Israelis Gone Wild! Dumb Ox News & OTT

Europeans may soon tire of treading the moral middle, condemning both sides in the current Israeli action in Lebanon, and come out more firmly...on the side of appeasement:

"Disproportionee!" Sez French technocrat Chirac.
"Sproporzionato!" Cries the Italian leftist Massimo D'Alema.

Liberal paradigms in crisis! Kofi to the Rescue! "Restraint! Restraint!"

European and American liberals, internationalists, socialists and utopians in love with the idea of Reason, believing that one can reason with evil to find some sort of compromise ("can't we all just get along?" - Le Monde), are unable to understand the current crisis, and, well, just about anything. Restraint and compromise always favors the unscrupulous. Duh. But because liberals think basically good people only do nasty things because they are poor, or unemployed, or ignorant, or dropped on their head when they were a baby, they have NO CONCEPTION (and indeed deny the existence) of EVIL that is consciously, deliberately, freely CHOSEN... If such liberals were true to their intellectual origins, they would be condeming ISLAM from top to bottom as a religion of violence and hate. But, alas, leftist elites are duplicitous and Machiavellian; they may end up cooking their own goose, and perhaps ours too in the process.

But I digress...

STOP with the "retaliation" and "retribution" talk (including talk-radio dopes)! Israeli action is not aimed at a "reprisal" (Reuters) for Hezbollah's killing and kidnapping of Israeli soldiers. Israel's attacks in Lebanon are aimed at isolating Hezbollah assets for their subsequent destruction. There will be no retreat until that task is accomplished in our humble opinion. Hezbollah's attacks and threats, some 70+ missiles launched into Israel since the invasion--2 killed and over 40 wounded--and Euro-U.N. pleading will not and ought not prevent Israel's simple self-defense.

As the major papers in Israel explain, definitive steps must be taken to halt Hezbollah's ability to wage war from Lebanon and Hamas' ability to wage war from the haven of the Gaza strip. In Israel, the majority conviction seems to be that events have reached a turning point, where the continued existence of Israel is indeed at stake. Yedioth Internet opines:

"This is no competition of false machismo. This is a fateful decision: Even if these two radical Islamic movements gain symbolic propaganda victories – it could free other enemies around the Middle East. The need to win this war is absolute. There can be no debate about it."

But there are also Israelis with a more European worldview, as Haaretz editorializes, worried that "inordinate" (i.e. disporoportionate) action by Israel may lead to a wider war.

Why have Hamas and Hezbollah seemed to have coordinated this provocation? Why at this particular moment?

We can imagine, this wider regional war is just what Iran would like to see. If the world is focused on Gaza and Lebanon, they can continue humming along on their nuclear bomb program... Follow the money. Is Syria also acting as an Iranian agent in the stewing up of this war? The Iranians and Syrians may be planning on dividing up the spoils in Iraq after the U.S. is driven out in their strategy for the future.

Clearly the Iranians "benefit" from this crisis. They can relax now with the thought that the U.S., let alone the Europeans, surely would not risk a crisis ALSO in Iran! And so the word from Ahmadinejad is "Stop bugging us, or we'll quit your ol' treaty organization!"(AFP via Jihad Watch)

Are we looking at the same sort of miscalculation that Hitler made after the Munich conference, over-relying on a belief in European cowardice? And is Syria misplaying its cards just as Mussolini did, using an Iranian alliance to get its own concessions or insurance policy from the Western powers?

Is the increased violence around Baghdad also part of an orchestrated effort to take Iran off of the front pages? Shiite death squads inflicting apparently random violence? P.M. Maliki seems helpless to stem the violence, and it is unclear what Rumsfeld's visit or a planned meeting in Washington can hope to accomplish so long as radical Shiite elements are around. Obviously they can only be crushed by the moderate Shiites--whoever they are--not by coalition forces. Let's hope that Maliki has the will (and the ability) to do what it takes to get control of the situation.

Wall Street Journal's Gerald Seib discusses on CNBC (video) impact of the escalation of violence on Israeli borders, and the new factor of ISLAMIC radicalism...

FOR UPDATES see Memeorandum with links to continuing coverage from around the world... including the provocative report that Hezbollah is seeking to transfer the Israeli soldiers they've kidnapped to Iran...

In completely unrelated news: just when will Bush apply the Bush Doctrine to Mexico?

2. Am I the ONLY one with the idea that French retardo goons break-dancing to "The Nutcracker" has more than a little bit of irony to it?

3. And now for something completely different: 120 photos from the Miss Universe competition in Los Angeles...

4. Stay tuned...

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