In supporting the attacks, Samuel Freedman doesn’t bother to focus on the enormous human cost to the Lebanese civilians who, in many instances reported on NPR and elsewhere, appear to have been deliberately targeted by Israeli missile attacks (there’s a word to describe deliberate attacks on civilians designed to terrorize them: the word is terrorism). To Freedman, such unfortunate deaths are collateral damage in pursuit of a higher gain. To me, these deaths are clearly immoral and can only serve as a catalyst for further radicalization, endangering Israel’s future as a nation.
Some other highlights of Freedman’s article include the assumption that Israel really isn’t at war with Hezbollah, but Iran. Using that logic, Hezbollah and Israel aren’t fighting at all. It’s a proxy war between the US and Iran. All of this dovetails very nicely with an insane PNAC fantasy: “we” can eliminate evil (a la Perle/Frum’s The End of Evil) if only we are brave enough to use our Kristol balls and tackle the “root causes” of terrorism.* And sure enough, on CNN this weekend, an earnest discussion was held under the caption: “Iran: The Root of Evil?”
Nevermind that the situation is far more complicated than a mere proxy war. You get nowhwere, and fast, unless you immediately, and directly, address the proximate issues. In this case, they are (1) The outrageous kidnapping of Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah; (2) The outrageous and counterproductive destruction of Southern Lebanon by Israel; and (3) the unconsionable and wholesale slaughter, on both sides, of utterly innocent civilians.
Same as it ever was
I’ve never entirely understood the tendency of bloggers who revile the DLC and everything it stands for to simultaneously revere Bill Clinton, who is pretty much the embodiment of the DLC and everything it stands for. I mean, I understand that he looks pretty good in retrospect, when contrasted with the emotionally-stunted intellectual midget who currently occupies the Oval Office — but his decision to stump for Lieberman should nonetheless serve as a reminder that this guy will sell out progressives at the drop of a hat if it is somehow politically expedient to do so.
That this is not exactly breaking news is something anyone who was paying attention during the nineties should understand.
About to turn the corner
The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, meets Tony Blair in London today as violence in Iraq reaches a new crescendo and senior Iraqi officials say the break up of the country is inevitable . . .
Iraq as a political project is finished,” a senior government official was quoted as saying, adding: “The parties have moved to plan B.”
He said that the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish parties were now looking at ways to divide Iraq between them and to decide the future of Baghdad, where there is a mixed population. “There is serious talk of Baghdad being divided into [Shia] east and [Sunni] west,” he said.
Contest time
Update: I’m going to wait until the end of the week, and choose five winners from the inbox then. So if you’ve been wanting to send a note about anything, this is the week…
I have five signed copies of IAVA founder Paul Rieckhoff’s book, Chasing Ghosts, to give away this week. This is the first time I’ve done anything like this on the blog, so I’m kind of making it up as I go along — I guess I’ll arbitrarily/randomly choose one winner a day out of the email this week.
Here’s a bit more about the book:
As a First Lieutenant and Infantry Platoon Leader for the U.S. Army National Guard charged with leading thirty-eight men in Iraq, Paul Rieckhoff followed in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. After Rieckhoff volunteered to take part in the invasion of Iraq, he and his soldiers spent almost a year in one of the most dangerous and volatile areas of Baghdad, where they struggled to maintain order, protect Iraqi civilians, track down insurgents, and defend themselves against sniper and roadside bomb attacks.
But it was clear to Rieckhoff almost from the get-go that America’s mission in Iraq was deeply flawed – and that his platoon was overchallenged and underequipped. If there was a plan to stabilize Baghdad after the invasion, no one had let them in on it. And with so many obstacles to overcome, they faced enemies that included thousands of armed, angry, and unemployed men who had been unleashed into the streets when the U.S. government disbanded the Iraqi army.
The way that Rieckhoff responded to these and other challenges over the next ten months set him on a course that would forever change his life. And when Rieckhoff finally came home, he vowed to tell Americans the truth, however controversial, about what was going on in Iraq. He publicly demanded accountability from elected officials, created the first organization specifically for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and took the new fight to the airwaves and the halls of power in Washington.
For anyone who wonders what alternatives there are in Iraq to either “staying the course” or “cutting-and-running,” Chasing Ghosts is an uncensored and unrehearsed statement from a war veteran, providing a candid grunt’s-eye view of the harrowing, bloody battles on the streets of Baghdad-and a patriot’s vision of where America has gone wrong and how it can reset its path.
Finally, some intellectual consistency from Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens spent an enormous part of his pre-September 11th life criticizing Israeli policies in the mideast and supporting the Palestinian national movement. He co-edited a book with Edward Said, wrote countless articles, gave a million speeches, etc.
Then on 9/11 he realized the secular progressives he’d worked with for decades had been harboring a secret desire all along to live in a caliphate ruled by Osama bin Laden. It seemed like a strange thing for secular progressives to want, particularly the women, but that just underscored how dangerous they were.
Of course, Hitchens’ new allies were the exact same people he’d excoriated for decades on Israel/Palestine. The question then became how long he’d hold onto his previous views on this issue, since they were now glaringly anomalous. For a while he gave it a shot. Here he is in December, 2003:
HITCHENS: I think a second term for [Bush] is more likely to lead to pressure being brought upon the Israelis than the election of any feasible or possible Democratic candidate… it’s a great deal more likely that the regime change forces in the case of Iraq, in Washington, will be helpful in the solution of the Israel-Palestine dispute.
Right. It’s just this kind of clear-sighted, 100% accurate prediction for which Hitchens is justly famous.
In any case, as anticipated, he’s now given up the ghost completely. Dennis Perrin explains:
In the final spasms of our friendship, Hitchens and I exchanged numerous emails about his apparent lack of interest in the continuing woes of Palestinian life…Amid all this bluster, Hitchens never really answered why he was largely silent on Palestinian suffering.
Or at least Hitchens didn’t until he wrote a op-ed for the Wall Street Journal last Tuesday. Says Dennis:
Titled “The Politics of Sabotage,” the piece exposes a part of Hitchens that he’s been trying to suppress or explain away, namely, giving the Israeli state the benefit of the doubt when it’s engaged in full-scale aggression…Hitchens finds that Israel’s “blowing up of [Lebanon’s] bridges and the other interruptions of all air and sea traffic possess a certain grim rationale”…
So committed is Hitchens to this premise that he writes “the former Israeli fans of Vladimir Jabotinsky are saying in public that Israeli colonization of Arabs is demographically impossible and morally wrong.”
These former Jabotinsky fans are part of Kadima…to say that Kadima has renounced colonization is simply false, as continued settlement of the West Bank (establishing “final borders”) immediately shows. And at last look, I’ve seen no indication that Kadima plans to give up East Jerusalem…That Hitchens blames Hamas and Hezbollah for derailing something that doesn’t exist — de-colonization — and that he confuses political pragmatism and necessity for state morality (another phantom concept), merely deepens his deceit, whether intentional or unconscious. Hitchens may not see himself becoming an Israeli state apologist, but after reading this piece (which I’ll send to anyone who wants to read it), I can see why the Wall Street Journal might happily differ.
The rest, all worth reading, is here.