(This was originally posted on blogger 7/18/2006)
I recently read Donald Sensing's One Hand Clapping post on the Israel Rocket Blitz and was disappointed with both his logic and conclusion. While I'll never get put at the top of Topix, at least I can point out where he falls short to the three friends who read this blog occasionally. So for today I set aside my new obsession with technology to address my old obsession, revolutions (remember my other master's degree?).
Mr. Sensing argues that Israel must capture the rockets from Hezbollah or all is lost. He reaches this conclusion by drawing a parallel to the German attacks on Great Britain, which flows from a discussion of the history of the Katyusha rockets currently in use. Both his logic and the conclusion it leads him to are dangerously wrong. The rockets are not the problem, and anyone who says Israel "must eliminate the rocket threat from southern Lebanon" both underestimates the capabilities of humans to exercise their will over other humans, and fails to grasp the cause of the problem.
Mr. Sensing, after pointing out that the rockets Hezbollah is currently using have payloads of less than 50 pounds, then compares the number of V1s and V2s launched by the Germans on Great Britain to the number of Katyushas Hezbollah has launched and has in its possession. This is the kind of "strategic bombing" thinking that was prevalent during World War II, which (thankfully) the field of international relations no longer considers viable. Instead one would discuss, at the very least, the effects of the bombs - factories taken out, etc. The US and UK militaries moved on from even that in the late 1990s and look at bombing in terms of capabilities denied the enemy. All of this has nothing to do with payload; in fact, usually smaller payloads are better because they can be better guided to their targets and inflict less collateral damage.
But let's entertain this payload analysis just for fun. Using Mr. Sensing's numbers, the V1 rockets alone represented 18 million pounds of payload. How does that compare with the 50,000 pounds delivered on the 1,000 rockets already launched? Or even the total of 700,000 for all 13,000 Katyushas it is estimated Hezbollah has? Out of 18 million, 50,000 isn't even a rounding error.
Which is nice, but doesn't really matter. What matters is what people think. The advanced portions of the world, particularly the United States, have become obsessed with safety and paranoid of anything dangerous. I don't set myself apart: my car, at last count, has over 10 airbags, among other safety features. But reflect on that 21 million pounds of payload carried to London on V1 and V2 rockets (the extra 3 million not mentioned above comes from the V2 total). It killed 5,500 people. Yes, tragic. But in comparison to what was going on elsewhere in the war? In the Pacific Theater in the last year of the war the United States lost over 1,000 soldiers per month without fighting - to disease, primarily, but also to outlying acts of violence (the sinking of an American supply ship killed over 1,000 in one day). The rockets were terrifying but the terror was contained; the people of London learned to live with them, carried on with their lives, and won the war.
That is the parallel people need to focus on today: not how frightening it is that Hezbollah has 13,000 rockets or that they could reach all of Israel, but that it doesn't matter how many rockets Hezbollah has because Israel will survive, and will be victorious.
Meanwhile, if anyone figures out a way to round up all 13,000 Hezbollah rockets hidden in houses, caves, fields, barns, bars, and who knows where else I'm sure that the United States INS and Border Patrol could put their genius to work rounding up 11 million illegal immigrants living in America in houses, caves, fields, barns, bars and who knows where else. I think a good place to start is thinking about how you put Round Up or some other weedkiller on a B-52. All you need to do is tweak the chemical formula so that it gets the rockets, not the weeds...
Think about it for a minute. Are you kidding?
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