Wednesday, August 2, 2006
Frank Gaffney: In its war on terror, the U.S. would never accept the limits being pushed on Israel.
How We Fight Terrorists
America launched air and ground assaults on Afghanistan, aimed at destroying not only the al Qaeda safe havens but toppling the Taliban regime. We damaged or destroyed critical Afghan infrastructure so as to deny its use to the enemy. Civilian casualties occurred, as did refugee flows. At one point, the U.N. declared the resulting dislocation a humanitarian crisis.
Once the campaign to eliminate al Qaeda was launched, there was no consideration given to negotiating with the terrorists or the government that afforded them protection. The United States would not have contemplated a U.N.-mandated ceasefire, let alone the insertion of an international peacekeeping force under a Chapter 7 mandate from the Security Council--whose purpose, inevitably, would have been to protect the terrorists from our military, not the other way around.
And most especially, it would have been inconceivable that the U.S. could accede to one of its enemy's central demands--for example, the removal of all American forces from the Mideast--as part of a negotiated ceasefire brokered by the U.N. and approved by the Taliban at the direction of al Qaeda.
How We Expect Israel to Fight Terrorists
It is therefore stunning, not to say depressing, to see how the Bush administration's early, strong support for Israel's response to the murderous attacks on its territory by the terrorist group, Hezbollah, has morphed in recent days...
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Gaffney is, and all to precisely, right. Essentially, Israel is civilization in the crux, civilization at the pivot point as configured within the most critical confrontations (e.g., militancies, ideological, civilizational, media and PR driven) of the present era. In that sense Israel is civilization in situ, in all its raw intensity, vainglory and critical aspects; the proverbial coal miner's canary.
What is required is a clear-headed vision; together with a commensurate, a proportionate, resolve.
Just wanted to add this:
a civilian area can be targeted if it "makes an 'effective' contribution to the enemy's military activities and its destruction, capture or neutralization offers a 'definite military advantage' to the attacking side in the circumstances ruling at the time."
Yuo can read the whole thing here:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/columnists/orl-parker0206aug02,0,7327670.column