And Bolton...of all people...is lecturing us about morality?

Half the population is under the age of 18. Tanzania's future is NOW...join the 50% campaign!

Of course, if you oppose "malicious terrorist acts" to "beneficial state acts" all becomes clear as mud.

Nothing is 'mere'. — Richard P. Feynman

We are not approaching the Rapture any time soon. A new temple has to be built on the Dome of the Rock first.

But this Diary and my diary from yesterday on Gingrich and WWIII demonstrate the immoral depths of the USA leadership. It will soon demand the translation of comment into action - if it has not reached that point already.

It is time for us to force the leadership of the EU, and the nation members of it, to disown and condemn such statements.


You can't be me, I'm taken

I am not surprised. In order for the "war on terror" to make some "sense" this needs to be true. The indefinite detention and torture of possibly innocent persons is morally defensible as any victims of a terror attack would be more wronged than those detained. US bombing campaigns on foreign soil that result in death and injury of civilians is morally justifiable if "targeting" "terror".

Terrorism is the weapon of desperation, and suicide attacks the most desperate of them all. "Standing strong against terror" means ignoring the despair of those that would employ such tactics, to establish their "greater evil" so that killing their children can be justified.

I have trouble taking this man seriously, if for no other reason than the fact that he dyes his hair but not his moustache.  Idiot.

Where's your motherf*%&ing flag pin?

The war makers are not immoral they are amoral. The belong to a long tradition of "the end justifies the means". So killing the enemy (or civilians) in a "just" war is always acceptable.

They cover up their goals (US dominance) with a barrage of verbiage about making the world safe for democracy, but it's really just the latest version of the "White Man's burden".

The tragic thing is that most of the US population supports this type of thinking (at least implicitly). The proof is in our actions. The only motivation for those giving up their SUV's is economic. That is, one selfish motive is now stronger than the prior one (pointless self aggrandisement).

As Pogo said: "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape

It really seems to me that the Bush administration has crossed a red line in its blatant public support for Israel in this conflict. Traditionally US governments have made some attempt to present an appearence of neutrality in public about conflicts in the Middle East, while supporting Israel behind the scenes. The appear to have now dropped that facasde entirely.  The War Against Terror seems to provide the perfect excuse.

Yasmin Alibai-Brown wrote in the Independent recently (behind subscription wall) that a famous (jewish) actress was on Radio 4 recently saying that to the jews life was precious, they were few and each death was a great loss whilst for muslims life was cheap, they cared so little they'd just strap bombs to each other and cheerfully go their deaths.

I hope this was the isolated view of a notoriously vacuous woman. But I imagine it was the scuttlebutt of her equally low-wattage chums.

In contrast Channel 4 interviewed students across the divide in Jerusalem and all accepted the neither owned righteousness, there was equivalence in depravity. So there's hope.

keep to the Fen Causeway

Let me get this straight... The discriminate killing of inocents is less moral than the indiscriminate killing of inocents? Is that what he is saying?

I thought I could not be surprised anymore about peoples shallowness, but this is beyond for me, it touches evil. Even for Bolton that seems to be a step up.

Do you believe there is a distinction between the intentional targeting of innocent civilians and the unintentional deaths of innocent civilians as the result of self-defense?

... all progress depends on the unreasonable mensch.
(apologies to G.B. Shaw)

So what is being said is that because Israel has highly expensive, high tech weapons that are capable of being fired in a way that should minimise civilisan casualties, whereas Hezbollah has essentialy dumb area fire artillery rockets that are inherrantly inacurate, Israel should be allowed to fire but Hezbollah should not be allowed to fire back?

Interviewer: What do you believe is behind this recent increase in terrorist bombings? Helpmann: Bad sportsmanship

I wouldn't waste my time on Bolton. Who would expect anything better from mentally sick patient that he is but where the hell are Europeans? Where the hell are their politicians to explain to their voters and to the world what on earth they are thinking about morality in this case and what a hell they are doing to stop this madness???
Interestingly tonight on TV here they showed us how CNN had a piece from Lebanon showing all those civilian buildings (in Beirut, I think) ruined by Israeli bombs (probably "bunker blast"  bombs or what ever is the name for those bombs that go "in depth") and while reporter was running through the area with a local man he was screaming "Where is the world? Where is UN?" Hah...I remember how I naively believed that some of my relatives that managed to come here during bombardment of Serbia may be granted refugee status (like Bosnians and others did before, while being in danger). Heh, whether or not westerners will have any compassion showed very much depend who is bombarding you. So yes Fran not all deaths as well as all people are of the same value. It always was the case but before at least they pretended it wasn't. They do not bother any more. That's why it's possible that sick people like Bolton represent the only superpower in the world. The end of the World couldn't be that far...

It seems to me that both Israel and its opponents are engaging in acts of war involving (in some instances) attacks more likely to kill civilians than active duty military personnel or achieve other strictly military objectives.

I do not see any moral difference between the acts of dropping bombs from an aircraft, firing missiles or setting off a suicide bomb. All are acts of war. Only the sophistication of the delivery system is different.

As a thought experiment imagine that Hamas and Hezbollah controlled states with comparable military potential to Israel. If those states went to war with Israel they would not be wasting their time with "terrorist" tactics like suicide bombings, but they might well be doing some bombing raids on Israel. They would be killing just as many or more civilians but doing so in the manner deemed appropriate for a state at war rather than by "terrorism".

The question of moral equivalence rests not on the methods of fighting being used (unless they are so grossly disproportionate as to amount in themselves to genocide), but on whether we think one side has a juster cause for going to war than the other. That is a matter of opinion, about which to put it mildly more than one point of view is possible.

I believe I understand why both sides think they have to fight. I would not be so confident on the balance of justice, as to take the part of one side against the other.

It follows that I advocate that my country takes a strictly neutral view and works through the UN for a speedy ceasefire.

I also feel that regarding this struggle in the Middle East as being part of a global war on terror, is just plain daft. This conflict would exist if Al Qaeda and similar bodies had never come into existence. Using it as a causus belli for a wider war with Syria and Iran is not a sensible policy.

Talking about deaths, there's an interesting Haaretz article about the mixed feelings of Israeli Arabs who are getting hit both in mixed communities like Haifa and in Arab ones like Nazareth where two children were killed by rocket fire. They're Arabs and Palestinians but after so many decades they're also  Israelis, torn between rejecting a state that rejects them and feeling part of it nonetheless.

The anger at the Israelis is explicit. "You don't go to war over three abducted soldiers; for this you enter negotiations," they said. The anger at Hezbollah is far more implicit and they hesitate to talk about it. "Hezbollah doesn't know that there are lots of Arabs in this country," says Ibrahim Hader evasively. Hussein Meri, a woodcutter and fisherman, takes command of the discussion: "They won't tell you. But yes, I'm angry at Nasrallah. He doesn't understand the reality here. If he were to see us now, Jews and Arabs at one table, he wouldn't understand. He only sees Gaza in his mind's eye. I have spent most of my life among Jews. For 30 years I worked in the market in Hadera. The Palestinians would think that I was a Jew, the Jews saw me as an Arab. Everything is reversed."

And then the conversation becomes so very Israeli, as all of them complain about the local council and the Home Front Command, which hadn't prepared shelters and protected spaces for them, and they sum up by saying that the rockets are color blind - they don't distinguish between Jews and Arabs. From time to time they mention their "Israeliness," speaking from their experience in wars and terror attacks, in which the Jews identify them with the enemy, when they too are the victim.

Acre, identity

MK Abas Zkoor (Ra'am-Ta'al) of the Islamic Movement is enraged. Enraged as someone watching the scenes of war, as a politician suggesting alternative solutions to war, as a resident of Acre, which had been hit by a number of rockets over the last few days. He is enraged also as an Arab citizen of Israel, the issue of whose identity is sharpened in every period like this. Zkoor's family lives in an apartment building close to the municipality - 20 Jewish families, four Arab families. The rocket attack has only intensified their sense of good neighborliness. "At the human level, there is a complete sense of shared fate," says Zkoor. Now he is making use of his good connections with representatives of the Islamic Movement in the municipality to accelerate attention to the shelters. For everyone, both Arabs and Jews. In contrast to terror attacks, the rockets have indeed created a sense of a common fate. "When there were terror attacks, the Arabs had to apologize all the time," says Zkoor, distinguishing between the situations. "Now, the reaction is one of togetherness."

Yet nevertheless, he acknowledges that this situation - of rockets aimed at Jews and falling on Arabs - is hard for him. "The truth is that it's very hard," he sighs. "The Arabs in Israel are a victim from a thousand angles, and this is just another one of them. When I went to Saudi Arabia, there were people who asked me whether I'm a Muslim-Jew - they couldn't understand that I'm an Arab-Israeli; however, when I wanted to address Gilad Shalit's abductors in Arabic from the Knesset podium, MK Moshe Sharoni from the Pensioners cried out that I shouldn't dare speak Arabic. From every angle, we get screwed."