We’re already starting to see dire consequences of Israel’s disastrous war. Al Aqsa thinks that it now knows how to defeat Israel:
“Hizbullah proved what we have already known and felt here in a number of opportunities. The Israelis are lying when they paint their military as unbeatable. A few hundred Hizbullah fighters showed them what an army is, and how to conduct a battle.”
According to Abu Nasser, Nasrallah’s organization still hasn’t had its last word.
“From our acquaintance with them, there is no way they are going to disarm. The organization has strategic objectives and the current battle proves that if it will decide to initiate another battle
Andy McCarthy points out the cognitive dissonance of the ACLU and New York Times:
…which is it? Is the TSP leak a big nothing that changed no one’s behavior, or a bombshell that changed everyone’s behavior? Evidently, it depends on which scenario the Left believes will damage the Bush administration more on any given day.
Here’s an interesting article on the history of Israeli military conflicts, and why they lost (or at least didn’t win, making another inevitable soon) this one.
I’m too busy to post much on this right now, but this leads to a much bigger theme. One of the damaging things that the UN has done over the decades is to short-circuit many conflicts, causing them to actually go on unabated for years, albeit at a lower level with flareups, because its emphasis and urgency is always on band-aid ceasefires and halting fighting, rather than achieving true peace or justice.
Victor Davis Hanson writes that there is some hope amid the current gloom in the Middle East:
…all is not lost, since lunacy cuts both ways. Iran and Syria unleashed Hezbollah because they were both facing global scrutiny, one over nuclear acquisition and the other over the assassination of Lebanese reformer Rafik Hariri. Those problems won
The New York Times thinks that the administration is “rewriting the Geneva Convention,” when in fact it’s the New York Times that is engaging in revisionism.
Mark Danziger explains the historical foolishness of the argument that it’s important for us to abide by Geneva so that our enemies will. In fact, when we grant Geneva rights to people who have no rules at all, we weaken the Conventions, and strip them of meaning. There are good reasons to treat Jihadi prisoners humanely, in general, but Geneva is a very misguided and in fact counterproductive one. And as a commenter points out, it’s only possible to make the argument that the Times does if one has never actually read the Conventions.
The New York Times thinks that the administration is “rewriting the Geneva Convention,” when in fact it’s the New York Times that is engaging in revisionism.
Mark Danziger explains the historical foolishness of the argument that it’s important for us to abide by Geneva so that our enemies will. In fact, when we grant Geneva rights to people who have no rules at all, we weaken the Conventions, and strip them of meaning. There are good reasons to treat Jihadi prisoners humanely, in general, but Geneva is a very misguided and in fact counterproductive one. And as a commenter points out, it’s only possible to make the argument that the Times does if one has never actually read the Conventions.
The New York Times thinks that the administration is “rewriting the Geneva Convention,” when in fact it’s the New York Times that is engaging in revisionism.
Mark Danziger explains the historical foolishness of the argument that it’s important for us to abide by Geneva so that our enemies will. In fact, when we grant Geneva rights to people who have no rules at all, we weaken the Conventions, and strip them of meaning. There are good reasons to treat Jihadi prisoners humanely, in general, but Geneva is a very misguided and in fact counterproductive one. And as a commenter points out, it’s only possible to make the argument that the Times does if one has never actually read the Conventions.
In the midst of all the news in the Middle East, North Korea may be getting ready for an underground nuclear test. Here’s hoping for a dud (though it would be hard for us to know if they failed).
Lileks, on the absurd theatre that is the United Nations:
…the West struck a deal with Hezbollah and its paymasters, and it was regarded as a positive development. Peace in our time, and all that.
It’s a wonder they didn’t pass out tiny collectible umbrellas from the Franklin Mint “Neville Chamberlain Collection” to solemnize the event.
The cease-fire resolution wasn’t surprising; the United Nations may have created Israel, but it’s been apologizing ever since. Nevertheless, let no one assert the document lacks teeth. As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice put it: “This resolution has an arms embargo within it, and a responsibility of the Lebanese government to make sure that illegal arms are not coming into their country.”
Yes, that’ll work. You can well imagine the frosty reception that awaits an Iranian general who tells the mullahs he’s found a way to slip new rockets into Lebanon:
“We will smuggle in the parts under the guise of providing reconstruction machinery; if satellites detect the tell-tale profile of the rockets, we will simply point to the damage suffered by the Lebanese Space Agency. Then we tattoo assembly instructions on small children and send them via diplomatic pouch. When the parts are in place — why are you looking at me that way?”
The mullahs look at one another, and one finally speaks.
“General, perhaps you were unaware of this fact, but all parties have agreed to disarm Hezbollah. Assurances were made to Ms. Rice. Do you understand? Assurances. Now rip up your mad schemes, return to base, and think no more of perfidious things.”
Some scary reading over at Technology Review, on the democratization of high-tech weaponry. As technology continues to advance, and things like this get cheaper, asymmetric warfare is going to become ever harder to wage. At some point, when fighting an enemy that worships and revels in death, we may have no choice except to give him what he wants, wholesale.