I'm pretty much through with writing about the Israel-Hezbollah war, but I wanted to link to these two items and briefly comment on them:
First, Iran and Syria have opened their coffers to Hezbollah, who in turn are pouring cash money into the streets of Lebanon to aid those who suffered loss as a result of Israeli bombing.
(Interestingly, it seems like the Israeli bombing offensive into Lebanon has convinced the Palestinian factions of Fatah and Hamas -- who do not have a sugar daddy like Iran -- that they should think about trying to settle their differences with Israel peaceably, because they cannot afford to be bombed back into the stone age. But without the return of Gilat Shalit, Israel probably will not take them seriously.)
And second, Victor Davis Hanson has again written a dead-on, though rather satirical, piece that attempts to analyze the world-wide political bluster brought forth by the recent Hezbollah war and the ongoing US war in Iraq: "Surreal Rules." Here are the new surreal rules of warfare as Hanson understands them:
1. To win these wars, our soldiers must not die or kill.
2. To win these wars, there must be no news of them.
3. To win these wars, a liberal Democrat must wage them.
4. To win these wars, we must win over the Europeans by ensuring they can always earn a profit.
5. To win these wars, we need to outsource the job to those who can fight them with impunity.
6. To win these wars, they should be over in 24 hours — but at all cost no more than 8 weeks.
Hanson's commentaries regarding the press, and the others around the world who killed with impunity (the Russians, the Chinese, the Iraqis, the Jordanians, etc.) are especially worth reading.
With regard to the press, the recent outrage over Photoshopped images and deliberately misleading captions related to the reporting of the Hezbollah war does not even address the heart of the problem, which is that the press has sold its soul to the terrorists in exchange for "the story."
Shortly after the American invasion of Iraq, Eason Jordan, president of CNN, explained that his network had tacitly agreed to spike or suppress news that would be damaging to Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime because not doing so would jeopardize the lives of many people. But the silver lining to the deal was the privilege of being able to report any hostilities between America and Iraq from prime "in-country " locations; a privilege granted by Saddam Hussein.
The thugs who run the Islamic terror outfits in the Middle East are simply a new variety of mobsters, openly committing crime yet shielding themselves from justice by infiltrating the government and law enforcement agencies of their host nations, and by pacifying the civilian population with money.
In the old days, gangland mobsters kept negative press about their organizations to a minimum by cordially supplying a pair of "cement shoes" to anyone who gave them a bad rap. Today, reporters in Middle Eastern nations are painfully aware of the fact that an RPG or car bomb awaits anyone who insults, embarrasses, or otherwise damages Islamic fundamentalists with their reporting.
They are not willing to risk their lives for the true story, yet they believe that " a story" is worth getting. So they have made a Faustian bargain with Islamofascists: unprecedented access to "behind the lines" images and stories of the horrors of war, in exchange for positive and sympathetic coverage of their struggles. But maybe that description is not even accurate. In contemporary reporting, which hangs precariously on a balance of moral equivalence, there is no longer a clear understanding of what constitutes "enemy lines," because reporters have allowed the terrorists to define who the "enemy" is.
As Hanson concludes, "To win these wars, there must be no news of them."
ADDED: AllahPundit writes at Hot Air, "... we desperately need a western army to defeat an Islamist military or paramilitary force, wherever and however and on whatever scale, if only to derail the growing conviction that fundamentalism equals invincibility. That’s an exceedingly bad belief to have taking root while democratic currents are swirling around the region."
He continues, "Perception is everything, because it’s the perception that’ll embolden groups like Hamas to start sending out new bombers. They’re not going to destroy Israel, but they can and might very well continue to bleed it. And until the Islamists take a beating the way the Nasserites took one in 1967, the Arab rank and file will be content to let them try."
Well said. The only way to shut down the radical Islamists is for them to consider their fight to be ultimately futile. That will only happen with the aid of a miraculous, peaceful intervention by God or a solid, crushing military defeat. Pray for the first, of course, but be prepared for warfare as forces in the region (and at some point, the US) will no doubt try the second.
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