Liberal Talk Radio

Excellent analysis of the limits of bombing raids in today’s WaPo, courtesy of Philip Gordon of Brookings:

Far from bringing about the intended softening of the opposition, bombing tends to rally people behind their own leaders and cause them to dig in against outsiders who, whatever the justification, are destroying their homeland.

Further on down Gordon rehashes the argument that the Professor made on this week’s show, which is that the bombing of civilian infrastructure, intended to get the attention of Lebanon’s middle class, won’t have the desired effects:

According to retired Israeli army Col. Gal Luft, the goal of the campaign is to “create a rift between the Lebanese population and Hezbollah supporters.” The message to Lebanon’s elite, he said, is this: “If you want your air conditioning to work and if you want to be able to fly to Paris for shopping, you must pull your head out of the sand and take action toward shutting down Hezbollah-land.”

But, Gordon says, the truth is that (a) the Lebanese government is too weak to do any such thing, and (b) the civilian casualties are causing people to rally against Israel, rather than acknowledge that they’d be best served by supporting its efforts to destroy Hezbollah.

If you need any more evidence this is true, just look at America post-9/11. Even pacifists like myself were righteously jacked up and ready for blood. I never once thought, “gee, maybe bin Laden’s right. We ARE all infidels and we deserve to die!” Nope, I just wanted to wax the guy’s ass all over the floor. Five years later, I still do. What does that tell you?

(for an explanation of this post’s title, click here)