Quick Roundup 78

Who started this, anyway?

Via this roundup at The Intellectual Watchman, comes a very informative post from The Dougout, in which Grant Jones first quotes Ed Koch on the origins of the Battle of Lebanon, for the benefit of anyone who can't wrap his mind around Israel's decision to operate there. (Wretchard provides us with a good idea of what the Israelis are up against, here.)

A second front was opened on Israel's border with Lebanon on July 11th, with Hezbollah crossing Israel's border killing eight Israeli soldiers and taking two soldiers prisoner. Hezbollah has rained more than 1,000 missiles down on Israel, inflicting 24 deaths and 300 casualties. Hezbollah is part of the Lebanese government having several cabinet ministers and 13 members of parliament. Hezbollah has been ceded by the Lebanese government the right to control southern Lebanon and its border with Israel. The leader of Hezbollah, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, has threatened before and during these latest hostilities the destruction of the State of Israel.

And then Jones quotes from an article written by an Arab who holds American citizenship for the sake of convenience.

Protecting Israelis while leaving Arabs to a fate of humiliation, occupation, degradation and subservient acquiescence to Israeli-American dictates only guarantees that those Arabs will regroup, plan a resistance strategy, and come back one day to fight for their land, their humanity, their dignity and the prospect that their children can have a normal life one day.

As if a "normal life" includes launching missiles at the homes of complete strangers miles away. As if the desire held by the Israeli people not to be attacked at random is some sort of humiliating demand. As if compliance with this whiner's demand for surrender will result in and end to Arab savagery.

If our leaders were more forceful in their prosecution of this war, an alternative that Rami Khouri seems unaware of -- the total defeat of his people -- would provide a needed context to his petulant musings, perhaps causing him to realize that leaving us the hell alone isn't really all that "degrading" or "subservient", after all.

Thanks for providing us with yet another reason to dispense with the unmitigated folly of the "proportional response", Rami.

The Middle-Eastern "Cycle of 'Proportionality'"

In considering the ramifications of the idea of the "proportionate" response, I have realized that it has other negative implications besides just hamstringing our side. Here are a couple.

For one thing, proportionality also lends false credibility to the notion that the two sides in a conflict are morally equivalent. Since this requirement of Just War Theory precludes any decisive action by the moral side, any conflict that does not end quickly in a decisive victory for the aggressor will devolve into a long, drawn-out exchange of hostilities, a "cycle of violence 'proportionality'", if you will. Why? Because the aggressor wants the war and will continue to attack as the Moslems continuously do to Israel while the moral side merely retaliates, instead of doing what it ought: ending the threat by whatever means are necessary. After awhile, it looks exactly as senseless as a family feud.

For another thing, proportionality also feeds into the chronic myopia caused by the pervasive influence of pragmatism. Notice that for all its predations against Israel (and America), the focus of the current battle with Hezbollah isn't "How can Israel (and America) most quickly and effectively eliminate Hezbollah (and Iran) as threats to peace (i.e., our lives)?", but "What deal can we broker that will secure the release of the two imprisoned Israeli soldiers in exchange for a cessation of 'hostilities' (meaning: defensive activity by Israel, which did not begin the fighting)?"

Not that I am unmoved by the kidnapping of the Israeli soldiers, but the conflict in Lebanon is not merely about them. (Although I hope the kidnapping is the straw that broke the camel's back of this ridiculous stalemate.)

And the conflict in Lebanon is not the only event in the ongoing Islamic war against civilization. Almost as a footnote to the conflagration in Lebanon, various news outlets have been reporting something about which our leaders and the commentariat seem largely unconcerned (so far, I hope): That Iran and North Korea are collaborating.

One or more Iranians witnessed North Korea's recent missile tests, deepening U.S. concerns about growing ties between two countries with troubling nuclear capabilities, a top U.S. official said Thursday.

(HT: Resident Egoist)

Whack-a-Mole

Andrew Dalton points to an excellent horse-whipping of George Gilder, a prominent figure in the "Intelligent Design" sect of Creationism, that I'd intended to mention in yesterday's roundup when I read it a few days ago. One point is that "debating" Creationists is like playing a game of "whack-a-mole". This is a good analogy, but there are many other things to recommend the article, such as these choice passages.

Speciation via evolution underpins all of modern biology, both pure and applied. Note that in the latter category fall such things as new cures for diseases and genetic defects, new crops, new understandings of the brain, with consequences for pedagogy and psychology, and so on. To say to biologists: "Look, I want you to drop all this nonsense about evolution and listen to me," is like walking into a room full of pilots and aeronautical engineers and telling them that classical aerodynamics is all hogwash.

...

Scientists discover things. That's what they do. In fast-growing fields like genomics, they discover new things almost daily -- look into any issue of Science or Nature. What has the Discovery Institute discovered this past 16 years? To stretch my simile further: Creationists are walking into that room full of pilots and aeronautical engineers right at the peak of the Golden Age of flight, never having flown or designed any planes themselves. Are they really surprised that they get a brusque reception? [link added]

Very amusing and very informative.

And then there were three....

Is it just me, or are have the moons of Pluto been, like clothes hangers in a closet, reproducing while we aren't looking? (HT: Adrian Hester. And no, I had no idea there were three of them!)

Happy (Belated) Birthday, ...

... Blair!

-- CAV