What is winning?

Israel isn't going to stop until Hezbollah has no more capability to fire rockets into Israeli cities. Does everyone get that? If that means a renewing of the Israeli-Arab War, then that would be a bloody mess. Make no mistake on which country would win that one.
Israel, in my opinion, has tried almost every option available to making peace with the Arab world; save one. They have not sent their Armed forces out to annihilate and destroy their enemies completely. They could do this. Maybe that is naive to think, from an outsiders perspective, but enough is enough.
All the bullshit diplomats talk about 'the peace process'. Is their some point in the process where both sides experience peace? Regardless of the history at this point, I think Isreal should do whatever is necessary to keep its citizens safe. That means they will go house to house in Lebanon and make sure every rocket is destoyed.
Which brings me to the logic of Newt Gingrich. Yes, I typed logic and Gingrich in the same sentence. All in all, I think its more shock value rhetoric. The same shock value that seems right but leads to poor decisions costing lives. What do those lives purchase? I know that Joe Nascar wants to believe that were creating a democracy. Nothing is likely to change his mind. But the truth is that those lives are wasted, because in the end of the 'process' there will be another missle barrage. There will be more suicide bombers. The war will go on and on. The big question to answer is how will the war be won? What is winning?




Gingrich says it's World War III

Posted by David Postman at 12:54 PM

Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich says America is in World War III and President Bush should say so. In an interview in Bellevue this morning Gingrich said Bush should call a joint session of Congress the first week of September and talk about global military conflicts in much starker terms than have been heard from the president.

"We need to have the militancy that says 'We're not going to lose a city,' " Gingrich said. He talks about the need to recognize World War III as important for military strategy and political strategy.

Gingrich said he is "very worried" about Republican's facing fall elections and says the party must have the "nerve" to nationalize the elections and make the 2006 campaigns about a liberal Democratic agenda rather than about President Bush's record.

Gingrich says that as of now Republicans "are sailing into the wind" in congressional campaigns. He said that's in part because of the Iraq war, adding, "Iraq is hard and painful and we do not explain it very well."

But some of it is due to Republicans' congressional agenda. He said House and Senate Republicans "forgot the core principle" of the party and embraced Congressional pork. "Some of the guys," he said, have come down with a case of "incumbentitis."

Gingrich said in the coming days he plans to speak out publicly, and to the Administration, about the need to recognize that America is in World War III.

He lists wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, this week's bomb attacks in India, North Korean nuclear threats, terrorist arrests and investigations in Florida, Canada and Britain, and violence in Israel and Lebanon as evidence of World War III. He said Bush needs to deliver a speech to Congress and "connect all the dots" for Americans.

He said the reluctance to put those pieces together and see one global conflict is hurting America's interests. He said people, including some in the Bush Administration, who urge a restrained response from Israel are wrong "because they haven't crossed the bridge of realizing this is a war."

"This is World War III," Gingrich said. And once that's accepted, he said calls for restraint would fall away:

"Israel wouldn't leave southern Lebanon as long as there was a single missile there. I would go in and clean them all out and I would announce that any Iranian airplane trying to bring missiles to re-supply them would be shot down. This idea that we have this one-sided war where the other team gets to plan how to kill us and we get to talk, is nuts."

There is a public relations value, too. Gingrich said that public opinion can change "the minute you use the language" of World War III. The message then, he said, is "'OK, if we're in the third world war, which side do you think should win?"

An historian, Gingrich said he has been studying recently how Abraham Lincoln talked to Americans about the Civil War, and what turned out to be a much longer and deadlier war than Lincoln expected.

.............The rest of the article is at the link above.