The media must view Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip as a bloodless video game. Why else demand “pinpoint accuracy” of Israeli counterattacks against indiscriminately fired Palestinian rockets from launching pads hidden in schools and mosques and hospitals?

Israel must constantly guard its small country against neighbors seeking its destruction. How tolerant would the media be if another nation launched rockets into the U.S.? Or dug tunnels intended for terror raids?

In 1945, the U.S. firebombed Dresden, destroying the entire city and killing 25,000. No complaining about collateral damage, for the objective was single-minded: to win the war. The U.S. dropped not one but two atomic bombs on Japan, vaporizing two cities and killing 210,000. No lamenting the dead, for the objective was not to incur a million Allied casualties while invading the Japanese homeland.

There are many who want the U.S. to invade eastern Ukraine, ignoring that Russian President Vladimir Putin has set a fly trap for precisely that purpose: to create an excuse for Russia’s invasion. Then what? Pinpoint accuracy in a war with the Russians? Others want to reinvade Iraq. What’s next? Pinpoint accuracy against Muslim/ ISIL fanatics?

War is total hell and must always be avoided. But when you’re forced into a war, there is no way out. War is not a video game you win scoring points by saving lives. War ends only when one side is unable or unwilling to continue. The winning side prevails because it inflicts the most damage, be it physical or psychological.

Fred Teeboom

Nashua

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