Archive for the ‘war’ Category

He expresses it better than me

Posted: January 6, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news, war
Tags: , ,

I’ve been wrestling with a post I made yesterday through several replies and updates. I think Jeff Goldberg (via Glenn) in the Atlantic expressed what I’ve been thinking much better than me:

Okay, yesterday I was depressed. Today, I’m just pissed off. It’s absolutely astonishing to me how interested the world is in Israel’s failings. This is the source of a bitter but hilarious observation I once heard a Kurdish leader make: He was complaining to me that his people were cursed, and I asked him what he meant: Cursed by geography, cursed by their proximity to Kurd-hating Arabs, what? He said the Kurds were cursed because they didn’t have Jewish enemies. Only with Jewish enemies would the world pay attention to their plight.

…

we’ve all seen endless pictures of dead Palestinian children now. It’s a terrible, ghastly, horrible thing, the deaths of children, and for the parents it doesn’t matter if they were killed by accident or by mistake. But ask yourselves this: Why are these pictures so omnipresent? I’ll tell you why, again from firsthand, and repeated, experience: Hamas (and the Aksa Brigades, and Islamic Jihad, the whole bunch) prevents the burial, or even preparation of the bodies for burial, until the bodies are used as props in the Palestinian Passion Play. Once, in Khan Younis, I actually saw gunmen unwrap a shrouded body, carry it a hundred yards and position it atop a pile of rubble — and then wait a half-hour until photographers showed. It was one of the more horrible things I’ve seen in my life. And it’s typical of Hamas. If reporters would probe deeper, they’d learn the awful truth of Hamas. But Palestinian moral failings are not of great interest to many people.

The question is why are Palestinian moral failings not of great interest to people, why are the Kurds cursed to not have Jewish foes?

Can someone on the left explain this to me? I really need an answer to this that leads me to different conclusions.

I liked it the other way

Posted: January 6, 2009 by datechguy in war
Tags:

Well the Gaza war goes on and Israellycool’s live-blogging does too.

Am I the only guy who doesn’t like the newest updates on the top format? I guess a lot of people are just keeping the page up and refreshing. If you are doing that its likely better and easier to edit for him.

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.

Older Entries
Newer Entries