Posted on 03/05/2008 9:41:39 AM PST by ventanax5
How to balance military needs, international humanitarian law, and the reality of facing an enemy whose tactics are not restrained by accepted conventions are challenges to which Israel and other Western nations need to devote serious thought. The asymmetry of battle that Israel faces requires a rethinking of strategy to deal with threats from forces whose ideologies allow them not just to frustrate many Western military advantages but to use the openness of Western societies—especially their print and image media, and the organizations through which the Western penchant for self-criticism is expressed—to their own advantage. Ideology, including the perception of right versus wrong, becomes part of the discussion. Ultimately, non-Islamists, such as Israel, need to win the ideological war as well as the military one.
In the short-term, Israel can take the lead by repeatedly and forcefully asserting the moral high ground by pointing out that civilian causalities are never intentional but, given the cynical tactics of the enemies it must fight, are regrettably inevitable. Israeli spokespersons must further assert that the culpability for civilian casualties lies with the terrorists who have deliberately chosen to wage war against Israel from within civilian populations precisely because of the propaganda benefits of such tactics. While this is not likely to appease those who seek to paint Israel as a serial violator of human rights, the evidence will show that, given Israel's military arsenal, any premeditated policy of targeting civilians would most certainly have resulted in massively higher death tolls than have actually taken place. From a human rights perspective, the tables need to be turned by arguing that states such as Israel are victims of a capricious and cynical policy of civilian exploitation and that militant Islamists are intentional violators of international conventions that seek to protect civilian lives.
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>>Ultimately, non-Islamists, such as Israel, need to win the ideological war as well as the military one.
Two men can peacefully disagree on ideology if one of them is dead. Win the military war against Islam properly and the ideological one will be solved at the same time.
I am quite interested in insurgency/counterinsurgency warfare, have studied the subject extensively, and am appalled at the lack of propaganda employed by the U.S. and Israel. We’re getting our asses handed to us by goat-herders and latte-lappers in the realm of information/propaganda.
Propaganda/info is how reality and its perception is shaped. Ours is being shaped by the islamists and their enablers (liberal/progressives). The current administration is profoundly retarded in re this issue.
When faced with an Enemy who uses the civilian populace as a human shield, you must protect yourself at all times.
All you can do is to close with and destroy the enemy! If they choose to use innocents as a shields they are the ones responsible for the deaths that result!
They know what they are doing! They hope for the reaction of the press to sway how Israel will react.
“We’re getting our asses handed to us by goat-herders and latte-lappers in the realm of information/propaganda.”
Read my lips - it is O-I-L.
We have to have the balls to actually define whom we’re fighting against before we can even think about defeating them properly.
whoa. You can’t say that in public. It will make folks uncomfortable. Some think our brave leaders are actually fighting a “war” on terror. And winning.
As someone who has spent many hours in, around and on the Persian Gulf, I know the reason for our presence there and how it is spelled, found, pumped and transported.
That reason has nothing to do with our failure to properly shape the discussion.
But Israel's enemies do not recognize this assertion as "moral high ground". They do not object to killing innocents, in fact, they think it is both wise and moral to do so.
They recognize Israeli bleating about "moral high ground" for the weakness it is.
Such "moral high ground" talk is intended to appeal to Israel's friends, not her enemies.
If Israel cannot fight her enemies under the rules of war recognized by her enemies (no quarter), then plans for evacuation should begin now.
Didn’t have to go too far into the thread to hear the simple truth. The “winning hearts and minds” nonsense nearly lost us the second stage of the Iraq war. War is to be despised and hated, it is horrible, it is hell. You put your soldiers on the battlefield and crush the enemy, you kill them and destroy them and any possibility for them to make war in the near future. You give them war till they hate war and have lost all taste for it.
It would seem, in the here and now, a few media lies are worth 50k troops to an enemy; that is if your leaders are ignorant enough to try to fight a PC war and let the media and our enemies (often one and the same) dictate the parameters of war.
There is no such thing as "international law".
Law is an attribute of sovereignty. Law requires a lawgiver.
Since there is no political entity called "the world", and no person or organization which exercises sovereignty over the Earth, there cannot be transnational legislation.
(chuckle) That's what I was going to post, until I closed the wrong window.
And the 'Winning Their Hearts and Minds' junk cost us BIG in Vietnam.
“..has spent many hours in, around and on the Persian Gulf..”
How many years did you go surf fishing for subaity?
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bttt
Absolutely, there are some very astute Freepers on this thread, and that is refreshing, given what I have seen of late.
You know, an airborne chemical that simply renders people sterile would be a fine tool to have in our arsenal.
The author dismisses the Jihadist threat with his snide comments about the President calling it the fight of our time, after 9/11, even though we'd chased the 'few leaders' back to their caves. That comment is indicative of those who have the attitude that if we'd only leave them alone, they wouldn't bother us.
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