Checking In

Back in March, Dan at With Christ wrote, "It's hard to know what to write about. Too many choices! The world, while never 'stable,' seems to have come really unhinged." Four months later, these words couldn't be truer.

"Rumors of wars" reached a fevered pitch this past week as the Israel Defense Force (IDF) struck back at the terrorist group Hezbollah. By killing eight Israeli soldiers and kidnapping two on July 12, Hezbollah and Iran appear to have rolled the dice and gotten the predictable responses they were hoping for: an all-out Israeli retaliation followed by a supportive American (and British) response and then European/Russian handwringing. Their objective? Accelerate increasingly negative world opinion against Israel and prick U.S. resolve concerning Israel and the Middle East. Hezbollah and Iran stand to lose a few thousand outmoded rockets and maybe a few square miles of strategic real estate while gaining serious leverage in the (appeasement-minded) court of world opinion. Western media reinforces the Islamist meme by referring to Hezbollah terrorists as "militants," "guerrillas," or "Lebanese resistance."

For the mainstream media, the "story within the story" is the United States' supposedly delayed response to American evacuees in Beirut. Facile comparisons to last year's Hurricane Katrina disaster ignore the logistics, threat level, and simple insurance nightmare (these days) of extracting thousands of civilians from a war zone. Reporters filed stories on complaining Americans — largely ignoring the grateful ones — which, depending on your political point of view, reinforced the prevailing attitude that a) the current U.S. administration is callous/inept, or b) Americans today are just really spoiled.