The “you’ve got to break eggs to make an omelette” position is just as odious in its uselessness as the “you’ve got to be pure” position. Both are essentially NON-positions. One offers the thrill of faux-toughness, the other the thrill of performed rectitude.

So what? Both have a tenuous connection to the execution of the actual task – extracting accurate information.

And with these bizarre assumptions (Bombs are simple to make? The human will to live is easy to suppress?) Hyman finally severs all connections to the real world.

Nothing more to discuss, folks, unless you want to see how bizarre a person’s delusions can get.

A normal response to such a situation, of course, would be to demand that we do better, not that we run away. And it certainly wouldn’t be to go on at great length about the tactical virtues of “attacking using children as cover”, or about the “stealth” and “agility” of such attackers.

No, as I’ve said, what Hyman is really afraid of is that we’re not being beaten.

The reason I’m concerned about staying the course is that we’re throwing good money after bad. We’re spending a great deal of money, we’ve overdeployed soldiers and the National Guard, and we don’t have a notion anymore of what victory even means in Iraq.

We’ve already been over the unlikelihood that Hyman here was ever in favor of attacking Iraq, so I think this is just his usual deception — the “pro-death” part, though, is no doubt true, especially given his fond regard for the death-loving islamist “guerrilla fighters”.

… so I’m willing to tolerate civilian casualties when necessary

Yes, exactly — further explaining his sympathetic portrayal of terrorist baby-killers.

I see the denunciations of the evil enemy as a tactic to avoid acknowledging that we have lost the war. If enough outrage can be stirred up, perhaps the American people will not be so eager to have our troops leave Iraq.

And now we see the point of his deception — what really has Hyman worried is the lingering fear that just maybe America won’t cut and run after all. I mean, his “guerrilla fighters” have slaughtered children, butchered Iraqis, blown up religious sites, used their own people as human shields, and used all sorts of similar “stealthy”, “agile”, “deceptive”, and clever tactics — surely, he’s thinking, Americans can not and will not stand up to such a ferocious and dedicated enemy. But … what if they do!?

Well, that’s why Hyman’s here, isn’t it? Like so much of the left, whether consciously or not, he’s hoping that, in his own small way, he can contribute to what he earnestly believes will be a victory for the killers — in his case, by trying to tamp down American outrage, one blog at a time.

As far as the moral calculus goes, those “unavoidable deaths of children in war” are in fact quite avoidable; you could, for example, decide not to prosecute the war. When you do, you do so in the full certainty that you will accidentally kill some non-zero number of children, and in fact we have done so already. Now, for the most part, people react as you do – that these deaths are less morally repugnant than using children to guilefully deliver bombs. I just find that interesting. You wind up with dead children in either case, so why do you find one way less immoral than the other?

As for myself, I’m generally pro-death (favoring abortion and capital punishment, against gun control, and initially in favor of attacking Iraq), so I’m willing to tolerate civilian casualties when necessary. I just don’t get all in a huff over how evil the enemy is. If the enemy were not evil, we should not be in the war to begin with. I see the denunciations of the evil enemy as a tactic to avoid acknowledging that we have lost the war. If enough outrage can be stirred up, perhaps the American people will not be so eager to have our troops leave Iraq.

Oh, and as for blurring the lines between us and them, I apologize. I should have realized that our government is torturing people morally.

That’s what you call cheap lip-service — an easy line for any collaborator to type or mouth, and also, of course, a falsity. Note, by the way, the routine moral relativism of “tactics we find repugnant” — as opposed to tactics that simply are repugnant — juxtaposed with a trivial and obviously mocking regret that they’ve “proven so effective for the other side”. But if you really want an example of comical fake-innocence, take a look at:
Oh, and I’m also puzzled about the claim that I’ve been complaining about collateral damage. Where did I do that?
Well, how about the paragraph immediately preceding, where he compares the unavoidable death of children in war to the deliberate killing of children (often enough their own) by terrorists? It would be nice to think that Hyman and the like are merely confused, as he describes himself repeatedly, about this and so much else. But the evidence of his own writing indicates that his overt “confusion” is merely a pose — it’s a cover for his attempt both to condemn America for what he considers rule-breaking and at the same time to admire the terrorists for their adroit use of their own children for cover. A pretty vile underside of a faux-naive surface.

Here’s an interesting little article from Strategy Page for comparison:
Islamic terrorists are encouraging their supporters, who can write in English, to get on American web sites and pretend to be friends or family members of American soldiers or marines. The “media jehadis” are instructed to tell stories in line with the anti-war tone of American and European media.
Now, Hyman isn’t pretending to be a friend or family member of American soldiers, it’s true — he’s no doubt acting on his own. But the deliberate collapse of any moral distinction between soldiers and terrorists is clearly in line with the information war objectives of an enemy whose viciousness is unlimited. So, though he may not be taking his talking points from Al Qaeda directly, he may as well be.

I’m also at a loss as to why anyone thinks I’m defending the enemy. I think that it’s a very bad thing that we have lost the war against them. It’s a sad contrast to the Carter era. Then, we appeared weak by being unwilling to fight. Now, we appear weak by losing the fight. It’s also unfortunate that tactics that we find morally repugnant have proven so effective for the other side, because it means that they will continue to be used.

It’s an interesting moral calculus, by the way, that it is less wrong to blow up more people with lower probability than fewer people with certain probability. That is, the all out war that some people here are so eager to see would certainly cause the deaths of civilians, including more than two children, but no specific child would be certain to die. (And in fact, we have seen many such deaths already.) On the other hand, using two children in a suicide bombing makes those deaths certain. We consider the first an unfortunate but acceptable price to pay, while looking upon the second with horror.

Oh, and I’m also puzzled about the claim that I’ve been complaining about collateral damage. Where did I do that?

The only bombing that my kid will do to the White House will come in November of 2008, when he will come into the voting booth with me and push the lever for the Democratic candidate.

And don’t worry about the “Hymie” thing. That’s been my nickname for a very long time (even before Jesse Jackson named my city for me).

We’re mad at you, for refusing to recognize that we must break your “rules,” too.