First, it's patently obvious that Hezbollah is placing its military assets in civilian areas in order to cause civilian casualties. A Canadian "peacekeeper" (I still don't know what the term means), days before he was killed by an Israeli bomb, wrote in an e-mail that Hezbollah was using his location as a "shield" against Israeli attacks. This is because Hezbollah really does want civilian casualties.

Such an idea is abhorrent to us in the west, but from their perspective, it makes sense in a very nihilistic way. In the west, we think of wars in terms of defeating the enemy. If we defeat the enemy, we occupy their homeland and then the war is over. The forces aligned against Israel don't think this way. They can't win a standard "us vs. you on the battlefield" scenario against Israel. They just don't have a prayer. So their fallback plan is to, apparently, cause as much damage to Israel as possible (i.e. terrorism, as it has no military objective), while causing Israel to kill as many Arab civilians as possible. The hope is that when Israel kills civilians the world will react in horror and begin to punish Israel.

The first step in the anti-Israeli playbook is to harm Israel's legitimacy on the world stage. This is why they park rocket launchers next to schools, hospitals and UN outposts. It's a very Machiavellian strategy.

Interestingly, it works very well. I am always amazed that Hezbollah can launch literally hundreds of rockets into Israeli civilian areas, with no hope of achieving any military objective, and yet when Israel responds by trying to destroy the rocket launchers, the world is outraged by the civilian casualties. Israeli civilian casualties are utterly ignored, even though Hezbollah's intent was to kill civilians. This compares to Israel's intent, which is to destroy rocket launchers, and unfortunately, since Hezbollah positions them to ensure maximum civilian damage, civilians die there too.

But Arab rocket attacks on Israel and suicide car bombs in Baghdad are signs of true desperation. They are the last option for a defeated enemy. They can no longer hope to defeat the US militarily, or even to cause us to leave by killing us with ambushes and IEDs. Their only hope now is to cause enough civilian casualties that the situation appears untenable and we'll give up and go home.

As an afterthought, I am increasingly amazed by the Arab mindset, that these Arabs and Persians truly think they can take on and defeat the US military. Iran in particular really appears to believe its own propoganda. No matter how many times we utterly destroy an Arab army, the next one is utterly convinced that he's going to beat us.

I, Captain Rob of the Pirate Armada, do hereby declare that a state of WAR exists between the Armada and the Empire of India.

The leader of this hive of buzzing miscreants... huge hive, actually, but nonetheless, having banned our just and fair blog websites in order to protect his own regime from our criticisms, has left us no choice but to invade, conquer, subjugate and rule his land.

He has refused his Assent to Our Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance, and silence our pirate blogs.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies of sympathizing, fifth-column leftists, without the consent of our legislatures.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation.

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us, or at least thinking longingly about it, the scoundrel.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, destroyed the lives of our people and drunk our beer, the necessity of which for a happy and fulfilled existence is obvious and apparent.

Therefore, I have directed the 1st and 2nd Indian Ocean Fleets to... stay in the Indian Ocean and await word of possible (and in fact, we speculate, quite enjoyable) action against this wretched land.

http://dreadpundit.blogspot.com/" title="http://dreadpundit.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"http://dreadpundit.blogspot.c...