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Let Israel win the war
NY Daily News ^ | July 28, 2006 | Charles Krauthammer

Posted on 07/28/2006 4:50:06 AM PDT by knighthawk

In fight vs. Hezbollah, it's wrong to expect restraint

What other country, when attacked in an unprovoked aggression across a recognized international frontier, is then put on a countdown clock by the world and given a limited time window in which to fight back, regardless of whether it has restored its own security? What other country sustains 1,500 indiscriminate rocket attacks into its cities - every one designed to kill, maim and terrorize civilians - and is then vilified by the world when it tries to destroy the enemy's infrastructure and strongholds with precision-guided munitions that sometimes have the unintended but unavoidable consequence of collateral civilian death and suffering?

Hearing the world pass judgment on the Israel-Hezbollah war as it unfolds is to live in an Orwellian moral universe. With a few significant exceptions (the leadership of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and a very few others), the world - governments, the media, UN bureaucrats - has completely lost its moral bearings.

The word that obviates all thinking and magically inverts victim into aggressor is "disproportionate," as in the universally decried "disproportionate Israeli response."

When the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor, it did not respond with a parallel "proportionate" attack on a Japanese naval base. It launched a four-year campaign that killed millions of Japanese, reduced Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki to cinders, and turned the Japanese home islands to rubble and ruin. Disproportionate? No.

When one is wantonly attacked by an aggressor, one has every right - legal and moral - to carry the fight until the aggressor is disarmed and so disabled that it cannot threaten one's security again. That's what it took with Japan.

Britain was never invaded by Germany in World War II. Did Britain respond to the blitz and V-1 and V-2 rockets with "proportionate" aerial bombardment of Germany? Of course not. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill orchestrated the greatest land invasion in history that flattened and utterly destroyed Germany, killing untold innocent German women and children in the process.

The perversity of today's international outcry lies in the fact that there is indeed a disproportion in this war, a radical moral asymmetry between Hezbollah and Israel: Hezbollah is deliberately trying to create civilian casualties on both sides while Israel is deliberately trying to minimize civilian casualties, also on both sides.

In perhaps the most blatant terror campaign from the air since the London blitz, Hezbollah is raining rockets on Israeli cities and villages. The rockets are packed with ball bearings that can penetrate automobiles and shred human flesh. They are meant to kill and maim. And they do.

But it is a dual campaign. Israeli innocents must die in order for Israel to be terrorized. But Lebanese innocents also must die in order for Israel to be demonized, which is why Hezbollah hides its fighters, its rockets, its launchers, its entire infrastructure among civilians. Creating human shields is a war crime. It is also a Hezbollah specialty.

On Wednesday, CNN cameras showed destruction in Tyre. What does Israel have against Tyre? Nothing. But the long-range Hezbollah rockets that have been raining terror on Haifa are based in Tyre. What is Israel to do?

Had Israel wanted to destroy Lebanese civilian infrastructure, it would have turned out the lights in Beirut in the first hour of the war, destroying the billion-dollar power grid and setting back Lebanon 20 years. It did not do that. Instead, it attacked dual-use infrastructure - bridges, roads, airport runways - and blockaded Lebanon's ports to prevent the reinforcement and resupply of Hezbollah. Ten thousand Katyusha rockets are enough. Israel was not going to allow Hezbollah 10,000 more.

Israel's response to Hezbollah has been to use the most precise weaponry and targeting it can. It has no interest, no desire to kill Lebanese civilians. Does anyone imagine that it could not have leveled south Lebanon, to say nothing of Beirut? Instead, in the bitter fight against Hezbollah in south Lebanon, it has repeatedly dropped leaflets, issued warnings, sent messages by radio and even phone text to Lebanese villagers to evacuate so that they would not be harmed.

Israel knows that these leaflets and warnings give the Hezbollah fighters time to escape and regroup. The advance notification as to where the next attack is coming has allowed Hezbollah to set up elaborate ambushes. The result? Unexpectedly high Israeli infantry casualties. Moral scrupulousness paid in blood. Israeli soldiers die so that Lebanese civilians will not, and who does the international community condemn for disregarding civilian life?


TOPICS: Israel; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: charleskrauthammer; hezbollah; israel; krauthammer
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To: Diogenesis

There was a news report that showed the "other side" of Beruit. Looks like a nice place to vacation.


21 posted on 07/28/2006 5:55:35 AM PDT by redgolum ("God is dead" -- Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" -- God.)
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; Lent; GregB; ..
If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel.

also Keywords 2006israelwar or WOT [War on Terror]

----------------------------

22 posted on 07/28/2006 6:00:13 AM PDT by SJackson (The Pilgrims—Doing the jobs Native Americans wouldn’t do!)
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To: Diogenesis

I saw that map on the NBC news last night!

(/sarc)


23 posted on 07/28/2006 6:01:04 AM PDT by Peter W. Kessler (Dirt is for racing... asphalt is for getting there.)
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To: knighthawk

Brilliant.


24 posted on 07/28/2006 6:02:37 AM PDT by sinkspur (Today, we settled all family business.)
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To: knighthawk

25 posted on 07/28/2006 6:12:48 AM PDT by Gritty (Absent a drive for victory, there is nothing in the Terror War for us but pain and death-Vanderleun)
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To: Paloma_55
Short of that, I suspect they will continue with the way they are until they drop WMD on Israel, then Israel will finally do it.

That is EXACTLY why Hezbolla, Iran, Syria, et al. will not use WMDs on Israel. They realize the moment they do it's over for them.

We in the west want so badly for these parasites to be finished off right now and not at some later date. They pose a threat to the entire world, not just Israel.

I'm tired of this ..... how I wish the inhabitants of the earth would just stand up with Israel and join hands to erase these islamic monsters from the planet...once and for all.....now.

26 posted on 07/28/2006 6:25:49 AM PDT by Fighting Irish (Béagán agus a rá go maith)
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To: Paloma_55

It could win if we assisted them, if it were a full-on war against Islam, if India were free to take out Pakistan first and then Bangladesh, if Israel and the US could take out all 22 Arab countries, if Australia could take out Indonesia and Malaysia. And if the Europeans all did what they usually do - declare themselves pacifist and allow the Moslems to slaughter them. Then we would be free to do some purification over there, too.


27 posted on 07/28/2006 6:36:40 AM PDT by definitelynotaliberal
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To: knighthawk
I watch a different Alphabet Network newscast every night and the message is the same. It might start out showing that Katushas fell on Israeli neighborhood, and then show a casualty or two. Then, it switches to a neighborhood in Lebanon, and spends a great deal more time showing Israeli bomb damage and "civilian" casualties. The message with which we are to be brainwashed is "disproportionate response," and that Israel is the bad guy because it is defending itself with too much vigor. The mediots are now obsessed with it. They want to see more proportionate response, and endless Peace Process. It will never solve anything, but it gives them enough steady tragedy to keep their ratings adequate, which is more important than a few thousand Jewish or Lebanese lives.
28 posted on 07/28/2006 6:45:22 AM PDT by FlyVet (What would Hezbollah do to a guy named Sulzberger?)
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To: knighthawk
When one is wantonly attacked by an aggressor, one has every right - legal and moral - to carry the fight until the aggressor is disarmed and so disabled that it cannot threaten one's security again.

All the pro-Israel pundits and authors scream that Israel has the legal and moral right to respond appropriately. But where is the hue and cry that they also have an obligation to do so, so as to prevent having to do so again and again and again?

29 posted on 07/28/2006 6:48:14 AM PDT by Real Cynic No More (A member of the Appalachian-American minority -- and proud of it!)
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To: Paloma_55
At present the Lebanon/Israel exchange is "make war." Lebanon is scattering unguided, unaimed rockets at Israel and Israel is pin-pointing targets in Lebanon.

While every individual human death is regretted there have been remarkably few on either side. Germany suffered almost 200,000 casualties in three nights bombing by the 8th Air Force in WWII.

What is needed is for some demonstration nuclear bomb to be set off somewhere, say Mecca, to let the Arabs know what they are risking in their "terrorist" war against the West.

Next, a concerted effort should be made to cut off arms sales to Arab nations. Terrorists nations have no ability to produce the arms of war. Without oil money they could not buy arms from the world's arms dealers, the largest of which is the U. S.

The U. S. might not be able to control arms sales by the communist world, China, North Korea, Russia, but it could very well stop arms sales from the U. S., Brazil, Sweden, France, etc.

We better get crackin' before some Muslim detonates a suitcase nuke in the Loop.
30 posted on 07/28/2006 6:53:41 AM PDT by R.W.Ratikal
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To: All

Excellent analysis!


31 posted on 07/28/2006 6:54:49 AM PDT by NYC Republican (GOP is the worst political party, except for all the others...)
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To: FlyVet
It might start out showing that Katushas fell on Israeli neighborhood, and then show a casualty or two. Then, it switches to a neighborhood in Lebanon, and spends a great deal more time showing Israeli bomb damage and "civilian" casualties. The message with which we are to be brainwashed is "disproportionate response," and that Israel is the bad guy because it is defending itself with too much vigor.

This reminds me of Cronkite and Rather's reporting during the Vietnam war. Rather was in Vietnam (as Shep Smith is in the Middle East) and Walter was in the studios. Even when the VietCong caused the casualties, it was reported as our fault. I blame CBS News, Rather, and Cronkite for drumming up public oppostion so much that we were defeated there, especially when our President was under attack from the left.

It's real interesting that Nixon's motives for the Watergate affair were not so much that he wanted the job as that he felt the country would be doomed if his opponent won. I'm becoming more and more convinced that he was correct in his assumption.

32 posted on 07/28/2006 6:58:12 AM PDT by Real Cynic No More (A member of the Appalachian-American minority -- and proud of it!)
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To: C210N

Yes, this disturbance in Lebanon has bought Iran a few months when, for all we know, they are only a few months from going nuclear.


33 posted on 07/28/2006 11:41:16 AM PDT by AZLiberty (Creating the <a href="http://clinton.senate.gov">straddle</a> Google bomb one post at a time.)
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To: knighthawk; potlatch; ntnychik; Smartass; Boazo; Alamo-Girl; PhilDragoo; ...

best on today's stack of stuff.


34 posted on 07/28/2006 7:37:01 PM PDT by bitt (NY Times to New York: Drop Dead!)
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To: bitt; Czar; nicmarlo; texastoo; Kenny Bunk; EternalVigilance; janetgreen; hedgetrimmer; potlatch; ..


The army of creeps...

 

35 posted on 07/28/2006 7:55:27 PM PDT by Smartass ("In God We Trust" - "An informed and knowledgeably citizen is the best defense against tyranny")
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To: bitt

Thanks for the ping!


36 posted on 07/28/2006 9:20:58 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: Alamo-Girl

The global jihadists' perpetual will to war







Posted: July 28, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern


© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

The fundamental flaw of the Bush administration's war policy lies not so much in its actions, as in the failure to articulate a right understanding of the nature and goals of the war. The Bush policy flounders and seems to fail because in their discussion of the situation, some policymakers still rely upon a shallow, inadequate understanding of war. This shallow understanding prevails in our day, as we see every time the war against Israel erupts into actual fighting. Whatever the occasion of battle, though it be a blatant act of aggression or terror, voices arise calling for an immediate end to "violence," i.e., Israel's military response. They purport to speak for peace, but in this case putting an end to violence is not the same as bringing an end to war.

As Thomas Hobbes observed, "war consists not in battle only, or the act of fighting, but in a tract of time wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known; and therefore the notion of time is to be considered in the nature of war as it is in the nature of weather. For as the nature of foul weather lies not in a shower or two of rain but in an inclination thereto of many days together, so the nature of war consists not in actual fighting but in the known disposition thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary." (Leviathan, I, 13) By this understanding, the Middle East has been and remains in a state of perpetual war and will continue in that condition as long as there are those in the region who effectually make known their "will to contend by battle."


In light of this understanding, it becomes clear that peace cannot be achieved until the will to contend by battle is extinguished, or until those who, in word or deed, proclaim this will have been effectually eliminated.

For many years the European governments, and to a greater or lesser degree successive U.S. administrations, have pursued policies that ignore both the nature of war and the key prerequisite of peace. So-called peace efforts in and about the region have included, without discrimination, parties that openly and persistently proclaim their dedication to contend by battle until their goals are achieved. This means, of course, that any involvement in negotiations is for them simply an element of strategy, meant to influence the opportunity for battle and its outcome.

In Lebanon right now, the IDF is experiencing the fruit of this kind of diplomacy. Since Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon some years ago, Hezbollah has enjoyed a free hand in the area that borders Israel. They have not only made known their disposition to do battle, they have continually engaged in acts of violence. The nature of the resistance Israeli forces are now encountering demonstrates that Hezbollah also used their undisturbed hegemony in the area to prepare the region for battle with stockpiles of new weapons, and a network of underground tunnels and bunkers to facilitate the supply and movement of their war-making forces.

Thanks to the diplomatic framework of Israel's withdrawal and the weight of political pressure and opinion, Israel did not periodically move to disrupt Hezbollah's development of this war-making infrastructure. Now Israel's forces pay the price as they seek finally to dislodge a profoundly entrenched enemy.

If we think this through, it becomes clear that in the context of perpetual war, the supposed devotees of peace who clamor for an end to violence the moment battle begins contribute mainly to the strength and success of those whose "will to contend by battle" is responsible for the state of war. Thanks to the very real constraints imposed by the influence of these self-styled peace lovers, the war makers can at will choose the time and place of battle. They can keep their opponents constantly on the defensive. They can demonstrate over time to the populations they seek to govern that the war path leads to power and advantage no peaceful path could offer.

When we say "advantage" Americans immediately think in terms of material advantages, the opportunity to enjoy the good things of life. This is mainly because, given our situation in the world, this sense of advantage at once satisfies both our desires and our pride. In today's world, however, the pride of the peoples of the Middle East cannot be satisfied by the measuring rod of material prosperity. By this measure, thanks mainly to their continual scientific advances, others such as the United States, Europe and Japan must stand higher in the scale of power and achievement. The holy-war mentality promoted by the Iranians and al-Qaida, however, introduces a different basis for measurement, one in which the purity of faith and fierce devotion count for more than material goods. On no other basis could al-Qaida's No. 2 leader conjure the prospect of Islamic hegemony from "Spain to Iraq," re-establishing the era – glorious for Islam – when regimes of that faith dominated the Mediterranean basin and reached well into Europe and South Asia.

Though much of our experience since World War II suggests otherwise, most Americans still operate on the assumption that our material advantages necessarily translate into superiority in war. If all means could be ruthlessly employed whenever they would be militarily effective, this assumption could be justified. In reality, however, conscience and the enjoyment of peace have an effect upon the national will that limits, for good and ill, the means we can employ. The self-proclaimed holy warriors of Islam labor under no such constraints. They see no wrong in their unprovoked attacks on Israel or anyone else they choose. They see no wrong in violent attacks aimed at taking the lives of masses of unarmed civilians. Their will to war extends beyond aggression to terrorism of every description, and beyond the Middle East to every region of the world.

At the beginning of his famous treatise "On War," Clausewitz describes war as "an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will." But since the application of available forces depends upon the will, it is will not force alone that ultimately determines the outcome. But the will in question is precisely the will to war, the will to wage battle by every available means until the enemy is eliminated or defeated. In the confrontation between the holy warriors of Islam and democratic republics such as the United States and Israel, the former may have a natural advantage when it comes to sustaining the will to battle over the long term.

Most people prefer peace to war. They would rather enjoy a good meal than devour their enemies in battle. They would rather build a home or a business than destroy the strongholds of the ungodly. They would rather seek pleasure in the battle of the sexes than victory in the embrace of glorious death. The passion for holy war must appear to them a kind of madness, and this is precisely why it is so hard for them to deal with the reality to which it gives rise. In democratic republics, the will of most people ultimately prevails, along with its limitations. Given the popular inclination toward peace, can such republics cope, over the long term, with the challenge of adversaries whose very identity and spirit are defined in terms of war? Most people grow weary of life in war. The holy warrior lives for the prospect of a fulfilling death that cannot be had without it.

This does not mean that the people in democratic republics can never meet the challenge of holy war. It does suggest, however, that their survival depends on never predicating their actions on the notion that the will to peace that they take for granted is universal. Wisdom begins when they accept the fact that the holy warrior does not want peace, will never want peace and cannot even conceive of peace as they do. The holy warrior finds peace in the smile of his god at the moment of his glorious death. He thus makes peace only by killing all his enemies. ("But the wicked are like the troubled sea; for it cannot rest, and its waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." Isaiah 57:20)

This is the root of the perpetual war in the Middle East, and of the threat that it poses to the rest of the world. The dedication to holy war results in a permanent will to war that may change only when all enemies have been eliminated or reduced to submission. This was the spirit in which Islamic armies forged the great empires the leaders of al-Qaida and Iran now seek to recreate. With such people it may be possible to negotiate temporary cease-fires and truces of dubious duration, but no peace is possible with those who embrace the culture of holy war. When they are involved, the very idea of peace talks is a dangerous delusion.

Unfortunately, the shallow understanding that has characterized U.S. and European policy toward the Middle East has inexorably led to a situation in which the terror-minded forces of holy war now play a decisive role. Though no one would yet dare to suggest that anyone should negotiate with al-Qaida, Hamas and Hezbollah have moved to the fore as de facto negotiating parties in the current battles. Though both continue to be devout practitioners of terror, "leaders" like Kofi Annan at the United Nations and spokesmen for the various European powers press for a quick cease-fire on terms worked out directly or indirectly with their participation. Prior to the present outbreak, the general assumption was that no dealings should take place with Hamas until and unless it renounced terror and aggressive war. Now, by means of terror attacks and aggressive war, the Hamas-Hezbollah combination has advanced to de facto negotiations. The war path has once again borne fruit.

The strategy they now follow is similar to the course followed by the PLO through decades of posturing and manipulation of the so-called Middle East peace process. As an inexhaustible source of war and violence, Yasser Arafat made himself an indispensable element of the process, by providing time and again the crisis to be talked about and resolved. Extinguished by time and corruption, such leaders as Arafat have given way to a new generation, following a more blatant and open form of the same strategy. Recruiting their strength with the ideology of holy war, they become the permanent source of violence that keeps the "peace process" alive by making sure that talks are always necessary and peace is never possible.

After several generations as the feckless dupes of such leaders, one would think that both European and American leaders would have learned something. But they continue to follow the terrorist factions in this dance of deadly delusion because the alternative contradicts all the rosy platitudes that they wrongly present as the basis for mankind's progress toward peace. Somehow, despite contrary facts that are palpably clear in the historic record, they have managed to convince themselves and the world that the most terrible wars of the 20th century occurred because nations didn't do enough talking to resolve their differences. In fact, they occurred because shortsighted, peace-minded leaders allow good intentions and wishful thinking to take the place of an accurate assessment of the identity and intentions of their adversaries. They occurred because democratic societies want so badly to believe that war is an episode, even when dealing with people whose spirit and intention have already made it a permanent, inevitable reality.

The true breach of the peace comes not in the act of violence that reveals the battle, but in the inclination of heart, character and culture through which a people declare themselves to be in a state of war. Once a people or their accepted leaders have exposed this inclination, war exists, and no amount of talking will wish it away. Two courses of action are sensible: to defeat the war-makers by fighting the war as effectively as possible; and to work for peace by breaking and eliminating the culture and mentality that produces their warlike inclination. Though parleys may occur as these actions proceed, they make sense only insofar as they serve one or the other of these purposes.

This reasoning has clear application to the present situation. Rather than pressing for a cease-fire in any form, people who really want to see an end to war in the Middle East should press for the total defeat and elimination of the forces who now represent the settled determination to do battle. Though Israel's short-term security may be served by a result that merely pushes Hezbollah away from the Israeli border, regional peace can only be served by the effectual elimination of its war-making capability. The same is true of Hamas, and in the long run of Iran.

It should be the clear and unyielding policy of the United States and all who truly desire peace in the region to insist that no peace talks of any kind can take place until, by word and deed, the leaders and regimes who have declared their settled inclination to do battle renounce that inclination. All support for and involvement in terrorist activities in any form must end. All unprovoked attacks must end; all declarations of holy war, battle and struggle must cease and be vigorously disavowed. Leaders who have declared their irrevocable commitment to such things must step down or be removed. Absent these steps, taken and confirmed beyond doubt, the United States and any others determined to make real peace possible should hold firm in the determination to prosecute the war these others insist upon until either their means or their will to make war are eliminated.

Alan Keyes










37 posted on 07/29/2006 12:05:30 AM PDT by EternalVigilance (What would the Founders do?)
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To: bitt

Excellent article! Nail...head.


38 posted on 07/29/2006 11:06:05 PM PDT by ntnychik
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