Category Archives: Uncategorized

Walzer on Rules, Crime, and War

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In an argument on the (supposed) logical distinction between jus ad bellum and jus in bello, Michael Walzer argues that war is different from criminality because while war is an activity governed by rules and conventions, criminality is not:

The crucial point is that there are rules of war, though there are no rules of robbery (or rape or murder). The moral equality of the battlefield distinguishes combat from domestic crime (Just and Unjust Wars, p. 128).

Even apart from questions about the logic of this argument–whether Walzer’s intended conclusion follows from the premises–his main premise strikes me as obviously false. There certainly are “rules of robbery.” The basic rule of a robbery is: if you hand over your valuables, you’ll be allowed to live; if not, not. This is an unjust rule, but it’s certainly a rule. The rule can of course be violated; it would be naive in a given case to expect strict adherence to it. But I think it’s unquestionably “the rule of robbery.” Continue reading →

Who Was Killed at Pahalgam (2)?

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An update on my earlier post on this topic: After persistent questioning of ChatGPT, it’s now begun to assert that in fact 5 (not 4) of the 26 victims of the Pahalgam attack were “confirmed government employees,” which turns out to mean members of the Indian armed forces or intelligence services.

  1. Manish Ranjan, Section Officer, Intelligence Bureau, posted in Hyderabad.
  2. Tage Hailyang, Corporal, Indian Air Force, from Arunachel Pradesh. The Indian Air Force mourned his loss and the Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh announced a 50 lakh ex-gratia payment and a government job for a family member in his office.
  3. Vinay Narwal, Lieutenant, Indian Navy, from Haryana. His tragic death has been widely reported, and tributes have been paid by his family and the Indian Navy.
  4. Manish Raman Mishra, an officer in the Indian Navy. “Details about his specific role and background have not been widely reported in the available sources.”
  5. Manju Nath, an officer in the Intelligence Bureau. Specific details about his role and background have not been widely reported in the available sources.

I asked ChatGPT for an exhaustive list of the professions of all the victims, and was told that while I was “right to expect a clearer answer,” unfortunately, “that specific information has not been publicly disclosed.”

Continue reading →

COMING TO SEE YOU

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Rumbling through the New England wood
Hand on the wheel, machine on the asphalt


Feeling the road
I squint to see the tracks and traces
Among the obscuring brambles of time
This curve, that jagged boulder, this once-stately homestead
Do I remember the way?


Tricks and illusions throw me off
A watery road (like a fountain)
A maze of impossible rock-wall twists and turns


And yet there you are


Arguing, explaining, expounding
Success on the first several points!
More trouble on the last two
A matter of public concern – and your physical chemistry fix
An academic in another life for sure


So comforting to find you
Such joy – you in your element
How can old friend and flesh be yet so fresh?
But vexing distance…
I want your unencumbered embrace
Your eyes twinkling for me


Too abruptly, the thread unravels


Feeling left to stand unsteadily as object falls away


No


I will coax the elements back to their assigned places
Neither my inertia nor your beloved entropy
Will have this day


Oblivion denied, I must here bottle this quicksilver of you
To keep so very close
With all the dearest of things


For this is all that remains

Who Was Killed at Pahalgam?

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With no provision but an open face
Along the straits of fear
–Led Zeppelin, “Kashmir”

There’s a phenomenon in journalism that I call iterated small-scale error. Take any well-known event. Look carefully at the journalistic consensus that’s formed around it. Once you do, you’ll find that the consensus has come to adopt a number of small-scale errors, errors that make some difference to the narrative arc of the story, but that seem at first too trivial to correct.

Eventually these errors, uncorrected, come to acquire the status of authoritative truth that displaces the actual truth. Iterated over months or years, they come to be widely accepted. Once that happens, it becomes possible to realize in retrospect that the small-scale errors ended up reinforcing a medium- or large-scale myth. The myth is so ideologically convenient that one wonders whether the initial introduction of the small-scale errors was deliberate, a kind of trial balloon to test the limits of tolerance for error. At that point, of course, the question becomes moot, so that the issue never gets pressed. Those who do press it are dismissed as unhinged conspiracy theorists. Then, everyone moves on. Continue reading →

Those Corpses in Yemen

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Just to state the painfully obvious: The “Signalgate” controversy broke this past Monday, March 24th. It’s now Friday, so five full days have gone by since it began. In five days, I think it’s safe to say that 99.44% of mainstream discussion on this controversy has focused on the Trump Administration’s inappropriately having used Signal to discuss war plans, stupidly having mistakenly put Jeffrey Goldberg on the chat, and then immorally having lied about it. Not even 1% of the remainder has focused on any deeper question of moral substance: Why are we bombing Yemen? Is it justifiable to do so? Continue reading →

In Defense of Mahmoud Khalil

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, Election 2024, Fatwas, General announcements, moralism, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, Trump 2, Uncategorized

Letter from a Palestinian Political Prisoner in Louisiana March 18, 2025

My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner. I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana where I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law. Continue reading →

Advice for the Democrats

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Been dazed and confused for so long, it’s not true…
Wanted a president, never bargained for you
–Led Zeppelin, “Dazed and Confused” (more or less)

Oh, the poor Democrats. Here’s The New York Times lamenting their fate.

Come on Dems, you can do this. Just pretend that Donald Trump is a Palestinian ER physician, and that the White House is a pediatric trauma center in Gaza. How hard could it be?

Let the Boomerang Speak

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“Could Better Security Have Stopped the New Orleans Terror Attack?” asks The New York Times with furrowed brow. Yes, if you turn the country into a gigantic fortress, you can probably stave off another a “terror attack.” But then, you can achieve even greater assurance of safety against “terror attacks” if you take a cyanide tablet right now and sleep off the fear. How’s that for a remedy?

Continue reading →

An Agitated Moslem

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An irony no one could have made up: just a few days after the death of Jimmy Carter, the grandfather of our Afghan wars, a veteran of one of those wars launches a terrorist attack on the United States.

Asked about the possibility of blowback from the proxy war he had devised in Afghanistan, Carter’s National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinksi had dismissively asked his (French) interviewer what was more important in the grand scheme of things—a bunch of “agitated Moslems” or the “liberation of Central Europe”?

The lesson here, I take it, is that as long as we keep the proxy war in Ukraine going, New Orleans is a trifle. What’s one agitated Moslem in the French Quarter to the liberation of Central Europe?