THIS AND THAT

Several things you should definitely read today:

First, Mark Steyn's Chicago Sun-Times Op-Ed and here's an excerpt:

We live in an age of inversely proportional deterrence: The more militarily powerful a civilized nation is, the less its enemies have to fear the full force of that power ever being unleashed. They know America and other Western powers fight under the most stringent self-imposed etiquette. Overwhelming force is one thing; overwhelming force behaving underwhelmingly as a matter of policy is quite another.

So even the most powerful military in the world is subject to broader cultural constraints. When Kathryn Lopez's e-mailer sneers that "your contribution to this war is limited solely to your ability to exercise the skillset provided by your liberal arts education," he's accidentally put his finger on the great imponderable: whether the skill set provided by the typical American, British and European education these last 30 years is now one of the biggest obstacles to civilizational self-preservation.

Second, Varifrank's post suggesting that things are not necessarily what they appear to be in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict:

But that was 12 days ago, and frankly things certainly appear to have changed. For the first time in my life, Arabs that kill Israelis are not being given the cover of “peace missions” and “cease fire” calls for “dialog” for their actions. Arab terrorists have started a war, and they have for once – gotten exactly that in return. And I have to say as revolting as war is, I find this fact to be downright refreshing. Finally, starting a war has consequences beyond who sits on what side of the negotiation table. Finally starting a war might mean that you will lose! What a concept! (It certainly takes all the fun out of it, doesn’t it? – which is precisely why I think the President is following that idea. Terrorism isn’t any fun if it doesn’t get you what you want, but instead costs you everything you have. The first step towards ending terrorism is to stop making it pay as a strategy for engaging the enemy. )

Oh, and all this noise about "international support for peacekeeping". Uh,huh. Yeah right you betcha. International peacekeeping brigades populated by the ghostly Family Circus Character known as "Not Me".

Third is a revealing series of photos showing clearly how Hezbollah is using civilians as shields.

And, if you haven't already read this bit of military analysis, cleverly disguised as "pulp fiction", you would be advised to do so.

All these pieces should give you a bit more perspective on what might be going on right now in the middle east--perspective you sure won't find in most of the MSM.