One of the issues bandied about has been that of “proportionality”, or for that fillip of insider jargon, the question of in jus bello, or justice in war.The issue is how one prosecutes a war, and the limitations imposed on the prosecution of war by the need to maintain moral legitimacy in victory.
The charge frequently made is set out (in a fairly rich post – he’s not watering down the moral issues at all) by Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber, who says:
…here lies a real difficulty for conventional just war theory. If recourse to war is sometimes just—and just war theory says it is—but it may only be justly fought within the jus in bello restrictions, then it looks as if an important means to pursue justice is open to the strong alone and not to the weak. Faced with a professional army equipped with powerful weaponry, people who want to fight back have no chance unless they melt into the civilian population and adopt unconventional tactics. If those tactics are morally impermissible because of the risks they impose on non-combatants, then it looks as if armed resistance to severe injustice perpetrated by the well-equipped and powerful is also prohibited. And that looks crazy.
…
On the other side, though, it hardly seems to be satisfactory to say that non-conventional forces should be subject to weakened jus in bello restrictions, since the restrictions are there to protect those who have immunity from attack and whose immunity is not removed or diminished by the fact that one side or the other are militarily disadvantaged.
…
So I was interested to read a recent paper by David Rodin, “The Ethics of Asymmetric War” in The Ethics of War (eds Sorabji and Rodin). Rodin proposes to address the problem by strengthening the jus in bello constraints on the strong.
There are of course two broad questions. Just war theory, to a naive reading, ought to be about conducting war in a manner which allows for the possibility of peace afterward. The minimization of suffering is an end in itself, but this is not simply a calculus of pain. The basis for the laws of war were set down by the Greeks, because the alternative to war conducted in a manner showing some restraint was simply slaughter.
And slaughter did happen often enough.
The question is – can we fairly say that Israel (in Lebanon) and the United States (in Iraq) are behaving with restraint?
The picture at the top of the page is an aerial photo of a neighborhood in Beirut.
Here is that neighborhood after it was bombed by the Israelis (images from this site via Juan Cole, who misses the point as he so often does).
Juan suggests that this juxtaposition suggests that:
The difference between Ahmadinejad and Olmert is that the Iranian president is a blowhard. The one who had practical plans to wipe a country off the map was Olmert.
Juan is a history profesor so he ought to know better (yes, I know…). Here are some images from Wikipedia. I have cut and sized them in Photoshop, and raised the contrast a bit to make them more legible.
Frampol, Poland before being bombed by the Luftwaffe.
Frampol, Poland after being bombed by the Luftwaffe.
Cologne after the “Thousand-Bomber Raid”
Hamburg, after the firebombing.
We’re much better at area bombardment today – with conventional weapons. It would be easy for Israel to simply and literally flatten the neighborhoods in Beirut where Hizbollah is based.
The fact that they haven’t should buy them some standing in reviewing their in jus bello behavior. But somehow I doubt it.
If I get into a barfight with Mike Tyson, the fact that he hits harder than I do is less material than whether he hits as hard as he could have or harder than he needed to.
This pattern is repeated thoughout the conduct of this war, in the air and on the ground. Every day, Israeli and Coalition troops put themselves in unneeded danger in order to act with restraint and proportion.
It happens that these photos offer a quick way to make my point. Do awful things happen? Of course they do. It’s war. Am I saying “Gee, Israel hasn’t nuked them, so give them a break…” No, not even close.
I’m saying simply, that Israel (and the U.S.) are acting with some restraint.
The war that some commenters here look forward to won’t be restrained, and the aftermath will look much more like the World War II photos.
And that’s why I’d like to avoid it, and why I’ll support a restrained war in the hope that it can eliminate the conditions for an unrestrained one.
It seems to me that there are multiple possible explanations as to why we have restraint (as I have seen expounded by others blog comments here at WOC and at Michael Totten’s):
1. Lack of resolve (civilization fatigue)
2. War fatigue from WWI, II (especially in Europe) or its indoctrination via mass media
3. Internationality of capital vis a vis destruction of property (Hey, I own stock in that hi-rise we just bombed!)
4. Global energy production and distribution is so tight that a disruption could be catastrophic
5. We have evolved to a higher moral plane
Or some combination. The problem is, that the enemy is not rational within our system framework, so our inputs do not produce desired responses. As we fumble along with restrained measures, the enemy grows stronger, wears us down, and may eventually force an existential confrontation that will cause exponentially greater death and suffering than we would see if we could find a way to crush them now.
BTW the enemy is not monolithic. We have both and Iranian led Islamic revival and the more diffuse Sunni/Al Qaeda. Would that we could sic them on each other and stand aside. Alas, the battleground is the world’s oil pot.
Following from above, the enemy that Juan Cole insists is morally equivalent to the likes of Olmert demands our absolute destruction and subjugation. As he operates within a belief system that knows little of the West save what he was taught in the Madrass or sees on Al-Jazeera, he cannot help but become a victim of his own fanaticism. In a sense, Ahmadhi-Nejad is a prisoner of his own belief system, decision-making loop, what have you.
He can’t help _but_ try to exterminate the Jews. This movie has happened before. Our restraint is admirable, but it stems from a deeply flawed understanding of the fanaticism and hatred that drives our enemies.
The problem with Bertram’s post as it stands is that it glosses over the jus ad bellum considerations. Hezbollah does not constitute a legitimate authority, it does not satisfy one of the necessary prerequisites for a just war, and so aggression on their part (which is what happened in the case of the present hostilities) was unjustified and cannot be justified by subsequent tactics.
The article has the additional problem of fuzzing the notion of proportionality in the conduct of war: the means used must be proportional to the just objectives i.e. capital punishment is unjustified for, say, littering. Proportionality definitely does not that the means you employ must be proportional to those employed by your adversary. That’s simply a misstatement. I don’t much care whether that seems crazy to Chris Bertram or not.
McQ at QandO Blog had a good post on Just War theory recently. I’ve posted a number of times on the subject see here.
I’ll support a restrained war in the hope that it can eliminate the conditions for an unrestrained one.
Even if in the long run it creates more destruction and human suffering? I don’t “look forward” to a less restrained war, but I recognize that is what it will take to end this one. And failure to accept that only reduces the chance of victory and increases the chance of unrestrained warfare on a very broad front. If we don’t utterly destroy Hezb’Allah now, we’ll face a rejuvenated Hezb’Allah later at a time and place of its choice.
I also reject the assumption that were we or Israel to wage less restrained warfare the results would be Dresden or Hamburg. It would more likely be Fallujah. The reason for our failure to prosecute the war more effectively is not consideration for civilians, but fear of sustaining our own casualties. This selfish fear prolongs the war causing more human suffering. The classic example is Kosovo.
I have to second #1 above. Paradoxically, the more humane act would be to exterminate Hezbollah by whatever means necessary (and to hell with collateral damage) as quickly as possible to avoid more, and more brutal, war to come when H. gets the idea that Israel can’t or won’t fight them with all it’s got. These people do not think like we do. Their culture worships strength even when that strength is used to brutally oppress them, and despises weakness even when that weakness arises from the best humanitarian impulses of Western liberalism. Remember Osama’s “stronger horse.” They need to be wiped out as a fighting force and thoroughly humiliated–to the point where further resistance seems, and is, futile. And they need to be kept that way by any means necessary. Only then will they stop coming at Israel or us.
“And that’s why I’d like to avoid it, and why I’ll support a restrained war in the hope that it can eliminate the conditions for an unrestrained one.”
The root of my perpetual frustration with the anti-interventionists is simply their lack of imagination.
Even when the Iranian government (and Hizballah, for that matter) states the intention of destroying Israel, the antis won’t hear it because the images that should be evoked are too disturbing to believe, so the rhetoric is simply ignored. No matter how many missles get lobbed on a monthly basis into Israel.
Why wouldn’t Iran give one of it’s first big, bulky, and ultimately unwieldy nukes to Hizballah? All Hizballah would have to do to fundamentally cripple Israel would be to load the thing onto a yacht, sail it down to Tel Aviv, and make it go boom.
Of course that isn’t the most effective way to use a nuke, but then again, randomly lobbing missles into civilian territory isn’t an effective military tactic either.
But if the point is to randomly murder Jews in the handiest way possible, both tactics suddenly make sense.
But again, the antis won’t see it, because that picture is just too horrible. Therefore, it isn’t real.
And of course, the whole “handiness” thing is important too. Israel is handy. It has a very high Jew/mile^2 ratio. Of course, so does Brooklyn. And the world isn’t getting any bigger.
Finally, somebody is talking about the weakening of international conventions concerning war! Why has this been so largely neglected? The fact is, with the combination of Islamism and Leftist “peace” activism, the world has now, in effect, condoned terrorist tactics as legal and just. The one reason, as was mentioned, was that the terrorist cannot win in a fair fight. A fair fight is nothing more than obeying reality; just like I realize I can’t beat Mike Tyson in a fair fight. I can accept this, but many can’t. The stance of the Leftist is that ALL fighting is bad so it must be minimized. Compare this to their new comrades, the Islamist (yes, it’s very ironic, but hurts too much to laugh), who have NO illusion to winning a fair fight. “Oh, we’re not fighting, we’re just trying to survive”, they would say after lobbing a grenade into a pre-school. Because they are ‘underprivileged’, they get a pass on humanity, on decency, and if this word has any meaning now, honor.
The net effect of the BBC’s biased reporting, of Reuter’s doctored photo’s, and most other media organizations who can’t help themselves and side with Hizb’allah is that they are condoning their tactics. What happens when those tactics become the norm for the underdog? Any civilian population will be pummeled, and justly so. There is no such thing as a human shields, just cannon fodder.
Israel exercised restraint in dropping flyers that warned everyone where they were bombing so that Hizbollah could scurry off into the shadows.
Between the lawyering left and the ‘shoot em all’ right, the concept being ignored is DEFEAT. This was to me the point of the ‘bar fight’ story making the rounds in the last week or so. There is a spot short of destruction where an individual or culture will cry ‘enough’ and recognize that to continue will bring nothing but death. ‘Proportionality’ and creeping escalation just bring the hope that that capitulation can be delayed, or short of complete – another hudna. That’s a recipe for misery ad infinitum.
If the hope of lighting a backfire of liberal government against jihadism goes down – and I can’t reasonably give it more than even odds at this point – then we need some reasoned stance short of Wretchard’s Conjecture to indicate how we will fight. Not that we will, or should even try to sell it to the transnational ‘legal’ establishment, but as a waypost to our own people and a statement of expectations to our opponents, when they acknowledge defeat. If we do not, we risk falling into the moral horror of committing nuclear genocide because we were unwilling to accept casualities on the ground, and unable to consider alternatives short of holocaust.
Restrained War is why we have eternal war never ending.
War should be hell. S. Beirut, Falluja, Najaf, Anbar, S Lebanon these areas should be hammered into the ground. We should drive throu a village and if fired at we should demand the sniper/bomber be turned over as we pull back and encircle the town if they don’t give him up then we consider the town hostile territory and throw a artillery barrage across the town were we were hit leveling everything. Then we should ask again for the criminal if no one is given up level another block until DON”T allow anyone to leave. At some point the town population that 60% will realize that they cant defeat the US monster so its turn over the Jihadi or die they may hate US but is the whole city ready to become martyrs for some lone jihadi?
Is that horrible is that bad is that murder of thousands of innocents YES YES YES, but is this the only way to force the non-radical Muslims to take back their future and control their own Radicals like we do in the west. Today in our “restrained war” we ask for this sacrifice by the 60% but there is no consequence if they choose to just sit back and let US make the sacrifice. Why would you risk your life for people you don’t know or care about unless your fate/future is tied to them? They won’t control their radicals until they understand if they don’t they will be killed or maimed when we come to get those radicals.
Our radicals of all stripe religious and racist are controlled by the non-radicals because in many wars of past we learned that to not control these people ourselves means war with outsiders that can result in horrible death and destruction to not just the radicals but all around them. Ask Germany the consequences of not controlling your radicals when you can.
We have 20% Muslim population that is radicals and must be either killed or checked.
We have 20% Muslim who favor western values and ways.
We have 60% Muslim in the middle that has no love for the Infidels West but no real hatred either. These people can go either way if their world is threatened they will take a side for survival its human nature. If the Radicals are allowed to continue to scare the 60% into not supporting the 20% who support the Western ways this war will take forever.
There is over a billion Muslims world wide in today’s LLL’s world we couldn’t even hope to go around the world killing checking them all. We must convince the 60% undecided it’s in their own best interest of survival to support he 20% western leaning Muslims in taking on and checking the 20% radicals.
We don’t need to make that 60% our bed buddies we just need to convince them that if they don’t stand up and fight their 20% radicals we will and when we do they will be caught in the middle at huge cost to themselves MORE so than the cost if they take on the radicals fight and check them themselves. They must understand their options are do nothing and pay huge cost at the hands of our forces while we chase these radicals in the their streets or check the radicals and take acceptable loses/sacrifices at the hands of their 20% radicals.
They need to fear US more than the Radicals.
I’m no expert in just war theory, but would propose the following response for your collective scrutiny:
1) The government of Israel announces a new policy for dealing with missiles – each and every missile launched into Israel will be responded to by counterbattery artillery fire directed at the nearest town – starting a week from today.
2) Leaflets are dropped, radio & TV announcements are made, to make sure the launch areas get the message.
3) When the day arrives, and the missiles are launched, the IDF tracks and responds accordingly.
4) When Israel’s enemies protest, the Israeli government offers the bargaining chip, “You don’t want this to happen? Let them stop launching.”
5) When moralists are outraged, they are directed to Deuteronomy 21:1, “If a slain person is found lying in the open country in the land which the Lord your God gives you to possess, and it is not known who has struck him,then your elders and your judges shall go out and measure the distance to the cities which are around the slain one. It shall be that the city which is nearest to the slain man, that is, the elders of that city, shall take a heifer of the herd, which has not been worked and which has not pulled in a yoke; and the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with running water, which has not been plowed or sown, and shall break the heifer’s neck there in the valley. Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come near, for the Lord your God has chosen them to serve Him and to bless in the name of the Lord; and every dispute and every assault shall be settled by them.”
Some may respond, but this is a war crime – hurting innocent civilians! In return, 2 ideas need to be pointed out – 1) Is there a higher morality than the Torah? and 2) In the long run, this is deterrence through locally disproportionate response which discourages terrorists by punishing the (far from innocent) civilians that harbor them and avoids widening the war by attacking those whose hate is confined to speech only.
I would maintain that the #1 responsibility of any state is the protection of its citizens. Any in-jus-bello morality must bend to this priority. “If you do what is evil, be afraid; for it (the government) does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.” – Rom 13:4 Vengeance is forbidden to the individual who is injured. However, vengeance is in fact the commanded duty of the state, which is to administer justice on behalf of all its citizens.
Rodin proposes to address the problem by strengthening the jus in bello constraints on the strong.
It’s interesting in that I’m having a discussion on the Stratfor discussion boards where I’m trying to expose this double standard for what it is– an attempt to reduce war to an “even playing field” game by various means of restricting the stronger combatant.
I’m also trying to show that this has the paradoxical and wholly unintended effect of ceding initiative, tempo, and strategies to the more ruthless, less humane parties of the conflict. It seems self-evident to me that restrictions of this sort are only ever obeyed by the humane, those whom we do not want to see lose or weakened. I do not think I am getting through, so I can only conclude I am not making my case well enough.
But it is interesting to see people claiming right out what I thought had been previously hiding in the shadows.
The eternal paradox with the strong battling the weak was best layed out by Martin Van Crevald. To paraphrase: if the strong crushes the weak he is a bully, if the strong allows the weak to vie with him he is an idiot. That is the basis for the entire psychology of “low intensity” warfare.
The argument being made by Bertram is that fighting as an insurgent (the weak against the strong) is _hard,_ and therefore how can they not be allowed special privaledges tha strong are not allowed to take advantage of? There is a reason being an insurgent is hard. Being weak is not a sign of nobility of purity of purpose, nor is being an insurgent in general (as Betram seem to take as a given). A group like Hezbollah is relatively weak because they dont enjoy nearly the level of support a democratic nation like Israel does. They are a fringe group. The trap in Betrams thinking is that allowing the tail to wag the dog disenfranchises the majority in the most hideous way- by putting their lives in jepordy via warfare with a superior enemy. The weak are sometime weak for a reason, and sometimes they deserve to be crushed. Allowing them moral latitude in taking protected civilians with them is no answer at all.
Back to the real war:
http://powerandcontrol.bl*gspot.com/2006/08/tactical-moves.html
This is my latest in making a fool of myself or seeing a pattern that is hidden in the noise for every one else.
In this case I’m arguing with a general. An Israeli tank general. he comes off well. Just incomplete. He hints that I may be right.
=============================================
The only way to tell if this is a just war is the outcome. If Hizbollah is just degraded, it may be unjust. If Syria and Iran fall (as I predict) then the war will be worth it. Those folks threaten genocide and the peace of the world.
The top post ignores the dynamic.
The War is escalating into a war of the cities.
Hezbollah rockets Israeli cities more and more, only a matter of time before it uses larger, more long-range rockets with VX or some such payload.
Just War is a fantasy academics (the most anti-intellectual group) tell themselves in seeking to control that which is uncontrollable.
Hezbollah’s objective (destroy Israel and kill all the Jews) is something that guarantees War particularly with their Iranian patrons. Israel’s mere existence on the other side guarantees War.
In WWII the Brits during the phony war opposed bombing private property in the Black Forest. Soonn enough they answered firebombing with firebombing.
Just looked up Romans 13:4 (to the end of the section)
Don’t remember that passage before! Well, like all manuals, the one for life is very long.
I find it interesting that God has established authorities over man (this is very true from what I can tell.) Its not that men are unequal before God, but amongst themselves as ordained by him.
Governments are not the same as people though they are made up of people. Just as the authority of a leader is a different thing than the autonomy of all individuals.
This is what it is: Just War is partly to prove before God that a government does indeed have authority. For by their fruits they will be known. Not to say the government won’t have flaws, and make mistakes. But if the government truly means well, then it will see to it that things go well under its scope of authority. It will also recognize that some powers do not belong to it (the scope of its authority), the others belong to the people, lower or higher authorities, or only God.
So back to the subject: I think what just war is, depends on how much you know. If we consciously know that restraining ourselves to a certain point will likely cause more misery over time, then our restraint is unjust. If the reverse is true, then our temerity is unjust…
We know very well that Iran, Syria, Terrorists/Jihadis/Islamists would do great wickedness given the chance. What do we do? If we give them that chance because of restraint, then we are not being just at all. We are in fact, participating and aiding them in their error and destruction.
“To the wise, instruction, to the fool, the rod.”
(To paraphrase a proverb.)
Thanks, Rivercocytus. It’s nice to see someone besides myself turn to the original source of morality in wrestling with this just-war problem. With other respondents, I plead, “Please identify the source of your system of justice.”
#15 – M. Simon,
Remember this?
bq. The next move to look for is an Israeli advance into the Bekaa. Expect it in less than a week.
You posted it on July 30 here: http://powerandcontrol.bl*gspot.com/2006/07/tactics-strategy-grand-strategy.html.
#19 Donald,
The Israeli cabinent is about to aprove a move to the Litani. If you go to the above link you will see what that really means.
I’m even more sure of my predictions.
I go into more detail at my latest post, but let me give you the short version of the latest move:
Any encirclment will be a feint. The real action will be the move towards the Bekaa. When the right flank makes its left turn a blocking force will be sent up the Bekaa road. The blocking force will really be the hammer. Light forces will be inserted North of Ballbeck to act as the anvil. They need only have anti-tank and light arty. The heavy arty will be air cover. Think Market Garden without the failure. The light forces will be on the defensive. The strongest position. Thus the force need not be over a regiment or two in size.
Syria will be forced to attack they will mostly be defeated on the road.
I discuss why Syria will be forced to attack here:
http://powerandcontrol.bl*gspot.com/2006/08/syria-has-problem.html
I do admit I’m not much good at predicting op tempo. The strategy stuff still holds.
Is there any conceivable conluence of events that would shake your confidence? I assume not, because Israel has been threatening its advance on the Litani for a month, but they are still fighting over places like Bent Jbail and Naquora as they were weeks ago. Aside from special forces raids, Israel _is not advancing past the border_ on any front.
“Think Market Garden without the failure. ”
I dont think Market Garden was planned to be a failure. If Israel goes north of the Litani, it will be in small special forces raids like the last one, unless their is a dramatic change of plans. i could update the map Donald posted, but it hasnt changed measureably. israel’s intent is almost certainly to hold their stretch of border and use it as a platform to raid Hezbollah positions in southern lebanon with air and special forces attacks.
Peretz is dissembling when he claims the cabinet will approve a move to the Litani tomorrow, it approved that move “last week.”:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060801/ap_on_re_mi_ea/lebanon_israel Dont confuse Peretz with the government, he has been using the media to needle Olmert for a freer hand since the beginning of the conflict.
#17 RiverCocytus
Though I had not been to church in many years, these verses leapt into my mind on September 11, 2001.
Matthew 7:
16- Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
18- A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
19- Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
This is truth; whether you analyze it as socio-economic reasoning or as scripture.
One prominent Western thinker that has as benevolent a view of the Arab/Islamic world as you could ask for, Bernard Lewis, has decided to warn us in no uncertain terms that détente with Iran is truly perilous.
I strongly urge reading the entire article.
I also, do not wish for a larger war, I don’t want the endless chipping either, though I understand that conflict at the borders is probably unavoidable between civilizations that essentially find each other anathema. But I am truly worried that all of our chest beating or hair tearing may be irrelevant, that the die is being cast across the table, not by us.
Donald you will also remember that in another thread some one wanted to bet based on a drop dead date.
The best I was able to offer was: before the war is over.
I promised to abase myself before the world if I was wrong on a post on my blog. The other feller promised to do the same if I was right.
I plan to honor the bet if I’m wrong. So keep your eyes out. I will either be crowing or eating crow.
Not a bad post. But the whole point of these “rules” is to point out that war is a moral anomaly and–to be permissible at all–it must be fought in a straightjacket.
The temptation of those engaging in war is always to maintain that their cause is so very important that it justifies whatever behavior is necessary to “do whatever it takes” to win.
The doctrine of just war and all of its consequent elaborations has a THEOLOGICAL basis. It says that there are some things that we just can’t do, regardless of what it costs us or those we love.
Sometimes, we have to lose. Sometimes, we have to die. Rather than do the impermissible.
Of course, this evokes outrage in self-righteous people on all sides. Why, how dare we propose such a thing?
But, if you are a consequentialist, you don’t believe in Just War or proportionalism or any of that, except as a matter of convenience.
Don’t mistake me: I’m not a pacifist by any means. But war is full of problematic moral issues and one should expect that if one takes them seriously, one will be at a ‘disadvantage’ compared to those who don’t or seek only to manipulate standards in their favor.
If you DO take these issues seriously, you have to be willing, too, to “give the Devil his due.” For years, Islamic terrorists were fighting what they regarded as a just cause through direct attacks on innocent civilians. We told them that however just their cause might be, they put themselves beyond the pale of civilized men when they used the means they commonly used to try to achieve it. “Fight clean!”, we told them.
Well, Hamas kidnapped and killed SOLDIERS outside the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah did the same. Then it fired on an Israeli naval vessel. Then, it fired a rocket at a train station in Haifa–infrastructure. And Nasrallah pointed out that they were fighting according to the required rules of war. Not a peep from anyone in the West, as far as I can tell.
It’s hard to see a MORAL difference of just MEANS between our the pictures of World War Two destruction wrought by the Allies on German cities and what Hezbollah is doing today. They may be the Black Hats and we may have been the White, but we certainly were aiming to “terrorize” the population and cow them into submission by targetting them directly.
Uh, M.Simon, if I understand you correctly, you’re claiming that Israel has a warplan which involves the fall of the Syrian government. Is that correct?
If so, do you talk about meesy little details, like who or what you think will replace that government?
#23 – M. Simon,
I think you’re a good guy and your intense interest in such a vital subject is refreshing. I just think you will wind up eating crow pie.
For an insight why, see my “latest WOC post”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/008914.php (not on my own site yet) explaining that Israel wants to make peace with Syria, not fight it. While I do not claim this desire is unanimous in the Israeli government, it is strongest in the IDF.
Mark (#21) is right: we’ve been hearing about the “advance to the Litani” for days and days, but the IDF is _still fighting in Bint Jmail_!
Haaretz “reported today”:http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/747483.html,
bq. Despite the efforts of the prime minister and IDF generals to enumerate the IDF’s achievements, the war as it approaches its end is seen by the region and the world – and even by the Israeli public – as a stinging defeat with possibly fateful implications. …
bq. … Today, unlike a month ago, there is no longer any trace of the illusion that the air force alone can eliminate the rocket launchers. Today everyone realizes that a resolute, broad ground operation is required for that.
bq. But the IDF’s ground operations in South Lebanon – which began belatedly, hesitantly and piecemeal – are still carried out without bringing to bear Israel’s numerical advantage.
So far the Olmert government, including the IDF high command, has proven it has no stomach for the hard, grinding combat that even southern Lebanon requires for victory. How can you seriously propose that Olmert et. al. are in reality chomping at the bit to make full-scale war upon Syria? They aren’t even doing it against Hezbollah!
On your site you explain all such objections away by claiming that Israel’s reluctance for decisive ground combat and the ineptitude of the IDF’s command moves so far are only crafty, deliberate deception. The unseriousness with which Israel is prosecuting the ground war, you claim, is merely purposeful bait to suck Assad in. Just wait, you say, for Syria to strike at the bait and then we’ll see Israel’s blazing martial brilliance in all its former glory. IDF formations will slash into the Bekaa and make rapid work of Syria’s army.
Am I misrepresenting your position? I think not, but correct me if so.
On what actual evidence do you base your propositons? What is the actual basis of your confidence? When any Israeli source, in or out of government or military, utters something contrary to your theory, you claim that he’s just part of the deception plan, sent to make us all look away from the impending cataclysm that awaits Syria.
Sorry, M., but this really has an _odeur_ of conspiracy theory kind of stuff.
Ain’t. Gonna. Happen. As I posted somewhere, the Olmert government began this war understanding what was at stake but not understanding what would be required. Every day that passes makes that assessment firmer, IMO.
#21 Mark,
What will shake my confidence?
The war is over and I got it wrong. The fat lady hasn’t sung.
I heard today that Israel has told every one in Lebanon to stay off the roads and that any vehicle on the roads would be treated as hostile.
In addition Lebanon has recieved no gasoline supplies for three weeks. Naval blockade you know. So few vehicles will be on the road in any case.
I expect that a traditiional Israeli blitzkreig is on the table.
And the “fight” between Peretz and Olmert is theater. Part of the deception plan.
This will be one of the most studied wars for centuries to come for its brilliance of execution and the ability of the planners and executors to hide every thing in plain sight.
My most outrageous prediction is that the Syrian Army will attack the Israeli Army. A thing so absurd that I would have to be out of my mind to predict it. As I have heard from a whole lot of people. Yet that is what will happen. Israel will keep its promise and not attack Syria. Syria will attack Israel.
At every step they (Bush/Olmert) stated what they would do and no one believed them. Not those on side, not the opposition, not the enemy. Brilliant.
Bush has said what he will do. Believe him. Rice says a new ME is being born, believe her. Olmert says Hizbollah will be strategically destroyed. Believe him.
Simon
#25 Marcus,
What will replace the Syrian government is chaos. We learned our lesson in Iraq.
At this point I believe good government is not likely. What is wanted is reduced power.
If they get another meddling thug government with outside ambitions – rinse, repeat.
#26 Donald,
If I eat crow I will enjoy it. Every learning experience has value. It is impossible to learn if you don’t take a position.
BTW I agree with the Haaretz report at this time.
I have heard the Israeli Army has 10,000 engaged currently with 200,000 in reserve. Sure looks stupid to me. If I were a Syrian general I’d say those troops posed no threat because obviously Israel lacks the will. Once the paint is dry on that picture the picture will be ripped to shreds.
Don, you have my position down cold.
Besides the logic of what is necessary for Israeli and American safety here is what I base my confidence on:
Bush has said what he will do. Believe him. Rice says a new ME is being born, believe her. Olmert says Hizbollah will be strategically destroyed. Believe him.
Don, if I’m right I’d like your help getting a book published. It would probably be a best seller. I’d be honored to have you as a co-author.
Oh, one other thing convinces me. Bush is a p*ker player. He has gotten Syria and Iran to bet the farm. What we are waiting for now is to see Bush and Olmert turn over their cards.
Simon
I was interested by your post indeed… And I am in agreement with you in part… But for debates sake… Can we look at the idea that although we may have all this direct targiting which we didnt have during WWII…. That states with this power would be prone to being more blase about their bombing campaigns within cities… Just a thought, would like your opinion on this….