A government afraid to stand up to aggression

A recipe for never-ending war and death

Our collective governments continue to adhere to the notion that a response must remain "proportional" so as not to cause an escalation. The end-game of that policy is a never-ending war and never-ending deaths - just meted out over years and decades, with a never to be gained peace.

Escalation is exactly what is needed. To stop an aggression, the aggressor must be thoroughly incapacitated, its ability to continue fighting utterly destroyed, its leaders and supporters, including its civilians, demoralized to the point of abject surrender.

Whenever there is war, innocent people die. This should be obvious, yet it seems many are demanding that fighting back must somehow be done without causing such innocent deaths, and that retaliation must stop or be severely limited otherwise. This is being demanded of Israel, and is also evident in Ukraine where allies have demanded their donated military equipment be used only within Ukrainian territory, but not against targets within Russia.

Dragging war on indefinitely ends up killing far more - and impoverishing the rest. Escalation may seem to cause "too many" deaths quickly, but in the end saves far more lives. This was true in WW II against the Axis powers, and in most if not every other war in history. Imagine if we had pursued a policy of "proportional” response then. How many more years of war would there have been, and how many millions of lives would have been lost as a result.

In the Ukraine, we are giving just enough military aid to let them keep on fighting Russia's aggression, but never to win for fear of Russian escalation. It is all of us supposed Ukrainian allies that need to escalate. Not only help Ukraine but directly show Putin that the civilized world will no longer tolerate such aggression. Witness Putin's childish complaints of "Ukraine hit me back!" as if that is somehow unfair. We all should be helping - hitting Russia back hard, destroying every known military base, related industry, roads, rails, and bridges, and not stop until Putin surrenders or he is replaced by another who will.

The world continues to condemn Israel for their long-overdue retaliation against a decades-long war declared by Hamas and associated groups that has killed 1000s on both sides through those years. Many are crying "genocide" by Israel, conveniently evading that Hamas' express goal, written in their original charter, is the destruction of Israel and the genocide of all Jews. There are some 2.5 million people in Gaza. If Israel intended a genocide, probably half of those would already be dead. But the numbers, even the suspect ones reported by Hamas, is in the neighbourhood of 25000 - at least a third of which are Hamas members and leaders responsible for the ongoing aggression against Israel. Those souls, along with 1500+ Israeli souls would still be alive if not for the aggression of Hamas and their backers and suppliers (including Iran and possibly Russia) - and they are the ones who are morally culpable for all deaths.

Not only should Israel continue their destruction of anything remotely usable by Hamas, but when done they should annex the whole of Gaza and bring it under direct Israeli jurisdiction. All Gazans/Palestinians who actually want peace will soon, if not immediately, thank Israel and perhaps enjoy happy and productive lives for the first time.

And now we have escalating attacks at the hands of Iran directly and through its supported groups and puppet regimes. And once again the U.S. is downplaying it and even continuing to provide the means of letting it continue. This is literally suicidal.

Iran has been directly, and aiding and abetting others, in attacking the U.S., Israel, and other nations since 1979 - 45 years and counting. Many 1000s have died as a result. Yet we continue to appease and even pretend we are friends with that regime. Many Iranian citizens oppose their own theocratic government, and the cost of direct war with Iran, in innocent lives lost, would be horrible. But letting that regime continue causing innocent deaths around the world into the indefinite future, on top of the deaths they have already caused over the last half-century, is not responsible or justifiable.

The Iranian people should be helped in every way possible to bring down their current government and replace it with one that will no longer pursue aggression against other nations and people. If that can be done, then all-out retaliatory war against Iran can be avoided. But ultimately, that regime needs to be stopped. If it cannot be done with a new revolution of its people, to undo the revolution of 1979, then Iran too must be stopped via overwhelming military force. No matter the toll in lives, not doing so merely guarantees ongoing innocent deaths every year, and for many decades more.