When terrorism isn’t terrorism

Jonathan Tobin tries to claim that killing scientists isn’t terrorism:

As far as he [Glenn Greenwald] is concerned, if the U.S. or Israel are behind the killings, then both are “terrorist states” and President Obama may be a “a terrorist, a state sponsor of terrorism or, at the very least, a supporter of terrorism.”

But you need a particular form of moral myopia not to see that heading off a potential second Holocaust in the form of an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel or the nuclear blackmail of the rest of the Middle East is not a form of terrorism. Anyone who believes Iran should be allowed to proceed toward the building of a nuclear bomb has either lost their moral compass or is so steeped in the belief that American and Israeli interests are inherently unjustified they have reversed the moral equation in this case. Rather than the alleged U.S. and Israeli covert operators being called terrorists, it is the Iranian scientists who are the criminals. They must be stopped before they kill.

Given that terrorism is defined as violent acts which are intended to create fear, are perpetrated for a religious, political, or ideological goal, and deliberately target or disregard the safety of civilians, it should be completely obvious that murdering scientists for the purposes of preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon is terrorism. Whatever state is responsible therefore is guilty of committing acts of terrorism, although I would not go so far as to call it a terrorist state because terrorist states typically make a formal policy of terror and direct terror against their own citizens. The First French Republic was a terrorist state, but I don’t think either Israel or the USA can be categorized that way even if they are responsible.

But does anyone doubt that if China started murdering scientists at Honeywell, Boeing, or Lockheed Martin who were working on the next generation of U.S. military weapons, it would be regarded as both terrorism and an act of war?

What Tobin should have done is to try explaining why intentionally targeting civilians for murder is justifiable and why it is a worthwhile risk considering that doing so exposes American and Israeli scientists to reprisals in the future. Now, I think that one could probably make a reasonable case for Israel to target the civilians of various Arab nations because their own citizens are already being similarly targeted and attacked. But the same is not true of Americans, so it would be a massive mistake for the USA to do it.

The problem is that the American media appears to be preparing the citizenry for more military action against civilian targets in friendly nations, such as took place already in Pakistan. For example, on Hawaii Five-O the other night, the intrepid heroes prevented planned assassinations against a SEAL team, then were permitted to watch the live video stream of a SEAL assault against a drug cartel in Mexico.

Regardless of how worried you are about Iran possessing nuclear weapons, history very strongly suggests that they will obtain them sooner or later. It wasn’t all that long ago that doomsday was prophesied if North Korea ever obtained nuclear weapons, and yet they now have them and nothing has happened except for the death of the North Korean leader… which does tend to raise a few more questions about the true extent of these targeted murders. Anyhow, the point is that the prospective justifiability of an action does not modify the substance of the action, and to insist otherwise is a particularly clumsy and counterproductive form of propaganda.

Excursions in Alpha

I haven’t really bothered keeping up with the weekly summaries here as the Alpha Game blog has effectively taken on a life of its own. However, there are still occasionally posts there which I suspect may be of some interest to those here who don’t regularly follow it, so here are a few of the potentially more interesting ones.

1. Addressing the No-Win Game by deriving chaos out of order.

2. An observation that the marital commitment made by men and the marital commitment made by women are substantively and materially different and conclusions therefrom.

3. Answering a reader’s question concerning the wisdom of returning to the scene of past romantic defeats.

4. Explaining why female Facebook stalkers tend to hail from the lower end of the attractivity spectrum.

5. The increasingly misnamed Omega lays out his path forward as he steadily climbs the ladder of the socio-sexual hiearchy.

6. An explanation of how a woman can tell if the man in whom she is interested is sexually experienced or not.

Mailvox: the question of Palestine

The Deuce queries:

A question though, Vox: what’s your position on the Israel/Palestine debacle, and what our position should be regarding it, and do you think Ron Paul’s position is correct?

My position on the Israel/Palestine issue is the same as it is concerning every land dispute around the world. It’s neither my business nor my concern, I don’t care one little bit about it, and the two sides are welcome to fight it out as long as they care to do so. I think the US position should be to stay completely out of it since we have neither allies nor interests there, and moreover, those who are citizens of either side should be barred from any involvement in American electoral politics in order to prevent any attempts to draw the United States into it.

I don’t know the specifics of Ron Paul’s position, but based on his general principle of non-interventionism, I suspect it is in line with my own.

Unfortunately, history suggests that the only long-term solution to the conflict will involve ethnic cleansing of one sort or another. I suspect the Arabs will win in the end, despite Israel’s many current advantages, due to demographics and because far too many Jews haven’t followed through on the basic idea of Zionism, which is that Jews would actually move to Israel. Far too many of them prefer to live in the West where they can reap the benefits of European culture; they say “next year in Jerusalem” even though there is no longer anything preventing them from moving there.

The long term problem is that what historically was a powerful moral justification for a Jewish homeland has vanished now that it is obvious that many, if not most Jews, don’t want to live there.

You’ve come a long way, baby

One needn’t fail to feel genuine sympathy for the victims of a stupid showboating Italian cruiseship captain to nevertheless be amused at the complaints from women who suddenly find they aren’t so keen on that all-important equality when push comes to shove:

Survivors from the Costa Concordia spoke angrily yesterday of the nightmare evacuation from the stricken ship as women and children were left behind. In the terrifying moments after the giant vessel began to list, fights even broke out to get into the lifeboats. Men refused to prioritise women, expectant mothers and children as they pushed themselves forward to escape. Crew ignored their passengers – leaving ‘chefs and waiters’ to help out.

In heart-rending footage, recorded on mobile phones, British children could be heard shouting ‘Daddy’ and ‘Mummy’ in the melee. As she waited for a flight home from Rome, grandmother Sandra Rogers, 62, told the Daily Mail: ‘There was no “women and children first” policy. There were big men, crew members, pushing their way past us to get into the lifeboats. It was disgusting.’

This was not so much predictable as predicted. Women have methodically attacked the concept of male duty and honor through every possible means for the past ninety years, and now they are whining that they don’t get special treatment simply because a ship happens to be sinking. Why, exactly, should any man “prioritise women, expectant mothers and children”? On what grounds can they be reasonably expected to do so, those outdated traditional grounds that the schools teach is hateful, sexist, and bigoted?

Those big, burly crewmen shoving aside women as they prioritized their own escape should have been wearing t-shirts that said “this is what a feminist looks like”. Enjoy the crash.

WND column

Ten Years Later

Let me be blunt. If you do not actively support Ron Paul’s campaign to be the next president of the United States of America – if you do not pray on a daily basis for his success – then you are a fool. You are a complete, unadulterated and unmitigated fool. It doesn’t matter if you are a liberal Democrat who bought into Barack Obama’s fraudulent hope and change propaganda or a conservative Republican who is still reeling with the shock from eight years of ceaseless ideological treachery by George W. Bush. If you have even a modicum of concern for the survival of America, either as a nation or as a constitutional ideal, there is demonstrably only one candidate who has any understanding of the size and scope of the challenges presently facing the American people.

NB: I didn’t bother mentioning Huntsman in the column because I didn’t consider him a genuine candidate. As it happens, he ended what passed for his campaign on Sunday night. Fittingly, Romney didn’t bother showing up to accept Huntsman’s endorsement.

Three for three

Or, if you prefer, six for seven. That being said, I was VERY impressed with the Houston performance against Baltimore. A third-string rookie QB playing on the road without their best defensive player and the Ravens still needed old school performances from Ray Lewis and Ed Reed to get the win. They will almost certainly be in the mix next year.

And Jermichael Finley, don’t overcelebrate making a catch for a first down, especially not if you’re going to drop the next one that hits you in the hands.

Marketilism isn’t capitalism

I’m genuinely curious how those who regularly – and wrongly – equate Wall Street and the financial industry with “capitalism” are going to explain the latest government measures intended to prop up the great zombie beasts of the various stock and bond markets:

When back in August, Europe declared a short selling ban of any financials (here we are willing to channel Romney, and make a $10,000 bet with anyone that said ban will never be lifted), and which as we predicted has had no favorable impact on bank stocks which have since tumbled, we suggested that the next step will also be the final one: the passage of laws prohibiting sales of any kind. As usual we were partially joking. And as so often happens, we are about to be proven right again. As the FT reports in its headline article today, whose gist is simple enough, that Europe is on the verge, it is the tactically-placed final paragraph that is of particular curiosity. It says the following: “Speaking on the fringes of a start-of-year retreat of her Christian Union lawmakers in the city of Kiel, Ms Merkel said she would consider calls from her party colleagues for legislation to bar institutional investors such as insurance companies from selling bonds when ratings were downgraded, or fell below investment grade.” Allow us to recopy and repaste the key part: “legislation to bar institutional investors such as insurance companies from selling bonds.”

And there you have it: after everything else has failed, the state, not the politically independent, if at least on paper central bank, is about to formally enter the capital markets. And yes, first it will be a ban of selling on downgrades, then it will be a ban of selling on any downtick, and finally it will be a ban of selling anything and everything.

I don’t recall anything about it only being legal to buy things at a certain price or more under a capitalist system. In fact, the idea of government-fixed pricing has rather more in common with socialism, if I recall correctly, although there is nothing very socialist about the idea of fixing prices in order to protect private government-guaranteed profits. As I’ve pointed out before, that smacks of the standard practice of the royal mercantilists.

Is it progress to go from royal mercantilism to democratic marketilism? Instead of the king’s ministers picking the lucky winners, now the federal bureaucrats do.

Imagine!

What the godless fans of John Lennon always seem to forget is that there is a well-known place where there are no countries, no religion, and nothing to kill or die for. It is a very peaceful place, at least when seen from this perspective. It is called “the grave”. And it is no accident that so many people end up there every time a utopian – who is often an atheist, but doesn’t have to be – puts himself in a position of power where he can attempt to build a New Man, a New Society, or a New World Order.

It’s not atheism that causes this lethal utopianism. But the observable fact of the matter is that atheists are particularly susceptible to it.

Playoffs Round 2

Packers over Giants
49ers over Saints
Ravens over Texans
Patriots over Broncos

Last week: 3-1. I really didn’t expect another Miracle by the Tebow.

I don’t really care who wins any of these games, although it would be absolutely hysterical if the Broncos knock off the Patriots. I would like to see the Packers play the Saints for the NFC championship, though, as that would be an interesting track meet.