Israel eats its own

By Ted Belman

Israel has complied with the UN demand that Israel investigate its “alleged war crimes” in Gaza. It recently filed a 47 page report that advised of new initiatives to protect civilians more in future. If that is not an admission of guilt, what is?

How about the fact that 47 soldiers are under criminal investigation by the IDF.

And now the pressure is on to investigate the 9 deaths. Where will it end? It won’t.

Compare with,

“Rules of Engagement: From Bosnia to Afghanistan”

A career military officer is typically less inclined than civilians to offer sweeping criticism of the rules of engagement (ROE) adopted for an operation. This is due to an ingrained understanding of the basic purpose of ROE, which is to enable our side to retain initiative and operational discretion. ROE exist to discourage situations created by the enemy from spiraling out of control, while allowing commanders the optimum latitude for what U.S. ROE call the “right and obligation of self defense.”

Experienced officers thus recognize that ROE are both necessary and inherently restrictive. The quality of restrictiveness is not a bad thing, per se. What it may be, however, is a bellwether of incoherence in our strategy or operational objectives. ROE don’t win or lose wars by themselves, but when they’re unworkable, they are a sign of vulnerability in other areas, like the operational conditions we accept or our overarching concept for a campaign. [..]

In each case, the definition of why collateral damage to civilians must be avoided, and what it means to do so, has amounted to a paralyzing constraint on operations. [..]

July 21, 2010 | 2 Comments »

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  1. Once the number one priority during combat operations becomes protecting the lives of the enemy’s “civilian” population instead of victory and doing everything possible to limit the casualites of your own soldiers as much as possible, then you have already surrendered, you have already lost the next war before it begins. The same is true with us in Afghanistan, we have essentially surrendered due to the rules of engagement which have been established. Furthermore by throwing your own soldiers under the bus to placate the international community certainly will lower morale in the IDF. Israel might as well just surrender the entire country.