A tiny smidgen of at least lukewarm if not good news emerged as the cross-border rocket war continued between Israel and Hezbollah. Giora Eiland, a retired major general in Israel’s defense forces was quoted in the New York Times today explaining why Hezbollah’s rocket assault on Israel was not aimed directly at population centers such as Haifa, Tel Aviv, or Jerusalem, all of which at least some of Hezbollah’s rockets are capable of striking. Speaking of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Eiland said, “He’s trying to maneuver between two conflicting needs: staying out of a total war and responding to the very successful attacks in Lebanon. He understands very well that full destruction of the Lebanese capital isn’t something he’ll be able to explain to the Lebanese people.”
Thank you for this history/warfare lesson. I have only one area of slight disagreement - most Americans saw Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts as a mistake before and during. Although, thankfully, we had fairly low causalities from deployment, we have failed to support the injured, those both mentally and physically damaged, to the degree we should be. The veteran suicide rate is horrific as is untreated or poorly treated PTSD. I have half a dozen family members, including two officers, husband and wife, who both served in Iraq. My niece is fine, her husband struggles every day with his demons. We owe them better.
It’s good to be specific about civilian casualties. We can honor US dead, but doesn’t that need to be balanced by acknowledgement of the “collateral damage”? Copilot AI tells me that in the Korean War 2-3 million civilians died. In the Vietnam War 2-4 million. Our Iraq/Afghanistan wars: 450,000. Of course, the US is not alone (Soviet war in Afghanistan: 1-2 million. Syrian civil war: 500,000.) But we have moral duty not to ignore the full consequences of our own actions.
5 hrs ago·edited 5 hrs agoLiked by Lucian K. Truscott IV
Nukes. The subject that few if any in the media ever mentions. How can Israel get away with its heinous actions? Because they have nukes. Had ‘em since the late ‘60s. (For a deep dive, see “The Samson Option” by Seymour Hersh.)
Mind you, on October 6, 1973, when war broke out on the Golan Heights about 80 klicks from the kibbutz where I was on a college study group, I was soon glad the Jewish State had ‘em.
That war I lived through in the Holy Land bonded me with Israel (this lifelong Whiskeypalian can make legit claim to being “Jew-ish”). But I also came out of it knowing that the Palestinians needed their own state as surely as the Jews. No two state solution, no peace.
This is the crux of the matter: “Wars are terrible things, all of them, because people are killed, both soldier and civilian. Writing about war is painful. My father told me the only time he ever saw his father, General Truscott, break down and weep was when he spoke of the bodies of American soldiers who had been killed following his orders during the war. The nature of war demands that you kill your own in order to kill theirs. Can’t we call the whole thing off?”
My mind goes to Rodney King, a victim of police brutality years ago in Los Angeles, who said something that applies: “Why can’t we all just get along?” It sounds like a trite saying, but it’s something to be devoutly wished. The problem is that it goes against human nature — and, alas, history.
This isn’t simple chess anymore - if it ever was. How do you flank an approaching drone attack?
So many technologies have recently (to me) emerged to add to traditional tools used to deliver death. We can either all agree it’s not worth it and force parties to the table, or we can just destroy ourselves. In some ways this seems to have reached the edge we did in the 1950s - a period of mutually assured destruction.
Like your point of whether war was ever chess or any other game. To many it is although they've yet to name the game beyond framing it as a win or a loss.
The world is in the 4th or 5th decade of Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW). More about that below. Still amazes me how mainstream media somehow expects all other things in the world to continue to progress but not warfare.
It's not restricted to mainstream media since most retired teevee FOGOs insist the nature of war has never changed, point to a series of trenches, and say viola WW1, point to magic wall maps that have no scale or estimates of troops and expect viewers to figure it out on their own, constantly advocate for more firepower whether for our forces or that of our friends and brush off civ casualties on one side as collateral damage and the other as the targeting of civs.
4GW reimagined war WABAC circa 1980. It foresaw the rise of non-state actors and the proliferation of different technologies, the widespread use of proxies and contractors. In short decentralization of warfare while at the same time expanding its breadth. It did not touch how to achieve peace because no wimmin contributed to it.
Finally am tired by how little US media understands about the region. Nearly ever report of hostilities includes some version of will THIS incident be the OE that triggers a regional conflict. Ladies and gentlemen of the media, stop that talk, All parties understand what comes with such a result. The players maybe irrational yet they're not mad and most of all know well a regional war will result in them losing, not gaining power.
Like Vietnam, we took sides in this mess. So far, we're lucky, our armed forces haven't been the boots on the ground. But it's our money that is giving one side the "freedom" to attack a sovereign nation and know that the nation they are attacking doesn't have a "shield," paid for by the US, to protect its civilian population. That sovereign nation isn't given an allowance to replenish its weapons supply. Once again, we are mired in someone else's mess and picking up the check. It's wrong, morally and ethically. When we took out Osama bin Ladin, we took out Osama bin Ladin, we didn't take out the entire region around him. If we can be so strategic, why can't the country we give an allowance to show the same restraint? A pox upon both their houses.
I also think it is morally wrong not to stick by our allies. Israel is the closest thing to a democracy in the area. That is what makes us allies, even if Netanyahu is prolonging and expanding the war to support Trump getting reelected. I also lay blame at Trump's feet, if we see Hamas as a proxy of Iran, and we know Trump tanked a hard fought for nuclear deal under Obama, and that led to increased sanctions and anger that has led to increased problems in the world for us. The Israeli people are still having a democracy even if as they take in more and more settlers they grow increasingly right wing (too many new citizens from undemocratic countries is a problem for them and us) until maybe one day we will say, they are not a democracy and we are cutting them loose. Of course that may happen with us too. If Donald Trump becomes president again, or JD Vance or Mike Johnson replaces him, they are committed to following Project 2025. That is a document designed to turn us into a terrible to non existent ally. Of course, with us then being turned into a Christian Nationalist Theocracy, we will look at lot more like Iran than Israel does, even though it is a theocracy too.
No, Israels is not a democracy. It never has been. It's a theocracy and it has done everything in its power to hammer that distinction home. God help you if you are not Jewish and live on Israeli soil. That goes for Christians too. Just ask the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem what happened to the land of St George's Cathedral - Every last inch of it was taken by the Israelis except for the actual church and a wee bit of garden. No, they are not and have never been a democracy.
Your observations about the MAGA theocrats is spot on. But some of the mainline Christian churches will be those who are sent to the camps to be "reeducated. I'm thinking the Episcopal church, the Society of Friends, and certain branches of the Lutherans, United Church of Christ, Unitarians, and American Baptists. All of these churches have no more use for Project 2025 than they do for devil worship.
In the case of both the ogre and Bibi, winning is the only way to keep from paying the piper for all of their criminal acts.
Thank you. I'm not sure it's fully a theocracy, though with the Likud in power and harnessed to the ultra-Orthodox, the theocratic elements are strong. At the same time it's an apartheid state and has been since the deliberate ethnic cleansing that preceded its official birth in May 1948. Perhaps above all it's a tragedy, in which a persecuted people found a home and became persecutors themselves.
The fact that the US is Israel's greatest ally has little to do with it being a "democracy."
Israel acts as a massive aircraft carrier from which the US can project its power in an oil producing region. Sooner or later the US will cut them loose though. They don't need the Middle East's oil anymore.
Netanyahu is expanding the war to stay out of jail and to appease the 'Greater Israel' hallucinatory desires of the Likud nutbars. If you're meaning that Trump is more likely to facilitate all of this, in the mind of Netanyahu, you're likely right.
While the parallel is imperfect, today's military conflict situation reminds me of the months leading up to World War I, whose legacy I contend has been overlooked given that we are still dealing with the fallout of the fall of empires in the closing of that war and the conceit and vengeance of the decisions made by Wilson, Lloyd George, and Clemenceau in the subsequent Treaty of Versailles.
The secret deals (e.g., Sikes-Picot) and not-so-secret promises (e.g., the Balfour Declaration) made during WWI haunt us to this day, and not to forget the post-Versailles Treaty of Sèvres (1920), which broke up the old Ottoman Empire and set up the French mandate in Syria and Lebanon and the British mandate in Palestine. Then along came Hitler's determined efforts to exterminate the Jews of Europe . . .
If only we could learn peace as well as we learn war.
But, If your column today was spread far and wide, many would think it is too hawkish while many would think it is the ramblings of a dove. Too few would see it as both, which it is. It is a sad commentary on a sad, global situation.
Took time off from my work on Post-Soviet history in an effort to fill in the gaps. I was busy balancing work and family to understand what was happening between 1989 and 2000. Ultimately l went back to college to fill in the gaping holes in my brain.
It sure helps to step back and revisit the past as a way of assessing the present. Headlines are aimed at grabbing your attention, but to get the a closer look you need a deeper understanding.
I’ll be getting reconstructive surgery on my gums as well as a cateract removal on my right eye. Just trying to reduce body and mind erosion.
Thank you for this history/warfare lesson. I have only one area of slight disagreement - most Americans saw Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts as a mistake before and during. Although, thankfully, we had fairly low causalities from deployment, we have failed to support the injured, those both mentally and physically damaged, to the degree we should be. The veteran suicide rate is horrific as is untreated or poorly treated PTSD. I have half a dozen family members, including two officers, husband and wife, who both served in Iraq. My niece is fine, her husband struggles every day with his demons. We owe them better.
We do, for sure…😣
Yes we do.
It’s good to be specific about civilian casualties. We can honor US dead, but doesn’t that need to be balanced by acknowledgement of the “collateral damage”? Copilot AI tells me that in the Korean War 2-3 million civilians died. In the Vietnam War 2-4 million. Our Iraq/Afghanistan wars: 450,000. Of course, the US is not alone (Soviet war in Afghanistan: 1-2 million. Syrian civil war: 500,000.) But we have moral duty not to ignore the full consequences of our own actions.
The US is the worst war criminal in modern history.
Nukes. The subject that few if any in the media ever mentions. How can Israel get away with its heinous actions? Because they have nukes. Had ‘em since the late ‘60s. (For a deep dive, see “The Samson Option” by Seymour Hersh.)
Mind you, on October 6, 1973, when war broke out on the Golan Heights about 80 klicks from the kibbutz where I was on a college study group, I was soon glad the Jewish State had ‘em.
That war I lived through in the Holy Land bonded me with Israel (this lifelong Whiskeypalian can make legit claim to being “Jew-ish”). But I also came out of it knowing that the Palestinians needed their own state as surely as the Jews. No two state solution, no peace.
This war has shattered that bond.
This is the crux of the matter: “Wars are terrible things, all of them, because people are killed, both soldier and civilian. Writing about war is painful. My father told me the only time he ever saw his father, General Truscott, break down and weep was when he spoke of the bodies of American soldiers who had been killed following his orders during the war. The nature of war demands that you kill your own in order to kill theirs. Can’t we call the whole thing off?”
My mind goes to Rodney King, a victim of police brutality years ago in Los Angeles, who said something that applies: “Why can’t we all just get along?” It sounds like a trite saying, but it’s something to be devoutly wished. The problem is that it goes against human nature — and, alas, history.
Human nature? What woman has started a war ?
This isn’t simple chess anymore - if it ever was. How do you flank an approaching drone attack?
So many technologies have recently (to me) emerged to add to traditional tools used to deliver death. We can either all agree it’s not worth it and force parties to the table, or we can just destroy ourselves. In some ways this seems to have reached the edge we did in the 1950s - a period of mutually assured destruction.
Like your point of whether war was ever chess or any other game. To many it is although they've yet to name the game beyond framing it as a win or a loss.
The world is in the 4th or 5th decade of Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW). More about that below. Still amazes me how mainstream media somehow expects all other things in the world to continue to progress but not warfare.
It's not restricted to mainstream media since most retired teevee FOGOs insist the nature of war has never changed, point to a series of trenches, and say viola WW1, point to magic wall maps that have no scale or estimates of troops and expect viewers to figure it out on their own, constantly advocate for more firepower whether for our forces or that of our friends and brush off civ casualties on one side as collateral damage and the other as the targeting of civs.
4GW reimagined war WABAC circa 1980. It foresaw the rise of non-state actors and the proliferation of different technologies, the widespread use of proxies and contractors. In short decentralization of warfare while at the same time expanding its breadth. It did not touch how to achieve peace because no wimmin contributed to it.
Finally am tired by how little US media understands about the region. Nearly ever report of hostilities includes some version of will THIS incident be the OE that triggers a regional conflict. Ladies and gentlemen of the media, stop that talk, All parties understand what comes with such a result. The players maybe irrational yet they're not mad and most of all know well a regional war will result in them losing, not gaining power.
Like Vietnam, we took sides in this mess. So far, we're lucky, our armed forces haven't been the boots on the ground. But it's our money that is giving one side the "freedom" to attack a sovereign nation and know that the nation they are attacking doesn't have a "shield," paid for by the US, to protect its civilian population. That sovereign nation isn't given an allowance to replenish its weapons supply. Once again, we are mired in someone else's mess and picking up the check. It's wrong, morally and ethically. When we took out Osama bin Ladin, we took out Osama bin Ladin, we didn't take out the entire region around him. If we can be so strategic, why can't the country we give an allowance to show the same restraint? A pox upon both their houses.
I also think it is morally wrong not to stick by our allies. Israel is the closest thing to a democracy in the area. That is what makes us allies, even if Netanyahu is prolonging and expanding the war to support Trump getting reelected. I also lay blame at Trump's feet, if we see Hamas as a proxy of Iran, and we know Trump tanked a hard fought for nuclear deal under Obama, and that led to increased sanctions and anger that has led to increased problems in the world for us. The Israeli people are still having a democracy even if as they take in more and more settlers they grow increasingly right wing (too many new citizens from undemocratic countries is a problem for them and us) until maybe one day we will say, they are not a democracy and we are cutting them loose. Of course that may happen with us too. If Donald Trump becomes president again, or JD Vance or Mike Johnson replaces him, they are committed to following Project 2025. That is a document designed to turn us into a terrible to non existent ally. Of course, with us then being turned into a Christian Nationalist Theocracy, we will look at lot more like Iran than Israel does, even though it is a theocracy too.
No, Israels is not a democracy. It never has been. It's a theocracy and it has done everything in its power to hammer that distinction home. God help you if you are not Jewish and live on Israeli soil. That goes for Christians too. Just ask the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem what happened to the land of St George's Cathedral - Every last inch of it was taken by the Israelis except for the actual church and a wee bit of garden. No, they are not and have never been a democracy.
Your observations about the MAGA theocrats is spot on. But some of the mainline Christian churches will be those who are sent to the camps to be "reeducated. I'm thinking the Episcopal church, the Society of Friends, and certain branches of the Lutherans, United Church of Christ, Unitarians, and American Baptists. All of these churches have no more use for Project 2025 than they do for devil worship.
In the case of both the ogre and Bibi, winning is the only way to keep from paying the piper for all of their criminal acts.
Thank you. I'm not sure it's fully a theocracy, though with the Likud in power and harnessed to the ultra-Orthodox, the theocratic elements are strong. At the same time it's an apartheid state and has been since the deliberate ethnic cleansing that preceded its official birth in May 1948. Perhaps above all it's a tragedy, in which a persecuted people found a home and became persecutors themselves.
exactly...
Thank you Carol. Well said.
The fact that the US is Israel's greatest ally has little to do with it being a "democracy."
Israel acts as a massive aircraft carrier from which the US can project its power in an oil producing region. Sooner or later the US will cut them loose though. They don't need the Middle East's oil anymore.
Netanyahu is expanding the war to stay out of jail and to appease the 'Greater Israel' hallucinatory desires of the Likud nutbars. If you're meaning that Trump is more likely to facilitate all of this, in the mind of Netanyahu, you're likely right.
Brilliant analysis. Thanks. 🙏
While the parallel is imperfect, today's military conflict situation reminds me of the months leading up to World War I, whose legacy I contend has been overlooked given that we are still dealing with the fallout of the fall of empires in the closing of that war and the conceit and vengeance of the decisions made by Wilson, Lloyd George, and Clemenceau in the subsequent Treaty of Versailles.
The secret deals (e.g., Sikes-Picot) and not-so-secret promises (e.g., the Balfour Declaration) made during WWI haunt us to this day, and not to forget the post-Versailles Treaty of Sèvres (1920), which broke up the old Ottoman Empire and set up the French mandate in Syria and Lebanon and the British mandate in Palestine. Then along came Hitler's determined efforts to exterminate the Jews of Europe . . .
Netanyahu's private war. Extremely difficult to envision him, on his own, determining to stop.
War, I despise
'Cause it means destruction of innocent lives
War means tears to thousands of mother's eyes
When their sons go off to fight
And lose their lives
I said, war, huh (good God, y'all)
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, just say it again
War (whoa), huh (oh Lord)
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, listen to me
It ain't nothing but a heart-breaker
(War) Friend only to The Undertaker
Oh, war it's an enemy to all mankind
The thought of war blows my mind
War has caused unrest
Within the younger generation
Induction then destruction
Who wants to die?
- Edwin Starr
This exemplifies why Trump can never hold office again.
As we all know, being President is much more than the economy, immigration, inflation, etc.
Some of his base wants him back in the WH because "he gets me."
Well get this. Whoever you put in charge of the US nuclear arsenal had better not be playing dominoes while everyone else is playing chess.
Only when we ALL call the whole thing off, can we call the whole thing off
If only we could learn peace as well as we learn war.
But, If your column today was spread far and wide, many would think it is too hawkish while many would think it is the ramblings of a dove. Too few would see it as both, which it is. It is a sad commentary on a sad, global situation.
Took time off from my work on Post-Soviet history in an effort to fill in the gaps. I was busy balancing work and family to understand what was happening between 1989 and 2000. Ultimately l went back to college to fill in the gaping holes in my brain.
It sure helps to step back and revisit the past as a way of assessing the present. Headlines are aimed at grabbing your attention, but to get the a closer look you need a deeper understanding.
I’ll be getting reconstructive surgery on my gums as well as a cateract removal on my right eye. Just trying to reduce body and mind erosion.
Not since WW2 has any war been justified. We've had terrible leaders and administrations on both sides since then. They never learn. War is business.
If you haven’t read the “The Deserter” in today’s NYT Magazine, it’s worth the time.