QOTD: Jonathan Keiler

Interesting article by Jonathan Keiler, The End of Proportionality.

Accusations of "disproportion," ..., will almost certainly be applied to American forces when domestic and international opposition to US actions can find no other complaint. Yet it is apparent that proportionality is not a useful yardstick for determining appropriate levels of force. The principle of proportionality is so vague and difficult to apply with any consistency, and so widely misunderstood, that the US military should discard it. Instead, American authorities should simply take the position that US doctrine proscribes use of force that is indiscriminate, wasteful, excessive, or not necessary to achieving military objectives. America's armed forces should openly acknowledge that they do not abide by the principle of proportionality because it is so problematic.

Taking that position would not be a violation of existing law, as neither the Hague Conventions nor the 1949 Geneva Conventions specifically refer to "proportionality." The United States is not a signatory to the 1977 Geneva Protocols, which do use the term (at least in the commentary). With respect to customary international law or traditional just war theory, simply declining to define American military action as "proportionate" would not violate the spirit of law or theory. Because the prescriptions of each are not specific in a statutory sense, the recommended doctrinal stance should suffice. Proportionality as a law of war concept for good reason has had limited applicability and usefulness during the last century. It deserves to be disposed of entirely.

Link Between Baseball and Political Philosophy?

An article in the WSJ on the voluminous statistical research done on baseball contained this interesting tidbit.

In the May 2007 Quarterly Journal of Political Science, Christopher Zorn, a Penn State professor, and Jeff Gill, of Washington University, demonstrated that Democrats tend to support the designated-hitter rule more than Republicans or independents do. Using data from a 1997 CBS News poll, they suggested that the DH, introduced in the American League in 1973, not only represented radical change from tradition, but also struck some conservatives as anticompetitive. "Liberals all like the designated hitter," Prof. Zorn contends, "because it's sort of a welfare program. It lets hitters hit longer into their careers and takes responsibility away from the pitchers."

How to Advance the Peace Process

Khaled Abu Toameh, Muslim Arab reporter, in the National Post.

Great fortunes stolen by Fatah officials are only occasionally reported in the West. When Abu Toameh first suggested foreign journalists tell this story, he was asked by some of them if he was paid by the Jewish lobby. Other reporters explained that information on Palestinian corruption simply didn't fit into the stories their editors wanted, about Palestinians oppressed by Israelis.

Most of the world believes, often with passionate intensity, that Jewish settlements on land claimed by Arabs limits the chances for peace. Abu Toameh disagrees. "I wish the settlements were the problem," he says, because it can be solved by the Israelis. If settlements were the problem, he argues, then Gaza would now be at peace. After all, the Israelis pulled out in 2005. But the result has been war -- war among the Palestinians, war with Israel. "The real obstacle to peace is not a Jew building a settlement but the failure of the Palestinians to have a government. Is there a partner on the Palestinian side for peace talks? No."

What is to be done? He thinks Israel should simply wait until the Palestinians stop killing each other and create a credible political entity that can make a deal. Peace will then become possible.