Comments on: John Podhoretz endorses genocide

By: SamChevre

SamChevre — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 14:56:25 +0000

It sounds like Podhoretz is in the same camp as the great war criminals Sherman and Grant the Butcher.

By: jerry

jerry — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 18:38:55 +0000

John was the apostle especially loved by Christ. Jonathan was King Saul’s son.
I don’t think I ever met a Jew named “John”. I assumed you had mistakenly written Pod’s first name down wrong. Us Jews name our kids “Jonathan”, a very different person.
No wonder the JPod is so hopelessly confused.
I’ve never met a Jew named John,
I never hope to see one,
But I can tell you anyhow,
I’d rather flee than meet one.

By: Mike Kelley

Mike Kelley — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 17:28:16 +0000

gosh, those tactics have woirked so well in the past to promote peace and harmony. I believe that’s why the Sunni’s and Shia’s are in opposition, as a result of centuries of slaughter of each other.

By: Brendan

Brendan — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 16:25:50 +0000

“Could World War II have been won by Britain and the United States if the two countries did not have it in them to firebomb Dresden and nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki?”
Not to be picky, but I was under the impression the use of atomic weapons was more of a pre-cold war stunt than necessary for victory over Japan. In fact I was taught that Japan was ready to surrender before the bombs. Also, I thought Dresden was bombed because it was an industrial center, not to prevent it’s citizens from rising against incoming allied armies.

By: DCA

DCA — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 14:55:34 +0000

Of course, if you read JP’s father’s screed on WW IV, you realize that he does think “our cvilization” is at risk–by equating it to Israel. (Not trying to derail the thread, just provide some context.)

By: BroD

BroD — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 13:06:07 +0000

I disagree: the contemplation of genocide suggests that our civiliation is indeed at risk.

By: Michael Connolly

Michael Connolly — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 13:04:33 +0000

The arguments for genocide – American, British, German – are always the same.
1. “We” are the culmination of all that is good, true, and beautiful.
2.The unspeakably low, immoral, and wicked Other must be destroyed before it is “too late”…
3. The hour is already late….
4. In the course of defending the good, true and beautiful, we must be merciless, cruel, blah blah
Here is what Hitler said,
“If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the regular courts of justice, then all I can say is this: In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became supreme judge of the German people”
- Adolf Hitler (in Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich)

By: koshem

koshem — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 06:34:47 +0000

The mention of Gregory Djerejian post is somewhat problematic. He properly abhors Podhoretz’s call for genocide while he sides with Sternhell’s Haaretz op-ed piece. Sternhell is a wise man, but his piece ignores the major moral issue behind the Israel/ Hezbollah war. Isolation of Hezbollah is fine, as Sternhell suggests, but how do you do it without bridge destruction?
Opposing genocide is easy. Destroying Hezbollah camps residing on the 12th floor of an apartment house with destroying the house is less easy. We may be civilized but our public discourse is still quite primitive, and at times, uncivilized.

By: Quiddity

Quiddity — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 06:29:19 +0000

Podhoretz is pushing further along the line that Shelby Steele advocated in the WSJ this May.

By: fishbane

fishbane — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 05:47:43 +0000

If I wished something awful happened to Podhoretz in a hypothetical, would that mean that I was not a bad person, even if I were wrong to wish it?
Good lord. That kind of 9th grade rhetorical debate goofiness (I won’t call it a tactic) gives me gas. He’s done better in the past, but, well, I suppose even a comedian needs decent source material.