Stemcell Hustle

I'm sick of writing about Lebanon and Israel and Hizbollah and Iran and the UN. I'm going to write about politics instead. It's called Embryonic Stemcell Research.

Some outfit called ACT (who cares what that stands for) in a press release claimed a new breakthrough. I'm going to quote some of that news release, but first I'll say a little about what apparently is actually in the research (To be published in Nature; I haven't read the paper, won't read it, but have read something about what it says).

From 16 8-cell embryonic units 91 cells (blastomeres) were removed and cultured. Note, from a total of 128 cells, 91 were removed, that's 5.69 cells removed per 8-cell unit (as I understand it was actually 4 to 7 cells removed per 8-cell unit).

There's something called Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) a known process, by which one cell (sometimes two) is removed by mechanical means; that cell (or cells) is then used for diagnostic purpose but the remaining embryonic unit, now 6 or 7 cells, is implanted in the woman (In vitro Fertilization) and a viable baby can result. In other words, PGD removes one cell but does not kill the embryo. If it could be shown that this one cell removed by this process could then be used, not for diagnosis but to create a new stem cell line, leaving the embryo viable, then much of the moral objection to embryonic stem cell research would be removed, because then, at least in principle, the embryo need not die. Even if the research by which this procedure were established was brutal and resulted in the distruction of the embryo, nevertheless, once established, the brutality need not continue.

But for this procedure to be viably established it must be built upon known science. That means in this case that one (or two) cells must be removed by established PDG techniques, then must be cultured in isolation (or in conjunction with one other cell from the same embryo). Various other supporting cells might be used but no more than two cells from the same embryo. If a viable stemcell line could then be produced, then in principle it has been proven that embryonic stemcell lines can be established without killing the embryo.

The important thing to remember is that PDG removes one cell and is a proven technology; ACT removed 4 to 7 cells out of each 8-cell unit.

Here is the news release with relavent lines excerpted:

Advanced Cell Technology, Inc. today reported that company scientists have successfully generated human embryonic stem cells (hES cells) using an approach that does not harm embryos. The technique is reported...in the journal Nature. The article describes a method for deriving stem cells from human blastomeres with a single-cell biopsy technique called Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD)...The cell lines produced using this technique appear to be identical to hES cell lines derived from later stage embryos using techniques that destroy the embryo’s developmental potential.

“Until now, embryonic stem cell research has been synonymous with the destruction
of human embryos,” stated Robert Lanza, M.D., Vice President of Research
& Scientific Development at ACT, and the study’s senior author. “We have
demonstrated, for the first time, that human embryonic stem cells can be
generated without interfering with the embryo’s potential for life.

ACT’s approach generates human embryonic stem cells from a single cell obtained from an 8-cell-stage embryo.

To create hES cell lines, the researchers used single cells obtained from
unused embryos produced by IVF for clinical purposes....

“One of the major ethical objections of those who oppose the generation of
human embryonic stems cells is that all techniques, until now, have resulted
in the destruction of the embryo...This technique overcomes this hurdle..."

“Our policy will be to work together with the scientific community to make
new lines widely available for research...Our ability to create human embryonic cell lines and therapies without harming the embryo should assuage the ethical concerns of many Americans.

Does anyone get the impression that only one cell was removed, and that the embryo remained viable? Four to seven cells were removed, the embryos were destroyed! The whole release is a stunning flat-out prevarication, and this is the point: does anybody not innately a fool think that if ACT can lie like this in a news release it did not lie in its research? The same people who were part and parcel of that news release were the people who did the research, and they are as trustworthy in one effort as in the other.

Because they are innately liars it does not matter what the paper says and this is why I'm not going to read it. I don't care how they say the cells were actually cultured, I already know it's a lie.

My personal preference would be that the paper be true. In my opinion embryonic stemcell research holds out no hope at all, it's pure fantasy and hustle. I believe it will soon collapse from its own impossibility and will be fully replaced with adult stemcell research which is true science. But at the moment it doesn't matter if I'm right or wrong, this is the present infection and it must run its course; but at least if it were possible to create a stemcell line without killing an embryo then this part of science would not be so vile. But this paper was produced by ACT. It's its own particular vileness. It's a fraud.

Update:

This is from Secondhand Smoke by Wesley J. Smith in his Aug 26th post at 8:31 AM entitled: ACT's ES Cell Experiment Gets Smellier and Smellier.

ACT strongly implied that it had removed one blastomere (a type of early embryonic cell) and obtained ES cells without destroying the embryo. As discussed extensively here at Secondhand Smoke, that purported breakthrough was flat-out false. ACT's scientists had actually destroyed 16 embryos and removed 4-7 blastomeres from each, placing them in a medium in which they were not in direct contact, but in such a manner that the cells might have been able to communicate with each other.

A failed experiment , similar to that conducted by ACT, appears to demonstrate that this potential communication may have been key to the derivation of two ESC lines--casting doubt on whether ES cells will be able to derived from just one blastomere as ACT claims. In the experiment, scientists tried to create ES cells using two blastomeres. But when the two were removed from being able to communicate with several others, the experiment didn't take. According to the science paper published about the effort: "The results showed that it might not be possible to derive hESC lines directly from paired blastomeres. A minimum number of blastomeres in close contact with one another may be required to successfully generate an hESC line."

Of course, if that is so about two blastomeres, it is more than true about one. If other efforts show similar results--and it must be said that we don't know whether they will--ACT's experiment may have been worth not very much at all. Well, other than generating bounteous free publicity and obtaining millions in venture capital.

I've probably quoted more than is appropriate by the "fair use" doctrine but it seemed necessary to make the argument. --Kind of fun to see a man who shares my attitude. I seem to be more convinced that they're innate liars than he but then he might just be more discreet... or I might be slightly over the top. That's possible. Or maybe I just get very angry sitting here in my house alone and I ought to get out more.
Aug 26, 3:28 PM

Retrospect on the Israeli Defeat

They fought poorly. That was stunning. I initially thought Hizbollah would be crushed quickly because they only had rifles and a few rockets. When it turned out they had armament considerably beyond that I said: "The die is cast. A nation can not allow itself to be under rocket attack from a terrorist state-within-a-state, and since Lebanon can not control Hizbollah, Israel must do it, and that means investing the entirety of the Bekaa Valley. Hizbollah has to be denied their base, and this is the only way rearmament can be prevented." I considered this a starting point. But it was never attempted. Militarily there was never any meaningful assault on Hizbollah. From the very first day Israel committed itself to defeat... apparently because they did not recognize they had an enemy and did not recognize they had to fight a war. They thought they were going into Gaza, I thought that a serious war was necessary I thought this to be instantly obvious. That this was not recognized I consider an insanity, and I'm wondering if not only the leadership but the entire nation might be insane.

I hold out the possibility that my judgment might be wrong and that there might be some other way to address the threat. I haven't yet heard the argument.

The upshot, among other things, is that Israel is no longer an "ally", whatever that ever did mean. They're not militarily helpful, they're a burden. Should there ever be a "mid-east war" involving the United States they not only could not aid us we would have to defend them. They can't fight anymore, they can just drop bombs. --And their usefulness as an intelligence source is zero. If they were unaware of Hizbollah's armament and fortification right on their own border they certainly have no trustworthy information on Iran. Israel, to the United States, is at best a net zero. They're there, they have six or seven million people, so what?

This is the wage of humiliation, it makes it impossible for anybody to take you seriously.

Things could change. The people could get serious and get a new government and fight a new war... Or it could be that the rot has set in and that they'll never fight again and will all just leave. That seems an extreme statement, no nation simply ever just evaporates. Ha! This more or less is happening to Europe, although rather than disappearing they're just changing color. That can't happen in Israel, but they do have a nearly 2,000 year history of living everywhere but Israel, I don't see why that couldn't happen again.

I have no idea of what the dynamics of pressure against Israel might become, I only know that they're weak and their enemies see that and so are emboldened and the pressure will increase. Smart guys in the Arab and Persian world are now dreaming of ways they can do damage. --Interestingly, I don't know how seriously they really want to destroy that state. Israel is a very useful scapegoat. Get rid of the Jews and the next enemy is the government. Israel might continue to exist by the sufferance of Assad and Mubarak, something to be mauled but not killed.

It's impossible to know and this is all just "scenario", so far out in causal terms that one man's speculation is just as good as another man's fantasy, but I do know that In Arab eyes Israel stands defeated and so is going to face renewed and probably intelligent attacks. Arabs, for as long as I've been paying attention to Israel, have only ever had one powerful weapon, and that was world sympathy. Now they know that given the right conditions they also have the real power to hand Israel defeat in battle. That means things are going to be a mess for awhile.

And if Tehran gets the bomb? I'm convinced now Israel can't pre-empt it. No way they know where to strike. Their intelligence stinks. And what kind of society will Israel have then, knowing that at any moment of any day some madman might blow you off the face of the earth? Do you think you're then going to be able to strike back at some Gaza kid who throws a stone in your face? If Tehran gets the bomb Israel no longer has a society. And Israel can't prevent it.

So I see things as grim. The first positive step would be a new government, because smart people with courage could come up with solutions. But does Israel any longer have such people? --The other possibility might be the European community developing that same intelligence and courage. It should be universal that such organizations as Hizbollah can not be allowed to exist; it should be universal that no gulf state can have the bomb, because with the bomb they control the oil. It's not that simple but it is that basic. There should be unanimity on these things, and if there were the West could protect itself, and Israel into the bargain....

It's hard for me to believe that nations don't see these things...

The Fate Of A Liberal?

Last night I mentioned to a friend that I questioned whether or not Israel would yet exist in two years and he wouldn't discuss it. Zip. That was the conversation. He did say: "They always fight over there," and his assumption seemed to be that things would continue in the same way forever and ever.

Now, it is possible that my pessimism about Israel is wrong, but not to even entertain the challenge of that pessimism I find extraordinary.

We both know, whatever might be the difference in analysis and observation, that Israel did not do as well against Hizbollah as we'd expected; we both know that Iran is becoming a new threat, and that the big threat new is the threat of the big bomb and that that threat is not insignificant; we both know that Iraq could fall apart, probably more because America might pull out than because of sectarian violence or because of failure of the Iraqis to continue to struggle to develop an effective government; we know that this land then would belong to Iran; we both know that the excitation towards jihad is increasing, that it's becoming particularly intense in what the Israelis call "the territories" but that it's also increasing world wide and is showing itself as particularly virulent in England but is developing as well throughout Europe. This causes complications. We both know these things, and to repeat, we both know that in this last struggle Israel dithered and fussed and was humiliated and lost, so how can my friend say: "They always fight" and expect things will continue just in the same way?

The reason is that he's a liberal, and he simply won't entertain the idea that life might become difficult. This I do think --and this is by observation, not analysis-- I do think that this is what defines liberals, an absolute lack of moral guts. And I wonder if Israel hasn't become liberal?

Note:

Just heard Yoni say that today in Israel there has been mutiny, a statement by a reserve outfit of refusal to serve. Hotdog! That's still not Olmert hanging from a post but it's better. "The post is close!" Perhaps I could make that a chant. Will have to check it out. Here's hoping!

......................
So far I've found this only on Yoni's blog, his Aug 22, 1:45 PM Post:

Reserve Soldiers Verse IDF

A petition written by soldiers of the 300th brigade of the Galilee division of reserve soldiers was submitted Monday to the brigade commander, Colonel Chen Livni. In the petition it was written: "At the completion of the fighting, a difficult sense of deprivation and lack of consideration on the part of our senior officers have accumulated among us. The source of these feelings is the disregard of our company commander who has yet to see it fit to talk with the soldier or to interview some of them in order to draw conclusions on the management of the fighting, equipping of the soldier, and their manner of release. Therefore, we are announcing that we don't intend to continue serving as reserve soldiers in the IDF and are requesting that we not be called up for active reserve duty."

The important thing here is not the particular gripe but the mutiny, the refusal to serve. It indicates social breakdown, which is exactly what happened in the prosecution of the war. Something like insanity was in control of the war effort. It's in response to this that these soldiers have taken this extraordinary step, even though they might not yet have the words to discribe their feelings. That will come. The idea that this was merely one action similar to so many that a government might take and that since the result was not good there must be an investigation along normal lines is to me the insanity. To putter along like normal is nuts. This was an extraordinary failure to govern in the way that would naturally be expected and so it should not be expected that the response to the government should be normal. I suppose it's hard to throw off the habits of orderly citizenship but this is a small country, it doesn't seem it should be impossible to have a little direct democracy.
(10:02 PM)

Spineless, Cowardly, Stupid?

It's interesting that now that the Israeli/Lebanon conflict is over there's nothing I care to write about, nothing that excites emotion. That's pretty easy to understand: In defeat there's exhaustion.

I do have a great many ideas, many of them only half formed because I don't have the energy to work them through. So I won't. It's not my problem anyway. I'll wait a few days to see if the Israelis do anything that makes sense... I'm thinking of insurrection, though possible they have a more discreet way to get rid of their present government.

The problem is this: I've come to doubt that there's even one warrior in that entire nation, yet if the entire nation doesn't rapidly become warlike it's finished, and if that argument has to be made in Israel it's all over except for the waiting.

It does seem at the moment that this is a nation content to be slaughtered. It's depressing. Perhaps I now know what "Never Again" means, it means that never again will they be able to blame somebody else for their annihilation, it will be totally a matter of their own choosing.

But we'll wait a few days. Possibly something of backbone and courage and intelligence will make its appearance.

I'm still pulling for insurrection.

50,000

I got back from my six day break and took a look at the news and saw that Israel is still a dead nation, I know that because Olmert isn't yet hanging from a lamp post.

When a suicide bomber straps on a vest I call him a dead man. Of course, technically, he's not really dead until he splatters, but he knows what's going to happen, he's dead. Israel knows what's going to happen, even if it's not publicly admitted and even though, technically, they're not going to get splattered so much as scattered. But they don't fight won't fight. Israel is dead.

Just how it was that Israel passed from time will be a matter for historians to determine, but there is a certain grim entertainment in contemporaneous speculation, and besides, it might be of some use to the rest of us who might fight.

Where to start?

I read an article by Solzhenitsyn last night where he speculated that the West went soft because it had become too tied to its material wealth. Solzhenitsyn is a nut. That particular observation I'll handle just by dismissing it. I abandon my material wealth every time I go outside for a walk and get sweaty. I don't carry my material wealth with me. It's true it's there for me when I get back, it's true for the soldier that it's there for him when he gets back. To protect that wealth is one additional reason to go to war and sweat. Solzhenitsyn's observation is just one of envy and incomprehension, but there is one way that material wealth does soften men and nations, and that is through the presumption that the sanity and intelligence that makes the accrual of that wealth possible is a sanity and intelligence shared by the rest of the world. It's not. Envy is universal, but not the intelligence and energy and discipline and judgement, not the pragmatic sanity. To presume that that sanity is even comprehended by much of the rest of the world is to misjudge the enemy. To presume that "we are the world" is to presume mistakenly. There is a disinclination towards war which is not fear but which is a disinclination to give up the idea that life is best when it is reasonable. This is the concept of peace. It is hard to move from that pleasing concept of sane reasonable peaceful productive pursuit to the new unreasonable sanity of the need for war.

I don't use the term "rational". I'm not certain there's often much that's purely rational in the activities of men, but our society certainly is reasonable. It's based on the idea that meaning in life is individual, that individuals strive, negotiate, compromise and live as well as they can and the nation exists simply for the purpose of making that struggle possible... and occasionally, as a nation, following much that same pattern towards its citizens and towards other nations. It does work. We're rich, and that individual striving for meaning, much of it in reference to acquiring wealth, is why we're rich and why many of us are happy.

I certainly immensely enjoy my own modest life and I'm very pleased with the concept of the reasonable and it's in this way that I relate to my friends. But a Hizbollian is not my friend, or my neighbors friend, and it is this that the West has not yet accepted. There are people out there who are not our friends. This does hurt one's feelings, but the thing is, those people out there who are not our friends can not be our friends, because they can not see the world as best when it's reasonable; therefore they want to kill us therefore we must kill them, and that's unreasonable. It is very hard to give up the reasonable as a rational world view.

I will note again that we strive as individuals. The whole meaning of the West lies in the individual, there's no justification for government accept by the consent of the governed; in peace we strive as individuals yet live in comity with our fellows. In war we are not individuals. We die as the state deems necessary. It's this extraordinary movement from the individual to the state that makes the West so disinclined to war.

However, this is where that extraordinarily rare quality, rationality, would be useful: a hard war can not be fought successfully unless individuals become expendable at the judgment of the state. This is unpleasant, but this is necessary, this is rational: for the duration of the war the individual must be willing to give up his life at the judgment of the state, and those not fighting must be willing to see those lives expended. It's simple arithmetic: for 50,000 lost, millions are saved, and that's all there is to war.

50,000, that's the number. Once Israel is prepared to lose 50,000 of her sons she has the possibility of saving herself as a nation.

Note:

There has been some conversation about improving the first part of this equation, the killing part, rather than the dying part. It is said that Israel (and thus the West) must become ruthless. The West now functions under unimaginably stringent rules of engagement while the rest of the world follows no rules at all. Therefore, Kaboom! Kaboom! Kaboom! this becomes the new theory, that the West must not be so chary in it's use of bombs for the purpose of killing. To this I will state a simple elemental truth: you can't hurt people with bombs. You can kill them, you can't hurt them, not in their resolve. Bombs without troops are an enhancement to the enemy when the enemy is a guerilla force without investment in the state. Any airforce General who argues otherwise should be up on the lamp post alongside Olmert. --50,000.

Twins: Aint Death Great

Most disagreeable word in the world: Existential. I've hated that word since I was in college. All the freshmen were going around being "existential". I never did know what that meant. I read a big thick book that had that word in the title, read the whole book, did not know what the word meant.

And now I hear Israel is "fighting" an "existential" war, again and again I hear that word, and now I know what it means: Coward; and, Insane.

The coward part doesn't need to be further defined. Just say: IDF. The insanity part can be understood by following the present discussion in Israel. They're talking about "inquiries"; some guy suggested the IDF didn't fight well because they didn't have good flak jackets, the budget had been cut.

Coward. Insane. Israel. In the "existential" dictionary of survival they're all on the same page... Pardon me. Make that: they're all on the same page in, The Real Life Dictionary of Extinction.

...I did talk to my canary this morning. He was glad to see me, greeting me with a kind of tweeting whimper of excitement. So things are good yet in the world. And now off to fight with the in-laws. I've dedicated this week to clearing up certain matters in that respect. It's at least as difficult as taking on Syria, and I shall be victorious. --And tomorrow I may comment on Mama Olmert, that hideous sister to Hizbollah, delighting in the deliciousness of soft grieving over the deaths of soldiers, even at the expense of the existence of her nation. Of course it doesn't matter, she'll just move to New York, grieving... of course. One has to do something with one's time. --Hizbollah celebrates death, Moma Olmert merely enjoys it, because tears, so utterly and deeply felt are... "existential", I guess. Hizbollah and Mama Olmert, one the negative to the other, twins, neither affirming life.

Six Day War, Six Day Peace

There once was a Six Day War, this will be a Six Day Peace, or at least it's going to be a six day peace for me because I've got more important things to do than blather on about what just happened.

There's way too much blather. Israel suffered an immense defeat. It's a defeat suffered either because its leadership wouldn't fight, or because its people wouldn't fight. If the failure was in the leadership, no problem, there will be new leadership, a new war, and victory. If the failure is in the people, nothing matters anymore anyway, the nation is dead. They might as well all move to France or just walk west until there's nothing but bubbles. It's painless that way.

The nation that has lost its will has lost its legitimacy is dead. Their immense defeat is that they didn't fight. That's their problem.

Tomorrow morning I talk to my canary. Then I'll go sweep a floor, or something. I know I've got things to do that are more important than Israel.

To Follow My Thought...

In the interest of following my thought wherever it might lead I will now wonder if Israelis are cowards.

I underwent an immense change of thought after 9/11, from a vague conception that Islam was a "great world religion" to an understanding that Muslims are not very nice. While my intent in study had been to understand what had happened to America, it incidentally but powerfully made clear to me what Israel was facing: In short, a religion of hate. I saw the problem as the Quran, not as "fascism", not as a "hijacking of a peaceful religion". This perception is true, and it's way beyond anything I have yet heard stated by any public figure. It has brought to my heart an immense sympathy toward Israel, and an admiration... But are Israelis cowards?

This is not a small consideration. The evidence that they are, the certainty that they are, is just this last and still present war. The only question is this: is the cowardice in the leadership only, and in a supporting faction, or is it in the nation as a whole? If only of the leadership and a faction, they can be beaten at the polls. (And later, as far as I'm concerned, tried under some concept of treason and executed). If on the other hand the entire nation is cowardly the nation will soon cease to exist. It's a rough neighborhood there in the Middle East. That nation unwilling to sacrifice its young men will die as a nation! That's brutal, it's basic. In that part of the world life means death. Continued life necessitates death. It's the young men who will die. If you can't face it get out.

To emphasize my point I'll say this: To every mother that wails her son should not go to war, that there has to be a better way, to that mother I would say "Come to the public square and we will beat you with sticks." Every mother who so wails should be beaten with sticks. --Once she has lost a son however then the matter changes. Then she will grieve --that's a mother's job, to grieve; and the nation will grieve with her and redouble it's resolve.

It's a tough world in that part of the world, and just now, in this new kind of war, Hizbollah is the stronger horse. I'm just very pessimistic that Israel has enough moral force to do any more than just linger.

............
I haven't yet read anything on yesterday's progress in the war. I'm hoping that the military has been a military and has seized ground that it will hold. It's not much, but possession is nine-tenths of negotiation. If Israel is deeply into Lebanon it's a bargaining chip. If Israel can hold ground until after a new election possibly something good can yet happen.

This all sounds good:

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Aug. 12 — Israel poured troops, tanks and commandos into southern Lebanon on Saturday, tripling its forces, pushing deep toward the Litani River....“This operation is aimed at preventing Hezbollah from firing rockets into northern Israel and is not limited in time,” said a government spokesman, Avi Pazner.... Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, the Israeli chief of staff, said he had tripled the number of his troops in Lebanon — that would make 30,000 or more — and expected to fight for several weeks despite the cease-fire call. “We are fighting Hezbollah and we will continue to fight it until a cease-fire is decided,” General Halutz told reporters at an army base in northern Israel....“We will continue to operate until we achieve our aims,” he said, adding, “The fact that a U.N. resolution was accepted yesterday doesn’t apply immediately on the cease-fire arrangement. Once the agreement is completed in all its details, then we will be able to decide.” ....An Israeli ground commander, Brig. Gen. Alon Friedman, told Israeli radio that “this is a phased plan and the first stage allowing us to control the ground could take a few days. Cleaning-up operations will follow, in a stage that could last a few days or a few weeks.”

Brave talk, and exactly the right talk. Despite my pessimism expressed above I have no doubt Israel can win if they decide to fight... But is the talk real, will Olmert screw it up, will the military ignore him if he tries?

Comedy:

Aug 12, 2:30 PM (ET)
By ZEINA KARAM (myway)
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Israel will halt its war in Lebanon at 7 a.m. Monday (midnight EDT Sunday night), a senior Israeli government official said Saturday.

Also...

Defense Minister Amir Peretz rejected criticism against the government, asserting that both he and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had approved every operation that was brought before them.

...another nut.

Who Cares?

Am utterly sick to death of Israel, of waiting, of waiting for Israel to fight. Does Israel have the right to exist? Who says? Not Israel, not from anything I've seen. I doubt any other nation on earth, any other nation in world history, would have suffered the onslaught she has suffered and have done nothing. Does Israel deserve to exist? Boy, that's a tough one.

Actually, I suspect much of Israeli society feels the same disgust at the non-action and unnecessary defeat as I feel. They'll stumble along, wait, have new elections... Oh boy, wow, that's something... But it doesn't matter. This war isn't going to end and it's quickly going to become big. At some point they'll fight or die and I think they'll fight and at some point I think they'll have a warrior for PM. Better happen fast, Tehran isn't going to wait.

Headache:

Woke up this morning with a thorn in my brain, something like a caffeine headache, not really painful but there, an irritant. In this case though an irritant of anger, and not going away. I did only have four-and-a-half hours sleep. I'll drink more coffee...

Which I did, and chatted a little with my Canary. --He's all puffed up now, sitting on the edge of the cage on his "chat-platform" I built for him so that in the morning we can have conversation, nose-to-nose, man-to-bird... So soberly and seriously he sits there now as I write, though he was all atwitter so see me when I first came in.

The first insubordination has been Marjayoun. Supposedly Amir Peretz was all a twitter on the phone yesterday trying to reach that most forward unit of the IDF to call off the offensive, saying "Let's give peace a chance" --or as otherwise expressed-- "We need to give the diplomatic process one last chance".

That of course is insane and Peretz and Olmert are insane and the commander of that forward unit whoever he was knows that and so somehow the message was not received and so now the IDF does have one significant salient and they're not going to leave.

This is the "discreet mutiny" I've been speaking of, the first insubordination. May there be many more.

Note this:

Always a little behind, I now see this at 11:40 AM, Minneapolis time:

IDF ordered to deepen incursion up to Litani

And from a "high ranking defense source: "We gave the diplomatic process a chance, it failed and now we will achieve our goals militarily."

It's said that Peretz and Olmert in the early morning hours of Friday reviewed various drafts of the proposed UN cease-fire and: "once it became clear that there would not be a resolution in the near future, the decision was made for the IDF to launch the operation."

I rather suspect the military had something to do with this "clear-sightedness" on the part of Olmert and Peretz but I don't know. I only know that if Israel doesn't engage in a real war they're in bad shape and anyone with a brain knows that too. I'm not willing to grant brain to Olmert and Peretz; I do suspect brain and "persuasion" on the part of the IDF.

Is this true?

From Breitbart.com

Israeli PM Accepts Cease-Fire Deal
Aug 11 5:11 PM US/Eastern

JERUSALEM

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has accepted an emerging Mideastcease-fire deal and informed the United States of his decision, Israeli officials said Friday.

Is this true? Just this morning he rejected the resolution and gave the go-ahead to the ground invasion. The guy is nuts. I presume somebody so self-evidently nuts will just be ignored.

Speculation:

Went out for my run but was so distracted by depression that I couldn't keep my feet moving and so came home to make this speculation:

There will be an irruption in Israel. It's impossible to understand just now how bad this loss has been, but it will be understood. In the short term, absolutely the only thing that can save Israel's security and the deterrent power of her reputation is if there's a coup, and then a severe military incursion that ignores world opinion. Order --a mental and moral sense of the way things should be-- would then be restored. The coup could be declared a kind of martial law and Olmert and his cabinet could be declared criminal and incompetent. The intent would be to maintain the principle of civilian rule, and that principle might be maintained if it could be shown and accepted that those who ruled were unfit.

This would be a bit dicey for a modern democracy but I can see emotions that would make it possible, and it might be anyway that we're at a point where "Liberal" democracy just can't function...

This continues to strike me as an extreme thought but that's were my thought now points. It could be that democracies can't exist in close quarters with a constant and determined enemy; the voter is just worn down and votes for a fantasy of peace? But my thought is that, at least for a time, this government has got to go and I don't know that just how it goes can much more damage Israel than allowing it to continue.

Every democracy accepts the concept of martial law as appropriate in extremity. This is a time of extremity. The difference now though is that the danger is not the mob in the street but the government itself. Perhaps the military should bombard parliament?

There might be a better way: "military judgment" on the field driven by "exigency". This could at least allow the military to create a very large contestable area in Lebanon; and then as the negotiations and the skirmishes continued things nevertheless would stabilize and the smart of defeat would set in, and then there could be a new election and a new government and the war could start over but with some advantage yet held and with a determination to finish a good work. This could be a situation where discreet mutiny on the field might save democracy in the nation. (9:22 PM)

MahaRushie Muse

One very good point I picked up while listening to Rush today: The reason Russia isn't with us in backing Israel against Hisbollah (though because of Chechnya they clearly recognize Islamic terrorism is a world wide problem) is because they know how to deal with it: they just kill everybody. It's true Chechnya has been a problem for them, but the threat of Muslim extremism isn't nearly so important to them as is the chance they see now to do damage to us; to our support for Israel, to our reputation, to our effort in Iraq (which could collapse if the Shiia start feeling their oats). And any fear they might have of a strengthend Iran? Most probably it's Iran that fears a ruthless Russia.

I see nothing particularly wrong with this sort of thinking. It's brutal, it's self-interested, but it's sane. They see the matter clearly, it's just that their interests are in opposition to ours. That's fine. I don't mind conflict. Conflict happens, that's reality perception. What really bothers me in insanity, to wit, things of this nature: that the left in Israel opposes an enlarged ground offensive into Lebanon because it will cause increased casualties. The world is difficult to take when faced with that kind of thinking.

The French? They've changed their position on the cease-fire and are now calling for a Hisbollah victory, otherwise expressed as a demand for an immediate Israeli pullout. Why? Are they nuts? Do they think that if that happens they'll ever again see in Beirut a "Paris of the West"? They know they'll not, yet against their interest they're pulling for a Hizbollah/Syria/Tehran victory. Odd. Makes one wonder if the French are putting up the same negotiating team day-to-day. Or have they just become afraid of an immediate blowup within their Islamic population (now that the "youths" will be puffed up and ready to throw rocks, seeing that Israel, and the West, can so easily be beaten), and so are diffusing the immediate in the fantasy that this will not structure the future? Could be. No spine. That can explain a lot of poor thought. The future will happen willy-nilly anyway and somebody else can deal with it and take the responsibility. And in the meantime they do have the satisfaction of seeing Israel humiliated and the interests of the US damaged. It is possible this is just a case of immediate gratification, it will be so much fun to see Israel reduced and possibly the US driven out of Iraq in chaos. It's possible.

Actually, if they didn't have a Muslim population this could even be seen as rational. People they don't like would be harmed. However, they do have a Muslim population, and that population, not controlled, in time will cut their throats... Perhaps the French just consider themselves very clever, and presume that some time or other, somewhere down the road, they'll be able to do something slick and come out on top...?

Who knows? Think the long term. In fifty or a hundred years this will all be over. Once the oil runs out their will be no Arab wealth and so no rockets and so no one will remember even that Arabs exist except as they happen to see them as they ride by on camels...and that there ever was an Arab problem will mean as little as that dust sometimes swirls in the desert.

An Incidental note on matters other:

--I wrote the above entry in my journal some hours ago.
--If I were not blogging I would not bother to write down political thought.
--The journal is not for the purpose of recording thought but for improving thought. That the improvement of thought is small is no criticism of the entry, that's simply the nature of mental development, --by bits, sometimes small, sometimes large, but never predictable.
--Having made the effort, I might as well type up the result and put it in the blog. Typing is no effort, it's merely an expenditure of time; and even though the thought is not large, it still could have meaning to the right reader.
--Possibly later I'll have a better thought.

Prediction:
I see this war as becoming a guerilla war, that is, something that takes time. I think thinking will change. This is a new war, new world. Guerillas are hard to defeat, but they can't be allowed to exist as Hizbollah exists. Israel isn't going to withdraw, feeble civilian leadership or not... but this isn't going to be a twenty year occupation. Tehran will see to that. Iraq, which may fall apart, may see to that. But things are going to get big fast and then there will be a sort of resolution.

Discouragement

No post yesterday and only a short one tonight. Possibly tomorrow I will expand a little. I have made entries in my journal... but I think I'm going to have to give up my fantasy and pretense that the Israelis know what they're doing.

At this juncture in this very large war Israel is led by a vilely incompetent man. "Israel has already won the war", so says Olmert, PM. At least this is so stated in an article by Caroline Glick, whom I don't know but who does seem bright. In my opinion the man who can assert victory at this moment of clear defeat should be removed. (This last sentence has been rewritten in what I call a "tone down".)

But I do yet see some hope. Mutiny. Discreet mutiny. It is possible that there are military men who, within the limits of the resources given them, are doing more than I've read. It is possible that more has been gained militarily than I know.

And there is one other hope. Israel does have one leader who is a warrior, George W. Bush. The cease fire agreement he's crafted with the French has been structured such that there can be no ceasefire unless Hizbollah is defeated, since there can be no ceasefire unless Hizbollah withdraws while Israel remains. So there is time, so it could happen. The military can fight on. They need only fight Hizbollah, and discreetly, their own government.

I include several paragraphs from the excellent Caroline Glick article. She's commenting on the ceasefire resolution. Note that compared to her analysis my pessimism is boyant. I at least presume the ceasefire will fail, and I hold out hope that the military will fairly recognize its enemy, and do battle in each case as is appropriate.

Whatever marginal diplomatic gains the Olmert government may try to convince the public the draft resolution contains for Israel, the fact is that regardless of the language eventually adopted, and whatever force of French, Egyptian, Turkish, Italian and German soldiers will or will not be deployed to Lebanon, all any cease-fire resolution will do is ensure that there will be another round of war.
This is the case because none of the moves being considered involve the one action that would prevent the next war. That action is an Israeli victory against Hizbullah in Lebanon, and an Israeli and allied strike against Hizbullah's state sponsors Syria and Iran, which promote Hizbullah's wanton aggression against Israel as a central campaign in their global jihad aimed at annihilating the Jewish state and defeating Western civilization
.
In the hours that followed Hizbullah's massive missile barrage against Israel Sunday, which left 15 dead and more than 150 wounded, many voices expressed the hope and expectation that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the IDF General Staff would finally approve a military campaign aimed at destroying Hizbullah's capacity to attack Israel. It was anticipated that they would finally authorize the IDF's plan to advance ground forces to the Litani River and take the necessary measures in Tyre, Sidon and other cities to wipe out Hizbullah's capacity to launch missiles against Israel.

But Olmert would have none of it. In the aftermath of the carnage in Kfar Giladi and Haifa, he continued to maintain that Israel had already won the war, and that the best way to end the conflict was to accept a Security Council resolution that would enable Hizbullah - the advance guard of the Iranian army of jihad - not only to survive as a fighting force, but to declare victory against Israel.

Nation of Women?

No post three days. Out of town.

When I left Baalbec was in the news though what was happening or had happened was not clear. Turns out it was just a commando raid, not a bridgehead, but a successful raid in that it embarrassed Hizbollah, the proof being how much they had to spin it. First, some helicopter attempted to set down but was driven off, then that the Israelis did land but entered an empty hospital and were surrounded and had to fight for their lives, then that the Israelis did kidnap a few people but they were only civilians and one was a grocer, and then, of course, that all they really did was kill a lot of women and children and other assorted "civilians". In fact the Israelis did kill people, did kidnap, and did leave unscathed, so it was an embarrassment to Hizbollah, but it wasn't a bridgehead. The Israelis still offensively are timid so they are badly losing this war. The Middle East is a war zone, if you can't kill your enemies you lose. Israel had not invaded in force and has not stopped the rockets. Militarily, never mind the propaganda, they have badly lost this war. In this new age of rockets they are defeated and a subject nation.

I presume they lost because of poor leadership and not because of cowardice. I'm not sure though, it is possible that the whole nation is deep in moral rot. They speak of this as an "existential" conflict, a struggle for their very survival, and yet they sit on their backsides and do absolutely utterly nothing. It is possible Israel has become a nation of women. In that case, living as they do in the Middle East, they are dead, the Zionist experiment finished. Failure.

Of course, there is Time. Months go on, and years. Something might change, but to me it looks like it's over.

There is immediate time, there is the "ceasefire" coming up. No one has to pay attention to a ceasefire if they don't want to, there's no way it can be enforced. They could yet show themselves a nation of resolve...

As I've said, I don't think that can happen without mutiny. I don't think that can happen unless the military, discreetly, takes over the government. --I should note I don't think this would necessarily destroy their commitment to democracy and civilian rule. It would simply argue that in this period of exigency the civilian leadership, unfortunately, was "incapacitated" and so, discreetly, it was necessary for the citizenry, through the military, to "work through this difficult time".

I don't know if this is dreaming on my part, or a possibility, I just know that as a warrior nation Israel now is an embarrassment, and I know that where they live, the Middle East, if they're not a warrior nation they don't belong. Their end is indeed "existential", they're dead.


Strategery?

I have no idea what Israel is doing with all that bombing of bridges and roads, this "piece-mealing" of the country, unless they have some strategy... or unless they have no strategy and are merely bombing what they can destroy.

This kind of thing does cut down movement, of both people and materials. People can still move. It's not a very big country, they can walk, but it does make it very hard to move anything by truck. This results in a certain amount of what might be called economic dislocation. It would mean supplies could only be brought in large quantities by sea, and that's something Israel can control, and with the bridges bombed they can to a degree control its distribution. This suggests a strategy for a long war.

And it makes military resupply more difficult. That again suggests long term strategy. Or again, it might be that they're just bombing what's there.

I always presume there are very bright people in Israel's military. I don't know that I can presume that they're the ones in control.

But whatever Israel does the larger strategic consideration is what it is: The Persians against the Arabs, (or, to a lesser degree, the Shiia against the Sunni); and both against the West, especially against Europe, because it's there that the immigrant population troops are already in place. It's Europe that will lose if Hizbollah wins. I find it hard to believe that hasn't yet penetrated. There may be two considerations:
--Habits of thought determine speech. It's automatic for Europe to condemn Israel, so Israel is condemned. It's automatic that Europe seeks appeasement of those who threaten, so they support Islam. And it's automatic, for sixty years, that Europe hasn't defended itself, so it doesn't defend itself now. I have said that since Europe is already a corpse, eventual domination by Islam probably won't hurt much. But there may be breath yet, and so the brain might yet think, not well but at least with some instinct for survival. Which leads to point two:
--France and the US have worked out common language for a ceasefire. Part of the language calls on Hizbollah to unconditionally release the two Israeli soldiers. What chance is there of that happening? This is a formulae for the struggle to continue, and it may be evidence of the European brain yet alive.

And then there's Iraq. If Hizbollah wins the Shiites win Iran wins and what happens to the nascent development of national democratic government in Iraq? Do we have civil war? That would be a mess, a defeat for out attempt to develope a shining city upon a hill in the Mid East. I consider that a grand vision, a quixotic vision, a marvelous courage. It would be lost, and all because Israel has proven itself a weenie nation and/or a nation of weenie leadership.

I am pessimistic. But people got brains. Perhaps as I've suggested all of this ceasefire stuff is just wind and nobody in anyway means it to be taken seriously and Israel will continue the fight until it achieves its "existential" victory.

I want to note a story. Since shortly after this started it's been in the back of my mind. It has to do with Sgt. Alvin York, Medal of Honor winner, First World War. It seems that at one point he was set upon by seven Germans, screaming, bayonets leveled, running right at him. He picked them off, one-by-one, the last man first. If he had started with the man in the lead, the natural target, the others would have dropped to the ground and opened fire and the Sgt. would have been toast. The way it was the first man was the last, thought he didn't know it and thought his companions were just behind. He died only several feet from his goal of slaughtering the Yankee. In my dreams I wonder if this might be happening now. I know Israel has bright people. I wonder if Hizbollah is being slaughtered from behind and they just don't know it yet?

(7:25 PM)

TWO NOTES:

Gaza
Who cares about Gaza? I have a friend who has a fellow who works in his lab who's from Gaza who just went back to Gaza to try to extract his mother and sisters and bride-to-be. He cares about Gaza, and because of him my friend cares about Gaza, but who else cares about Gaza? The Israelis have been shooting up a storm there recently and nobody notices because it's Gaza and nobody cares. Nobody cares about Gaza, or the West Bank for that matter, or the Palestinians; they're just an excuse to dump on Israel. But now there's something bigger, the Hizbollian State of Lebanon of the Empire of Iran. That'll get you to sit up and take notice, and even the dim bulbs among the reflexive anti-Semites know this isn't just a fine kosher kettle of fish, it's possibly Pandora's Box, and so it is receiving immense attention and some thought. And nobody cares about the Gazilians and the cameras are gone, the megaphones of victimology are silent, and the people of Gaza are having a hard time. It's lonely being not noticed, especially when absolutely your only power is to be noticed. --It's probably all for the good, although one would hope that a mother and some sisters and a bride-to-be will somehow come through this unscathed.

Note Two: Laugh On Mars.
I just saw this: No Life On Mars After ALL? It's hard to believe it was ten years ago but I remember it well because it was so offensive. NASA got a rock it said was from Mars. I know there were at least two other major labs that had an interest in that rock and the appropriate expertize to do an analysis. They weren't given samples. Instead NASA did their own, singular, analysis and then anounced their results at a press conference! The headlines bleated: LIFE DISCOVERED ON MARS! The NASA researchers hadn't quite said that but these were the headlines they wanted and these were the headlines they got.

In fact they had observed in the rock certain elements that might have been formed by a living process --and maybe not. The very strongest statement they could have made was that what they saw was consistent with life process. For something so extraordinary as the statement that life had been discovered on Mars a scientist would recognize there was a heavy burden of proof, but these people worked for NASA.

There was a pretty strong reaction. Real scientists immediately wrote articles that within a month debunked three of the four "proofs" NASA had put forward: only the forth proof was not readily explained as something possibly occurring as a natural mechanical process, and now I read that that proof, through a laboratory demonstration, has been debunked as well, if not completely at least solidly, and so we're back to where any honest man would have been ten years ago, saying that NASA indeed had a very old rock that showed characteristics that might have been formed by a life process --or not.

It's interesting that the objections to NASA's conclusions were fueled and supported by motivations that went beyond reverence for the pure ethos of science: Money. NASA wanted a Mars landing. NASA is a sink-hole for funds. Other scientists didn't want to see all that grant money going to Flash Gordon simply because NASA could flim-flam a press conference, and so these scientists objected and were given press by agenda journalists who wanted that money spent to protect the rain forests.

So Life on Mars did not thrive, and probably can't.
(3:40 AM)

Baalbec!

It appears Israel has decided to fight, is fighting. Baalbec is gutsy.

I presume this to be a "no turning back" moment. No weak-kneed leadership will be able to call off the war. This is now to be fought by the generals, the troops and the public. This is the nation, and it will be the sense of the nation that will determine the extent of the conflict. I presume that the troops will be well led, that they will fight with courage, and that the public will groan and suffer and triumph right beside them.

The fighting in Baalbec is an insertion of commandos, an insertion right into the heart of the Hizbollah home. This is going to hurt. I don't yet know the intent, I don't know the force structure, I don't yet trust reports I've heard, but it's gutsy and it's going to mean something.

I note Condi is being strong, GW has never wavered, Israel is speaking of weeks, and nobody is doing much anyway to stop the fight. Things look good for freedom.

So far I've only read about the increased effort, I don't yet know about Israeli success. I expect success will become apparent, then I wonder how opinion will change? The "strong horse" argument is not a small argument; the strong horse in this war is the side that can kill the most warriors.

It's an odd calculus. For Israel, no amount of fire power is positive. It's "disproportionate". For Hizbollah, any projection of power, any destruction, is a triumph. Wow! Look what they can do to the Israelis! This is asymmetric warfare at its most extreme, where the little guy always wins --at least during the course of engagement. There is one area of judgment though where things are always even and it's understood by everybody though it's never discussed and not admitted, and that's in the comparative number of military dead. This is an I-win-you-lose scorecard. This is not a pure symmetry but it's very close.

Hizbollah's moral strength is a peculiar sort of manliness, the Mujahadeen. This is a concept, but it also means an individual. Concepts vary. Israel in mourning the loss of a warrior also mourns the loss of a citizen; Hizbollah celebrates the death of a martyr. But each is an individual. It's one-to-one. What if it's ten to one? If it's ten to one, or twenty or thirty to one, then that's not victory. Even an Arab can understand that. The moral force of the Mujahadeen is lost when they end up dead in greatly disproportionate numbers. It doesn't matter by what manner they are killed, the army that can take out the most fighters is the stronger horse.

This, incidentally, is why Hizbollah lies about its number of dead, and hides many among the supposedly civilian casualties. It's not simply to inflate the appearance of Israeli brutality, it's to diminish the sense Israeli power. There are no strictly military objectives in this conflict. This is a conflict to establish will, a moral force, and the calculus by which this is judged is deep and instinctive and understood by all; that army which can kill the most of the other, especially if it is truly disproportionate, is the more powerful force, and whether it is judged good or bad, it is the more powerful moral force. It's that force that will change opinion.

Something of a corollary in this odd calculus has to do with where the battle is waged. If Hizbollah can fight near the border, that in itself is considered a kind of victory because it's assumed by everybody that this is an area controlled defacto by Israel. But what if Israel can fight effectively in Baalbec? This is the heart and the home of Hizbollah. An Israeli soldier has set foot within the hearth. What if he does damage, and then leaves. How secure then does that home remain, and what does that say about the Mujahadeen?