The U.S. Can — and Must — Learn From Israeli Counterterror
The last twelve months have seen a record number of terrorist plots targeting the U.S. mainland. Several succeeded or at least slipped past government counterterrorism efforts, failing only because of divine providence and the terrorists’ own incompetence.
Since the near-tragedy on Christmas Day, many have challenged the effectiveness of U.S. policy under President Obama. Some of the criticism has been valid — the mishandling of the no-fly list, moving trials and interrogations to the civilian court system, and the refusal of the administration to call our enemy by name (even in internal documents) are all symptoms of what’s wrong with America’s counterterrorism efforts.
Fighting against terrorists — who reject the basic moral and legal norms of civilized society — is inherently difficult for liberal democracies such as the United States, who must try to balance the protection of civil liberties and the prevention of violence.
Many of the issues in front of our policymakers have previously been faced by Israel, a country that has been under terrorist attack since its inception in 1948. Israeli counterterrorism efforts have a simple philosophy: “Do whatever it takes to identify and defend against potential attacks before they happen.” This approach does not change no matter the politics of the prime minister in power, which is a reflection of public support for the stance — for Israel, the fight against terrorism is a fight for its very survival. Thus its government and citizenry take a different view of counterterrorism, unencumbered by the political correctness which restrains efforts in the United States.
There would never be a debate in Israel regarding whether a terrorist should be questioned by civilian or military authorities — extracting information that will prevent the next attack is paramount. Debate is also virtually non-existent regarding whether certain ethnic groups should be watched more closely than others.
Over 2,500 years ago, Sun Tzu wrote in his The Art of War:
Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy, but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal.
Knowing the enemy is a key component of Israel’s counterterrorism efforts — Israel is not afraid to identify its attackers as radical Muslim terrorists. This identification allows its counterterrorism experts to include background and religion as input when trying to predict the actions of terrorist groups, creating an analysis that is sound and useful.
While more realistic than the US, we have our share of political correctness too. And, our Lefty-loonies are constantly trying to erode security measures, the familiar ”racism” BS, that all-purpose argument of those lacking common sense & rational argument, always advanced & played-up by our liberal media & often supported by our Left-wing courts.
“God in His infinite mercy will always look after little babies, drunks, idiots and the United States of America”. Why worry about anything?
Israel has another important thing going for it that would instantly collapse and suck the lungs out of the liberals in our country if we tried it.
BOOM!
Israel will come in the dead of night and take your ass out!
You’re history. Problem solved!
At that time defense communications centers around the world light up like the Queen Mary, messages are flying everywhere, panic and fear is on everyones faces – and they all have one, short question that they desperately want answered, “Are they finished, or will there be more?”
The little train that could..
Did, would and will.
Anyway, I thought that Israel became a state on May 15th, 1948; which would make their official fight against terrorism 69 years old, not 62 years.
Well they should if they wanted to however the leftist’s running the Country at this time are way too Neville Chamberlain for the safety of America. I mean good gracious they apologized to the Chinese for OUR human rights abuses of which their are NONE! America is the greatest Country there has ever been in the fight for human rights and even when WE were wrong WE RIGHTED OUR SHIP! These jokers in the government right now are going to get US killed!
The shiftless Obama administration is incapable of change, ascribing to myths in lieu of facts based upon personal feelings restrains our collective evolution.
I’ve been wondering this same question.
“Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril. When you are ignorant of the enemy, but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal.”
Sun Tzu is right, but do most Americans even know themselves or their neighbors? While our daughter is on the Internet doing homework or e-mailing friends, she has a headset on listening to music from that little iThing. She wakes up to noise and plugs that thing into her ears before she is out of bed.
How does a person get to know her or himself when that individual never allows time for thought?
Too many Americans seem to live cut off from reality–at least the younger, self-esteem generations.
We are too deathly afraid of having the world write “Does Not Play Well With Others” on our report card to be realistic about combating our enemies. Israel has proven that peaceful Arab Muslims can coexist within their boundaries–learning to identify and keep from our borders those most likely to cause violence is a necessity evil I don’t see us taking up any time soon.
The American administration fails to realize that they are in the midst of a war. As such, it is permissible to almost any means to achieve success. There is no such thing as fighting a ‘clean’ war just as there is no such thing as using clean atomic bombs. Anything short of a complete victory is tantamount to failure. The Israelis by stopping the war in Gaza is probably a good indication of what happens when morality or political correctness enters the picture.
The Obama administration refuses to even say the name of the enemy we are fighting. If fact the POTUS says we “will never be at war with Islam!” The only way to win a war is to destroy your enemies capability to make war. Victory sure beats the heck out of stalemate or defeat!
during 62 years fight…..
the Israelis are killing palastinians with our federal tax dollars… there is nothing to learn here
Well, we should thank them for doing the job we in our fecklessness have shirked.
Israelis – ARE palestinians. These bans of arabs, hell bent on murdering Jews, are not palestinians. There is no such nationality. And, I don’t remember you screaming, when your arabs were killing jews ( or do you prefer Israelis) in ALL public places, wedding halls, university cafeterias, school buses – well, we all know what you are.
Miriam,
That’s a lot of horse poop nonsense. Palestinians kill far more Palestinians than do Israelis, who take the care to phone ahead each enemy household hours before they enter their neighborhood to attack (my G-d, who else in the WORLD shows such concern for civilians caught in the crossfire!?) — furthermore, by phoning ahead, the Israelis warn any real terrorists who may be hiding in said household and of course he promptly leaves. Israel is under no obligation to do this, it’s done purely out of their own moral ethics.
Secondly, on the point about US dollars. Israel is constrained to spend all those dollars in the United States, dear; hence employing many American workers in the defense industry.
Thirdly, why aren’t you concerned about Egypt, who accepts almost the same amount of aid but regularly abuses their small population of Christians (the Copts) as well as performing countless other true atrocities. For example, they could build houses for everyone in Gaza right now if they wanted to. Hmmm, they don’t seem to care as much about the plight of the poor Palestinians as they claim, do they?
There is a very simple permanent solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. The US military should corral all the residents (Jews and Arabs and whoever else lives there) a safe distance from the area, and nuke every single religious site. That will put an end to the apartied and the suicide bombings there forever, and it will save the US taxpayer all the billions and billions of dollars we waste there every year.
Okay, and while you’re at it you can ‘nuke’ all the Christian holy sites that led inexorably to Auschwitz. Thanks for your time.
The money you ‘waste’ on Israel contributes mightily to American security through weapons research and development, intelligence and in other ways.
But you and Ms. Rove are of the blind, angry crowd.
Learning is a simple matter, unlearning is not.
Ah, even on PJ PC thrives. The truth hurts, Mr. Moderator?
Strike the above. Moderation need not be feckless after all.
In 1966 Israel captured the first intact Soviet MiG fighter aircraft and then transferred the plane to the USA lock, stock and barrel. American pilots were going up against the aircraft in Vietnam. America won the Cold War on many fronts. Aviation and subsequent technologies were the lynchpins of that success. In 1981 Israel disposed of a nuclear armed Saddam Hussein. Ten years later American troops faced a non nuclear confrontation in Iraq.
Aside from this of course are the Jewish State’s contributions to world advancement in the fields of technology, science, medicine,and green technologies. Israeli systems and innovations bring clean water and sustainable agriculture to people who need it most.
In security matters Israel has much to offer. Of course the last thing Obama wants is help from Israel. I don’t think Americans agree with his policy. The next election will tell the story.
Profiling is the major tool that any government has as its disposal. That’s why they profile. Also profiling works. If it didn’t no-one would use it.
While on the subject of the tyranny of political correctness:
“” … Since the near-tragedy on Christmas Day … “”
Near “tragedy?”
Atrocity, perhaps?
It is not simply the government not to realize we are at “war” with the most vicious form of Islam, but also, too many citizens also refuse to believe the truth about Islam. Had we acted in the same manner during WWII, our nation would very likely been defeated by the Axis of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Yes, the president and many of his advisers during WW II were heavily criticized for having the internment camps in which the majority of the Japanese residing in the U.S. at that particular time placed into, and it is not known how many lives were saved because of the internment camps, but we must once again take every necessity to assure we are not defeated. Islam is not simply a religion, but a most dangerous military threat to our Republic. We need to fully return to the manner in which the United States acted and preserved our Nation during WW II, or we will not survive, and those to believe differently, do not realize the reality what is presently taking place. We must to realize we are threatened with an extreme and vicious enemy. You must learn to know our enemy, then to surround our enemy, then destroy our enemy. Any less action is pure 100 percent stupidity.