138 Responses to “Shell Shock”

1. reg Says:
   July 25th, 2006 at 7:19 pm

   Good outline of some key points in that “P.S.”

   But don’t think they’re going to save you any grief in the comments section.

2. Tom Grey - Liberty Dad Says:
   July 25th, 2006 at 7:20 pm

   Thanks for clarifying your position.

   In your opposition to Israeli occupation, in Lebanon and with UN 242, you note the people have:
   “a right to respond.”

   If this isn’t supporting terrorist murder, what is it?

   I know you say elsewhere you always oppose terrorism, but the terrorists claim your own “right to respond.”

   Doesn’t having a publicly known terrorist group headquarters in a location make it a terrorist location MORE than a civilian location? I wouldn’t say the Pentagon was a civilian location.

   Possibly even not the Capital nor White House, insofar as the gov’t, at a basic level, IS the War Department (with or without a name change).

   I also appreciate your equal attacks on Dems as on Bush, when you think they’re equally wrong, or worse.

   I think Maliki gains Iraq stature by opposing Bush & Israel, but I also am concerned about his use of “victimology” — Israel is strong, Lebanon is weak, therefore Israel is bad.

3. reg Says:
   July 25th, 2006 at 7:31 pm

   TGLD: “In your opposition to Israeli occupation, in Lebanon and with UN 242, you note the people have:
   ‘a right to respond.’
   If this isn’t supporting terrorist murder, what is it?”

   See Mr. Cooper. I told ya the “graffiti” wouldn’t stop.

4. Robert Fiore Says:
   July 25th, 2006 at 7:42 pm

   I would like to correct a misstatement that Marc seems to be making a lot these days. Israel has occupied part of Egypt, part of Jordan, and part of Syria. It isn’t occupying any “Palestinian land” because there’s no such thing as yet. While the occupied territories in some respects appear to be a convenient place to create a Palestinian state, and one might well agree with David Ben Gurion’s opinion that annexing the West Bank so you can have more territory is like getting cancer so you can have more cells, Israel isn’t obligated by U.N. Resolution 242 to cede the territory to the Palestinians. If you’re going to be invoking 242 vis-à-vis withdrawal of Israeli troops from occupied territory, you should remember the further provision that calls for “[t]ermination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force”. The other parties haven’t satisfied this provision any more than Israel has satisfied the other. May I suggest that the former provision would be more likely to be satisfied if the latter was satisfied first?

   The Palestinians may have a theoretical right to resist a settlement Israel wants to impose on them, but that doesn’t make them immune to the consequences of continuing a war that’s been lost.

5. Spanky Says:
   July 25th, 2006 at 9:06 pm

   “I wouldn’t say the Pentagon was a civilian location.”

   Wow! You’d go so far as to say that the headquarters of a military force isn’t a civilian location? I’d never thougt of a military installation as a military installation before you opened up with your genius!

   “Doesn’t having a publicly known terrorist group headquarters in a location make it a terrorist location MORE than a civilian location?”

   I wonder, what would happen if, say, Hezbollah parked a missile in the yard of the school attended by your sons. Would that make it morally acceptable for Israel to drop munitions on your sons, perhaps vaporizing them instantly, perhaps shattering their eardrums and making their eyes explode before the rest of their bodies literally rips apart from the force of the blast? I mean, you and Dershowitz and Osama bin Laden all agree – there are varying levels of civilianality, and what are your sons doing near a Hezbollah missile?

6. reg Says:
   July 25th, 2006 at 9:51 pm

   Marc, I have to say that your guy Mathews has been stepping up in recent weeks.

   http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Imus-Matthews-Bush-Middle-East.mov

7. MarkC Says:
   July 25th, 2006 at 10:14 pm

   Mark Cooper complains about “grafitti” on his website, and then glibly refers to the atrocities at Sabra and Chatilla “carried out by Ariel Sharon? ” He knows full well that this is a distortion. Ditto for the comment about Israel’s “apparently deciding to bomb a U.N. observation post.” This is pure character assassination. Marc Cooper has given up any pretence of objectivity in this matter.

8. MarkC Says:
   July 25th, 2006 at 10:41 pm

   By the way, Israel is supposed to wait for Lebanon to get around to expanding the political role of the Shia? That’s rich.

9. Ed Watters Says:
   July 25th, 2006 at 10:50 pm

   To paraphrase Robert Fiore’s post:

   Screw international law and accords: who cares about international opinion OR the suffering of the Palestinians: Gaza was more trouble than it was worth; we’ve pretty much carved up the West Bank to our liking – 75% of the arable land, 80% of the water resources: GET OVER IT ALREADY!

   Of course, all this was made possible by Isael’s lone ally, not out of any love for the state or people of Israel but purely as part of thier strategy for command and control of the world’s oil resources.

   Surely by the end of this century, oil will be a thing of the past, the U.S.’s moment in the sun will be over – as will Israel’s usefulness to the grand strategies of world planners.

   Israeli historians will look upon the the lost opportunities of the early 1970s and late 1990s to end thier existence as a virtual “banana republic” to the “former” superpower, trade land for peace and begin thier social and economic integration into the real world.

10. Michael Balter Says:
    July 25th, 2006 at 10:56 pm

    Americans and Israelis who think that it is okay to kill innocent civilians in pursuit of their goals should not be surprised when terrorists and others considered our enemies do the same. Maybe everyone needs to take a good look in the mirror.

11. lucas Says:
    July 25th, 2006 at 11:50 pm

    marc,

    your willingness to address some of the “dysfunctional” elements of the american political system, rather than treating the whole thing as an opportunity to score points for this or that party, is one of the reasons i keep reading this blog. keep up the fine work–on lebanon AND america. good luck with that graffitti.

12. Michael Turner Says:
    July 25th, 2006 at 11:55 pm

    Attempts to frame rules of war are attempts to make war “morally acceptable”. You designate battle zones. And waving a white flag means, “I have chosen to stop responding militarily, and am now accepting POW status. You will be able to tell that I’m a soldier accepting POW status because I’ll be wearing the uniform of your enemy, like it says in the rulebook here. And I’m making this choice because the other choices are being routed from the battlefied into conditions worse than a POW camp, or dying in battle for a cause that no longer seems worth my life.”

    But that isn’t what’s going in this case, is it? When Hezbollah militiamen drive a truck up to a location that’s not clear of cvilians, fire a missile whose origin it knows the Israelis can determine, and then drive off, knowing that Israeli shells and missiles will land in that civilian location, what is it doing? It’s attacking this way in hopes that (1) their missile kills some civilian Israelis, further enraging all other Israelis, (2) the Israeli missile will kill some civilians in their host population, further enraging that population against Israelis, which works just fine for you, and (3) those who launched will be, if anything, safer than the civilians who have to absorb the Israeli response, and be ready to “fight” another day.

    Furthermore: have you ever been near a rocket being launched, even a hobbyist rocket? It’s a shrill, deafening scream. It’s obvious what’s going on. So if you are in a civilian area, and you hear a rocket launch, and you have any history to go by, you automatically know: somebody has just launched a rocket. A response is coming soon, or that’s the way to bet. What to do? Get to safety. Fast.

    So you have to stop talking about what’s morally acceptable in black and white terms, because Hezbollah is choosing to wage a war by exempting itself from those terms, so that civilians on both sides will tend ever more to see it in black and white, but with the respective colors reversed on each side. It is a thoroughly amoral (if not outright immoral) decision. The point is not classic military victory or defeat, the point is to exacerbate political polarizations that prop up Hezbollah rule.

    Now let’s assume you’re in charge of targeting during such a war. You have what seems like reliable intelligence that there’s a rocket launcher in a schoolyard. You can opt to not hit it, in which case the deaths of some of your own may be on your hands, if the missile is launched (very likely) and kills some people (not unlikely). You can opt to hit it, in which case the deaths of some schoolchildren are likely to be on your hands. But a policy of not hitting such targets will eventually delegitimize the popularly elected government to which you’re ultimately accountable as an officer in its military.

    You nevertheless try to view it as a moral question: how can you morally justify killing innocents? You conclude that you can’t. But you also ask yourself: how did the enemy morally justify making that schoolyard a target? You likewise conclude that they didn’t justify it morally. They justified it politically.

    The way out of this moral dilemma? You tell yourself that your enemy has consciously forced you into a situation where you can no longer make blac-and-white moral judgments, and he has done it because that advances his political agenda. You might then weigh his political agenda against yours, and make the political decision: hitting the target is the lesser of two very great evils.

    That is, of course, if you haven’t thought all of this out well in advance. Battle is seldom a context for soul-searching.

    So you pushed the launch button. Are you now a terrorist? Some would argue that you are. Maybe the question is: how much of a terrorist are you? Just as many questions in this war come down to: how civilian is a given civilian?

    Morality is a bunch of rules. When rules work, it’s in part because they are framed in terms that have fairly clear definitions, and because you are viewing infractions of those rules in a social landscape where infractions are conspicuous, because they are rare. That’s not what we’re looking at here, is it?

    “Terrorist” isn’t a well-defined term, but if it has a useful definition, it’s one that works hand-in-hand with our normative frameworks for sovereignty and the “laws of war” that have emerged from those frameworks, and from the wars in which those frameworks also emerged. Those normative frameworks are an uneasy basis for social stability, but they provide some basis, at least, and that gives you that relative moral background against which immorality appears conspicuous. In the Middle East, those norms never applied very well, because our maps of the Middle East reflect boundaries decided by external powers that weren’t applying those norms, and were largely imposed on political actors who also weren’t applying those norms either.

    Unsurprisingly, with terrorism in the picture we get something a lot more like gang warfare — and when there’s peace, it is likewise something like gang peace. Lebanon enjoyed a lot of “gang peace” since its period of “gang warfare” ended. Now it’s back in gang warfare again. U.N. Resolution 1559 didn’t work, because nobody wanted to be the cops going in to enforce it on Hezbollah. The gang peace was a fool’s paradise.

    The normative frameworks of national sovereignty and the rules of war are not an a la carte buffet. Strident moral denunciations of one side or another are senseless and incoherent if they don’t recognize this fact. Thus, for example, I could view Ariel Sharon as a war criminal (and I actually do), but at the same time I can take exception to Marc’s characterization of him as being fully responsible for the massacres at Sabra and Shatila. Sharon had something like a leash on the Maronite Christian militia force that actually did the killing, and he took that leash off, probably knowing full well that there would be a slaughter. But those who did the killing each made an individual personal choice to kill, just as a Hezbollah militia member launching a Katyusha into Israel is making an individual personal choice to put not only Israeli civilian lives at risk, but also the lives of civilians in the immediate vicinity of the launch. If you don’t ask why they make those choices, you can’t understand what’s really going on, which doesn’t have much to do with ordinary morality in peacetime under normative frameworks.

    There is no moral high ground in a moral swamp. There are, at best, only places where you don’t sink into the mud as fast as others. Israel seems to be making some attempt to leaflet residential areas that may not be such obvious targets for bombardment, prior to bombing them. Hezbollah would rather that its rockets land randomly, without warning. Israel’s warning in these cases are a compromise — it could take out more hidden missiles if it didn’t warn. Those missiles are likely to moved out of range in response to the warnings, but closer to Beirut, which, if a renewed civil war is in the offing, must be a source of growing alarm to those in Lebanon who hate and fear Hezbollah. And they could be moved back towards Israel during the next “gang peace.” Israeli is standing knee-deep in firmer mud, while Hezbollah swims in the swamp waters below the surface, and the civilian population is reduced to struggling out of the way as best it can, hip deep, with ordnance flying around them.

    Why?

    I persist in what may be a simplistic delusion:

    (1) the West needs oil, for its own political stability, because its voters have become economically dependent on it.

    (2) The autocracies of the Middle East have a lot of oil.

    (3) Those autocracies are more easily stabilized by their rules by having an external demon that looks worse by comparison.

    (4) With largely controlled media, those autocracies will always want to use media to make Israel look worse than themselves.

    (5) But they can do that only IF they keep the conflict simmering, to keep those harrowing images coming. Not boiling over. Just simmering.

    (5) A state without oil wealth such as Syria will take advantage of its frontline position to try to own the conflict — i.e., own the heat-intensity dial. Which it seems they do. It makes them power brokers. Egypt and Jordan have opted out perhaps because of aid packages, but also because of their own fears of islamic radicalism, which are not unfounded.

    Think of that next time you’re filling your gas tank, or bitching about gas prices. Where does your personal gasoline consumption put you on the continua of “civilianality” and “terroristical”? If you evade these concepts because they aren’t comfortingly black and white in moral terms, isn’t it possible you’re evading a moral responsibility yourself? Are you not making personal choices that help keep the swamp waters high? Could you not make better ones?

    Oh, but here’s another comforting cop-out coming soon to a movie theater near you.

    Recently I’ve been seeing ads for a big-budget production called “Who Killed the Electic Car?” A couple of the sound bites have people claiming that electric is far cheaper per mile than gasoline. Perhaps so, but would it still be, if we converted wholesale to electic in five years? Of course not: demand for electricity would soar, prices for electricity would climb in response, and let’s not forget that new electricity has to come from somewhere. We have lots of coal. Oh, you hate coal because it’s dirty? We could have more nuclear power plants. Not in your backyard? OK, you want solar. Prove to me that the electrical energy input in creating a solar plant doesn’t exceed what the plant will produce in its lifetime. Maybe with modern technology it does, but by how much? And we have to finance its production with electricity prices high?

    You don’t want to think about these things, do you? They are complicated. And it’s all someone else’s fault anyway. Let politicians come up with the answers.

    Well, politicians know that you won’t sit still for a long, complicated explanation, the bottom line of which is: expect to pay more for less, or pay less with more perceived risk.

    So what do your elected leaders do instead?

    They come out in support of Israel. It’s simple. It’s black and white. Which is what you want, in the end, isn’t it? Even if you hate Israel, it helps you maintain your simpler-than-possible world view.

13. Aunty Woody Coulter Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 5:51 am

    “I wouldn’t say the Pentagon was a civilian location.”

    Neither does Ward Churchill.

    http://tinyurl.com/nt3o6

14. Woody Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 5:55 am

    Marc Cooper wrote:
    *After three years Lebanon had not complied with a UN resolution disarming Hezbollah.
    *It took Israel 20 years to comply with a UN resolution calling on it to end occupation of Southern Lebanon.
    *Israel has never complied with UN resolution 242 restoring its pre-1967 borders….

    So, what good is the U.N.? Yet, you people wanted us, after 12 years, to continue passing more resolutions against Saddam Hussein. It’s obvious that resolutions not backed up by resolve and force will receive laughter rather than respect–and they have.

15. Michael Balter Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 6:23 am

    “Yet, you people wanted us, after 12 years, to continue passing more resolutions against Saddam Hussein.”

    Woody keeps forgetting that Iraq didn’t have WMD.

16. Ed Watters Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 6:43 am

    Michael Balter:

    Are you sure that the autocracies of the middle east have “a lot of oil”? Up until last week, Mexico was certain that it had “a lot of oil”, then thier main oil field started showing signs that it may be “running on empty” (see LA Times business section, last mon or Tues).

    Over the last two or three years, for anyone that cares to listen, there have been analysts claiming evidence that we’re close to reaching
    a point where oil demand exceeds oil production. Of course, the oil industry is uniformingly denying this but, if the time frame of the analyst is correct, by 2010 we could reach that point and the results will include staggering increases in oil prices, a possible world wide depression and, with a nuclear-armed Israel and Pakistan as bookends for the middle east, the chances of at least a regional nuclear conflict loom large.

    Oil is a finite resource. The only reason that you can’t imagine any alternative is that the U.S. elite don’t want you to (esp. the current bunch in power now – Conde who had an oil tanker named after her etc.).

    If we had our best minds working on alternative energy instead of weapons development, solar and hydrogen combined with serious conservation efforts might become a reality.

    You, the oil industry and our political establishment are the ones who need to “think about these things” and abandon your “simplistic delusions”!

17. M.R. Moore Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 7:05 am

    Actually it was Al Neri, not Rocco Lampone. And Michael didn’t literally wink, just gave him one of those cold cold Michael Corleone looks.

    Now back to your regular scheduled war.

18. timotheus Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 7:07 am

    Fine summary of the situation and background, Marc. Too bad half the people commenting don’t understand English.

19. reg Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 7:42 am

    As usual, Juan Cole provides some good background.

    http://tinyurl.com/k46ad

20. Michael Turner Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 7:59 am

    Ed Watters writes: “Michael Balter:”

    You mean Michael Turner. (You’ve managed to offend both of us, I’m sure.) If you wanted to post something full of errors, you’re off to a great start.

    “Are you sure that the autocracies of the middle east have “a lot of oil”?”

    Hey, I only know what I read on the DOE website. I’m not sure why my government would lie to me about something like this (or how it could get away with it, if so.) In any case, DOE gets its numbers from other reputable sources.

    “Up until last week, Mexico was certain that it had “a lot of oil”, then thier main oil field started showing signs that it may be “running on empty” (see LA Times business section, last mon or Tues).”

    Mexico’s official estimates of proven reserves are laughably exaggerated, but largely because they kept pumping from that one field, and counting other, uneconomical sources as reserves. (Not to mention mismanaging PEMEX.) They claim 100 gigabarrels, but realistically it’s more like 1/10 that amount, when measured in terms of what is economically extractable by PEMEX, which corrupt Mexican officials have been treating as their personal piggybank for a couple decades.

    Saudi Arabia’s official estimates are almost certainly exaggerated, but by more like 50% or so, not by Mexico’s factor of 10. Even if you accepted Mexico’s stated reserves at face value (100 Gbbl) and the Middle East’s at half of the lowest estimate (over 700 Gbll), the Middle East would have about 3.5 times more oil than Mexico.

    The Middle East has a lot of oil. Kuwait, Iraq and UAE are expected to increase production. Other areas in the Middle East may be past their production peaks, but that’s like saying that Tiger Woods might be past his peak — he’d still continue to be an incredible golfer for years to come. The overall peak is still some years off — 2010 by some estimates, further in others.

    Useful information resource right here

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves

    in case the idea ever flies into your head that maybe you should look shit up once in a while.

    “If we had our best minds working on alternative energy instead of weapons development, solar and hydrogen combined with serious conservation efforts might become a reality.”

    The best minds in the world can’t increase the energy density of sunlight at the Earth’s surface. And solar photovoltaics have known upper efficiency limits. Hydrogen? Whoa. What a panacea. Just where do you get hydrogen? Using processes that–yes–require energy input. I’m sure you’ll come back with something about biofuels, which still require more fossil energy input to produce than they yield. You won’t hear that from Willie Nelson, possibly because he doesn’t know it.

    I’m all in favor of increased R&D on alternatives, in case you didn’t get that from my last post. Unfortunately, they won’t be enough, soon enough, to prevent an eventual oil shock. Too many Americans complacently believe that we’re not backed into a corner just yet (I think they have a surprise coming) or feverishly hope that solutions are just a matter of throwing money in the right directions, and maybe restraining Detroit from stepping on competing concepts. Either way, they want things to be simple. They aren’t. Sounds like you, Ed, want things to be simple too (”It’s all a big conspiracy!”). That’s how you come off as a simpleton. Do a little research into alternatives, the technology AND the economics. It’s an interesting subject, and–who knows?–you might even learn something. Stranger things have happened.

21. Fen Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 8:00 am

    Condi Rice finally gets up off her arse after two weeks… the same Lebanese who are standing under (or cowering under or running from) satellite-guided bombs expedited to Israel this week by the same administration Rice represents

    Hey Marc, how long did Lebannon sit on its ass while Hezbollah set up shop? 6 years. Obviously they can’t take on the terrorists by themselves so:

    1) When did they ask the UN for help in removing Hezbollah?

    2) When did the ask NATO for help in removing Hezbollah?

    3) When did they ask the US for help in removing Hezbollah?

    4) When did they ask Russia for help in removing Hezbollah?

    5) When did they ask the Arab League for help in removing Hezbollah?

    And now, after enabling the Hezbollah missile strikes into Israel, they are “victims” running for cover. LOL.

22. Fen Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 8:03 am

    See Mr. Cooper. I told ya the “graffiti” wouldn’t stop.

    Funny how you guys flip out when introduced to opposition opinion. How does the Left ever expect to evolve from its current state while submerged in an echo chamber?

23. Fen Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 8:07 am

    Americans and Israelis who think that it is okay to kill innocent civilians in pursuit of their goals should not be surprised when terrorists and others considered our enemies do the same.

    Hezbollah deliberately targets civillians. Americans and Israelis do not.

    Hezbollah deliberately uses its own civillians as human sheilds. Americans and Israelis do not.

    Maybe everyone needs to take a good look in the mirror.

    Does moral equivalence show up in yours?

24. Michael Turner Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 8:19 am

    “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.”

    I think the only way you could further expand the “Shia political role” in Lebanon at this point would be to put Hezbollah in charge of Lebanon. The Lebanese army is already half Shia. If you add everybody who’s ever toted a gun on behalf of Hezbollah, you could make it 80% Shia. You could call that “disarming Hezbollah”, I guess, much as the Sadr Brigades in Iraq were “disarmed” and then made part of “the Iraqi Army.” Which is to say, they put down their guns long enough to put on uniforms, then picked them up again. The question remains: who are they serving? The answer: not much different.

    As long as we’ve got problems of definition, why not exploit them? We can pretend that the destruction of Hezbollah missiles (either by launching or by having them bombed by Israel) amounts to “disarming Hezbollah”. And by adding a few troops from Ghana or Belize to a Syrian buffer zone patrol force, we can say that there’s an “international force” keeping the peace. And by letting Nabih Berri stay in the Lebanese government, we can say that Lebanon is a sovereign nation with a nascent democracy, representing the proud, unified Lebanese people blazing a new trail and building on the gains of the Cedar Revolution.

    Realistically, the best we can look forward to is another round of charades. Because wherever the terms in which you express “realistic” solutions are not encumbered by problems of definition, they are encumbered by problems of application. So the usual solutions will be adopted: calling a spade a heart, calling a club a diamond, and hoping that everybody gets too distracted by something else to care about the hypocrisy.

25. Woody Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 8:30 am

    Michael Balter, just because you hear what you want to hear from sources who want to believe the same things that you do doesn’t make your claims from them correct.

    This claim that Hussein didn’t have WMDs is bogus. He did, he had the facilities and materials to quickly produce them, and he stockpiled others in friendly nations. Your U.N. inspections were a joke, as they had to inform Hussein in advance as to where they were going.

    Don’t forget, though, that the burden of proof was for him to demonstrate that he did not, and he went so far as to kick out the inspectors at one point.

    Hussein laughed at the resolutions, and the U.N. did nothing except pass more (while taking bribes) making it worse than useless and a contributor to that crisis.

    That illustrates my point and question: What good is the U.N.?

    ———-

    Oh, and please quit repeating that trite lie that Hussein was innocent of WMD production and possession. It has been proved over and over that he was guilty, and he did nothing to prove his innocence.

    UN Admits Saddam Had WMD

    Inspector: Saddam had WMD on ’short notice’
    Report by new director of survey group cites new, hard evidence

26. MadMan Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 8:40 am

    Yes, yes Hezbollah engages in “wanton terrorism” as does Israel because of course they are morally equivalent.

    Have you ever read these UN resolutions you are so quick to claim Israel alone is responsible for complying with? The resolution which you say gives the Palestinians a “right to respond” (how? who knows but I guess blowing up pizza stores is ok)

    Here is part of it now read it:
    “…1. Affirms that the fulfilment of Charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which should include the application of both the following principles:

    (i) Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;

    (ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force;…”

    You see the demands on Israel were dependent on the establishment of a “lasting peace”. As long as the Arab world insisted on war and denial of the right of Israel to exist there was no framework to withdraw from territory that they occupied because such territories were the source of attacks against their citizens.

    When countries made a serious offer of recognition and peace Israel withdrew (See the Sinai and Parts of the Jordan Valley)

    Stop talking from ignorance and see what these resolutions truly required before you use them to justify terror attacks.

27. Michael Balter Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 8:45 am

    “You mean Michael Turner. (You’ve managed to offend both of us, I’m sure.)”

    I’m not offended if you’re not.

28. Randy A. Paul Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 9:23 am

    Michael Balter, just because you hear what you want to hear from sources who want to believe the same things that you do doesn’t make your claims from them correct.

    That describes your metier, Wody

29. Woody Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 9:44 am

    I had to look up metier. I try to stay away from French words. Randy, anyone who proclaims the innocence of Saddam Hussein’s weapons program denies reality.

30. rosedog Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 9:59 am

    Good post, and thank you for continuing to keep the subject front and center. You have more heart than I do in this regard.

    (I’m personally reduced to posting poetry and/or quasi-religious screeches of outrage.)

    PS: Reg, did I ever thank you for insisting that I should get that 30th anniversary reissue of Born to Run? (Well, if I didn’t please consider yourself sincerely thanked.)

    I have since gotten that glorious ‘75 Hammersmith Odeon concert on CD, as well as DVD, and blasting it—while driving—as loud as my eardrums will stand is, right now, the best antidote I can find to the general madness that seems to presently abound.

31. rosedog Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 10:00 am

    The above post of mine was directed at Marc. (And, reg, obviously.)

32. Ed Watters Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 10:03 am

    Michael Turner:

    “I only know what I read on the DOE website…I’m not sure why my government would lie to me…”.

    The government, esp the current bunch in charge now who have most of thier wealth tied up in the energy sectors of the economy: wish to keep the status quo; have no long range concerns beyond next quarter’s PnL reports; and won’t be concerned about global warming until the sea level rises to whatever floor thier corporate suites are on.

    You can do all the research you want, but if you are not carefully considering your sources
    (eg. the Bush appointees to the DOE are all ex-energy industry people), you are just “look(ing) shit up”.

    And no, I “didn’t get” from your last post that you are “all in favor of increased R&D on alternatives” because your remarks on the solar alternative were somewhat cynical and ill-informed as demonstrated by your reference to the costs of a solar “plant”. One of the advantages of solar power is that it doesn’t have to generated from a centralized plant which is why energy corporations aren’t interested in solar – they can’t charge consumers for on-going consumption (to comprehend that fact Michael, you have to consider, as you suggest, the “technology AND the economics” – if you ignore it you may “come off as a simpleton”).

33. Robert Fiore Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 10:14 am

    To paraphrase what I posted accurately:

    1. International law applies to all parties, not just Israel. UN Resolution 242 has more than one provision, and the provisions are dependent upon one another. Another provision calls for demilitarized zones on the borders, which Hezbollah violates. Israel partially complied with 242 when it withdrew from the Sinai, then from Gaza. It will be in further compliance if it withdraws from part of the West Bank as previously planned. 242 only requires that Israel withdraw its forces, not that it secure the status of the areas it withdraws from. P.S.: The UN Charter is not a suicide pact.

    2. Yeah, screw international opinion when it’s full of crap.

    3. When speaking of Palestinian suffering you have to take into consideration how much of it is caused by continuing a war that’s been lost. The quickest means of reducing Palestinian suffering is surrender. Your suffering doesn’t entitle you to achieve your war aims.

    But you know what U.S. policy in the Lebanon incursion really reminds me of? The PLO explicitly backing Iraq in the first Gulf War. It seems to me that even if you want to let the thing take its own course you could distance yourself from it. Instead it’s like, “Here, let us put our fingerprints all over this thing.”

34. Randy A. Paul Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 10:31 am

    That’s not what he said, Woody. He saaid there were no WMD’s. If there were, where are they?

35. Ahmed Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 10:48 am

    “Israel has never complied with UN resolution 242 restoring its pre-1967 borders….

    So, what good is the U.N.? Yet, you people wanted us, after 12 years, to continue passing more resolutions against Saddam Hussein. It’s obvious that resolutions not backed up by resolve and force will receive laughter rather than respect–and they have.”

    Woody is it fair then to presume that you support the deployment of US troops to ensure that Israel complies fully with resolution 242, ends its illegal occupation and removes all its settlements, checkpoints, walls et cetera. If those wimpy UN resolutions have done nothing for over 20 years it sounds like youre advocating a more proactive approach

36. Marc Davidson Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 11:50 am

    The comment that I would like to make seems painfully obvious and yet I don’t see consideration of the main points much in evidence in this discussion.
    To you Democrats and Republicans falling over yourselves to be Israel’s best friend: the best friend that the Israeli people can have is one that will push their government to sit down with their enemies. What is most needed now is a US government that is willing to assume the mantle of dispassionate advocate for peace. The need for such an honest broker is greater than ever as the anger on both sides of the conflict escalates to such a level that there are very few moderates left to negotiate. They’ve all been marginalized, both from within their own camp as well as, cynically enough, by the leaders of the other camp. The same, of course, can be said of the parties on the other side of this seemingly unbridgeable divide.
    We are dangerously stuck in the “they started it” mentality. What’s also counterproductive is the notion that there can be any resolution of the conflict without all parties sitting down at the table and being able to freely and openly discuss all their grievances.
    Anyone who is truly committed to peace in the Middle East must insist on an immediate cease fire and push aggressively for comprehensive talks that include both regional disarmament (including nuclear) and a fairly drawn and viable Palestinian homeland. All others are not committed to peace and are pursuing an agenda based on hatred and revenge.

37. Woody Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 12:43 pm

    Randy, I’m not going to get into a back-and-forth with you, as it is unproductive, you are stubborn, and it gets boring to everyone. Do a little research on your own to determine whether or not Hussein was hiding WMD’s, if he had the production capacity to quickly create them (same as an inventory), if he tried to acquire uranium, and if he moved weapons stock to Syria. If you can’t find anything like that, then I know that I will have saved much of my time trying to get you to admit the truth.

    ==========

    Hi, Ahmed. Nice to see you back from your interviews with Aljazeera .

    It’s not the job of the U.S. to back up every resolution of the U.N., and we don’t agree with everything that the U.N. does. But, if the U.N. makes a resolution and it’s failure to back up that resolution is a threat to U.S. interests, then there may be times when it’s appropriate for us to act.

    Again, though, what good is the U.N.? It’s all talk, and talk with no back up is not much good in the eyes of dictators.

    Calls for peace and disarmament aren’t going to get much consideration when one side is a terrorist group with no government, so eventually every country or group keeps the land that it gained and keeps its armies and weapons ready. You’ll never get peace, and the closest you will come to it will be when one side wipes out the other. The U.N. will not have an impact on the problem with Israel and terrorists.

38. Jose Geromino Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 1:55 pm

    Last update – 10:44 25/07/2006
    Morality is not on our side
    By Ze’ev Maoz

    There’s practically a holy consensus right now that the war in the North is a just war and that morality is on our side. The bitter truth must be said: this holy consensus is based on short-range selective memory, an introverted worldview, and double standards.

    This war is not a just war. Israel is using excessive force without distinguishing between civilian population and enemy, whose sole purpose is extortion. That is not to say that morality and justice are on Hezbollah’s side. Most certainly not. But the fact that Hezbollah “started it” when it kidnapped soldiers from across an international border does not even begin to tilt the scales of justice toward our side.

    Let’s start with a few facts. We invaded a sovereign state, and occupied its capital in 1982. In the process of this occupation, we dropped several tons of bombs from the air, ground and sea, while wounding and killing thousands of civilians. Approximately 14,000 civilians were killed between June and September of 1982, according to a conservative estimate. The majority of these civilians had nothing to do with the PLO, which provided the official pretext for the war.

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    In Operations Accountability and Grapes of Wrath, we caused the mass flight of about 500,000 refugees from southern Lebanon on each occasion. There are no exact data on the number of casualties in these operations, but one can recall that in Operation Grapes of Wrath, we bombed a shelter in the village of Kafr Kana which killed 103 civilians. The bombing may have been accidental, but that did not make the operation any more moral.

    On July 28, 1989, we kidnapped Sheikh Obeid, and on May 12, 1994, we kidnapped Mustafa Dirani, who had captured Ron Arad. Israel held these two people and another 20-odd Lebanese detainees without trial, as “negotiating chips.” That which is permissible to us is, of course, forbidden to Hezbollah.

    Hezbollah crossed a border that is recognized by the international community. That is true. What we are forgetting is that ever since our withdrawal from Lebanon, the Israel Air Force has conducted photo-surveillance sorties on a daily basis in Lebanese airspace. While these flights caused no casualties, border violations are border violations. Here too, morality is not on our side.

    So much for the history of morality. Now, let’s consider current affairs. What exactly is the difference between launching Katyushas into civilian population centers in Israel and the Israel Air Force bombing population centers in south Beirut, Tyre, Sidon and Tripoli? The IDF has fired thousands of shells into south Lebanon villages, alleging that Hezbollah men are concealed among the civilian population. Approximately 25 Israeli civilians have been killed as a result of Katyusha missiles to date. The number of dead in Lebanon, the vast majority comprised of civilians who have nothing to do with Hezbollah, is more than 300.

    Worse yet, bombing infrastructure targets such as power stations, bridges and other civil facilities turns the entire Lebanese civilian population into a victim and hostage, even if we are not physically harming civilians. The use of bombings to achieve a diplomatic goal – namely, coercing the Lebanese government into implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1559 – is an attempt at political blackmail, and no less than the kidnapping of IDF soldiers by Hezbollah is the aim of bringing about a prisoner exchange.

    There is a propaganda aspect to this war, and it involves a competition as to who is more miserable. Each side tries to persuade the world that it is more miserable. As in every propaganda campaign, the use of information is selective, distorted and self-righteous. If we want to base our information (or shall we call it propaganda?) policy on the assumption that the international environment is going to buy the dubious merchandise that we are selling, be it out of ignorance or hypocrisy, then fine. But in terms of our own national soul searching, we owe ourselves to confront the bitter truth – maybe we will win this conflict on the military field, maybe we will make some diplomatic gains, but on the moral plane, we have no advantage, and we have no special status.

    The writer is a professor of political science at Tel Aviv university.

39. Jose Geromino Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 1:56 pm

    The turnabout will come quickly
    By Meron Benvenisti

    No one can predict when the reversal will come, when all the experts will begin competing for first place in revealing the failures of the war: mistaken strategy, political dilettantism and shooting from the hip; the weakness disguised as courageous determination; the illusions, arrogance and boasting; the addiction to an impulse of revenge; the cruelty and the lack of moral inhibitions.

    But the manipulators and the self-declared heroes should not delude themselves, nor should the naive, or those who are drunk with patriotism or those who consider themselves experts: the moment will arrive more quickly than they imagine and within a short while everyone will be hiding behind the pose of “we told you so” when they know which way the wind is blowing.

    That is when all the declarations, the assessments and the excuses – that could be uttered and written only in an atmosphere of lack of critical skepticism that prevails when a “state of war” is declared – will be revealed.

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    It is only in an atmosphere of this kind that serious people can justify the destruction of a country on the grounds that they “are helping its government in this way” to gain the upper hand over Hezbollah – a kind of variation on the theme of “the raped woman actually enjoyed herself.” It is only in an atmosphere of this kind that a well-bred person can be glad that the lack of American pressure to stop the bombings makes it possible to continue the killing and destruction.

    Only reliance on patriotic emotions, which cloud any rational thinking, makes it possible to state without shame – after many days of multi-casualty pounding and the inexplicable destruction of an airport, highway interchanges, power stations and entire neighborhoods – that actually this activity was in vain, since it was known in advance that the bombs could not achieve their objectives and that a massive ground invasion was unavoidable.

    Only people who unabashedly exploit primitive urges allow themselves to personalize the war and focus it on the annihilation of their enemy, Hassan Nasrallah. Only those who are convinced the war will bring down a smoke screen over any cynical or hypocritical act can brag that they are assisting in an international humanitarian activity after they themselves brought about the catastrophe.

    No one is able to predict the minute when the opposition to the war and the bloodshed turns from an act of betrayal into a legitimate and even correct stance; when a moral condemnation of the war’s evil effects becomes acceptable from a patriotic point of view and when slogans like “uprooting terror,” “a war for our homes,” “an existential struggle” and their like, turn from resonant war-cries into empty rhetoric.

    No one can predict this, but experience teaches us that the turnabout from patriotic criticism to rational behavior based on moral norms occurs sooner or later, sometimes within weeks or months and sometimes after a generation. It seems that in the current outbreak of violence, the change will come very quickly; its conduct, objectives and results do not encourage too much enthusiasm and it has not even been granted the title of “war” since those who waged it are not sure if they want to commemorate it among the state’s official wars or if they believe it would perhaps be better to forget it.

    They cannot allow themselves to think that all should know their assessments were incorrect, and therefore they will seek a “victory” that will justify all the loss of life and destruction, and the very need for such a victory will merely prolong the suffering and bereavement. The public that supports them will have difficulty demanding soul-searching of them since the tribal solidarity will protect the political and military leaders.

    Very soon everything will return to what it was before – apart from those who sacrificed their lives and those who were killed in the shellings and bombings. And the major loser will be the people of Israel who, by an unmeasured reaction to a provocation, established their position as a foreign element in the region, as the neighborhood bully, the object of impotent hatred.

40. Jose Geromino Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 1:57 pm

    Stop now, immediately
    By Gideon Levy

    This war must be stopped now and immediately. From the start it was unnecessary, even if its excuse was justified, and now is the time to end it. Every day raises its price for no reason, taking a toll in blood that gives Israel nothing tangible in return. This is a good time to stop the war because both sides can claim they won: Israel harmed Hezbollah and Hezbollah harmed Israel. History shows that no situation is better for reaching an arrangement. Remember the lessons of the Yom Kippur War.

    Israel went into the campaign on justified grounds and with foul means. It claims it has declared war on Hezbollah but, in practice, it is destroying Lebanon. It has gotten most of what it could have out of this war. The aerial “target bank” has mostly been covered. The air force could continue to sow destruction in the residential neighborhoods and empty offices and could also continue dropping dozens of tons of bombs on real or imagined bunkers and kill innocent Lebanese, but nothing good will come of it.

    Those who want to restore Israel’s deterrent capabilities have succeeded. Hezbollah and the rest of its enemies know that Israel reacts with enormous force to any provocation. South Lebanon is cleaner now of a Hezbollah presence. In any case, the organization is likely to return there, just as it is likely to rearm. An international agreement could be achieved now, and it won’t be possible to achieve a better deal at a reasonable price in the future.

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    Israel’s other goals – returning the captured soldiers and the elimination of Hassan Nasrallah – will anyway be more difficult to achieve even if the war goes on for weeks and months. The IDF is now asking for “two more weeks” and in another two weeks it will ask for “another two weeks.” A decisive victory is not in the offing.

    On the other hand, the price is skyrocketing. Every day increases international criticism of Israel and hatred of it. That is also an element in “national security.” As opposed to the choir in Israel that makes a false presentation as if the world is cheering Israel, the images from Beirut are causing Israel enormous damage, and rightly so. Not only in the streets of the Arab world is more and more hatred being sown, but also in the West. Not only hundreds of thousands of Lebanese but tens of thousands of Westerners fleeing from Lebanon are contributing to the depiction of Israel as a violent, crude and destructive state.

    The fact that George Bush and Tony Blair are cheering Israel might be consolation for Ehud Olmert and the media in Israel, but it is not enough to persuade millions of TV viewers who see the images of destruction and devastation, most of which are not shown to Israeli audiences. The world sees entire neighborhoods that have been destroyed, hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing in panic, homeless, and hundreds of civilians dead and wounded including many children who have nothing to do with Hezbollah.

    The continuation of the war therefore is neither moral nor worthwhile. The economic blow the war caused to Israel will even remain limited if the war ends now. A lethal summer will exact a much greater economic price.

    The Israeli rear, which has so far displayed impressive resilience, will not remain indifferent in the shelters for much longer. Slowly, the cracks will open and citizens will begin to ask why we are dying and what we are killing for. That’s just the way of war. At first, nobody asks why, but the more entangled they become, the more difficult the questions become.

    We’ve been here before, more than once. Wars began with broad national approval and ended with a great crisis. Those who bask now in the consensus should know that nothing lasts forever. The war will become an imbroglio. When it becomes apparent that the air force is not enough, the ground invasion that has already begun will intensify. The cliche about the Lebanese quagmire will be revalidated, and when the soldiers are killed, as is already happening daily, in house to house hunting, the protests will rise and divide society.

    Now Israel is hoping for the elimination of Nasrallah. That’s an atavistic impulse, even if understandable, which seeks the head of the enemy in order to prove our victory over him. There’s no wisdom or practicality in it. Once again it is worth reminding ourselves of the dozens of people Israel assassinated in Lebanon and the territories, from Sheikh Abbas Mussawi to Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, each replaced by someone new, usually more talented and dangerous than the predecessor. The goals of the war should not be dictated by dark impulses, even if they come in response to the wishes and demands of the mob. The only advantage that would benefit Israel from the elimination of Nasrallah would be that maybe it would bring about an end to the warring. But it can be halted even without that. The other desired goal, the return of the prisoners, will anyway only be achieved through negotiations to release prisoners. Israel could have done that before the war.

    It is still too early to weigh out the balance of achievements and failures of this war. The day will come when it will become clear that it was purposeless, as are all wars of choice. Ceasing it now guarantees a limited achievement at a limited price. Continuing it guarantees a heavy price without any guarantee of a suitable reward. Therefore, Israel must cease and desist. The president of the United States can push us to continue the war all he wants, the prime minister of Britain can cheer us in parliament, but in Israel and Lebanon, the blood is being spilled, the horror is intensifying, the price is rising and it is all for naught.

41. Jose Geromino Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 1:58 pm

    anyone guess where those editorials come from? not from the US media.

42. Randy A. Paul Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 2:13 pm

    Randy, I’m not going to get into a back-and-forth with you, as it is unproductive, you are stubborn, and it gets boring to everyone.

    No, because you don’t have a factual leg to stand on.

    Here’s David Kay’s testimony before the Senate. Kay was our man. Here’s key quote:

    “My summary view, based on what I’ve seen, is we’re very unlikely to find large stockpiles of weapons,” he said on National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition.” “I don’t think they exist.”

    Despite your Yosesimite Sam-like blather, I hasten to remind you that a falsehoos repeated does not gain credence with repetition.

43. Randy A. Paul Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 2:14 pm

    sorry for the unclosed tag

44. Randy A. Paul Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 2:20 pm

    Your calling me stubborn reveals just how bad your self-awareness is.

    You need to reread Oedipuis Rex and remember the basic theme behind it: Know thyself.

45. anon Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 3:25 pm

    I essentially agree with all of Marc Cooper’s P.S. points except for two:

    1) The issue of the ‘67 borders, the point made by Robert Fiore many comments above is valid. Moreover, the 67 borders are meaningless. Most all borders in the Middle East are abitrary boundaries created by their former colonial rulers. In fact, Syria, Jordan and Egypt continue to “occupy” much of historical Palestine — but where are the cries of injustice about it! The issue should be how to create a viable Palestinean state with arable land and other useful resources that such a state will need. We need for some reality, compromise, and and the idea of keeping the eye on the prize to enter the solution to this conflict over state boundaries. The reality is, its unlikely and highly impractical and unnecessary for a viable Palestinean state for Israel to uproot all of the 5 percent or so of the West Bank it has settled some 200,000 plus Israelis at. The Clinton proposal, which was the basis of the later Taba agreement between Abu Mazen and Yossi Beilin, in which they proposed to trade the same or more amount of Israeli land elsewhere for keeping around 80 percent of those settlements is the most sensible way forward and NOT the continued insistence on this 1967 or nothing attitude which not only is impractical its brain dead and evades the point of this whole exercise. Here’s a link to an old Economist article with a good analysis of the route to solving the Palestine-Israel negotiations:
    http://www.economist.com/printedition/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=1077422

    2) Am not entirely convinced that Hezbollah will disarm under a political solution. These folks seem like dead-enders, as extremists typically are. No harm in floating political solutions, but the reality is it may and will likely require force to disarm them. Ideally, Iran and Syria would radically change their tune and tell Hezbollah no more weapons will be provided — that would be a good step toward sustainable disarmament. But, again, how likely is that? We need to solutions that are doable if the idealistic option proves untenable. As much as I wary of using force, it may be the only way to get these missiles and rockets destroyed. The IRA, despite all the good will and political agreements, did not disarm on its own till years afterward. Perhaps thats one way, an IRA-type model, but I still highly doubt the Hezbollah will ever willingly give up their arms unless Israel is destroyed. Realpolitick is in order when it comes to Hezbollah.

    One other comment. While, as have stated already, I agree that Israel has gone too far with its bombing campaign in Lebanon, i.e. they should have gone much easier on the infrastructure in the country and laid off Beirut, they should have confined it entirely to Hezbollah rockets and fighters in the south, I do think that the Lebanese Prime Minister and his government are complicit. They may not have liked the Hez action, as they have stated publicly, but given that Hez has ministers in the govt. and given that the government has made no real effort to disarm Hez, it seems to me that the government is 1) unable to crack down on Hez because the Hez is part of the government, the govt. might crumble if they tackle Hez, and 2)given Hez is officially part of the govt. it seems quite likely that the govt. was in fact aware of the Hez plan and gave its private consent to the plot. The Lebanese govt. will never be able to and never will truly crack down on Hez without international involvement and support.

46. Fen Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 3:42 pm

    If your wife & daughter were being gang-raped, your solution would be to call for a “time-out” every 15 minutes.

    You apply the same appeasment to the Israeli conflict – calling a cease fire before Israel can destroy the threat and bring peace. Your ideology [Virgil] dooms generations upon generations of Pali, Lebaneese, and Israelis to war and conflict. All because you “believe in world peace!” and want to “feel” good about yourselves.

47. Fen Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 3:44 pm

    Here’s David Kay’s testimony before the Senate. Kay was our man. Here’s key quote: “My summary view, based on what I’ve seen, is we’re very unlikely to find large stockpiles of weapons,” he said on National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition.” “I don’t think they exist.”

    500 artillery shells of Sarin and Mustard Gas…

48. Woody Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 3:55 pm

    Thanks, Fen. Also, here’s Kay’s words as provided by Randy: based on what I’ve seen and I don’t think, That’s absolute proof in the mind of a liberal who wants to distort reality to fit his prejudices.

    This from Marc Cooper’s buddy from yesterday:
    Case Closed: The truth about the Iraqi-Niger “yellowcake” nexus
    By Christopher Hitchens, July 25, 2006

    Randy, perhaps you identify with Oedipus Rex more than I do, and I would hope that you weren’t trying to make any insinuations by referencing that play.

49. Wall Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 4:48 pm

    Thanks Woody, I couldn’t have posted it better myself. It’s important to note that Cooper’s buddy’s defense of the war extends to shameless log rolling for his good Republican President. Just as his attacks ( endorsed by Coop) extended to truely patholigical attacks on Clinton, he is now soundly in the there WERE WMD camp; the current far right equiveant of the “Twin Towers was wired with bombs” goof balls.

    Reg, the laughable aspect of Matthews blather rather discounts any credit he should get for fighting Bush on the War.
    Bush as victim on Policy Wonks? That’s one even I won’t hang on him.

50. reg Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 5:38 pm

    Wall – I don’t want to cut Bush any slack, but I think if you go back to the nostrums he was mouthing as his “foreign policy” in 2000, it’s clear the guy is totally clueless and was pretty much an empty vessel for the neo-cons – via Cheney – as soon as 9/11 gave them an opening and a rationale. That and his need to one-up the old man. And, of course, their faux-tough guy views and mindless certitude became a near-perfect fit for the little shit.

51. reg Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 6:22 pm

    The most treacherous thing about those hundreds of Weapons of Mass Destruction that Saddam had salted away is that he was so intent on fooling the world about their existence and his trickery was so nefarious that when he was attacked by the U.S. he very cleverly didn’t use them. Why waste weapons by using them when you are actually in the midst of war ? That’s exactly what folks would expect. Does anyone need any more proof of what a dangerous, deceitful guy he was who violated every known rule of warfare. Clearly he was holding on to those 500 decade-old and deteriorating sarin and mustard gas shells for al Qaeda guys to come and pick up, hide in their luggage as they traveled to the U.S. and explode on the streets of Fargo, Fresno and Lackawanna. Woody isn’t fooled. Fen isn’t fooled. Hitchens isn’t fooled. Simon isn’t fooled. And I’m sure as hell not fooled.

52. Woody Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 6:49 pm

    This isn’t about WMD. To get back on topic, this is about the current crisis in Lebanon. I still haven’t had anyone tell me how the U.N. is helping or whether that organization has any usefulness at all.

    Then, Kofi starts accusing Israel of intentionally targeting the U.N. personnel. My question to him would be, “What in the world were they doing there?”

53. rosedog Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 7:22 pm

    “My question to him would be, “What in the world were they doing there?’”

    That observation post has been there for years. It’s part of UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, which arrived in 1978.

    It seems that the post hit was in direct communication with the IDF, and repeatedly told them that the shells were getting too close.

    From AP:

    Israeli officials have vehemently denied targetting the post, but a preliminary report from the UN says that before the post was hit, peacekeepers had called the Israeli military 10 times in a six-hour period to ask it to halt their bombing.

    During each phone call, an Israeli official promised to stop the attacks, a UN official told the Associated Press.

    The UN peacekeepers at the post said the area within a kilometre of the post was hit with precision munitions, including 17 bombs and 12 artillery shells, four of which directly hit the post Tuesday, the report said.
    *******

    From the IRISH EXAMINER:

    “…The UN also said Jane Holl Lute, the assistant UN secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, told the UN Security Council yesterday that the UNIFIL mission had on Tuesday reported 21 strikes within 300 metres of the UN base, and 12 artillery rounds fell within 100 metres — four of which hit the base directly.

    “’Throughout the day, UNIFIL had protested directly to the IDF (the Israel Defence Forces) each of these incidents of firing close to patrol base Khiam,” Ms Lute told the council, according to a transcript released after the closed meeting.

    “Mr Annan said the “coordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long-established and clearly marked UN post at Khiam occurred despite personal assurances given to me by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that UN positions would be spared Israeli fire.’”

    http://www.irishexaminer.com/irishexaminer/pages/story.aspx-qqqg=world-qqqm=world-qqqa=world-qqqid=9397-qqqx=1.asp

54. rosedog Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 7:25 pm

    PS: Note to Jose Geronimo: while you’re reading Ha’aretz, you might want to check out the new op ed by Prince Hassan of Jordan. It was posted a little over an hour ago and is very good.

55. Publius Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 7:39 pm

    Shouldn’t he have condemned Hezbollah? That said, we’ve officially gone over the line in the response department on Israel’s end. There is such a thing as overkill.

56. Publius Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 7:45 pm

    “the innocence of Saddam Hussein’s weapons program denies reality.”

    No, the deniers need real mental training to claim he actually had one in recent history. Negative affirmation reins in Rightwood.

57. reg Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 7:50 pm

    The Israelis obviously hit the UN observation post accidentally, sort of like they accidentally – if extensively and after numerous close reconnaisance flights – torpedoed and strafed the U.S.S. Liberty “sigint” ship in international waters back in ‘67, killing 34 Americans and wounding 171.

    Accusations of wrongdoing against the Israelis are more often than not simply a manifestation of anti-semitism.

    Case closed.

58. reg Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 7:55 pm

    rd – incidentally, did you catch the recent PBS American Masters with Bruce and his acoustic “Seeger” band performing in a church in England? Keep an eye out for a repeat if you missed it. Wonderful concert.

59. reg Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 7:56 pm

    Ooops…sorry that was “Great Performances”, just in case you go to a website to check schedules.

60. rosedog Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 8:12 pm

    “During an Israeli offensive against Lebanon in 1996, artillery blasted a U.N. base at Qana in southern Lebanon, killing more than 100 civilians who had taken refuge with the peacekeepers.” (from FOX news)

    What FOX didn’t mention is that, this time there was a video that showed, among other things, the drone reconnaisance flight immediately before the hit—and Robert Fisk got hold of the tape.

    http://www.al-bushra.org/lebanon/qana10.htm

61. Woody Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 8:47 pm

    The U.N. post has been there since 1978?! So, my next question is, “What have they been doing there since 1978?” Listen, there is a war going on! That post was serving no peace keeping function. Those guys should have been pulled out of there weeks ago. The U.N. made a mistake in not evacuating them, and now Kofi wants to blame someone else for his failure–unless he had them doing things which helped Israel’s enemy.

    Besides being in the way, what has the U.N. done? At this point, it seems that no one is taking up for them, so they just need to pull out and let matters take their own course. That organization is a pathetic joke and a waste of money and a waste of human resources.

    I agree with reg on one thing. I never accepted Israel’s explanation for attacking the USS Liberty. Our ship was in international waters and could be clearly identified.

    I don’t doubt that Israel might have struck the U.N. post on purpose, but it’s possible that the U.N. post might have been aiding Israel’s enemy or providing cover for the terrorists seeking close shelter. I don’t trust either side on that one.

62. Steve Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 9:12 pm

    “(I’m personally reduced to posting poetry and/or quasi-religious screeches of outrage.)”

    What did you post when Hezbollah fired missiles into populated areas of Israel?

    Oh, right. Nothing.

63. Michael Turner Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 10:04 pm

    Ed Watters writes: “One of the advantages of solar power is that it doesn’t have to generated from a centralized plant which is why energy corporations aren’t interested in solar – they can’t charge consumers for on-going consumption (to comprehend that fact Michael, you have to consider, as you suggest, the “technology AND the economics” – if you ignore it you may “come off as a simpleton”).”

    Actually, they can charge for on-going consumption, and for a simple reason: a photovoltaic system on your rooftop can’t economically meet all of your home’s energy requirements.

    Show me one analysis — just one — demonstrating that distributed solar power such as you suggest would be competitive proposition IF all of the energy required to implement it, including the energy required for production and transportation of it — were itself derived from solar photovoltaics. I think a careful look at the literature would show that your suppose vast conspiracy against solar power somehow includes some people who have been working ardently to make solar practical for their entire careers.

    Just a little primer for you, in one market you’d think would be totally solarized by now if you were right:

    —–
    What is the primary obstacle to wider acceptance of solar energy?

    Price. The upfront costs of solar energy, can be jarring – often $10,000 to $20,000 or more.

    The cost of producing electricity from sunlight is approximately two to four times as expensive as from coal or gas, although in the past two decades, the price per kilowatt hour has come down from $1 to about 20 or 30 cents.

    Solar water heating ordinarily costs between $3,000 and $10,000, with most systems about $4,000 price range.
    —-
    http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0903/p12s01-lihc.html

    Now just imagine that all solar power systems were required to be produced, transported and installed using only that expensie solar energy. Energy is 15-30% of the cost of almost anything. So retrofitting costs can only be higher in an already-solar economy.

    I like solar — really, I do. I think people should be allowed to sell their personally generated power back onto the grid, because it would improve the case for installing solar. What we should have had for the last few decades is fossil fuel prices that incorporated estimated costs of eventual replacement of fossil fuels, but with fossil fuel-derived energy sold to those industries producing replacements using prices in which replacement costs are subtracted. We could have been subsidizing the development and deployment of alternatives with cheap fossil fuel and creating a market for them by positioning those alternative against industries that have to pay replacement costs. But, we didn’t do that. And it’s gotten too late.

    Your future solar system will have to bear the added energy costs of expensive fossil fuel energy just to be fielded at all. And in any case, energy will be more expensive. Living on fossil fuel like there was no tomorrow was a fool’s paradise. But so is the neverneverland of renewables from sources that are somehow both cheap and environmentally low-impact. Talk all you want about the vast conspiracy, the fact is, every rational business case for solar is made on the strength of something neither markets nor politics in American democracy have been able to do effectively: assessing replacement costs for fossil fuels and adding those costs to market prices. Which is to say, it’s asking to predict a future that nobody can know for sure, except that it’s a future in which energy is almost certainly expensive. Yeah, try to sell *that* to voters in a democracy who will kill any politician who talks about raising gasoline taxes.

64. reg Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 10:06 pm

    “it’s possible that the U.N. post might have been aiding Israel’s enemy or providing cover for the terrorists seeking close shelter”

    Actually Woody, I’m of the opinion that they were hiding Saddam’s WMDs….

65. reg Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 10:16 pm

    “What did you post when Hezbollah fired missiles into populated areas of Israel?

    Oh, right. Nothing.”

    If memory serves, one of rosedog’s initial salvos – typical of her ilk – was to post an anti-semitic screed by one Bob Dylan. Something about a Hard Rain.

66. Michael Balter Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 10:32 pm

    Publius says: “There is such a thing as overkill.”

    Right, it’s okay to kill a certain number of civilians, but let’s not get carried away! It’s amazing how little some people here value human life.

    Thanks to Jose Geronimo for showing us the debate in Israel that has not yet started in the US. The Israelis will live to regret their actions, and very soon, they are taking heavy casualties now and they have just bred the next generation of terrorirsts.

    Aside to Woody: You just keep on insisting that Iraq had WMD at the time the US invaded, it keeps your credibility on this blog at the level it belongs.

67. Michael Balter Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 10:43 pm

    Below from today’s NYT. Don’t get me wrong, I take no satisfaction in these Israeli deaths. But I do take grim satisfaction that Israel may realize much sooner than the US has that there are no ultimate military solutions to the world’s conflicts, and I would cheer any signs that Israelis might begin to question the reckless acts of their government.

    AVIVIM, Israel, July 26 — Two days ago, Israeli officers along the border were saying that they were in control of Bint Jbail, the biggest Hezbollah stronghold within easy striking distance across the border and an important symbolic target. Hezbollah’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, celebrated Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon with a parade there six years ago.

    Israeli soldiers received written instructions as they prepared to enter Lebanon.
    But when Israel sent in its elite Golani Infantry Brigade to secure the town before dawn on Wednesday, hundreds of soldiers were quickly pinned down by a Hezbollah ambush. Eight soldiers were killed almost immediately, and it took until early afternoon to move the dead and wounded two miles under heavy fire to a safe spot where they were picked up by helicopter and flown to a hospital in Haifa.

    “It was a tough day,” said Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, who heads Israel’s Northern Command and is leading operations in Lebanon along with Maj. Gen. Benny Gantz, chief of the ground offensive. General Adam, who met reporters in a pine forest at dusk, acknowledged that after two days of bitter combat that had left 10 soldiers dead, Bint Jbail was still not under Israeli control.

    The details of the battle, drawn from discussions with several officers who had knowledge of the fight, show how far Israel has to go in driving Hezbollah from the hills and valleys of southern Lebanon, and why the country’s goals have so quickly changed from fully dismantling Hezbollah to securing a narrow strip, less than two miles long, north of Israel’s border.

    Given the difficulties encountered in Bint Jbail, clearing all the many villages that dot southern Lebanon of Hezbollah’s elaborate bunker networks, weapons caches and fighters now seems a gargantuan task without occupying the territory again, which Israel has vowed not to do.

68. Michael Turner Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 10:45 pm

    Woody supports his allegation that Iraq had WMD with a link to a story saying it’s so. Oh really? Must’ve missed that one. So I try to verify. And I find … many rightwing blogs citing the same source, with something like Woody’s conclusion. However, all roads seem to lead back to the same AP story:

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,122311,00.html

    And what does that story say? Some scrapped Al Samoud missile engines were found in a scrapyard in Jordan. Were Al Samoud’s “WMD”?

    Al Samoud missiles were a topic of contention during the inspections before the invasion, because they had been seen being fired farther than the mandated limit of 150km — about 180km. Iraq pointed out that those were launches without payload (and that makes perfect sense, if you know anything about rocketry) and shouldn’t be counted as extended range missiles. BUT — Iraq started scrapping Al Samouds anyway, as a good faith gesture, under the supervision of inspectors. Did Iraq destroy all of them? No. What interrupted their destruction? The invasion. What happened to them since that time? Sold as scrap.

    This is not Iraqi “WMD”, sorry. These were missiles of contended legality, with the weight of evidence suggesting that Iraq had a right to keep them, but UNMOVIC suggesting that destruction would at least put a better face on Iraq’s lack of WMD.

    These missiles were found along with some other equipment that could be used to make gas with … yes … U.N. stickers on it. Which is to say, it couldn’t have been Iraq’s “secret WMD”. Yet more post-inspection garbage that got sold as scrap metal.

    So what was the real point of this news stirred up by UNMOVIC’s Demetrios Perricos? That the U.S. invasion increased weapons proliferation risks by disrupting U.N. inspections with an invasion.

    http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/unmovic/2003/0227nomissiles.htm

    And you’ve gotta love this one — once Iraq starting decommissioning Al Samoud’s, Ari Fleischer said this:

    “President Bush has always predicted that Iraq would destroy its Al-Samoud 2 missiles as part of their games of deception”

    http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?sf=2813&art_id=qw10465246848B262&click_id=2813&set_id=1

    Iraq wasn’t allowed to complete its “game of deception”, and now the appearance of the messy, uncoordinated disposal of *non*-WMD by Iraqi scrap metal exporters is being spun as “Iraq had WMD after all!”

    Once again, Woody proves himself to be a shrieking idiot who doesn’t know how to look shit up on the web. He’s sure good at skimming headlines from sources that reflect his biases, though.

69. Michael Turner Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 10:51 pm

    Oh, Woody’s probably pretty busy, so I’ll reply to my last post for him:

    “OK, Turner, I guess you must love Saddam. And Saddam reveres Stalin, so you must be a Stalinist, not just a leftist.”

    I cry Uncle. You’re right Woody — that incisive reply (did I guess right?) proves that Iraq had WMD on the eve of the invasion. After all, I’m a Stalinist, so I must be lying. Moreover, I probably hacked those news sites so that they said what I wanted them to say.

70. Michael Turner Says:
    July 26th, 2006 at 11:37 pm

    With regard to the other link Woody supplies from 2004, Duelfer’s final report (not his press-release damage-control maneuvering as linked by Woody) supplies the essential context:

    “Presidential secretary ‘Abd Hamid Mahmud wrote
    that in 1991 Saddam told the scientists that they
    should “preserve plans in their minds” and “keep
    the brains of Iraq’s scientists fresh.” Iraq was to destroy everything apart from knowledge, which would be used to reconstitute a WMD program.”

    and

    “According to two senior Iraqi scientists, in 1993
    Husayn Kamil, then the Minister of Military
    Industrialization, announced in a speech to a large audience of WMD scientists at the Space Research Center in Baghdad that WMD programs would
    resume and be expanded, when UNSCOM inspectors
    left Iraq. Husayn Kamil’s intimate relationship
    with Saddam added particular credibility to his
    remarks.”

    p.44
    http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/pdf/duelfer1_b.pdf

    Not noted in that second paragraph: Kamil’s “intimate relationship” with Saddam had been badly damaged in a family feud in 1995, during which he defected and escaped to Jordan, resulting in a demand by Saddam to bring him back. Relations with Jordan were smoothed over, but not relations between Kamil and Saddam. As Machiavelli points out somewhere, the reports of traitors and defectors has to be taken with a grain of salt. Kamil cannot be said to have had any “intimacy” with Saddam after 1995, quite the contrary, he’d probably say anything to bring Saddam down. Nor any knowledge of any post-1995 WMD program.

    So that’s what you’ve got, Woody, from your previous Charles Duelfer: Saddam reported as telling his WMD people to destroy everything but to also remember as much as they could, and a defector saying (back in 1993, 10 years before the invasion and with lots of UN inspections to go) that Saddam would try to reconstitute his programs AFTER the sanctions.

    And that’s all you’ve got. Unreliable sources talking about intent, not reliable sources giving up actual evidence. Oh, you’ve got some evidence? Give it up already. Lots of us are dying to know.

71. Samuel Stott Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 12:06 am

    Woody is right to question the integrity and competence of the UN and gets what he usually does for making his arguments—accusations of stupidity and bad faith.

    The UN recently presided over the biggest heist in the history of the world, bigger than Enron. Toothless UN peacekeeping forces never shoot except in rare cases of self-defense, but leave behind a trail of corruption and sexual predation. Beyond de-facto sovereignty, there are no formal requirements for membership, which explains why tyrannies, plutocracies and genocidal regimes depend upon it for a platform, and why chairs on UN human rights committees are frequently held by the likes of the Sudan and Syria.

    Not coincidently, Israel is the most condemned state in the history of the organization, even though other members have killed more innocents in a single year than Israel has in its entire existence.

    The UN is where third world disfunction meets the first world theology of victimization.

    How else to explain the original post: Mr Cooper’s assumption that Israel DELIBERATELY murdered UN peacekeeping forces? (I am guessing that, on second thought, Mr. Cooper will reserve judgement until the facts are in.) Koffi Annan rushed to the same judgement, less surprisingly.

    How about some facts? Well, we already know, as a fact, that Hizbullah wants Israel to kill as many Lebanese women and children as possible. What are the chances that Hibullah was NOT launching rockets from this UN post? Let’s see what facts come out.

    The far left’s reactionary position on the UN and Israeli guilt mirrors its reactionary positions on Islamism, Islamo-facism, Iran and Iraq.

    These are subjects the far left declines to consider, except for the purpose of condemning and insulting the right.

    How is it possible that so many alleged progressives on this blog have racked up thousands of words on the subject of geo-politics and war crimes without discussing the fact that Hezbollah is Iran’s proxy and that the Sudanese government has displaced 2 to 4 million, and killed 300,00 to 400,000 fellow Muslims?

    All far left outrage is targeted at Israel and at the US. Those Darfurians just keep dying and dying, but who cares? Fucking Israelis!

72. Michael Balter Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 12:12 am

    On the UN deaths: To me the basic issue is the same whether it was deliberate or accidental. Israel is conducting its campaign with wanton disregard for civilian lives, which is a war crime. Of course, Hezbollah is doing the same, but the Israelis are supposedly the good guys.

73. rosedog Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 12:14 am

    Reg…No, rats, didn’t see it. That was the concert that played on the 4th of July, right.? It didn’t occur to me that it’d show again. But of course, you’re right, it will. Cool. Thanks! I was bummed that I missed it.

    PS: Steve, honey, if you’d bothered to read the poetry I posted, instead of simply being content to toss nasty little mud balls, you’d have seen that it was intended to humanize ALL those who are suffering in this mess.

    Then again, if one lives in the kind of black and white universe that requires the demonization of everyone outside one’s particular circle of belief (and—judging by your remarks—that’s where you reside) then likely you would have missed the point anyway.

    And to think people like you mistake their hatred for morality. Fascinating.

74. Ahmed Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 12:20 am

    On the question of what motivated Israel to bomb the UN building, Juan Cole suggests that if you have in mind war crimes, better to not have neutral observers on hand to witness.

75. Michael Balter Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 12:25 am

    I fear you may be right, Ahmed. Israel is clearly lying about what it is doing: This is a collective punishment of all of Lebanon, as should be obvious from what they are bombing–anything and everything. But then Israel has always lied about its intentions, especially in the occupied territories.

76. Samuel Stott Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 3:03 am

    Easy enough to cut to the chase, amid all this posturing in bad faith.

    I am on Israel’s side. My ideal outcome would be that Israel kill every single Hizbullah combatant, without putting a scratch on a single civilian.

    The formerly weak and poor Lebanese democracy would then exercise soveriegnty in its own country, recognize the right of Israel to exist, and pressure the Palestinians to surrender its triumphalist (when not genocidal) fantasies for a two state solution and a permanent peace.

    What’s wrong with that, oh objective allies of Islamic theocracy and objective deniers of the right of Israel to exist?

77. Michael Turner Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 4:01 am

    While I doubt that Israeli intentionally targeted peacekeepers, there’s little remaining doubt for a charge of massive incompetence, at the very least:

    —-
    The base near Khiam came under intense Israeli fire 21 times Tuesday – including 12 hits within 100 metres and four direct hits – from 1:20 p.m. until contact was lost with the four peacekeepers inside at 7:17 p.m., Jane Lute, assistant secretary general for peacekeeping, told the UN Security Council in New York.

    Officials in the outpost called the Israeli army 10 times during those six hours, and each time an army official promised to have the bombing stopped, according to a preliminary UN report on the incident, which was shown to an Associated Press reporter.
    —–
    http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/news/shownews.jsp?content=w072689A

    In the heat of combat, this is very likely a case of somebody in the chain of command shrugging and saying, “The UN? Who the hell cares?” And rationalizing their callousness in terms very similar to Mr. Stott’s.

78. Fen Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 4:03 am

    Juan Cole suggests that if you have in mind war crimes, better to not have neutral observers on hand to witness

    Juan Cole is a complete moron with no expertise in the ME. Powerline et al have fisked him so many times that its become embarasssing. Using him as a source discredits your argument.

    We have an email from one of the Canadians killed, claiming that Hezbollah was firing missiles 3 meters away from his pos before the IDF bombing. I wonder if Juan will even mention that….

79. Michael Turner Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 4:15 am

    Stott says: “My ideal outcome would be that Israel kill every single Hizbullah combatant, without putting a scratch on a single civilian.”

    What realism!

    “The formerly weak and poor Lebanese democracy would then exercise soveriegnty in its own country, recognize the right of Israel to exist ….”

    Blah, blah, blah.

    “What’s wrong with that, oh objective allies of Islamic theocracy and objective deniers of the right of Israel to exist?”

    As someone who considers himself objective compared to many others here, but far from an “ally of Islamic theocracy”, etc., etc. (I recognize Israel’s right to exist, for example), I can nevertheless tell you what’s wrong with it.

    Killing every Hezbollah combatant creates a martyr. And in the Middle East, there’s a new candidate martyr born every minute. (Especially in Hezbollahland, whose parliamentary representation is lower than it would be if it were based on a recent census, rather than an old one, thus taking into account the higher birthrates in that area compared to other parts of Lebanon.)

    I can also tell you what’s wrong with it morally: a 15 year old who has been brainwashed into thinking he’s a jihadi, fighting in the one true pure cause on the planet, shouldn’t be killed if he can be reformed. I consider him a victim of Hezbollah as well. There are fully adult, even old and grizzled, NON-combatants who I would consider more culpable. For that matter, the guy’s non-combatant mother might be more culpable if she reacted to the news of her son’s joining the militia with pride. Except … well, isn’t she partly a product of propaganda as well? The further you pursue this notion of culpability, the more likely it is that you would conclude that the Nuremberg Trials should have tried about half the German population.

80. Fen Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 4:16 am

    Clearly he was holding on to those 500 decade-old and deteriorating sarin and mustard gas shells.

    Some had deteriorated, some had not. And they were not found in a group, they were found all over the country, some buried in sand, some hidden in underground fortress complexes. A dozen here, another dozen there…

    But I love the way you’ve gone from only an idiot believes there were WMDs in Iraq to those aren’t the WMDs you’re looking for [and besides they must be degraged]
    Dishonest much?

    And those 500 are just the start. The majority of Saddam’s WMD program was evacuated to Syria with Russian help [General Primakov]. Its was standard SOP for the Soviets in their satellite countries – ditch all evidence of WMDs whenever the West came knocking. So common that it even had its own codename – Sarandar or “Emergency Exit”.

81. Fen Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 4:31 am

    /re Juan Cole, via Powerline

    http://powerlineblog.com/archives/014727.php#014727

    “Hugh Hewitt and Rich Karlgaard have noted the tongue-tied response from certain precincts on the left to Israel’s efforts to defend itself. The University of Michigan’s Juan Cole, on the other hand, has not been silent, but when he opens his mouth he proves himself a fool. TigerHawk catches Cole in the act of being himself. The adage that it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt may apply here.

    JOHN adds: TigerHawk takes Cole to task for his suggestion that Israel’s bombardment of southern Lebanon “may be an element of ethnic cleansing” because it is forcing some Lebanese to evacuate that area and flee to Beirut or Syria. A simpler explanation, of course, would be that Israel is bombarding the South because that is the area that has been controlled by Hezbollah and from which rockets are being launched against Israel. Mr. Cole, meet Mr. Occam.

    That’s not to mention the fact that the would-be ethnic cleansers of the Middle East are the radical Arabs whose stated goal is to drive infidels, including but not limited to Israeli Jews, from the region. But Cole is one of those lefties who never lets the facts get in the way.

    The good news is, Yale wised up in time and didn’t hire Cole. The bad news is, Michigan is stuck with him.”

82. Fen Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 4:40 am

    I can also tell you what’s wrong with it morally: a 15 year old who has been brainwashed into thinking he’s a jihadi, fighting in the one true pure cause on the planet, shouldn’t be killed if he can be reformed.

    It would have been interesting to watch you deprogram the Nazi Youth on the shores of Normandy…

    War is neither just nor moral. And its true that there are many on the “enemy” side who are good people acting in good faith, but misdirected by their own nationalism and propaganda. However, once the bullets start flying, the only way to save them is through a Victor’s Peace.

83. Fen Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 4:57 am

    The U.N. post has been there since 1978?! So, my next question is, “What have they been doing there since 1978?”

    /via Captain’s Quarters:

    According to Security Council resolutions 425 (1978) and 426 (1978) of 19 March 1978, UNIFIL was established to:
    1) Confirm the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon;
    2) Restore international peace and security;
    3) Assist the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area.

    [snicker]

84. Woody Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 5:49 am

    Aggghhhhhh. The U.N. has had that post in Lebanon for 28 years for those three purposes! Did anyone question along the way that maybe what they were or were not doing wasn’t working? Why, with the U.N. presence there so long, they should have had the Israelis and Palestinians going to wine tasting parties together.

    Everyone on the left is so quick to condemn the U.S. for lack of peace in that region of the mideast but conveniently overlook the gross failure of the U.N. there–and everywhere. Does anyone from the left have the nerve or honesty to admit that the U.N. fails over and over in peacekeeping roles?

    You “world citizens” of the left should quit blaming the U.S. when the organization for your ideals is such a failure.

85. Woody Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 6:07 am

    Someone just forwarded this to me.

    The Great U.N. Delusion
    Find another false idol to worship, multilateral fetishists — the U.N. is a failure
    By Jonah Goldberg, Friday, July 21, 2006
    http://www.townhall.com/columnists/JonahGoldberg/2006/07/21/the_great_un_delusion

86. Randy A. Paul Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 6:38 am

    Gee Woody, who should I believe? Our expert David Kay or you and the other wingnuts?

    Here in the real world we act on actual physical evidence before making claims. Absent evidence, we don’t make those claims.

    You’re making claims without evidence. Wo’s being stubborn? I think it’s clear to everyone whose cognizance exists in the real world.

    Warm regards

87. Woody Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 7:36 am

    Randy, saying that “I didn’t see anything” is not the same as saying that “I know.”

    I noticed that the lefties on this site have starting hedging by saying that there were no WMD at the time the US invaded. That’s a move from saying that he didn’t have them ever. Hey, do you think that the months of warnings that he received might have influenced Hussein to move or modify those weapons and gases? There has been overwhelming evidence of Hussein’s possession and intent to use WMD, yet it is those on the left who refuse to admit it because that just might help Bush.

    But, this is about the crisis in Lebanon, which is where I’ve tried to steer the conversation, and only a stubbon idelogue would want to go on and on about denying WMD in Iraq on this topic. You begin to sound like Al Gore saying that the “debate is over.” There’s more proof of Hussein’s WMD than there is of a global warming crisis caused by man.

    Con affetto.

88. Randy A. Paul Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 8:17 am

    I noticed that the lefties on this site have starting hedging by saying that there were no WMD at the time the US invaded. That’s a move from saying that he didn’t have them ever.

    Poppycock. I know of no one who ever said that he never had WMD’s.

    It doesn’t excuse the level of hyperbole that the adminsitration used in making the case for this war. It doesn’t excuse their faith in the forged yellowcake documents that the IAEA deemed a forgery almost immediately after reviewing it.

    It doesn’t excuse the glaring missteps made when the war was started. The guy you support and his neocon buddies got us and the rest of the world into this mess. No amount of wishful thinking like “stay the course” will get us out.

    keep dreaming Woody.

89. Randy A. Paul Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 8:18 am

    As for stubborn idolugue, please stop projecting.

90. reg Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 8:28 am

    “I noticed that the lefties on this site have starting hedging by saying that there were no WMD at the time the US invaded. That’s a move from saying that he didn’t have them ever.”

    Woody, that statement is a certification of your ignorance and the fact that you’ve obviously not done any serious investigation of either the actual debate over Saddam’s WMDs – as a casus belli posed by the Bush administration – that took place among people who were even modestly informed. You’re a buffoon. You’re jerking yourself off with talking points from the Boortz and Limbaugh crazy corner, imagining that you’ve got some contribution to make. You don’t.

    Fen’s another dishonest little midget who’s chasing his own tail and imagining that he’s somehow come up with the “evidence” that justifies the massive dishonesty and hype served up by neo-con hacks like Doug Feith in Cheney’s “gestapo office” (Colin Powell’s description) to fit their pre-fab urge to invade Iraq. You’ve attributed an assertion to me that you made from your own whole cloth but you’re probably too stupid and desperatly clinging to the latest dittohead bullshit to even comprehend just how shallow your rants actually are. Still, I would appreciate your not listening to the voices in your head and imagining that you’re engaged in a discussion with me. Incidentally, in the opener that you managed to copy accurately – if partially – from something I did, in fact, write, I used the word “deteriorating” – which is descriptive of these “WMDs” in their entirety, despite your fidgeting. Your attempt at “clarification” is more proof of just how far this veers into a realm of minutia for the mindless and obsessive – folks who will, literally, argue anything to try to save face, no matter how ridiculous they look. Reminds me of a six-year old. And not a very sophisticated six-year old.

    Arguing with people who “aren’t even wrong” – because their masturbatory screeds are totally removed from what actually was put forward in serious public debate over “WMDs” when it mattered – is a fools game. The talking points get lamer and lamer from this crowd and their desperation only increases as reality kicks them in the ass.

91. Ahmed Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 10:38 am

    So Woody help me out here. Are you saying that since the UN is ineffective they deserved to be killed

92. Fen Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 12:29 pm

    reg: I used the word “deteriorating” – which is descriptive of these “WMDs” in their entirety, despite your fidgeting

    Actually no, its not. Some had deteriorated, some had not. And while many were useless as artillery rounds, their WMD payload remained intact and could be harvested for a fresh delivery system.

    BTW, your insults are childish and only highlight your impotence re this topic. Please don’t get so emotional when confronted with facts you cannot dispute. Its embarassing.

93. Fen Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 12:38 pm

    It doesn’t excuse the level of hyperbole that the adminsitration used in making the case for this war.

    The hyperbole came from the media, not the administration. Bush gave a list of reasons why the liberation of Iraq was warranted, the media focused on WMDs b/c it was sexy and sold papers.

    It doesn’t excuse their faith in the forged yellowcake documents that the IAEA deemed a forgery almost immediately after reviewing it.

    You’re confused. They had confirmation independent of the forged docs. Saddam was indeed trying to purchase yellowcake in Africa.

    It doesn’t excuse the glaring missteps made when the war was started.

    Strong on accusations, short on details. As per the usual. Are you incapable of providing examples?

94. reg Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 12:38 pm

    Again, your petty ranting and micro-arguments are constructed as not-particularly-clever evasions of any serious discussion of the “WMDs as casus belli” question that pushed America into the current fiasco. Of course, I’d evade real issues as well, were I a wingnut who’d spent the last half-decade up BushCo’s ass.

95. Fen Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 12:48 pm

    evasions of any serious discussion of the “WMDs as casus belli”

    What evasions? You have yet to make an argument about WMDs. Make one and I’ll respond to it.

    spent the last half-decade up BushCo’s ass.

    But if you choose to keep flailing away at your impotence instead…

96. reg Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 12:51 pm

    (That prior post was directed to “FEN 12:29″ – this one to “12:38″)

    “The hyperbole came from the media, not the administration. Bush gave a list of reasons why the liberation of Iraq was warranted, the media focused on WMDs b/c it was sexy and sold papers.”

    That’s rich. Do you actually believe this stuff you spout ? Or are you trying to waste our time by eliciting a detailed response to whatever crap you decide to pull out of your butt ?

97. Woody Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 1:20 pm

    reg & Randy, when there is proof of WMD’s but you have selected people with a conflict of interests who claim that they didn’t see any, you’ll ignore the proof and take their words for their blind claims strictly for the sake of politics rather than for logic and honesty. I have as much respect for you as I do those who say that Bush bombed the WTC towers. Admit your bias and false positions rather than continue the charade that fools no one.

    It’s clear that you ignored the links provided and that you have been incapable and/or unwilliing to do honest research on your own. Does that make me the buffoon or you? Who contributes less to a discussion when you try to disallow legitimate and proven facts in that discussion?

    It was clear to me that we went into Iraq for a number of reasons and that the decision to go in would not have been different had we known about later concerns of intelligence on just one issue. If that’s the case, then WMD’s mean nothing but to you who want to upset the public or feed your own insanity.

    You illustrate that Marc Cooper’s site has the same rule as voting: anyone can participate no matter how ignorant. While you can persist with your insanity here, at least voting laws does Marc Cooper one better: Voting Rights I guess you’ll be standing outside the polls in November. Oh, and don’t feign being offended, since Randy inferred that I was a MF and reg wanted to fight me.

    You guys are sick–and very wrong.

98. Woody Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 1:23 pm

    (I’m sorry, Tom Grey. I stayed quiet as long as I could.)

99. Fennel seed Says:
    July 27th, 2006 at 1:26 pm

    “Offering the official administration response to FOX News, a senior Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were not in useable conditions.

    ‘This does not reflect a capacity that was built up after 1991,” the official said, adding the munitions “are not the WMDs this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had, and not the WMDs for which this country went to war.’”

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200499,00.html

100. Woody Says:
     July 27th, 2006 at 3:01 pm

     Let’s look a little closer to what that part of the report said:

     The weapons are thought to be manufactured before 1991 so they would not be proof of an ongoing WMD program in the 1990s. But they do show that Saddam Hussein was lying when he said all weapons had been destroyed, and it shows that years of on-again, off-again weapons inspections did not uncover these munitions.

     And, what else did the inspections not uncover? What a crock to say there were no WMDs just because someone “didn’t see them” in the game of shuffling.

     …not to mention that weapons production could be cranked up very quickly, as the materials and production capacity were not eliminate. It’s not a stretch to say that WMDs exist if it only takes days with existing capacity to manufacture them. That’s like saying, “No, I don’t have a loaded gun. The gun is here, but the bullet is in my pocket.” Get real.

     You guys just don’t quit. You would let everyone get blown up before you would admit that weapons exist–and, then, you might not even then.

101. Fennel seed Says:
     July 27th, 2006 at 3:50 pm

     I repeat:

     “This does not reflect a capacity that was built up after 1991,” the official said, adding the munitions “are not the WMDs this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had, and not the WMDs for which this country went to war.’”

     And from a FOX News report, at that. A nice clean admission that the WMDs we went to war for were illusions. Dreamt-up justifications foisted on a gullible press.

     Keep it coming.

102. Woody Says:
     July 27th, 2006 at 4:04 pm

     Fennel seed, keep repeating all you want, but you keep repeating a section of the report that was expanded in another part of the same report and discredits your so-called conclusion–as I showed in my comment.

     Ann Coulter: If you can somehow force a liberal into a point-counterpoint argument, his retorts will bear no relation to what you’ve said — unless you were in fact talking about your looks, your age, your weight, your personal obsessions, or whether you are a fascist. In the famous liberal two-step, they leap from one idiotic point to the next, so you can never nail them. It’s like arguing with someone with Attention Deficit Disorder.

     Fennel seed, Ann Coulter must have met you.

103. Fennel seed Says:
     July 27th, 2006 at 5:28 pm

     LOL, this is an interesting game, watching this odd fellow dance around a very simple point: to wit, that the WMDs that existed and uncovered were not those we went to war for. Plain and simple. No need to dress it up, or fumble about with evasions and attempted counter-points, slippery and red-faced.

     So let’s try again: like castor oil, just take the truth as it is, let it digest, and then ponder.

     The WMDs for which we went to war were not found. Simple. Don’t spit up the castor oil of truth with whiney “yes-buts” (”yes but Saddam lied!”)–it only makes you look like you’re not willing to make counter-arguments that are relevant and respond to the point. Let it sit for awhile. Don’t be impatient, like foolhardy GW and crew were to get us into the mess of Iraq. Swallow, breathe in deeply, read and pray about it, and then come back to the table with something informative to say.

     Trust me, it’s the better way.

104. Woody Says:
     July 27th, 2006 at 6:14 pm

     Fennel, please refer to my last two posts and keep reading them over and over until they sink in. Ann Coulter has you pegged.

105. reg Says:
     July 27th, 2006 at 6:20 pm

     Lordy mama! The wingnut has started hauling out quotes from Ann Coulter, the Queen of Rational Discourse.

     Somebody go get a strait jacket for this guy…

106. Woody Says:
     July 27th, 2006 at 7:03 pm

     Half of Americans now say Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the United States invaded the country in 2003 — up from 36 percent last year, a Harris poll finds. http://washingtontimes.com/national/20060724-110410-8309r.htm

     The other half are stubborn or stupid.

107. Fennel seed Says:
     July 27th, 2006 at 7:06 pm

     Fascinating. Socrates would have a ball with this guy–the reason-shunning Sophists at least attempted to answer the challenges Socrates posed, however foolhardy and truth-negating their responses. One can conclude that either you don’t know how to respond to the argument, or else you’re deviantly evading a relevant response. In case it’s the former, I’ll repeat this useful advice: swallow, breathe in deeply, read and pray about it, and then come back to the table with something informative to say. If it’s the latter, then I think you want to re-think what it means to value honest debate.

     It’s like talking to a modern-day Pontius Pilate, who demonstrated a similar incredulous response to Truth. Try again–you can do it.

108. reg Says:
     July 27th, 2006 at 7:20 pm

     Woody, you’re demonstrating total ignorance of the threat assessments and WMD arguments that were put forward to justify the war and are so in denial as to how deliberately inflated they turned out to be and what the actual counter-arguments of skeptics were at the time that “you’re not even wrong”.

109. Woody Says:
     July 27th, 2006 at 7:56 pm

     Fennel, one problem with you is the same problem with most leftists–you have this truly phony, undeserved air of superiority. What’s really funny is that you throw out Socrates and reference his position of authority to place your position in the discussion, like we’re supposed to be in awe. Like the Democratic Party, that never connects well with anyone. What a phony.

     Now, do this. Swallow (sort of like Monica), breathe in deeply, but don’t exhale.

     If you don’t pass out, read the provided links and do some honest and broad research. You will find that there were many reasons to go into Iraq, for which WMDs was one and for which there is plenty of evidence that Hussein could put his hands on them quite readily. If you can’t see that, then you are not qualified to discuss the issue.

     I hope that you’re not in education. Most of that industry (not profession) is full of idiots, and I just don’t think that it needs one more.

     ———

     reg, did you hear anything that Bush said besides those sixteen words?

     ———

     I’m going back to read Ann Coulter. She makes a lot more sense than you guys and would have saved me aggravation if I had taken her advice.

110. Fennel seed Says:
     July 27th, 2006 at 8:12 pm

     Disappointing, but predictable: the next step is always emotion-laden (and obsene) insults, and the angry ad homina–again, sadly, miles and miles away from the topic at hand. The evasiveness, the personalization of the debate–all irrelevant. Sigh.

     Maybe you need a cool-down period, or some alone time (prayer often works, in my humble opinion). Or I guess maybe another forum which better suits your approach of insults to strangers and name-calling. You might have more fun, even if you fail to learn anything. Which, based on your insult-laden comments, appears to be your goal.

111. Woody Says:
     July 27th, 2006 at 8:25 pm

     FS, all I asked you to do was to read the links and available information. Obviously, you refuse or cannot understand them. That’s your problem–not mine. All that you can do is deny, ignore, and make slights to me. Maybe you and Randy should get together since you wear the same blinders.

     And, on insults, you don’t know what insults are. If you think that emotion laden and obscene insults are disappointing, then you need to stick around or go back and look at those from reg and Randy to me wanting me to die or to physically attack me in a bloody fight me. Maybe you would be disappointed enough to leave or to reserve your condescension for them.

     Sorry. I’m not going to discuss psychology or philosophy. I majored in something useful.

112. Fennel seed Says:
     July 27th, 2006 at 8:51 pm

     From fascinating, to disappointing, to… bizarre. I’m certainly no psychologist, but the angry insults hurled at strangers, all while failing to respond to simple points with relevant responses, is a little disturbing. Particularly the disgustingly obscene ones:

     “Swallow (sort of like Monica)”. Misdirected hostility, and perverted, juvenile sexual comments? Disgusting, and inappropriate.

     The moment I read a relevant response to the points presented several posts ago, I will be happy to respond in kind. Of course, based on your last invective-filled posts, I’ll stick to my original suggestion: some quiet time alone, some prayer, and maybe a good night’s sleep.

     Good luck.

113. reg Says:
     July 27th, 2006 at 9:05 pm

     “reg, did you hear anything that Bush said besides those sixteen words?”

     Yeah, I heard BushCo touting “mobile germ warfare labs” that were for weather ballons, aluminum tubes that they claimed were for nuclear centrifuges – but weren’t, and a lot of fearmongering about smoking guns that would turn out to be mushroom clouds. Also I heard Colin Powell call his own UN speech a “blot on my record” that was sourced with data he himself admits was “inaccurate and in some cases deliberately misleading” and I’ve heard his aide Lawrence Wilkerson call that day “the lowest point in my life”. And I’ve heard David Kay and Charles Delfeur debunk the notion that there was a WMD stockpile that bore any relationship to the claims made by the Bush administration in their pre-war rationales. I also know that Cheney’s little “gestapo office” (Powell’s words) were working overtime to undermine any doubts emanating from professional CIA analysts about Saddam’s WMD threat and were using, as sources for a lot of their “evidence” that turned out to be total bullshit, Iraqi defectors who proved to be fabulists with an agenda of pushing the U.S. to overthrow Saddam for them.

     Also, the notion that Bush and the neocons could have drummed up support for the war on an argument that wasn’t founded on creating a sense of clear and present danger to U.S. national security is totally ridiculous. I doubt that even a moron such as yourself could believe that. These are facts, and finding some shells rusting in the desert doesn’t absolve the Bush gang of their criminal incompetence, both in the argument they made for the necessity of war and in its incredibly irresponsible and slipshod prosecution (criminal negligence is the verdict of Larry Diamond, who worked for Bremer in Baghdad and wrote an excellent book, Squandered Victory. Unless you’ve read Diamond, George Packer’s Assassin’s Gate and Cobra II -at least – I don’t consider you even remotely concerned about the issues involved in this war. Fact is you’re a petty partisan bullshitter who cares more about running his mouth in defense of the Bush Cult than about life and death in Iraq or elsewhere. You’re not a serious person. Also, quit feeling sorry for yourself because I find you mostly reprehensible. You’ve made your own foul little bed with your insane accusations and bigotry. Don’t expect everyone to find you cute or humorous or even tolerable. You’re not. Consider yourself lucky that I even bother to respond to your blather with any expression of contempt that’s longer than two words.)

     PS – Woody sez: “Sorry. I’m not going to discuss psychology…I majored in something useful.”

     Not showing much respect for your Cornermate there, Woodman.

114. Woody Says:
     July 28th, 2006 at 5:54 am

     reg, of course I didn’t mean to slight G.M. That sentence was intended to let Fen know that studies in psychology are not a requirement to embellish comments. We should deal with full analyses of issues rather than motives. Studies in psychology can be useful, but usually they are not. Most people that I know who majored in psychology use that knowledge for their own problems, which is a very limited application and of little use beyond their personal world. G.M. actually has made his psychology studies useful by applying it to help problemed youth rather than using it to avoid debates or make himself feel good.

     On Bush & Co., you’ve conveniently left out any valid reasons for overthrowing Hussein. Maybe you favor putting him back in? After all, he does have a lot in common with Stalin. I never said that we should have gone into Iraq, but I respect that people with more information and a bigger bank of brain power than us made that choice.

     I was quite puzzled when you wrote quit feeling sorry for yourself, as that is not remotely any emotion that I have. My comments about your attacks have been illustrations of your own deficiencies. Then, you wrote Consider yourself lucky that I even bother to respond…. What kind of luck is that? reg, if I wanted mad men to respond to me I could find Randy or go to the nearest mental hospital. Why don’t you and Fen get to know each other and maybe he can help you with his concerns for decorum.

     And, Fen, you’re a broken record afraid to logically discuss an issue–only willing to accept your interpretation of one sentence out of one article out of hundreds of thousands on the topic. Of course, I responded to your point and discredited your conclusion by simply adding one more sentence from your same article. You simply ignored that and went off on Socrates and psychological profiling. Discussing things with a teenager is more productive than with you. Yes, the debate is over on this, and since you won’t look at anything but what you choose, consider yourself the loser–in more ways than one.

     The more I read the comments here, the more sane that Ann Coulter sounds.

115. Fennel seed Says:
     July 28th, 2006 at 7:24 am

     I see the angry potty-mouth is back. It doesn’t seem like sleep and prayer worked for you, given your obsessive-compulsive mix of personal insults and irrelevant taking points. But since God gave us a beautiful new day, then I’ll try again:

     The issue I brought up was whether the WMDs were “those we went to war for”. That is another way of asking if the WMD threat was what the Administration built it up to be as one of three major rationales for the war. As Bush himself said, “Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised”. Sets a pretty high standard for these WMDs to meet.

     We did not go to war for small and scattered stockpiles of unusable, pre-1991 WMDs. We went to war ostensibly for three reasons, with one settled on and built up by the Administration (as it was the only one agreed upon by the decision-makers): the existence of a significant WMD threat–not stockpile, not future capacaity, not scattered chemical ingredients, but a worldwide threat to do actual damage NOW. This is how it was sold to the American public, because, obviously, it’s an exceptionally compelling reason–one many of us were convinced by. However, the desire to make the truth what you wish it to be does not, in fact, have any bearing on the truth. Whether the lies were outright, or untruths caused by “faulty intelligence”, one thing is clear: the public was sold on an illusion. Even giving them the benefit of the doubt, and assuming that faulty intelligence was the culprit, the fact that we made such a grave decision based on such poorly-supported evidence is inexcusable. It has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, and hundreds of billions of dollars. Not to mention radically decreased instability, and weakened diplomatic standing–which does not bode well for our fight against Islamofacism. Imprudent, to say the least. And all in an effort to sell a war without sufficient evidence.

     Of course, based on your tendency to answer with potty-mouthed insults and ad homina, my expectations of a relevant response from you are significantly lowered. (Can’t say I didn’t try! ) The other alternative is to keep repeating what you’re saying, irrelevant from the point, and then ranting when I repeat the point to attempt to steer you back on track. Here’s a schemata, with colored fruit to cool your emotions:

     1: Apples, red vs. green.
     2: Oranges, oranges, oranges!
     1: Ahem, I said apples, red vs. green.
     2: Stop saying apples, apples, apples! Oranges, bananas, [obscenity], [ad homina]!
     1: Uh, okaaaaaay.

     Maybe you’re taking a page out of GW’s book:

     “See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.”

     It’s either that or something very personal, which I’m tending to believe based on your continual emotional and personalized responses to a stranger in a political forum. Whatever it is, it’s very weird. Maybe your psychologist friend can help out with that, but, again, I always recommend prayer.

116. reg Says:
     July 28th, 2006 at 7:35 am

     Shorter Woody: “I don’t have a response to the content of your argument, so I’m going to raise the only possible conclusion I can draw when I’m losing it – you support Saddam Hussein and Stalin. And I’m absolutely confident you don’t know what your talking about because President Bush is smarter than I am.”

117. Woody Says:
     July 28th, 2006 at 3:53 pm

     Fen & reg, live in your dream worlds. The greatest sanity shown around here is my now saying that I’m not wasting any more time trying to discuss issues with people who wear blinders and make up facts.

118. reg Says:
     July 28th, 2006 at 5:28 pm

     “people who…make up facts”

     Name one.

119. Publius Says:
     July 28th, 2006 at 7:38 pm

     I noticed that the lefties on this site have starting hedging by saying that there were no WMD at the time the US invaded. That’s a move from saying that he didn’t have them ever. Hey, do you think that the months of warnings that he received might have influenced Hussein to move or modify those weapons and gases?”

     Ad Ignoratiam from an ignoramous of epic proportions. They made them invisible which is more proof they exist.

     “You begin to sound like Al Gore saying that the “debate is over.” There’s more proof of Hussein’s WMD than there is of a global warming crisis caused by man.”

     It is. There is only a debate about what to do to correct the course.

     http://globalwarmingissues.wordpress.com/research/national-level/

     http://foi.missouri.edu/bushinfopolicies/bushfries.html

     http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040308/kennedy

     That should tie you over.

120. Fennel seed Says:
     July 29th, 2006 at 2:53 am

     Potty mouth says: “The greatest sanity shown around here is my now saying that I’m not wasting any more time trying to discuss issues…”

     Sounds like a rationalization to me. Anything to evade the world of ideas and constructive dialogue, it appears. True, it’s easier navigating the waters of ad homina and personal feelings. In the end, though, I’m not sure that will benefit you much.

121. Woody Says:
     July 29th, 2006 at 11:21 am

     Fen, the irony and hyprocrisy has not been lost on me that you use the following words to refer to me–odd fellow, potty mouth, evasive, angry, obsessive-compulsive, irrelevant, weird, disappointing, bizarre, disturbing, hostile, perverted, juvenile, disgusting, inappropriate, and foolhardy–and, add to that, you started such attacks and condescension immediately after a civil answer by me–then, this is the best part, you ended your last comment with it’s easier navigating the waters of ad homina and personal feelings.

     Such feigned offense and conclusions by one who used almost every post to criticize or attempt to ridicule me is simply a laugh–but so typical of people from the left.

     Perhaps you should do a little praying yourself–oh, and learn to respond to an answer with more reason that you showed.

122. Fennel seed Says:
     July 29th, 2006 at 5:52 pm

     And the irrelevant responses pile up, sentence after sentence, each one just another distraction from the initial issue raised and arguments provided.

     It’s been very interesting and informative to watch someone who, while so clearly unwilling to engage in productive discussion, nevertheless effortlessly adds loads of words and comments as a “response”. Here’s another helpful schemata, showing the latest progression (er, devolution):

     1: Apples, red vs. green.
     2: Oranges, oranges, oranges!
     1: Ahem, I said apples, red vs. green.
     2: Stop saying apples, apples, apples! Oranges, bananas, [obscenity], [ad homina]!
     1: Uh, okaaaaaay. How [odd, potty-mouthed, evasive, angry, etc.] these reactions have been. Let’s try one more time: apples, red vs. green.
     2: I’m going home. And your commenting on my name-calling is name-calling! You’re the ad homina, you’re the ad homina!
     1: (Hmm, where are those bananas…)

     Once again, the original ideas are there, in words, available to be responded to in a relevant fashion. You’ve made your choice–more than once–to not continue the discussion, and instead supplant it with irrelevant ad homina (to be followed by curious meta-accusations of ad homina–of the description of your original ad homina. Priceless!). The beauty is that, at any time, like the Prodigal Son you can come back to the table and actually offer a relevant comment whenever you wish–the door is open, free for you to return if and when you have something prepared to move the conversation forward. I look forward to that, though perhaps this is unwarranted optimism. But that’s just my personality.

     On the other hand, your politician-like squirming has provided its own style of entertainment–albeit a guilty sort, like eating junk food that in the end has little nutrition value. But then this, too, can be an informative experience–a warning to the rest of us.

     God bless.

123. Publius Says:
     July 30th, 2006 at 8:31 am

     I’m afraid Woody has left himself bereft and bankrupt by calling half the country “stupid” and making ridiculous taunts that are clearly pornographic in nature. “Swallow like Monica.”

124. Woody Says:
     July 30th, 2006 at 11:50 am

     Fen, I properly responded. You skirted my reponse and distorted the discussion. My explanation pointed out that the one statement that you referenced is incomplete in itself and leads you to a wrong conclusion by itself. Admit when you are wrong, but I suspect that you are too proud.

     Arrogance on your part is not a nice trait, and there certainly is no observable basis to justify it. I’m sorry that you not once addressed my intial response to you except to attack me repeatedly (while screaming the opposite) and to ignore and than misrepresent my analysis in your psychological babble fashion. Truly, you are a broken record that never gets to the end, but maybe you enjoy hearing the same line over and over–no matter how far from the truth it might be.

     You may find it entertaining to try to aggravate me, but so does my teenager at times. However, he will outgrow that.

     Perhaps you can find some comfort and allies in the halls of academia or journalism rather than a site that honestly tries to consider various sides of an issue.

     As for me, I will be available to discuss issues with people who are open and able to see more than what they want to believe–and, can be honest in their responses. Sorry that you and I won’t be conversing based on that criteria.

125. Randy Paul Says:
     July 30th, 2006 at 2:01 pm

     As for me, I will be available to discuss issues with people who are open and able to see more than what they want to believe–and, can be honest in their responses. Sorry that you and I won’t be conversing based on that criteria./

     Coming from the man who believes that latex condoms do not stop the AIDS virus and lives in denial on global warming, that is truly hysterical.

     LMAO!

126. Fennel Seed Says:
     July 30th, 2006 at 6:52 pm

     Fascinating. It’s like turning on the television to a soap opera, except one with just a single man, repeating himself in a empty room. Probably won’t be renewed for the fall season, I’m guessing.

     Well, Mr. Woody, at least it can be said that your comments have been consistent–although consistent distortions and smoke-and-mirror huffing aren’t adding much to the dialogue. I will take a moment to point out your error again, if only because I value truth and a proper characterization of events. Your response was not at all proper–it was diversionary (hence, the common apples and oranges metaphor I’ve invoked for your assistance) and irrelevant to the topic at hand. After I called you on this, you followed up with ad homina and a disgusting comment. I then described this to disabuse you of your incorrect representation of events, which was followed by more ad homina and psycho-babble. Three common behaviors of yours have been on display, each of which you’ve demonstrated in this series of exchanges at least twice: 1) evading the topic at hand; 2) engaging in ad homina; 3) accusing descriptions of your ad homina comments as, contradictorily, ad homina. Finally, when I steered (7/28, 7:04 AM) the conversation yet again back to the original topic you’ve succeeded in obscuring with every posted comment, you continued your meta-conversation and distortion, and then pretended your comments were a “proper response”. Not even remotely, I hate to break it to you. But then I suspect you recognize that, despite your evasive and emotional protestations. It is hard to be honest, maybe, particularly when someone digs himself into such a deep hole. But in the end it’s the better way–otherwise you end up flailing about and talking in circles (witness your spiralling string of posts…).

     As always, of course, the door is open to those interested in serious exchange of ideas, to respond with relevant thoughts and comments. You may find this difficult, or undesirable, but my hope is that the message will eventually sink in and you can offer something useful to the discussion.

     His Wisdom be with you.

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128. Woody Says:
     August 2nd, 2006 at 6:40 am

     Fen, with other people, I can politely agree to disagree. You seem incapable of such courtesy. If you cannot comprehend my response, which you clearly do not, then you should be big enough to admit that there is a communication gap rather than continue to attack me. You exhibit a sense of unreality or insincerity in your religious closings.

129. Fennel seed Says:
     August 2nd, 2006 at 8:24 am

     Mr. Woody, you’ve keenly missed myriad opportunities to respond to the issue in a relevant fashion. Instead, each time you’ve responded by personalizing the issue further, and throwing up smokescreens by talking about what you perceive to be my character. While I am flattered by your excessive attention to my person, again I must remind you that this behavior serves as a simple distraction. Now, maybe you are unwilling or unable to keep your emotions and irrelevant comments out of a debate, or perhaps you’re just having a difficult time saving face and admitting you aren’t able to further the discussion by responding logically to the arguments presented. If it’s the latter, I don’t think you should feel bad, since ignorance is no sin; however, it’s much better to be honest about this deficit, rather than excessively repeat ad homina and other irrelevant comments–at least if progress in a debate is the goal. Of course, if your goal is to do just this sort of irrelevant comment-making, then I suppose you’ve achieved some perverted form of success.

     Now, think about this, and, as always, the door is open for a proper and relevant response.

130. Randy Paul Says:
     August 4th, 2006 at 5:52 pm

     Fen, with other people, I can politely agree to disagree.

     LOL FOTFLMAO

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