The world press is filled with predictable calls for an immediate cease fire in Lebanon, mixed with concerns the Israeli response is somehow disproportionate to the provocation. Maybe this is a good time to reflect not on proportion but perspective. From National Review Online:
Andy McCarthy: The root cause of Islamic terrorism is an interpretation of Islamic doctrine. There are many verses of the Koran and the Hadiths that tend support this interpretation. It has not been created out of whole cloth, and if Thomas Jefferson himself resurrected tomorrow, he could not make these scriptures disappear. … The terrorists don't want to kill us because they have been deprived of freedom. They want to kill us because they believe their religion tells them that is what they are required to do.The problem in the entire Middle East is a sect of religious faith believing Allah desires and rewards killing. The problem in the entire Middle East is an Islam of apocalypse. Clinton Administration Secretary of State Madeline Albright again demonstrates she can focus on proportion while ignoring perspective. In her analysis the US should be more involved in Lebanon and not involved at all in Iraq.
Albright Blasts Bush: "I'm very worried that we're at a crossroads and we're not going to take the right turn here," "I still do think that we actually need to be more involved."… "I think that it's very hard to say that [the Iraq war] has not made it worse. … It is absolutely clear that it has made it worse."Current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tries once more to explain to those lacking perspective, that goal is to make the Middle East a place with sustainable peace and that means continuing, in the face of determined murderous resistance, to remove the killers for Allah.
Rice Defends Israel: "We support, at this point, an effort to make certain that when there is a cease-fire that it is one that is sustainable." … "Iran is providing technology. Syria is harboring Hezbollah. So yes, what you have here [is] that extremist forces — Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iran and the Syrians — recognize that they are facing a different kind of Middle East, the emergence of a different kind of Middle East in which moderate forces will dominate, and they want to stop it. We have to be equally determined that they can't stop it."To cure disease it is necessary to follow the complete course of therapy, even when the acute symptoms subside and even when what is effective is painful. Treatment needs to be proportionate to the probable end point of the affliction rather than the initial magnitude of the symptoms. This knowledge comes not from ivory tower a priori reasoning, but rather from consistent empirical observation that infections will flare up if the course of therapy is cut short. It is the understanding that the source of malignancy is in irreparably altered individual cells, and that fatal risk exists as long as those individuals exist at liberty.
