One of my favorite all time movies is Stripes, that great comedy featuring Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, John Candy, and other very funny people. It’s a movie most guys wish they could have starred in. I’m not sure how many times I’ve watched it, and I can quote many of its lines. It is a classic guy movie, and should somehow be introduced in a debate over Man Laws in one of those great Miller Lite commercials.

One of my favorite scenes in the movie (and I know I’m butchering this) is after the platoon has lost its leader, Sgt. Hulka (wonderfully played by the late Warren Oates), and is trying to prepare for the graduation parade the next day. Led by Bill Murray and Harold Ramis, the effort soon falls into chaos, disarray, and fighting (initiated by Harold Ramis’ great line: “Black guys, help the white guys!” when the group was having trouble getting its rhythm together). Bill Murray, in an effort to rally the discouraged group, says something to the effect of: “We’re the United States Army! We’re 10 and 1!” (I would presume that Vietnam War veterans and families who lost loved ones there probably don’t find that very funny, but that’s another story for another day.) It’s a very funny line, if a bit rueful in its essence.

But that’s what comes to mind when I think of Israel’s recent agreement to the UN sponsored cease fire in its war with Hezbollah. After compiling a spotless record as a sovereign nation at war, they have now dropped to 5 – 1.  I was very disappointed in the Bush Administration’s role in pressuring Israel to accept the cease fire, in essence accepting defeat (which the US would never allow other countries to determine for itself) which is against its own best interests. Here’s what Israel gets: nothing. Zero. Nada. Nothing whatsoever. They didn’t even get their two soldiers back, only a promise to negotiate for them, which means swapping Palestinian prisoners known to be hostile to Israel. Although they did significant damage to Hezbollah’s ability to wage war (or terror, which is a better word for firing rockets loaded with ball bearings to indiscriminate cities full of innocent people), Israel didn’t even secure a commitment from the world (led by the inept and useless UN) to disarm Hezbollah. So now Hezbollah will be free to re-arm itself, replenish its supplies, and upgrade their weaponry. They will strike again when they’re ready, and no international force in southern Lebanon is going to stop them. In fact, any force in place will be complicit with Hezbollah’s re-arming as it will happen under their watch. It was a total loss militarily, and of face in the Arab world, for the Israelis.

Hezbollah won with the assistance of an increasingly anti-Semitic world, and a world with an ever-expanding loss of moral clarity, and a world strangely tilted towards appeasement to the terrorist Arab world (Iran, Syria, Hamas). The world was handed a golden opportunity to inflict a significant defeat to Hezbollah and to its two terrorist-sponsoring states, Syria and Iran. Even other major Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, who have long learned to co-exist with Israel, sat this one out and condemned the actions of Hezbollah. The world (and the US and Britain in particular) should have let the IDF do its job and destroy Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Given Israel’s track record in war, if they had been allowed to finish the job, Syria and Iran would have to think carefully about attempting something like that again. Now, because they know the UN and other nations will always stand against Israel, they will become bolder and bolder.

We will see this happen again sooner rather than later. Iran is dangerously close to acquiring nukes, and no one is doing anything about it. Why does the world continue to make the mistakes of appeasement? What good is history if nothing is ever learned from it?*

*In the interest of full disclosure, I’m quoting someone else here in that last sentence; I just don’t know who and I couldn’t find it.