Editorials

Curiouser and curiouser

Some things we may never understand

There have been times over the past few weeks, as dispatches from the Middle East kept interrupting the daily routine around here, that a perplexed onlooker could only scratch his head. And his chin. And squint at the wall, or maybe just stare into the distance, trying to reconcile what he's just read with . . . any kind of sanity.

Beware: If you dwell too long on these always fast-breaking developments out of that ever perplexing part of the world, your mind could turn to mush. Very confused mush. For the Middle East has long produced more history than it can safely absorb, and keeps puzzling innocents here in the West.

Now the distinguished diplomats at the United Nations, specifically at what's styled the Human Rights Council, have demanded that Israel share its Iron Dome technology with the, ahem, "governing authority" in Gaza. Yes, that's a subtle reference to the authority that's misgoverned Gaza for years now--the terrorist outfit called Hamas. The one that started this latest round of hostilities with the Jewish state it's vowed to obliterate.

Listen to the latest out of the UN's "Human Rights" Council. Its spokespersonages say that for the Israelis not to share their latest technology with peace-loving Hamas would constitute a "war crime" on Israel's part. Yes, that's what Navi Pillay, the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, said. With a straight face.

Why must Israel share the plans and operating instructions for its Iron Dome with its sworn enemy? Because only Israeli citizens are now protected by the Iron Dome, and "no such protection has been provided to Gazans against the shelling." The injustice of it rankles Commissioner Pillay. It's so unfair! As opposed to observing a strict neutrality between defense and aggression, good and evil. Can't have that. Certainly not at that theater of the absurd known as the United Nations.

Last week this country's secretary of state proposed a plan to end the fighting in Gaza that would have opened the way to meet all of Hamas' current goals. Those Israelis who didn't laugh, scoffed. The secretary of state's boss, the president of these United States, called criticism of his secretary of state and last week's (very) short-lived cease-fire unfair and . . . "nit-picking." Hey, it's only war, only a matter of life and death. A small matter. Just nit-picking.

Words fail. It's like watching a (bloodier) version of Alice in Wonderland. Things just get curiouser and curiouser.

Then we make the mistake of turning on CNN and see Wolf Blitzer interviewing some Expert Analyst, and they talk about the war in Gaza. It turns out that Hamas claims it has 3,000 elite soldiers at the ready, all prepared to carry out suicide attacks in the coming days against the Israelis.

Yes, those brilliant military strategists at the top levels of Hamas have put out the word: They're going to have 3,000 of their best tell their families goodbye and go "martyr" themselves.

Huh? To some of us, even if we never went to War College, it would seem that using elite troops to carry out suicide attacks is, at the least, a . . . serious misallocation of valuable military resources. A more exact term for it might be madness, madness. That's an exact quote and diagnosis from the doctor watching the unfolding mayhem in the final scene of Bridge on the River Kwai.

How much training do you think it requires to make these "elite" soldiers of Hamas elite? In this country, a GI would go to Basic Training for about two months to learn how to salute and right flank, march. Then he would go to what in our ancient day used to be called AIT--Advanced Individual Training. Which might take another few months, maybe up to a year, depending on the military specialty. Then the trooper might be sent to airborne school, air assault school, maybe even Ranger training. There are any number of schools/tests/ordeals awaiting a U.S. soldier before he gets even close to being considered elite.

And once a government has paid for all that training, why would it choose to have those well-trained soldiers blow themselves up in suicide attacks? Wouldn't it make more sense for these elite soldiers to fight the enemy, rather than sacrifice themselves?

Or as a blood-and-guts style general named Patton once put it, no poor bastard has ever won a war by dying for his country. He wins it by making the other poor bastard die for his. Which pretty well sums up the gist of what George S. Patton told his troops as they prepared to invade Nazi-held Europe. He didn't tell them to be martyrs for the sake of martyrdom. That tactic would have made no sense to Patton, mainly because it makes no sense at all.

But maybe, just maybe, Hamas has a different definition of the word "elite." Maybe an elite Hamas fighter isn't quite what Americans think of as elite when they spot a passing soldier in an airport, with all his patches and ribbons, making his way home from the latest front. Maybe the people running Hamas bestow the adjective "elite" on whatever poor bastard they can get to strap on a bomb and wade into a crowd. Yes, that's got to be it.

Otherwise, the military masterminds running Hamas would be just plain stupid.

Editorial on 08/05/2014

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