So, now (likely because Mr. Otis has few original, sensible thoughts about Gaza) we hear that Bill Otis is parroting an anonymous “friend”.
Sadly, despite Bill having once been a lawyer, he here offers the worst sort of illogic imaginable: the kind that looks to make excuses for… killing babies.
The particular illogic offered by Bill is what is known as a classic “false premise”.
That false premise is that Israel MUST prosecute a vast, bloody war in Gaza, one that regards all Palestinians as fair game for extermination.
He suggests (as John did, stupidly, last night) that WW II’s object lesson commands us — in 2023 to commit atrocities… to do the wrong thing, and claim the ends will / do justify the atrocious means.
They never will.
So what Bill suggests… Is. A. False. Dilemma.
And even if we decide to look the other way as IDF forces shoot up hospitals in Gaza (as I argued last night), all we do is add to the ranks of new Hamas sympathizers.
I am no Hamas sympathizer. But “adult thinking”, Bill… involves making principled decisions in situations where no one is 100% (nor even 70%) in the right. In complex 2,300 year old neighbor to neighbor battles of attrition.
So spare me the BS. Winning “hearts and minds” — that was our downfall in Vietnam. And we lost the moral high ground by going into Laos and Cambodia after saying we would not.
Israel tonight is likely… losing the moral high ground.
The only outcome Bill’s childish eye for eye thinking yields… to a certainty, is a region populated entirely by… blinded men.
That’s how this ends.
Damn. So short-sighted.
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