Arrests made in the Jerusalem murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, 16
I hadn’t written about this story yet because I kept waiting for less rumor and more official facts. There seem to be a few more available lately, although they come from an unnamed “official” rather being on-the-record announcements.
The facts so far as best I can determine: Mohammed Abu Khdeir, 16, of Jerusalum, was kidnapped and murdered by assailants. His killing was either due to burning, or the body was burned afterwards (unofficial reports are that he was burned alive, but it’s not clear whether that occurred). An anonymous official is quoted as having said that “there were six suspects and described them as young males, including several minors, all of whom lived in the Jerusalem area.”
More unnamed officials have been quoted as saying that the six suspects are Jewish and acted out of “nationalistic” motives. All the articles stating this seem to be using the same AP report from an unnamed official, mentioned also here.
So the identity of the perpetrators comes under the heading of rumor widely regarded as fact by the world at large. Indeed, it might end up being true. After all, Jews and Israelis have among their number people who murder, cheat, steal, lie, and all the other various sins and crimes of which human beings are capable. If this was a murder of a Palestinian by Israeli extremists it would not be the first time, either. For me, this horrific 1994 massacre comes to mind.
So we have established that some Israelis and some Jews can be guilty of brutal crimes. But why would this be a surprise? The real surprise is that it is so uncommon among them, and certainly much much less common than among their enemies. This is neither an apology nor an excuse for the times when it does happen, it is merely a factual statement that reflects statistics. However, as we all know, the world doesn’t look at it that way. That this is an exceedingly rare occurrence in Israel as compared to the Arab world is not the point. The point is to say “See, the Jews are just as bad or worse than the Arabs.” And the world will waste no time whatsoever doing exactly that.
If this crime was indeed perpetrated by extremist Jewish Israeli youths, they’ve done more to set back their own cause than if they had released a thousand armed terrorists into the army of radical jihad.
[NOTE: It often happens that when topics such as this arise, people say the Jews are judged more harshly because they are so high and mighty they call themselves the Chosen People. This is a common misunderstanding of what the phrase means. For an explanation, see this:
According to Jewish belief, Jews are the Chosen People because they were chosen to make the idea of one God known to the world…
Why do God and Abraham have this special relationship in the Torah? The text doesn’t say. It certainly was not because the Israelites (who later became known as Jews) were a mighty nation. In fact, Deuteronomy 7:7 states, “It is not because you are numerous that God chose you, indeed you are the smallest of people.”..
The concept of chosenness has often been misinterpreted by non-Jews as a statement of superiority or even racism. But the belief that Jews are the Chosen People actually has nothing to do with race or ethnicity. In fact, chosenness has so little to do with race that Jews believe the Messiah will be descended from Ruth, a Moabite woman who converted to Judaism and whose story is recorded in the biblical “Book of Ruth.”
Jews do not believe that being a member of the Chosen People gives them any special talents or makes them better than anyone else. On the topic of chosenness, the Book of Amos even goes so far as to say: “You alone have I singled out of all the families of the earth. That is why I call you to account for all your iniquities” (Amos 3:2). In this way Jews are called to be a “light to the nations” (Isaiah 42:6) by doing good in the world through gemilut hasidim (acts of loving kindness) and tikkun olam (repairing the world).
So one aspect of the idea of chosenness (a concept not accepted by all Jews) is that G-d (which is the way Jews traditionally write the name of the deity) holds them to a higher standard. The world, however, seems to have taken on that task, and holds them to a standard so high that it can never be met, while holding their enemies to virtually no standards at all.]
Some claim that one can be liberally moral – compassionate – or one can be secure with a relentless, bloody iron fist, but one cannot be both.
America as leader of the free world spent ourselves over the greater part of the 20th century trying both to ensure security and uphold liberal morality in our leadership, despite that the two fundamental values often conflicted.
We succeeded – for the most part. Then, everything of our distinct modern American and by extension Western leadership ethos was invested and exemplified in Iraq. Then, We The People proceeded with fervor to betray and sabotage the practical principled edifice we had painfully built with great cost, including our national soul, over several generations.
Which is to say, Neo, your post relies on the premise of an American-empowered 20th century ethos that you and I, despite our generational divide, both grew up with. Are you sure it still applies today with American leadership in retreat and, in many quarters, including possibly Israel, viewed as discredited?
Add: Neo, right before reading this post and commenting, I just happened to reread Bush’s 2002 remarks to the UN General Assembly. And I’m angry because Bush was right in his conclusion to the UN that day about the broader, big-picture significance that touches on the current event in Israel and Palestine:
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020912-1.html
Bush’s position followed from President Clinton’s prognostication in 1998 that also placed the US-led enforcement with Saddam in the larger context:
Bush laid it out for the UN and We The People as plainly as he could: “If we meet our responsibilities, if we overcome this danger, we can arrive at a very different future.”
“If.” We did not – despite that the success of the Counterinsurgency “Surge” in Iraq followed by the Arab Spring gifted us the chance to “shape a future more peaceful than the past — but only if we stand strong against the enemies of peace”. With historic opportunity in hand, we threw it away and deliberately chose not to “stand strong against the enemies of peace”. Instead, the chose the darker alternative that Bush warned us about.
Fix: Instead,
thewe chose the darker alternative that Bush warned us about.Eric:
Oh, I agree that the American-powered morality ethos is under threat, and in fact was always tenuous and a minority view around the world (although not a minority view in this country, it may recently be becoming so). I assure you it is not a minority view in Israel, or killings such as these would be a lot more frequent. In a poll about support of the man who perpetrated the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre that I linked to, for example, it said that he had 3% support in Israel and overwhelming condemnation in Israel. Compare that to Arab support for terrorist jihadis, which is overwhelming.
The problem has existed way before Iraq: how does a moral people fight an immoral enemy without losing the war? How bloodthirsty do you have to get to win? WWII answered the question with “very bloodthirsty indeed.” Then the Western world recoiled from what it had done.
The legacy of all of this was Vietnam, and the Iraq of our present-day focus was merely a repeat performance of Vietnam with perhaps even higher stakes, and lower US tolerance for casualties. That’s how “moral” we’ve become. But when you are kind to the cruel you end up being cruel to the kind. The question is: how cruel must you become to defeat evil? And in the process, do you become evil yourself?
The difference is quite stark. In Israel the murderers of an Arab boy have been arrested. If found guilty they will be imprisoned. In the area controlled by the Palestinian Authority the murderers of Israeli children are celebrated; statues are erected in their honor. And the PA will do anything to free the murderers of Israeli children.
It is night and day, or even good and evil. If you can’t see the difference there is something very wrong with you.
You reminded me of the takeaway quote from the 2004 Tom Junod Esquire essay that was instrumental in my take on the issue:
http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0804-AUG_BUSH
Neo: “I assure you it is not a minority view in Israel, except among the very few who might commit an act such as this.”
The question is whether the particular view – the ethos of ensuring security and upholding liberal morality – has been rendered practically obsolete by the summary judgement of American retreat. The 3% may have been marginal extremists before Obama, but Obama’s choices may have moved them into relevance and rendered the 97% view obsolete.
My view is there’s an order of priority. Being moral is a choice with costs (being an Army veteran helps one to appreciate those costs), but the first choice is always security. Without sufficient security, the second choice for liberal morality is moot. One can modify the applied method of security with moral concerns but one cannot sacrifice basic security for moral concerns.
Security is the necessary condition for peace, liberal peace or otherwise.
Neo: “But when you are kind to the cruel you end up being cruel to the kind.”
Case in point: Setting aside the poli-sci, world-map geopolitical game, one thing that stands out in the current discourse is the utter lack of care from the illiberal ‘anti-war’ crowd about the direct harmful effect on the Iraqi and Afghan peoples, especially those persons who trusted the American leadership ethos, of withdrawing US security in the face of the distinctive imminent and realized dangerss that characterize fellow-traveling Taliban and ISIS.
Eric:
Your last paragraph is just as true for Vietnam. Vietnam is the template for Iraq. That’s when the turning began. The left won Vietnam, and has never forgotten it. And now they’ve won in Iraq.
Some victory. But they don’t care about the consequences to the people of those countries, as long as the left can blame them on those here who supported the war in the first place.
“If this crime was indeed perpetrated by extremist Jewish Israeli youths, they’ve done more to set back their own cause than if they had released a thousand armed terrorists into the army of radical jihad.”
If the actions of “six extremist Jewish Israeli youths” is enough to set back the Israeli cause more than releasing “a thousand armed terrorists into the army of radical jihad” then nothing Israel can do will change the minds of those opposed to Israel. Which to anyone paying attention is obviously the case.
Reason, facts and self-defense are never justifiable in the eyes of those who hate. You don’t ‘reason’ with murderous fanatics, you kill them because if you don’t, they will kill you. It’s only a matter of when they’ll strike.
Calvinists and those of Reformed Theology backgrounds are most familiar with the chosen idea and that it is a humbling concept, not one of conceit.
“The question is: how cruel must you become to defeat evil? And in the process, do you become evil yourself?”
As cruel as it takes. No because cruelty reluctantly engaged in out of necessity is fundamentally different from cruelty willingly embraced and the purpose of necessary cruelty is to stop willing cruelty. Evil sets the rules because only in the movies does the good guy win by playing ‘fair’.
You can’t win a gun fight with a knife.
Geoffrey Britain:
I agree that there is nothing Israel could do to change the minds of those opposed to Israel. They would not be appeased even if Israel commits suicide.
But as far as your answer “as cruel as it takes,” that’s no answer at all, I’m afraid. Because that’s really the question: how cruel is too cruel? Do you think cruelty can be calibrated that easily? And do you think it has no costs to the practitioner? What profit a man if he gains the world and loses his soul? Can you tell at what point soul loss occurs?
“how cruel is too cruel?”
Unnecessary cruelty is too much cruelty. The good guys don’t torture a bad guy for the ‘fun’ of it, as do the bad guys.
“Do you think cruelty can be calibrated that easily?”
Yes and no, of course not. But making perfection the enemy of good enough is to substitute idealism for reality. Is the cruelty necessary to stop further cruelty by the bad guys? Will less cruelty by the bad guys result from the judicious application of cruelty against those who willingly embrace cruelty?
“do you think it has no costs to the practitioner? “
Of course there are costs to the practitioner. No triumph over evil is possible without paying the price that evil imposes. Defeating Hitler and the Nazis is a perfect example with a very high price paid indeed. My father is a kind, garrulous man, a WWII vet who never talks about his combat experiences. Lots of innocent children died in the carpet bombing of Dresden and Tokyo and Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
You can’t lose your soul if you remain regretful of the necessity to engage in cruelty when confronting evil.
“Can you tell at what point soul loss occurs?”
Yes, when you no longer regret the cruelty to find you now embrace it too.
John Podhoretz at Commentary — The Murder of Mohammed Khdeir Was an Act of Treason:
“It is a harsh reality that the strategic problem posed by the murder of the three Israelis wasn’t their murder itself, tragic and evil though that was. It is that it might signal the reopening of the terrorist battlefield on the ground after a decade of relative peace since the end of the second intifada with an emboldened Hamas now enmeshed in a unity government with the Palestinian Authority. If that is the case, those three dead boys constituted the Fort Sumter of a new war.
In which case, the murderers of Mohammed Khdeir have committed an act of treason against their country–because they have made its prosecution of the war more difficult and handed their own enemy a timely tactical advantage.”
Geoffrey Britain:
Everyone thinks they can know when to stop. Everyone thinks they know how much cruelty is necessary and how much is not. And most people have been wrong. Quite a bit of actual evil has been done by those who think their actions are still justified by their good intentions. If you study history (and I believe you do) then you know that.
Also, we are not talking about “the perfect” at all. I am quite obviously not saying Israel or the US need to be perfect. But it is a big mistake to believe it is easy to know where to draw the line.
And I don’t think regret is at all a good test of it. For example (don’t have time to find quotes now), I recall that, in order to psych up the Germans soldiers and police who were tasked with killing the Jews back before they had death camps but instead were shot en masse, the leaders gave them pep talks about how this was a hard, hard thing to do and how they might have trouble doing it and would recoil against it, but how they had to harden themselves for The Cause.
“Everyone thinks they can know when to stop. Everyone thinks they know how much cruelty is necessary and how much is not.”
That is the risk we take when we engage in necessary cruelty. To refuse to take that risk however is to purposely take a knife to a gun fight and in doing so, to tilt the field of conflict in favor of evil. Only in the movies does that tilt not have tragic consequence.
‘Good Intentions’ and ‘A Cause’ are false motives for engaging in necessary cruelty. The only justification for cruelty is to stop greater cruelty.
I’m not suggesting it’s easy to know where to draw the line, just that we keep clearly in mind that the line centers upon necessity. To ask for more than that is to engage in perfectionism.
When the emotion of regret is rationalized away as necessary for ‘The Cause’ then we may be sure that the cruelty encouraged is not necessary. Again, the only justification for cruelty is to stop greater cruelty.
Which is why the cruelty the WWII allies engaged in was justified, it was employed to stop a far greater cruelty.
Neo: “they don’t care about the consequences to the people of those countries, as long as the left can blame them on those here who supported the war in the first place.”
I said this in June 2004, while discussing the Abu Ghraib scandal:
Well, maybe due to Obama’s transformative ‘leadership’ as President, we Americans now have the luxury of turning our backs on world affairs while the world burns in the wake of our retreat, and we can rely on the hope the arsonists who are burning others will leave us alone if we give them what they want, including our surrender, payment, acceptance, and cooperation.
Geoffrey Britain and Neo,
Your exchange is why learning, thinking, and debating ethics – strongly in NCO and officer training, but integral in junior enlisted training, too – is such a big part of US Army indoctrination (and I assume our cousin branches as well). Because of the inherent contradiction between our core Western civilized liberal identity and the core necessity of force – including sometimes amorally brutal, savage force depending on the enemy – in the provision of baseline communal security in an uncivilized world.
In the same discussion as above, I also said this about the Abu Ghraib scandal:
And separately, several years later:
For many, including many of my fellow soldiers, there was no Reb Tevye-esque ‘on the other hand’ debate with the Abu Ghraib scandal. The MPs and interrogators were wrong, case closed, no matter the urgency of the context.
Eventually, with the Petraeus-led Counterinsurgency method, we figured out how to balance ensuring security and upholding our liberal morality in Iraq while confronting vicious enemies. The achievement of COIN surmounted seemingly impossible odds in our domestic politics and on the ground over there, but its premises and motivation were characteristic of the American leadership ethos.
The COIN “Surge” in Iraq was American exceptionalism in a nutshell. We can do that when we lead from the front. But what we can do and have done as leader of the free world with security and liberal morality is not normal in this world when a community is challenged by a vicious enemy. When America is taken out of the equation, the social norm is security or liberal morality – not and.
There are two groups most hated today: the Jews and Christians who oppose homosexuality based solely on Scripture. The latter’s demonization makes some sense. The “science” is not yet in (and probably will never be–but that’s a topic for another post) so that discrimination against homosexuality based solely on Christian interpretation of Scripture could genuinely be seen by those who do not accept the authority or relevance of Scripture as unreasonable and bigoted. Since there is no tolerance for Scripture, there will be no tolerance for the doer’s of Scripture. In place of “homosexuality” you could also state abortion, socialism, private property, etc. . . But homosexuality seem pretty much to be the most emotional and heated of the issues.
But wherein is the issue against the Jews? Aren’t the Jews, at least in America, the most dominant of the articulaters, the propounders of leftist doctrine?
Are we talking about just Israel? Not hardly. Look at France and college campuses in the United States. Zionism may be the most hated of all forms of Jewishness, but it is not the only one.
The hatred is evidence of the truth of Torah, of commandments, of Scripture, of “chosenness” (as rightly described above by Neo) of an eternal order, or a world to come, of design, of reward for conduct, of cause and effect, of the ideas which have been the foundation of Western civilization, that great organization of life.
Moral Distinctions
By FARLEY WEISS
07/07/2014 23:00
The Palestinian Authority Has Embraced Mass Murderers as Heroes; Israel Punishes All Murderers, Whether They Murder Arabs or Jews
There is a major moral distinction between the murders of Eyal Yifrah, Gil-Ad Shaer and Naftali Fraenkel and that of Mohammed Abu Khdeir. The difference is that the Palestinian Authority has embraced such mass murderers as heroes and Israel punishes all murderers, whether they murder Arabs or Jews.
A Palestinian Arab terrorist who murders Israelis knows they could have streets named after them, and have Palestinian Arab children be taught to emulate them. In Israel, all murderers are condemned across the board, and are severely punished.
The failure of the world to understand this distinction is exacerbating the conflict.
The problem today is that the support for and embrace of mass murderers of Jews is led by the head of the PA, Mahmoud Abbas, and yet world leaders are silent. Abbas was a leading terrorist for decades; Abu Daoud, one of the terrorists involved in the Munich Massacre, wrote about how Abbas financed it. When Daoud recently died, Abbas eulogized him as a hero.
It took Abbas five days to condemn the kidnapping of Eyal, Gil-Ad and Naftali, and world leaders were quick to praise him for it even though he never called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice. Moreover, we know that should Israel capture Palestinian murderers, Abbas will call for their release, as he has repeatedly called for the release of all Palestinian mass murderers from Israeli jails, including those who murdered most of the Fogel family, including little children. Even worse, the PA takes American aid and uses it to give incentive money to the families of terrorists serving sentences in Israeli jails. This is the case even when the victims are Americans.
The Hamas murderers of Eyal, Gil-Ad and Naftali were captured on tape celebrating the murders; their identities are known, and yet the world is slow to accept that Hamas is responsible. The EU’s Catherine Ashton took almost a week to condemn the kidnapping. But when Mohammed Abu Khdeir was murdered, her immediate condemnation was forthcoming. Ashton’s actions have not gone unnoticed by world Jewry.
There is a famous and truthful saying that if Israel disarmed tomorrow it would be exterminated by the Palestinian Arabs, while if the Palestinian Arabs disarmed tomorrow they would lose no land and live happy, peaceful lives.
When missiles are fired from Gaza indiscriminately at civilians there is no outrage. Israel rightfully tries to protect its people by attacking the missile sites — and then we hear about “stopping the cycle of violence,” and “restraint.” This has been the world’s consistent, morally bankrupt response.
Only if the world stands up for the moral position that Israel has the right to do what is necessary to defend its citizens, and ends the calls for restraint, will things change.
Consider, would someone have dared to call on the United States to “end the cycle of violence” between it and al-Qaida? Israel is literally fighting for its life, to live in its one state in peace. It needs to have the freedom to do what is necessary to guarantee that security. All other countries in the world have such freedom. It is the world’s failure to make it clear that the PA’s actions, embrace and rewarding of murderers of Jews is the problem.
America’s moral justification for attacking not just al-Qaida but also Afghanistan after September 11, 2001, was the argument that those who give safe haven to terrorists are as responsible as the terrorists, and that therefore the Taliban could be attacked for giving safe haven to al-Qaida.
Only with a change in policy by the US and the world with regard to the PA is there hope for change. We know the current policy is not just morally wrong, but also an abject failure. Eyal, Gil-Ad and Naftali were murdered as a result of the world’s failure to make it clear that the world will not accept the PA being a safe haven for terrorists any longer.
This isn’t about standards, it’s about attacking the enemy while defending your allies. If your ally and enemy switches places, then your SOP switches. This is not a double or switching of standards, it was the same one all the time, kill enemies, help allies.
They are in a war. But people think it’s about debating.
In which case, the murderers of Mohammed Khdeir have committed an act of treason against their country–because they have made its prosecution of the war more difficult and handed their own enemy a timely tactical advantage.
And how is that different from Israeli leaders releasing rapists, terrorists, suicide bombers, and kidnappers back to the Palestinians at 1000 to 1 and 2000 to 1 ratios?
They killed one person, if that. How many will a 1000 Palis kill?
If I was strategically in charge of Pali covert ops, I would have Arabs sleeper celled inside Israel, then ready to carry out atrocities against certain Muslim heretics that are too “moderate”, then blame it on Israelis or Jews as a frame up.
Generally, the Palis are too barbarian natured and adhere too much to their passions to do such, but they may be learning on the fly now. Or perhaps Iranian intel is involved.
I watched a speech by Caroline Glick about a month ago. She pointed out that Arabs living in Israel hated Jews almost as much as the ones in Gaza and the West Bank. The difference was that the Arabs living in Israel don’t commit atrocities because they are living under Jewish law. They know they will be hunted down, captured, and prosecuted. Thus, she said the Israelis don’t worry about Arabs who live in Israel. It’s those who live outside Israel that are the problem because it’s so much more difficult for the Israeli authorities to capture and prosecute them.
This incident exhibits the Israeli dedication to following the law – whether it involves prosecuting a Jew or an Arab.
I often liken Israel to a family that lives in a run-down, dangerous neighborhood. They keep their house and grounds in good shape, practice a moral sort of life, and have built a big wall around their house and grounds to keep the bad guys in the neighborhood at bay. Instead of trying to improve their neighborhood and emulate the Israelis, the Arab Muslims keep blaming the Israelis for their plight and continue to throw bombs over the wall or commit mayhem against them by hook or crook.
It’s a perfect example of the difference between a society with a respecdt for law and one with no law except for the law of the jungle.
I’m at work, so I can’t comment much. But on this very topic, I recommend two articles which deal with the toxic honor/shame psychology of the Arab and Muslim world, which preys on the West’s weakness and desire for “peace.”
Here is one article.
That article has a link to this article
I recommend checking out both. I think it clarifies why the West’s repeated efforts to “make good” to the Arabs/Muslims just keeps resulting in their making further threats, further terrorism, and further unwillingness to live in peace.
The Muslims are scared of one thing. The Left’s liberation of sex for women spreading to their women.
They know how destructive it can be, so the moderates on both sides are shot down or killed first.
So the reason why Islamic Jihad exists is
1. Because of Mohammed’s child molesting Jihad
2. Because of the Leftist alliance in the West or US.
JL,
Thanks. The Richard Landes piece, with its comparison to the ‘honor/shame’ Imperial Japanese culture, points to why the Iraqi regime change mattered much more in the long term big picture than solving the festering Saddam problem.
The regime change was also about fostering a different political cultural basis that ushered in liberal premises and principles to the region from the fount of geopolitically and culturally central Iraq. Success of the project could have fundamentally changed the terms of the West’s interaction with the Middle East, as we did with the Japanese.
While the mixture can be toxic, Arab political culture and Islamic religion are not interchangeable. The question is whether the toxic mix is due more to the political culture part or the religion part.
Beyond the Saddam problem, the idea of OIF was cutting the Gordian knot and fixing the culture part with the idea that doing so would detoxify the religion part.
But Obama bungled the SOFA negotiation, withdrew the necessary US forces from Iraq, and the cancer in the form of ISIS is now aggressively attacking to kill the cultural cure in post-Saddam Iraq.
The Landes piece does a good job of explaining Arab-Muslim culture. Actually, it’s a pretty good description of all tribal cultures. A particularly good book about tribal culture and how it works is “THE HUMAN CYCLE” by Colin Turnbill.
Tribal survival depends on protecting their lands and their women from all comers. It is an us against them mentality, that fosters the notion of never forgive, never forget. Change comes only very slowly and entails a good bit of bloodshed. Look at the history of Europe from 400AD to 1500AD when various tribes were overrunning, conquering, committing genocide, and fighting vicious wars to gain access to more land, more water, and other resources. This all began to change at the end of the Thirty Years War, when all sides, exhausted by bloody combat, began to recognize the idea of sovereign nations with borders and the right to live peacefully within those borders. Not that it ended all war, but it put European culture on a path toward more productive pursuits and learning, which has led to modern liberal ideas of freedom, individual worth, private property, and tolerance.
Looking at the march from tribalism to the idea of sovereign states with rights and citizens within those states with rights, you can see the direction the West as been headed. Whereas the Muslim world has remained, for the most part mired in tribalism.
The goal of OIF was a noble one and was worth trying, IMO. However, we can see, in hindsight, that only a very strong occupation and extended (25+ years) period of supervision would make a dent in this tribal mindset. Since we are going to have to share the world with the Muslims, we had beter understand their psychology and how we can best proceed to keep them at bay while trying to bring them into the modern world. Few in the USA, particularly among the progs, understand any of this. Thus we wander aimlessly in a dangerous world while the wolves grow stronger.
It is an us against them mentality
Have you looked at tatooed sticker users on Democrat FB are looking like?
Eric and JJ have it perfect. I just wish GWB had had the cajones to say at the beginning, “We are going to win, then we are going to occupy Iraq for at long as it takes to bring them into the civilized world, just as we did to Germany and Japan.”
Also, unfortunately, we have bought into the concept of proportionality in war, even though that concept has repeatedly been demonstated not to work. The South was not capable of being defeated until Sherman marched through Georgia and showed Confederate civilians that “War is hell.”
Germany was not really defeated in World War I, because we never went into German territory and taught the same lesson, which resulted in World War II. In WWII, we did that in Germany and Japan, and the lesson was learned.
(We also didn’t permit them to elect their own governments until years after the war, de-nazification and demilitarization, but that’s another story).
“You fight against us and we will reduce your cities to rubble and your people to scavengers scrabbling among the ruins” is the only strategy for success in warfare that works and has worked for centuries. (Alexander used in in Afghanistan, and the Greco-Bactrian Empire lasted for 300 years.)
Warfare in which one party restricts itself to the weapons that the other side has (“asymetric warfare,” which is really a misnomer — the guerilla wants you to be symetric with him) is just dueling.
We should have learned that lesson in Korea and Vietnam, but we didn’t.
Had we levelled Fallujah after those American contractors were killed in 2003, far fewer Americans AND Iraqis would have been killed in the long run. Had we installed an American Military Government in 2003 there would be no ISIS today.
Oh, well, “The only thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history.”
Richard Saunders, outstanding comment. Now, if we could just get a C-in-C who understands those concepts, things would look a lot better for the future.
We are going to win, then we are going to occupy Iraq for at long as it takes to bring them into the civilized world
That would have been a real Bush lie, since there’s no guarantee Americans will keep Iraq stable after he was out of office in 2004 or 2008.
Winning is one thing, staying there for as long as Korea, is something only dictators for life can guarantee, when they are alive.
Ymarsakar: So please explain to me how we have had troops in Germany and Japan for 70 years, and Korea for 60?
Republicans made sure those troops were there, to keep up American face.
You see any Republicans around that’ll do that for Iraq, in power, Richard?
When troops have been in Germany and Japan, it’s called a fait accompli. You don’t got no fait accompli. It’s reality vs fantasy or history vs wishing.
Ain’t no fish or wish going to save the Iraqis or the Afghans. Or the Japanese, even, now that they are going it Alone with re Arming for WWIII.