International Affairs: July 2006 Archives
Crunchy Con recounts his encounter with encounter with Abdullah Zainal Alireza, the Saudi Minister of State. I had a longer post about this, but the Firefox crashed and I lost it. Sigh.
Abdullah Zainal Alireza, the Saudi minister of state, came calling today here at the paper. He was in Texas this week speaking at the US-Arab Economic Forum in Houston. Abdullah came across as a highly sophisticated diplomat, and he had some interesting things to say. He said, for example, that the US cannot think of withdrawing from Iraq. For one thing, it would destroy our credibility internationally, because the US went in and destroyed the controlling institutions of Iraqi life, and can't walk away from them. For another, said Abdullah, Iraq would collapse into a massive civil war that would likely draw in Turkey, Iran and neighboring Sunni Arab states.On Iran, he said that the US cannot allow Iran to get the Bomb. Well, I asked, what if it happens anyway? He repeated, firmly, that it must not be allowed to happen. Period. The end. ...
They particularly complained about the connection between Islam and terrorism. One of the associates, whose name I didn't get, said that there is no connection between Islam and terrorism, because by definition a terrorist is not a Muslim, so why do we in the media keep acting like there is a connection? Etc.
I'm not sure how much was posturing and how much they really believed, but they sound a little disconnected from reality.
(HT: Spengler.)
The whole idea that Israel's response to Hezbollah's rocket attacks has been "disproportionate" is plainly ludicrous and can only be believed or proclaimed by someone with either no concept of morality or no understanding of history. This plain on the face. There's little hope for those who denounce Israel because of their own amorality, but for those who need instruction in the history of war I suggest you go read Charles Krauthammer's explanation of how Israel's moral scrupulousness is being paid in blood.
The word that obviates all thinking and magically inverts victim into aggressor is "disproportionate," as in the universally decried "disproportionate Israeli response."When the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor, it did not respond with a parallel "proportionate" attack on a Japanese naval base. It launched a four-year campaign that killed millions of Japanese, reduced Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki to a cinder, and turned the Japanese home islands to rubble and ruin. Disproportionate? No. When one is wantonly attacked by an aggressor, one has every right — legal and moral — to carry the fight until the aggressor is disarmed and so disabled that it cannot threaten one's security again. That's what it took with Japan.
Britain was never invaded by Germany in World War II. Did it respond to the blitz and V-1 and V-2 rockets with "proportionate" aerial bombardment of Germany? Of course not. Churchill orchestrated the greatest land invasion in history that flattened and utterly destroyed Germany, killing untold innocent German women and children in the process.
The perversity of today's international outcry lies in the fact that there is indeed a disproportion in this war, a radical moral asymmetry between Hezbollah and Israel: Hezbollah is deliberately trying to create civilian casualties on both sides while Israel is deliberately trying to minimize civilian casualties, also on both sides.
Read the whole thing, learn a little, and hopefully adjust the calibration on your moral compass if necessary.
(HT: David Bernstein, who also points to a video of a United Nations ambulance giving terrorists a lift during a firefight in the Gaza Strip.)
Slate has posted a great cheat sheet for anyone interested in exactly who's buddies with whom in the Middle East: The Middle East Buddy List. Good stuff.
