So I see a disproportionate response from Israel as justifiable in principle. Whether the actual disproportionate response they've made is justified is another question.
UPDATE: From Charles Krauthammer's column today:
What other country, when attacked in an unprovoked aggression across a recognized international frontier, is then put on a countdown clock by the world, given a limited time window in which to fight back, regardless of whether it has restored its own security?
What other country sustains 1,500 indiscriminate rocket attacks into its cities -- every one designed to kill, maim and terrorize civilians -- and is then vilified by the world when it tries to destroy the enemy's infrastructure and strongholds with precision-guided munitions that sometimes have the unintended but unavoidable consequence of collateral civilian death and suffering?
To hear the world pass judgment on the Israel-Hezbollah war as it unfolds is to live in an Orwellian moral universe. With a few significant exceptions (the leadership of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and a very few others), the world -- governments, the media, U.N. bureaucrats -- has completely lost its moral bearings.
The word that obviates all thinking and magically inverts victim into aggressor is "disproportionate," as in the universally decried "disproportionate Israeli response."
When the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor, it did not respond with a parallel "proportionate" attack on a Japanese naval base. It launched a four-year campaign that killed millions of Japanese, reduced Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki to cinders, and turned the Japanese home islands into rubble and ruin.
Disproportionate? No. When one is wantonly attacked by an aggressor, one has every right -- legal and moral -- to carry the fight until the aggressor is disarmed and so disabled that it cannot threaten one's security again. That's what it took with Japan.
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Was WWII a proportional response to Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo?
The unconditional surrender policy arguably prolonged the war for two years, demoralized the German opposition to Hitler, and led to Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe:
">http://www.culturewars.com/CultureWars/Archives/cw_recent/warcrime.html>
Seamus; The unconditional surrender policy arguably prolonged the war for two years, demoralized the German opposition to Hitler, and led to Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe.
Seamus, I tend to think that Stalin's thirst for territory. led to the occupation of Eastern Europe. Remember, Stalin occupied Eastern Poland (compliments of the non-aggression pact he signed with Hitler) *before* Churchill and Roosevelt decided on a policy of unconditional surrender.
As far as "prolonging the war for two years" is concerned, do you seriously think Hitler would have surrendered even conditionally? Don't forget that he was ultimately in charge of the Nazi war machine (he never let his generals forget). The article you cite never deals with that fact.
Besides, Seamus, citing an article that uses David Irving as a source doesn't enhance the credibility of either your arguments or position.>
Hey, Mark Shea, come up with any ideas yet on how to fight genocidal terrorists using "just war" doctrine?
The crickets are chirping....>
Seamus, I tend to think that Stalin's thirst for territory. led to the occupation of Eastern Europe. Remember, Stalin occupied Eastern Poland (compliments of the non-aggression pact he signed with Hitler) *before* Churchill and Roosevelt decided on a policy of unconditional surrender.
But even by the end of 1943, the Red Army hadn't succeeded in recapturing the Polish territory it got in 1939. And it wasn't likely to recapture it without a stream of American lend-lease aid.
As far as "prolonging the war for two years" is concerned, do you seriously think Hitler would have surrendered even conditionally? Don't forget that he was ultimately in charge of the Nazi war machine (he never let his generals forget). The article you cite never deals with that fact.
It specifically talked about the plan of certain Germans to overthrow Hitler so that he wouldn't be in charge of the German (no longer Nazi) war maching.
Besides, Seamus, citing an article that uses David Irving as a source doesn't enhance the credibility of either your arguments or position.
There were exactly two points in the entire article for which Irving was cited. And even if Irving were wrong on the particular points for which he was cited, to suggest that those citations somehow discredit the whole article brings to mind the legendary Jesuit who, when accused of killing three men and a dog, triumphantly produced the dog alive.>
But even by the end of 1943, the Red Army hadn't succeeded in recapturing the Polish territory it got in 1939. And it wasn't likely to recapture it without a stream of American lend-lease aid.
So, Seamus, you think the Americans should have made as their primary strategy relying on Hitler's assassination by domestic elements rather than relying on a known quantity, Soviet belligerence against the Nazis?
It specifically talked about the plan of certain Germans to overthrow Hitler so that he wouldn't be in charge of the German (no longer Nazi) war machine.
We saw how well that plan worked on July 20, 1944. Not to take anything away from the heroism of the perpetrators, but too many variables (turncoats among the conspirators, the bad luck of Hitler escaping with minor injuries) worked against them.
There were exactly two points in the entire article for which Irving was cited. And even if Irving were wrong on the particular points for which he was cited, to suggest that those citations somehow discredit the whole article...
Given the voluminous number of historians of WWII and Nazi Germany, you had to pick a "controversial" figure like Irving to site anything? That choice, in and of itself, does cast doubt on the article's ideological credibility.>
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