Posted on 07/30/2006 2:46:47 AM PDT by Clive
The safe position to take on the Middle East today is that there needs to be an immediate "ceasefire."
A ceasefire maintained by "peackeepers."
Let's examine those two terms.
To begin, here's what a "ceasefire" would mean right now.
It would mean Hezbollah gets to reload.
Believing that a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel right now would bring any real peace to Lebanon, Israel, or the region, is as naive as believing that a United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon would do the same.
There's been a UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon for almost 30 years.
Anyone notice any peace breaking out there recently?
In reality, any "peacekeeping" force in southern Lebanon, composed of UN, NATO or other forces, would have to be a fighting force capable of keeping Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon.
That's what the beleaguered Lebanese government failed to do after Israel voluntarily withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000. That's why Hezbollah was able to launch a sneak attack on an Israeli military outpost from southern Lebanon, kidnapping two soldiers and killing eight others. And that, everyone agrees, is what started this latest confrontation.
So, who in the world's up for that job? Canada? Not with our military already stretched to the limit in Afghanistan.
The United States? Great Britain? Australia?
Impossible. Any of those forces acting as peacemakers in southern Lebanon would become prized terrorist targets themselves, perhaps even more so than Israeli soldiers.
The European Union?
How effective have most members of that alliance been in fighting terrorism since 9/11?
The Arab League? The only thing its members might ever conceivably agree on, if they thought for a moment they could actually win, would be to attack Israel. Fighting Hezbollah in southern Lebanon simply isn't on their radar.
Russia? Japan? China?
Okay, now it's getting silly, isn't it?
So let's hear from those advocating a "peacekeeping" force to maintain a "ceasefire" along the Green Line between southern Lebanon and northern Israel. And be specific.
Whose soldiers would man it? How many? What will be their rules of engagement? Will they be able to shoot first, or only shoot back? What will be their mandate if Hezbollah hides among civilians while attacking them? Will their response have to be "proportionate"? What does that mean -- that you have to take as many casualties as the enemy or stand down? Name a war where that rule has ever applied -- to either side.
Those are the kinds of questions that underlie simplistic calls for a "ceasefire" maintained by "peacekeepers."
That's why Stephen Harper, the first pro-Israel Canadian prime minister since, well, 1993, got it right last week when he said the only way a lasting peace can be achieved is if the nations IN THE REGION want it. And that would mean nations like Syria and Iran (among many others in the Arab/Muslim world) being prepared to fight terrorism instead of supporting and financing it. Needless to say, don't hold your breath.
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Why?
The only possible answer is: To benefit the side that's currently losing.
And which side is that?
The bad guys.
Yes, absurdly simplistic, black and white, whatever. But the answer has the advantage of being true.
What's that got to do with anything? In the US liberal party and its MSM PR team the question is, "Does the answer support the liberal agenda?" not "Is the answer true?"
What rock have you been hiding under?
Shalom.
Take a chill pill, please. Some of us have the ability to discuss more than one angle on this topic.
Too often, media accounts conveniently forget about the eight soldiers that were killed, implying this is all over the kidnapped ones.
Excellent editorial. Israel "gave peace a chance," and all it got was more war.
Well, in that case we will have to reject your application as a reporter for CNN.
So sorry.
Also sorry the sarcasm sounded like a real criticism.
Shalom.
In "just war" proportional means that the violence inflicted must be proportional to the injury inflicted.
It is not used that way at all when the media, politicians, etc. discuss this Israeli/Hezbollah conflict. They seem to want folks to believe that it means: "the violence inflicted cannot exceed the violence received."
If, for example, the enemy were to steal a dog from an Israeli kibbutz, that would not justify nuking Beirut. There is a minimal injury inflicted and a maximum violence in response.
Where does kidnapping, killing, and rocket attacks fall on the injury inflicted scale? Well, it clearly falls at least into the category of low-intensity conflict, greater than the normal "war except in name" that terrorists use all over the world.
Therefore, Israel is correct to respond with a low-scale war response to a mid-scale war response in order to rid themselves of those warring against them.
/Good Post, this should be read by all Americans and then let them continue their cry for "cease fire". There is no negotiating with terrorists. Amen.
Well, in that case we will have to reject your application as a reporter for CNN.
Wow, slander this early on a Sunday morning? ;)/jk
Be good.
Is that a formal definition on the part of Church Fathers?
I would say that a just war has to take into account the potential for future violence. While I understand there is some question still as to whether the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was appropriate, the justification had as much to do with potential future destruction as any past destruction.
In the current case the world must take into account that Hezbollah will just rearm unless they are beaten so badly that they completely lose face in the Arab world they will simply attack another day. I think the concept of a just war calls for that complete defeat.
Shalom.
They are, however, entirely unjustified in targeting civilians - even if Hezbollah is as well.
To hell with both of them.
A "just war" is an intellectual fantasy for whiling away the hours with a jug of wine. Even then the discussion should be about just reasons for going to war rather than the conduct of a war. The purpose of a war is destroy the other side and break their will. How it is done is, as I said, for intellectual discussion rather than battlefield conduct.
The Geneva Convention and all the other treaties and rules of engagement go out the window with an enemy who uses brutality as a weapon and who flaunts the "rules" while insisting their foe, us, follow strict ones. It is a fools game and we seem determined to be fools.
Israel is not targeting civilians. That's been the point all along....the terrorists are and the Israelis are not. Israel has notified civilians of impending attacks when it was militarily feasible.
They are targeting identified military targets, and Hezbollah places their military hardware in the middle of towns, villages, hospitals, etc. If hezbollah were a nation, they'd be in gross violation of international law.
What many don't realize is that counter-battery fire is radar and computer based. That means that counter-battery radar can SEE a launched missile or even an artillery round BEFORE it hits. Using computers, the CB site reads by reversing the trajectory of the round or missile the location from which it came. It immediately fires a round to the location from which the attack originated.
This is clearly going after only those who fired at you. When the enemy pulls a weapon next door to your house and fires, then your house will be a casualty, not because you are targeted but because the enemy is targeted.
Now you understand.
In 1973, the UN didn't seem to care that Egypt was on the outskirts of Elat, having retaken the enitre Sinai penninsula, and Syria was pressing hard on the Northern front. It wasn't until that Israel had pushed the Egyptians all the way back across the Sinai, and even crossed the Suez canal, having surrounded the Egyptian army, and in the north, was less than 50 miles from Damascus, Syria, that the UN stepped in. Israel ignored the UN, deciding that it needed to put an end to the ability of her arab "neighbors" to make war on her, but when the USSR threatened to step in and begin fighting, turning what was in effect a proxy war, into a real shooting war between the US and the USSR, Israel agreed to a UN brokered cease fire.
Has anyone else noticed here that many of the people screaming for a "cease fire" are the same people who ravaged the Bush Administration over their "cease fire" in Tora Bora, which allowed Bin Laden to escape?
Mark
Whe these weapons are driven by in the trucks that haul them where was the peacekeeping force? Did they think it was furniture in those trucks? Did they ever attempt to stop the inporting of rockets into Lebanon? Did the Lebanese government ever try to stop them? You cannot haul rockets from Iran to lebanon in total secrecy. Where was the UN? Observers??? What were they observing??
I think Iran knows this whole thing was a mistake on their part because the force they had mustered on Israel's northern border to attack Israel after the nuclear bombing is now being wiped out. They gave Israel the excuse Israel was probably lookin for anyway.
BTW, Syria ought not make one mistake either. It's easier for Israel to deal with them one at at time than all at once.
Muslims are stupid people.
Wow.
(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em Down Hezbullies.)
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