Does Israel Value Its Soldiers More Than The US Does Its Own?

Pat Buchanan drew an interesting comparison in a recent column. Israel invaded Gaza, then Lebanon, and bombed numerous civilian targets like bridges and power stations over the abduction of three of its soldiers. When three of our soldiers were recently killed, and two of them kidnapped and horribly tortured and mutilated in the process, our response was nonexistent. Had we followed Israel's example, we might have justified bombing the sunni triangle, taking out bridges, power stations and the like and basically condemning the population to a horrible existence.

Why the difference? Why does our President justify Israel's response while not doing something similar to protect our own troops? If it would have been wrong, unjustified or against international law for us to inflict collective punishment on the local Iraqi population, a considerable percentage of which no doubt supported the killers, why is it acceptable for Israel to do basically the same thing? If Israel is acting appropriately, why don't we do the same thing? Don't we value our soldiers as much as Israel does?

 

The hezzies went into Israeli soil and nabbed the soldiers. Did the Iraqis enter the US soil and nab our men?

 

Also, Israel was already looking for an excuse for a good battering of Hezbollah. The timing couldn't have been better since the June 25th Gaza abduction, and missles flying in from there had the Israeli populace already really pissed off.

 

We did bomb Iraqi targets when we invaded - bridges, power station, goverment offices (except for the oil ministry), we have nothing left to bomb in Iraq. If you're under assumption that Israel is indiscriminately killing civilians than you can claim that we could wipe out a couple of sunni towns of course. But you're smarter than that and I am sure you realize that Israel is not targeting civilians and actually doing all it can to avoid/minimize civilian casualties.

In other words Bush had already done pre-emptively what Israel is doing right now. And btw we don't value our soldiers as much as Israel does.

 

You forgot to add how you "back the troops". (as long as they're on US soil) lol

 

I am not sure what you meant... the question was never about me or my backing anyone.

Please read AA's post.

 

But what should a standard military force do in response to aggression from a civilian militia? This is a serious problem because our policy automatically tries to separate hostile militias from “innocent” civilian populations. But militias arise out of civilian populations and depend on civilian populations and live among civilian populations.

I’m curious... Why does Israel allow stateless territories (south Lebanon, Gaza, West Bank) to exist in the first place? Is it because of international pressure to tie Israel’s hands, or does it come from within Israel? After all, allowing statelessness to exist simply leads to militias, and in this case Islamofacist militias living among women and children who support them.

 

On what basis do you say this?

 

Perhaps because of the impossible situations we put them in? It's bad enough to be in a combat zone. Now our troops have to worry about disloyal reporters following them around, backstabbing superiors looking to cover their asses by second guessing those they put in harm's way, and scumbag lawyers who are as eager to volunteer to represent al qaeda killers as they are to undermine our troops.

 

this is the reason...and we are at WAR in Iraq with the people that did this and are doing this to our soldiers...Buchanans beef is that Isreal is targeting civilian way of life in going after hezbollah and he is correct. Displacing 500k people is not good..