Reporting from Libya and Syria is controlled and therefore sketchy, but videos show that Muammar Qaddafi’s artillery has bombarded Misurata and Bashar Assad’s security forces have shot up Deraa and other towns in Syria. In a display of random violence snipers in both countries are picking off men and women venturing out. Destruction of buildings and murder of individuals may look like mindless brutality but they have the exemplary purpose of showing that these two dictators are ready and willing always to crush opposition by taking whatever measures are necessary. In their perspective, massacre, terror, hostage-taking, hijacking, Lockerbie bombings, are merely instrumental.
It follows that the only way to deal with the Qaddafis and the Bashars is through force superior to anything available to them. That is how Saddam met his end. The “international community” — that strange fiction — has made sure to limit and constrain the force to be used against Qaddafi, and therefore it further follows that some sort of stalemate is the best to be hoped for. That same “international community” has decided that Bashar must be left to do his worst and pay no cost. At a minimum, Ambassador Ford, the Obama administration’s gift to Bashar, should be recalled, sanctions increased, and Syria placed in political quarantine. Instead, Mrs. Clinton describes as a reformer a man who rules by an emergency law that has lasted four decades, and whose security forces are blithely killing unknown numbers.
In 1983, Reagan sent American troops to keep the peace in Lebanon. When a suicide bomber attacked and killed many of them, the force was withdrawn. A single bomb thus proved more powerful than the United States. Hezbollah quickly filled the political vacuum and the balance of power in the Middle East began what has been a steady tip against the West.. And should Qaddafi and Bashar today subdue their people and remain in power, dictatorship will thrive as before throughout the region, the present turmoil will have come to nothing, and democracy will have hollowed out that much more.
"It follows that the only way to deal with the Qaddafis and the Bashars is through force superior to anything available to them."
Precisely David. The liberal arrogance and presumption that you can somehow modulate and control the level of violence in war is absurd.
War is all hell. Trying to control and modulate the level of violence in war risks the ultimate goal: forcing the enemy to submit to your will. Ask McNamara/Johnson/Nixon about how that worked out in Vietnam; ask Kennedy how it worked out at the Bay of Pigs. And even when overwhelming force has been held back so that a truce could be put in place, the long-term moral consequences of leaving an evil enemy in place (communists in North Korea, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Khomeini in Iran, etc.) must be weighed against the short-term reality of total war.
Given the hideous consequences of war, and the necessity of making total war, it should be done sparingly. Once a decision has been made to go to war, the enemy must be given two choices: either submit or be killed. Once hostilities begin, they should be brought to a conclusion as quickly as possible via swift and decisive action.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt seems to me , that was the lesson the Israelis demonstrated in 1967- overwhelming power and force strategically used from knowing the enemy. Now, as our troops are fighting and dying and we are expending billions we don't have, Obama, Hillary, et. al. are diverting to blame Israel's existence. Israel, which if the Truth be known, we are indebted to on many levels. Either we are going to use our power, or not.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThere is so much disarray in DC, we have no business fighting any wars except for our own protection. That, apparently, has gone by the wayside.What happened to the concept of winning? Of victory?
Personally, I don't think, one more US soldier should be used to pave the way for the Brotherhood, and Al Qaeda and its other subsets to be able to take over a nation even with a dictator at the helm. This has to be the people of each nation and their internal tribes who do it.We are only resented.
In addition, we have an administration increasingly incorporating the Islamists' supporters into the highest positions,and as advisers to whom they listen regardless of our Constitutional rights, and whose lies only Washington seems to believe, for their own purposes.To what end? There is no forethought, and no concept of consequences.
We have got to get ahold of reality before we wake-up to a lost United States.
It would be nice if our efforts paid off like in post-WWII Europe and Japan. That is not the case in Muslim countries.