Response to your last sentence

Submitted by Ron Thompson (United States), Dec 31, 2007 at 17:35

I'd like to have reasons why I think you're wrong about most of what you say, but unfortunately I can't. I think you're about 95% right, and show an insight easy to admire but difficult to read. One slighter lesser comment about which you may be wrong is in saying Israel "faltered for the first time" in 2006. I didn't see it that way for one reason in particular, regarding the cluster bombs about which there was much hand-wringing for awhile.

I think it was militarily shrewd for Israel to use these weapons, even allowing for the fact that some luckless civilians including children will suffer. The reason is that these weapons were a substitute, then and continuing, for much more targeted bombing of civilians that would have been far more indefensible. Their use was somewhat parallel to Sherman's march through Georgia in 1864. Although the South has long carried on about this, the truth was that by his material destruction, Sherman and then Grant ended up having to kill far fewer confederates in order to break the will of Secession. I think Israel, if only temporarily, accomplished something similar in Lebanon in 2006, a hidden partial triumph if you will.

While being forced unfortunately to agree with the many reasons for gloominess in your other comments, I must also say that as someone who went to Israel for 2 weeks in 2005, and not just as an ordinary tourist, I was very impressed by the easy self-confidence, sense of competence, and absence of angst among all the people and the several cities through which I travelled.

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