Freedom's Fidelity

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

The Horror of Peace

Condoleeza Rice has made a visit to Beirut, meanwhile Thomas Sowell writes on the horrors of peace:

One of the many failings of our educational system is that it sends out into the world people who cannot tell rhetoric from reality. They have learned no systematic way to analyze ideas, derive their implications and test those implications against hard facts.

"Peace" movements are among those who take advantage of this widespread inability to see beyond rhetoric to realities. Few people even seem interested in the actual track record of so-called "peace" movements - that is, whether such movements actually produce peace or war.

Take the Middle East. People are calling for a cease-fire in the interests of peace. But there have been more cease-fires in the Middle East than anywhere else. If cease-fires actually promoted peace, the Middle East would be the most peaceful region on the face of the earth instead of the most violent.

Was World War II ended by cease-fires or by annihilating much of Germany and Japan? Make no mistake about it, innocent civilians died in the process. Indeed, American prisoners of war died when we bombed Germany.

There is a reason why General Sherman said "war is hell" more than a century ago. But he helped end the Civil War with his devastating march through Georgia - not by cease fires or bowing to "world opinion" and there were no corrupt busybodies like the United Nations to demand replacing military force with diplomacy.

There was a time when it would have been suicidal to threaten, much less attack, a nation with much stronger military power because one of the dangers to the attacker would be the prospect of being annihilated.

"World opinion," the U.N. and "peace movements" have eliminated that deterrent. An aggressor today knows that if his aggression fails, he will still be protected from the full retaliatory power and fury of those he attacked because there will be hand-wringers demanding a cease fire, negotiations and concessions.

That has been a formula for never-ending attacks on Israel in the Middle East. The disastrous track record of that approach extends to other times and places - but who looks at track records?

Seems Condi is taking the same sort of line:

After some initial uncertainty, and mixed messages from the State Department, the Bush Administration now seems properly focused on exploiting the clash between Hezbollah and Israel as a strategic opening. The opportunity is to degrade Hezbollah and further isolate its enablers in Syria and Iran.

One of the most notable reactions to the fighting has been the absence of the usual solidarity from leading Arab countries. Governments in Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf states understand the hegemonic ambitions of Hezbollah's patron, Iran, and they know this is a foretaste of Iranian trouble if the mullahs ever get a nuclear bomb. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave every indication in her press conference Friday that she intends to exploit that anxiety during this week's trip to Europe and the Middle East.

For starters, she was having none of the calls for a quick cease-fire. "I have no interest in diplomacy for the sake of returning Lebanon and Israel to the status quo ante," she said. Such a cease-fire, she added, would allow "terrorists to launch attacks at the time and terms of their choosing and to threaten innocent people--Arab and Israeli--throughout the region. That would be a guarantee of future violence. Instead we must be more effective and more ambitious than that."

The 'status quo ante' being that Hezbollah (and Iran and Syria by proxy) are allowed to randomly launch missiles into Israeli civilian populations knowing that the International Community will ride to their rescue under the righteous sounding talk of diplomacy. But all that does is kick the can down the road while keeping the actual civilians of Lebanon hostage to terrorist incitements and Israeli response. Remember, Israel pulled out of Lebanon in 2000 and all it did was allHezbollahlah 6 years to train and load up on surprisingly sophisticated weaponry, including a system of tunnels, bunkers and a stockpile of up to 13,000 rockets, all amongst civilian populations.

Of course, all of this was built and gathered by Hezbollah under the watchful eye of, (who else?) UN "Peacekeepers."

posted by Paul  permalink | |