Israel shows us how to lose by winning

Once again Israel has managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. They must have taken a page from the Bush/Cheney playbook in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both seem to have forgotten that perception is usually the victor over reality.

From the moral high ground of stopping rockets from landing in Israel and using the undisputed Israel military might, for days they rained bombs and rockets on Gaza targets.

Then to follow-up and finish the project, the Israeli ground forces entered Gaza to mop up the remaining Hamas opponents. In the process of exerting overwhelming power, they seem to have managed to lose in the court of public opinion.

Let's accept the assertion that your enemy has fired a rocket from the middle of a school with children present. Is a bomb or artillery round an acceptable response? How many dead children equal one rocket? So far 200 children have been killed, almost a thousand wounded.

Just because Hamas may be using human shields does that justify the so-called 'collateral' damage to ferret them out. Surely the vaunted Israeli intelligence services can be more effective. I'm not sure what justifies shooting ambulance attendants and U.N. relief truck drivers.

There is such a thing as proportional response. Stay within it you deserve all of the support you can get; go beyond it and your response becomes barbaric. It is one thing when soldiers kill soldiers; it is quite another when neither side seems to be overly concerned with who else gets trampled in the process.

The one truism of war is when the political leaders decide to invoke violence, the innocent bystander is the one who is more likely to pay the ultimate price.

James Prescott

Schaumburg