Arianna Huffington: Lessons from Hercules, Hydra, and Tom Friedman

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/winning-the-war-on-terror_b_25864.html

And if Israel wants results -- i.e. victory -- it needs to look to an unlikely duo: Tom Friedman and Greek mythology. Friedman explains the futility of pursuing a purely military solution; my ancestors provide the clues to the only way to win.

First, the futility. In Friedman's flat worldview, everybody now has access to the tools of destruction -- whether it's a military powerhouse like Israel or a stateless terrorist organization like Hezbollah (the same dynamic, of course, holds true in Iraq, where the insurgents' IEDs have neutralized -- c'mon, let's say it, beaten -- the world's greatest superpower).

snip

And, in the process, they are feeding the extremists' imagination. As Wayne White, a State Department analyst until last year, told Harper's: "From a large and enraged Shiite population, surely there will be thousands of recruits ready to replace Hezbollah's losses in personnel...The Israelis have embarked on a campaign that will most likely make matters worse over the long term."

So even if Israel is completely right, its current strategy is having the wholly counterproductive effect of making its people less safe and less likely to achieve the long-term peace and security they long for.

[ixion]

1. some good sentiment, but not one of her best

people need to stop legitimizing the so-called 'War on Terror', because as long as it's treated in a quasi-legitimate manner, there will be no peace in the world.

[babylonsister]

2. Israel is taking the wrong pages out of the US's play book.

Sounds oh so familiar. When is anyone going to wise up?