We're just better at killing (in war) then "they" are. Israel & Hamas, and the "proportionality". And what the "left" thinks about it. This post in The Corner also is quite snarky.
I realized a few years ago why I would almost never become a liberal, at least when it came to certain issues. I was listening to NPR (yes, NPR!) and they had on Elie Wiesel. They were talking about a few different things, but they also talked about two recent news items. One was a couple of Palestinian men breaking in to what I believe was a home in a settlement (it might have been while Israel still "controlled" Gaza, I don't remember) and killed a family. There was a young child, I believe around two, whimpering as his parents and older siblings were being killed. Well, the two Palestinian men instead of leaving (and maybe escaping with their lives before security got there) went around looking for the child, so they could kill he/she. They did, but because they went out of their way to find the two year old, they ended up dead. Israel then targeted a car where one of Hamas' leaders was, and the leader's son, who was also around two was in the car, when the missile hit. The NPR guy was trying to get Elie Wiesel to see that both these actions were the same, as in both cases a two year old was killed, and Mr. Wiesel wasn't buying it.
I'm actually in the middle of reading a book about "the western way of war". It's, coincidentally, written by one of the above posters, Victor Davis Hanson. He's a classics professor, or at least was, I believe. He also is a farmer and writes at National Review. Anyways, the book is a summary of nine different battles and how each of these battles display a cultural characteristic that the West has (historically anyways) that leads to our superiority in warfare. One of his comments on the chapter on The Battle of Midway is that the West has historically believed the people they were fighting to be barbaric, BUT that the people they were fighting believed the West were barbaric, because of the disproportionate kill ratios. Whether we're talking about the Aztecs (or the Mexicas, as they apparently would have called themselves) who on la Noche Triste sacrificed dozens of Spanish soldiers while the Spanish soldiers who survived the Noche Triste listened to the screaming, or the Zulus gutting the British after their victory at the battle of Isandhlwana to "release the dead's soul", or the Japanese torturing captured Navy pilots then tying a weight to them then throwing over the side of their ships, the non-West believed that the West was barbaric because of the disproportionate kill ratios. There is sort of a moral misunderstanding between the cultures. VDH doesn't do footnotes, so I don't know his sources yet for saying the above nations thought Westerners were barbaric, but he does have a section at the end for further reading which I'm sure he'll bring up some of his sources.
And to continue the random thoughts on these topics, here's a post by some one who tend to agree with, but maybe not here. Although, maybe so, as well. There is no good way out for Israel, that I see, without just wiping out millions of people, which morally is reprehensible, so rightly shouldn't happen. I kind of realized that because of the short term thinking of democratic politics, Israel can't do the things that might need to be done from their side to make a long term solution after watching this debate. Could you imagine a politician in a democratic society, saying, "no, no we won't fight back for the next X years against a group killing us slowly, so that we can change their culture, our culture, etc." How long would this person remain in power, especially in Israel with their politics being so hay-wire and having elections called seemingly whenever? And obviously, Hamas is not exactly looking for peace with Israel (see first link in this paragraph for an understanding of what they are looking for), so they won't do anything to help the situation.
UPDATE: A comment on this topic. He makes a fair point about long term issues with "assymetrical" warfare. And scary ones.
