The Value of a Single Israeli Soldier ... Alan Caruba

The Value of a Single Israeli Soldier

By Alan Caruba

The Talmud, a record of rabbinic discussions on Jewish law, says “Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed the entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved the entire world.” (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5)

Every Israeli soldier knows that, if captured, his nation will move mountains to secure his return. It’s not just a slogan. It’s a reality.

Since 1982 Israel has engaged in eight such swaps, the latest being the release of Gilad Shalit, kidnapped five years ago and denied the most basic rights as defined by international law. Hamas even refused to permit visits by representatives of the Red Cross.

Since 1982, more than 10,000 Palestinians serving prison sentences for terrorist and other hostile actions have been released. In 1983, more than 4,500 Palestinians prisoners were swapped for six Israeli soldiers being held in southern Lebanon. In 1985, 1,150 prisoners were exchanged for three Israelis.

The value that Israeli places on its soldiers includes even casualties of war. In 2008, it released Samir Kuntar, convicted of murdering four Israelis in 1979, plus four Hezbollah fighters in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers seized during a cross-border raid.

The swap for Shalit, also the victim of a cross-border raid, demonstrates a fundamental difference between the Israelis and their enemies. They believe that each of their soldiers is more valuable than those who war against them.

Naturally, the most recent swap evoked a wide range of views. Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum welcomed Shalit’s reunion with his family as did thousands of Israelis, but said that “joy is tempered by the bitter realities of statecraft” calling the Israeli policy “the sentimentalization of strategy.” He thought the swap “poison(ed) the future” for Israel.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu disagreed. “As a leader who sends IDF soldiers every day to defend Israeli citizens, I believe that mutual responsibility is not just a slogan, but one of the foundations of our existence here.”

Netanyahu knows that Arabs have been kidnapping and ransoming people for the whole of Islam’s 1400 years and that it was standard practice among the desert tribes where the religion first took root. Islam is based on the promise of paradise for its adherents when they die; particularly its jihadist warriors.

Hamas and Fatah indoctrinate Palestinian children to want to be suicide bombers, but Judaism is based on the premise that life is God’s greatest gift and is to be valued above all else. Former Prime Minister, Golda Meir, said, “We will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”

Bill Levinson, writing about the swap, had perhaps the best interpretation of what occurred. He referred to the famous Chinese tract, Sun Tzu’s “Art of War”, suggesting that “Hamas might have played squarely into the hands of the Mossad and/or Shin Bet”, Israel’s highly effective and feared intelligence agencies.

“Israel might have just planted 50, 100, or even more double agents among the Palestinians who will cooperate, for example, in setting up Hamas terrorists to be killed or locating Palestinian rocket batteries for destruction whenever Israel considers this necessary.”

Sun Tzu wrote, “The enemy’s spies who have come to spy upon us must be sought out, tempted with bribes, led away and comfortably housed. Thus they will become converted spies and available for our service.”

Had the Israelis merely released one or a few prisoners their return would evoke suspicion, but with more than a thousand such prisoners it will prove impossible for Hamas to know which among them are double agents.

No people survive more than three thousand years against the greatest of odds and a multitude of enemies without learning a few lessons along the way. Hamas will pay the price in the weeks, months, and years ahead.

© Alan Caruba, 2011
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Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" his popular blog and thereafter on dozens of other websites and blogs. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. To visit his Facebook page, click here For information on his professional skills, Caruba.com is the place to visit.

The Pakistani Pit of Deception ... Alan Caruba

The Pakistani Pit of Deception

By Alan Caruba

Even Pakistanis do not believe that their political and military leaders did not know bin Laden was living, as one columnist put it, “wrapped in the bosom of the Pakistani security establishment.”

Cyril Almeida, writing in the Pakistani newspaper, Dawn, a few days after the killing of bin Laden noted that, when the question is asked privately, “No one will say anything but, yes, they knew he was there.”

For 34 of its 64 years, Pakistan has been run by generals whose military intelligence presumably works in league with its Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), though both have their own agendas. It is unlikely that much civilian control over either exists.

Almeida wrote, “If we didn’t know, we are a failed state; if we did know, we are a rogue state. But does anyone believe they didn’t know?”

If it were an individual, Pakistan would be diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, subject to raging fears that India intends to invade on a moment’s notice and antagonistic to Afghanistan as it harbors those who attack it.

In his recently published book, “Pakistan: A Hard Country”, Anatol Lieven provides insight to a nation that, until lately, was home to the most wanted man on the face of the Earth, Osama bin Laden. He was dispatched in a compound that was within a short distance of Pakistan’s equivalent of West Point or England’s Sandhurst. If we are to believe Pakistan’s civilian and military leadership, neither had any idea he was there.

“Trying to understand Pakistan’s internal structures and dynamics is complicated,” writes Lieven. “If there is one phrase which defines many aspects of Pakistan…it is ‘Janus-faced’: in other words, many of the same features of Pakistan’s state and government which are responsible for holding Islamist extremism in check are at one and the same time responsible for holding back Pakistan’s social, economic, and political development.”

“Pakistan,” writes Lieven, “is divided, disorganized, economically backward, corrupt, violent, unjust, often savagely oppressive towards the poor and women, and home to extremely dangerous forms of extremism and terrorism.”

Pakistan came into being in 1947 when leaders of India’s Muslim population like Mohammed Ali Jinnah, its founder, made it clear they did not want to be part of the newly independent India after Great Britain relinquished its colonial rule. Later, when East Pakistan broke loose to establish its independence in 1971, it became Bangladesh.

The thing Westerners find difficult to understand is the tribal nature of nations like Pakistan and Afghanistan, but it is not difficult to understand “Muslim nationalism and the bitter hostility to the U.S. role in the Muslim world in general and Pakistan’s region in particular.” However, in order to pursue the present combat role against the Taliban in Afghanistan, the U.S. and its European allies rely on neighboring Pakistan in order to provision supplies to their troops.

Since the Taliban are a creation of Pakistan’s ISI and because Pakistan has long been where al Qaeda has found refuge, those in charge have played a Janus or two-faced role for a very long time; at times providing intelligence of great value and at others aiding or at the very least, protecting the terrorist organizations. In return, the Taliban have proven an internal problem for the military and the government, occasionally requiring that they be driven out of areas they have seized.

In many ways, Pakistan is barely a nation. In its tribal northwest regions, such as the now fabled Waziristan, the state has little influence or control. As to its tribes, the two dominant ones are Punjab and Pathan. Both pursue their own interests.

As Lieven describes it, “A fundamental political fact about Pakistan is that the state, whoever claims to lead it, is weak, and (the) society in its various forms is immensely strong.” It is a nation of many separate fiefdoms who “plunder the state for patronage and favors” and this is graphically demonstrated by the fact that “barely one percent of the population pays income tax, and the wealthiest landowners in the country pay no direct taxes at all.”

Thus, the billions that the U.S. has pumped into its economy take on a very critical role, particularly for the military. This is a very different world from that of the West. The majority of Pakistan’s political parties are dynastic, led by a few powerful families. The entire society operates on kinship loyalty.

Pakistan is a perfect example of why the U.S. and the West are stymied by the illogic, the irrationality, and the duplicity of nations in which Islam is the predominant factor in their politics and society.

When you add in the geography of Pakistan, lodged between India and Afghanistan, bordered by China and Iran, you have a nation that can neither be ignored nor abandoned because of its strategic location.

Finally, there is the fact that Pakistan has a nuclear arsenal that must never be allowed to fall into the hands of the Taliban, al Qaeda, or anyone else crazed enough to use it for the greater glory of Allah.

Pakistan is a pit of deception and it is notable that our current relations with it consist of the special operations raid that killed bin Laden and the drones that continue to kill al Qaeda and Taliban who make themselves available targets.

© Alan Caruba, 2011
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Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" his popular blog and thereafter on dozens of other websites and blogs. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. To visit his Facebook page, click here For information on his professional skills, Caruba.com is the place to visit.

Afghanistan: Obama's War! by: J. D. Longstreet

Afghanistan: Obama’s War!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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As much as I dislike doing this, I am going to offer President Obama some sound advice, which I fully expect him to totally ignore. That advice is: “Get the hell out of Afghanistan!”

Just recently I published a piece, on my own blog, by my friend, Alan Caruba, calling for the same thing. Getting US troops out of Afghanistan is just another thing Alan and I agree on.

Maybe it is a generational thing. Both Alan and myself were in the military and both of us experienced what the wrong war in the wrong place can do to a military and to a country and we don’t want to see our country go through that again.

Having said all of the above, I fully expect President Obama to maintain US troops in Afghanistan and stand-by as they are chewed-up by twos and threes until, we have a death toll of Americans rivaling that of the Vietnam debacle.

Here’s the thing. We cannot win in Afghanistan.

I am a realist. I look at the facts and choose my position on a subject based upon those facts. I do not interject optimism into my decision-making in so far as taking a position or forming an opinion. When one does that and applies that process to the war effort in Afghanistan one can come up with only one inescapable truth -- and that is, we cannot win in Afghanistan.

This is not defeatism. Understand that. Of COURSE, the American military could, fairly easily, wipe that country off the map in short order. But, what would we have gained? As far as I can see, nothing of value to the US would be gained. Occupation of the country would, it seems to me, be nothing short of another decades long shooting war with our military bases becoming “Fort Apaches” in enemy territory. None of this takes into consideration the cost in dollars to the American economy.

The question, then, for our current President and Commander - in - Chief, is: why continue to feed our young men into a sausage grinder, such as Afghanistan, knowing full well that at some point, down the road from now, the Commander- in- Chief, in 2013, or beyond, will be ordering their withdrawal from that hell-hole? Saving face for Mr. Obama, or any President, is certainly not enough reason to spill the precious blood of American soldiers.

Afghanistan is not really a country. Not REALLY. Frankly, I’m not sure WHAT it is, but a country - it ain’t. It is sort of a no-man’s land with a conglomeration of tribes and/or clans usually at each other’s throat over some sort of “slight.” Their major industry is dope. Yep! “DOPE.” They grow beautiful fields of opium poppies -- and they sell it on the world market -- both the legal market and the black market. Get between them and their dope money and you are asking for serious trouble.

Afghanistan’s next-door neighbor, Pakistan, is where the serious threat to America lies. Pakistan already has nuclear weapons. Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons Program was established as far back as1974. Earlier this year, some American officials expressed concern that Pakistan is enlarging its nuclear weapons facilities. They fear that Pakistan is moving to increase its stockpile of fissile material. That would allow them to develop more destructive atomic weapons. Some experts are concerned that Pakistan may be in the early stages of creating thermonuclear weapons. Thermonuclear weapons are far more destructive and could be more easily developed to fit inside warheads.

As much as I hate the thought, it is entirely possible, and highly probable, that we will awaken one morning, in the not too distant future, to the news that Pakistan has been overrun by some terrorist organization, and those terrorists are in possession of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. In fact, this is the ONLY reason, I can conceive of, for American troops to remain in Afghanistan. At least, America would have forward deployed troops -- just in case this very scenario became a reality.

If Obama is determined to keep America’s military engaged in Afghanistan, then he needs to huddle with the Pentagon and actually listen to the “fighting generals” and follow their advice. America has had more than enough of bureaucrats in Washington directing US troops in battle with an enemy. Mr. Obama should immediately drop any thought of “winning the hearts and minds” of the Afghans. It isn’t going to happen. Forget “nation building, too.

I am aware that I will earn the title of “Armchair General” by making this observation, but here goes, anyway. It seems to me that America has only two real choices in Afghanistan. Get out – or -- “fort-up” as near the Pakistan border as we can and with the use of electronic eavesdropping (otherwise known as “spying”) and “humint” or “human intelligence” gathering sources (That simply means spies on the ground in Pakistan) stay as well informed as is humanly possible so that threats to Pakistan’s’ nuclear weapons and their development program can be thwarted as quickly and efficiently as possible. Even that won’t be one hundred percent effective, but, at least, our efforts in Afghanistan will not be a total waste, as they certainly appear to be today.

Hard choices? You bet they are. But that is the reason the President gets the “big bucks,” the nice house, the nice cars, and even a primo aircraft to fly about the globe. And, we would go so far as to suggest that Mr. Obama kiss and make up with Israel, our only REAL friend in the Middle East. He may not like it, but, from the looks of the diplomatic struggles with Israel these days, there remains the very real chance we will need to use Israel’s military facilities in the event the war in that region becomes even hotter and even wider.

So now it is “Obama’s War.” It will make his administration -- or -- break his administration. If Mr. Obama has any doubts about that, at all, we suggest he pluck a few history books from the White House library and look up the Jimmy Carter Administration. Many of the problems America is trying to deal with today, in the Middle East, were inherited directly from the hapless Carter Administration. It will be a very long time, indeed, before the American electorate entrusts the lives of their young military assets to the likes of the Carter Administration ever again. Unfortunately for the America people, Mr. Obama exhibits a host of the Carter foibles and will cost the US, over time, an abundance of time, money, and American blood.

This is, admittedly, not an easy problem to deal with. But deal with it Obama must. We Americans and, indeed, the remainder of the world, both friend and foe alike, will have their eyes upon Obama observing, trying his metal, and looking for that single weakness Obama may display. They will be searching for a weakness they can exploit to bring even more death and destruction to America’s shores. We can only pray that Divine Providence will look mercifully upon America and extend his arm of protection around the US as He has so lovingly done in the past.

J. D. Longstreet

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