Every time I see these attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah against Israel, I am reminded of my conversations with one of my students from 2006...
Daniel Brass, co-chairman of the Israeli Shooting Instructors Association, was one of my students at the Annual Training Conference conducted in 2006 by the International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors. The location was Palm Beach County, Florida.
I had trained with IDF personnel previously, but these circumstances were different and we had more time for casual conversation. We spoke of many things, including the giving up of sections of Gaza by Israel as a concession toward peace. It was my opinion that the giving up of any land would make no difference - Daniel concurred. And when I asked why Israel would do such a thing, he said "Some Americans won't like hearing this, but it is what I (Daniel) believe to be true: The concession was made under pressure from the U.S. via Condoleeza Rice. Israel understands that its only real friend is the U.S., and that it has to do some things that it really shouldn't just to maintain the relationship with the U.S." In that same conversation, Daniel made this statement that I believe to be the hard, cold, facts that many people in this country can't comprehend: "These terrorist organizations, be they Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Quaeda, etc, only understand one thing - brute force. There is no negotiation with them, as they view someones willingness to negotiate as a sign of weakness. The terrorist organizations view it as 'If they come to us to negotiate, we must have leverage over them of which we are unaware - therefore, we must talk to our enemy to make them think we are open to negotiation, while we prepare to assault them even harder than before, with hope of exploiting the weakness that we do not currently see'."
Although I had never been in favor of negotiation with any terrorist, I had never heard it put quite this way... And ever since Daniel made that statement, I have watched world situations involving Islamic connected terrorism from a different viewpoint. So far, Daniel's statement has held true.
Just weeks after Daniel, his wife, and adorable little girl returned to Israel from the training conference, the 2006 rocket attacks on Israel started raining down out of Lebanon. They were located in Tel Aviv, and were okay...
It is my personal believe that we only prolong the inevitable when we continue to try and "negotiate" a peace over there. I know this will sound ruthless, but I think we need to let Israel "take care of business" and stand beside them. Folks will say "oh, but look at the number of lives lost!" My response would be "Yes, but once the conflict is resolved, the deaths stop. Look back at history - many lives (of Japanese - remember them, the ones that launched the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor?) were lost when we dropped the bombs on Japan at the end of WWII. But many, many more lives (of American service personnel) would have been lost had we been forced to invade the Japanese main land. The same concept applies. Take care of the aggressors (the terrorists, in todays conflicts) with the weapons you have at hand and be done with it. Expect no mercy, and give none. That is what ends wars, not negotiations with terrorist.
Regards,
Raven6
"The concession was made under pressure from the U.S. via Condoleeza Rice." And - just this week, we learned that leaders of Muslim republics in the Middle East, rewarded Ms Rice with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry......
http://news.google.com/news?q=Rice+and+jewelry&sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGGL,GGGL:2006-42,GGGL:en&um=1&hl=en&sa=X&oi=news_result&resnum=11&ct=title
Wonder if she'll keep it or ?????
Soon we will hear that these same Arabs have donated generously to El Presidente Bush's "library".......as the did with Carter and Clinton who refused to kick their violent Jihadist asses as they deserved to be kicked.
Wake up folks - your oil and gas money has gone to buy almost EVERYONE in Washington, D.C..... Hell, they've even bought the incoming president before his inauguration!
