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The White Debonair
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Peter Worthington
Sun, November 26, 2006
War cannot be waged 'peacefully'
By PETER WORTHINGTON
Want to know why we (meaning the West) won't win the war on terror?
Look at Israel, arguably the toughest, least compromising of the democracies when it comes to combating terrorism. It has been fighting terrorism from the day it became a sovereign state, thanks to the UN.
Yet Israel, after failing to win the brief war with Hezbollah, is back to having to defend itself against rockets from Gaza, where Hamas rules when it isn't feuding with the Palestinian Authority.
The other day, after a rocket attack, Israel announced it was attacking the home of a suspected terrorist leader where explosives were stored. It gave the occupants 30 minutes warning to evacuate before war planes obliterated the house.
So what did the residents do? Well, not only did they not evacuate, but neighbours formed a human shield at the targeted house and, guess what?
The Israel war planes were called off. So now, every time the Israelis give the 30-minute warning which, apparently, is policy, the "human shields" of women and children head for the targeted house, secure in the knowledge that the Israelis won't attack.
This is madness -- no way to fight a war, or terrorists. And this is Israel -- the toughest democracy on the block. And yet Israel hasn't even gotten its kidnapped soldiers back from Hamas and Hezbollah, which provoked Israeli retaliation.
American, British, Canadian and NATO soldiers are even more restrained.
When the Americans had (or thought they had) insurgents in Iraq, mostly confined in Fallujah, a hotbed of enemy activity, rather than obliterate it (as they would have done in WWII) they gave a week's warning for civilians to depart before they attacked.
BAD GUYS DISPERSED
When the assault eventually went in, the bad guys were mostly gone -- dispersed to other areas to continue their slaughter of the innocent.
War cannot easily be waged peacefully. Restraints often mean prolonging the war and increasing its casualties.
Today, humane considerations are paramount. The symbol of peaceful protest is Mahatma Gandhi, the creator of passive resistance that anti-military activists like to cite as a way to thwart authority. Often overlooked, is that Gandhi's formula worked against the British. If he and his followers had lain down in front of Cossacks, the Wehrmacht or the Golden Horde of Genghis Khan, Gandhi would have become an asterisk of history rather than an icon.
A report out of Britain recalls that when American forces first went into Afghanistan, the first Taliban they caught were terrified --apparently convinced by their indoctrination that the American monsters would rip their livers out. Consequently, captives babbled like brooks and told all they knew.
Then they discovered that American soldiers feed you and generally abide by certain rules and ethics unknown to Taliban and al-Qaida.
Thereafter they shut up with no repercussions.
Remember the U.S. bombing of Baghdad prior to the 2003 invasion? Peace activists from the West pompously announced they'd be human shields around prospective targets.
Once the bombing started, these people fled -- outraged that the Americans could be so inhumane, even though none were targeted.
EX-HUMAN SHIELDS
As for Israel, if its government is nuts enough to give warnings of attacks, then it deserves what happens. The next warning should be that if human shields remain, they will quickly become ex-human shields.
One attack should be sufficient to persuade Palestinian human shields to take cover.
It's idiotic to give warning of an attack. Hezbollah and Hamas don't warn intended targets of rocket attacks and suicide bombings.
America lost the Vietnam War because it refused to do what was necessary to win -- a political decision that cost unnecessary lives on both sides, and achieved nothing.
Is that the future of Iraq? It seems so.
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I can't say I agree or disagree with him. Tentatively he makes some sense. However, one of the implications is that the death of innocent civilians is permissible for the purpose of eradicating the enemy when the two co-mingle (especially intentionally).
Carpet bombing an entire city where the enemy is known to hide among the civilian population is considered reprehensible by today's "alleged enlightened standards," whatever that phrase means. However, I wonder is it really so terrible? Isn't war, as Tecumseh Sherman and Lee observed, "Hell" and "Terrible".