon. Whatever you think of that, it is well short of assembling rockets and IEDs.
The marines killed by Hezzbollah in Beirut were targeted because they were seen (not entirely correctly in 1982) as supporters on the Israeli invasion. Then too, the battleship New Jersey was busy lobbing huge shells into the same parts of south Beirut being targeted by Israel today.
Query: If Iraeli’s friends want the Lebanese government to take control of southern Lebanon, don’t you think bombing the barracks of the regular army is an odd way to facilitate it?
skip
“After Israel is finished bombing the crap out of Lebanon, taking care of the terrorists there, they should move their sights over to Syria, and then Iran.”
Tacitus: “They created a desert and called it peace.”