Dead Children of a Lesser God: Why the Terrorists are Winning, #247 in a Series

"What future other than one of fear, frustration, financial ruin and fanaticism can stem from the rubble? Is the value of human life less in Lebanon than that of citizens elsewhere? Are we children of a lesser God? Is an Israeli teardrop worth more than a drop of Lebanese blood? Can the international community continue to stand by while such callous retribution by the state of Israel is inflicted upon us? Is this what is called legitimate self-defence?"
-- Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora seen here next to Condoleeza Rice, who-- I hope for the sake of her soul-- is covering her face in shame.

She just got out of a meeting in which she tried to explain to the gentleman Why He Can't Have a Cease Fire Right Now, in the name of Another Grand Strategy of the Bush Administration. I wonder how many more of those this country can survive?


The news is awful, with more children, blameless old people and animals being killed and suffering in Lebanon for the simple crime of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, while men (and some women) who have never suffered such horrors pontificate about other people's suffering and do nothing to stop it.

It should be stated here for the record that the politics of Ormondroyd's Encyclopedia Esoterica have long been encapsulated in this credo by Brendan Behan: "I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer." Everything else is contingent on that goal for better government.

In both Iraq and Lebanon, we see the United States and Israel falling like passenger pigeons into a basket. This continues to baffle me, as I've always assumed this was a truism of terrorist planning:
Step one: attack civilians or soft military targets.
Step two: this provokes a response by the targeted state that's out of proportion to the original offense.
Step three: the logic of violence and the state's inability to surgically control a mass of soldiers and policemen guarantees that there will be atrocities, oppression, "collateral damage" against innocent bystanders.
Step four: this repression will provoke an uprising against the state, cycling into greater and greater violence until--
Step five, the original terrorists appear more sympathetic to the people than the now out-of-control state.

This apparently is too subtle for the saps in power in the US and Israel to understand. Thus Israel and the United States continue to lose the war on terror by doing exactly what Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda want. I don't see anyone explaining this dynamic to a broad audience; perhaps it's so "obvious" that it's invisible.

See Also:
Blue Eyed Body Count
Why We're Losing the War on Terror #3701 in a series
Why They Voted for Hamas

"The Peoples be Goin' Crazy."

As we say around these parts, the peoples be going crazy in Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon, and please God, not Syria. The phrase implies the point in a group dynamic when a crowd of humans has become so violent that the participants no longer act in their own self interest, and are as likely to trash their own property as well as another's, to maim friend and foe alike.

When I was small, the world almost got sucked into World War III because of Cuba-- little Cuba! -- and we owe our lives to Khruschev's willingness to back down. Now we have Putin, an elevated KGB gangster, in charge of Russia, and here-- oh. Possibly the least qualified president in history, a man compared unfavorably with Warren G. Harding, the last person on earth to settle things down. We don't even have the assurance that his advisors are professional, since he despises expertise.

If I were a politician-- defined honorably here as someone who solves conflicts with compromise and benevolent manipulation-- I would stay home every time Cuba or Israel are on the morning news. I would call in sick, invent a doctor's apppointment or a sick child. It is impossible to have a rational discussion about either. I wish someday that a public figure will tell the Cubans in Miami or the Jews in New York to look at a map, choose a country to be loyal to, sit down, and STFU. Stop demanding that politicians prove their love for your provincial arguments and start serving the larger interests of this country and simple humanity instead.

No American politician can speak honestly and openly bout the Palestinian and Israeli conflict without fifty professional hysterics jumping down his or her throat. They all must wrap their comments in ritual obesience to Israel's right to exist, the Palestinians need to renounce violence no matter how many times they are poked in the eye, blah blah blah. I recommend the writings of Alexander Cockburn and Edward Said as a place to start on this subject, and sadly one of them is dead.

I've already done my share of babbling on Peter David's website, but here's a simple thought:

If you kill, marginalize or shout down every moderate voice that speaks for the Palestinians, very soon there will be no one left but extremists and gangsters like Hezbollah and the unmourned Arafat.

The Palestinians have been backed into a corner like the Apache and the Sioux; every move they make will be born of violent desperation, and easy to condemn. The Israelis have made themselves the enemy they deserve, and I hope the rest of us don't get pulled down with them. And God Save Lebanon.