Saturday, May 19, 2007

Incoming

What an incoming Kassam rocket looks and sounds like as captured by Shlomo Wollins of Israel Reporter in his backyard in Sderot on the afternoon of May 15th, 2007. You can hear the twitter of the birds right up to the moment when the warhead impacts.


Now back in the old World War 2 days, the standard response would be counterbattery followed by an infantry attack to clear out the launch sites. That kind of response would effectively mean the destruction of Gaza and the expulsion of its residents. Not so very long ago the Russians attempted to root out the Chechens from Grozny with artillery fire. The Presidential Palace alone was hit at the rate of one shell per second. This was in the year 2000. The "good old days" pass away at different times for different countries.

Of course the Stalingrad firepower solution is completely out of the question as far as Israel is concerned and there's no use bemoaning it. Israel is not Russia. Nor is 2007 the same year as 1943. Or even 2000. So Gaza is going to sit there like a terrain feature as immoveable as the Hindu Kush and Israel is going to have to find another way to solve its problems. What this implies, however, is the need for patience. The need to develop human capabilities and intelligence resources that will permit the solution of the problem within the given constraints. As I've argued elsewhere people who are unwilling to accept brutal solutions had better be willing to counsel patience and invest in building capability. And maybe this applies to Iraq as much as to Gaza.

Grozny



Another view of Grozny.

14 Comments:

Blogger What is "Occupation" said...

fine no cluster bombs and naplam...

boy am i pissed...

so what about uses sniper squads to shoot any paleio with a weapon?

what about cutting off all power?

what about offering a bounty of $15 per ski mask filled with head?

5/19/2007 05:17:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Robert Rector on Immigration
15 minute wma stream.
Hat Tip, Cutler.

5/19/2007 05:52:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

5/19/2007 06:18:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Starling sent this three weeks ago, but I haven't been checking my G-Mail.
He's been blocked out at BC and wanted me to post this for him.
Sorry I'm late.

---

It is often argued that bounty or no, there is always another waiting in the wings to take the place of the jihadi just knocked off. Fortunately, our friend the Saudis are busy at work reducing the supply of would be recruits to the Jihad.

If you can't beat them, enjoin them

5/19/2007 06:19:00 PM  
Blogger VinceP1974 said...

What's amazing to me about this festering pit of the Gaza Strip is that the entire geographical area is approximity ONE HALF the size of the municipal borders of the City of Chicago in the US.

5/19/2007 06:20:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Sure could have saved a lot of US and Iraqi lives with more brutal solutions upfront in Tikrit and the like.
Just as not calling off the Marines in Fallujah I would have saved lots of innocent lives.

5/19/2007 09:51:00 PM  
Blogger VinceP1974 said...

These scum need to be stopped.

NY Public School Madrassa Advisor Threatened NYU with Danish Cartoon JIHAD

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2007/05/ny_public_schoo.html

5/19/2007 10:21:00 PM  
Blogger Your Correspondent said...

If you're fighting an asymmetrical war you should just use your force and win.

5/20/2007 03:48:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Israel Needs a Few of These
Could just swivel them from Lebanon to Gaza, as needed.
---
Late that year, the two guns traveled south to a specially constructed railway siding on what is now modern day Camp Pendleton, where gun crews could train and the rifles themselves could be tested without causing damage to nearby property. The next year, would see the two guns leave Fort MacArthur for another training run, this time traveling north to the small town of Goleta, just north of the city of Santa Barbara.

The guns of Battery Erwin were the longest ranging artillery pieces assigned to Fort MacArthur prior to World War Two and were capable of shooting a 1,450 pound shell up to 27 miles.

5/20/2007 03:51:00 AM  
Blogger Doug said...

Jews Seek Racial Domination!
The latest report from the U.N.

A newly released United Nations report epitomizes the foul anti-Semitism which has overtaken the U.N. human-rights machinery. In language reminiscent of Nazi Germany, John Dugard, the U.N.’s “Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967,” has announced that Jews seeks racial domination.

5/20/2007 04:31:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

At what point does the bear decide whether or not to destroy the bee hive with those bees within as their brothers rapidly sting his attempts to extract more honey?

At what point does the bear decide to turn away from feeding on the discovered hive, leaving the bees to reconstruct their invaded home?

At what point do we Americans stop pondering these stupid analogies (like those above) and just get to work ridding ourselves of those who have nothing better to do than trying to kill us and destroy our sense of peace?

Where is Rodney King when ya really, really need him? Let's have psych-ops drop off some more Britney tapes!

I will bet the US government has spent more than 15 million bucks of taxpayers' money searching for those two captured soldiers, searching with ROEs that say "knock three times announcing each time who you are and your intentions prior to the threat of breaking down the door: Give the occupants at least 10 minutes to respond."

We're winning! I'm just waiting for that little sticker to be placed on my local gas station's pumps saying: "Here's some cheap gas from a grateful Iraqi peoples who you gave a chance at freedom!"

Compassionate Conservatism works wonders, just ask Sandy Berger, the best friend Judas ever had!

5/20/2007 05:45:00 AM  
Blogger ziontruth said...

This attitude in your last paragraph (the attitude, as an idea, not you as its writer, Wretchard) makes me boil within.

You see, while we're sitting in front of our computers counseling "patience" and "developing means to solve the problem within the given constraints", the Islamic enemy is operating with a free hand. While our armies keep to insane rule of engagement that can get a whole division killed (G-d forbid), the enemy gets to put its civilians in the line of fire for propaganda benefit. While US National Guardsmen are more afraid of the lawyers if they should shoot an illegal alien than the illegal alien himself, the enemy has no compunctions about using ambulances to smuggle its combatants. This is asymmetric warfare squared.

On the altar of civility and the UN-devised "rules of engagement", which were conceived by people totally oblivious to what we're facing today, we're sacrificing both our people and our culture, with an ever steepening price.

These days I just feel like screaming, "To hell with all this civility! To hell with all those suicide pacts chaining us! And to hell with that thought, that erroneous thought, born of pure chronological snobbery, that our age is more civilized, and that the things we read about in the histories are behind us!" Because our enemy is such that raise their own children to combat, often to the sacrifice of their very lives.

Enough of this, this defeatocratic line, "Beware, when fighting monsters, lest you become a monster yourself". This is the granddaddy of all suicide pacts. This masquerades as something noble, "Holding civilized nations to their high standards", but is in reality the most ignoble and immoral concept, the enabler of evil, "Exempting the uncivilized from all accountability", with the potential of enabling the most evil in our day and age to remake the whole world in their evil image (G-d forbid).

The sages of Judaism say, "All who have mercy upon the cruel end up showing cruelty toward the merciful". You think operating under those "given constraints", those now artificially-maintained remnants of the aftermath of World War II, is merciful? Nothing could be further from the truth! It is the height of cruelty, because it could mean the fall of our merciful civilization, including our innocent children, to one of the cruelest adversaries we have ever known.

Sometimes I get the feeling the world is just insisting on waiting for that fateful moment when abandoning this insane asymmetry is no longer a matter of leisurely discussion on an Internet forum but a matter of survival, of real choice between life and death. G-d help us.

5/20/2007 04:56:00 PM  
Blogger Doug said...

Lebanese Troops Fight Islamists; Dozens Are Slain

The battle left at least 22 soldiers and 17 militants dead and set off a military campaign to root out militants inside Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps.

5/20/2007 08:20:00 PM  
Blogger What is "Occupation" said...

GO LEBANON!

Time to let the middle east solve it's "palestinian" problem..

man i sound terrible...

but, ok, I can accept that, the palios aint defenseless huddled civilians, they are a culture of thuggery...

they have weapons, anti-tank missiles, sniper rifles, guns and the ability to murder, kill and maime...

this aint no pigeon shoot...

it's actually war...

5/21/2007 09:24:00 AM  

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