Where Everybody's Crazy

There used to be a lovely TV series called Yes, Prime Minister which satirised the British political system, with not a little truth. One episode discussed the use of the nuclear deterrant, and explained the use of "salami tactics" in modern warfare. The idea is, you only press the nuclear trigger if you have no choice - but salami tactics mean you don't have a situation where you clearly have no choice. The enemy takes a small slice at a time of apparently reasonable measures until the whole salami is gone.

Basically, invasions are done a bit more subtly these days. The original example looked like this:

• Riots in West Berlin.
• East German fire brigade comes in to help.
• Fire brigade brings police with them.
• East German troops come in with the police, for riot control.
• Russian troops replace East German troops in troop rotation.
• Russian troops "invited" to "help" civil administration.
• Russian army exercises take them across West German border.

What began as a riot control exercise has ended up with a foreign army deep inside a sovereign state, but it's all come about through completely understandable stages, so of course nobody reacts to stop the invasion until it's already happened.

Here's another scenario.

• Israel launches air strikes on terrorist outposts in Lebanon.
• Israel needs to "cut communication lines" between terrorists, and pounds Lebanese infrastructure.
• Israel declares need for ground offensive in South Lebanon to purse terrorists. (I think this is about where we're up to now.)
• Israel claims intelligence of a terrorist retreat North into Lebanon.
• Israeli army sends detachments North to pursue terrorists.
• Israeli tanks move North to "seal off" already "cleared" area and prevent Hezbollah return South.

What began as a terrorist containment exercise has ended up with a foreign army deep inside a sovereign state. Of course, nobody reacts to stop the invasion until it's already happened.

Just two quotes.

While condemning the publishing of the caricatures, Al-Hawzah reported that the followers of the Al-Sadr Movement "strongly condemned" the attacks which "targeted churches in Baghdad and Kirkuk" adding that "the Christians are our brothers and partners in this country. They coexist with us and any attack on them is seen as an attack on us".

Saad Hariri, the leading Sunni politician, condemned the attacks from Paris, saying that an attack on churches is an attack on Muslims.

What is the role of the church in all this?

"I take a moral stance; you are an intolerant bigot; he is being prosecuted under section 5 of the Public Order Act."

This story confuses me. There's obviously something more to it than meets the eye, and I don't know what - on further digging I find that despite the UCCF saying:

We would not dream of telling a Muslim group or a political society how to elect their leaders or who could or could not become a member

it's only one of the two Christian groups on campus that was affected, and one other Christian group and other religious groups - indeed, the Islamic group, who will presumably have had the same religious objections - have complied with the new regulations. So it's not as simple as that. Something else is going on. Is it actually direct persecution? Or is it just another example of a UCCF group manufacturing themselves a persecution by being unnecessarily arsey? I honestly don't have enough information.

But it got me thinking - is it possible to take a moral stance without being an intolerant bigot? Iqbal Sacranie got a severe Tatchelling recently, and a visit from the police, for expressing an Muslim view on homosexuality. I'm not interested in the whole "we're becoming a police state, freedom of speech, moo moo moo" thing; the fact is that we are in a postmodern society, something for which I am usually very grateful, and this means that the right to be whoever you want to be without someone judging you on it is non-negotiable.

Instead, I'm more interested in looking at if there are ways to make moral and ethical pronouncements (whether a third party considers them justified or not) in a postmodern society. Can there be a postmodern ethics? Maybe there simply can't, and that's the end of the story. Maybe you just have to be an intolerant bigot if think there's a moral code that others should live by. But are there ways of communicating and "recommending" ethics that don't end with people shooting the messenger not the message? I don't know.

Man, heavy blogging today.

Update: I have in my hand "Postmodern Ethics"; so presumably, it is possible.