Over at Catallarchy, Johnathan Goff makes a great point about the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah, and the innocent Lebanese caught in the cross fire:
...one of the key things you (and almost everyone else I hear who brings up this exact same argument over and over again, ad naseum) is that it's pretty clear to almost everyone that none of Israel's enemies really could push it into the sea. None of them are anywhere close. Hezbollah has fired off almost 1500 rockets at Israel since hostilities flared up again--over 10% of their arsenal, and they've killed less than 30 civilians? Hardly the stuff existential threats are made out of. I think Israel would be a lot better off if they realized this. If they stop treating every small incident as though the fate of their very nation depended on immediate and overwhelming action, they would be a lot better off. Even in the best cases the law of unintended consequences makes it really tough to get good long-term results. Acting before you've had a time to think because you treat everything as a life-and-death crisis is a sure way to keep muddling things up over and over. I'm not saying that Israel is always wrong or that Hezbollah is right, just that hyperventilating that if Israel doesn't bomb the crap out of an innocent country that Hezbollah happens to occupy a small chunk of, that Israel is going to be shoved back into the sea….it all seems rather counterproductive actually.
This analysis certainly applies to the U.S. "War on Terror" as well, since 9/11 was invoked as the (direct or indirect) justification for the invasions and occupations of both Afghanistan and Iraq. These activities have only made our country safer from terrorism the same way past U.S. interventions in Middle Eastern countries have maintained stability: by causing long-running distrust and resentment, offsetting the threat to the future rather than neutralizing it in any lasting manner.
Instead of treating the terrorist threat as some sort of existential armageddon, the U.S. government should proportionally address the problem. The ability of Al Qaeda to destroy the country utterly is non-existent. That doesn't mean the government should refrain from responding to attacks and threats. Rather, it should aim for a solution to this problem that addresses the realistic threat.
A focus on assessing actions relative to the actual risk avoids granting blank checks to politicians and military authorities. All that does is encourages an expansion of aggressive activity regardless of costs. In both the case of Israel and the United States, it does neither collective people any good for their states to overreact and attack third parties.
Read this article
