genocide needed?

[Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

[I don't remember hearing about this. I'm sorry if it's been posted before.]

TOO NICE TO WIN?
ISRAEL'S DILEMMA

By JOHN PODHORETZ / New York POST.

July 25, 2006 -- WHAT if liberal democracies have now evolved to a
point where they can no longer wage war effectively because they have
achieved a level of humanitarian concern for others that dwarfs any
really cold-eyed pursuit of their own national interests?

What if the universalist idea of liberal democracy - the idea that all
people are created equal - has sunk in so deeply that we no longer
assign special value to the lives and interests of our own people as
opposed to those in other countries?

What if this triumph of universalism is demonstrated by the Left's
insistence that American and Israeli military actions marked by an
extraordinary concern for preventing civilian casualties are in fact
unacceptably brutal? And is also apparent in the Right's claim that a
war against a country has nothing to do with the people but only with
that country's leaders?

Can any war be won when this is the nature of the discussion in the
countries fighting the war? Can any war be won when one of the
combatants voluntarily limits itself in this manner?

Could World War II have been won by Britain and the United States if
the two countries did not have it in them to firebomb Dresden and nuke
Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Didn't the willingness of their leaders to inflict mass casualties on
civilians indicate a cold-eyed singleness of purpose that helped break
the will and the back of their enemies? Didn't that singleness of
purpose extend down to the populations in those countries in those
days, who would have and did support almost any action at any time
that would lead to the deaths of Germans and Japanese?

What if the tactical mistake we made in Iraq was that we didn't kill
enough Sunnis in the early going to intimidate them and make them so
afraid of us they would go along with anything? _Wasn't the survival
of Sunni men between the ages of 15 and 35 the reason there was an
insurgency and the basic cause of the sectarian violence now?_
[emphasis added -- JD]

If you can't imagine George W. Bush issuing such an order, is there
any American leader you could imagine doing so?

And if America can't do it, can Israel? Could Israel - even hardy,
strong, universally conscripted Israel - possibly stomach the
bloodshed that would accompany the total destruction of Hezbollah?

If Lebanon's 300-plus civilian casualties are already rocking the
world, what if it would take 10,000 civilian casualties to finish off
Hezbollah? Could Israel inflict that kind of damage on Lebanon - not
because of world opinion, but because of its own modern sensibilities
and its understanding of the value of every human life?

Where do these questions lead us?

What if Israel's caution about casualties among its own soldiers and
Lebanese civilians has demonstrated to Hezbollah and Hamas that as
long as they can duck and cover when the missiles fly and the bombs
fall, they can survive and possibly even thrive?

What if Israel has every capability of achieving its aim, but cannot
unleash itself against a foe more dangerous, more unscrupulous, more
unprincipled and more barbaric than even the monstrous leaders of the
Intifada it managed to quell after years of suicide attacks?

And as for the United States, what if we have every tool at our
disposal to win a war - every weapons system we could want manned by
the most superbly trained military in history - except the ability to
match or exceed our antagonists in ruthlessness?

Is this the horrifying paradox of 21st century warfare? If Israel and
the United States cannot be defeated militarily in any conventional
sense, have our foes discovered a new way to win? Are they seeking
victory through demoralization alone - by daring us to match them in
barbarity and knowing we will fail?

Are we becoming unwitting participants in their victory and our
defeat? Can it be that the moral greatness of our civilization - its
astonishing focus on the value of the individual above all - is
endangering the future of our civilization as well?

jpodhoretz@xxxxxxxxx

--
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.