Tuesday, June 01, 2010

A point on stopping the blockade runners

Those who sent an elite unit into a hostile confrontation armed with toy weapons made an incredibly stupid decision. And a uniquely Israeli one. In recent memory, Israeli military action has been violent but not decisive, bloody enough to provoke the outrage and condemnation of the world (at this point, a stubbed toe will do), but not enough to actually change facts on the ground (the Hamas and Hezbollah wars being prime examples). These halfhearted wars and battles have earned Israel demerits in world opinion without enough to show in improved strategic position.
There's an old saying, 'Never do an enemy a small injury', and I think the Israelis are going to have to follow that advice. Remember the sign from a tea party "It doesn't matter what my sign says, you'll call us racists anyway"? Well, no matter what the Israelis do, the EU and UN and so forth are going to call them names and blame them for whatever the problem is.

The Isrealis know this, but they've tried to work within self-set boundaries anyway; they've put troops at greater risk to try to avoid civilian casualties(generally a good thing) but they've taken it to the extent of, in many cases, preventing the military from largely or fully accomplishing the job; which means they don't wipe out a nest of terrorists, they don't clean out an area, and they catch all the crap anyway. I think they're likely to stop this in the near future(I hope). Next blockade runners are likely to be hit by the same troops, but with more clear-cut "Stop the bastards, and don't get hurt trying to play nice anymore" orders.

2 comments:

Phelps said...

There used to be a real simple solution to this problem -- if you tried to run the blockade and got caught, your ship was scuttled. The end. That should be the policy now, as well.

wolfwalker said...

Next blockade runners are likely to be hit by the same troops, but with more clear-cut "Stop the bastards, and don't get hurt trying to play nice anymore" orders.

The next blockade runner should be met by a submarine carrying a specialized torpedo, something with a small-but-lethal warhead whose blast looks like an internal explosion.