In an interesting analysis, Dan Gordon writes that Hizbollah lost, and Israel won, except in the press:
What they failed to gain militarily they accomplished through the manipulation of the Western Media, which were their willing dupes and through the ineptitude and weakness, if not down right appeasement of the political leadership of the International community. This has all but guaranteed that this war will be but round one.
As a result, it only delayed the ultimate war, it didn’t end it.
[Monday morning update]
I’ve had to close comments on this post. For some weird reason, it was really attracting spam–I got over two hundred yesterday, and they were continuing to hit me this morning. If you want to comment, go here. Hopefully the male enhancement hawkers won’t follow us there.
In an interesting analysis, Dan Gordon writes that Hizbollah lost, and Israel won, except in the press:
What they failed to gain militarily they accomplished through the manipulation of the Western Media, which were their willing dupes and through the ineptitude and weakness, if not down right appeasement of the political leadership of the International community. This has all but guaranteed that this war will be but round one.
As a result, it only delayed the ultimate war, it didn’t end it.
[Monday morning update]
I’ve had to close comments on this post. For some weird reason, it was really attracting spam–I got over two hundred yesterday, and they were continuing to hit me this morning. If you want to comment, go here. Hopefully the male enhancement hawkers won’t follow us there.
To paraphrase Golda Meir, so-called human rights organizations will be useful when they learn to love human rights more than they hate the US and Israel. Or to paraphrase someone else–they’re not in favor of human rights, they’re just on the other side.
We need to either reform them (unlikely–it would require a housecleaning so thorough there would be little left) or form some new ones that could be more credible.
Given that some of the nations who have offered troops for the farce that is a ceasefire in Lebanon don’t recognize Israel’s right to exist (e.g., Malaysia and Indonesia), and the UN itself doesn’t seem to have a problem with this, what would they say at Turtle Bay if Iran offered up “peacekeeping troops” in south Lebanon? Since they don’t formally recognize Iran’s role in the war, how would they refuse? For that matter, why wouldn’t they accept an offer from Syria to help “police” its border with Lebanon?
Orson Scott Card isn’t very happy with his fellow Democrats. I’m sure that it’s very frustrating for him to have to defend George Bush, about whom there are a great deal of things worthy of criticism (if so, I certainly share it), but the lunacy of the continuing attacks on him make it necessary.
Longer term, I suspect that the media is another loser, with continuing self-inflicted blows to its credibility in the wake of the fauxtography and willing (and even eager) acceptance of staged Hezbullah propaganda. I hope so, anyway.
Bruce Schneier says that our mindless reactions to terrorist plots is a victory for them in itself:
Regardless of the threat, from the would-be bombers’ perspective, the explosives and planes were merely tactics. Their goal was to cause terror, and in that they’ve succeeded.
Imagine for a moment what would have happened if they had blown up 10 planes. There would be canceled flights, chaos at airports, bans on carry-on luggage, world leaders talking tough new security measures, political posturing and all sorts of false alarms as jittery people panicked. To a lesser degree, that’s basically what’s happening right now.
Our politicians help the terrorists every time they use fear as a campaign tactic. The press helps every time it writes scare stories about the plot and the threat. And if we’re terrified, and we share that fear, we help. All of these actions intensify and repeat the terrorists’ actions, and increase the effects of their terror.
Bob Poole, with whom we had dinner on Saturday, has a column on the current wasteful and ineffective state of airline security. As the Israeli columnist noted a few weeks ago, we’ve become drugged into a stupor by political correctness.