Thursday, July 27, 2006

Stopping short?

The biggest mistake a country can make when fighting an intractable foe is to pull its punches. It seems Israel is about to make that exact error.
In a special meeting Thursday on the IDF's operations in Lebanon, the security cabinet approved a general mobilization of reservists in the event that they would be necessary, and set a limit to the number of people to be drafted; however, the draft was not approved for immediate implementation.

The cabinet also voted against expanding ground missions - a move the army had requested.
Senior military commanders had been pushing for a wider campaign in Lebanon, but Defense Minister Amir Peretz favors limited action, military and government officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal deliberations with the press.

Peretz's decision is foolhardy. History is clear -- only by total defeat will the intractable foe be vanquished. Germany and Japan needed their militarism literally bombed out of them before surrendering in WWII because those countries were led by megalomaniacal madmen like Sheikh Nasrallah and President Ahmadinejad. Israel should be pushing for unconditional surrender and total victory against Hizb'Allah, and then return to targeted assassinations of Hamas' leading nutters. Israel's survival is on the line, and it should have learned the lessons of history by now.

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