The Rationalization of War

If we were to remove both parties concerned of their identities and completely disregard their race and religion, will our conclusion of the Israel-Palestine episode be the same? Will we still look upon it as a technological advanced country behaving as thugs waging war on another country?

Since the Israeli war machine crossed the border into the Gaza Strip, the international community has screamed Hell about it as the number of collateral damage piles up. We are able to witness snapshots of the innocents being displaced and killed in Technicolor on our newspapers and this have caused an outrage after the US vetoed a UN proposal to intervene in this war. Even Malaysia has joined this affray by sending an ultimatum to the UN Security Council to come up with a resolution to condemn Israel on its brutal aggression against Palestine.

 

Let us now ignore the names of Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Hezbollah, West Bank, Gaza, Iran and Syria and call the warring parties “A” and “B” and look at it from another angle. War is an undeniably cruel fact of life and there are no eventual winners in an armed conflict. There is also no such categorization as brutal aggression as Malaysia terms it. In a war, everything is not merely brutal aggression but overwhelming firepower. Why jeopardize a 1,000-pound bomb on a structure and risk it not going down when a 10,000-pound bomb can guarantee the fact that it will definitely be leveled? Additionally, if the 10,000-pound bomb causes the surrounding structures to fall, so be it. It is definitely better for it to come down in B’s location than in A’s location. The loss of lives and limbs are an inescapable fact of war. It is hypocrisy to pretend otherwise.

 

Let us herewith examine the cause. This episode can be traced back when B started a terror campaign of bombing A from within its borders, utilizing C as the delivery vehicle. Why would B do such a thing? In the first place, B was a terrorist organization before with over 40 years of terrorism acts including the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre. After being legitimized, B can no longer overtly participate in such events, henceforth the need to create other seemingly independent organizations to continue its streak of terror. Well, C was formed by B with the sole intention of discouraging A’s people from setting up permanent residence in “the holy land”. Since it was impossible to do so diplomatically, the other option was to drive these “foreign” settlers out by force of arms. A, on the other hand could not sit still and take it on the chin when C was murdering her populace, and not when A is so much more technological advanced (in terms of military hardware) as compared to B or C. A could of course ignore B and C and go after their sponsors (G or H) but we are talking about countries with their own standing armies. G is also battle-hardened after more than a decade of border war with one of its neighbors, but A could easily obliterate H as A nearly did so last April (2008) except for the fact that H could thence utilize D to inflict further damage on A like they successfully did before (during the 2006 Lebanon War). Henceforth, the “safest” option is B or C. The results are all for all to witness.

 

It is therefore difficult to fault A for risking combat with a “weaker” opponent. And especially when this opponent is tossing bombs at it. It must be known that there will be innocent casualties in an armed conflict (collateral damage) and A have good reasons to care more about their own people than C’s people. Let us assume for a moment that Singapore is supporting an armed organization within the island nation to bombard Johor with rockets. Would Malaysia stand for it? Same concept applies here. A cannot tolerate B utilizing and sponsoring C to bombard her citizens. The first million-dollar-question is why the international community did not cry foul when this was happening. Why the lack of concern when C was firing rockets at A but the sudden interest when A retaliates against C? The second million-dollar-question compares A’s casualties against C’s casualties. Does A’s innocent deaths equates far less than C’s and henceforth less painful and therefore not requiring international intervention? Doesn’t make sense does it, or is this a case of “the friend of mine friend is a friend (regardless if they are terrorists) and the enemy of my friend is an enemy”?

 

So, what does A hopes to achieve? The rationalization of war here is to significantly degrade B and C’s military capability to hit A’s civilian targets, to disrupt C’s control of Gaza, to stop C from rearming itself in the near future and to eradicate the extremism within C’s organization. Not every neighbor within this area is appalled to see A attempting to take out C. Certain nations are believed to be relieved that this is happening owing to the fact that they are scared of G’s rise as a powerful military force here. Same reasoning applies here in Southeast Asia. Malaysia will not want to witness the birth of a powerful military force within its neighboring countries. One, the regional influence tilts in favor of such countries and two, they exude a silent threat that will eventually disrupt the balance of power within this close vicinity of nations.

 

When a nation announces that they would pressure the UN Security Council to do something about this, they are in fact attempting to exert demands that A stops their military incursion that is causing unnecessary civilian deaths. To insist that A discontinue totally from military activities that possess an extreme probability of causing civilian casualties is hypocritical. If this was even remotely possible, there would have been no armed conflict in this world. Yes, no doubt that war is not something to celebrate about but why didn’t these leaders (that are voicing up now) do so when C was launching rockets at A’s civilian population for the past year?

 

How was this problem created in the first place? Why are there so many “refugees” inside this strip of land? The problem arose when the same group of world leaders collectively decided to defer the “Palestinian Problem” indefinitely. When a group of people having no future whatsoever living in close vicinity of one another are exposed to propaganda by another group of people (sponsored by another nation), they will be easily influence by the rhetoric of these people. Taking up arms against a militarily superior nation is not the way to get things done but one cannot fault them their reasoning because there are no diplomatic means otherwise. It doesn’t automatically makes it correct just because there lacks an alternative option though.

 

So who is at fault here? Everybody. The international community conveniently forgot about them and left the problem unsolved. C is merely a universal pawn in an intricate game of regional control manipulated by their neighbors and precipitated by the superpowers. Stopping A rampaging into Gaza will not solve the eternal problem. UN, as powerless as it seems, must take the initiative now to force the superpowers to sit down and make a decision regarding the one and a half million refugees in Gaza and West Bank. Until this is solved, there can be no peace there.

 

For those who are interested, A mobilized as many as five columns of armor, mechanized infantry, engineers and artillery into Gaza. This action effectively separated the two C’s brigades, each approximately 1,200 strong. A has also called up over 10,000 reservists to bring their Southern Command units (based at Beersheba) up to strength. These include the 366th Amud ha-Esh (Pillar of Fire) Reserve Armored Division, the 252nd Sinai Reserve Armored Division, the 80th Edom Territorial Infantry Division and the 96th Gaza (Southern Foxes) Territorial Infantry Division.

Seems like an overkill but war is about an overwhelming show of strength supported by superior firepower.

 

 

– Hakim Joe