Whatever happened to bin Laden's Super-Fortress?

In the lead-up to the US invasion of Afghanistan, there was a lot of press about Osama bin Laden's super-fortress buried deep under the mountain of Tora Bora. The British press told us that bin Laden was holed up in a vast redoubt, a fortress buried as deep under the mountain as the World Trade Centre was high, powered with its own hydroelectric generators, housing 2,000 fanatical fighters and equipped with at least one Russian tank in perfect working order.

This story caught the imagination of the press corps, especially when the basic claims were repeated by American officials such as Donald Rumsfeld.

In December 2001 Afghan mujahadeen forces attacked the "impenetrable" fortress, assisted by American and British air-strikes and a small number of American, British and German special forces. According to Time Magazine, the battle cost the lives of one mujahadeen and seven Taliban fighters. Afterwards, American troops combed the mountain for bin Laden. No fortress was discovered, no hydroelectric generators, no massive hotel housing thousands of fighters, and no Russian tank.

They did however find a tube of deodorant.

(On a related note: Edward Jay Epstein also casts serious doubt on the box-cutter story from 9/11.)

The Deserter's Tale

Smoking Chimp reviews a book by former US soldier Joshua Key, who deserted from the army and ran away to Canada because of the things he did and saw in Iraq. His application for refugee status in Canada has been rejected and he faces deportation to the US. In his book, he says:

“My own moral judgment was disintegrating under the pressure of being a soldier, feeling vulnerable, and having no clear enemy to kill in Iraq. We were encouraged to beat up on the enemy; given the absence of any clearly understood enemy, we picked our fights with civilians who were powerless to resist. We knew that we would not have to account for our actions.”

“... the American military had betrayed the values of my country. We had become a force for evil, and I could not escape the fact that I was part of the machine.”

“How would I react if foreigners invaded the United States and did just a tenth of the things that we had done to the Iraqi people? I would be right up there with the rebels and insurgents, using every bit of my cleverness to blow up the occupiers.”

(Quoted here.)

It's easy to forget that bad things happen in wartime not just because bad people go to war, but because war makes even good people turn bad.

Striking at the terrorists

Remember when the "War On Terror" was supposed to make us safer? Well, somebody forgot to mention to the US military that their supposed to be stopping terrorists, not sheltering them while they attack one of the US's NATO allies.

Turkey, fed up with Kurdish terrorists launching attacks while under the protection of the US military, has invaded northern Iraq. While this isn't a full-blown invasion, nor is it a border incursion with a handful of troops: it apparently involves thousands of soldiers. Turkey has publicly denied the invasion, a denial which is looking less and less credible every day. Why isn't this big news?

And a reminder that it's not just "Islamo-fascists" who are terrorists, like racists and conservatives would have us believe. Christian terrorists in Serbian have attacked and burned the US embassy in Belgrade, angry at Kosovo gaining independence.

More revelations about Pat Tillman

One year ago today I wrote about Pat Tillman, football star, who gave up his career and volunteered to join the army to defend his country, and died under suspicious circumstances.

One year on, and the story is darker, murkier and a lot more suspicious than it was back then.

• Army doctors who examined his body suggest he was shot at close range in the head three times, probably by an American M16 rifle. Their attempts to have the death investigated were railroaded.


• Army attorneys passed around emails congratulating each other for avoiding a criminal investigation.


• A three-star general, who initially deceived the public about Tillman's death, told investigators seventy times that he couldn't recall details of his actions.


• Tillman's personal diary has disappeared instead of being returned to his family.


• His body armour and uniform was burnt.


• And most suspicious of all, the Whitehouse has refused to release documents regarding the death of Tillman, claiming Executive Privilege.

If it were just an innocent, tragic case of friendly fire, why would the Bush administration make the documents secret?

The "forgetful" general was punished for his role in deceiving the public about Tillman's death: his retirement package, estimated at $10,000+ per month, was cut by $900 a month.

Was it an accident? A fragging of an unpopular atheist officer? It has been suggested that perhaps some of the men in Tillman's unit were involved in the opium trade, and he was killed because he wouldn't go along with it. Or was it more sinister?

Tillman made a great American Hero, the poster boy for the US Army: football star and patriot, he didn't wait to be drafted, he gave up safety and a massive salary to volunteer. With his chiseled good looks he could have been a real life Captain America.


But this Captain America was known to oppose the Iraq occupation, and was planning to campaign against President Bush in the 2004 elections, and had arranged to meet with Noam Chomsky as soon as he could leave Afghanistan. Instead of the poster boy for Bush's war becoming a political embarrassment, he became a hero to be buried. What a lucky coincidence that was for Bush Co.

More about Tillman on the DailyKos and on Wikipedia.

The Peace Wager

What was the prison guard with a pyschology degree doing negotiating with the murderous head of an army of abducted children, the Lord’s Resistance Army? What do American Christian Fundamentalists, including the son of the American tele-evangalist Billy Graham, have to do with the civil wars in the Sudan and Uganda? How is this connected to the genocide in Darfur? And what does any of this have to do with the guinea-worm?

For the answers to these questions and more, see The Peace Wager in The Walrus.

Tanks of the air

The US Army is having helicopters shot out of the air by small-arms fire in Iraq. There are good reasons for this. Seven years ago, in the context of the Kosovo war, an American Lieutenant Colonel wrote about the dream of helicopters being tanks of the air, pointing out that the experience of Vietnam shows that even combat helicopters are very vulnerable to small arms fire -- a fact the Americans in Iraq are re-discovering to their sorrow.

Feeling safer?

One of the curious things about the Republican administration in the USA is its amazing contempt for the troops. Oh, the rhetoric about supporting the troops is there, the cheap words and hot air, but actual money for them? Nope. The soldiers in Iraq can't get basic equipment -- including ammunition -- and are reduced to buying their own body armour from civilian gun shops back home and having it posted to them, and scrounging for scrap metal to harden vehicles. And let's not forget the spoiled food and contaminated water provided to the troops in Iraq by Dick Cheney's baby, Halliburton.

Nothing's too bad for our boys!

And now a report that, apart from the troops in Iraq and Afganistan, the US Army has no combat-ready units, neither regular nor reserves. The Army is already warning that, in order to provide troops for the "Surge" in Iraq, they're going to have to strip equipment from troops in Korea and National Guard units in the US.

So, all you Republicans out there, the few of you still on Planet Earth: are you feeling safer yet?

Conscientious Rejector

American army officer First Lieutenant Ehren Watada is the first American commissioned officer to publically refuse deployment to Iraq. Last June, the 28-year-old Hawaiian native announced his refusal to deploy on the grounds that the invasion and occupation of Iraq is illegal.

He now faces a court martial on one count of "missing troop movement" and four counts of "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman", and could be sentenced to up to six years jail. He was interviewed by Kevin Sites:

SITES: You know on that note, Lieutenant, let me read you something from a speech that you gave in August to the Veterans for Peace. You had said at one point, "Many have said this about the World Trade Towers: never again. I agree, never again will we allow those who threaten our way of life to reign free. Be they terrorists or elected officials. The time to fight back is now, the time to stand up and be counted is today." Who were you speaking about when you said that?

WATADA: I was speaking about everybody. The American people. That we all have that duty, that obligation, that responsibility to do something when we see our government perpetrating a crime upon the world, or even upon us. And I think that the American people have lost that, that sense of duty. There is no self-interest in this war for the vast majority of the American people. And because of that the American soldiers have suffered.

There really is a detachment from this war, and many of the American people, because there is no draft, or for whatever reason, because taxes haven't been raised, they don't have anything personally to lose or gain with this war, and so they take little interest.

[snip]

[WATADA:] You know I think that [Congressman] John Murtha came out a few months ago in an interview and he was asked if, with all his experience, in Korea, and Vietnam, volunteering for those wars -- he was asked if he would join the military today. And he said absolutely not. And I think that with the knowledge that I have now, I agree. I would not join the military because I would be forced into a position where I would be ordered to do something that is wrong. It is illegal and immoral. And I would be put into a situation as a soldier to be abused and misused by those in power.

STIES: In your speech in front of the Veterans for Peace you said "the oath we take as soldiers swears allegiance not to one man but to a document of principles and laws designed to protect the people." Can you expand upon that a little bit — what did you mean when you said that?

WATADA: The constitution was established, and our laws are established, to protect human rights, to protect equal rights and constitutional civil liberties. And I think we have people in power who say that those laws, or those principles, do not apply to them — that they are above the law and can do whatever it takes to manipulate or create laws that enable them to do whatever they please. And that is a danger in our country, and I think the war in Iraq is just one symptom of this agenda. And I think as soldiers, as American people, we need to recognize this, and we need to put a stop to it before it's too late.

Naturally the comments to the article are running red-hot, with many, many people accusing Lieutenant Watada of being a traitor and deserter. The first comment made, from "glassart@pacbell.net", is typical of many of those opposed to Watada's actions:

I feel that a person that has voluntarilly [sic] joined the military and now refuses to go where assigned, during a military conflict is basically a traitor/deserter in the face of the enemy and should be treated as such. I had voluntarilly [sic] joined the military (US Air Force) during the Viet Nam conflict, so I have great feelings toward this, I did not believe what was going on at that time, but I did not shirk my duty to my country and the ideas of the constitution and Declaration of Independance [sic]. That is what I was fighting for. So as far as I am concerned this person is a deserter in the face of the enemy.

What a lovely example of contradictions! "Glassart" claims to have opposed the Vietnam war at the time, but to have volunteered regardless. Perhaps he believed that the Constitution and Declaration of Independence requires American citizens to stop thinking for themselves, shut down their higher faculties, and be suckers for the power-hungry rulers of the nation.

As a former military person (officer? pilot? desk jockey? the guy who sweeps the aircraft hanger floor? he doesn't say) he surely must know that a soldier in Washington can't possibly be deserting "in the face of the enemy" when that enemy is thousands, or even tens of thousands, of miles away. He uses that term twice, so it is important to him, but he doesn't know what it means. He calls the Vietnam War a "conflict", which is another sign of a chickenhawk: cheer the war on, but refuse to call it what it is. I'm guessing he wasn't a pilot, but one of the many air force personnel who never came within cooee of combat.

Then there is post number four, from "tilden44mobley", a twenty-year veteran of obeying orders like a good storm-trooper, a guy who was in Iraq in 1991 and says he knows weapons of mass "distruction" are still in Iraq. I can imagine the tens of thousands of American troops in Iraq right now turning on him and saying Are you calling us liars? Are you saying we can't do our jobs?

But this is the most significant comment of all:

I have lost many friends to the defense of our freedom. He discraces thier memory evertime he puts on the uniform. [sic]

In other words, blame the messenger. Don't blame the liars and con-artists who sent his friends off to die for nothing. Don't hold the crooks and cheats responsible -- instead, blame those who discover that you've been cheated.

It has been said that there is a sucker born every minute, and this common trait of shooting the messenger is an enormous factor in that. The powerful know, in fact they rely on the fact, that the people they lie to and cheat and actively harm are often their strongest defenders. Naturally there are limits to how far you can go before even the dimmest Joe Redneck loses faith, but those limits are pretty high. If there was one trait of Homo sap that has lead to misery and strife, it is the habit of actively supporting the manipulators and cheats, even after they've been revealed for what they are.

So N.Korea has the Bomb

After three or four years of "Yes they do", "No they don't", "Yes they do", "Maybe they don't", we know finally know: North Korea has tested a nuclear weapon, no ifs buts or maybes.

Well, perhaps a few buts. France is publically wondering whether the test went as well as N.Korea wanted -- the explosion was very small. By design, or did it fizzle? And having nuclear weapons is one thing, but being able to deliver them is another: there is no indication that N.Korea has the practical technology to use the weapons in battle. Without a delivery system, the bomb itself is not terribly useful.

Of course, the world's major nuclear powers -- the USA, Russia, China, France, Britain -- are condemning the test. Nobody has the honesty to say "How dare you try to defend yourself against the thousands of nuclear weapons already aimed at you!" but that's what they're thinking. N.Korea is surrounded by enemies -- perhaps rightfully so, but nevertheless they are surrounded by enemies. At best, they have a strained relationship with China. They have hostile relationships with Russia, Japan and South Korea, and let's not forget the USA.

I'm not suggesting that N.Korea is the victim here. By all accounts, there are good reasons they are feared and distrusted by their neighbours. But regardless of who is right and who is wrong, who's good and who's bad, if the rest of the world wants them to not defend themselves, what's in it for them?

Hawks often accuse doves of being impractical and of having heads filled with airy-fairy ideas of peace and brothership of all mankind. That's a load of malarky. It's the hawks who are impractical and foolish in their reliance of what I call the two-year-old model of international relations: if you shake your fist and scream and shout and stomp your feet and threaten to hit people, they will give you what you want. Of course, the hawks don't often literally scream -- that worked for Hitler against Chamberlain, in private, but in public it just makes you look like a buffoon. (An interesting case involves USSR Premier Nikita Krushchev: did he or didn't he bang his shoe on the table at the UN?) No, the hawks dress up their threats in polite language, but it comes to the same thing really: Gimme! The fatal flaw in the strategy of threatening an enemy if they don't give up their nukes is, once they have nukes, you can no longer make good on your threats without suffering yourself.

Of course, regardless of N.Korea's practical ability to strike at other countries with their nuclear bombs, or more to the point their inability, this could destabilise the area. Japan, in particular, may feel it is in their best interests to have their own nuclear deterrant, and not be reliant on the US nuclear umbrella which could so easily be turned against them, although the Japanese constitution forbids them from developing nuclear weapons.

Why is Iran so unconcerned?

Billmon has a few things to say about the possible (likely?) invasion of Iran.

He quotes Colonel Sam Gardiner about "the filter":

When I discuss the possibility of an American military strike on Iran with my European friends, they invariably point out that an armed confrontation does not make sense -- that it would be unlikely to yield any of the results that American policymakers do want, and that it would be highly likely to yield results that they do not. I tell them they cannot understand U.S. policy if they insist on passing options through that filter. The "making sense" filter was not applied over the past four years for Iraq, and it is unlikely to be applied in evaluating whether to attack Iran.

He also asks the very important question, with the USA banging the drums of war and looking to pick a fight, why is Iran acting so unconcerned?

It finally occurred to me that I may have been looking at this the wrong way. I’ve been thinking about an American air strike as the Cheney Administration's way of kicking over the table and ending the chess match. But the Iranians may see it as simply another move on the board -- a disastrously bad move they could then exploit to improve their position.

It’s not so much that the Iranians want the Americans to attack their country, but they may be fully prepared to deal with it and use it to their own Machiavellian advantage -- not just politically and diplomatically, but also to advance their alleged nuclear ambitions. They may even be counting on it. If this is correct, their initial reaction to a U.S. air strike may be surprisingly restrained.

I have to say, I've been wondering the same thing. Given Iran's ambition to be a major power, and given that the USA has made it abundantly clear that they can and will attack non-nuclear powered nations, why isn't Iran going full tilt to produce nuclear weapons? By all non-partisan accounts, Iran has no nuclear weapons program -- and yet it seems logically that they should.

Could it be that Iran was serious when they rejected the use of nuclear weapons as immoral and against the teachings of Islam? Maybe -- but surely that only holds for using nuclear weapons against civilians. That shouldn't prevent them using The Bomb against enemy combatants in self-defence, say by using a 20 KT bomb to destroy an American aircraft carrier or two.

Possibly even in pre-emptive self-defence, now that President Bush has made hitting back first acceptable behaviour.

Could it be that they know that they can't build nuclear weapons, not in the current political climate, and so are trying to turn their technical failure into a moral advantage? Maybe, but I doubt that Iran is less technically capable than Pakistan and India, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there were elements in China that thought that a nuclear armed Iran would be a good thing.

Billmon's post makes a lot of sense to me. It is his idea that Iran is playing a high risk, but high gain, game here: they are steeling themselves to take a bloody nose now, for a free rein in two or three years:

Having launched a massive, unprovoked attack on another country and suffered the inevitable blowback (skyrocketing oil prices, recession, disaster in Iraq, global condemnation) would the United States have the political will to do it again in one or two or three years time?

It is a long post, but one worth reading.

The asymmetry of warfare

Early in the Afghan War, President Bush made a comment about not wanting to fire a $50 million missile to blow up some camel in the desert. Five years later, America's reliance on high-tech weaponry is costing them big time.

Billmon reports that American forces in Iraq are spending almost $3.5 billion a year to lose ground in the fight against improvised explosive devices (IEDs). With $1.4 billion in R&D per year, the army now manages to disarm almost fifty percent of the IEDs before they explode.

But IEDs are dirt cheap, and are getting more common and harder to find, despite the ever increasing sophistication and cost of the high-tech devices for finding, jamming and defusing them. The increase in numbers of IEDs far outstrips the increased success in disarming them, and so the army is falling further behind:

It isn't just the monetary cost that hurts America, but also the opportunity cost. Every dollar spent on electronic gadgets to detect a bomb, is a dollar less to spend on intelligence, bribery or rewards for informants, to find the bad guys before they plant the bomb in the first place. But this is so very typical of the bull-in-a-china-shop approach of the Americans, blundering about, causing more harm than good, trying ineffectively to fix the problem that they could have prevented in the first place.

The sad thing is we'll all suffer for it. Just as the old Soviet Union created today's terrorists by invading Afghanistan (and Carter and Reagan trained them), so America is creating tomorrow's terrorists in Iraq.

Thanks George.

Addicted

James Wimberley from the Reality-Based Community has reprinted an interesting letter from the International Herald Tribune:

President George W. Bush has rightly pointed out that America is addicted to oil, but he fails to note the predictable consequences. Addicts break into houses, steal stuff and shoot people. America is breaking into countries, stealing stuff and shooting people. Why is anyone surprised that those homeowners object to our addictive behavior?
Sheila Stoll Morcote, Switzerland

Why indeed?

Addicts, too, come up with the most incredible (in the literal sense) rationalisations for their anti-social behaviour: "they hate our freedoms".

More on those cluster bombs

Cluster bombs make an effective weapon against massed ground troops. But they also make an even better weapons against civilians, a terror-weapon. By happy accident, cluser bombs have a habit of not going off immediately, which makes them one of the weapons of choice for the ethnic-cleanser and high-tech terrorist. Bomb an area, and not only do you kill people immediately, but you keep killing and crippling them for years or even decades afterwards, as unexploded bombs are found, often by children who think the small bombs are playthings.

Which makes the use of cluster bombs on civilian areas a war-crime. Deliberately endangering non-combatants is not an act of war, it is a crime. Civilized countries do not deliberately drop cluster bombs where children are sure to find them.

In the south of Lebanon, an incredible ninety percent of the cluster bombs dropped on civilian areas were dropped in the last 72 hours of the war, when Israel knew that a diplomatic resolution was imminent. The south of Lebanon, mostly villages and farm land with large civilian populations, are littered with unexploded cluster bombs. This immoral crime is part of Israel's attempt at ethnic cleansing, like the bulldozing and bombing of civilian houses and factories, cynically defended by the oft-repeated lie that Hezbollah military units were hidden in civilian areas.

Flat daddy

The US military has started giving the families of servicemen life-size cardboard cutouts of the troops, called "Flat Daddy" and "Flat Mommy". This is, apparently, at the request of the troops' families.

From the Boston Globe:

[Kay] Judkins said the cutout has been a comfort since her husband was deployed in January.

"He goes everywhere with me. Every day he comes to work with me," said Judkins, who works in a dentist's office. "I just bought a new table from the Amish community, and he sits at the head of the table. Yes, he does."

You can just see the denial in her eyes as she says that. "Yes, he does." Judkins even takes the cutout to confession. I wonder what she thinks a cardboard cutout has to confess.

This, surely, is the behaviour of a woman who is already thinking of her husband as dead even while he is still alive. If she's this neurotic while he's merely away, how is she going to act if he actually does die?

Check out this picture of "Flat Daddy" Lt. Col. Randall Holbrook and his children, and tell me that these kids aren't disturbed by the whole thing. Keep in mind that this was surely the best, most flattering photo the photographer could take.

More here and commentary from BoingBoing here.

Morality and invasion

The Leiter Reports looks at the claims of a philosopher who insists that there is no moral case against the invasion of Iraq. Well worth reading.

Cluster bombs

Juan Cole discusses the thousands of unexploded cluster bombs in Lebanon which have already killed and maimed civilians, especially children:

The bombs frequently do not detonate, so now south Lebanon is littered with deadly fist-size bomblets that will inevitably kill and disfigure children and other civilians.

The US State Department will investigate whether Israeli deployment of these weapons in civilian areas violated secret agreements under which Washington supplied them to Israel.

Nothing will come of the investigation, given the clout of the Israel lobby in Washington, but someday the relative of an innocent maimed Lebanese may decide to take revenge on the country that supplied the cluster bombs. And the American public will ask in astonishment why anyone should hate us.

Because they "hate our freedoms", surely?

Who won the war?

Now that the fighting has (mostly) stopped in Lebanon, and the ceasefire seems to be holding, we should ask, who won the war?

Well, Israel claim to have invaded Lebanon to force Hezbollah to disarm. Hezbollah aren't disarmed, and managed to fire 250 rockets into Israel in the last day before the ceasefire.

Israel said their aim was to destroy Hezbollah as an effective force. Hezbollah has not fired a single rocket into Israel since the ceasefire, giving unmistakable evidence that they remain under effective command and are not just a bunch of untrained terrorists. They're soldiers who can follow orders. [Update, 18-08-06 11:15am: it seems that the ceasefire hasn't been kept quite so well as I thought. Both sides have claimed provocation and retaliation, including a handful of rockets fired ineffectually into Israel. But still, it is clear that Hezbollah is under effective command.]

Israel said that they were going to occupy southern Lebanon until Hezbollah was no longer a threat. Israel are withdrawing from Lebanon, and Hezbollah are still there, still armed, and still able to fight.

Israeli hardliners hoped to push the Lebanese people out of southern Lebanon, leaving the area depopulated and giving Israel a large buffer zone. Under the mythology of far-right Israel, the Lebanese and Palestinians are not attached to any particular piece of land. (Half a century of conflict over land hasn't taught Israeli wingnuts any different.) As soon as the ceasefire started, Lebonese farmers and shopkeepers began returning to their farms and what little was left of their homes.

Israel said they went to war to rescue the two captured soldiers, and would never negotiate for their return. The soldiers are still prisoners, and Israel have now said they will negotiate.

I have previously suggested that this war between Hezbollah and Israel is like Rocky: no matter what the judges say, the fact that the heavyweight champ Apollo Creed didn't cream the unknown in the first round made Rocky the winner. No matter how badly Rocky was beaten by the champ, he was still standing, bruised but unbowed. But in fact it is worse than that: despite a total lack of air support and heavy armour, Hezbollah was able to inflict significant loses on Israel while suffering surprisingly few loses themselves.

When a first-world army with air support and heavy armour takes on second-world ground troops, you should expect a ratio of 1:10 losses. In this war, the ratio was 1:4 according to Israel and 2:1 according to Hezbollah (as of the time of writing). Of the two, I consider the Israeli figure (barely) more reliable -- I'm assuming the true figure was one Israeli casulty taken for every two inflicted.

As Pat Lang writes:

A basic lesson of history is that one must win on the battlefield to dictate the peace. A proof of winning on the battlefield has always been possession of that battlefield when the shooting stops. Those who remain on the field are just about always believed to have been victorious. Those who leave the field are believed to be the defeated.

It is Israel, not Hezbollah, who is slinking off this battlefield.

How to win friends for your enemy

Over at The Whiskey Bar, Billmon reminds us that unprovoked attacks against civilians can easily backfire:

The stakes are high for Hizbullah, but it seems it can count on an unprecedented swell of public support that cuts across sectarian lines. According to a poll released by the Beirut Center for Research and Information, 87 percent of Lebanese support Hizbullah's fight with Israel, a rise of 29 percent on a similar poll conducted in February.

More striking, however, is the level of support for Hizbullah's resistance from non-Shiite communities. Eighty percent of Christians polled supported Hizbullah along with 80 percent of Druze and 89 percent of Sunnis.

Lebanese no longer blame Hizbullah for sparking the war by kidnapping the Israeli soldiers, but Israel and the US instead.
[...]
Ghassan Farran, a doctor and head of a local cultural organization, gazes in disbelief at the pile of smoking ruins which was once his home. Minutes earlier, an Israeli jet dropped two guided missiles into the six-story apartment block in the centre of Tyre.

"Look what America gives us, bombs and missiles," says this educated, middle-class professional. "I was never a political person and never with Hizbullah but now after this I am with Hizbullah."

Unless Israel is prepared to take the gloves off and start a full-blown land invasion and genocide in Lebanon -- which I don't believe they have quite reached that state yet, more out of concern for Israeli casualties than for any other reason -- they can't beat Hezbollah by dropping bombs on people's houses, and will only make them stronger.

Like Apollo Creed versus Rocky Balboa, if Israel can't knock Hezbollah out in the first round, the champ loses -- no matter what the final decision on points is. The Israeli right-wing government has handled this badly, underestimating Hezbollah's discipline and fighting ability, underestimating revulsion to war crimes and the slaughter of children, overestimating their ability to commit ethnic cleansing from the air and kill or displace the people of southern Lebanon. Simply by standing up to Israeli tanks and fighters and fighting them to a draw, Israel has lost and Hezbollah has won.

I was going to say "an honourable draw", but with both sides committing war crimes, there is no honour in this war. Still, there is no moral equivalence between the two sides, and not all crimes are equal. Hezbollah's crimes are of carelessness, firing inaccurate missiles into civilian areas where, on occassion, they have killed a civilian: a crime of ommission, failing to take sufficient care. Israel's war crimes are deliberate, crimes of commission: deliberately bombing civilians, guided missiles fired at ambulances, bombing U.N. reports, attacking rescue workers, and so forth.

We should take Israel's claims of self-defence with more than just a grain of salt: since Israel withdraw from their illegal occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000, until 12th July of this year, six Israeli civilians died in border violence. Six. Obviously that's six too many, but sane governments don't risk the welfare of their entire nation over one death per year, and moral, ethical people don't slaughter at least 400, mostly innocent civilians including children, and make 800,000+ homeless, over six.

Proud to Be a Chickenhawk

Reasonable conservative Jon Swift explains why he is proud to be a chickenhawk:

I think that the fact that we pro-war bloggers are not in the military makes our voice even more important than the opinions of people in the military. [...] While pro-war advocates who have never served in the military have the necessary detachment to objectively analyze the military situation without being distracted by emotion, people who have served in the military have lost all perspective. Look at people like Jack Murtha, who is "a rank coward" according to one conservative blogger and "a traitor," according to another, or John Kerry, whose reputation will never recover from the attacks of the brave Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Then there are all the generals who came out recently against Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's leadership of the War in Iraq, who were accused by the right wing of insubordination after the fact. Clearly, these former military men have had their point of view distorted by their experiences in the military. On the other hand most of the men responsible for the success in Iraq, including Donald Rumsfeld, President Bush, Dick Cheney and the neo-cons on his staff have never served in combat.

Swift has a point. Consider the humble bumblebee. As many people know, it is aerodynamically impossible for the bumblebee to fly. And yet, it flies. It flies because it does not know it cannot!

Swift is far too modest to say so, but as one whose knowledge of history and the reality of combat is utterly superficial, he is one of the fortunate few who, like the bumblebee, is able to bend reality to their will through the power of their own ignorance.

Coffin counters

As of July 28, 2006, the Israeli attack on Lebanon has lead to the deaths of 425 Lebanese, 51 Israelis, and 4 UN peacekeepers.

A graphical counter can be found here. It really drives home the discrepancy in the amount of violence applied by each side and the disproportionate response applied. With the destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure, its bridges and factories and power stations, at the hands of Israel in the 1980s and again in 2006, I'm sure many Lebanese are thinking "Invade us once, shame on you; invade us twice, shame on us. Never again!"

A similar counter for the occupation of Iraq can be found here. Deaths in Iraq to date are approximately 2550 Americans, 44,650 Iraqis. Since 2002, Iraq has suffered the equivalent of almost fifteen September-Elevens, or about one every three months. And that doesn't take into account the fact that Iraq has a much smaller population, so the death toll is far more significant in proportion, nor does it consider those who have been indirectly killed by the destruction of infrastructure, the lack of food and water and medical supplies.

I think it is fair to say that the average Iraqi probably holds at least ten times as much good will towards the USA as the average American holds towards al Qaeda.