At Least Republicans and Democrats Aren't Killing Each Other*

Warning - political-religious rant. Come back tomorrow for something lighter.

You have been warned.

A while back in this space, I offered a plan for peace in the Middle East that basically involved walling off the entire area, filling it up with sand, and starting over. It was tongue-in-cheek, of course, but - as I pointed out at the time - it was at least as workable as any other plan anyone has offered to bring peace to that tortured part of the world.

Today, as the political crisis and horrifying slaughter continue in Gaza, I have to reluctantly fall back on my plan as the only one that will ever work.

The problem with the Middle East is that it combines the very best of the very worst in human nature: intense and utterly rigid religious beliefs, irreconcilable political demands, and the presence of a resource (oil) that the world needs and wants. Each side has a claim to the same territory, each side believes their claim is just and all others are illegitimate, each side believes God gave that plot of land only to them, and each side believes that it must deal from a position of unquestioned strength in order to prevail. If ever there was a witches' brew of political, historical, and religious hatreds, it's in what we for some reason continue to refer to as the "Holy Land."

The Israelis contend that they are entitled to a homeland in what used to be called Palestine, and cite both religious history and modern politics (such as the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the 1947 UN resolution partitioning Palestine) as proof of their claim. They point to their sufferings in the Holocaust as a reason why they need a nation that is their own, that they can defend, where they will be safe.

Many Arabs despise the Israelis (Jews) on religious grounds and will never rest in their hatred until the Jews have been driven from the land. Others contend, logically enough, that perhaps the Jews do deserve a homeland as a result of the Holocaust, but that it should be carved out of Europe, where the Holocaust took place, not out of Palestine.

Good luck reconciling all those positions.

The Palestinians don't trust the Israelis. The Israelis don't trust the Palestinians. The Palestinians have earned a reputation for violence that makes much of the world indifferent to their plight, while the Israelis have earned a reputation for intransigence and heavy-handed violence that often undermines their desired image as a plucky little democracy under siege.

Regardless of who you blame for all the historical events that led to today's situation, I absolutely believe the leaders of Hamas bear the ultimate responsibility for the current ongoing carnage. They launched salvos of rockets at Israel in the certain knowledge that the Israelis would retaliate with full force. They chose to launch those rockets from the densely populated Gaza Strip, knowing full well that any Israeli retaliation would kill large numbers of innocent Palestinians. That didn't matter. All that mattered was their hatred of the Israelis. The fact that innocent Gazan Palestinians would be caught in the crossfire was fine with them, because they would be able to show endless photos of devastated neighborhoods and dead children as "proof" that the Israelis were at fault.

I am not an apologist for Israel. I think that the Israelis have brought much of the hatred of the local population on themselves by their actions and policies. But at some point, people on both sides with brains and hearts have to step back and say yes, I may hate you, but enough is enough.

The Palestinians must accept that, however unjust in the beginning and however bitter now, the state of Israel is a reality on the ground. The Israelis will never be rocketed or suicide-bombed into leaving. Such actions will only continue the cycle of violence. They need to stop dreaming of an idyllic past that will not return, and start concentrating on building a future for their children and grandchildren. When Israel withdrew from Gaza, it left behind a territory with an established infrastructure that could have been developed into a thriving center of commerce and tourism. Instead, hard-core Palestinian elements - driven by hatred rather than focused on building for the future - turned it into a constant battleground. Their callous indifference to the well-being of their own people deserves the condemnation of people of good will everywhere.

The Israelis, for their part, must accept that creation of their state resulted in dislocation and hardship for thousands of people who were already living there. They cannot destroy Hamas and the even more extreme groups any more than those groups can destroy the state of Israel. They must stop building settlements in the occupied West Bank, withdraw from that territory as they did from Gaza, and work with the Palestinians to help build a functioning state that can eventually become a partner for development in the region. Given the established hatreds, this will be no easy task, but the alternative is endless repetitions of the same misery and bloodshed.

Regardless of what each side believes, both are at fault.

And the chances of them recognizing it and trying to resolve things peacefully is about nil.

Have a good day. Don't let this happen to us.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Yet.

Thomas Friedman's Rules for Understanding the Middle East

Mike's last two posts (this one and this one) illustrate the lunacy that defines the Middle East in general and the Arab/Islamic world in particular (yes, I know that Malaysia is not part of the Middle East). Who can understand how these idiots think...or even if they think at all?

One of my favorite commentators on issues of the Middle East is Thomas Friedman, the author and foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times. He speaks both Hebrew and Arabic, lived in the Middle East for many years, and is one of the most perceptive observers of that bizarre region that I've found. If you only read one book about the Middle East, it ought to be his classic From Beirut to Jerusalem, which is one of the most even-handed, witty, and sad things ever written about this screwed-up region.

One of Mr Friedman's best contributions to helping confused laymen comprehend the hopeless muddle of the Arab-vs-Israeli and Islam-vs-Everyone Else messes came in the form of his classic Fifteen Rules for Understanding the Middle East. Here they are:

Rule 1: What people tell you in private in the Middle East is irrelevant. All that matters is what they will defend in public in their own language. Anything said to you in English, in private, doesn't count. In Washington, officials lie in public and tell the truth off the record. In the Mideast, officials say what they really believe in public and tell you what you want to hear in private.

Rule 2: Any reporter or U.S. Army officer wanting to serve in Iraq should have to take a test, consisting of one question: "Do you think the shortest distance between two points is a straight line?" If you answer yes, you can't go to Iraq. You can serve in Japan, Korea or Germany -- not Iraq.

Rule 3: If you can't explain something to Middle Easterners with a conspiracy theory, then don't try to explain it at all -- they won't believe it.

Rule 4: In the Middle East, never take a concession, except out of the mouth of the person doing the conceding. If I had a dollar for every time someone agreed to recognize Israel on behalf of Yasser Arafat, I could paper my walls.

Rule 5: Never lead your story out of Lebanon, Gaza or Iraq with a cease-fire; it will always be over before the next morning's paper.

Rule 6: In the Middle East, the extremists go all the way, and the moderates tend to just go away.

Rule 7: The most oft-used expression by moderate Arab pols is: "We were just about to stand up to the bad guys when you stupid Americans did that stupid thing. Had you stupid Americans not done that stupid thing, we would have stood up, but now it's too late. It's all your fault for being so stupid."

Rule 8: Civil wars in the Arab world are rarely about ideas -- like liberalism vs. communism. They are about which tribe gets to rule. So, yes, Iraq is having a civil war as we once did. But there is no Abe Lincoln in this war. It's the South vs. the South.

Rule 9: In Middle East tribal politics there is rarely a happy medium. When one side is weak, it will tell you, "I'm weak, how can I compromise?" And when it's strong, it will tell you, "I'm strong, why should I compromise?"

Rule 10: Mideast civil wars end in one of three ways: a) like the U.S. civil war, with one side vanquishing the other; b) like the Cyprus civil war, with a hard partition and a wall dividing the parties; or c) like the Lebanon civil war, with a soft partition under an iron fist (Syria) that keeps everyone in line. Saddam used to be the iron fist in Iraq. Now it is us. If we don't want to play that role, Iraq's civil war will end with A or B.

Rule 11: The most underestimated emotion in Arab politics is humiliation. The Israeli-Arab conflict, for instance, is not just about borders. Israel's mere existence is a daily humiliation to Muslims, who can't understand how, if they have the superior religion, Israel can be so powerful. Al Jazeera's editor, Ahmed Sheikh, said it best when he recently told the Swiss weekly Die Weltwoche: "It gnaws at the people in the Middle East that such a small country as Israel, with only about 7 million inhabitants, can defeat the Arab nation with its 350 million. That hurts our collective ego. The Palestinian problem is in the genes of every Arab. The West's problem is that it does not understand this."

Rule 12: Thus, the Israelis will always win, and the Palestinians will always make sure they never enjoy it. Everything else is just commentary.

Rule 13: Our first priority is democracy, but the Arabs' first priority is "justice." The oft-warring Arab tribes are all wounded souls, who really have been hurt by colonial powers, by Jewish settlements on Palestinian land, by Arab kings and dictators, and, most of all, by each other in endless tribal wars. For Iraq's long-abused Shiite majority, democracy is first and foremost a vehicle to get justice. Ditto the Kurds. For the minority Sunnis, democracy in Iraq is a vehicle of injustice. For us, democracy is all about protecting minority rights. For them, democracy is first about consolidating majority rights and getting justice.

Rule 14: The Lebanese historian Kamal Salibi had it right: "Great powers should never get involved in the politics of small tribes."

Rule 15: Whether it is Arab-Israeli peace or democracy in Iraq, you can't want it more than they do.

Thomas Friedman has the place figured out. And in my humble opinion, it all comes down to the application of Rule 15: You can't want it more than they do. Arabs, Palestinians, Israelis, and Muslims all want peace. It's just that everybody wants it on his own terms.

And that just ain't gonna happen.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

DUMBCON 1, Revisited in Scotland

Most of you will recall that, back on July 24th, I proposed the establishment of a national Stupidity Condition - the DUMBCON - based on the military concept of Defense Conditions, Readiness Conditions, Threat Conditions, Force Protection Conditions, etc, etc, etc. You may want to take a moment to review the concept at the original post before reading on. Go ahead, I'll wait.

You don't have to be Albert Einstein to know that the world is getting stupider by the day. The outrageous hogwash and balderdash trumpeted every day by the extreme right, the extreme left, and the unthinking center make one wonder if brain evolution is working in reverse. Most days I don't know why I thought we needed a DUMBCON structure with a level less than 1.

But we really nailed the need for something beyond DUMBCON 1 yesterday, when Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill decided to release Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the only person convicted and sentenced to prison for the bombing of PanAm flight 103 in which 270 people were brutally murdered over and in the Scottish town of Lockerbie.

Mr MacAskill described his action as an act of mercy for al-Megrahi, who is dying of pancreatic cancer. In defending his widely-unpopular decision, he said that "humanity was a defining characteristic of the Scottish people and that 'our belief dictates that justice be served but mercy be shown.'" He went on to say that al-Megrahi "...did not show his victims any comfort or compassion. They were not allowed to return to the bosom of their families to see out their lives, let alone their dying days. No compassion was shown by him to them. But that alone is not a reason for us to deny compassion to him and his family in his final days."

Well, I disagree.

Mercy is indeed a defining characteristic of a moral and compassionate society. But I would argue that this unfortunate and misguided action has not been viewed as merciful in Libya (where this foul, unrepentant mass murderer was welcomed as a hero) and across the Middle East, where moral and compassionate societies are in short supply. The quality of mercy, to misquote Shakespeare, is strained far beyond the breaking point in cultures where it is viewed not as compassion, but as decadent weakness in the face of strength.

It is said that Mr al-Megrahi has only three months to live. This may be so. But he should have spent those last months of his life in prison, knowing that 270 murdered souls are waiting to cheer his arrival in Hell - a far more appropriate welcome than he received from fools in Libya.

The Scottish Ministry of Justice has achieved a DUMBCON rating of 0.5 for this dreadful miscarriage of justice. Its long-term cost in terms of heartening those who would commit such terrible crimes can only be imagined.

Have a good day. Tomorrow is Cartoon Saturday...I think we'll all need it.

Bilbo

Bitter Anniversary

This week the newspapers and airwaves have been full of reporting tied to the fifth anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq. Much of Washington was tied up yesterday by people demonstrating against the war, talking heads have pontificated ad nauseum, the President says everything's fine and victory is just around the corner, and on the other side of the world, the war grinds on.

As you regular readers know, I think the invasion and occupation of Iraq was a terrible mistake. Unfortunately, now that we've punched this tar baby, we're stuck with it with no particularly good options for getting out. Despite what many demand and Mr Obama and Ms Clinton advocate, we can't just pull up stakes and leave...well, actually, we could, but the resulting maelstrom would be truly horrifying and would likely be worse than anything we're seeing now. The only difference is that, having wrecked Iraq and destabilized the region, we'd just hunker down at home and ignore the consequences.

Perversely, the war is going fairly well from a purely military standpoint. Mr Bush has finally found a general who understands the war he's fighting, and the much-maligned "surge" strategy has begun to pay dividends in bringing the country under control and providing the tenuous security the Iraqi government needs to exert its authority and begin rebuilding the country. Unfortunately, the country as a whole doesn't seem too interested. Sunnis and Shia still hate each other, graft and corruption are endemic, and religious passions still outweigh practical day-to-day issues.

As long as the Iraqis fail to take advantage of the security provided by American sacrifices, the country will never pull itself back together, and we'll remain stuck to the tar baby, covering it with more and more layers of blood and treasure.

There was a very interesting and sobering feature article in the Washington Post yesterday titled "Iraqis and Americans Offer Perspectives on the War," and I'd like to share two excerpts from it with you.

The first looked at Army Captain Derek Bennett, who has chosen to leave the Army after his second combat tour in Iraq. After detailing the reasoning behind his decision, he asked the rhetorical question, "What have we been doing? This isn't like World War II. There's no VJ Day, no sailor kissing a girl when he comes home. This is somebody saying that trend lines indicate a sustainable level of violence. That's not a great feeling."

The second looked at another Army officer who "...spent nearly a year walking patrols as an infantry officer in Baghdad. He saw soldiers dying, his squad leader lost his legs, and he witnessed problems with missing supplies. But when he returned to the United States in 2004, the biggest news story was that Janet Jackson's breast was exposed during the Super Bowl halftime show." This officer, Paul Rieckhoff, who joined the Army Reserves in 1998, volunteered for active duty after 9/11, and went to Iraq in 2003, went on to say: "The lack of involvement on the part of the American people is unprecedented. And it's my biggest criticism of the president: He has never asked the American people to do anything."

And so here we are, five years into a war nobody quite knows why we started. The war's architects are now publishing their books which defend their actions and blame the problems on each other. American Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines are still dying and suffering horrific injuries for an Iraqi population that isn't interested in reconciling its internal differences and moving forward to build a thriving new nation. And, as has often been said, the Armed Services are at war, but America is at the mall.

Have a good day, and thank the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines who protect your ability to have it. If you choose to exercise your right to free speech by blocking traffic and acting silly in the streets of Washington, remember it's their sacrifices that enable you to do it.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Peace Be Upon...Oh, Never Mind

Given the choice, I would always rather write about pleasant topics, like yesterday's discussion of feminine beauty. Unfortunately, the world just doesn't always allow that luxury. Consider three related articles in the recent news...

An article in last Sunday's Washington Post described local Muslim teenagers who are offended when described as "moderate" Muslims, because they think the use of that term implies that most Muslims are fanatical terrorists.

An article in the July 23rd issue of Newsweek magazine, titled "Last Rites in the Holy Land," describes the flight of Christians from the lands of the Bible, driven out by Muslims who threaten them with death unless they leave, convert to Islam, or pay the infamous jeziya, the tax (the Sopranos would call it protection money) imposed by Muslims on non-Muslims for limited permission to worship as their faiths dictate.

And finally, a July 16th report on the MEMRI website (check the link in my link list) notes that on the Hamas TV children's show Pioneers of Tomorrow, the character of Farfour the Mouse - who was beaten to death by a Jewish character some weeks ago - has been replaced by the character of Nahoul the Bee, who continues to encourage children to revenge and murder.

You don't need to be the proverbial rocket scientist to see the problem here. Young Muslims in America - a land that gives them freedoms and opportunities they would never have in majority Muslim lands (especially if they are women) - complain that they are judged on the basis of the murderous actions of their coreligionists. Muslims in what was once known as the Holy Land display their religious bigotry by killing or driving out Christians and Jews...when they're not busy killing each other for the crime of being either Sunni or Shi'a...while proclaiming that theirs is a religion of peace. And Hamas, a murderous gang of black-hearted thugs if ever there was one, uses television programming for children to sow the seeds of hatred in those too young to realize their manipulation.

If there are, in fact, "moderate" Muslims, where are their voices? Where is the condemnation of the violence, the bigotry, the ghastly twisting of children into machines of hate? Where is the voice of the Council on American-Islamic Relations speaking out in condemnation of all this? That was a rhetorical question, of course - CAIR is far too busy whining about how Muslims in America are misunderstood and discriminated against to worry about how Muslims are murdering Christians and Jews around the world.

As I've written here before, I'm not a traditionally religious person. I think that a God capable of creating the vast majesty of the universe has better things to worry about than whether or not I shave, or women cover themselves from head to foot, or we say the Mass in Latin or Swahili. If God is watching from wherever He lives, I believe one thing is certain:

She's shaking her head in disgust at the atrocities done in her name.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

In a December 3rd article titled "Mideast Allies Near a State of Panic," Los Angeles Times writer Paul Richter looked at the growing concern on the part of our nominal allies across the Middle East over the deteriorating situation in Iraq and its effect on their nations. In discussing Vice President Cheney's recent visit to Saudi Arabia, Mr Richter wrote that "...Saudi leaders sought the visit to express their concern about the region...and what they see as excessive American support for the Shiite faction in Iraq."

Goodness gracious! The Saudis are concerned that we appear to be supporting the Shiite faction! I suppose they are referring to that faction which is somewhat less prone to extreme and unrelenting violence against Americans, as opposed to the Sunni faction which appears to be second in the Middle East only to the Palestinians in fighting against their best interests.

If the Saudis (and others) were truly interested in stabilizing Iraq, one might think they would exercise some influence over their coreligionists to ratchet back the violence and seek accommodation with the Shiites and the Kurds to secure the best deal they can get in the new Iraq. This is, of course, easy for me to say. The Iraqi Sunnis were used to being on top and are having a hard time reconciling themselves to their new second-class status. And the evil influence of the late and unlamented Abu Musab al-Zarkawi lives on in the unrelenting Sunni-vs-Shiite religious violence he worked so hard to foment.

But this is the real curse of the Middle East: the blind religious beliefs and tribal culture which lead to an unwillingness to cooperate with "the other" to seek a better future.

A major recurring theme of this blog is that America has become the world's greatest and wealthiest nation because its people have generally chosen to work together to build something unique in the world, rather than against each other in a search for individual advantage. This has, of course, resulted in our being at the same time the most admired and the most reviled country in the world...but I hardly think any American would have it any other way. Can the Iraqis manage to work together to build an "America Lite" in the Middle East as President Bush appears to have hoped? I doubt it.

Whatever else the Iraq Study Group and others pondering our next steps may recommend, one recommendation certainly ought to be strong encouragement of the Saudis, Jordanians, Turks, Syrians, and Iranians to apply pressure on the warring factions to stop killing each other and work toward the future that their children deserve.

But, as usual when considering the possibility of any rational action from any actor in the Middle East, I'm not holding my breath.

Have a good day. More thoughts later.

Bilbo

Earlier today I was listening to a show on C-Span radio on which Jordan's King Abdullah was being interviewed by Wolf Blitzer of CNN. The king declared that the most important and dangerous problem in the Middle East - more important than the ongoing carnage in Iraq, and more important than the specter of a nuclear-armed Iran - is the endless fight between the Israelis and the Palestinians. He said that the Palestinian issue was one on which all the Arab lands were united, and the one on which the most progress toward a comprehensive Middle East peace might be made. Wolf Blitzer seemed skeptical, but didn't press the King.

With respect to King Abdullah, who is, after all, a man with a large Palestinian population to worry about, I think he's wrong.

Not that the resolution of the Palestinian issue would not be a good thing, for the Palestinians and the Middle East as a whole. To me, though, it looks as if the larger Arab world cares absolutely nothing for the Palestinians except as a useful cudgel with which to beat the Israelis and deflect attention from their own failures.

Consider the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. One might have thought that the Palestinians would use this event as a platform from which to show their ability to govern themselves and take the first tentative steps toward the eventual goal of a Palestinian state. Instead, in their time-honored tradition of always doing what is in their worst interests, the Palestinians began fighting among themselves and using Gaza as a platform from which to continue attacks against Israel...with predictable results. And far from urging them to act responsibly, the rest of the Arab world encouraged their self-destructive behavior.

When, one wonders, will a leader arise in the Arab world who will for once consider what is in the best interests of his people as a whole? How long will it take for the Arabs to realize that Israel isn't going away, and that all their blind hatred and support of violence, as much as they hurt individual Israelis, are doing more harm to themselves?

As I've said before in this space, I've given up on finding any rational adult leadership in the Arab world. While I'm no apologist for Israel, I think a good case can be made that they have at least built a prosperous nation in a difficult neighborhood, in spite of the unrelenting hatred and stupidity of their neighbors. Do the Palestinians have legitimate grievances? You bet. Are they acting in their best interests to resolve them? Hardly. And are the rest of the Arabs helping them out? Not in the least.

King Abdullah is welcome to his opinion. I respect him and the difficulty of his position. But if he really wants to help the Palestinians, the best thing he could do is exert a little leadership and try to turn the Arab world from a gaggle of squabbling bigots into true partners in a peace process that can only benefit everyone.

But don't hold your breath.

Have a good evening. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo