July 2006 Archives

WARNING: graphic images ahead.

By now you've heard about the Israeli attack in Qana that killed several children. There's more to the reporting of the story than you think, though. EU Referendum catches Hezbollah's grotesque propaganda games here and here. The mainstream media photographers on-scene in Qana played right along.

Update: More here.

Update 2: Michelle Malkin has a great round-up of past Islamist propaganda. Believe the MSM at your own risk.

Update 3: Rachel Neuwirth points out mainstream media complicity in Hezbollah's propaganda war (hat tip: Discerning Texan).

TigerHawk CardinalPark sees similarities between the Falklands War and Israel's current war to wipe out Hezbollah. Interesting parallels, and surprising. I never thought to compare the two.

Previous:
Hezbollah's Siegfried Line
Tarawa, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, Okinawa ... Lebanon?

Please, someone shoot me.

Amanda Marcotte at the Pandagon blog objects to Israel's tactics in its war on Hezbollah, and laments the "absence" of a more peace-loving viewpoint in the media (and presumably among Americans in general):

The fear of the Wingnutteria whining has turned the mainstream media into the biggest bunch of cowards you ever saw; meanwhile the right wing press is unafraid and this has made them less constrained on the subject of this war.

The mainstream media is most definitely not blindly backing Israel. Take for example CNN correspondent Nic Robertson's gullible participation in a Hezbollah propaganda stunt. No, the MSM is predominantly left-leaning and tends to support the "talk-talk-talk" strategy for warfighting, as advocated by liberals like UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland (who at least condemns Hezbollah, to his credit).

As for the right wing press (whatever that means beyond "Eeeeeevil Fox News") being "less constrained", I have to plead ignorance of exactly what she's complaining about. Is it that conservatives generally support Israel's right to strike back hard against Hezbollah and eliminate that terrorist organization for good? Or is some kook on the right advocating genocide? If so, I'll happily label him a kook of the first order.

The problem with that is when Israel does something so obviously odious as killing innocent civilians and holding them culpable for what an unsanctioned organization does, well, even just straightforward reporting is going to seem critical.

Doesn't the population of a country bear at least some responsibility for what the country does or what it allows to happen inside its borders? A goodly number of liberals seem to think so when the country in question is America. Otherwise why apologize at all?

The Lebanese government was elected by the Lebanese, and it shares some responsibility with the citizens in allowing Hezbollah to rocket Israeli civilians and kidnap Israeli soldiers inside Israel. I don't think it's unreasonable for Israel to hold all of the Lebanese people partly culpable for allowing Hezbollah to start a war. What is it that exempts Lebanese civilians from culpability for their government's behavior, while we're on the hook for America's policies?

And please remember that Hezbollah did start this war. Until this month Israel hasn't occupied a single square inch of Lebanon since 2000. Hezbollah doesn't want to end an occupation; it wants to eliminate Israel. If that doesn't make sense to you, then you're wilfully blind to reality and nothing can persuade you otherwise.

Kill them.

Mary Katherine Ham posts some key quotes from a recent interview with Ken Blackwell, and most were right up the red-meat conservative middle. However, Blackwell's response to a question about mainstream media distortions and his use of blogs left a lot to be desired.

David All: How are you planning to counter the liberal MSM in Ohio, and are you working with bloggers?

"Here's what they (Dems) worry about...as they sort of make the case that I gave this election, that I stole this election for Bush...when it gets exposure in the general community...Not one of them (state papers) has concluded, either on their editorial pages or in their news pages, that there was some major hijacking of this campaign," he said, adding that of 176 Democrats who serve on the Board of Elections, "not one of them has come out and said that there was anything corrupt or untoward about this election."

"Most people in Ohio understand that my choice was to take...those who believed in the rule of law and those who believe in voters without borders. I chose the rule of law," he said, adding that Ohio handled its provisional ballots the exact same way as New York, Texas and Massachusetts did.

"They see my brand of conservatism as being strange...Ohio is used to electing governors that are dull and practical."

"Nobody has ever accused me of not being able...to drive toward results...that enhance the quality of life for the people I serve. I don't govern by the editorial pages. I have an ideology that I live and die by."

That's nice, and it's true. But it doesn't answer the question about countering lefty spin. Blackwell outlines what he wants to do to, not how he plans to do it.

Hey, Matt Naugle! Tell your guy that he has support in the Ohio blogosphere, and that Hugh Hewitt is promoting him too.

To reduce violence in the Middle East, Ralph Peters suggests redrawing the map along ethnic and religious lines.

In each case, this hypothetical redrawing of boundaries reflects ethnic affinities and religious communalism � in some cases, both. Of course, if we could wave a magic wand and amend the borders under discussion, we would certainly prefer to do so selectively. Yet, studying the revised map, in contrast to the map illustrating today's boundaries, offers some sense of the great wrongs borders drawn by Frenchmen and Englishmen in the 20th century did to a region struggling to emerge from the humiliations and defeats of the 19th century.

Correcting borders to reflect the will of the people may be impossible. For now. But given time � and the inevitable attendant bloodshed � new and natural borders will emerge. Babylon has fallen more than once.

We could actually do this if not for the existence of the U.N. (motto: "Obstructing peace and common sense since 1945!") and the west's infatuation with political correctness.

Doug Hanson of The American Thinker follows the IDF's fight to clear what he calls "Hezbollah's Siegfried Line" here and here. If you're unfamiliar with the comparison, just read a little history here.

Previous:
Tarawa, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, Okinawa ... Lebanon?

WuzzaDem completely demolishes the schizophrenically-gifted Glenn Greenwald, a NY Times bestselling author of ... oh, nevermind. I'll let the sockpuppets speak for themselves.

Ralph Peters laments Israel's missed opportunities, and urges its political leaders to get harsh and crush Hezbollah now ... before it's too late:

All Hezbollah has to do to achieve victory is not to lose completely. But for Israel to emerge the acknowledged winner, it has to shatter Hezbollah. Yet Israeli miscalculations have left Hezbollah alive and kicking.

Israel has to pull itself together now, to send in ground troops in sufficient numbers, with fierce resolve to do what must be done: Root out Hezbollah fighters and kill them. This means Israel will suffer painful casualties - more today than if the Israeli Defense Force had gone in full blast at this fight's beginning.

The situation is grave. A perceived Hezbollah win will be a massive victory for terror, as well as a triumph for Iran and Syria. And everybody loves a winner - especially in the Middle East, where Arabs and Persians have been losing so long.

Israel can't afford a Hezbollah win. America can't afford it. Civilization can't afford it. Yet it just might happen.

...

The mess Israel has made of its opportunity to smack down Hezbollah should be a wake-up call to the country's leadership. The IDF looks like a pathetic shadow of the bold military that Ariel Sharon led into Egypt three decades ago. The IDF's intelligence, targeting and planning were all deficient. Technology failed to vanquish flesh and blood. The myth of the IDF's invincibility just shattered.

If Israel can't turn this situation around quickly, the failure will be a turning point in its history. And not for the better.

Faster, please.

Here's a question I asked a week ago: "How long do you suppose we'll have to wait before Iran's favorite Iraqi troublemaker Muqtada al-Sadr starts making aggressive noises in an effort to distract U.S. forces in Iraq?"

According to Q and O, it looks like the answer is: "Not very long at all."

A senior member of Muqtada al-Sadr's Iraqi Shi'ite militia, the Mahdi Army, says the group is forming a squadron of up to 1,500 elite fighters to go to Lebanon.

The plan reflects the potential of the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah to strengthen radical elements in Iraq and neighboring countries and to draw other regional players into the Lebanon conflict.

"We are choosing the men right now," said Abu Mujtaba, who works in the loosely organized following of radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. "We are preparing the right men for the job."

The "right men for the job", huh? That must mean "men who want to be splattered by the IDF."

... and only then will Islamists think twice about attacking us.

Hat tip: Hugh Hewitt

The ever-resourceful Debbie Schlussel continues to expose the activities of Hezbollah in Michigan. Yes, you read that right.

Update: She appeared on Neal Cavuto's show on Thursday, too.

Courtesy of Ms Underestimated, here are the four segments that Laura Ingraham hosted on this past Friday's edition of The O'Reilly Factor:

Talking Points Memo
Unresolved Problem Segment (guests: Frank Gaffney and Gary Berntsen)
Impact Segment (guest: Juan Williams)
Back of the Book Segment (guest: Niles Gardiner)

Well done, Laura! I hope you take John Kasich's place as #1 guest host.

The more I hear in the news about the battle in southern Lebanon, the more I think back to World War II. I wonder if there are any significant similarities between: 1) Hezbollah's reliance on bunkers and tunnels, and 2) Japan's island-defense strategies between 1943-45?

In the Battle of Tarawa, the Japanese employed their early-WWII strategy of trying to stop the U.S. Marines at the water's edge. That strategy changed at the Battle of Peleliu to a more elastic defense geared toward drawing out the bloodshed and inflicting maximum casualties on the Marines. The Battle of Iwo Jima amplified that effect, and by the time the Battle of Okinawa really got going, the Japanese had refined defensive warfare into a bloody science of attrition.

Now I keep hearing news reports of surprisingly stiff Hezbollah resistance against Israeli incursions in southern Lebanon. On the plus side, Israel enjoys air superiority, and it has also effectively cut off the Hezbollah fighters from resupply and reinforcement, much like our Navy did to each Japanese-held island we chose to invade. Granted, this isn't a full-scale invasion (yet) and the defenders have reportedly chosen to build their bunkers in urban areas, so the parallels to our own WWII Pacific Campaign aren't that strong yet. But I wonder how this battle will develop, and if there might end up being more similarities to 1943-45 than we see so far. If the diplomatic busybodies "international community" actually sits still long enough to let this fight play out, I will be paying very close attention to how Israel ends up rooting out and killing these Islamist fanatics.

Here's hoping we end up with a decisive win for the West and a crushing, humiliating defeat for Islamism.

Update: Great reading on the Pacific War:

Utmost Savagery Joseph Col Alexand... Best Price $2.59 or Buy New $6.99 Privacy Information	Brotherhood of Heroes Bill Sloan Best Price $4.00 or Buy New $9.75 Privacy Information	With the Old Breed E. B. Sledge Best Price $6.50 or Buy New $11.02 Privacy Information
Goodbye, Darkness William Manchester... Best Price $3.25 or Buy New $11.53 Privacy Information

Update: Even though it's a quote from a story by DEBKA (which is notoriously unreliable), how did I miss this?

Last week, Israel�s army chiefs believed they had encountered Hizballah�s primary war tactic � Viet Cong-style guerrilla warfare out of hundreds of small bunkers scattered across the country. This week had scarcely begun when a still more formidable impediment was discovered: Hizballah camouflage techniques borrowed from the Japanese in the 1945 Iwo Jima battle. To stop the rockets coming, Israeli special forces must continue to blow up the tunnels and also adopt the methods the US Army�s methods for overcoming the Japanese dug in at Iwo Jima and other Pacific islands at the end of World War II. Without regard to losses, they stormed Japanese dug-in positions and camouflaged units. using flame throwers and gasoline to burn the foliage concealing the enemy�

In the first ten days of the war, therefore, the Israeli air force bombed out empty Hizballah premises in South Beirut and Baalbek, but missed the moving woods and vegetation which concealed the rocket launchers � which explains why the blitz continued notwithstanding heavy Israeli air force assaults on Hizballah�s centers and strongholds.

I'll be watching the news for more reports like this to see if more reliable sources confirm it.

Here they are.

Victor Davis Hanson suspects that our Islamist foes are pushing the civilized West dangerously close to the point of no return:

Yet for all their threats, what the Islamists -- from Hezbollah in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley to the Iranian government in Tehran to the jihadists in Iraq's Sunni Triangle -- don't understand is that they are slowly pushing tired Westerners into a corner. If diplomacy, or aid, or support for democracy, or multiculturalism, or withdrawal from contested lands, does not satisfy radical Islamists, what would?

Perhaps nothing.

What then would be the new Western approach to terrorism? Hard and quick retaliation -- but without our past concern for nation-building, or offering a democratic alternative to theocracy and autocracy, or even worrying about whether other Muslims are unfairly lumped in with Islamists who operate freely in their midst.

Any new policy of retaliation -- in light both of Sept. 11 and the messy efforts to birth democracies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and the West Bank -- would be something of an exasperated return to the old cruise-missile payback. Yet in the new world of Iranian nukes and Hezbollah missiles, the West would hit back with something far greater than a cruise missile.

If they are not careful, a Syria or Iran really will earn a conventional war -- not more futile diplomacy or limited responses to terrorism. And history shows that massive attacks from the air are something that the West does well.

I've been thinking along similar lines lately, myself.

By vetoing the bill that would have authorized federal funds for embryonic stem cell research, President Bush is not "banning" anything.

Embryonic stem cell research remains legal under federal law. You are free to destroy embryos and harvest their stem cells without fear of federal prosecution. You just can't get federal tax dollars to fund your research; you have to fund it yourself, or get a state or local government to foot the bill.

In fact, the federal government will fund your research on embryonic stem cells as long as you use the cell lines derived before August 9, 2001.

Visit Newshound for a roundup of Ohio political blogging over the past week.

Pundits and politicians argue about stem cell research in a way that seems complicated, but it doesn't have to be that way. Whenever things get foggy, just find out which kind of stem cell research they're arguing about.

1. With one exception (see #3), embryonic stem cells are harvested from a human being in his or her earliest stages of development, before those cells have had time to specialize. By definition, this requires cutting up the developing human being. This kills him or her without fail, and it's why most people object to this type of research.
2. Adult stem cells are found scattered among mature cells in your tissues or organs. They are very basic cells much like an embryo's cells, and they can differentiate to yield the major specialized cell types that make up your tissues and organs. The primary roles of adult stem cells in a living organism are to maintain and repair the tissue in which they are found, but they can be coaxed into becoming other types of mature cells. Nobody has any moral objections to research on adult stem cells, and the federal government funds.
3. The only way to collect embryonic stem cells without killing embryos is to use the tissue found in umbilical cords and placentas, which are expelled during childbirth. Very few people know about this source of stem cells, which can eliminate any "need" for embryo destruction.

It's all about definitions. Once you narrow down the subject, the argument becomes much more straightforward.

I've synthesized these definitions from my own work, from the NIH, and from ClearlyExplained.com.

Today the U.S. Senate will vote on H.R.810, a bill which would allow Uncle Sam to spend your tax dollars to help researchers destroy human embryos in the name of science. Here are three basic reasons to call your Senator and ask him or her to vote against spending tax dollars on research that destroys human embryos:

1. It's immoral because it unneccessarily kills human beings.
2. It's unnecessary because adult stem cell research is already more successful and holds more promise ... and all without killing any human beings.
3. It's politically unpopular when it's explained clearly.

Defeating this bill would not ban stem cell research. It would only prevent the federal government from spending your tax dollars to fund research that destroys human embryos. Destructive embryo research would still be legal as long as it's funded privately or funded by a state or local government.

Contact your Senator and urge him or her to vote "no" on H.R.810. If you're interested in watching today's Senate debate live, C-SPAN2 has you covered.

--

Update: Evangelical Outpost understands things quite clearly.

1. How long do you suppose we'll have to wait before Iran's favorite Iraqi troublemaker Muqtada al-Sadr starts making aggressive noises in an effort to distract U.S. forces in Iraq?
2. Other than lobbing missiles, how exactly is Iran going to back up Syria in a war with Israel? After all, there are around 150,000 Coalition troops standing in the way in Iraq. Look at the map. Are the mullahs dumb enough to try marching their troops across northern Iraq to bail out Syria?

OPFOR observes that Israel is preparing the battlespace for a ground invasion of southern Lebanon. One of his readers concurs:

I am a faculty member with the US Army Command & General Staff College and your comments are the same ones we have been having with students.

More agreement from DefenseTech and Stratfor, and Mudville Gazette.

Hat tip: Power Line

Vinnie at The Jawa Report remarks on the idiocy of Hezbollah and Hamas, who have chosen to fight a two-front war.

For the geographically-challenged, check out this map ...

... excerpted from the fine collection at the University of Texas.

I'm no military strategist and I only served 9 years in the military, so take what I suggest with a pinch of salt. That said, Israel ought to capitalize on its capacity for speed, surprise, and violence of action in defeating its enemies. The principles of close-quarters battle could really make the difference for Israel on a tactical level.

Granted, Israel cannot maintain strategic surprise ("will they attack us?") but it still has tactical surprise ("where/when/how will they attack us?"). That is often more than enough, as in our own invasion of France in WWII. Israel's enemies are ill-equiped, poorly-trained, and cannot defend everything all the time. Israel also has fantastic intelligence resources to call upon that will help it exploit those weaknesses.

The Israeli Defense Force is well-versed in low-intensity urban combat, yet it also retains the ability for deep strikes into a neighboring enemy nation's territory. You can see that already in Lebanon if you look at how the Israeli Air Force continues to destroy bridges, roads, and runways, while the Navy blockades Lebanese ports. This denies Hezbollah the easy resupply they've enjoyed until now.

As for violence of action, does anyone seriously doubt that a nation that routinely targets terrorist leaders for assassination will suddenly lose its nerve when those same terrorist leaders hide behind corrupt Middle Eastern autocracies while lobbing missiles and kidnapping Israeli troops? I thought not.

After Israel eliminates the immediate threats in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, it should issue an ultimatum to Syria: "Immediately return all kidnapped Israeli troops, cease all support of Hezbollah and Hamas, turn over their leaders, and unconditionally repudiate terrorism in all its forms." Naturally, Syria will refuse.

At that point Israel should wreck Syria: destroy its military, decapitate its government, ruin its communications networks, and reduce its critical infrastructure to rubble. Israel can't afford to try an occupation. It hasn't the troops or the resources to pull it off. Just wreck the place, go home, and repeat as needed (Iran, are you listening?).

It'd be one heck of an object lesson for Islamists and their supporting regimes: attack Israel, and you live in darkness. They respect nothing except the will to use overwhelming power. I hope Israel wallops them hard.

Today in Iraq, we officially turned over security responsibility for Muthanna Province to the Iraqi government. Here's the CENTCOM press release that landed in my inbox:

Newshound has all the goodies.

When it comes to protecting its troops, Israel is deadly serious:

Israel last night threatened to assassinate Palestinian Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh if Hamas militants did not release a captured Israeli soldier unharmed.

The unprecedented warning was delivered to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a letter as Israel debated a deal offered by Hamas to free Corporal Gilad Shalit.

It came as Israeli military officials readied a second invasion force for a huge offensive into Gaza.

Hamas's Gaza-based political leaders, including Mr Haniyeh, had already gone into hiding. [Ed: Good luck hiding, fellas.]

But last night's direct threat to kill Mr Haniyeh, a democratically elected head of state, sharply raised the stakes. [Ed: When you democratically elect thugs, don't cry when things get ugly.]

...

Much of Gaza, including two main hospitals, was without power and running water as a UN aid chief warned that the 1.4 million residents of the strip were three days away from a humanitarian crisis. [Ed: That's what you get for putting Hamas in charge. Cause, meet Effect.]

...

Residents complain that sonic booms caused by Israeli jets traumatise children and that shelling confines families to their homes. [Ed: My heart bleeds for you. Really. Yup.]

...

Egypt and the neighbouring Arab states of Jordan and Lebanon fear a war between Israel and the Palestinians could lead to uprisings within their own borders, which house many Palestinian refugees. [Ed: Serves 'em right.]

The only thing that these Islamofascist thugs understand and respect is force. I say Israel ought to apply it. Hard.

Hat tip: VikingSpirit