Those black POW/MIA flags still fly from poles here and there; stickers are still stuck to bumpers, although it’s hard to believe anyone still has hope that anyone missing from the Viet Nam War will ever be found alive. There’s a far greater chance that the two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah last July are still alive and according to Rev. Jesse Jackson, Hezbollah officials and Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora have told him they are.
Israel, like the United States is a country that supports its troops and indeed Hezbollah supports its guerillas and assassins even though that often consists of reimbursing the families of suicide bombers. They are demanding that the captured Israeli regulars can be returned only as part of a prisoner exchange. I can imagine the American reaction if some of our troops had been kidnapped by a foreign entity that insisted that we return, for example, someone like Mohammed Atta in exchange and particularly if that entity regularly tortured and murdered hostages taken at random.
The three men Hezbollah wants exchanged the most; seem to be Samir Kantar, Nasim Nisr and Yehia Skaff. At least two of the three have been in prison since the 1970’s for having being involved in killing scores of Israeli civilians, not as collateral damage, but as chosen victims. One can only speculate what their fate might have been had they been caught in the US for having murdered US citizens as a political statement. None the less, they are alive and the possibility remains that Jackson will be instrumental in facilitating an exchange.
He has been meeting with Syrian and Lebanese officials as well as with the Israeli government and one can hope that he is as successful in this effort as he has been so often in the past. An exchange would allow Hezbollah to continue to claim victory from the rubble of their defeat and would allow Israel to claim some kind of victory as well. His record in such things makes me hopeful.
It is after all, most important to claim victory when no victory was won or was perhaps possible to win because this is not a war of conquest. For both sides, survival is seen as victory, whether the situation survived was meaningful or worthwhile or barbaric and ignominious.
No doubt the Fox News Fascists will be sneering and snickering and sliming the Reverend Jackson as they so often do and as they slander anyone who values peace, but who else is doing what he is doing and why aren’t they?
4 comments:
If any kind of an exchange takes place it will prove once again that the terrorist's methods work, and the people in the region will be destined to suffer violence and death over and over again. Here's my solution:
How Israel Should Negotiate Prisoner Exchanges
How To Negotiate With Terrorists
Hurricane Harry
Reporting from Beyond The Wall
Sounds good on paper and it's certainly pleasant to think about not having to take it any more, but in practice there are an awful lot of them and they always manage to use their children as shields.
Interesting -- harry proposes sacrificing the concept of "justice" to end terrorism -- which itself is based on lawlessness.
It's old, but true: two wrongs don't make a right... and such a policy will only create MORE terrorists willing to die to "defeat" Israel.
I pretty much agree. We were faced with something similar toward the end of WW II in the pacific. We were being slaughtered by people glad to die for the emperor and we would not have achieved victory without the nuclear option. Unless we are willing to inflict unthinkable damage on a very large part of the world, we can't depend on being tough, much less talking tough to accomplish anything like victory - satisfying as it may be to swagger and talk of killing terrorists.
Of course I don't have a solution to the problem of making radical islamists compromise and perticularly because the voices of Muslim sanity and moderation are so soft and hard to hear.
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