You'll never convince the people who loved the movie Walking Tall that the big stick doesn't work. They saw it in the movies, so it must be truth-iness.

No matter that Buford Pusser lost his wife and was maimed, and eventually lost his own life.

In a vacuum you can probably make this case. But there will always be someone who will argue LOUDLY that greater force must be applied. I don't know how you break through the cycle of rhetoric.

Kevin:

Not your most brilliantly argued post -- but I feel your pain. It's a frustrating topic. I have no answer glib or otherwise, either.

It is the Dilemma of the Hour, to be certain.

Where the *hell* is Gandhi and/or MLKjr when you need them the absolute *most*, eh?

Bob

So long as domestic politics continues to be dominated by the likes of Roves and their minions who value political victories over everything else, no mere mortal will have the courage to take the risk involved in advocating a position of forbearance that advocates sacrifice of questionable trivial tactical victories for grand strategic successes.

Yes, we should outsmart the enemy by... never fighting back. That's how we deleted Hitler: We bided our time and he.. voluntarily stepped down from power and the nazi party gradually dissolved.

Oh, wait, my mistake.

Clearly the hawk has not read the LAT article by Carr.

It isn't so much forebearance that is needed, but instead a need for real and effective diplomacy.

Humans have the capacity to intereact in ways beyond merely physical aggression and counter aggression.

Where are the statesmen and women in this new century?

I have to guess that the reason Truman could act with restraint was that we had lost enough men and women in WW2 and everyone had seen newsreels of what the war had done to Europe and the Pacific. Once the Soviets had the A-bomb (1951 I think), restraint was easier to manage.
AmericanHawk, Kevin is not saying to never fight; he is saying to pick the right moment. And the right moment is not necessarily the time when the enemy does something to provoke.

Clearly the hawk has not read the LAT article by Carr.

Yes, I did. Al aways, he's sympathizing with terrorists (calling them 'daring!') and making rationalizations for Isreal not to defend herself. Par for course.

AmericanHawk,
Your description of how we did not defeat Hitler is a pretty good description of how we did defeat Soviet communism.

True, but the Soviet Union wasn't attacking us. If they had been, we would had to have responded. Isrel shouldn't let terrorists blow up their school buses, and then sanguinely say, "Ah, but we'll WAIT THEM OUT! It's our brilliant strategy!". That's pure insanity.

American Hawk:

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result.

Bob

For the state of Israel, "forbearance" would have simply required compliance with the law as set forth in its own scriptures- the lex talionis formulation of an eye for an eye, etc. represented a step toward the humanizing of acts of revenge, limiting them to "tit for tat", no more. This Israeli response even if it was not limited to the capture of the two Israeli soldiers a month ago, but was extended to years of Hezbollah strikes, is still out of proportion and goes back to pre lex talionis days.

American Hawk:

Think for a moment what might've happened had Israel done what Kevin suggested -- retaliated for a day.

How long do you think the rockets would have rained on Israel before the *Arab world* would have demanded that they stop.

The Egyptians, Saudis and Jordanians have no love for Shi'ites. Think of victory the West would have scored to have the Sunnis excoriating Hezbollah (and, by extension, Iran and Syria).

Big picture, Hawk, big picture.

Bob

How long do you think the rockets would have rained on Israel before the *Arab world* would have demanded that they stop.

Indefinitely. Do you really think the Arab world is going to look at the situation objectively? The Sunnis may hate the Shi'ites, but they hate Jews far more. That suggestion is just insane.

And let's say even that worked. So..... the 'Arab world' criticizes Hezbollah. So what? Their rockets still fire just as well. The terrorists aren't going to give up just because Saudi Arabia doesn't wub them any more and their fee fees are hurt.

Kevin:

The key factor in Truman's success was war weariness on the part of the public.

I was rather hoping that the U.S. electorate would be weary enough to change course in '04 but they weren't.

They may not be yet.

Can't force it, can't accelerate it. People just have to die bloody deaths and keep dying until the public gets tired enough.

The kind of nuanced thinking that recognizes the value of restraint as a long-term strategy vs. immediate, ill-considered war-making is obviously lost on bloodlust-addicts like AH.

American Hawk, you might as well sit the rest of this thread out.

Kevin: Counseling restraint in the hope that it will pay off in the long run is politically ruinous.

Well, I'm just a not-so-bright, working-class guy, but I don't see why this needs to be as difficult as Kevin makes it sound. Why should any politician ever be afraid of what his opposition says about him? Especially with the majority of voters now so disenchanted with the Iraq adventure (as an example of indiscriminate use-of-force).

Yes, we should outsmart the enemy by... never fighting back. That's how we deleted Hitler: We bided our time and he..

Actually, Am Hawk that's pretty much what you did for the first two and a half years thanks to Republican obstinance. While my country made the moral decision to fight fascism, yours never did and instead waited until you were given an invitation by Japan that you couldn't refuse. Not exactly your most morally shining moment (thereafter however, you did a pretty bang up job and were probably the number two factor in the defeat of Hitler. Further your post-war actions were inspired).

Re. Kevin's point, didn't Christianity have something to say about that? Not that anyone would actually want to start taking Christian ideas to heart or anything...

So there I was, sitting in this lovely pot, minding my own business. The jerk next door lit a small fire under the pot and the water got a bit hotter. No biggie. I am a bigger frog than he. I did nothing, thereby gaining a moral victory.

Every now and then, he would throw another piece of wood under the pot. Each time he did so, I ribbited, and smiled, I have gained a moral victory, and I will win the anti-frogs in the world and the US over to my point of view.

This went on, believe it or not, for six years. He would toss in a small piece of wood, and I would usually do nothing. Oh sure, I pointed out to everyone that he was violating a UN resolution that stated he shouldn't be carrying wood anymore. And I smiled because I had gained the moral victory.

And then one day, it turned out he had 10,000 pieces of wood stockpiled and ready to toss into the fire. So I did the best I could and tried to kill the fucker.

But he did have 10,000 pieces of wood and he proceeded to try and boil the shit out of me.

And now I have to listen to Yglesias and Drum tell me how wonderful moral victories are. In the meantime, I am boiling.

So if those british terrorists had managed to blow up a bunch of planes, who would we attack?

Britain with the special relationship?
Pakistan with their nukes?

I find that looking at fighting terrorism as a global counterinsurgency makes sense. But fighting just a regionally constrained insurgency (Iraq, Viet Nam, etc) is pretty damned hard and requires smarts to win it. Our leaders haven't learned anything in the past 30 years in fighting even regional insurgencies, it appears.

I'm not sure the US is capable of fighting a global one, with voices like Mr. Frog and American Hawk wanting to kill a mess of pick-a-Muslim-country whenever there's a terror attack.

It sure didn't win hearts and minds in Lebanon.

Hint; don't multiply your enemies. Kill only the individuals who are trying to kill you -- not a mess of their friends, neighbors, and countrymen. With six degrees of seperation, it doesn't take that many bombs to be at war with several billion people.

Christianity does indeed have something to say about the lex talionis formula. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says "You have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". But I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other cheek" Matthew 5:38-39 NRSV. Of course this is in the New Testament and is not part of the Hebrew Scriptures so need not be applied by Israel. However, it is part of the Bible that the fundamentalists like Bush claim to be inerrant when it comes to discussing evolution, stem cells, etc. How striking that it actually contains the term "evil doers" in the English translation- one of Bush's favourite terms, and thus how clear it is that Bush is very selective in what scriptural edicts he chooses to follow.

Mr. Frog, that was very cute.

Except that neither Kevin nor anyone else here has said anything about moral victories. We're talking about restraint - not capitulation, not passivity - as a strategy towards a more desirable end. Restraint doesn't mean you sit in the pot until the water boils.

I wish you (and the other trolls) would quit projecting this liberals-are-hippies idea into every discussion that we try to have here.

Like I said to American hawk...

American Hawk:

Well, of course the way you attempt to make this argument is by demonizing Hezbollah into subhuman alien child-devourers bent on nothing but the slaughtering of innocent life.

Lot easier to kill people if you don't worry about their widdew fee-fees, eh? :)

But this isn't an accurate picture of Hezbollah at all. First of all, they're duly elected members of the Lebanese government, to the tune of 18 MPs and 2 cabinet ministers. Secondly, they *are* the government of Shia south Lebanon, running schools, clinics, police forces -- while, sure, stockpiling weapons and building fortifications. The world's a complex place, Hawk. You can be simultaneously an implacable foe to your enemies and a great guy to your peeps.

Part of the reason that the Lebanese government never got around to purging Hezbollah from the south is that the populace never would have stood for it. Who better to manage an area of conservative, devout rual Shia than their conservative, devout co-religionists? The Westernized, decadent central government bureaucrats too tired and hung over all day from discoing all night at Beruit nightclubs?

So if Israel did practice a little forebearance and endured the rocket bombardment without response -- Hezbollah would have cut it out, probably shortly after Israel quit. Forget the Sunni bloc -- *Iran* wouldn't have stood for it, because Iran in case you hadn't noticed has some mighty big issues to deal with in front of the UNSC at the end of this month. Their client Hezbollah shelling a Gandhiesque Israel (to dream the impossible dream ... ) would have made them look pretty goddamned horrible in the eyes of the people who *really* matter -- you know, the French, the Russians and the Chinese.

If you think it's all about simpleminded racial hatred, then you'll never visualize your way out of a situation that has *never* gotten better without the visionaries like Sadat, Rabin and King Abdullah ...

Bob

King Abdullah = King Hussein

Nasralllah is the only leader of one of the sides of the conflict who has said an official cease fire would be adhered to by his forces.

I would ask Mr. Nasrallah to declare an end to missile attacks and Mr. Olmert to withdraw Israeli forces from Lebanon now, to encourage the end of hostilities. Tactical restraint in order to achieve strategic advantage, is an insightful idea. However, non-violent resistance as strategic policy without concession will not win the peace. Strategic advantage is usually considered from a view point of strength. We can't kill off the fanatics fast enough to win, because the foe represent majoritarian opinion. Hezbollah represents the dominant demographic component of Lebanese society. Palestinians represent the dominant demographic of the entire area once called Palestine.

Many Americans think one side is attacking the other while a minority thinks the reverse. Despite the accounting of deaths, popular opinion in America still supports Israel, both emotionally and materially, and think the intransigence of the Arab resistance to Israel's existence and expansion is based on a combination of religion, ideology and racism. I think it should be clear one side of the conflict has the grievance of lost property and nationality of the classic colonial victim combined with the extraordinary addition of that colonialist's guilt over the Holocaust. Israel is the result, codified in the universal social contract of the UN 1947 Partition, which needs to become a basis for the solution to the conflict.

Naturally the Palestinians objected to the giving of their national heritage to the fledgling Israelis, and the beginning of the second half of the Twentieth Century's most enduring conflicts began. Because so much time has passed and so many people now have accepted Israeli nationality, the Palestinians and other Arabs will have to accept Israeli nationhood. It is difficult and painful. It is an imposed loss without reason. It is also a point from which to establish the Palestinian state and stop the militant aggression and needless deaths of innocent people.

Israel, for its part in the strategic motivation to compromise, must continue its evacuation of all territory outside the 1947 Partition. Once Israel stops its retaliation and begins withdrawal from the territories and practices tactical restraint, like I hope Hamas and Hezbollah would, then a true resolution to the conflict created by Israel's existence can be achieved.

Robert Wright: if you ask what kind of shape would Israel be in if they had done a day's worth of retaliation, and since then just endured any missiles, and said, "OK, look, at this point there's no excuse for what they're doing, we're not even fighting them," I think Israel as a nation would be more secure than they are.

Sounds like he is calling for the wonderment of moral victories to me....

I wish you (and the other trolls) would quit projecting this liberals-are-hippies idea into every discussion that we try to have here.

Hmm, on the basis of reading one post, you call me a troll. Actually, I am probably more liberal than thou, and a frequent poster here, just not under the name Mr. Frog. I certainly don't think that all liberals are hippies, or even a significant number are. I obviously said nothing like that at all, and only tried to give the impression from the Frog in the Pot.

Apparently though Mr. Exasperanto, you like to jump to conclusions and find that labels and stereotypes are superior to thought and discussion. No wonder a-holes like Al and Hawk like to fight with you.

Me? I think Olmert made a very big mistake strategically and politically, but I am befuddled at how any state would allow a non-state actor that breaks the Geneva Conventions with every attack to build up an arsenal of 10,000 rockets, including anti-tank weapons and surface to air missiles. Hezbollah with every single rocket launch attacking civilians, pure and simple. Hezbollah with every single rocket launch is using civilians as shields. Pure and simple.

It is obvious from the past four weeks that Hezbollah long since passed the point of being a nuisance that is best dealt with local law enforcement. Hezbollah is a non-state army, and one that violates the Geneva Conventions with their every act.

There is no state on the face of this planet that would allow Hezbollah to exist just over their border.

Now were Olmert's actions the best strategically? It's hard for me to think they were. But it is long past time for Hezbollah to be dealt with and disarmed by the UN and Lebanon, and I can't fault Israel for trying to neutralize their obvious threat.

It's one thing when Katyushas are raining down a few miles across the border. It's quite another when a non-state army has missiles with 45-70 mile range and the ability to launch against the major civilian populations.

Nothing in there about hippies, liberals, or conservatives. Just about states and non-states and hypocrisy.

Interestingly, something like this "forebearance" is now being attempted in Brazil, according to an article in today's NYT.

In response to a series of violent gang attacks, the governor of Sao Paolo said:

"We are preserving their dignity and integrity," he said, noting that the police had not killed any jailed or paroled gang members during the latest outburst of violence. "Now I hope there will be reciprocity on their part."

We'll see how that works.

Many of the commenters have no sense of strategy. They are of the black and white school..same solution for every problem, what worked for Hitler will work for Hizbollah. Forbearance, as exemplified by the Israeli reaction postulated above, does two things. It gives a chance to an eventual winning of the "hearts and minds" problem and it wins the public relations war, about which I have seen some righteous right wing whining.

I guess the realization that Hitler, head of a modern industrial state, and Hizbollah, not, posed a different sort and level of threat and demanded a different sort and level of response will never seep into the minds of some. If and until that does, we will continue to have "arguments" made of false equivalences and fantastic "what ifs".

Sounds like he is calling for the wonderment of moral victories to me....

No, he's not, actually (whatever a wonderment is). He's talking about larger concepts. You just can't see it.

Maybe I was too hasty calling you a troll (although I knew you were, as you said, a frequent poster here - I recognize the tone) but you've now produced a second posting that belligerently refuses to address the original topic.

Why don't you tell us what you think a troll is?

What matters is winning. Maybe some extreme leftist are not keen on that. Have not really encounter any, but maybe there are some people somewhere that think like that. Anyway, they are very few if any. Well then, if you want to win, you work out the most effective strategy. And very often it is not to flail hysterically around and score domestic political points in order to gain ground in domestic political fights. I don't know about Israel, but probably the current solution is not effective and will not end up benefitting Israel's security goals. What I know with absolute certainty is that this is what happened with 9/11 - this criminal administration was more interested in ramming through their domestic goals than in annihilating the actual enemy. They have been giving gifts to bin Laden and still continue doing so. A tactical defeat looks actually like turning into a strategic one. Who could have believed it?

Of course a war atmosphere is very tempting politically: you can justify any strategic idiocy just by SOUNDING more aggressive than the opposition - a fearful electorate will largely react like lemmings. Hopefully reason and pure self-interest will prevail in the longer run and we can return into efficient fight back and WINNING. For God's sake.

I belligerently refused to address the original topic? No, what I addressed was your response to my argument.

I am actually not sure what a troll is. It's clear that a troll is not what you think it is, someone that disagrees with you. I suspect a troll is a person that doesn't care about the ideas being conveyed, but is merely posting for the sake of getting a response.

In that sense, your telling me that I am belligerent, your calling me a troll, your refusing to acknowledge that Robert Wright's call is reasonably construed as a moral victory, and your belligerent refusal to use google to find the definition of wonderment tells me all I need to know about who the troll is, Mr. Exasperanto.

Have a goodnight, try to get some sleep under your bridge.

If Israel had just gone for the damned prisoner swap ...

Bob

Neither Mr. Frog nor exasperanto are trolls.

Mr. Frog was using a cutesy rhetorical device to dis Kevin's point in kind of a smug way -- but he's entitled.

And I do think my good ally exasperanto responded a little crankily, to be truthful.

None of this rises (sinks) to the level of trollish behavior -- even remotely.

Bob

Mr. Frog:

I have to disagree with you on your interpretation of Wright's quote.

I don't think he was talking about moral victories; I think he was talking about tactical position for a favorable strategic outcome.

If moral suasion is involved in pressuring the world community -- including its Muslim allies -- to get Hezbollah to stop without Israel having to destroy half of Lebanon -- then so be it.

But the moral suasion in this case is a tactical instrument -- not an end in itself.

Of course it's always nice to be *right* -- but that's not what's at stake here.

What's at stake are all the wasted lives on both sides due to the unnecessary prolonging of this needless conflict.

Bob

Kevin, your key phrase is "...actually having a coherent long-term strategy to pair up with a short-term counsel of forbearance..." That would certainly make progress a lot more feasible. At the same time, an atmosphere of forebearance might create a climate in which a realistic strategy might be developed.

Not gonna happen. In a way, the Cheney gang is enslaved and paralyzed by the same fear they have worked so hard to instill in the country they are so carelessly ruining. Impotent fools like ChickenSquawk and Al may cling to the bullshit like a rose-petaled liferaft, but a majority of us are starting to realize how much digging-out we're going to have to do for a decade or more -- if we're lucky.

At this point, Israel is just America writ small.

It worked against ETA and the IRA.

The UK didn't invade Ireland to defeat the IRA as far as I can remember.

President George Bush and Osama bin Laden are a matched set; they feed each other and need each other. They represent the anti-modern faction in their respective societies ("civilizations"). Given that, I do not think so-called Islamofascists are any more dangerous than abortion clinic bombers. Both groups are intolerant and uncomfortable in this day and age. Both seek certainty in an uncertain world.

Please take some time and speak to muslims. Speak to many different muslims from the many different cultures and societies where you will find them. If you listen honestly and ask intelligent questions, you will find that they really are no different from Americans; there are some who are forward thinking, some who are very religiously devout and see the world through a God-fearing lens, and some who are angry and looking for a fight to redeem some part of self esteem that is lost in an increasingly harsh, uncaring, economically defined world.

The way forward is a contest of determination and a struggle of will. It's not unlike governments' battles with organized crime: Some governments do it successfully, others fail and govern societies that disintegrate over time. Successful governments are tough but at the same time maintain moral integrity and do not consistently lower their tactics to the those of their adversaries. The people (remember the people, the masses) need to be able to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys over time. That's the only way modern societies can continue to exist. And being the good guys involves more than just saying "they're bad" and "God is on our side." Being the good guys means taking our lumps as a society, showing restraint, coming down hard on the bad guys but showing mercy and compassion to innocents. In short, it means a tough law enforcement approach.

That's our reality. God help us all.

What I think is actually sometimes the smartest thing to do in response to terrorist provocation, which is forbearance, is very hard to counsel. [But] if you ask what kind of shape would Israel be in if they had done a day's worth of retaliation

All of this talk of forbearance is nice. But a month's worth of forbearance is wasted when your pilots get a direct hit on a clearly marked ambulance, whether in the first day's retaliation or not.

Israel lost this war by not controlling their fires against civilians, refugees, and other protected targets.

I'm sick of the assumption that the Israelis honor any cease-fires or truces.

When there was a cease-fire with the Palestinians sometime last year, the Israelis were doing assassinations of Hamas leaders thus breaking the cease-fire.

Show me a time when Israel ever honored a cease-fire when the opposition didn't.

Don't beat up on yourself Kevin...thats my job. Besides as any fool knows some problems never get solved...they just get replaced by new ones.
So now all thats cleared up...can we see the pics of you and Andrew Sullivan 'sheepherding' in Wyoming please?

well, the basic principle to me is that we're all very objective and astute when it comes to judging what other people should be doing, but not when it comes to our own situation. So make that principle work for you. For example, we all know that India has to show restraint when dealing with Pakistan & Bangladesh, we all know that Tutsis have to show restraint when dealing with Hutus, Kosovars have to show restraint when dealing with Serbs, China has to show restraint when dealing with Taiwan, etc. And vice-versa.

So one way is point out that you have to practice what you preach. The choice is between striving for an order based to some extent at least on spirituality and the rule of law, or America and Israel as simply bigger, stronger tribes in a pagan, chaotic, world full of tribes.

Also, I don't know if you're a fan of Douglas Hofstadter, but he had a very good chapter on this in his 1982 book Metamagical Themas. I believe the chapter was called Axelrod & the evolution of cooperation. The upshot was that a successful foreign policy should be "nice, provocable and forgiving".

For Israel/Lebanon specifically, a good first start might have been for Olmert to pose a question to Nasrallah, and given him a week to answer: "Does Hezbollah consider itself to be at war with Israel?" If Nasrallah answers yes, Israel more or less has cart blanche to attack. Most likely, the answer would have been no, with a but, or no, with an if.

Secondly, when Hezbollah fires its (inaccurate, silly ass) missiles, Israel can hold a press conference or a UN presentation, and say "we know where these missiles are coming from, and if we fire at them, we might hit civilians. We don't want to hit civilians." Then, you put the responsibility on the international commnity to suggest a solution. "Are we just supposed to allow them to fire without hitting back? What, international community, can you suggest?"

So to find an alternative to the current strategy of brute force, you have to have some faith in the ability for many of the main actors to come together and reason with each other. Then if you are betrayed, you can always switch to brute force. No big conclusion, these are just suggestions from thinking aloud.

Jimmy Carter struggled with this in his 1980 debate with Ronald Reagan. Transcript from The Onion's "This Dumb Century"
Jimmy Carter: "We have an opportunity to use American technology and know-how to develop our own alternate, renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power, freeing us from our reliance on foreign oil. This is sound policy, not just for America, but for the Planet Earth."

Ronald Reagan: "While much of what President Carter says is true, he is missing one very important point. That is, if America is to continue to prosper in the 1980s and beyond, we must join together and kill the bastards."

Jimmy Carter: "Next year, I will propose to Congress a sweeping revitalization program, with increased funding for the development of mass-transit systems, infrastructure rebuilding, and low-cost housing and job-training programs for disadvantaged minorities."

Ronald Reagan: "Kill the bastards, kill the bastards."

also point out that there's two paths America can go down. There's the path of Roosevelt, Gen. Marshall, Edward Murrow, Eisenhower, Ben-Gurion & Rabin. Or there's the path of Douglas Macarthur/ Ariel Sharon. We are advocating the traditional American path. Althouse, et.al. are advocating the untested path of Macarthur / Sharon. When we have a proven, successful, quintessentially American strategy, why would we go with this untested, rather dubious, neocon strategy?

We're now seeing what history might have been like if Macarthur had gotten his way, and it's not pretty.

America: embracing the dark side, and loving it!

Well, the idiocy of American Hawk et al. on this board certainly illustrates the rhetorical issues at stake.

This is an incredibly important issue for Americans to try to get their tiny heads around.

After 9/11, there were two really critical things America had to at least try to do: capture Bin Laden and demonstrate to his potential supporters in the Islamic world that America and the west were not their enemies.

This latter critical step would have required the patience and restraint of a great and mature nation. America, instead, invaded a non-involved country.

Well, the idiocy of American Hawk et al. on this board certainly illustrates the rhetorical issues at stake.

This is an incredibly important issue for Americans to try to get their tiny heads around.

After 9/11, there were two really critical things America had to at least try to do: capture Bin Laden and demonstrate to his potential supporters in the Islamic world that America and the west were not their enemies.

This latter critical step would have required the patience and restraint of a great and mature nation. America, instead, invaded a non-involved country. The world will pay the price for this mistake for generations.

The original provocation was a pinprick-a minor border incident that was really nothing new and probably a result of soldierly negligence. Israel should have regarded it as just the price of living in a nasty neighborhood.

I don't really think that a sovereign nation can tolerate systematic attacks on its (internationally undisputed) territory. The question only is what is most effective (and not most effective SOUNDING) counter measure to stop them. It is starting to be clear that this invasion certainly wasn't it.

And when there was a murderous terrorist attack on the US soil, the most effective response probably wasn't a disastrously incompetent and costly occupation of a country unrelated with that murderous attack. This is not about pacifism, it's about getting even and defending yourself in the most effective, most overwhelming way possibly. Bush could just as well been hired by militant Islamists: it's not easy to find a more welcome, more inept response to any enemies of the West than what this criminal, criminally incompetent administration has done.

And that was in the documents Spanish police found after the Madrid bombing: that Al Qaeda hoped Bush would win the upcoming election, because they could never hope to find a stupider or more easily manipulated opponent. Why the Dems didn't use that, I'll never understand.

Oh, right, they're into this "playing fair" crap.

Truman had George Kennan to make his theoretical case, people like Dean Acheson working for him, and Walter Lippman writing columns about it.

Bush has Bill Kristol, Karl Rove, and Rush Limbaugh.

Many of the commenters have no sense of strategy.

Perhaps but odds are that American Hawk will one day hit at least one of the skeeters he's trying to knock off with his Winchester.

There's a phrase about certain kinds of arguments: a cornucopia of evidence. In the Middle East there's a cornucopia of evidence to justify any act whatsoever. Arabs can point to the cleansing surrounding the war in '48. Israelis can point to a half dozen wars. Arabs can point to Sabra-Satilla. Israelis can point to pizza parlor bombings. On and on and on. The rhetorics used are beyond hardened: they are reliquary, fossilized. It was said of Arrafat that he never missed a chance to miss a chance. That's true of the whole region. So, it's tempting to say they deserve each other and turn away.

http://www.danablankenhorn.com/2006/08/the_1971_strate.html

We are talking about changing tactics, not changing aims. When you're losing a game, or a trial, or a business, or a nation, you look at what's not working and you change tactics so you have a chance to win.

A refusal to change tactics means defeat. Republicans refuse to change tactics. They refuse to even consider a change in tactics.

Let's put it in a way any red stater can understand. The Republicans are a football coach running a Wishbone when there are 250-pound linebackers with speed on every other team who can stop that play.

Even Darrell Royal will tell you what you have to do when that happens.

Pass.

And if you got to change quarterbacks to pass, change quarterbacks.

Might makes right. Despite the effectiveness of aggressive rhetoric on the blog comments and cable tv fronts Israel is losing in Lebanon. They will need to adopt a strategy that takes into account Hezbollah's military might or they will eventually cease to exist. This will mean negotiation and concession from Israel because the days of them being able to dictate terms from a position of strength are over.
Trying to strike a deal with entities that deny your right to exist such as Israel faces is close to impossible I know, but further military action will only weaken it more.

The Jewish people used to believe in the concept of forgiveness. Apparently not anymore. They now believe they can kill their way to a peaceful existence, and in that wrong-headed view of the human drama, have sealed their own doom.

This little conflict keeps reminding me of my favorite Bruce Cockburn song:

Here comes the helicopter -- second time today
Everybody scatters and hopes it goes away
How many kids they've murdered only God can say
If I had a rocket launcher...I'd make somebody pay

I don't believe in guarded borders and I don't believe in hate
I don't believe in generals or their stinking torture states
And when I talk with the survivors of things too sickening to relate
If I had a rocket launcher...I would retaliate

On the Rio Lacantun, one hundred thousand wait
To fall down from starvation -- or some less humane fate
Cry for guatemala, with a corpse in every gate
If I had a rocket launcher...I would not hesitate

I want to raise every voice -- at least I've got to try
Every time I think about it water rises to my eyes.
Situation desperate, echoes of the victims cry
If I had a rocket launcher...Some son of a bitch would die

We need to reclaim this turning the other cheek stuff from the dustbin of history.

In Jesus' time, when a Roman soldier cuffed you it was a sign of strength to be able to stand your ground. Offering a soldier your other cheek in public was a way of saying, "See, I'm tougher than you." It was a great embarrassment to the soldier.

Of course, if the soldier was threatening you with his spear or sword, it was undoubtedly the wiser course of action to get out of his way.

It's Blue Collar to swing back every time. Very commendable. But we are in the Knowledge Economy now. We are supposed to be smart enough not to swing at innocent victims in the neighbourhood. The GOP are pandering to the worst in Blue Collar values. Smart in politics, but dumb in military strategy. That is the GOP mistake.

Even good, i.e., not on the Pentagon gravy train, military experts use terms like "de-escalation" (which is your "forbearance") as a tactic, never going on offense against the country the "non-state entity" is operating out of, the new war as "4GW", etc.

I think the military experts are going to rip the GOP (and Israel) big time in public life, so it would be wise to get on their side now. Most liberals are there anyway. They can get the ideas and the talk at
http://www.d-n-i.net/lind/lind_archive.htm

The GOP really are dumb militarily. Read military strategists and get informed. They are giving out pure gold for free on the Internet. If the Democrats say their ideas, they will stomp the GOP, for the people, blue collar and white, are just waiting for someone to say something -- anything -- intelligent.

Wouldn't it be really neat to hear someone say something intelligent in public life?

You can be simultaneously an implacable foe to your enemies and a great guy to your peeps. ~rcmk1

There you have the essential human problem, and the truth about life that makes all "moral" religious stances ultimately incoherent.

Ah, Kevin.

What a classic libby wishy washy sentiment.

Yes. When Al Queeda hit our towers and pentegon, we should have had a big party with all the arabs and mooslims and sang kumbyeahh around a camp fire. THen, the mooslims would've pulled back their robes and shown the explosives strapped to theirselves, and the libs would have all cried "Noooo, pwease don't hurt us! Let us offer our backsides to you in supplication!" And that would have been that.

Don't it feel good to have the cowboy's in charge? Get R Done!

Go Bush! Kick some A! You make the libbys look more ridiculous everyday!

I have no idea what the answer is to the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict.
But if knee-jerk defense of Israel in this country is rooted in some kind of Christian religious tribalism, then I want nothing to do with it.

I'll bet egbert is a bed-wetting pussy who is afraid of his own shadow and lives in mommy's basement, cause he is too fucking lazy to get a real job.

These pansy-ass conservative Bush lovers make we want to vomit, with their willingness to sacrifice other people's children to fight their fucked up wars and they don't even have the guts to pay for them - instead charging it to our kids credit cards.

I would love to rearrange their faces so they might be able to think a little more clearly....

It's Blue Collar to swing back every time. Very commendable. But we are in the Knowledge Economy now. We are supposed to be smart enough not to swing at innocent victims in the neighbourhood. The GOP are pandering to the worst in Blue Collar values. Smart in politics, but dumb in military strategy. That is the GOP mistake.

Taking this a step further, it's a sign of the president's (and the GOP's) political weakness that he needs to do this. FDR had no such weakness. His political strength was unquestioned. So he could afford to do what he thought to be the right thing. Our country is so divided now politically, that no party can be this strong.

Egbert is a spoof, right?

There are a lot of trolls, but such obvious logical fallacies are intended to expose the neo-cons, not support them.

Right?

And Egbert, if you are sincere and you do not realize what logical mistakes and rhetorical abuses are in yhour comments, just ask, and I am sure someone here can help you craft a sensical and persuasive argument.

Yes, we should outsmart the enemy by... never fighting back.

I don't think anybody has suggested that we should never fight back. What is being suggested is that we be smarter about how we fight back.

Bush could just as well been hired by militant Islamists: it's not easy to find a more welcome, more inept response to any enemies of the West than what this criminal, criminally incompetent administration has done.

More or less implicit in this statement is a point I expected to find somebody making explicitly in this thread but have not: that terror attacks are often designed to provoke heavy-handed retaliation, sometimes even to derail negotiations for ceasefires and peace deals. When such retaliation takes place, it plays into the terrorists' hands.

Isn't this a pretty compelling argument for tactical restraint? Am I wrong? What am I missing?

Loris:

remember that bin Laden issued threats against the US the day before the last election. The CIA concluded that this meant that bin Laden wanted Bush to win.

Enough with claiming liberals support terrorism... who in American politics is being supported by the terrorists? When has bin Laden told us to vote for Democrats?

Hey hawk,
what were you asskickers doing from Sept. 39 to Dec. 41? Solid grasp of history, chump.

I have seen no reference in either the initial post nor the 60 or so comments to the fact that Israel walked out of Lebanon,unilaterally, some six years ago. Certainly Forebearance with a Capital F.

Did the Arabs say "Gee....maybe the Israelis want peace!"? Nope. They said "Ah! See...we were sufficiently strong that we were able to drive the Zionist Entity out. They are weak, and this proves it."
And continued to add provocations for six years. And continued to arm with rockets containing ball bearings; rockets which have use solely as terror machines, preferably aimed against civilians. And as this thing began, Israel had continued to the pullout from Gaza and was preparing to move from the West Bank.

And to the "Lex Tallionis" commenter....that applies to civil and not criminal law, and according to Rashi, was never enforced in that manner. It was always "money for an eye and money for a tooth".

Oh yes...then there is Shebbaa Farms. Basically the United States sold Israel out. But that's happened before.

Part of the way Truman managed to convince the nation to restraint was by going hard in Korea -- a decision which at the time (and perhaps in retrospect too) was widely considered disastrous. We know the Bushies love to compare their man to Harry. Part of this is because Truman too was afflicted by terrible approval ratings before historians would eventually venerate him. But I think the Bushies also like the comparison because it positions the Iraq debacle as "Bush's Korea" -- a terrible, painful stalemate of a war that the public soon found unacceptable, but which would not, in the long run, ruin Truman's reputation.

Regardless of the merits of this comparison, it's worth remembering that the way Eisenhower got elected was by promising to end the Korean War -- and because he was Eisenhower, he didn't have to worry about being labelled militarily soft. Is there anyone the Dems could draft who would have such a stature? Wes Clark doesn't strike me as the man, but he's about as close as it gets.

Good points, David.

P.S. Nils -- I agree that Wes Clark is not the right man -- how about Colin Powell?

It is not a call for turning the other cheek; rather, it suggests that savagely swinging back every time one's cheek is dealt so much as a brushing blow does not amount to effective boxing, much less enlightened belligerent behavior.

Carr appears to be giving Israel no credit whatever for withdrawing its army from Southern Lebanon and withdrawing its soldiers from Gaza. This undermines his argument. Israeli forebearance is what permitted Hizbollah to arm in the first place.

Carr also does not seem to note, or to care, that in terms of the ability to wage war, Hizbollah has suffered more from the last month's combat than Israel has suffered. Whatever the world thinks, Israel is at least marginally more secure than it was a month ago, physically. Although jihadists may flock to Lebanon to join Hizbollah, they were doing that anyway. Syria and Iran have less ability to arm those jihadists, so when they arrive in Lebanon they'll be mostly unarmed, untrained parasites in a society trying to rebuild.

Kevin,

I appreciate the sentiment. Our abiding faith in the power of moral, lawful action and self-restraint in the face of barbarism is one clear advantage that the western world enjoys in the present struggle. But, as you continue to sort through the notion, I hope that you'll play out the likely consequences of such a strategy.

The Israelis could easily have bombarded Lebanon for a day, and then sent half a million of their citizens into the bomb shelters to await the response from Hezbollah. It's been suggested by other posters that the Arab world would then have turned against Hezbollah. I would remind them that Arab states condemned the initial assault only *after* it became clear that Lebanon would pay a heavy price for Hezbollah's adventurism. It is one thing for an Arab government to condemn a group like Hezbollah for endangering innocent Arab lives - quite another for any government in the Middle East to question attacks on Israel when there is little apparent cost. Still, let us assume for a moment that after days (or weeks) of rocket attacks the OIC, Arab League, or UN would have condemned Hezbollah and moved to halt the attacks. Let us assume that the civilian population in Israel would have forgiven its government for failing to perform the single most important function of the nation state - protecting its population - or that the population would have been sufficiently optimistic to believe in the power of forbearance. Let us go a step further, and assume that Hezbollah would have heeded international calls for a ceasefire. Where would that have left the situation?

It certainly would have swung international sympathy behind Israel. There’s no question about that. Any resolution, of course, would still have condemned the “day’s worth of retaliation” as disproportionate, but a week or more of pictures of Israelis in the bomb shelters might have reversed the general animus toward Israel (so eloquently manifested on this message board). And then what?

For the past six years, Hezbollah attacks and Israeli retaliation have generally followed the outline suggested in your post. Hezbollah fires rockets, and Israel responds with an airstrike. Hezbollah attempts to kidnap soldiers, and Israel shells a Hezbollah base. Tit-for-tat. Proportionality. Even if Israel tipped the equation a little further, and failed to respond at all to attacks, that would be unlikely to solve the situation. Hezbollah, as you rightly point out, relies upon anti-Israel sentiment to justify its hold on southern Lebanon. Provoking Israeli retaliation is thus an existential requirement. It would have escalated its attacks, always pushing the limits of forbearance. After enough attacks, there would have been a response. A democratic state cannot exercise forbearance forever.

You write that "conventional military assaults are usually counterproductive against a guerrilla enemy like the ones we're fighting now." That is, in some sense, self-evidently true. Yet I'm not certain that it's an apt characterization of recent events in Lebanon.

Is it conceivable that Israeli restraint would have resulted in the dispatch of a robust international peacekeeping force with a broadly-strengthened mandate? Tough to believe. UNIFIL has been in place for decades, and has proven wholly ineffectual. Would Hezbollah have lost stature among its Shiite base, the Lebanese people, or the Arab world? Difficult to see how. If, for a period of days or weeks, images of Israelis cowering in shelters were broadcast around the Arab world while Israel practiced forbearance, Hezbollah would have won a massive propaganda victory. That international pressure might eventually halt the attacks would not reverse this coup. Would the Lebanese Army be deploying to South Lebanon? No reason why it should. The Lebanese would be crazy to risk civil war if the heaviest price they were in danger of paying for ceding autonomy to Hezbollah were a single day of Israeli bombardment.

The Israeli strategy, all bluster aside, did not rely solely on military force to vanquish Hezbollah. Instead, it seems to have conceived of four stages. In the first, Israel attacks Lebanese infrastructure and bombards Hezbollah strongpoints, demonstrating that there are, for Lebanon, worse prospects than renewed internal strife. In the second, Israeli forces enter Lebanon, pushing Hezbollah forces out of a strip along the southern border and dismantling its bases, arms caches, and infrastructure. Both of these stages will undoubtedly serve to radicalize a fair percentage of the population, bolster support for Hezbollah, and prove counterproductive – if left on their own. But it has never been Israel’s intention to reoccupy the southern buffer zone and wage a protracted counterinsurgency. It has learned the lesson that you cite – conventional military assaults cannot win this battle by themselves. And so we come to the third stage: the insertion of a robust international force, capable of offering the people of South Lebanon some measure of security and stability, and of limiting further Hezbollah attacks. Such a force could not have successfully deployed into a region still actively controlled by Hezbollah – the conventional military assault is effectively a precondition for its success. This force does not represent a permanent solution, either; peacekeeping can no more suppress an insurgency than can a conventional assault. But it can create the framework for a successful projection of Lebanese sovereignty into the south of the country. This is the fourth stage, the entry of the Lebanese security forces, the provision of basic governmental services to the people of South Lebanon, and the integration of the southern portion of the nation into the rest of the state. That is how insurgencies are defeated – by offering the people who support them a chance for a better life, an alternative to violent struggle, an opportunity to replace the gun with the plow.

That’s a longwinded way of making this simple point: Forbearance is not a strategy, it is a tactic. It is difficult to see what strategic purpose it might have served in this instance. Military force is likewise a tactic, not an end in itself. If the Israelis had sought to bomb Hezbollah out of existence, that would indeed have been counterproductive. But if the offensive is intended to temporarily displace Hezbollah, draw in a robust peacekeeping force, and create the opportunity for southern Lebanon to be integrated into the Lebanese nation, then it is a very different matter.

But, republicrat, didn't you read the Dems' new party platform, boiled down to a bumper sticker?

War is Not the Answer.

JC: It isn't so much forebearance that is needed, but instead a need for real and effective diplomacy.

Nobody has yet found a diplomatic solution to the fact that Israel's enemies want to destroy it, and they persistently find new ways to organize and attack. All the diplomatic solutions to date, such as the treaty between Egypt and Israel, depend on Israel defeating its adversaries militarily.

Beyond that, of course, actually having a coherent long-term strategy to pair up with a short-term counsel of forbearance would make the job easier.

Israel has a coherent long-term strategy, which is to survive each short-term crisis as it arises. This is perfectly sensible if you think that the enemies of Israel always want to destroy it because it exists, rather than because of the particulars of its policies and actions. Right now, Syria and Iran are dedicated to the destruction of Israel, which is a continuation of Syrian policy since Israel was created.

Yes, we should outsmart the enemy by... never fighting back.

I don't think anybody has suggested that we should never fight back. What is being suggested is that we be smarter about how we fight back.

They know that. But they desperately need to perpetuate the strawman going into November.

I'm just meandering around the point here, trying to marshal my own thoughts by setting them down on the blog.

That's a good use of blogging, and the best use by us of the opportunity to read and post comments.

Nobody has yet found a diplomatic solution to the fact that Israel's enemies want to destroy it, and they persistently find new ways to organize and attack.

War hasn't changed things either.

All the diplomatic solutions to date, such as the treaty between Egypt and Israel, depend on Israel defeating its adversaries militarily.

Israel occupied Lebanon for years and it lead to
the creation of Hezzbollah.

This is not an either or situation. The solution requires a combination of force and diplomacy.
The use limited strikes instead of an all out invasion would have a better situation for Israel then what currently exists.

Bob M:

Thanks for the link, but you do realize that William S. Lind, expressing his own personal opinion of course, and not that of the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the Free Congress Foundation, actually "hope[s] that, unlike von Paulus, our commanders know when to get out, regardless of orders from a leader who will not recognize reality." What's next, advocating the violent overthrow of government or the assassination of Bush himself? Is that what you think would be "really neat" to hear someone say in public too?

Del Capslock:

You've never seen that bumper sticker?!

You know, these Radicals, neocons, and fellow travellers/useful idiots of the Radicals and neocons have been advancing their "worse is better" theories for more than 3 years now. Can they please give us some metrics by which we will know exactly how much worse things are supposed to get before they start getting better, and how we will know? Cause right now it looks awfully like the Radicals really are trying to trigger the "end times" by setting off WWIII.

If there are any serious answers to this challenge (which I doubt), anyone want to bet that they will include the phrase "six months"?

Cranky

Unfortunately, I'm not smart enough to figure out how to formulate this argument in an effective way.

Fortunately, others have -- i.e., Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jesus....

Don't we celebrate these people on occasion in this country? Might be time to remind ourselves why.

Nice strawman, Cranky -- no one is saying that support for Israel is intended to bring about the End Times - that will happen only when God's timing is met. “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

P.S. mackdaddy -- I have no problem running our government as Jesus sets forth -- you may get some flack from atheists like Kevin and Michael Newdow though.

Newdow, of course, is most famous for a lawsuit filed on behalf of his daughter against inclusion of the words "under God" in public schools' recitals of the United States Pledge of Allegiance. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the phrase constitutes an endorsement of religion, and therefore violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. However, the decision was later overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court on procedural grounds, citing that Newdow did not have custody of his daughter and therefore did not have the right to bring suit on her behalf. Newdow has once again filed suit regarding the same issue, but this time on behalf of three unnamed parents and their children. Citing the precedent set by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the course of Newdow's previous suit, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton ruled that the pledge is unconstitutional when recited in public schools.

In November of 2005, Newdow announced he wants to have "In God We Trust" removed from U.S. money. In a November 14, 2005 interview with Fox News' Neil Cavuto, Newdow compared "In God We Trust" being on U.S. Currency with segregation (specifically separate drinking fountains), saying "How can you not compare those? What is the difference there? Both of them (whites and blacks) got equal water. They both had access. It was government saying that it's OK to separate out these two people on the basis of race. Here we're saying it's OK to separate two people on the basis of their religious beliefs."

In June of 2006, a federal judge rejected this latest lawsuit, on the grounds that the minted words amount to a secular national slogan, and they do not dictate anyone's beliefs. Newdow stated that he would appeal the ruling.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Newdow

Del Capslock:

Are you still around? Have you ever seen this bumper sticker:

War is Not the Answer.

Did anyone else watch Meet the Press? I have to admit I was shocked as well to find out terrorists are still targeting airliners for their next 9/11. I was sure they were smart enough to find one of a thousand other ways to attack. So, in hindsight, I guess it wasn't such a bad idea to focus on protecting our skies.

Thomas-

'War is not THE answer' is not the same thing as 'War is not AN answer.'

I have seen the bumpersticker/yardsign 'War is NEVER an answer', which all but the most extreme pacifists would agree is ridiculous.

My point is that you are smearing Democrats with a slogan that they are not using, and which you are misreading.

If you (speaking broadly of administration supporters) succeed in tarring critics of the Iraq war with this brush, it is by being dishonest on several levels. Are you proud of this?

Wow. That spam is annoying. I just want to say that one of the things that impressed people about George W. Bush after 9-11 is that he WAITED to attack Afghanistan. Some three weeks. He made conditions, lined up international support and basically waited until he had his ducks in order before he went in, when just about all his ocuntrymen would have been more than happy to launch a war on Sept. 12. So being patience does have its advantages ... although, as you mentioned, it's not easy, particularly when dealing with these unsavory people.

Not pointless at all Kevin. This is the kind of reasoned consideration of the alternatives that rationality is all about. It is also commendable on your part that you didn't feel the need to swagger around pretending that you have all the answers.

Del Capslock:

Are you still around? Have you ever seen this bumper sticker:

War is Not the Answer.

I'm still around, intermittently. I don't know if I've seen that bumper sticker or not. What's your point? I don't derive any meaning from it, if that's what you mean, anymore than I make sweeping generalizations about Christianity based on those creepy bumper stickers of Calvin (and Hobbes) kneeling in front of a cross.

Tulkinghorn:

I voted for John Kerry, so you may want to reassess that judgment. This entire thread is indeed about "war never being the answer" re: terrorism -- you need be to point out examples?

I do recognize at least that SOME Democrats realize war is an answer -- Joe Lieberman, for example -- I would vote for him too (in fact, I did when he ran with Gore in 2000). Others REALLY understand what this war is all about -- 9/11 really did change things -- I would vote for John Lehman:

http://www.johnflehman.com/pdf/proceedings_MAR2004.pdf

Rob:

I agree there are many things Bush has done right re: terrorism. I just thought Kerry would have done better.

I just wanted to know if you had seen that bumper sticker, Del Capslock -- it's good to know if I am debating one of those or not.

Time to go back to the borders after the six day war. A nation has a right to take land from which it was attacked permanently. How else will the bad guys realize how bad it is being bad. Instead, for 40 years Isreal has been trying variations on the liberal theme as noted here, and dying for it.
Agression must bear a price.

I've got 22 years of military service, and still work in Dod in weapons development. My opposition to the Bush admin is rooted in my heartfelt belief that they are horribly incompetent at everything but politics, and the longer they are in power the less safe we will be.

Thomas:

I find it surprising that you voted for Kerry when you accept the (repub) party line that to oppose their strategies regarding terrorism is to decline to fight terrorism. That party line is incorrect, and is stated by people who know it is incorrect.

Leiberman has been rejected because he has been reciting and arguing this bullshit argument, and the BS detectors of the CT Democrats have picked it up and rejected it.

Take these two statements: 'It is good to fight terrorism by invading Afganistan. It is bad to fight terrorism by invading Iraq.'

You, and Leiberman, and the administration may disagree with the second of the two statements. But to say that the people making them (such as, say, the majority of the public and 80% of Democrats) are advocating not fighting terrorism is ridiculous. It is also dishonest.

And the question posed by Drum is not if it makes sense to argue that '"war never being the answer" re: terrorism' - it is whether war is sometimes not the answer to terrorism, and how to argue that point effectively.

WRT the comment about Isreal's leaving Lebanon in 2000 showing forebearance, someone obviously haven't studied their recent history and how Hezbollah came to be the major political and military power in Southern Lebanon.

But there's a reason some commentators are referring to the current situation as Hezbollah's second victory over the IDF.

Tulkinghorn:

Well said. An exercise in futility, but well said nonetheless.

I think the ovararching Republican plan is to make Democrats sound like pedantic assholes by making such stupid and dishonest statements that the only way respond is to be a pedantic asshole.

Nobody likes pedants, and few will vote for them.

There is a time and a place for everything.
Now is the time to settle the war.
Southern Lebanon is the place.

Kevin's ramblings are on the mark but something is missing:

Forbearance will work if it's part of a policy in which the more powerful adversary is taking tangible steps toward bringing about a fair resolution. If Israel--or Israel/USA--were in the process of seeking solutions with Israel's neighbors--if they were big enough to unilaterally give up land, return prisoners, etc., then Hezbollah would come a cropper with a missile attack, as would Palestinian missiles or suicide bombers. It is THEY who would be isolated and marginalized, even in the Arab community.

I usually dismiss cynical arguments out of hand, but lately I've been wondering whether the huge military reaction actually has as much to do with economics as terrorism. It appears that the U.S. is the significant supplier of military hardware to ourselves and to Israel. Could there be a line of thought that we need these companies to be economically successful, that they pay taxes and boost the lagging economy, and so of course we need large-scale traditional wars? It IS a strategy for growth. I have the same nagging thoughts as to why so little to no effort has been made to cut our strategic reliance on Middle East oil. Wouldn't it be to our long-term strategic advantage if the only time Middle East Muslims thought about Westerners was as customers of their tourism industry?

This thread illustrates Kevin’s point. We struck back hard in Iraq. Israel struck back hard in Lebanon. In both cases the hard striking party lost ground and wound up weaker than they started. Yet, AH, Al, Mr. Frog and the like on this board still think it is the best policy. That’s the political dilemma. The case for intelligent, long range thinking, the case for a strategic response, and not a tactical one is not simply a theoretical case. We have active, current examples that demonstrate the futility of the blunt force response. Yet, few advocates of it even can acknowledge its failures.

The example I always use is this. A man has a wasp’s nest under the eaves of his house. The man responds by shooting it with a shotgun. The wasps scatter, attack several houses, and the eves are damaged. S neighbor comes over and says, ‘you should have called an exterminator.’ The man then accuses the neighbor of being on the side of the wasps.

AH, Joe Lieberman and fellow trolls have not a single success to point to for their strategy. Their strategy has nothing but failure. Yet, they still claim success.

any one who listens to ken mehlman's blatant lies and propganda as he is spewing just now on MTP and still supports the GOP is at best a fool of the highest order.

Slapping down the waves
does not calm the water.

bob h wrote:

"The original provocation was a pinprick-a minor border incident that was really nothing new and probably a result of soldierly negligence. Israel should have regarded it as just the price of living in a nasty neighborhood."
____________

We don't know how much forebearance the Israelis have practiced or how often they politely asked the Lebanese government to control their side of the border. Much has been made of the small numbers of Israeli deaths caused by Hezbollah, in the six years prior to the latest incident. However, there were over thirty incidents prior to last month in which the northern part of Israel went on alert in response to potential or actually deadly Hezbollah actions. That's an average of once every two or three months, which is probably about 28 times more often than most nations would suffer without action in similar circumstances.

The problem with preaching forebearance is that it's difficult to tell when forebearance ceases to be practical.

I have no problem running our government as Jesus sets forth -- you may get some flack from atheists like Kevin and Michael Newdow though.

Jesus is reported to have said that his kingdom was not of this world, and that we should render unto Ceasar what is Ceasar's. Sounds like Jesus was a proponent of the separation of church and state.

MHR:

What is 'namby-pamby' here? If Iraq is a mistake, why not state so?

FWIW, I supported the invasion of Iraq, have since concluded it was a mistake, and have since advocated redeploying in some sensible fashion -- essentially it is the Murtha position. Since that means opposing the president, I guess that makes me a traitor.

It may be a mistaken position, but how is it a 'namby-pamby' position?

As for Truman, the question was how Truman poltically survived accusation/smear that he was a 'pinko' when he supported containment, not rollback. I was born 10 years after the Korean war, so maybe I have the facts wrong here, but Truman's entering Korean war was an exercise of the containment doctrine, wasn't it? It was not sold, politically or strategically, as an exercise in rolling back communism, but as a matter of stopping the spread of communism.

Containment, as a policy, did not preclude the use of military force.

Forebearance might have worked for Israel if the US President was willing to skip his vacation and put some work into finding a solution.
Does anyone doubt that Israel knew full well that Bush would be heading down to "chop brush" regardless?
I suspect this played a role in their decision.

Tulkinghorn:

Not only that, but Truman cashiered General Douglas MacArthur -- the hero of the Pacific and an immensely popular figure -- for precisely attempting to change the doctrine of containment into rollback on the fly.

Truman was excoriated for it by the right wing. MacArthur came home to the largest ticker-tape parade in American history -- and the John Birch Society (not to mention the political career of Joe McCarthy) was born.

mhr:

You know, perhaps one of the reasons that my Dad -- a man of your age -- is to the left of Noam Chomsky on foreign policy these days is because he had the good sense to enlist in the Air Force when faced with the Korean War draft.

Thus he got to tour Germany (in signal intelligence) and saw how cooperation with our former enemies -- the Marshall Plan -- made us safer and more secure.

Men who got drafted into a ground war with a higher casualty rate than WW2 have doutless nursed a grudge about it ever since.

Bob

Stephen: This is not an either or situation. The solution requires a combination of force and diplomacy.
The use limited strikes instead of an all out invasion would have a better situation for Israel then what currently exists.

I do think that this is an either/or situation: either the enemies of Israel destroy Israel or they do not. Limited strikes to destroy Hizbollah weaponry and military facilities did not in fact create a better situation than the full-scale invasion of South Lebanon -- that was why the full-scale invasion was launched. At least that's how I see it now.

The UN Security Council voted 15-0 for a diplomatic solution that requires Hizbollah to disarm completely to the Lebanese army. That diplomatic solution followed in part from Israel's military successes, such as they were. If Hizbollah does not in fact disarm then the UN will have to do something militarily (or allow the Israelis to do it) to force the disarmament of Hizbollah. This is in fact a combination of war and diplomacy, though perhaps not the combination that you would prefer. It remains to be seen whether Hizbollah will adhere to the diplomatic solution achieved. Nobody really much cares about UNSC resolutions, and I doubt that Hizbollah cares about this one. We shall soon see.

It's interesting to me that one can espouse progressive beliefs in every post, and happen to disagree merely on whether Israel last actions were obvious, ahead of time, to be wrong tactically, and still be called a right-wing troll. "Calling troll" can be much like asking who farted. Sometimes an Al is obvious a troll, and sometimes whoever smelt it dealt it.

I hear Israel saying that after six years of neglect from the UN, Hezbollah has become dangerously large, dangerously well dug-in, and has become an actual threat to Israel. Because of this, and to prove this, Israel fights a war that Hezbollah starts, and Israel, because of the size, and sophistication of Hezbollah does very badly. Hezbollah reveals they now have substantial numbers of missiles that can threaten much of Israel, and their tactics of attacking civilians lead to the obvious question, what would they do if they had chemical or biological or dirty nuclear weapons?

Now some claim that Kevin et. al., are saying that if Israel had stepped back and absorbed the hit, Israel would be in a better position, because much like Ghandi, the world would be on Israel's side.

Now in hindsight, we can all agree that Israel has not fared well in either PR or tactically.

But what I hear Kev saying is that if Israel had done better in the fight and had not been forced to take so many civilian lives, then Kev would be much much more in favor of Israel's actions.

So if Israel does well against Hezbollah, showing that Hezbollah is nothing to worry about, Kevin is all for Israel's actions. But when Israel does poorly against Hezbollah, demonstrating that Hezbollah is in fact the danger that Israel has been warning everyone about, than Kevvy is against Israel's actions and suggests in hindsight that Israel should in foresight have done nothing but wait for the Arab world and the rest of the world to step in and force the non-state actor to disband.

Talk about ponies!

I've seen Kev and Matt demonstrate much more rational and coherent thinking.

JohnN wrote:

"The case for intelligent, long range thinking, the case for a strategic response, and not a tactical one is not simply a theoretical case."

If the argument for forebearance is based on coming up with a "strategic response," the question becomes, What kind of strategic response?" It is possible that, after many such incidents, this is the Israeli's strategic response.

Or is the phrase "intelligent, long range thinking" some sort of code phrase for "please, just don't do anything"?

There are lots of things we should be doing in the Middle East along the lines of what Kevin is suggesting. How about the following: announcing a five-year phase out of aid to Israel?

I say this not as an anti-Semite or anti-Israeli (far from it). I say this because the several billion we give to Israel annually is probably the most ill-spent dollop of US taxpayer money in the budget. And that's because Israel doesn't need it.

Think about it: Israel maintains military superiority in the region because Israel possesses a first-world, technologically advanced economy that produces EU-levels of wealth -- not because Israel gets some additonal cash from Uncle Sam.

So, if Israel doesn't really need the money, and Washington creates resentment among the Muslim masses for its (in their eyes at least) fanatical support of Israel, why not make a noisy announcement that we're phasing out financial aid to the Jewish state over, say, the next five years, and we're instead shifting the money toward economic development for the Palestinians?

One more point: both we and the Israelis would be more secure as a result (as would the average Palestinian).

One problem with automatically retaliating whenever struck by a terrorist attack is that you are thereby granting the terrorist the ability to dictate your actions.

a good first-hand account from the Israeli side:

http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001235.html

I was asked earlier what I thought a troll was. Just to add a bit to that. A troll is not a person that disagrees with you and argues a different point.

A troll is someone on a forum that makes a statement merely to get a reaction, and the longer reaction the better.

I realize for some of you AOL n00bs that just got here from the Party of Rush and Bush that you hate honest disagreement, but the key to understanding who the trolls are is understanding the jargon acronyms that accompany the word troll, notably the acronyms: "LOL, YHBT, YHL, HAND".

Someone that argues honestly with you is not a troll, despite what mommy Rush told you.

Tulkinghorn: And Egbert, if you are sincere and you do not realize what logical mistakes and rhetorical abuses are in yhour comments, just ask, and I am sure someone here can help you craft a sensical and persuasive argument.

But it would likely have the opposite outcome.

Sounds like the logic of non-violent direct action to me. One doesn't have to be a pacifist (see Reinhold Niebuhr, Mandela) to note how creative and stategic non-violence has a certain power to shape outside opinion.

Mr. Frog:

No. It's he who denied it ... supplied it :)

And while we're on the topic of gratuitous juvenility -- quit whining; nobody thinks you're a troll because of a few ill-considered remarks by an otherwise good contributor in the wee hours of the morning.

Here's the thing: If Israel could've responded in a truly surgical fashion -- taken out much of Hezbollah's infrastructure without causing mass-scale civilian displacement and deaths -- nobody save the hardest-core won't-defend-his-grandmother-while-she's-being-mugged peacenik would object. They clearly had moral upper hand when it started.

But it's impossible to do that with a group like Hezbollah. And since a military victory is strictly-speaking not possible short of genocide, war-fighting tactics that aim at military victory conventionally understood amount precisely to a response to a sucker-punch.

The trick is you don't give Hezbollah the satisfaction (not to mention tactical military training) of that kind of response -- which Israel cannot hope to do anything save "kick the can" (in republicrat's phrase) down the road for a handful more years until Hezbollah comes back, stronger, more well-armed and battle-savvy than ever. It's like not finishing taking your antibiotics beyond the point where the symptoms vanish. The remaining bugs come back with a resurgent infection resistant to that drug.

And since the world won't tolerate genociding the Shia in southern Lebanon who support Hezbollah and benefit from their social services -- whaddaya gonna do?

What you do is to work as hard as humanly possible to address the underlying issue that keep the conflict smouldering.

And primarily -- you *drop* the racist assumption that Arabs simply have it in their semitic genes to hate their fellow semites the Israelis without due cause.

Bob

To me, a troll is someone who, rather than trying to take part in a serious discussion, posts disingenuous comments that are primarily intended to provoke a response.

When you make ridiculous straw man arguments (it boils down to something like "Kevin says violence is never necessary, therefore he is wrong because violence was necessary against Hitler"), you are either being disingenous, in which case you are a troll, or you are being serious, in which case you are an idiot.

So, when someone calls you a troll, take it as a compliment. It means you are being given the benefit of the doubt.

republicrat; Nobody has yet found a diplomatic solution to the fact that Israel's enemies want to destroy it

egypt and jordan signed agreements with israel..

wasn't that diplomacy?

CH, I honestly don't know enough about the histories or achievements of Ghandi, Niebuhr, or Mandela, but can you (or anyone) show a case where non-violent direct action was applicable in a case like Israel vs. Hezbollah? That is a large, armed, state vs. a non-state actor that engages in war crimes (intentional targeting of civilians and intentional use of civilians as shields).

Most of the cases of non-violent action that I am aware of are usually the opposite case. A small harassed group of people "allow" a well armed state actor to use the state's typical cruel tactics against them, while the smaller group asks the world to pressure the state actor.

It also seems from my poor knowledge of history that most non-violent actions takes place with the boundaries of one state in which the non-violent group are asking the larger, other group to recognize the basic sameness of the smaller group, and asking the larger group to lay down their arms. Sadly, it is not clear to me that in a region with such long histories of enmity that having Jews ask Arabs to recognize the Jews basic humanity and right to exist to the point of disarming Hezbollah is going to be terribly efficacious in the short-term.

I think the history of the two regions from Carter to Clinton showed the beginnings of both sides being able to recognize the humanity and rights of the otherside. I know that has taken a terrible blow in the past few years and I hope that will be remedied soon, but I just don't see a whole lot of pressure coming from the Arab world or the non-Arab world to pressure Hezbollah into disarming.

But again, I am not the student of history that I would like to be, so if someone can show me examples of non-violent actions working in the case of one state vs. a non-state persecutor residing across the border of another state, I would be happy and eager to learn.

Trashhauler, you act like the border violations were a one-way street, when Israel had a documented history of supersonic overflights, shelling, air strikes, naval bombardment, and assassinations within Lebanon. Respecting sovereignty is a two-way street, and Israel seems to want to reserve the right to violate its neighbors' borders at will while denying them any kind of deterrent of their own.

Long-winded:

That's the best defense of the Israeli strategy, and the best defense for calling it a strategy, I have personally seen. Bravo.

However, I still side with Caleb Carr in criticizing important aspects of the Israeli response, which means I ultimately criticize the response as a whole, because there's no severability.

Caleb is right about key points.

a) pragmatically, it makes little sense to argue that Hizballah's actions were divorced from what was happening in Gaza at the time. and b) Israel's actions in Gaza were very close to immoral. Israel doesn't have the right and will not help themselves by killing 100 civilians in Gaza for one soldier taken prisoner. Without the Gaza context, I don't believe that Hizballah would have conducted that raid. Hizballah's actions are divorced only an international legal sense - not insignificant, but not the whole story.

b) it may be that aggressive military action has led to a tougher resolution than would have otherwise have arrived, by escalating the crisis. It is unlikely that this resolution will lead to Hizballah's disarmnanment, nor can Hizballah be disarmed except under the following scenarios:

1. end of support by neighbors & depletion of arms by using them

2. extermination

3. Hizballah chooses to do so, when regional & Palestinian issues are settled and long-lasting truces hold, under sustained international pressure.

so it can be argued that a show of restraint ending in Hizballah's condemnation & its voluntary cessation of rockets is basically the same situation as what we have now, with 1000 less deaths.

c) even if there was a need to change the dynamic to a certain extent, Israel's air war across Lebanon was a genuine disaster. It has not stopped the rocket launches, i doubt it can really effect Hizballah's resupply, and it has swung world opinion away from Israel. It has also radicalized large sections of the Lebanese public that otherwise might not have supported Hizb, and therefore helped guarantee that the more ambitious aspects of the resolution are a dead letter.

I am writing Kevin about this, and I am putting pedal to the metal.

If Kevin can't figure out a way to raise revenue from the regular posters here to update his software and hire someone to do the update so this blog can be registered, I am fucking out of here.

I am *so* not playing around.

Bob

I gotta go guys. Tadpoles and all demand my taking them to a pond.

Let's hope the ceasefire holds tonight. I was appalled to find the enormous loopholes: apparently Hezbollah is free to fire at retreating Israelis and apparently Israel is free to fire in a defensive engagement (but Israel considers the entire war to be a defensive engagement.)

Republicrat and Mr. Frog, Hank Scorpio brings up a very important point. This never gets past the MSM filter, but Israel's record over the past five years in relation to cease-fires is piss poor. Israel has more often than not been the first person to break them: under Sharon, it often seemed that assassination strikes were done deliberately to undercut Palestinian attempts to consolidate & achieve tactical restraint. Meanwhile, you have to look pretty hard, because Israel refuses to confirm or deny, but the real experts agree that they've been behind some of the car bombs in Lebanon. I don't think Hizballah respected the border less than Israel in 2000-2006. I think they both respected it mostly, but not entirely.

I appreciate the general thrust of your point, Kevin, but I wish you had addressed this specific context a little more thoroughly: Hezbollah did not kidnap these two guys in a political vacumn, they did it at a time the entire country of Israel was consumed with the fate of the fellow kidnapped in Gaza.
You ask that democracies brush off these provocations without acknowleging the fact that the bad guys can always find a way to make the pain intolerable. If we ignore the attempted assassination of our former President [or murder a few janitors in the middle of the night to show how "measured and proportionate" we are] they will continue to rachet up the pain level to a Khobar Towers, then to a Cole, finally to a WTC until they get the reaction they want.
I would analogise it to the frog in a beaker, with the temperature being raised one degree at a time until the frog is boiled alive. For me and most American's the intolerable level for all terrorism came on 911. For those of you on the left that was just another turn of the dial and we should have foregone any "disproportionate" retaliation. It is enevitable that people in a democracy will have different reactions, but I really think once the decision is made to respond it should be done wholeheartedly, not tentative and vacilliating as Rumsfeld and Olmert have demonstrated.

Cause right now it looks awfully like the Radicals really are trying to trigger the "end times" by setting off WWIII.

This is actually the part that worries me the most. I think Israel can justify their actions, however poorly they turned out -- I am most worried about the gleeful way America is egging them on just so that we can have that war with Iran that we all want and that will make everything better.

Gotta go now.

Seymour Hersh, one of the last few legitimate journalists working, was on CNN Late Edition and alleged that the Bushies have been conspiring with Israel to attack Lebanon since early spring. The reason - to try out new munitions designed to take out underground bunkers used by Hezbollah as a prelude to an attack against Iran.

I'm sure the mainstream media will ignore this story or attempt to label Hersh as a looney or conspiratorialist. The neocon deception and fear campaign continues unabated....

Some splendidly moral member our posting community crossposted a comment I left on a thread yesterday before I had finished my first cup of coffee. Just so you know -- it wasn't me.

That's what you call being a troll.

I have no desire to prosecute that argument here.

Bob

" against a guerrilla enemy like the ones we're fighting now. "
I guess you are speaking of Irak there (as hezbollah is not fighting you).
"We can't kill off the fanatics fast enough to win, and in the meantime the war machine simply inspires..... and more sympathy for the terrorists."

Kevin, can you please make your mind out? Which "we" are you? Who are the others, terrorists or guerilla fighters against an occupation army or in a the civil war?
Are they the muslim people?

As a secular european, I give up. I don't wait anymore for American stopping seeing through the lense of a religious war or a "GWOT". I myself see the jihad rethoric simply like the manifestation of the extremist part of an activism rooted in a population which happens to be muslim, forging a good chunk of his identity through this religion. Because:
- identity matters a lot in the fight of the weak against the mighty
- they tried many other ways in the Middle east before, pan-arabism, revolutionar leader,insurrection against their rulers, secular OLP, conventionnal warfare, winning democratic elections just come in mind. But they didn't succeed, and quite often the west was pleased with their failure, albeit the western rethoric being full of autodetermination and will of the people.

So now, we got fundamentalism as a mean for the population to reach their goals. But as I see it, it is a more of a mean (identity-holding together) and would alone never been enough as a motivation for more than an isolated muslim nutcase to bomb anyone. McVeigh was never a ground to go to war against white young libertarians, and it's right so.

The jihad rhetoric will fade away if (Wonder!) the causes which we all know are dealt with.
As for any human, goals of the "others" being security-food-home/space- collective freedom-individual freedom. in that order. A lot to go in the middle east...
My secular world view tell me that fanatism in normal times is only the fact of a small minority. Only in reaction to enormous stress an minority big enough to be dangerous start sticking to it, as they see it as their only escape.
So why, why fueling fanatism!?
I would really, really want to understand, why it isn't obvious for so many people. What am I missing!!?? Nobody has seen a pressure cooker at work?

Yeah, Neville. I'm sure there'll be peace in our time. Just turn the other cheek after they start to chop your head off.

Good job.

en passant,

Sure. The root causes will disappear... as soon as the Caliphate is returned and all non-Muslims are subjugated or converted.

Birkel, I assume you aren't a Christian, right?

en passant:

It's perfectly obvious to me -- and I have a huge amount of sympathy for your European exasperation at why Americans seem so willfully obtuse when it comes to trying to understand the root causes of this problem.

First of all, we're prohibited from examining their concrete grievances because "they'd hate us no matter what." I find this skin-crawlingly racist and merely a way to deflect Israeli responsibility for the underlying conditions in the "pressure cooker" of the Mideast.

We talk about democracy and prosperity, but seem to have no desire in actively promoting it. Israel has chosen to do everything it can to undermine the success of the Palestinian communities in the Occupied Territories -- because they fear a successful, prosperous Palestinian people would only pose a greater threat. Again -- because "they'll hate us regardless of what we do."

I don't have a trouble wrapping my mind around Islamist terrorism. Maybe because I'm ethnically Irish and can well imagine what it's like to live one's life under an implacable oppressor.

Of course I reject the IRA as I reject Islamist terrorism on purely moral grounds, as it should go without saying.

But I support Sinn Fein. And I support the political wing of Hezbollah as they are the duly elected voice of the disenfranchised people in southern Lebanon they represent.

Bob

Birkel:

What you don't know about the Islamic world would fill the Library of Congress.

But by all means revel in the sheer titanic magnitude of such colossal ignorance :)

Bob

The Conservative Deflator makes an excellent point: Israel has been contemplating a combined air/ground attack against Lebanon for many months, if not from the very moment they pulled out completely in 2000.

Thus Drum's call for forebearance seems a bit silly when Israel's intention all along was to send Lebanon back 20 years.

The initial Hizbollah raid as the pretext for the massive aerial bombardment of Lebanon's civilians and civilian infrastructure seems even more ridiculous when you realize that Israel has undertaken dozens of similar raids over the past 6 years.

Without Hezbollah the Israelis would still be in Southern Lebanon and the occupation would be as brutal as it is in Gaza and WB. The Lebanese people suffered through a brutal civil war and Israeli occupation for years. Not likely they forgot it now.

The Israelis have the military power to destroy and are doing just that. There can't be a military reason to bomb a nation to oblivion.

It is Lebanon that needs protection, or the Lebanese will have to move to make room for more Israeli settlements.

So Israel need to be disarmed and international troups should be stationed at bothe sides of the border, say 5 miles in Israel and 5 miles in Lebanon

But the problem is OIL and WATER and LAND, not two soldiers. They and all the other victims don't count.

I am writing Kevin about this, and I am putting pedal to the metal.

If Kevin can't figure out a way to raise revenue from the regular posters here to update his software and hire someone to do the update so this blog can be registered, I am fucking out of here.

I am *so* not playing around.

Bob

rmck1: First of all, we're prohibited from examining their concrete grievances because "they'd hate us no matter what." I find this skin-crawlingly racist and merely a way to deflect Israeli responsibility for the underlying conditions in the "pressure cooker" of the Mideast.

The problem isn't that "they'd hate [Israel] no matter what". The problem is that they want to destroy Israel no matter what. Not only do "they" (that is, a large and persistent segment of Israel's neighbors) want to destroy Israel, but "they" recurrently try to do so. Hizbollah is armed by Iran and Syria who have made no secret of their desire to destroy Israel, and Hizbollah leaders have announced their desires to destroy Israel.

Hizbollah has every right to exist as a political party, and they have about 15% of the ministers to parliament. But they do not have the right to their own army, an army that is in fact considerably more powerful than the Lebanese army.

Glasnost,

Thanks for taking the time to read, consider, and respond to my post. The chance to have a genuine, considered conversation on these boards is, alas, too rare a treat.

Let me respond to each of your three points in turn, so that I can give them the attention they deserve:

1) You’re quite right to note that the context in which Hezbollah launched its assault forms an important part of the context for the Israeli response. It cannot, however, independently determine the morality or wisdom of that response. Even if the incursions into Gaza were immoral, the response to Hezbollah might still be justified. (As an aside, I’d also take issue with your description of the action in Gaza: “killing 100 civilians in Gaza for one soldier taken prisoner.” If Israel deliberately took the lives of innocent civilians as a form of reprisal, even one killing would be too many. But it does not, and the calculus of acceptable collateral damage – indeed the very concept – is a complex and tortured affair. The numbers are also tricky. The Palestinian Monitoring Group claims 138 civilians and 32 militants since the incursion began; B’Tselem places the toll in July at 85 militants and 78 civilians; and the IDF says both overstate the number of civilians. But it is, perhaps, a discussion for another thread.)

2) I agree that the present resolution will not lead to the immediate disarmament of Hezbollah. Indeed, I would go a step further, and claim that no international force or occupying Israeli army might disarm Hezbollah against the will of the local population. So the question that we must ask is this: under what circumstances would Hezbollah willingly surrender its arms, or would the local population cease to provide it with the support that sustains it?

This, I suspect, cuts to the heart of our disagreement. You write that the necessary precondition is a period of sustained truces and international support, brought about when “regional & Palestinian issues are settled.” That’s a little bit vague. What, precisely, are these issues? If you refer to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Golan Heights and its continued control over the borders of the Gaza Strip, I think it may be a description that is better applied to Hamas. The Palestinian national aim is the creation of a nation, and while many in Hamas seek the total destruction of Israel, it seems likely that the attainment of a viable nation-state would serve to undercut much of the support that Hamas presently enjoys, or at least support for that objective.
Hezbollah is a different matter. It draws its local support from the Shi’a population, not (fascinatingly) from the largely Sunni population of the Palestinian refugee camps of southern Lebanon; this is partly an artifact of sectarian tensions, and as such, dependent upon internal Lebanese politics. It draws its external sustenance from the governing regimes of Syria and Iran. It gained tremendous popularity and legitimacy by a campaign of guerilla warfare that eventually convinced the Israelis that the security benefits of their occupation of Southern Lebanon were outweighed by its costs, leading them to withdraw. That left Hezbollah in control of the southern portion of the war-ravaged country. The organization justifies its control, and the heavy investments in arms and munitions that sustain it, by pointing toward the Israeli threat. It employs irredentist rhetoric, using continued Israeli control over the disputed Shebaa Farms region as a pretext for continued warfare. But I don’t believe that the return of Shebaa Farms could solve the problem, even if Syria were to renounce its own claims. Nasrallah has already begun to speak about seven villages Shi’a villages in northern Israel that were abandoned (or forcibly emptied, depending on the account) in the 1948 war. If these were returned, I don’t doubt that some other pretext would emerge. Israel is a necessary foil for Hezbollah; its presence serves to legitimate Hezbollah’s militia, and that militia cements its control. There is no concession that can alter that equation. Which brings us to your third point…

3) You suggest that, irrespective of the need to alter this dynamic, the military campaign has been a disaster. I humbly submit the opposite view. You are entirely correct that it has served to radicalize the population, thus actually expanding the base of Hezbollah’s support, and has failed to eliminate the threat of rockets. If these military objectives were indeed the principal aim of the military campaign, it would be an indisputable failure. Yet as I argued before, I think the strategy incorporated more farsighted goals. The situation in southern Lebanon could not change until the militia was displaced, a robust international peacekeeping force inserted, and Lebanese sovereignty extended southward to the border. Only a ground invasion could enable that to happen.

It is, admittedly, a hell of a gamble. If the Lebanese government freezes (as today’s postponed cabinet meeting ominously suggests is possible), if the peacekeeping force fails to materialize, the situation will be worse than it was before the latest round of violence. Lebanon must provide an adequate network of social services and a basic framework of security for the residents of southern Lebanon, in order to convince the Shi’a that they are no longer the ugly-stepchildren of the nation, condemned to perpetual discrimination. The international community will have to help it do so. If it can, the people of southern Lebanon will no longer support Hezbollah’s militant stance. If it cannot, then no number of concessions or truces will succeed in altering the basic, devastating logic of the Lebanese border.

Love to hear your response.

Some a-hole once again crossposed something I wrote yesterday and signed my name to it.

I'm hardly upset about it -- that would only give this primitive creature satisfaction.

Only noting that it wasn't me, and this thread is not an appropriate place for that argument.

And I will continue to issue disclaimers the more this takes place.

Of course, they'll get shorter and shorter if this indeed becomes a pattern.

Some people really ought to find themselves a more constructive hobby ...

Bob

glasnost: This never gets past the MSM filter, but Israel's record over the past five years in relation to cease-fires is piss poor. Israel has more often than not been the first person to break them: under Sharon, it often seemed that assassination strikes were done deliberately to undercut Palestinian attempts to consolidate & achieve tactical restraint.

I am not unaware of such claims. I do not believe that Sharon deliberately undercut PLO attempts to consolidate power; I think the balance of the evidence was that such PLO attempts were ineffectual and insincere, and Israelis attacked particular parties who were attacking Israel. However, I grant you that the evidence is murkey and contradictory. Each side always claimed that the other side fired first.

We may have a debate like this day after tomorrow: the Lebanese army will make no move to forcibly disarm, and Hizbollah will make no move to disarm, but Israel will be criticised of violating the terms of the cease-fire because it continues to war against Hizbollah. (or some scenario like that) It will be said that Israel ought to have waited for Hizbollah to be disarmed, even as Hizbollah was re-arming. Furthermore, critics of Israel will demand that the IDF withdraw from Lebanon even though the UNSC resolution does not require it before the disarming of Hizbollah. We'll see.

It is very likely one of the reasons Israel invaded Lebanon at this time is to create a buffer zone that would limit Hezbollah strikes within Israel on the event of an American attack on Iran. It also seems likely the Cedar Revolution™ was invented to facilitate the invasion of Lebanon.

rmck1: First of all, we're prohibited from examining their concrete grievances because "they'd hate us no matter what." I find this skin-crawlingly racist and merely a way to deflect Israeli responsibility for the underlying conditions in the "pressure cooker" of the Mideast.

I'd like to follow up on Republicrat's point about Bob's affinity for straw man arguments. We rascally right-wingers don't say they hate us for skin-crawingly racist reasons, we say they hate us because they have been taught to project the causes of the dysfunctional squalor in their societies onto the "colonialists" rather than to attempt fundemental [revolutionary] reforms of their own kleptocracic governments.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, Israel agreed to dissolve itself tommorrow and be a secular state. Don't you think their would still be hotheads that would want to exterminate or drive off the Jews? Would Hezbollah stop advocating dhimmitude for those that remained? What would happen to the two or three adult unemployed men sitting around in every Arab household, would they suddenly be filled with joy and appreciation of the dynamic societies of the west, or would they be even more sullen, resentful and antagonistic about the corruption and incometence of their own political culture.

Kevin,
I think countries that are strong militarily, like the U.S. and Israel, have the luxury of responding strongly only when it’s appropriate. For example, in the wake of 9/11 the United States responded strongly (though not strongly enough in my opinion) by helping rout the Taliban in Afghanistan. (Set aside for the moment my opinion that we should have committed military personnel to get Bin Laden toward the end).

Our unnecessary mistake was when we overreached in Iraq. We were not threatened; most people around the world and in the United States knew this, yet we allowed ideologues sell us a war.

Likewise, Israel had nothing to prove militarily. It was not necessary to bomb the hell out of Lebanon, and then invade. Israel’s security was not threatened and the response was not proportional. People with their heads screwed on straight recognized this from day one.

Israeli leaders need to stand up to their own ideologues, exercise restraint, and solve the underlying problem, namely, they cannot hold onto occupied land that the rest of the world agrees does not belong to them. Occupation leads to mistreatment which leads to a certain amount of steady terrorism.

You say I'd hate to think that this is a flatly impossible problem. Me too, but I think you are already helping sell the obvious solution, i.e., a measured response. A measured response is simply a smart response, a response designed to win, to solve the problem. That, plus putting the relevant information that puts everything in context.

The idea that this was “suddenly provoked” by the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier is insane. Blogs can play their part in making information available that the MSM is omitting. Every little bit helps.

Forbearance, treadmill diplomacy blah, blah. its the religion stupid. this shit ain't ver gone a end. religion is hate.

gLRUG, RSEPWM\d\csdn jfirnf spfuzdineger jid930c72%290cnahd

Thank you

American Hawk:

Tell us about your daddy.

The Israeli objective is to make sure that they are surrounded by failed states because they will present less of a threat to them.

Destroying the infrastructure in Lebanon is a great way to make sure that objective is achieved.

Hizbollah was a only a convenient reason to initiate their plan.

But, Hizbollah has survived and remains in place with their unguided rockets (big threat there) and their underground fortifcations (despite our rush shipment of bunker busters).

Israel has destroyed Lebanon, but made Hisbollah stronger. Hizbollah has become Lebanon.

Mission accomplished!

Need a model? India after the Mumbai bombings. Sometimes not making things any worse is the best thing to do.

I suppose argueing restraint must be embedded in a long term strategy, and that has to be 'sol' first. In times when people don't feel threatend. Convincing a nation, that in most cases restraint is wiser than immediate action (in particular agressive action) takes a long time, two generations might be possible. But in a militaristic society you never get that far, because miltarism thrives on threat and makes sure that people always feel threatened. In a nation that is always at war somewhere, and soldiers bring back home so much aggression, this education would take infinitely long.

Shorter Thomas: no, I can't put any boundries on the "worse is better" theory, so I will blow some additional neocon fellow-traveller smoke.

Cranky

What do we expect from groups of people (Jews, Muslims, Fundamentalist Christians(U.S.)) who believe an "eye for an eye" is proper foreign policy? I don't believe these groups will change their strategy unless forced to do so. But these are the only groups represented in this conflict that can effect a change in strategy.

Would it work?

Well...

The last one is the hardest to convince, but it's probably true.

Charlie posting as Thomas wrote: I have no problem running our government as Jesus sets forth

Except the part about turning the other cheek and giving to the poor.

Charlie posting as Thomas wrote: I voted for John Kerry, so you may want to reassess that judgment. This entire thread is indeed about "war never being the answer" re: terrorism

You cannot even understand simple English language words like "sometimes" and "not always" can you, Charlie? And you cannot resist lying through your teeth about who you voted for....

Charlie posting as Thomas wrote: I just wanted to know if you had seen that bumper sticker, Del Capslock -- it's good to know if I am debating one of those or not.

Yes. Because if someone has seen a bumper sticker that means they believe your interpretation of it.

Wow. These could go in Charlie's greatest hits file.

Obscure,

Someone on my side might lie about a lot of things, but no one would claim to have voted for Kerry who had not.

I think the Instapundit had the best response to Kevin's argument, here's the link:

http://thepeoplescube.com/red/viewtopic.php?t=797

Interesting thread -- important points, Jörgen -- and most interesting to see how utterly the trolls are unnerved by any topic that requires subtlety and more than a moment's half-baked consideration. You can almost hear the panic in their tiny voices.

Kevin, I wish Isreal had meanered around the edges and then acted with overwhelming force for a day or two. Instead they have destroyed a country and boosted Hezbollah throughout the region. There might be a payback for Isreal for this reaction. There almost certainly will be for the U.S. with 130,000 troops in Iraq. Ands terrorists all over the Muslim world will swear jihad against the U.S. The U.S. and Isreal have painted themselves into small corners.

minion of rove:

> rmck1: First of all, we're prohibited from examining their concrete
> grievances because "they'd hate us no matter what." I find this
> skin-crawlingly racist and merely a way to deflect Israeli
> responsibility for the underlying conditions in the
> "pressure cooker" of the Mideast.

> I'd like to follow up on Republicrat's point about
> Bob's affinity for straw man arguments.

Minion, that's a dishonest comment. You and I have had several
entirely civil exchanges, and I think you know full well that I
don't carry straw man arguments in the quiver of my rhetorical
armamentarum as a matter of course -- save for those moments when
I'm facetiously/smarkily/sardonically jousting with the trolls.

I stand by my comment. It takes a great deal of honesty
and introspection to own up to some of the uglier motives
in this conflict (on all sides), and I full well expect a
degree of defensive deinal in response when calling them out.

> We rascally right-wingers don't say they hate us for skin-crawingly
> racist reasons, we say they hate us because they have been taught
> to project the causes of the dysfunctional squalor in their
> societies onto the "colonialists" rather than to attempt fundemental
> [revolutionary] reforms of their own kleptocracic governments.

Case in point: This is a grotesque and disingenuous example of
blame-the-victim-ism. Please -- as a right-winger don't talk
to me about "revolutionary" anything -- you wouldn't have supported
the PFLP anymore than you'd support the PLO or Hamas. Israel was
entirely complicit in assuring the PLO became a dysfunctional
kleptocracy. They gave Hamas the seed money to foster a split
in Palestinian leadership and are now reaping that whirlwind.
They've mounted relentless assassination campaigns to assure no
Palestinian leaders would arise, collective punishment of civilians,
infrastructure destruction -- all out of profound terror that the
Occupied Territories produces anything like a functional, prosperous
society. Considering the Palestinian's well-known reputation in
their dispora communities in every Arab/Muslim country as "the Jews
of the Middle East," having done quite well for themselves despite
astoundingly averse circumstances, your whole argument of inherent
Palestinian personal dysfunction is -- yes -- racist on its face.

> Suppose, for the sake of argument, Israel agreed to
> dissolve itself tommorrow and be a secular state.
> Don't you think their would still be hotheads that
> would want to exterminate or drive off the Jews?

There are still "hotheads" in America of the McVeigh persuasion
who believe in waging war against "ZOG" -- though fortunately
most of them are isolated on the Idaho panhandle. Hotheads exist
everywhere -- your point? Do you think that if Israel became a
secular state tomorrow that there still wouldn't be armed settlers
on the West Bank who would want to exterminate or drive off the Arabs?

You know, brooksfoe -- as a person of East European Jewish descent and
as staunch a defender of Israel as you can find in these threads -- is
entirely honest here and has no problem owning up to Israeli racism.

And Israeli racism -- just to pre-empt your response -- doesn't
excuse Arab racism anymore than Hezbollah's rocket barrages
excuses the destruction of Lebanon. Two wrongs never make a
right. I'm waging this argument because Israel's alleged moral
superiority in this conflict needs to be severely problematized.

> Would Hezbollah stop advocating dhimmitude for those that remained?

"Dhimmitude" is not an Arabic term; it's a fright-word coined
by Islamophobes. I'd of course prefer that Shariah law isn't
implemented in southern Lebanon just as I don't like to see it
implemented in Saudi Arabia, for that matter -- but these are
not my societies. It is for the people of southern Lebanon, who
overwhelmingly voted for Hezbollah, to decide the status of outsiders.
Doubtless they'll decide in a way that you or I'd consider backward.

> What would happen to the two or three adult unemployed men sitting
> around in every Arab household, would they suddenly be filled with
> joy and appreciation of the dynamic societies of the west, or would
> they be even more sullen, resentful and antagonistic about the
> corruption and incometence of their own political culture.

Boy *that's* a real subtle understanding of the dynamics in Mideast
societies. Makes Thomas Friedman sound like Edward Said. Arab
culture has been a trading, market-driven culture since well before
the time of Mohammed. The fundamental problem in the Occupied
Territories has been an existential fear of Jewish genocide that
has never dissipated in the aftermath of the Holocaust -- and which
Israelis relentlessly project onto the faces of their Arab neighbors,
which creates a self-justifying, self-fullfilling culture of mutual
hatred and distrust because *nothing* can wash away that existential
terror. Why not treat the Arabs like filthy dogs, because nothing we
do could possibly cause them to hate us any less than the Nazis did?

Palestinians thrive in environments where their societies aren't
being systematically undermined. Arabs of all sects were thriving
in northern Lebanon before the terror of a successful state on their
border coupled with a cowardly fear of ground combat launched the
Israeli Air Force to bomb infrastructure of questionable military
provenance. Egypt and Jordan dropped their allegedly innate desire
to see Israel wiped off the map -- and every Muslim country could
do the same in the right circumstances because there's nothing
fundamentally "Islamic" about that "imperative." Arabic rhetoric
is flowery and poetic -- and inherently hyperbolic. Persian, too.

We could do worse than trying to see beneath some of these
allegedly intractible cultural attributes to the humans underneath
who all want the same things for themselves and their children.

Bob

I am writing Kevin about this, and I am putting pedal to the metal.

If Kevin can't figure out a way to raise revenue from the regular posters here to update his software and hire someone to do the update so this blog can be registered, I am fucking out of here.

I am *so* not playing around.

Bob

Another ass-face crosspost of something I wrote yesterday, which some cowardly dickhead posted under my name.

Are you enjoying this little game, dickhead?

Because I assure you -- the rest of the adults are ignoring it :)

I think you should go play with your Legos now.

Bob

It's human nature to demand action following an attack. Any action. Counseling restraint in the hope that it will pay off in the long run is politically ruinous.

Counseling restraint is much easier if non-violent means (e.g., diplomacy) are showing some progress. For most of the world, the situation in Southern Lebanon was noticed after the shooting started. So long as things were relatively quite, it remained on the back burner. Never mind that even very low heat can eventually achieve a boil.

Moreover, popular support in Israel for the Lebanese war appears to be as much a result of frustration with what is widely viewed as a failed policy in Gaza--ostensibly Olmert's policy--as anything having to do with Hezbollah in Lebanon... "Unilateral withdrawal from Gaza hasn't improved security, so what now?"

Venting that frustration on Lebanon--as popular is it may be--was probably the stupidest act of Olmert's career. Nor, as some have suggested, was it "strategic"; or if strategic, very badly executed strategy. If anything, Olmert appears to be making it up as he goes along.

That said, there did appear to be a few in Foggy Bottom who were paying attention, who were working on getting Syria off the short bus, and ensuring that the Gulf States stayed engaged. After all, those "Arabs" in the Gulf States have no interest in Iran-Hezbollah-Syria extending their influence; and it was Saudi Arabia who was the primary broker for the Taif Accords.

So by all means, let us counsel restraint, but recognize that restraint will be most effective when coupled with serious diplomacy. That, however, requires promoting diplomacy, or maybe a better description would be "pre-emptive diplomacy". Unfortunately (parting partisan shot :) that is something this administration seems congeniality incapable of.

Bob,

I withdrawal the straw man charge if you were being sincere, but I think you are the one being uncivil if you believe all opposition to your perspective is motivated by racism.
Upthread you discussed your Irish heritage and your support for Sinn Fein, I'll match your analogy with mine: my family immigated from Germany, some came from a city called Danzig. The German people had very legitimate complaints about the bait-and-switch aspects of Wilson's 14 points and their mistreatment under the Versailles Treaty, but by turning to Nazism they forfeit all claims to sympathy or consideration of their grievances. That includes their claim to Danzig, now Gdansk, and all the territory they lost due to their war.
All terrorists have grievances, including Hezbollah, but not all grievances have terrorists. I do not think Israel has to be ethically spotless in order to deserve the right to live in peace. Even if I accepted your larger argument I would think you would admit their actions of recent years - pulling back from Gaza and Lebanon, should be encouraged and not impeded, yet these moves are what horrify Hezbollah and their Iranian sponsors.

republicrat: We may have a debate like this day after tomorrow: the Lebanese army will make no move to forcibly disarm, and Hizbollah will make no move to disarm, but Israel will be criticised of violating the terms of the cease-fire because it continues to war against Hizbollah.

After Hariri's assassination, and Hezbollah's subsequent demonstrations in support of Syria's continued presence, Hezbollah was pretty much in the shitter in Lebanon. Now they're not. Who wins?

Worse, Hezbollah--in proper Democratic elections--gains greater power in Lebanon, with Lebanon becoming more radicalized, and the difference Lebanese army and the Hezbollah militia becomes indistinguishable. Gaza redux. Who wins?

"done a day's worth of retaliation, and since then just endured any missiles and said, "OK, look, at this point there's no excuse for what they're doing, we're not even fighting them," I think Israel as a nation would be more secure than they are."

Do you guys even pay attention to the conflict ? Or do you just read pro Israeli pundits ?

Its as clear as day that the missiles were in retaltiation for the air bombing campaign. If Israel had restricted its retaliation to ground and artillery on Hezbollah military targets they would not be facing a rocket attack at all.

Nasrallah has explicity said that the rockets are in retaliation for the air bombing campaign and will be stopped when the air bombing campaign ceases. This is a credible statement given that when Israel implemented a bombing pause after Qana Hezbollah also paused its rocket attacks.

They are not nice people, but Hezbollah has at least figured out the value of proportionate responses. Something the American pundit class seems only to just be realising five years after 9/11.

Watching a liberal like Kevin Drum not being aware of these basic facts makes me wonder if there is something inherently stupid in America. Have they blocked all the independent news sites or something? The rest of the world figured this stuff out along time ago.

Seymour Hersh exposes the neocon’s latest evil scheme to use Lebanon as a guinea pig for “bunker-busting” bombs to use against Iran. Don’t lose sight of where the real evil exists in the world – in the Republican Party!!!

Never mind; it looks like Hezbollah already feels strong enough to flex its political muscle (see here):

The Lebanese government, which includes two ministers from the Hezbollah movement fighting Israel, also approved the resolution on Saturday.

But it postponed indefinitely a meeting scheduled for Sunday on disarming Hezbollah because the Shiite movement stood by a refusal to give up its arms, a cabinet minister who declined to be named told AFP.

"This is the moment of truth and they do not want to give up their arms. We preferred to accept a delay of the meeting to allow the discussions to continue," the minister said.

I don't know who is posting rmck1's posts multiple times. And I don't know who it is that is complaining about that behavior.

It might be Bob himself posting these things and the complaints, trying to troll the forum.

But Bob, if that is you complaining, my suggestion is to ignore it. If you do so, I am pretty sure we will all come around and severely tongue lash the bad bad person that is doing this to you.

Good questions.

The novel logic of mutual assured destruction escaped the greatest mind of the era, John von Neumann, and the pretty good mind of Robert Heinlein as well. They were depressed by the onset of the atomic bomb and thought it would lead to WWIII for sure. (See Heinlein's amazingly prophetic 1940 short story "Solution Unsatisfactory" for perhaps the first attempt in fiction to think through the horrifying logic of post-WWII nuclear weapons competiton between America and Russia.)

When John Nash ("A Beautiful Mind") invented his famous equilibrium theory for explaining some forms of economic competition, the Dr. Strangeloves at RAND Corporation seized on it immediately as offering hope for a stable equilibrium between America and Russia.

has407: After Hariri's assassination, and Hezbollah's subsequent demonstrations in support of Syria's continued presence, Hezbollah was pretty much in the shitter in Lebanon. Now they're not. Who wins?

Hezbollah was never "in the shitter" as you say. They may have suffered a small public relations set back, but they were being armed by Syria and Iran, and they had more military power than the Lebanese army. Now they have been driven out of Lebanon south of the Litani river (mostly), most of their military power has been destroyed (though they are still stronger than the Lebanese army), and the UNSC has again called for their complete disarmament as a part of the cease-fire. Perhaps in some quarters Hezbollah has got improved public relations, but their ability to damage Israel, which is their ambition, has been reduced.

I think you have given too much weight to transient mood swings in public opinion.

Kevin Drum is right. This is obvious through empirical observation, all the rampant speculation is not necessary. Forbearance DOES work. It worked for Hizbollah and Hassan Nasrallah. The link http://www.counterpunch.org/cook07262006.html is a reminder of the chronology of the Lebanon war, but aside from the rhetoric, can be verified from other sources. For 36 hours, Nasrallah watched Israel pound the Lebanese infrastructure and watched Lebanese civilians die. The forbearance earned him the admiration of the Arab world; moderate Arabs who had first criticized his kidnapping withdrew their criticism after watching the destruction in Lebanon. Once it was very clear which side had escalated a border skirmish into a full-fledged war, Nasrallah had carte blanche from the rest of the Arab world and is now of their most revered leaders. 36 hours. That's all he had to wait.

republicrat: Hezbollah was never "in the shitter" as you say. They may have suffered a small public relations set back, but they were being armed by Syria and Iran... I think you have given too much weight to transient mood swings in public opinion.

In terms of Lebanese popular support, Hezbollah--as a result of supporting Syria's presence--was most definitely in the shitter after Hariri's assasination. Case in point: the Cedar Revolution counter-demonstrations in mid-March 2005 following the Hezbollah-organized pro-Syria demonstrations in early March. Make no mistake, Hezbollah suffered a serious setback during that period, and their tune has changed considerably since, with a greater emphasis on Lebanese nationalism, in particular Lebanese claims to Shebaa Farms, which has been for all intents and purposes their raison d'etre.

In any case, the question is not Hezbollah's ability to damage Israel today; Hezbollah's military capability has obviously been reduced. The more important question is whether Hezbollah is in a better position to radicalize or co-opt Lebanon politically, thus expanding Iranian influence, and provide a platform for future actions against Israel (as with Gaza). In that, there is no question that Hezbollah is in a much stronger position than it was a month ago.

> You can almost hear the panic in
> their tiny voices.

Yes. In the last 8 weeks I have noticed that the Radical counter-blogging effort has been having a lot of difficulty getting its message synchronized and injected into liberal blogs effectively. The gap between the Radical message and reality appears to be getting so large that they can't bridge it, clever British-developed snarking points or no.

Cranky

To use Egbert's metaphor, this is how to do it. After the 9-11 attacks we sit arount the campfire and sing kumbaya with our muslim brothers. Then when the song ends, you sigh, oull out a pistol, and drill the guy responsible for the attacks between the eyes.
You sigh again and say 'sorry. I had to." and then reach out your hands to the others again.

NOT staggering around the campfire shouting stuff about ragheads, shooting your gun wildly, kicking over the cooler, and then getting into a scrap with a guy you had a fight with the other day, while the guy who did it walks away from the fight laughing to himself.

has407: The more important question is whether Hezbollah is in a better position to radicalize or co-opt Lebanon politically, thus expanding Iranian influence, and provide a platform for future actions against Israel (as with Gaza). In that, there is no question that Hezbollah is in a much stronger position than it was a month ago.

There is a serious question whether Hezbollah is in a better position than before to build a platform for future actions against israel. To start with, the cease-fire requires the disarmament of Hezbollah, or else there won't be any end to the Israeli offensive. To continue, with hundreds of thousands of Lebanese now displaced, will they actually collaborate in rebuilding the infrasturcture that puts their entire civil society at risk in case of war by mixing civilian and military structures? I doubt it. And lastly, since Syria and Iran were already arming Hezbollah as rapidly as they could, and with the UN resolution requiring them to stop doing so, has the supposed increase in support within Israel enabled Hezbollah to re-arm faster than they were doing so in the first place? I doubt that also.

Naturally, this depends to some extent on the energy of the UN deployment. And it depends on how much of their own civil society Lebanese will actually be willing to risk after the shooting stops and the rebuilding begins. Which of us is correct won't be known until the rebuilding begins. So I'll end with some questions: who would now, in Lebanon, finance apartment buildings built on Hizbollah military facilities? Who would insure the buildings if they were built? Who would rent space in the buildings? My answer to all questions is a conjecture: many fewer Lebanese than before this war, and in that sense material support for Hezbollah will be much reduced, even if there are more Hezbollah recruits. Lebanese will not again volunteer in the hundreds of thousands to be human shields for Hezbollah, and they won't risk their capital and labor for human shields either.

has407, I can see how you might be right, I just don't think you are. We'll see in the rebuilding.

The trick for Harry Truman was having a population with recent experience of a world war and not wanting to continue that experience. Even so, at the time he was roundly condemned for not rolling back the commies, and Eisenhower rode to office on the back of loud charges that the Truman administration was riddled with communist spies.

Restraint didn't sell all that well back then either.

"I'd hate to think that this is a flatly impossible problem."

It's not. It simply requires intelligent people to posit some aggressive thoughts - as opposed to half-hearted whining- to counter the actions of the loony right.
Basically it's called the wake up and smell the coffee theory.

Israel's actions are naked power politics dressed up as moral rectitude. In more than 50 years of existence, the nation has done nothing but expand its borders. It will continue to do so until told to stop. So quit with the hand-wringing and call a spade a spade. Cut off their funding and demand fair play.
The cretinous "patriots" who waste their time on this site excepted, there's probably not one sane individual (certainly outside the US) who would argue with the contention that reining in Israel will result in a safer world, and less terror.

Althouse's model is one in which someone else is doing the heavy lifting. Israel sits back and... waits for someone else -- the US, the UN, the EU, whoever -- to fix the situation. Everyone agrees they deserve it... 'cause they're not hurting anyone, you know?

Pardon the sarcasm. This is a child's model of how to fix a situation like this. Israel may or may not have done the right thing. What a sovereign state cannot do is sit around and hope some other country will defend them.

Kevin! I have two questions:

Excellent post, Kevin!

Show me a time when Israel ever honored a cease-fire when the opposition didn't. NeoLotus 6:49 AM

Oh yes...then there is Shebbaa Farms. Basically the United States sold Israel out. But that's happened before.Posted by: David on August 13, 2006 at 10:46 AM

… no credit whatever for withdrawing its army from Southern Lebanon and withdrawing its soldiers from Gaza. … republicrat 11:02 AM

Crissa: Has there ever been a crime solved by blowing up an apartment building?

I suppose it depends on your notions of "crime" and "solve". It was a crime to construct apartment buildings upon military command centers, and the crime was solved by blowing up the military command centers.

Have guerilla/terrorist fighters ever been stopped by a nation chasing them over international borders?

Possibly, depending on whether the Lebanese army and UN forces succeed in disarming Hizbollah. Otherwise, Hizbollah was merely pushed farther away from Israel and nearly disarmed. Have guerilla/terrorist forces ever been stopped without being attacked militarily? They grow faster without opposition than with opposition.

- I have no problem running our government as Jesus sets forth Thomas 11:27 AM

A nation has a right to take land from which it was attacked permanently….Walter E. Wallis 12:23 PM

Stalin felt himself strong enough to support North Korea … mhr 12:53 PM

Hezbollah is in fact the danger that Israel… Mr. Frog 1:33 PM

a good first-hand account from the Israeli side: republicrat at 1:44 PM

I do not believe that Sharon deliberately undercut PLO attempts to consolidate power; … republicrat at 3:16 PM

no one would claim to have voted for Kerry who had not. minion of rove at 4:59 PM

latest news:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2308318

and

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,251-2312171,00.html

On a bumper sticker I saw today: "Who would Jesus bomb?"

John Kenneth Galbraith said, "Don't just do something, stand there!"

The key is making the breach of the peace and all the other issues the fault of those who started the problem. It's basic Von Clausewitz: shape the battlefield to your advantage. Encourage sympathy to yourself through your actions by your allies, and do what it takes to destroy that sympathy, the morals upport included, for the other man.

Its behind Times Delete, but Nicholas Kristof had a brilliant column working around the same issue about a week ago "Spanish Lessons".

Great Britain, in the Northern Ireland case, and Spain in the ETA/Basque case, both won against insurgencies with strong local bases--eventually. No bombers flew. No Chechnya's were created. Atrocities were few. Casualties, amongst the Brits and Spainards were regretably high. But eventually (and that's the key word) the swamp was drained, popular support atrophied, and the insurgents gave up their arms, pursuing their aims by political means.

Another factor: there aren't any great moral leaders preaching non-violence in this era.

One wonders whether UN peacekeeping efforts could have been more proactive these last two years in southern Lebanon had they not been hampered by Bolton and the Bush Administration.

Now France and the UN are our buddies for a implementing a ceasefire?

Mike: There have been numerous peace offers to Israel, all guaranteeing territorial boundaries, but boundaries prior to the '67

Israel was frequrntly attacked, by armies and by terrorists, when it occupied the pre-1967 boundaries. Israel accepted, not rejected, the peace treaty with Egypt.

The comment about Sharon was about the timing of actual military attacks, not the "provocation" of walking on Temple Mount.

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American Hawk is right as usual. The British didn't defeat the IRA through forebearance but by using by maximum force. In Operation Paddywhack, the RUC, SAS and paras swept through Catholic/nationalist areas of Belfast and Derry in the fall of 1996 and killed anyone wearing green, drinking Guinness or Jamesons, or sporting a Celtic jersey. Similar operations followed throught N. Ireland and as a result, 35% of all Catholic males/potential terrorists between the ages of 16 and 45 were killed. By 1998 the IRA had lost all support in the Catholic community. With dwidling supplies of men and munitions the IRA formally surrendered when Gerry Adams signed the Good Friday Accord.

Someone on my side might lie about a lot of things, but no one would claim to have voted for Kerry who had not.

No one?

That's some bad ass omniscience you've got there, Bub. Why ain't you rich?

Cranky:

How exactly is "no, I can't put any boundries on the "worse is better" theory, so I will blow some additional neocon fellow-traveller smoke" shorter than "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father"? Are you hoping the cease-fire fails?

obscure:

You are free to disbelieve me all you want, since I can't PROVE who I am or who I voted for. Can you? Nonetheless, I am interested where you think Jesus instructed the GOVERNMENT to turn the other cheek and / or give to the poor? Maybe you and I are reading a different Bible.

Mike:

Please set forth the verses from Jesus on "government" and then we can discuss YOUR conception of said doctrines too.

how do you convince people that forbearance in the face of terrorism is worthwhile?
You have to convince them that the reason the terrorists attack is *precisely* to invoke the reaction. Prattle about asymmetric warefare all you want, the terrorists' goal is still that of the anarchists -- provoke an overwhelming reaction, so that *more people* get pissed off, and join your movement.

The best way to strangle the Klan is to ignore it. Ditto AQ (with, of course, police work to bring down the lynchers and bombers)

Don't fight back? Are you suggesting Israel let terrorists fire missiles that kill citizens and not do anything to try and prevent further attacks?

And Israel should take these actions in an effort to show "the world" that Hezbollah is in the wrong?

Last time I checked Israel wasn't committed to the destruction of all Arabs and Muslims in the middle east. No, that's Hezbolla. It's pretty clear who is in the wrong here.

You are free to disbelieve me all you want, since I can't PROVE who I am or who I voted for. Can you? Nonetheless, I am interested where you think Jesus instructed the GOVERNMENT to turn the other cheek and / or give to the poor? Maybe you and I are reading a different Bible.

Thomas/Charlie,

This isn't about PROOF, ok? I don't need to prove that you're a liar because regular readers of this blog don't require additional information. You have provided abundant evidence, over a long period of time, that you feel entitled to lie extensively here. Maybe that's justified in your mind because after all, "you're only talking to liberals!"

Now, you're the genius who believes the word "sometimes" means "always", ok? Documented right here on this thread, you Jackass.

You're also the genius who wrote: I have no problem running our government as Jesus sets forth.

Well, in the Bible Jesus sets forth quite a bit. If you don't think Jesus would approve of a democratic government manifesting the heart of his teachings, then why don't you point precisely to the passages in the Bible that you were referring to when you made your comment quoted above???

What do you say, Sport?

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Thomas1,

Thank you for the reply and no need to apologize for its length.

For the sake of comity, let's leave aside any talk of "Charlie."

Here's the short version of my reply: You are the one who wrote that you have no problem running government as Jesus set forth.

When challenged, you retreat behind weak-kneed appeals that Jesus didn't issue instructions for government.

THEN WHY DID YOU SAY THAT YOU HAD NO PROBLEM RUNNING GOVERNMENT AS JESUS SET FORTH???

And why are you unable to point to any passages from scripture to shed any light on what you meant by "as Jesus set forth"?

"Render unto Caeser" is an endorsement of the right of government taxation--a liberal view to be sure--but it sets forth nothing about running gov't.

So, again, your words are empty of any content except mindless religiosity. I asked for an explanation and you did what you could, and it amounted to zilch because you haven't shown anything at all about Jesus' intentions.

But what we do know for a fact about Jesus intentions supports my view, not yours.

And additionally, your anecdote about Lincoln and slavery supports my view--that of gov't intervention--and not yours.

The day you wake up will be a happy day.

Charlie, you forgot to cite the source for your cut and paste.

If these crickets could just stop chirping for a moment...

I guess what Charlie meant to say was he has no problem running government as Pat Robertson sets forth. But in keeping with the spirit-of-Bush mistakes are made, not admitted.