I’d have to say that Hizbollah has “won”. Like it was pointed out, they’re still armed (and I don’t see that stopping any time immediately). The status of the kidnapped soldiers, whose disappearance caused this fiasco (debatable) makes me start to think that it’s not about them.
You know, come to think about it, I’d be warmer to Israel, with regards to this current conflict, if they went in, got the hostages, and left.
It was never primarily about those prisoners, getting them back would have been impossible.
It was the rockets that made them flip - and that is justifiable.
Firing /real/ rockets at Israeli civilians was guaranteed to get serious response, I don’t know whether Hezbollah anticipated that, but I don’t think that they really plan things.
Well they tried, and lost another five guys, after that they had no chance of getting them out.
If Hesbollah had accepted the first retaliation as tit for tat, then things would probably have settled down, instead they started chucking loads more rockets, with the inevitable results.
If you call ‘winning’ sitting in a complete toilet, with devastated infrastructure and 75% of Lebanese looking at you with utter disgust, then I suppose Hezbollah ‘won’.
I don’t think that Syria or Iran would like to ‘win’ in that sense.
TWEEEEEEET!
OK, everyone, let’s stick to discussing the issues and move away from “discussing” the manner of other posters’ submissions. Even given that no one posting to this thread will ever hear what the opposition has to say, it makes for a long, tedious read to have to wade through post after post of “Here is what you really said.” “No, it is not.”
If you think your post has been misunderstood, restate your own post more clearly instead of attacking the other poster.
[ /Moderating ]
I’m guessing Israel realized it was unlikely to rescue the hostages in a military operation. That kind of thing usually only works in movies. But the invasion of Hezbollah territory in Lebanon will most likely encourage Hezbollah to lower their demands in negotiations for their release and discourage future abductions. So the invasion did have an effect on hostage taking.
The problem with hostage taking is that if it works, there’s no reason not to do it again… and again… and again. What do they have to lose? If Israel hadn’t responded, attacks like the one that started this whole thing would have become weekly events.
Well, you did bring it up. 
But I agree…I think the Shebaa Farms IS just an excuse, and a poor one at that. And I also agree with your assessment that in light of the recent conflict Hezbollah support will most likely increase…in large part due to their ‘great victory’ over Israel.
Your other point about Lebanon’s perspective is certainly legitimate too. The other side of that however is Israel’s perspective. As in your analogy, the US would have a different take on terrorists starting conflicts from within Canada over some territory the US took from Mexico in a Mexican war of aggression. You, as a Canadian, would rightfully (from your perspective) blame the US for the bombings. The US on the other hand would have limited options unfortunately…after all, their first priority is their OWN citizens, who terrorist in your nation decided to lob rockets at.
-XT
Well, with the benefit of hindsight the very limited information that is available to us as members of the public, that would probably have been the better option.
Syria is a rancid little tin-pot dictatorship. They like anyone who will keep them in power, and currently the US is offering them the ‘democracy agenda’. Maybe GW could offer Assad and his cronies a guarantee of another 50 years in power - that would probably get them to switch sides. It seems to have worked for Mubarak and Hussein and Abdullah
Of course they have a plan. Build their popularity and power in the local area, and destroy Israel. Currently it looks to be going pretty well.
Looking pretty good? Really? Hamas won’t hand over the missing corporal unless they get a bunch of prisoners released, the IDF are shelling refugee camps, it looks pretty much as it has looked for the last few weeks - fucked up.
The Lebanese army will sit in their positions and very pointedly not go looking for any weapons. Hezbollah will make a point of not displaying their weapons or otherwise looking military unless the Israelis come back in. The allegedly “robust” international force will do exactly the same. Hezbollah will refill their weapons caches, recruit and train more fighters, improve their tactics as a result of their suceses and failures, spend millions of Iranian dollars buying their way even deeper into local society, and generally prepare for the next war. The only thing that has really changed is that everyone now knows Hezbollah are a tougher opponent than was thought - which will have to figure in the calculations when considering action against Iran, since that would probably trigger things off in Lebanon as well as in Iraq.
In my opinion, things are going better for Iran than they are for the US and Israel, but god only knows what’s really happening out there.
When I brought up occupation, I wasn’t talking about the Shebaa Farms. I meant the occupation of the “security zone” in southern Lebanon from 1982-2000 (and the more extensive occupation at the beginning of that timeframe).
While this is quite correct so far as it goes, Israel’s options were not restricted to either what it did do or doing nothing. There were a vast array of options between the two. If someone is shelling you with a mortar from the middle of the playground, the optimal response is neither doing nothing nor napalming the entire park (not that Israel’s response was quite that, I’m exaggerating for effect) - it’s taking out the guy with a sniper. I know, I know. Easier said than done. I realize talk is cheap when I’m nowhere near the actual conflict, but I really do believe that a campaign more focused on Hezbollah and less focused on the general Lebanese infrastructure would have done Israel far more good. For example, taking out the bridges north of Beirut might make trucking rockets in from Syria more difficult, but it also prevents far more mundane commercial traffic from flowing, which hurts all Lebanese without distinction, even (and perhaps especially) those who would love to see Hezbollah gone themselves.
Then things have improved for Israel. Before the invasion, Hezbollah was using their weapons to attack Israel. It appears Israel taught Hezbollah some manners.
My apologies then. I misunderheard what you were saying there. I’m sure you realize WHY Israel was occupying that territory, why they went into Lebanon in the first place, etc etc, so I won’t incorporate that into the analogy you were using. I’ll just point out once again that its a matter of perspective wrt threat, blame and anger.
-XT
Oh quite. Asking who started what in the region is much akin to asking whether the chicken preceded the egg. Don’t make me quote Stan Rogers again.
Indeed. Especially if the guy with the morter is surrounded by several thousand of his buddies armed with machineguns, anti-tank missiles, granades, radios and tons of high explosives. One guy with a sniper rifle just won’t cut it; in fact, an entire infantry division wouldn’t cut it without air support, not without losing hundreds or thounds on men in the process.
So, no.
But of course the targets in Lebanon were not restricted to military targets. The general infrastructure of the country was hit very heavily. Ostensibly this was to hurt Hezbollah’s logistics, but in actuality it will cripple the entire country economically while Hezbollah’s logistics will adapt. The damage to infrastructure hurts even the parts of Lebanon that hate and despise Hezbollah just as much as Israel does. Attacking one of the very few groups in the region that actually share some common interests with Israel just doesn’t seem very smart to me.
Starting to see what Finn means about analogies…
Its still not very accurate because you are missing some of the key things in your analogy. How about I fix it up for you?
Ok…the US in the distant future is involved in a world war, at the end of which, coming out on the losing side, it is disolved, its territories are divided among the winners. China and Australia divy up the various prizes in their neck of the woods. Australia, for reasons known only to itself take Hawaii and creates the Australian Territory of Hawaii.
Now, there are various groups of folks living in Hawaii. The majority are simply American’s of various ethnic backgrounds, but due to the instability of the political situation, coupled with the basic worthlessness of the land (we have to imagine this part) for agriculture in its present state, many of them have drifted away. The original native Hawaiians have begun a program of purchasing this land from the American’s who once lived there, and through effort and sacrifice have made that land productive again.
Ok, so there is another war and both the native Americans AND the Hawaiians give various aid to Australia (and also are a pain in the ass other times to the Aussies), and as a result both parties are given assurances that they will have (at some future point) soveriegn authority over their land. At the end of the conflict the UN decides to grant BOTH soveriegn authority by the creation of two separate nations, divided along ethnic lines. The native hawaiians are all for it of course, and agree to the provisions to divide things along ethnic lines, and also agree to allow those American’s who chose to stay in their territory full rights as citizens.
The original Americans however are not happy with this arrangement. For whatever reason several of the other polynesian islands in the area (who for some reason to keep this ridiculous analogy going are ALSO ethnically 'American) urge the American’s to NOT go along with this dastardly plan, and instead promise to invade Hawaii and wipe out the native hawaiians and give the American’s ALL the land. The Americans jump at the chance for the most part, fleeing their homes toward the ever victorious polynesian hordes. Except…the native Hawaiians, against all odds, defeat the combined might of polynesia and throw back the raging hordes.
Blah blah blah. Anyway, this would be a bit closer of an analogy than your own which left off the key pieces that the Jews WERE already living there, legally, that there WAS no Palestine, this being only a regional province of the old Ottoman empire, that the Palestinian ETHNIC people were given the option of their own homeland, divided from the Jewish state along ethnic lines, and that the Jews had already agreed that ethnic Palestinians in their territory WOULD get equal rights under the new Jewish state (or would have had they not done what they chose to do), etc etc.
Yeah, the analogy sucks because to combine the REAL stuff that ACTUALLY happened in '48 you have to really stretch reality to make it work in the US. And even then it doesn’t really work. Why not, instead of analogies we talk all decide to talk about what ACTUALLY happened sometime?
-XT
Depends on how you look at things I suppose. From my viewpoint…
Before: Hezbollah have thousands of rockets, thousands of guerillas, and a well-prepared local infrastructure, all ready to fight the Israelis whener they deem it appropriate.
After: Hezbollah have thousands of rockets, thousands of guerillas, and a well-prepared local infrastructure, all ready to fight the Israelis whener they deem it appropriate. They also have enough foreigners and Lebanese troops scattered around that Israel really can’t turn the place into a free-fire zone again without some really serious consequences.
In-between: Hezbollah pick a small fight that turns into a big one, fire thousands of rockets at Israel, destroy a noticeable number of military assets and kill a fair few people. Israel expends billions of dollars worth of ordnance, smashes most of southern Lebanon into rubble, gives the Hezbollah cadres a bit of battle experience, hands a giant propaganda coup to Hezbollah and Iran, convinces a fair number of people that the unholy trinity of Israel, the US and the UK are determined to turn the middle east into a collection of subjugated vassal states.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see with fingers crossed, but I’m even more pessimistic than I was before about the prospects for the ME.
Can you think of another plan that would have ended the rocket attacks?
Well, you’re living in a complete fantasy world if you think this ended the rocket attacks over any time frame longer than at most a few years.
The last opportunity to “win” against Hizbullah was on July 12, when they not only shot themselves in the foot, they blew the whole thing off by their initial unprovoked attack. Probably three-quarters of Lebanon were against them at that point.
Israel, not to be outdone, proceeded to shoot off its own entire leg 'cause, you know, they have bigger weapons.
I just finished reading a neat little summary from the Syrian POV of the consequences of this war. Makes for chilling reading.
As for stupidly arguing they ever had a chance against Hizbullah, here’s a neat one from The War Nerd.
It’s not like Israel didn’t have experience fighting Hizbullah. Why they chose to repeat the same stupid mistakes over again is something I find completely, utterly baffling.
True enough…I’m fairly sure this is only a breather between rounds. Might not even be a few years.
Same old horseshit about Israel’s ‘unprovoked attack’ I see. :smack: Did you actually bother READING your own War Nerd cite? Or did you post it but not agree with it? According to your own cite Hezbollah provoked the attack, and the Lebanese were ALREADY against Israel and with Hezbollah (demographics and all that). Now, I myself found much of that bullshit…but YOU posted it so presumably you had a reason.
Might have chilled you…smelled like bullshit and propaganda to me, another politician mouthing off. Have you perhaps been hiding under a rock for the last few decades that you’ve never heard similar speeches…especially from pol’s in the Middle East? I recall the Iraqi’ regime confidently claiming that the US had been repulsed at the border, with heavy, even catestrophic casualities…at the same time tanks were rolling through Bagdad.
I especially like the part about Syria launching an open war against Israel to retake the Golan Heights. If your buddy the War Nerd is right, should be a piece of cake, no? :dubious: Not that I’m holding my breath for Syria to openly attack Israel, but wth…it makes for a great speech to the masses I’m sure.
Right, 'cause this guy is THE authority on all things military. And his assessment of the IDF as a bunch of pussies is, of course, completely accurate and without flaw I’m sure. This wasn’t exactly what I’d call an indepth and unbiased assessment of the IDF, nor an accurate portrayal of the actual situation.
Um…did you actually READ your War Nerd cite above? According to him Hezbollah deliberately provoked Israel into attacking (sort of going contrary to your above ‘unprovoked attack’ claim, ehe?) because they were in a no-lose situation. If Israel did nothing (which seems to be what you advocate) they win. If Israel attacks and is repelled, they win. If Israel comes in and does what it must (he DOES detail what they would have needed to do fairly accurately), then they STILL win. So, according to your cite, no matter WHAT Israel does its doomed to lose.
While I find much of his screed pure BS (or perhaps conjecture tinged and perhaps tainted with biggotry), his main points that Israel and more importantly Israeli citizens hate casualities, that Israel ALSO (ironically) dislikes bad press and caves to world pressure, and that Israel really didn’t have a clear strategy or the will to do what needed to be done to REALLY drive out Hezbollah from Southern Lebanon were, if not spot on, at least in the ball park of reality.
Leaving aside all that though, do you by any stretch of the imagination believe that your two, um, cites constitute an unbiased assessment? One is an obviously political propaganda piece/speech full of rah! RAH! type bullshit, the other about as biased a screed on the IDF as I can imagine. And from this you are drawing your conclusions?
-XT