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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Wars of tomorrow, wars of yesterday |
| 2024-08-11 |
| It’s hard not to imagine, with every innovation that is made in technology, what it will be like if is put to the use every technology in history seems to have been used for: warfare. Airplanes, motors, artificial intelligence, even the first people to forge with steel instead of bronze or iron doubtless marveled at what fine swords and spears it would make. For decades, the democratic sphere of the world has been building their armies smarter. American troops attacked Normandy and freed Europe with rifles, helmets and the shirts on their back; close to eighty years later, their descendants abandoned Afghanistan in shame with thousands of dollars apiece in tactical gear, armor, advanced firearms and drones. That doesn’t track, does it? How could an army grow less effective as it becomes infinitely more advanced? The answer is not what the army is equipped with, but the will and heart within- and behind -those soldiers. In the Second World War, nations were fighting for their literal existence, to remain states of their own instead of being ground under the boot of Nazi Germany, the Japanese Empire, or the Soviet Union. In Afghanistan, politicians minced words into meaningless salad and served it to young Americans. Now, look at the world’s reaction- the world’s outrage - to Israel’s war in Gaza, and fight against the Hezbollah forces in Lebanon. They cannot believe their eyes: shocked to the core by the mere sight of wounded civilians in an active warzone, or tanks driving in city streets. They cannot grasp that wars need to actually be fought, especially against the tendrils of Iran’s Islamic empire in Hamas and Hezbollah. Perhaps the politicians of Israel have committed a breach of etiquette; they forgot to dress their war in meaningless cliches about nation-building or hearts and minds, phrases wrung dry of any weight by their terminal overuse. Despite this shattering of the illusion of a bloodless, war-less war of the future - imagined ever since the first bomber planes, perhaps even the first artillery cannons - the world forums are still outraged that the IDF is fighting a war by fighting a war. Perhaps it’s a lingering image of Afghanistan and the failed War on Terror, brought home to these people who never ran from a rocket siren in their lives except in video games and movies, a world where terrorists all live, all the time, in isolated complexes far from civilization, and elite soldiers can launch- this is always the word - operations to assassinate them. This concept is far out of line for these Western pundits and social media trend-setters with the reality of the war against Hamas: a terrorist army entrenched in and under several cities, with any person among the seemingly civilian populace potentially being an agent of theirs. This is not the Hollywood war against terrorism where you fly across an ocean, a sea and two continents, then depart from a forward operating base to eliminate a Taliban mastermind. This is Israel’s actual, real war on terrorism, taking ground in an enemy country that is too close for anyone in the nation to ever be comfortable. What the world envisioned was a war of cursors clicking, drones hovering, perhaps a handful of buildings raided in the dead of the night. This is not how a war is fought. The Americans had two decades to learn this in and by all appearances failed to. This will be an impolite war, fought without apologies or finesse, because the alternative is continuing to fight with precision and etiquette against an enemy whose most subtle tactic is stabbing a civilian to death for being an infidel. In every generation our enemies have sought with tactics seldom changing to destroy us; lynch mobs, enslavement, ravaging of our towns and cities. The IDF has no reason to alter from the strategy that has best served the Jewish people to defeat our enemies, from the streets of Shushan to distant Uganda: their destruction with every means we can muster. |
| Posted by:Grom the Reflective |
| #2 “Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor.” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers |
| Posted by: Grom the Reflective 2024-08-11 16:01 |
| #1 War is hell. You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it. Those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. William Tecumseh Sherman |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2024-08-11 06:56 |