NYTimes: Power Steer [via daily churn]

Forgetting, or willed ignorance, is the preferred strategy of many beef eaters, a strategy abetted by the industry. (What grocery-store item is more silent about its origins than a shrink-wrapped steak?) Yet I recently began to feel that ignorance was no longer tenable. If I was going to continue to eat red meat, then I owed it to myself, as well as to the animals, to take more responsibility for the invisible but crucial transaction between ourselves and the animals we eat. I'd try to own it, in other words.

So this is the biography of my cow.

Ariel Sharon: "We must fight this terrorism, in an uncompromising war to uproot these savages, to dismantle their infrastructure, because there is no compromise with terrorists."

Is the whole "infrastructure of terror" obviously incoherent, or am I missing something? In the case of 911, "infrastructure" (though that is far from the right word) might be relevant, since a lot of work needed to be put into getting terrorists onto planes at the same time. But in Israel, the "terrorists" (they are terrorists, but insofar as they do a lot of terrorizing, so are is the Israeli gov'nt) are mostly suicide bombers. This requires a person and a bomb.

So the only "infrastructure" that is there to be dismantled is the very existence of the Palestinian people in the occupied territories. Or more exactly: the very existence of a Palestinian people, many of whom are driven to the edge of despair, as a result of Israeli actions. One could dismantle this infrastructure by ending the occupation and assessing the egregious damages caused over the years and taking steps to rectifying the situation. Or, the Israelis could continue to kill, torture, harrass, torment, and otherwise attempt to drive the Palestinians out on a grand scale, as they have been doing for the past three decades.

In that sense -- but only in that sense -- Sharon's claims are coherent, since getting rid of the Palestinians is the stated and apparent goal of those currently in power.