The current Gaza struggle will inevitably be met by calls for Israeli restraint. Those bleatings must be rejected.
War is hell. There is no doubt about that. Children who just yesterday seemed to be playing in the tire swing on the front yard are off to fight, often in some distant land or venue. Everyone of any degree of sanity wishes that this were never needed, and that our beloved flesh and blood could go peacefully from playful childhood to productive, fruitful adulthood to wise old age.
Unfortunately, the way of the world is that nations and religious groups frequently do not like each other. There is always some group that doesn't want to engage in diplomacy or good-faith negotiation. It is the people that enjoy the cherished freedom relished by Americans and Canadians that do not wish to fight. Sometimes other people or groups make unreasonable demands that must be resisted. For example, in the U.S. south, peole demanded the right to keep other people enslaved, and were willing to foresake Congressional and electoral debate to that end. In more modern times, various groups, at different times calling themselves fascists, communists, or Islamists, believed that they had the right to limit the freedom of others, in behalf of some deranged or impractical dream of world paradise, on their terms, with them as rulers.
The civilized world has always tried to limit the bloodshed of war initially. During the Civil War, Union forces took no steps to occupy Virginia or North Carolina prior to their long-delayed secession from the Union. During World War II, much time was spent in both the European and Atlantic theatres on peripheral engagements with enemy troops, some at great cost of Allied life. How many Americans died at Guadalcanal, Midway, Iwo Jima and various African sites far removed from the main Axis powers?
Both the Civil War and WW II ended when the victors became serious about fighting. General Sherman's "March to the Sea", which devastated large swaths of Georgia, convinced the remaining Confederates that their cause was hopelss. The Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks, in my view, for the first time convinced the German and Japanese people, respectively, that their "leadership" was taking them one place; to the grave.
For war to end, the ultimate victors must prosecute it to the maximum extent possible. I am not advocating attacking supermarkets and skyscrapers deliberately. Those kinds of attacks accomplish little. If fanatics seek war, they should be given what they ask for. In spades. Attempts to daintily avoid civilian casualties and negotiate prematurely lead only to prolonged and greater grief.
War is hell. There is no doubt about that. Children who just yesterday seemed to be playing in the tire swing on the front yard are off to fight, often in some distant land or venue. Everyone of any degree of sanity wishes that this were never needed, and that our beloved flesh and blood could go peacefully from playful childhood to productive, fruitful adulthood to wise old age.
Unfortunately, the way of the world is that nations and religious groups frequently do not like each other. There is always some group that doesn't want to engage in diplomacy or good-faith negotiation. It is the people that enjoy the cherished freedom relished by Americans and Canadians that do not wish to fight. Sometimes other people or groups make unreasonable demands that must be resisted. For example, in the U.S. south, peole demanded the right to keep other people enslaved, and were willing to foresake Congressional and electoral debate to that end. In more modern times, various groups, at different times calling themselves fascists, communists, or Islamists, believed that they had the right to limit the freedom of others, in behalf of some deranged or impractical dream of world paradise, on their terms, with them as rulers.
The civilized world has always tried to limit the bloodshed of war initially. During the Civil War, Union forces took no steps to occupy Virginia or North Carolina prior to their long-delayed secession from the Union. During World War II, much time was spent in both the European and Atlantic theatres on peripheral engagements with enemy troops, some at great cost of Allied life. How many Americans died at Guadalcanal, Midway, Iwo Jima and various African sites far removed from the main Axis powers?
Both the Civil War and WW II ended when the victors became serious about fighting. General Sherman's "March to the Sea", which devastated large swaths of Georgia, convinced the remaining Confederates that their cause was hopelss. The Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks, in my view, for the first time convinced the German and Japanese people, respectively, that their "leadership" was taking them one place; to the grave.
For war to end, the ultimate victors must prosecute it to the maximum extent possible. I am not advocating attacking supermarkets and skyscrapers deliberately. Those kinds of attacks accomplish little. If fanatics seek war, they should be given what they ask for. In spades. Attempts to daintily avoid civilian casualties and negotiate prematurely lead only to prolonged and greater grief.
