Pre-Emptivity is (Almost) Always Wrong

The academic argument often made when discussing Dick Cheney's definition of "preventive" and "pre-emptive" war, is that the former is never justified under international law, while the latter could be rationalized if armies were massed at the border, or missiles were readied (or fired) into an adversary's territory. By that thought experiment, Israel could be justified for its late-December attacks on Gaza, as the occasional Katyusha assaults coming from Hezbollah now are augmented with scores of Hamas' unguided Qassam rockets from the Gaza Strip (pictured on the left - think roughly of the difference between the V2 and V1 buzz-bombs during the Nazi asaault on London, with Qassam playing the role of V1. Islamic subnational groups have no true equivalent of guided missiles yet.).

The importance of this definition is that Israel now claims it is absolutely "at war" with Hamas. The problem with this rationalization of pre-emptivity is that it does not take into account the asymmetry of the powers involved. Do rockets assaults from Hamas and Hezbollah occasionally kill Israelis? Of course. Are the continued attacks from Gaza in the wake of Israeli bombing raids a macho act of desperation that only makes things worse? Of course. But as usual, Israel is adopting an eye-for-an-eye response that shows total lack of reciprocity. Its matrix of control thrown over Gaza makes the so-called retaliatory assaults a series of turkey shoots.

Let's repeat it for emphasis: Israel is an imperial state. Israel is an occupationist state. Israel is a thug state. Does it sound like any other nations we're familiar with?

V for Pynchonesque Victory or V for Vendetta?

Thou Shalt Not, Except Sometimes

The State Department has taken a distinct and troubling new step by praising the assassination by car bomb of Imad Mughniyeh of Hezbollah. Not that I'd disagree too much, mind you -- the man who planned the 1983 Beirut bombing of the Marine barracks, and several of the Beirut Hezbollah kidnappings of the late 1980s, is probably indeed better off dead. A strict Christian approach to confronting evil would say that one can never rejoice over another's death. But let's face it, I was overjoyed the day Augusto Pinochet bit it, and will probably feel similarly for, say, Henry Kissinger or Dick Cheney (not the president, who is too much of a bumbling tool of the powerful). But I know I'm wrong to have a "party on the gravestone" view, and it seems troubling that the governments of the U.S. and Israel would make an official statement to praise a murder.