It’s fruitless to make moral judgments about the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, or about any of the wars going on the world today. There are no “good guys” or “bad guys” any more. There are no good wars, just bad situations. There is no such thing as “winning” a war; armed conflict is a lose-lose proposition.
Under the fold: proud to be an American…
A lot of high-powered defenders of Israel gobbled up bandwidth on the political talk shows today condemning Hezbollah for hiding itself among Lebanon’s civilian population. Yeah, that’s despicable, but guess what. That’s the sort of thing guerilla style militias do. It’s been that way since Clausewitz was a corporal and for a heck of a long time before that. If you’re going to go after guerilla groups like these, you’re going to have to carve your way through their human shield.
Maybe that’s necessary in some situations. Maybe it’s necessary for the Israelis to be doing that now. But necessary or no, it’s not a “good” thing, and in the long run, it won’t make Israel any more secure and it certainly won’t stabilize the Middle East. You can safely bet your home equity that for every Hezbollah fighter the Israelis eliminate, they’re creating at least two more, and every day that the conflict goes on adds a decade or so to the state of Muslim-western animosities.
In an earlier age, having the strongest nation in the world as an ally was an asset. Today, in Israel’s case, it’s a pair of cement shoes. Whatever moral high ground the Jewish state may claim in its present conflict is refuted by its connection to the United States. The nation that rose from a great depression to save the world from dictatorship, Fascism, and Stalinist totalitarianism is now viewed by much of the world that it saved as a mirror image of the evils it defeated. The hapless “negotiating into a fan” diplomacy Condoleezza Rice is presently conducting lends credence to the suspicion that the Bush administration is not only bound and determined to light off World War III (or IV or V or VI, however you’re counting these things), but to ensure that it never burns out.
I like to think that the country I spent my adult life “defending” is not the same thing as its present government that has transformed America from a “the land of the free” into the home of liars, hypocrites and incompetent bullies. But living in a red state, I’m too often reminded that our government is, to a large extent, a reflection of the people who put it in office.
I ran into a Virginia hillbilly at a local watering hole yesterday whom I knew from happy hours of yesteryear and hadn’t seen in a while. The first words out of his mouth were, “How bout them Jew boys mopping up on all them rag heads for us, huh? I’m glad as hell that colored gal ain’t trying to stop them.”
The Virginian then proceeded to throw a coin into the jukebox and play Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to be an American.”
When he came back to the bar, I asked him what he thought about a country western singer making money on war and human misery.
“What do you mean?” he said.
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Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Read his commentaries at ePluribus Media and Pen and Sword.
add Jeff but there isn’t anything more to say from my perspective either. These are days of long shadows when men of decency, wisdom and knowledge are despised. I know that it won’t always be this way because human survival will demand different answers to the persisting problems, but that doesn’t make surviving it any more pleasant.
…that this is one of the very finest sentences I’ve read in some time:
“These are days of long shadows when men of decency, wisdom and knowledge are despised.”
And I’ve read quite a few sentences in my time.
Do you mind if I put it on my blog banner for a while?
I don’t suppose any of them see any correlation to “We’re fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over there.”
If Iraq is the “central front of the war on terror” we are sacrificing the lives of Iraqi civilians to advance what ever the hell cause we are advancing and to save our own butts.
I think it was the other day that I said Iraq isnt’ the central front in the war on terror, it’s the central front in the Iraq civil war.
I see where a combined US-Iraqi force of 75 thousand will move into Baghdad, and some are worried that won’t be enough troops to get the place under control.
Thank you for this writing. It says it all. I too, am mourning the death of the kind of America I grew up loving with all my heart, as a military brat. As hard as it is for me to watch what we have been made into by amoral, elected “leaders: , I know it is much harder still for those who have served sctive duty.
Thank you for your courage and for your voice.
…brave troops mucking around in a situation for which most agree there’s no real military solution.
Bad days.
These were brave soldiers too…
Sir, No Sir movie trailer
Yes, you said it and you’re right. Unfortunately, the people you were diarying about most likely disagree with us.
If there’s a morale problem among the troops, it’s that they know they’re being used for sinister political purposes.