Eye on the Watcher’s Council

As you may know the members of the Watcher’s Council each nominate one of his or her own posts and one non-Council post for consideration by the whole Council. The complete list of this week’s Council nominations is here.

The Glittering Eye, “Iran Shells PKK Bases”

In my submission for this week I took note of the Iranian (and Turkish) military activity being undertaken against targets in Iraq, provided a little background on the PKK, and noted the differences between the Israeli-Hezbollah hostilities and Iran’s actions against the PKK.

Soccer Dad, “Antisemitism for Fun and Profit”

Soccer Dad considers antisemitism in humor and the arts and the recent full page ad in the LA Times taken out by a number of Hollywood personalities in support of Israeli and Lebanese civilians and condemning Hezbollah and Hamas.

Rhymes With Right, “Wallace Steps Back—Sekula-Gibbs Is Lone Write-In Candidate”

Greg posts about the ongoing struggle in Texas (in his district) by Republicans to get a candidate other than Tom DeLay on the ballot. Or, in this case, off the ballot as a write-in candidate.

Socratic Rhythm Method, “Dem Nominee Quality Control Unlikely to Improve”

Matt tries to make sense of the revisions that Democrats have agreed on to their presidential primary schedule. A noble effort, Matt, but probably fruitless. As Will Rogers noted three quarters of a century ago, the Democrats aren’t an “organized political party”.

Caucuses are profoundly undemocratic institutions. A small, highly organized group which nowadays means public employees’ unions, can railroad its candidate through the process.

Don’t forget the economic value an early caucus/primary has to a state. That no doubt explains the presence of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid’s home state of Nevada among the early voters.

Chalk up the rest to internal party politics. The primaries aren’t about finding the best or even an electable candidate.

AbbaGav, “Wisdom of the French Foreign Minister”

Gavriel critiques a recent request by the French Foreign Minister that Israel remove its air, sea, and land blockade of Lebanon, ostensibly to be replaced by Lebanese monitors.

May I attempt to explain? The French objective is a return to the status quo ante. Full stop. That’s why their pre-ceasefire position and post-ceasefire position are completely consistent. Get the ceasefire. Remove Israeli forces from Lebanon and eliminate the Israeli blockades. Once that’s done why do more?

I continue to hope that Israelis come to realize that a mulligan is probably the best they can hope for from this deal.

Done With Mirrors, “Snake in the Grass”

Callimachus reflects on Günther Grass’s revelation that, during World War II, he was a member of the Waffen-SS.

ShrinkWrapped, “On Meaning”

ShrinkWrapped posts on the innate human search for meaning and how you may find it where you least expect it. I’m a little disappointed he didn’t sneak in a reference to Victor Frankl.

The Education Wonks, “The Knucklehead of the Day: Teacher Dan Holden”

Sadly, the day-to-day peculiarities of public education remain a fruitful source of headscratchers. This time they’ve found a situation in Louisville, Kentucky in which a middle school teacher burned two American flags in class.

I have no idea on the legalities of this—public employees’ freedom of speech is somewhat different than ordinary citizens’ nor of the case that’s being discussed (on the basis of safety). Here in Chicago I’m quite a certain a fire marshall would have been required for such a display. And I suspect there would have been a union action by the janitors.

Gates of Vienna, “The Nation-State vs. Anarchy and Imperialism”

In this excellent essay Dymphna touches upon a number of themes near and dear to my heart, in particular, that notions such as the rule of law, civil liberties, and representative government spring from the foundation of the nation-state.

Joshuapundit, “Transcript of the Mike Wallace Ahmadinejad Interview”

Freedom Fighter presents the transcript with interlinear commentary.

Right Wing Nut House, “Iraq: Commit or Quit”

Rick Moran makes the case that either we should increase the resources we’re devoting to putting down the insurgency in Iraq or that we should get out. Basically, he’s come around to where I was in February, 2003 when I recognized that committing the level of resources to fighting in Iraq that would have been required to achieve the ostensible objectives would have been politically impossible (and is even more so now).

However, it’s not February, 2003 any more. We’ve removed the Saddam Hussein government and, in effect, dismantled civil society there in its entirety to replace it with a substitute of unknown durability. We’ve occupied the country and, unfortunately, presided over an enormous amount of mayhem—mostly not perpetrated by us.

Our persistent interests in the area mean that we can’t just up and leave even, as John Kerry points out, if our presence reduces the incentives for Iraqis to preserve order in their own state.

There are dozens of reasons we can’t leave Iraq until there’s a stable state there. I’ve mentioned a lot of them here. Here’s just one: the only thing that gives us any say whatever in what kind of society will emerge in Iraq is the 136,000 men and women in uniform we’ve got there. Keeping them there is a cost we can bear. Risking the chaos likely to follow in the wake of their departure is a cost that we may not be able to bear.

The Sundries Shack, “Bring Them Home. Now.”

Jimmie Bise posts on the abduction of Fox News reporter Steve Centanni and cameraman Olaf Wiig, whose fate is unknown. Why the silence?

Well, I’ve decided which posts I’ll vote for. Which would get your vote? BTW have I ever mentioned that I always vote for the posts I think are the best regardless of whether I agree with them or not?

3 comments… add one
  • kreiz Link

    It’s gotta be Moran, given the sheer gravitas of his post and the attention it drew across the Net.

  • Let me start by saying I really enjoy and appreciate your weekly roundup.

    That said, however (there’s always the however), I wanted to respond to part of what you said in response to my post. While I agree things haven’t gone well for Israel in the Hizballah conflict, and a “mulligan” might be preferable to the situation the government has maneuvered itself into at this point, I’m not sure this gives the French a free pass here.

    I agree the French miss the old situation, where Hizballah was armed to the teeth but so long as nobody said anything or actually launched anything, it could be business as usual. The problem is that France was the driving force behind an internationally backed ceasefire deal that was based on a number of critical status quo breakers: Hizballah must be disarmed being chief among them. Now that they’ve pushed this condition into a written document and joined everyone in getting it signed, promising their forces, etc., for France to now merely step back and say “Sorry, ignore what we all signed, take the status quo instead” is an unacceptable further trashing of the international community’s diplomatic reputation, particularly with respect to Israel.

    Had they pushed a cease fire that honestly stated the intentions you laid out, and instead of “HA must disarm” it said “HA will be allowed to rearm back to the status quo enough to replace the missiles they used up, and then we’ll go back to status quo during which they could further arm themselves without consequence” at least that paper would have meant something. Of course status quo then would have included return of captured Israelis.

    I don’t believe the situation is as neat as you are painting it in your dismissal. The truthful conditions HA would accept Israel could not accept. The truthful conditions Israel would accept HA would not accept. So France appears to have written a vaporware treaty, to HA’s benefit. I don’t know if anyone in the world can now expect Israel to accept any international promises in the future (reluctant even this time), and this will complicate ending any future conflicts. That doesn’t seem to bother anyone though, but it bothers me.

    But again, (sorry for the ramble, this is just quick typing reaction), I agree Israel is in a bit of a bind and doesn’t have high expectations now (partly due to UN/French/international abandonment of agreed conditions). This isn’t meant to be a complete deconstruction of what you said, just objecting to letting France off the hook.

  • Thanks, AbbaGav. My comment wasn’t meant either as dismissal or as excusing the French but more along the lines of fatalism. I believe that the simplest explanation for the behavior of the French is that UNSC1701 was intentionally (at least on the part of the French) vaporware. They’ve achieved their objective at very little cost to them and don’t much care that it’s undoubtedly fleeting.

    Your comments are much appreciated. The Glittering Eye is as much about conversation as it is about posting and if every comment agreed with me completely it wouldn’t be much of a conversation, would it?

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