Archive for January 5, 2009

Pray for them all

Posted: January 5, 2009 by datechguy in catholic, war
Tags: ,

I’ve posted quite a bit criticizing the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular concerning the war that is currently going on.

That criticism not withstanding as Christians in general and as Catholics in particular we are obliged to pray for both the Israeli’s and the Palestinians.

War on any level is a horrible thing, it may sometimes be necessary, it may sometimes be just, it may stop or prevent something that is even worse but it should never be a cause for celebration.

We are obliged to pray for the quick end of the war and peace in the region. One may of course pray for victory for the right but Christians are obliged to pray for their enemies:

“But to you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same. If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit (is) that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, and get back the same amount. But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.

This is not optional! If you claim to be Christian and believe the Gospel to be true it must be done. All souls have equal value in the eyes of God. Even if you don’t agree with it those are the rules. You are not required to agree with the rules but you are required to obey them.

Update: I call upon my fellow Christian bloggers to echo this message. For my fellow Catholics I think the sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary would be a good choice here.

This one is for my friends at the open house

Posted: January 5, 2009 by datechguy in personal, war
Tags: ,

At my open house I mentioned the non-shrapnel missiles that Israel is using to chase civilians before blasts. A pair of liberal friends of mine looked at me like I had two heads or was a naive idiot so this post is for them. The process is known as “Knocking on the roof” here is a post on the subject:

5:05 PM Just to give people an idea of how the Israeli Air Force works, they use a method called “Knocking On The Roof”. There are several steps…
1. The AF calls the house they’re about to hit that they are about to bomb it.
2. The residents send all the women and children to the roof of the building with the understanding that the AF won’t strike civilians.
3. The AF has developed a small missile that creates a small non-lethal explosion without shrapnel to scare off all the civilians.
4. When they have left the area the building is hit with the big guns.

The base post is from this post at The Muqata which along with Israellycool has been liveblogging the war. (I was sure I had read it at Israellycool but was mistaken).


This post at Mere Rethoric also mentions it but not by name:

The IDF has made frequent use of what is known as “knocking on the roof”: Militants are warned by phone when a residential building used to store arms will be bombed, and told to vacate the premised together with their neighbors. The weapons caches are hit only after the residents leave. Hamas has tried placing civilians on the roofs of such buildings when the phone call warning comes in. In these cases, the IDF fired antitank missiles near the building, and in a few cases the residents left

His bottom line is the war’s bottom line:

Israel warns the Palestinian civilians whom Hamas has endangered. Hamas uses those warnings to endanger their civilians even more dramatically. Israel gets blamed for Palestinian civilian casualties. Makes perfect sense.

The irony is both on offense and defense our Palestinian friends try to maximize civilian deaths, both Israeli and their own. This is just plain a different culture.

Datechguy is Peter the slow

Posted: January 5, 2009 by datechguy in personal
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BTW something I should mention.

When I comment at HotAir I comment under my old wordpress name Peter the slow. I started daTechGuy specifically to promote the remote tech support I offer since losing my job. After all who would buy tech support from someone called Peter the Slow?

So if I haven’t made it clear Peter the slow and datechguy are both me. I figured it was implicit in the comment format but I don’t want to risk Greenwalling myself.

More photo propaganda

Posted: January 5, 2009 by datechguy in war
Tags: ,

Lawhawk, via Mere Rethoric, via Hotair leads us to the latest example of phony Palestinian pictures on the war.

At last, we finally figure out what has happened – and curiously, it wasn’t the most recent photo that tells the story; but the oldest. This wasn’t some innocent youth caught up in violence. It wasn’t someone who was throwing rocks or hurling insults at Israelis who responded with lethal force. It was a thug who threw a Molotov cocktail at Israelis, and appears to have been injured.

Mere Rhetoric leads us through Zombietime’s old taxonomy of fraud.

The only reason I’m leaving out the WaPo pictures of the healthy-looking children on stretchers is because I can’t decide whether Hamas staged the scene or whether the photojournalist did the composition on his own. In any case: do you think they’re dumb enough to try to photoshop pictures this time? My basic belief in behavioral conditioning says no. But my appreciation for the shamelessness of anti-Israel journalism says “I wish I had an eye for what a post-smudged clone tool looks like.

I will say this, if Hamas is slaughtering their own Palestinians do you think they would hesitate to kill any photo journalist who didn’t tow the line? In fact they could do it and blame Israel and get extra propaganda points. It’s asking a lot of guts to ask these guys to put themselves out there.

UPDATE: It hits me that this is why Michael Totten is such an amazing guy and one of the best reporters in the world. He takes those risks and reports the truth anyway without any backup.

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