The Road To Nowhere.

[Fish]

http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/060721_nowhere.pdf

[Skybird]

Good analysis, I agree on it very much.

It is often said about partisans that they win a war as long as they do not lose it, and that their enemy loses by not winning it. Same is true for Israel, in a way, it survives by fighting only, and when it stops fighting, it will seize to exist. In this understanding it is by far no state like any other, because it's presence is not accepted by neighbouring people. All concession it has made in recent years, concerning giving up territories, have backfired on them, all territories have been turned into attack platforms against Israel. there is no reasonable reason for more negotiations, the frontlines are clear, the line is clearly drawn into the sand. It has no other choice than to be the bad boy of the block. If it wants to win at least temporary periods of cease-fires (I never think in terms of peace in that region), it would need to fight with far lesser scruples and consideration, and would need to accept the political cost of that. See my thread "Unwanted truths, where I linked to a text by another author who also argues that Israel needs to fight with far more determination and less remorse.

Israel is a no-win-no-win-affair, consequence of the idiotic folly that it's founding in 1948 has been. But 1948 is almost 60 years ago, we cannot reverse history and say it should seize to exist. It is there, since two generations. It's is stuck in it's own strategically indefensible existence. It cannot win anything substantial in fighting. But it will lose everything if it stops fighting.

Negotiating with Hezbollah, a terror organisation, or the Palestinians will not lead anywhere. Hezbollah has sworn to destroy Israel. Hezbollah means Iran. Iran has sworn to annihilate Israel. What is there to negotiate? Terms of annihilation? "We agree on our annihilation, but not before the year 2018?" Annihilation in rates? 20% of Israelis being killed or expelled every 5 years? Or a law that regulates a less chaotic handing over of Israeli territories and what possessions the Israeli may take with them when leaving? Becasue more you will not get from Hezbollah and Iran to negotiate about seriously. They do not want peace with Israel - they want Israel itself.

That Hezbollah and Iran also represents the ideology of Islam doe snot make things any easier.

My advise is grim, brutal, and no one will like it: seal off all Lebanon, then let the army, air force and artillery work it's way through it from south to north, killing every male of age 15-55, no matter his confession, and then strike Iran's program by use of nukes. If the West wants to engage in that region, which I do not recommend, then it should do so by lending additional firepower.

Would that kind of massacre be against international law, the Geneva convention, or a UN resolution? Yes. Do I like it? No. So what? When I say "war", I mean: war, and I do not have any illusions about what war means. Israel will only continue to exist if it chooses to be more brutal than it's enemies. That's the simple, grim truth. In order to exist in the future, Israel will need to become the brutal, uncivilised raging bully that it's critics today try to label it as. A self-fulfilling prophecy. Consider it to be the price for the folly of founding Israel in 1948 in that place, under these circumstances. If it would be just three or four years ago, I would say: abandon the idea of Israel and dismantle it again. But today, that would mean to repeat the same kind of injustice that has been done to local residents in 1948, only this time it would be different people. I do not accept that

Currently, Israel is heading for the greatest strategic defeat of it's entire history, if it does not change it's too restricted approach on warfare. Today they have paused their offensive, it is said. Ridiculous. In that way, on-and-off, they will be chewed up, and all the destruction so far will have been in vain. If they continue this war half-heartedly, I will take back all my support for them. Because worse than waging a brutal war at the cost of also doing massive damage to civilians is: doing it for nothing, thoughtlessly, not achieving any good. They need to massively intensify their war efforts, or they will bog down.

but it is possible that the plan is a very different one anyhow: in preparation of war against Iran, getting rid of enough of Hezbollah'S thread potential so that Iran cannot react to war by opening a second front near Israel, causing unrest and instability there. As I said repeatedly, the Lebanon war in fact already is an "indirect" Israeli-Iranian war. That's why they kill the infrastructure so systematically: to prevent reinforcement of (heavy) missiles and ammunitions via Syria and Iran. Once the flank of Israel is secured, a great vulnerability during a future war with Iran, no matter if the US is the dominant player in that, or Israel, will have been taken care of.

[gdogghenrikson]

Here I was thinking this thread was about the ozzy osbourne song....Boy was I wrong:up:

[TteFAboB]

Oh but Skybird, what about Just War!

Don't even kid me. Just war was once a concept that had a meaning and a purpose. Today it no longer has a meaning, nor serves the intended purpose: to prevent European Christians from murdering each other to death thus letting Europe become easier prey for Islam. That is all there, was, to it.

A just war is incompatible with an asymmetric war, because asymmetry forsees one of the sides not playing by the same rules of just war. It is a misconception to believe you must show mercy for those who would not return the mercy. Don't capture, let this soldier go free and return to his land. Wrong. He will return to the army of the enemy by his own choice or by force and fight against you another day because that is his sole purpose in life, or the purpose of his sultan.

The call for just war is aiming at the wrong target. You must teach it to the Hizbollah so that they can practice it and agree to the terms with you. Otherwise they have their own ideas about how to wage war, inspired by their Quran. Jewish moral versus Islamic moral do not match, they're incompatible, thus, a Christian appeal for just war is an attempt to sign a non-aggression pact with a wild lion. After he eats the Jew, he'll turn at you and attempt to bring down 10 of your airplanes.

How can you talk of peace with their militants if they will not settle for anything other than unconditional extermination? It reminds me of the infantile Rudolf Hess. Sure there were those British who wanted to sign peace, but most didn't, and the British didn't accept anything but unconditional surrender in the end. I wonder if the people demanding peace and cease-fires already know when the Hizbollah will strike again. Because I know there can't be peace. If only the Hizbollah cared to inform their western allies so that they could inform the rest of us, I might miss my bus, but people in the region will die.

"Accuse them of what you practice, insult them of what you are" - I think this old subversive rule resumes well our just war advocates. Accuse Israel of state-terrorism, accuse Israel of using human-shields, accuse Israel of not caring for human life - it was Hassan Nasrallah who told the Arabs of Haifa to leave this city "so that we don't have to spill your blood, which is our blood." Despite appearing to put different weights on Israeli and Arab lives, this peaceful gentleman is a liar ("Lie, lie always"; "Lie into the truth") because he has no problem killing Iraqis, Arabs and Muslims in Iraq.

It's not a just war, it's an asymmetric war. The basic principle behind such a war is granting one side unconditional right to every crime and brutality and disarming the other by moral paralizing demands. Of course, this only proves the moral superiority of one side. If the accused wasn't morally sensible, conscious, it would be impossible to inhibit him appealing to his ethical duties. And if the accuser also had the same duties in the plane of his own conducts, he would feel equally restrained and there would've been no asymmetry at all. It's exactly the fact of releasing one side from the moral obligations of the other that gives the asymmetrical combatant the strategic advantage of his position. To the success of this stratagem, it is essential that the accusing speach always comes from the guilty to the innocent, by the criminal against the victim. Their collaborators don't realize it, but the more vehement and morally indignant an accusation, the greater a proof of their crimes it is. An example, while in the western media the Israelis are condemned as monsters, the Muslim world rejoices with the Hizbollah: http://pmw.org.il/bulletins_Aug2006.htm#b020806

They know of our moral obligations while they also know that their only moral duty is the blatant glorification of their own crimes which are what gives them their victory in the asymmetric war.

Have you seen the Muslim & Friends protests that occured all over the world? Was the German TV kind enough to show you their posters such as "Europe is the Cancer, Islam is the cure" (from a protest in London) or "Kill those who insult Islam" or did they choose to ignore it because the first poster would disrupt the fragile moral equivalence construction?

[Skybird]

Here I was thinking this thread was about the ozzy osbourne song....Boy was I wrong:up:
Yeah, I give you that! :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Ducimus]

The road to nowwhere.... leads to me!


OZZZYYYY!!!!

:lol: