Manufacturing War
The move by Reuters news agency to fire an Arab freelancer caught doctoring a photo of the Israeli bombardment of Beirut serves as a sobering revelation: liars, cheaters and trimmers are to be found not only among the ranks of politicians, political activists, teachers, cops, soldiers, bankers and bloggers but also -- gasp!-- among the media.
Can you imagine that?
Of course, news reporters and photographers have their own special, extra quota of social responsibility. We expect and demand more honesty from them than we do, say, from a mortgage broker or a U.S. Senator. But, alas, sometimes they fail us. Whether it's the case of this photog Adnan Haij who embellished the smoke plumes rising from a bombarded Beirut, or a Judith Miller who used The New York Times to as much as manufacture a war that is now rending the republic, the damage can be devastating.
Haij's transgression comes at a terrible time, providing easy fodder for those who wish to deny the recklessness with which Israel is currently comporting itself. So be it. Nothing we can do about that. Denial is an illness that resists almost any cure.
But this "photogate" incident does absolutely nothing to change the basic facts of the last 3 1/2 weeks. As lamentable and outrageous as this phishy-photo stuff might be, its exposure doesn't revive any of the 1000 or so people killed, repair the thousands wounded, re-house the million or so displaced, nor reverse the irreparable political damage that has been wrought. The dead remain as lifeless as they were before Reuters sacked this cheat.
Yes, this damnable, unethical photographer was among numerous other professionals who snapped some gruesome stills of last week's massacre at Qana. If some brave blogger would like to step forward from the comfort of his or her armchair and provide some solid evidence proving that incident was staged by Hezbollah, either ante up immediately or... try, at least, to show the minimum and decent respect that a houseful of dead women and children demand from civilized people.
Apparently, there will be many more opportunities to grieve in the days to come. The draft UN resolution concocted by the U.S. and France over the weekend shows little promise of ending the fighting. As The New York Times put it: "While it called for immediate cessations of 'all attacks' by Hezbollah and 'offensive military operations' by Israel, it did not require Israeli troops to leave southern Lebanon." Oh, sorry, we know we can't trust anything written in the Gray Lady. But it does seem rather obvious that a peace pact that codifies foreign occupation rarely has a chance of succeeding.
Perhaps further negotiation can improve and render viable this diplomatic dud. For the meantime, there's plenty of reason to remain pessimistic. The great fear, certainly one of my fears, is that what we are really watching is but a cynical kabuki, a prelude to a wider, regional war. I hope I am very, very wrong.
Those fears are shared, however, by Israeli commentator, Daniel Levy, one of Israel's lead negotiators in the Oslo peace process (though I am sure he will now be branded a Hezbollah symp). Writing in Monday's Haaretz, Levy warns his fellow Israelis that the "near-perfect symmetry of Israeli and American policy" in this latest war in Lebanon is destined to end in catastrophe. He worries that Israel (along with its neighbors) will pay a steep price for uncritically partnering with a neoconservative American administration which, in its deep and immeasurable ignorance, has been cheerleading this latest war. Says Levy:
Finding themselves somewhat bogged down in the Iraqi quagmire, the neoconservatives are reveling in the latest crisis, displaying their customary hubris in re-seizing the initiative. The U.S. press and blogosphere is awash with neocon-inspired calls for indefinite shooting, no talking and extension of hostilities to Syria and Iran, with Gingrich calling this a third world war to "defend civilization." Disentangling Israeli interests from the rubble of neocon "creative destruction" in the Middle East has become an urgent challenge for Israeli policy-makers. An America that seeks to reshape the region through an unsophisticated mixture of bombs and ballots, devoid of local contextual understanding, alliance-building or redressing of grievances, ultimately undermines both itself and Israel. The sight this week of Secretary of State Rice homeward bound, unable to touch down in any Arab capital, should have a sobering effect in Washington and Jerusalem...So what should be done, on both sides of the ocean? It is admittedly difficult for Israel to have a regional strategy that is out-of-step with the U.S. administration-of-the-day. However, the neocon approach is not unchallenged, and Israel should not be providing its ticket back to the ascendancy. A U.S. return to proactive diplomacy, realism and multilateralism, with sustained and hard engagement that delivers concrete progress, would best serve its own, Israeli and regional interests. Israel should encourage this. Israel may even have to lead, for instance, in rethinking policy on Hamas or Syria, and should certainly work intensely with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in encouraging his efforts to reach a Palestinian national understanding as a basis for stable governance, security quiet and future peace negotiations. A policy that comes with a Jerusalem kosher stamp of approval might be viewed as less of an abomination in Washington. Beyond that, Israel and its friends in the United States should seriously reconsider their alliances not only with the neocons, but also with the Christian Right. The largest "pro-Israel" lobby day during this crisis was mobilized by Pastor John Hagee and his Christians United For Israel, a believer in Armageddon with all its implications for a rather particular end to the Jewish story. This is just asking to become the mother of all dumb, self-defeating and morally abhorrent alliances.Perfectly well-stated. The sober words of a seasoned and wise Israeli diplomat. But this, apparently, is not a moment for the sage and the sober. It is rather the time of the blazing and raging furnaces of war.
August 6th, 2006 at 11:37 pm
The Levy piece seems to me hash of wishful thinking and clichés, that sad residue left after Israel’s early social democracy has undergone several half-lives of decay. Successive Israeli governments have been doing their best to undermine the Palestinian interlocutor, true, but whether since Oslo there ever was one to begin with who had both the power and the inclination to carry out a settlement is doubtful.
Israel’s recent policy is worse than a crime, it’s a mistake. To sacrifice so much in lives and treasure (on both sides) and reputation without changing the equation, is truly terrible.
“There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.”
The region, I fear, will for a time be “bound in shallows and in miseries.” And then the millenialist Ahmadinejad, who unlike John Hagee, is armed, gets the Bomb . . .
August 6th, 2006 at 11:59 pm
It’s incredible that Israeli leaders would think they could accomplish in a week or two what they failed to accomplish in 18 years, and against an enemy who is today much more sophisticated. And now they have made Hezbollah into heroes across the Muslim world. To paraphrase Brecht, those who would lead us into the abyss insist that governing is too difficult for ordinary people.
August 7th, 2006 at 2:30 am
Iran getting a nuke.
And Tel Aviv goes mushroom.
Marc Cooper will blame it on Bush, or the neo-cons, or bad Israeli policy, etc.
I would blame it on on Israel not achieving victory – peace, not a silly ceasefire.
Human rights in Hezbollahland, not a UN watched society of fear and Jew hate. As abridged by the NYT; see
Neo-neocon on Jew-hate (telivised words of a Sheik):
“The Jews are the Jews. Whether Labor or Likud the Jews are Jews. They do not have any moderates or any advocates of peace. They are all liars. They must be butchered and must be killed.”
And what, o Marc of so much accurate criticism about hopes which are dased by reality, what would you have Israel do?
You’re unwilling to honestly support their suicide or letting Iran nuke them — but willing to complain about their attempts at self-defense.
“Perhaps further negotiation” — hey, I like that. Keep negotiating while Israel tries to kill Hezbollah fighers … waits for a Shia people who want peace.
How many Shia have to be killed before they want to live in peace with Israel, rather than fight to the death? 1000 doesn’t seem to be enough.
It’s the Shia, and Mulsim willingness to kill that is the problem which you have no reasonable suggestion about.
August 7th, 2006 at 2:45 am
BTW, I’d say the USA paid a “steep price for pandering” to the anti-war folk: depend on the UN, support ceasefires and accept Jew hate, pay for terrorist regimes, act as if Iraq and Iran and Saudi governments, without free speech, are no more immoral than the US gov’t.
2500 – 3000 killed in the WTC.
Inaction has a price, too, when dealing with those who love to hate, who live to kill.
August 7th, 2006 at 2:53 am
The cretinism displayed by Liberty Dad would be laughable were it not for one thing: This mindless refusal or inability to weigh various choices other than fullscale warfare (which is not working and making things worse) is American and Israeli official policy. Israel had choices about how to respond to the current situation, and it made the wrong ones. We will be picking up the pieces for yet more decades to come. But don’t let that stop those who believe that thinking a situation through is being weak. Shows yet again that the greatest drug problem in the world today is testosterone.
August 7th, 2006 at 3:57 am
Yeah, Iran is obviously building a nuclear bomb to unleash on Israel, because we all know the Israelis have no nuclear weapons with which to “mutually assure destruction” and Iranians are the craziest MFs ever to inhabit the planet.
Incidentally, with a fervently pro-Iranian, pro-Hezbolloah faction poised to take over most of Iraq within the next year or two, I think it’s incumbent upon the U.S. to invade Bagdhad and establish a pro-Western democracy in order to keep a militant Shiite alliance – possibly nuclear armed in the near future – from tipping the balance of power in the Gulf. I’m sure Secy. Rumsfeld and Doctor Rice can come up with a plan.
Oh…nevermind.
(Michael, your not so subtle swipe at Floyd Landis proves that your long residence in enemy territory has taken its toll.)
August 7th, 2006 at 4:49 am
Disgrace of the YammerJammerMedia – this is how PJMedia chooses to headline the Reuter’s incident:
“Disgrace of the Mainstream Media: Reuters admits doctoring its own war photo of Beirut”
If ever there was proof that the amateur, hack editorial crew at YammerJammers are – far more than any professional news organization with the probable exceptions of Granma and FOX – essentially dishonest and disinterested in anything other than pushing their tired, purely ideological and essentially infantile version of “what’s wrong with the MSM”, it’s this kind of reductionist crap that deliberately and maliciously crops and “Photoshops” a plume of smoke over their version of an event at the institutional and editorial – as opposed to dubious individual “stringer” – level. Of course, the latter is clearly what happened at Reuters.
And I’ll bet we’ll never read anything at Simple Simon’s Site about the recent incident at Miami’s El Nuevo Herald, a prominent news outlet for the anti-Castro Cuban immigrant community, where a “news” picture of “Havana” was wholly constructed in Photoshop from two different images over the objections of the original photographer and with the full knowledge of editors…because that egregious bit of compromised “journalism” doesn’t fit the pre-fab, recycled narrative of paradoxically “leftwing/mainstream” media “lies” that prevails at YammerJammers and stokes their pretenses, their fevered dreams and an ultimately quite hilarious case of megalomania.
August 7th, 2006 at 5:47 am
“Michael, your not so subtle swipe at Floyd Landis proves that your long residence in enemy territory has taken its toll.”–reg
Perhaps so! But I’ve also learned that the boys with the biggest guns don’t always win. Israel will not defeat Hezbollah, and the US will not defeat the insurgency in Iraq–and not because those of us who oppose both adventures are kissing the asses of Hezbollah and Saddam, but because the world doesn’t work that way. Nor can the big mouths and self-righteous proclamations of the Liberty Dads of this world change that reality. Perhaps us critics should start pointing out that they, along with American and Israeli leaders, are the most effective enablers of the terrorists.
August 7th, 2006 at 6:06 am
“If some brave blogger would like to step forward from the comfort of his or her armchair and provide some solid evidence proving that incident was staged by Hezbollah, either ante up immediately or… try, at least, to show the minimum and decent respect that a houseful of dead women and children demand from civilized people.”
Marc,
I just got back from the Middle East, I am a blogger, and your suggestion that some blogger like me should go committ suicide in Hezbollahland digging up the real story is ludicrous. Most of my fellow milbloggers are showing a lot of respect for the dead, more than Hezbollah or the Palestinian Authority is for instance.
August 7th, 2006 at 6:13 am
If you want to talk about recklessness and disregard for the dead: Why hasn’t Hezbollah returned the two soldiers they stole?
Why did they dismiss the cease fire out of hand?
Why do they keep targeting civilians with inaccurate weapons that have no military value in the small numbers they are being used? (Katyushas are designed to be used at a rate of tens of thousands per hour against armored targets.)
Hezbollah can stop this war anytime by agreeing to behave in a civilized manner and taking a small fraction of responsibility for their actions.
August 7th, 2006 at 6:16 am
Marc, remember that your earlier post on the photo doctoring wasn’t part of an article on the wrongs of American policy with Israel but was very specific about the conservative reaction to photo-doctoring. Therefore, comments addressing the subsequent discoveries in that matter and addressing your specific remarks don’t have to go further into mideast atrocities to be valid and worthy to stand on their own.
———-
Guess what. I do expect journalists to have higher standards than those in most other jobs, as they can mislead and create problems much more far-reaching than a used car salesman in L.A. It’s interesting to speculate how different our hemisphere would be today if William Randoph Hearst had not concocted the the Spanish-American War. See Yellow Journalism
In previous comments of mine going wayyyyy back, I have said that journalists need a code of ethics and a professional board which legitimate journalists can accept and from which they can be evaluated. Until then, journalism represents an industry rather than a profession–and one that is dangerous if it cannot be trusted.
———-
On Israel-U.S. relations and our policies in the mideast, the talk of “alliance building, proactive diplomacy, realism (?) and multilateralism” have been tried but they do not work. Oh, you may get a temporary cease-fire, sort of like breaking up a school yard fight where both are glad to stop, but you don’t get a permanent resolution to the hate.
The interests of competing nations result in mutually-exclusive solutions, so we might as well go with the one that helps us the most if we have the ability to do that. Talk to do otherwise, such as multilateralism, is either to weaken the U.S. position or is idealism good only for papers but not foreign policy.
August 7th, 2006 at 6:37 am
Marccooper.com yesterday: you’re sick and disgusting for thinking there’s fakery going on.
Marccooper.com today: I told you there was fakery going on.
August 7th, 2006 at 6:59 am
Marc – I’ve been reading your posts on this latest conflict in the Middle East with great interest. Concerning the ongoing propaganda and misinformation battle, one thing does stand out:
You – rightfully, in my opinion – take to task those whose desire to be on the “righteous” side of the conflict leads them to minimize and rationalize any transgressions committed by the Israeli side (even leading some to call into question Israel’s responsibility in Qana – even though the Israeli government and the IDF have accepted their responsibility in the tragedy)
Yet among the biggest purveryors of these sick rationalizations are many of your colleagues at Pajama’s Media – Roger Simon and Instapundit especially come to mind. So what gives? Seems to me that, as one of PM’s token “liberals,” you indirectly give the peddlers of such twisted arguments the veneer of objectivity or fair-mindedness. Methinks perhaps you have been duped into collaborating with some of the most vile propaganda-mongers around, pushing for a constant and ever-expanding war.
Why not take some of your PM collaborators to task for their words and actions? Why not call them out by name? Otherwise, your critique rings a bit hollow.
August 7th, 2006 at 7:03 am
What I find interesting about the Israeli article is its congruence with what some of my friends in Israel have been telling me: America – far from trying to restrain Israel is saying, like Ledeen “Faster Please,” and trying to push Israel to provoke a continuation of the “Clean Break” strategy. For the first time in my memory, Israelis think America is pushing them too hard. Of course getting rid of Syria and Lebanon allows access to a certain pipeline. Israel doesn’t need it, but Uncle Sam does.
August 7th, 2006 at 7:03 am
As to the ridiculous “UN cease-fire Resolution”:
The European community has been offering sensible cease fire proposals all along but Bolton smothered them. No one should be surprised that the US proposal is one that only the Israeli’s can support (when they’re ready to).
And no, I’m not surprised that the Hez dismissed the “cease-fire”, it doesn’t respect the soveriegnty of Lebanon and is nothing more really than use of international troops to help the IDF in one of thier main goals of the conflict – the annexation of the Lebanese territory south of the Litani river.
August 7th, 2006 at 7:06 am
To Tom Grey – again, let us Yids speak for ourselves. 60 percent of Canadain Jews oppose Israeli policy. Many Israelis oppose Israeli policy, and given the many leftist American Jews, I’d say American Jews do in large numbersas well. I’m not gonna change my principled opposition to borderline ethnic cleansing because of what some Sheik has to say.
August 7th, 2006 at 8:01 am
as previously stated by Marc:
“*The solution to the Hezbollah problem is primarily political, not military. The only effective and realistic way to disarm Hezbollah resides in expanding the Shia political role in Lebanon itself. Like it or not, Hezbollah is deeply rooted in the 40% of the Lebanese population that is Shia. A final military solution to Hezbollah would require not a few more weeks of American-sanctioned attacks by Israel, but rather a campaign of extermination.
But that’s way too complicated a thought for either Tucker Carlson…or Condi Rice.”
what a pitiful bunch of tripe……….what i posted earlier needs constant repeating.
“Hezbollah, hamas, the plo etc are degenerate crime organizations whose currency is body parts. right you are, they don’t drop leaflets–they don’t have to. on too many occasions to count, they have said as clearly as can be spoken–their reason to exist is to kill every jew on the planet. what part of that don’t you and many others here not get. every jew. you do not negotiate with people like these. you permanently remove them from the general population by any and all means at whatever cost…..the longer we persist in rationalizing this fact away the greater the chance we’ll end up with a pogrom…….stop your bloviating and spend a quiet moment realizing that the leaders of iran, syria, hezbollah, hamas, al queda and several other groups and countries want to kill every jew on the planet. the “moral equivalency†that parades around here as thought is pathetic…… ”
Hussein Massawi, former leader of Hezbollah, summed it up very pithily: “We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you.”
August 7th, 2006 at 8:06 am
“And no, I’m not surprised that the Hez dismissed the “cease-fireâ€, it doesn’t respect the soveriegnty of Lebanon…”
And Hezbollah does?
August 7th, 2006 at 8:08 am
“you do not negotiate with people like these. you permanently remove them from the general population by any and all means at whatever cost”–neid.
Well, neid should be happy, that’s what Israel is trying to do–although, unfortunately for the Neandertal contingent in this debate, unsuccessfully. What now, oh big mouths of Zion?
August 7th, 2006 at 8:18 am
“And Hezbollah does?”
Hezbollah’s actions and program may or may not respect Lebanon’s sovereignty, but let’s be sure we understand that it is an indigenous movement within Lebanon despite its substantial support from Iran and Syria. It would not exist were it not for Israel’s 18 year occupation of the country, something that even most Israelis now see as a mistake–even if they are doing it again.
August 7th, 2006 at 8:27 am
“you do not negotiate with people like these. you permanently remove them from the general population by any and all means at whatever costâ€â€“neid.
Well, neid should be happy, that’s what Israel is trying to do–although, unfortunately for the Neandertal contingent in this debate, unsuccessfully. What now, oh big mouths of Zion?
you continue to make my point about pathetic tripe. in the old days you would have been a Vichy member in good standing. you are an enabler hiding behind phony humanitarism. so let me repeat because you are not getting it:
“Hezbollah, hamas, the plo etc are degenerate crime organizations whose currency is body parts. right you are, they don’t drop leaflets–they don’t have to. on too many occasions to count, they have said as clearly as can be spoken–their reason to exist is to kill every jew on the planet. what part of that don’t you and many others here not get. every jew. you do not negotiate with people like these. you permanently remove them from the general population by any and all means at whatever cost…..the longer we persist in rationalizing this fact away the greater the chance we’ll end up with a pogrom…….stop your bloviating and spend a quiet moment realizing that the leaders of iran, syria, hezbollah, hamas, al queda and several other groups and countries want to kill every jew on the planet. the “moral equivalency†that parades around here as thought is pathetic…… â€
August 7th, 2006 at 8:57 am
“let’s be sure we understand that it is an indigenous movement ”
I am sure I understand that Hezbollah is an indigenous movement. Though it arose in response to Israel’s invasion, let’s not pretend that it persists out of patriotic commitment to the defense of Lebanon, or in order to harass Israel with the aim of bringing about a two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict. It seeks to eliminate Israel and seems more than willing to embroil the rest of Lebanon in the bloody consequences. As you’ve mentioned, it makes no secret of its ties to other countries. Can we at least say that it has a nuanced view of Lebanese sovereignty?
August 7th, 2006 at 9:10 am
“Can we at least say that it has a nuanced view of Lebanese sovereignty?”
I think that’s a fair statement, although it would also be fair to say that Israeli actions in Lebanon (with American cheerleading) and in the Palestinian territories (again with American support) and American actions in Iraq have greatly encouraged an international rise in Islamic fundamentalist extremism that knows no borders. It cannot be defeated by military means, as the Israelis and Americans are now learning every day despite the bluster of ignorant outliers like neid. Those who are serious about peace in the Middle East need to be serious about forcing Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories and take away the extremists’ greatest recruiting tool.
August 7th, 2006 at 10:24 am
“want to kill every Jew on this planet”
Nonsense. And the boundaries are supposed to be the 1949 armistice lines, also known as the 67 borders. The whole Arab world has openly or tacitly accepted the existenec of Israel. Israel has not accepted the existence of the Arab world, and seems to believe that warfare will lead to behaviour modification. When in history has this ever taken place?
Patrick Neid sleeps fine with 750,000 internally displaced people and nearly 1000 deaths on his consience. Sounds like sweet dreams.
August 7th, 2006 at 10:25 am
Anyone complaining about Hezbollah’s respect or lack thereof of Lebanese sovereignty doesn’t have a leg to stand on if they believe that Israel has the right to disrespect Lebanese sovereignty.
August 7th, 2006 at 10:47 am
“Yet among the biggest purveryors of these sick rationalizations are many of your colleagues at Pajama’s Media – Roger Simon and Instapundit especially come to mind. So what gives? Seems to me that, as one of PM’s token “liberals,†you indirectly give the peddlers of such twisted arguments the veneer of objectivity or fair-mindedness. ”
Are you now or have you ever been a Pajamist?
Answer, Comrade Cooper!
August 7th, 2006 at 11:14 am
What I meant by existence, is autonomy. Does anyone honestly believe that behaviour modification by bombing has ever worked in hman history?
August 7th, 2006 at 11:38 am
I have my biases, of course, but things haven’t exactly been taking a Hezbollah bounce these days, have they? You have a Security Council resolution that could have been written in the Knesset, outrage over the various massacres have not been enough force Israel from using air strikes, the tenacity of the Hezbollah soldiers and the barrage of missiles reinforces the argument that Hezbollah was a genuine threat to Israel that had to be dealt with sooner rather than later, and the admitted exaggeration of civilian casualty figures reinforces the argument that civilian casualties are being exaggerated. I know there are people who will claim victory for Hezbollah if the earth continues to revolve around the sun (a proposition that Hezbollah may not in fact agree with), but if the end result is the re-creation of the security zone patrolled by international troops rather than the IDF, exactly how does Hezbollah come out ahead?
August 7th, 2006 at 11:42 am
Wait a minute, “Stevez”, based on your earlier post at 6:37 (confused though it was) I thought you were the one playing Vishinsky here…
August 7th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
“exactly how does Hezbollah come out ahead?”
Personally, I think anyone who thinks an “international security zone” is going to materialize on the southern border of Lebanon is smoking crack. I hope I’m wrong, but I doubt it. Hezbollah has strengthened it’s hand politically in Lebanon itself – a disastrous fact, but a fact nonetheless – and has seized the “imagination” of the Arab world. Since a large slice of political life in the Arab world appears to reside mostly in the realm of imagination, that’s no small thing. Think of the head of Hezbollah as the ambitious pastor of a megachurch who just managed to get his latest book foretelling the Rapture to the top of the bestseller list. Do you think it matters to him that it’s all bullshit ?
August 7th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
One more faked photo from Reuters….
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/184206.php
Apparently some journalists care more about making fake reports on the conflict, and their efforts to distort the truth don’t “revive any of the 1000 or so people killed, repair the thousands wounded….”
Maybe this fake reporting actually makes things worse. It inflames passions and wrongly increases public pressure on the U.S. and G.B. to adjust mideast policies to suit the phony reports rather than the real situation. The press, in effect, rallies the public for its agenda rather than that of the nations.
This irresponsibility of major media should be the issue rather than whether or not it gives fodder to conservatives. From MemoGate to now, it has gotten to the point where I have to check the bloggers who catch the lies before I can believe the articles.
(Is Annenberg’s Institute for Justice and Journalism going to say something about the injustices done by lying reporters and their bosses? There are lessons for the students here–and, it’s not to hate the conservatives who keep them honest.)
August 7th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
Folks: The great majority of Lebanon that kicked Syria out last year does not want Hezbollah, either. This band of Syrian-Iranian backed thugs are indeed holding the country hostage. They need to be removed. Yes, Israel may have taken their air raids too far, they may have created more Hez sympathy across the Arab world tuned into distorted Arab televison broadcasts, but fact is Hez is a menace that gets its way on intimidation. It was Syria’s main collaborator in Lebanon for years. Would not surprise me if they had something to do with the Harrir assasination either.
I know, I know, because I dare to denounce Hez I will be attacked as a, good grief, Israeli sympathizer by various deranged fringe leftists here. But before you jerk your knees in your morally hypocritical attacks, read this long and thorough and enlightening piece in the latest New York Times Magazine by a half-Lebanese who has lived in Lebanon since 1992. Someone who does not spend too much of his time masturbating in blog comment sections, but actually knows what he talks about.
Here are two excerpts, followed by a link to the article.
“The integration of an Islamic militia into the state attracted considerable attention at the time; optimists saw it as a model of how an Islamist party might be ‘‘moderated.’’ In reality, Hezbollah manipulated this process to safeguard its autonomy, even as it expanded its military capabilities under Syria’s approving eye.”
Civil war and assasination plots in Lebanon’s future:
“Hassan Nasrallah told Al Jazeera in an interview broadcast a week after the conflict began: ‘‘If we succeed in achieving the victory . . . we will never forget all those who supported us at this stage. . . . As for those who sinned against us . . . those who made mistakes, those who let us down and those who conspired against us . . . this will be left for a day to settle accounts. We might be tolerant with them, and we might not.’’
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/magazine/04lebanon.html
August 7th, 2006 at 12:38 pm
Woody…
Im afraid the IJJ will not be taking up your challenge. Most of our schedule for the rest of this year is already committed to our ongoing programs:
1) How to photoshop pictures and get fired
2) How to emulate Judith Miller and start an un-necessary war
3) The pros and cons of selling out to either IDF or Hezbollah
4) The Duke Cunningham/Jack Abramoff short course on lying and cheating.
5) General Fifth Column Strategies
You know, we’re the media. It’s hard to explain why an industry run by millionaires and with a disproportional Jewish representation is, secretly, socialist and anti-semitic.
August 7th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
“I know, I know, because I dare to denounce Hez I will be attacked as a, good grief, Israeli sympathizer by various deranged fringe leftists here.”
That’s pretty lame…
As for the rest, it’s not really particularly new and I don’t see how the article in question bolsters a case for Israel’s strategy. The question’s being raised here are whether or not the Israelis are making things better or worse. I doubt that things are going to get better, based on the latest Israeli moves, and that’s on the evidence that they managed to make things worse in the past when Sharon was allowed to run amok in Southern Lebanon. My view also seems to be born out substantially by the article you linked. What’s my solution ? Don’t have an easy answer, but I think that taking fairly extreme military measures that are going to inevitably increase the polarization and instability of Lebanon in the wake of the most hopeful – if fragile and tenuous – steps that had been taken there in decades was almost certainly a mistake. As was offering Hez an opportunity that has rather remarkably ginned up their “legitimacy” in the eyes of most Arabs, including many Lebanese who have no love for Nasrullah. This is a question of long-term strategy, not abstract morality. It’s as precarious for moderates in Lebanon as it is for the Israelis. I’m dead certain that the folks in charge in both Tel Aviv and our Beltway are going to prove once again that hubris isn’t enough.
August 7th, 2006 at 1:05 pm
The article by Michael Young is really a must read by all in here. Let us hope that his tail end sentences do not prove prescient: “Faced with [Nasrallah's] intransigence unable to peacefully settle their differences with Hezbollah, Lebanon’s other communities will likely rearm. The result may be a return to civil war. And if that happens, nothing will put Lebanon — let alone liberal Lebanon — back together again. “
August 7th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
This is totally off-topic, but in the wake of GMR recommending a New York Times article as a “must read”, I started to think that there might be some prospects for a bit of sanity within parts of the body politic that calls itself “conservative”. I found this article on the purge of a “dissident” at the Heritage Foundation relevant to what IMHO ails most of them (which, ironically, could be summed up by GMR’s catch-phrase of “true believers” and, more rudely, my own notions of a “Bush Cult” at the grassroots and a “Neo-Con Cabal” at the upper levels.)
http://www.tnr.com/docprint.mhtml?i=w060807&s=ackerman080706
August 7th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
“want to kill every Jew on this planetâ€
Nonsense. And the boundaries are supposed to be the 1949 armistice lines, also known as the 67 borders. The whole Arab world has openly or tacitly accepted the existenec of Israel. Israel has not accepted the existence of the Arab world, and seems to believe that warfare will lead to behaviour modification. When in history has this ever taken place?
Patrick Neid sleeps fine with 750,000 internally displaced people and nearly 1000 deaths on his consience. Sounds like sweet dreams.
more pathetic/delusional tripe, this time from mr cummings. let me repeat because you are clearly not getting it
Hezbollah, hamas, the plo etc are degenerate crime organizations whose currency is body parts…..on too many occasions to count, they have said as clearly as can be spoken–their reason to exist is to kill every jew on the planet. what part of that don’t you and many others here not get. every jew. you do not negotiate with people like these. you permanently remove them from the general population by any and all means at whatever cost…..the longer we persist in rationalizing this fact away the greater the chance we’ll end up with a pogrom…….stop your bloviating and spend a quiet moment realizing that the leaders of iran, syria, hezbollah, hamas, al queda and several other groups and countries want to kill every jew on the planet. the “moral equivalency†that parades around here as thought is pathetic…… â€
Hussein Massawi, former leader of Hezbollah, summed it up very pithily: “We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you.â€
Speaking at a graduation ceremony in Haret Hreik, Nasrallah announced on October 22, 2002: “if they all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.”[37][38] The New York Times interprets this as “genocidal thinking”[39]. Michael Rubin qualifies his Nasrallah’s goal as genocide too, quoting Nasrallah ruling out “co-existence with” the Jews or “peace”, as “they are a cancer which is liable to spread again at any moment.”[40] The Age quotes him like so: “There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel.”[41]
August 7th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Neid is a perfect specimen of the morons who think that the best way counter to manichean ideology is more manichean ideology.
Absurdist…infantile…delusional…but worst of all, pathetically ineffectual. A Five Star General among the Keyboard Kommandos.
August 7th, 2006 at 3:37 pm
Mr. Neid – I haven’t read the rest of your argument, but you’re not gonna get very far if you label your interlocuters delusional and pathetic. This is why I don’t argue these issues. Sleep well.
August 7th, 2006 at 4:01 pm
Mr. Jcummings, might I suggest that both sides rachet back the comments on commenters and spend more time on commenting on ideas…
Hell, I’m as guilty as the next guy, but liberals/leftists/progressives (what ever the catchword of the day is) have almost never (with the exception of Marc Cooper) made any conservative welcome here. It’s almost as bad as liberals/leftists/progressives are treated at LGF.
I’m just sayin’…….
August 7th, 2006 at 4:20 pm
reg,
yeah reg, you are a real complex guy. tell it to them when you get on the train……..
to repeat
Hussein Massawi, former leader of Hezbollah, summed it up very pithily: “We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you.â€
Speaking at a graduation ceremony in Haret Hreik, Nasrallah announced on October 22, 2002: “if they all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.â€[37][38] The New York Times interprets this as “genocidal thinkingâ€[39]. Michael Rubin qualifies his Nasrallah’s goal as genocide too, quoting Nasrallah ruling out “co-existence with†the Jews or “peaceâ€, as “they are a cancer which is liable to spread again at any moment.â€[40] The Age quotes him like so: “There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel.â€[41]
August 7th, 2006 at 4:40 pm
I’ll be honest with you GMR. I have made a point of not just sticking, but turning, the knife when debating with “conservatives” in recent years because Newt Gingrich deliberately determined to up the rhetorical ante about a dozen years ago – institutionalizing “negative words” as a means of “control – and the right-wing, nearly lock-step, began to belch forth the Limbaughs, Coulters, etc. – arguably reducing Gingrich’s memos ad absurdum – and turned them into movement rock stars. I’ve also watched the launch of FOX News, which whatever you choose to believe, is a hack, hatchet-job approach to the journalistic project. (Think Michelle Malkin guesting on Bill O’Reilly, if you can’t grasp that there’s a problem.) Meanwhile, we were getting accused of being moonbats and sectarian leftists because of…what ?… NPR and Bill Moyers.
The polarizing tone for contemporary political discourse was set, strategically and intentionally, by the loonytoons conservatives in the ’90s. When one of your more “polite” intellectuals can write a book about liberals and Democrats entitled “The Party of Death”, my attitude is F…. You and yours. Sorry, but you wanna bar fight ? I’m more than willing. Go plead with Misha to ratchet down the rhetoric and when I see it happen, maybe I’ll think about it. That said, I also at least try to back up my vitriol with some substance. I think I generally do. I’m not a kneejerk believer in ideology. But I hold some core values and beliefs very dear and I’ll fight like hell to rescue them from being trampled on by dishonest crap merchants that pervade the right – from the talk radio crowd to phonies like Horowitz to the bigots of the “religious” right or the Neo-Con theologians. I believe firmly in substantive argument, but I’m well past always being polite about it after the Gingrichization of politics. Even the “Democrat Party” trope gets on my nerves and as long as it’s standard issue among your congressional faction, I’ll assume it’s still bare knuckle time. As for being “welcome here”, my assumption is that you’re as welcome as you make yourself. I don’t assume I’m particularly welcome in the minds of many, including some who agree with me. What concerns me is, am I effective in putting forth my point of view ? You can argue I’d be more effective if I was more polite, but frankly I doubt it. I’ve had a lot of polite argument with people, left and right, here. But when I sense that someone’s just trying to transplant the far-right echo chamber and skid by on their hollow cliches and random abuse of liberals, I get cranky. Sometimes, very cranky. I’d rather cross the line and be seen as a bit of an asshole than play it like Alan Colmes.
August 7th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
Its fun to watch all the armchair fighters here willing to go down to the last Israeli/Shia/Sunni to prove their point. Israel will not prevail for a simple reason. In order to root out Hezbollah it would take an Iwo Jima like campaign with resulting casualties and the IDF and Israeli public will not accept that. So they will bounce the rubble some more while Bush and Company vacation in Crawford and pull weeds. Oh well lets all quote Chairman Mao – lord knows he makes as much sense as the sayings of Chairperson Condi!
August 7th, 2006 at 4:43 pm
“tell it to them when you get on the train…”
What amazes me is the supreme lack of any cultural, moral or political confidence in the real-world, long-term supremacy and vitality of liberal democracies that you Chicken Little pants-wetters display.
August 7th, 2006 at 4:51 pm
Incidentally Neid, could you please copy and paste that graduation speech one more time. I get all worked up every time I read scary, maniacal graduation speeches.
August 7th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
reg,
you still don’t get it. i know this is difficult for you.
“Hezbollah, hamas, the plo etc are degenerate crime organizations whose currency is body parts…..on too many occasions to count, they have said as clearly as can be spoken–their reason to exist is to kill every jew on the planet. what part of that don’t you and many others here not get. every jew. you do not negotiate with people like these. you permanently remove them from the general population by any and all means at whatever cost…..the longer we persist in rationalizing this fact away the greater the chance we’ll end up with a pogrom…….stop your bloviating and spend a quiet moment realizing that the leaders of iran, syria, hezbollah, hamas, al queda and several other groups and countries want to kill every jew on the planet. the “moral equivalency†that parades around here as thought is pathetic…… â€
August 7th, 2006 at 5:12 pm
I am all for a political settlement in the land of Hezbollah, but unless Syria and Iran suddenly turn into peacenicks, I am skeptical of whether it will work. And then there is the mafia-like nature of the Hez whom are sure to ratchet up their assasinations once the agreement is sealed. In other words, not much is going to change except that this time there will be more international troops policing south Lebanon and hence more ducks for Hezbollah to shoot down. I am sure the next ralllying cry of resistence will be to oust the UN so they can re-dig the Hez rat holes in the south and continue their mad plans of wiping out Israel.
And I don’t think it will take Iwo Jima-like fighting to push Hez out of southern Lebanon. I think the Hez is overrated. Yes, they will alway keep shooting away to pester whatever foreign soldiers are there to enforce a de-Hezbollah zone, but the rockets will not be there to fire into Israel. Though, this is not to be interpreted as my vote for more military madness — definitely we need and already are going to go down the political route with its obvious weaknesses as pointed out above.
No, my point is/was not that Israel had the “right strategy,” as Reg, like so many others here typically do, incorrectly foists upon my opinions, but that the Hez needs to be rooted out. Period. The cause is just. That said, if Israel had not forced the issue am not sure anybody would have done anything considering they weren’t doing anything. The progress in Lebanon over the past year was a false progress. The entire country is and was being held hostage, first by Syria-Hez, now by Hez. The opposition has no choice but to accomodate Hez if they don’t want to be the subject of the next car bomb blast. Its a complicated problem, indeed.
August 7th, 2006 at 5:19 pm
Hey Roper this is one of your goons. Kender:Take him.
Wow, all the time I haven’t been to this slimy nest and still mark is a dork.
Mark, wanna get some coffee and discuss global warming? We can sit outside in the wonderful weather up on Foothill Blvd (I know a great place not too far from you) and have a double decaf latte-chino with half and half and a twist and just chat away the day.
This is a serious offer.
See, I am also a “scientist”, and I am studying Moonbatticus Californicus, the smaller and uglier cousin of Moonbatticus Francisconius.
To date their has been no scientist that has been able to stand being so close to a Moonbattticus Californicus long enough to get vital measurements, and theories in the community regarding the apparent trait of all Moonbatticus species breeding for weakness is one I would really like to take the time to explore.
Are your biological parents still alive? Or have you already eaten them in the well known Moonbatticus coming of age ritual better known as “rebellion?” If they aren’t alive can you provide images of them that you didn’t draw with a crayon in a late night booze induced fit of remorse?
We would like to start a study comparng the weakening that occurs with each generation.
I have asked my colleagues about your picture and we are of the opinion that you may have reached the final stage of weakness, judging by the extremely beady eyes and the hair that seems to have made an attempt at crawling away from your face.
In closing let me say that you appear to be a perfect example of the inherent weakness of Moonbatticus being left alone to breed on their own and I look forward to sitting down with you for coffee.
Comment rejected
August 7th, 2006 at 5:25 pm
Paste it one more time. But in bold type and caps. I’m as stupid as you are, so if you keep shouting louder and repeating yourself, sooner or later I’m gonna comprehend that you’re the reincarnation of Sun Tzu, von Clausewitz and Einstein.
On an equally absurd front, Charles Johnson of Little Green Meatballs has now decided NOT to quit while he’s ahead in the quest for evidence of faked smoke in the work of fired Reuters stringer Adnan Hajij. He’s upped the ante to claim that the entire photo in question was a faked version of a previous photo of the city taken by another photographer on July 26th and that the entire scene of the bombing and smoke doesn’t exist at all. He’s gone from winnning a round – justifiably – to showing his ass as a marginal wingnut who runs an over-the-top echo chamber for the Keyboard Kommando set.
August 7th, 2006 at 5:27 pm
First part of that last comment was, of course, to Neid.
August 7th, 2006 at 5:30 pm
And as the schoolmarm must endlessly remind you: the basic standards of factual accuracy hit the skids as never before in the no holds barred, no gutter untraveled hits on Clinton that continued right into the “war on Gore” the media waged in election 2000. You want to know how a clown fronting for far right nitwits got to the White House? It was during this period, while most left progressives looked on and giggled. Where’s the mainstream gridlock Alex Cockburn promised us in the pages of “Counterpunch” after the Bush Victory he welcomed?
I’ve got to laugh when I hear Woody’s pals pretend to hate Maureen Dowd, who created whole scenes out of whole clouth featuring Clinton and Gore and won awards for reporting. We all should have such enimies.
August 7th, 2006 at 6:53 pm
“the Hez needs to be rooted out. Period. The cause is just.”
The need may exist and the cause may be just, but unless you can come up with a strategy that doesn’t do more harm than good – which I have a deep suspicion the current Israeli response to Hez snatching two IDF members at the border of massive airstrikes into Beirut and beyond qualifies – you’re just muttering truisms. Frankly, I don’t have a cure all strategy. But it sounds like you aren’t convinced that you do either. I’m of the opinion that this has more than likely made things worse for Israel and Lebanon and the region over the long run. Mainly because it looks to have weakend the Lebanese moderates. Not that the Israelis appear to give much of a shit. Hope I’m wrong. As far as I’m concerned, our own dependency on the region is a fucking disaster. The whole place is a nest of crazies who I’d be more than happy to let sort out their manifest, malingering problems on their own dime. And our ties there bring out the worst in us – cowering crackpots like Neid being the perfect example at the mundane level. If the U.S. could ever be an “honest broker” for decent elements in the Middle East, I’m afraid that time is past and may never be recovered. Again, I hope I’m wrong, but I doubt it. Just don’t ask me to fervently wave the Israeli battle flag with one hand and the al-Maliki would-be regime’s with the other. The cognitive dissonance required to shut down any glimmers of reality and join these cheerleading factions is too much for me.
August 7th, 2006 at 7:27 pm
Here’s another interesting piece by Michael Young from today’s Slate. I’m not sure exactly what to make of it, but he clearly has an inside view of the crisis in Lebanon that few other Western journalists do.
http://www.slate.com/id/2147260/?nav=ais
August 7th, 2006 at 7:36 pm
What I find most instructive about this whole discussion is that it has revolved around criticism versus support of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
Both sides can score valid points. And to that end, most of the arguments for and against have been well covered and elaborated upon. But what about the other 2 parties in this conflict ? Does anybody ever do any analysis on their current stance?
Should the Lebanese government stop its current policy of inactivity and passive appeasement of Hezbollah ? Should it at least take a side in the conflict ? Regardless of which side it takes. It could on one hand, support Hezbollah with logistics and with its military, or on the other hand, disarm Hezbollah and police Southern Lebanon.
What about Hezbollah themselves ? Let me put forward a question which sounds ludicrous but should be asked – How can Hezbollah work towards a peaceful settlement ?
August 7th, 2006 at 7:53 pm
I see some in here have learned their lesson(s) well, some might as well go back to watching Daffy Duck run away from an evil Sheik – ah, brings back childhood memories…. All the while you simply fail to understand methodologies, you embrace every little piece of senseless trash that you have been exposed to – but have never learned the lesson that those who are ripe for exploitation are always villified. This is a systemic process (not a conspiracy), it takes place in every country – it’s a political mainstay, and it becomes exceedingly dangerous in the hands of a so-called superpower.
You run around to blogs like little loonies, waving your hands furiously, look at Iran! No one asks, “how did it get that way?” Look at the Palestinians! No one asks, “why are they so upset?” Look at Hizbollah! No one asks, “where did they come from, why are they acting this way?” So, like the national Blurb gang you run around spewing what you are told – “they are religious fanatics – they are backward people – they are racists – they are all scum – everyone with a turbin is a suspected terrorist!”
Why don’t you care and why are your answers so blatantly far off the mark? Well, along with swallowing all the horseshit you are told, you live in your own little world. You feed off ingrown information which is nothing but the line of those who use you so well. “I’ve got my house, I’ve got my car, I am gainfully employed, i am in the process of consuming and entertaining myself to death – what else is there to life?” Yes, you have everything you need – so thank God for for your “blessings, and this wonderful country, and fuck everyone else upon whose backs and blood this largess comes from, screw the sand niggers!”
Some of you are more subtle, more refined in your means of self-deception, but you believe the same bullshit – just a little more sophisticated, perhaps you have wrapped yourself in the tattered covering of “just cause,” but you are just a ignorant and unfortunately dangerous. Why? Because you give the green light to all those assholes you have put in office – dosen’t matter what flavor – who are going to continue to fuck the world, God bless America! finis
August 7th, 2006 at 7:59 pm
Wow reg really? I was waiting for that move. So predictable.
August 7th, 2006 at 8:03 pm
Lebanon should kick Hezbollah the hell out of there. That’s an opinion on a solid footing. If they are Lebanon, that would be a problem.
August 7th, 2006 at 8:19 pm
I think the reason the argument has revolved around support or criticism of Israel is because they are obviously our long-term, close allies in the region. It’s sort of a given, unless you’ve never had a scorecard or bought your ticket in the middle of the movie. I take it as a given that Hezbollah are bad actors who have, from my seat, an essentially perverse agenda. Asking how they could work toward a peaceful settlement is like asking how Jerry Falwell could do more to support the gay agenda. The best one can hope for is some sort of neutralization or sidelining over the long term. Which doesn’t necessarily mean the best strategy is to try to kill most of them ASAP and treat their supporters as fair game for air strikes. As for the Lebanese government, I think the suggestion that it might support Hezbollah militarily completely ignores recent Lebanese history, as does the suggestion that they could simply disarm the Hez militants in the current fairly fragile condition.
Virgil – do you think that there is a chance in hell the U.S. is likely to do much in the Middle East, given the history and the nature of our “interdependence”, other than fuck things up and make matters worse. I used to hope not, but at this point we’ve stirred up so much muck and mire, without even achieving anything I can recognize as in our own national security interests – and we’re so stuck in a near-pathological symbiosis with an Israel that, despite a lot of nice rhetoric, long ago allowed religious nuts and sons of Jabotinsky to take the country hostage – that I’m more than willing to play something akin to the Pat Buchanan card. We’ll probably all be better off.
The best thing that could possibly happen to the Middle East over the long term would be the beginning of the end of the petrol economy. I would venture that devil’s pact with the West is at the root of most of their worst problems. No reason to develop a competent entrepeneurial class that would drive authentic economic and political modernization from the inside when a bunch of corrupt sheiks can afford to build empires on “free” money and use orthodox Islam as some sort of cultural Krazy Glue.
August 7th, 2006 at 8:37 pm
reg, do you get paid to make all these comments and do research or do you actually have time for a real job? …Not being snotty but just curious. You should put your intellect to good use.
August 7th, 2006 at 8:55 pm
“I have made a point of not just sticking, but turning, the knife when debating with “conservatives†in recent years because Newt Gingrich deliberately determined to up the rhetorical ante about a dozen years ago”
Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?
Yeah, those were more civil times, just ask paranoid old Tricky Dick, everybody loved him too. And Reagan! Nobody ever said anything to suggest he was an idiot ready to nuke us all.
The piety of that oft-heard canard– “I’m only calling Bush a Nazi moron fundamentalist idiot Halliburton puppet because YOU lowered the intellectual content of the debate”– is sickmaking.
August 7th, 2006 at 8:56 pm
Yeah sticky business indeed sir. As always spot on commentary.
August 7th, 2006 at 9:01 pm
Levy is totally right. This war is not only a disaster for Israel militarily – showing that, after all, it is vulnerable, against no more than 4,000 militia men at that – and economically. Worse, Israel is also in danger of becoming more and more the pet of the beady eyed Far-Side Right. This isn’t good – Israel depends heavily on the U.S. for money, which is the only way they have been able to finance the kind of oversized military force they have and settle their settlers all over the West Bank and give the country the veneer of Western affluence. If Israel does stop becoming an ecumenical cause in the U.S., they aren’t going to have anybody rushing them weapons next time, and their welfare payments from this country might be downsized. If Israel had to actually pay for its weapons and its policies, it would be a much more peace-seeking country. Who, after all, we pay for all the infrastructure to keep the money losing settler movement going?
Those Iraqis who allowed the rightwing fraternities, Fox News, the AIA, the White house, the blogs, to rush them as though they were brothers have all found out the hard way that the right is the kiss of death – shunned in Iraq, and shunned in Europe, and dropped by all the rightwing power centers when they proved inconvenient. This won’t happen to Israel for a long time, yet, in the U.S. – but the first cracks have appeared. Sure, it might seem like a good policy, to embrace the greasy evangelicals and the keyboard belligerants, but the bottom line for those people is that other people have to sacrifice for their road rage. Plus, is it a great idea for Israel to depend on an alliance with a group of people who believe that it is a good thing for the Jews to either be wiped out or convert, so that Christ can come again?
August 7th, 2006 at 9:04 pm
“Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?”
Yeah, I remember when Gene McCarthy delivered those lines in the Senate…
Oh, yeah. Poor Nixon. If ever there was a victim of incivility.
As for the ’60s, it’s telling that the lack of civility you choose to remember doesn’t start some years earlier with the Southern mobs who screamed their racist hate at children .
Yeah, liberals are a meanspirited lot who’ve consistently degraded political discourse.
Get a clue…
August 7th, 2006 at 9:35 pm
“liberals/leftists/progressives (what ever the catchword of the day is) have almost never (with the exception of Marc Cooper) made any conservative welcome here.”
Speak for yourself. I think if you were interested in honest assessment (rather than self-righteous whining) you’d come to a rather different conclusion: lots of people come here with very different views, and some damn good debate goes on–inspired, of course, by Marc’s insightful writing. There’s a reason why Marc gets hundreds of posts every day: he writes damn well, and attracts a diverse readership interested in discussing matters important to all of us.
So, rather than insult your fellow commenters, you might find it more meaningul to add something informative to the discussion.
August 7th, 2006 at 9:39 pm
Reg, you’re too far up your own cortex to realize you’re making my point. The language has always been debased– Lincoln or FDR would have LOVED to have been called some of the things Clinton was called. It’s the fake piety (all was sweetness and light until Newt, but because of him I’m free to make Joe Lieberman into a darkie) that’s disgusting.
August 7th, 2006 at 10:02 pm
I’ll defer to you in the fake piety dept.
August 7th, 2006 at 10:44 pm
“reg, do you get paid to make all these comments”
Yeah.
August 7th, 2006 at 11:00 pm
Your anti-Semitism is showing Marc. The fighting will end when Hezbollah hands back it’s hostages and stops rocketing Israel. That happens with either a long seige warfare starving them out or a major military power disarming Hezbollah by force which means Iwo Jima style combat of which no one in the world will sign up for. Israel won’t stop fighting with rockets raining down on major cities. [I know you know this. Only anti-Semitism can explain the double standard and credulity.]
1. The Israeli Peace Movement is dead. The “Peace Mothers” who agitated for withdrawal from Lebanon now see that as a mistake. Israel withdrew from Lebanon and got acts of war:
Invasion of their territory, murder of 8 of their soldiers, kidnapping of another two, and rocket attacks that have not ceased on civilian targets
[I realize that Jewish lives are of no import, to sophisticated men of the Left such as yourself, but there it is. An inconvenient fact that even the hard-Left in Israel understands that Muslims world-wide, want to wipe them out; Hezbollah has never wavered from this; and Iran is intent on making it happen very soon. All to the general applause of Europe, the Left, and of course major parts of the Democratic Party. Why do you think even hardend Democrats like Speilberg, Katzenberg, Haim Saban are donating money to Arnold (and are likely to dump on Dhimmi Tony?) Spielberg hates Israel as much as you do, but even he can see reality in the form of a Katyusha or the reality of the Seattle Jihad.]
2. Hezbollah is sworn by their own statements to kill all Jews everywhere. In this they are joined by Iran and really when you get down to it Muslims (most of them) everywhere. There were 100,000 people, mostly Muslim, in London agitating for Israel’s destruction..
3. When a nation (Lebanon) makes war on another nation, it should not be shocked when it gets … war in return. I and most Americans feel the same amount of sympathy towards Lebanon as was felt to the Germans of Hamburg or Berlin. They are reaping the fruits of an aggressive war they themselves chose.
4. Olmert far from being an advocate of war, sought to avoid it at every step and has as his Defense Minister a former Union Leader. All Lebanon has to do to stop Israel bombing them is to:
Return the hostages
Disarm Hezbollah
Stop rocketing Israel
Pretty simple and straightforward.
[But of course, Lefties hate Jews and feel they should all just die. To make Muslims happy. Something like 47% of Kossacks polled felt Israel was the source of all human misery in the world, and most Leftists and Dems dont' think Israel has the right to exist. See the Kos postings on "Why Israel Shouldn't Exist" etc.]
The “War” in Israel has unheard of levels of support. Even Labor is in support of this war of defense against unprovoked aggression. Israel is a small country where EVERY casualty is felt, far from “war-mongering” their policy has been: withdraw (Lebanon), withdraw (Gaza) and withdraw (planned, West Bank, now dead). Sharon’s whole plan was to deal with the lack of a Palestinian Partner for Peace by giving them their own state to the point of using the Israeli Army to uproot Gaza settlements. Only a died in the wool anti-Semite would discount the enormous pressures on even Sharon to find any other solution that war at considerable domestic political cost. But constant rocket attacks and raids over the borders of Gaza and Lebanon have convinced Israelis that they are in the end stages of a conflict for national survival.
They are not over-concerned with casulties of an enemy intent on wiping them all out, every last one. Nor is Vichy France, or Deutschland, or the (Nazi) Pope’s “goodwill” figuring into their plans over-much. Even in all the fighting French Jews continue to flee France for … Israel.
Let’s face it, the Left, Europe, all of the Muslim World, wants nothing more than the Final Solution. The Left as it hates Jews as much as Muslims, and finds it a cheap and easy bit of “solidarity,” with phony romantic notions of some tribal thug somewhere. Europe because hey it’s Europe, and the Muslim World because Israel by existing points out their failure to produce much of anything but Jihad.
[That Israel has produced: world class security software (Checkpoint firewall), low-radiation mammograms, stem cell research, and major cell phone technology only makes this worse. It's the Arabs who are the oil ticks depending on our support and the Israelis who actually make stuff the world buys.]
Israel is (easy for anyone with eyes to see) trying to minimize it’s own casualties because once again it’s a small country, and a democracy. Soldiers relatives vote. So too bad for Lebanon. By failing to disarm Hezbollah they got the war they thought they’d just “excuse.” Because hey the world would tell Jews, “you have no right to exist other than what we allow you to have.”
Israel’s strategy is: A. cut off communications and supply to Hezbollah in the South (Hezbollah is dug in well like the Japanese in the Pacific, but need to eat and drink like everyone else); B. punish Lebanon for coddling/supporting a paramilitary / religious group attacking Israel; C. kill as many Hezbollah people as they can while minimizing their own losses to the absolute lowest possible. This isn’t ideal but once again it’s a small country that can’t take many casualties and is facing a war forced on them. They don’t want occupation, and don’t want a wider war with Syria. Israel wants to be left alone and is making it’s point about what happens when they are not left alone. This is why they are deliberately not occupying much territory. Why they have accepted cease-fire proposals.
Israel is attempting seige warfare to starve out Hezbollah. They don’t want their soldiers killed. They know Hezbollah means to kill them ALL and next year it will be Katyushas or Frog 5s or Badrs or what have you with VX or nukes. Iran using Hezbollah (to the general applause of the Left) as it’s own Herman Goerring Division.
But hey Marc finds it more romantic to sympathize with the Party of God and suffers objectively IMHO from the Media’s built-in anti-Semitism. No other reason fits the double standard (Israel alone has no right of self-defense, Israel alone must react “proportionately” when for example no one in NATO had rockets falling on their cities when they bombed Serbia, Israel alone is responsible for all deaths while Hezbollah is not, Israel alone is held to a higher standard than China with Tibet, or Russia with Chechnya, or Indonesia with East Timor). You are not blind Marc. You are simply part and parcel with Mel Gibson. Enjoy the company.
Anti-Semitic Media moments of the day: the lunatic with the new book out bashing Bush’s Iraq War conduct (admittedly not hard to do) believes that Israel is deliberately not targetting Hezbollah’s rockets to “look good” and have “sympathetic casualties.” A CNN anchor stupidly suggests Israel is choosing not to shoot down Katyushas (low trajectory rockets with a flight time of less than a minute, you do the math). Protocols of the Elders of Zion time.
No one is that stupid not even a media monkey (and yeah Reuters knew the Hajj photos all 932 odd pulled ones were as phony as hell). The media is objectively anti-Semitic. They never ask Hezbollah about it’s objectives to (as stated in Arabic) to “kill all the Jews everywhere.”
The media is pathetic. Objectively anti-Semitic and/or cowardly.
[And yes Marc if your anti-Semitism hadn't blinded you, the Qana photos are obviously staged, the bodies paraded around by Mr. Green Helmet, Hezbollah's main PR man who appears whenever civilians are killed to parade their bodies around for the anti-Semitic Press in incident after incident going back to 1996. Powerline and MyPetJawa have a good roundup of the other obvious fakes, including the added flares in a photo Reuters admitted were faked (Israeli Jet), the same woman posed in front of two bombed out houses, the same trashed car on two different bridges and so forth. Hell the Lebanese Prime Minister got caught in another lie ... "a massacre" of 40 people is really one dead. Yes innocent civilians were killed at Qana. The photos were as staged as a Bush photo-op too. If the Media were not up to it's eyeballs in anti-Semitism they'd have called it as well.]
Sure Israel has killed people, including innocent civilians. The way for Lebanon to avoid this is to follow what Egypt, Jordan, and even Syria (directly) have learned … don’t make War on Israel. Then as a small country they won’t make war on you if for no other reason than they cannot afford to. Yeah it’s sad that Lebanese civilians die. That’s the price of war.
“Yeah, Iran is obviously building a nuclear bomb to unleash on Israel, because we all know the Israelis have no nuclear weapons with which to “mutually assure destruction†and Iranians are the craziest MFs ever to inhabit the planet.” — such comments are … reg is not stupid. He’s well aware that Ahmadinejad has publicly said he can “win” a nuclear war against Israel because Iran has a population of 75 million. And last weekend at the OIC to thunderous applause re-iterated his decision to “wipe out Israel.”
Reg is not stupid. He knows this. He’s just entirely comfortable with another Final Solution. How sad, that the Left went from “Never Again” to “it’s only Jews” in less than sixty years.
Addendum: You all on the Left may not be interested in War with Iran (as Bush is singularly uninterested to the point of Clintonian avoidance, more and more Bush looks like Cllinton’s bad echo without the bubble economy). However Iran is very interested in War with you. VDH was right this is the 1930′s all over again. Iran wants war, no one (sensibly) in the West wants it, but it’s unavoidable since Iran is determined to wipe out Israel and a few US cities as well (Ahmadinejad has threatened this).
August 7th, 2006 at 11:11 pm
Jim Rockford… put a lid on your BS and clamp it down real, real tight. We at least TRY to run a clean ship here and your extrapolation that I (or anyone else who dissents from your view) is a supporter of Hezbollah AND an Anti-Semite is deeply, deeply offensive and absolutely unacceptable
.
My mother\’s family name is Sosnovsky and I have more than one relative who was snuffed out in Europe because of it. By a hair I wasn\’t named Mutel Ezra instead of Marc Errol. By age six I could read and write Hebrew thanks to private tutors.
So your lecturing me on the value of Jewish life is just a little bit repugnant and WAY WAY WAY WAY beyond the pale. I rarely feel as defensively Jewish as I do in this moment confronted with your outlandish bigotry, be it more political than religious.
I expect you to retract your outrageous ad hominem. Either learn to disagree with those from who you differ in a civilized and respectful way or keep your thoughts to yourself.
Your characterization of the media as objectively anti-semitic and as populated by monkeys reveals a yawning, repulsive ignorance that would be much better kept a private matter rather than broadcast over a blog. I\’d keep an eye on that.
Awaiting your immediate, unconditional apology and retraction…
August 7th, 2006 at 11:32 pm
Patrick Neid has repetively posted on this thread, reminding all of us that Islamo-Facists are truly, Islamist, Facist and genocidal, according to their own words:
“Hussein Massawi: “We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you.â€
Nasrallah announced on October 22, 2002: “if they all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide”
“Michael Rubin qualifies Nasrallah’s goal as genocide too, quoting Nasrallah ruling out “co-existence with†the Jews or “peaceâ€, as “they are a cancer which is liable to spread again at any moment.â€
“The Age quotes him like so: “There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel.â€
It is August, 2006, 4 years and 11 months out from 9/11.
Can anyone produce a single Western left-wing proposal for killing a single Islamo-facist?
On the contrary, you will be hard-pressed to find a single approving reference to the very existence of Islamo-facism. To my knowledge, the only time left-wingers employ the term without scare quotes is to compare Islamo-facists to Christian extremists.
Instead, you get never-ending criticism of the Western and American Right, as though W and American Republicans are the problem, and Islamo-facism the mere occasion for W and the Republicans to have made themselves the problem.
And behind all of this, never-ending nattering about how anything W and the West has done was the wrong thing, and how not doing that thing and how doing some irenic, peace-making, diplomatic thing in the future will be the right thing.
Make a deal with Hamas! Make a deal with Hizbullah! Make a deal with the Iranian Mullahs!
Okay? What deal? And if the deal can’t be made, who do we kill, and how do we kill them?
The Left: really tough on defense, because they are unwilling to ever discuss the need to kill Islamo-facists under any circumstances, not that Islamo-facists exist! If only Republicans weren’t ruining everything!
August 7th, 2006 at 11:35 pm
Jim Rockford, you make for long senseless screeds with the same twisted nonsense I spoke about in the previous post. Escalation was not chosen by anyone but Israel, however, this not to excuse Hizbollah from raining rockets on Israel – than again this does not excuse Israel for choosing this route – it is the stronger of the two warring elements. I hope that was simple enough for you. Israel has the right to exist, it does not have the right to treat others around it like worthless animals.
Disagreeing with the choices of Israeli leadership is not the “new anti-semitism,” it is criticism just like every other group gets upbraided that claims nationhood, the only “democracy” in the region and than makes wrong decisions. The world has voiced it’s disgust, and decided against apatheid – it does not matter what part of the world in which it exists nor who practices it’s maxims, Jew or Gentile. There are no special dispensations, and there are no excuses.
There are no ancient emnities at work here, there is nothing mystical about the conflicts in the region. Frankly, it is anti-semitism to not voice displeasure at the policies which Israel exercises, which are part of the aggrevation in the region (the media is anti-semitic because it is part of the cheerleading group that encourages it to act in a way against it’s own self-interest, and that is the only way), these acts harm Israel – was that clear enough for you?
I think you will find that all the “wipe out Israel” talk would subside if Israel were to enact what everyone in the world knows to be the right course in the region. This is how you difuse the situation, it is only half the answer – the other half is buried in hegemonic designs of the West with the United States in the lead, and that is where the complication lies.
Just as a courtesy to you, it is not good for you to mock the death and destruction of Lebanon, or any other people in the region – it is cruel and inhuman to state that indiscriminate sorties in the thousands will not kill civilians. One does not need to parade dead bodies around, they are lying everywhere – in plain view, and under rubble. You cannot help but to see bodies being carried off when such destruction has descended. Was that clear enough for you (and for anyone else making their sick point)? I hope so.
August 7th, 2006 at 11:39 pm
Rockford, you’re swimming in your own little cesspool. Luckily for you the waters are very shallow. Skipping the insults and attempting to find an argument that isn’t pure wingnut doesn’ t yield much. Really one of the craziest, space cadet posts I’ve read on this subject to date.
As to your peculiar personal bile and venomous repetitions, two of my sons happen to be Jewish. Both according to Jewish “law”/tradition and their own self-identification. One of them is serving overseas in the Navy as I write, helping to protect your sorry ass from any actual threats to this country – although not from your personal demons and pathological paranoia. So shove your crap back where it belongs. I don’t ask for your agreement, nor even that you treat me respectfully or politely. But do a bit better than tossing the most craven of insults in my direction in the course of showing us what a pathological piece of shit you are. And if you feel an absolute need to vomit in my direction, at least do Marc the favor of sparing him your vile spew. He’s more of a gentleman than I am and you’re using up his bandwith just to prove yourself a mental and moral midget. (Apologies to any real midgets out there.)
August 7th, 2006 at 11:47 pm
“who do we kill, and how do we kill them?”
The neocon’s strategic dilemma boiled down to it’s essence. Funny thing is that they aren’t even very good at figuring out how to actually do this when they get their shot. Something about “cakewalks”.
My advice would be to head for your nearest military recruiter and await further orders. If you’re even half-serious.
August 7th, 2006 at 11:52 pm
Let me put it this way for those who accuse the Lebanese of “parading dead bodies.” When Israel is hit with rockets we see nothing but the senseless destruction, injured people, and dead bodies.
That is where the press naturally goes – I doubt if coverage of the local disco in Tel Aviv would would be of great interest to those who are watching the news about the situation unfolding there.
At the same time we see all of this destruction of Israel I see no one accusing them of playing to the cameras – I see not one citing the fact that dead and injured bodies are being “paraded” in front of the camera’s, and I have heard no complaints about the coverage regarding the destruction of the homes and infrastructure. Is no one going to make a comment reagrding this shameless flaunting of death and destruction? I am being very sarcastic, but I think you get the gist of what I am saying.
August 8th, 2006 at 12:39 am
“who do we kill, and how do we kill them?â€
The neocon’s strategic dilemma boiled down to it’s essence. Funny thing is that they aren’t even very good at figuring out how to actually do this when they get their shot. Something about “cakewalksâ€.
EXACTLY MY POINT. HAVE IT BOTH WAYS AND NEITHER WAY. DENY THAT THE FORMULATION OF A COHERENT POLICY ENTAILS STATING HOW AND BY WHAT MEANS YOU ARE WILLING TO KILL, EVEN AS YOU RIDICULE YOUR OPPONENTS FOR BOTH TRYING TO KILL AND FAILING TO EFFICIENTLY KILL.
My advice would be to head for your nearest military recruiter and await further orders. If you’re even half-serious.
THE FIGHTING KEY-BOARDIST ARGUMENT. I AM 45 AND THE MILITARY WON’T TAKE ME, (EITHER GET ME IN THIS WAR OR SHUT UP) BUT ACCORDING TO YOUR OWN NON-LOGIC, YOU YOURSELF MUST NOW EITHER SIGN UP FOR ONE OF THOSE PEACENIK HUMAN SHIELD GROUPS OR ADMIT THAT YOU ARE A CRAVEN HYPOCRITE.
ANYTHING TO AVOID AN ACTUAL DISCUSSION ON THE MERITS, HUH, “REG”?
August 8th, 2006 at 12:44 am
Yeah, I’m having it both ways. Recognizing that your wrongheadedness is matched only by your incompetence.
August 8th, 2006 at 4:03 am
I consider George Galloway a bit of a demagogue, slightly buffonish in style, who in the past has warmly embraced the most conservative and reactionary forces in the british islamic communitty. That said he was quite effective in this interview
http://tinyurl.com/pgk8o
August 8th, 2006 at 5:39 am
“I am being very sarcastic, but I think you get the gist of what I am saying.”–Virgil
I, for one, do. It would be nice if we could stick to the issue of whether either side is justified in killing all these people in the first place. If we could get this war stopped there would be no bodies to parade. But some don’t want it to stop.
August 8th, 2006 at 10:17 am
“…some don’t want it to stop.” Sadly, Michael, you are absolutely correct, but a large percentage of those “some” happen to be Hezbollah and Hamas folk. I’m not saying that there aren’t others from the pro-Israeli crowd, but they damn sure aren’t by themselves.
In my mind, clamoring for a “final solution” has to stop whether it be from a Likud party member or a Hezbollah terrorist, or even from the President of Iran.
August 8th, 2006 at 1:39 pm
GM again chooses to ignore the fact that the Bush admistration has rejected Lebanon’s demand that the United Nations Security Council order Israeli forces to immediately quit southern Lebanon. For those who care about actual lives (as oppossed to clouds of black smoke) the death count now stands at over 1000 Lebanese and israel again today continues to pound civilian neighbourhoods. Roper still remains confused as to whether or not the saughter at Qana was “staged”. That we’ve enabled this disaster should be a shame on all of us. This policy absolutely empowers extremist on all sides of the equation and im sorry to say will likely be the impetus for future wars. I agree with Balter that we need to get back to a genuine committed effort to end the entire infrustructure of the occupation but for now let me take this discussion in another direction. Here are some questions for the house . In the past five years there has been a steadily growing clamour in this country about Muslims, suspicions about our origins, harsh questions about our lives and loyalties, increased profiling by police, relentless scrutiny about our religion and its supposed “violent teachings.†Politicians and public commentators have demanded that Muslims perform continual and vigorous acts of disavowal and condemnation whenever innocent people have been deliberately targeted by their alleged co-religionists anywhere else in the world. Muslim groups and community leaders have agreed, obediently and promptly issuing clear denunciations of bombs that have been set off in the name of some pathological version of “Islam.†Now Israel is (again) deliberately targeting civilians; hundreds are already dead. I know that many members of the Jewish community abhor this violence — I have stood with them at anti-war rallies in the past. Why do our mainstream media ignore their voices in favour of the intractable hardliners who have nothing original to say? Where are the in-depth interviews of moderate, peace-loving Jews, the ones who have struggled for non-violent resolutions to this conflict? Where are the front-page quotes of their shame and outrage at the collective punishment inflicted on Lebanon and Palestine? Where, furthermore, are the profiles of Jewish peace activists who have faced threats and censorship and accusations of being self-hating Arab-lovers from within their own religious community? Why won’t our national newspaper support their courage and vision, publish their writings, report extensively on the genuine peace-building work they have done with those of us who want a just peace for all people? How long are we to go on tolerating this culture of fear that surrounds the topic of Israel? Israel is not a god or a religion. It is a nation-state. Therefore, it is made up of fallible human beings who make stupid and awful decisions with specific, horrible and real consequences.
as i wrote earlier the case of Israel is not “special.†Its oppression of Palestinians and theft of their land are not “complicated.†Rhetorical fights about land and resources and who gets to live on them ought to happen on level ground in this country, in the open air. Our politicians and public commentators have become very fond of reminding Muslims that freedom of expression is a inviolable governing principle of this country. These same individuals are so afraid of invoking free speach when they talk about Israel that, since the bombardment of Lebanon began, my anger at their hypocrisy has turned into pity.
I feel sorry for these influential men and women, enjoying privileged access to public opinion in one of the most fortunate nations on earth, who debase their own moral sovereignty — suppressing their own ability to speak plainly about what is right and wrong — in order to be seen and approved among those who “stand with Israel.†No woman ever submitted to the smothering burka of a tyrannical theocracy as meekly and willingly as these free and democratic Americans censor themselves. It must be awful to be so oppressed.
August 8th, 2006 at 2:04 pm
Well, as far as the UN Security Council ordering Israel goes, on just has to say, “Oh yeah? You and what army?”
I certainly wish people would stop disturbing the UN and leave them in peace to cash their paychecks and manage their portfolios.
This whole idea that the UN “do something” is very oversold. Doing something is, after all, not what the UN does.
August 8th, 2006 at 3:33 pm
I’m not sure if these kind of things accomplish much, my inclination is to think that they dont but here are two petitions, both worth signing
http://tinyurl.com/gtnm3
http://tinyurl.com/hba3k
August 8th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
I find this video to be a somewhat how I feel at this juncture in this country:
http://68.142.117.80/video/85350/
August 9th, 2006 at 6:53 pm
I don’t think that Michael Young is that representative of Lebanese opinion. He’s a Arab neoconservative, a supporter of Bush and the war in Iraq. Those are perfectly respectable positions, but it’s irritatating that the American media has given him so much attention.
From Al-Ahram, an Egyptian newspaper:
“With US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice describing Lebanon’s agony as the “birth pangs” of a new Middle East, few now dismiss fears of US designs on Lebanon as a conspiracy theory. Political columnist for Al-Akhbar newspaper Ibrahim El-Amin says the minority who are against Hizbullah’s resistance seem larger to the outside world than they are. “Because the media is with them, Hariri’s media and (Christian channel) LBC as well as the American and Western media, they seem like a majority. But on the street they are small,” he said.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/806/re62.htm
July 13th, 2007 at 6:41 am
Secret list building software…
Thanks a lot for your blog post – definitely well written…
June 28th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
fruits are fun- south park…
How do you come up with so much material to blog with?…
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