We (and this also includes Israelis, Brits, and a few others) would never dream of targeting civilians for any reason – not even in self-defense. In 2002, the Israelis used ground troops going house to house in Jenin rather than attack from the air — though it cost the lives of 23 of their men – in order to spare civilians.
Our enemies can not imagine not targeting civilians – ours – and when they can be used as human shields/propaganda fodder, theirs.
Our people are beheaded on videotape and the world ignores it. We fail to offer the full panoply of the Bill of Rights to the beheaders and the world groans at the inhumanity of it all.
The United Nations Security Council condemns Israel for defending herself from naked aggression and manages to overlook Chechnya, the Chinese occupation of Tibet, every terrorist attack against Israel, the massacre in Rwanda, the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, Serbian acts in Bosnia, and pretty much the entire continent of Africa, which as Kofi Annan surely knows better than most, is a human rights cesspool. As Jeane Kirkpatrick put it: “What happens in the Security Council more closely resembles a mugging than either a political debate or an effort at problem-solving.”
There are millions of Americans who are not deluded by this madness (and we draw our military recruits from their ranks), and yet you cannot escape the times you live in. Lack of self-confidence is eroding our civilization like dry rot. We are not as far gone as Europe – but the glide path is worrisome.
The question I have is, does reality even matter anymore? Or is the only important thing that you are able to put out your narrative first? Does truth matter? Or do we just admit that language does not have to have any connection with reality; that facts are irrelevant; that reality is whatever you want it to be for as long as you can get away with it? (Then put the correction on page 12 Section C)
These subtle cults of tyranny that are springing up all over the world disguised as "social justice" (in our educational system); as "political correctness" (in our media); victimhood promotion (in our political and cultural institutions) cannot hope to remain viable in a world where human thought is free; therefore, the goal is nothing less than to undermine mankind's perception of reality itself.
If you can convince people that objective reality is an illusion; that A does not equal A; that black is white; and that good is bad; if you can make them accept that everything is subjective and relative; then you can breath new life into doctrines that by all objective measures and standards have led to the death and misery of millions of people. Through the manipulation of language, everything can be distorted, without the messy need to resort to facts, logic, or reason.
We see the results of this manipulation of language and events on a daily basis. Look in the comments of my last post, for example:
What we're witnessing is folk who don't want to see Israel OR Hezbollah commit crimes - especially when dozens (hundreds?) of children are the ones being maimed and killed.I just want to scream when I read BS like that. NO RATIONAL AND COMPASSIONATE PERSON WANTS TO SEE CHILDREN KILLED! The question is, what is killing them? Where is the responsibility? Who is placing them under the rockets? Was it Hezbollah who warned civilians to leave the area where they were fighting? Or was it Hezbollah who prevented them from leaving, even as they used them as shields? Was it Israel who launched attacks from apartment buildings where civilians live? Which ideology promotes death and genocide; and which tries to preserve life?
This is nothing but a desire for law and order and outrage when children are killed. This is a normal and healthy phenomena.
If an adult thows a child out in front of a speeding car, who is to blame for the death of the child--the adult who flung the child carelessly in front of the car? Or the driver of the car? In this particular case, the driver actually called in advance to say that he would be driving that way in the morning and to make sure that all children were out of the middle of the street. So this makes the Hezbollah adults decide to arrange a children's party in the middle of the effing street? And they are not morally responsible??
If you have a "desire for law and order" then you must ask yourself these kind of questions, Mr. Morally Confused. If it is justice you want, then you must consider the differences between a terrorist group like Hezbollah who clearly state they wish to annihilate the Jews and deliberately and intentionally target civilians; and the Israelis who are fighting against them and try their damndest in this morally asymmetric war. No matter how hard the left tries to fit Israelis or Americans into the role of the repugnant racists, or the vile aggressors, or the child-murdering villains in these little planned-out scenarios ; the real racist-aggressor-death cult is operating right there in front of your eyes.
Just open them up and look if you want to see truth and reality.
What matters to the co-conspirators of evil like that commenter above is not the truth or falsity of their language--only its effectiveness. Lies, distortions, ad hominem attacks; attempts to silence opposing views--all are strategies that are perfectly satisfactory if they achieve the desired effect. Ideas and reason must make way for reification of feelings. They care care care so much for all the innocent life that is being lost. Don't you see?
So why is it then that they only show how much they care when they can blame the Americans or the Israelis?(or, the Republicans, or Bush?) Why is it that the innocent life taken by the terrorists is never worthy of their comments? Or their caring; or their rage? Only innocent life that they figure they can pin on Israel and America?
It's funny how the demands to attend to "root causes" always seem to disappear when the "roots" turn out to be something other than what the left wants them to be--something they definitely don't want to look at.
The memes that are coming out of this latest conflict have been developing and transforming people's perception of reality for several years now. The old-fashioned ideas of good and evil that used to be the foundation of "law and order" don't seem to exist anymore for them. Now the "law" part only applies to one side and not the other. It is no longer "order" that is the objective, but the perception of order--our hands are always tied for morality's--for "the sake of the children!"--but the enemy is free to do as it pleases to the children without the concomitant anger and rage.
There used to be outrage at the manipulation of truth and some degree of repugnance at a moral relativism that equated good and evil. In those good old days, debate could have closure because there was agreement on what was true and what was false. Our underlying shared values were deemed worth fighting for.
But not today.
Today, we are constantly told that our values of life are not any different than the enemy's cult of death. That the children who die are all our fault. Not the fault of a sick ideology that values them only as fighters in a jihad and which worships death.
Over the last few years--since 9/11--we have come to understand the Muslim world very well. Their leaders and the angry people on the street repeatedly tell us clearly and unambiguously what they think and what they intend to do to us. Signs that say "Behead Those Who Disrespect Islam," "To Hell With Free Speech" and "Get Ready for the Real Holocaust" should make their aims obvious even to the most dhimmi-witted.
But that is exactly the problem. For some in the West, the denial and displacement are too deeply entrenched in their frightened little minds. For the Islamic fanatics in the Middle East, the projection and paranoia are a way of life that will not easily revert to any kind of normal humanity when its rage and destructiveness are only countered by an excess of denial and displacement in the West.
Those of us who are not deluded by this madness must continue to fight in whatever way we can against it. While I cannot be on the physical battlefield fighting--and honor those who are-- I will continue to fight on the rhetorical battlefield of this war.
The enemy cynically uses our own virtue against us, and, even as they demand we apply that virtue to them; they hold to no restraint; have no remorse; and no hesitation in using the very tactics they blithely accuse us of. Fifty children die, and we agonize over our culpability--even as their suicide bombers kill a few hundred innocents here; a couple of dozen there.
They use their unmitigated hatred to kill and destroy; and their enablers in the MSM and the left use language as the weapon of choice against the forces of civilization. Both attempt to silence us by calling us the racists, the bigots, the fascists..the murderers. But it is all an illusion of the psychotic spell they have woven with their magic words, whose meanings change depending on the day of the week.
Reality matters. Truth matters. And both will eventually win out.
UPDATE: Perhaps the dark soul of Hezbollah is finally going to be exposed in this latest ploy for internatinal sympathy. They are contemptible, and capable any atrocity to achieve their aims. Remember that fact the next time you read their latest slick and polished propaganda press releases reported by a clueless MSM.
UPDATE II: This from a Lebanese blogger (via Michael Ledeen at The Corner):
The situation in Ain Ebel is unbearable. Thousands of civilians have fled to the village from nearby villages and more than 1000 rockets have hit the village, there is no more food neither clean water and diseases r spreading.
Now here comes the most sickening part:
Hezbollah has been firing rockets from the village since Day 1 hiding behind innocent people’s places and even CHURCHES. No one is allowed to argue with the Hezbollah gunmen who wont hesitate to shoot you and i ve heard about more than one shooting incident including young men from the village and Hezbollah.
Urgent appeals have been done through phone calls from terrified people who wouldnt give out their name fearing Hezbollah might harm or even eliminate them.
This is the true image of our brave Islamic Resistance, putting the civilians and their homes as body shields to the Israeli bombardements.
Let the message spread and let those criminals move out of the village once and for all.
Free Ain Ebel from the terrorists !
Tell me again how morally equivalent the two sides are, and I will spit in your face.
"Cry to those Who Use Babies As Shields"
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