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Saturday, August 05, 2006from AOL:Mideast War Grows Despite U.N. Peace DealSo we have a U.N. peace deal all over the headlines because France and the U.S. came to some agreement about what Israel and Hezbollah should do. Once, when I was working at McDonald's while in college, a bunch of the employees agreed that a particularly unloved manager should be dismissed by the senior management of the franchise. You can imagine the impact that our decision about what should transpire between her and management had... none. Though getting France and the U.S. to agree on something these days is no small thing, it's not really a Mid-East peace deal unless, oh, I don't know, maybe the Israelis and Arabs agree on terms? Now we're all going to get soggy headlines about how many sad and senseless deaths took place after France and the United States arrived at a peace deal. Just another reminder that once the media picks its agenda, it will hammer any angle it can.What this really indicates, of course, is problems for Israel. Because they'll want to at least pretend to make nice if the U.S. goes on record in favor of a cessation of hostilities. And will the International Community then bellow its condemnation if Hezbollah keeps up the slaughter as Israel pulls back? Yes, of the Jews for not dying quietly enough, lest somebody else notice that the media and International Community always side with the people who murder callously against those who are civilized since, hey, really angry Israelis are much better than half-crazed, self-righteous Arabs. The one hope: That Israel has indicated it's about done with Hezbollah, in which case the U.S. is trying to provide a way for it to withdraw without declaring a retreat or pullback. The only problem: If you've listened to Hezbollah this far, you probably can't open your mouth in broad daylight without sunshine coming through, in which case you'll probably believe Hezbollah was victorious because the Israelis couldn't find the rock Nasrallah's been hiding under. Slaughter 'em all while there's still time, Israel! Sorry, I guess that was a touch bloodthirsty. That said, it is not the province of the United States or France to decide when Israel should cease its mighty pounding of Hezbollah any more than it's up to Israel or France to decide when the U.S. should leave Iraq. And to clarify the bloodthirsty call, it refers, of course, to Hezbollah. I would not support the eradication of the Lebanese or of the Arabs or Muslims at large, first because it's awful and second, because unlike Hezbollah nobody sends me arms, money, not even a box of jelly donuts, because they're fired up about bloody pictures in the newspapers. But I would not shrink from asserting that a dead Hezbollite is not a thing about which one sheds too many tears. I wish them well with their 72 virgins, even as I wonder what they'll do after their first 144 minutes of eternity. 
posted by gbarto at 6:56 PM In this post on Kevin Barret, Ann Althouse is half-right. Says Ms. Althouse, the problem is not Barret's identification of himself with the university but that in their eyes it's alright with the university for him to teach nutty ideas as long as he keeps it quiet. Althouse is correct when she says that the adjunct professor shouldn't be using his class to espouse nutty ideas. However, she is incorrect in her assertion that she doesn't herself represent the university when her professional affiliation is given before she speaks. In an ideal world, the truth would be enough and titles and affiliations wouldn't matter. In the real world, Ann Althouse, University of Wisconsin, speaks with more authority than Leonard the Homeless Person at 3rd and Vine. Unless Ann Althouse, University of Wisconsin, makes enough of an idiot of herself that people begin to question whether a speaker from the University of Wisconsin could possibly have anything to say. The University of Wisconsin is a brand. It is a brand elevated or dragged down by the quality of its spokespeople. At the same time, its ability to maintain quality spokespeople lends added credibility to those affiliated with it who are not yet known to the audience. As such, Barret has been devaluing the U of W brand, as surely as Ann Althouse elevates it. The best way to resolve the free speech, university rights, etc, question, is to look for a solution that satisfies all parties as see what elements are found therein. Here's a proposition: Imagine if Kevin Barret a) taught his curriculum in class and stayed away from ranting but b) ranted as loonily as desired but on a website that didn't highlight his university affiliation. In this case, yes, someone could find out who he was and question the university, but he could honestly report that he wasn't trying to drag the university into his personal politics. Still, if he wrote a paper that got accepted in a peer reviewed journal, or spoke about matters particular to his discipline on the radio, staying roughly in tune with what was being discussed in the peer-reviewed journals, that would be great. What went wrong is that he used his U of W affiliation twice - in the classroom as a professor and in his communications - which implies that his authority to speak comes from the U of W, not his own say-so. That is the problem. Because Ms. Althouse is thoughtful and well-spoken, the issue of representing the university hasn't come up, but only because she represents the university well. With Barret, the problem is that he has represented the university poorly in multiple fora. The university should have canned him for his abuse of a captive audience first, and second for affixing their names to nonsense. And Ms. Althouse should be glad that she had the U of W name behind her to get her first notices before she started doing the university credit instead of drawing her credibility from the university.
posted by gbarto at 11:25 AM Wednesday, August 02, 2006Grabbed from PJM:03:58 PDT France refuses to attend UN forces meeting: “France has been mentioned as a possible leader of such an international force but wants a truce accompanied by agreement on a framework for a permanent ceasefire before troops are sent. The United Nations, which will host Thursday’s meeting, also wants the fighting to stop before troops are deployed. But the United States would like the force to be deployed sooner.” (Reuters)This is offered merely to reinforce my earlier post, International Community Shommunity. After years of thinking the International Community was horribly anti-Semitic or, for that matter, anti-civilizational, it is plain, rather, that it is simply weak. Those who play along, it bullies. Those it doesn't, it steers clear of. And it seems increasingly clear that this is a subconscious policy, like the bully who avoids not the tougher kids, but the scrappier ones. This raises one serious question, though: Can we really look to the International Community as anything other than a guide to who plays along and who doesn't? Evidently not. Each day that Israel persists, the International Community speaks loudly. Comes to mind the old question, "You and what army?" And now the answer has been given: The French army will take charge as soon as the fighting stops. The Israelis must be quaking in their boots.
posted by gbarto at 12:22 PM Monday, July 31, 2006This Washington Post editorial says Bush miscalculated in tying a Lebanon ceasefire to longer term objectives. Here's the thing, though. A desire for ceasefires, like a desire for Congressional compromises, may turn on most folks in Washington. But Bush isn't from that crew. For quite some time now, the U.S. has been the leader in a less than popular effort in Iraq. If you asked Bush to agree to terms on which we'd withdraw, though, he wouldn't be looking for a way to set the stage for withdrawal. He'd be setting the bar high enough that he could be forced to withdraw only if it was worth it for the other things he got. Bush knows that Israel, like the U.S., can't afford to pull back now. There's more pain involved in giving up on Lebanon than seeing it through, just as there's more pain in giving up on Iraq than seeing it through. At least so indicate the referents by which this President is acting, and by which he would have the nation act.Why has the President set perhaps unachievable requirements for the U.S. forcing Israel to accept a ceasefire? So the U.S. won't have to force Israel to accept a ceasefire unless it's made worth our while. Imagine if the peace-at-all-costs folks came to Bush and said, we think you should cut off Olmert's legs. Hezbollah says his legs should be cut off, the Lebanese president isn't sure he disagrees and the foreign ministers of France and Spain think it would be worth it for the chance for peace. Should Bush go out and buy a hacksaw, then? Or should he agree only on the condition that Ahmadinejad and Nasrallah French kiss in a gay marriage ceremony broadcast live on Al-Jazeera and then send Olmert a throne made from gold melted out from the domes of their favorite mosques? As with the current situation, obviously Bush should only leave Olmert without a leg to stand on if he first makes sure that Israel is left sitting pretty and all the world aware that Iran and Hezbollah are in bed together.
posted by gbarto at 8:00 PM The Struggles of the War Protester from fumento.com, via Instapundit: Was a time when fasting at the very least meant eating less. But while our soldiers are sacrificing their lives for freedom, their detractors don't seem to be to keen on sacrificing anything at all. Thus we have the Cindy Sheehan "hunger strike," which allows smoothies, coffee with vanilla ice cream, and Jamba Juice. . .The TurkeyGal notes that if you take out the vanilla ice cream, you've got her last diet. For a fast to be serious, it must entail a measure of self-inflicted want that truly discomfits. Perhaps if Sheehan gave up cameras and microphones for a month...
posted by gbarto at 7:35 PM International Community Shommunity Right Wing News asks a question we've harped on more than once: Similarly, why should we care about "pressure from the international community?" What exactly are the consequences of this "pressure" supposed to be for Israel and the United States? So far, there don't seem to be any. Will there be any in the future? Doubtful.In fact, if I recall correctly, the French position is that they'll send troops as soon as the fighting stops: Paris has insisted on a ceasefire accompanied by a political agreement before any international troops should be deployed.I believe this is Israel's position too, but the UNIFIL chumps seem to be taking their time getting out of there, in spite of recent incentivization to get moving. In the end, the International Community is the great fraud of the age. When the Anglosphere acts, the world either trundles after and the International Community takes a stand or the world opposes and we get postmodern performative speech - fierce communiques full of sound and fury accomplishing absolutely nothing. By the way, those interested in the goings-on of the United Nations are encouraged to read this page on a regular basis. We have it on good authority that absent U.S. military support, the writings of the TurkeyBlog and the debates at the UN are of equal real world consequence. Israel appears to have figured this out.
posted by gbarto at 11:57 AM Sunday, July 30, 2006Hmmm...When 3000 innocent Americans were massacred on 9/11, the Arab world took to the streets... to cheer. When 56 purportedly innocent Lebanese were killed in Qana, Israel offered condolences for the innocent and suspended air strikes for two days. It shouldn't be that hard for us to decide whose side we're on in this. Lebanon is slowly earning itself the cruelest response Israel could muster - an Israeli withdrawal leaving the Lebanese people to submit to Hezbollah or explain to these thugs what they really meant when they foolishly backed it, instead of sending troops and protesters at the first word that Hezbollah had decided to usurp the Lebanese people's authority and declare war on their behalf.
posted by gbarto at 4:56 PM I see that in the wake of Qana, Israel has agreed to suspend airstrikes. The Lebanese people and government alike have not only condemned Israel but given veiled to open praise for Hezbollah. The people of Lebanon, when called to the voting boths, gave only a small voice to Hezbollah. Hezbollah has taken a larger voice by military force and by dragging the country into a war its democratic leaders did not elect to undertake. But the democratic leaders have now joined. Lebanon has earned whatever fate befalls it. And those who called for Syria to butt out before but now join the parading against Israel have earned themselves the danger of living again under tyranny. It is ironic that it is Israel coming in for condemnation for fighting a war that it didn't start. The consolation is that when we are done, the people of Israel will still be free and those around them will wear only those shackles they have chosen for themselves.
posted by gbarto at 4:33 PM AOL is headlining: Airstrike Deals Tragic Blow 34 Children, 22 Others Killed? Why Did Israel Target This City? The story includes this paragraph: "Why are they killing us? What have we done?" screamed Khalil Shalhoub, who was helping pull out the dead until he saw his brother's body taken out on a stretcher. The dead included at least 34 children and 12 adult women, security officials said.Here's your answer in the next paragraph: Israel said guerrillas had fired rockets from near the building into northern Israel.These two paragraphs get play later on: Israel said Hezbollah guerrillas had fired 40 rockets into northern Israel from Qana, wounding five Israelis, before the airstrike - including some rockets launched from near the leveled building.So why does the headline photo give the impression that Israels blithely went in and slaughtered some Lebanese the same way Arab Muslims blithely slaughtered 3000 Americans 5 years ago? It's actually a pretty easy question, if you know which side the media's on. In the end, however, a sovereign people are responsible for what they bring on themselves and can only escape the brutal forces of history by stepping out from them in a new direction. This includes the Israelis whose tragic pullback gave Muslim extremists the belief they could press harder. And it includes a Lebanese people who failed to deal with Hezbollah when Israel gave it the chance to clean this up on its own.We were all deeply moved when Lebanon moved away from Syria and toward democracy. But rule of the people only counts to the extent the people actually rule themselves. In 1789, the United Stated adopted a Constitution and the French felled the Bastille. What followed in the U.S. was the early flowering of a democracy that would take whatever steps were necessary to survive and grow, including a civil war. What followed in France was a Reign of Terror, a military dictatorship and, finally, new civil wars in a much more unsteady course toward democracy. Having failed to seize its opportunity to become a true democracy - by allowing the existence of a Hezbollite thugocracy within its borders - Lebanon purchased instability and ultimately a war. Israel should do its best to minimize civilian casualties. But so should Hezbollah. The Lebanese cannot ask an outside nation whose citizens are being attacked from across its borders to show more respect than adjuncts of a political party who serve in its parliament. Israel was right to strike back. Hezbollah was wrong to strike from where it did. Until the Lebanese people bring Hezbollah to heel for sabotaging their own democracy, they have earned their measure of whatever actions Israel takes against them. Just as we in the United States earned 9/11 for our pretence to being a great nation even as we sat on our hands in response to the embassy bombings, the Khobar Towers, the Cole and, let us not forget, the first Trade Center bombing. In this age, any nation that wants its sovereignty must earn it. By its defense of its vision, the United States earns hers. By its defense of its land, Israel's is its own. By their failure to reign in extremists or worse, by their co-opting of them, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have forfeited theirs. It is now just a question of whether they will reassert it or whether history will force the Western World, or, more precisely, the Anglosphere and its partners in Japan and a few other nations, to take charge of it for them as we did in Afghanistan and Iraq.
posted by gbarto at 11:48 AM |
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