Fun read o' the day

From today's online surf:
(Because sometimes, you gain more knowledge in the re-reading, as in this ugly case of "gloating" and finger-pointing, only a month after American troops entered Iraq.)
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"Yeah, there has been a lot of pro-war gloating. ... So maybe we shouldn't rub in just how wrong, and morally corrupt the antiwar case was.

Maybe we should rise above the temptation to point out that claims of a "quagmire" were wrong -- again! -- how efforts at moral equivalence were obscenely wrong -- again! -- how the antiwar folks are still, far too often, trying to move the goalposts rather than admit their error -- again -- and how an awful lot of the very same people who spoke lugubriously about "civilian casualties" now seem almost disappointed that there weren't more -- again -- and how many people who spoke darkly about the Arab Street and citizens rising up against American "liberators" were proven wrong -- again -- as the liberators were seen as just that by the people they were liberating.

And I suppose we shouldn't stress so much that the antiwar folks were really just defending the interests of French oil companies and Russian arms-deal creditors. It's probably a bad idea to keep rubbing that point in over and over again. Nah." *

*Tennessee law professor and insta-intellectual Glenn Reynolds, April 11, 2003.
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Nothing like getting in early with the insta-opinions, or calling the game a few minutes into the first period. Indeed. In fact... indeedy-do.

(Is it ugly to go back after a few years, and compare reality to those early observations? Not when the insta-expert was so confident in his trash-talking. Not in my book. Not if you believe in accountability and want to determine who has credibility in their future predictions.)

Shine a little light...
...and a little more...

Voting... with his feet.

Dark roots

Tom Blackburn in the PBPost:

..."The people around the region and the world need to step back," President Bush explained last week, "and recognize that Hezbollah's action created a very strong reaction that, unfortunately, caused some people to lose their life, innocent people to lose their life. But on the other hand, it was Hezbollah that caused the destruction."

No. With all due respect, no. That's a playground reaction, a playground explanation and playground morals: "He called me a name, so it's his fault I hit him with that stone." Grown-ups have to do better.

Hezbollah is responsible for the damage it did. Israel is responsible for the damage it did. The Bush administration is responsible for what it did in slow motion to encourage destruction, and, since this is a democracy, Americans are responsible for what the Bush administration did. That's accountability. It's quite popular when preached to the poor in wallet, but it applies to everyone.

Every moral system with any standing has a variation of the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. For Israel facing an enemy that attacks innocents to make a statement, that isn't easy. It's hard to know what you would want done to you in response to what you wouldn't think of doing.

I'll leave it to Mideast experts (if such beings can exist) to sort out gains and losses from Israel's attack on Lebanon and the aftermath. I will just say that it was pretty depressing to hear Mr. Bush chant about getting to the "root of the problem." Which root did he mean? Careful digging would turn up roots older than the first battle of Jericho. Getting even never works because it changes the score, and if the score changes, the other side has a new need to get even.
...
Proportionality is the principle that never enters President Bush's mind while he blames "evildoers." What did enter his mind is the odd notion that Iraq had something to do with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. While the United States physically punished and rhetorically freed Iraq, at the bare least 10 times as many Iraqis died as there were Americans killed on 9/11.
...
Giving up the moral high ground, for starters, was not smart. Mr. Bush is now like the playground bully who relied on his brawn and stones and ran into an opponent who knows jujitsu. A lot more brain has to be added to our undoubted brawn. The whole world, including France, knows who started the fight. The onlookers would like to see us quit flailing at everyone in sight and fight smart. For our own sake, we need to consider that point of view.

Terence J. Daly, guest op-ed in NYT

...Counterinsurgency is about gaining control of the population, not killing or detaining enemy fighters. A properly planned counterinsurgency campaign moves the population, by stages, from reluctant acceptance of the counterinsurgent force to, ideally, full support.

American soldiers deride “winning hearts and minds” as the equivalent of sitting around a campfire singing “Kumbaya.” But in fact it is a sophisticated, multifaceted, even ruthless struggle to wrest control of a population from cunning and often brutal foes. The counterinsurgent must be ready and able to kill insurgents — lots of them — but as a means, not an end.

Counterinsurgency is work better suited to a police force than a military one. Military forces — by tradition, organization, equipment and training — are best at killing people and breaking things. Police organizations, on the other hand, operate with minimum force. They know their job can’t be done from miles away by technology. They are accustomed to face-to-face contact with their adversaries, and they know how to draw street-level information and support from the populace.

The police are used to functioning within legal restraints. Our armed forces, however, are used to obeying only the laws of war and the United States Uniform Code of Military Justice. Soldiers and marines are trained to respond to force with massive force. To expect them to switch overnight to using force only as permitted by a foreign legal code, enforced and reviewed by foreign magistrates and judges, is quite unrealistic. It could also threaten their survival the next time they have to fight a conventional enemy.

Forcing the round peg of our military, which has no equal in speed, firepower, maneuver and shock action, into the square hole of international law enforcement and population control isn’t working. We need a peacekeeping force to complement our war-fighters, and we need to start building it now.

If the U.S. is going to continue playing world policeman, only with the police in soldiers' uniforms, you shouldn't dismiss this op-ed as liberal namby-pamby. I think in the middle, there's a group that doesn't believe necessarily in the isolationism brand of independence, yet is realistic enough to acknowledge the limitations of "shock and awe" campaigns.

Wise Words

Doron Rosenblum in Haaretz
...
The haste, the wild gambling with human lives and the shoddy planning that accompanied this war did not arise in a vacuum and did not stem from some mental disturbance reserved exclusively for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Halutz. They were not the only ones who were deceived into thinking that they had in their hands an all-powerful tool that is replete with gadgets - the Israel Defense Forces and the air force - and can be put into operation and stopped by pressing a button, when the main thing is the fact of the desire to operate it and not the concern for its operation.

And indeed the semi-messianic slogan, "Let the IDF win," was, and is still, despite everything, the demesne of most of the Israeli public. No empirical proof, not even repeated bereavement and failure, have shaken the naive belief that somewhere out there is a huge, mystical, redeeming victory that failed leaders are preventing from taking place.

...

With all the acute importance of military might, Israel cannot be solely a derivative of victories or tactical defeats on the battlefield. Its existence is far richer and far more meaningful and varied than that.

If the Israeli mentality is "inferior" to that of Hezbollah, Iran and Hamas in that it does not seek suicidal death, the virgins in Paradise and genocide for its neighbors; if Israel has pity on the lives of its sons, on its comfort, on the nurturing of its landscapes and even on bed and breakfasts, wineries and the pleasures of life, it is nothing to be ashamed of. On the contrary: We shall proudly bear our weaknesses as fragile, vulnerable human beings.

Israel is not Sparta, and this is a good thing. It was not established in order to be a spearhead against global Islam, or in order to serve as an alert squad for the Western world. It was established in order to live in it. And after the obvious is stated - with respect to the importance of might and strength - this too shall be said: Unlike some of its enemies, Israel has a far more means of existential solace - in vitality, culture and in creativity - than the planting of a flag of victory among the ruins.

Signs in the pines

Off-season

DULUTH - For more than a month now along Lake Superior's North Shore highway, people have reported sightings of an animal bearing an uncanny resemblance to a hyena.

"It's hard to say just why, but that's what it looks like," said Kathi Johnson, of Hovland, Minn., which is northeast of Grand Marais. She has seen the animal twice while driving near her home. "It's this weird-looking gray animal, and it reminds you of that hyena in the 'Lion King.' "

...
But on Wednesday, international wolf expert L. David Mech was shown some fairly clear pictures of the animal, and he said it appears to be an ordinary timber wolf. "It just looks like a wolf with mange," said Mech, who has studied wolves in the wild for more than 40 years and is considered one of the world's foremost experts on them.

Harsh

Carl Edward Moyle, 28, had been in jail since Tuesday morning, after being arrested in Elk River and booked for allegedly driving without insurance, authorities said.

Jailers learned of a disturbance in a 15-bed common area at around 9:20 p.m. and found that Moyle had been beaten with a railing, authorities said. He was pronounced dead at a hospital shortly before 10:30 p.m. Tuesday. Authorities said the suspect was in the county jail awaiting a court date related to an earlier attack at a state prison.

Moyle's family said he was driving his brother's truck to work when he was pulled over and arrested. His family says the proof of insurance was at home in a drawer and not in the glove box. The victim's brother, Byron Moyle, told KSTP-TV that he brought the proof of insurance to the police department after work on Tuesday, but it was closed.

Now Israel is at war with Hizbollah, Kfar Kila is at the very front of the front line. The olive trees on the ridge above the village have been scorched black by the phosphorus flares Israeli soldiers used last week to set them aflame. Buildings have been smashed and ruined, set on fire. Some are stained with blood.

Farm animals, kept in sheds and yards behind the bigger houses, have been injured by the shrapnel from tank shells, which scream in with a jarring, lethal regularity. Ibrahim Yahia, a 26-year-old farmer and part-time defender of Kfar Kila, leads us to a Friesian cow, blinded in one eye by shrapnel. Blood streams from one nostril. As Yahia tries to take its muzzle and comfort it, the animal is spooked, and bucks and kicks.

But nothing appears to spook Yahia. A member of Amal, the group fighting alongside Hizbollah in the Islamic Resistance, he barely flinches as the Israeli shells crash in. The streets are open on one side to observation from the gunners around Metula. 'If they want to come, they'll come,' he said sombrely, showing off the rubble in his parents' house, where a shell had punched a hole through the wall. 'Then we will fight them.'

...

'I won't fight without a reason. But because I have a reason I will fight. Because this is my land, I am prepared to die for it. How could you stay silent when you see your land burn and your children get killed? The whole population here is now resisting.'

Are you ready...

to rumble??

Asked by reporters in the main northern city of Tripoli about the possibility of a regional war, Muallem said: "Welcome to the regional war."

10 dead in Israel, 9 soldiers

This is it boys, this is war:

The scene is very difficult. It can be described as a battlefield," said Shimon Abutbul, a rescue worker who was one of the first to arrive in the area. "There was a lot of blood."

"We saw difficult scenes in the days of this fighting. This is the worst I have seen," he said, adding that the rockets also hit cars.

A nearby forest burst into flames from the barrage and huge plumes of gray smoke rose into the air.

I hate to see routes. Unmatched competitions. Blowouts. On the sports field, it's not good for the losers, and it's worse for the winners. Overconfident. Cocky. Not playing for the love of the game, or even with the spirit to win. It's too easy when the teams aren't well matched.

That was my problem with this latest war. What is the civilian count up to? I'll buy that they all weren't deliberately targeted, but they are dead nonetheless, thanks to the actions of both teams.

But when soldiers are kidnapped or die, sure, they're somebody's children too. But they are players on the field. That's who we want to battle for supremacy over the land; killing children, women, and farmworkers = too easy. That's the terrorist's way.

Here, if they're going to resist, I'm glad the terrorists are targeting soldiers. I hope when the final score comes down, it's not such a blowout either. Will make it less convenient for either side to get overconfident and want to play this type of game again.

I also hope that no outside forces are brought in to play clean up. Obviously, everyone knows the dangers by now of stationing their own team's soldiers on the other side's land. Ideally, you don't want that to happen for long. Get in, do the limited and clearly defined job, get out. If you have to leave forces behind to clean up after yourself (and all this should be thought out before any troops invade), be prepared. It's a damn shame to go around thinking somebody else is going to do the heavy lifting in accomplishing your goals, and always be there to clean up after your messes. Maybe today's deaths will open some eyes. War can make one feel macho, but in the end, alone it does not bring peace. Sometimes, war brings more enemies, more fighting and destruction, more death, then if you had worked -- really seriously worked -- on finding a workable path out that can be undertaken by both teams. (Why compromise when you can route?) Violence should be used sparingly and effectively. Sounds trite, but amazing how many still choose not to see that. Technology over common sense, if you will. Overconfidence.

Don't listen to the cheerleaders; listen to your brains, hearts, and stomachs.
This invasion and aftermath will likely turn out as effective as the one begun in March 2003. I was talking negative back then too. Pooh-poohed the purple finger publicity that the insta-experts said "proved" victory. (gotta think long term, friends). Not surprised by the ongoing civil war -- when you destabilize a country...

Let's all wait and see how Lebanon turns out: will the bombings, destruction and invasion prove to help bring about peace in the region, or woud it have been better to go slow when the two soldiers were kidnapped, and take the non-easy route in supporting the Lebanese government and people working for better lives for themselves? In which way would Israel have been able to survive the longest, and on which path -- military or otherwise -- would the United States have retained some of its idealistic leadership in the world?
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Other ways of thinking...
Gideon Levy in Haaretz:

This miserable war in Lebanon, which is just getting more and more complicated for no reason at all, was born in Israel's greed for land. Not that Israel is fighting this time to conquer more land, not at all, but ending the occupation could have prevented this unnecessary war. If Israel had returned the Golan Heights and signed a peace treaty with Syria in a timely fashion, presumably this war would not have broken out.

Peace with Syria would have guaranteed peace with Lebanon and peace with both would have prevented Hezbollah from fortifying on Israel's northern border. Peace with Syria would have also isolated Iran, Israel's true, dangerous enemy, and cut off Hezbollah from one of the two sources of its weapons and funding. It's so simple, and so removed from conventional Israeli thinking, which is subject to brainwashing.

For years, Israel has waged war against the Palestinians with the main motive of insistence on keeping the occupied territories. If not for the settlement enterprise, Israel would have long since retreated from the occupied territories and the struggle's engine would have been significant neutralized. Not that a non-occupying Israel would have turned into the darling of the Arab world, but the destructive fire aimed at Israel would have significantly lessened, and those who continued to fight Israel would have found themselves isolated.

The war against the Palestinians is therefore unequivocally a territorial war, a war for the settlements. In other words, in the West Bank and Gaza, people were killed and are getting killed because of our greed for land. From Golda Meir to Ehud Olmert, the lie has held that the war with the Palestinians is an existential one for survival imposed on Israel when it is actually a war for real estate, one dunam after another, that does not belong to us. ...

Read the whole thing,
or go paint your fingers and practice your cheers.

Voices

Mike Royko had Slats Grobnik,
and "Jeffie" has B.T.

We need to hear more from the Grobnik's and the B.T.'s of the world right now.

The unicorns looked up from the rock and they cried...

"Sure, let the fox on,
but no time to wait for us*."



apropos of this story:

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia's island state of Tasmania risks losing its status as a "Noah's Ark" for rare species with the discovery that foxes have probably begun breeding there, environmentalists have warned.)

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*Shel Silverstein

-- who knew?

"... never caught a rabbit, and you ain't no friend o'mine... "

Dog destroys Elvis' teddy bear at museum

LONDON (AP) -- A guard dog has ripped apart a collection of rare teddy bears, including one once owned by Elvis Presley, during a rampage at a children's museum.

"He just went berserk," said Daniel Medley, general manager of the Wookey Hole Caves near Wells, England, where hundreds of bears were chewed up Tuesday night by the 6-year-old Doberman pinscher named Barney.

Barney ripped the head off a brown stuffed bear once owned by the young Presley during the attack, leaving fluffy stuffing and bits of bears' limbs and heads on the museum floor.

And, although pro-Israel sentiment runs deep in Congress, Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., broke with the president on Monday and said Israel's pounding of Lebanon was hurting, not helping, America's image in the Middle East.

"The sickening slaughter on both sides must end now," Hagel said. "This madness must stop." Hagel has also been critical of the administration's Iraq policy.

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From Tehran,
On Buying Democracy:

While the pledge of American money may have added to the regime’s anxieties about its future, it has done nothing to help the democratic movement. The battle between freedom and despotism in Iran remains unresolved for deeply internal reasons. It is, I am convinced, a problem with profound historical and cultural roots.

We have learned from our history that despotism can be imported, and that despotic rulers can survive with the help of outsiders. But we have also learned that we have to gain our freedom ourselves, and that only we can nourish that freedom and create a political system that can sustain it.

Akbar Ganji, an investigative journalist, is the author of a forthcoming collection of writings on Iran’s democratic movement. This article was translated from the Persian.