When an armed robber or violent rapist breaks into your house and you call the police to save you, do you hope they just send one policeman (maybe armed/maybe not) because "that would be proportional". Of course not, you hope they send enough force to get it over quickly and preserve your life. Anything else would be ridiculous, as is the case for proportionality in this war. In WWII did the Allies employ just enough force to fight to a draw? Of course not. That would be ridiculous. The idea was to destroy the enemy and win.
Yes "destroy the enemy and win", just like the Germans believed about the Warsaw Ghetto, no different really. I would think the Israeli's would know better.
The metaphor being supplied here is absurd, not just inappropriate because it begs the question of when is a violent response too much but because the implied answer is; whatever amount of violence it takes is alright, so long as mission accomplished. Well we will return to the *mission* being accomplished in a moment but first back the myth of the metaphor.
Oh and before even that response a note: The issue of Darfur, the Sudan, Sri Lanka, and please don't stop there lest we forget, Zimbabwe, the Congolese Republic, the Niger Delta and Somali Pirates. Oh and perhaps deserving dishonorable mention are the MILF and Communist rebel movements in the Philippines, Indonesian rebels in the breakaway region of Aceh, Maoists in Nepal, and ethnic Uighurs in China, or democracy advocates in Myanmar, and numerous other ethnic, regional, and political conflicts extent around the world.
Heh why stop there lest we forget the rising tide of violence causing pandemonium right over the border in Mexico by our very own privately fostered and publicly funded drug war. Now there is a free market funded form of terrorism for you. You can't even blame the Muslims or religious fanatics for that issue.
The point is that all of these deserve their own discussions but it hasn't happened for two primary reasons; religion combined with oil.
The (UN)Holy Land has no oil but its fate is tied inextricably to the flow of oil to the whole world. First we have three dogs fighting over one bone and then we have their owners vying for power while sports betting their pets.
Yes, religion gives meaning and oil gives motive to the attention the conflict in Gaza and Israel gets. If there was no oil involved religion might make many still pay per view but I bet major governments wouldn't be selling weapons to all sides. I bet the proxy war there would be a lot lower key and media attention more distant, perhaps more like watching Hindus and Muslims kill each other in Kashmir, India and Pakistan.
But there is no oil in Gaza, or in Israel so why should oil be a central motive to the involvement of the rest of the world?
Because the Palestinian struggle gives legitimacy to the Islamic fundamentalists and makes their cause a generational conflict that will be inherited for a century to come if the present players do not change their strategy. Islamic fundamentalism is not just a threat to us in the west but to the stability of the propped up monarchies that control the flow to a major amount of the global source of oil. It is a threat to the stability in Pakistan, hell even in parts of China, not to mention the former Soviet states and oil producing states in Africa.
You want to be a world power?
Then you had better do better than play Risk and learn much more about the central aspects of the conflicts. These are not solved by ignoring them or by treating them with just a heavy hand. Yes it is long past time to stop playing like children with a post colonial game of Risk and start getting real about a global society. If you want to trade together then you are just going to have to learn to play nice together children of earth.
Otherwise get ready for a dark age again because as usual you are your own worst enemy.
Now to the myth of the metaphor, the issue of the measured response rather than just overkill is that you are dead wrong about the response. What a panicked victim *hopes for* is not the issue, it is what gets the job done without getting everyone killed, including the perp but most importantly the hostage. How often do hostage victims get killed by the tactics you suggest?
Usually.
Getting it done right invariably involves negotiation. Please stop with the Hollywood tactics and realize there is a reason professional police use hostage NEGOTIATORS. It is because it works and we save many more lives that way than the Dirty Harry way. It probably sells less papers and movies though because it is about the application of calm reason not sensational emotion. Passion sells and promotes political efforts but it takes reason to end conflicts and learn there are larger reasons than the motives of biblical vengeance.
The cultures of the Mideast are too attached to the "eye for an eye" tactic. They have blinded themselves to reason but what is our excuse as on-lookers and promoters of the violence?
What is our vested interest?
Is it profit, the passion of religion, or the prurient excitement of betting on blood sport?
How about seeing the larger picture.
Let's respond to the violent robbery and rape by blowing up the neighborhood the gang comes from. Yes, let's kill every member of the gang and their wives, husbands, parents, cousins, and innocent children. Yes, INNOCENT children. Let's level their houses and destroy even their chance to continue as a people or rebuilding from the rubble.
Oh wait we can't do that because it has another name, genocide.
All of this sounds absurd, a gross exaggeration right?
Well it is not and the Israeli's should know better and some of them do. Ultimately the overkill response will lead to playing out Masada once again and responding to being surrounded by an overwhelming force with the option of surrender or *noble* suicide.
Did you ever wonder folks why Josephus changed sides?
