Who could imagine?

Just another inscrutable Oriental. And the fact that they don't value human life as much as we do, even the lives of members of their own family, just makes his behavior even more inscrutable.

By the way, is there such a word as "scrutable"? Because I believe the behavior of certain American politicians, who receive large campaign donations and then do exactly what is asked of them by the people who made those donations, well, that's eminently scrutable.

I am convinced that you are the funniest person alive. That is one reason why your blog rocks!

Well, I hope they PR this one better than, say, the Saddam Hanging. (the only heroic face in the room was the prisoner's, shoddy, just shoddy. one would expect more professionalism in seeking empire.)

I am convinced that you are the funniest person alive.

Well, let's be fair. Here, the real humor is courtesy of the Washington Times (always a laff riot) and one unnamed Israeli intelligence officer. Jonathan is merely the deliveryman.

There is something so sad and strange about Israel. How can a country that used it's people's very real victimization as the most compelling rationale for it's need to exist, use the same kind of nazi rationales for persecuting others. Maybe we really are all alike.

Come on, you're missing that it's not their fault!

Don't despair, Jon; it wasn't until 1985 that noted social scientist Sting postulated that the Russians may love their children too, and his radical hypothesis couldn't be tested properly until several years later. It takes time to understand the enemy.

How can a country that used it's people's very real victimization as the most compelling rationale for it's need to exist, use the same kind of nazi rationales for persecuting others.

many long years have my people considered this paradox. we came to a singular answer:

what goes around, comes around.

what goes around, comes around.

Moughniyah was a European?

"[...] The killing of his two brothers by the Americans only inflamed his strong motivation."
________________________________________________

OK, maybe they're saying that he's obviously an enigmatic homicidal loon, and one telling symptom of his psychosis is that the killing of his two brothers, etc., only INFLAMED his strong motivations.

Whereas, if he were sane and well-adjusted in the first place, the killing of his two brothers, etc., would have been the ORIGIN of his strong motivations.

"Coalhouse Walker, Jr." just popped into my mind, though it's been years since I last read "Ragtime". Pardon my spoilage, but for those unfamiliar with the novel, it involves an African-American ragtime pianist whose automobile is trashed by racist troglodyte firemen. Coalhouse doesn't exactly go away quietly.

The relevance here is that "Ragtime" beautifully captured the dynamic of higher-status social classes being typically clueless about the humanity of lower classes. To some extent, every "superior" person, from the brutish firemen to the chief of police, were baffled, or uncomprehending, when confronted with a black man who dared to express righteous anger and resentment at being insulted, assaulted and victimized.

I frankly can't remember if it's in the book, but I would expect that the alienists of the day would also attribute Coalhouse's retaliatory violence to dementia praecox or somesuch.

In any case, the only cure is to terminate with extreme prejudice.

"[...] The killing of his two brothers by the Americans only inflamed his strong motivation."
________________________________________________

OK, maybe they're saying that he's obviously an enigmatic homicidal loon, and one telling symptom of his psychosis is that the killing of his two brothers, etc., only INFLAMED his strong motivations.

Whereas, if he were sane and well-adjusted in the first place, the killing of his two brothers, etc., would have been the ORIGIN of his strong motivations.

"Coalhouse Walker, Jr." just popped into my mind, though it's been years since I last read "Ragtime". Pardon my spoilage, but for those unfamiliar with the novel, it involves an African-American ragtime pianist whose automobile is trashed by racist troglodyte firemen. Coalhouse doesn't exactly go away quietly.

The relevance here is that "Ragtime" beautifully captured the dynamic of higher-status social classes being typically clueless about the humanity of lower classes. To some extent, every "superior" person, from the brutish firemen to the chief of police, were baffled, or uncomprehending, when confronted with a black man who dared to express righteous anger and resentment at being insulted, assaulted and victimized.

I frankly can't remember if it's in the book, but I would expect that the alienists of the day would also attribute Coalhouse's retaliatory violence to dementia praecox or somesuch.

In any case, the only cure is to terminate with extreme prejudice.

Whoops-- sorry for the double-post.

Come on.

They're Arabs! Their only emotions are lust and rage.

To be fair, though, he could have considered fighting Syria for the same reason, until we killed his brothers. But he didn't. Go figure.

So the Israelis don't regard Muslims as humans who act with very human motivations. What else is new?

Another great riddle for the overflowing "evil or stupid" file.

Does this Israeli intelligence officer really find it impossible to understand why someone in Mugniyeh's situation would resort to violence, or does he cynically think there is propaganda value in presenting Mugniyeh as psychotic and worse than bin Laden?

And which answer would be more depressing -- the former, in which the intelligence officer is so clueless, or the latter, in which he assumes everyone else is?

And speaking of Bin Laden, I wonder how ole " wanted dead or alive" is doing on that??? I'd like to see that bastard hang in some courtyard in New York. I bet Osama looks out of the cave door everyday and waves at a satelite he thinks is spying on him, but alas NO, it was diverted long ago for other resourses and now worn out and radioactive, is crashing to earth. Of course Osama knows this deep down yet each morning, just like in the "old dayz" he waves a rifle or the finger, while one of his wives cooks his breakfast and another, hands him his tea.

Thirty-five years ago I met a bus driver in Israel, a survivor of Sobibor, who said to me: "Of course we Israeli Jews are crazy. They just tortured, starved and killed six million of us, and now they want us to behave 'humanely' toward the hostile Arabs among whom they've dropped us to atone for their sins. Have you ever heard of such craziness? (He used a Yiddish term here.) No good can come of this."
But, who listens to bus drivers?

The point being Israeli Jews have been historically too put upon to act decently?

our little brown brothers sure are peculiar.

neo-colonialists(except we can't call them that)enjoy an advantage over their 18th and 19th c. predecessors-- they-- well, we, live in age of specialization.

Sure you can still call someone on his ethics, but everyone will look at each other as if you're from another planet, or at least unaware that the report from the ethicists hadn't come in yet because it was being reviewed by some special panel somewhere, which was empaneled by the request of the person you're taking to task...so clearly you're an uncouth and unpleasant sort, because he had the proactivity and forethought to create just such a committee to review reports on just such questions, and...how come you're still here?

I think you all are missing the point here. The Israeli intelligence guy was saying that Mugniyeh was born angry and homicidal, and was just looking for an excuse. The Americans and Israelis inadvertently gave him that excuse, and became the unwitting victims of his uncontrollable rage. What's funny about that? Next time it happens to you, tell me it's funny.

The Americans and Israelis inadvertently gave him that excuse...

Gotta love that "inadvertently."

Well, no, StO,the point being the one made by W.H. Auden in his poem "September 1, 1939:"

"Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return."

Overall, whose records on that score do you want to compare? Feel free.

well, I know nothing about the guy, but I suspect your characterization is highly selective and misleading.

And generally speaking, Arabs can be pretty nasty, sneaky, devious and even pathological, compared to, say, Slovenes. I love the markets of Aleppo and Damascus, but man, I would not want to live in Syria or Lebanon. Incidentally, Beirut isn't so great as its famed to be, it's basically like a dumpy French port city, but with more Arabs than usual.

Beirut isn't so great as its famed to be, it's basically like a dumpy French port city, but with more Arabs than usual.

God, it's like being trapped in someone's living room after dinner, as they go over the slides from their last vacation...

well, after I got back from my trip to Syria, I threw a party where I combined donning a kefaya (or whatever it's called) with wearing an adult diaper (a tradition I carried on for several years in honor of R Reagan, with whom I share a birthday). It was pretty hilarious, to be honest.

When will these people realize that the U.S. and Israel have the God given right to do whatever they please to whomever they please.

what goes around, comes around.

Moughniyah was a European?
Posted by empty

Ms. or Mr. Empty: Good, very good.

I don't get the point of your post at all. I'd say more, but Red Dawn is on cable in a minute and I never miss it when i can help it.

Please. Please tell me you're kidding.

The notion that Moughniyah and his brothers were minding their own business prior to their deaths is completely ridiculous.

You have shown you are capable of expressing compassion toward those who might be angry with Israel and/or the U.S., which is fine, but you do so while removing a very complicated situation from its context, which might in turn cause you and your readers to feel compassion for Israel. Shame on you.

David, you're overreacting. Jon is just pointing out that having a foreign power invade and kill your brothers is probably a significant factor in explaining why someone might be a terrorist. It's not a morally acceptable reason (there isn't one) and it's not necessarily the only reason why this particular guy was a terrorist, but you can bet that these sorts of circumstances would be stressed quite heavily if the story was about some American or Israeli war criminal.

Herr Escobar, I didn't understand what you meant. I wasn't planning on comparing records.

StO

It seemed to me the "too put upon to act decently" was more appropriate for a hissyfit than the crazy and at times cruel "survival at any cost" mood of early Israel. What has happened since then is a mostly ugly story on both sides.I am suggesting not giving Europe's persecuted and tortured Jews a piece of Europe (their Zionist dream of Jerusalem notwithstanding) was a grave sin committed by the community of white men. It can't be undone.

Absolute rubbish! Can't believe Tom Tomorrow would link to this. I am as left-leaning as the next but you are defending a mass-murderer here.

Good riddance I say and may several more of his jihadi brother-in-arms join him ASAP!

Charles:

Absolute rubbish! Can't believe Tom Tomorrow would link to this.

To be fair to Tom Tomorrow, that was me, and not endorsed by him.

you are defending a mass-murderer here.

No, I'm not. And while I don't want to be snippy, the fact you read it that way demonstrates that you're not being rational.

When I think of mass murderers, I first think of the ones my tax dollars support: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, Wolfowitz, Feith, Libby, Sharon, Olmert...

Wonder how many of these mass murderers Charles would defend?

oh yea, and the Clintons, Albright, Lieberman,...

I feel for Charles, I really do. You go pay a visit to Sparky the Talking Penguin, and one click later, you're suddenly reading an argument that terrorists are actual human beings, motivated by some of the same feelings that motivate "normal" people.

Some folks really should stay away from the internet.

About the following quote from above:

There is something so sad and strange about Israel. How can a country that used it's people's very real victimization as the most compelling rationale for it's need to exist, use the same kind of nazi rationales for persecuting others. Maybe we really are all alike.

What "nazi rationale" are you talking about? The Nazis didn't simply assassinate people who were trying to kill them, and bragging about it. They didn't offer the Jews a partition of Germany. They weren't running for their lives when they founded the Third Reich, and their neighbors never expressed an interest in "pushing them into the sea".

To compare the assassination of people who not only admit to but proudly brag about killing your people to the rounding up of 6 million people because of their religion, men women and children, and killing them all in the misery of the concentration camps is a DISGUSTING comparison to make. Your apparently unlimited ignorance is breathtaking.

That's not a very honest comparison, Mike. You have a legitimate point--the Nazi comparison is over the top and shouldn't be made, though that applies to both sides. But th Israelis don't limit their killing to terrorists. They also kill innocent people, just like those terrorists they assassinate. Now that's a fair comparison--the Israeli government to Hamas or Hezbollah.

Bet you won't like that one either.

While offering no sympathy(He did kill a large number of US Marines who's deaths I sincerely lament) or excuses for Mugniyah's tactics....He does seem to be a bit of a piker when it comes to the number of deaths inflicted while avenging the loss of his loved ones compared to George W. "Saddam tried to kill my daddy" Bush.

Just saying.

-GSD

Let me just ask a curious question...say if your country is invaded and occupied by an enemy, eg. Russians, and they killed your family, would the thought of strapping a bomb to your body and walking towards the Russians be so utterly irrational and immoral? Does the professed "understanding" that this would happen amount to "excusing terrorism"? I can't believe that we're living in the age of Post-Enlightenment....we're never going to get to root cause/effect, it's b/w for us or against us, the simpleton theory.

Qwerty: EXACTLY.

No, sorry, I read This Modern World & other progressive blogs everyday; I am no fan of the Cheney mafia or our unconditional support of Israeli war crimes, nor am I ignorant of the root causes of the Middle East conflict.

But if you folks love organizations like Hezbollah so much, please go sign up & join them. I'm sure they'd welcome some new recruits in the propaganda department.

Mugniyeh was one of the most wanted terrorists on the planet & the entire world should cheer his demise.

Why does the American left keep doing Karl Rove's work for him? If you're going to provide GOP talking points on how liberals hate America & love terrorists, why not just email them direct to the RNC?

Charles, I'm not sure how to respond to this.

Look at it like this: imagine there were an article in the Syrian press about Yitzhak Shamir, a figure almost exactly analogous to Mugniyeh. And it said this:

"Sharon is a schoolboy in comparison with Shamir," a Hezbollah intelligence officer explained recently. "The guy is a genius, someone who refined the art of terrorism to its utmost level. We studied him and reached the conclusion that he is a clinical psychopath motivated by uncontrollable psychological reasons, which we have given up trying to understand. His extended family being wiped out in the holocaust and his close comrades being killed by people we funded only inflamed his strong motivation."

And someone with a Syrian blog wrote:

Wait...you're telling me that a young man, when his family and everyone he knew was killed in a genocide, became worried about security? And then thought his people needed a country, and was even prepared to use violence to get it? And then when his close friends were killed by opponents of his new country, he was willing to use violence again?

Well, we'll put our best scientific minds to work on it, but I don't think we have any hope of understanding this bizarre freak of nature. He's simply too far outside human norms for us ever to comprehend.

How would Syrians respond to that? One type would surely say, "You are defending a mass-murderer here! If you folks love Israel so much, please go convert & join them. If you're going to provide Hezbollah talking points on how liberal Syrians hate Arabs & love terrorists like Shamir, why not just email them direct to Nasrallah?"

Another type of Syrians would understand the point: that while Shamir was certainly a mass murderer, he wasn't an incomprehensible psychopath. In fact, his motivations were completely obvious and normal in humans. Moreover, the Hezbollah "intelligence" officers who say they've studied him and simply can't understand him are in fact, of all the people in Lebanon, the ones who are themselves most like Shamir. And their utter lack of self-awareness is hilarious.

The writings by the first type of Syrians are often picked up by MEMRI, and circulated as evidence that Israel and the US are facing hardliners who will never be willing to make peace under any circumstances.

Which type of Syrian would you be?

Yes, Jonathan, but you are omitting one element.
Why the Mugniyeh-planned bombing of a Jewish cultural center thousands of miles away in Argentina? Those Jews killed and injured may not have given a rat's ass about the Zionist dream or claim to ancient lands, they may have wished for peace in the ME, they may have cared about Jewish culture and history but not about Israel's wars and occupation. It was as if Israel bombed a dance hall in Surabay or a social club in a Muslim area of Dearborn.
Quite a segment of the talk of the "enemy" in the Arab world focuses on "the Jew," not merely the Israeli government, Mossad or the IDF pilot. A big, big difference.

I see your point, although I wonder when, if ever, the blogging class draws the line on moral relativism.

Why did you not feel a need to preface your original post with a condemnation of Mughniyeh and all of his ilk from either side?

Finally, suppose that a Hezbollah sleeper cell wiped out Montgomery Mall in retaliation for the Mughniyeh hit? Would your understanding and empathy for the oppressed masses of the world hold true?

Too many years, by now, and too many incidents, when the Right throws up its hands in the "we'll never know for sure" gesture at crimes committed by its boys and the Left does the same when its favorites get their hands bloody. ("Allende? We'll never know for sure." Bullshit. But look at the evidence the Right can muster for its case.)
Differences, distinctions count, in intent and scope, and within historic context. But that, often, requires hard work and honest, informed judgement. How many have the patience for that?
But this one blog where you can raise Israel-Palestine issues with hardly any screamers coming at you out of the Jew-or-Arab-hating woodwork. That's something.

I see your point, although I wonder when, if ever, the blogging class draws the line on moral relativism.

I don't know about the rest of the blogging class, but I don't understand what moral relativism is supposed to be. As I've seen it used, it means holding US leaders to the same moral standards as leaders elsewhere.

Why did you not feel a need to preface your original post with a condemnation of Mughniyeh and all of his ilk from either side?

Because it's a blog post. Because I've done so many times elsewhere. But mostly because I deeply dislike that kind of political correctness. If I were Syrian, I would deeply dislike being told I had to issue a lengthy denunciation of all Israeli leaders as well as all leaders through history before I was allowed to make fun of the stupidity of Assad's security services.

Finally, suppose that a Hezbollah sleeper cell wiped out Montgomery Mall in retaliation for the Mughniyeh hit? Would your understanding and empathy for the oppressed masses of the world hold true?

Sure. The fact we've started a war that's killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis doesn't make me feel less understanding and sympathy for people killed at the world trade center.

Donescobar:

Too many years, by now, and too many incidents, when the Right throws up its hands in the "we'll never know for sure" gesture at crimes committed by its boys and the Left does the same when its favorites get their hands bloody.

I know where you're coming from, and I dislike that too. But that's not what I'm doing here (although I appreciate why you might get that impression). In those cases people want to throw up their hands because they think the specific incident is particularly significant. My main belief here is that I just don't think the AMIA bombing stands out from the general mayhem. If Mughniyah didn't do it, it wouldn't make me think much better of him on a moral scale, and if he did, it wouldn't make me think much worse. He was depraved either way, although he never got the change to put his depravity in action on the scale that, say, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the US gets to.

My feeling is, we can make perfectly fine judgments about these people based on things that are completely knowable. Given that we have neither subpoena power nor 10,000-year long lives, why not just do that?

Why not indeed.
What is "troublesome" (quotes for weasel word) is that you can use, with undeniable jutification, the term "depravity" for terrorist thugs and high officials of "civilized" nations. We may indeed have arrived at this juncture of our Titanic journey. Where could the lifeboats, if there are any, take us. There's no better universe next door, ee cummings to the contrary. Chalk one up for Dr. Strangelove. "I can walk, mein Fuehrer."

NEVER SHED A TEAR FOR A BOMB THROWER no matter whose side he's on. Begin and Arafat, Sharon Shamir, Mughniah or Franks, Bush and Bin Laden all just two sides of the same, bloody, bent nickle. Why help ANY of them?

Sorry, donescobar and David, I hafta agree more with David's thesis, which I reinterpret as that the "pathology" of the evil terrorist in question is inexplicable mostly to the extent that the purported analyst insists on describing it in terms that involve the actions of his group having had nothing significant to do with it. In other words, it's taken as a given that, even if our actions directed him to terrorism, he was gonna be some kind of heinous criminal anyhow. Why? Oh! We'll never understand.

To go further: Myself, I have come to think that the word "terrorism" when... I donno, I'm not too articulate... speaking morally, it's kind of a distinction more suited to propaganda. What's the real difference when, after we hit a "military target" an Afghani or Iraqi father is holding his child whose arm has just been blown off, and the body of a secretary or fireman in the rubble of the WTC? The fact that we "meant" to just kill the enemy? "Oops! So sorry, so sorry. Just going after the enemy. Heh."

Having only vaguely, indirectly, indifferently, studied war during my 50 or so years, I have come to the conclusion that it always involves mayhem occuring to a whole lot of folks, none of whom wished beforehand to be killed violently or maimed forever. I have come also to find it difficult to make a moral distinction between those who order "military" attacks and those who order "terroristic" ones, when those who order the military ones know full well that a lot of people, some "soldiers", some "civilians" are about to have their lives wrecked because of those orders, just as the terrorist does.

Maybe someone can explain it to me after you finish, if you feel you need to, calling me a moron or something worse.