Stacking up bodies in Gaza, again. There is no clear path ahead for this damnable conflict. Israel offers at present no answer. Their thesis is apparently that Hamas can be bombed into military submission (which it likely can) and then soon after into changes in politics (which it can't). And so the bodies keep piling up. What the First World fails to understand about this perpetual bloodbath is that it is, at root, a religious war.
It is true that the Israeli response is heavy-handed and troublesome (again), but equally, Hamas is predictably fomenting a constant radicalization of this conflict at the expense of compromise, an end to violence, and a lasting peace. Victory at all costs makes sense when one is confronted with an enemy bent on global domination, as Churchill well knew and as France surely learned in those dark hours of the 20th century. But the "kill the Infidels" battle cry of Hamas given Israel's desire to exist in the region without constant threat of terrorist attack cannot be excused easily, if at all. It is a Holy War more than a rational assessment of the conditions for peace. And so the usual carrots offered by the First World-- money, prospects for a better economy -- never find purchase with Hamas, and more generally with leaders steeped in radical Islamic dogma. To hell with modernity makes it difficult to propose modern solutions.
What to do? Who knows? I do know that the political Left hopes that compromises and concessions by Israel will have some real effect on the policies of Hamas. It's hard to see how this will transpire, and history suggests that it's just so much more wishful thinking . On the Right, this idea that full-scale bombing campaigns into heavily populated areas will brow-beat Hamas into "coming to the table" is surely wishful thinking as well. The end Israel will achieve, if any at all, is just another temporary cessation of violence, while Hamas re-organizes, and reloads. In the meantime, thousands of innocent people in Gaza are the unfortunate and truly tragic victims of this damnable conflict.
Showing posts with label war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label war. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Harry Reid
Like Mission Accomplished, Harry Reid delivers. At least President Bush later expressed regret about the "bring em' on" bravado and the Mission Accomplished banner (Bush might instead have fallen back on parsing words: "No, I meant the particular mission to take Baghdad in the first weeks of battle..."). Harry Reid, the [insert your favorite moniker], managed to proclaim to all the world just before the surge that the war is lost. Which war, Harry? Vietnam?
Friday, November 28, 2008
A Human Life
It is possible, today, that someone willing to throw himself in harms way (or worse) to stop an early term abortion, might feel hardly a whisper of moral discomfort over the loss of over 4,000 men and women on the field of battle in Iraq. The emphasis, in the former case, is on "innocent", as in "an innocent life." It's of course true that a fetus is an innocent life. But the thought of men and women shipped off to a foreign land to confront not a grave, imminent danger but rather to execute an elective war decided by politicians, hardly creates a clear distinction between the two cases. Aren't these soldiers, in context, innocent too?
It's troubling to me that this concept, this abstraction of a "human life", with its inherent value, so dominates domestic discussions like abortion, while casualty numbers in foreign wars seem almost actuarial, as if "the human life" in battle is simply a discreet countable entity. Many of these men and women have been eviscerated in combat in ways that we could scarcely watch without vomiting, and can hardly bare to discuss even shielded from graphic details.
Of course, the 4,000 men and women who've perished wearing the American uniform in Iraq are heralded using the same language brought forth in all wars: valor, courage, patriot. It is no doubt true. But what animates and gives moral clarity to war is the notion of sacrifice for a worthy cause. Our troubling question today is whether in fact this standard has been met in Iraq. It is not for the soldiers to answer but their leaders.
There is, I think, something very noble about leaders who are willing to face true crisis with resolve. Winston Churchill, during the early days of the German invasion of Europe, when the fall of France was imminent, ordered French military ships destroyed to prevent their later use by Germany against Britons. It took gut-wrenching resolve. He was a great lover of France and a frequent visitor officially and in private, but he understood the stakes of the burgeoning German threat, and as immediate threat so often does, it trumped high-minded diplomacy. Later in Parliament, as if it were possible anyway to misunderstand his opposition to Hitler, he nonetheless left no doubt: "If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground." Gotcha.
And that I want of my leader. Give me WSC. But I do not want an elective war that bleeds away the very nobility and moral urgency of the grave conflicts that make heroes not just of our soldiers, but also of our leaders. America should find its soul again. Because, as we so often profess to believe, there is an inherent dignity to each human life.
It's troubling to me that this concept, this abstraction of a "human life", with its inherent value, so dominates domestic discussions like abortion, while casualty numbers in foreign wars seem almost actuarial, as if "the human life" in battle is simply a discreet countable entity. Many of these men and women have been eviscerated in combat in ways that we could scarcely watch without vomiting, and can hardly bare to discuss even shielded from graphic details.
Of course, the 4,000 men and women who've perished wearing the American uniform in Iraq are heralded using the same language brought forth in all wars: valor, courage, patriot. It is no doubt true. But what animates and gives moral clarity to war is the notion of sacrifice for a worthy cause. Our troubling question today is whether in fact this standard has been met in Iraq. It is not for the soldiers to answer but their leaders.
There is, I think, something very noble about leaders who are willing to face true crisis with resolve. Winston Churchill, during the early days of the German invasion of Europe, when the fall of France was imminent, ordered French military ships destroyed to prevent their later use by Germany against Britons. It took gut-wrenching resolve. He was a great lover of France and a frequent visitor officially and in private, but he understood the stakes of the burgeoning German threat, and as immediate threat so often does, it trumped high-minded diplomacy. Later in Parliament, as if it were possible anyway to misunderstand his opposition to Hitler, he nonetheless left no doubt: "If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground." Gotcha.
And that I want of my leader. Give me WSC. But I do not want an elective war that bleeds away the very nobility and moral urgency of the grave conflicts that make heroes not just of our soldiers, but also of our leaders. America should find its soul again. Because, as we so often profess to believe, there is an inherent dignity to each human life.
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