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Ralph Peters is a regular columnist with the New
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| PETERS |
The
Road To Qana
by Ralph
Peters [author,
novelist] 8/2/06 |
The
airstrike on the Lebanese village of Qana has been a tragedy
for Israel. A publicity debacle, the deaths of 57 civilians
united Israel's enemies, complicated American support - and
may lead to a cease-fire that rewards Hezbollah.
The
Qana attack can't be excused. But it can be explained.
The
images of children's bodies dug out of an apartment building's
rubble were a gift to Hezbollah, Syria and Iran - and a direct
result of the Olmert government's attempt to wage an "easy" war.
All
efforts to make war easy, cheap or bloodless fail. If Israel's
government - or our own - goes to war, our leaders must accept
the price of winning. You can't measure out military force
by teaspoons. Such naive efforts led to the morass in Iraq
- and to the corpses of Qana.
Contributors
Ralph Peters - Contributor
Ralph
Peters is a retired Army officer and the author of 19 books,
as well as of hundreds of essays and articles, written both
under his own name and as Owen Parry. He is a frequent columnist
for the New York Post and other publications. [go to Peters Index] |
Despite one failure after another, the myth of antiseptic
techno-war, of immaculate victories through airpower, persists.
The defense industry fosters it for profit, and the notion
is seductive to politicians: a quick win without friendly casualties.
The problem is that it never works. Never.
Even the Kosovo conflict - frequently cited as an airpower
victory - only climaxed after we threatened to send in ground
troops. Prior to that, we'd spent billions bombing charcoal
grills the Serbs used as decoy tank engines. (Our sensors read
hot metal, and bombs away!)
Without boots - and eyes - on the ground, you just blast
holes in the dirt. Or hit the targets your enemy wants you
to strike. That's what happened in Qana.
Anyone
who's ever served on a military staff or at the upper echelons
of government during a crisis can tell you what
happened: The pressure to obtain results grew ever heavier
as it "rolled downhill." The prime minister and his Cabinet
pressured the generals. The generals pressured the staffs.
Staff principals pressured the intelligence officers and targeting
analysts.
When
Israel's version of "shock and awe" failed, Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert froze like the proverbial deer in the
headlights. Committed to a model of war that couldn't work,
the stunned Israeli government insisted on "making" it work.
Day after day, the pressure increased - until a desperate system
dropped its safeguards.
Hezbollah
sized up the situation perfectly. It already had succeeded
in feeding
the Israelis false intelligence about
various sites and vehicles, gulling the IDF into attacks on
civilian buses and buildings - followed up by prompt hate-Israel
orgies in the media. But Hezbollah needed a "name" event, an
apparent atrocity that would echo across continents.
Qana
was the perfect setup. Hezbollah fired rockets from a position
near
the building that the terrorists wanted the
IDF to bomb. This time, Hezbollah probably didn't "shoot and
scoot" but let the launcher linger as bait. Hezbollah also
may have fed the Israelis phony info about the doomed building
serving as a terrorist safe house.
As for the women and children occupying the target, Hezbollah
wrote them off as a necessary sacrifice. The terrorists would
have sacrificed 570 innocents as readily as they did 57. Their
will to win - at any cost - is their most formidable weapon.
Within
the Israeli headquarters responsible for green-lighting the
strike
- where staffers are undoubtedly weary after weeks
of war - the targeting data didn't get the "Are we sure?" grilling
that doctrine demands. And - because of the Olmert government's
unwillingness to commit serious numbers of ground troops (or
even a heavy special-operations presence) - there were no Israeli
eyes on the scene to confirm the target's validity.
Anxious to hurt Hezbollah, a chain of command grown tired
and careless ended up by harming Israel terribly.
The consequences are grave. At Qana, Israel lost the
information war beyond all hope of recovery. It's losing the
war on the ground, too. After ill-judged claims a week ago
that the Israeli Defense Forces had eliminated 40 percent of
Hezbollah's military capability, more rockets rained down on
Israel last Sunday than on any previous day of the conflict.
The Olmert government chose war but didn't want to pay
war's price. The cost of fighting half-heartedly has been Hezbollah's
transformation from a middleweight sparring partner into the
Middle East's new heavyweight champion.
This woefully mismanaged war strengthened America's enemies,
too. Away from the microphones, you can bet that plenty of
profanity has been aimed at Israel in the West Wing - and it
wasn't just Mel Gibson calling to chat. (Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice probably ain't too thrilled, either, after
being blindsided by Qana - her multicountry diplomatic effort
turned into a trip for brunch in Tel Aviv.)
Our support for Israel has always been costly to our
foreign policy, yet it was justified on several grounds: morally
imperative backing for a Jewish homeland after the Holocaust,
moral and practical support for a fellow rule-of-law democracy
and the knowledge that Israel would fight to win.
But Israel isn't fighting to win this time: It's
been tossing bombs and hoping for a miracle.
With the Muslim world infuriated and Hezbollah reaping
the benefit, the Olmert government's fecklessness has boosted
the cost to Washington of supporting our old ally. We can't
help Israel if Israel won't help itself.
So far, the Olmert government has been a disastrous aberration
in Israel's history of wartime Cabinets - and a gift to Hezbollah.
Israel needs leadership, not Clintonesque equivocation. President
Bill Clinton's weakness led to 9/11. Olmert's weakness led
to Qana.
The
problem isn't Israel's people - who overwhelmingly support
the effort
to destroy Hezbollah. And the IDF knows
how to do the job. But the Olmert government seems terrified
of finishing what it started. Now, with global cries for a
cease-fire, it may be too late. This may be the first "shooting
war" Israel loses.
War is never a cheap date. CRO
Ralph Peters'
latest book is Never
Quit The Fight.
This
piece first appeared in the New York Post
copyright 2006 - NY Post
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