Indiscriminate Combat Tactics and Hypocrisy

I should define what Indiscriminate Combat Tactics (ICT) is for the sake of this essay. I will shorten the term to its acronym, ICT. ICT as it suggests is violence with no particular target. It is simply death and destruction for the sake of death and destruction. Kill and destroy as many lives as you can through using any means available to you. There is no care of what the target is, just that there is a target. If one of your own people gets in the way then it’s for the glory of whatever cause you have. There is no thought for what the benefits are for your cause. Normally in war you try to hit targets that would slow or stop your enemy through attacking supply lines or bases of operations. ICT sees no advantage or disadvantage in hitting any particular target. ICT only sees an advantage is death and destruction. The fact is Indiscriminate Combat Tactics is the method of choice for terrorists.

Currently, in the theater of combat in and around Israel the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) is targeting and destroying the capabilities of terrorist groups such as Hezbollah to perform violent action (Hezbollah’s violent actions being defined as firing rockets, missiles, and suicide bomber missions). Israel finds a target either through Israeli military intelligence or through good old fashioned IDF eyes (as was the case when the IDF destroyed an Iranian made missile). These are targets with a specific end in mind, to cripple Hezbollah’s violent capabilities.

On the other side of the war we have Hezbollah. Something that many do not seem to understand is that Hezbollah attacking Israeli neighborhoods with rockets is not a new development since the beginning of Israeli aggression that began a few weeks ago. These rocket attacks on cities in northern Israeli communities have been going on for months. These rocket attacks are perfect examples of Indiscriminate Combat Tactics. The Katyusha rockets are essentially dumb bombs. They are loaded in a launcher, pointed in the direction desired, and fired. Due to the unreliability of these rockets the people firing these rockets never know what will be hit down range. All the Hezbollah rocket brigades know is that it will hit somewhere in Israel. It could be a military target, but odds are it will be a civilian target. But the Hezbollah rocket brigades simply don’t care, they just want to keep the pressure on all Israelis military and civilian alike to inflict terror. This is Indiscriminate Combat Tactics in the truest since.

As I said, Hezbollah has been doing this for months. They have also taken hostages of a variety of nationalities for decades. And they consider suicide bombers in civilian areas legitimate methods for fighting Israel. But where is the international outcry from the UN? There has never been an outcry on the part of the international community about Hezbollah’s tactics. There has never been an international outcry when Hezbollah kills a woman in her apartment while drinking coffee with a Katyusha rocket attack. There has never been an international outcry when an eighteen year old is convinced to strap on an explosive vest and told to walk into a pizzeria or other popular Israeli hangout and injure or kill as many civilians as possible.

But when Israel targets a Hezbollah terrorist who is trying to kill as many Israelis as possible through the use of Indiscriminate Combat Tactics there are calls for the International War Crimes Court to investigate, calls for United Nations resolutions against Israel. The dead Hezbollah terrorist is then turned into a poor victim. And the fact is ignored that that dead Hezbollah terrorist was hiding behind his own civilian neighbors in order to create death and destruction for the sake of death destruction.

United Nations, France, and anyone else who equates the actions of the Israeli Defense Force with the Indiscriminate Combat Tactics of Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda, and any other terrorist group is a hypocrite and therefore not acting in the interest of truth, justice, or peace.

Tags: Israel, Lebanon, Hezbollah, War, Iran, Syria, Terrorism, Middle East, United Nations, French, Russia