The Psychological Asymmetry of Islamist Warfare

http://www.meforum.org/article/1867 ^ | Irwin J. Mansdorf and Mordechai Kedar

[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.

[Just another Joe]

The current administration is profoundly retarded in re this issue.

The current administrations have been stymied on this since the 1950s.

[ExpatGator]

Did my fishing offshore. I was a surfer, not a surf-fisherman. Though there was little in the way of surf in the PG.

[Halo-JM]

When you make the decision to go into battle, you go in expecting to win. There is no overkill (dead is dead). We try our best to close with and kill the Enemy...not civilians.

The Enemy in this case uses the local populace as human shields. Some are willing, some are not. How does one tell the difference?

They use Religion as a excuse for their cause...and anything they do, and any casualties that are inflicted is just.

We hold this thinking as barbaric! So they use our culture against us...to sway public thinking. They also know about Vietnam!

So how do you kill an enemy that uses these tactics to kill us?

YOU USE ANY AND ALL MEANS TO DESTROY THE ENEMY!