RIPOSTE
by RIP RENSE |
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DERSHOWITLESS
Aug. 2, 2006
Alan
Dershowitz is sick, demented, ghoulish. Yes, you say, but how does
that distinguish him from other lawyers? Good point. But Dershowitz is so
twisted, so skin-crawlingly brutish that he really missed a bet,
career-wise.
I would not hesitate to
cast Dershowitz as Hannibal Lechter, or in a remake of “Nosferatu.” Maybe
the sequel to “The Hills Have Eyes,” planing the flesh off unsuspecting
suburbanites. He could outdo pustuled, gray-fleshed Johnny Depp at the end
of “The Libertine”---without make-up.
Anyone who decrees that
it is acceptable for innocent little kids to die, or dirt-poor, ignorant,
uneducated families to be wiped out---merely because of their physical
proximity to suspected terrorists---is a fiend.
And please save the
charges of naivete, and how it’s a murderous world where “morally
pure” positions have no bearing in reality. I’ve heard it all before. I say
that humans have grown so bellicose and bloodthirsty that “morally pure”
positions are the only sensible ones left.
You know, ideas like “no
war.” And “killing is bad.”
Dershowitz, like many
who are so emotionally invested in the Middle East madness, has lost his
witz, if not his humanity. If you missed it, the famed Harvard law professor
and interruptive TV talking head wrote a
commentary in the L.A. Times a couple weeks ago in which he proposed a
bullgoose looney concept called a “continuum of civilianality.”
Sounds like something the
Wizard of Oz would have bestowed on the Cowardly Lion, but it’s more like
something that Holocaust point-man Heinrich Himmler would have dreamed up.
It is a method of assigning relative worth to human life. It justifies the
murder of human beings who live, work, or drink coffee near the home of a
suspected “militant” who opposes Israel.
Wrote Dershowitz:
“Hezbollah and Hamas
militants. . .are difficult to distinguish from those ‘civilians’ who
recruit, finance, harbor and facilitate their terrorism. Nor can women and
children always be counted as civilians, as some organizations do.
Terrorists increasingly use women and teenagers to play important roles in
their attacks.”
Nor can women and
children always be counted as civilians. Can it be any plainer?
Dershowitz has created a gray area in order to justify the indiscriminate
killing of Lebanese women and children because some of them might be tools
of Hezbollah. He has cast suspicion over an entire populace.
Kristallnacht,
anyone?
Because some women and
children might have been recruited to aid Hezbollah, he says, whether as
cooks and errand-boys or suicide bombers, therefore it is okay to bomb areas
where they might be, even if this incinerates other women and children as
they twiddle their thumbs, kick a soccer ball, or watch Al-Jazeera.
After all, as Uncle Al
the Kiddies’ Pal, notes, those tykes and their mommies were given fair
warning:
“The Israeli army has
given well-publicized notice to civilians to leave those areas of southern
Lebanon that have been turned into war zones. Those who voluntarily remain
behind have become complicit. Some---those who cannot leave on their
own---should be counted among the innocent victims.”
He’s right that all were
given “well-publicized notice” to get out of southern Lebanon. We know this
because some fleeing civilians were blown up by U.S.-built Israeli bombs. As
for the notion of complicity by geography, this puts Dershowitz in good
company with another child murder endorser, Israeli justice minister Haim
Ramon, who announced on Israeli army radio that "all those in south Lebanon
are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah."
Right. Here in Los
Angeles, I live near a lot of latino gangs who regularly engage in
shooting, drug sales, burglary. I must be a sympathizer.
To his credit, the
Dershbag doesn’t quite go as far as Ramon. He still has a shred of
humanity. He allows that those dead women and children who were unable to
“leave on their own”---who couldn’t hop into their Escalades and cruise to
Beirut Airport---are “innocent victims.” How gratifying! This will be a
great comfort to those who lay burned, dismembered, disemboweled, dying.
Good thing that Alan Dershowitz has determined that I am an innocent victim,
they will think. Praise be to Allah!
The alleged point of
Dershowitz’s chillingly detached commentary is to urge that the media
reassess their “body count methods,” so as to separate the more
circumstantially “complicit” men, women, and children from the less
circumstantially “complicit” dead men, women, and children. Translation: he
is upset with all the (accurate) recent reports of innocent civilians killed
by Israel, and is exerting pressure on mainstream U.S. media to slant the
story in Israel’s favor.
But let’s take his
proposal seriously for a moment. Could such a change in media coverage be
accomplished? Sure. Just investigate the deaths of each civilian in order to
learn their exact motivations and political beliefs. Talk to schoolmates of
dead children and ask if they ever bought a cup of coffee for a member of
Hezbollah. Why, we could deputize Al “C.S.I.” Dershowitz to do it. Give him
a nice flak jacket and send him to southern Lebanon to get busy. . .
On the surface,
Dershowitz’s monstrous “continuum of civilianality” (say it fast ten
times) is based on the ruse that there is an ongoing war---the same ruse
that Bush uses to justify destroying Constitutional rights, flauting
Congressionally enacted laws, rationalizing torture. “We need a new
vocabulary,” Dershowitz writes, “to reflect the realities of modern
warfare. . .” And: “this concept aptly captures the reality and
nuance of warfare today and provides a more fair way to describe
those who are killed, wounded and punished.”
Nuance of warfare.
Who wrote this, Dr. Strangelove? This is like “delicate disemboweling.”
Listen: we are not at war. The “war on terror” is the Big Dershowitz/Bush
Lie. The United States cannot fight a “war on terror” by brute military
force, and neither can Israel. No one can. Brute force spawns more
terrorists. Terrorism, no matter how ideological, is crime, not war. One
side blows up buildings, the other invades nations in response? Doesn’t
work. Dershowitz inadvertently illustrates this very point. Terrorists, he
says, cannot easily be discerned among ordinary citizens. Correct. So what
do you call people in a civilian population who blow up buildings, or
assassinate innocents? Soldiers? How about “criminals?”
Of course, this really
isn’t only about fighting terrorism, as Uncle Al would have you believe. The
Dershowitz/Bush agenda is all gummed up with the subjugation of the Middle
East, oil (read
about the BTC oil pipeline?), the “democratization” of the world (read:
empire) by force, good old-fashioned bloodsport, and a healthy dose of
Jesus-is-coming Biblical prophecy.
As for the chorus of
“what’s Israel supposed to do?” now being shouted into computer screens
around the world, yes, this is the salient question. First, here’s what
Israel should not do: earn the condemnation of much of the world’s press and
populace, if not governments; unite Arab nations in new heights of hatred
for Israel and Jews and the U.S.; embolden existing terrorists and terrorist
groups sworn to destroy Israel and Jews and the U.S.; create generations of
new terrorists sworn to destroy Israel and Jews and the U.S.; stoke
anti-Semitism around the world; selfishly put the entire human population at
risk of war and annihilation. (And drive Mel Gibson to drink.)
Yet this is just what
Israel is accomplishing, with full U.S. support, as it turns tiny, beautiful
Lebanon into a place of refugees, rubble, orphans (and yes, an unknown
number of dead terrorists), and new terrorists.
And Alan Dershowitz-approved
dead children.
mail@riprense.com
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