1/6/2009
Triumph and Victory-Enough is Enough
For Release and Distribution (hat tip Colonel Riley)
Triumph and Victory- “Enough is Enough”
LTG Thomas McInerney
MG Paul Vallely
The world is advancing closer to a solution that requires Triumph and Victory over global radical Islam, world-wide terror operations and the likes of “Hamas”. Radical Islamic goals and their leadership call for the destruction of Israel and continuing decimation of democracy and freedom. This militant ideology has created worldwide conflict and disruption. Enough is Enough!!! The world, Israel, Palestinians and other Muslims have suffered enough.
Israel is at war simultaneously on several fronts: Hamas in Gaza; the home front in the ever-expanding radius around Gaza (currently 26 miles); Hezbollah on the northern front, Syria, Iran, and the public policy front. Here it is important to recall just what Hamas as well as Hezbollah really are. Hamas is an illegal terrorist organization and an Iranian proxy that is conducting an illegal terror war against Israel. The EU and UN are arguably committing a war crime by accepting Hamas as a legitimate side to a dispute. In turn, by accepting the EU as a legitimate interlocutor, Israel itself gives credence to the view that Hamas is legitimate.
Stand up now to these Radical Islamists who have high jacked a religion and turned it into their own ideology that has killed more Muslims in the last seven years than anyone else. Because they are fanatics similar to the Nazi’s and SS in their methods, the only choice is neutralize them, their organizations, their infrastructure, their support and their ideology just as Nazism was destroyed.
What must be done? The United States and Israel now need to re-evaluate the very meanings of power in world politics, with particular reference to principles that seek victory in warfare that is not prolonged. The first principle, “Objective,” states: When undertaking any mission, Commanders should have a clear understanding of the expected outcome and its impact. Today we call it the “endgame.” Following Clausewitz and Sun-Tzu, political and military commanders at every level need to identify tangible ends and to understand precisely how military application can best achieve these goals.
There is another section of the Art Of War that can especially help Israel and the United States. This is Sun-Tzu’s repeated emphasis on the “unorthodox” or, as the Pentagon calls it today, Irregular Warfare. We must, from a high-level strategic view, look at this current global war as combating an enemy who fights in a completely unorthodox manner, and we must fight him the very same way, but more cleverly and more effectively. We must use our full military and intellectual arsenal as a super power to bring victory sooner rather than later. This can be done only with a specific endgame in mind, and with a corollary commitment to victory.
Military Objectives:
A full scale ground invasion into Gaza is required by Israeli Defense Forces. For Israel and the United States, the “unorthodox” should now be fashioned not only on the battlefield, but also long before the battle. For now, every enemy state knows almost exactly how the Conventional Warfare leaders will initiate and conduct major military action, and how it will respond to armed attack and armed conflict. If, however, the United States and Israel did not always signal perfect rationality to its enemies, it could significantly enhance both its overall deterrence posture and its essential capacity to carry out certain preemption options. This same lesson applies to diplomacy and politics, which are also too often mired in complete predictability. So, yes, “war is hell,” potentially more hellish today than at any time in history, which is why we must never lose when fighting an enemy who will never quit. Israel and the West have no choice but to fight the terrorists, aggressively, unapologetically, with an absolute commitment to win on every front. And that fight must be on our time-schedule … never the enemy’s.
These steps need to be taken during the current (as we watch) Israeli offensive operation that as begun:
- Secure the Philadelphia line again
- Slice Gaza in half and separate north from south to control traffic between the Egyptian gateway to Gaza and Gaza City
- Destroy Hamas weapons caches and bomb factories
- Destroy the tunnels by which Hamas could be re-supplied in the near future
- Destroy Hamas’ command-and-control infrastructure
- Destroy Hamas’ media outlets (e.g. al-Aqsa TV) which incite, recruit and direct terrorists.
- Destroy Hamas’ ability to continue to govern Gaza and their infrastructure (no offices, no secure communications, no resources).
Israel, for its part, has been less clear in stating its operational goals. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Livni and Barak have said that the goal of Operation Cast Lead is to compel Hamas to end its attacks against Israel, but they haven’t said how they intend to affect that outcome. They have rejected Hamas’s demand for control over Gaza’s land and sea borders and in turn demanded that Hamas end its weapons smuggling operations across the Egyptian border. The only way to accomplish this objective is to do what we outlined above.
Hamas’s objective is to destroy Israel, consequently Israel must destroy Hamas. No amount of diplomacy will deter Hamas and history has shown appeasement will never satisfy these radicals who now represent the Nazi’s of the 21st Century. Denial is no longer an option and Hope is not a strategy.
THOMAS MCINERNEY, Lt. General (USAF, Ret.) is co-author of The Endgame: Winning the War on Terror (with Major-General Paul E. Vallely). General McInerney is retired Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force.












