Libertarian Leanings

Targeting civilians

In a climate of world opinion that is increasingly intolerant of terrorism, Hezbollah had become, for the first time, the target of criticism from Arab countries.  The terrorist organization was blamed for setting the current Middle East crisis in motion by raiding Israel and kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers. 

BEIRUT With the battle between Israel and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah raging, key Arab governments are taking the rare step of publicly blaming Hezbollah, underscoring their growing fear of the group's main sponsor, Iran. 

Saudi Arabia, supported by Jordan, Egypt, several Gulf states and the Palestinian Authority, chastised Hezbollah for "unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible acts."

Suddenly Hezbollah found itself without the usual unanimous Arab support, while at the same time confronted by an Israel determined to defeat them once and for all.  That changed when the building collapsed in Qana.  Arab countries that criticized Hezbollah, switched the focus of their condemnation to Israel. 

Jordan condemns Qana bombing

Jordanian King Abdullah II on Sunday strongly condemned the Israeli air strike that killed at least 50 Lebanese civilians, including 22 children, in the southern village of Qana, local media reported.

Terrorists target civilians, and in Israel's neck of the woods the civilians in the cross hairs are usually Israelis.  But the civilian deaths giving Hezbollah the biggest bang for the buck are the ones that are suppose to be on their side.  When 57 Lebanese men, women, and children were killed in the collapse of a three story building hit by Israeli air strikes in Qana, any public outrage directed against Hezbollah for starting the latest conflict has turned on Israeil for their apparently disproportionate response.  In fact, for Hezbollah, the building collapse is a public relations bonanza.

The Kuwaitti Times reports:

Mothers hug dead children in rubble of Qana tragedy

QANA: Mothers hugged their dead children in a final hopeless embrace as the wrath of Israeli fire power was again visited on the Lebanese village of Qana, turning houses and a shelter into twisted and dusty piles of rubble. Rescue workers using only their bare hands recovered the corpses of 51 civilians and searched through the debris, just 10 years after more than 100 refugees were killed in the same village by Israeli raids.

From the West Australian the report is the same.

Air raids kill children sleeping in shelter
31st July 2006, 14:00 WST

Mothers embraced their dead children in shock yesterday as rescue workers tackled the rubble and dust of buildings flattened by Israeli bombing raids in southern Lebanon that killed at least 54 people — 37 of them children.

Arabs are once again unified in their outrage at Israel's apparent disregard for innocent Arab lives. 

Attack fans outrage in Mideast capitals

Los Angeles Times
Published July 31, 2006

DAMASCUS, Syria -- Sunday's attack in Qana, Lebanon, sent furious crowds into the streets of Cairo, Beirut and Gaza City and prompted Arab leaders who have been the strongest backers of peace with Israel to issue statements of outrage. In Egypt, dozens of opposition parliament members joined hundreds of protesters on Cairo's streets, calling for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador and to "liquidate Zionists."

Hezbollah could not have planned a better public relations coup if they tried.  As it happens, there are some who think Hezbollah did try.  A recent article in the Guardian quotes an unidentified Hezbollah militia man describing Hezbollah tactics.

"We have specific orders. Even when we fire rockets we know when and where [to fire] and each of the men manning the launchers runs to a specific hiding place after firing the rockets."

He says Hizbullah fighters expect the site of a rocket launch to be hit by an Israeli airstrike or shell within 10 to 15 minutes.

A news website called The Israeli Insider raises a general skepticism of Hezbollah's credibility.

The well-documented use by Palestinians of this kind of faked footage -- from the alleged shooting of Mohammed Dura in Gaza, scenes from Jenin of "dead" victims falling off gurneys and then climbing back on -- have merited the creation of a new film genre called "Palliwood."

And in another article the Israeli Insider raises issues questions about this specific event.

Eshel and the head of the IDF's Operational Branch, Major General Gadi Eisnkot, said the structure was not being attacked when it collapsed, at around 8:00 in the morning.

Some villagers, however, dispute that the collapse occurred at that time, saying that extensive damage occurred in the wee hours of the morning.

The IDF believes that Hezbollah explosives in the building were behind the explosion that caused the collapse. The officers who spoke at the briefing did not indicate whether they they thought the explosives were detonated accidentally or intentionally by the Hezbollah.

It's not clear that we'll ever know what actually brought the building down, why so many civilians were there in the first place, why if the building was hit at midnight report of its collapse came only at dawn.  We do know it's been a huge public relations win for Hezbollah.

Stop the presses!

Peter Bienart has made a startling discovery which he shares with us in today's Washington Post.  Are you ready?  This is big.

After years of struggling to define their own approach to post-Sept. 11 foreign policy, Democrats seem finally to have hit on one. It's called pandering.

I suppose this should be considered something of a breakthrough realization, coming as it does from someone who could publish a book entitled, The Good Fight: Why Liberals -- and Only Liberals -- Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again.  He concludes,

Privately, some Democrats, while admitting that they haven't exactly been taking the high road, say they have no choice, that in a competition with Karl Rove, nice guys finish last. But even politically, that's probably wrong. The Democratic Party's single biggest foreign policy liability is not that Americans think Democrats are soft. It is that Americans think Democrats stand for nothing, that they have no principles beyond political expedience. And given the party's behavior over the past several months, it is not hard to understand why. [my emphasis]

Mr. Beinart is too generous.  It's not the party's recent behavior that demonstrates they have no principles.  This has been going on since the 2000 election, at least.  September 11, 2001 forced the Democrats into a temporary pretense of American unity.  To their great relief the invasion of Iraq relieved them of that constraint, freeing them to go all out in their attack on the real enemy:  George Bush.

Strike

Lately, traffic has been disappointing over at Maggie's Farm.  Bird Dog is particularly distressed about it, so much so that he's organized a hunger strike if it doesn't pick up.

Our threat is this: If other bloggers don't blogroll us, and throw us a pity-link once in a while, and if our readers don't forward our blog with a hearty recommendation to all of their friends and colleagues and relatives and enemies, we will go on a Hunger Strike until Labor Day, limiting our diets solely to beer and pizza.

That includes breakfast.

I wouldn't ordinarily give in to this kind of thing, but Bird Dog has been a good friend in time of need, so I'll throw him a link (see above).  Not only that, in solidarity with Maggie's Farm I'll have pizza at least once between now and Labor Day.  Or if I don't, I'll at least think about it.  Beer, on the other hand, will be on the menu daily.  It's one of the major food groups, isn't it?

Maliki's confusion

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki seems quite confused about who are the enemies in the Global War on Terror.  He has condemned Israel for going after Hezbollah in Lebanon while refusing to criticize Hezbollah for launching the attacks that started it all.  Democrats are incensed.

Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean called Maliki an "anti-Semite" for failing to denounce Hezbollah for its attacks against Israel.

Democratic anger translates into a rare moment of bipartisanship as the two parties unite in their support of Israel and her right to defend herself.  Maliki's remarks gave Howard Dean a new opportunity to dispel his own anti-Israeli reputation earned in the 2004 presidential race.

The controversy began last week when Dean, speaking about the Middle East, said he didn't "believe stopping the terror has to be a prerequisite for talking. You always talk."

He went on to say that "it's not our place to take sides" and said "enormous" numbers of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories would have to be dismantled.

Tuesday night during a debate in Baltimore, Lieberman pounced on Dean...

"When you start to say, in very loaded terms -- particularly when Israelis are under assault by terrorists, not unlike the situation we find ourselves in -- that America shouldn't take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, that's a break in more than half a century of the American foreign policies carried out by presidents of both parties, and it's very harmful," he said.

While support for Israel seems strong at the moment, the same cannot be said about support for Iraq, at least not among Democrats.  It's hard to tell if Democratic condemnation of Maliki's stance on Israel is more about opposition to American policy in Iraq than true support for Israel.  Republicans are skeptical.

The House Democrat leader and some of her Democrat colleagues may not agree with the liberation of Iraq and they may not agree with criticism by some against Israel's actions, but their continued efforts to undermine the advancement of freedom and democracy in Iraq is shameful," Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) said.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said: "Let me try to explain democracy to people on Capitol Hill. It involves such rights as free speech and freedom of opinion."

It's the democracy thing that rescues the Iraqi Prime Minister.  Maliki never backed down from his unspoken endorsement of Hezbollah nor did he clarify his original remarks.  It was the Iraqi Foreign Minister who provided the damage control.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari told lawmakers that Iraq will join Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt in condemning Hizbollah, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada told reporters.

Maliki's sentiments are troubling to say the least.  We have the head of a country who doesn't seem to know who his enemies are.  But in a democratic country there is more than one voice, and that's what we're after in Iraq and the Middle East -- to make those other voices heard.  That's what will win the war on terror.

Opposing perspectives on taxes

We have quite a contrast in perspective in the news today.  On the subject of tax cuts and economic growth, the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) hails a recently released Treasury Department report for using Dynamic Analysis in its new approach to measuring the economic impact of tax cuts.

Does tax relief mean more economic growth? Many people believe the answer is yes, and now they get strong support from the staff of the U.S. Treasury.

Most press reports on the Mid-Session Review of the federal budget, released by the Bush administration a couple of weeks ago, focused on the good news about expanding tax revenues and the shrinking budget deficit. But for tax-policy geeks, the most intriguing part of the report was an easily overlooked box on page 3: "A Dynamic Analysis of Permanent Extension of the President's Tax Relief." Over the past six months, the Treasury Department staff has been studying the dynamic effects of tax cuts on the economy.

Meanwhile in an article on the very same report, Tax Cuts May Come At a Price, Study Says, the Washington Post takes a cautionary and rather negative view.  What's important to the Post is not that tax cuts improve growth, but that fiscal restraint must be part of the equation.  While I'd agree with them on the need for fiscal restraint, I'd hardly call it the central lesson of the report.

The federal government will need to either cut spending or raise taxes down the road to pay for extending President Bush's recent tax cuts, the Treasury Department said in a report released yesterday, dismissing the idea popular with many Republicans that such sacrifices can be avoided.

The Treasury report did not openly address the much-debated contention of many conservative analysts that the tax cuts will boost economic growth so much over time that the resulting increase in taxes paid will offset much or all of the initial loss in government revenue -- that tax cuts can essentially pay for themselves.

Both reports say about the same thing, with their differences being only in their emphasis.  While the Post article by Nell Henderson argues against tax cuts without spending restraint, it turns out that subsequent tax increases to make up the lost revenue are what actually kill the economic growth.  The point is made using a quote from Robert Carroll, the Treasury Department's deputy assistant secretary for tax analysis. 

If the government instead decides to raise taxes later, effectively making the tax cuts temporary, that could lower economic output over time, the report said.

"The report clearly indicates tax relief means more economic growth under certain conditions," Carroll said. "If the tax relief is not permanent, they might actually have adverse effects on growth."

The Wall Street Journal makes the same point, but goes the Post one better.  The WSJ column is co-authored by Robert Carroll, Treasury Department's deputy assistant secretary for tax analysis, along with Gregory Mankiw, Harvard professor and former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

But the report also shows what happens if spending cuts are not forthcoming. In this alternative scenario, a permanent extension of recent tax relief is assumed to lead to an eventual increase in income taxes.

The results are strikingly different. Instead of increasing by 0.7% in the long run, GNP now falls by 0.9%. Tax relief is good for growth, but only if the tax reductions are financed by spending restraint. One exception: Lower taxes on dividends and capital gains promote growth, even if they require higher income taxes.

Most remarkable about it is that by using dynamic analysis the Treasury Department has confirmed the validity of supply side economic theory.  And by acknowledging the report's growth figures,

If those tax cuts are extended and matched by comparable reductions in government spending, under the best scenario, the nation's level of economic activity would be increased by about 0.7 percent per year over time, or by $90 billion a year in current dollars, Carroll said.

the Washington Post agrees.

Annan accuses Israel

As fighting in southern Lebanon intensified U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan accused Israel of deliberately targeting U.N. observers.

On Tuesday, Israeli air attacks claimed the lives of four international observers at a United Nations post in southern Lebanon. Annan accused Israel of deliberately attacking the post. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert continued to dispute Annan Wednesday, and said the government has begun an investgation.

It is "inconceivable that the error that was made would be defined by the U.N. as an action that was deliberate," Olmert said in a statement.

Annan would like a return to tradional diplomacy which would call for a cease fire to give Hezbollah time to recover and regroup for the next attack.  That approach would not appear to be in the cards.  Israel has said there will be a different strategic balance at the end of this fight and the U.S. has backed her.

The real issues, U.S. officials say, are not simply the hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah but far wider questions of Lebanon's sovereignty and what the administration sees as an existential battle between forces aligned for and against democracy in the region.

And in that sense, say diplomats traveling with Rice, the administration sees opportunity in the turmoil.

"If this Lebanon emerges stronger from this crisis, then the enemies of peace and stability in the area will be dealt a big defeat. In many ways, for the region, Lebanon is a polyglot country that represents the hopes of many," C. David Welch, assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, told reporters traveling with Rice from Jerusalem to Rome.

Talks aimed at resolving the current conflict will take place in Rome, but they may result in a widening rather than lessening of the conflict.

The Rice delegation also hinted that it was exploring actions against outside governments subverting Lebanon's sovereignty, Welch said. The United States strongly believes that Iran in particular facilitated and encouraged the July 12 Hezbollah cross-border raid that seized two Israeli soldiers and sparked the crisis. The administration also holds Syria responsible for abetting the radical Shiite Muslim group.

After 50 years of this stuff it's refreshing that finally a U.S. administration sees that the status quo is not an acceptable outcome.

Saddam back in court

Summations are under way and a verdict in the trial against Saddam Hussein could come by mid August.

"I wrote you a petition clarifying that I don't want to come to court, but they brought me against my will ... I have been on a hunger strike since July 8.

"I was brought against my will directly from the hospital."

The ousted president made a brief statement beginning with a verse from the Koran before a court-appointed lawyer began delivering the final summation on his behalf.

Saddam was last in court June 19 when chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi asked the court to impose the death penalty on the former ruler for his role in the deaths of Shiite Muslims in Dujail following a 1982 assassination attempt against him.

Political maps

In an earlier post I referred to a Bush strategy of redrawing the political map in the Middle East.  I was slightly misquoting a Bill Moyers interview of Joseph Wilson, he of Plame fame, who understood the strategy, but opposed it because he didn't think it would work.  Wilson had said "re-growing" the political map.

MOYERS: So you're saying that it is important to enforce United Nations resolutions.

WILSON: Absolutely.

MOYERS: You think war is inevitable?

WILSON: I think war is inevitable. Essentially, the speech that the President gave at the American Enterprise Institute was so much on the overthrow of the regime and the liberation of the Iraqi people that I suspect that Saddam understands that this is not about disarmament.

[...]

MOYERS: And you agree with that, don't you?

WILSON: Well, no, I don't think that that's the only way. That's where I disagree. I mean, I think that there are several other steps that can be taken before you have to go to total war for the purposes of achieving disarmament.

MOYERS: Coercive…

WILSON: But I think disarmament is only one of the objectives. And the President has touched repeatedly and more openly on the other objectives in recent speeches including this idea of liberating Iraq and liberating its people from a brutal dictator. And I agree that Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator.

And I agree along with everybody else that the Iraqi people could — would well be far better off without Saddam Hussein. The problem really is a war which has us invading, conquering and then subsequently occupying Iraq may not achieve that liberation that we're talking about.

MOYERS: So this is not just about weapons of mass destruction.

WILSON: Oh, no, I think it's far more about re-growing the political map of the Middle East.

When I spoke of changing the political map, I meant it in terms of shifting the political alliances, just as the political map here in the states may be considered redrawn when a block of blue states shift to the red state column in an election year.  But Lee Smith writing in the Weekly Standard on the subject of the political map in the Middle East means it in terms of actually changing the boundaries.

For decades now "Arabs" in the Middle East have feared Washington's ostensible designs to divide and weaken them. (Despite the obvious fact that America is working hard to see that Iraq, for instance, does not break into three parts.) But a region-wide reshuffling may be in the cards anyway. What might that look like?

Perhaps Washington is most anxious about its NATO ally Turkey and how it would deal with a separate Kurdish state. But the time may be coming when the Kurds will weigh their choices and might prefer fighting for an independent Kurdistan to defending themselves against their Iraqi compatriots.

Whichever way it goes, the times they are a-changing and the Middle East is going to have a different look five years down the road.   Hell, it's different now, and it needs to be. 

If there is one thing that has become clear as a result of this latest Arab-Israeli battle, the terrorists are not willing to leave Israel in peace.  It doesn't matter what concessions the Israelis make.  Vacating Gaza and southern Lebanon won them no good will.  Those moves served only to allow Hamas and Hezbollah to move their rocket launchers that much closer to Israeli cities.

For fifty years or so, cease fires between Israel and the terrorists have been pauses in the fighting that allowed Hezbollah, Hamas, and like organizations to regroup, re-arm, and renew the fight at times of their choosing.  Extracting concessions from Israel are just tactics of war.  The right people recognize this now.

This time there will be no cease fire from which a reinvigorated Hezbollah will rise to attack again.  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice confirmed that when she talked about a new Middle East on her visit to the region where she is right now.

"It is time for a new Middle East," she said. "It is time to say to those that don't want a different kind of Middle East that we will prevail. They will not."

How did we get here?  How did we arrive at the point where Israel would declare that an act of war had occurred when Hezbollah kidnapped her soldiers?  How did it happen that Israel could flatly refuse to bow to international pressure and declare that it was going to eliminate Hezbollah?  How is it that Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia -- for the first time in history -- all criticized Hezbollah for irresponsibly attacking Israel, instead of condemning Israel for defending herself?

Why do we believe, when Secretary Rice says it's time for a new Middle East, that there will be a new Middle East?

All of this happened because of the invasion of Iraq and the determination of the Bush Administration to see it through.  Contrary to lefty liberal wishful thinking, the invasion hasn't weakened the U.S. in any way.  Sure, resources have been stretched, but the battle for Iraq in the War on Terror has been a convincing demonstration of American power.  People, particularly in the Middle East, notice.

Timely analysis -- part II

Today's Washington Post brings us the second of two articles by Thomas E. Ricks adapted from his soon to be released book Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq.  In his first article, Mr. Ricks explained that the U.S. military had forgotten the lessons of Vietnam.  Presumably, the invasion of Iraq is a failure that can be attributed to those forgotten lessons, but his explanation strongly argues he doesn't know the lessons of Vietnam.  Today, we move on.

Today's article focuses on the atrocities committed by personnel from the U.S. Army 4th Infantry.  In what is not exactly late breaking news we have five pages of their missteps culminating with the drowning death of an Iraqi man at their hands.

Its two occupants were handcuffed, driven to the Tigris River, and forced from the ledge of a pump house into the river, a drop of about six feet. One of the men, Zaidoun Fadel Hassoun, age 19, drowned, according to the other, Marwan Fadel Hassoun, 23, his cousin.

Well, I don't really wonder what is it that makes two year old analysis front page news.  Here are two answers, one of which can be inferred from the title of his book, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq.  Ricks and the Post are doing what they can to ensure that his title comes true.  And why would patriotic Americans do a thing that?  Well, there's the credibility thing.  Which brings us to answer two:  There's money it.  They're selling a book.  Atrocities sell.  It's a plug.

There is a third reason.  Bloody as the news is that is coming out of Iraq today, the Iraqi democracy is going to succeed.  Part of the Bush strategy behind the invasion has succeeded already -- that of redrawing the political map in the Middle East.  Supporting evidence for this is found in the Saudi, Jordanian, and Egyptian responses to the current crisis.  For the first time in history, all three criticized Hezbollah for their irresponsible attack on Israel instead of condemning Israel for defending herself.  But for whatever reason, this is not what the press would like to report.  For George Bush to be proven right would be an unthinkable horror.  Better to rehash three year old atrocities.

Tying our own hands

The Washington Times reports that Cuba plans to drill for oil 60 miles off the coast of Florida.

Republicans in Congress have tried repeatedly in the past decade to open up the outer continental shelf to exploration, and Florida's waters hold some of the most promising prospects for major energy finds. Their efforts have been frustrated by opposition from Florida, California and environmental-minded legislators from both parties.

Florida's powerful tourism and booming real estate industries fear that oil spills could cost them business. Lawmakers from the state are so adamantly opposed to drilling that they have bid to extend the national ban on drilling activity from 100 miles to as far as 250 miles offshore, encompassing the island of Cuba.

Cuba is exploring in its half of the 90-mile-wide Straits of Florida within the internationally recognized boundary as well as in deep-water areas of the Gulf of Mexico.

I wonder if the environmentalists will approve, since it's Cuba that'll do the drilling, and of course it'll be for the good of the Cuban people.