the USA, Israel, and national interest

by any means necessary?

erm... no

it's a bit rich for the united states and GB to maintain that this kind of behavior is setting standards for decent sovereign conduct in the middle east

well, no. i don't see them as paragons of virtue either.

I kinda get when people complain about Israel doing awful things to civilians, but I really don't get the fuss about this. Is it just that there hasn't been legitimate bad news about Israel lately so you guys are settling?

my only point is that the US's massive military aid and strategic partnership with israel is supposedly justified by israel being an outpost of reasonable behavior in a land of kerrazy kerruption - whatever you think of this most recent incident for some reason israel never seems to have to actually live up to this billing

I think this recent incident is about as reasonable as any first world country in the world. I suspect the same stuff goes on with every other country.

I'm sure he was really nice to the Israeli soldiers he kidnapped and murdered.

what does this have to do with anything? this is a rule of law vs. savage vengeance question.

also, glad to hear you guys are cool with international hit squads stealing your identity, can you send me your social security numbers?

I'm not okay with an international hit squad stealing my identity. I also believe that kind of thing is totally par for the course for international hit squads. Maybe I'm super naive tho. Maybe only Israel is doing this kind of thing and every other country in the world has suspended their espionage/assassination programs.

I don't like it when anybody does it, end of story.

I wasn't trying to make a big deal out of this or anything (obviously it's small potatoes in the larger context of Israel and its policies and problems)

my only point is that the US's massive military aid and strategic partnership with israel is supposedly justified by israel being an outpost of reasonable behavior in a land of kerrazy kerruption - whatever you think of this most recent incident for some reason israel never seems to have to actually live up to this billing

lol w/e

Lamp that's basically the photo caption for every Israeli PM since Rabin

my only point is that the US's massive military aid and strategic partnership with israel is supposedly justified by israel being an outpost of reasonable behavior in a land of kerrazy kerruption - whatever you think of this most recent incident for some reason israel never seems to have to actually live up to this billing

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, February 16, 2010 11:29 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

seems weird to hold this up as a constraint on israeli behavior when nobody, pro- or con- that support, believes that "billing" really? they don't support israel because it's got better state structures than its neighbors, they support it because it's israel, period. constitutional gov't may function as evidence, to some, of the israelis' enlightenment contra the region, but it's not the reason its western supporters, gentile and jew, really care, is it?

as a pro-peace kind of guy, i'd judge this by its overall efficacy in bringing about a peaceful status-quo, not as to its judicial-ness, extra, or not. and on that point, who knows? i sure don't. maybe murdering hamas higher-ups is a step backward, but hamas itself is a step backward too. i doubt mahmoud abbas is complaining, if that even matters.

the very composition, borders, structures, histories, etc, of ANY state on the eastern mediterranean is hopelessly fucked up by any reasonable standard, so using legalism as a benchmark doesn't strike me as wrong, just meaningless. dubai? what IS dubai, even? but yes, any better situation would have to be build on the present one, so one ought to not make it worse...

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/060213/060213_cheney_vsml_2p.widec.jpg

"i'd judge this by its overall efficacy in bringing about a peaceful status-quo, not as to its judicial-ness"

http://www.rightpundits.com/wp-content/photos/Benjamin_Netanyahu_1.jpg

"lol, w/e"

my only point is that the US's massive military aid and strategic partnership with israel is supposedly justified by israel being an outpost of reasonable behavior in a land of kerrazy kerruption - whatever you think of this most recent incident for some reason israel never seems to have to actually live up to this billing

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, February 16, 2010 11:29 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

very not-perfect would be my view of israel. i don't think it's supported because it's a gleaming beacon of perfection, and i don't think its supporters are perfect either. this doesn't lead me into thinking everything is much of a muchness, though.

what is... dubai??

what is... lyfe?

what is... art??

lol cheney.jpg! exactly? maybe it won't help anybody. cheney-style BS sure didn't. the fact that it was "extra-judicial" doesn't strike me as the issue. like i was trying to say before, that's a very fraught standard -- what one is legally permitted to do, and where, is basically senseless in the "neigborhood" (rly hate it when US speakers use that term, btw). who or what is it that would grant this legal permission?

you should just say it was the wrong thing to do.

I feel like killing anyone is the wrong thing to do and I think that in a perfect world there would be no wars. <3<3<3

cant believe were even discussing this in a world where notorious anti-semite andrew sullivan is allowed to continue blogging

Guys, guys:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/7222508/Palestinians-dressed-as-the-Navi-from-the-film-Avatar-stage-a-protest-against-Israels-separation-barrier.html

lol @ that shit. kind of nice to see one of TNR's careless whispers get repudiated so thoroughly. like it will matter...

xp

i hate that dumbasses keep calling people anti-semites since whenever someone does something actually anti-semitic now, i have to deal with, "Oh my god, you're just saying that because you're a paranoid Zionist who will say anything to win an argument," when sometimes saying that Jews are Nazis is actually an anti-Semitic thing to say.

yeah, it seems like getting concerned about the "legality" of this (vs the ruthlessness) is like thinking that tax evasion is really why capone deserved jailtime

yeah i agree with you but the problem is that the law is kind of your only lever against things like covert assassination

that or ninjas

...and the israeli body politic has concluded that covert assassination is your only lever against rockets hitting the suburbs.

(note i am making no judgment here about the quality of that conclusion, nor the exact location of those suburbs...)

yeah i agree with you but the problem is that the law is kind of your only lever against things like covert assassination

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, February 16, 2010 6:08 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

as opposed to blatant assassination? again, it's not like the dubai police were going to do israel a solid and bring him in.

http://www.google.com/mapdata?CxWF_-ABHf7iDwIg____________AQwthf_gATX-4g8CQI4CSLkBUgJJTJABBMoBAmVu

yup, sderot is not a settlement

can't believe andrew sullivan wants to assassinate the jews

luckily leon wieseltier will stand up for jews on the internet

I was in sderot about a month ago...there's a good falafel place

Sderot hasn't been a settlement since 1951...

are you arguing with someone

goole, i think? i assumed he was being sarcastic but maybe i misread him

ha yes i got my geography confused for a second, don't mind me.

and no, i was not being sarcastic. the physical and political relationship of hamas/gaza to sderot is not the same thing as the settlement issue.

so i'm kinda confused what you meant here:

...and the israeli body politic has concluded that covert assassination is your only lever against rockets hitting the suburbs.

(note i am making no judgment here about the quality of that conclusion, nor the exact location of those suburbs...)

What point are you trying to make?

i was only responding to this:

yeah i agree with you but the problem is that the law is kind of your only lever against things like covert assassination

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, February 16, 2010 12:08 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark

by trying to point out that, at some level, The Law flows from the will (or the ideology, at least) of the people who live under it.

i honestly don't know what israeli law says about the state killing people outside its borders. and yes i'd bet UAE law doesn't legally allow this kind of shit within its borders either. i just don't know about leaning on the law as an arbiter of what is right, or forward-thinking. as often as not, the legal structures, or the "people's will", will be against what i'd consider the best course of action. but what do i know.

note also i'm running on a lot of coffee and no lunch yet so i'm not really making sense to myself atm

oh, ok. i agree with that.

the law not always being the platonic ideal thing. not the coffee thing

ok forget about the international hit squads, we have a bigger problem now

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/navistian.jpg

hit squad video was so dope -- cancel bourne 4 imo

So my wife was in Israel recently and apparently the street view is that this was probably not Mossad b/c too sloppy and not their style. Take that with a grain of salt of course, but included in that view is a relative who works in intelligence, but take that with a grain of salt too, obv.

The fact that the passports were copied from people living in Israel seems like something you would not do if you were Mossad

Yeah, that was one of the big telling details according to the people my wife talked to.

is that really so damning? who else could it have been?

could be a factional thing. a hamas guy may or may not have been involved iirc. that doesn't rule out mossad involvement.

"in Israel recently and apparently the street view is that this was probably not Mossad"

quite the opposite

If Hamas wanted to get rid of him for whatever reason, wouldn't they try to pin it on the Mossad?

i guess i find the idea that "this was sloppy, could not have been mossad" a little too credulous of a spook agency's non-sloppiness.

the cia has a whole bunch of dumb shit on its record, and they're supposedly "the best". moral value notwithstanding, just dumb shit. not everything goes off like bourne.

the political leadership matters too, e.g. under cheney the dumb and brutish elements of the CIA got the run of the joint and ppl with scruples and/or their shit together were forced to lay low. israel's current foreign minster is a racist criminal and the PM is one of the worst public figures in the free world imo. i mean, why not?