Month: January 2009

In my attempt to understand the Gaza blockade and assault, I wrote that Hamas broke the ceasefire first. While this is true in some respects, it is misleading in others on close inspection. Wikipedia’s summary of the various competing accounts is here. The best full account I have found is in Ha’aretz. It shows how a reduction of the issue can obscure important nuances:

Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas. According to the sources, Barak maintained that although the lull would allow Hamas to prepare for a showdown with Israel, the Israeli army needed time to prepare, as well. Barak gave orders to carry out a comprehensive intelligence-gathering drive which sought to map out Hamas’ security infrastructure, along with that of other militant organizations operating in the Strip.

This intelligence-gathering effort brought back information about permanent bases, weapon silos, training camps, the homes of senior officials and coordinates for other facilities. The plan of action that was implemented in Operation Cast Lead remained only a blueprint until a month ago, when tensions soared after the IDF carried out an incursion into Gaza during the ceasefire to take out a tunnel which the army said was intended to facilitate an attack by Palestinian militants on IDF troops.

On November 19, following dozens of Qassam rockets and mortar rounds which exploded on Israeli soil, the plan was brought for Barak’s final approval. Last Thursday, on December 18, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the defense minister met at IDF headquarters in central Tel Aviv to approve the operation. However, they decided to put the mission on hold to see whether Hamas would hold its fire after the expiration of the ceasefire. They therefore put off bringing the plan for the cabinet’s approval, but they did inform Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of the developments.

Neither side meant the ceasefire as anything but a lull. We can fight over tiny details, but Israel was intent on refighting this war; and so was Hamas. Who broke the ceasefire becomes less significant once one takes a few steps back.

Leaving aside propaganda, the critical question, in many ways the only question, is whether the Sunni Awakening groups can be integrated into the overwhelmingly Shiite national army and security forces. The answer is that we do not yet know, and that we will only find out once we create a security vacuum for the Baghdad government to fill. The news yesterday was both good and bad: good in as much as Awakening leaders in Diyala were meeting to discuss greater cooperation; bad in as much as one of their own tribal members attended as a suicide bomber:

Friday’s bombing occurred during a lunch meeting at the Yusufiya home of the tribal leader, Mohammed Abdullah Salih al-Qaraghuli, for nearly 1,000 members of the Qaraghul tribe, who had traveled from around Iraq to be there, guests said. The tribe includes Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

Some of those in attendance were former Sunni insurgents who had become leaders of Awakening Councils, groups allied with the government against Al Qaeda.

After Friday Prayer, the tribe ate a communal lunch in a large yard adjacent to the sheik’s house to discuss which 20 members would represent them at a meeting with the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

Maybe this will help unite the country against Jihadists. Maybe it won’t. But this violence is happening with 130,000 US troops still in the country and al Qaeda at an ebb. Do the math.

A reader writes:

I am a pediatric emergency room physician. We occasionally diagnose Kawasaki Disease (now properly called Kawasaki Syndrome) in young children. There are so many things wrong with the story of Jett’s death that I am not sure where to start, but here’s a try:

 

1) NO association between Kawasaki and "toxic carpet cleaning chemicals" (or any other environmental cause) has ever been established. Given that these chemicals are ubiquitous in our society, if there were an association I would expect Kawasaki to be much more common.

 

2) As far as I know, Kawasaki disease does not lead to brain injury or seizures.  I suppose one could conjecture that if Jett had untreated heart problems from Kawasaki (which CAN happen) this could have led to a heart attack that led to seizures and death, but it sounds like Jett had seizures for a long time, which makes this a bit of a reach.

 

3) It would be incredibly rare to bump your head and die from a seizure. 

We see children every day with seizures, and not once have I seen a child bump his head hard enough to have a brain injury from this.  Of course, prolonged seizures or seizures that occur while doing something dangerous (driving, swimming, etc.) can lead to brain injury, but otherwise this is a stretch.  Also, autistic children can exhibit self-injurious behavior, especially if untreated, and can exhibit behavior such as intentianally hitting their heads agains walls or other hard objects. It is much more likely that a head injury led to brain injury (the cause of death) and the seizure than the other way around.   

4) For John Travolta (and the news media) to report that Jett died from either Kawasaki or a seizure is incredibly irresponsible.  I gurantee you that we will see 30 children in our emergency department in the coming days whose parents have read this trash and are worried that their child is at risk for death from one of these causes, and every parent with a child who has a seizure disorder will now lose more sleep because of this BS. 

 

I am eager to learn what the autopsy shows, but unfortunately I don’t think the questions of autism or a seizure preceding death can be diagnosed at autopsy.

(Photo: John Travolta December 18, 2008, by Stephane de Sakutin/AFP/Getty.)

"Maybe we shouldn’t be too hard on President Bush for donning a mantle hardly of his own making but a well-worn national idea created in the triumph and hegemony of victory in the Second World War. Maybe somebody had to wear those fraying purple robes one last time and see how much longer the world would carry on saluting; to pull the levers of the massive US economy one last time and see if there was any limit to the cash that the engine could generate; to throw the formidable US war machine into two simultaneous foreign wars and test – and find – a limit," – Matthew Parris, as shrewd as he is English.

Portland, Oregon, 12 pm.

A reader writes:

Don’t you find it odd that the phrase "Liberate Gaza" was in ENGLISH … using a stencil! Seems more like an advertisement to Western journalists screaming, "Photo Op, Photo Op". 

Perhaps the autopsy will tell. But listening to the official version of events makes one’s head spin:

Travolta and Preston said that their son, who appeared confused or unsure of his surroundings in public, had suffered as a young child from Kawasaki disease, brought on by chemicals used to clean their carpets.

They also said that he had a history of seizures which some doctors said could have been the product of brain damage as a result of Kawasaki, a treatable disease characterised by high fever, skin rash and swelling of the lymph nodes that usually affects children under five.

Unusual, to say the least. Members of the Super Adventure Club do not believe in treating mental illness with modern medicine.

Fox News finds a theme?

Several readers have argued that on two issues, the Washington bipartisan establishment is as out of touch with public opinion as on Israel’s attack on Gaza: medical marijuana and the Cuba embargo. One writes:

What about these government bailouts of the financial and auto industries? Or whether to be lenient about the entry and hiring of illegal aliens? Or whether to have tough gun control?

In both cases, if you are part of that sizable faction (or majority) of the electorate that doesn’t want the government to bail anyone out or believes that we should deal harshly with illegal immigrants and their employers, you basically have no party to go to even though you’re likely to be a Republican (for the first two issues) or Democratic (for the third).  The leadership of both parties favors bailouts and cheap labor and letting guns be relatively easy to obtain – different reasons and different emphases, but basically identical opinions.

What matters, politically, is the importance of an issue to people (is it going to affect their vote?) – not their actual opinion.

And it is on issues where intensity matters that special interest groups legitimately and openly have a role to play. I don’t see anything wrong or unethical about the passionate Cuban and Israeli lobbies in Washington. Intensity does matter in a nation’s politics. It’s just important to ensure that America’s national interests are always at the center of the debate, even if the debate is inevitably skewed in one direction or other.

Joe Carter responds to my post:

Extending the exact same benefits is not “codifying inequality.” But for Sullivan, et al., it is not about benefits but about forcing the acceptance of gay sex as “normal” and equal to heterosexual sex. This is an absurd reason and nothing the government should be involved in.

Actually, it is about accepting gay love and commitment as indistinguishable in moral worth and social status as straight love. That’s all. Civil marriage is not about sex as such, as any straight couple will tell you. You can have lots of sex without marriage. And you can have a marriage without much or any sex. But you cannot have a meaningful marriage without love and commitment. Only one tiny sliver of humanity is currently and deliberately prevented from having such love and commitment recognized under the law: homosexuals. That’s the only reason anyone is having this discussion.

I should say I don’t keep up with Carter as assiduously as I should, but it also strikes me that this new post is an evolution of his position. The last time I checked, Carter favored "an expanded form of the proposed reciprocal-beneficiary contracts [as] the model for civil unions in America." Now he favors the "exact same benefits" as civil marriage for civil unions, and backs extending the right to civil unions to every two-person relationship that does not currently qualify for civil marriage.

This is a pretty staggering change in his position, so before I delve into it, some further questions to Joe for clarification. In his preferred policy reform,

a) Could someone be a member of a civil union and a civil marriage?

b) If so, what happens when the legal claims of your spouse and your civil partner conflict?

c) Could you have more than one civil union at a time – say your best friend from high school, your same-sex spouse, and your great aunt? Or do you have to choose one single civil partner?

d) How would anyone be able to tell if the relationships were sexual or non-sexual? If you can’t tell, aren’t you potentially providing legal protection for polygamy or incest?

e) Could a straight couple choose to have a civil union rather than a civil marriage and suffer no legal penalty?

f) Does not extending the full legal rights of civil marriage to any couple on any (non-sexual!) basis essentially abolish civil marriage as a special category or reduce it to merely sexual behavior?

g) Does this mean you support a repeal of DOMA and a federal civil unions bill, encompassing all the rights associated with, say, immigration and social security?

h) Did you just pull this cockamamie policy position out of thin air because you can’t stand the idea of two guys getting it on?