Posted on 09/21/2002 3:02:55 PM PDT by ex-Texan
Israel Tells the U.S. It Will Retaliate if Attacked by Iraq
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
JERUSALEM, Sept. 21 — Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has informed the Bush administration that he plans to strike back if Iraq attacks Israel, according to Israeli and Western officials.
Mr. Sharon's statements, made privately to senior American officials in recent weeks, represent a major shift in Israeli thinking since the 1991 Persian Gulf war, when 39 Iraqi Scud missiles struck without any Israeli response.
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The prime minister's position reflects a widespread belief among Israeli politicians and generals that Arab leaders perceived Israel's restraint in 1991 as weakness. Throughout his military and political career, Mr. Sharon has always held that any attack on Israel must be promptly and powerfully punished.
"I don't think there is a scenario in which Israel will get hit and not strike back," a senior Western official said. "I think the evolving strategy will be commensurate response."
Mr. Sharon's position has significant implications for the Pentagon, which fears that an Israeli entry would stir up Arab public opinion and make it harder for the Pentagon to maintain cooperation from the Arab states where Washington hopes to base American forces
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Our lone ally in a highly unstable region...
a member of the nuclear club...
a nation that has survived repeated multilateral military surprise attacks...
a nation that is the subject of 30% of all UN resolutions...
a top-notch intelligence agency (possibly the best in the world)...
MAN, you're a tough grader! Just what does it take to be a "major player" in your book?
And, no, I do not agree with your statement regarding the right to defense. The question is a moral one. If a nation's leadership is a military dictatorship and is not elected, does that leadership have justification to order "retalliation" hits? I believe that same claim was made by Hitler's troops in the invasion of Poland!
It is easy to say that a nation has the right of self-defense, but it is difficult to implement such international law and it is even more difficult to distinguish what is really a "preemptive strike" vs. "retalliation".
A counterstrike, especially a nuclear one, launched by Israel will not help the Israelies. In the long term, it damages their legitimacy.
In thinking about who the leading players really are, nuclear weapons are not totally the issue. Otherwise, Pakistan would be on the Security Council.
Really, I think a major nation is a democratic republic, has control of the military under civilian leadership, and is capable of self-sustained economic growth.
I feel that military strength is only an indicator of relative economic productivity. Comparing the size of armies, navies, and air forces is instructive. In this thread, a poster suggested that the IDF was the third strongest force on Earth. I disagreed because in various categories you could locate many stronger forces.
This view suggests that foreign policy should be focused on priorities related to "major" nations first. The G-8 are major nations because they have economic leverage that Israel does not.
The only major nation that is not in the G-8 is China. If China were a democratic republic and control of the PLA under elected civilians, then the picture would be complete.
If they could get there, which they couldn't. It used to be said that the PLA could overrun anyone in a conventional battle, if they could walk there. Only now are they begining to get the sealift to be able to invade Taiwan, a much less tough nut to crack than Israel. The same is true, although less so, of Russian and most NATO forces. The Israelies are a major player in the region, which all that matters to them, and for purposes of the current topic, to us too. The Israeli military is as well trained than any in the world, including the US. Their reserves are probably better trained and are certainly larger in proportion to their overall forces, than ours. Like Switzerland, Israel doesn't so much have an army as it IS an army. We'd be that way too, if we were surrounded by enemies with larger populations, that have tried, and still want, to wipe us out.
Yes, they have a draft, a universal one, with some exeptions, mainly religious objections. They also draft both sexes, but IIRC married women don't get drafted. About 1/5 of men and 1/4 of women do not serve for various reasons.(about 1/2 of the men for religious reasons, the others for medical reasons, or such reasons as being out of the country) Draft is, I think, 18 for both sexes, any event most enter the army (technically the IDF)
Men serve in the IDF for three years, women for one year and nine months, but that's only active service, reserve service is much longer. Officers have served as enlisted draftees before becoming officers. They've called up signifigent numbers of reserves in the last year plus, but then so have we.
Maybe nothing, directly anyway. However it has everything do with Arafat and you said "who cares about Arafat" and "I'm an American". I was just pointing out that Arafat's minions have killed Americans, even outside of Israel. The Achili Lauro incident is hardly the only such incident either.
Historically they are more common than not, and until recently at least, the tide was running in that direction. Even those not explicity theocratic have a strong Muslim religious influence, from Saudi to Egypt and even to Pakistan and all the little stans, as well as some of the north African states. In most it is an anti western influence.
Actually it is a religion, but its an ideology too. Parts of it are just plain evil, others fairly benign. The worst form originates in Saudi Arabia, and is spreading like an STD, only it's being done deliberately.
I don't think so. Rather they don't want to, but feel the way to insure that they don't is to make sure Saddam understands that if he involves them, they will jump in with both boots. War is more like rape than consensual sex or dancing, it doesn't necessarily take two willing parties to tango.
Actually more in British controlled Egypt, India and to a lessor extent in Great Britain itself. It was mostly the overseas British that drew the modern map of the middle east in the years following WW-I. They messed up big time, that's for sure.
That's like saying all Christians do not preach full emersion baptism of adults. Some branches of Islam clearly do preach hate. The version brewed up in Saudi Arabia, Wahabism (SIC) and exported to other places in and outside the middle east clearly does preach hate for Jews, and in some cases Christians and pretty much everybody not Muslim, regardless of Koranic instructions to respect the "people of the Book". Christianity had and has such sects too, but not many of late, and those control insignifigent numbers. The Saudi devolved version probalby wouldn't either if not for all that oil money. That version also preaches hate, or at least fear and loathing, of half the human race.
I wish it were. If we spent 2/3 as large a fraction of our total wealth on our military now as we did, say in the mid 1950s, we'd have such a force that we wouldn't be debating this topic, the show would already be over. There wouldn't have been any need to ramp up production of guided weapons, we'd have had plenty in the armory already. But America has always thought it could defend itself on the cheap. Still better than the Eurowienies who don't think they should defend themselves at all, for the most part.
No, he had some forewarning, he just didn't want to believe it, even after the PLA came accross the Yalu and we started taking Chinese prisoners.
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