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If U.S. Tactics Are OK, Why Not for Israel?
(Newsday) Edwin Black - In Afghanistan, American bombers, Predator drones, and gunships incessantly bombed suspected Taliban and al Qaeda wherever they were discovered - in a cave, in a hut, on a mountaintop - all on the other side of the world. Israel is fighting a similar war for survival but right down the street. Yet there seems to be a triple standard at play. America can assassinate and decapitate, send in gunships and missiles, surround and lock down whole towns, and round up and detain suspects by the hundreds in its war on terror - creating one standard. Hamas, in the minds of some, is engaged in mere "rogue resistance" and its bus bombs and murder squads should be overlooked as incidental to polite roadmap discourse - thus creating a second standard. At the same time, Israel is expected to exhibit restraint and not fight back as vigorously and pre-emptively as America does - creating a third standard. Such restraint is as absurd as it is self-destructive.