Wonderful news. Michael Walzer has condemned the Gaza war as an unjust war, in the Hebrew version of Haaretz. So reports Jerry Haber. Remember that Walzer welcomed the Gaza war back in January at Dissent and said it wasn't disproportionate (I'm having trouble getting the link now). That after more than 10 days of horror.
Then more recently in Dissent, Walzer nobly cried out against its "awfulness."
Now Jerry Haber reports that Walzer and Avishai Margalit have condemned the war, but carefully. Excellent. This is the stirring of a fine conscience. Thus Walzer joins J Street. He will bring his friend Leon Wieseltier with him (and leave the belligerent Jeffrey Goldberg and Marty Peretz more and more isolated in their neocon swamps). He will build a tabernacle of resistance to Israel's policy in the Democratic lib-left. He will find John Mearsheimer and Steve Walt there, puffing on a hookah.
And Walzer will empower others, weaker spirits, to come forward. Let's honor the great Walzer.
Some questions of my former professor:
--When will you publish this important piece in English?
--How do you explain your own failure to recognize the patent horror of this war at the time, when your voice would have made more of a difference to Palestinian children running from white phosphorus bombs? How much more information did a body need?
--What does the naked and brutal indifference to Palestinian lives say about Zionism and the Jewish idea of chosenness?
A statement of Walzer's is one of the inspirations of this site: that Jews governed themselves without territory and sovereignty for 2000 years. We haven't done so well at governing others. This is the heart of it. Understanding the ways in which the Jewish idea of exceptionalism is unfit for a modern multicultural globalized world.
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"–How do you explain your own failure to recognize the patent horror of this war at the time, when your voice would have made more of a difference to Palestinian children running from white phosphorus bombs? How much more information did a body need?"
I think he would state that there were two reasons.
One was that he was addressing the war in the context of Hamas shelling of civilians, and that in response to that and in the effort to prevent it, he probably felt that self-defense was justified.
I would expect that he shifted when he discovered that the war was both vain (unlikely to achieve a justifiable end) and excessive.
I appreciate that he restrained from very quick and very prejudicial judgement in favor of thinking, rather than scooping.
There is a thin and grey (but still distinct) line between Jewish "exceptionalism" and Jewish identity (including self-governance). I don't think that you have maintained the clarity of that distinction in your comments historically, and frankly NEED TO, for your work to result in good.
I read the first sentence of Richard WItty's post and I always know it's him. Sometimes, I scroll down and don't read the entire post.
I like Suzanne, Christ Berel, Fenton, etc. better because at least they are very clear about where the stand. I can respect that even if I don't agree with what they are saying.
Leon Wieseltier ???!!?
Phil! You ok? re you running a fever??
"The suffering of the people of Gaza during the war was partly the responsibility of their own astoundingly callous leaders, but not entirely. " …Leon Wieseltier
This is what passes for dissent?
groteque.
bastard should be run over with a snow plow.
Zionism, at least in the sense of identification with Israel, has been one trope of the non-Orthodox professional Jews to stop the hemorrhaging of the young from ethnic identification and participation (read Judith Warner's column in the Grey Lady today as an example).
The other is the Shoah. As Peter Novick points out in his quite objective and indispensable The Holocaust In American Life, it wasn't made much of until well after the fact. It's used as emotional and political blackmail to people who see no religious reason to be Jewish, preferring rock to klezmer music and Chris Rock and Tina Fey to Jackie Mason.
The truth is, in the absence of religious conviction, anti-Jewish discrimination, and a special caste occupational niche, there are no strong reasons to make being Jewish a focus of one's life. You're a transitional figure. Puzzling about Jewish identity is a big deal to you, but you don't seem to be especially religious, and you're reduced to searching for some kind of secular ethics that will still be in some sense Jewish. Spinoza and a bunch of others tried it before you. Svet gornisht helfen.
G.O.M. I agree. I'm no longer convinced there is such a thing as a Jew, culturally, linguistically, genetically, geographically or in any other sense. This attendance at Seder has a quality of desperation about it. We have to hold our noses listening to this insulting dreck year after year.
What are we really hanging onto with such fierce determination?
Walzer says Gaza war unjust!
I'm reminded of a parody of a tabloid, back when the Son of Sam story was big. The cover showed Farah Fawcett with the headline "Farah says 'Sam bad' "
Weiss: "Jews governed themselves without territory and sovereignty for 2000 years. We haven't done so well at governing others"
It's hard to properly govern people one despises, and a lot of Jews despise gentiles with all of their hearts — Jewish Zionists in particular. And those are poor at governing in the diaspora, too.
Let's take Barney Frank. He's had his hands in all kinds of legislative disasters. The Fannie May and Freddie Mac triggered mortgage meltdown disaster, for example, for which he still refuses to take an iota of responsibility. I'm convinced that sub-consciously, he's trying to sabotage this country, and that he really doesn't like most of America or most Americans one bit.
The Jewish Bolsheviks were poor at governing, too. But instead of sabotage, they just resorted to wholesale murder of those they hated, which is probably Barney Frank's wet dream.
Anyone who votes for a Jewish Zionist for any office must despise their own children.
@ Witty
"
There is a thin and grey (but still distinct) line between Jewish "exceptionalism" and Jewish identity (including self-governance)."
Thin and grey line, yet distinct–why don't you clarify your distinction for us. Thanks in advance
for your enlightenment.
The absence of a peace movement in Israel is due to the fact that Israelis of conscience like Ilan Pappe, have fled the sickening place in horror.
The land should be returned to the Arabs and the Jews should be repatriated to Pensacola and Tashkent.
They have no right to be there any longer.
rykart, the Jews who have taken up residence in the Holy Land, thus actualising their dream of validating the 19 century British Public School Biblical geography of the earliest Zionists and ensuring the efficacy of their burnt-offerings and sacrifices, are motivated by the lind of religious motivations which scoff at temporal temporary difficulties. There is no need to "re-patriate" them anywhere, they are indeed "home".
I'm sure they would have no difficulty adapting to any prevailing social or political order, as long as it left them alone to commune with God, and farm in peace.
Eddy, you can't seem to get it through your head that the Zionists did not have any contempt for Gentiles. Not at all, they admired their accomplishments and their means, their marital prowess and political unity
The people the Zionists had contempt for were the poor and/or socially backward and isolated Jews.
But be that as it may, is Barney Frank a lousy governer because he is gay, or because he's Jewish? I'm confused on that point.
Also a little confused re: "Jewish Bolsheviks" Is this an Israeli political party I haven't heard of? I mean, it wouldn't surprise me if that was so. I can't keep track of everything, like you do, and tie it all together.
Mooser, I am sure some Jewish settlers are exactly as you describe, but there are others who clearly express daily extreme contempt for the Palestinians–YouTube has lots of clips capturing this mentality vividly. Further, if they are indeed "home," then where are the Palestinians? I'm sure many of them too just want to be left alone, to commune with God, and farm in peace–I'm sure they were that way dating way before the Nakba.
And, yes it is true that many German Zionists (like young Hitler in Vienna) has great contempt for the Jews you describe, many coming from Poland. And, Re Barney Frank, he has been part of the problem we are now trying to bailout from since the beginning; I'm sure he originally thought he was well-intentioned, wishing to repair red-lining–God save us all from good intentions, and I'm sure as both a gay and a jew, he sometimes has those motes in his eyes, again striving to protect his aggregate minorities, he sometimes misses the larger impact on
those he likely sees as just majority bigots, when they actually sometimes have a valid point relative to
his activities. After all, his job is actually to look after all Americans, no?
Re "Jewish Bolsheviks"–you know Ed is referring to the proportion of Jews in the leadership
of the Bolshevik Revolution in comparison to their size in the affected populations. It's an issue
that has been discussed on the blog; the important thing is Americans know a lot more about
NAZI Germany than they know about the red revolution. Time to bone up. It would help if
Solzynitzin's (sic) book on the relationship between Slavs and Jews would be published in English–I mean it's not like he was a nobody.
antisemite Ed is at it again:
The Jewish Bolsheviks were poor at governing, too. But instead of sabotage, they just resorted to wholesale murder of those they hated,
The Jewish Bolsheviks were the first victims of the Stalinist purges beginning with Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev.
Does repeating a lie over and over again make it feel more real to you Ed? Or is your hatred for the Jews all the reality you need?
Ed doesn't hate the Jews! Not at all! Perish the thought. No, Ed wants to help the Jews. By telling us the truth about us and exposing the hidden facts, such that we could see where we went wrong. Cause if we don't, we'll have to face Ed's implacable ally "the rest of us", by which he means, by which he means…. Oh, I see he never did define what America's mormative culture was supposed to be and how the Jews fit into it.
But you guys listen up. Not even The Litvaks want to have a fight with "the rest of us".
syvanen, the first victims of the Bolshevik purges were not the Jews–anti-semitism was the first crime instituted by that initial regime; the first victims en masse were Christians. Eventually Stalin
got around to his Jewish henchmen, just one more group in his plan to retain total power. Ed never claimed that Jewish Bolshevik leaders, of whom there were so many, didn't eventually get purged in turn.
Mooser, here's an example of a less romantic version of Jewish settlers than you have described:
link to youtube.com
Note the Jewish settler lady is outside the cage; note how she draws out her intense hatred for
the helpless Other inside the cage. How'd you like to put up with that?
Not shooting Israelis is WRONG.
The Jewish Bolsheviks were the first victims of the Stalinist purges
Go go victim narrative!
Its almost like the victim narrative can be used to Hasbara anything.
"The Jewish Bolsheviks were the first victims of the Stalinist purges beginning with Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev."
But before that, they and thousands of other Jewish Bolsheviks murdered millions. C'mon, we've all been over this a million times (although most of the rest of the world is still ignorant, which is why I continue to bring it up.)
The problem with the Left is that its personality is much like the Zionists' in that it regards humanity as so much chattel (and cattle), to be manipulated, wrung, and disposed of. Both are fundamentally elitist and misanthropic. And its personality was permanently imprinted (and continues to be) by certain misanthropic Jewish intellectuals.
But my cause isn't Left vs. Right or Gentile vs. Jew, but rather taking the loaded gun that is statism out of the hands of misanthropes and idiots. Who can object to that, other than those who want to use the gun for their own sinister purposes of armed robbery and murder? Ox-goring statist psychos, whether Left or Right, should all be disarmed and sent to bed without supper.
Grumpy Old Man, I'm with you. I don't see why being a Jew is such a big deal with Jews. I'm of English and Italian ancestry. I don't go around anguishing over what am I and who's going to get offended if I tell someone at a dinner party that the British ought to get their asses out of of northern Ireland. But among Zionists, if you say that Israel ought to withdraw its colonists from the West Bark, your father disowns you and your mother won't speak to you anymore.
There probably is a medical term for such extreme ethnocentrism. But it doesn't come to mind right now.I'll just call it a widespread pathology and leave it there.
The day the Klan accepts blacks as equal human beings is the day the Klan ceases to exist.
Similarly, the day Jews realize we have nothing to fear from Arabs we treat with dignity and respect, the day Jews realize that the world isn't out to get us, the day Jews jettison their crazy paranoia, is the day that Jews cease to exist in any meaningful way.
We can't imagine a world where being Jewish has absolutely no meaning. But in a very real sense, we're already living in that world.
Ed you have a visceral dislike for Jews and the left who you see as enemies of some pacific Christian people that like good Christians everywhere, turned the other cheek while the pagan hordes raped their civilization. Hitler, Mussolini and Franco (especially Franco) were the Christian reaction to these diseased souls.
That is a summary of what you have been saying (perhaps you are sensible enough to keep Hitler out of your treatise, but your narrative comes close to those of overt defenders of Mussolini and Franco).
Nice straw man, syvanen. I didn't realize Mussolini and Franco were libertarians.
You are half-crazed, though, Ed. Only half, because what you say about the danger of statism, left and right, has a lot of truth to it and you'll find a fair number of people on both the left and the right who agree.
Where you turn into a lunatic is when you imagine it's all the fault of Joos and Leftists, as though they're all the same. And Christians (like yourself) are completely innocent.
Any ideology is capable of being turned into a reason for killing people. As a Christian you ought to understand that–Christianity itself has often been used as a justification for killing people (including Jews). Unfortunately you can't seem to wrap your mind around that–you imagine your own group is innocent. You've got more in common with the fanatical Zionists than you realize.
As for libertarians–they're like the utopian leftists, imagining they are the morally pure ones. Somalia is the real life libertarian utopia.
Actually, Ed has never claimed to be an actual Christian. (And from his comments, it's obvious he couldn't.) What he advocates is something far less demanding, something he calls a "Christian ethos," which seems supiciously like a nostalgic yearning for an imagined lost past.
Like most of his terms, he leaves it pretty vague. I have concluded long ago that all that really matters to Ed is the anger.
D. You could be right. There is a vaguaness about his politics that are difficult to pin down. I admit I have extrapolated from two data points to generalize about his politics — namely an intense dislike for Jews plus a sense of Christians living in some idealized world but being the victims of the Jews and leftists. If he calls that libertarianism it is a libertarianism that is currently unrecognizable. Maybe he is some lone nut unconnected to earlier political movements.
Must be very lonely out there.
The judgments of leftist partisans don't sway me. The murderous left has zero moral authority to judge anyone, not one bit more than neo-Nazis do. The fact is, left-liberalism is today's equivalent of the corrupted pre-Reformation Church, and left-liberal partisans are basically as medieval in their narrow-mindedness and demands for uniformity as the Church was. One day they will be viewed as equally inquisitorial. Back then, they called dissidents “heretics.” Now they call them “nuts.” But, whatever.
BTW, it really wasn’t that long ago that left-liberals were going on and on about what righteous victims all Jews were, even the Zionist ones, and collaborating with them to the hilt. It was us “nuts” that were the ones demanding accountability. The reason you were wrong then, just as you are wrong now, is because you can’t think for yourselves, and allow liberal conventional wisdom to do your thinking for you. Your basically ignorant sheep, but you just don’t know it, and never will until you open your eyes. But maybe you'd rather live in "righteous" ignorance just like your on-again, off-again fellow anti-Christian Zionist partners.
Er, that's anti-Christian, [Jewish] Zionist partners. The point being that both the Left and the Jewish Zionists are anti-Christian, both seek to impose their "morality" on the world through utilizing the authoritarian State, and both correctly view Christianity as a competing, hostile moral system. (Of course, the Jewish Zionists also partner with the pseudo-Christian Zionist Right, in keeping with their M.O. of triangulation.)
"he was addressing the war in the context of Hamas shelling of civilians"
Completely bogus. Anyone who was paying attention knew that Hamas had not been shelling anyone for nearly five months until Israel, as usual, broke a very effective ceasefire with a series of deadly attacks on Gaza. Anyone who was paying attention also knew very quickly that Israel had been planning a major assault on Gaza – a "Shoah", as one official termed it – for close to a year, and that this "Shoah" was to be carefully timed to begin in the waning weeks of the Bush regime. And anyone who had been paying attention and was aware of Israel's past patterns could easily surmise that Israel, as it has done so many times before, broke the ceasefire in order to give itself an excuse to destroy Gaza.
The Israeli government knows very well by now that the best way to stop Hamas shelling civilians is to maintain a ceasefire. History has demonstrated over and over again that Hamas can and will keep a ceasefire, even a unilateral one, until Israel's provocations become so numerous or so egregious as to be intolerable. If the Israeli government gave a damn about its citizens in Sderot and vicinity it would never have broken the ceasefire that had given them months of normal life.
Phil, good catch. However I read the Haber piece and it's immportant to note that i saw nothing there that indicated Walzer thought the whole war itself was unjust– "just" the way the IDF fought it. That is, it was a jus in bello criticism NOT a jus ad belum criticism (which is what Falk argued in his latest report to the UN.)
So Walzer still has not said the whole was unjust. That's an important distinction and I think your interpretation was wrong.
Hamas stopping rockets would have another consequence: it would prevent testing of Iron Dome and Magic Wand military applications and therefore make marketing of those two systems to the outside world much more difficult.
We often forget the real benefit of occupation in development of population control and anti-insurgency systems by Israel which is world leader in exporting such tools.
Shirin,
Your "study" of history on Gaza is flawed.
In early November, there were firefights for two weeks near the border, after Israel attacked the construction of a tunnel that it stated extended very near or under their border. The cease-fire resumed however in earnest in mid-November.
On December 18th Hamas first allowed the resumption of shelling of Israel (a day before the formal end of the cease-fire, but who's counting), then resumed shelling themselves.
The cease-fire had formally ended, but Hamas was the first following the cease-fire to initiate consistent resumption of violence. Israel didn't respond militarily for 10 days.
While you could say "Israel planned to assault Gaza", the FACT is that without a COMPELLING justification, they couldn't have and wouldn't have.
"imagined lost past" – could also be considered an ideal and a man's reach should exceed his grasp or what's a heaven for? (Browning) There is nothing wrong with anger in the face of injustice. Keep going Ed, you're doing fine. I think you'll come to a point where the true left and the true right meet but we won't find our Zionist friends and their fellow travelers, the pseudo-left and the pseudo-right, there because that is a place for all people.
My initial take was and remains the same as Helena's. I don't congratulate Walzer for deciding the manner of the assault on Gaza was unjust if he cannot recognize and acknowledge that the assault itself was unjust.
Walzer is no better than those whose only real complaints regarding the U.S. aggression against Iraq is that "we did it all wrong" when it was the doing of it at all that was all wrong.
Richard Witty, either you are lying, or you are missing considerable critical information, or you are delusional. You have omitted a great deal from your account of events leading up to December 27 – as in virtually all of Israel's military actions during November and early December, not to mention the non-military activities on the part of both parties during that time.
"While you could say "Israel planned to assault Gaza", the FACT is that without a COMPELLING justification, they couldn't have and wouldn't have."
LOL! Yes, Richard Witty, and so Israel worked beginning November 4-5 to create its own "compelling justification" as it has done throughout its history.
And on the occasions that Israel has wanted to attack something and inconveniently could not create a compelling justification, it has attacked anyway. Lebanon, 1982 comes quickly to mind in that regard.
You see, Richard Witty, there are people here who pay close attention to events in detail, and you cannot expect to simply skate us by using half-truth/half-lie, or partial information.
Not to mention, who would deny that since at least the mid-1960s our USA cultural establishment, especially in entertainment industries– the stealth agitprop for changing hearts and minds without them knowing it, the Church in any form (like white males) has been under direct attack with all
protesters always being dismissed as racist and/or bigots?
Further I lived as a young adult though the mid-60's, a plant worker at night, a college student during the day, a student of Russian 19th & 2Oth Century literature–all the peace slogans were lifted straight from the Bolshevik Revolution, if not earlier, for example, the notion that anyone over age 30 was to be dismissed as irrelevant.
As a former GI I also witnessed the attack on the military, from the ridiculed brass begining with Mort Saul to the GI spit on as I was. It was only when we attacked Iraq (according to the PNAC plan) that suddenly (non-conscripted) soldiers have been idolized–at least by token
PC rhetoric.
I personally left the Church at age 14.
@ Richard Witty responding to Shirin
Your "study" on Gaza is intentionally deceptive. Israel has a long history of strategic escalation.
You gave your side dish, here's the main course: link to enduringamerica.com
/>
Thanks for the link, Citizen. I would not call what Richard Witty presented a "side dish", I would call it a failed dish, since it was missing most of the important ingredients. It is like trying to bake a cherry pie with only a bit of flour, water, and sugar.
Israel's practice of escalating provocation has been well documented throughout its history. It Israel's earliest days and years UN observers described provocations by Israel on the boundary with Egypt, and Jordan, and in the Syrian DMZ. Moshe Dayan confirmed what many of us already knew – that Israel intentionally provoked fire from the Syrians by plowing gradually deeper into the DMZ, taking more and more Syrian farmland until the Syrians had to fire in order to stop them.
And since 1967 we have seen it again and again and again and again in an absolutely clear, undeniable pattern.
Shirin,
What happened from November 18 through December 18? Was that not a cease-fire in effect?
Both Hamas and Israel edged. Both tested what the other and the world would accept as "abiding by the cease-fire".
Early Hamas conducted shelling then was warned, and stopped, then merely allowed shelling by other factions, then was warned and in earnest enforced the cease-fire for three months (of the six).
The Gazan civilians and the Israeli civilians are the innocents.
Hamas had options. You demean them by asserting that Israel controlled everything. They affected and affect.
The best that you can do for the Gazans is to urge them to affect wisely, and frankly for their integrity, considerately.
You like harranguing me? You have one Peace-now Zionist in a room surrounded by eight solidarity idiots, lets interrogate him.
You alienate more than you attract.
We see Witty didn't bother to read and absorb the content of the link Citizen provided. He just waved his standard superficial egalitarian wand, ignoring the giant disparity in power and means.
Now he's asking for sympathy from those he describes as idiots. Regular light to the world, that witless Witty.
"What happened from November 18 through December 18? Was that not a cease-fire in effect?"
Richard Witty, do you think I am a fool? Israel broke the ceasefire with a series of attacks beginning on Nov 4-5, which was also a day that the entire world was focused on the U.S. elections – quel coincidence, non? During that series of attacks with which Israel broke the ceasefire, Israel succeeded in murdering tens of Palestinians, including several children. The Gazans could hardly be expected to refrain from firing when they were under regular attack from Israel. That series of multiple attacks that began on the U.S. election day effectively ended the ceasefire. So no, that was not a ceasefire in effect, thanks to Israel.
"Both Hamas and Israel edged. Both tested what the other and the world would accept as 'abiding by the cease-fire'."
Are you making this up as you go along, Richard Witty? Or did you get it in some list of Zionist talking points? I ask because it certainly has no basis in fact. What is factual, according to both the IMOD and the right wing Israeli "Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center", until Israel repeatedly violated the ceasefire, Hamas was "determined to keep the ceasefire", and also did a creditable job of restraining other groups who were not parties to the ceasefire, and not under Hamas' control, resulting in a 99% reduction in fire from Gaza. And this in spite of the fact that in the first week there were several minor ceasefire violations on Israel's part, and Israel failed to meet its obligation to lift its inhuman denial of basic human necessities to 1.5 million Gazan men, women, children, and elderly civilians.
According to the IMOD and the "Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center", which tracked events in detail, Hamas did not fire at all – no rockets, no bullets, no nothing – from the start of the ceasefire July 19 until Israel began its "strategic escalation" on November 4. In fact, according to both the IMOD and the "Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center" the majority of the very small number of rockets fired during that period were fired by Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah, with two or three fired by Islamic Jihad.
So no, both did not test.
As a recent study quantified, Hamas has proven repeatedly that it is willing and capable of honouring a ceasefire, including several unilateral ceasefires, even under considerable provocation from Israel. Israel, on the other hand, has proven its bad faith over and over and over again by being the one to break a ceasefire in the overwhelming majority of cases.
"Early Hamas conducted shelling then was warned, and stopped, then merely allowed shelling by other factions, then was warned and in earnest enforced the cease-fire for three months (of the six)."
That is quite simply contrary to the facts, as stated by the IMOD and the "Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center", among others. Hamas conducted no shelling at all between July 19 and Israel's attack on November 4. On the other hand, according to UN reports, during the first week Israel violated the ceasefire numerous times, mainly firing on fishermen trying to fish, and farmers trying to tend their fields or flocks. Your claim that Hamas "allowed" shelling by other factions is also contrary to the facts according to the IMOD, the "Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center", and others. In fact, they say the opposite – that Hamas worked hard, and largely succeeded to restrain the other factions.
As for the haranguing allegation and other blahblahblah, that has about as much relation to reality and as much relevance as your ad hominem references to "my community" and other personal items you know nothing about. I consistently respond to your contra factual, and contra-logical assertions, Richard Witty, without calling you ugly names or swearing at you. If having your claims, assertions, and statements effectively challenged feels like haranguing to you, then perhaps you need to either think more carefully before you post easily refuted assertions, or else toughen up a bit.
PS Richard Witty, your pretence, and more than that, your attempt to get me to pretend that there is any equality or equivalency between the Gazans and Israel is so deeply and reprehensively ludicrous that it is not worth the time it would take to address it. Pretending that the struggle between an occupied people and an occupying power that can deny them even the food that they themselves try to grow is beyond sick.
Quick comment — Walzer and Margalit condemned a principle on which (it has been claimed) the IDF conducted the Gaza war, and that is that the lives of its soldiers took precedence over the lives of Palestinian civilians. W and M argue that soldiers must risk their lives in order to minimize harm to civilians, and they strongly suggest that the principle wasn't adhered to.
They took no position on whether the decision to go to war was just or not, and I found that interesting. Surely it would have been a more effective article with the pro_Israel crowd had the two claimed that a) although the decision to go to war was just; b) the conduct of the war was not. But they didn't. Maybe they couldn't agree?
By the way, the statement that Richard Silverstein and I wrote against the war also focused on its conduct.
When an act is, of itself, wrong, everything about its conduct is by definition wrong.
I am not arguing that one should not point out the crimes committed within the overall crime, but the basic premise must be that it was the doing of it that was wrong, and that therefore everything that flows from that doing is wrong. It's your basic fruit of the poisonous tree principle.
Shirin
You have to remember that Richard Witty is what the Irish refer to as "a peculiar genius".He makes sense if you can hear his music and dance to his tune.
You are wasting your time, energy and talent by allowing him to be your mental choreographer.
If I were you I would heed Saleema and read his first sentance then pass on by.
Treat his provocations as irritants that are best avoided if you want to remain sane.