US Lt-Gen Keith Dayton - the guy in charge of giving weapons and training to Fatah - officiously demanded that Israel make Gaza-related security concessions because Hamas was nothing to worry about. He insisted that "Hamas was weakening" even while Hamas was obviously gaining strength (how did he avoid the obvious contradiction: he blamed it on Israel naturally). He became a sarcastic prick when Congresspeople asked him about Israeli claims that Hamas was getting ready to take over Gaza. Then Hamas took over the Gaza Strip a couple weeks later. No worries - the State Department pressured Congress to move him to the West Bank and start all over. Because he's obviously both a gifted military analyst and very good at his job.
French Maj.-Gen. Claudio Graziano - the guy in charge of UNIFIL's mission to implement UN resolutions and prevent Hezbollah from rearming - condescendingly and all but openly mocked Israelis for claiming that Hezbollah was returning to their former strength. Two money quotes here: "we also do not see a rearmament happening" and "we are physically patrolling every corner of southern Lebanon and if there was a bunker [system] we would have found it." Opps:
More than a year later, the Lebanese guerilla group appears to be again solidly entrenched across the country's south - looking, in fact, as if its fighters never really left but merely went underground. The Shiite Muslim militia's banners hang everywhere, boasting of the "divine victory" over Israel and thanking its chief sponsor, Shiite-majority Iran, for helping with post-war reconstruction... Hizbullah appears to be in a strong position north and south of the Litani, both in its political wing and as a militia... Villagers across the south point to various places they say are arms depots for Hizbullah, but it was not possible to verify their statements.They just make stuff up based either on ego, institutional bias, or sheer stupidity. Then they demand that Israel make security concessions as if their delusions of competence and grandeur were true. Because what's the worst thing that could happen if they're wrong - it's just some Israelis getting killed.
[Read an extended version of this post at Mere Rhetoric]
3 comments:
Omri,
It isn't ego, institutional bias, or stupidity.
It's just that they're on the enemy's side.
The Keith Daytons and the Claudio Grazianos -- and those who supervise them -- want Israel destroyed and all the Jews dead.
That's all there is to it.
Yeah, I'm not sure. Some of them - the ones who are leaking genuinely classified, non-Plame-like info from the Pentagon and the CIA - they're obviously treasonous. But for the Kieth Dayton's of the world I think it's a little more subtle, having to do with calcified habits built up over years and years. In their case it's institutional, often de facto anti-Israel bias. Does the average State Dept official wake up in the morning saying "I'd like to do something today that jeopardizes Israeli security?" I don't think most of them do (although some of them - out of sheer pique because they can't explain their failures to themselves any other way - eventually get there). It's the insipid assumptions, the delusions of grandeur and relevance, and the way that bureaucratic fights become ideological fights.
On the other hand, those assumptions go so deep that in many cases persuasion may not be possible - they think they're so much more sophisticated that they discount your arguments before you make them (see the WaPo post I'm putting up in a few minutes)... So it doesn't really matter what their motives are - the results are the same as far as public dialogue and persuasion are concerned.
the path from mearsheimer to scheuer is just a few steps.
iow: these places are loaded with anti-semites whop basically feel all our troubles are the fault of israel.
this colors all they do.
they see this as "realism."
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