No we are not in the same situation as WW II, when the public supported the war wholeheartedly. Wishing we were will not make it so. Our enemies know which suit is our short one and they play in that suit - it is domestic political unity.
Germany and Japan were not defeated because we bombed them, but because we sent entire conventional militaries into their homelands without sanctuary and occupied them all. (Even Japan we had to occupy. And they surrendered after Russia attacked conventionally in Manchuria as well as the atom bombs - until then they had hope to get Russia to broker a peace on less than unconditional surrender terms).
As long as a single one was left unoccupied, the war continued. We are in downtown Kabul and downtown Baghdad, and didn't need any special bombing to get there, beyond the entirely ample rounds of it we performed. But we aren't in Damascus or Teheran, and it is a silly to expect the war to end without being in those places, as it would have been to expect WW II to end when we invaded Italy.
Also, the killing didn't stop. It moved, and the enemy changed. War does not stop. One war stops, another takes a while to begin. But war is a natural condition across most of mankind and we will always be fighting one, or need to be ready to and about to, or wrapping one up messily. There was a time in the past when that wasn't so, but it was because the British empire was out there doing it for us. Now we have the brass ring, and we will fight as long as we have it. Cold or hot, on again or off again, small scale or large. Get used to it. There is no empire without warfare, and we have empire.
If you defeat every external opponent you will just pick up some internal ones.
You can still win every one of these wars. What is needed to do so is primarily domestic political will to see them through.
Which is not maximized by dividing ourselves politically as much as possible, and giving the half our population not interested in any of it better reasons to oppose doing any of it.
As for life becoming ever more dangerous, life will always be dangerous, get use to it. And since nobody is disinventing atom bombs, nor slowing scientific progress which will find new and wonderful things, it isn't going to get easier.
And I don't care how many countries you plow with salt, there is always another one, as well as our own pols.
Empire is held through the continual exercise of martial virtue and political unity. As soon as either slips, it slips. There is no technological solution to a decline of either one, nor does any sacrifice of morality help the case in the slightest.
Without Iranian and Syrian support, Hez'b'Allah would fold up within several months, as would Hamas.
Closing mosques in the West, based on the incontrovertible fact that islamic teaching is plainly conspiracy to commit murder, is another obvious and overdue step.
This war is winnable, if only we'd fight.
I am thinking that we are letting the Lebanese government off the hook when they should shoulder the responsibility and blame for allowing this. If this is concluded with them still accomodating Hezb, I see no way the situation could improve. After reading your comments, I wonder if increasing civilian pain would make the citizens demand more of their government than crocadile tears.
You got a mouse in your pocket? They may be yours, but they ain't mine.No we are not in the same situation as WW II, when the public supported the war wholeheartedly.Understand, I stand foursquare for the First Amendment. But I also stand for clarity in interpretation of it. Journalism calls itself "the press," but that is a half truth and a large lie. First because broadcast journalism is a regulated enterprise - all broadcasting is - and therefore cannot be legitimately called part of "the press" for First Amendment purposes. And secondly, because book publishers are just as much part of "the press" as newspaper publishers are.
Even the newspapers, which are part of the press, are in a conspiracy against the public. They conspire by their adherence to their version of the "eleventh commandment" - "Thou shalt not speak evil of a fellow journalist."
Thus, CBS News can attempt an October Surprise hit on President Bush with supreme confidence that no journalist will call them out for the tendentious hacks that their fraudulent "TANG Memos" prove them to be. CBS "independently investigated" itself and concluded that it was not motivated by partisanship. Ask yourself: if that had been a phone company, or an energy company, or a pharmaceutical company, or the police or the military or any significant producer of anything at all, would the newspapers or the TV journalists have had any trouble seeing the self-serving and the hypocrisy and the deficient quality control evinced by CBS/60 Minutes?Journalism is on its own side, not that of the people and not on that of the Constitution. And what is "journalism's side?" Journalism's side is whatever makes journalism seem important, and superior to those who buy advertisement space/time. And that emphatically includes criticism of our doers, both private sector and military/police and both producers and service providers.Thus, Reuters can be caught with its hand in the cookie jar spreading propaganda photographs, and the newspapers have nothing to say about it despite/because said photos had corrupted the newspapers' own product.
Journalism's side is whoever will promote the idea that journalism is important. Promote that idea, and journalism will reward you with good PR. The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters except PR.
Of course we aren't in the same situation as WW II - back then the US was fighting against the enemy of the Communists. And was rewarded with great PR.
Japan and Germany did not surrender because they were occupied, they surrendered because we killed so many of them, wasted their infrastructure and demoralized their citizens to the point where their insane leadership had no where to go but the suicide den.
Bush's Doctrine states that those that harbor terrorists are terrorists. Lebanon not only harbors Hisbullah, they invited them into their government. As such, Israel should fight the war symmetrically and inflict wide scale damage to the government, it's infrastructure and the moral of it's citizens as we did with Japan and Germany. Asymmetric warfare has very little to do with the press except in a cheerleader role. Terrorists fight asymmetrically by donning civilian clothes, firing rockets from civilian areas and hiding behind the citizenry. A state can never win that war or that battle in a greater war until they hold the government of the offending state to account.
Banging ones head against the concrete wall one more time in the hope that the concrete wall will yelp with pain is a policy doomed to failure.
History makes that very, very clear. Peace with Japan and Germany has been lasting. Japanese kamikaze whackjobs were every bit as fanatical as todays islamofascist homicide bombers, even more since the Japanese did not send the mentally deficient to kill themselves but sent their best and brightest. American visited untold destruction on Japan and in the ned saved many, many lives on both sides of the battle. And guess what? The Japanese don't hate us, we didn't cultivate millions more kamikazes and life is good for the Rising Sun.