Well, if I understand the history of this conflict correctly, originally Hezbollah was wanting an exchange of prisoners, so so far as that goes, the jury's still out and the fat lady's still not singing. Hard to declare a victory when negotiations are still ongoing.

Easier to declare victory on a number of other issues. Israel as I believe from her stated goals, wanted to destroy Hezbollah and show the world that she kicks ass. Not precisely in those terms, but that's the gist.

I don't think that happened, and the number of Lebanese civilians dead doesn't make Israel look good, no matter how much her apologists want people to blame them on Hezbollah.

Hezbollah? Bomb Israel a lot and get more street cred with other nations that hate her. A smaller goal, but easy enough to say "mission accomplished" on that end.

Well, I doubt the moderate Lebanese are that thrilled with Hezbollah at the moment, but they weren't very thrilled with them to begin with. Hopefully enough UN forces after enough time will make it so that Hezbollah moves to becoming a political party rather than an active militia.

I think some of the future is in the hands of the Israelis too. I think it does Israel a disservice to depict her as a creature without free will.

I think someone once wrote something called "The Golden Rule." I think it might be applicable in this case.

As for borders, having neighbors respect your borders is easier than having your neighbors' citizens or even your own citizens respect your borders. Look at the US-Mexico border, for example. Mexico is hardly invading, but we're getting tons of economic refugees.

Well before this, I think most of Lebanon wanted tourism and prosperity. After? I think they still want the tourism and prosperity, but want to rebuild their country first.

All in all, Kevin, the inability of Hezbollah's foreign allies and apologists to correctly ascertain what has just transpired, leaves me with little hope that Hezbollah or its Lebanese allies understand their current situation any better. Hence, I see a dim prognosis for the cease-fire. That and the fact that the Lebanese are already making promises to Hezbollah that they "won't look too hard" for tunnels, armaments, etc.

What the hell do you think those armaments are for? Hezbollah was not fighting a defensive war to begin with, and they aren't going to now suddenly cease and desist, after years of provocation following the last "cease-fire."

This was a Hezbollah war, as I think some Lebanese moderates understand. I think they also understand that Hezbollah being absorbed into the government is less likely than vice-versa, and so are cowtowing to Hezbollah's "requests" regarding tunnels and armaments. They are already, in effect, breaking the terms of the cease-fire.

Nobody's talking about an "exchange" on the Israeli side, that I know of. The question of whether Hezbollah wants a cease-fire depends on the safe return of those soldiers, as well as the other conditions. But you're right: they are bloodthirsty murderers, and it's likely their plan is to simply abrogate this part of the bargain.

I would assume given your stance to this effect, that your posts up to this point would have been a virtual cheering section for the aggrieved party, Israel. Oddly, I find instead sympathy and support for "the Lebanese civilians," and rants against the "ghoulish" Israelis. This is the sort of "thinking" that results when one manages to combines utter personal detatchment from the outcome, with a paradoxical distaste for the one benefit detatchment could confer, that of impartiality.

Something tells me there is more than meets the eye on the question of the abductees -- and I don't think it's a numerically disproportionate release of criminals, in exchange for these kidnap victims. Time will tell.

If Hezbollah and Lebanon abide by the terms of the cease fire, Israel will have achieved her goals. To wit: disarmament of Hezbollah, departure of Hezbollah from the south of Lebanon, and return of the kidnapped soldiers.

Are you basically gloating that Hezbollah is planning to break the cease fire (or has done already?) After gloating, when the inevitable response comes, will you then go on another anti-Israeli rant, and cry some more for the poor Lebanese populace, laying their deaths at Israel's door?

Do you have any idea how transparent that is?

In the same breath that you champion Hezbollah's "victory" by way of falsely embracing a cease fire, you continue to complain about the Lebanese dead. It's one or another, Kevin. You're either cynical enough to enjoy the tactic, or realistic enough to understand (as do a number of Arab nations,) that the blood of these civilians is on Hezbollah's hands -- and that the government of Lebanon, to the extent that they allow Hezbollah's behavior, is complicit.

By last count, about half the "civilians" killed in Lebanon were Hezbollah fighters. So let's see -- killing them doesn't look good? But I thought not killing them doesn't look good... after all, that's a big ol' Hezbollah victory.

No wonder Israel does not react too strongly to "world opinion" anymore.

That would be the point of them giving up their weapons -- as agreed. But the remainder of your post reads as a gloat-fest for the likelihood that Hezbollah will do no such thing.

Israel acted in self-defense; as such, she was able to select timing and tactics, but not the necessity of protecting her populace. It is the responsibility of the state to do so. So, if you mean Israel has "free will" to cower behind empty words while her citizens are being murdered, I suppose you could paint her actions as voluntary. It's more accurate to say Israel did what she had to do, in this situation.

Yes, someone did. His name was Hillel.

The story goes that Hillel was approached by a Roman centurion, who asked him to sum up Judaism while standing on one foot. Hillel replied, "I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods before me. Do not do to your neighbor what is hateful to you. All the rest is commentary; now, go and study."

Evidently, the Roman went and studied, as the story has it, because he ends up converting to Judaism.

I think you may benefit from the "go and study" part. Hillel's sage advice must apply to both sides of such a conflict; Hezbollah has flat-out said it's goal is the destruction of Israel, and takes actions toward bringing about that result as often as possible.

Your source, Hillel, also spoke the famous three questions: If I am not for myself, who is for me? If I am only for myself, what am I for? If not now, when?

Israel has no need or desire to cross the Lebanese border, unless Lebanon is condoning and/or encouraging attacks on Israel from her territory; end of story. The Golden Rule applies, but so do the three questions.

Is this surprising? Oh that's right... Israel is not supposed to react to provocations. Well, news flash, Kev. Israel will continue to do just that, so it's in Lebanon's interests not to create such a circumstance.

Ohhhhhh so it's only the minority with the guns and rockets that wanted war? Once again I ask: what does Lebanon want? If it's this tourism and prosperity you speak of, Lebanon needs to take her responsibilities seriously. The world is now standing with her -- she can stand up to her own Syrian and Iranian fifth column, if she so desires. Or she can pay the consequences.

If, in fact, Lebanon prefers to be an Iranian/Syrian puppet devoted to the destruction of Israel, she no longer has the option of pleading that she "cannot control" such elements.

Lebanon, the nation, now has a choice to make. Early indications are that Lebanon plans to stand with Hezbollah, by allowing Hezbollah to keep its weapons, and by allowing Hezbollah to play games with the abductees.

Lebanon should be careful what she chooses.

Dan

[This message has been edited by Dan Halberstein (edited August 17, 2006).]

Originally posted by Dan Halberstein:


"What's the score again?"

Sticks 0, Stones 0.

Re Robert Fisk: If newspapers have hired him as a reporter for over 30 years, and he's NOT a reporter, are the newspapers not newspapers?

I'm still asking if anyone has read his THE GREAT WAR FOR CIVILISATION. Long book. Daunting?

For something shorter, check out Seymour Hersh in this week's New Yorker. Oh, he's a devil. He's got to be on Cheney's hit list.

Shameless O'Clawson

Originally posted by Dan Halberstein:

"Make up what passes for your mind."

I haven't made myself clear? Perhaps instead of calling the Israelies and Hezbollah guerrillas, "lunatics," I should have used something less pyrotechnic, such as, "morons."

I feel that either word also applies to our own administration. We're even worse, having got ourselves involved in three wars (Afghanistan, Iraq, and Israel/Lebanon) and, NOW, setting up the rationale for bombing Iran.

It's still tribal. They haven't advanced beyond The Law of Retribution. They're all doomed to repeat history.

Bob

Interesting questions, Dan. Hadn't read Hillel's questions before, but as you've noted, I'm a poor scholar of Judaica.

Since you know so much of the subject, and have been extremely willing to speak Israel's opinions for her, could you give us what you'd perceive to be Israel's answers to those three questions? I expect they'd be enlightening.

As for blaming Hezbollah or Israel for the death of Lebanese civilians, it isn't an either/or equation. It is completely possible to blame them <cite>both</cite>.

[This message has been edited by Kevin Andrew Murphy (edited August 18, 2006).]

Kevin,

I've been willing to speak my own opinions regarding Israel's recent crisis, and since I'm not an Israeli (though I am markedly less hostile to that nation than others here,) I don't want to leave the impression that I've decided to make myself some sort of unofficial spokesperson. I saw the usual bizarre theories bandied about, and I spoke my mind.

As to Hillel's questions, perhaps "now go and study" is the most applicable part of the story; in any event, your so self-deprecating invitation reeks of sarcasm, and I've no real desire to drag either Israel or Judaism through the muck by going into this at length -- in short, it's a setup, and we both know this. If the quotation is impermeable to you, I'll leave it to you to divine a meaning through meditation or further inquiry elsewhere. The application of the three questions seems very clear and apt to me, and I'll wager can be understood by most readers here, whether Jewish or not. So, go and study.

For the record, I don't think of myself as a tremendous scholar of Judaism or Judaica, just a very interested layman (and of course, sympathetic to the subject matter.)

RJ, you're right. All nation states are imbecilic, all war is hopelessly primitive, and the law of retribution is so passe. It turns out, however, that you cannot be the first country or people to abandon these means, or you get the crap kicked out of you.

Neal Stephenson noted this beautifully, and I have to paraphrase, because I don't have it handy and it is too early in the morning for a source hunt...

...we're killers, all of us, descended from a long line of killers, ultimately descended from the same one-celled great grandaddy of all badasses...

Humanity's struggle is the struggle of that angelic nature you seem to believe should guide us, in the midst of the earthy, animal nature that (by the way) also gives us all the raw material for our other passions.

We're both angel and animal, RJ, all of us. One day perhaps we'll move beyond war. Perhaps until that day, there is no real difference among the hundreds or thousands of wars that will be fought. Maybe it's all inane, moronic, lunacy.

I think needing a legitimate reason to fight (not just for hate,) and having limits on how you fight (especially in how you consider the noncombatant enemy,) are the only signifiers within warfare, that some higher impulses exist.

Some fight because they hate, and will always hate. Others fight for want of an alternative. The difference is significant.

PS to all -- I read an item today about a pro-war faction of Buddhist monks on Sri Lanka, briefly siezing the stage at an anti-war rally. They reportedly shouted "Take your protest to _______!!" (naming the regional capital that serves as the de facto Tamil capital.) If Buddhist monks can support a war, god damn it, so can poets.

Dan

Dan,

Shocked by sarcasm after what you've written in your own posts? And having taken an invitation to discourse on the history of the Golden Rule? Is this Irony I see before me, the handle towards my heart?

Yes, having the "three questions" posed to Israel is a set-up, but I think a valid one. After all, I'm not really jazzed by Israel's actions at the moment (yes, this is understatement/sarcasm), so I could easily answer the three questions for her, tinting them with my own perceptions and opinions. But that way lies snark, so I thought better of it, deciding it would be more interesting to see what a rah-rah Israel booster would say.

So don't take the bait. Fine. Not answering Hillel's questions is damning in and of itself.

Whitman on War

TO THEE OLD CAUSE.

To thee old cause!
Thou peerless, passionate, good cause,
Thou stern, remorseless, sweet idea,
Deathless throughout the ages, races, lands,
After a strange sad war, great war for thee,
(I think all war through time was really fought, and ever will be
really fought, for thee,)
These chants for thee, the eternal march of thee.

(A war O soldiers not for itself alone,
Far, far more stood silently waiting behind, now to advance in this
book.)

Thou orb of many orbs!
Thou seething principle! thou well-kept, latent germ! thou
centre!
Around the idea of thee the war revolving,
With all its angry and vehement play of causes,
(With vast results to come for thrice a thousand years,)
These recitatives for thee, -my book and the war are one,
Merged in its spirit I and mine, as the contest hinged on thee,
As a wheel on its axis turns, this book unwitting to itself,
Around the idea of thee.

RECONCILIATION

Word over all, beautiful as the sky,
Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time
be utterly lost,
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly
softly wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world;
For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead,
I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin - I
draw near,
Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in
the coffin.

TO A CERTAIN CIVILIAN

Did you ask dulcet rhymes from me?
Did you seek the civilian's peaceful and languishing rhymes?
Did you find what I sang erewhile so hard to follow?
Why I was not singing erewhile for you to follow, to understand -
nor am I now;
(I have been born of the same as the war was born,
The drum-corps' rattle is ever to me sweet music, I love well
the martial dirge,
With slow wail and convulsive throb leading the officer's
funeral ; )
What to such as you anyhow such a poet as I? therefore leave
my works,
And go lull yourself with what you can understand, and with
piano-tunes,
For I lull nobody, and you will never understand me.

1865 1871


[This message has been edited by Mark Allinson (edited August 18, 2006).]

Kevin,

I understand the Lebanese death count (as of this morning) was suddenly 795, down from the thousand I had seen previously.

Israel has announced that it has killed 500 Hezbollah fighters in the action.

Yes, that still leaves 295 civilians who lost their lives because of Hezbollah's actions. But it also establishes almost a two-to-one combatant-to-non-combatant ratio in Israel's campaign.

You have chosen the single least indiscriminate combatant in modern warfare to slander with charges of indiscriminate war.

You have chosen a proponent of killing indiscriminately, to paint as the "good guy" in this war.

You have yet to come up with anything approaching a rationale for this faddish embracing found only on the political left, in Western nations ("the enemy of my nation's friend is my friend.")

You gloat about Hezbollah's "victory," when in fact it's actions led to the pummeling of Lebanon, and its future actions point toward an Iranian/Syrian satellite in Lebanon (as opposed to Lebanese sovereignty.)

And then you raise the subject of the "Golden Rule," and when I deny you an opportunity to add theological anti-Semitism to your otherwise inexplicable animus toward Israel, you call it damning.

Kevin, the sum of your posts here point to a desire for Lebanon to be subdued by Syrian and Iranian colonization, a desire for purposeful slaughter of non-combatants to continue, and a desire for a region hostile to the existence of the region's one functioning democracy.

That's what I call damning.

But it's also clear to me that in truth, you really don't give a damn whatsoever.

It's not a game, my friend. While Israel practices restraint, and idiots on the left practice selective readings, and the media practice collusion with Hezbollah propaganda, events proceed -- and not at all according to the cease-fire terms.

Is this how we build a stable region?

Is this a formula for Israeli "patience"?

My guess is, we'll be back in this thread, discussing why Israel returned to Lebanon, and probably within a few weeks. And you will tell me how a few missiles a day is surely allowable, and RJ will tell me how everybody who ever defends his country is primative.

And we'll all have a nice, comfortable, inane, abstract discussion, while real lives are ruined by this sophistry.

I don't think, deep in your heart, you actually believe half of what you write here. It's too self-contradictory. I think you're just entertained by the spectacle of someone who actually does give a damn, giving ten reasons for your every one, and still having to swat the same old gadfly over and over.

Fess up.

Dan

[This message has been edited by Dan Halberstein (edited August 18, 2006).]

Dan,
That's a digusting sentence and I'm sure, upon reflection, you'll agree. Doesn't it remind you of anything?
Janet