There's No Fool Like...

I made Nicky a promise that I wouldn't go commenting on other blogs unless I cross-referenced them here.

Being the good wife I am, I am. Cross posting that is.

The blog which has caught my attention is The Courier Mail's potted analysis of the current Middle East Crisis by David Costello whose qualification has been one trip to the region in 2001 amongst 10 years 'writing about the Middle East' - which is actually journalist-speak for he's been reading the wire service copy for a decade.

Mind you I've not been over to the Middle East so I guess that does put him one junket ahead of me however I can read wire copy as well as he can, thanks to the Internet.

Amongst the most prolific posters on this thread is a self-confessed 'old digger' Merv, who is generally genial as the 'grumpy old man' of The Courier Mail's blogs.

You know the type, the guy who would otherwise be writing tetchy letters to the editor on a daily basis but has since discovered that blogging allows him to write letters several times a day and for free.

But his disdain for Israel is hysterical - and I don't mean hysterically funny.

Here is part of his first comment:

The first and most important thing we in the west must do, if there is ever to be some sense made of this disgusting issue, is to face reality - forever implying that the state of Israel is sacrosanct (as so many on my side of the fence regularly and mantra-like do) whilst readily damning those who oppose Israel's hegemony and brutality as nought but "fanatics" and "terrorists" leads nowhere; indeed, it gives credence and unreasoned right-of-way to the Jewish religious people where such approval is not, not in the least, warranted.

Long story short Israel is illegitmate. Like many an aging hippy who profess a much greater wisdom than the masses, he doesn't take well to an opposing point of view.

His response is ponderous and meanders like cow with BSE.

Further in the discussion I link to this evocative political cartoon and associated commentary.

Merv's response was astounding:

All this emotive talk about "terrorists" (Mr and Mrs Charles's attempt to "lighten" the debate by tossing in skewed, myopic, Lord Haw-Haw-type, US-generated cartoons added to the tastefulness, of course) led this old man to suggest that, once in anyone's lifetime, irrespective of their nationality or religious affiliation, the unarmed, entirely innocent individual (forgive me) should be in a situation where a platoon of uniformed, well-trained, hard-eyed men, armed to the teeth and looking for bear, a pounding team of fully kitted-out soldiers, looms suddenly out of the semi-darkness, charging, full pelt, toward he or she (frightfully, it doesn't, in any way, deter the oncoming horde, nor matter, if the innocent, terrified soul should have a baby or a child with him/her) they just keep advancing.......usually firing as they do so.

and

Idiots with bombs strapped to their bodies who sacrifice themselves by walking among their deadly enemies in desperation don't hold a candle to the cold-blooded uniformed group, in another's land, convinced that human beings they slaughter are worthless and dispensable - to be despatched, permanently, in the name of their government, their monarch, or their current despot......

We, we wondrous examples of life on this planet, having, nowadays, managed to improve the "art" of slaughtering our own kind, go even further - now, having gained the dubious benefit of amazing technology (not surprisingly, always being bettered and improved in wartime) we can arrange to have our paid killers in uniform, commonly called soldiers, stand well back and lob missiles and bombs on people they've never met, mortals they cannot even see, people who, it is believed (as the operator pulls the trigger) are hostiles - whilst, overhead, the pilot of a jet-bomber can, with a flick of the finger, rain death on out-of-sight humanity, far below....

To be honest I don't know someone could get to Merv's advanced old age and still not know 'his ass from his elbow', as Nicky so often says.

I couldn't let this idiocy go uncommented upon. Hopefully it will also be up on the CM's blog once some gets around to uploading the new comments.

My response in full:

Oh please Merv, your last comment @Fri Jul 21, 05:47:06 PM has tipped over into hysteria.

Hezbollah, Hamas et al are not some noble freedom fighters - they are xenophobic murderers whose hatred for Israel the nation and the Jews as a people are 'final solution'-like in their zeal.

The emotive language in which Merv compares the professional defence force of Israel with terrorists would be laughable if it were not so sincerely held.

Imagine sitting in your local Pizza Hut and having someone set off a bomb in it and seeing your granddaughter torn apart before your eyes.

That's the type of thing Israel has been putting up with for years.

These terrorists are not some romantic French or Polish resistence fighters grubbing together bits and pieces to fight the good fight, they are themselves and the Hezbollah in particular, highly organised modern fighting groups with military structures with access to modern such as the missiles they obtain from Syria and Iran with personnel and logistics supplied by these two countries.

Again, unlike the WWII underground they care nothing for their own lives, instead seeing themselves as martyrs for a greater Islamic cause.

More vilely, they hide amongst civilian populations, thereby sacrificing lives other than their own to the cause.

Again Merv needs a lesson in history or perhaps a change to his set of myopic lenses.

No one questions that war is hell but maybe he should look at the casualties and deaths in wars of years gone by.

Ironically modern warfare technology actually limits deaths by allowing their deployment to be relatively precise.

Imagine how many more lives would be lost if we were using WWII technology or indiscriminate 19th century cannons.

Applying Merv's reasoning he would be railing against the Allied bombing runs over Germany in WWII and that makes him more akin to Lord Haw Haw than the political cartoon to which I linked, a cartoon which clearly highlighted the cowardly way in which Hezbollah is hiding behind the civilian population of Lebanon.

-- Nora

UPDATE: Merv responds! Anyone have a bucket of cold water handy?

UPDATE II: And someone who is making sense.