ya t.s.a.g.,

sadly ... this is brilliant. a lot of people will dismiss it as "parody", but this is EXACTLY what happened at that meeting.

let's make a movie & then force everyon in the region to watch it.

maybe that'll help ...

--raf*

I have no sympathy with either side. But if you consider the overall conflict between them you'll find that the IDF has done 99% of the civilian face ripping and limb chopping and family incineration; and often on purpose. The Hizballa people may claim in this case, perhaps rightly, to have had a slight moral edge over their adversary.

Great work.

Thank you

I have placed a link to your blog on my site at Worldwide Sawdust

Please review my site and consider linking back to me.

Thanks

Bob Higgins
Worldwide Sawdust

Zapata: If Hezbollah hasn't done more, it is in large part because they haven't been able to, not because they've consciously exercised restraint. That's not a moral edge at all. The childish games both sides are playing would be funny if there weren't all those hundreds of innocent civilians being killed.

Brilliant.

And if you desire a distrubing illustration in English of the logic of unbounded partisanship in this conflict, trying reading Dershowitz's argument that the Leb civilians aren't really civilians....

Oddly this sort of logic of massacre used to be more popular on the Arab side, I suppose it's nice to see convergences between the parties.

re. Dershowitz,

What's frightening is that, what sounds almost like a parody, what really ought to be a parody, is actually a serious argument. There'd been an awful lot of them lately.....

dubaiwalla: I don't know if that's really the case; for example, during 18 years of Israeli occupatoin of south Lebanon when the Israelis killed and terrorized the civilian shiia population there with prison, torture and SLA mercenaries, hizballa didn't cross into Israel to massacre Israeli civilians or carry a suicide bombing; not becaus ehey couldn't, but I think because they didn't want to.

Rubbish. Hizbullah showed no sign of being able to undertake cross border raids during the occupation, and their bloody mindedness re civilians is rather clear.

Brilliant.

I bet the Israelis would also argue that all Arab little girls are brought up to hate and are closet supporters of terrorists and just waiting to tear off our faces if we don't tear theirs' off first.

well the point is they didn't even try, unless I have the facts wrong. You'd think they will at least give it a try? and militarily they wcould do it especially that less sophisticated palestinian groups did it.

A better bit of critical thinking is to ask yourself, given the obscurity of guerilla war, the public posture of Hizbullah since inception, whether you really know they did not "try" to penetrate the Israeli-S. Leb Army militia defence in depth.

sublime. easily the best thing i've read on the lebanon conflict anywhere.

i have to agree with raf* ... this post is genius.

depressingly so.

Ahhh, liberals... "stop fighting! can't we just all live nicely together?"

Ah, knee-jerking superficial sub-literate cretins: Ahhh, liberals [in American vocab., aka writers of any statement/opinion/view my cretinous self only dimly grasp] ... "stop fighting! can't we just all live nicely together?"

Bloody moron.

Oh, come on, L, he has a point. I mean, only weak-kneed, namby-pamby, kumbayah-singing pacifists could possibly NOT be in favor of blowing little girls' faces off.

Judging by his site, I suspect our visitor is being ironic.

Gah. How can you tell, any more?

Lounsy: while I'm using a right-wing taunt, I'm coming from a left-wing perspective. I did find TS' post entertaining and not irrelevant either. I do recognize that both sides could easily end this current phase of the conflict rather quickly by offering a prisoner exchange, but I think that Israel's acts in Gaza in recent weeks have provided a certainly moral ground for "distraction", if you want, which is what the Hezbollah incursion seemed like in the first place.

I'm quite baffled by Israel's destruction of Lebanese infrastructure; I don't see what they have to gain from a divided Lebanese society. They've done it for 18 years, they should know by now that there isn't much to gain in Lebanon.

Since everyone seems to be agreeing this entry is brilliant, I must be missing something. I found it quite average to be honest.

Humour, perhaps not to your taste, but there it is.

ya shaheen,

de gustibus non est disputandum.

on that note, what do you think of farid boudjellal's "juif-arabe"?

--raf*

I kinda agree with Shaheen's general take. For me, the parody works in the descriptive rather than prescriptive sense. If the intent is to merely show that both sides sound dumb, it works. If the intent is to show that both parties are equally wrong in action, it doesn't really work. Or rather, if you think it works you would have to be against any war no matter what the context (since any war might result in girls' faces being ripped off, and one would have to half-hazardly argue in every case how it's better than the alternative--an argument that is the very subject of this parody--which no matter how true, would sound lame, as the parody shows). One can construct a similar parody between Milosevic and NATO, or the Interahamwe and the RPF in Rwanda by playing off their soundbites during those conflicts. I'm sure many people wouldn't be comfortable with those parodies if they understood them to suggest a moral equivalence between both parties' actions. In those cases, atrocity accusations were leveled at both parties, but like the Israel-Leb situ right now, the actual systematic "collateral damage" seemed to be rather lobsided.

re. Dershowitz

Questioning military/civilian distinctions does have its merits, but the guy's biggest blindspot is that erasing that distinction makes the term of "Israeli civilian" more hollow than its Lebanese counterpart.

There is a vast difference — both moral and legal — between a 2-year-old who is killed by an enemy rocket and a 30-year-old civilian who has allowed his house to be used to store Katyusha rockets.

Check. The guy, though, doesn't seem to get that everything at this point depends on how IDF intelligence determines who has "allowed" the rockets to be stored in his building, and who doesn't know that said rockets are in the building. And if the IDF realistically can't be bothered with those details, the whole thing obviously fucking falls apart. The latter group of people are no doubt in the same class with those Dershowitz says should be considered innocent victims: those people who aren't able to leave the targeted areas.

the line between Israeli soldiers and civilians is relatively clear. Hezbollah missiles and Hamas rockets target and hit Israeli restaurants, apartment buildings and schools. They are loaded with anti-personnel ball-bearings designed specifically to maximize civilian casualties.

Hah ha. Israel is known for its "civilian army", meaning that civilian men from 18-50 and single women from 18-24 can be immediately sent to the front line at a moment's notice. Hence, (and by Dershowitz' own logic) killing a Israeli retaurant owner in his restaurant during a war is morally no different than killing an Israeli soldier, because that restaurant owner is as willing or unwilling to fight as the soldier is, and equally required to do so when the time comes. He is therefore no different than a soldier waiting in a barracks in a time of war. Ironically, Israel is probably more efficient in calling in civilians and suiting them up than Hizbullah is in enlisting non-guerilla Hizbullah supporters on demand. If Dershowitz wants to argue why killing Lebanese dudes is less bad than killing Israeli dudes, his argument has to depend on something other than a military/civilian distinction.

It is not even inevitable in war that children have to be systematically slaughtered. War is fought that way because we choose to. But even insofar as it is a risk, then that's a reason why war should be avoided with extra effort as often as possible.

The key thing however is the self-righteous dishonesty of it. People use a hundred "necessity" and "accident" excuses to avoid the obvious honesty -- a decisive many WANT to slaughter enemy children -- yes we really do -- we want dead babies, and extermination, we just dont like to look at the photos. The base motive is usually fear, revenge, bigotry and to create the fact or feeling of intimidation. Not accident and not necessity. It is true that to protect "our guys" it is often more efficient to blanket slaughter civilians of the enemy in intentional acts so as to generate fear etc., like in the A-bombs (which, by the way were explicitly ALSO motivated by revenge and thoughts of racial extermination) but that fact is why we should avoid war and terrorism (its junior form) and not jump to it.

The dishonest self-righteousness applies to the Allies in WWII, and every war with "good guys". Which is why war should be avoided where possible and not eagerly embraced and justified and rationalized as in this situation.

"Nevertheless, a world in which it is wrong to murder an individual civilian and right to drop a thousand tons of high explosive on a residential area does sometimes make me wonder whether this earth of ours is not a loony bin made use of by some other planet." -- Goerge Orwell, 1943

I get this feeling like stepping in dog poo when someone wants to relativise WWII.

MH
I more or less agree, although I lack the morals to be particularly categorical, nor even to be offended by the spin by the mealy mouthed partisans of either side.

I particularly liked your turn of phrase, dishonest (although I might have written delusional or self-deceiving) self-righteousness. The dishonest self-righteousness applies to the Allies in WWII, and every war with "good guys". Which is why war should be avoided where possible and not eagerly embraced and justified and rationalized as in this situation.

Necessary, perhaps in the end, but not something al-m3qouline must swallow without at least some juandiced objection. Necessary evils are always doubtful and remain, in the end, evils.

stepping in dog poo when someone wants to relativise WWII.

Well war does stink, especially the bodies after a few days.

Still relativizing WWII is a necessity. Unless the Allies were seen as a relative good and the Nazis seen as demonstrably relatively worse, communists would not have joined forces with impeiralists, democrats with Stalinists, etc. It took a great deal of moral relativism for the Allies to take shape, or as Churchill put it so well after joining with the USSR, "if Hitler had invaded hell, I'd find a few kind words to say about the devil." Or to that effect.

It's just important to note that war is a state we enter often because we like it as a species. And it is always interesting to hear sadism rationalized.

Much war justification rhetoric boils down to the rapist's "she was asking for it" just with alot more patriotism and necessity invoked, and a lack of admission that the sheer act with all its brutality was cathartic fun.

L, Raf,

Aegean disclosure rather sums up my thought. I would just add that discussing this current hot topic on moral ground misses the real issues/interests at hand - even though the moral safeguards are useful in the sense they put some restraints on unnecessary killings. Now you guys are right, it's certainly a matter of taste, I tend to miss humor when it doesn't have a certain amount of cynicism. Not that this entry was bad or that it didn't have it, but it was defending some moral point of view rather easily imho.

Raf, I haven't read that comic. But you raised my curiosity and I will try to read it as soon as I can put my hands on it.

Unless the Allies were seen as a relative good and the Nazis seen as demonstrably relatively worse, communists would not have joined forces with impeiralists, democrats with Stalinists.

ok, that's more sensible than I feared. I expected something like 'both sides were bad'. My problem with those criticising Hiroshima is their detached and principled moralism. Orwell was constantly at odds with himself over this issue, and for good reason, because it isn't easy to judge. Taking one innocent life to possibly save a hundred? It's easy to crap all over Israel, because they are only making the situation worse, which is just what Hizbullah wants. But the nukes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still debated. Seeing how surrendering is as far from bushido as Tokyo is from Washington, I can't put myself in a morally superior position to those that, after four years of endless slaughter, wanted to end it by one final massacre. I can't say I wouldn't have done it, because I don't know. One does not know what one chooses until one is faced with the choice.

I can't put myself in a morally superior position to those that, after four years of endless slaughter, wanted to end it by one final massacre. I can't say I wouldn't have done it, because I don't know.

Personally I lean to favoring Hirsohima if not Nagasaki. Still it was barbarism and I dont shrink from noting that, nor the fact that revenge and exterminationism played a background part.

Orwell didnt shrink either, when he noted that atom bombs can be defended but only by arguments too brutal to make, and that dont match the official ideologies of those defending it.

The real debate in the Middle east always boils down to an unspoken, and sometimes spoken, "they started it because they are evil and that'swhat they do". When push comes to shove most there on al sides beleive it is forgiveable at worst, ok generally, and even delightful and preferable at best, to slaughter enemy babies by our side because our cause and people are just and unduly victimized, and theirs arent, and they are not so much human as monsters.

Tactical considerations are incidental to the sentiment and self-deceptions behind it.

Barbarism it was, war is utterly barbaric. People should know this, but they don't want to. Noone would support war if they knew what actually takes place. This is the main reason I have little regard for the discussion of 'legal' and 'illegal' wars. As if wars could ever be legal. Legitimate, in defense, perhaps. But not conducted under the rule of law; that idea is void of any sense of reality.

Cpt. Willard in Apocalypse Now: Arresting someone for murder in Vietnam was like handing out speed tickets at the Indy 500.

Personally I lean to favoring Hirsohima if not Nagasaki. Still it was barbarism and I dont shrink from noting that...

Well, this is what I meant by "descriptive" rather than "prescriptive". There is a difference between making the point that something is barbaric, and making the point that because something is barbaric it shouldn't be done. This parody serves the intent of the former but not the latter. An Israeli can read the parody, appreciate the humor and acknowledge the barbarism, but still support the decisions IDF made, the same way you can acknowledge the barbarism of Hiroshima while defending the decision. Therefore I don't see it as a tool to get people to reconsider their military decisions. This is a general parody on rhetoric and not a parody on a specific sequence of actions. But something tells me it was intended to show that both sides are doing the wrong thing, and that they should stop. And to do that one would have to relate the rhetoric to the actual military decisions in this conflict, which seems to me to be beyond the scope of the parody.

People use a hundred "necessity" and "accident" excuses to avoid the obvious honesty

They use the same amount of "necessity" and "accident"s if they are pushed to answer for ten dead childern as when they are pushed to answer for a hundred dead children. The actual significant increase of dead civilians is what usually makes people become less and less tolerant towards the rhetoric, not the rhetoric of "necessity" itself. After all, objective bystanders can decide that one party is in the right despite the fact that the public rhetoric and rationalizations of both parties are identical.

Necessary, perhaps in the end, but not something al-m3qouline must swallow without at least some juandiced objection. Necessary evils are always doubtful and remain, in the end, evils.

Yes, I suppose it is good to remind oneself that something like the removal of Saddam from Kuwait is an inherently evil endeavor. And I suppose as long as people don't state it publicly, they will be exposed to parody.

The funny thing about Hiroshima, if not Nagasaki, is that many Japanese historians are convinced that they (or, at least, one of them) were absolutely necessary: even if there were many in Japanese leadership interested in talking peace, they were completely intimidated by the militarists who were willing to fight to the last Japanese (the selective assassinations of moderate politicians by "renegade army fanatics" was how the military came to dominate Japanese politics, after all, in 1930s.) The only thing that blew some sense into these guys' skulls was the atomic bomb, or so the argument goes.

Personally, the thing that makes me queasy about the morality of the Second World War is the war in the Balkans, where complicated ethnic conflicts centuries old were ignited by outside forces that had nothing to do with the locals, with so much ugliness on all sides.

Thanks Rafi, below -- for saying it the honest way -- and there is plenty from the other side(s) to say similar and worse too:

I am prepared to hail down hellfire on the Hezbollah terrorists, their aides, their collaborators, all those who turn a blind eye to them, and everyone who so much as smells of Hezbollah - and their innocent bystanders can die instead of ours," Rafi Ginat, the editor of Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's largest newspaper, wrote in Friday's edition. "We are in the middle of a war, and we have to win this war by trampling on Hezbollah underfoot and everything it represents. We have to strike hard - and we can allow ourselves to feel good about it."

I suppose this is somewhat relevant.

I must say, I am a bit tired of people comparing Iraq and whatever to the stand against Nazism. Even so, it's a decent article, though I can't find his central argument. And I looked hard. He says:

Any argument that any action is moral, on the ground of its being "war-shortening," is thin and glib, and may also be hateful and false.

Then says:

Those who oppose [violence] until its use is too little and too late, or too much and too late, should be called casuists. ... [Grayling's] book is a treatise...on the urgency and integrity of the "preemptive."

Sounds like a self-contradiction, don't it? Someone explain. I frankly don't understand.

I must say, I am a bit tired of people comparing Iraq and whatever to the stand against Nazism.

How exactly is he comparing Iraq to the stand against Nazism here? He mentions Iraq only once along with Serbia, and it is only to point out that in many wars there are people who root for the "other side" to take action even though the other side might kill them in the process. The other day, they were interviewing Israeli Arabs in Haifa who were saying that Hizbullah was right to fire rockets even though those rockets might end up killing Israeli Arabs. Is one guilty of equating Iraq with the fight against Nazis simply by noting that some Germans also looked favorably on Allied attacks on German soil? Your Nazi-dar seems to cloud the fact that a comparison of very limited scope is being made. God forbid one relates specific characteristics of WWII that are similar to specific occurances in other wars.

The reason I mentioned the piece is because it similar echoes some of the comments above:

We know from declassified papers that Churchill's advisers told him to blast working-class districts because the houses were more tightly packed together.

Some say that Dresden was not really a military target and that it was obliterated mainly in order to impress Joseph Stalin

[Air Marshall Harris] more or less admitted that he was incinerating German cities in 1944 and 1945, not because he had to, but because he could.

...allow me to quote what Winston Churchill minuted to his Chiefs of Staff on March 28, 1945:

"It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing German cities for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed. Otherwise, we shall come into control of an utterly ruined land. The destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing."

---
it's a decent article, though I can't find his central argument.

The piece's general concern is determining under what circumstances area bombing can be excused. His conclusion in this specific case appears to be this:

A "pinpoint" bombing of Dresden's railheads in 1945 would still have left the Nazi authorities in power and allowed them to send the last transports to the killing fields.

As for the war-shortening thing, I think what he's trying to say is that defending something on the grounds that its war-shortening is rather meaningles because every military action is taken because it is believed that its success will "shorten the war."

Those who oppose [violence] until its use is too little and too late, or too much and too late, should be called casuists. ... [Grayling's] book is a treatise...on the urgency and integrity of the "preemptive."

The preemptive in this case is a reference to the plot to arrest Hitler that the British shied away from endorsing in 38, that, if successful, would have saved countless lives etc etc etc.

Hitchens brings up Grayling's invocation of 9-11:

(Hitchens commenting on: To say that the principle underlying "9/11," Hamburg and Hiroshima is the same is to say that the same moral judgment applies to all three.) ...In what declension of "just war" theory ... would Osama bin Laden be allowed into the argument? Proportionality?

He further says: What if the United States had determined to strike the Imperial Japanese Navy first?

And talks about lazy democracies. Then finally uses the word pre-emptive, which to 99% of all I know would be a reference to Bush's wars. Then calls moral handwringing cowardice:

Moral crisis is the vile residue of moral cowardice.

As in: Those who doubt are cowards.

Maybe I'm wrong. In any case, Hitchens' last 'what if' argument is just bad, because no decision can be made while knowing the future. It's basically a hindsight argument. It's like saying: If you could kill Hitler before he seized power, would you? Of course one would, but how do we know who Hitler is today? Deciding to kill Hitler is pretty easy to do from 2006. Much harder in 1926.

So he's in favour of Dresden? Since every military action is taken because it is believed that its success will shorten the war, that makes it ok no matter what?

getting way off topic, but oh well

Maybe I'm wrong. In any case, Hitchens' last 'what if' argument is just bad, because no decision can be made while knowing the future. It's basically a hindsight argument. It's like saying: If you could kill Hitler before he seized power, would you?...Deciding to kill Hitler is pretty easy to do from 2006. Much harder in 1926.

His casual wishful thinking at the end is a response to and done after his own criticism of Grayling's hindsight bias: if you're going to speculate in that fashion you might as well speculate in this fashion etc. And, of course, doesn't think one needs to appeal to a hindsight bias in order to entertain the idea of stopping Hitlet before 39.

In 1938, the British government was contacted by emissaries from the Kreisau Circle, a group of courageous German oppositionists led by Count Helmuth von Moltke. They told Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax that if Great Britain would stand adamantly by its guarantees to Czechoslovakia, and promise to make a stand against fascist irredentism, they could put Hitler under arrest. ...This could only be done if the British maintained a belligerent policy instead of a capitulationist one.

Who knows if this would have succeeded? We only know that officers as highly placed as Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the head of German military intelligence, and many influential politicians and diplomats, were part of the plan. We also know that Chamberlain and Halifax refused to talk to them.

1938 is not 1926 (that was the year Churchill called Mussolini a "Roman genius ... the greatest lawgiver among men.") There were many who were raising alarms about Hitler including Churchill and co. who opposed Chamberlain's appeasement strategy and the Munich agreement. Looking into this sort of preemption is hardly a hindsight bias when people at the time were suggesting it, and it differs from meaningless fantasies like "If you could kill Hitler before he seized power, would you? Of course one would, but how do we know who Hitler is today?"

Hitchens brings up Grayling's invocation of 9-11:

Yes, the keyword here is Grayling's. And its an invocation Hitchens mocks for its generality (the very thing you accuse him of doing), that is, he mocks the assertion that if Hiroshima is excusable so is 9-11. But this is about whether Hitchens is doing something similar in the piece, right?

"Moral crisis is the vile residue of moral cowardice."

As in: Those who doubt are cowards.

As meaningless as that statement sounds to you, the article consists of doubting a number of given rationalizations for the bombings. If you look at the context, Hitchens is saying the moral cowardice prior to the war resulted in the moral crisis of Dresden during and after the war.

aha. thanks for explaining. Upon closer reading, I think Hitchens was in favour of total apocalyptic destruction:

The Nazis had claimed to be invincible and invulnerable: Very well, then, they must be visited by utter humiliation.

Leaving no political alternative after the war to moderation. I have read a similar argument about Japan; that the reason Japan was demilitarized was because it was destroyed completely.

But I am still not one for particular morals. A particular moral lesson is useless if it cannot be applied to the decisions one has to make in the present. How would you say this applies to today, to Lebanon, Iraq, whatever? Not at all? Entirely different situation? Or just the same?

Also, I thought about this some. To claim that every military action is undertaken with the intent to shorten the war is wrong. Neither the purging of Hue City nor My Lai were done for that purpose. Like Hogan said, sometimes the cause is nothing but hate.

But USAs and Israels public have different perspectives on this. While Israels public may be secretly driven by hate, the US public is not. They still believe they are there to help, just like in Vietnam, and that the war in Iraq is a stand against evil. That's why things like Haditha matter still.

But USAs and Israels public have different perspectives on this. While Israels public may be secretly driven by hate, the US public is not. They still believe they are there to help, just like in Vietnam, and that the war in Iraq is a stand against evil. That's why things like Haditha matter still.

What, you think that Americans, unlike Israelis, don't have a secret hate for muslims? Before September 11, that could have been tenable, but not since then. Bush would not have been allowed to bomb Paris even if it had been proven that Chirac was bin Laden's éminence grise.

No, I actually don't. It's not hate, it's racism rather: An Arab life just isn't worth a hundredth of an American. That's why it's often heard that the Iraq conflict has cost 2500 lives without accomplishing anything, never mind all the Iraqi deaths.

If Americans are in Iraq because of hate, they wouldn't mind the carnage. But they do, since the public believes they are there to help. It's a little like Vietnam. And people then didn't like My Lai, it didn't fit with their self-perception.

Well:
What, you think that Americans, unlike Israelis, don't have a secret hate for muslims?

I have mixed feelings on this statement. Having spent six months just now in the US of A for the first time in many years, I did find that there is a goodly number of persons who have sentiments bordering on fear and hatred. Re Arabs at least.

I had a little think about this.

The self-perception of USA is that of a beneficial superpower, not one that massacres, assassinates and destroys at will and without remorse. Its hate for Arabs, which I still reserve for the right-wingers, the O'Reilly types, may be secret to itself. They may be unwilling to face up to it. We are the good guys, the cowboys in white hats. We do not hate.

In any case, if USA is in Iraq to kill Arabs, something it has certainly achieved with plenty of assistance from Arabs themselves, then that contradicts the falling support for the war. Explain that. Or maybe USA's presence in Iraq is a mystery to everyone, including Bush & co. Their explanations certainly changed numerous times.

The current academic consensus on USA is that it is a geographically divided nation, in red and blue:

Rural/Republican/Conservative/Redneck vs.
Urban/Democrat/Liberal/Rollerskater

A divided mind: one part hiding from the other.

hm. hope it makes sense to someone.

To claim that every military action is undertaken with the intent to shorten the war is wrong. Neither the purging of Hue City nor My Lai were done for that purpose.

Wasn't it you who quoted Stalin saying "no people, no problem"? Are you saying that whoever gave purging orders for Hue wouldn't defend his actions by claiming that doing so would bring them closer to victory and shorten the needed duration for the resistance? You also seem to have understood what I said to include the foot soldier's own explicit motives for killing in the battlefield, whereas I was referring to the rationalizations for tactical decisions given by commanding officers/generals.

Like Hogan said, sometimes the cause is nothing but hate.

Hogan's comments were part of the reason why I thought this article relevant. Why do you think Hitchens includes Churchill's line: The question of bombing German cities for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed.

Or says: Any argument that any action is moral, on the ground of its being "war-shortening," is thin and glib, and may also be hateful and false. If wiping out one city shortens the war, wiping out more cities entirely would probably shorten the war even more. Which is why defending something by saying it would shorten the war without getting into the cost of shortening in the war is "thin and glib".

A particular moral lesson is useless if it cannot be applied to the decisions one has to make in the present.

The lessons are applied to decisions in the present, if only to prevent others from making bad analogies that have grave consequences. Hitchens is not "relativising" this to fit Lebanon here, and given that he has called Bush's policy on the matter "extreme unwisdom" elsewhere, I doubt that was his intention. Unlike Netanyahu, who today on Hardtalk, said that compared to the Allied bombing of German cities Israel's actions have been "disproportionately generous". Nice.

Because someone claims a massacre is made to shorten the war, doesn't make it true. Professed intent, actual intent, and actual result are not one.

my former question was, since Dresden and Hiroshima were brought up because of the bombing of Lebanon, how do you (not Hitchens) think this applies to the current situation? God knows everything's Godwinned over and over. The theology of the West is Nazism as the Ultimate Evil. It's the legend I've grown up with, the only story that is common to all. So Murtha and everyone who doubts Iraq are called appeasers, and so on. Bush is Hitler, no, wait, that's Saddam. Hell, everyone is Hitler and Jews are Nazis. Muslims too. My grandma is Goebbels, and I am Churchill.

So, I put it to you: Why can/can't this be applied to Lebanon? And what do you think about Hiroshima?