Hard Truths To Learn From Israel's War On Hezbollah Contributed by Bill Faith
Lessons So Far Ralph Peters
August 13, 2006 -- ISRAEL'S war against the Middle East's first true terrorist army provides tough military and strategic lessons - old, new, and all too often disheartening. Israel's been winning on the ground. And still losing the war.
This bitter conflict - in which most casualties on both sides of the border are civilians - raises troubling questions, too. Some are identical to those confronting us in Iraq. Many have troubling answers. Others have no real answers at all.
The elementary fact - which far too many in the West deny - is that our civilization has been forced into a defensive war to the death with fanatical strains of Islam - both Shi'a and Sunni. We may be on the offensive militarily, but we did not start this war - and it's all one war, from 9/11's Ground Zero, through Lebanon and Iraq, and on to Afghanistan.
Until that ugly fact gains wide acceptance, we'll continue to make little decisive progress. American or Israeli, our troops are trying. But the truth is that we're really just holding the line.
We have not yet begun to fight. And many among us still dream of avoiding this war altogether.
It can't be done. Because our enemies - Hezbollah, al Qaeda, Islamist militias, regimes in Iran, Syria and elsewhere - are determined to confront us.
We're going to learn the hard way. But we're going to learn.
Meanwhile, here's what the latest battlefield has to say to us:
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Contributed by Bill Faith on August 14, 2006 at 01:58 AM in , , , |