ShrinkWrapped

The Rules of War

Israeli troops remain poised on the borders of the Gaza strip.  Israel has arrested over 60 members of Hamas, including several ministers and members of the Palestinian Parliament.  It remains uncertain how much farther the Israeli response will go; apparently there are negotiations of a sort going on between the Hamas leadership in Damascus, Khalid Mashaal, and the Israeli government, through the offices of the Egyptian government.  The short-term, best case scenario is that Gilad Shalit is released and the Israelis release a number of Palestinian prisoners in return.  However, in the long term this will just "kick the can" down the road. 

Caroline Glick believes that Israeli Prime Minister Olmert still refuses to get it:

Olmert and his associates in the government have pointed their fingers at Hamas blaming it for the Palestinian guerilla attack on Israeli territory Sunday morning while ignoring Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah terror group's equal share of culpability. It was Fatah, not Hamas that kidnapped and murdered 18 year old Eliyahu Asheri. It is Fatah that is threatening to blow up Israeli embassies abroad. It is Fatah that is threatening to renew shooting attacks on Jerusalem and attack Israel with chemical and biological weapons. It is Fatah that is threatening to kill the IDF hostage Cpl. Gilad Shalit.

While Shin Bet Director Yuval Diskin was preparing the list of Hamas leaders IDF forces arrested in Judea and Samaria Wednesday night, Abbas was finalizing his deal with Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh for the formation of a Hamas-Fatah unity government. Abbas and Haniyeh not only agreed to form a unity government, they also agreed that Hamas would become a member of the PLO. Aside from that, they agreed that to establish a unified force for fighting their joint war against Israel. That is, this week, as Israel trained its rifles on Hamas alone, Abbas effectively unified Hamas with Fatah.

A Welcome Clarity

The New York Times has an AP report this morning which offers helpful clarity to the current Israeli campaign against the Palestinian quasi-state:

Hamas Official: Talk of Swap 'Premature'

A Hamas official described Israel's detention of dozens of lawmakers from the group as hostage-taking but would not say whether it would be willing to turn over an Israeli soldier for their release.

''It is premature to discuss this matter,'' Osama Hamdan told The Associated Press, noting that Israel has not officially stated its intentions. ''If the Israelis want to trade them (the Hamas politicians) for the soldier then let them say it frankly and then we will react.''

Hamdan, who is close to Hamas' top leadership, insisted that the case of the Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit who Palestinian militants are holding and the Hamas politicians were different.

''He's an Israeli soldier, a prisoner of war, taken in a battle and falls under a legal category,'' Hamdan said of Shalit. ''What happened yesterday were hostage-takings and acts of terrorism.'' [Emphasis mine-SW]

Hamas has never really denied that they are at war with Israel, but has done just the bare minimum of obfuscation to allow much of the press and many Western governments to fantasize that they were ready to become a true governing body and negotiate peace with Israel.  The kidnapping of Gilad Shalit, as terrible as it is for him and his loved ones, provides a moment of clarity which the Israelis have seized to good advantage.

Recourse to Authority

[Updates at end]

The single best thing and the single worst thing that the Internet and the Blogosphere have produced turns out to be the same thing.   Prior to the availability of the seemingly unlimited information on-line, most people could achieve some level of expertise in their particular field of interest, but for information from other areas (geographically, as well as in terms of knowledge) we have always, of necessity, relied on the authority and wisdom of others. 

Most people reading this would agree that the Internet and the Blogosphere offers unparalleled opportunities.  No one can know everything, but on-line, there is always someone who knows more than us about something.  The advantages have been obvious; less obvious perhaps is the cost of such expansion of knowledge, that is, the loss of authority by those who in the past were available to interpret and explain the world to us.  It becomes a much more difficult job to determine what information is authoritative and what is fanciful.  In such an environment, conspiracy theories and paranoia can flourish when people are not equipped to do the rudimentary work of evaluating information.

This loss of authority goes across the board.  Patients come into my office asking for particular medications or worrying about side effects that they read about on the Internet.  Sometimes I am forced to do some more research of my own in order to adequately answer my patient's questions; often, I must confront my own limitations and let the patient know that there are many things we still do not understand.  With the incomplete knowledge I can offer, it is then up to the patient to accept or reject my recommendations.   This forces me to explain why one particular treatment would be better than another in terms which my patient can understand.   I consider it a major benefit that my patients must take responsibility for their decision and not simply rely on my authority in areas that affect their lives.

In other areas, things are not so simple.  We used to be able to rely on our news gatherers to tell us what is going on in the world.  We used to be able to rely on scientists to make sense of confusing information.  We can't do that anymore and it is unsettling, confusing, and disorienting.

The Dance of Escalation and Reaction

Once again, we are asked to decide if the struggle against Islamic fascism, exemplified by their use of terror as a tactic, is indeed a war, or should more accurately be known as a series of disconnected, modified police actions.

There are reports today that, perhaps buoyed by their "success" in THE KIDNAPPING OF GILAD SHALIT, another Palestinian group affiliated with Hamas claims to have kidnapped a young Yeshiva student, Eliyahu Asheri, on the West Bank.  For those with short memories, Hamas now runs the Palestinian government.

It appears that the attack which led to Shalit's abduction was well planned and coordinated and involved months of preparation, while the kidnapping of Asheri seems to have been an abduction of opportunity. 

Hillel Halkin, in the New York Sun, describes the abduction of Shalit for what it is, An End To Ambiguity; the attack was not a terror attack:

It was in fact anything but that. If terror consists of randomly killing and maiming non-combatant civilians for the purpose of sowing fear and insecurity, Sunday's raid, carried out by the military wing of Hamas, was the antithesis: A well-planned and well-executed attack on a strictly military target that was chosen long in advance and reached through the laborious digging of an underground tunnel half-a-mile long.

Why, when geologists can detect relatively minor underground tremors deep in the earth, Israeli scientists have been unable to develop equipment to detect the digging of tunnels, which have been widely used by Gaza Palestinians for the smuggling of weapons and occasional raids on Israeli positions, is a question in itself. What is not in question, though, is that if Israel and the Palestinian Authority are in a state of war, the attack in question was a perfectly legitimate act of war.

Vietnam & Iraq and the Wages of Guilt

Guilt is one of our most important and powerful emotions.  It is the price we pay for doing things that go against our conscience and when the wrong is large the guilt can be long lasting and powerfully destructive.  When guilt works properly, it warns us that an action  we are contemplating which conflicts with our moral and ethical world view will exact a terrible price; the more terrible the act, the worse the guilt will be.  In someone who is reasonably healthy psychologically, guilt helps us do what is right even when it may harm us in the short run.  Thus, someone who injures or kills another person in a car accident will not flee the scene but will try to help, call the emergency services, and face the music. 

Unfortunately, great guilt that is unbearable can also lead to more disturbed reactions and greater consequences.  For example, if that same person who accidentally killed an innocent in a car accident  had been drinking all night, he might convince himself (via rationalization) that since there is nothing to be done he might as well leave the scene; after all, why ruin his life, and the lives of his family, because of an accident.  He wasn't that drunk, the accident wasn't his fault and there is no need to compound a tragedy. 

For someone who has a functioning conscience, this doesn't work for long, and as time passes and their guilt becomes more troubling and crippling, they either must find a way to confess or the guilty wound will fester, causing them to unconsciously seek punishment and retribution.

I suspect we are seeing something of this process working itself out right in front of our eyes.

Ignorance and Bliss

Richard Landes takes a look at the Economist's recent cover story, Tales from Eurabia, an attempt to whitewash the concept of  Eurabia, and does his usual admirable job demolishing their arguments.   In his post, Who’s Afraid of Eurabia: Fisking the Economist, he quotes from the article a comment I have seen numerous times in relation to violent and al Qaeda inspired Muslim young men:

Arguments about alienation are also more complicated than they first appear. Many European terrorists were either relatively well-off or apparently well-integrated. The Muslims who torched France’s suburbs last year were the ones who seldom attend mosques. [Emphasis mine-SW] First-generation immigrants (with the strongest ties to the Muslim world) seem to be less radical than their European-educated sons and daughters. And the treatment of them is far from uniform either: for all the American charges of “appeasement”, the FBI is a downright softie compared with France’s internal security services.

His comment:

Here’s a good case of intellectual obfuscation. All the details here appear in my previous comment to indicate there’s something to worry about. Here it appears as a laundry list to illustrate how “complicated” matters are with no analysis… in other words as an impediment to drawing any conclusions. And the fact that we have varying kinds of hostile Muslims in Europe — from the “well-integrated” born-again Muslims to the scarcely disciplined racaille of the French suburbs — does not mean there is no connection between them. But of course, that would mean considering hostility to Western values and life-style (including women’s rights) as a source of the problem… and we all know it’s just America and Israel they hate.

The Council Has Spoken!

This week the winning Council post was at The Glittering Eye; it explains to those who have not been paying attention that The Iraqi insurgency has no Central Command.  In second place was Dymphna's Children in Danger From the UN which is self-explanatory.

Among non-Council posts, the winning entry was courtesy of J.R. Dunn at The American Thinker who helpfully explained The Jihadi Network's Fatal Flaw.  In second place was Srebrenica, Kosovo, Unknown from New Sisyphus, who, beyond the great name for his blog, points toward a potentially troubling turn of events.

As always, the entire assemblage of nominees can be found at the Watcher of Weasels and all will reward your time and effort.

Levels of Confidence and the Burden of Proof

Scientists use the scientific method to construct carefully measured and controlled experiments in order to minimize any conscious or unconscious bias they may have.  Because they recognize that they often have an emotional stake in the outcome, the method includes constructing a "null hypothesis" and using statistical methodology to determine the likelihood of any particular outcome being the result of random chance.   When positive results are reported, they are reported as to their level of confidence.  A 95% level of confidence means that you could expect the particular result to arise by chance 5% of the time, 1 out of 20 experiments; a 99% level of confidence means that only one time out of a hundred could you expect the outcome from chance alone.  Results that come in at less than 95% are not considered significant in a scientific paper, even if there are clear trends and the data is highly suggestive.  Additionally, scientific findings are not accepted as legitimate until they have been replicated by others.  Even when the scientific data begins to accumulate supporting a new theory, there will be hold outs who refuse to accept the new, hard won "fact" as a fact for a very long time.  The more strongly one is invested in the old, now discredited theory, the more difficult it will be for a person to change their mind and accept the new idea.

As an example, in 1989 Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons at the University of Utah made the front pages of newspapers around the world with their reports that they had created a process of cold fusion, which if confirmed would have revolutionized energy production.  Unfortunately, many attempts to replicate their findings failed to show evidence of the process occurring and eventually alternative explanations for the findings were presented as more credible than the original claims.  Cold fusion fell into disrepute and has remained there ever since.  This is how science works when it works well.  There are still people looking at the question of cold fusion, but they are typically pursuing the grail with different methods and without major government funding. 

Unfortunately, we do not have the luxury of such experimental designs or replicability by independent sources in most human interactions, including political disputes. 

If a Tree Falls in the Forest ...

Yesterday afternoon John Stephenson reported that Senator Rick Santorum  (R-Pa.) and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) had released the details of a recently declassified document:

.... the finding of over 500 munitions or weapons of mass destruction, specifically “sarin- and mustard-filled projectiles,” in Iraq.

Captain's Quarters has an excellent analysis of the story, including this update:

None of the wire services have seen fit to report on this development, but CNS has a report here. One argument that may come up is that these munitions predated the first Gulf War. Well, that's exactly what the sanctions regime, UNSCOM, and the majority of the 16 UN Security Council resolutions addressed -- and what Saddam defied. He was supposed to account for and destroy all of his existing WMD stock. Obviously he did not do that, and in reading the Negroponte letter and the transcript of the Santorum/Hoekstra presser, the Pentagon feels that more of it still exists in Iraq -- perhaps a lot more.

Austin Bay has more and makes the point that this declassified document is the tip of the iceberg:

New Comment Policy

Until today, I have chosen to leave the comments open in the hope that even when people step out of bounds from time to time, eventually some good discourse could emerge from even the most heated discussion.  Unfortunately, recent comment threads have shown that once things go down hill, the race to the bottom takes on a life of its own.  As a result, I will no longer tolerate anyone posting threats or overly abundant foul language. 

In line with Freud's dictum that the first man hurling an insult instead of a spear was the beginning of civilization, creative insults, especially if funny, are always welcome.  On the other hand, telling someone "F*ck you" because you don't like what they said merely indicates a poor vocabulary rather than a trenchant comment. 

In the future, I will offer a warning if someone goes over the line, and a second time will result in the commenter getting banned. 

I don't know if this is a comment on the political passions of the moment or an outgrowth of the anonymity the internet supports, but when discourse deteriorates, it is not good for anyone involved.