A few combat-related philosophies.
Means and Intention
In the IDF, a threat is count to be only if there are a mean and intention. When we are in a combat, we want to prevent the enemy from hitting us. This can be done by neutralizing the mean or the intention or both. In my point of view the most danger weapon is the one on the heart, the intention. When we are neutralizing the mean, the enemy will back to fight another day with a different weapon, when we are neutralizing the intention, the fighting spirit, the enemy will not return. In my point of view, intention is a sufficient weapon in order to respond, since intention turns into words and in a world of accessible mass media, words are a tremendous weapon. Unfortunately, the state of Israel still does not get it.
Proportionality
Proportionality is an idea that was created after World War 2 (WW2). The war was so horrible that the same factor that caused the war (the racist atmosphere of Europe of the 20 – 40 of the 20th century), got scared their own shadows and wanted that no-one would discover their true nature. Thus it has been happened that after WW2 it became impossible to defend ourselves. Every time one points his finger toward another (even if it is totally right), he is being accused with racism.
In this new world order, rose an idea that it is possible to give in return to the enemy, but no more than what he did. This is a stupid idea (if I may be not politically correct and I am allowed, since it is my book), that causes slow escalation. There are factors that allow themselves to check the limits all the time, over and over again, stretching them, breaking them and continue to exist, to grow and to evolve. This is a very fertile soil for any terror organization, terror state, and organized crime.
In my humble opinion, if a hostile factor would be crashed at the beginning, it would not have any spirit left to continue and grow to the dimensions of which no hit harms its spirit and the only way left for action is tearing it from the roots in a very violent operation, a costly operation for the "good" side as well.
Without touching any explosive politics, we can discuss crime organizations. Nowadays the situation is that only killing each and every one of the organizations can stop its activity. Deleting any possibility of revenge or reviving the "business" is a must.
In other words, the principle of proportionality degenerate the factor of threat of enforcing elements, both crime control and in the national arena and encourages the bully. The problem is that this is the existing status and we must deal with reality and work within the limits of possible. We are screwed.
Purity of Arms, Non-violence and Reality
As I wrote in chapter 2, weapon is not pure, is not innocent, is not evil nor it is murderous. Those are human characters. Violence should be used only against those who deserve it, those who have earned it by violent hostility. It is allowed to use violence, but with responsibility and for protection only.
In my point of view, the most dangerous weapon is not the knife, the gun, etc. it is the person behind them that is the most dangerous. An unarmed person filled with evil intentions is dangerous and murderous as if he had a knife in his hand, the knife in the heart can operate weapons such as a pan and cause much damage without causing even a small scratch. Hitler without a gun is still Hitler and the hate drooling Ahmadinejad that calls for the annihilation of Israel is dangerous without a knife. It is a must to be careful with words as it is a must to be careful with weapons. In my humble opinion, violence is allowed against a hostile factor even if it is unarmed, since tomorrow it will be and will not be alone.
The above are the reasons for my unbelieving in non-violence. I do believe in unwillingly turn to violence, but not to refuse its using if this is necessary. The reality is such that there are many who violence for them is the preferred mean of communication and there is nothing we can do about it. This kind of people will not, usually, use any other language.
Although it can be very nice to live in an illusion that it is always possible to figure out conflicts without violence, this is an illusion and we must acknowledge the reality, that violence is a tool and as any other tool, we must know when and how to use it.
Pacifism
It is pointless to mention that I do not believe in pacifism. I believe in standing on your own, hold the ground and not to turn the other cheek.
The pacifism belief that it is always possible to negotiate is detached from reality, in which there are people that enjoy doing harm, just for pleasure or for some religious reason etc.
What can we do? There are people that it is impossible to talk with, even the average bully understands only violence and power relations.
I would like to see the pacifist that his children are hijacked, raped and murdered, while he stands aside and do not take violence to stop this from happen. In this case he could join the act himself.
The simplest pacifist test is just slap the pacifist until he got mad and reacts with violence.
The problem with pacifist is that there beliefs interrupt others right to defend themselves. They push their noses into struggles of others without understanding the facts and reality. Extreme left-wingers and peace activists, who forget why and by what the state of Israel exists (and this is just a local example).
Let there be no misunderstandings, I am for peace, true peace, in which both sides respect each other, live in dialog and accept each other.
I am for living without a constant threat over the head. I am for freedom and positive behavior. However these things are always priced with blood, always with violence. There is always the person that would like to exploit the goodness of others, sees it as a weakness and try to take control by force and violence.
This is why pacifism has no moral right to exist, equally, he who will not fight for freedom and his life, supports slavery.
Bulletproof Ideas
Ideas are bulletproof, as shown in the movie "V for vendetta", what do I mean by that?
Very simple, after an idea has been seeded and caught some audience, it is impossible to destroy it. The only way to destroy an idea is by annihilating each person who supports it, each person who knows it and every single written word and documentation of the idea (another way is to massively brainwash all those people that are annihilated in plan A).
In another word, it is impossible to get rid of an idea and the problem is that even stupid and evil ideas, that were proven in history as wrong, are back to find followers, such as the neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. This is the problems with ideas, they are one-way ticket and it does not matter if the leaders of the ideas will be killed, someone, some when will revive it, and a mod that is caught by an idea will never let it go.
Of course those ideas that are driven by religion (and post modernism) are the worst, there is no rational or logical argument that can deal with them, since those kind of ideas have the "only I right" narrative.
In war against religious fundamentalism, there is no point in trying use logic, since the idea behind the fundamentalism is too stupid, too deep rooted, too evil and too uncompromising. What can be done? You ask yourself. Well we need to try and convince the silent majority not to be a silent majority and not to turn to fundamentalism. Does it work? Usually it does not. This is pity.
Guerilla Warfare and Guerilla Warriors
The true characteristics of guerilla warfare are not attacking from ambush and assimilation in the surrounding, but assimilating within the civilian population, within the so called "innocents", the non-combatants and perform the operations from within this civilian neighborhood, operations such as what the Palestinians and Hezbollah do (firing rockets from schools and hiding ammunition and weaponry in homes and hospitals. The true difficulty in fighting against guerilla is separating the population from the combatants. Sometimes the population is willingly cooperate with the guerilla and is ready to pay the price (being hit and being a legitimate target). In my point of view, this king of population is a terror supporter population, since those guerilla fighters will usually choose civilian targets rather than military targets. Since this is the situation, I must recall the desiccation about proportionality. Those who are willing to pay the price - should pay it. Of course it is forbidden to target civilians if this is not necessary, however if there is a need then there is no choice in such a struggle.
On the other hand, sometimes the population is captive (willingly or not) of those guerilla factors and they will be glad to be helped against the hostile factor. This kind of population is a target for propaganda, in an attempt to make them rebel against the guerilla. This population is giving hope for negotiation and it is possible to work with them against the guerilla.
Many terror organizations and terror regimes around the globe are taking entire populations as hostages. These factors see the enemy's civilians as strategic legitimate target (for example, Iran uses Hezbollah against Israel and the Hamas regime in Gaza that shoots rockets at Israeli civilians). Action against a military factor is legitimate, this is fighting. Deliberate targeting at civilians is despicableness and terror.
It is common that in this kind of terror activity, there is great influence of religion and radical fundamentalists.
Freedom Fighters and Terrorists
Thus we came to discuss freedom fighters in oppose to terrorists.
In my point of view it is very easy to distinguish between the two:
It is legitimate to fight for your freedom. Military operations alone, will never achieve the goal without parallel diplomatic operations. In fact, the military operations' goal is to get the negotiation table. Once you got there, the fire should be stopped. The goal of fire is creating leverage for the negotiations. Eventually the idea is to get to a long term sustainable solution (a point that the Palestinians have not yet understood, since they are getting to negotiations all the time, however always negotiate and fire simultaneously. This indicated that they do not want to success with the negotiations, all the Palestinians want is Israel not to exist).
A freedom fighter will aspire for legitimate struggle and hos targets would be military targets and almost never civilians (of course not on purpose). Those organizations who phone to inform of bombs are usually not really terror groups.
A terrorist will act for the struggle and for the terror itself, rather for freedom. The terrorist will use any mean and his targets will be mostly civilian. Hos supreme goal will be to self-sustain and he will not really care for the struggle he allegedly represents.
A freedom fighter will choose a realistic goal for his struggle and will act to achieve it. A terrorist will choose a stupid goal and unrealistic one and will never try to achieve it but will use it as an excuse for the horrors he does.
A freedom fighter will take full responsibility for his doings and will try to stick to the true and facts, in order to recruit people for his goal, and will not lie to them.
A terrorist will always throw the responsibility at others, will try to infect masses with lies and deform facts. Lies and cynical abuse of his "underdog" position are his tools.
There is a point of talking with freedom fighters.
There is nothing to talk about with terrorists. This is equivalent to shouting in space (no one will hear and you die from sub-pressure).
While fighting terror organizations, beside their total annihilation, it is required to wait for a real leader emerging within the population, a freedom fighter leader who is not a terrorist, so there will be someone to talk with (and yes, the Israeli – Palestinian situation will never be an end, as long as the Palestinians do not recognize our right to live. And the Islam radical will never acknowledge this).
Price of Victory and Price of losing
Usually the price of losing is known and nobody is willing to pay it (slavery, exile, banishment, imprisoning, annihilation, rape, total extinction and a lot of money).
The price of victory, usually much higher in terms of money however the victorious is also paying a non-monetary price, he is paying many lives for the victory and the right to exist. He is paying with innocence, paying a heavy psychological price by the warriors (shell shock). The price is a massage for the generations to come, a massage about the importance of exciting, responsibility and the need of the conflict's goal.
There is also a high moral price for both sides, even the more moral side that seeks no harm for the innocents, sometimes hits the innocents unintentionally. Sometimes there is no other choice and sometimes those hits are accidents. Either way this causes high psychological and moral price that sometimes must be paid for victory.
A victory is costly.
Since we are already dealing with costs, remember "there is no such thing as a free lunch", in any field of life.
Applicable Orders
Read "The Little Prince". The section with the king…
An order must be applicable in order for it to be followed. There is no point in giving an order that cannot be executed. This is stupid and not fair. Instead try to give an effective and applicable order.
Duty is Heavier than a Mountain, Death is Lighter than a Feather
This is the samurai motto and if we will ignore the Japanese mentality and the Bushido that comes with it, this is the guiding rule for those who seek to rule (rule and not control).
He who is seeking to rule should know that the responsibility is heavy and there is no way to shirk it off.
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