There’s an old saying, rendered variously as: When elephants fight, it’s the mice who must tremble. When elephants fight, it’s the grass that suffers. The applicability to the current situation in the Middle East? When Hezbollah goads Israel from its … Continue reading →
Now, how could proportionality in war be dangerous? First, before I attempt an answer to that question, here’s a great post by Betsy Newmark (via the Anchoress) on the widespread European international community’s condemnation of Israel’s response to the attacks … Continue reading →
No, that’s not a typo above. I didn’t mean “Zero diplomacy,” I meant “Zeno diplomacy.” What’s Zeno diplomacy? It’s described in this article by Robert Tracinski, a writer with whom I wasn’t previously familiar but who appears to be an … Continue reading →
I was rummaging around the house where I’m staying, looking for something to read, when I encountered an old favorite from my childhood, choreographer Agnes De Mille’s memoir And Promenade Home. While skimming through it, I came across a passage … Continue reading →
In Part I I tried to advance some arguments as to why the Iraq war is so hated. Here are a few more. Neither that post nor this one is meant to be exhaustive. One of the main justifications for … Continue reading →
The war in Iraq is especially hated. Of course, all wars are hated by most thoughtful people, since they involve bloodshed and suffering. And havoc. It’s not for nothing that Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar: “Cry havoc, and let loose … Continue reading →
In my post on the unfortunate tendency of revolutions to devour their own, Elmondohummus made the following comment: Such movements, such revolutions, tend not to be the wonderfully exciting, meaningful, free places that participants imagine, but coldhearted, calculating monoliths of … Continue reading →
Christopher Hitchens (previously no special friend of Israel’s) deconstructs Juan Cole’s Dowdification of Ahmadinejad’s threats to Israel in this Slate article (via Austin Bay) entitled “The Cole Report: when it comes to Iran, he distorts, you decide.” Hitchens’s contention is … Continue reading →
[Part I] [Part II] The initial coverup of My Lai in the late 60s, discussed in Part II, helped make Americans more cynical–more likely to believe the government couldn’t be trusted to uncover wrongdoings through the mechanism of internal investigations. … Continue reading →
I continue to be impressed by how many current trends in public life appear to have their roots in events of the 60s. Beginning at that time, there seems to have been a growing conviction that internal investigations are futile … Continue reading →
I would say that Iran’s President Ahmadinejad (and is anyone else besides me incongruously reminded of food–trout almandine, for example–by his name?) is dropping any show of being amenable to pressure from international bodies such as the UN–if he’d ever … Continue reading →
Dr. Sanity has written here about our current desire for a perfect, error-free war. No, not our desire; our demand. It often does seem as though the prosecution of this war is being held to an impossible standard, quite unlike … Continue reading →