- Israel's problem is not on the ground, it is in the air.
- Israel confronts "broken windows" in Lebanon
Austin Bay expands on his earlier thoughts about Hezbollah's rockets in his syndicated column of today. I have always admired Austin's ability to take complex topics and present them in terms readily accessible to lay readers without "dumbing down" the subject. Read the whole thing.
Israeli vice prime minister Shimon Peres says that Israel will not invade Lebanon in an interview conducted before this morning's ground incursion by IDF forces into the country. So far, I would not count the incursion as an "invasion" since the ground forces are punitively directed against Hezbollah - the operation is a force-on-force mission not intended to establish Israeli units as an occupying force. Speaking perhaps prospectively, Peres said,Is Israel's objective now to destroy Hezbollah militarily? Our objective is to stop the missile attacks by Hezbollah and enable the Lebanese military to take over and prevent Hezbollah from ever again returning to the border of Israel -- as the U.N. resolution stipulates. Our objective also remains the release of our soldiers.
What will determine when Israel stops?
Will there be a ground invasion of Lebanon by Israel?
When the attacks stop, Israel will stop.
No. The problem is not in the ground. It is in the air. If we create a buffer zone, will they get longer range missiles to fire from behind that line? What will then stop Hezbollah from getting longer range missiles from Iran or Syria?
Here is a key point: asked about the utility of an international force in southern Lebanon to stand between Israel and Hezbollah, peres replied,
They are mistaken. The confrontation is not on the ground. It is in the air. If these U.N. forces can stop Hezbollah from firing missiles and rockets, that is one thing. If they are going to fight Hezbollah, fine. But there is no point to have people on the ground to observe the missiles flying overhead. That is useless.
That is why Israel must press on to the bitter end in destroying Hezbollah as a highly lethal threat to Israel's hme territory. Hezbollah itself, as an organization, will survive and recontitute to some level after Israel's offensive actions cease. But a defanged Hezbollah that is incapable of launching increasingly long-ranged, increasingly deadly rockets at Israel's cities is infinitely preferable to what Israel faces today.
This means, of course, that the war cannot be ended on the basis of the status quo ante bellum. If the status quo had been tolerable to Israel, it would not have counter-struck last week. Besides, the status quo was changed by Hezbollah when it raided across the border, killed several Israeli soldiers and kidnaped two. It may be allowable, as some have observed, that hitting Israeli troops is a military, not terrorist, operation, but so what? It only means that Israel's military response is even more justifiable.
What Hezbollah's cross-border raid did was evoke Israel to adopt a military version of law enforcement's "broken window" theory of deterrence.First expressed by political scientist James Q. Wilson and criminologist George Kelling in an article for The Atlantic Monthly in 1982, the theory holds that if someone breaks a window in a building and it is not quickly repaired, others will be emboldened to break more windows. Eventually, the broken windows create a sense of disorder that attracts criminals, who thrive in conditions of public apathy and neglect.
The theory was based on an experiment conducted 26 years ago by Stanford University psychologist Philip Zimbardo. He took two identical cars, placing one on a street in a middle-class Palo Alto neighborhood and the other in a tougher neighborhood in the Bronx. The car in the Bronx, which had no license plate on it and was parked with its hood up, was stripped within a day. The car in Palo Alto sat untouched for a week, until Zimbardo smashed one of its windows with a sledgehammer.
Within a few hours, it was stripped.
According to Wilson, a professor of public policy at UCLA, "There are two sources of disorder: offenders and physical disorder. [Both] lead people to believe the neighborhood is run down. The central problem for police is to take the small signs of disorder seriously and deal with them.
Bad enough it was that Hezbollah had been launching Katyushas into Israel for several years at the rate of a dozen or so per week. Evidently, Israel even under Ariel Sharon had decided it could endure that. (But, as Peres pointed out in his interview, the concessions it made under Sharon under the "road map for peace" plan were supposed to bring such attacks to and end. They did not.)
When Hezbollah turned up the violence by a ground-action raid into Israel, Israel's political and military commanders and general population knew that Hezbollah had started to break windows.
Hence, Israel struck. There was neither time nor reason to delay. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addressed the Knesset on July 17, explaining that the actions against both Hezbollah and Hamas was intended to "terminate their activity," "remove this threat of the Middle East" and "conduct a tireless battle until terror ceases." There are four national obvjectives, Olmert said:The return of the hostages, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev;
A complete cease fire;
Deployment of the Lebanese army in all of southern Lebanon;
Expulsion of Hizbullah from the area, and fulfillment of United Nations Resolution 1559.
Hezbollah's raid was a moment of near-blinding clarity for Israel's leaders: if Hezbollah is not reduced now, its violence would only intensify and its attacks become ever-more bolder and deadier. Olmert said as much:
We are at a national moment of truth. Will we consent to living under the threat of this Axis of Evil or will we mobilize our inner strength and show determination and equanimity?
Our answer is clear to every Israeli, and it echoes today throughout the entire region.
We will search every compound, target every terrorist who assists in attacking the citizens of Israel, and destroy every terrorist infrastructure, everywhere. We will persist until Hizbullah and Hamas comply with those basic and decent things required of them by every civilized person. Israel will not agree to live in the shadow of missiles or rockets against its residents.
Whether Israel will succeed we cannot yet say. But if they fail it will not be their fault. Failure will spring from the lack of nerve and moral sense of the European and American governments. In no way is freedom's cause served by allowing Hezbollah or Hamas to remain armed and capable of striking Israel. Cross-posted at donaldsensing.com
"What Hezbollah's cross-border raid did was invoke Israel to adopt a military version of law enforcement's "broken window" theory of deterrence."
Eh? 'Invoke' Israel to ...? Wtf. 'Force', maybe?
Peres (and this post) punt one obvious issue:
Who is supplying the missiles? Qassams and low grade barrage missiles can apparently be made in a garden variety machine shop, if you're willing to tolerate some 'work accidents'. Not so cruise missiles and long range ballistic missiles.
Perhaps the motiviation is simply 'One War At A Time', since the answers to the question seem rather obvious. But if you want to look at the full range of possible outcomes, you can't punt such an obvious element in 'capability' as an external weapons supply, and whether it still persists after operations conclude.
I meant "evoke," not invoke, and have made the correction. I would point out, though, that resorting to profanity or its abbreviation simply betrays a lack of intellectual depth and coarseness of character.
"Will there be a ground invasion of Lebanon by Israel?"
An occupying force would be responsible for the humanitarian needs of the local population. Israel doesn't want that responsibility.
Developed nations should try neo-colonialism to solve the problems of failed states. It might be less expensive than the alternative. Go into a failed state and bring lots of money. Hire gunmen and train them for security so you can ignore the local government of the failed state. Then build factories, schools, infrastructure, services, and hire the locals for labor and security. Expand until the failed state is entirely incorporated in the colony. Expansion would be self funding and when developed sufficiently given independence. The West Bank and Gaza would be a good place to start. Locals trained to provide security and respect rule of law are the key to creating civilized society in a generation or two.
#3 'Evoke' fits not better than 'invoke'. I still suggest 'force' or, maybe, 'provoke'. You seem to lack a feel for words, which is unfortunate for a writer; I would recommend acquiring a usage dictionary and perusing it daily. Alternatively (or, better yet, in addition) you could visit bartleby.com where all kinds of writing help can be found quickly and for free). Seriously, the article isn't bad at all -- timely and reasonable -- but snafus like that spoil the first impression: if you write, write well.
PS. Sorry for the 'wtf' (as an excuse I'll say that it's used so often as an sort of emphatic synonym of a question mark, that I came to perceiving it not as a profanity, but rather as a sign of annoyed perplexity).
Donald,
Would WTH be more acceptable?
I'm a WTF person myself. Probably the Navy influence. :-)
Simon
Magic Number: 666333
BTW I saw Bolton on TV today. He asked "how you negotiate a cease fire with a terrorist organization?"
Good question.
Also, concur with #5.
You can not negotiate with terrorists. You can, however, convince nations that it is not in their interest to allow war to be waged on another nation from their own territory.
The best way to deal with Terrorists is to try to understand what they want. What is their motivation. A person uses unconventional warfare (terrorism) becuase they do not have the military might to fight a conventional war. It is David v Goliath.
Understand what the "terrorists" are fighting for. Then develop a mutually equitable solution that will make both sides happy.
Early Zionists were 'terrorists'
"We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population." - David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.
Quote: Whether Israel will succeed we cannot yet say. But if they fail it will not be their fault. Failure will spring from the lack of nerve and moral sense of the European and American governments. In no way is freedom's cause served by allowing Hezbollah or Hamas to remain armed and capable of striking Israel.
My point: Quite honestly I don't see why we should fight the Israeli fight. Israel is keeping the problem going. It is not a Canadian problem. By fighting your fight for you then we become a target. I don't want Canada to become a target.
So the terrorists are misunderstood?
I would probably say that you do not understand the grievances that the 'terrorists' have. Therefore they are misunderstood.
Well perhaps you do not understand that I actually DO understand the terrorists.
That makes me the misunderstood person now then, doesn't it?
I understand the terrorists of the Hezbollah and Hamas just fine. I take them at their own word - they wish to eradicate jews. I find that this understanding is a great aid in forming my opinion of events in the Middle East. As a result, I wish Israel great success in destroying Hezbollah forces in Lebanon and Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza.
As for what Canada should do, I don't care. Canada ceased having moral authority in the debate long ago with silly posturing. Although I was pleased to see Canada start to demonstrate an adult attitude with its assistance in Afghanistan - where the "motivations" of terrorists like the Taliban seem to not have slowed Canada down much. I have hopes that the new government there will have a more rational policy in other areas of the War on Terror but I can't say that I care.
If you understand what "the terrorists" want, then you also understand why ordinary civilians support, harbor, and fund them.
And if you can figure out a way to keep ordinary civilians from doing that (you may want to try carrots instead of sticks) then you could deprive the terrorists of the support of the surrounding populace.
Of course, this doesn't provide the kind of gee-whiz exploding teevee pictures that drive up ratings, and it doesn't make armchair General Shermans drool with glee. It's tedious, tiresome, and frustrating.
So I doubt we'll see much of the clever route in the near future. Our brain-dead leaders are going to have to learn how to fight fourth-generation war the hard way. Too bad for us (U.S.).
a) You are fighting the last war. A terrorist war is not the same as a guerrilla war. They are fundamentally different.
b) That stuff you don't see going on. It's happening, you just can't see it. Duh.
c) Even if the some total of the strategy where 'hearts and minds', you'd still get more success with 'sticks' and 'carrots' than you would with just 'carrots'.
d) If you put terrorist in scare quotes, you're already well on your way to losing the war.
In sum, you are an idiot, and an insulting condescending tedious idiot to boot. Please don't come trapsing your shallow thinking around here and then mouthing off at everyone. I'm sick and tired of that crap.
Zed: Did the Israelis carry out Ben Gurion's edict to any degree.
Understanding what they want is easy - They teach their children to hate the Jew, that the Jew kills children and drinks their blood.
I know I should look for a deeper meaning within these words but I find it difficult.
If we take the terrorists at their word they want to kill all the Jews. Convert every one else to Islam. Kill those who won't convert.
I think our best negotiating position is to work on how long the process should take.
When the Pals say "Kill all the Jews" what they really mean is "we're really mad!"
When the Pals say "plough them into the sea" what they really mean is "we're really poor and nobody understands us"
When they say "kill them all, women and children" they are really talking about how an oppressed people will strike out in any way they can from the oppression.
I think I'm finally understanding why these terrorists are so hard to understand.
Maybe when other people say "Israelis have a right to a separate state" what they are really saying is something like "I'd like a large pizza with extra cheese"
It's all much easier once you understand. Understanding is the first step towards conversation, which is the first step towards help, which is the first step towards peace and love and happiness. I know because I saw this on Dr. Phil last week. At least I think that was what he was saying. Or maybe he wanted a pizza too.
Ha ha ha - you guys are funny. I can see that you have thought long and hard about the issue. I can see that you have run through the exercise of putting yourself into the shoes of the person you are trying to understand. Do you really think that all Palestinians beleive in "Kill all Jews"?
How would you feel if you were taken from your home and thrown into a refugee camp. The victim of ethnic cleansiing. Your economic situation in turmoil. Your future bleak. You have nothing to lose. How would you feel? What would you do?
Having a solution forced onto you by a bully is not a solution. How many times do we see - in American cinema - the underdog after being beaten down by a bully go and traing and get strong and then beat up the bully. In the movies we all chear yet here we seem not to understand.
The funny thing is that we ALL - Christiand + Jews + Muslims all worship the same God - the God of Abraham - yet we all can't stand one another. Can anyone here contradict this fact?
"Can anyone here contradict this fact?"
Yes. It's not a fact. It's an opinion. And its wrong.
Wow, lots of easy targets today.
Sure. And if I could figure out how to tinker with magnets and gravity just right, then I could come up with a perpetual motion machine. It's always the pesky little implementation details that derail the Deep Thinkers of Big Thoughts, isn't it?
You forgot "futile". The judges would have also accepted "suicidally naive" or "a tactic tried before with profoundly unsatisfactory results".
Dear God! Not this again...
Check out the Law of Non-contradiction.
They. Are. Not. The. Same.
#10 from Zed Zed on July 20, 2006 12:58 AM
When I read that, it immediately struck me as suspect. If you'd attributed that to Bagin or one of the far right leaders, I might have believed it and let it slide - but the quote is completely out of character for Ben-Gurion.
So I did some researching. The quote is attributed to all sorts of different sources, which is common among fabricated quotes. Then I came across this:
First, not only is there no evidence that Ben-Gurion said any such thing, but I'm betting the citation is false. I've got to go down to the library to make sure (its in our collection), but I'm already willing to bet the biography supposedly containing the quotation doesn't actually contain it. It is almost certainly a complete fabrication. But secondly, look at what the real 'embarassing' facts behind the fabrication are. They wanted to eliminate "preferential acceptance of Arabs into Israeli universities", channel "Arab students into studying the physical and natural sciences rather than humanities", enforce "tax collection from the Arab sector", and so forth. Oh the horror. It's practically genocide.
Bah.
The interesting thing about you quote is that such fabrications are generally only found at the worst sort of anti-semetic websites. Where did you come across it?
#10 from Zed Zed on July 20, 2006 12:58 AM
"The best way to deal with Terrorists is to try to understand what they want."
Why do you think that this way is best? My view is that the best way with a terrorist is to put a bullet through his head. But I'm ready to consider a diverging view, so please go ahead and explain.
Wow. More serious, deep thoughts on how Israel could secure its future.
Why do you think that this way is best? My view is that the best way with a terrorist is to put a bullet through his head. But I'm ready to consider a diverging view, so please go ahead and explain.
Let's picture a group of Lebanese men standing in a group under a cedar tree.
Which of them are terrorists? Which ones are moderates? Which ones just wanted peace -- until you put a bullet in their cousin's head by mistake?
Which ones are Canadian citizens visiting relatives?
#27 stickler
Was that an explanation? I don't see how your questions relate to #26. Care to elaborate?
More from the department of "remarkably inane questions:
The ones who chant "Death to Israel", after having recently inflicted some actual death upon Israel.
The ones who chant "Death to Israel", then go have a coffee at Starbucks while muttering about the numbskulls who actually fired rockets at Israel.
How much does it matter, if you can NOW put them into one of the previous two groups?
The ones chanting "Death to Israel, eh?"
...ok, sorry, that was probably uncalled for. (But I wonder how much influence those Canadians have on their relatives, whether they can dissuade their Lebanese relations from supporting Hezbollah, and thus actually move the peace process forward instead of just becoming another faction of anti-Israeli sentiment.)
Anyways, stickler, you haven't made a credible case that listening to the terrorists or trying to "understand" them will make one bit of difference. All your example illustrates is that it may be difficult to distinguish the real "bad guys" from the not-so-nice folk or from innocent civilians--and hey, what a coincidence, that's exactly the conundrum terrorism is intended to produce! Your angst would be better directed at the scum who put the populace around them into that situation in the first place.
"Let's picture a group of Lebanese men standing in a group under a cedar tree."
Ok.
"Which of them are terrorists?"
The ones setting up the mortar tube.
"Which ones are moderates?"
The ones sitting by watching the terrorist setting up the mortar tube.
"Which ones just wanted peace --"
The ones nowhere nowhere near the mortar tube.
"-- until you put a bullet in their cousin's head by mistake?"
Sorry, friend, but your cousin shouldn't have been standing so close to a terrorist. If you want to prevent it from happening in the future, the best thing you could do is shoot the terrorist yourself. Afterall, no one is better positioned than you to tell the terrorists in this picture from your cousin. It's this act of courage which the current Lebanese government failed at. They condemned the kidnapping of the Israeli soldiers, but did not call those who did it criminals nor demand thier prosecution. They claimed that they weren't responcible for what happened - and they weren't; because, if they had been responcible they would have threatened to eject Hizballah from the government for these actions. If this government had courage, it would have called on UN support in implementing resolution 1559. This government wants a cease fire, but it is not willing to take any steps to ensure for its part that the cease fire is not broken by Hizballah. This government condemns the Israeli's for using disproportionate force, all while it remains officially at war with Israel since 1948 and officially recognizes an armed militant movement devoted to destroying the state of Israel. If the government in Lebanon wants peace, let it call for a permenent peace treaty with Israel, let it recognize the Israeli nation, and let it denounce Hizballah.
Sometimes the way to peace is through violence. Violent men don't generally just put down themselves. Acts of courage are required. The Lebanese stepped up last year during the cedar revolution, but then there courage faltered. The present violence is the result.
#10 from Zed Zed on July 20, 2006 12:58 AM
"The best way to deal with Terrorists is to try to understand what they want."
I don't recall any of these groups being modest about proclaiming to the world 'what they want'. Death to Israel and all of it's occupants. Let me see if I can read that sentence again and have it mean something else......nope, still the same. Not all people can be negotiated with. If the terrorist thinks they can get what they want anyways by continuing to kill lots of civilians, why SHOULD he negotiate with you?
This was the funniest (and greatest) thread I've read on WOC in a long time.
Some of this reminds me of the scene in Apocolypse Now, where the character played by Martin Sheen was riding in a helicopter. The gunner was shooting everything.
"How can you tell which is VC?" he asked.
"Well. If they run, they are VC," the gunner replied.
Then he smiled.
"And if they don't run, then they are very smart VC"
This topic deserves more serious discussion, but honestly, most of the "rah-rah" people on both sides seem not to be interested in it. Israel is right. Any rational country would do the same thing. No matter how you are oppressed, deliberately targeting children is wrong. Kidnapping soldiers is wrong. But everybody has a story, and a long list of insults to their side.
As the kids say -- "tell it to the hand." Or better still, "Yadda Yadda"
Zed Zed -- I have thought long and hard about the issue. I've probably spent more time with it than it is worth to me personally. I have listened, watched, argued, heard and researched the arguments. Here in this thread you have been shot all to heck. You're doing worse on the other ones. If you are not a troll or a sock puppet, do you have some sort of response? I'd like to hear it.
Sorry, friend, but your cousin shouldn't have been standing so close to a terrorist. If you want to prevent it from happening in the future, the best thing you could do is shoot the terrorist yourself. Afterall, no one is better positioned than you to tell the terrorists in this picture from your cousin.
And if my cousin isn't a terrorist at all? If his name sounds kind of like that of a man who might have been rumored to have been involved in a Hezbollah rally?
Or maybe he's a Christian who was coming home from the market and had no connection to terrorism at all, but -- oops -- an errant missile turned him into a pink cloud?
stickler, as long as the terrorists live among the civilian population, it's going to be hard to tell who's who. That's why they do it.
So the people who don't want to be mistaken for terrorists need to turn in the terrorists, or vanquish them themselves. Someone from the outside is going to have a harder time telling the difference.
This is an unreasonable request most of the time. People in the Middle East who attempt to act on this request will get to watch their wives and children get brutalized before being killed. In order for this to work, the anti-terrorists either need to be strong enough to guarantee the safety of collabor(cough) excuse me, good citizens, or they need to be so well thought of by the general population that they are willing to stick their neck out for them.
Neither is true in this case. The Israeli government can't guarantee any Lebanese informant's safety, and is widely regarded throughout the region as a despicable and untrustworthy organization (with much justification.)