Israel bombs The Lebanon

Tsiangkun · Post by **Tsiangkun** » 16 Aug 2006 15:50

hezbollah won this battle.

They lasted 30 days against the most militant country in the region.

Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, announced this week that the group would pay $10,000 (£5,300) compensation to each of the 15,000 families who lost their homes in the fighting.

"This is an [American] administration that adopts the principle of pre-emptive war that is absolutely contradictory to the principle of peace, consequently, we don't accept peace soon or in the foreseeable future", Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

Chalk this one up as another success in foreign policy for team Bush.

Bander87 · Post by **Bander87** » 17 Aug 2006 19:42

How did hezbollah win the battle? I'm not challenging your post as I've heard the same, just questionitive. Are they claiming victory on the basis that they survived?

And do they really have 150 million to spend?

Outsider · Post by **Outsider** » 18 Aug 2006 07:43

Bander87 asked:

How did hezbollah win the battle? I'm not challenging your post as I've heard the same, just questionitive. Are they claiming victory on the basis that they survived?

The way I would interpret all this is that, yes, in a way Hezbollah is the victor here based somewhat simply on their continued survival. Not so much just survival, really, but on their ability to continue to opperate effectively throughout. One of Israel's primary goals was to destory or at least greatly reduce Hezbollah's ability to send rockets into Israel. Israel claimed to have destoyed most of Hezbollah's medium and long range rocket capabilities (the more sophisticated and harder to opperate stuff that could send rockets all the way to Tel Aviv), but they (Israel) clearly were not able to suppress Hezbollah's ability to send its shorter range stuff into at least one major population center (the city of Haifa). Hezbollah was still able to send about 150 rockets a day into the northern third of Israel on the the last few days before the cease-fire, a number almost as great as at any time during the conflict.

Their resistance to the Israeli incursion was also significantly more effective than most people had expected, and they at least claimed to have destroyed numerous Israeli tanks. This is significant in a couple of ways: first, a smaller and much less well armed force withstood the assault of a much larger force with all the heavy artillery, armor, and air support they could want, and in so doing, while not exactly coming out ahead, they did come out better than most expected them to -- their reputation is much improved. Israel, on the other hand, has, in the past, rolled over most of their enemies in unusually short amounts of time, and that was clearly not the case here. Israel, while not routed or defeated, simply faired much worse than most expected them to. Their reputation is diminished.

This matter of the Israeli reputation is in fact very significant, from a certain point of view. That view says something like this: Israel has appeared to be totally unbeatable on the battlefield in the past. If their neighbors perceive Israel as unbeatable in battle, they will eventually have to accept a negotiated peace. If those other countries feel that they can simply defeat Israel in battle instead and eventually just chase all the Israelis away, why would they even bother to ever negotiate a peace? The outcome of this last month is a fairly significant blow to that position. It could obviously seem to give greater credibility to those who argue against a negotiated peace.

Hezbollah could probably also claim a victory in all this on another couple of important fronts as well: in the media and the Lebanese court of public opinion. I think Hezbollah did a superb job of getting the media to see the conflict the way they wanted it to be seen, littlegreenfootballs.com and other stuff like it not withstanding. That stuff may be true, and it may be seen, but its too little too late. And as for the public opinion, I would say that another of Israel's major objectives was to put pressure on the Lebanese, to turn public opinion in Lebanon against Hezbollah, to try to make the Lebanese feel that Hezbollah was inviting disaster into Lebanon. For several reasons I doubt this will work. I also doubt any Lebanese or UN force will implement UN Resolution 1559 and disarm Hezbollah. Israel is basically going to get virtually nothing from this ceasefire except time to examine its mistakes.

And do they really have 150 million to spend?

Yeah, probably. Some estimate that Hezbollah has been receiving at least 100 million annually from Iran, maybe double that. They'll probably get even more in the future. Additionally, some say that Iran's support is only a fraction of the donations they get world-wide from other sources, and there is evidence to suggest that Hezbollah is involved in several illegal businesses to raise more money, such as drug trafficing and various kinds of fraud.

HighDemonslayer · Post by **HighDemonslayer** » 22 Aug 2006 10:31

Excellent analysis, Outsider.

By most measures, Israel lost.

Their leadership looks weak; the army complains of supply problems.

Hezbollah looks like a model, that anyone can use, for funneling money and men to fight Israel, and it's population.

The momentum should dictate that many more missiles and rockets should be prepared to strike Israel again.

One wonders what level of bombardment Israel will tolerate, before a they use a nuke.

Israel, after all, doesn't have to be destroyed all at once.
There has to be some level of losses, that will lock them into a demographic death-spiral , if not locked in already.

Also, in hindsight, how does this campaign demonstrate how effective Hezbollah would be able to operate in other nations, Europe or the U.S. for example?

-n

Bander87 · Post by **Bander87** » 30 Aug 2006 18:00

I'm reading that hezbollah is handing out counterfeit american currency.

http://aei.org/publications/pubID.24830 ... detail.asp

HighDemonslayer · Post by **HighDemonslayer** » 30 Aug 2006 18:09

Quiet! We are supposed to love Nasrallah.

The truth shouldn't get in the way.

-n

sergio · Post by **sergio** » 02 Sep 2006 03:52

The Indendent front cover of the 21st of July

\

MP George Galloway interview:
http://news.sky.com/skynews/video/video ... 06,00.html
I'm not saying I agree with everything he says or with the tone he uses, but he says some very interesting things..

Outsider · Post by **Outsider** » 02 Sep 2006 07:45

I'm not saying I agree with everything he says or with the tone he uses, but he says some very interesting things

Would you care to tell us exactly which of his points are so interesting, because I don't feel like listening to his ranting again. He sounded like a Hezbollah spokesman with a Scottish accent. Too weird and annoying for my ears.

BainbridgeShred · Post by **BainbridgeShred** » 02 Sep 2006 17:02

I'll admit he does bring up some good points, but it's like he doesn't want to acknowledge Lebanon's mutual aggression and unjustifed killing of civilians. I hate partisans.

Outsider · Post by **Outsider** » 02 Sep 2006 18:55

Just what are these good points you keep referring to? Speak them aloud so that we may talk about these good points and interesting things.

sergio · Post by **sergio** » 02 Sep 2006 21:59

BainbridgeShred wrote:I'll admit he does bring up some good points, but it's like he doesn't want to acknowledge Lebanon's mutual aggression and unjustifed killing of civilians. I hate partisans.

Not Lebanon's, Hezbollah's!!!

BainbridgeShred · Post by **BainbridgeShred** » 02 Sep 2006 22:40

Right, Hezbollah, not Lebanon. Either way, it seems most of the Lebonese support Hezbollah, so what's the difference.

Outsider, when I'm sobered up I'll rewatch the video and list some of the points that I agreed with.

sergio · Post by **sergio** » 03 Sep 2006 04:52

BainbridgeShred wrote:Right, Hezbollah, not Lebanon. Either way, it seems most of the Lebonese support Hezbollah, so what's the difference.

You can't imagine how much that statement is outrageous. From my point of view, you just lost every bit of credibility debating that issue..
The Lebanese government did not take part in the conflict, and the Lebanese army did not fire one shot.
Lebanese people supported Hezbollah because Israel bombed their country. Before the war, Hezbollah was not supported at all by the Lebanese people except in the poor chiite regions in the south. I'm going to write a longer post shortly. I'm at work right now and can't spend more time on that.

BainbridgeShred · Post by **BainbridgeShred** » 03 Sep 2006 09:58

So basically most Lebanoese support Hezbollah now?

Tsiangkun · Post by **Tsiangkun** » 04 Sep 2006 20:58

HighDemonslayer · Post by **HighDemonslayer** » 05 Sep 2006 19:21

I was going to pose an endgame "after Israel" type question scenario, but decided to tack on another question:

1. If Israel "loses" the war, and dissolves as a nation..... perhaps from an expanded conflict, or a new series of missile attacks, should your country deny the surviving Israelis refuge, on the basis of them being a "target", which will bring peril to the host country?

2. Are western nations like Israel, Britain, France, Germany, USA incapable of defeating small armies using Hezbollah-like tactics?

If either of these sound interesting, fire away, or attack me.

-n

HighDemonslayer · Post by **HighDemonslayer** » 06 Sep 2006 13:25

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/P ... 2bqwjn.asp

Here's a story about the U.N. providing detailed troop movements and descriptions of Israeli army units.

Apparently, they provided no details about Hezbollah units.

-n

Robert wojci · Post by **Robert wojci** » 15 Sep 2006 16:10

hey thats really interesting, im not sure if un was right in witholding those tapes, because of not to start a conflict or whatever. aybe they couldnt get accurate info on hezbollah

here's my question

obviously hezbollah is a terrorist organization but was it absolutely terrible that they won, does it mean terrorist organizations will feel braver and maybe have more power? Or is it good, will israel realize they arent the dominant masters, and take hamas and hezbollah seriously and all act as more equal countries/organizations and/or will isreal stop bullying? and will all live and let live?

dyalander · Post by **dyalander** » 17 Sep 2006 18:08

I don't think theres been any fundamental change - its like a flame war on a forum, it often just runs its course and the participants continue to harbour the same resentements and surprise surprise a few weeks late the same dudes are flaming each other in a different thread.