Lowering The Threshold

I must be missing something, but I don’t understand why it’s so surprising that this photo would be allowed to circulate.
I don’t actually understand why it’s interesting… to me it’s just another example of showing attacks on Israelis (with no damage that I can see) while ignoring what happens to Arabs at the hands of Israelis (and Americans, whether they realize it or not): killing of civilians, bombing of power plants, desctruction of houses, bombing of highways used by civilians to flee, and various other war crimes.
I watched Larry King today, and the panel of American politicians just completely identified with Israel, as if Haifa was in Iowa or something. As if any attack on Israel comes out of nowhere, as if Israeli is weak and the victim. No mention of the thousands of prisoners held in Israeli jails, the “targeted assassinations” whihc kill family members and civilians, no mention of anything else. Just those lunatic, bloodthirsty Arabs suddenly attacking the poor Israelis…

I agree with ummabdulla. Israel is way out of line. As far as U.S. politicians go Israel can do no wrong.

They have forests in Gaza?
How about a photo of Bush doing his best to unite Jews and Muslims, by cracking roast-pig jokes in Germany.

Just those lunatic, bloodthirsty Arabs suddenly attacking the poor Israelis

And the other explanation for the Qassam and Katyusha rocket attacks, and the kidnappings, from Gaza and Lebanon is?

“At first, I was surprised such a photo would have been allowed to circulate.”
I’m not exactly sure what The BAG means by that comment, but I am not at all surprised that this image was allowed to circulate. What we learned from Colin Powell is that while a government is warming up its war plane engines, it’s necessary to make public some images that *prove* someone has weapons of mass destruction and to *justify* the bombs you are soon going to drop on civilians. They *need not* be sophisticated weapons to have an emotional impact. This is a clearly identifiable missile, and all the beautiful verticals (pointing heavenward) and diagonals (pointing in the direction of the missile, which evoke *more* potentially deadly missiles), combined with black-smoke-filled skies and men striding urgently or their bodies cropped confusingly, give the scene an effective feeling of chaos. This is not a chaotic scene — it is actually quite calm — yet the photographer felt compelled to add visual interest by making it unclear exactly what is happening. The photographer created kinesis out of an inert missile. The resulting image is a gift to the Israeli government: bomb + chaos = desired emotional impact.
In Powell’s case, he didn’t even show us a single identifiable missile, he showed us satellite images with scary *labels* like “Terrorist Poison and Explosives Factory, Khurmal” or “Missile Storage Cannisters in Cargo Truck” or “Increased Vehicle Activity,” which worked just as effectively as the image above to instill terror.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB88/iq18.jpg
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB88/iq14.jpg
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB88/iq15.jpg
It’s always someone’s propaganda, it’s always designed to yank our chains.
To remind yourself about Colin Powell’s successful efforts at duping us, here’s the main page, where you’ll find this quote:
“From the fall of 2002 through April 2003, the White House, Defense Department, and State Department released over seventy images, most obtained by satellite, of portions of Iraq. One objective, in the time before the beginning of military operations, was to provide evidence to support U.S. claims about the nature of Saddam Hussein’s regime as well as claims about Iraq’s failure to comply with U.N. resolutions concerning its weapons of mass destruction programs.”
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB88/
Full disclosure: I don’t have any relatives in the Middle East at the moment, nor should it matter. Civilians are civilians.

The issue:
Just so it’s clear, my thoughts on this issue that I’m sure many others know much more about: I do not automatically side with Israel, despite my great grandmother having fled Romania as a stowaway to flee violence and persecution against the Jews. In fact, it seems to me that Israel is a bit of a bully and should not get our automatic backing in every little aggression it performs against Palestinians. Additionally, I generally find myself siding against Israel’s actions. And at the root of it is my belief that it is wrong to assume ownership of land that others are living upon, with the intent of harming the original inhabitants, or delivering conquest by violent means. This is my problem with the Spanish, French, and American invasions into Mexico, with the original genocide launched against indians in North America (what is NOW “North America”), and with any other situation where some big, powerful group of people decide they have a better claim on land that others live upon already. Lacking more knowledge, I’ll leave it there. I’m sure more informed people (as well as less) could argue me all day, and all are free to state their opinions as far as I’m concerned. As Wafa Sultan said “You are free to believe in stones, brother, as long as you don’t throw them at me.”
#1, The image:
While all images demand more attention at their center than other places in the frame, this one especially commands us to look at the center, where it is not only brightest, but where “all roads point.” From the walking man’s left hand, to the shadows that echo the rocket’s direction and lie, to the strong steel tower in the Right Midground (R.MG) leading the eye down from the sky, to the crouching man’s right hand, and the barrel distortion of the fisheye lens used for this shot—all bring our eye to the rocket. Which, in turn, shunts our vision upward, to the red vechicle in the background. My eyes keep dancing with both points of interest.
I do like the hands, too. Look at all the flying hands, all the hands expressing emotion, or directing attention—inadvertantly or purposefully. We have the foreground man, his hands and shadow hands up and flying, the crouching man’s detective-hand touching ground, the walking man’s open stride and hand that seems to move with his front leg, and the hands of shadows that come from people we cannot see on the far right.
Again the drama introduced by diagonals: Walking Man, slanted rocket, leaning croucher, barrel distortion-bent steel tower in L.BG, bend of light through lens. The rocket feels curiously crumpled and impotent in this shot, like a dusty, beaten snake. The dynamic tension moves through all the humans, reacting to its dark, battered, dangerous presence.
PS: I’m now on the West Coast, so it may be harder to get in the early comments!

A couple of days ago the New York Times spread a photo by “Oded Balilty/Associated Press” across 4 columns of the front page showing smoke, Israeli soldiers holding their ears, the Israeli flag waving dimly in the smoke. If you didn’t read the captions, you’d think you were seeing spunky little Israel fending off a dangerous attack. In fact, you were seeing Israelis shelling Lebanese villages, presumably populated by people — you know, civilians — in retaliation for a Hisbollah action against Israeli soldiers — usually considered a military target. If you read the story, you’d find out that Israel was bombing the Beirut airport which certainly had NOTHING to do with Hizbollah’s brave, stupid, murderous stunt.
I hate the New York Times. The way they cover Israel’s lawless behavior enables its murderous bullying.

The thing that leaps out from the Bag’s commentary and the photograph is the question: who is selling these weapons to both sides? The missles from Lebanon’s Hezbollah are manufactured in Russia. I’m not certain who makes the flimsy ones used by Hamas in Palestine, and the more powerful Israeli missles, from USA? From Europe? Or, made in Israel? I know the US has sold Israel many armaments, and continue to do so.
So, is it possible that this is continuation of the historical tension between between Russia and the US by proxy? Especially, seen in the recent interesting remarks from Putin?(It’s my special paranoia born by years of Russian studies, that the Soviet Union will rise again, in a fresh form, and that Communism is not “dead,” after all. The Russians use the technique of winning by “losing,” lulling their opponents and catching them off guard: it’s how they beat the Germans.)
Keeping things stirred up in the Middle East means that the arms manufacturer on both sides make lots of money, and the “balance” of the two biggest powers (of past) is tested. Of course, the humanitarian dimension is totally ignored, except, by the rest of us who care that people are dying to further national agendas and corporate wealth.

Well, Annoying Old Guy, if you honestly can’t think of a reason why Palestinians might want to fight Israelis, then you must have consciously chosen not to know what’s going on… or I guess you might just be someone who relies on U.S. news organizations for his (lack of) information.
I don’t know where there’s a good summary of Israeli actions against the Palestinians in recent months, but here are a couple of articles to start with:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=21&ItemID=10537
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=21&ItemID=10549
Maybe the Palestinians captured an Israeli soldier because a day or two before, Israeli soldiers had raided Gaza to kidnap two Palestinians? (Not that you would have heard about that, or cared about it if you did. But how is that different from Palestinians capturing an Israeli soldier, which was considered such a dangerous escalation?) Or maybe because of all the civilians Israelis have been killing, including that family picnicking on the beach? You did hear about that one at least, didn’t you? Maybe because of the thousands of Palestinians – including women and children – still held in Israeli jails? Maybe because Israel is slowly starving the people of Gaza? (Dov Weinglass, an adviser to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, “joked” that “the idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger”. Ha, ha.)

Thank you Micheal *for attempting* to walk the middle path. What I have difficult with are the links you supply, (the second one I can’t access) which have the potential to leave an impression greater than a thousand pictures. As this sites primary goal is to decipher the messages from pictures, perhaps its time we took a closer look at the use of language and synthesized this with pictures for *a reality check* Here is one factual description of what I’m referring to.
Crisis in US Media Coverage of Gaza
Patrick O’Connor, The Electronic Intifada, 5 July 2006http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4910.shtml
I claim all persons in this conflict as direct relatives, although an agnostic I believe that if I could save one life I would save the word.
Shalom

And the attacks against Israel alleviate those problems how? On the contrary, the attacks make the situation worse, which means either (1) the Palestinians are stupid or (2) the attacks are for some other reason.

The emotional sense is one of urgency and chaos. The shadows of the two men on the right echo the missile and suggest that there are more missiles than this one. The man in uniform on the left is important–the asymmetry of his body is what gives the picture its sense of worry.
The missile itself seems to be small and crude–and that implies that the Palestinian aggression is also small and crude. The enemy is not the equal of these well-equipped and competent men.
In America we have so completely adopted the Israeli POV that we don’t “see” the enemy–we see only the threat.
The Israeli-Palestine situation is tragic. I keep wondering about the post-Holocaust world when Christian colonial powers thought it was a good idea, Justice even, to establish an Israeli state where other people (people hostile to the Jews) now lived. The Jewish claim was based on their recent tragedy and their 2000-year-old scripture and traditions: God had promised this land of milk and honey to them, his chosen people.
The claim makes no sense, now. The history of the world is one of expansion, of one people taking over the lands of another. So who has the best claim? The Hebrew scriptures are a record of how the Jewish people themselves conquered and took their promised land from its previous inhabitants. You have to accept the literal and inerrant authority of the God of the Jewish-Christian scripture to think the modern claim has any merit.

It is really beyond time for history to be laid to rest on all sides and for people to figure out how to move forward based on what exists “now” and the rights and needs of the ordinairy people on both sides of the conflict.
Anything less than that will only lead to more bloodshed. So many crimes “against humanity” (I don’t believe that ideas of moral equivelancy are useful in war, since war kills and all killing is — at the end of the day — repugnant and on some level immoral) have been committed by all “sides” (but not by all individuals) that both sides will have to give up the ideal for something which is imperfect, but in the end, workable. The question remains, how bad will it have to get before the overwhelming majority of the people begin to seriously consider options that they have for so long said were “off the table.”

Annoying Old Guy
I have been studying your favorite term *Islamofascism,* which appears to be the seed from which you view this subject. I now see from such humble beginings that Wiki and others are making a career of this most ingeniously clever and absolutely ridiculous term. Until I attain the intellectual acumen of chaps like you, George W Bush, Clifford May, Michael Savage, Hitchens et al I will be forever condemned to my silly state of being and unable to respond to your comments
Einstein I find however had the ability to make extremely complex ideas accessible to those of us lesser gifted intellectually. If such a luminary exists within your community of scholars please help, as I’m still registered on the learning curve .

Israel has turned away from God, choosing false pride and evil justifications.
The taking of innocent life is never justified. Even the umma, forced to its knees by the forces of hate and arrogance, must rise above these atrocities. The law of karma is God’s law. We do not possess the knowledge or power to enforce it. Our flailing attempts to rescue ourselves from doom sink us deeper into the quicksand. And even those who appear to have the upper hand know not the terror that they bring upon themselves.
My heart is torn.

Jt….just so I understand more clearly. Are you saying the term is silly, inauthentic, and inaccurate? Or are you saying that it is false on its face to proclaim there are Islamic groups out there that resemble, in their professed principles and organizational structure, traditional European/Western fascism?

jonst, thanks for for query, this opinion refers I think very precisely to your question and hopefully answers it more articulately than I could.
Juan Cole, professor of modern Middle East and South Asian history at the University of Michigan, argues that the term is offensive and tantamount to hate speech, because it is a desecration that is profoundly insulting to Muslims.
“It is hard to see the difference between the bigotry of anti-Semitism as an evil and the bigotry that [Michael] Medved displays toward Islam. It is more offensive than I can say for him to use the word “Islamo-fascist.” Islam is a sacred term to 1.3 billion people in the world. It enshrines their highest ideals. To combine it with the word “fascist” in one phrase is a desecration and a form of hate speech. Are there Muslims who are fascists? Sure. But there is no Islamic fascism, since “Islam” has to do with the highest ideals of the religion. In the same way, there have been lots of Christian fascists, but to speak of Christo-Fascism is just offensive.”[10]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamofascism

PTate in MN > The missile itself seems to be small and crude–and that implies that the Palestinian aggression is also small and crude.
To which I would like to add :.
“Hamas has around 2,000 men with rifles. Israel has 200 nuclear weapons, armed forces of 568,000, 3,687 tanks, 10,400 armored fighting vehicles, 5,432 heavy guns, and 402 superb combat aircraft. Hamas bombers have killed Jewish civilians, but they do not threaten the Jewish state.”
Margolis, Common Dreams Feb 5th 2006 (I quess Margolis forgot about the Navy, but then again even experts have short comings)

good point, jt. language is important.

What I can’t imagine is the kind of humanitarian technology necessary to keep pace with the radically lower threshold for intense warfare.
The more we pour our resources, our lives and minds, into the apparatus of pain the less likely we’ll find a way to stop.
Read the second chapter of Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August and ask the obvious question: how could the Great War have not happened? The great nations of Europe had been planning and practicing its first weeks and months for decades. If not August 1914, then the next August or another.
And yet there’s hope. Ms Tuchman’s 1962 book is credited with helping JFK find his way through the Cuban missile crisis by helping him understand the source and consequence of his generals’ counsel.
jtfromBC writes “I claim all persons in this conflict as direct relatives, …”
I was thinking much the same thing based on a news article from a couple of weeks ago. The short version: we’re all related. Interestingly this is a mathematical argument, not scientific. Based on thought, not observation. Available to humans of any language.
From the article:

Furthermore, Olson and his colleagues have found that if you go back a little farther — about 5,000 to 7,000 years ago — everybody living today has exactly the same set of ancestors. In other words, every person who was alive at that time is either an ancestor to all 6 billion people living today, or their line died out and they have no remaining descendants.
That revelation is “especially startling,” statistician Jotun Hein of England’s Oxford University wrote in a commentary on the research published by the journal Nature.
“Had you entered any village on Earth in around 3,000 B.C., the first person you would have met would probably be your ancestor,” Hein marveled.
It also means that all of us have ancestors of every color and creed. Every Palestinian suicide bomber has Jews in his past. Every Sunni Muslim in
Iraq is descended from at least one Shiite. And every Klansman’s family has African roots.

Humanitarian techology?

jtFromBC:
You wrote to me

I have been studying your favorite term *Islamofascism*

How can that be my favorite term if I have never used it? Please provide a cite or admit you are simply making things up.
What’s interesting is that the people who do use “Islamofascism” are trying to defend Islam by claiming that the Islamic inspired terrorism, such as we see sponsored by the Islamic government in Iran, is due to a variant of Islam, not the real thing. Are you saying that such a claim is false, that the terrorism is, in fact, Islamic? Or if not, why object to having a term to distinguish the two?
P.S. I can’t comment objectively on the picture because I fly rockets as a hobby, some of them bigger than that one. That could be a picture from a club launch after a parachute deployment failure.

Annoying Old Guy: “And the attacks against Israel alleviate those problems how? On the contrary, the attacks make the situation worse, which means either (1) the Palestinians are stupid or (2) the attacks are for some other reason.”
I could say the same thing about the Israeli government. If they wanted to get their captured soldier back, they could have arranged a prisoner swap, which they’ve done plenty of times before. What they’ve done is made the situation worse (much worse). So either they’re stupid, or they did all this for some other reason than to get their soldier back.

AOG, sorry for confusing you with the more widely used term Islamofascism, perhaps *your Caliphascist* will eventually fly or become elevated to the abstraction of that other more popular misleading term, and make it to wiki or some Dictionary or Encyclopedia. As for your other question I’ll stay with the Juan Cole explanation. Have fun and good luck with your rocket hobby.
Posted by aog on 25 February 2003 at 15:01
Caliphascist
Joe Katzman, who due to an unfortunate TrackBack was guilted into reading this blog, has suggested that I use the term “Caliphascists” instead of “Calipharians” because the latter sounds like a bunch of dope smoking posers (e.g., like most of the anti-war protestors) instead of what they actually are, dangerous fanatics. I think I’ll try it out for a while and see how it goes.
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:RGSaNkWQ4AUJ:blog.thought-mesh.net/archives/000351.html+Caliphascist&hl=en&gl=ca&ct=clnk&cd=1

CNN’s Lebanon Problem
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-boehlert/cnns-lebanon-problem_b_25031.html
Entire Lebanese families have been killed, including one family of 8 or 10 with a 6-month old baby. And they don’t even get mentioned? Imagine the coverage if one large Israeli family like that had been killed! Just how many Arabs does it take to be the equivalent of one Israeli?

JT
Thank you for your explanation. Yesterday, Tom Friedman used the term “Islamists” to describe the forces of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Iranian regime. I realize this is painting with a broad brush. But, perhaps, for the moment we can put that aside. Do you find this term insulting as well?
Again, just curious. I don’t really have a hidden point in this.

jt;
Perhaps Cole should have a word with Wikipedia.
ummabdulla;
Yes, you could, as I have have noted myself. However, it bears mentioning that Israel did try exactly such a swap, but (Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt) it was “sabotaged” by other groups.
What’s going on is that Hamas and Hizbollah want a war, Hamas to avoid any democratic accountability, and Hizbollah because their paymasters in the Iranian theocracy want it.

jonst, no I don’t find the term insulting, its worse than that, its a borderline case of intellectual criminality. I have been mesmerized for years by his brainy high wire acts which are sustained by a safety net of gullible admirers. I apologize for taking so much space but these following scenarios are timless Friedman’s from 3 and 4 years ago. Like a child before a magician I wonder how many rabbits are really in his hat and continually to follow his latest spell binding verbal antics:
The Quest for Symbols by Said Shirazi, Nov 18, 2002
From Beirut to Jerusalem, brief extracts
Friedman’s belief in symbols verges at times on the comic, as in this attempt on page 127 to explain why the European Jews were able to build a state while the Palestinians were not. “Men in Arab societies always tended to bend more; life there always moved in ambiguous semicircles, never right angles. The religious symbols of the West are the cross and the Jewish star – both of which are full of sharp, angled turns. The symbol of the Muslim East is the crescent moon – a wide, soft, ambiguous arc.” Arab men are thus soft, ambiguous, and have a marked tendency to bend, all of which can be discerned from just looking at their flag.
Friedman can never resist the temptation to try to distill *his message into a single image*. He is constantly looking for the icon, the emblem, the symbol that replaces the explanation. He knows the dangers of political myths, and yet the entirety of his work is a quest for a symbol.
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles/Shirazi_Friedman.htm
In a widely quoted line from his book The Lexis and the Olive Tree (1999), Friedman says, “The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the U.S. Air Force F-15, and the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies to flourish is called the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.” This is not said with any hint that it might be wrong to use force to impose the market on people who don’t seem to want it. It recalls Kissinger’s famous line justifying the U.S. intervention in support of the Chilean coup and followup terror and mass murder, that the Chilean people had been irresponsible in voting in Allende.
http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Nov2003/herman1103.html

jt,
Sorry. Another question. If you will. What is “intellectual criminality” and what if anything do you suggest should be the punishment for such a thing?
By the way… while we share a mututal dislike for Friedman, and his endless oversimplifactions, I did not discern, specifically, what you found objectable about the term “Islamists”. But perhaps it is my fault that I missed it.

Dedicated to AOG
‘Beware the Ides Of March’
Julius Caesar, assassinated on the Ides of March – March 15, 44 B.C.E
“of ghosties and goulies
and long legety beasties
and things that go bump in the night
good lord deliver us”
(Cornish litenay circa 1500)
don’ forget The Caliphascists
A political litenay of another Realm
dated 25 February 2003 at 15:01

We normally discuss visual images on these threads, but this conversation has morphed into a discussion about the conceptual images evoked by language. It seems to me that vocabulary is morphing as quickly as the political landscape of the Middle East.
I have observed that the term “Islamofascist” tends to be used by conservatives who support GWB’s war in Iraq. It’s a lovely word for their purpose: It’s verbally aggressive and communicates that the person who uses it is tough-minded, knowledgable and erudite. It is supposed to be generous–to discriminate extremists (who happen to be Muslim) from all other Muslims. However, imagine using Christo-fascists to describe, say, Christian extremists such as James Dobson & Focus on the Family or those thugs who advocate bombing abortion clinics. Of course, other Christians would take offense.
Recently Andrew Sullivan has been promoting the term “Christianist” to describe that branch of the Christian church that seems as rigid, fundamentalist, extreme, and aggressive (from Andrew Sullivan’s POV) as conservative Islam. The parallel would be “Islamist.”
Linguistically speaking, both of these neologisms use the simple suffix “-ist.” “Ist” used to designate “a person who does something” (so an artIST does art, a dentIST does teeth) but has morphed to designate a person who holds attitudes or beliefs that are viewed as hatefilled and hurtful and who does terrible things–racist, sexist, elitist, extremist, fundamentalist.
So terrorist–a person who does terror–(first meaning) shades into “terrorist” meaning a person with a hatefilled and hurtful attitude who does terrible things. But these particular terrorists use religion to justify their crimes, and it seems more precise to use a term like Islamo-fascist to differentiate these terrorists from 1) other terrorists whose crimes are motivated by other reasons–the IRA, Aryan nation, Basque liberationists and so on–and from 2) other Muslims who do not hold these attitudes.
The moment one uses a term like Islamo-fascist to describe people with extreme & hurtful religious attitudes who endorse terrible things, it is just a short step to “Islamist” and by analogy, “Christianist”. Or so it seems to me.
I don’t think any of these words quite captures what we are trying to describe.

jonst, (and as I post yes to PTate in MN)
Intellectual criminality is taking poetic license to an extreme, but when TF talks about McDonnell Douglass and I believe intentionally avoids the consequences or victims position and rights (eg Chile in the case sited although countless other cases are equal misrepresented from his position), although not an offence within the Common Legal System, in the court of world opinion I believe many would consider this criminal behavior unbecoming a man of such knowledge confirmed as such as the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, accolades and prizes.
Underlining my thinking is the question, do Academics, Intellectuals have a moral responsibility to present *their knowing* in a broader perspective without fear or favor ?.
Popular opinion in our part of the world I suspect would believe in addition to the ongoing mythology about 911 the WTC and Iraq, that Mossadegh, Nasser, Saddam and other Arab leaders were all part of this Clash of Civilizations and had Islamic tendencies. Unless we are prepared to define our meddling in the world as Christianism, than I see no justification to use that other religious term
without a hidden agenda why do think
When Kissinger and his Vietniense counterpart were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Price one accepted and the other recipient Le Duc Tho refuse.?

PTate;
That’s part of the reason I use “caliphascist”, because there are also secular groups (such as the Ba’ath) who hold very similar views. The essential concept that unites these various ideological variants is the restoration of the Caliphate, a unitary government that controls the ummah, both religiously and politically, and controls all terroritory that has ever been under Islamic control. They differ only in who, precisely, would be in charge of it.
These ideologies all partake of Fascism, in the technically and historically correct meaning (and not the modern, debased form which means only “I don’t like your politics”). What they want is a Caliphate updated with Fascist political technology, hence “caliphascist”.
jt;
Should I take from that you don’t believe in the existence of such an ideology? That, for instance, the terror exporting, nuclear genocide endorsing, oppressive theocracy in Iran is simply a figment of my paranoid imagination? Wow, I didn’t realize I was so creative.

AOG
I know the world is often slow to acknowledge or reward creativity, you are on record less than 29 months, its premature for me and perhaps others, to confirm or deny you this stature. As I’m an old guy as well and if your monitor is indicative of your chronological age, we may both not live long enough, to answer this question or appreciate and acknowledge you as creative or a genius.

How about ooking at the picture that may be derivative of the recent World Cup events.
The whole image is like a football game. The two towers are the up rights on the game’s goal and the missle our used military hardware, the ball, has fallen short of the goal. Some officals, the guys wearing uniforms are signaling the play is dead and the attempt to score is a failure.
The people in the picture beyond looking official, are somewhat indistinguishable as to whether they are Israeli or Palestinian. This works well, because you can’t tell which side it was that has failed in scoring barring the caption. Thus an illustration of how all involved have had their actions fail in making the region better for themselves let alone any one on involved, be that the players(Israel, Hamas, & Hizbollah), the fans( ordinary Israeli and Palestinian citizens), or the sponsers(U.S., European, and Russian arms suppliers).

My problem with the word “islamist” is that I have no idea what it means. I’ve been seeing it for years, and the meaning seems to have changed over the years, and even at any one time, different people use it to mean very different things.
AOG, can you define “caliphascist”? If you’re referring to people who believe that there will one day be another caliphate, then that should just mean Muslims, because that’s a mainstream Islamic teaching. (I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that the “phascist” part is offensive.) I would be surprised if it were a Baathist concept; my understanding of Baathists is that they are Arab nationalists, secular, and socialist, none of which fits in with the idea of an Islamic caliphate.

AOG said: “What’s going on is that Hamas and Hizbollah want a war . . .”
And they obviously found someone who *wants to* engage with them. So everybody’s happy!
It’s not that you are particularly creative, just particularly selective, like so many who argue the well-they-started-it tangent of this bloody tantrum. Meanwhile, the ferocity of the Israeli government’s reaction to its soldiers being kidnapped seems to indicate it cares more about its captured soldiers than about its citizens. In the path of that reaction, Israeli citizens are sacrificed (who are in the wrong place at the wrong time) for the military instead of the other way around. Yeah, that makes sense.
ummabdulla said: “Entire Lebanese families have been killed . . . ”
Amazingly, there’s no mention on the entire front page of today’s NYT of *any* dead Lebanese. A very sanitary, tidy “conflict,” according to the Times’s version. Geniuses at selective coverage and reporting.
Obviously, words are very powerful. They can be used to disconnect us from reality, and they can be withheld to disconnect us from the truth.

AOG,
I can understand why you would prefer to use “caliphascist” rather than “Islamo-fascist” –and I commend you for trying to be precise– but I think both words have an Western opinion–”fascist”–embedded in them.
I agree that the restoration of the glory days of Islam, the vast and powerful Caliphate that stretched from the Atlantic to the Arabian Sea, is one of the stated aims of Al Qaeda. As ummabdulla points out, it is also part of mainstream Muslim teaching. I wonder if it is analogous to the prophetic teachings in the Christian Old Testament that a King was coming who would restore the glory of Israel. The longing for the restoration of past glory is a fairly common theme for many peoples.
The Zionist movement was the label given to those who wanted to restore a Jewish state. Perhaps rather than “Islamo-fascist” it would be better to use Khilafat Movement or “umma wahida-ist?” I am sure there is a way of saying, in Arabic, people who place a priority on the restoration of the umma wahida. What distinquishes our current foe is their willingness to use terror tactics. If you want to indicate terrorists, perhaps Khilafat-orists? I’m just googling here.

PTate: I think you’re momentarily blanking that “terror tactics” and “terrorists” are words that also have a Western meaning embedded in them. As long as the U.S. rapes, tortures, murders, bombs, incarcerates, incinerates, secrets away, destroys, and blankets with chemicals other peoples and their lands, WE are terrorists too. The point of such violent aggression is to terrorize *someone,* no? “Shock and awe” means precisely to terrorize the enemy. Bullies terrorize. Ask any kid.

Sorry, but a pox on both their houses.

Scorpio, are you referring to a specific one, or all of the following viruses, smallpox, chicken pox, monkeypox, cowpox or the plant special, plum pox.?

Why is it there is a near identity between bombing atrocities and Muslim fundamentalists?
I presume you have noticed.
And please, please, do not invoke moral equivalency with Israel’s reaction. Hamas and Hezbollah used sovereign territory to attack Isreal, with total acqueiscence from the host governments.
“Proportional” reactions guarantee repeat offenses.
Like it or not, the existence of Israel is an accomplished fact. The Caliphascists, who, BTW, bring a whole new stench to anti-Semitism, need to take that on board.

Jeff Guinn,
I used to think as you do, that “Like it or not, the existence of Israel is an accomplished fact,” but I have begun to wonder if Israel isn’t a dead state walking. The Palestinians are reproducing at a higher rate than the Jewish Israelis: 3.0 percent for Muslims, 1.3 percent for Jews. In other words, the birthrate demographics over time are seriously against the Jewish Israelis. Plus the sheer population numbers are sobering–Israeli Jews, ~75% of the Israeli population or ~5 million people. Muslim world = 1 Billion people.
Add to demographics the unrelenting strength of the Muslim hostility and the hornet’s nest in the ME stirred by the US, and I have begun to doubt that Israel will be viable in 2048. States don’t survive when they have to fight for their existence day after day, year after year.

JT, you forget that in the 1600’s both syphilis and gonorrhea were also referred to as the pox.

Scorpio, so am I to infer that’s what you are blessing us with ?

RTBAG, I wonder if the NY Times will mention this incident:
“Israel steeply escalated its military campaign against Hizbollah in Lebanon yesterday with a series of air strikes that left more than 35 civilians dead, including a single strike on a convoy of families fleeing the fighting in a village near Tyre in the south of the country that killed more than 20 people, most of them children…
“According to witnesses and photographs from the scene of the worst incident, an Israeli missile incinerated a car and a small truck full of families leaving their Lebanese border village of Marwaheen near Tyre after the Israeli army used loudhailers to tell residents they had just hours to go. Pictures showed charred bodies of children strewn across the road.
“UN peacekeepers recovered the bodies. Half the passengers were children or teenagers, according to medical sources…”
(from http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1821706,00.html)
The front page of my newspaper this morning has a large color picture of a little girl lying on the ground dead from that attack (with an inset of a Palestinian medic carying a small girl from an ambulance into the hospital, after Israeli aircraft shelled her house in Gaza City). Somehow I doubt that those pictures will be seen in many – if any – American newspapers.

You can see some photos from that incident here, although I can’t find the one that’s in my newspaper (which isn’t unusual).
http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/search?p=ter+harfa&c=news_photos

PTate in MN:
Good points to keep in mind for the future, no doubt.
But in the here and now, Israel is an accomplished fact. I don’t know what alternative there is to Hamas, Hizballah, et all taking that on board.
Well, there is one. The one we are seeing. Using sovereign territory as a base to attack another country is going to leave a mark.

ummabdulla;
It’s a issue of agency – who is it that can (in an actual favorite phrase of mine) “immanetize the eschaton”? My understanding of standard Shi’ism is that the caliphate will be restored by the Mahdi, therefore (and this is key) no human agency can bring it about. In contrast, Bin Ladism is that he, or his human agents, can create the restored caliphate. In other words, it will not be Allah who decides when the End Times happen, but Bin Laden. This is no small theological difference.
Non-theologically, caliphascists are those who act violently to bring about the restore caliphate and who have adopted the political technology of Fascism. You can trace this to specific people from Nazi Germany who instructed the founders of the Ba’ath and the PLO.
IMHO, the key differences are
* The adoption of a totalitarian system of government, i.e. the destruction of all other civil / intermediating societies or their direct control by the State.
* Nationalism, in this case pan-Arabism
* The highly organized, pervasive, internal propaganda effort (along with the attendant cult of personality).
* Extremely low tolerance for dissent by any elements of society.
All of these are imported directly from Fascism.
As for the Ba’ath, they have shown no hestitation in using Islamic rhetoric / symbology when it suits them. The only difference between the Ba’ath and Bin Laden is whether the politicial or clerical class will run the unitary State.
PTate;
I use a western root precisely because of this direct importation of western political thought. And, to address your other point, I re-iterate that there is a big difference between waiting for a King to come and restore the kingdom and declaring yourself that King and therefore attempting the violent overthrow of existing polities.
RTBAG;
What was going on at the Lebanon / Israel border before Hizballah captured the IDF soldiers? Who changed that? Why?

AOG, I’m not Shia, and I don’t know exactly what they believe about the Mehdi. As for bin Laden, I don’t have any personal knowledge of him, but I doubt that he believes he can “immanentize the eschaton”. Even if he is working towards a caliphate (and I don’t think that’s his main focus), it doesn’t mean he thinks he can trigger the coming of the Mehdi or the End Times. Those things will happen when they’re going to happen; it’s part of our fate and only Allah will decide when they happen. If he did think that, then you’re right that it would be no small theological difference; in fact, it would be against basic Islamic beliefs such as Qadr (destiny).
As for the “caliphascist” term, like I said, I don’t think the caliphate is bin Laden’s main focus. And the “fascist” part is not applicable; also, the Baath party, the PLO and bin Laden don’t have much in common.

Angry Arab has published the photo that was on the front page of my newspaper; it’s the second one here: http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2006/07/i-have-just-received-these-pictures.html
He’s publishing others, too, that don’t get published in the U.S.
I’d like to know how Yahoo News decides which photos to make available.

AOG: “I re-iterate that there is a big difference between waiting for a King to come and restore the kingdom and declaring yourself that King and therefore attempting the violent overthrow of existing polities.”
Perhaps you have not read enough history of the Jewish peoples, c 1AD? They were doing their best to overthrow the existing polities.
And part of the enthusiasm for the American invasion of Iraq by literalist American Christians was their hope, their expectation, that this violence will hasten the last days, the Rapture and the Final Coming. How is that different from deliberate actions to bring about the restoration of the Caliphate? Other than the fact that Christian extremists have control of the most powerful military on earth and the Caliphate-ists are a bunch of cave-dwellers.

Perhaps you have not read enough history of the Jewish peoples, c 1AD? They were doing their best to overthrow the existing polities.

So you’re saying it would be OK to do now what the Romans did in response then?
As for your other point, could you provide a cite for that of someone in the actual decision making loop on the invasion, or this yet another false attribution?

AOG, do born again Christians count, if so :
“God told me to end the tyranny in Iraq”-GWB
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20051003/022103.html

Hearsy information from a single source that is completely denied by the Bush administration. In addition, regardless of whether the story is true, it is undeniably something that is not considered to be publically acceptable nor the official policy of anyone in the Bush administration.
If that’s the best you’ve got, it seems we have “false attribution” again.

AOG, Thanks I’m almost ready to to join your hallelujah chorus,
“Praise The Lord and Pass The Ammunition”.
Its comforting to learn that George W-the Bush Administration, were not in the past or are now denying us the truth and nothing but the truth (Christian or otherwise), if only I could make “that leap of faith” and correct my, and help convert the erroneous thinking of the millions if not an few billions of people on this earthly planet, who have been so mislead about the nobility, intention and mission of your dear leader and those 30% or whatever is left of the voices in your country who are still singing of freedoms Christian glory and Gods mission as directed by that choir master the CIC.

AOG asked me: “What was going on at the Lebanon / Israel border before Hizballah captured the IDF soldiers? Who changed that? Why?”
I don’t know exactly what you are referring to by your “What,” Who,” and “Why.” It’s a fallacy to believe anything “had changed” and *now* it’s different, thanks to the kidnappings. Absolutely *nothing* has ever changed between Israel and its enemies. There is no peace in the Middle East, only temporary cessations of violence. You keep asking the same question and my answer is still the same. I don’t accept your premise because it’s not a fact. Nothing is any different than it ever was. It’s a trick of the imagination to believe otherwise.

rtbag, Jon Stewart once again cleverly put his thumb right on your point. He had a reporter ‘on the scene’ reporting live, except the script she was reading from was from the 1970’s. She then admitted it was just a template and she was supposed to fill in the blanks with particulars. In the 1980’s I wrote a poem about waking up on Easter morning to yet another Israeli ‘incursion.’ Unfortunately I used the term WWIII, so it will never see the light of day. Besides, I think we are up to WWVI, by now.

Some people are eagerly hoping that this latest conflict will bring on the “Rapture”.
http://blogs.salon.com/0003494/2006/07/15.html

Forest fire seems to be overstating it. The ground around the rocket isn’t scorched. The bushes in the background are green.
Otherwise, I’m with you. Just wish israel would stop destroying infrastructure and killing civilians. Just wish Hezbollah and Hamas would talk and not kill.
Don’t know how we get that…