A New Enemy Gains on the U.S. ("It abides by no laws of war")

NY Times ^ | 7/30/06 | Thom Shanker

[Vision]

That's when you start bombing entire cities.

[Comstock1]

This is the United Nations fault. Let me say it a different way: no organization in history has done more to allow the festering of open canker sores around the world than the United Nations and its so-called peace keepers.

Wherever the UN has footprints, the situation is never resolved. North Korea--technically still at war with--well everybody. Congo, still not resolved. Lebanon--what exactly is the UN definition of peace keeping--allowing one side to continually fire rockets at the other and then castigate the other side if it retaliates? The UN run camps are the main thing that let the Palestinian organizations hang on.

By not allowing these conflicts to come to a natural resolution, the UN makes things worse. It essentailly sat as a dumb witness while Hezbollah became a nation state unto itself. Now that nation state is armed with all the advanced weaponry that Russia, China, North Korea and France will sell to Iran and Syria.

Right under the noses of the UN observers, Hezbollah built networks of tunnels and reinforced bunkers that the Israelis are having a lot of trouble taking out.

This isn't just Kofi Annan's fault. It is the whole United Nations organization. They are more concerned with stability and cease fires than actually solving problems. Stability is not resolution. Resolution is stability. The inability to see the difference has cost thousands of lives all around the globe.

There is no better example of the saying "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions" than what the United Nations does. The United Nations is a colossal failure at being anything more than a PR vechicle for itself and some of the worst governments in modern history.

[USMCVet]

Ping for later

[Louis Foxwell]

Note the article ignores the heroic efforts of Rumsfeld who has completely changed the structure of the US armed forces. The Pentagon is way ahead of these lunatics. We fought precisely the same war in Japan against kamikaze tactics. The small, independent US military force is in play in Iraq, Afghanistan and as black ops in Iraq, Iran and elsewhere.
Rice and Bolton are putting in place a new style of diplomacy. For the first time in decades they are adding teeth to our diplomacy. No more is the state dept merely a source of endless chatter.
For all the NYT hysteria we lack only the political will to succeed. We have the military and the diplomatic skill. It is the lunatics on the left that can sink us with their naive ignorance, not the mainstream of America.

[Bigh4u2]

"Military planners suggest that the Pentagon take a page out of Hezbollah’s book about small-unit, agile operations "

Uhhh. We already have them.

It's called 'Special Forces'.

This guy is a dope!

[300winmag]

To attack Israel, Hezbollah dispersed its fighters with no distinguishing markings or uniforms or vehicles.

Excuse me, but that's in violation of the Geneva Conventions. Is the same NY Slimes that demands we grant terrorists the same rights as American teenage shoplifters now cooing about how smart those terrorists are in being war criminals?

[johnny7]

...as the NYslimes would have you believe, this is pure BS.

What do you expect when the sources given for the article are an ex-Clinton crony and a lib at the Brookings Institute... peewits. Shanker's name befits him.

[nathanbedford]

You just do not get it, do you?

Hezbollah has already won this skirmish in the war on terrorism. It has managed to divide most of Europe away from America. America is bound hand and foot to Israel by our domestic politics and Europe is increasingly coming under the influence of its Arab/Muslim minorities. Soon, European politicians will have to show the Muslims more than just a little ankle and begin to really pander in earnest. American politicians will be driven in the other direction by the Israeli lobby.

Once a breach between America and Europe has been achieved, the Islamic fundamentalists will have have gone far toward winning the war.

On the ground in Lebanon, the Israelis have not demonstrated that their kill rate is high enough to sustain prolonged combat against hundreds of millions of Arabs. The Israelis have not demonstrated that they can protect their homeland against missiles. The Israelis have not demonstrated they have a solution to an indefinite reign of random missiles on their homeland from embedded civilian-shielded launch sites as far as hundreds of miles away.

Where are we winning? In Afghanistan the insurgency is turning sour. In Iraq, problems of casualties and squandered billions aside, we have managed to midwife the installation of a Shi'ite government which no doubt will be a proxy of Iran. Meanwhile, Iran itself inches ever closer to atomic weapons. Now Lebanon is in flames with Hezbollah having obtained every geopolitical strategic goal it could have hoped for. The price of oil is spiking and the effects on Western economies have already led to the twin evils of inflation and economic downturn with the economic growth rate recently being cut in half in America. Americans have turned against the war in Iraq with the real possibility that the Republicans could lose control of at least one house of Congress. The presidential election in 2008 looks grim for those who would actually fight a war against terrorism.

Where, where are we winning?

[RavenATB]

" Terrorists by their very tactics require the cover of the populace. Islamic terrorism may well one day require destruction of Islamic populations -- pure and simple! "

You may be right...

[baltoga]

Looks like warfare may come full circle to the times of Khan.
If a city resists then conquer it, kill the inhabitants and raze it.

Barbaric, but probably an effective method to eliminate any semblance of resistance since other neighboring cities would have a vivid example of what awaits them.

[stevestras]

"Where, where are we winning?"

There are so many wins happening in the fight against terror right now that your comment is astonishing. The only possible win for the terrorists right now is that the limelight the media casts on them might increase recruiting.

They need it.

[rightwingintelligentsia]

Excuse me, but that's in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

That was my first thought, but of course everyone knows that the Geneva Conventions only apply to the U.S. and Israel. Everyone else is exempt.

[CPOSharky]

...small-unit, agile operations as it battles insurgents and cells in Iraq and Afghanistan...

That's waht the US IS doing. Al least until a terrorist in civilian clothes and an MSM reporter accuses them of murder.

[Lando Lincoln]

Thanks for the post. LS, you may find this of interest.

[OKSooner]

As someone noted on their tagline, it's not "hezbolla". The correct translation is "hezb'allah".

[Brilliant]

They make it sound like Hezbollah is the first to try this tactic. Where have they been for the last 5 years? Or even the last 15 years?

[calex59]

We are winning every where and you are the one who does not "get" it. You have a defeatist attitude, one that, if everyone shared it, would ensure victory over us in virtually every thing we do. Defeatism is good for nothing but ensuring defeat of us and victory for our enemies. I, for one, will not give in to it.

For one thing I use my brain and see what is really happening, I don't let people like you form my opinions, I let facts do that. You sound much like a leftist trying to sow discontent among FR. If you want to spout your poison go hire on at the NYslimes, they need a few more disinformation journalist to bolster their sagging paper.

[MNJohnnie]

Could the NY Times get to be ANY more juvenile and hero worshiping in their Terrorist Propagandizing? How utterly pathetic that a supposedly adult rational male wrote this utter crap.

[Gritty]

We are now into the first great war between nations and networks,” said John Arquilla

Well into it.

Since 1982.

Our dinosaur media and Liberals have yet to figure out we are already there. They are still in the time warp of supporting the massive Soviet Union.

[wita]

...and the only reason there might be a smidgeon of political will lacking, is due to the screaming from the empty carts and the leftist media, both an insignificant M I N O R I T Y. The only thing that will silence the media and leftist noise is fear for their lives, which is not a tactic but a necessity to effectively fight a battle for our survival as a nation. Anyone who believes otherwise, does not understand the left, or it's voice in the media. It has nothing to do with freedom of speech, and everything to do with freedom for mankind and ours has to come first, or the battle is lost.