Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

My response: This seems a plausible idea: fear of massive retaliation should deter criminals from perpetrating acts of violence. But the historical record of the world in general and of the Middle East in particular tells a different story, because terrorists are not ordinary criminals. No matter how reprehensible their crimes, they are pursuing a good cause, and as long as that cause is not achieved through peaceful democratic methods, they are likely to continue performing terrorist attacks. Even capturing and killing leaders of terrorist groups are ineffective tactics, as the leaders are quickly replaced. This has been borne out time and time again, both in the Middle East and elsewhere.

For instance, following the increase in Palestinian terrorist incidents after the Six-Day War of 1967, the Israeli military expelled the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and its related group Fatah from the Palestinian Territories to Lebanon. Instead of leading to a decrease in terrorism, this punitive gesture incited Palestinian terrorists to carry on their campaign against Israel. In a second attempt to frighten PLO and Fatah terrorists out of attacking Israel, Israeli paramilitary operatives assassinated three key PLO government ministers in Lebanon in April 1973. PLO and Fatah terrorists responded by continuing their attacks.

The ridiculous notion that terrorists and guerrillas can be subdued by force was further dispelled by the drawn-out Vietnam War (1957 to 1975) as well as the long, bloody Lebanese civil war (1975 to 1993). In the latter conflict, Israel reacted to the continuation of Palestinian terrorism by arming and funding a proxy force called the Army of Southern Lebanon to create a sort of buffer zone. That did not work either, so in 1978 Israel invaded Lebanon in an attempt to destroy the PLO and the variety of Lebanese Muslim resistance groups. As the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) occupied all of Lebanon south of the Litani River, it killed 2,000 Lebanese residents and displaced another 100,000. But since the terrorists kept scattered, Israel failed to destroy many of them before withdrawing from southern Lebanon later that year.

The Israeli military commanders should have expected this result. Terrorists, being civilians, always tend to mix with the civilian population. Moreover, their status as civilians and noncombatants renders it a crime and a violation of the laws of warfare to kill them without trial, except in immediate self-defense. But as explained in No. 4, we simply cannot wage a just or effective war against terrorists. If Israel was really as "tough on terrorism" as it claimed to be, if it wanted to wipe out all the terrorists in southern Lebanon, it would literally have to repeat Hiroshima and massacre all 100,000 innocent people in southern Lebanon by surprise. This is where the neocon logic leads--to mass murder.   

Far from destroying and frightening terrorists, Israel's invasion and brief occupation only prompted a continuation of Lebanese-Palestinian terrorism in the next few years. So Israel invaded Lebanon again in 1982--this time with US military help. Thruout the 1980s, the IDF showered Beirut with bombing raids, targeting every suspected terrorist hideout. Meanwhile the Israeli army and Lebanese Christian Phalanges militia gunned down thousands of terrorists and ordinary civilians alike in the city streets. The PLO, Fatah, Hizballah, Lebanese National Resistance Front, Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Faction, and other terrorist networks kept striking back, killing dozens of innocent civilians in Maronite Catholic towns. The Palestinian terrorists also attacked Lebanese Muslim groups such as Amal and Abu Nidal that wanted both Palestinians and Israelis out of Lebanon.

Notwithstanding a joint peacekeeping buffer by the UN and the Lebanese Military Force (FLM), the PLO managed to slip into Israel. To retaliate, Israeli Defense Force planes bombed the government headquarters of the PLO in Tunis in October 1985. Israel's proxy force, the Army of Southern Lebanon, carried on its dirty work of slaughtering PLO and Hizballah civilians, so Israel could keep a grip on southern Lebanon. But the terrorists remained undaunted. The stream of attacks by Lebanese resistance groups and PLO terrorist forays into northern Israel not only continued, but actually escalated despite Israel's "Iron Fist" policy of carpet-bombing. Hizballah and other terrorist groups started latching on to the usefulness of Katyusha rockets, which could be fired across the Lebanese border into Israel with spectacular effect yet causing minimal casualties.  

Despite repeated shows of brute force and a sobering trail of destruction, Israel failed to win the war and quench terrorism. Hoping to smash the phenomenon once and for all, Israeli warplanes launched massive bombing raids in southern Lebanon in February 1992 and again in July 1993, shelling dozens of Shiite terrorist positions, including entire villages. But after all the dust settled, terrorist raids on IDF outposts continued, Lebanese Christians and Muslims alike rooted for Israel's total expulsion from their country, and Katyusha rockets were still falling into northern Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak finally decided to withdraw the remaining IDF contingents from southern Lebanon in May 2000. Upon withdrawal, all Palestinian terrorist attacks on Israel from Lebanon suddenly halted. The main grievance of Palestinian terrorists in Lebanon was Israel's concerted effort to destroy the PLO--the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. As soon as Israel acknowledged the PLO's right to exist, it responded by leaving Israel alone. Resolution of grievances, not "the language of strength and force", promotes the eradication of terrorism.