Quote:
Originally Posted by Sephiroth
You're nearly always worth engaging.
I'm dealing here with Ian's constant swerving of a proper answer. I spent a lot of time last night (I'm in Australia atm), reading each one of Ian's posts in this thread - trawling through 75+ pages. He has made quite clear how disgusting Hamas is and agrees that they need to be removed.
But then he, and jfman (a different case, though), can only criticise Israel for the collateral damage that is occurring and cannot answer the question as to how else Israel should be dealing with Hamas. Considered, surgical measures is the best he can offer.
Israel is dealing with a murderous terrorist organisation that has taken things too far. The matter of response is indeed binary, which is why Ian can only come up with not this way responses.
Hamas invades Israel and brutally murder120 Israelis taking 200+ hostage.
Israel retaliates militarily (binary choice).
His answer is Considered, surgical measures; what does that mean? This is armchair nonsense.
Hamas operates from tunnels: Israel has to find the tunnels, get to the tunnels, destroy the tunnels and Hamas within. Where are the tunnels? Under civilian infrastructure.
So we come to [I]surgical[I]: This is probably Ian's code for not bombing the crap out of the civilian infrastructure. What is Ian expecting Measured: House to house fighting will cost Israeli lives on an unacceptable scale in Israel's eyes and Israel doesn't really know where tunnels are. So to considered: Israel tells civilians to leave the North and head South. Which brings us back to surgical: Send the ground forces in to the levelled zone and find the tunnels.
You don't have to be a military strategist to come up with that high level view. It's binary: if Hamas is to be destroyed, they have to be found.
Real shit is going to happen inside Israel and its West Bank settlements, so I forecast unless there is governmental change and all Israeli settlers in West Bank are pulled out. And the settlers are well armed.
---------- Post added at 19:33 ---------- Previous post was at 19:28 ----------
Wow. Something upon which Ian and I agree.
His first sentence is utter tripe. I sanction nothing (as I've said before). Instead, I rationalise it all out and have reached the conclusion (an unanswered question): what else should have Israel done in response to the Hamas attack.
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G'Day Seph. You have to realise that detailed military campaign tactics are not really my speciality as, I suspect, neither yours. You complain that I provide no detail however you refuse to even go near the very simple, straightforward question i.e. should Israel keep killing civilians and razing Gaza. It really is that simple. Either they should continue (your implicit position) or they should not.
I came across this article which touches on the alternate approach that could have been considered:
Transforming Counterinsurgent Strategy: Using the Topography of Intelligence
Quote:
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Ultimately, modern technology has succeeded in enabling new intelligence assets and capabilities to trigger a transformation in the character of strategies pursued in defeating insurgencies. The advent of such sequentially-conducted intelligence-based campaigns allows the counterinsurgent to strip away the one piece of protection every insurgent relies upon: the ability to avoid his enemy. With this defence gone, almost any insurgency might be open to destruction as was AQI, provided that the necessary intelligence assets—manpower, hardware and software—are available.
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Granted this article is not discussing a direct map to the Gaza situation but it gives enough illumination into an intelligence-led, carefully considered, longer burn of a campaign. Any such approach undoubtedly requires US intelligence & surveillance assets. The use of RF/phone tapping/tracking, drone monitoring, AI-based correlation of record calls to primary assets, RF blackout during surgical ops, etc.
In parallel, you can start economic & other sanctions on countries harbouring Hamas leadership clusters and, failing all, take them out via Special Ops missions like they did with Bin Laden. Just needs a more thoughtful approach as opposed to lobbing JDAMS at civilian housing.