Tuesday, August 01, 2006

It Is to Worry

The knives are coming out Bret Stephens, in today’s Wall Street Journal:

Israel is losing this war.

This is not to say that it will lose the war, or that the war was unwinnable to start with. But if it keeps going as it is, Israel is headed for the greatest military humiliation in its history. During the Yom Kippur War of 1973, Israelis were stunned by their early reversals against Egypt and Syria, yet they eked out a victory over these two powerfully armed, Soviet-backed adversaries in 20 days. The conflict with Hezbollah--a 15,000-man militia chiefly armed with World War II-era Katyusha rockets--is now in its 21st day. So far, Israel has nothing to show for its efforts: no enemy territory gained, no enemy leaders killed, no abatement in the missile barrage that has sent a million Israelis from their homes and workplaces.

[…]

Harder to understand is a military and political strategy that mistakenly assumes that Israel can take its time against Hezbollah. It cannot. Israel does not supply itself with precision-guided bombs; it does not provide its own cover at the U.N. Security Council; it does not have 130,000 troops at risk in Iraq of an uprising by Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. It should be immensely worrying to Israel's leaders that Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani is calling for an immediate cease-fire. Ayatollah Sistani--unlike, say, Kofi Annan--is the sort of man who can get George W. Bush's ear.

And, a “key Republican” “breaks with Bush” on the Mid-East.

"The sickening slaughter on both sides must end and it must end now," Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel said. "President Bush must call for an immediate cease-fire. This madness must stop."

The Bush administration has refused to call for Israel to halt its attacks on southern Lebanon, joining Israel in insisting that Hezbollah fighters must be pushed back from the Israeli-Lebanese border.

Note the language used by CNN in the supporting paragraph immediately following Hagel’s quote. I use scare quotes on purpose; Hagel’s position seems to be more about playing the opinion polls than sticking to principles. But then again, he is a politician, one with presidential aspirations, at that… Silly me.

Nearly every op-ed I’ve read this morning cites Sunday’s bombing incident at Qana and the loss of civilian life as the prime mover in the increasing calls for “an end to the violence.” David Horowitz, writing in FrontPageMag, has the following comments (among others) on this phenomenon:

The appeasers of Islamofascism, who have been calling for a ceasefire and bewailing “civilian casualties” in Lebanon and Gaza, will succeed. Hezbollah will agree to turn over its arms to the pro-Hezbollah Lebanese army. The pro-Hezbollah UN will establish a security zone on Lebanon’s southern border to keep the area clear of non-government militias, of which the Hezbollah “militia” is the only one. The credulous in the Western camp will greet this as a victory for the peacemakers. But exactly the opposite will be the case.

According to a recent poll in Lebanon eighty percent of the Lebanese Arabs support Hezbollah. In other words, just as Hamas, which was created by the same Muslim Brotherhood that spawned al-Qaeda, is now the Palestinian government, so Hezbollah will emerge as the government of Lebanon. The Lebanese army will become the new Hezbollah “militia.” Only it won’t be a militia. It will be the terrorist army of a sovereign power, with the right to openly negotiate its arms deals with Syria and Iran. The next battle with Iran, in other words, will be World War III.

Horowitz gets a bit hyperbolic in his rhetoric, but his points are well-taken, in general. The bottom line is Hezbollah and its sponsors are fighting this war with the gloves off. They are expertly exploiting the weaknesses of the Western world, chief among them being our concern for innocent non-combatants. They are winning the propaganda war, that much is obvious.

Related: In an op-ed for Examiner.com, “Edward Morrissey: This is the soft nihilism of low expectations”:

Those who argue that Israel has occasionally violated the Geneva Conventions in its attacks casually ignore the blatant violations of Hezbollah, whose combatants wear no uniform, deliberately hide in civilian populations and fire weapons from residential areas. Hezbollah conducts none of its operations within the rules of war — and yet world leaders and the media never mention it.

Why? Because no one expects terrorists to follow the rules. This is the soft nihilism of low expectations.

This creates an impossible double standard for Israel and political victories. In order to defeat terrorists, Israel will have to engage them when they attack, wherever that happens to be. In their effort to zealously apply the rules of war to only one side, the global community doesn’t act to reduce the tragedies of civilian casualties, it increases them by encouraging Hezbollah’s tactics. The terrorists counted on precisely this response, which dictates their tactics and strategy to this moment.

Writing at his blog, Mr. Morrissey adds the following to his op-ed:

Quite frankly, this double standard will eventually destroy Western civilization by rendering us incapable of defeating our enemies. Those nations wishing to destroy us have watched carefully over the last several years while our own people obsess -- and I do not think that too strong a term -- over anomalies like Abu Ghraib and Qana, and they note the lack of outrage over the fact that their proxies have deliberately launched 2,500 missiles at Israeli civilians. No leaders or media make a peep about the butchery of our enemies as displayed in the torture and beheading of our troops, except to somehow make it our fault for fighting terrorism in the first place.

What lessons do you think Iran, Syria, and the rest of the terrorists draw from these observations?

A rhetorical question, that. We know the answer; at least some of us know and understand, but apparently those of us who do understand are in the minority. Others simply don’t get it, and we see evidence of that fact each and every day. Warning: that last link takes you to a WaPo op-ed by Jimmy Carter.

I worry. My God, how I worry.

4 comments:

  1. I've been worried, too. Sick with it. Jimmy Carter forgets that Sadat was no terrorist.
    If worst comes to worst, if Israel does lose, maybe it would shake up the West. I think they honestly believe that Israel can never lose. Maybe Israel needs to be the underdog for a change.
    (Just silver lining thinking, I know.)

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  2. This morning I read t.f boggs at http://boredsoldier.blogspot.com/. It gave me that sick feeling in my stomach similar to the Israel/Hezbollah crisis. If Israel loses, do we all lose? What would it do for those who want us out of Iraq?

    Jimmy Carter seems to be saying that Israel should have given into the terrorist again, and again in order to keep the peace never seeing that maybe by giving in in the first place, it encouraged the terrorists again and again. I really hate the whole politcal/propaganda problem (try saying that three times fast).

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  3. Both of you ladies make excellent points. Israel, however, will never be the underdog, ever. They simply have too many successes in their previous engagements. I'm not saying this can't/won't change...perhaps it will. But Israel is in the unique position of not being able to lose a war, not ever. Losing, to them, means the end of their existence. That's a powerful motivator. And yes, if Israel loses, then we ALL lose. I believe that to the core of my being.

    I've come to the conclusion, after "sleeping on it," that it's way too early to be as pessimistic as I was when I wrote and linked all this stuff yesterday. I have a bit more hope this morning.

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  4. Buck says, I've come to the conclusion, after "sleeping on it," that it's way too early to be as pessimistic as I was when I wrote and linked all this stuff yesterday. I have a bit more hope this morning.
    Whew! I feel a little better. I read Sandmonkey this morning (after first checking your blog, I hasten to add!) (You hadn't posted yet, though). They are still as feisty as ever. (Sandmonkey got a bit of a scare when he found out a poem he had posted by Shakespeare was taken by an Islamist on BBC/Arabic for... well, here:
    The owner of the famous Sandmonkey blog, who published a Poem that encoruages Israel to flatten Hezbollah a couple of days ago, has said that Israel has encouraged a new generation of arab liberal to hate it.
    Some of the commenters are suggesting he remove his bio just in case. Some are complaining to the BBC. (Good luck)

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Just be polite... that's all I ask.