In a letter to the editor of the LA Times (July 18th), a reader makes a point that used to be obvious to people but has become forgotten over the past 50 years of leftist indoctrination:
Re "Israel's risky response," editorial, July 14
The editorial's issues with Israel's "disproportionate" response seem to imply that the appropriate way to treat your enemy is to just hurt them a little more than they hurt you. This way your opponent will understand that you are serious, but things won't get out of hand.
Diplomacy and negotiation, not limited violence, are the appropriate way to try to send signals and keep a situation from getting out of hand.
The situation with the Palestinian Authority/Hamas and Hezbollah is already out of hand. Proportionality is really a demand that the stronger party fight at the level of the weaker party.
This is a cruel [emphasis added] position leading to a drawn-out, slowly escalating conflict, like Vietnam.
History shows that the surest way to minimize the suffering of civilians is through a short war, and that requires the use of immediate and overwhelming force to gain clear objectives.
There are generally two objectives to which this force can be effectively applied: breaking the enemy's political will and breaking the enemy's military capability to pursue its political will. If war must be fought, it must be won.
