via Jerusalemonline..
Uri Shechter, deputy Nahal brigade commander on reserve duty, wrote an open letter to his soldiers at the end of Operation Protective Edge. "This is what victory looks like", Shechter wrote. "It is a positive thing that the soldiers and commanders sense that they could’ve gone further, or else we would be in a problem. Not everyone who writes a fiery Facebook post understands that".I wonder.
Uri Shechter, deputy Nahal brigade commander on reserve duty, wrote an open letter to his soldiers explaining why Israel is the one that gained absolute victory in Operation Protective Edge. "It is important for me to say to the entire nation of Israel that we have won big time", Shecter wrote. "Hamas is squashed, the most it can do is take its head out of the pit in which it is hiding for one second and mark a V with its hand, until it gets the missile".
In opposition to other soldiers who have expressed frustration from the fact that IDF withdrew from Gaza, Shechter defended the decision. "Some of the soldiers and commanders feel as we haven’t completed the mission, and they would like to kill more and more terrorists", Shechter explained. "This is how soldiers and commanders should always feel; it is excellent that this is how they feel. If they had ended the operation feeling satisfied, it would’ve been a problem. I also don’t accept the words saying that IDF retreated.
Are we seeing continuous war in the modern age because civilian leaders don't have the moral courage to finish what they start?
Hamas is not crushed.
There will be another round to this fighting.
We have seen continous war since the develpment of war. Is it continous war or "On and Off War".
ReplyDeleteTechnically the North and South Koreas are still at war.
India and Pakistan were also at war till the time a ceasefire was announced.
Does the term Ceasefire mean an end to war or a pause to war ?
continuous war. i thought that would be relatively simple. i guess not. what i am talking about is a reason for war setout by the leader of a nation. the nation then goes to war to solve that issue. the issue is resolved and peace is established. the nations that fought might fight again but it should be for a different reason than first outlined if an easily identified "winner" can be declared.
Deletewhat you've seen since Vietnam are wars that have been fought without any real goals. the only outlier is the Gulf War 1. Bush Sr demanded that Iraq leave Kuwait, they didn't and we went to ass kicking mode. every other war has been fought for fuzzy reasons...to include the recent Israeli-Hamas conflict.
I've heard several different reasons for that fight. first it was to stop the rocket fire, then i heard rumors that it was over the kidnapping and lately everyone has settled on eradicating the tunnel network.
the real issue that is involved here is that Hamas needs to be destroyed. instead they chose a fuzzy reason for combat, and as is usual, soldiers aren't happy that they weren't able to finish the job.
You are right. War with a fixed goal in mind, a definable goal that comes before you launch your main offensive is the most desirable. But few and far between in our modern day fighting with Non-State Actors and Proxies.
DeleteBut when those definable goal wars do happen (1971 from my perspective), its a sight to behold.
i trace it back even further to the Korean War. the goals were identifiable. what happened? a politician intruded and prevented true victory. yes we might have prevented WW3 by doing so, but is the world in any better shape today because of Truman's timidity? i wonder. the Vietnam War is self explanatory. the Indo-Pakistan conflict the same. the other war that had a solid outcome was Vietnam-China. the wars that Israel fought earlier were clear wins but they appear to be squandering the peace by giving up land they won militarily in the hopes of peace with people that want their destruction.
Deletemaybe i'm just frustrated but i see nothing but trouble with the IDF being held back instead of being allowed to finish the job.
Unfortunately they are too worried about political repercussions. IF they were to finish Hamas off, that could possibly lead to the Palestinan Authority taking over Gaza and having a peaceful co-existence with Israel, but who would get the credit for this? Surely not the ones who lost soldiers to achieve this objective. In fact, there could be peace and the world would still be calling Israel a "terrorist state" or some other bullshit like that.
DeletePolitics and short-term implications are getting in the way of to long-term goals, as usual.
This is exactly what i had asked back in this blogpost when this skirmish started.........At what point does an officer tell his men...All right boys....Victory is ours !!!!
ReplyDeleteAt what point do politicians tell their taxpayers and citizens.....We are victorious.
This might quickly turn into a philosophical debate ! what is victory and how you define it ? Can there be any victory in asymetrical warfare against non state actors/terrorists ?
ReplyDeleteThe IDF has to put a brave face on the Gaza operation, regardless of the objective results and possible shortcomings ... You just declare victory and go home ! Truth is, against an ennemy like Hamas, you canno't achieve overwhelming military victory, because you're not fighting a military battle alone. You're also fighting a PR battle, political battle, diplomatic battle, psychological battle (hearts and minds) all at once.
We will win every military engagement against Hamas any day of the week, just like other armies have done against similar forces in the past, and might still lose the war in the end, if the goal is the destruction of Hamas.
Now it's too early to tell what's gonna happen on the Palestinian side in Gaza. Short term, Hamas' military/terrorist capabilities have been dealt a very severe blow. But if they retain the support of the population, they will recover and live to fight another day. That's the most likely outcome. Long term, you have two other possible scenarios: best case, the palestinians turn their back on Hamas and decide to trust a more moderate Fatah leadership from West Bank (not so likely) or - worst case - they might be tempted to go down an even more radical route with Islamic Djihad taking over, now that Hamas personnel and intrastructure are "out of the loop" for a while ... Time will tell, but Schechter's letter is more a PR stunt, some might even call it a spin.
In the absence of Definable Quantity, everything will turn into a Philosophical Debate.
Deletethink about what we're saying. suddenly the murderous Fatah is being seen as moderate! that is so crazy i'm going get something to drink! the terrorist grandfather of them all is now considered moderate!!!!!
DeleteWell, actually there are defined (and thus definable) quantities by which we measure the "success" of the operation. But achieving tactical gains on the ground is not the same as achieving "victory" in the sense of settling the issue for good. What we are fighting here in the Middle East is another version of the "long war" that was fought for example by the IRA. Some people in Europe and North America don't understand this because they haven't been exposed to this sort of thing.
DeleteAs for Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Djihad, etc., we got to deal with what's in front of us, not engage into wishful thinking. The Palestinians in Gaza decided to go for the Hamas option, their choice. West Bank stood in hands of Fatah. I don't think there's any point in discussing the merits of one or other organisation. It's not up to me to decide who should be in charge on the Palestinian side. That's their business. But one of these organisations abducted and killed three teenagers, launched rockets into Israel and killed some of our troops. The other did not. Doesn't mean we can be naive and think they are peaceniks, but i'd rather go for a hard bargaining at the negocation table rather than endless fighting any time !
I consider it’s a victory if the Israeli can buy themselves a couple years of quiet from the southern front. Elimination of Palestine threat is an impossible goal. Even if IDF can destroy Hamas as an effective resistance, someone else will rise up and easily replace it. The ideology and fanaticism live on. From Israel’s prospective, do they really want getting rid of Hamas and facing something even worse like the ISIL? Weakening Hamas is a better outcome.
ReplyDeleteIsrael has to understand some days US may not be there for her struggle. The decline of US economic power is inevitable and military might is built on a sound economic foundation. Sooner or later US will have to accept this reality and starts to disengage from foreign engagement. The Arabs won’t go away and will always pose a threat to Israel. This threat only increases given the downward trajectory of US power and prestige. Israel has to maintain military overmatch and credible deterrence without the support from US, plain and simple.
ReplyDeletethe decline of US power and prestige? you shitting me right! the Europeans are a basket case and without the US, Russia would be dining on them. as far as Israel is concerned, you misread the situation. if anything US backing has RESTRAINED them. the only reason why they aren't rampaging through the dysfunctional middle east right now is that they're concerned about public opinion. i can easily see Israel reverting back to the 1967, 1973 type mindset of they're fighting for survival.
Deleteadd into all this the atrocities that the terrorists are committing and the fact that the Muslim nations have been quietly rooting for Israel in this latest conflict and to sum it up .... you don't know what you're talking about.
Think your analysis about supposed "decline" of US power is a bit flawed to say the least. what is true is that US influence in the region as a whole will diminish over time, as has now been the case for about 30 years. But we're talking here about a very slow process. The major Arab players in the region have all been antagonized one way or the other by the US and won't serve as a regional power projection structure for US anymore (talking here about Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and to a lesser extent Egypt).
DeleteBut this loss of influence will not be caused by a decline of the US, who will nevertheless be the major (but not the only) outside player to have its say in the region. So all things considered, i wouldnt be too worried about Israel loosing US support because of disengagement. Nobody in Israel is seriously contemplating that idea.
There is however one scenario that is considered a possible threat to our strategic relation to the US and that is the scenario of an agreement between the US administration and Iran, provided some form of settlement can be found about the nuclear issue. That is definitely something that could be worrying for us if we are kept out of the loop.
We are footing the bills for Iron Dome system while our own military is starving. This is absurd. At least we should ask the Israeli to share the financial burden, say 50/50 split. Or maybe we should scale back the annual bribery we are paying to Egypt for their supposed loyalty. And what about the biggest international backer of Hamas. We just inked 11 billion dollars of arms deal with Qatar. Should we demand Qatari to do something about their financial support of a terrorist organization? After all, Qatar monarchy relies on US security protection for its ultimate survival.
ReplyDeleteyeah and we're going to profit from the technology that is derived from that system. i don't mind helping a friend but your points about Egypt and Qatar sing to me. additionally you can add the Federal Reserve debasing our currency to prop up the European central bank.
Deletei contend that what you're seeing is the US attempting to prop up a fragile global trade system that is inevitably going to fail.
all these issues eventually revolve back to economic concerns don't they.
gain, I think you're misreading parts of the bargain with Israel ... I'm not saying the US shouldnt weigh in the + and - of its strategic relation with Israel, but I can assure you, your country is getting something out of the military support it grants us.
DeleteRegarding bribery for egyptian loyalty, that's what great powers/empires do ! you support your allies in the countries that matter to you, even if it means spending money ... That's one way of exerting influence. Get real !
As for Qatar, the relationship between that "country" and the West is terribly paranoid, but the West's military industry got to survive ... so why not sell them some high tech stuff, they won't be able to use it anyway !
The problem with the current global system is that it presents no real benefits to US while requiring US to invest her treasure and resource for so called common-good. The true beneficiary is China (how ironic), a country that will certainly challenge us for global preeminence. The trend is set in motion and is very difficult to reverse or even slow down. It’s just sad that we have to live through this historic time of fundamental power shift.
Deletei disagree adaptus primus!
Deletehave you watched the German stock exchange? down...big time down! the reason? the trade sanctions against Russia. we're almost guaranteeing a war because we're strangling there economy. sound familiar? it happened to Germany and Japan and they came out swinging. look over at China and its got such an inferiority complex that its going to kick things off just for shits and giggles.
long story short, globalization is already breaking down. the more complex the system the easier it is to break. thats whats happening here.
1. "Some of the soldiers and commanders feel as we haven’t completed the mission, and they would like to kill more and more terrorists", Shechter explained. "This is how soldiers and commanders should always feel; it is excellent that this is how they feel. If they had ended the operation feeling satisfied, it would’ve been a problem. I also don’t accept the words saying that IDF retreated".
ReplyDeleteThe soldiers & commanders are 1000% correct but unfortunately the political and media echelons of the West have their heads in the sand perhaps on purpose because they are cowards.
Without an urgent change in mind-set the West is doomed!!!
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/15467#.U-I-Ypvlp9A
Op-Ed: There Will be Blood Published: Wednesday, August 06, 2014 7:16 AM
Islam presently has its stranglehold over on a billion humans and the rest of humanity ignores this threat at its peril.
From Northern Iraq to Northeastern Syria, from Nairobi, Kenya to Benghazi, Libya, from Lahore, Pakistan to the rugged mountains of Mali and Afghanistan, militant Muslims have executed tens of thousands of their fellow Muslims and are on a killing rampage against Christians. The world is shocked and distressed.
As for democracy, the rule of the people, Muslims have no use for it at all.
The Islamic killing campaign did not end with the defeat of the Muslim armies at the gates of Vienna. Their eviction from Spain was a temporary forced retreat. But now Muslim extremists have, in huge numbers, penetrated the gates of every city and town in Europe and North America without even having to use their swords.
Distressed by the Islamists’ trouble-making and killing sprees, civilized nations are bending over backwards in the hope of placating them and helping them join the family of humanity by admitting hordes of immigrants and offering them all manner of hospitality and assistance. All these gestures remain in vain and to no avail. Many of the new arrivals, deeply infected by the Islamic ethos, find it impossible to assimilate in the host countries. Instead, they strive to impose their defunct order which is the cause of their own backwardness and inhumanity on the host nations.
The non-Muslim world is at its wits’ end. No accommodation or kindness seems to stem the tide of Islamist violence. Countless numbers of proposals have been advanced in dealing with this systemic Islamic disorder. Some feel that, in general, Muslims are law-abiding citizens of their adopted countries and it is only a minority that is responsible for the violence and mayhem. Thinking along these lines has prompted people to say that the solution to Islamic violence rests with Islamic leaders. That is, Islamic leaders should speak up and condemn jihad and jihadists.
Western armchair theorizers and wishful thinkers need to take time and study the Islamic system in order to avoid making demands on Muslim leaders–demands that will never be met because they are completely unrealistic.
Islam presently has its stranglehold over on a billion humans, posing an existential threat to all non-Muslims. When this billion and a half adhere to the pathological belief of Islam and use it as their marching orders of life, the rest of humanity ignores this threat at its peril.
Islam, yet again, has risen from the ashes and is on a campaign of conquest throughout the world. Hordes of fanatical Islamic foot soldiers are striving to kill and get killed. What they all want is the opportunity to discharge their homicidal-suicidal impulses, on their way to Allah’s promised glorious paradise. And in the background, granting the foot soldiers’ wishes, are their handlers, the puppeteers, who pull the strings and detonate these human bombs.
2. Those who cherish life must recognize these emissaries of death — what makes them, what motivates them, and how best to defend against them.
ReplyDeleteAmerica, with a long tradition of protecting religious freedom, still clings to the “hands off” practice of leaving alone any doctrine or practice billed as religion. A thorny problem is in deciding what constitutes a religion and who is to make that call.
There is a glimmer of hope that the American people are finally waking up to the deceit and the menace of the creed called Islam. Their opposition to the building of the mosque at Ground Zero showed that the creeping Islamization of America is indeed something to stand against and prevent before it is too late.
As more and more radical Muslims arrive in America, as they reproduce with great fecundity, as they convert the disenchanted and minorities, and as petrodollar-flush Islamist treasuries supply generous funds, they gather more power to undermine a serious challenge to the American system of governance—representative democracy.
As for democracy, the rule of the people, Muslim fundamentalists have no use for it at all. The fundamentalists believe that Allah’s rule must govern the world in the form of a Caliphate—a theocracy. Making a mockery of democracy, subverting its workings, and ignoring its provisions is an Islamist's way of falsifying what he already believes to be a sinful and false system of governance invented by infidels.
I have been sounding the alarm for decades about the ever-increasing menace Islam is posing to America and our way of life. Apathy, political correctness, and massive Islamic lobbying have successfully prevented the public from truly grasping the all-pervasive assault of political Islam.
Time and again we are told by the politically correct “experts” not to worry about Islam posing a threat to our way of life. We’re also told, not to worry about the horrific things that are happening on the other side of the world! If Muslims act heinously toward non-Muslims, it is just the way things are in those countries and it is hardly any of our business.
This is the same attitude that set the Islamization of Europe on a seemingly irreversible track. One European country after another is rapidly buckling under the weight of Islamism.
With heavy assurances like this, coming from so many know-it-all authoritative figures, we can sleep soundly without the aid of sleeping pills. Yet, the Islam problem is very real and deadly. Neither the pronouncements of the experts, nor the tranquilizing pills of the mind can make it go away.
Islam will continue its bloody conquest.
Islam is a belief of blood. It lives and thrives on blood. It can be animal blood, enemy blood or even its own blood. Unless we see the handwriting on the wall and deal with them accordingly, before very long, America will have to turn its deed over to the new Islamist invaders or rebel and fight block by block, city by city. That’s when there will Be Blood.
Amil Imani the writer is an Iranian-American writer, poet, satirist, novelist, essayist, literary translator, public speaker and political analyst who has been writing and speaking out about the danger of radical Islam internationally for years. He blogs at Freedom Initiative.
3. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/15469#.U-I-YJvlp9A
ReplyDeleteOp-Ed: The Media are a Bunch of Anti-Israel Hypocrites Published: Wednesday, August 06, 2014 7:43 AM
A media pogrom.
Last week, during an important radio show in Italy, a Palestinian Arab doctor made the morally flawed counting of all the Gazan victims of the Israeli strikes. I was invited to participate to the show and I said that Hamas bears the sole responsibility for its people’s sufferings and that 15,000 rockets have been fired from Gaza since Israel withdrew from the strip. The journalist then brutally cut my phone connection.
This is how it goes in the Western media system. Israel is losing the war of images.
It began in 1972, when 11 Israeli atheletes were massacred by Arab terrorists in Munich. The entire world’s journals and televisions didn’t choose as emblem of that terrible event the images of those Jews martyred in the city close to Dachau and identified with the Holocaust.
No, the media choose the cowboy hats and the kefiyyehs of the Palestinian killers, to divert the attention from the simple, obscene reality: a band of terrorists slaughtered, one by one, 11 Jews.
The media’s words encourage terror and create justification where there is none.
Last week, the International Herald Tribune ran a front page picture of a funeral in Gaza. It was an extraordinary photograph. The intense colors, the position of the bodies, the pain, everything was perfectly calculated. Gaza as a Caravaggio’s painting. The Arabs as the chosen victims.
The Mohammed al Dura campaign inspired one of the largest hate campaigns in recent memory. And Israel’s security fence, built to save human lives (Jews and Arabs alike) is more photographed than any Hollywood star and only in its cement sections with slogans comparing it to the Berlin Wall and the Warsaw Ghetto (Remember Pope Francis praying under it?).
In the last few months, the “spontaneous” Palestinian Arab uprisings in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem have been scheduled so that the Western media knows where and when to come.
During this war in Gaza, all the lenses have been for Hamas and the Arabs, not for the Jewish civilians. The media’s words encourage terror and create justification where there is none.
The fact that Israel’s civilian population is targeted by Arab-Islamic terrorists does not fit “the narrative” of most of the journalists. After all, the world, according to these Western journalists, is divided into “oppressors” and “oppressed” and Israel is viewed as the “oppressor”. Therefore, any Palestinian attack may be justified, even the killing of baby Hadas Fogel.
The state of the Jews must always be brought to this public trial. Why? Perhaps because it put itself there in the first place.
When they write about the Jews, the Western media are not merely witnesses or observers. They are guilty of inciting against Israel. All the cameras, both video and still, are perpetuating the Arabs’ legitimate warfare.
It is a media pogrom. They all sympathize with murderers and terrorists and blame Israel for defending herself. What bunch of hypocrites. What a gang of purveyors and disseminators of hatred.
Giulio Meotti
The writer, an Italian journalist with Il Foglio, writes a twice-weekly column for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the book "A New Shoah", that researched the personal stories of Israel's terror victims, published by Encounter. His writing has appeared in publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Frontpage and Commentary. He has just prblished a book about the Vatican and Israel titled "J'Accuse: the Vatican Against Israel" published by Mantua Books.
i agree. many will disagree/disapprove but i'm beginning to view islam as almost satanic in its teachings. the fact that it can produce such animals yet claim to be a religion of peace is irony at max settings.
DeleteMo the Monster, thats quiet the sermon you have given.
DeleteMay I direct you to the Gates of Vienna Blog for more of your style of Sermonizing.
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ReplyDeleteUnilateral withdraw from Gaza is proved to be a strategic blunder committed by the Israeli government. Israel should consider re-occupying Gaza and move Gazans to West Bank, then cut a deal with PA to allow an independent Palestine. Remove all settlements from West Bank and re-located them to Gaza or Israel, sort of compensating Palestinians for their loss of Gaza. Then build an effective barrier between the new Palestine state and Israel. Say a few generations later if Palestine as a society developed into a more moderate and reasonable form and tones down anti-Semitic rhetoric, may be the two sides can re-approach and negotiate a long lasting peace.
ReplyDeleteAs I keep saying, decentralized terrorist organizations like AQ, Hezbollah, Hamas, AQIM, Al Shabaab are built for two purpose: inflicting pain upon their adversary AND survival.
ReplyDeleteThey cannot inflict pain upon the adversary if they do not exist, so they are structured as decentralized networks with insulated cells so that if part of the organization is killed off or arrested, the other cells are secure and the damage is minimized to the entire organization.
Hamas cannot win in a war with Israel nor is it designed to, it is supposed to bleed Israel and survive while doing it.
There is no 'complete victory' for the IDF unless they want to occupy Gaza and go house by house, seizing arms caches and shooting/arresting suspects and wiping each cell.
This is PR by the IDF. A weaker adversary like Hamas just needs to survive a vastly superior enemy like the IDF so it can put out its PR to say it 'survived' and thus won
and clearing Gaza house by house, arresting suspects, killing terrorists and seizing weapons is exactly what the IDF should do. fact. moderate Islam has had its chance to prove that it exists and that they are actually interested in peace. i have seen no evidence of it. fact. Israel will continue to suffer rocket attacks. considering what a couple of snipers did to the Washington DC metro area, we can conclude that rocket attacks are levels of magnitude worse....iron dome or not. fact. as things stand the IDF will be doing this all over again real soon..probably funded through the UN who will be funded by us. thats intolerable.
Deletebetter to get the bleeding done now then wait for it again in the future.
Is the Israeli population prepared for the casualties of such a campaign? Is Israel prepared for the public relations fallout?
Deletei wonder if the public relations fallout will be that dramatic. in Europe they're anti-semantic almost reflexively but in the US the majority still support Israel. you have news outlets talking the party line and blaming Israel but the public isn't buying it and the elites in the UN are irrelevant. they're just a bunch of moochers thinkingt they're important but in the end they're fucking useless.
Deletethe real question is Israel. they have a group of peaceniks and hippies that believe in unicorns and rainbows and want peace at any price....even if it means that they get there throats cut last.
It's a nice photo above.
ReplyDeleteSolomon, I totally agree with your assessment and conclusions. The IDF must clean up Gaza to spare future loss of life and treasure, which will surely come.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, we have to remember that no democracy will choose the painful, hard and agonising path. Remember the US and Vietnam when public opinion forced the Administration to conclude that war after much loss of life and treasure. The withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan show that a solution could not be found in these countries, and I venture that the old enemies will prevail.The Soviets also found out the same hard truth some 30 years ago.
Victory can only be achieved by total destruction of an enemy as a viable organisation and a viable political and economic solution must be found for the population as an alternative to it's future.
In the coming round, and mark my words, there will be another, Hamas must be destroyed. The costs will be high in Israeli lives, but I wager future lives will be saved. The question is who will have the courage in Israel to go that far. The current leadership in the political, military and defense systems seem weak and undecided.
The piece about Islam is really, really depressing, but so true. We will find that out in a few decades, but too late. It is like a cancer in the body of the West, and also in Russia, China.If I was a believing man, I would say: God help us all!
I would disagree with the above as the terms of the equation are wrong. What does it mean to "destroy Hamas" ? Kill or capture all its current leadership ? Destroy its infrastructures ? Collect all weapons ? And then what ? What will we have achieved ?
DeletePlease notice, I'm not saying we stood stand idly by when we're being attacked, or when some of our citizens are being abducted or killed. We should react and react with determination in those cases. But those who fool themselves thinking military victory can be achieved if only we go in with full force, getting the job done once and for all, are just kidding themselves and have obviously no idea about the difficulty of such a task (from a logistical point of view) and no idea about the consequences of such action. Always be careful what you wish for !
And even in the best case, that you erase Hamas from the face of the earth, there will still be 1.7 million Palestinians there with a Godzilla sized-grudge against us. And with every battle we'll win that way, we'll only make things worse ... Yesterday we got the PLO to deal with, today we got Hamas, who will it be tomorrow ?
Stop living in a fantasy world where you see only total annihilation of the ennemy as the sole desirable outcome. It's never gonna happen because you're confused about the nature of the ennemy we're facing. Go and watch the "Gatekeepers" again if necessary, will be sobering reminder of reality.
I know this may not sound very satisfying and optimistic, but such is the world we're living in. We have to walk a very thin line and we'll have to do so for years to come.
As for Islam, I don't know, I'm not psychic ... there is a problem worldwide, but who's been grooming these fanatics for years ? How did it start ? This monster we're facing today was a creation of some not so clever people in the US intel community in the 1970s ... And some allies of the US and the West (Saudi-Arabia and Qatar) are the main sponsors of those terrorist organisations. 16 of the 19 terrorists of 9/11 were Saudis. The people we're fighting in some areas are the same as those we support in other areas. There's paranoia bias and double standard written all over this, from Lahore to Timbuktu !
I meant destroy as a viable military organisation and a political entity, like Israel did 10 years ago and again alittle while ago in the West Bank. We don't have any fans there, but there is relative quiet and some prpsperity. If Natanyahu wanted there could be treaty of some kind between the two people. Maybe. In Gaza it is impossible with Hamas in power. Period.
ReplyDeleteTrue to that.
DeleteBut achieving this doesn't necessarily mean invading Iraq style. Besides, we don't have the money nor the manpower to carry out such a plan. So we will have to achieve this our way, be more clever, sometimes more subtle, sometimes more ruthless. But contemplating a all-out war like invasion of Gaza isn't the answer to achieve this result and we did very well to abstain from it.
But again, agree with your basic statement of desirable goal being destruction of Hamas' military wing. Politically it would be more difficult and we might face the prospect of seeing Hamas replaced politically by organisations even worse !
But shake them back into cohesion, or try and open up the way for a new leadership to emerge, one that is able to understand that' we're not going anywhere and even in a undred years time, we'll still be kicking the shit out of them, if they don't change their tune, that's something i can definitely agree with.