By some estimates, about 40 percent of the cases in the Central African court system are witchcraft prosecutions. (Drug offenses in the U.S., by contrast, account for just 12 percent of arrests.) In Mbaiki—where Pygmies, who are known for bewitching each other, make up about a tenth of the population—witchcraft prosecutions exceed 50 percent of the case load, meaning that most alleged criminals there are suspected of doing things that Westerners generally regard as impossible.
Emanuel Derman, a former Goldman Sachs quant, explains the difference between models and theories. An interesting nugget on how Wall St. has changed:
There's a lot of talk about the role of algorithms and the change in markets. The financial world has changed a lot since I worked in it and the biggest change is more people are playing with more of other people's money. When most of the banks were partnerships, they had to be in it for the long run because people who were partners were playing with their own capital and taking risk with their own assets. Their money was tied up for 10 or 15 years. Even if somebody retired, they still couldn't take their money out of there. They just got paid interest while it was being used and drawn down.
So there was a certain culture of not taking extreme risks because you didn't really have limited liability. Ultimately you could be broken completely by your company going bankrupt. With trading houses going public, they're playing with other people's money. They're immediately liquid in terms of stock and cash payment. The culture in all of these places has changed in that it's make money liquid and fast. The way this crisis has been treated exacerbates that attitude in that if you do badly, the government bails you out and if you do well, you keep the profits.
I'm trying to figure out this story for myself. But I will say this: What I know already makes me worried for the future of Israel, a worry I feel in a deeper way than I think I have ever felt before. The Jewish people have survived this long in part because of the vision of their leaders, men and women who were able to intuit what was possible and what was impossible. Where is this vision today? Israel may face, in the coming year, a threat to its existence the likes of which it has not experienced before: A theologically-motivated regional superpower with a nuclear arsenal. It faces another existential threat as well, from forces arguing that Israel's morally disastrous settlement policy fatally undermines the very idea of a Jewish state. Is Israel ready to deploy seichel in these battles, rather than mere force?
Just imagine if a flotilla of anti-Tehran activists were attacked in international waters by Iran's Revolutionary Guards, and that the Guards killed 16 or more of the civilians. What do you think Commentary would be saying then?
Another gripping one is here, showing the activists attacking the commandos boarding their ship.
A simple point. The violence by the activists is pretty abhorrent. These are not followers of Gandhi or MLK Jr. But the violence is not fatal to anyone and it is in response to a dawn commando raid by armed soldiers. They are engaging in self-defense. More to the point: they are civilians confronting one of the best militaries in the world. They killed no soldiers; their weapons were improvised; the death toll in the fight is now deemed to be up to 19 – all civilians.
It staggers me to read defenses of what the Israelis have done. They attacked a civilian flotilla in international waters breaking no law. When they met fierce if asymmetric resistance, they opened fire. And we are now being asked to regard the Israelis as the victims.
Seriously.
This is like a mini-Gaza all over again. The Israelis don’t seem to grasp that Western militaries don’t get to murder large numbers of civilians because they don’t like them, or because they could, on a far tinier scale, hurt Israelis. And you sure don’t have a right to kill them because they resist having their ship commandeered, in international waters. The Israelis seem to be making decisions as if they can get away with anything. It’s time the US reminded them in ways they cannot mistake that they cannot.
That's George Will's critique of the oil spill in the Gulf: whatever the facts about the matter, the federal government's impotence in stopping it is politically relevant because it reinforces an anti-government "narrative." This charge is, Will concedes, unfair, but he levels it anyway.
Notice how post-modern the right is. You have to abandon your own principles of limited government, then pretend that the advocates of maximal government believes the state should be able to fix deep sea drilling blowouts, and then argue that all that matters in politics is not reality, but narrative.
The forces hurled stun grenades, yet the rioters on the top deck, whose number swelled up to 30 by that time, kept on beating up about 30 commandos who kept gliding their way one by one from the helicopter. At one point, the attackers nabbed one commando, wrested away his handgun, and threw him down from the top deck to the lower deck, 30 feet below. The soldier sustained a serious head wound and lost his consciousness. Only after this injury did Flotilla 13 troops ask for permission to use live fire.
The commander approved it: You can go ahead and fire. The soldiers pulled out their handguns and started shooting at the rioters’ legs, a move that ultimately neutralized them. Meanwhile, the rioters started to fire back at the commandos. …
It appears that the error in planning the operation was the estimate that passengers were indeed political activists and members of humanitarian groups who seek a political provocation, but would not resort to brutal violence. The soldiers thought they will encounter Bilin-style violence; instead, they got Bangkok. The forces that disembarked from the helicopters were few; just dozens of troops – not enough to contend with the large group awaiting them.
So 30 activists managed to beat up 30 armed commandos! Here's also a lovely linguistic touch: "rioters." Rioters? These were people on their own boat in international waters, resisting a military attack. That makes them rioters? In that word alone, you get a glimpse into the Israeli mindset.
And remember that it is not Gaza that is besieged; it's Israel. Try repeating that to yourself as long as it takes for you to become a columnist for the Washington Post.
Maintaining the siege and blockade of Gaza (because its citizens elected a government Israeli abhors), and strafing it with military might over a year ago, is not exactly what one expects of a civilized Western state. To then go on the offensive against a flotilla of aid ships, trying to bypass the blockade, and killing at least ten people aboard is bordering on insanity. This meretricious act of violence – like the brutal assault on Gaza itself – has further isolated Israel from what friends and allies it still has. The Turkish government has called this “inhumane state terror“:
Turkey recalled its ambassador to Israel, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan cut short a visit to Latin America to return home. … Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs, called for a full inquiry into the incident and the immediate lifting of the Israeli blockade of Gaza. … President Nicolas Sarkozy of France called Israel’s use of force ‘disproportionate,’ while William Hague, the British foreign secretary, said he deplored the loss of life. … News reports said the authorities in Egypt and Jordan, two Arab neighbors which have peace treaties with Israel, had summoned Israeli envoys to protest the action.
You can see some early footage here. The white flag had allegedly been raised after two people had been killed. So, according to the eye-witness al Jazeera reporter on board, Israel’s military killed perhaps a dozen civilians on an unarmed ship after a white flag had been raised. If this were not Netanyahu’s government, I’d be more skeptical. But we know what his government is, what it believes, and what it is prepared to do. Mercifully, Netanyahu will not be meeting with president Obama this week. The attack took place far away from Gaza and was defended by the Israelis as self-defense:
Israel’s military said that protesters managed to grab two guns from Israeli soldiers and use them against the commandos, prompting soldiers to return fire.
An Israeli commando, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he and other Israeli soldiers who rappelled onto the boat from a helicopter were immediately attacked by about 30 people on board.
“They beat us up with metal sticks and knives,” he said. “There was live fire at some point against us. … They were shooting at us from below deck.”
He said activists tossed some of the soldiers from the top deck to the lower deck and the soldiers jumped in the water to save themselves. Activists grabbed some soldiers and tried to hold them hostage, stripping them of their helmets and equipment, he said.
Protestors managed to grab two guns from Israeli soldiers? Really? And the result is possibly up to 16 dead, according to the LA Times? The Coalition government in Britain issued the following statement:
“Regardless of any reasoning, such actions against civilians engaged in only peaceful activities are unacceptable. Israel will be required to face the consequences of this act that involves violation of the international law.”
Amen. And the attack took place in international waters. We should find out more details soon. But it looks to me as if the Israeli government has again replied to a gnat with a bazooka. The disproportionate use of force, the loss of life, the horrifying impact of the blockade of Gaza in the first place: it makes Israel look like a callous, deranged bully, incapable of accepting any narrative that it cannot control and responding instinctively with disproportionate violence.
The suicide continues … and US aid to Israel, especially military aid, should be suspended until the Israeli government starts acting like something other than a rogue state.
The Dish 