Kerry's Hot-Mic Israel Critique: He Has No Excuse
When Secretary of State Kerry criticized Israel's military operations in Gaza by calling them a "hell of a pinpoint operation," he not only validated Hamas's human-shield strategy, he handed Hamas a key propaganda victory.
And he had no excuse for doing so.
Unlike the vast majority of Americans - including a vast majority of Americans in "public service" - Secretary Kerry has actual combat experience. He's fully aware of the enormous destructive capability of a modern military, and he's thus fully aware of what a truly unrestrained Israeli military operation would look like. Further, as a senior leader in the Obama administration, he's aware - or should be aware - of our own rules of engagement and conduct in urban operations in Fallujah, Tal Afar, Najaf, and other recent urban fights. If he is aware, he'd know that the Israelis often take even greater precautions than our own military does to prevent civilian casualties.
The fact that he made such a statement on a day when 13 Israeli soldiers (two of them American citizens) died engaged in operations rendered far more dangerous because of the care Israel takes to avoid needless death only compounds Secretary Kerry's error.
Tonight, there are dozens of Israeli families suffering the ultimate anguish of the loss of a child. Many of those families know that if their military had exerted even a fraction more of its power, their kids would not have been directly in harm's way...Also read:
Contrary to conventional wisdom, Hillary's probably finished
The media is drafting Elizabeth Warren to run in 2016
No comments:
Post a Comment