'Never interrupt your enemy while he is making a mistake"

IsrAmeriPrius · Aug 12, 2006

I posted different excerpts from this very thought provoking Op-Ed piece in another thread in response the Dr. Berman's faulty rendition of history; however, this is the main premise of the article, which is worth a read:

[Excerpts]

A War of Escalating Errors
Israelis and their foes are swinging wildly -- and missing their targets.
By Caleb Carr, CALEB CARR is a visiting professor of military studies at Bard College and the author of "The Lessons of Terror: A History of Warfare Against Civilians."
August 12, 2006

'Never interrupt your enemy while he is making a mistake," runs Napoleon's famous dictum, and were either the Israeli government or the groups that are leading the Palestinian people (Hamas and Fatah and international organizations such as Hezbollah) capable of assimilating this basic piece of military sense, we should have already seen a sudden outbreak of peace, or, at least, cautious inactivity, in the border areas of Gaza, the West Bank, Israel and Lebanon.

Both sides have made fundamentally foolish moves in recent weeks, yet each side has consistently been rescued from its mistakes by the errors of the other. And, following this pattern, they have worked themselves and the world to the edge of a crisis that is ominous even by Middle Eastern standards.

Who initiated this sequence of errors? As with all crises in the region, this question is almost impossible to answer. The specific trigger is often said to be the June incursion into Israel by Palestinians from Gaza, which resulted in the seizure of Cpl. Gilad Shalit of the Israel Defense Forces and the death of two other IDF soldiers. But the Palestinians have explained that their commandos were carrying out a reprisal raid after the IDF seized two Palestinian brothers, Osama and Mustafa Muamar, who, they claimed, are innocent of anything save being sons of a known Hamas activist, Ali Muamar.

Viewed in this light, the Palestinian action seems uncharacteristically legitimate, proportionate and even daring. For, unlike the Israeli seizure of the Muamars, the whole of the Palestinian operation was aimed at strictly military targets. Yet the Israelis answered with a sadly predictable full-scale military incursion into Gaza. The Palestinians, meanwhile, abandoned proportionality once again by stating that the release not simply of the Muamars but of hundreds of their people imprisoned in Israel would be the condition of Shalit's release.

More important, perhaps, the Israeli incursion into Gaza gave Hezbollah (or so it felt) the green light to launch its rocket attacks from southern Lebanon. President Bush and Israeli leaders might try to represent the two events â€” the action in Gaza and that in south Lebanon â€” as unconnected, but it is an assertion that has failed to gain traction in most of the Muslim world, as well as in many other countries.

Israel's reaction in Gaza had been especially foolish. Although the original Palestinian attack on the IDF post was carried out against a purely military target, the quick demand for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israel showed the Palestinians' true lack of diplomatic deftness. Had the Israelis limited themselves to the threat of an incursion, while carrying out the kind of special-forces search-and-rescue operations of which they are capable, the Palestinians would have lost their advantage.

Not to fear, however: The Palestinian mistake was indeed interrupted, and grotesquely, by the sight of massively armed IDF conventional forces crossing into one of the poorest and smallest regions on the planet, all to rescue what Israel claimed was a "kidnapped" soldier â€” an assertion that was absurd because a uniformed, front-line noncommissioned officer can no more be "kidnapped" by the enemy than an innocent, unarmed child can "die in battle." Already, the language of the conflict was taking on the dimensions of events occurring on the other side of Alice's looking glass, and things would only get worse.

The Palestinians' allies, in their turn, soon rescued Israel from this terrible error in judgment. After a border skirmish â€” the true origins of which may never be known â€” Hezbollah initiated a rocket offensive against Israeli towns and cities in the north of the country, causing a certain number of civilian casualties but far more widespread civilian panic. So great was the panic that Israel felt the need to once again take its turn at rescuing its enemies from error. It bombarded and finally invaded southern Lebanon in a barrage that would turn out to be, by orders of magnitude, the most savage step in the spiral of horror, miscalculation and interruption of miscalculation.

And now? Now, scarcely anyone on either side of the conflict knows or cares who was the first to break the "rules of war." Civilians on both sides only want relief from the constant anxiety of indiscriminate attacks and revenge for those noncombatants who â€” whether because they happened to live where a Katyusha rocket landed inside Israel, or because they lived too close to where Hezbollah had parked a launcher of such rockets inside southern Lebanon, or because they simply have nowhere to go to escape the narrow confines of the Gaza corridor or West Bank refugee camps â€” have met hideous deaths or suffered equally hideous wounds.

Los Angeles Times - A War of Escalating Errors[/b]
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EricGo · Aug 12, 2006

But the Palestinians have explained that their commandos were carrying out a reprisal raid after the IDF seized two Palestinian brothers, Osama and Mustafa Muamar, who, they claimed, are innocent of anything save being sons of a known Hamas activist, Ali Muamar.

Viewed in this light, [/b]
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Start from a bald-faced lie as the premise, and BS flows downhill effortlessly

all to rescue what Israel claimed was a "kidnapped" soldier â€” an assertion that was absurd because a uniformed, front-line noncommissioned officer can no more be "kidnapped" by the enemy than an innocent, unarmed child can "die in battle." Already, the language of the conflict was taking on the dimensions of events occurring on the other side of Alice's looking glass, and things would only get worse.[/b]
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It is called a kidnapping because a state of war had not been present. The abduction was an act of war, and subsequent military actions by Israel then decried by Hamas as disproportionate make for ludicrous reading.

Hamas cannot set the scale of a conflict that *they start*, any more than they can take the moral high ground when they lose.

IsrAmeriPrius · Aug 12, 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(EricGo @ Aug 12 2006, 08:15 PM) [snapback]302403[/snapback]</div>

Start from a bald-faced lie as the premise, and BS flows downhill effortlessly[/b]
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While I share your disagreement on how these kidnappings are portrayed by Caleb Carr, his basic premise that Israel made a huge mistake in going to war in Lebanon and in the manner in which it was prosecuted.

The Israeli press has been hammering that point home for the past few days. Here are a few exerpts from the August 13 issue of Haaretz:

To failure's credit

By Gideon Levy

The bad (and predictable) news: Israel is going to come out of this war with the lower hand. The good (and surprising) news: This ringing failure could spell good tidings. If Israel had won the battles in an easy, sweeping victory of the kind Israelis prayed so much for, it would have caused enormous damage to Israel's security policies. Another slam-bam win would have brought disaster upon us. Drugged with power, drunk with victory, we would have been tempted to implement our success in other arenas. Dangerous fire would have threatened the entire region and nobody knows what might have resulted.

On the other hand, the failure in this little war might teach us an important lesson for the future, and maybe influence us to change our ways and language, the language we speak to our neighbors with violence and force. The axiom that "Israel cannot allow itself a defeat on the battlefield" has already been exposed as a nonsensical cliche: Failure might not only help Israel greatly but, as a bonus, it might teach the Americans the important lesson that there is no point in pushing Israel into military adventures.

The IDF's failure against Hezbollah is not a fateful defeat. Israel killed and absorbed casualties, but its existence or any part of its territory were not endangered for a moment. Our favorite phrase, "an existential war" is nothing more than another expression of the ridiculous pathos of this war, which from the start was a cursed war of choice.

Hezbollah did not capture territory from Israel and its defeat is tolerable even though it could have easily been avoided if we had not undertaken our foolish Lebanese adventure. It is not difficult to imagine what would have happened if Hezbollah had been defeated within a few days from the air, as promised from the start by the bragging of the heads of the IDF. The success would have made us insane. The U.S. would have pushed us into a military clash with Syria and, drunk with victory, we might have been tempted. Iran might have been next. At the same time we would have dealt with the Palestinians: What went so easily in Lebanon, we would have been convinced, would be easily implemented from Jenin to Rafah. The result would have been an attempt to solve the Palestinian problem at its root by pounding, erasing, bombing and shelling.

Haaretz: To failure's credit[/b]
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Let the devil take tomorrow

By Moshe Arens

They had a few days of glory when they still believed that the IAF's bombing of Lebanon would make short shrift of Hezbollah and bring us victory without pain. But as the war they so grossly mismanaged wore on, as northern Israel received its daily dose of 150-200 rockets, the Galilee was destroyed and burned to the ground, over a million Israelis sat in shelters or abandoned their homes and both civilian and military casualties mounted - gradually the air went out of them. Here and there, they still let off some bellicose declarations, but they started looking for an exit - how to extricate themselves from the turn of events they were obviously incapable of managing. They grasped for straws, and what better straw than the United Nations Security Council. No need to score a military victory over Hezbollah. Let the UN declare a cease-fire, and Olmert, Peretz, and Livni can simply declare victory, whether you believe it or not.

An almost audible sigh of relief could be heard from the Prime Minister's Office as the negotiations that were supposed to lead to a cease-fire began at the UN.

So what if nobody believes that an "emboldened" UNIFIL force will disarm Hezbollah, and that Hezbollah with thousands of rockets still in its arsenal and truly emboldened by this month's success against the mighty Israel Defense Forces, will now become a partner for peace? Does a cease-fire that will avoid further casualties among the IDF's soldiers not outweigh these concerns over future events?

The long-term implications of an Israeli agreement to a UN brokered cease-fire at this time are obvious. Israel's enemies, and they are many, will conclude that Israel does not have the stamina for an extended encounter with terrorism. You do not need tanks and aircraft to defeat Israel - a few thousand rockets are enough. Katyushas today and Qassams tomorrow. Don't let Olmert, Peretz and Livni fool you: These rockets will keep coming after Israel is seen as not only punished but also defeated in this month-long war.

The task facing Israel now is to restore its deterrent posture and prepare for the attacks that are sure to come. But not with this leadership. They have exhausted whatever little credit they had when they were voted into office.

Haaretz: Let the devil take tomorrow[/b]
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The 'morning after' commission

By Yossi Beilin

The recent weeks, in which such a large part of the country was exposed to Hezbollah rockets, in which economic life was paralyzed for a third of the country and tourism halted; in which the security ramifications of the enormous gaps between rich and poor, Jew and Arabs were exposed, and in which tens of thousands of reservists were mobilized and the military and civilian price was so heavy, all demand a commission of inquiry and it will be established.

Haaretz: The 'morning after' commission[/b]
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Letting the IDF win

By Uzi Benziman

To date, the war has been managed by Ehud Olmert and Amir Peretz in an embarrassingly amateurish way, but motivated by practical considerations. The moves they opted to make - from the initial decision to respond to the Hezbollah provocation in the north, through the use of ground forces, all the way to the announcement on Friday afternoon that the war machine would move ahead into the depths of Lebanon - have been presented as direct responses, albeit not always wise, to military and diplomatic developments. But since the Security Council voted in favor of a resolution for an end to hostilities, and Israel welcomed it, the legitimacy of the order to continue the operation into Lebanese territory is less self-evident.

The suspicion that the broadening of the military deployment is driven by hidden motives is reinforced further not only by Olmert's refusal to allow Tzipi Livni to participate in the deliberations of the Security Council, but also when answers are sought over what the military operation actually means. The impression is that the prime minister, who updated some of his ministers on Friday night, did not offer a uniform explanation. There are those who understood him to mean that the expanded IDF ground operation was meant to pressure the Lebanese government to release immediately the two abducted soldiers.

Haaretz: Letting the IDF win[/b]
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IsrAmeriPrius · Aug 13, 2006

And from the Jerusalem Post:

To the PM, from a mother
By ESTHER WACHSMAN

I LOST my third son, Nachshon, may his memory be for a blessing, to Iranian-supported Hamas terrorists while he was wearing the uniform of the IDF.

Hizbullah in Lebanon is, we all understand, the vanguard of Iranian terror in the region, and it collaborates with Hamas here. Hamas kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, and Hizbullah set off the current hostilities by kidnapping Ehud Goldwasser and Udi Regev.

Now, Mr. Prime Minister, I may not be politically, diplomatically or militarily savvy. But as a plain citizen, let me share my questions and doubts and about the direction Israel has lately been taking.

Why were the captors of Gilad Shalit not pursued within minutes of his kidnapping? Similarly, why was Hizbullah given enough time to smuggle Goldwasser and Regev away?

For six years we allowed Hizbullah to prepare for this war. Will someone tell me why?

Why can't the most powerful army in the Middle East destroy the infrastructure that is sending rockets and missiles out of Lebanon to kill Israelis in the north?

It seems wrong to me that called-up reservists, in their thousands, should be wandering around in the north waiting to go into battle with little protection or guidance. How else to explain the deaths of so many soldiers last week from a single rocket?

The generals keep talking about the "long arm" of the IDF. Where is it? Why were the border towns and cities in the North left unprotected and unprepared for Hizbullah's onslaught?

Why has there been no systematic relocation of women and children out of the line of fire? It distresses me to see the sight of refugees within the land of Israel, which was created to be a sanctuary for Jewish refugees everywhere.

On the military front it boggles the mind, it demoralizes us and lessens our faith in our leaders and in the armed forces to learn about what seems like a whole series of botched efforts, "mistakes," and unrealized opportunities.

The Jerusalem Post: To the PM, from a mother[/b]
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vtie · Aug 13, 2006

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(IsrAmeriPrius @ Aug 12 2006, 10:57 PM) [snapback]302249[/snapback]</div>

I posted different excerpts from this very thought provoking Op-Ed piece in another thread in response the Dr. Berman's faulty rendition of history; however, this is the main premise of the article, which is worth a read:

[Excerpts]
[/b]
Click to expand...

An interesting read. Thanks for sharing.

'Never interrupt your enemy while he is making a mistake"

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'Never interrupt your enemy while he is making a mistake"

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