Posted on 07/21/2006 10:12:59 PM PDT by BurbankKarl
An Israeli soldier maneuvers an armored personnel carrier at their position along the Israeli Lebanese border. Israel was amassing thousands more reservists on the Lebanese border to stage ground incursions aimed at destroying Hezbollah positions, warning it would not rule out a full-scale invasion despite mounting calls for a ceasefire.
An interesting peice of information that surfaced a few weeks ago re the Iranian nuclear program. Of course the veracity of this info is very hard to assess:
Something like that, yes. These days the satellites need satellites to keep track of all the secret goings-in.
Has anybody else heard this news, or is my husband hearing voices (again)? :^)
No, it seems that Israel has been operating inside Lebanon for a few days now. According to newscasts here in Sweden Israeli forces are occupying two Lebanese villages and has done so for at least a day.
Since the news are always behind the events it is likely that further advances have taken place.
10:47 Sirens sound in Haifa (Israel Radio)
Nothing further.
I can't wait to read the after-action reports about this so get the real info!
I intended no slight to your granddaughter or any member of our armed services...that is the last thing I would want..my apologies for offending you.
One of the Iraqis is now watching al Jazeera and al Manar TV here and translating the B.S. for us. We're just doing it for a lark.
They are talking about the Israelis massing troops on the border.
I hope the story in your link is true. As you say, one can never really know.
But it's interesting that Iran keeps yapping but nothing ever really seems to happen. I'm beginning to think Ahmedinejad is a drama queen who craves attention.
You like that one did you? I think it fits
'nough ranting.
Stay safe!
"This is not murder..this is war.. for the survival of rthe Western world"
I agree 100% with this and the rest of your post. Shock and Awe was shocking...because it was less frightening than a fireworks display. The only thing that would have shocked the people of Iraq would have been an attack that killed hundred of thousands of people. They lived under the terror of Saddam. They witnessed mass murder and WMDs. Muslims kill each other at the drop of a hat and they kill infidels for no reason. Why would anyone think the Iraqis (and the rest of islam, for that matter) would be in shock over a mediocre foreworks display? The last massive military actions that were effective took place in WWII. Everything since has been conducted by the WH, State Department and Congress in such a way as to not offend anyone. War is ugly and it has to be offensive to be effective. Those on the front line in the military are shackled and they are the ones who pay the price...and it offends me that our leaders CAUSE unneccesary deaths of these dedicated military...islam is right: our leaders have become afraid to fight. Their fear is not of the actual fight but it is the fear of public opinion.
Can anyone explain:
What is less "offensive" about killing 10,000 people with bullets in hand-to-hand combat versus killing 10,000 people with a massive bomb dropped in the center of a large city?
Shock and Awe was a joke within a joke, there were more levels to it than met the eye.
"Shock and Awe" is one phrase from a new way of looking at warfare, a doctrine called Rapid Dominance.
The theory behind rapid dominance is to get inside the enemy's mind, to understannd what events lead to an enemy believing he is losing, to create that perception in his mind throgh a non-linear battlespace.
A very rough analogy, you are behind the bar, duking it out with a guy roughly your size, and all of a sudden twelve of his friends show up, or he lands a kick on your thigh, you hear a snap and go down, your leg numb and unresponsive.
'
Under either of those conditions, the battle has suddenly gone from a known and expected process, to a situation where you are in imminent danger of losing.
The loss of momentum, the feeling that the fight is going against you is largely a part of your perception that you have lost irreplaceable assets or advantage, a perception that may not be any part of reality.
Your leg may be fine, just numb for a bit, and the 12 guys may just be looking for their car.
Rapid Dominance is about identifying your enemy's assets, things or capabilities that he values, , and taking them away, all of a sudden, to create in his mind an inevitability, a feeling that he cannot win, that defeat is a certainty, and delivering those blows to him simultaneausly, or as nearly simultaneausly as possible, using a combination of precision guided munitions and information superiority to attack nopt necessarily his massed forces, but his own concept of whatever tools he holds that in his mind, allow him a chance at victory.
The concept is good, and in Iraq, it worked well, as far as it was implemented. But the media got hold of the idea, and focused on "Shock and Awe" and when a relatively minor part of the total puzzle unfolded right in front of their eyes, the bombing of Baghdad, they saw this, reported it as "Shock and Awe", and completely missed the main battles which were the more important part of the doctrine.
The US, in order to put one shooter on the front line, fields 12 to 17 support and combat service support people behind the lines to enable the shooter to do his job. Imagine taking out half or three quarters of those support personnel, all at once. Clearly the line troops are now significantly degraded in their ability to carry the fight to the enemy. What used to take minutes, say to feed coordinates to artillery or CAS, now takes hours or days.
This was the true value of what the Media called "Shock and Awe", and there is a definite military advantage to taking out the command apparatus, all the paperwork and the tools the paper pushers use, like at the Intelligence Service headquarters or RGFC headquarters, even in a target that helps implements political decisions, like Baath Party HQ.
However, this was only a tiny part of Rapid Dominance, the rst of which you never saw, or which was never reported as part of the overall doctrine.
There-in lies the joke within the joke.
While the reporters were crying and moaning about the "operational pause" during the shamal storm, and every retired general who was for sale appeared on TV, telling the world we were losing, during that "darkest hour" we were actually accomplishing the very core of what we went to Iraq to do.
When an enemy disperses and digs in, you are presented with two choices. PGM each and every foxhole until they are all destroyed, or you stick an armored column in his face, threaten something he must defend, in this case, Baghdad itself. At this point he must coalesce, assemble out of hius fortified positions and stand in your way, or else concede defeat.
This is precisely what happened, all according to plan, all according to doctrine.
The Iraqi army decided to use the cover of the storm to reinforce his front lines. The Medina division was blocking 3ID's path to Baghdad, and the Baghdad Division of the RGFC was blocking 1MEF 's path to Baghdad, and under the cover of the storm, te Hammurabi Division was sent to reinforce the Medina, and the Adnan Division was sent to reinforce the Baghdad Division.
The Iraqis were re-fighting ODS, and knew that laser designators were not able to be used when visibility from the blowinng sand made it impossible to paint targets.
Only what the Iraqis knew, was wrong.
Between thermal imaging, and GPS guided munitions, we saw exactly where these mobile units were and our air force fell on them.
In the space of as little as 24 hours, 4 armmored or mechanized Republican Guards Divisions, 4 out of seven, or more than half, went from 100% combat effective to dead in their tanks, all of them, all four divisions combat ineffective, in one day.
The media never saw any of this, never put the pieces together, and the US military, realizing that a vital capability, the ability for a very few aircraft to take out entire brigades of armored vehicles in a single sortie, was still a secret. The military decided not to enlighten the media, the story never got reported, and today, the average person on the street think the same way about "Shock and Awe" as the media does, bombing empty buuildings, and the enemy gets away to return and fight later.
But what actually happened was, Rapid Dominance worked too well. Way too well.
When the remaining elements of Iraqi command realized that four entire divisions had vanished in a single day, more than half of their only real army, the Republican Guards, no longer existed, they cut and ran. When the orders stopped coming down from above, the frontline troops took off their uniforms, threw away their rifles, and melted back into the civilian population.
Rapid Dominance was so successful, that instead of capturing their army, after the main units were vaporized, the rest of it vanished like smoke.
Shock and Awe, a vital part of that hyper successful doctrine, was completely mis-reported as being the bombardment of Baghdad, and misreported as being the whole doctrine when in reality it was only one piece of the puzzle, got a bad rap induced by media near-sightedness, and media ignorance.
Nothing new, nothing new there at all. While our troops werwe winning the war, the most critical battle of all, the media was telling the whole world we had already lost. The military, always aware that Iraq was but one battle in the War on Terror, decided to let the meida get it wrong deliberately, saving our Sunday punch for another fight later on.
Iran speaks of surprises?
Iran has no idea of what surprise really entails, but they will learn.
The hard way.
;-)
Has anybody else heard this news, or is my husband hearing voices (again)? :^)
We're hearing everything from the Israelis are already in southern Lebanon to they are massed on the border. But none of the sources are particularly credible.
As of last night, I now have a very clear signal to Fox News in my living quarters. It's much better than only having CNN International. ;-)
What a GREAT reply! thank you, I wish I were younger and they'd take me in.
Mike Tobin, Fox, reported Israeli naval activity. I missed most of his report. Update should be at top of the hour (shortly).
It was reported here, more than 24 hours ago, that Israel has three divisions (10-20,000 men each) on the border and a fourth division on the way.
It was also reported here that more than 5 brigades (1/3 of a division each) of IDF was across the border.
It was also reported here more than 48 hours ago, that Israel would implement a news blackout from the front areas, and it appears to me that this is true. All reports from the front are vague and /or coming from Lebanese sources. Haaretz is reporting about captures of criminals.
From here, you can use your own judgement to decide what is happening or is not happening.
I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.
;-)
I will say this....Hezbollah says it has lost 100 men, and Hezbollah lies, on the light side.
I thought it was the Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Dan Halutz who told reporters that in the last days 100 Hezbollahs had been killed:
Halutz said that close to 100 Hezbollah gunmen have been killed over the course of the IDF offensive.
"At this time, I can say that many rocket launchers have been destroyed, terror infrastructures have been destroyed and also nearly 100 Hezbollah terrorists have been killed, from all levels and all ranks," Halutz said. "We will not publish names we know of."
"Fighting against Hezbollah is taking a heavy toll on [the group]," the army chief said. "The fact is that they avoid publishing the number of their losses, the names of their men that were killed, and the fact that they feed the press dishonest information [shows] they are disconnected from reality."
Have the Hezbollah ackowledged this it is really good news, because as you said they would lie on the light side.
If you liked that, you'll really like reading the Rapid Dominance doctrine itself, with commentary from Gen. Fred Franks, commander of ODS VII Corps, and Gen. Chuck Horner, DCINC and CDR of all air force units ODS.
It's is here, for free, scroll down for the Table of Contents links:
http://www.ndu.edu/inss/books/books%20-%201996/Shock%20and%20Awe%20-%20Dec%2096/
Follow that up with Gen. Tommy Frank's book, and you will see what really happened in Iraq, as opposed to what the media wants you to think, and begin to get an idea of what may being going on behind the scenes today, leading up to other arenas.
You'll have to buy that one.
As a limited, one time only offer, you can read this account, which explains how ODS and OIF were really fought and won in 5 minutes, also free:
http://www.sci.fi/~fta/storm-01.htm
I saw it from Hezbollah. Not sure where, but they were going on about what great martyrs the deaders were, and IDF is unlikely to say stuff like that.
Absolutely!
LOL!
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