By Spengler
Dogs of war incline toward caution, which after all is how they grew up to be dogs. More worrisome are puppies, who do not know what danger is. Gavrilo Princeps, the Serbian gunman who shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand dead in June 1914, was a puppy. So are the Hamas kidnappers, who at this writing still hold Israeli Army Corporal Gilad Shalit, and the Mehdi Army shooters who reportedly disposed of several dozen Sunni civilians in Baghdad on the weekend. The North Koreans, by contrast, are just nasty old dogs who long ago got loose from their leash.
Wars start because no one wants to disown his dog. If your dog bites a neighbor, your neighbor well might come after you with a shotgun. Nicholas II of Russia, I observed recently, did not want war in 1914 and until the end of July insisted that no war would break out. [1] But the Serbian puppies supported by his secret service dragged him into it willy-nilly. The past week's events in the Middle East have a disturbing feel of July 1914 about them.
Surprised? -- Rantings of a Sandmonkey
And then you read something like Hal's latest rant and you ponder the arab mentality. We are the only people in the world who talk about dignity and honor when it comes to military conflict, and who will continue fighting losing wars, unprepared and undermilitarized, because of reasons such as "our pride and dignity" and then wonder why the fuck we lose. I mean, can you imagine if the americans acted the same way? They would never have left Vietnam. They would stay in Iraq forever. You don't see a single american saying "we should stay in Iraq because our national pride and dignity are wounded by the insurgents attacks". Only we would use some half assed justification to keep fighting wars we can't win, where we keep getting our asses kicked, and some how don't see the folly in it at all.
Big powers are split as UN envoys begin work
THE big powers split yesterday over the fighting in the Middle East as leaders gathered for the G8 summit in Russia, with President Bush refusing to demand that Israel halt its military action.
President Putin, host of the summit in St Petersburg, called for an immediate end to hostilities between Israel and Lebanon. “We assume that all sides in conflict should immediately end their military action. That should be the starting point for resolving all other problems,” Mr Putin told an international group of teenagers.
Are Israel's military tactics justifiable?
I am with you, Jeff Melvin; you are bang on. Anyway, the usual response will be to blame America ( I have even heard it suggested on the BBC - by one of their expert correspondents - that America is partly to blame for the bombs that went off in Bombay because apparently India is now thought to closer to the USA (those nasty capitalists).
If you can't blame the Americans then blame the Jews (that tiny nation which is threatened with extinction by Iran peacefully developing nuclear capabilties) and if you can't blame them then you can always blame the police I say - but whatever you do, do not blame the real culprits (those that invade Israel and capture its soldiers). If you want peace it is simple: hand back the captured soldiers and hand over those responsible (not forgetting those murdered in the capture).
My comments will now provoke responses of cries that it is all "tit for tat" thereby excusing the culprits. Blame the police I say.
Posted by Robert Wilson on July 14, 2006 12:54 PM
In response to the poster who seems to think that Hezbollah and Hamas have the right to oust "the occupier" under the Geneva Convention - first of all, neither Gaza or Lebanon were occupied by Israel at the time. Secondly, the soldiers were captured on Israeli soil - in other words, Israel was invaded by foreign forces and their people attacked. Add to that the daily bombardment that Israel suffers anyway and the only question is - why have they taken so long to do something?
Personally, I feel sorry for the Lebanese people. They don't want this, but it's being foisted on them by Syria and Iran. The embryonic Lebanese government - starting to get a life of it's own after finally kicking out the SYRIAN occupiers after 20 years are too weak to prevent Syrian and Iranian proxies from attacking their neighbour and now they have a new war on their land.
But put the blame for this where it truly lies. On the shoulders of the Syrian and Iranian governments.
Posted by Stan on July 14, 2006 1:27 PM
Podcast: Pajamas Media
And what a week to review! Moderator Austin Bay talks with the usual suspects, Tammy Bruce, Eric Umansky, and Glenn Reynolds. The topics: 1) Mumbai terror attacks, (2) Geneva Convention rights for Al Qaeda, and (3) Israel versus Hezbollah—and Iran. As always, Ed Driscoll produces.
Hugh Fitzgerald at Dhimmi Watch
Is Israel's bombing "disproportionate"? "Disproportionate" to what? So far, after all those bombs in three days of sensational and excited and much exaggerated coverage, a grand total of 73 people have died in Lebanon. How many of them were "innocent civilians," that is people who did not ardenly support the continued Hezbollah attacks on Israel when there was not a single Israeli soldier left in Lebanon? Given Israel's size, its lack of strategic depth, the fact that in the pre-1967 armistice lines it is 8 miles wide, and one has some idea of its pitifully tiny size by the fact that Haifa, that was hit with rockets "deep inside Israel," is a mere 18 miles from the Lebanese border. Israel cannot tolerate any of this. It may be difficult for Americans, with the Atlantic Ocean standing guard on one side, and the Pacific Ocean standing guard on the other, and reasonably friendly if often un-admiring Canada to the north, and perhaps too-friendly and a little too-admiring Mexico to the south, to quite perform the feat of imagination required to imagine what it must be like to live in Israel, what the real size of the country, and size of the dangers, are. But at least we should all close our eyes and try.
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