Thank you for your comments and please excuse my grammatical errors. As I said, please actually READ the Counterinsurgency Field Manual. While you are at it, READ Insurgency and Terrorism by O’Neill. The later book is actually referenced in the former. Once you have READ those and UNDERSTAND them you will see that I am providing real answers.
Really, Matt? Real answers?
“I know you think you know what you’re talking about but like I said, you’ve probably never made friends with an insurgent to understand their motivation.”
Granted, I haven’t read the books you mention, but I doubt General Petraeus recommends that in his manual.
In any case, you are participating in an internet discussion. I am not required to go out and read a book before I can argue with you. If there’s a point to be made, sum it up in your own words and stop invoking the books as if they were holy scripture.
The surge, as any good conflict analyst will tell you (and I’m not talking about the ones on CNN or Fox News), was only a single part of a larger effort to restore governmental legitimacy to Iraq. That, as the Field Manual states, is the goal of any counterinsurgency.
That’s nice. Totally beside the point, but nice. Hamas is in no way an “insurgency.”
Hamas claims to be a government. They follow (in their own brutal way) the forms and functions of government. They were voted into power by the people they claim to represent, using a system that was backed by international bodies. Thus, they are a government, and thus they can be treated as such for the purposes of war. Israel is fully within its right as a sovereign nation to fight them. Any other nation on earth wouldn’t have to justify itself in a similar situation.
Understand this, and understand it clearly: IT IS NOT ISRAEL’S RESPONSIBILITY TO “RESTORE GOVERNMENTAL LEGITIMACY” TO PALESTINE. It is their job to defend their people by ending a threat. If that means negotiation, then fine. If negotiation fails (as it has over and over again), then military force is fully justified.
I use the term “insurgent” because of the nature of the asymmetrical power dynamic
No, you use it to be politically correct. You use it to soften the truth of what Hamas really is.
and the nature of how Hamas came to power and the type of conflict they will face if Israel tries to maintain any sort of troop presence there.
It’s far too soon to tell whether Israel will decide to maintain any sort of troop presence there long term, but short term their goal seems to be to do as much damage to Hamas as possible.
Another good read is The Utility of Force by British General Rupert Smith. It will better inform you of the use of force in modern conflict.
Look, I’m sure it is a good read, but I have a room full of books (literally) waiting for me to read, and there’s only so much time in the day. Sum it up, OK?
Also, didn’t someone once say “know your enemy”? (I’ll let you figure out who deserves that attribution on that one.)
Steven Hawking?
(sigh) “Knowing” your enemy doesn’t mean they cease being your enemy. It means understanding their motivations, but it doesn’t imply that you don’t fight them and fight to win.
Since you’ve tossed numerous books for me to read, I’ve got two for you: “Civilization and its Enemies,” and “The Suicide of Reason,” both by Lee Harris. In them, Harris writes about the concept of the “enemy” and the failure of reason as a way to understand the enemy that the civilized world is fighting right now. You say “know your enemy,” but the fact is, Matt, I do, at least better than you. I’ve spent countless hours reading about them… their “tactics” (such as they are), their mindset, their goals, their beliefs.
You know what? The more I read about radical Islam, the more I understand, the LESS inclined I am to be their “friends.” The more I read, the darker my attitude towards them gets. Understanding doesn’t always lead one down a bright, shining path. Regarding Hamas and the Palestinians, the well of my concern for their well-being dried up and turned to dust years ago.
Harris talks about the fact that too many people make the mistake of seeing the terrorists goals in Clausewitzian terms… war as a means of gaining something from your enemy; the reasons the Western world fights wars. He argues that they do NOT see it this way and that any such attempt to portray their strategy and tactics in such a way is doomed to failure. After reading your comments, I have to say that YOU don’t know the enemy.
Maybe be there is strategic value in trying to understand them as people and what motivates them. That way you can better understand how to stop them from shooting rockets into Israel.
What? Seriously, what?!? Their “motivation” is to kill Israeli civilians. Their “motivation” is clear to anyone who’s spent even a few minutes reading what they say in their own words. How, exactly does understanding that help the Israelis stop them from shooting rockets?
I have a better way of stopping them: the Chicago way. “They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. *That’s* the *Chicago* way!” Make them understand that the consequences of an attack on Israel will be so horrifying that they will not wish to do so. I’m under no illusions; it will be brutal, ugly, and incredibly bloody. It will take years, decades. Numerous innocents will die. It may never happen; they may never understand. The Palestinians have convinced themselves that they’re going to win someday, that they’re going to drive the Jews into the sea and reclaim the whole of their territory. Peace can not be had until this illusion is stripped from them. The Palestinians must understand that the war is over, and THEY LOST.
Finally, please don’t pigeonhole me as a liberal. I’m telling you to brush up on your current military strategy, not Gandhi or Marx or something like that.
Really? Exactly what am I supposed to think? “I know you think you know what you’re talking about but like I said, you’ve probably never made friends with an insurgent to understand their motivation.” I mean, here you are telling us to be “friends” with “insurgents.” I’d no sooner be a friend with one than I would be a friend with a Nazi.
