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Tuesday, August 15, 2006
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Caleb Carr:
IS THERE AN alternative to this pattern of mistakes and countermistakes? There is, but it involves a quality that neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians have ever come close to mastering: tactical restraint in order to achieve strategic advantage. Simply put, this involves looking past immediate and all-out retaliation as the best method of countering threat. It is not a call for turning the other cheek; rather, it suggests that savagely swinging back every time one's cheek is dealt so much as a brushing blow does not amount to effective boxing, much less enlightened belligerent behavior.
Imagine, for example, that either Israel (in the case of the initial Palestinian and Hezbollah attacks) or the Palestinians and Hezbollah (in the case of the original Israeli reprisals) had decided: "Patience; we will absorb this assault, and wait to focus our attacks until we can strike at what we know to be — and can prove to the rest of the world are — the enemy military or paramilitary units responsible. That will get us our principal objective: the certain backing of global public opinion. We will refuse throughout to engage in disproportionate assaults on indiscriminate targets, and if for a period we risk suffering more losses than our opponent, we will nonetheless profit in the long run. When we have netted the world's sympathy, we will receive more backing, even as our enemies' support dwindles, and what had seemed to be tactical peril will in fact prove to be strategic advantage."
(Via Rising Hegemon.)
10:51:32 PM 
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July appears to have been the deadliest month of the war for Iraqi civilians, according to figures from the Health Ministry and the Baghdad morgue, reinforcing criticism that the Baghdad security plan started in June by the new Iraqi government has failed.
An average of more than 110 Iraqis were killed each day in July, according to the figures. The total number of civilian deaths that month, 3,438, is a 9 percent increase over the tally in June and nearly double the toll in January.
(Via The Huffington Post | Raw Feed.)
10:00:21 PM
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From AP:
X-ray machines that screen airline passengers' shoes cannot detect explosives, according to a
Homeland Security Department report on aviation screening.
Findings from the report, obtained by The Associated Press, did not stop the Transportation Security Administration from announcing Sunday that all airline passengers must remove their shoes and run them through X-ray machines before boarding commercial aircraft. ...
In its April 2005 report, "Systems Engineering Study of Civil Aviation Security -- Phase I," the Homeland Security Department concluded that images on X-ray machines don't provide the information necessary to detect explosives.
Machines used at most airports to scan hand-held luggage, purses, briefcases and shoes have not been upgraded to detect explosives since the report was issued.
Ya see, we just have to *look* like we're taking this security thing seriously. People feel safer when they have to take their shoes off for no effective reason.
Read the comments on this post...
(Via Stranger Fruit.)
9:10:58 AM
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© Copyright 2006 Steve Michel.
Last update: 9/1/2006; 6:58:45 PM.
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