Thomas Friedman ♥ mass murder

Thomas Friedman, NY Times columnist, thinks mass murder is the way to educate those raucous, roguish Arabs:

Israel’s counterstrategy was to use its Air Force to pummel Hezbollah and, while not directly targeting the Lebanese civilians with whom Hezbollah was intertwined, to inflict substantial property damage and collateral casualties on Lebanon at large. It was not pretty, but it was logical. Israel basically said that when dealing with a nonstate actor, Hezbollah, nested among civilians, the only long-term source of deterrence was to exact enough pain on the civilians — the families and employers of the militants — to restrain Hezbollah in the future.

Israel’s military was not focused on the morning after the war in Lebanon — when Hezbollah declared victory and the Israeli press declared defeat. It was focused on the morning after the morning after, when all the real business happens in the Middle East. That’s when Lebanese civilians, in anguish, said to Hezbollah: “What were you thinking? Look what destruction you have visited on your own community! For what? For whom?”

Yeah, okay. Two things, Tom, foreign policy columnist to the stars:

1. This doesn't work. Never has. For one thing, it just isn't true that Hezbollah was weakened by the war. It was strengthened. Because, absurdly enough, yes: oppression and mass murder has a tendency to make people angrier and more violent. Arabs are strange that way.

2. This is kind of illegal. We call it "mass murder" where I come from. I believe they call it "war crimes" elsewhere. Also: "crimes against humanity".