Stardate 20021012.0017

(Captain's log): While making one of my several daily visits to Charles Johnson's Little Green Footballs, as well as browsing various other news sites, I got onto a lot of articles which are all interesting and relevant.

Charles linked to this article by Ralph Peters. Peters is the author of two of the articles in my "essential library". He discusses some of the same things I did earlier today about threats to our troops during an attack on Iraq, and seems to think that the risks to our troops are even lower than I did. Since his knowledge of military affairs and other relevant issues dwarfs mine, and because he's got contacts still serving, I'm very happy to defer to his optimism. He also indirectly makes a particularly interesting point: the outcome dreaded most by many, many people in the world is another easy crushing victory by the US, which is actually the most likely scenario.

Our soldiers do not fear Saddam. I do not know a single man or woman in uniform who believes that our military will fail or suffer badly, should we go to war with Iraq. The best-informed insist we will hit the Iraqi regime with such overwhelming, unexpected fury that the world will be shocked by our effectiveness.

And that is what Saddam's defenders fear, whether they are in the Middle East or in the middle of their congressional terms. ...

Make no mistake: The anti-war voices long for us to lose any war they cannot prevent.

Despite what he says, I doubt that more than a very small number of congressmen want us to lose. But for a lot of other people, yet another overwhelming victory, rapidly, and seemingly easily, is a greater nightmare than my concern about Saddam using a nuke against us.

He's also right about something else: we will need to make some object lessons this time, and if any Iraqi units do seriously resist, we'll need to show them and everyone else what happens. (It'll save lives in the long run.)

Going into Afghanistan, the moaners talked about how it was no Iraq, and how our overwhelming victory in 1991 didn't prove that we could win in Afghanistan. But we totally changed our tactics, and won in Afghanistan so easily as to shock some people into (temporary) silence. Which is why it's amusing to see that the same moaners are now moaning that Iraq is no Afghanistan. Which is true; Iraq is easier. There's better access to ports and other sources of supply, the terrain is far more to our liking, it's surrounded by American airbases, and we're going to be attacking from at least two and quite possibly three directions at once.

Charles also reminded me to catch up on David Warren's articles, by linking to this one from a couple of days ago. He says that as soon as a real invasion of Iraq begins, Gaza will erupt, which is why the Israelis are in there now trying to seriously clean Hamas out.

Which reminded me of this article I saw in the Wapo, which talks about the arguments on campus about a campaign by activists there to try to get the universities to disinvest in Israel.

Supporters of the divestiture movement bristle at the suggestion that their campaign contributes to an atmosphere of anti-Semitism on campus, saying the charge not only slanders them but also stifles a crucial debate about Israeli policy toward Palestinians.

"This charge of anti-Semitism is utter nonsense. It is really a form of paranoia to deflect attention away from Israeli human rights abuses and war crimes," said Edward Said, a Columbia University English professor who helped launch a divestiture campaign at the school. "Israel has been in occupation of Palestinian territory for 35 years. . . . In light of that, a divestment campaign modeled on the campaign in South Africa seems to be the mildest and most decorous of responses."

While I think it's completely reasonable to examine the record of Israeli human rights abuses and war crimes, I find it notable that there's no comparable effort to examine Palestinian human rights abuses and war crimes. For example, there have been many cases where authorities have actually seized and executed people without trial who were alleged to have committed crimes under what passes for Palestinian law. (In most cases the crime was "collaboration with Israel", essentially treason.) There was, for instance, the case where a young man was tortured (another human rights abuse) and eventually implicated his mother as a collaborator. The authorities then seized her, forced her to make a confession on videotape, and then shot her in the town square.

As to war crimes, the Palestinians have routinely used ambulances marked with the Red Crescent to move weapons, most especially explosive belts. That directly violates the Geneva Convention, and so does the entire bombing campaign against Israel. Every single suicide bombing against Israeli civilians has been a war crime.

If these activists are not ant