Middle East
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Sunday night round up
- Vile behavior from the bench
- Interesting thoughts on Hezbollah
- One off furniture
- Ipod photoshop style
- Bashing Al Gore
- Scary police impersonators
- Product photography
- Cool bike photos
- The right wing look at the NY Times. This is the only worthwhile thing to appear on the Huffington Post so far.
- An apt cartoon
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Interesting thoughts from Belmont
These musings do make the Israeli strategy a bit more rational. To wit:
what is the most important component of Hezbollah’s power in the south? Again the answer is easy. It is the Hezbollah cadres themselves. Hezbollah’s most precious possession isn’t Katyushas, long-range rockets, night vision goggles or antitank missiles or electronic equipment. It is the trained core of its military force. Equipment can be replaced but Hezbollah’s cadres represent an expensive, almost irreplaceable investment. In them resides the organizational knowledge of Nasrallah’s organization. It embodies man-decades of operational experience against Israel. Rockets can be replaced. The stars of Hezbollah’s operational force are less expendable.
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The Hezbollah are doing the single most stupid thing imaginable for a guerilla organization. They are fighting to keep territory. Oh, I know that this will be justified in terms of “inflicting casualties” on the Israelis. But the Hez are probably losing 10 for every Israeli lost. A bad bargain for Israel you say? No. A bad bargain for Hezbollah to trade their terrorist elite for highly trained but nevertheless conventional infantry.That was why Spartacus’ revolt against the Romans failed as well.
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Random thoughts on Lebanon
It’s been quite a while now and I haven’t seen any reports of actual conflict between the IDF and the Lebanese military, which would tend to suggest that they’re staying out of it altogether.
For all of the talk of cease fires and peace keeping forces, who would actually do it? The US is busy in Iraq, and the last time we tried that it didn’t work out too well anyway. Most of the available European forces (small in number to start with) are with NATO in Afghanistan. Assuming that part of some eventual deal involves “peace keepers” (technically more peace keepers, there have been a number of ineffectual UN troops there for years.) where would they come from? The Arab countries? China, Russia or India perhaps?
Or will that be a negotiating ploy used to delay a cease fire until the IDF weakens Hezbollah to the point where the Lebanese military takes over, which might be a very long time.
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Random thoughts on the current Middle East
CNN.com has a nice one page history and description of Hezbollah, which is a useful addition to their coverage. Here is some analysis from MSNBC.
We live in interesting times. On the one hand Lebanon was one of the brighter spots of the Arab world. On the other hand, this might be the only time and way to reduce Hezbollah to the past tense. By not occupying any territory Israel can play to it’s technological and organizational strengths, and avoid all of Hezbollahs guerilla tactics (where their talents lie).
Anothr thing to note is that the IDF seems to have avoided striking the Lebanese military, only commerical targets and Hezbollah.
And for anyone keeping score, this is a case of democracies going to war.
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Quotes of the moment
From the comments of a vitriolic post about an Israeli flag being waved at some soccer game
This is why the entire Arab world can barely make a good washing machine and we send people into space for fun.
And via Jane Galt (original post about second languages)
I’m a poor programmer whose solution to execution failures is type louder and more slowly.
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Interesting thought of the day
This post from Global Guerrillas leads to much thought. To wit:
As people connect outward onto this platform, they see both threat or promise. In response, they look inward for sources of strength to support them going forward, and in most cases find it wanting. Their states (and corporations) can’t or will not provide them that strength.
The result is an almost pandemic drive towards ethnic/religious identity — and — the increasingly muscular granular forces of clan, sect, gang, and tribe.
That leads to his linked articles of The Melted Map (a thought experiment about how a properly separated Middle East, while The Coming Anarchy chips in with The Real Central Asia.
Like most things, I’m reminded of Eric Hoffer. To paraphrase, changing times make misfits of us all, and those unable to adapt to new times will dream of a glorious past or a glorious future, but will forever resent the present.
All the articles are well worth reading.
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Not in the Valentines spirit
Dukhtaran-e-Millat activists burn Valentine’s Day cards in Kashmir
Nearly two dozen black-veiled Muslim women stormed gift and stationery shops Friday in Kashmir, burning Valentine’s Day cards and posters to protest a holiday they say imposes Western values on Muslim youth. -
I return from my work-related hiatus
- Gaza shopkeeper stocks up on Danish flags to burn
- Your tax dollars at work
- Some courage in the media
- What is the deal Iranians and the Holocoast? Are they positioning themselves to take over bin Laden’s place as anti-west figurehead in spite of whole Shiite thing?
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Three Things
- When all is said and done, I think the London bombers will be more in the mold of the Columbine shooters than the 9-11 attackers, just some maladjusted Muslim losers who are just “too real” for the world.
- It will be revealed that Middle Eastern countries are emptying out their prisons into Iraq both as a way to tie up US troops and purge their society of unwanted persons.
- On another note, I’m just got back from night photography with Mark as protection, we got some incredible shots, look for a new gallery soon.
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Oil
I came across an interesting article by Alan Reynolds on the Cato site:
We import nearly 58 percent of all petroleum, yet only 45 percent of each barrel is used to produce gasoline, and a significant portion of that gasoline is used in delivery vans and taxis. Commuter and leisure driving accounts for little more than 40 percent of the oil we consume — far less than the amount we import. The rest of each barrel of crude is used for heating oil and diesel fuel for trucks, busses, farm machinery and ships (23 percent), petrochemicals (17 percent), jet fuel (9 percent), asphalt (4 percent) and propane (4 percent).
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The U.S. index of industrial production peaked at 116.4 in June 2000 and then fell to 109.1 by December 2001; the price of West Texas crude simultaneously fell from $32 to $19. U.S. Industrial demand for petrochemicals declined, and so did the related need for fuel used to transport industrial supplies and products.
Similar effects were magnified worldwide. Falling industrial production in any region has the same effect on oil prices, so crude fell from $25 to $12 in the wake of the Asian currency crisis of 1997-98.
and
Nobody in Washington shows the slightest awareness of the global nature of the oil market, of the fact that industrial damage from high oil prices has nothing to do with whether a country imports or exports oil, or even the fact that there is a crucial two-way linkage between worldwide industrial production and worldwide oil prices. When it comes to causes and effects of high oil prices, nobody in Washington shows much interest in logic or facts. It might be sad if it wasn’t so pathologically pathetic.
RTWT.
