| (N.B. At the request of my readers, this article was cut in 3 to make it more digestible. This is the final installment.) |
Over the past couple of weeks, Andrew Iain Dodge ("DodgeBlog") has been engaged in a blog-on-blog debate with Iain Dale ("Iain's Party") and Emmanuel Golstein ("Airstrip One"). The whole thing started with a post from Mr. Dale that accused Israel of a terror campaign against the Palestinians, and proposed cutting off all U.S. aid to force Sharon to give the Palestinians their own state. The full sequence can be found in Part 1.
In the interest of even odds, it seemed only cricket for me to wade in. Part 1 dealt with the critical issues at hand, and explored both the realities of the Mideast situation and how civilized nations should respond. Part 2 moved on to Northern Ireland, discussing Iain's responses on this issue and wondering if a double-standard was afoot.
Then, others added their voices to enrich the discussion.
Natalie Solent chimed in with a note about the parallels between the people of Northern Ireland and Israel. Hawkgirl built on my post, answering some of the questions posed in Part 2 re: what would make the IRA "legal" in the same way Europeans have been treating the Palestinian Authority as "legal." Good points all, and they apply 100% to the Palestinian situation as well.
(Alas, the IRA may be less likely then ever to comply. As one British expert opined after a mind-boggling recent security disaster: "The war is over. The IRA won." This is not cheering, given other things we've recently learned about the IRA's international role. But it may be true.)
The final installment in my reply to Iain brings us to the critical questions that need to be asked when evaluating military actions, and some of the potential consequences of choosing poorly...
Hard Questions, Hard Answers
ID (re: IRA): "These people are evil and should be hunted down like the scum they are. But this should be done without harming innocent people."Iain, this is where you totally lose your fellow Conservatives.
Ireland might fit within the definition of military policing. The Mideast can't, any more than removing Saddam would be about policing. It's war. War can't be waged without harming innocent people, and placing that restriction on the response equates to a ban on any response. As you well know, given that this is a standard (and deeply dishonest) rhetorical trick of the left.
Were innocent people harmed in the Falklands? In Afghanistan? In Kosovo? In Iraq? Are innocents still being harmed in Iraq? Yes to all of the above.
An intelligent response, however, can't stop there. It must ask:
Is the harm justified? Is harm to innocents the primary intent, or merely a byproduct of acting with imperfect tools wielded by imperfect people in a less than ideal world? Have reasonable attempts been made to lessen that harm? How credible are the reports of harm? Is the harm within a similar scope for similar actions of its type? If not, can it be explained by other factors? What is the balance of harm that the actions in question seek to avoid? What potential harm could inaction or overly constrained action create?
When we ask these questions (indeed, perhaps because we do), most conservatives I know come down in favour of the list of incidents and dilemmas above. We're sorry for the costs, but understand why we should proceed anyway. What DodgeBlog and I aren't seeing in the case of Israel is you asking these questions, or answering them. It makes you sound like, well, one of those Greenham Common types from the 1980s.
Conclusion: Playing With Fire
Back to Ireland for the wrap-up, and the parallels Mr. Dale doesn't seem to want to see:
ID: "So yes, the Irish do deserve their own Ireland. In fact I would have nothing against a united Ireland if the people of Northern Ireland voted for it. but they haven't and they won't."That's right. The people of Northern Ireland have rights. One of them is not to be driven from their country by terrorists, however much the IRA may desire it. Well, the Israelis haven't voted for a Judenfrei Israel either. And unlike the Irish Protestants, there's nowhere else for them to go. It's not like they can trust the Europeans again.
So they'll work hard to see to their own security against the PLO, Hamas, Saudi Arabia, Iran, et. al. Frequently, that will mean fighting. Battle. Even war.
Which means we'll be on this particular merry-go-round in the Mideast until the Arabs give up their genocidal hate and belief that destroying Israel is achievable. A belief that could quite conceivably lead, at some point, to the use of around 200 nuclear weapons in and around a neighbourhood that's a lot closer to you than it is to me.
Advice from your well-insulated neighbours across the pond: You might want to be a bit careful about the beliefs your policies foster. But it's completely up to you.
After all, here in Canada we have lots of oil to see us through if you lot over there manage to screw things up yet again....
| (This is the final installment. The complete series can be read via the links below.) |
ID (re: IRA): "These people are evil and should be hunted down like the scum they are. But this should be done without harming innocent people."
This is a truly hillarious comment. First off, the British have been trying to hunt down the IRA for 30 years, and they have only managed to kill a little over 200 of them. In contrast, the IRA has killed almost 900 British Soldiers, including 4 members of the SAS. All during this time, the British allowed the UDA and UVF to murder over 900 innocent Catholics. Apparently Iain Dale could care less about Catholic civillians getting killed. Iain Dale is a moron and a coward, who obviously knows shit about Northern Ireland and the IRA. The IRA has been making mince meat out of the British for 30 years...The British need to accept defeat and Iain Dale needs to have a bomb put in his car:)
ID, if a foegin army was to invade your country, you would fight back so dont go calling the IRA scum, british piece of shit tiocfaidh ar la