texagbeliever said:
aggie93 said:
texagbeliever said:
aggie93 said:
texagbeliever said:
I think that is the most likely outcome. I think that outcome "sounds" right. I just think historically the FAFO is a terrible war strategy.
Look at America we did the whole FAFO on Afghanistan. Our country with far deeper pockets and far better technology. And after 20 years we gifted the Taliban billions of dollars of state of the art military equipment because eventually America grew tired and elected the right level of incompetence to allow for total calamity.
Germany after WW1 was left decimated ---> Nazi Germany.
Afghanistan war with Russia ----> Taliban
America war with Afghanistan (Taliban) ---> Still Taliban
Overthrowing Saddam by America (pt 2) ---> Rise of ISIS
Meanwhile America with Japan post WW2, reconciled and brought back into the fold. Now an ally.
America with Western Germany post WW2, reconciled and brought back into the fold. Now an ally (well up until 2010s)
I believe it was Montgomery who stationed British troops on a French bridge to prevent the allies from blowing it up in retaliation against the french. He was a big advocate for reconciling the French. Something that would eventually pay off in WW1.
Those aren't comparable though because you are talking about a country a world away. A harsher and better example? American Indians in the US being put on Reservations or forced to pacify.
Israel can't make this problem go away because it is right there, they have to deal with it. The examples you gave are of a country going thousands of miles away and conquering a country. The exception is Russia and Afghanistan but that was a war of conquest and the nature of Afghanistan's geography makes it impossible for anyone to really control, Russia wasn't threatened by Afghanistan. This is more like Northern Mexico and Pancho Villa raiding across the border and we sent Pershing in though it is an imperfect example just as the Indian one is.
BTW, in Japan's case it did take complete destruction and control in order to reset that country, we literally used the only nuclear weapons ever used in combat to scare the crap out of them. Nazi Germany also took a prolonged occupation. Both made a complete cultural shift that was forced upon them by us to pacify.
I have no illusions of a happy ending here. It's just if Israel wants to exist they have to meet brute force with brute force.
That said we need to keep our distance as much as we can and let them figure this out. Let Israel do what they want.
Geography plays a role in it and makes each situation unique.
In the early 1800s, General Andrew Jackson (eventual General over the Battle of New Orleans in 1812 and President of the United States) was seeking revenge against a band of Native Americans led by Red Eagle. Jackson wanted Red Eagle's head on a platter as revenge for his massacre of a western outpost. One day after some successful military engagements with Red Eagle's army, Red Eagle walked into Jackson's camp to surrender. Jackson then changed his mind on killing Red Eagle and instead got Red Eagle to cooperate and get the other tribes to also put down their arms in the western front. By sedating is desire for blood, he spared the blood of many soldiers and likely women and children native americans.
It is important to note that in many respects Red Eagle = Hamas and Great Britain = Iran. So after America defeated Great Britain in the War of 1812 aka Madison's War, the source of funding and encouragement for military insurrection dried up. With it much of the resisting capabilities of the Native Americans.
From that lesson, it would appear the goal wouldn't be to attack Hamas, but rather attack their funding.
Also my point on Japan and Germany were that America invested significant amount of money in the rebuilding efforts of Japan & Germany. Both countries, Germany more so than Japan, were destroyed after WW2. America made it the policy to rebuild both of them economically. It was a successful rebuild that led to both countries becoming respectable and potential allies for the United States.
There is no Red Eagle with Hamas. If there was one he would be killed in short order. It's immensely more complex than your example.
Palestine has nothing in common with Japan and Germany which were countries with well educated people with still significant infrastructure in place. Besides that they have tried that model. They have sent untold billions into Palestine but they won't spend it on anything but terrorism. It's like trying to rebuild Afghanistan in terms of the populace. I mean the average IQ in the Gaza Strip is 67. No Arab countries want to help either, Palestinians are the bottom of the pecking order among Arabs. It's hard to overstate how screwed up that place is and how hard it will be to fix it.
I brought up Red Eagle in counter to your point that America annihilated the Native Americans and thus eliminated the problem. Well not really, now Americans have been forced to subsidize Native Americans all of its modern history as well as create a black mark against capitalism and our Nation as a whole. I would not call the Native American story a good one for America. It just had a long pay back. Why, because we failed to assimilate and rebuild them as a people.
The point isn't that Hamas is exactly like any other nation. The point is that this truth holds across MANY different nations with different religions, different races, different time periods and different geographies. A truth you can derive from a narrow view is a weak truth, but one that can be derived from a broad view in vastly different circumstances has the chance of holding true.
I really do think you'd enjoy reading Strategy by B.H.Liddell Hart.
The point i made was that after Israel takes out Hamas they need to find a way to put in a structure that can allow for progress in Palestine. Just because it will be hard to fix doesn't mean we can accept just killing everyone as an alternative answer. I will never support such an unchristian approach especially in light of it not being historically wise.
The bolded is why you are wrong. Hamas isn't a nation at all. It's a terrorist group supported by other countries. Palestine isn't a country either, it's a collection of tribes that lived in that area that have never operated as a nation in their entire history unless they were controlled by someone else.
I'm not in favor of just killing everyone at all either, I'm in favor of letting Israel do whatever they need to do to control the area and provide security for their people. I don't want us to tell them what to do. That said mass murder isn't going to work. What might work is inflicting enough pain on the leaders of Hamas and other terror groups that they get the message that it isn't worthwhile to attack Israel. They have to understand that hiding behind civilians isn't going to work and Israel is willing to kill those civilians if they have to in order to stop the threat. The hope being that Hamas will realize their tactic of civilian shields is ineffective so they will move on to another or simply realize they can't win.
Understand there is no likely happy ending here. You aren't dealing with rational people that want peace and a better standard of living. In reality Hamas is just a puppet of Iran in their ongoing power struggle with Saudi, you can't negotiate with them about the best interests of Palestine when the issue is the best interests of Iran.
It's layer upon layer of complexity and unless you want the US to get fully engaged our view of Christian morality has nothing to do with it. Israel isn't Christian and Gaza isn't either. We are all People of the Book but the religious issue really is a distraction anyway, this is about regional powers fighting far more than Islam vs the Jews or much less the Christians. In many ways it isn't much different than parts of Africa that are basically doomed to be constantly at war with each other. It's terrible but there is very little we can do about it unless we want to go full on Empire mode and just "Make the World England" but that isn't happening.
So the best thing we can do as Christians is pray for the innocent and the sinners and help out the victims as best we can. As Americans though we have to focus on our interests as a nation and that means letting Israel figure this out without us telling them what to do.
"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
Ronald Reagan
