Posted on 08/12/2006 9:20:24 PM PDT by familyop
Many pundits in Washington, among them supporters of Israel, anticipated better results from the month-long war against Hizbullah.
They were hoping for Israel to put Iran and Syria on the defensive by using IDF military might to eradicate Hizbullah much faster. Some have already concluded that this was an opportunity squandered.
The truth is that the last month has not been "a walk in the park" for Israel. We have been fighting a ruthless, well-armed and well-trained, albeit small, army that has spent the last six years preparing for this war while we have been busy on many other fronts.
Nevertheless, those in Washington who are disappointed with the results should consider a list of dividends that America has received from our campaign: First and foremost, Israel has sent a loud and clear message that any terrorist entity that carries out an act of aggression will pay a heavy price.
Moreover, we have proven that a "spoiled" Western society, as Hizbullah perceived Israel, can withstand barrages of rocket-fire on its civilians and still maintain an unfaltering resolution to stand up and fight.
Second, by exerting heavy military pressure on Hizbullah and the Lebanese government, we forced the collapse of Nasrallah's strategy that was based on unaccountability and terror-deterrence.
In so doing, we created the necessary conditions to compel the international community to take long-overdue measures to implement earlier UN resolutions that the free world hopes will ultimately turn Lebanon into an accountable, sovereign nation.
If this happens, Syria and Iran would be the main losers of this war. Security Council Resolution 1701 approved Friday is the direct result of that pressure, and now it is up to the international community to ensure that it is implemented.
Third, we helped people across the globe world understand the extent of the threat that Iranian radicalism poses to the entire free world, and why it is so important to prevent it from becoming a nuclear power.
Fourth, we exposed Syria's role in supporting terror - both by facilitating the transport of Iranian weapons to Hizbullah, and by supplying its own heavy, long-range rockets and other weaponry to this terror organization. You might be surprised to know that until this war, the international community had refused to acknowledge that Syria supplied these rockets to Hizbullah.
Fifth, we have shown how irresponsible the Russians were in supplying Syria with state-of-the-art weapons that have ended up in the hands of Hizbullah.
And finally, we helped the world to better understand the dangers posed by Hizbullah's fundamentalist brainwashing machine. In terms of the systematic and deliberate killing of civilians, the difference between Iranian-sponsored Hizbullah and Nazi Germany is that while the SS sought to conceal its deeds - including from German society - Hizbullah proudly proclaims its successes in killing Jewish civilians. This stream of distorted Islamist extremism is cut from the same cloth of twisted ideology to which the planners of the thwarted terror attacks on airliners flying out of London subscribe.
This is a short list of what Israel has achieved in the last month. These significant, concrete advances should go a long way to satisfying those wondering what Israel has done lately for those who live in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
The writer is a brigadier-general and former head of IDF Military Intelligence's research department.
I think we'll see very soon who is right and who is wrong. Israel, I think, will pass a no-confidence motion to bring down the Olmert government within the next few weeks.
As well they should.
Killing?
A part of me thinks that European and American leaders must be somehow stockpiling energy to prevent the disloications that would come from sudden withdrawal of the Iranian oil teat. There is no way to overestimate the impact of the Russian wake up call on Europe when Putin turned off the gas to Ukraine last winter. Everyone realized that dependance on irrational and irresponsible dictators is complete folly.
I think it is very wrong and mostly self-aggrandizing on the part of the press to keep arguing that perception is reality. Furthermore, usually, the "world opionion" that I see cited is usually a creation of the BBC.
Journalists sometimes say that they are the first draft of history. I saw a historian on c-span once who said that if you go to the WWII musueums at Normandy and look at the newspaper coverage, you will see that the reports were all wrong. This comes from having a narrow. today, focus that does not lend itself to analysis. Journalists is spend too much time pretending that they can predict the future. Only when the story is over can objective analysts go back and sort how the end result came about.
World opinion, such as it is, has about as much impact on what will now happen on the ground in S. Lebanon as it has on whether the volcano will explode in the Phillippines. That is none, and that is as it should be.
All my life, 65% of the American p0opulation has not been able to say on any given day who the veep is, as Jay Leno frequently demonstrates.
Citations of world opinion are fatuous propaganda, imho. Most of the people in the world are not only not engaged, but they are limited both by their access to information but also by the inability to think logically and critically
Surely, the aura of quick invincibility of the IDF has been damaged by the seeming indecisiveness. However, right now there is no way Hamas escapes alive, save by mercy of Israel. We will see. Casey yesterday said war is action, reaction,counteraction meaning that those who think some magic plan is needed don't understand the adaptability of enemies fighting for their lives and for hearth and home. Those who think that pictures of children in newspapers in other countries are important forget that Israeli fathers are fighting for their own families and homes, not just watching something on TV.
Finally, I think all this high level international posturing at the UN and international media coverage may actually do a lot of harm by tieing the hands of a country's leaders. imho we have helped emasulate Europe with our security umbrella and may have done the same to Israel.
I am not attracted by the title of Fiasco, though I will look at it when I get a chance. I did notice that it is #1, but I also saw that Freakonomics is #3. While part of the later was interesting, most of it was just partisan junk.
Hamas? You meant Hezbollah?
Anyway, both Hamas and Hezbollah are grass root organizations representing the ethnic groups from which they originated. If you "destroy" them, the new organizations will sprung same way as Hamas replaced PLO.
"This statement bespeaks a mind completely addled with prejudice and ignorance."
Really ? So how in your opinion Israel could conquer Iran ?
Prolonged foreign entanglements lead republics to change into imperial monarchies with the republican facade.
In fact me mined the harbor for a period of 10 months and bombed both the city and rail lines going into Hanoi. It didn't work. They discovered for one thing the Vietnamese would move things by bicycle if deprived of fuel and for another that supplies were coming from thousands of dispersed cottage industry style factories.
What would have worked was cutting the Ho Chi Minh trail, but that couldn't be done with air power even though it was attempted the entire war. I know many people are fond of the "politicians wouldn't let us win" refrain but it simply wasn't so.
---h?f?ng?, city (1989 pop. 1,447,523), NE Vietnam, on a large branch of the Red River delta c.10 mi (20 km) from the Gulf of Tonkin. It is connected with the sea by a narrow access channel that requires continual dredging. A major port of Vietnam and one of the largest ports in SE Asia, Haiphong was developed (1874) by the French and became the chief naval base of French Indochina. A shipbuilding industry and cement, glass, porcelain, and textile works were established by the French. At the beginning of the French-Indochina War (Nov., 1946), French naval vessels shelled the city, killing c.6,000 Vietnamese. After the French departed and the state of North Vietnam was created (1954), the silted-up harbor was reconstructed with Chinese and Soviet aid, and the docks and shipbuilding yards were repaired and modernized. The old French cement plant was enlarged, and fish-canning, chemical-fertilizer, machine-tool, and additional textile industries were established. During the Vietnam War, Haiphong was severely bombed by the United States; the shipyards and the industrial section of the city were devastated, rail connections with Hanoi were disrupted, and thousands of homes were destroyed. The harbor was mined by U.S. naval planes in May, 1972, and effectively sealed until the mines were swept by U.S. forces after the cease-fire agreement in 1973. Reconstruction, while slow, was aided by the dismantling and relocation of many of the factories during the bombings; when returned to Haiphong, much of the machinery was able to function in ruined structures. Haiphong has been substantially rebuilt; a steel plant was built there in the mid-1990s.---
http://www.questia.com/library/encyclopedia/haiphong.jsp?l=H&p=1
That was more a gesture to get the North Vietnamese back to the bargaining table. If you are 'bargaining' you have not won the war. A 'cease fire' is only a victory if you are losing.
I'll further maintain that if Congress had continued to fund the South, they might have had an effective enough air force to take advantage of the massed troops and armor which eventually swept south. Either way, the decisions were political, not military ones.The Viet Namese Communitst were already known for moving the impossible by primitive means, that's how they got artillery pieces into position to shell Dien Bien Phu, and every round fired got up the hills the same way.
Well, militarily or politically we never managed to stop the flow of men and materials into South Vietnam. And once the Chinese committed to the fight in Korea we could not stop the flow of men and equipment either. In both cases we settled for reduced objectives.
My point in all this is that until we commit to defeating the Iranian Islamic Republic victory in Iraq or Lebanon will remain elusive. In Iraq foreign fighters are flowing in both from the border with Iran and Syria. In Lebanon what's the point of reducing the Hizzies to a grease spot at great cost, if they just grow back in another 5 years?
Iran must be destroyed.
Following that line of thinking to its erroneous conclusion, we are all doomed to live in the sewers with rats and vermin. This is not really a question of ethnic determinism, at all.
Iirc, LeMay wanted to nuke the Chinese (we could have helped Chiang defeat Mao, too) if they crossed the Yalu. That was nixed by politicians.
It really does not matter what we are militarily capable of, if we lack the political will to use that capability.
In this instance, in the war against the terrorist element of Islam, we are being neutered by our own press, cowing spineless politicians at will. Even the subtle weakness of the current government in Israel, a State which has always been steadfast in its own defense is an example. Doctored images and staged slaughter have been used to halt an effective campaign, followed up with unanticipated materiel technology (probably courtesy of Iran), in a one-two punch to make the will of their Government waver. Frankly, I am shocked that a nation on the razor's edge of terrorism would be cowed thus and I anticipate a change of government there. The alternative is to place their nation at risk.
Just as in our instance, the alternative to the full, continued, and unwavering prosecution of the war on terrorist Islam is to place our nation, our safety, and our way of life at risk as well.
There is no substitute for victory.
Our 'negotiated ceasefire' in Korea has left the world with a loose end and a loose cannon in North Korea, our failure to continue to fight in Viet Nam caused the slaughter of hundreds of thousands directly, and more later in the purges of Pol Pot.
But that was "somewhere else", not here at home, and all too easily ignored by the press...and the people.
This time, the stakes are our wives and daughters, our sons, our towns, and our lives. It may not be at that point yet, but if we fail, if we falter in our resolve, it will be.
Our enemies will not settle for less than our complete destruction or dhimmitude. They will call for no 'cease fire' unless it is to provide them with a military advantage, and then only long enough to suit their purposes.
Unless you have stared Islam in its true face, you might be inclined to think there is a possibility of negotiations, of lessening the resolve of those who would harm us. Be ye not decieved.
There is no separation of church and state in Islam, sharia is the law, defined by religious leaders. There is no negotiation, what is written is written.
There is no easy way out of the situation both Israel and the U.S. face. It will be a long hard war against an enemy who will seek to use every trick to turn world opinion against us--remember, it is fully acceptable for Muslims to lie to infidels.
The sooner Americans realize this, the better.
Unfortunately, we have become as accustomed to capitulation in the guise of a "negotiated settlement" as the French we so often decry, hoping the problem will somehow go away. It won't.
In this we agree: Iran, or at a minimum, the current regime, must be destroyed by whatever means necessary, but that is just a good start.
"rats and vermin"? Lebanese Shias are as you human as you are. No more, no less. And you in there place YOU would fight too.
"Really ? So how in your opinion Israel could conquer Iran?"
Polish prejudice against Jews is so deeply ingrained that you fail to see anti-Semitism when it is hitting you right in the face.
You once asked me why Jews hate Poles so very much. I think you have at least a part of your answer.
Could you write at least one post without showing your zoological anti-Polonism and tell us how Israel could conquer Iran?
I understand your point. If only there would be more Polands then world would be more enlightened :)
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