[Dan Halberstein]

Mark,

Then we agree, so I do apologize if I get strident on the subject.

I question the rationale and wisdom of the last couple of weeks' events too, and of course, like any human being, I look at that devastation and it does hurt to see it. A lot of the people who lived in that rubble did not "ask for this." A lot of the dead did not "ask for it." Since Lebanese aren't the "enemies" of American soldiers, we in the States do see a good deal of their misery. (Rather than Iraq coverage: "embed" style "reports from the front" in which we learn that "Johnny played tuba and wanted to go to dental school before....")

The only hope this points to for me, is that Israel's strategy is to pull out of occupied territory, per the Kadima party line, but to have in place a policy of zero tolerance for terror... in the hope that Lebanon and Gaza could then, theoretically, be left alone. I don't know how the people of Gaza and Lebanon feel about that prospect. I know they'll never love Israel, but Kadima seems to be preferring to be feared, a la Machiavelli's advice.

I'll leave a note in my will, for my grandchildren to bury a letter next to my coffin, telling me how it all came out, I suppose. I'll leave explicit instructions to tell me how silly we all looked, calling this intractable.... when all along, the answer was ___________.

Daniel,
My thanks too on behalf of my relatives in Haifa. I pray too for a speedy, lasting, and real peace, for all parties (though you may be able to discern from the above I'm none too optimistic recently.) For now I'll ask for the little peace covering your relatives and mine. When it comes fown to it, that's what each of us can really imagine.

Dan

[This message has been edited by Dan Halberstein (edited July 23, 2006).]

[Robert Meyer]

Dan (in his first post to thread):
Israel's reason for going to war, the kidnapping and shelling of her citizenry, would more than suffice for any other nation. Israel's behavior once in battle is not perfect, but not as bad as, say, that of the U.S. or Britain. ...

This is an important issue, "What justifies any nation to go to war against any other nation?". In the reality of how intensely evil war is, or at least has become over the last century, I would say this and this alone would justify going to war: the invasion of one nation's territory by the army of another nation. Things like kidnaping seems more appropriate as a police issue. So now we must look at our own nation's history with this definition in mind.

The Revolution:

We were a part of the British Empire and, as such, owed allegiance to the king; it was not a case of English soldiers invading another sovereign territory. So what if we didn't like taxes, it was our duty to pay them. The saying "Taxation without representation is tyranny" was not used as an argument for the colonies getting some seats in Parliament but only as a reason for whiny little money lovers to not pay their taxes. The ideals of the Declaration of Independence were never fully realized, and in fact in the last quarter century have been largely ignored.

The British position was hardly better: if people want out, you should let them go. Certainly the colonists were not invading Britain.

Judgement: neither side had a reason to go to war, therefore both are condemned. Bang! Next case...

The War of 1812:

Similar to the current Israeli conflict, it started over some Americans being kidnaped by the British navy.

Judgement: neither side had a reason to go to war, therefore both are condemned. Bang! Next case...

The Mexican War:

The Americans wanted more land generally, and the south was especially paranoid because Santa Anna ended slavery in Mexico. We invaded them, not they us.

Judgement: the USA had no reason to go to war, therefore is condemned. Mexico was invaded and therefore had the right to self defense. Bang! Next case...

The Civil War:

The south did not even give Lincoln a chance but instead formed the CSA and then fired on Fort Sumter, all for the love of slavery.

The north did not allow the south to secede from a union which was entered into voluntarily but, in the manner of Britain, forced them back.

Judgement: neither side had a reason to go to war, therefore both are condemned. Bang! Next case...

The 'Indian' Wars:

The Native Americans repetedly gave in to the Federal government which forced 'treaties' on them saying, in effect, that "your land is really my land, but because we're so generous we will allow you to live on the trashiest part of your, that is to say, our land." Then if the trashy land turns out to be good, the government takes that land and gives them another trashy place. Occasionly they fought back and then our army crushed them.

[side bar] The similarity of the Washita and My Lai incidents should not overshadow some important differences. Lt Calley was a young officer who 'freaked out' after having seen casualties, while Gen Custer knew what he was doing and did it cold-bloodedly to gain political power for a future presidential campaign.

Judgement: the USA had no right to go to war, therefore is condemned. The Native Americans were invaded and therefore had the right to self defense. Bang! Next case...

The Spanish-American War:

There was no seeking of evidence into why the USS Maine exploded, we just rushed to war. Previously we were not invading Spain or Spanish colonies and certainly Spain was not invading the USA.

Judgement: neither side had a reason to go to war, therefore both are condemned. Bang! Next case...

World War I:

The American citizens aboard the Lusitania knew that they were sailing into a war zone, therefore their deaths are not a valid reason to go to war. In fact very few nations in that conflict were initially responding to an invasion: Serbia, Belgium, and France; most were dragged into it by pre-war treaties.

Judgement: we, and almost all other nations, had no reason to go to war, therefore all (execpt Serbia, Beligium, & France) are condemned. Bang! Next case...

World War II:

Finally the USA was initially attacked, as were most of the Allies, by the Axis. The USSR did, in cooperation with Germany, helped the Germans invade Poland; therefore is not innocent.

Judgement: the Allies were invaded by the Axis and have a right to self defense, therefore are innocent; while the Axis had no reason to go to war and is condemned. Bang! Next case...

Robert Meyer


[This message has been edited by Robert Meyer (edited July 25, 2006).]

[Quincy Lehr]

Robert--

The Civil War was about slavery. The state's rights issue was a cover for slavery, as was generally acknowledged at the time--and it's a self-serving horseshit argument in any case. The North was right, the South wrong.

You're pretty much right about the rest of them.

Dr. Quincy Lehr

(Two matters; I said I'd bow out of this thread, but this is a matter of U.S. history here. And noting my Ph.D. is a transparent pulling of academic rank in this instance.)

[Mark Granier]

According to an article in last weekend's Irish Times, the Middle East conflict has the Evangelical websites buzzing with anticipation. 'Rapture Ready' has useful tips on how to prepare yourself or what to do if you're in the bathroom when Jesus drops by: "If you are reading this after the Rapture you need to realise you have been left behind." On one of its discussion threads (since taken down) a poster exclaimed: "I will just have time to get my hair and nails done." Meanwhile the 'House Of Yahweh' site has officially declared that "Nuclear War Will Start On September 12th. 2006." Reminds me of that bumper sticker someone on this site told me about: IF THE RAPTURE COMES CAN I HAVE YOUR CAR?

[Julie Steiner]

Some political figures (in any society) don't really WANT peace. In peacetime, people expect their leaders to deal with boring stuff like unemployment and infrastructure and education and health care and balancing the budget. Any proposed solutions will be very painful, even if they work as intended (as is unlikely). What's a re-election-minded politician to do?

The two easiest ways to evade responsibility for solving tricky domestic problems are:

1. Blame domestic problems on a subgroup of society: Those undesirables are dragging our otherwise great society down! THEY are the reason we don't have the kind of society WE want and deserve!
This technique is popular with both conservatives and liberals: scapegoats might be Jews, homosexuals, religious fundamentalists of any stripe, immigrants, lawyers, rich people, unions, powerful corporations, or the wonderfully all-purpose "special interests". Yes, we're in a mess, but it's all the fault of (fill in the blank); and before we even try to solve the problem we need to defend our society from THEM!

2. Take the country to war and keep it there, so that domestic problems never quite become a top priority.
Since war pushes those bothersome domestic issues off the front page, voters are less likely to notice when political figures don't exert themselves with any actual attempts at problem-solving. Anyone who raises domestic issues can be dismissed as a person whose priorities and patriotism are questionable; after all, the country is under imminent threat, and what could possibly be more important?

Julie Stoner
(Who doesn't have any solutions, either, but she's off the hook because it's all the fault of the politicians, anyway. See, technique #1 works for me, too!)

[Terese Coe]

Mark,

I guess if you're in the bathroom long enough, you won't know the Rapture has come except that...what? The Truly Rapturous will be missing and assumed gone to heaven? Hmm. How will we be able to differentiate that from an attack by kidnappers? There's no demand for ransom money? No demand that Israel itself be transported to California?

[Kevin Andrew Murphy]

Yargh. I go to a convention for a week, don't bother to check the news while I'm there, and when I emerge, I find the Israel-Lebanon mess exactly where I expected it to be, down to the apologists and the posturing.

First off, a small request: Can we stop talking about soldiers being "kidnapped"? May we please reserve "kidnapped" to describe what happens when someone abducts a child? It seems a fairly easy definition: You capture a soldier, you abduct a civilian, you kidnap a child. I'm not certain what you do with child soldiers, but it doesn't seem germane in any case.

Now, on with the rest... On judging Israel more harshly than other countries, it depends on what you're judging. Zionism? Resurrecting a dead country and turning a scholarly language into a modern spoken tongue? That's fairly wacky. Doing it in a neighborhood where you're distinctly unpopular also seems a recipe for disaster.

However, countries have been founded on shaky premises before. (The Mormon pioneers spring to mind.) And every country has some variety of massacre or other embarrassing incident in its past, which everyone would probably overlook except that the past is still in too many currently-living people's personal memories, so that doesn't help much. Worse, if you start your country with "Never forget" as a slogan, that's kind of a double-edged sword, since it's intellectually dishonest to expect anyone to forget anything else that's happened since, no matter how politically embarrassing.

Another double-edged sword is continually redrawing borders. The current mess with Lebanon looks an awful lot like Israel carving off the bottom third as new territory. Of course I doubt it will be called that--it'll get called something bland and transparent like "security zone" first--but if Israel gets to do that, what's the matter with other countries deciding to change the borders the other way? What's the point of having a chunk of real estate called "Israel" if it's getting so many people killed?

The quasi-theocracy nature of Israel is hardly a good thing either, at least as a democracy. Comparing it to the United States, it doesn't come off well, if simply because the whole 1st Amendment thing keeps us, at least in theory, from favoring one religion over another. Meanwhile Britain, while it does have a state religion, has the Church of England which has become the stuff of Eddie Izzard's "Cake or Death" skit. Whereas in Israel, religion is rather a sticking point. Also, putting a racial/religious symbol smack dab in the middle of your flag doesn't make you very credible if you have pretentions to being an inclusive secular democracy.

As for the US and Britain bombing Iraqis into paste? Yes, we suck. Actually, I prefer to state that as "Bush and Blair and their respective administrations suck," and while I am quite aware that there are large numbers of Israelis who also believe that their current leadership sucks, what people care most about is whether the people getting bombed into paste are anyone they know. Yes, it's supposed to be about morality, but if anyone really cared about morality, we'd be doing something about what's going on in Africa. However, when people with names we can't pronounce are killing each other over crap that's been going on for centuries and everyone else on the planet could care less about? Eh, they can call us when they sort it out. Till then, who cares?

Israel and Lebanon, meanwhile, have been pimping themselves out as tourist destinations, which means they get judged as tourist destinations, not as unpronounceable third world countries that nobody cares about anyway. For example, at the start of this, Israel killed a Canadian family, mostly children, visiting southern Lebanon. Canadians? My best friend's wife is Canadian. And the girls who live two doors down from me, the ones who babysit my dog sometimes, their late father was Lebanese. What sort of evil people kill Canadians and Lebanese? And my government is giving them money? WTF?

Yes, it's more complex than that, but not much.

[Lo]

kidnap: to seize and detain or carry away by unlawful force or fraud and often with a demand for ransom

capture1 : an act or instance of capturing: as a : an act of catching, winning, or gaining control by force, stratagem, or guile b : a move in a board game (as chess or checkers) that gains an opponent's piece c : the absorption by an atom, nucleus, or particle of a subatomic particle that often results in subsequent emission of radiation or in fission d : the act of recording in a permanent file <data capture>
2 : one that has been taken (as a prize ship)

Could be either word fits, couldn't it....

Until, of course, you read this which was said immediately after the seizure of the Israeli soldiers by the terrorist group Hezbollah:

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=16950

Meanwhile, Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah, warned that two Israeli soldiers captured by his fighters will only be returned through a prisoner swap. "I thank our fighters, I kiss their forheads and hands," he said, adding: "This is the only available way to release (Lebanese prisoners in Israel).
The Israelis always first say they do not wish to negotiate, but eventually they accept."

First Published 2006-07-12, Last Updated 2006-07-12 16:56:04[


The word "captured" implies prisoners of war caught on a field of battle by an opposing army - which is not what happens when two soldiers are taken from their own country during a terrorist raid which killed eight other soldiers and are then taken, by force and against their will, across their own border by the aforementioned terrorist group with the vocalized intention of being used as negotiating tools.

Only a recognized army has the right to "capture" and hold prisoners-of-war - and only in a recognized war - a terrorist group making a raid in the dead of night by sneaking into another country for the second time in weeks with the express purpose of causing harm and claiming captives as barginning chips does not qualify.

Words - words words words words words........gotta love 'em and their unending twisting possibilities. Perhaps the pen really is mightier than the sword. Doesn't matter - much as I love words and their endless meanings - and as much as I abhor violence - were I forcibly removed from my own county against my will and held prisoner by a terrorist group who had publically sworn to remove anyone of my ilk from the face of the earth, I'd much prefer the men with swords to the men with pens to be the ones coming to my rescue.



[This message has been edited by Lo (edited July 28, 2006).]

[Dan Halberstein]

Kevin, thanks for stopping by to posture and apologize.

You capture a soldier, you abduct a civilian, you kidnap a child. I'm not certain what you do with child soldiers, but it doesn't seem germane in any case.

I suppose those "capturing" were regular Lebanese army, wearing uniforms, carrying their weapons in the open -- as opposed to a street gang with a flag? It makes a difference, if you are claiming that the soldiers were not kidnapped. Won't argue this one further, because I think it's splitting hairs. It's also probably your strongest point, one on which you're say, 10% right.

Now, on with the rest... On judging Israel more harshly than other countries, it depends on what you're judging. Zionism? Resurrecting a dead country and turning a scholarly language into a modern spoken tongue? That's fairly wacky. Doing it in a neighborhood where you're distinctly unpopular also seems a recipe for disaster.

Thanks for popping in fifty-eight years after the fact to provide guidance on the founding of the state of Israel. Or did you mean to help out Hertzl and company a century late? Two points for your consideration: the "scholarly language" of Hebrew was a liturgical language prior to its modernization by Ahad Ha'am, no argument there. It was, however, known by close to the entirety of the Jewish people. Would you prefer they spoke Yiddish? Many Sephardic Jews would not. As to the "neighborhood where you're distinctly unpopular": There was much less anti-Jewish violence in the middle east than in Europe, at the time. Putting such a country where there was no historical Jewish population was not an option, nor putting such a country where there was thick settlement (there was not such settlement in Palestine.) The "model" refugee haven of the U.S. could not see its way clear to absorbing more than a handful of refugees during the Holocaust, and the same was true of the other liberal democracies. It is not a "fairly wacky" idea or a "shaky premise". It is the logical concommitant of the behavior of the West toward its Jewish population since the time of Rome: A non-Jewish country cannot be trusted to act as "guardian" of Jewish rights in the macrocosm. This has been proven again and again.

Worse, if you start your country with "Never forget" as a slogan, that's kind of a double-edged sword, since it's intellectually dishonest to expect anyone to forget anything else that's happened since, no matter how politically embarrassing.

Sure Kevin. All historical events are of equal weight. Of course. Call me when the number of lives taken by Israel over fifty-eight years' fighting is equal to a bad day in Europe, and I'll give this some credence.

Another double-edged sword is continually redrawing borders. The current mess with Lebanon looks an awful lot like Israel carving off the bottom third as new territory.

I have a novel idea: When you want Israel out of an area, make an agreement and abide by it, and see what happens. Seriously, just for Schlitz and giggles, just to see if it can be done. Like, when you sign an agreement -- as Lebanon has -- to disband Hezbollah along with other militias. In any event, the plan -- at least as announced -- is not to occupy as in the 1982-2000 timeframe. They're talking about a mile-wide strip. We shall see. Your root problem, Kevin, is that Israel's borders are not respected. Until they are, Israel has the obligation to cross them in hot pursuit of those who would do her harm.

The quasi-theocracy nature of Israel is hardly a good thing either, at least as a democracy....Also, putting a racial/religious symbol smack dab in the middle of your flag doesn't make you very credible if you have pretentions to being an inclusive secular democracy.

We've been through this one before, Kevin. While I'm absolutely certain that none in this country insist on religious displays, precepts, or terminology on their money, in their courtrooms, in their definitions of marriage, in the state's attitude toward abortion, or in any other public or secular pursuit, I am less certain of your point regarding the flag. Are you speaking of crosses, which would have to be removed from a couple dozen European flags, or crescents, which would have to be removed from virtually every Middle-Eastern flag (along with some southeast asian ones as well?) or are you only aghast at a Jewish religious symbol being on a flag??? Sorry Kev, but by the "if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck" standard, you're getting really close to looking like a duck here. If you are so okay with Islamic and Christian symbols you don't even see them, and laugh at the parallel application Jewish symbols... how is that not Antisemitism?

Time to get to work... it's been interesting. I am kind of tickled by that navy blue expanse of emptiness England uses as her emblem in Kevin Andrew Murphyland... still chuckling.

Dan

[Kevin Andrew Murphy]

Dan,

Dan, Daniel, Danny, Danny-boy, Danny-me-boy... Have I missed any variants or patronizing pet forms? I'm not used to writing in this style, so let me just get it out of the way to begin with. Or perhaps we could debate this without wheedling familiarity?

With the wheedling roundabout talks-like-a-duck anti-semitism insinuations, let me simply put the questions forward: Is Israel meant to be a theocracy or a modern democracy? A Jewish homeland or a cosmopolitan society with preferential seating for none? If the answer to both is the former, then the current flag design couldn't be better. If the later, then probably not the greatest idea and in need of a redesign.

As for crosses in other flags, when you see the flag of Sweden, do you think of the glories of Christendom or do you think there might be an IKEA nearby and you could pick up some meatballs with lingonberry sauce? I know I think of the later, and so I think do most people, due to the fact that even Christians who do wear crosses around their necks, they generally don't wear them sideways. And I've never seen anyone wearing that spiky-assed thing in the middle of the Union Jack. Yes, I'll admit I'm grandfathering a lot of things here, but it's all a matter of how in-your-face it is.

As for the "In God We Trust" on our own coinage, well, thank the damnable Knights of Columbus and their McCarthy-era anti-commie crusade for that. Yes, I do notice it. No, I'm not happy with it. But currently the Knights of Columbus are just ringing bells in front of supermarkets and atheists are free to walk the streets and sneer at them as they like, so I'm not sweating it. In the US, we can change our religion like we change our socks, define our ethnicity however it amuses us at the moment, and there's no space for religion or race on our drivers licenses or other public identity cards. Israel?

As for kidnapping, we're poets here. Look at the etymology: kid=child, nap is nab. Or simply turn to an older dictionary. From the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue:

KID. A little dapper fellow. A child. The blowen has napped the kid. The girl is with child.

To NAB. To seize, or catch unawares. To nab the teaze;
to be privately whipped. To nab the stoop; to stand in
the pillory. To nab the rust; a jockey term for a horse
that becomes restive. To nab the snow: to steal linen
left out to bleach or dry. CANT.

KIDNAPPER. Originally one who stole or decoyed children
or apprentices from their parents or masters, to send
them to the colonies; called also spiriting: but now used for all recruiting crimps for the king's troops, or those of the East India company, and agents for indenting servants for the plantations

Certainly it can be used in other senses than the snatching of children, but that's the core implication.

As for Hezbollah having soldiers, I suppose I apply walks-like-a-duck, because martially trained people with political objectives sound an awful lot like soldiers to my mind, even if they don't have all the uniforms. Taking hostages to exchange for prisoners is an ancient military tactic, in fact, and if Hezbollah had to kill eight soldiers to capture two, it would seem that was the objective. After all, if they simply wanted to <cite>kidnap</cite> someone, there must be any number of Israeli children who would fit the bill and could be grabbed with far less bother. Attacking and capturing soldiers? That's guerilla warfare, but warfare all the same. And by your own terms, Hezbollah is a militia.

Disbanding militias is a tricky business, mostly because if they're secret and you don't know their members, how do you get them to disband and how do you know they've done it?

But this, Dan, is severely creepy:

Sure Kevin. All historical events are of equal weight. Of course. Call me when the number of lives taken by Israel over fifty-eight years' fighting is equal to a bad day in Europe, and I'll give this some credence.

Wow. I hadn't seen it spelled out before, but from what you're saying, it sounds like Israel has an atrocity debit card and you're bragging that it's barely dipped into its balance. It's like a license-to-kill and a papal indulgence all rolled into one.

Sorry, no. I'm appalled by atrocities. I'm more appalled by atrocities that take place in my lifetime.



[This message has been edited by Kevin Andrew Murphy (edited July 28, 2006).]