=jplt7 COLLECTED LETTERS-THE-EDITOR (mostly of the JP), VOLUME VII N.B.: =jplt6 is still a WIP; it's downloads from JP Lets I sent directly from My Yahoo E-mail. JP Lets sent directly from the JP Website are not retrievable by me. =============================================================== Ref: HaAretz Magazine article on Mordechai Gafni, 6 March '04 Mordechai Gafni hath a field of strawmen raised and chopped down. For starters (Christian-triumphalist--influenced 'feminist theology' notwithstanding): Judaism does not presuppose a masculine supreme Deity (that's Zeus); Biblical Judaism merely uses the a default-masculine pronoun in the gender-neutral sense standard in English (including USA prayerbooks) until the late 20th-century. Also: A rabbi does not claim he/(she) "possesses the absolute truth"; but, like a doctor or judge, does claim competence in the methodologic application of the data-base of his/her profession; and acknowleges the need to make decisions, however fallible. (As Wittgenstein said, albeit in a criteria- logic context: "My reasons will come to an end. And then I will act, without reasons.") ================================================================ [response to a cartoon in the IHT ] Only someone who has taken a very fast tour of Isreal could have made an editorial cartoon, as Cahppette did (IHT 11 Feb '04) that gets so many things wrong. ================================================================= [sent JP, copied to =jplt6] The Palestinians have the right to live as they like and to do what they please. What they like is to live in a land without Jews, to earn a living as professional terrorists, part-time extortionists, and occasional automotive recyclists (for the freedom of which occupation the right to unrestricted travel is prerequisite). =============================================================== send, JP Mel Gibson is a crypto--neo-Nazi posing as a Christian, and should be dealt with as such. ================================================================ not yet sent: A BRIEF RESPONSE TO SARAH HONIG'S CRITIQUE [ JP 13 Mar '04] OF SHARON'S PROPOSED UNILATERAL GAZA DISENGAGEMENT POLICY: Sharon? Yamit. =============================================================== not yet sent: Bet the PLO's PO'd when it turns out Sharon's Quit Gaza plan was just 2-faced political/diplomatic BS. ['2 faced': after a remark by Ephraim Sneh, Israel Radio English News 15 Mar '04] =============================================================== [copied to =jplt6] Has Sharon as Premier done anything that was not aimed primarily at prolonging his tenure? =============================================================== ================================================================ Not yet sent: ON YOSSI BEILIN WINNING (53%--47%, AGAINST RAN COHEN) THE CHAIRMANSHIP OF THE YAHAD (Ex MeReTz Ex Ratz)PARTY: --------------- THE DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION: From Shulamit Aloni via Yossi Sarid to Beilin. Rename it Cappuncino. A difficult day for Socialist Realism. ---------------------------------------------------- Not yet sent: It is shocking to read that for 18 years Vanunu has been denied the right to speak with other inmates. He presumably could not from jail have inflicted significant damage even to Israel's image, let alone its diplomatic position, much less its security. This is cruel and unusual punishment, enough to drive a man mad. It is good to read that Vanunu survived it, albeit as a declared enemy of Israel. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Sent, and I think input elsewhere: The demonizagtion of Yigal Amir is quite inappropriate. Worse men have done worse things. --------------------------------------------------------------- Maybe sent; I think input elsewhere: [don't offhand recall date; early March ('04) maybe ] That miserable blind old remanant who beguiled a 22-year-old mother with promises of paradise if she would but dismember herself and as many other young people (mostly Jewish) as possible, cannot claim to represenet Islam, which always invokes Supreme being as, primarily, "the most Merciful, the most Compassionate". -------------------------------------------------------------- Sent, I think; and I think input elsewhere: Re: JP Editorial, 16 Jan '04: A JP Editorial (16 Jan '04) declaims: "the era is past when we could ... argue that Palestinians would rather live under benign Israeli occupation than Arab despotism." That 'era' was the Age of Reason, I presume, in contrast to this neo-Feudal era. No doubt an honest plebescite, per impossible, would confirm that most 'Palestinians', in contrast to most 'Israeli Arabs', like serving their corrupt warlords. But that ain't intuitively obvious. As for disengagement as an option: I once asked Calvin Rollins to explain later Wittgenstein. He replied: Every try to divide an egg? [N.B.: I think it was just the previous 2-sentence paragraph that I sent to the JP. The Letters Editor wrote in response: Who is CD Rollins. I explained that at Oberlin, before he flew the Coop to New Zeland, he held a 'tool-kit' view of PI from a Ryle-- Malcolm perspective [in contrast to Cavell's wholistic Kantian perspective, focussed on criteriology ]. The Letters Editor replied that she meant only to point out that 'CD Rollins is not quite a household word.' I meant to write in reply that as a matter of fact it is the name of a widely displayed scouring powder in southern or posssiblly Northern New Zeland. ] ---------------------------------------------------------------- [Not sent] Like Golda Meir once said, the real problem with the Gibson flic flap's that it's apt to turn us off to Christianity. [Golda Meir once said: I do not hate the Arabs for killing our sons; I hate them for making our sons kill them. ] ----------------------------------------------------------------- [Not sent] GOT SOME GOOD ART BUT -- This 'Jesus of Natzereth' or 'Jesus the Nazir', whoever he was, if he ever lived on this land, if he said like most of the talk they lay on him, he sounds OK. (And anyhow Pound said so.) And everybody likes a hit of 'causeless love' now and again. But this notion of a 'Christ' who presents a 'New Testament' is so far out it looks like an inside-out (topologic) isomorphism. And whoever concluded that 'Jesus' & 'Christ' are like conceptually inextricable, was "trying to pull a fast one". And furthermore: What becoming a 'Christ' has to do with dying in an exceptional way with a bit of class, I can't imagine; dying is just a dull physical necessity best overlooked, like defecating. ------------------------------------------------------------------ [not sent ] Meir Kahane, like that self-styled grotesque Tommy Lapid, was a crypto--neo-Nazi; someone so traumatized by that era that he internalized its values. Kahane reflected and projected that internalized hatred onto Arabs; Lapid, onto 'religious' Jews. Both had/have good in them (even Elisha ben Abuya is quoted in Pirke haAvot.) But neither merits his brief place on the political stage. ----------------------------------------------------------------- [ drafted 21 March; sent ] Subject: Sharon & King Shaul Israel has had brilliant and brave military leaders. Sharon is amongst the latter. [Ref: "Is Shaul amongst the Prophets?" (Book of Samuel ___ ) ---------------------------------------------------------------- Gibson Flic 040322 Christianity is a beautiful religion which has inspired much good in the world. But it tends to host a parasitic psychopathologic perversion (a heresy, were it formalized); and that, I guess, is where Mel Gibson's at. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Sent JP 22 Mar '04 (evening) Subject: 'Less than brave' Sharon should resign; his decision to assassinate Sheik Yassin -- a parapalegic militant spiritual leader returning from pre-dawn prayers -- was incredibly stupid. ---------------------------------------------------------------- ================================================================ Draft ESSAY, not yet re-read, nor editted, nor integrated with previous draft: CONTINUTION OF DRAFT ESSAY: (Earlier draft in =jplt5.txt) GET =tortur2.txt Notes on applicability of Utilitarian Ethical Calculus as model , to question of morality of torture and of terrrorism. DRAFT ESSAY (CONTINUATION OF PREVIOUS DRAFT ESSAY IN =jplt5 ) Torture and terroristm are both justifiable [ with specified instantiation ] by utilitarian ethics; which shows, not that they are justified, but merely the limitation, boundaries, of the utilitarian model of ethics. Writing on the problematicity torture and terrorism for utilitarian ethics, I suggested that one must add the parameter of 'decency'. That is, in a given hypothetic case (that is, a model instance) torture or terrorism may be justified by utilitarian calculus, yet still ought not be done, because to do it is a violation of 'decency'. Debasing and inflicting pain and lasting injury on a captive, or intentionally harming non-combatants, especially those who by youth, age, or sexual (eg, preganant women) are considered outside the acceptable range of combant, is a violation of human decency. Now what of collateral civilian killings in a 'targeted assassination'. 'Collateral damage' -- that is, the killing of non-combatant civilians -- is generally considered an inevitable aspect of warfare. However, it is generally presented as unintentional. WWII saw much intentional killing of non-combatant civilians. The Nazi genocide is a violation of a greater magnitude, as it was directed against a class (and to a lesser extent, classes) of persons who were not in an enemy nation, and could not have been said to pose a military threat to the nation in which they lived. The German blitz bombing of London was simple terrorism, intended as such. The English fire-bombing of Dresden seems to have been deliberate attack on a civilian center with no clear strategic, let alone military, justification. The USA's atomic bombing of Hiroshima was predominantly an attack on civilians, with almost no military justification, but overwhelming stragegic justification. The follow-up attack on Nagasaki, with even less military justificaiton, may have been decisive strategically -- thus preventing a ground invasion of Japan, with substantial and maybe even greater casualities, at least to USA troops -- or it may have been superfluous, if Japan had already decided to surrender, or if the surrender decision could have been produced by exploding the second bomb over an unpopulated area. Of course the USA had only two A-bombs at that time; so a large measure of bluff was involved. Truman -- although he seems to have merely signed on to the decision -- was a poker player, and poker is largely a game of bluff. Now then: targeted assassinations would seem to be a very clear instance of an act -- illegal, however; that is, as Amnesty Internatinoal terms it (originally in regard to the 'death squads' of USA-sponsored Central American military governments -- , 'extra-judicial execution' -- that is justifiable by utilitarian calculus. Unintended collateral civilian casulaties are justifiable insofar as they may fairly be termed unintentional. Now what of a targeted killing with anticipated civilian casualities. I want to say: here, an issue of 'gallantry' comes into play. An act that intentionally causes undesired civilian casulalties is ethically problematic; the more so if those casualities exceed the anticipated probable civilian casualties to one's own side that would be caused by inaction. And here one must note the limitation for ethical theory of a model that is confined to a closed system. That is, in realworld, in the ethical/tactical evaluation of a proposed action, one must take note of possible (if impractical) alternative actions; and of the subsequent effects, in all dimensions, of any action -- and inaction -- that is taken. For instance, a militarily and ethically justifiable act may enrage the occupied population and contribute to the causation of subsequent acts that harm one's own side. Incidentallly, a planner must see things and make choices from the standpoint of his own side; not from an absolute ethical standpoint. That introduces an 'existential' dimension to the evaluation of an act. Eg: if the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings prevented a land invasion of Japan; but if the deaths (to take the simplest case, although injuries must also be factored in) from the atomic bombing would have exceeded the deaths of USA soldiers in a land invasion, a USA military planner may still be justified in approving the bombing, since a planner is existemtially obligated to defend his own side. Indidentally, Curtis LeMay is said to have remarked to Robert NcNamara, then his subordinate, that if the USA had lost the war, they would be -- he seemed to imply, properly; but I may have misread the sub-text of the report on this point -- tried as war criminals. A terrorist is in an apartment building with 10 civilians. You can kill all or none of them. He is planning an attack that will kill 100 civilians. What is justified. If the model is this simple, obliterating the building is justified. In realworld, it is not that simple. One asks first, is it likely that by waiting you be able to eliminate the terrorist with fewer collateral casualties. And also: is it likely that by waiting you will fail to eliminate the terrorist. And then: If you fail to do so, are there other ways to prevent the terrorist attack, with fewer casualties. And then: what is the likelihood that you will succeed in preventing the attack by one of those otehr ways. Then too: if you bomb the building, what is the damage to your side, not in the physical dimension, but in the dimensions of media-relations, impact on the diplomatic, political, and economic policies of others nations who involve themselves in your nation's problems. Well, this has taken me from ethics into the field of conceptual analysis of military planning, where I really don't belong had no wish to go to. This has been a gloss on HaAretz (English) 16 Mar '04: 'Targeted killins can save lives' by Tuvia Blumenthal. Tuvia Blumenthal is a Professor of Economics at Ben Gurion University (Beersheva). He is commenting on criticism of an essay by Asa Kasher, who is "a professor engaged in the field of Ethics." His work was previously reported in HaAretz English. He is attempting to draw up an ethical code for soldiers (and more generally, anti-terrorist workers). In Blumenthals' summary of Kasher's position: (1) The ethical evaluation of doing a possible action must include an evaluation of the likely consequences of not-doing that action. (2) The causal agents of the action one intends to interdict must be extended to include all those in the causal -- 'chain', or better, 'nexus' -- which would include those who both directly lend support to that action. I would add: the ethical evaluation also include evaluation of both the ethics and the likelihood of success of alternatives to the action under consideration. Eg, the optimal solution may well be to subsidize basket- weaving instructors to re-channel the energies of those who intend nihilistic terrorist gestures, while outbidding the foreign secret services for the services of those potential suicide bombers or basket-weavers. But if one opts for this action, is there a diminished liklihood that the Tel Aviv Towers will remain in place? I would also add: the effects of a possible action (and of its alternative non-action, and of its alternative other-actions) must be estimated over all identifiable dimensions, not merely the physical dimension (loss of life &/or limb). Those dimensions include: media-relations, especially as it impacts foreign decision-makers ( it was a photo of an injured child -- I want to say, napalmed, but I think that was from the USA's attacks on South Vietnam civillians -- really, strategic terrorism -- that moved then-President Ronald Reagan to very significant anti-Israel actions. That photo, incidentally, was later shown to have been fabricated.). I also want to say: there is a parameter of 'fairness' that comes into play. In the most simplistic analysis: If Side A kills 10 members of Side B , and loses 0 members of Side A; surely relative moral 'rightness' is conferred on Side B. And indeed Palestinian PR, largely endorsed by world media, at least implicitly, seems to be on this simplistic level. The media are continually reporting the comparative numbers killed, as if this were a sort of football game [as it must seem to those for whom it is but one more item of virtual reality in the daily news reports. And within virtual reality, the modality of reporting becomes significant. If a player on Side B dies in visible gore and grief if not agony, and a player on Side A dies merely as an incremented digit, surely the entity on Side B has the greater suffering, and hence the greater claim to redress. And that would be true enough for a video game, though not for realworld. Again, it's Plato's Myths of the Cave-dwellers: or even Wittgenstein's remark to Malcolm, when Malcolm spoke of 'the English character' (remarking, 'oh, the English character would not allow that', as I recall from Malcolm's 'Wittgenstein: A Memoir') that Malcolm had not understood his teaching in the least ("Haven't I taught you anything?"). That is: we live, far more than we acknowlege, not in realworld but in a virtual reality. As Heraklitus said: 'Though the logos is common to all, each acts as if he had a private understanding.' I want to say: "We hold these truths to be self evident: That all men are created equal..." (Jefferson, and/or maybe Madison, USA Declaration of Independence). I want to add: They're created equal, but they don't stay that way. [ Which puts me in company with Ayn Rand, no doubt in one of the very best circles of Dante's Purgatio. ] I also want to say: "They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." None of which are faciliated by being the object of a targeted assassination. I want to say: The 10 Commandents are quite right, and at least some of those 10 are on a higher level than the other mitzvot. Notably: 'Thou shalt not kill.' I want to see: Pacifism is quite right (and vegetarianism too, I suppose:) This is an absolute commandment. Any exception is an avera. But then I want to say: This takes us by analogy into trans- infinite mathematics. All lives are of infinte value; but some infinities are greater than other infinities. So OK: The score in an incursion is 0 to 10. So the moral winner is Side B. But that's assuming a 0 time-frame. Let's expand the time-frame. Those 10 who were killed would each have killed 100, plus themselves. So now Side A is the moral winner. Let's say the score is 1 to 10. And that the 1 on Side A would have become a doctor, and saved 1000 lives. Now let's try another probability: the 10 on Side B each intended to kill 100, but each would have failed; and then gone on to spend the rest of their lives raising chickens. Now let us say: those 10 lives could have been saved, with no further loss to humanity [ though with little subseuqent gain ] had they just killed 1 on Side A, the commander or sharpshooter, who would otherwise have gone on to become a hardware salesman. Here I want to say: the parameter of 'fairness' comes into play. Someone who intends to kill harmless persons has less 'right to live' than someone who intends to save lives. [ Rabelais, or maybe someone anonymous, was sentenced to death in Medieval France on the grounds that he was not 'worthy to live'. To this notion of 'right to live' is wildly problematic; quite the 'slippery slope' so feared by Supreme Court Justices. ] This has taken me into game theory, I suppose; and then through it and outside it again. I'm not sure where an analysis goes from here. Not to a definitive conclusion from which one can deduce moral absolution. And it's no solution to invoke Sartre's notion of 'sales mains'; that's merely a confession of our indeterminacy -- that one must act, in realtime, in reallworld, in 'fear and trembling' (Kierkegaard, on Abraham's position in the Akedah -- I don't think he even consider's Yitzhak's, much less Sarah's -- but Kierkegaard always was a self-indulgent ditherer. Oy, goyim.) that, however good one's intentions, the choice which one has made may turn out to have been the wrong one, even though no-one may ever know. ================================================================ ------------------------------------------------------------------