Julio Huato provided a link to an excellent article: > http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1232152100
I've been thinking of how similar the Israel war against Gaza was to that of the US against Iraq: first destroy with a civilian-killing blockage and then totally destroy the country with no effort to reconstruct, all the while totally controlling the flow of possibly-embarrassing information from the press, the U.N., etc. It also reminds me of the Nixon "mad bomber" strategy: >... The strategy behind the U.S. bombing raids [against Northern Vietnam] was >what was called the madman theory. It is not exactly clear, where the name >came from [from game theory?], but the concept is clearly Nixon's: Under no >circumstances the other side should be sure what Nixon was to do next. It >should not be impossible for them to think, Nixon would be willing to use the >strongest possible forces to intervene and bomb. In that Nixon wanted to be >considered irrational and unconceivable. "Call me the mad bomber," he said >before the Christmas Bombings of 1972. When telling Kissinger to deliver the >madman theory to the Soviet Union and North Vietnam, he played the "good cop – >bad cop" game in order to threaten the other side even more and increase >Kissinger's credibility at the same time. It is that concept that led Nixon >through his efforts to end the war. It didn not work out, as the North >Vietnamese themselves were willing to accept great more losses than the >Americans or South Vietnamese, with up to 3 Million dead during the war. The >North Vietnamese, Kissinger stated, were much more interested in fighting than >winning, with the U.S. it was the other way round. > But Nixon was willing to deploy even nuclear weapons. He was wiling to do so > as early as 1954, when the Joints Chief of Staff Admiral Radford proposed > Operation Vulture. It included an option on nuclear strikes to help the > French. It turned out from recently published White House Tapes that Nixon in > 1972 proposed the use of nuclear weapons to Kissinger, who was not pleased > and argued, it might be a little too big a weapon. < from http://www.lars-klein.com/start/usa/nixon/nixonvietnam.html -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
