"No Rules = No Restraint"

Gail at Crossing the Rubicon links to this must-read post at Treppenwitz called "Let the enemy decide the rules" in which he says, "By the time this is posted the so-called 'prisoner swap' will have been completed. But we really need to be honest about this… it wasn't really a prisoner swap. Prisoners are alive. Only monsters hold dead bodies for ransom… and only fools trade live prisoners for dead bodies.....When attacked by a wild animal you don't negotiate or ask what rules it wants to use in the fight. You strike it down without mercy and without remorse. If you are attacked by a pack of wild animals you fight savagely and without restraint until all of them are dead or neutralized. To do otherwise doesn't mean facing ignominious defeat. It means you move down the food chain and become an entrée! The only way Israel can regain its deterrence in the region after this recent debacle is to make it clear to all that, from this day forward, we will play by whatever rules our enemies are willing to honor."