America's "Disproportionate" Bombing of Afghanistan

The condemnation of Israel reminded me that I had heard similar complaints about "disproportionate" use of force and civilian casualties before--from critics of America after the US bombed Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11.

Professor Marc W. Herold of the University of New Hampshire has a website still dedicated to attacking the 2001-2002 Afghan campaign. Here's a sample of his criticism:

The American Afghan War -- historically the Fourth Afghan War -- is anything but a 'just war' as James Carroll has adroitly pointed out.26First, the disproportionate U.S. response of making an entire other nation and people 'pay' for the crimes of a few is obvious to anyone who seeks out the real 'costs' perpetrated upon the people of Afghanistan. Action should be based upon some measure of proportionality, which here clearly is not the case. Secondly, this war does little to impede the cycle of violence of which the WTC attacks are merely one manifestation. The massive firepower unleashed by the Americans will no doubt invite similar indiscriminate carnage. Injustices will flower. Thirdly, by defining these events as a war rather than a police action without providing any argument for the necessity of the former, the American Afghan War is un-necessary and, hence, not 'just.' As Carroll writes, "the criminals, not an impoverished nation, should be on the receiving end of punishment."

It is simply unacceptable for civilians to be slaughtered as a side-effect of an intentional strike against a specified target. There is no difference between the attacks upon the WTC whose primary goal was the destruction of a symbol, and the U.S-U.K. revenge coalition bombing of military targets located in populated urban areas. Both are criminal. Slaughter is slaughter. Killing civilians even if unintentional is criminal.

Sound familiar?

An Israel-Hezbollah War Blog

Here.

Here's an interesting graph from the blog, showing a pattern of recent Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israel:

What Next for Israel & Lebanon?

Writing in Haaretz, Amos Harel says Israel's next steps will be tough. (ht War and Piece)

Where do we take it from here? The general staff admits that Nasrallah can go on firing at Israel for many days. Some of the officers are talking of the necessity for a diplomatic move, at the same time as the ground action, that will speed up the conclusion of the battles without the IDF's going into too many more villages and suffering heavy losses. But Israel still has two basic problems: Only a massive blow to Hezbollah can lessen its stranglehold over the Lebanese government, something which has not yet been achieved. Secondly, even if this is achieved, it will be necessary to have a very strong political arrangement to prevent Iran from rearming Hezbollah and waiting to open another round next summer.

Israeli TV News in English

You can watch here.

Francisco Gil-White:Why Hezbollah is Responsible for Civilian Casualties

Francisco Gil-White makes a logical case with this analogy:

The argument that the Israeli response is ‘too harsh’ says that some Lebanese civilians are dying as a result of Israeli firepower, and this means that Israel is guilty for their deaths and hence ‘too harsh’ in its response.

To see whether this is a valid argument, let us conduct another thought experiment.

Suppose that a criminal is shooting at you and your family. You shoot back in self-defense, to protect your spouse and children -- your life. Accidentally, you shoot dead a bystander. Question: Who is morally responsible for the death of the bystander? Morally responsible. You were not aiming for the bystander, and you would not have used your gun if this criminal had not been shooting at your family in the first place. And you do have an obligation to defend your family; you cannot simply turn your family over to anybody who is prepared to use violence. Therefore, the moral responsibility for the death of that bystander belongs to the man who decided to shoot at your family and in so doing forced you to perform your moral duty and defend it. If the bullet that killed the bystander came out of the barrel of your gun, that does not absolve the man who attacked your family, and neither does it convict you.

Now, consider the situation of Israel.

Hezbollah means to kill every last living Jew. Hezbollah is growing fast inside the Lebanese state across the border. And Hezbollah attacked Israeli civilians. When the Israeli government retaliated against Hezbollah, this was its moral obligation, because the Israeli government must protect Israeli citizens. Hezbollah must be destroyed because the purpose of Hezbollah is to kill all the Jews. No such organization can be allowed to exist, and recruit, and arm itself to the teeth. If we tolerate such organizations, we tolerate genocide. Therefore, Hezbollah must be destroyed. This is the morally correct thing to do.

In the effort to reduce Hezbollah, the Israeli government has not been able to keep casualties of Lebanese civilians to zero, this is true. It is a terrible thing when anybody dies, but we are not discussing whether this is good or bad -- we agree that the deaths of civilians are a terrible thing, and the same goes for the deaths of soldiers. What we are trying to do is decide whose fault this is.

Hezbollah’s core doctrine is to seek the total destruction of the civilian Jewish population, and it deliberately targets Jewish civilians. The Israeli government, by contrast, is not trying to kill Lebanese civilians: it is dropping leaflets to warn civilians before it strikes a place. And the Israeli government would not be shooting at all if Hezbollah had not attacked Israeli civilians in the first place. In attacking Hezbollah, the Israeli government is discharging its moral obligation to Israeli citizens, precisely in the manner that you protected your family in the above thought experiment. Israel is not guilty for the deaths of the bystanders. It is to Hezbollah that you should account these deaths, because Hezbollah forced the Israeli government to attack Hezbollah, and the Hezbollah ‘soldiers,’ like the cowards they are, hide among Lebanese civilians, thus endangering them.

David Horowitz v The Nation

Do readers of The Nation care about this David Horowitz blast?

The Nation’s current apologetics for the terrorist bloc continue a nearly 100-year tradition of its editor's support for the totalitarian enemies of America and the West. For nearly 100 years, the editors of the Nation explained and justified every Communist tyrant from Stalin to Castro; when terrorists slaughtered the innocent on 9/11, the Nation's editors decried American jingoism and America’s “empire;” they opposed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein; and they continue to attack the liberation of Iraq as an imperialist “occupation” and democratic America as a “terrorist state.”

But even in the context of this sordid record, the Nation’s present support for the agents of the second Holocaust marks for it a new moral low. Its role in this war, as in the war in Iraq, is too transparent to be defended. Its editors may not openly embrace the goal of eliminating the Jewish presence in the Middle East, and possibly can’t even admit to themselves that this is the radicals’ goal. But the Nation editors are nonetheless dedicated to justifying the jihadists who are pursuing this goal, and for that they cannot be forgiven.

Michelle Malkin on Hezbollah's American Victims

NGOs Repat Hezbollah Party Line

From NGO Monitor:

Following NGO Monitor's July 18 report, "NGOs quick to exploit Lebanon Crisis to attack Israel," a number of NGOs have issued further statements, many of which focus disproportionately on condemnations of Israel.

Common themes among the NGO statements include:

* Accusations of "disproportionate force" by Israel, with no explanation of what would comprise a proportionate response to Hezbollah terror attacks.

* Criticism of Israel's targeting of bridges, major roads and the Beirut Airport as "collective punishment," despite the clear military rationale of sealing off air and sea ports, roads and other such targets to prevent the re-supply of arms from Syria and Iran.

* No mention that Hezbollah's concrete reinforced military headquarters are located under buildings in southern Beirut, and that the positioning of military/guerrilla installations in residential areas is considered a war crime, as defined by Protocol I (1977) to the Geneva Convention, article 51(7), relating to human shields. Hezbollah also stores and launches missiles from civilian villages in southern Lebanon, but no NGO explores the human rights implications of Hezbollah's use of human shields.

* Few NGOs call for the release of the two abducted Israeli soldiers.

Pierre Rehov's Middle East Documentaries

Thanks to a mention by Phyllis Chesler, I found filmmaker Pierre Rehov's website, a welcome alternative to the mainstream media, which reveals how enemies of Israel deliberately use women and children as part of their war and propaganda machine--then blame Israel for any deaths or injuries...:

"Palestinian mythology is based on an absurd "martyrdom
philosophy" that every reporter working in the "territories" is forced to buy, in order to work safely.

There is no freedom of press under the Palestinian Authority, and no journalist can report honestly without risking is life.

Palestinians deserve a country and self determination, but that will not happen as long as Israelis are described the way they are by most TV networks.

That leads to a situation where Palestinians are not considered grown-ups, while Jews are demonized in the same way they have been during the worst periods of their tragic history.

If a Palestinian child is found in the streets, throwing stones at a soldier, you have to ask yourself: "Who sent him there? Where are the parents ? Who is hiding with a gun behind him?"

I saw that happen many times, and I am asking you:

If you want to protect Palestinian children, don't let them be used as human shields by Muslim extremists! Don't keep silent! Do something, now!"

Who is an Israeli? (cont'd.) by Joseph Agassi

From Joseph Agassi's eulogy for Hillel Kook:

Hillel Kook said repeatedly that Israel’s leadership stole form
the Israeli people their nationality. The French Jew is both French and
Jewish. The American Jew is both American and Jewish. Only Israeli
Jews are not Israelis. OF course, Israel is a Jewish state the way Franc
is a Catholic state. And why can an Israeli not declare, as Hillel Kook
did repeatedly, I am 100% a Jew and 100% an Israeli? Why not?
Because if this were admitted, than it would also be admitted that
Israel has also nationals who are 100% Israeli but not Jewish at all,
but Muslim or Christian or Druse, or whatever else they may be.
Israeli Jews find this unacceptable. And on the ground that Israel must
be the state of all Jews no matter where they live. And this on the
ground that we must avoid the repetition of the shameful abandonment
of the Jews of Europe during the Holocaust. And so Israelis find the
right to religious discrimination in the Holocaust and in the
irresponsibility of their leadership then.

Religious discrimination has made Israel bi-national de facto.
As long as she maintains a national minority, said Hillel Kook, she
will not be viable. Most regrettably, recent events prove him right.
The national minority in Israel ahs the peculiar status. Its members
have the right to elect and to be elected, but not to bear arms. This
amounts to the idea that weapons speak louder than laws, that soldiers
are mightier than legislators. This is an intolerable insult to the laws,
and it introduces violence into all areas of life here. In Israel there is a
clear preference for contempt for the law, since the settlers violate the
law of the land. They imitate the heroic settlers in the period of the
British Mandate. In that period the British government had betrayed
its Mandate. Today the Israeli premiere praises the lawbreakers and
thus belittles the law and the government that rules by the law and
himself as its head.

Hillel Kook demanded all his life that we establish an Israeli
Republic that will be a normal nation-state in the western liberal
democratic pattern so that its government could initiate practical
political solutions to the difficult problems of the day that no Israeli
leader claims to have a plan for its solutions. Hillel Kook changed his
positions repeatedly in the light of changing circumstances and in
accord with the principle that a responsible government should display
one-sided political initiative. He was amazingly free of dogma. The
fact that he stuck to the idea of nationalism has no basis in any dogma.
It rests on two facts. First the sense of duty that he had towards the
people who dwell in Zion. The second is the absence, to date, of any
form of government that is preferable to the western-style liberal
democratic nation-state. This form is far from perfect. He was
convince that a day will come and nations will disappear, so he wrote,
and the unity of all humanity will prevail. But he added to this that if
we will not fulfill our national purposes, then we will have no
descendents to witness that great day. It is a matter of life and death.
We take leave of Hillel Kook with the promise not to forget his
message. It is a matter of life and death.

Art Kills 2, Injures 13

In England, according to the Guardian:

Two women were killed and a three-year-old girl seriously injured yesterday when wind flipped an inflatable art installation 30 feet into the air, tipping out as many as 30 visitors.

The accident at the Riverside Park, Chester-le-Street, County Durham, left another 12 people needing hospital treatment. They included an elderly man and woman who suffered heart attacks.

It happened at around 3.30pm when the Dreamspace inflatable, five metres high and the size of half a football pitch, broke its moorings, rose up and moved about 60 feet. The Arts Council-funded PVC installation crashed to the ground after colliding with a CCTV camera post.

Saudi Arabia to Join Moscow's Lebanon Push?

Middle East diplomacy could be getting interesting, according to Russia's RIA Novosti:

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister and national security chief will arrive in Moscow Tuesday to discuss ways to curb violence in the Middle East, the Saudi foreign ministry said.

UN Official Blames Hezbollah for Civilian Deaths

Let's see if this statement by UN representative Jan Egeland gets the Western media coverage that it deserves:

On Monday, he had strong words for Hezbollah, which crossed into Israel, captured two soldiers and killed eight others on July 12, triggering fierce fighting.

"Consistently, from the Hezbollah heartland, my message was that Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending ... among women and children," he said. "I heard they were proud because they lost very few fighters and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this. I don't think anyone should be proud of having many more children and women dead than armed men."

(ht lgf)

An Animated Map of Hezbollah Rocket Attacks

In case your local newspaper or television news didn't mention this, here's a link to a flash animation map of Hezbollah's rocket launches:

Names of Israeli villages and towns hit by missiles:
Ein Keniye, HaGoshrim, Beit Hillel, Amir, Ne’ot Mordekhai, Ma’ayan Baruch, Misgav Am, Rajar, Kfar HaNasi, Tuba, Amiad, Korazim, Kfar Zeitim, Kfar Hittim, Kfar Yuval, Or HeGanuz, Safsufa, Peki’in, Yechiam, Tzuriel, Alkush, Matat, Shumrah, Ben-Ami, Evron, Abu-Snan, Mitzpe Shlagim, Har Hermon, Tel Dan, Hulata, Mishmar HaYarden, Machana’im, Gush Chalav, Dishon, Yiftach, Malkieh, Bar’am, Sasa, Dovev, Biranit, Majad El-Krum, Even Menahem, Kabri, Gesher HaZiv, Achziv, Chorfesh, Hanita, Kiryat Motzkin, Kiryat Haim, Kiryat Yam, Kiryat Tivon, Kfar Szold, Sde Eliezer, Dalton, Ma’alot, Hosen, Bustan HaGalil, Julis, Tel El, Lochamei HaGhettaot, Nazareth, Haifa, Tiberius, Acre, Kiryat Shmona, Manara, Avivim, Hazor HaGlilit, Ramot, Rosh Pina, Yesud HaMa’ala, Shetula, Meron, Safed, Nahariah, Nesher, Migdal Ha”Emek, Afula.

(ht Michelle Malkin)

Arnold Schwarzenegger: "Am Israel Chai...I'll be back"

According to the Jerusalem Post, the Governator spoke at a pro-Israel rally in Los Angeles:

Schwarzenegger told the crowd, "It is great to be here during this difficult time Israel is facing. We are all here to support the State of Israel.

"While we all regret the loss of innocent life, there is no doubt that Israel has the right to take all appropriate steps to keep its people safe.

"I have been to Israel many times," he said. "I started in the '70s as a body-building champion. I went back in the '80s as the Terminator. I went back in the '90s to open my Planet Hollywood restaurant, and Israel was the first country that I visited after I became governor of the great state of California."

"There is nothing Israel wants more than to live in peace. That is why I am happy to be here to be supportive of that here today ...Am Israel Chai...I'll be back," said the governor.

Benjamin Netanyahu: No Cease Fire in Lebanon

From the Wall Street Journal:

At stake in the current operation is not only Israel's security, Lebanon's democratic future, and stability in the region, but a central principle in the war on terror. Soon after Sept. 11, President Bush made clear that America would no longer make a distinction between the terrorists and the regimes that harbor them. This policy is essential because international terrorism cannot survive without the support of sovereign states.

In order for the global terror network to be dismantled, its support by sovereign states must end--whether that supports comes in the form of actively perpetrating terror attacks (as in the case of Iran and the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority), providing safe havens for terror groups (as in the case of Syria) or not acting against terror groups within their borders (as is the case in Lebanon). A world in which the international community does not hold states accountable for the terrorism that emanates from within their borders is a world in which the war on terror cannot be won.

That is why any cease-fire or diplomatic effort that does not have as its objective the disarming of Hezbollah will only strengthen the forces of terror. And that is also why the world should fully support Israel in disarming Hezbollah--for Israel's sake, for Lebanon's sake and for the sake of our common future.

Russia Enters Lebanon Crisis

When we lived in Moscow last year, it seemed to be full of Syrians. We even ran into them in a cafe at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, where they were doing "business" over espresso and croissants. Now, it appears that Russia may be using Syrian connections to broker a peace deal in Lebanon between Hezbollah and Israel--and if they can pull it off, show up the USA--according to The Moscow Times:

Russian and German intelligence services are trying to help secure the release of three Israeli solders captured by Palestinian and Lebanese militants, Germany's DPA news agency reported Friday.

Both countries' spies have a history of dealing with Hezbollah and Hamas, and Germany's Federal Intelligence Agency has brokered prisoner swaps between Israel and Hezbollah in the past.

A spokesman for Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service declined to comment about the DPA report on Friday.

International Federation of Journalists Sides with Hezbollah

And, according to Haaretz, Israeli members have resigned in protest:

A group of Israeli journalists renounced their membership in the International Federation of Journalists yesterday, after the organization's general secretary refused to retract his condemnation of the Israel's bombing of Hezbollah's Al-Manar television station in Beirut.

IFJ General Secretary Aiden White proposed coming to Israel to settle the dispute, but Israeli journalist and IFJ member Yaron Anosh told him that as long as the censure remained in effect, White would be unwelcome in Israel.

The Israel Air Force attacked Hezbollah's television station shortly after it began its offensive in Lebanon last week. The IFJ said in a statement last weekend that the strike is "a clear demonstration that Israel has a policy of using violence to silence media it does not agree with."

IFJ members in Israel demanded that this statement be retracted immediately and asked why the IFJ did not condemn Hezbollah for firing rockets at Israeli journalists. After the IFJ refused to retract its condemnation, six Israeli members announced their immediate resignation.

"I have no intention of being a card-carrying member of an organization that would give a similar card to a Hezbollah member, whether he is firing a Katyusha or serving as the group's propaganda officer at its TV station," Anosh said. "A terrorist is not a journalist, and if an international organization prefers to have terrorists as members - then count us out."

Fouad Ajami on the Lebanon War

From the Wall Street Journal:

The Mediterranean vocation of Lebanon as a land of enlightenment and commerce may have had its exaggerations and pretense. But set it against the future offered Lebanon by Syria, and by Tehran's theocrats seeking a diplomatic reprieve for themselves by setting Lebanon on fire, and Lebanon's choice should be easy to see.

The Lebanese, though, are not masters of their own domain. They will need protection and political support; they will need to see the will and the designs of the radical axis contested by resolute American power, and by an Arab constellation of states that can convince the Shiites of Lebanon that there is a place for them in the Arab scheme of things. For a long time, the Arab states have worked through and favored the Sunni middle classes of Beirut, Sidon and Tripoli. This has made it easy for Iran--overcoming barriers of language and distance--to make its inroads into a large Shiite community awakening to a sense of power and violation. To truly turn Iran back from the Mediterranean, to check its reach into Beirut, the Arab world needs to rethink the basic compact of its communities, and those Shiite stepchildren of the Arab world will have to be brought into the fold.

Lebanon's strength lies in its weakness, went an old maxim. And the Arab states themselves were for decades egregious in the way they treated Lebanon, shifting onto it the burden of the Palestinian fight with Israel, acquiescing in the encroachments on its sovereignty by the Palestinians and the Syrians--encroachments often subsidized with Arab money. Iran then picked up where the Arab states left off. Now that weakness of the Lebanese state has become a source of great menace to the Lebanese, and to their neighbors as well.

No one can say with confidence how this crisis will play out. There are limits on what Israel can do in Lebanon. The Israelis will not be pulled deeper into Lebanon and its villages and urban alleyways, and Israel can't be expected to disarm Hezbollah or to find its missiles in Lebanon's crannies. Finding the political way out, and working out a decent security arrangement on the border, will require a serious international effort and active American diplomacy. International peacekeeping forces have had a bad name, and they often deserve it. But they may be inevitable on Lebanon's border with Israel; they may be needed to buy time for the Lebanese government to come into full sovereignty over its soil.

The Europeans claim a special affinity for Lebanon, a country of the eastern Mediterranean. This is their chance to help redeem that land, and to come to its rescue by strengthening its national army and its bureaucratic institutions. We have already seen order's enemies play their hand. We now await the forces of order and rescue, and by all appearances a long, big struggle is playing out in Lebanon. This is from the Book of Habakkuk: "The violence done to Lebanon shall overwhelm you" (2:17). The struggles of the mighty forces of the region yet again converge on a small country that has seen more than its share of history's heartbreak and history's follies.

Ze'ev Schiff: 2006 is not 1982

Haaretz's veteran defense correspondent explains why this Lebanon war is different from the other one:

The two wars are even different in terms of modus operandi. In 1982, IDF divisions launched a ground offensive from the south, and Israeli forces were also brought in by naval craft so that they could reach Beirut and proceed northward to join up with the Phalangists. Today, the Israel Air Force and Military Intelligence are leading the offensive. The IAF can launch quicker, more precise strikes thanks to its guided weapons; furthermore, aerial attacks mean fewer casualties.

Yet the IAF alone obviously cannot solve all the problems, including the presence of thousands of rockets in Lebanon. Many people, including citizens of Arab states, understand that this time, Israel is facing not one Palestinian organization fighting for its nation's independence, but two radical Islamic terrorist organizations plus a state like Iran, which seek Israel's annihilation, and Syria besides.

Israel circa 2006 is trying to avoid repeating the mistakes it made in the 1982 war. Little wonder that many people today support Israel, in contrast to the past, when international public opinion was hostile to Israel. If Israel makes no substantive changes in its objectives, takes greater care to avoid harming the Lebanese people and keeps its operations to the proper proportions, the support it enjoys in the present war will continue unabated.