And another thing

In case you hadn't heard, it comes in pints.

 

Somehow this link seems to have slipped through the net when moving over to a bloglines generated blogroll.

 

Apologies Emily. Omission corrected. "Rip-Roaring Right Wing Ranter" OK for you?

BBC has cake. Eats It.

Monday night at the Grace-and-Favour appartment found us unpacking our bags, sorting out the effects of a burst litre carton on soya milk and listening to a simply dreadful piece of doom-mongering, rabidly anti-US propaganda by the BBC on Radio 4 on Peak Oil .
 

What I find so extraordinary about the BBC is the manner in which they fail completely to join the dots.

 

They state the premise that as oil production peaks the price of oil will rise. Yup. This is followed by the relatively mundane inference that as the price rises, it becomes economic to exploit additional sources of oil with higher production costs so the sources of supply will rise as prices rise. So far, so primary schoolbook economics.

 

I will leave aside the fact that they then disappear into a side alley about the limits of deep drilling, rather than alternative sources e.g. oil shales, increased recovery efficiency etc (I bet you didn't know that usually only 35% of the content of a given field is currently extractable), to focus on the things that are then NOT said.

 

It is extraordinary that there is simply no attempt to think beyond the fact that we currently use a lot of oil and therefore any restriction of supply will be a total and unmitigated disaster.

 

Two points in particular are missed entirely:

1. If oil prices rise, it is not just alternative sources of oil that become profitable. Other alternative - and crucially by "alternative" I mean "renewable" - sources of energy become profitable too.

2. If we are going to run out of oil in 30 years time, someone had better start rerunning the CO2 predictions in the climate change models. You can have a peak oil disaster or a climate change disaster, but you can't have both - at least not in the mickey mouse manner that the BBC is foisting the latter upon us.

Finland, Finland, Finland! The place I long to be

So sang the Pythons.
It would appear that they were right:

You scored as Finland. Your army is the army of Finland. You prefer to win your enemy by your wit rather than superior weapons. Enemy will have a hard time against your small but effective force. Finland 81% British and the Commonwealth 69% Poland 69% United States 63% France, Free French and the Resistance 56% Italy 56% Soviet Union 50% Germany 38% Japan 31% In which World War 2 army you should have fought? created with QuizFarm.com

Help Defend Free Speech!

This is a simply superb idea.

 

I cannot be there (see post below), but think this is a superb idea, largely because it is 100% legal and guaranteed to be an especially gratifying smack around the chops for Zanu-Labour.

 

In the meantime, here are some ideas for things about which exactly one individual ought to protest on 31st Aug:

1. the ghastliness of the Eurovision song contest;
2. the lunacy that allows VAT carousels to operate at all;
3. the abject lunacy of CRB checks;
4. That entertainment licencing thing that scuppers village halls;
5. The total and utter failure of prisons to engender any feeling of remorse or contrition in those detained at HM's pleasure;
6. (more topically) that OfCom ought to just F*CK OFF;
7. That the person who thought it would be a good idea to ban spontaneous but peaceful protest outside parliament ought to just F*CK OFF;
8. That the person who thought it would be a good idea to ban spontaneous but peaceful protest outside parliament whilst simultaneously allowing those with an axe to grind and no respect for our ancient freedom to display, openly, the flag of a terrorist organisation REALLY REALLY ought to just F*CK OFF;
9. In fact, that most of the Government ought to just F*CK OFF;
10. That something ought to done to stem the tide of the incessant, wanton, disproportionate, premeditated yet entirely unprovoked splitting of infinitives.

There. And that's 10 reasons just off the top of my head.

 

Act now: you must register your protest on or before 24th August.

Tigging and Tuscany

DK is incensed that he has been tigged and, charming young man that he is, responds to his tigger with his customary invective:

"damn his eyes."

Quite. DK then falls for the usual tosh that a problem shared is a problem doubled and has tigged me. Damn his eyes.

 

Your reliable Pedant-General, possessed as he is of a solid Protestant - some might say almost Calvinist - work ethic, will rise to the challenge...

 

... just as soon as he has finished up an ugly CR that needs to released shortly, worked out how to package a 3 tier wedding cake in order that it can be "DHL-ed" safely to Tuscany (don't ask), ensured the smooth passage of Lady P-G and the young masters P-G in hot pursuit of said wedding cakes (see above) at the hands of those nice people from Lufthansa, mowed the lawn, got his hair cut, responded to the delusion morons infesting the message boards at variously the BBC and the Telegraph, polished his kilt pin, found his already-polished-but-subsequently-mislaid sgian dubh, talked to his jolly nice lawyer about the impending wre-write of the positively byzantine P-G wills and then disappeared and (hopefully) subsequently returned from a much needed holiday....

 

Arezzo beckons. Who am I to ignore its siren call?

Bueller proffers an answer

I have been mulling over something along the following lines for a few days and have rather signally failed to get round to it, but DK has thrown down the gauntlet , and it would be churlish not to pick it and waft it in his face in a suitably provocative manner.

The gauntlet in question is not the prettiest of lacy things ever to have graced a delicate female hand:

So, let me ask you, what would you do to solve this crisis? Would you perhaps pour money into strengthening the Lebanese army so that they could obey UN Resolution 1559 and disarm Hezbollah? Would you look to the UN to help, as it did so effectively in the Balkans and Rwanda? Or perhaps we should invade Israel and "force" this ceasefire that everyone talks about?

Anyone? Bueller?

Having invoked the curse of Bueller in a recent post , I shall pause briefly to sue DK for plagiarism then move on to the matter at hand.

Let's start with a few assumptions. Best to get them out on the table.
Firstly, we'll assume that Israel's response is disproportionate.
Secondly, we'll take Hezbollah at their word when they say that their ultimate aim is to wipe Israel from the map.

Good.

Next, we'll note that there is little debate that Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation. Whatever it may be doing from a humanitarian point of view, I don't think that we need to entertain any notion that it's military wing is subject to any of the constraints of accountability to the executive of a nation state or, whilst we are on the topic, any notion of international law at all really.

Thus, whatever else we may need to do, there is ONE vital task to be achieved, which though arguably not sufficient, is clearly a necessary condition for a stable peace:

Hezbollah must be completely and verifiably disarmed and further that both it and any potential spin-offs or splinter groups or "real-" or "continuity-" Hezbollah follow-ups must be prevented from re-arming at any point in the future.

Nothing else matters whilst Hezbollah is still armed and capable (we will take the "willing" completely as read) of continuing rocket attacks and other incursions into Israel proper.

In fact, nothing else matters pretty much to the degree that the proportionality of Israel's response is largely irrelevant. It may complicate other matters of diplomacy and Israel may have to give substantially greater concessions and/or compensation to other parties are part of a wider peace treaty, but it has absolutely zero bearing on whether or not Hezbollah has to completely, unconditionally and verifiably disarmed.

OK. So our question is now really pretty simple. It is this:

What is the best, surest and least costly (in terms of blood and treasure all round) to disarm and disband Hezbollah, permanently and verifiably?

We can (thirdly) assume that Hezbollah is not going to be in a mood to be disarmed, especially if it has not already been by Israel. In fact, Hezbollah's disinclination to be disarmed will be in exact proportion to Israel's failure to do so before any such peace agreement: they will be wanting to claim victory and will not really want to play the role of the loser and surrender.

I had intended to examine a number of possible outcomes (the bulk of this post was written a week or so ago) but events have overtaken us. The governments of Israel and Lebanon have both accepted the terms but - allow me to contain my surprise - Hezbollah has declared that, although it accepts the ceasefire, it doesn't, apparently, have intention of abiding by its terms.

So I'm confused now. We know four things:
1) Hezbollah must be disarmed
2) Hezbollah does not want to be disarmed and will resist being disarmed
3) No-one except Israel is prepared to put the lives of its troops on the line to disarm Hezbollah
4) Israel was, until the ceasefire, actually trying to disarm Hezbollah.

Remind me. Why did we need Israel to pull out and stop doing the stuff everyone wants done but nobody else is prepared to do?

Whatever the answer might be, it strikes me that the ceasefire is pretty close to being its exact antithesis.

The tyranny of consumer choice

This is, I think, good news.

There are now more overweight people across the world than hungry ones, according to experts.

Whilst malnourished people in general do not have the option available to eat more, the huge majority of fat people could choose either to eat less or exercise more (or both).

This, I hear my audience clamouring, is a fairly mundane truth. Quite so. That is what makes the reporting of this issue on the 10 O'clock BBC1 News so poor. Obesity - as opposed to conditions linked to it, such as Type 2 Diabetes - was repeatedly referred to as a disease. It is not. It is a choice. We should not shy away from describing it as such.

A simply extraordinary article

I have no idea what possessed the editors of the Sunday Telegraph to commission and print this simply extraordinary article.

It is a nightmare being a British Muslim these days.

Probably. The question is: "Why would that be?"

While we must await the outcome of the police investigation following Thursday's raids before rushing to conclusions, the fact that a small number of angry young Muslims may wish to kill us hardly comes as a surprise.

Quite. Though I don't quite see why this follows directly from it being a nightmare being a British Muslim. Surely these sentences are in the wrong order.

A recent poll found that 7 per cent of British Muslims believe that suicide attacks on civilians in the UK are justified under certain circumstances. If extrapolated, this means that more than 100,000 of the 1.6 million Muslims living in Britain see nothing wrong in another 7/7.

I reviewed that poll here. It is indeed scary, but it wasn't presented that way at the time in the MSM and that is not the scariest bit of it either.

So what causes these disturbing sentiments? Many point to the economic plight of Muslims here. The statistics certainly paint a bleak picture. One in three has no qualifications, the highest for any minority group; only 30 per cent gained GCSE grades A-C compared with 50 per cent across the population, and 9 per cent of prisoners are Muslim.

Are you suggesting teachers routinely and openly discrimate against Muslim children in order to ensure that they underperform? Why is this not the case for other children from the subcontinent but who happen not to be Muslim? It is also not in line with the specific subset of Muslims who actually carry out acts of terrorism as the sister paper points out so eloquently this morning:

First, the home-grown terrorist threat was the fault of racist Britain for denying opportunity and educational advancement to Muslim youth. Then it turned out that most of those involved in the propagation of terrorism were middle-class and university-educated.

Whatever. Our illustrious commentator does at least try to distance himself from the "poverty as excuse for terrorism" ghastliness.

 

Others, most notably President Bush, assert that this is a war inspired by an evil ideology. This is not a wholly convincing argument. While many Muslims find Western customs such as binge drinking and pre-marital sex abhorrent, an attack on these values was not the rationale provided on video by two of the 7/7 bombers for their actions.

Sorry: you suggest (correctly) that GWB asserts (correctly) that these killers are inspired by an evil ideology. In order to dispute that, you then bring in something (supposed Western decadence) that he hasn't said and show that the killers haven't said it either. Well, I'll be dipped in dogshit. Can I use your strawman to wipe it off?

 

There is, however, no doubt that anti-Western sentiment is fuelled in many mosques up and down the country. We are constantly reminded that there is a perpetual battle between the righteous (Muslims) and the "kuffar" (non-believers). You will find no "love thy neighbour" sermons of the kind I heard as a child at an Anglican primary school. [My emphasis]

I'm hearing "evil ideology" here. How does this make GWB's argument above less than wholly convincing?

In addition to this, anti-Jewish sentiment appears to be hard-wired into a number of Muslims I meet. At the last general election, I remember being told by some of Watford's taxi drivers, slurping the froth from their pints of lager, that they could not vote for me as the leader of my party, Michael Howard, was a Jew.

But then, don't get, for example, Mr Nasrallah on the subject of Jews either. I'll put this one in the "evil ideology" while we are about it.

Then Muslims talk of "Islamophobia". Bigotry is a two-way street.

Yup. That needs saying too. Elements of Group A want to kill more or less anyone available from Group B (and any passing members of Group A for that matter), driven by an ideology that does not promote tolerance ("a perpetual battle between the righteous and the kuffar", "You will find no "love thy neighbour" sermons"), then Group A tries to claim that it is the victim. Not very likely to endear you to members of Group B really is it?

 

But wait: having largely confirmed that there is indeed an evil ideology at play, we are offered an alternative explanation for :

But it is the foreign policy pursued by the US and Britain, not deprivation or a clash of values, in my view, that is the principal catalyst of radicalisation.

Principal catalyst? So of all the people who marched in favour of the continued rule of a mass-murdering proto-fascist dictator with a track record of the use of chemical weapons against his own population, why was it only one easily-identifiable section who go on to invoke random slaughter against their fellow countrymen? An easily-identifiable section that is not taught by its elders to "love thy nieghbour" but is taught that there is and should be a perpetual battle between true believers and kuffar? An easily-identifiable section that is encouraged by its elders to view Jews with suspicion and to oppose the liberal values that have made the West the free place that it is.

 

Principal cause my arse. You need to do some serious work to explain exactly why an invocation to perpetual battle is, in fact, not an invocation to perpetual battle if you want that one to stick. Particularly when such invocations are being drummed into children as young as 7. [Ok - that is not in the UK, but the ideological link is there. Find me a Christian charity that would support this kind of behaviour]

 

The sense of frustration at the injustice faced by Muslims across the world as a consequence of the foreign policies of the West (principally the US) is palpable. Mr Blair's refusal to call for an immediate ceasefire in response to the current war in Lebanon ...

... a war prosecuted by a liberal democracy on the one hand and a genocidal terrorist group on the other ...

... only reinforces the view held by more than half of British Muslims that the war on terror is a war on Islam.

And who is doing anything to tell them otherwise? Because if their elders are telling them that they ought to be part of a perpetual battle, it is kind of hard for them not to see things through that prism, don't you think, ducky?

 

There is much talk of strengthening the moderates and rooting out extremists, but policy makers should be aware of how rapidly the moder-ates are becoming frustrated. The disturbing reality is that as their frustration grows, so will the fringe prepared to resort to violence.

Translation: "Do as they say or it will turn nasty. Don't say I didn't warn you."

 

Disagreement with your Government's foreign policy might well lead to anger. That is entirely fair enough. What irks is the attempt to create a link here between this (justifiable) anger and the willingness of some to express this anger - anger that should be directed towards the Goverment - by the indiscrimate and deliberate slaughter of their own countrymen. This link should be severed, not reinforced. This article does the opposite.

Caveat Emptor

In this discussion at Samizdata, there is the usual informed comment on difficulties of handling unstable precursors, such as nitroglycerine.

 

We are, ahem, brought back down to earth by one Jerry Mead:

Love it. Should any of "probably", "fairly" or "minor" prove to be - er - misplaced, the result would be refreshingly free of caveats.

The Golden Thread

Right. Now that I have got that last lot off my chest, I am in a much finer condition to toddle off to the theatre.

To see this, no less. Given that my Grandfather and Great-Grandfather both served in the Watch (commanding the same company of the same battalion of the same regiment no less and the former earning 2 DSOs and an MC as he did so), I shall be fascinated.

With luck, I might bump into Robert and we might have a chinwag. More later.

Right and Wrong

Justice is blind. Well blinkered at the very least, not to mention stupid, bigotted and incontinent, if one is considering the justice meted out by your super-annuated Pedant-General. You will be glad that I have avoided commenting on another incarnation of [ruffles copy of Daily Mail and says "Harumph"]

Political Correctness Gone Mad.

But even your slothful and agnostic Pedant-General, disengaged-from-the-political-process as he is, cannot but be roused into action by this load of tosh that blots the blameless escutcheon of the Letters Page in the Times today:

 

All education has a moral dimension.

Correct.

Yet a narrow focus on right and wrong is morally sterile, reducing right to what is not wrong.

Ummm... No. For example, "Helping Little old ladies across the road" is "right", assuming of course that he other side of the road is the destination sought by the little old lady. Punching people, unprovoked, in order to steal their dinner money is "wrong". Watching TV after a long hard day at work is neither. Whoever said that this was some kind of binary issue?

School rules by themselves do not make a good school.

True. It is the enforcement of school rules that helps make a good school. It is the fact that the rules ought to be respected, that it is wrong to break them and that you will have only yourself to blame if you do that makes a good school. See?

The good teacher does not go into teaching to become a policeman.

No, but that's what they end up being, "good" teacher or not, if they end up in a school that is "not good" and where there is scant regard for individual responsibility and the rule of law in general.

 

Phew. A new paragraph. I needed a break there. What does this bring?

It would be a great pity if multicultural Britain settled for a "lowest common denominator" approach to moral education.

On the contrary: it would be a huge improvement.

The Government has already saddled schools with "citizenship".

And, without wanting to morph into a frothing avatar of DK, what do you expect when the state gets involved in morality? The state should be a reflection of its citizens, not the other way round.

The late Cardinal Hume advised schools to educate into goodness. That is a far more liberating proposition, because it raises so many questions.

But it's not likely to do much good if you haven't sussed out the very basics of the "right" from the "wrong" end of the scale.

Unlike citizenship, which expresses a value-free view of the societal contribution of schools,

We've already covered this.

the search for goodness is the open road into humanity — and one from which future citizens of multicultural Britain can develop their own informed standards of what is wrong and what is right.

I give up. Who on earth could possibly write such drivel? Does this chap have any contact with the stuff that most teachers have to contend with?

PATRICK TOBIN
Principal of the Mary Erskine School and Stewart's Melville College 1989-2000

Ah. No, then. Mary Erskine's is an extremely nice, extremely expensive private school in the centre of Edinburgh. Everything that Mr Tobin writes is eminently sensible in the context of the nice, well-behaved, middle-class children of the nice, well-behaved, middle-class parents that he would have encountered in his tenure at that noble seat of learning. But if your clientelle and especially their parents need to be strong-armed into signing up to

recognise that violence, threats and abuse were unacceptable

I think you will find that these loftier aims might just be the problem not the solution.

 

A profoundly Good Man

From very much the other side of the scale, economically speaking, but without question a decent human being.

 

Now appearing in the blog roll, rather where you would expect to see him.

 

Go and read him.

 

Disappearing Missile Strikes

Richard North has been getting very excited about the suspected fabrication or staging of photos of casualties in Southern Lebanon.

 

This latest post caught my eye though:

Furthermore, we have so far been offered no photographs of this van, exterior or interior.

Hmmm... A civilian vehicle, allegedly hit by an Israeli missile, photographers right at the scene where the casualty lay, yet no photos of the stricken vehicle? Why so shy? I can't begin to think.

Mathematics, Sociology, Israel, Lebanon and the outright Manipulation of the MSM

UPDATE: Welcome readers from newsbusters... I will update in a mo now that there are more photos and video available.

Your pensive and hesitant Pedant-General is always loathe to put his cards on the table, to stand up and be counted or generally to favour one side of the fence from any other that may be available.

He is therefore wringing his hands in response to the awful reports of "apparent" missile attack on an ambulance clearly marked with the Red Cross.

At the Red Cross headquarters in Tyre, I spoke to Kassem Chaalan, 28, who told me about being in an ambulance that was struck by a missile. When the armament struck the vehicle, he says, it hit the Red Cross symbol on the roof dead-on.

Rather than make any sort of precipitate decision, I have therefore dissembled and thought about it and make all sorts of noises of the "hum" and "ha" variety.

Amongst the many other thoughts that crossed my mind is this:
Missile strikes are pretty conclusive events. In fact, at a conservative estimate and assuming that our helicopter-launched missile has mass of 10kg (which is on the low side) and was travelling at, say, 500 mph (which is ~250m/s and also on the low side), the missile would have had kinetic energy of around 600kJ. This is transferred to the target when it strikes, in a fairly direct and unprepossessing manner.

As a quick quiz, how fast would a car weighing 1 tonne (that's a small/medium UK sized car such as Ford Focus with just the driver in it) have to be going to have 600kJ in kinetic energy?

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Ok, I'll tell you. About 50 mph. So even before the warhead detonates, being hit by a missile of that size and at that speed has the same crushing effect on the target as being hit by a car full on at 50mph, except from above, where you don't have all the crumble zones to absorb the impact.

Let's look at a few examples. For each of these photos, you can click to be linked to the source news report.

There are a couple of things to notice about this.
Firstly the car is a mess. To say that it is no longer roadworthy would be somewhat sidestepping the extent of the damage. It looks very much as though a car of similar size struck it from above at about 50mph.

Secondly, the subsequent explosion has peeled the roof open, blown the boot lid open and thirdly we can see that the remainder is severely scorched with fire.

That seems to make sense to me.

What about this one:

Notice the fire damage, the blown out tyres, and the crushing impact from above. The floorpan is on the ground and the doors and roof are buckled. This car is not going anywhere. Ever again. Or at least, not of its own accord.

Or this:

Again, notice that the vehicle is a complete right-off. The roof has been ripped off by the explosion and there is extensive fire damage.

And what about this?


I don't know about you, humble reader, but I am beginning to spot a pattern. Missile strikes appear to correlate strongly with:

• Crushing and general structural damage apparently from above
  
• Other buckling and twisting or miscellaneous mechanical effects of explosions such as doors and boot lids open and bent and the roof ripped back up.
• Fire Damage.
  

Correlation, of course, does not imply causation, but I think we can be fairly comfortable, given the analysis of the kinetic energy delivered by a missile strike as discussed above and the generally acknowledged effects of the detonation of an appreciable quantity of military grade high explosive, that we should at least be suspicious that there may be some form of causal link.

So, to our ambulance "apparently deliberately" targetted.

Here it is:

That link again in case you missed it:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4068663.html

Now, I'm looking at a photo of an ambulance that has:

• no crushing impact from above;
• the doors are open, but they are clearly not buckled. They are on their hinges and have not been ripped out when shut. There is no other buckling or twisting commensurate with an explosion;
• no fire damage.

This is a vehicle in working order with the windows missing. From where I'm standing this is not a picture of a vehicle that has been hit by a helicopter launched missile. Indeed, given that there is lots of broken glass on the road around where the windows used to be, one wonders whether - surely not - the windows have been kicked out of a perfectly serviceable ambulance.

Can you imagine the field day that Hezbollah (and the BBC for that matter) would have if there really had been an ambulance hit by a missile. The image of a battered, burned out vehicle with a sorry bent scrag of metal showing the remaining traces of a Red Cross? Yet this is the only image I can find.

Why would that be? Who on earth could possibly gain from fraudulently reporting, or indeed entirely fabricating, a story about a direct hit on an ambulance? It couldn't happen. I mean obviously.

We're All Doomed! Doomed, I tell ye!

Actually, I don't think we are, but it appears that Richard North might. He provides a somewhat gloomy analysis of the wider meaning of the current conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

We appear to have reached the limits of technology, tactics and firepower which have underwritten the might and the standing of the Western powers. The greatest military force on earth has so far been unable to prevail in Iraq, and now probably the most capable is on the brink of being humiliated – both by low-tech weapons in the hands of ruthless and obsessive terrorists.

Whilst I think that is true, it is only true in part. The 20th Century wisdom was always that you needed a 3:1 advantage in numbers in the attack. Attack is always tougher than defence. Over recent years, the ability to disguise some seriously powerful anti-vehicle munitions and the relatively low cost of accurate remote detonation devices to trigger them render invading regular armed forces particularly vulnerable to a determined guerilla defence and the balance has naturally shifted even more in favour of the defenders.

But... but... that is only half the picture. To fulfill their wishes, Hezbollah and its paymasters would have to go on the offensive. Where they would be ground to a pulp.

Hezbollah defending against IDF incursion? Result: Stalemate
IDF defending prepared positions against a serious Hezbollah invasion? Result: I'll have my money on the IDF.

The combination of the stacked odds in favour of the defender in any action and modern weaponry mean that we are very unlikely to see a conventional warfare threat to the "West". What remains is the nagging background of isolated terrorist incidents, both in Israel, here in the "West" and, well, generally everywhere actually. In this respect Richard's analysis is pretty much spot on:

"... [I]t will dawn on us that we are breaking away from a world dominated by ideas forged during and between the last two World Wars, and the post-war settlements that arose from them. [These] are settlements of which the EU, the United Nations, the WTO and all the great tranzie organisations were a central part.

They, like the military thinking and technology which has dominated the 20th Century, are no longer providing the answers. We need new paradigms, new thinking and new solutions. None of the tranzies, and especially the European Union, will be part of those solutions."

In this, as ever, he is spot on.

The world's a sea of "shit"

some sink, some swim and some go in boats. I have refrained so far, but feel it is now time to stick my oar in.

Just about everyone is today asking if (or just declaring that) Israel is committing war crimes by its bombardment of Lebanon.

It seems that the approximate test being applied is this:

Is it a civilian death from IDF action?

If the answer is "Yes", then it seems to be a war crime.
Oddly, the corresponding test:

Is it a civilian death from a rocket launched by Hezbollah?

seems only to elicit a response of "Whatever".

As one might expect, there is a proper ding dong on this topic over at Harry's Place and in fact, this is what prompts me to comment.

One commenter asks:

I'm fairly certain there is something in the Geneva Conventions about it being valid to kill civilians, when the enemy is hiding amongst them. I'm researching it further to find the exact wording.

Which prompts dsquared to respond:

The exact wording is that it isn't.

Whilst I wouldn't use the exact wording "valid", the assumption in his response and in all the links above is not so much that it is always "invalid", but that it is always a war crime. This strikes me as wrong.
Let's look at what the Geneva Conventions (or rather Protocol I to Fourth Geneva Conventions). The relevant section is "Art. 51. - Protection of the civilian population":
Here it is:

1. The civilian population and individual civilians shall enjoy general protection against dangers arising from military operations. To give effect to this protection, the following rules, which are additional to other applicable rules of international law, shall be observed in all circumstances.

Let's see how variously IDF and Hezbollah measure up...

2. The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited.

Well that seems to rule out Hezbollah's rocket attacks in the general direction of Haifa. Katyushas are not exactly precision weapons. Firing them into a city can have no other effect. I'm going to reserve judgement on the IDF for the time being. I'll explain below.

3. Civilians shall enjoy the protection afforded by this section, unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities.

So, for the avoidance of doubt, the members (any other term is hopelessly loaded) of Hezbollah are definitely NOT covered by these protections.

4. Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are:
(a) those which are not directed at a specific military objective;

See Hezbollah rocket attacks above.

(b) those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or
(c) those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.

Paragraph 5 expands on the theme of indiscrimate attacks:

5. Among others, the following types of attacks are to be considered as indiscriminate:
(a) an attack by bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects;

and

(b) an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.

Hmmm. That sounds a little equivocal. If civilian casualties are always a war crime or are never valid, there would be little need for a comparison to the military advantage at all. But it's more important than that. The comparison is between expected loss of civilian life and anticipated military advantage. To be clear, you are within the rules to attack a target even if you KNOW beforehand that the attack will definitely result in the loss of civilian life and even if the target turns out not to be as big as expected (or not there at all).

6. Attacks against the civilian population or civilians by way of reprisals are prohibited.

Fairly self explanatory. To be honest this is covered by Para 2 anyway.

7. The presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favour or impede military operations. The Parties to the conflict shall not direct the movement of the civilian population or individual civilians in order to attempt to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield military operations.

Translation: if combatants of Party A set up in the middle of a village, are subsequently attacked by Party B and civilians die, PARTY A has contravened the protocol and is responsible for the death of those civilians. Military targets are always military targets. It is up to the combatants on each side to ensure that they do not put the civilians around them in danger.

Hezbollah sets up in the middle of villages. It hides amongst civilians. When it is attacked by the IDF, it is Hezbollah - NOT THE IDF - that is responsible for any civilian deaths.

8. Any violation of these prohibitions shall not release the Parties to the conflict from their legal obligations with respect to the civilian population and civilians, including the obligation to take the precautionary measures provided for in Article 57.

Doesn't matter what either side does, their opponents still have to abide by the rules.

Art. 52., Para 3. is good too:

In case of doubt whether an object which is normally dedicated to civilian purposes, such as a place of worship, a house or other dwelling or a school, is being used to make an effective contribution to military action, it shall be presumed not to be so used.

In other words, if a civilian site, such as for example a school, is definitely "making an effective contribution to military action", it becomes a legitimate target and loses the protections of the convention until such time as combatants leave (or are otherwise neutralised), even if there are civilians still there. Whilst there is always going to be a good measure of doubt and some good finger pointing to be done, showing the aftermath of an attack is not tremendously informative.

And whilst we are about it, Art. 57, Para 2(b) is interesting:

[With respect to attacks, the following precautions shall be taken:]
an attack shall be cancelled or suspended if it becomes apparent that the objective is not a military one or is subject to special protection or that the attack may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated;

Israeli fighters returning without dropping their bomb loads anyone?

(c) effective advance warning shall be given of attacks which may affect the civilian population, unless circumstances do not permit.

Again, we know that IDF have been issuing warnings and running leaflet drops. Any reports of similar sensible behaviour from Hezbollah?

More importantly, this brings us back to my reserved judgement on the IDF earlier. If the IDF's primary purpose was to kill or generally terrorise civilians, why would they give advance warning? If their primary purpose was to kill or generally terrorise civilians and particularly given the sophistication of their weaponry and the number of raids conducted, they seem to be doing a pretty poor job.

If we are going to start slinging about accusations of war crimes, do we look for a party that:

• deliberately locates its command centres, combatants and munitions in densely populated civilian areas;
• refuses to use uniforms and insignia and generally tries to be indistinguishable from the civilian population;
• launches wildly inaccurate weaponry over long distances into civilian population centres
• without warning

Or one that:

• separates itself from its civilian population by insignia, uniforms and location;
  
• has a well defined command structure accountable to a democratically elected executive;
• issues radio and text message warnings and carries out leaflet drops
• and aborts missions at the last moment if no target can be identified?
  

Not a very tough choice really.

I make no comment here on the scale or overall proportionality of response of the IDF. To be honest, I think the Israelis ought to be aware of the propaganda value of images of wounded children and they appear to be handing their enemies stuff on a plate.

War is shit. People get killed. Stuff gets destroyed. That's the deal. The question is how to stop it and to do that we have to look at what each side wants. Broadly Israel wants to exist within internationally agreed borders - it spends a great deal of time saying so. By contrast, Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran are quite clear that they want to wipe Israel off the map: cue Fred Halliday in Open Democracy (via the Norm)

... there was no margin of doubt in the sheikh's view that Israel was an illegitimate state and that it should be abolished. This position was bolstered... by the deployment of quotes from the Qu'ran denouncing Jews and calling for a struggle against them.

I put it to the sheikh that this use of the Islamic tradition, in a context of modern political conflict, was racist, a point he evidently did not accept. An alternative, open and respectful, attitude to Jews can also be derived from other parts of the Islamic tradition, but this, like the racist reading, depends on contemporary political choice.

....

From one roadside vantage-point, they had pointed to the still unresolved Shebaa area to the southeast. As we looked over to this Israeli town, with people clearly visible walking in the streets, the chief guide turned to me with an unambiguous message: "It took us twenty-two years to drive them out of here [Lebanon]", and it may take us up to forty years to drive them out of there [occupied Palestine]".

I long ago decided, in dealing with revolutionaries and with their enemies, in the middle east and elsewhere, to question their motives and sense of reality, but to take seriously what they stated to be their true intentions.

Israel has nothing to gain by a further occupation of Lebanon, other than to subdue the militants. But, now that those nice gentlemen in Iran have equipped Hezbollah with the longer range Fajr rockets, Israel is going to have to occupy a damn sight more than they did last time to provide an effective buffer zone to protect Israel-proper. I can't see how a ceasefire would be in their gift.

By contrast however, I can't fault Bush's logic: if "they" really could

"get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop this shit"

it really would be over. I'm not holding my breath.

Oh NO. Not again...

:-(

Sounds like the carnage in Bombay is considerably worse than was the case in London.

But we now know what the score is. Emily showed us how the first time round. I had a small refrain for the Danes.

Arthur takes up the banner today. Go see him and add your support.

I want one of those

There is no doubt that I do not need this, but I really, really, really want it.

Minor aside to Neil: neither the state nor any form redistributive politics would, could or ever will produce this kind of meaningless and trivial product. That is why life would be so stiflingly boring if you were in charge.

That Poll...

In the header aobve this post, you will see that your single-minded Pedant-General lays out some aims of this venerable blog. I have recourse today to invoke the first of them. There is Woolly Thinking afoot and it is greatly in need of a thorough expunging.

I refer, of course, to the reporting of That Poll regarding attitudes to the 7/7 bombings and Islamist terrorism in general.

The Times has a little review in the second section which reveals this little nugget:

"I have thought about joining the police," says Muhammed Javaid, 31, a taxi driver from nearby Bradford who works in Beeston. Standing near his car, he explains that many Muslims feel the police force pays well, and rewards officers with secure employment and decent pensions. "The Army is different, though; it is not acceptable for Muslims to go and kill other Muslims. I would join the Army, but I would not fight in Iraq, for example." Would he choose to go to jail, I ask? "For my beliefs, yes. I will not kill fellow Muslims. That is against my religion."

The doublethink necessary to support this view is extraordinary. Presumably it is OK for Muslim jihadis to slaughter Muslim Iraqis.

Quite apart from this, the tacit assumption in this statement is that the primary role of Her Majesty's Forces in those theatres is

" ... to go and kill other Muslims."

The Times does nothing to point out this monstrous misrepresentation. I shall refer to those venerable, if drink soaked, pro-war popinjays to do so:

"The brother of the UK [Muslim] soldier Jabron Hashmi , was interviewed immediately before the debate. He clearly stated that Jabron felt he was helping his Muslim brothers in Afghanistan fight for stability and to rebuild their country."

The second piece of woolliness surrounds the relentless positive spin placed on the poll results themselves:

"... an overwhelming majority of those polled could not justify the suicide bombing of civilian, military, police or government targets — 89 per cent, 79 per cent, 86 per cent and 85 per cent respectively."

These are not positive numbers. They are extremely worrying. They are positively horrifying. Why? Let me rephrase them for you:

• 14% of those surveyed thought that there might be some justification for the random slaughter of innocent civilian bystanders who happened to be in the vicinity of a police station.
• 15% of those surveyed thought that there might be some justification for the random slaughter of innocent civilian bystanders who happened to be in the vicinity of a government office.
• 11% of those surveyed thought that there might be some justification for the random slaughter of innocent civilian bystanders in general. Can you imagine a poll of the general population of the UK where this response would be given by more a single respondent?
• 21% of those surveyed thought that there might be some justification for the random slaughter of innocent civilian bystanders who happened to be in the vicinity of an Armed Forces establishment.
  

Who lives and works at your average MOD establishment? Cleaners, contract caterers, wives, children. 21% think that it's just fine and dandy to kill these people.

21%. That is not an insignificant bunch of hotheads. That is not "just a handful of extremists".

It's just 1pp short of the proportion of the electorate you need to get a 66 seat majority in Parliament. Forgive me if I don't think that the results of this survey are encouraging.

Happy Birthday!

As many others have noted, yesterday was the 230th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in what was to become the United States of America.

For my part, I shall add my tuppence:
1) What a marvellous example of prose. Note that it declares as "self evident" that Liberty Rights are inherent in man and not granted by the state. You would have thought that 230 years was long enough for this idea to have caught on.
2) Rather than merely wish them well, I am in the fortunate position of being able to enact my feelings of goodwill towards the United States: I have some United Statesians coming to stay for a few days as part of a tour of Europe.