I shouldn't bother thinking about or writing about Glenn Greenwald: resorting to sock puppetry is a form of deception which disqualifies any major-league pundit from being taken seriously -- intellectually or morally.

But that very credential actually makes Greenwald quite useful in one regard: Normally, we should at first consider that one's opponent is intellectually honest, well-meaning, etc. In Greenwald's case, he's already proven himself fundamentally dishonest, so we can work backwards: "What other techniques and stances appeal to such a person?"

Via David Bernstein, here's Greenwald in action, marshaling his influence, charm, intelligence (and what remains of his credibility) principally against Israel. His initial complaint (bold mine):

Former McCain-Palin campaign spokesman and current Weekly Standard editor Michael Goldfarb notes that Israel, a couple of days ago, dropped a 2,000-pound bomb on a Gazan home which killed a top Hamas leader . . . in addition to 18 others, including his four wives and nine of his children. About the killing of those innocent civilians, Goldfarb writes...

Certainly his younger children were indeed "innocent -- but it bothers me to see Greenwald deftly calls all those in a terrorist leaders' household "innocent civilians." Were his wives really completely ignorant of, or even opposed to, his particular choice of vocation? And what of the three (probably more) unnamed parties -- who were they? Were they being held there by force? And certainly the death of those who had no choice was tragic, but who was really responsible? The Israelis -- who don't yet have a bomb which can take out one member of a household, while leaving his dinner guests intact -- or the man who decided to make his living targeting other people's children for death? -- and those who willingly allied with him and even desired to give him offspring to use?

There are few concepts more elastic and subject to exploitation than "Terrorism," the all-purpose justifying and fear-mongering term.

Ah yes: "Terrorism" is in the eye of the beholder, isn't it? Last I checked, "terrorism" was the deliberate targeting of innocent (meaning uninvolved) civilians to achieve a political purpose by creating widespread, indiscriminate terror. Yet there's no evidence here that Israel was mainly targeting innocent people here. To the contrary, the precision of the strike (one house) would seem to indicate otherwise. Further, contrary to actual terrorist strategies, in which everyone in society is equally at risk, such a strike would only cause fear among who live in houses occupied by upper echelon leaders of Hamas.

These, apparently, are not distinctions that Greenwald easily notices.

(Or wishes to see, most likely.)

To the Terrorist, by definition, that innocent civilians and even children are killed isn't a regrettable cost of taking military action. It's not a cost at all. It's a benefit. It has strategic value. Goldfarb explicitly says this: "to wipe out a man's entire family, it's hard to imagine that doesn't give his colleagues at least a moment's pause."

That, of course, is the very same logic that leads Hamas to send suicide bombers to slaughter Israeli teenagers in pizza parlors and on buses and to shoot rockets into their homes. It's the logic that leads Al Qaeda to fly civilian-filled airplanes into civilian-filled office buildings. And it's the logic that leads infinitely weak and deranged people like Goldfarb and Peretz to find value in the killing of innocent Palestinians, including -- one might say, at least in Goldfarb's case: especially -- children.

First, I've read Goldfarb's original statement, and it doesn't seem at all to advocate killing entire families. He isn't even sure such a policy would make a difference: Greenwald conveniently cuts off the "Or maybe not" which immediately follows the quote, dishonestly making it seem as if Goldfarb is advocating such a policy as effective. So Greenwald's being doubly dishonest when he asserts Goldbfarb "find[s] value in the killing of innocent Palestinians."

But to address Greenwald's own "logic": The idea that a man's entire family would be punished for his crimes is an old one. And, in a sense, it's always true -- even today, even when a court of law is involved: What crime did Jeffrey Skilling's children commit, which caused them to be ashamed of their family in the community, and caused them to lose half of their daily dose of love and support from their parents?

I'm not saying I think this is fair: it isn't. It never was, it isn't, and never will be. But Greenwald's argument is that the logic of deterrence itself is inherently immoral, and that context doesn't matter. If a man has to think twice about the impacts of to his family by doing something criminal, well, that's just as immoral as blowing up a pizza parlor full of children. (And from what was Israel allegedly being deterred, there? Existing?)

Next, Greenwald plays the a common anti-Israel card: Those who support Israel are moved by fundamentally irrational concerns.

It's unfair to use the Goldfarb/Peretz pathology to impugn all supporters of the Israeli attack.... And many war supporters who fall into this more benign category are guilty of insufficiently weighing the deaths of Palestinian innocents and, relatedly, of such overwhelming emotional and cultural attachment to Israel and Israelis that they long ago ceased viewing this conflict with any remnant of objectivity.

"Objectivity?" That's a funny word coming from man who just left off a "Perhaps" and "Maybe not" to fundamentally alter the implication of a quote. (If a lack of objectivity belies and irrational underlying motivation, perhaps we should look closer to home, eh? As they say, if the sock puppet glove fits, wear it.)

I can't express how many emails I've received in the last week from people identifying themselves as "liberals" (and, overwhelmingly, American Jews); telling me that they agree with my views in almost all areas other than Israel; and then self-righteously insisting that I imagine what it's like to live in Southern Israel with incoming rocket fire from Hamas, as though that will change my views on the Israel/Gaza war. Obviously, it's not difficult to imagine the understandable rage that Israelis feel when learning of another attack on Israeli civilians...

Here, Greenwald asserts that Israel-supporters are being mainly motivated by "rage" and a desire for revenge. They're not. The simple principle is to love your neighbor as yourself, to stand in his or shoes a while and see how it looks. When I do so, I can see the logic of striking at the leadership of those who are lobbing missiles at my community. I cannot see the rightness of being unemployed, marginalized, or nationally dispossessed, and thus wanting to indiscriminately target and kill other people's children.

No thought is given to what it is like, what emotions it generates, what horrible acts start to appear justifiable, when you have a hostile foreign army control your borders and airspace and internal affairs for 40 years...

Oh please. I have Latvian friends who wanted to see Lativia liberated during the USSR's occupation. That didn't lead them to embrace terrorism as justified. (Though apparently that logic works for Glenn!) Further, many domestic libertarians think of the federal government as a hostile entity which controls our borders, airspace, and internal affairs -- and you don't see them advocating terrorism either. (NB: I don't share this view: I think the federal government has a legitimate place, though a smaller one than it occupies now.)

Greenwald continues in this vein: those who disagree with him are primitive tribalists who have bypassed the most basic moral concern for others, who don't value human beings per se, are morally hypocritical, and who relentlessly and unfairly demonize the Other (precisely what Greenwald did with Goldfarb, by the way).

(If you think my post is tedious and repetitious, read his. Why is he on Salon?)

In the end, as Bernstein points out, Greenwald linked to a video of Palestinians being blown up by the weapons they had intended to use against others -- several years ago -- but implying, at first, that it was probably done by Israel, and later, that, well, it still reflects Israel's badness, somehow:

But everyone should also be permitted to view the devastating effects on actual human beings from these Israeli bombing and artillery raids in Gaza. This truly horrific video -- purportedly of a recent Israeli bombing of a civilian Gazan market -- has been widely cited. I can't and don't vouch for its authenticity (UPDATE: there's good reason to believe it's not from an Israeli attack), but it's certainly reflective of the carnage in Gaza. It's much easier to undervalue the suffering imposed on The Other when you don't have to see it.

The funny (yet tragic) point here is that that since these were Hamas weapons, the "suffering imposed on The Other" was, in fact, Hamas' intention to use those weapons against uninvolved Israeli men, women, and children. When Greenwald formerly answered such "put-yourself-in-their-shoes" concerns, he could only credit those raising them with "rage", "tribalism", or "revenge", and yet here he is, paragraphs later, using graphical and emotional footage of people being ripped in half to incite an emotional response, and animosity, against a particular group.

Quite a piece of work, this man.