A study in rational restraint

I hate to say it but recent events in the Middle East make the Bush administration seem completely rational. Let me explain.

I've actively disliked George "Dubya" Bush... no, I've actively disrespected him as a person ever since I first learned that he'd thrown his hat in the presidential hopeful ring in 1999. It didn't take me long to reach the conclussion that he was not only supremely unqualified to be President, but that he'd not even have a chance if it were not for his having a famous last name. He presided over a string of spectacularly failed businesses... this from a man with an elite Ivy League MBA and who used family connections to avoid serving his country in the Vietnam War. But this post is not about the person George W. Bush. It's about a study in rational restraint.

A few days ago Hezbollah soldiers kidnapped two Israeli soldiers in a cross border raid. Those two soldiers are believed to still be alive. Israel has responded by attacking Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, from whence said cross border raid had to have been planned and executed. Israel also has bombed many targets all over Lebanon, including repeatedly bombing the international airport in Tripoli, bombing bridges all over the country and bombing Shiite neighborhoods in south Tripoli yesterday and apparently bombing central Tripoli today. Israeli PM Olmert has suggested that he wants to make all of Lebanon pay a price for the actions of Hezbollah. Olmert has characterized the Hezbollah raid as an act of war by the Lebanese nation.

A few weeks ago two American soldiers were kidnapped in Iraq, tortured and executed by insurgent forces. The Bush administration's response did not include bombing the international airport in Baghdad, nor did it include bombing bridges in parts of Iraq not associated with the forces believed to have carried out the kidnapping and executions.

Why the huge disparity in responses?

The answer seems stunningly obvious - our reaction in Iraq was tempered precisely because there was no rational cause and effect relationship between the kidnapping/tortures and the international airport or bridges all over the country. Further, bombing the airport and bridges was have quite obviously been directly contrary to our goals of rebuilding the nation and trying to foster not just democracy, but peaceful democracy. The crimes of the few cannot be avenged upon the whole and still maintain the reasonable expectation that anything even remotely peaceful would be the end result. Not to mention the fact that the very notion of justice demands a causual relationship between the offense and the punishment, with free will assent being required before the consequences of a crime can reasonably be imputed to entities not directly connected with the crimal act itself.

What Israel is doing in Lebanon is irrational and directly contrary to any rational expectation of there being a subsequent peace. Indeed, Hezbollah itself was created as a direct response to the 1982 invasion and occupation of Lebanon by Israel. Israel itself is directly responsible for creating the very group it now is using as an excuse to undo the budding democracy founded by brave Lebanese during their Cedar Revolution.

Further reading: When is Terrorism Not Considered as Terrorism, an Op-Ed piece in the Lebanese Dar Al Hayat newspaper.