Twice In One Day: Are We On to Something Here?

We here at the Dougloid Papers generally try and avoid commenting on political matters as inflammatory as the current Israel/Lebanon(read independent state of Hezbollah)/Hamas contretemps. We find such things interesting, but we'd rather talk about airplanes.

So, when we find something that's worth commenting about that's trenchant, to the point, and intelligently composed, we get impressed.

So it is with a column by Spengler in Asia Times Online today, and we commend it to you.

Spengler says that a conventional army can defeat guerilla armies with broad local support and it has happened in the past. He names the Culloden debacle as an example (although one might argue that Culloden was the result of the very bad idea of making common cause with the French against Britons), the Acadians in Canada after the seven years' war, the Greeks at the hands of Ataturk in 1922 and the Czech destruction of the Sudeten German community after 1945. He sees it reoccurring in the present conflict, and he believes that a war to a decisive conclusion in the middle east may have begun.

Spengler makes the observation that destruction of Hezbollah will mean the collapse of the Shi'a community in Lebanon with all the uncertainty that brings on their masters in Damascus and in Iran. He believes that this ultimately will bring a direct showdown between Iran and the west.

He notes that peaceful outcomes are possible when people have peaceable things to do, and the Shi'a of Lebanon have little enough beyond being paid day labor digging bunkers to hide Hezbollah's rocket launchers in.

Like I say, it's a very interesting article and well worth a read.