It seems obvious to many that violence is the best way to achieve one's security goals, but they are likely engaging in mental shortcuts that lead to biased conclusions
Thanks, Steve, for another insightful post. It so helpfully describes how the cycle of violence continues, why it is so important to stop it, and why we feel so helpless in trying to affect it. Your description certainly also accurately describes the rhetoric here in the U.S. around our presidential election and even the back and forth over the opening ceremony at the Olympics.
I'm not convinced that Hezbollah is the party which fired the missile, but this is probably a question that we will never know the answer to, so it probably isn't a worthwhile topic of conversation.
I am more interested in your statement, "there is nothing that I can do to prevent it from happening." This is a thought, or at least the type of thought, that confounds me as well. Whenever I find myself thinking along these lines I try to first answer some queries. What am I currently doing? Am I organizing with other people? How am I evaluating the effectiveness of my attempts to promote liberation?
I have been taught, and believe, that liberation requires both personal and community action. I know that we differ on many points, so perhaps these questions will not be pertinent to you.
Hi David, I think I hear where you are coming from. I agree with you that we should always be doing our best to make the world a better place or to prevent bad things from happening. But at the end of the day, the choice is in the hands of political leaders who are not listening to the voice of their people. So the feeling is certainly that others are now deciding our fate. I do hope that the little I do can make an impact down the road.
The technicalities for launching a rocket of the size used here are more involved than when smaller caliber rockets are being more frequently used. Surely, this necessarily more involved equipment and method are easier to identify and detect. It is up to the IDF to devise better methods for getting closer to this degree of realism. I imagine such research has already been started.
The strike by rocket against the Druze field of children was not due to Israel's attitude to the need for fighting the Hezbollah. It was due to some unattentive soldier, not properly watching his or her radar screen and not firing the right anti-missile missile at the right moment. This is not the first time this has happened. Soldiers get very tired and bored doing this kind of job and it is similar to the guard duties that I badly did as a millumnic many years ago. The answer is for the management of these vital duties to be better shared and organised and sufficient sleep to be properly arranged between duties. Possibly two soldiers working together is better, but from my experience this means that one of them can rest and not be attentive. Remember that the Houties rocket that killed one civilian in Tel-Aviv, two weeks ago was not detected in a related and similar incident.
Agreed. It's also a personnel issue, preventable in more than one way, and the tragedy is in part a result of a flawed system. But the launching of the rocket itself was a direct response to the killing of 4 junior Hezbollah commanders.
Thanks, Steve, for another insightful post. It so helpfully describes how the cycle of violence continues, why it is so important to stop it, and why we feel so helpless in trying to affect it. Your description certainly also accurately describes the rhetoric here in the U.S. around our presidential election and even the back and forth over the opening ceremony at the Olympics.
Thanks, Max
Another great, and generalizable, post, Steve!
I'm not convinced that Hezbollah is the party which fired the missile, but this is probably a question that we will never know the answer to, so it probably isn't a worthwhile topic of conversation.
I am more interested in your statement, "there is nothing that I can do to prevent it from happening." This is a thought, or at least the type of thought, that confounds me as well. Whenever I find myself thinking along these lines I try to first answer some queries. What am I currently doing? Am I organizing with other people? How am I evaluating the effectiveness of my attempts to promote liberation?
I have been taught, and believe, that liberation requires both personal and community action. I know that we differ on many points, so perhaps these questions will not be pertinent to you.
Hi David, I think I hear where you are coming from. I agree with you that we should always be doing our best to make the world a better place or to prevent bad things from happening. But at the end of the day, the choice is in the hands of political leaders who are not listening to the voice of their people. So the feeling is certainly that others are now deciding our fate. I do hope that the little I do can make an impact down the road.
The technicalities for launching a rocket of the size used here are more involved than when smaller caliber rockets are being more frequently used. Surely, this necessarily more involved equipment and method are easier to identify and detect. It is up to the IDF to devise better methods for getting closer to this degree of realism. I imagine such research has already been started.
The strike by rocket against the Druze field of children was not due to Israel's attitude to the need for fighting the Hezbollah. It was due to some unattentive soldier, not properly watching his or her radar screen and not firing the right anti-missile missile at the right moment. This is not the first time this has happened. Soldiers get very tired and bored doing this kind of job and it is similar to the guard duties that I badly did as a millumnic many years ago. The answer is for the management of these vital duties to be better shared and organised and sufficient sleep to be properly arranged between duties. Possibly two soldiers working together is better, but from my experience this means that one of them can rest and not be attentive. Remember that the Houties rocket that killed one civilian in Tel-Aviv, two weeks ago was not detected in a related and similar incident.
Agreed. It's also a personnel issue, preventable in more than one way, and the tragedy is in part a result of a flawed system. But the launching of the rocket itself was a direct response to the killing of 4 junior Hezbollah commanders.