Gaza Thoughts 2

Part I asked the question how not only will the Gaza War end, but the whole Arab-Israeli war? My quick answer: end oil as a valuable commodity. Let me expand:

1. First Dispel the Thousand Year War Myth

This is a clear sign of vigorous ignorance: if a blowhard says that the Arabs and Jews have been fighting for centuries, so there's no way the war will ever end, call bull-scheisse. Yes, there's been fighting in that region for centuries, but those battles (a) did not involve Jews except as victims, never as belligerents, and (b) many of the battles were between Christians and Muslims, and no matter how much both sides would like to claim otherwise, Jews and NOT interchangeable with Christians.

A side note to explain that point: Muslims seem to consider Jews and Christians part of the same category and since Jews have thrived in the western (read: Christian, usually Protestant) democracies, modern Muslims just seem to think we're the same. So the crusades were Jewish both because they were fought by infidels, and what's the difference among 'em, and because Jews and Christians work together nowadays so they must have always worked together! People who have not risen up into modernity (like most of the Muslim world) are stuck with the ahistorical Medieval frame of mind which flattens the present into a permanent past.

Now the modern Christians - in the US - identify the Jews as a form of Christian. Note, this is not done (as far as I've seen) in Europe. Not only are there gads of Catholics who have long memories of roasting Jews on open fires for their Traditional Christmases, but Europeans in general have clear Us-Them battle-lines drawn in their brains and Jews are permanently on the Them team.

But American protestants think of Jews as just another form of Christians. First of all, American Judaism is so watered down that its basically protestantism anyway. But for the fundamentalists, who see Jews as part of a religious plan, they see Jews - and Israel - as just a form of Christianity. My feeling is that a random fundamentalist Christian would be shocked to know Jews think Jesus wasn't a savior but a cranky hillbilly carpenter, at best. Fundys read the Old testament as a Christian document, and Israel is *theirs* because it's Jewish. I could elaborate more, but that should be enough for now.

So: to say that there's been Jewish-Muslim violence for centuries is to say (like Muslims) that Jews are just anti-Muslim, like the Christians, or to say (like the Fundamentalists) that the Jews are acting as Christian agents in the most recent crusade. Both these ideas are stupid and wrong. Call that bull-schiesse!

There's a third option, though, for the morons: to claim that the *region* has been in war for centuries and the Arabs and Israelis are just acting out some kind of war-curse the region engenders. Somehow these idiots think Israel is the hotel from the Shining. Morons who say this are usually atheists (or anti-religion theists) who think that religion makes people bloodthirsty and insane. And thus they depict the Arab-Israeli wars as religious conflicts.

Pardon me while I laugh derisively. These atheist dimwits (Michael Ramirez is one of them, when he's not sucking the Gooper trough) don't take the time to understand that Israel is pretty damn secular. Even though the settlers are generally Orthodox weirdos, the majority of Israel - every single Prime Minister for example - are secular. So boom goes that canard.

The bottom line is that the current Arab-Israeli conflict is about 150 years old - speaking expansively - and before 1948 the "war" was generally the Arabs massacring Jews. Since 1948 there has been the current conflict. So even give the innumeracy of the pundits and associated bellyachers, 60+ years does not equal hundreds.

And it bears repeating over and over: this is not a two sided war. As I said (somewhere) that the old slogan from the Hippie 60s was "What if they declared a war and nobody came?" is beyond stupid because of the Arab-Israeli conflict which is "what if they declared a war and only one side showed up?" There'll be a war for as long as the Arabs and/or Muslims have the *means* to destroy Israel. Because they are committed to do so, because of religion or because of some broken vision of their grandiose past. We need to take away their means...

2. The Arab-Israeli War Has Had Two Phases

From 1948-1993 the Arab-Israeli conflict must be seen in the light of the cold war. Simply put, the Western World gave a flying fig for Israel - and the world cared about the Arab states - mainly as a proxy battle between the US and the USSR. The Arab armies were aligned with the Soviets and their weaponry (and money) came from that massive part of the globe. The US supported Israel in the same way we supported South Korea, Taiwan, Greece, or the Contras.

The great tragedy of Oslo was that a point when the Cold War was over the PLO was poised to become irrelevant. All of their resources and support dried up because the Russians had bigger fish to fry. Just like we could have gotten total control of the Western Wall and of Hebron - but gave it away due to idiotic ideology - so too we could have lived without the PLO. But nooooo; Rabin-Peres took a failed organization, dazed and dashed along with the Berlin Wall, living in exile in Tunisia, and gave them an international platform.

However, one can argue that even without Israel giving the Palestinians relevance, they would have risen up on their own because of the second source of funding (and now sole source following the breakup of the Soviets): Arab oil.

Post Oslo (which is post-Berlin Wall) the Arab world maintains a relevance because they are stinking' rich off oil money.

How else can Iran fund both Hamas and Hezbollah? Why would we even care about Saddam Hussein? How is it that Muslim terrorists can be so well funded and protected? Why is it that France rolls over and kisses Arab tush? Because of oil. Oil is what protects the Palestinians and what makes the whole world listen to the raving hatred of the petro-nations that hate Israel.

Were oil to become worthless, then Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, etc wouldn't be able to fund terrorism, the world would consider the Arabs to be as important as undeveloped backwaters like Bangladesh or sub-Saharan Africa.

3. Green=Peace

Support alternative fuels! The idiot Republicans - and their poster airhead Sarah "Drill, I have Babies, Drill" Palin - talked only of ending our dependence on "foreign oil." That little world "foreign" is the rub. It sounds like an innocuous addition and that's the power of PR/Marketing - to create logical sounding slogans for unpleasant truths. (e.g. When did toilet paper become bathroom tissue?! I know there's a difference! I'm shomer shabbat: bathroom tissue is kosher on Shabbas and toilet paper ain't. Stop messing with words, Madison Avenue!! Ahem)

"Ending dependence on oil" means to switch to alternative fuels; "ending...foreign oil" still means we're dependent on oil, but it means we'll just buy more domestically. It's so stupid that people just swallowed it up: it sounds 'green' but is in fact designed to line the pockets of Texans and Alaskans. Goopers are even worse than the bathroom tissue people.

Anyway, by ending dependence on oil; if we turn the world onto cheap fuel (e.g. remember coal?) then we can end the Arab-Israeli conflict: (1) the bad guys won't have the money for weapons, and (2) the world won't need to listen to the Arabs complaining about Israel/Palestine because who listens to poor sand-farmers?

How will the war end? The Palestinians will wake up one day and realize that nobody is giving them money to kill 100 of themselves for every Israeli (the current ratio, or so it seems) and they'll then do what all petulant parasites do when the cash cow dies: they'll get jobs. They'll build roads and schools instead of bombs and will find it better for day-to-day life to actually let Israel live in peace.

Gaza Thoughts 1

1. Think Like a Nation, Not an Individual

It's important to remember that right and wrong to even a thoughtful, moral, intelligent, educated person is different for collectives, especially nations. A leader, a person responsible for others, must think above the individual. A simple example, when it comes to halakha, is the classic debate over allowing emergency-rescuers break Sabbath laws in order to save a life. The rescuer is allowed to break the Sabbath not only in running to save the life, but also to return back to his home. To small minds (and there are plenty of these even among rabbis), it is wrong to allow the rescuer to break the Sabbath to return home. While these miniminds will grudgingly acknowledge that a life is worth more than the Sabbath, that condition should end when the rescue has occurred, no? Well, say the wide-thinking and responsible leadership: if we refuse the rescuer from returning home, then he won't come in the first place for fear of ruining his day.

The miniminds rebut: how dare we impugn the noble heart of the Torah-True-Jew(tm)?!

The rabbis respond: Hey, we're with your rosy view of human nature, but over the years we noticed that people were not showing up to rescue others in need! We're the same ones who came up with sfeik-sfeika: the concept that when you have a doubt (safek) on top of a doubt (safek) then you are allowed to be lenient in halakha. So rescuers were applying the sfeik-sfeika themselves: maybe I won't get to the rescue site on time, and maybe others will get there before me, making my trip superfluous. Heighty-ho, I should just stay home with my family and not ruin Shabbos...

Yes, the Torah-True-Jew(tm) is noble; except that we rabbis have to think of the long term and of the whole community. And the sociological pattern (see the bystander intervention studies of 1960s BCE) is that unless there is an overarching moral compulsion, an even noble and intelligent individual will think in the short term and not do what's best for society. That's the job of the rabbis: to make social rules that better society. And we're saying that the rescuer can violate Shabbat to return home.

The miniminds still retort (and here there are many rabbis unfortunately in the group): OK, OK, we bow to the wisdom of the rabbis. Except that Yankel Shmoikel, my EMT cousin, doesn't want to return home on Shabbas and because he so noble, he will still rush off to rescue people on Shabbas! So there!

The rabbis again respond: Please do not violate the rabbis rules. We thought of Shmankel. Ya see, first of all, when you think you're above the law, when you second guess Societal Ethics using Individualist Logic, then you will most likely end up violating the law. We believe either/or: (a) that Shmankel will think of himself as noble but will subconsciously decide not to run off to rescue because he knows the burden, or (b) that Shmankel will decide that others will take care of the rescue, he's needed more in his house.

Ya see, one more reason (a noble one) for the rescuer to return home: because as a rescuer (especially a doctor/nurse/EMT) is needed to help others. If we had the fire-brigade rush off to the boonies on Shabbas, then get stuck there starting Friday night, then they won't be available for the inevitable Cholent-Blech fire across town. Etc.

This is a large issue and I'm bring the point up in brief (and I need to create a good overall term for this ethic) but the lesson is this: leaders think in terms of long term consequences and not for the individual case.

This applies to the Gaza war. A soldier can't think of individual cases, he has to follow orders. That's well understood. But the generals need to think of the big picture which can result in individuals getting killed. Even innocent ones. This is why war must be the last resort of any moral state. We just hope that the generals (and in the modern democratic state, the elected officials who command the army) think like leaders and are seeking the proper long term goals.

When Bush rushed off to war, we feared that his feeble moral intellect didn't understand the cost of war. Especially since he ran away from Vietnam, yet always felt that he was a solider. He threw lives away for political gain. This was also the specter of the second Lebanon War.

The Gaza War is real, though. Gaza was given over to the Palestinians who immediately turned it into a terrorist state hell-bent on Israel's destruction. Cease-fires didn't work and ultimately negotiation is fruitless without a partner. These are large, nation, issues that don't fall into most people's consciousness. They just think of the loss of life. And it's good they care. But it is morally wrong to apply an individualist code of ethics to national needs.

2. You Can't Compare the Morality of a Democracy with a Tyranny.

I wrote an op-ed back during the second Lebanon war (can't link to it because it would divulge my thinly veiled identity) that argued this point. Citizens in a democracy are sovereigns which means that the army's actions are the will of the collective will. If the war is unjust and wrong (as Iraq was) then the populace will rebel, either by ballot (like we did in 2006-2008). Citizens of a tyranny do not have the power to change the government's mind; if the war is unpopular then so what; if the tyrants want to use the citizens as soldiers so be it. As such, citizens of a tyranny aren't really civilians the way that citizen's in a democracy are. Just think of the Japanese and Nazi citizens during WWII - they did not have a choice to change the government's mind short of rebellion. Note that rebellion is what actually ended World War I - both the Russian Revolution but more importantly the rebellions in Germany.

Let me emphasize that point again: World War I ended only because the a tyranny was (almost) overthrown. I'll get into the tragedy of the end of WWI elsewhen, but suffice to say that democracies have civilians in the true sense but tyrannies do not. The only ethical thing to do, from the democratic point of view, is to end all dictatorships. However, since that would require almost non-stop warfare, it's not really possible to do that (despite what Bill Kristol and George W. Bush wanted).

The next best thing would be the idea proposed by John McCain: the League of Democracies. During the election, the League concept was discredited by the cognoscenti because McCain is an airhead and there's guilt by association. But I think it just makes sense: democracies need to band together to protect themselves from the common threat of tyrannies. For the reason set above: that tyrannies can commit crimes against democracies who cannot respond in kind. But there's strength in numbers!

The Gaza situation is a case in point: if there were a League - which is broader and more relevant than the cold-war dinosaur NATO yet not soaking with sordid dictatorships like the UN - then the moment a rocket flew from Gaza into Israel the whole League would declare Hamas a threat. It's basically what we did in the first Gulf War and as a permanent function, a super-NATO as it were, it would help everyone. And like we're seeing with NATO, it may induce countries to drop their tyranny earlier than expected to get the benefits.

3. When Will It Ever End?

There's the short term and the long term ends, and the realistic ends and my pipe-dream ends. The short term end of this war is in the hands of the Israelis. The leadership of the major industrial nations have to balance their public opinion reactions (and since Israel absolutely irrevocably sucks at PR - it's like a point of pride to Israelis to act like arrogant boneheads) with what they recognize as the goals of their nations.

Any country that has to deal with angry Islamic citizens will call on Israel to cease as soon as possible; countries that don't care about this subgroup (e.g. US) will be less circumspect. But all the major countries have as a vested national interest to have Hamas be destroyed. Gaza is totally Hamas and Hamas is a vicious, implacable terrorist group. There's no positive for Hamas; this is one reason why the PLO is helping Israel with the battle. So the nations of the world will let Israel do as much as possible to weaken Hamas.

The war, plus the general world condemnation of Hamas, may serve to topple the Gaza government and give it into the hands of Israel. There is no way for Israel to make peace with the Palestinians until the P's can speak with unity and until Hamas is driven into an angry ineffectual nub (like "Islamic Jihad" - remember them) then there's no short term peace plan.

And I repeat, if we had a League of Democracies then it would be very hard for Hamas to shoot more than one day's worth of missiles without getting a return smackdown from the worlds' Democracies. And the smacking wouldn't be violent at first - there'd be an economic carrot and stick from the League first.

Ah, but you'll respond, won't the tyrannizes of the world pick up the economic slack? Indeed. That's a problem with the Arab-Israel conflict, there's world interest in the players. But this leads to second solution, the long term one, which I think will eventually put a lot of this to bed: alternative fuels. More on that in the next post.

Diplomacy, Appeasement, GOP Credibility

I was on the road for Appeasement-Gate (or Bush-Knesset-gate), when Bush accused strawmen of appeasing dictators, just like bad people did back in the 30s with Hitler. (Oh, funny side-point, turns out Prescott Bush, the president's Senator grandfather, was one of those appeasers... heh). Anyway, in the past 8 years, Bush has shown either to mean exactly what his words sound like or to be a complete liar, whichever happens to be worst at the time. That is not a joke. When he sounds like he's saying something good, he's lying ("heckuva job", "we don't torture") and when it sounds bad, it is bad.

Bush's comments at the Knesset were OBVIOUSLY referring to Obama and the Democrats in general. Duh. Duh duh duh. And the Press understood it too, which is an uncommon admission, given their slavish acceptance of every lie uttered by the Bush administration so far (cf. Iraq war, Iran, torture, civil liberties, the attorney firing).

Yeah, some bullet-heads are still claiming that Obama overreacted, but they're the same people who believe that Bush is the reincarnation of King Arthur and Richard "First Crusade" Lionheart, so whatever.

McCain, gotta love him, is so maverick-y that he immediately followed Bush's lead. That'll show 'em how independent you are John! You mavericky mavericking maverick, you.

What I wonder is why ANYBODY believes that the GOP knows what it's doing with foreign policy anymore. Seriously. The concept that diplomacy=appeasement has resonance only if you are 6 years old and are presently in a schoolyard. Outside of that puerile universe, diplomacy is how actual real life occurs. I'd go so far as to say that the bright-shining-line between childish and adult personality is the recognition that life is about compromise and negotiation and not about violence and absolutes.

Bush is a big baby, this is clear. He is a bully and a spoiled brat. Bully proof comes from how he treats those out of power; spoiled brattishness has been amply shown with his recent comments about nobly giving up golf in recognition of the sacrifice of the thousands of casualties from his foolish war.

McCain is following along because he doesn't actually appear to possess leadership qualities. Yeah, maybe when he was in the military, but in the Senate? That's the downside of being a maverick: unless you can translate your rebellion into a movement, then you're just a troublemaker, a noisemaker, not a leader.

Why is diplomacy not appeasement. Here's a good summary by Matt Yglesias:

The problem here is that, once again, we see hawks not understanding what diplomacy is. But think of diplomacy as a kind of bargaining. Like you might do at a yard sale or something. Diplomacy doesn't exist at one end of a spectrum of coercive measures -- we try war, we try sanctions, we try diplomacy -- any more than bargaining operates on a smooth continuum with robbery. The point of bargaining with a vendor is to see whether or not it's possible to find mutually acceptable terms that improve both parties' positions. In terms of diplomacy with Iran, the idea isn't that Obama's steely gaze would force concessions out of the Iranians, the idea is that we might be able to give Iran something Iran deems more valuable than weapons-grade nuclear material, and in exchange we would get verifiable disarmament.

The "something" here would presumably be some form of security assurances plus an accommodation to Iranian interests in Iraq, along with Teheran and Washington laying out a pathway to gradual normalization of relations in exchange for an end to Iranian support for terrorism and Palestinian rejectionist groups. Would it be possible to strike such a deal? Maybe, maybe not. But the purpose of a negotiating session would be to find out by attempting to do the bargaining rather than having five more years of back-and-forth blog posts speculating about the possibility. The general theory of diplomacy is that rational actors should, through negotiations, be able to achieve positive-sum settlements rather than negative-sum conflicts. It's always possible that your would-be negotiating partner will prove irrational (as George W. Bush did when he rejected Iranian peace overtures several years back) and the process will fail, but it's worth attempting in good faith.

And just in case Yglesias is too much of a squishy leftie to truly understand things, here are two recent examples of (sane) Republicans who agree, Sen. Specter (from Yglesias) and James Baker III (from Sullivan):





Summaries: Specter is asking Sec of Defense Gates why Bush is calling negotiation appeasement when negotiation is normal, logical, and sensible. Specter assails the Bush perspective and hopes Gates can talk some sense into the President.

Baker is even more clear; he says that a strong leader talks to enemies. He himself travelled to Syria 15 times, on Bush Sr's request, to get Syria to recognize Israel and on the 16th trip Syria agreed to negotiate at the Madrid Peace Talks. Baker, while an anti-Semite GOP running-dog, is also from the time when the GOP were considered competent. Not any more; Baker (and Specter) are as slimy as Obama. Only Bush and McCain know what to do!

Peace in the Middle East?

I found this note I wrote to myself on Sunday, February 19, 2006 4:45 PM

Do you think there will ever be peace in the Middle East?

No.

Why?

Because of every reason why we have war in the first place.

Al Gore, Baby

Al Gore and bunch of UN things won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

A number of thoughts:

1. It's always good when the Peace Prize goes for something that's not directly antagonistic to Israel

2. It's nice to see that the American President-Elected who got the prize isn't a schmuck.

3. It's nice to see when the Nobel Peace Prize goes for something that actually helps people (like last year's as well).

4. While one could think, "hey maybe an Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize in one year is worth not being [acknowledged as] President," just recall that the past 7 years have been one of bloodshed, torture and impoverishment and that a Gore-Lieberman Administration certainly would not have jackrabbited into the Iraq War, would probably have prevented 9/11, would have had a working FEMA to help with Katrina (and probably would have shored up the levees), wouldn't have bankrupted the country with misbegotten economic plans, etc. And since Gore is a decent human being, he would have wanted to be president to prevent the horrible Bush stuff, even if he didn't get to proactively do anything good.

5. Moreover, after he stepped down in 2009, Gore would have gone on to do important work - possibly on Global Warming (if he wasn't successful in tackling it as President) - and would have won a Nobel in 2016 or so.

6. Will he run for president now? I still think not (again, his Taco Grande belly is the best barometer, as it were, than his many prizes). What he can do is tilt the balance to either Hillary or Obama.

{2009 Update: Pic from here.}

The World of Jimmy Carter

Backpost, but I'm keeping the original post-date because it's not so relevant to us in '08. 8/1/2008

This review of Carter's book from "The American Thinker" is too good to excerpt. Read the whole she-bang:

The World According to Jimmy Carter
November 14th, 2006

A review of: Jimmy Carter, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid (Simon & Schuster, November 2006)

It is not difficult to understand why Democrats wanted the publication of Jimmy Carter’s slim new book (216 pages of text, large print and no footnotes), with its tendentious title and its superficial analysis, delayed until today, a week after the election. The anti-Israel bias is so clear, the credulous description of Arab positions so cringe-producing, the key “facts” on which Carter relies so easily refuted by public documents, that the book is an embarrassment to Carter, the Democrats, the presidency and Americans.

It is hard to decide which is more discomforting—what Carter put in or what he left out. Let’s start with his own words, and let him speak for himself, and then note what no knowledgeable observer of the Middle East could have ingenuously omitted.

Carter says he paid his first visit to Israel in June 1973 (when he was privately “planning a future role as president”), and he devotes an entire chapter to it. The trip “formed most of my lasting impressions of Israel”—and they do not seem to have been good ones.

On his trip, he traveled “along the paths of Jesus” around the Sea of Galilee and found that:

“It was especially interesting to visit with some of the few surviving Samaritans, who complained to us that their holy sites and culture were not being respected by Israeli authorities – the same complaint heard by Jesus and his disciples almost two thousand years earlier.”

He describes his visit to several kibbutzim and finds that Israel fails his religious test again (at least on one kibbutz):

“The next morning was the Sabbath, and at the appointed time we entered the synagogue, said a silent prayer, and then stood quietly just inside the door. Only two other worshippers appeared. When I asked if this was typical, [the guide] gave a wry smile and shrugged his shoulders as if it was not important either way.”

Later on the trip, when asked to participate in a graduation ceremony at an IDF training camp, Carter helps by presenting a Hebrew bible to each graduate,

“which was one of the few indications of a religious commitment that I observed during our visit.”

Carter states that he has

“to admit that, at the time, I equated the ejection of Palestinians from their previous homes within the State of Israel to the forcing of Lower Creek Indians from the Georgia land where our family farm was now located.”

(So far as the book indicates, he apparently has no plans to give any portion of his farm back).

At the end of his visit, he meets with Prime Minister Golda Meir and when asked to share his observations, responds to her as follows.

“I said that I had long taught lessons from the Hebrew Scriptures and that a common historical pattern was that Israel was punished whenever the leaders turned away from devout worship of God. I asked if she was concerned about the secular nature of her Labor government.”

Daniel Pipes on Iraq

Sent along by my wife - about a possible solution for the quagmiasma (mix of quagmire and miasma) in Iraq is to partition into 3 sub-states.

In Iraq, Stay the Course - but Change It
by Daniel Pipes, New York Sun, October 24, 2006

As coalition policy reaches a crisis, may I resurrect an idea I have been flogging since April 2003? It offers a way out of the current debate over staying the course (as President George W. Bush has long advocated) or withdrawing troops on a short timetable (as his critics demand).

My solution splits the difference, "Stay the course – but change the course." I suggest pulling coalition forces out of the inhabited areas of Iraq and redeploying them to the desert.

This way, the troops remain indefinitely in Iraq, but remote from the urban carnage. It permits the American-led troops to carry out essential tasks (protecting borders, keeping the oil and gas flowing, ensuring that no Saddam-like monster takes power) while ending their non-essential work (maintaining street-level order, guarding their own barracks).

Beyond these specifics, such a troop redeployment would imply a profound and improved change of course. It means:

Letting Iraqis run Iraq: Wish the Iraqis well but recognize that they are responsible for their own country. Or, in the words of a Times of London headline, "Bush to Iraqis: you take over." The coalition can help but Iraqis are adults, not wards, and need to assume responsibility for their country, from internal security to writing their constitution, with all due urgency.

Seeing violence in Iraq as an Iraqi problem: The now-constant violence verging on civil war is a humanitarian tragedy but not a strategic one, an Iraqi problem, not a coalition one. The coalition should realize it has no more responsibility for keeping the peace between Iraqis than it does among Liberians or Somalis.

Terminating the mammoth U.S. embassy in Baghdad: The American-created "Green Zone" in Baghdad is too high profile already, but work now underway to build the biggest embassy in the history of mankind, a 4,000-employee fortress in the heart of Baghdad, will make matters significantly worse. Its looming centrality will antagonize Iraqis for years or decades to come, even as it offers a vulnerable target for rocket-wielding enemies. Scheduled to open in June 2007, this gargantuan complex should be handed back to Iraqis, the over US$1 billion spent on it written off as a mistake of war, and a new, normal-sized, embassy built in its stead.

Ending the coddle: The inept, corrupt, and Islamist leadership in Baghdad discredits the Bush administration's integrity; conversely, Washington's embrace makes it look like a stooge. Other Iraqi institutions – my pet peeve is the National Symphony Orchestra in Baghdad – also suffer from the patronizing embrace of American politicians. Muslim sensitivities about rule by non-Muslims makes these rankling offenses.

Reducing coalition ambitions for Iraq: From the start, "Operation Iraqi Freedom" was too ambitious and too remote from American interests ("Operation Coalition Security" would have been a better moniker). Give up on the unattainable goal of a democratic, free, and prosperous Iraq, a beacon to the region, and instead accept a stable and decent Iraq, one where conditions are comparable to Egypt or Tunisia.

The situation in Iraq has become a source of deep domestic antagonism in the coalition countries, especially the United States and Great Britain, but it can be finessed by noting that the stakes there are actually quite minor, then adjusting means and goals on this basis. Do you, dear non-Iraqi reader, have strong feelings about the future of Iraq? I strongly suspect not.

Iraqis want possession of their country; and peoples in countries providing troops serving in Iraq have wearied of the hopeless effort to transform it into something better than it is. Both aspirations can be satisfied by redeploying coalition troops to the desert, where they can focus on the essential tasks of maintaining Iraq's territorial integrity, keeping the fossil fuels flowing, and preventing humanitarian disasters.

The idea has developed since World War II that when the United States protects its interests by invading a country, it then has a moral obligation to rehabilitate it. This "mouse that roared" or "Pottery Barn rule" assumption is wrong and needs to be re-evaluated. Yes, there are times and places where rehabilitation is appropriate, but this needs to be decided on a case-by-case basis, keeping feasibility and American interests strictly in mind. Iraq – an endemically violent country – fails on both counts.

Pic from here. Backpost finished on 2009-11-29 - yet another one that I let sit around even though it was totally finished. Gak.

Nobel Peace Odds

Tomorrow they will announce the Nobel Peace Prize, the most important - and most farcical - prize of them all. Because we live in a degenerate age, the best way to calibrate who will win is to go to a sports betting site, like this one (Centrebet). Note, Slate sent me to this link.

Personally, I think that Bill Clinton should have better odds (he's not even listed).

Ya see, Literature and Peace have by design or adaptation become purely political. Literature is basically a second peace prize (does anybody actually consider a bunch of Swedes capable of determining the quality of art? The Lit prize is a joke. Science is universal and a group of scientists in scandanavia have probably as much acumen as anywhere else as to what research deserves a prize. And in the past years there's been very little dissent over appropriateness of the receipients - if there has its over people who were overlooked). But Literature?! How much world lit is written in Swedish? Which means these bozos are reading it in translation. And its art. Ah well)

As I, and anybody with a brain, predicted, Literature went to a Muslim (Orhan Pamuk). Considering that the Muslim world has shown in the past 12 months that they are against any form of free expression no matter how benign (cartoons?!) or important (Mozart), this seemed inevitable just as last year's lit that went to an anti-war (and anti-British) activist (Pinker).

The fact that both Lit and Peace are given by the Swedes/Norse to change the world's direction, I wouldn't be surprised if the Peace Prize went to someone that repudiates the current American administration. Given that Bill Clinton has spearheaded in the past year the US relief efforts for the Tsunami, for Katrina, and his Clinton Foundation Thingie has been doing high-profile do-goody things all over... and because he is getting more popular in world opinion every living second when held in comparison to the unhinged brute malevolence of his successor.

The odds for peace this year seem to be for Martti Ahtisaari of the "Crisis Management Initiative." Now that I've seen his bio on the wiki, I'm seeing why he's a front runner. First, his group negotiated a peace treaty in Indonesia. He also was in charge of the Vienna Peace Treaty for Kosovo. Most importantly, he was the former President of Finland. That's locks it - those lapland types stick together.

Sick enough, there's decent odds on Mordechai Frickin Vanunu (the traitor who revealed Israel's Nuclear program). That should also favor heavily into the Nobelian system. What better way to send a message for world peace than to thump Israel?

More Left-Wing Foolishness

Background:

This is all of a piece, similar to what I recently posted here, about the inane myths in the left-wing echo-chamber. In the example below, the master of the Great Orange Satan, the Kos himself, repeats the standard nonesense:

Daily Kos: State of the Nation:

I grew up in a war zone. And there was one clear lesson I learned -- there will never be peace unless both sides get tired of the fighting and start seeking an alternative. It's clear that in the Middle East, no one is sick of the fighting. They have centuries of grudges to resolve, and will continue fighting until they can get over them.

Centuries of grudges, eh? Moron.

Backpost finished 4/11/08. The link and the quote.

Onion is Better Than I

OK, besides being very funny, the Onion wrote this story (Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over') in January 11, 2001 - I have never, ever been that prescient. Man.

A sample quote:

"My fellow Americans," Bush said, "at long last, we have reached the end of the dark period in American history that will come to be known as the Clinton Era, eight long years characterized by unprecedented economic expansion, a sharp decrease in crime, and sustained peace overseas. The time has come to put all of that behind us."

Eerie.

Arafat is Dead

In my power as Ma'ara D'Atra I declared that we would not say Tachanun today. No, it wasn't just because it's Thursday; after weighing the proper responses to the death of Arafat, no tachanun was a start. This is what I said:

We're told in Pirkei Avot, 4:24:

Shmuel HaKatan said: "When your enemy falls, do not rejoice, and when he stumbles let your heart not be glad, lest God see, and regard it with displeasure, and divert His wrath from him [to you]."

Our response is tempered; despite our joy we cannot respond with Hallel. But we recognize that with the death of Arafat, God has shown us mercy and we acknowledge that by not saying Tachanun.

Arafat was the greatest enemy of the Jews since Hitler.

He is called "the father of modern terrorism" - he gave the world suicide bombers, children as targets, the car-bomb. He also created the falsehood of a "Palestinian" - there is no such thing, no such person, no such state, and Arafat's evil made that falsehood live [one of the only things he let live]

The IDF claimed that for Arafat to die from natural causes outside Israel was the best possible scenario. And for that we're grateful as well.

In response, we will say three chapters of Tehillim: 121, for the ongoing war; 124 - which is about God saving us from enemies, and 125 - where we acknowledge that we must respond to God's mercy with mitzvot. We must increase our tzedaka and other good works today.

[After the tehillim, I had to say a quick comment and "Rebbi Hananya ben Akashya" so I said:]

There's a popular joke about Hitler and now Arafat that whatever day he died would be declared a Jewish holiday. It didn't happen - because we don't celebrate the death of enemies; we ask God to "yimach shemo" - to blot their names out from the world. No day to commemorate the obliterated names.

P.S. Psalms 124 & 125

A Song of Ascents; of David. 'If it had not been God who was for us', let Israel now say; 'If it had not been God who was for us, when men rose up against us, Then they had swallowed us up alive, when their wrath was kindled against us; Then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul; Then the proud waters had gone over our soul.' Blessed be God, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth. Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we are escaped. Our help is in the name of God, who made heaven and earth.

A Song of Ascents. They that trust in God are as mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abideth for ever. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so God is round about His people, from this time forth and for ever. For the rod of wickedness shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous; that the righteous put not forth their hands unto iniquity. Do good, O God, unto the good, and to them that are upright in their hearts. But as for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways, God will lead them away with the workers of iniquity. Peace be upon Israel.

Moral Compass

The Times reports today that the Vatican Feels Compassion for Saddam. A direct quote: "Seeing him like this, a man in his tragedy, despite all the heavy blame he bears, I had a sense of compassion for him," by Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Vatican Council for Justice and Peace.

At least I understand why the Vatican, and I guess the Catholic religion, thinks that molesting children is OK - because if they think that a mass-murdering rapist dictator is being mistreated by simple arrest and medical inspection, then the moral bar is set pretty low. Unrepentant pedophiliac sexual predators don't even show up on God's radar if Saddam barely registers.

Equal Treatment

The Jerusalem Post reports that Israel News : Jerusalem Post Internet Edition: "Fatah gunmen execute 'collaborator' in Ramallah hospital". This is how I know that Arafat, and the Palestinians, don't want peace. It's even more simple than the fact that Fatah is Arafat's own organization. It's that if Arafat and crew were really interested in peace, they'd be labeled as 'collaborators' and shot!