When I was a high school student, the poem by Robert Southey, After Blenheim, was a standard part of the English curriculum. Now that a cease fire has come into effect in Gaza, little Wilhemene’s comment and little Peterkin’s question seem quite relevant:
They say it was a shocking sight
After the field was won;
For many thousand bodies here
Lay rotting in [...]
Ten months ago, the last time things heated up between Israel and Hamas, I posted this comment. At the time, a full flare-up was avoided and a six month cease fire was set in place. This time around, the political leadership seems to have convinced the Israeli public that confrontation is the best option. Actually, negotiations were [...]
Continue reading about Feature: Israel’s Three Laws of Action or Lessons Still Not Learned
In the run up to the Iraqi war I was involved in a project called Stand Down which attempted to gather bloggers on the “right” and “left” of the political spectrum to write posts in opposition to going to war. Sadly the site is down. I say sadly because it would provide useful documentation of how correct the anti-war [...]
The war in Yugoslavia was a turning point in the human rights movement. Appalled by the atrocities they saw, many Western war correspondents advocated for military intervention by the US and the EU. The rallying cry was “how can we stand by and let another Holocaust happen?” Eventually (not soon enough for what would soon be known as the [...]
Continue reading about Feature: Humanitarian Intervention – Part I
Yesterday while reading AMNY I saw an article about Kosovo. As with the so-called “Cedar Revolution” and “Orange Revolution” there was the obligatory picture of a pretty girl sitting on someone’s shoulders and waving a flag. Given the parallels my skeptical nature kicked in. While knowing very little about the issue, I began to wonder [...]
Captain Renault’s famous statement sums up in one pithy saying all the hundreds of pages of verbiage of the Winograd report: the Israeli political leadership and the IDF command gambled with the lives of Israeli soldiers and citizens — and lost. Somehow both the political elite and the “man in the street” seem to be [...]
Continue reading about Feature: I’m shocked, shocked to find gambling is going on here!
Watching the news about the Bhutto assassination, I am reminded what a poor job our media does of covering the news (see this post). But I am not one to blame the messenger. It is our individual responsibility to learn more about any given topic and use that knowledge to form our own judgements.
Not too [...]
Continue reading about Feature: The Clash of Fundamentalisms
Question Four: The end justifies the means, so why are you complaining about a few civilians killed if in the long run many more lives will be saved?
Question Five: The number would be unnoticed if the victims had died at the hands of an Arab government. Israel is far more moral than its enemies so [...]
Continue reading about Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions – Numbers Four and Five
Question: Terrorists only understand force and nothing will stop them except their destruction. How can we negotiate with terrorists?
Answer: The underlying thinking behind this world-view (now embodied in the US by the neo-cons) is so simplistic, one wonders how otherwise intelligent people can spout such nonsense.
Continue reading about Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions – Number Three
Nicholas Kristof column today addresses a more sophisticated variant of the first question I raised. Obviously his mild criticism of Israel’s approach made all the “pro-Israel” types flood his mailbox. Here’s how he phrases the question he received from his readers:
“What else can a country do when it is subjected to rocket attacks and cross-border [...]
Continue reading about Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions – Number Two