A Price of Fighting Terrorism Contributed by Bill Faith
A helmet tip to Russ Vaughn for not letting me miss this one like I almost did. Russ passed on Boomer's mail:
Interesting and the very last paragraph says a lot, although it fails to mention the plots against mass transportation. How about sports venues? Or major shopping malls? Imagine the panic an attack in those places would cause.
There is no nice way to win a war, especially when fighting an enemy such as Hezbollah.
Do we wonder if the Israelis, or us even, have now learned the lesson?
Boomer in Guam
Boomer, btw, has been offered a key to the site but hasn't said Yea or Nay yet.
By David Bernstein
When much of the world initially supported Israel's right to defend itself against the Hezbollah attacks, I wondered how long the international backing would last. Would Israel be given enough time to push Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon and cripple the terrorist organization before the world lost patience?
Alas, the international support lasted a mere two weeks. With the unfortunate but inevitable loss of life, calls for a cease-fire have reached a fevered pitch, threatening to end the operation before Israel's basic military objectives have been met and before an adequate international force can be mobilized and placed on the ground.
The chain of events was predictable: Hezbollah attacks Israel; Israel battles an enemy that hides among and fights from civilian populations, which inevitably leads to civilian casualties; the images of suffering reach Western audiences, which react with horror; the international community pressures the Jewish state to cease and desist.
Predictable, but foolish. ...
[...]
If we are serious about winning the war against Islamic extremists, the West will have to fight against an enemy that hides missiles in family homes and cynically exploits the inevitable results. It will occasionally have to take military action that it knows in advance will cause civilian casualties, even as it tries to minimize those casualties. And when those casualties do occur, it will have to place blame where it belongs -- on the extremists and their supporters -- and then go on with the war.
It's time for someone to say it; maybe someone already has, or maybe I'm the first and I'll get my own personal fatwa for it: The loss of any innocent human life is a terrible thing. On the other hand, the loss of my daughter's or grandson's life would be a damned site more terrible than the deaths of some jihadi's wife and kid, or even the jihadi's neighbor. It's time for my government to realize that and start acting accordingly.
Contributed by Bill Faith on August 14, 2006 at 10:54 AM in , |