Israel: "Batterring Husband"?

Rejecting calls--for now--from extremists inside and outside Israel to turn Lebanon into a parking lot, Israel will attempt to create grounds for another invasion, as well as come up with a strategy to further wire the news stream in their favor. ...

Israel will attempt to goad Hizbullah into action by continuing its provocative intrusions into Lebanese airspace. I also believe that it will attempt to decapitate Hizbullah by either assassinating Nasrallah right away or at least attriting through assassination the Hizbullah command structure. These are actions that they have done in the past and they will probably continue into the future.

Israel will exhibit what I will characterize as the "battering husband" syndrome by attacking Hamas and Palestinian civilians. Although I characterize it this way, and the reason for doing it may correlate with Israel's desire to take out on someone defenseless its anger and frustration for losing round 1 of its war with Hizbullah, attacking Hamas serves other ends as well:

First, Hamas was on the verge of compromise with Abbas, going so far as declaring that it was ready to recognize the right of Israel to exist.

The invasion of Lebanon coincided with Israeli military action in Gaza, where over a hundred civilians were killed. This put a stop to Hamas' efforts toward compromise; but now that the Lebanese invasion has fizzled, Hamas is again on the verge of a compromise.

Israel wants nothing to do with a "democratic" Palestinian government. This would delegitimize its entire argument for refusing to recognize Palestine and would reignite calls for Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders.

Second, attacking Gaza provokes Hizbullah at a time that it's being perceived as the great Arab warrior. That is, Israel is trying to see how far Hizbullah's professed victory can go.

Like rubbing a sore, Israel can point to the limited effects of Hizbullah’s victory. This plays on two aspects of Hizbullah’s professed political goals: a) Is it just a Lebanese political party or 2) is it a pan-Arab political party?

I believe that Israel is counting on Nasrallah to opt for b). If so, then the many reasons that Israel has given for why Hizbullah should be eliminated will be vindicated and Israel can argue once again that Hizbullah is either a proxy for Iran or Syria.

If Nasrallah simply opts for a), then Israel still wins because it can show that the jubilation around the Arab world over Hizbullah’s victory is just a local affair and really represents no grounds for hopes that the Palestinians will gain justice soon.

At the same time, however, if Hizbullah goes the way of integrating with the political structure of Lebanon, it will then effectively remove the danger that Israel so much fears: a forward front that it must contend with should the US and Israel attack Iran.

Related Links

• Making Peace Stick in Lebanon
  
• Israel's Armchair Generals Second-Guess Olmert Over War
  
• Hizbullah Rebuilds and Regroups

[Xposted at Sic Semper Tyrannis Read more!

Machiavellian Eyes

I wrote the following in response to Pat Lang's remarks on Nasrallah and "immoral equivalency."
------
Amira Hass writes:

IDF soldiers have killed 44 children in Gaza since June 28, when the failed campaign to release abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit began. That is 44 children out of the 188 people the IDF has killed in Gaza - civilians and armed men, most of whom had embarked on a doomed fight against the invading tanks. The last three who were killed, on Monday, were three farmers from Beit Hanoun who were hit by an IDF shell - about as precise as a Hezbollah Katyusha - instead of the rocket launcher it had been intended to hit.

The notion that one country or people or tribe at war is better than any other has been proven over and over again to be hypocritical. The sooner that we as a nation realize this the better. The jihadists are no less human than we are. While their goals are disssimilar to our own and their methods different, they are simply doing what we'd do were we to step into their shoes. ...

For Israel or anyone else to claim moral superiority over so-called terrorists is itself a red herring. As some historians note, it is the Zionist bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem--a terrorist act--that the Palestinians and now the al-Qaedists learned from.

The French philosopher Simone Weil once said (I paraphrase) that the ultimate goal of self-knowledge is to realize that given the right circumstances human beings are capable of the most despicable and heinous crimes.

What does it say about "our side" that the so-called war on terror is impelling our leaders to rewrite the Geneva convention definition of war crimes?

Since I am trying to see the world these days through Machiavellian eyes, I can only see that this is required by the nature of the enemy we fight. And perhaps the will to change one's tactics and mode of war displays a level of virtu that Machiavelli would applaud.

On the other hand, Machiavelli tried to understand the dialectical interplay between virtu and corruption. For him, the type of virtu that a state displays reflects the level of corrutpion within that state. Corruption here means dependency on others and the loss of liberty of the diverse groups within a given republic.

But it can also mean the actions that bring about a state of affairs wherein others cannot adequately exhibit their individual virtues. There's even some notion that a republic cannot exist without the existence of other republics. Whether or not the US can coexist with Islamist republics like Iran, perhaps, only time will tell.

I suggest it's a matter of will. It's not the jihadists who are the real enemy--it's their believing that they can stand in the way of US expansion into the oil-rich MidEast and consolidation of oil reserves and potential markets.

That is what this war is about--not morality. And, as some neo-Machiavellians might say, what is in the interests of the empire is what serves the interests of all; and you do what you have to do to obtain those goals. Anything else shows a lack of will and the ultimate corruption of the republic.

Yet, Machiavelli seems to have despised the Roman imperium. He did so because it was led by a despot and tyrant. Any functioning republic must not allow tyrants. Perhaps this is the criterion to use in udnerstanding what the "war on terror" is making of us: how much despotism does it elicit? That it does so is a sign of the republic's corruption.

With the rise of the Hamiltonian Executive branch, it is perhaps time to ask some questions about what price we want to pay for an empire whose existence threatens ourselves more than it does those we call our enemies.

When it suits him, the Israeli is part of the collective. Therefore, every terror attack and Katyusha are aimed "against the Jewish people" - which, of course, always authorizes Israel to embark on punishment campaigns that are defined as existential war. And when it suits him, the Israeli denies his partnership in the collective, in the occupation machinery to which he is a partner. He ignores the inevitable implications of the machinery that controls, in an authoritarian way, the lives of 3.5 million people who did not elect it (the Palestinian Authority was from the outset a fiction of government, with no authority).

On the one hand, the Israeli who "doesn't intend" cuts himself off from the Israeli occupation and colonialism machine, and exempts himself from the responsibility for the intention to harm Palestinian civilians, an intention that is inherent in the very existence of an occupation machinery. And on the other hand, he cuts the Palestinian response off from the existence of the occupation machine: After all, they as individuals and as a collective "intended to harm civilians," and this because of their eternal essence as Muslims, as Arabs - which is independent of us.

Related Links

• Making Peace Stick in Lebanon
  
• Israel's Armchair Generals Second-Guess Olmert Over War
  
• Hizbullah Rebuilds and Regroups

Read more!

Did You Ever Have That Feeling?

It's the nuances, the unspoken gaps between concepts, body language, what's not said when it should be said. All this adds up to desolation and destruction whose ramifications will define the future for generations. ... Okay enough with the Armageddon crap; but really. ...

Ray Close expresses things I have been considering for the last few weeks or so. As usual, it comes via Juan Cole:

This bombastic and posturing style of [recent US] “diplomacy” is going to lead inescapably to one or the other of the following results:

1. War with Iran (with negative consequences beyond anyone's ability to imagine); or 2. Another humiliating demonstration of impotence. '

If you haven't read Revelation before, perhaps it is now that you might wish to consider looking at those passages I discussed in a previous post.

Or, as John Hagee, the Texas evangelical preacher whose Xtian group has had meetings in the White House with Bush administration officials puts it:

"The coming nuclear showdown with Iran is a certainty," Hagee wrote this year in the Pentecostal magazine Charisma. "Israel and America must confront Iran's nuclear ability and willingness to destroy Israel with nuclear weapons. For Israel to wait is to risk committing national suicide."

Read more!

Not All Terrorists Alike?

In an article entitled, "Islamic radical groups are not all alike," Laura Rozen notes that it's a logical mistake to lump all terrorists in the same camp. They have different objectives.



Rozen writes:

Pluchinsky says as esteem for Hezbollah has risen , Al Qaeda has tried to get in on the action. ``Now bin Laden has an opportunity to step forward and show support, and to try to link what's happening in Lebanon to what's happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. And Hezbollah says, `No, there's no link at all.' "

The United States could still be drawn in, if current peace efforts fail and a regional war ignites. According to Magnus Ranstorp, a Swedish expert who has interviewed hundreds of members of Hezbollah, the only real way for Israel to defeat Hezbollah will be to take out its political leadership.

Hizbullah's enemy is Israel, not the US. HB came out against the bombing by al-Qaeda of NYC and the Pentagon.

This is why the US should disengage its foreign policy from reflecting Israeli interets. They do not coincide. Read more!

The Horror... the Horror

I've been posting at Pat Lang's excellent blog Sic Semper Tyrannis. In response to his posting on what he's calling the Tabouleh Line, I've gone off the deep end and given in to paranoid brainstorming. Maybe it's my reading of The Machiavellian Moment, maybe it's angst related to the world going to hell in a hand basket. Maybe it's even sorrow over the death of the American Dream. ...

I started out with the following:

What are the chances that the Israelis are playing 'possum here? That is, they are giving the impression that they are losing so that the UN will try to mediate a cease-fire. Knowing that Hizbullah is feeling overly confident, perhaps the Israelis are counting on the notion that Hizbullah will break the ceasefire. Once this occurs, the Israelis can then take off the kid gloves and really begin their offensive.

My reasons for bringing this (remote) possibility into play is that I believe, along with several others (including Steve Clemons, Luttwak, and Alexandrovna), that the Israeli invasion was planned as a way to get the US to invade Syria/Iran. If this hypothetical were true, then Israel perhaps has every intention to make it look as though it is pressing forward to the Litani and beyond as a defensive strategy.

Escalating the war in this way would perhaps make it very difficult for Iran/Syria to sit it out on the sidelines.

Many hypotheticals here, I admit. The major assumption is that this war was started not as a response to Hizbullah capture of Israeli soldiers but an attempt to get the US more involved vis a vis the alleged puppet-masters Syria/Iran.

Okay, that's not as strong as I thought it was. So I really jump into the fire with this one:

The obverse of my prior theory is a bit wilder. With the UN resolution under consideration, a cease-fire seems imminent. If it passes and French and other countries, along with Lebanese troops, secure southern Lebanon Hizbullah will be effectively neutralized.

One of the arguments put forward by Helena Cobban against the US invading Iran is Hizbullah rockets. Should the US or Israel attack Iran, this line of thinking goes, Iran would order Hizbullah to attack Israel. Ergo, Israel and the US would not risk attacking Iran.

Assuming that Israel, Lebanon, and Hizbullah abide by the UN ceasefire, French troops will ensure that Hizbullah does not pose this threat to northern Israel any longer.

With their northern front secured, Israel/US can now attack Iran without that concern. They are now emboldened to carry out the Israel and neocon dream of disposing of the Iranian threat anytime--some are suggesting an October surprise--they wish.

The irony of this perhaps fanciful scenario is that the French would have been dragged into the "war on terror" without having wanted to get involved. Of course, the fact that the French are there in southern Lebanon might prove to stop all of this from occurring.

In response to the last assertions, another commenter raised objections to which I responded:

I understand that HB could continue its rocket attacks on Israel, should it wish to break any cease-fire should Israel/US attack Iran. I guess you'd have a further crisis within Lebanon which could or would fracture that society.

That is, how would the Lebanese army respond to the breaking of the ceasefire? If they refused to act, then Israel would have to deal with it. If, on the other hand, the Lebanese actually do take on HB, you're back at civil war which effectively neutralizes HB.

I don't know how Iran would do against the US Navy. If memory serves me, Navy brass have expressed confidence in the past that they can handle anything Exocet missiles. The notion of an Iranian navy is of course laughable.

The question is whether Iran could jam up the straits themselves by sinking a ship or two there. That assumes that they can a ship close enough to do that or have the technology to take out one. Supposedly, the US has wargamed this and they have come up with contingency plans.

I've been arguing--somewhat fancifully perhaps--that Cheney/Rumsfeld are selling the idea that Iraq is "sufficiently contained" and that US troops do not have much to worry about there. If they need to, they can simply retreat behind the fences of their super-bases and let the Sunnis-Shiites kill each other. These bases are supposed to be huge and with sufficient air cover are probably impregnable to everything except maybe an army of a million.

Of course, I exaggerate, but I really think that this is what the Pentagon is saying these days. This model rests on the notion that order within Iraq is not the be all and end all of the strategy. A contained, implosive instability within Iraq is all that the US troops need.

Most people seem to think that the strategy in the Mideast is to promote peace by way of policeman-like stability. I disagree. I think that one way of thinking--by those who might wish to do this--is to bring about peace by igniting the region in unrest. The Pentagon is smart enough--haha--to know that the rift between Sunnis and Shiites is lethal. Why not exploit that hatred to bring about a situation in which they direct their hatred at each other rather than us? Once attrition does its job, the US can then move in to pick up the pieces and impose a more lasting peace.

I know. This is all too simplistic.

Pat's been kind enough to allow this stuff to be posted at his blog.

Related Links

• What Next?
  
• Making Peace Stick in Lebanon
  
• Israel's Armchair Generals Second-Guess Olmert Over War
  
• Hizbullah Rebuilds and Regroups

Read more!

The Pot Calling the Kettle Black

Are Christians or Jews any more righteous than extremist Moslems when it comes to carrying out holy wars and killing infidels? I think not. ...

There are places in the Hebrew Testament that call for holy war and genocide. While it is true that the exhortations are not to take over the world--as some extremist Moslems seem to preach--they do fit in with an "expansionist" ideology which emphasizes subjugation and taking of territory.

I agree that there are Moslems who call for world conversion. The vast majority--except for the extremists--believe this should be done via proselytizing, as does Christianity, BTW.

Some extremist Christians think that infidel Moslems should be killed. Again, "some" extremist Christians see the current "war on terror" as a kind of mission to convert the nations to Christianity. Whether or not it's "suicide jihad" is perhaps a matter for debate. While the Christian proselytizers do not go to "jihad" camp and schools, they do attend camps and schools to prepare for the Christian form of "jihad," ie, evangelization.

On the other hand, we in the US have a self-proclaimed Christian as President who has mired us in a war that is hitting the sheiss-end of the stick. For what? Well, according to the End-time Christians whom he consults, it is in the name of Christ. The way I see it, the entire fiasco of sending troops to Iraq was a suicide mission--at least for nearly 3,000 young men and women.

As far as "jihad" and Christianity, I suggest that one could interpret the exhortation--which some Christians understand as a commandment--to spread the Gospel to all the nations as a kind of jihad. In the past, I believe this has been done via war and/or colonialist methods.

I have never said there are not extremist interpreters of Islam's sacred texts. That's too obvious. Whether those extremists reflect all possible interpretations is what's in question.

As you might know, many Moslems find themselves attracted to the Sufi, pacifist interpretations of Koran. Those Moslems who haven't yet given in to secularizing trends in Arab or other media find themselves stressing the jihad of inner struggle.

The extremists are the minority--both in their understanding of Koran, as well as in their representation of what "most" Moslems think or believe.

On the issue of how evangelicals "demonize" Islam,see my posting. You will find there a link to a study by an evangelical professor who's done some great work on documenting this phenomenon.
Related Links

• Evangelicals Quiet About War in Lebanon

Read more!

Proxy Wars, Shadows and Iran

Larisa Alexandrovna provides more facts and background that support the idea that Israel's invasion of Lebanon is simply the prelude to a US invasion of Iran. ...

After offering a compelling factual record, Alexandrovna concludes:

This is a strategy long wanted by the far right and people like Dick Cheney, and this is a strategy that was long in the planning. Even as we began military operations in Iraq, Iran was the subject of all major military discussions. And yet when Israel became engaged in military operations against Lebanon, the entire world failed to understand the true nature of this conflict and the real issues behind it. Israel is a client-state of the United States and, as such, it will do as it is told.

For Israel to act so harshly and so carelessly, putting its entire nation in jeopardy and with world support failing, one can only imagine the pressure that the Cheney "cabal" used to push for such an event.

Read more!

Another Neocon Chaos Theorist...

I've written pretty sparely on this theory, which I first picked up from Karen Kwiatkowski, but it keeps cropping up more and more in my surfings. Mark Levine provides more detailed analysis and exploration of the idea. ...

Tom Dispatch reprints Levine's piece:

Lebanon is but the most intense site at present for such chaos and destruction, which has been spreading and deepening across what the neoconservatives (many of whom were receptive to the idea of loosing a "generative" chaos in the region) once liked to call the "arc of instability." Little did they know, when they gave the oil heartlands of our planet that name, what was actually in store for us all.

PS Right now, I 'm reading stuff on Machiavelli and there's much in his Discorsi that coincides with what's being called "creative destruction" by the neocons, "arc of instability" by Levine. I would note that Leo Strauss, alleged mentor of the neocon elite, wrote a book on Machiavelli.

If I have time I'll type out some of the relevant Machiavelli passages. Read more!

Israel Sites Its Own Military in Civilian Areas

Contrary to public assertions, it is Israel who positions its military facilities among civilians, according to Jonathan Cook. ...

Cook writes:

Like every army in a war, Hizbullah may not acting in a humane manner. But it is demonstrably acting according to the same standards as the Israeli army -- and possibly, given Israel's siting of military targets in civilian areas, higher ones. The fact that the contrary view is almost universally held betrays our prejudices rather than anything about Hizbullah's acts.

He provides further details in the linked article. Read more!

The Other News...

While mesmerized by the feeding frenzy on the plot to bomb up to 10 airplanes by British Islamic extremists, I have had some time see that the US-French UN resolution appears headed to a vote on Friday. This is good news, although I'm also seeing discussion that even were a resolution to pass, Israel would still have a month to continue its destruction of Lebanon. ...

Israel should, perhaps, consider its losses and go home. At least that's what Pat Lang's suggesting. Should Israel pursue its course towards the Litani River, he foresees a monumental confrontation.

Lang says:

This is not guerrilla war. Forget that. This is positional warfare waged using field fortifications as the base and pivot so that a heavier force advancing into the "grid" of the defense can be engaged and defeated by attrition. So far, they are doing quite a job. A force in the process of evolution is what I would call HA.

As far as Hizbullah is concerned, Helena Cobban thinks they've proven their point by fighting the Israelis to a stalemate. She writes:

Personally, I think Hizbullah has amply made its point by now and could simply retire from the battlefield with good grace, having proven that it is not beaten and not cowed, and therefore that the fates of Israel and its Arab neighbors are indeed tied together in interdependence rather than the region being in a situation where Israel can exercize its colonial domination as it desires over all its neighbors, quite unchecked from any quarter.

Let's hope she's right. There's some hope in the fact that the Israeli soldiers don't seem to have the stomach for killing unarmed civilians. As recent reports shopw, some Israeli pilots are refusing to bomb their targets out of regard for civilian lives.

Steven Soldz quoting Pacifica Radio:

YONATAN SHAPIRA: Yeah, I know that — I guess there are several of them. I spoke with one of them, who told me especially of one case that he just got a target — it was a house on a hill — and he just didn’t want to shoot at the house, and he shot beside the house, and later on, the commanders told him that it’s okay. And my question is, you know, if they can give pilots a target, and later on when the pilot is not shooting the house and telling him that it’s okay, you know, what is all this idea behind those missions, if, you know, you can shoot the house, you can not shoot the house? I think there is a problem, you know, spilling behind all these missions that these pilots are getting.

As Soldz notes, if only the leaders who issue orders to kill could heed the words of those who will forever live with blood on their hands. That goes as well, Stoldz goes on, for Hizbullah extremists lobbing bombs who the hell knows where but surely into the midst of innocents. Read more!

Iranian Govt. Destroys the Flowers of Its Spring

An Iranian inmate peers from behind a wall as a guard walks by at the female section of the infamous Evin jail, north of Tehran. (Photo: Atta Kenare / AFP-Getty Images)

An Iranian student dissident was found dead in his cell. The news has not made the mainstream yet, but it is another sign that the corrupt and decrepit leaders of Iran have embraced the death of their own. ...

Via Butterflies and Wheels, Worldpress.org reports:

In the early hours of July 31, more shocking news came out of Tehran's highly notorious Evin prison. This time it was not about another writer or activist's arrest; it was way beyond that. Akbar Mohammadi, a renowned student activist of the past decade had suspiciously died in his cell.

The news quickly spread to expat Iranian reporters, devastated another family's lives, alarmed the international as well as domestic human rights defenders, but was largely overshadowed in the international press due to the massive news coverage of the Middle East crisis and the U.N. Security Council's 1696 resolution on Iran's nuclear program.

Mohammadi, 36, who had spent almost half a decade of his youth in Evin prison on charges involving activities against the Islamic Republic, is the latest sacrificial victim of the freedom movement in Iran.

Read more!

Hate Those Muslims, Don'chou?

A recent poll from Gallup shows that significant minorities of Americans distrust Muslims and believe that they should have "special IDs." ...

It seems that hate-mongering spewed from radio talk ahows is having an effect. As numerous studies show, ethnic hatreds are not innate but rather formed via socialization and educational processes. Since many Americans listen to talk-show radio shows like Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and others, I am going to make a tentative guess that it's to these outlets that we can attribute such hostile beliefs towards Muslims.

Of course, the President and his media machine should also take some credit for the increase in Islamophobia. While the President is always ready to call Islam a peace-loving religion and makes the obligatory stipulation that most Muslims are reasonable, the supposed nuance is lost on most Americans. At worst, many probably think that Bush is just saying that because "he has to," so as not to get the liberal media on his case. From this angle, many Americans probably run off to Limabaugh and Savage to get the "inside story" about what the President "really" meant.

Of course, it does not help one's wish to believe the President's sincerity when he makes such statements to discover that until quite recently he just figured out that there are different denomination within Islam, eg. Sunnis and Shia. Just today, Bush used the blanket term "Islamic fascists" to describe the plotters in Britian. Such abstractions and vague use of terms only strengthens those stereotypes that the righwing blogosphere continues to flesh out with hate and racism.

Anyway, here's how Editor and Publisher reports on the Gallup poll:

A new Gallup poll finds that many Americans -- what it calls "substantial minorities" -- harbor "negative feelings or prejudices against people of the Muslim faith" in this country. Nearly one in four Americans, 22%, say they would not like to have a Muslim as a neighbor.

While Americans tend to disagree with the notion that Muslims living in the United States are sympathetic to al-Qaeda, a significant 34% believe they do back al-Qaeda. And fewer than half -- 49% -- believe U.S. Muslims are loyal to the United States.

Almost four in ten, 39%, advocate that Muslims here should carry special I.D. That same number admit that they do hold some "prejudice" against Muslims. Forty-four percent say their religious views are too "extreme."

One can only imagine that should there be further attacks inside the US by Islamic extremists, these numbers will rise. Perhaps it is that possibility that the US government is considering when it issued a contract for large internment facilities to a Hallibrton subsidiary.

To fight the rising tide of prejudice and Islamophobia is simply to humanize Moslems and always emphasize that they are not mindless drones. There are extremists, just as there are in our country, most notably the very talk-show hosts who spout intolerance and racial epithets at Moslems. Significantly, the E&P article also notes that, "In every case, Americans who actually know any Muslims are more sympathethic." There the hope lies, as well as the success of any future not filled with buckets of blood.

Exhibit 1 I hate to see this shit happen. I found this tonight at Media Matters. CNN's Glenn Beck is reported as saying:

All you Muslims who have sat on your frickin' hands the whole time and have not been marching in the streets and have not been saying, "Hey, you know what? There are good Muslims and bad Muslims. We need to be the first ones in the recruitment office lining up to shoot the bad Muslims in the head." I'm telling you, with God as my witness, America is -- no I'm not going to make this an American thing -- human beings are not strong enough, unfortunately, to restrain themselves from putting up razor wire and putting you on one side of it. When things -- when people become hungry, when people see that their way of life is on the edge of being over, they will put razor wire up and just based on the way you look or just based on your religion, they will round you up. Is that wrong? Oh my gosh, it is Nazi, World War II wrong, but society has proved it time and time again: It will happen.

Read more!

Israel Using Notorious Anti-Personnel Weapons?

Is Israel using cluster bombs in Lebanon? DefenseTech raises some suspicions in that direction in a recent posting. They publish a picture of a car that has minimal damage yet has been blown off the road. ...

Cluster bombs are notoriously lethal and powerful. They're powerful enough to knock out tanks, as the following notes, and they're lethal to civilians.

Defense Tech writes:

The U.S. Air Force since the late 1990s has had a guided weapon that disperses guided submunitions (each packing the punch of a hand grenade), each bomb capable of taking out a company of tanks. It's called the Sensor Fuzed Weapon. Globalsecurity.org explains:

The Sensor Fuzed Weapon [SFW] is an unpowered, top attack, wide area, cluster munition, designed to achieve multiple kills per aircraft pass against enemy armor and support vehicles. After release, the TMD opens and dispenses the ten submunitions which are parachute stabilized. Each of the 10 BLU-108/B submunitions contains four armor-penetrating projectiles with infrared sensors to detect armored targets.

Defense Industry Daily appropriately calls the SFW "cans of whup-ass".

Israel is a known consumer of American Joint Direct Attack Munitions and a producer of laser-guided bombs. Has it gotten into the SFW game too, either with American weapons or its own similar design?

If so, I'm not surprised they've kept it under wraps. This is a cluster bomb we're talking about, the kind of weapon notorious for accidentally taking out civilians who might be milling around the battlefield. [my emphasis]

According to Wikipedia, cluster bombs are designed to target human beings:

Cluster bombs were developed in order to improve the efficiency of aerial attacks, particularly against "soft" targets like personnel. Single bombs are less useful for this purpose because they cover a smaller area (known as a "footprint" in military parlance), and their effectiveness is dependent on the accuracy of the bomb's drop. A cluster bomb functions like a shotgun, covering a wider area with a spread of miniature bombs.

Because of this, the Red Cross and other organizations devoted to protecting civilians during war have protested their use.

The particular threat this weapon poses to civilians exists for two main reasons. First, because of the weapon's very wide area of effect, accidentally striking both civilian and military objects in the target area is possible. The area affected by a single cluster munition, also known as the footprint, can be as large as two or three football fields. This characteristic of the weapon is particularly problematic for civilians when cluster munitions are used in or near populated areas and has been documented by research reports from groups such as Human Rights Watch and Landmine Action[1]. Secondly, depending on type and their use, between 1% and 40% of the bomblets do not explode on impact[2]. These unexploded ordnance (duds) present a particularly dense and dangerous form of post-conflict contamination and may unintentionally act like anti-personnel land mines (which have been banned in many countries under the Ottawa Treaty) for several years.

Update 1 Laura Rozen, Washington Post reporter, links to an NYT article showing that Israel has requested cluster bombs for use in its invasion of Lebanon. In the selection that Rozen quotes, we find that Israel used these weapons before, which caused the US to deny previous sales of them to Israel:

During much of the 1980’s, the United States maintained a moratorium on selling cluster munitions to Israel, following disclosures that civilians in Lebanon had been killed with the weapons during the 1982 Israeli invasion. But the moratorium was lifted late in the Reagan administration, and since then, the United States has sold Israel some types of cluster munitions, the senior official said. ...

Last month, the advocacy group Human Rights Watch said its researchers had uncovered evidence that Israel had fired cluster munitions on July 19 at the Lebanese village of Bilda, which the group said had killed one civilian and wounded at least 12 others, including 7 children. The group said it had interviewed survivors of the attack, who described incoming artillery shells dispensing hundreds of cluster submunitions on the village.

Human Rights Watch also released photographs, taken recently by its researchers in northern Israel, of what it said were American-supplied artillery shells that had markings showing they carried cluster munitions.

Read more!

Guilt, Israel, Radical Evil, and Beyond

Pat Lang is known for his realpolitik. A former military man, he sees war through a pretty clear lens and multiplies his perception with intelligence, experience, and learning. His views on the Israeli invasion of Lebanon are unique in this regard, as well as in their ability to raise questions and present perspectives that you just don't find in the mainstream media.

Given this background, you'd expect a less sentimental view of the Mideast conflict than from many others. ...

In one of his postings on the Israeli-Lebanese conflict, Lang takes on Charles Krauthammer's view that Israel is an investment by the US. Lang's analysis here is somewhat ironic, since he's taking on the neocon view that Israel is fighting in US interests and that Israel's interests are US interests.

At the beginning of his analysis of Krauthammer's article, Lang summarizes the sentiments behind much US popular support for Israel. Lang writes:

The Holocaust is something nearly all Americans feel strongly about. A nagging feeling of guilt still exists over the issue of whether or not antisemitism played a role in decisions about welcoming Jewish refugees to the United States in the World War 2 period. Did we Americans act quickly enough against Hitler? Are we really not prejudiced against Jews? In spite of the evidence presented by the prominence of Jews in our society, these feelings of guilt linger on.

Lang clearly states the way that many in the US feel toward Israel. The atrocities experienced by Israel throughout history call for a deep and profound sense of reflection on how a single people can undergo so much pain and yet maintain their heritage and their sense of self throughout.

What's important to note in Lang's remarks is its expression of guilt. It's not obvious that I or anyone should feel guilt for what happened to Israel. In most respects, I would probably not know anything about Israel if I had not grown up in the culture I have. Lang points to particular instances where the US did not do enough to help Jews who fled Nazi Germany.

This inaction or even indifference toward their plight is sufficient reason to feel guilt. Given this guilt, we are compelled, it’s often asserted, that we should help and support Israel’s interests in the Mideast since one of the reasons for the founding of that nation is that Jews will never once again face the possibility of persecution by other countries. Indeed, any military action taken by Israel after its founding has been portrayed in these very terms; that is, the fight of Jews against another Holocaust.

Guilt is one of those strange phenomena that can be tied to both real and imagined offenses. This offense can be against anything a person feels is worthy of respect, an authority to whom I owe something that often rises above simple monetary payment. That is, while I expect to get a thing or something similar in return for paying a price, with guilt the return is a seemingly subjective event that others might or might not understand.

In ancient religious practices, guilt is often pictured as a stain or impurity that attaches itself to a person. In more literal explanations this can even be seen as skin diseases or physical infirmities. Perhaps there's no greater testament to this view than that illustrated in the Hebrew book of Job. Job, innocent and "righteous" as he is, is struck down with not only the death of his children and loss of his property but is touched with a horrible skin disease whose boils he scrapes off with potsherds.

Job's friends allude numerous times to the fact that these events and the disease is the consequence of some sin committed by Job. To return to health, Job must confess his guilt. But, as Job asserts over and over again, his innocence is complete. His mind is clear of any fault that could cause guilt.

Few are as innocent as Job believes himself to be. Yet many suffer tremendously and have visited upon themselves many evils that Job would understand deeply, from the inside. Given the fact that few are guiltless or who feel that they have committed nothing to cause guilt, it's not hard to see how many consider the present circumstances in the world to reflect their own guilt.

When one faces horrendously evil crimes such as the Holocaust, the feelings of guilt become even more profound. We all seem implicated in these terrible events. The atrocities committed, the demonic means used to entice people to their deaths, the factory system developed to systematically and coldly kill innocent men, women, and children--all impinge in some way on conscience and call for not simply an expression of horror but a complaint against creation itself.

How could we have let that happen? In a world filled with such evil, the notion expressed by French philosopher Jacques Derrida that we are all guilty yet not guilty becomes understandable, if still disturbingly paradoxical. Its disturbing aspects are the recognition that living in a world with others brings to bear interdependencies and associations that carry with them historical actualities that we may not even be aware of bit that may have a blood-soaked hand attached.

This knotted world of contingency, where innocence is an illusion that the snake-oil preachers wish to sell, involves too much pain and suffering--too much history for anyone to ever be guiltless. The desire to be so or to believe that you are either self-delusive or demonic.

But once you suffer, once you have been reduced to nothingness, there is the desire to say that the suffering was for something, that it earned you something. One thing it could earn you, of course, is the right to exact vengeance on the world. Suffering teaches me justice and my suffering itself becomes the measure of justice. Who will measure up to the nothingness that fills my memories, seeps into my bones and makes them ache for an echo of retribution?

How else explain comments like the following quote from an Israeli politician. Lenin's Tomb quotes:

To those who are disturbed by the images of Lebanese refugees, Itzik said: "There is no nation who can teach us what it means to a refugee and uprooted. They invented the term 'refugee' for us. Enough of the self-flagellation and the self-righteous moral preaching. Anyway we are conducting this war with one hand tied behind our back because of our interest in protecting humanitarian and moral principles against a murderous enemy who makes no distinction and value of human life. I am still waiting for the first Hizbullah members, the first Lebanese, who will express regret or apologize for the suffering of innocent people on the Israeli side."

It is not uncommon for victims of great atrocity to feel guilt. As irrational as that may seem. The victim feels perhaps that they invited the pain or suffering, something in their behavior of lives brought about the conditions in which attack seems justified. What makes this picture even more warped and contorted is the notion that perpetrators themselves can use these feelings to bend the victim to his or her purposes.

As Freud and others who have tried to understand the labyrinth of guilt have shown, along with guilt goes the need for punishment. The punishment is expected and when it does not come, a person will often do something to bring about punishment. Yet, that feeling for punishment can just as easily become the desire to punish others. Whether innocent or guilty, all are seen as complicit in the web of deceit and illusion that brought about the pain and suffering visited upon me.

The guilt-punishment dialectic often turns into a vicious circle of vengeance and retribution. While Freud and others attempted to neutralize the cycle through understanding the guilt. This process involves identifying the source of guilt, talking about it, and understanding its emotional effects. By shining the light of reason on the source–seeing the guilt as perhaps a misunderstanding of what happened (still thinking as a child, for example) or even an attempt to hold on to the guilt for the emotional effect itself–the guilt and its associated need for punishment will disappear.

Perhaps it is right to search through one’s conscience to identify the sources of our guilt feelings. Yet, as once guilt feelings come to the surface and we begin exploring their sources it also often comes to light that there is something in the human psyche that wishes to do evil–above and beyond all reason, simply for the sake of doing evil. Carrying out his radical critique of the limits of reason, the philosopher Kant came late in life to realize this fact about human nature. He called it “radical evil.”

Commenting on Kant’s notion of radical evil, the Japanese philosopher Tanabe Hajime notes:

Radical evil is impossible to comprehend from the standpoint of hermeneutics because as radical it is something from which the self cannot be released by the self’s own power. It is a transcendent moment of negativity for which the self will always be guilty as long as it exists. It is the dark abyss that cannot be annihilated by the immanent transcendence of self-consciousness. – Hajime, Philosophy as Metanoetics, p. 148

In less philosophical terms and more personal understanding, Hajime describes the appropriate understanding of one’s own impulse of radical evil is the following:

I feel especially obliged to share in the corporate responsibility for irrationalities like the injustice and prejudice evident in our country [fascist Japan]. I feel responsible for all of the evils and errors committed by others, and in so doing find that the actual inability of my philosophy to cope with them compels me to a confession of despair over my philosophical incompetence. More than that, I find that this predicament obliges me–the ordinary person, ignorant and sinful, that I am–to admit that such a confession applies not only to me but to all persons everywhere who are similarly ignorant and sinful.

Related Links

• Evangelicals Quiet About War in Lebanon
  
• Israel Authorizes Expansion
  
• France Urges Israel Pullback
  
• Lebanon Could Lead to World War

Read more!

Prelude to the Push to Tehran?

It seems that other people with more knowledge and expertise in the Mideast are thinking along the same lines as I have suggested in earlier posts about why Israel is invading Lebanon. ...

According to gareth Porter at ATimes.com:

Israel has argued that the war against Hezbollah's rocket arsenal was a defensive response to the Shi'ite organization's threat to Israeli security, but the evidence points to a much more ambitious objective - the weakening of Iran's deterrent to an attack on its nuclear sites.

In planning for the destruction of most of Hezbollah's arsenal and prevention of any resupply from Iran, Israel appears to have hoped to eliminate a major reason the US administration had shelved the military option for dealing with Iran's nuclear program - the fear that Israel would suffer massive casualties from Hezbollah's rockets in retaliation for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.

One leading expert on Israeli national-defense policy issues believes the aim of the Israeli campaign against Hezbollah was to change the US administration's mind about attacking Iran. Edward Luttwak, senior adviser to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, says administration officials have privately dismissed the option of air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities in the past, citing estimates that a Hezbollah rocket attack in retaliation would kill thousands of people in northern Israel.

But Israeli officials saw a war in Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah's arsenal and prevent further resupply in the future as a way to eliminate that objection to the military option, says Luttwak. [my emphases]

Related Links

• Fighting By Proxy
  
• Israel Authorizes Expansion
  
• France Urges Israel Pullback
  
• Lebanon Could Lead to World War

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Israeli Propaganda Talking Point 08/09/06

Today's Mossad talking point focuses on the alleged propaganda efforts of Hizbullah. Talk about looking in a mirror! With the overwhelming weight of mass media outlets affirming and spouting Israeli propaganda talking points, it seems more than ironic that the Mossad spin-meisters feel threatened by whatever efforts that Hizbullah might make, should the accusations be true. ...

Today's talking point focuses on a blog called Little Green Footballs. This blogger has not only weasled his way into appearing on mass media TV shows, he's also getting into print. While there's little oversight of whom reporters and other mass media hacks cite as sources, calling this person an expert deserves huge hoots of laughter.

Glenn Greenwald has tracked the ravings and seamier side of this blogger's screeds. In addition, Greenwald--who's guest-blogging at Salon.com this week--has taken on the big coup that right the blogsophere, along with Mossad believe they have scored recently: the doctroing of photos by a Hizbullah supporter who worked as a photographer for Reuters.

According to Greenwald, the entire Reuters mishap has been blown way out of proportion:

The Reuters sideshow these past few days has led journalists -- who are demonized and attacked by these right-wing blogs on an almost daily basis -- to fall all over themselves praising these bloggers as guardians of truth and accuracy. But the real core and function of these blogs is too glaring, ugly and extreme to ignore forever. The media coverage will come, and I think its impact will be significant. The right-wing blogs provide a vehicle to vent and inflame -- and therefore a window to examine -- the real impulses and desires that fuel much of the Bush movement.

Read more!

4th Generation Warfare Redefining Politics?

Two quotes that highlight the military progress of Israel in Lebanon and its effectiveness against the Hizbullah extremists indicate that the latter has fought Israel to something of a stalemate. It appears that Israel hoped to bulldoze its way through Lebanon, destroy all 10,000 or so Hizbullah rockets, and kill all the more militant Hizbullans.

Since this has not happened, several bloggers are identifying why and the implications of that. ...

For example, there's this from Global Guerillas:

Hezbollah's performance in a set-piece battle with the Israeli military (arguably once, a top notch conventional military) is an excellent example of how non-state groups have radically improved their ability to conduct tactical and strategic operations. To wit, the continued success of its efforts has put the Israelis on the horns of a dilemma: either request a ceasefire that locks in military defeat - or - push for a full invasion of southern Lebanon (each are fraught with disastrous consequences).

If thst's true, then what are the consequences in terms of the larger geopolitical context? According to the SFGate:

Even the conventional definition of war -- a legal state declared between two nation-states -- may need an overhaul. At the least it needs a widening, said Lind.

"State militaries more or less define war as what they train, prepare and equip themselves to do," Lind said. In the American military, and many modern state militaries, that means war is limited to the Cold War model, with clear rules and controlled outcomes.

The lesson of Lebanon is that the field is now crowded with new players and new rules, the theorists said.

"State militaries in effect say, 'We're the knights on horseback, we fight other knights on horseback. We don't get down and trade potshots with lowly musketeers,' " Lind said. "What it symbolizes is a previous military type ... passing into history. Because, in effect, they only become useful for tournaments."

Read more!

Israeli Propaganda Talking Point 08/8/06

Juan Cole continues to document the apparent contradiction between Israeli assertions that it's only targeting Hizbullah and its strongholds and the facts on the ground. Cole presents numerous instances where Israel is targeting Lebanese Christian neighborhoods, as well as civilian homes in poor Shiite neighborhoods and towns where people are often too poor, elderly, or infirm to leave. ...

For Cole and others, there's no explanation for the contradiction between Israeli assertions facts other than the conclusion that Israel has meant to punish the Lebanese people as a whole, whether they are aligned with Hizbullah or not.

The following quote from GIYUS seems to support the view that Israel sees Lebanon as a whole responsible for what Hizbullah extremists are doing. According to GIYUS:

Please choose one of the following links to talkback and support Israel and the US on their cease fire requirements - request a full deployment of international forces prior to Israel's withdrawal, [b]explain Lebanon is a part of this conflict since it enabled Hezbollah to grow stronger and build its weapon arsenal on Lebanese ground endangering civilian population and threatening Northern Israel[/b]. Expecting those who nurtured the beast (e.g. Hezbollah) will now tame it is unrealistic to say the least.

There are two prevalent explanations for this strategy. One is that Israel hopes to divide the Lebanese population, which is comprised of several ethnic and religious groups. As the civil war in the 1980s between these groups proves, the divisions are deep and very difficult to put back together should they have reason to hate each other.

It is conceivable that Israel hopes to foment such another civil war, as it did by supporting Maronite Christians in the previous civil war. This interpretation is a bit extreme and probably reflects a last-ditch alternative, should the Lebanese government and its army be incapable of imposing order on southern Lebanon and disarming Hizbullah.

Yet, the ferocity of the attacks on Lebanese civilians can only create resentment and hatred of Israel. It might create fear, but the fear factor seems overrated in this situation. It may have worked in the past, but at the moment fear is bringing the Lebanese together, it seems. Of course, there's little in the news media that might reflect the Lebanese people's true sentiments, so conjecture about how that fear will be channeled if Israeli terror from the skies continues is tentative at best.

Perhaps the short time that Lebanon has been able to experience limited democratic freedoms has solidified the social bonds of brotherhood and tolerance to a much stronger degree than Israeli military analysts have estimated. If so, it might take some time before those bonds are shredded to such a point that the Lebanese will turn on each other.

I am not willing to give up my overall thesis that Israel invaded Lebanon to provoke Syria and Iran into a much wider conflict that would suck in the US. Just yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told reporters:

Israel's Prime Minister has given his country's troops his full support and backing for the duration of the military offensive in Lebanon. On a morale-boosting visit to a command post near the Lebanese border, Ehud Olmert confirmed that the fighting will not cease until Hizbollah's rocket launchers are disabled. Later, speaking on television, he added that the Lebanese militant group was not the only enemy:

"I know you all think we are fighting against Hizbollah, but let's face it, the state of Israel is fighting against the Iranians and the Syrians, who are using Hizbollah in order to attack Israel from the North."

Still the short version of today's Israeli propaganda talking point seems to be: All Lebanese are responsible. Kill them all. When the dust settles they will rip each other's hearts out. Read more!

US Supply Lines Threatened in Iraq?

Several months ago, I speculated that Iraq was entering a civil war. I noted then the US military's movement of large gunships to Iraq and speculated that the reason was to provide cover for any possible mass retreat. ...

Now that many are saying there's a de facto civil war underway, commentators are noting the threat to US Army personnel should the civil war break out into house-to-house fighting. Most threatened are the supply lines that feed and provide weapons to US troops in Iraq.

At Obsidian Wings, andrew provides some review and related comments of what might turn into a dire situation for US troops in Iraq:

As Billmon and Lang note, the U.S. Army in Iraq currently depends on ground transport to provide it with the supplies it needs to keep its various Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) running. To date, the Iraqis have generally left those convoys alone, but they represent by far the most vulnerable aspect of the American presence in Iraq. Iraqi attempts to storm U.S. FOBs would have poor chances for success, but blocking the roads could accomplish much the same thing without the need to risk thousands of Iraqi lives. With the roads shut down, the U.S. would quickly run short of supplies and would have to shift its focus to force protection.

As I noted above, such a shift in the fight would mark the end of any U.S. attempts to support the Iraqi government. Facing the threat of losing most of the ~135,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, U.S. leaders would have to worry about either consolidating U.S. forces into a few, easily defended FOBs, or extracting them completely from Iraq. Since, in either case, we would no longer be able to conduct counterinsurgency (COIN) operations, that would mark an end to the U.S.'s ability to influence events in Iraq.

Read more!

Terrorists Are Cowards

Is this what happens when you do not understand your enemy?

Moral sentiments are generally beside the point in war and politics. Developing a theory or even marshalling mral values in time of war becomes a matter of degree. ...

What I am thinking of relates to films like War of the Worlds, for example. How far would you go in protecting your children or your family?

Be that as it may for now, calling terrorists names and laying ethical blame at their feet--while often looking away from the morality of our actions--and calling them cowards is often beside the point.

But to call terrorists cowards--by what measure do you make this judgment. the following quote provides some criteria for a possible answer. That is, like Socrates in his definition of courage, it's not just pure balls that make you brave but a knowing what to fear and what not to fear--how and when to fight.

Defense Tech reports:

"Terrorists are cowards," one Army sergeant told me in Iraq last year. "And they can't shoot worth @$%#!," he added.

Through all the troubles in Iraq, the U.S. military has taken some comfort in its absolute tactical superiority to insurgent forces. In a stand-up fight, U.S. troops always win.

But what if that changed?

Indications are that Hezbollah has achieved the unthinkable. It has combined the elusiveness and agility of a terrorist group with the fighting prowess of a modern army, according to The New York Times:

[i]Hezbollah is a militia trained like an army and equipped like a state, and its fighters “are nothing like Hamas or the Palestinians,” said a soldier who just returned from Lebanon. “They are trained and highly qualified,” he said, equipped with flak jackets, night-vision goggles, good communications and sometimes Israeli uniforms and ammunition. “All of us were kind of surprised.”[/i]

This is bad. Real bad.

Read more!