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I'm flabbergasted to say they were not ready, despite the fact that they could literally see Hezbollah building fortifications.

Even with more adequate preparation and training, taking out fixed fortifications with infantry is murderous.

The Israelis could use heavy, precision bombing, which they lack because they don't have the heavy bombers.

Nothing focuses a terrorist's mind like a line of rolling thunder from a B52. I hope we offer them forward air observers and some heavy bomber support.

Israel may well have not been properly ready for this conflict, but they most certainly could have achieved a victory despite being ill prepared.

Even with more adequate preparation and training, taking out fixed fortifications with infantry is murderous.

True, but block by block, house by house fighting in every single Southern Lebanese villiage was probably not necessary. A significant commitment of Israel ground forces early on seizing all territory south of Litani would have allowed Israel to hit Hizbullah positions within that zone from all sides. Couple this with a policy of not separating the remaining Shia population in S.Lebanon whom actively support Hizbullah from Hizbullah itself would have allowed for a much more robust campaign of choking off and razing each and every village which offered resistance to Israel. Basically, the policy of Israel should have been to drive out the vast majority of non combatants and then annhilate everything and everyone whom offered resistance within the South of Litani zone.

The Israelis could use heavy, precision bombing, which they lack because they don't have the heavy bombers.

Im fine with giving them heavy bombers, but I think since we are basically talking about a relatively small space from the Litani south for most of the intense ground combat, concentrated Israeli artillery tied with the bombing capacity the Israel Air Force can bring to bare should be sufficient to accomplish the mission.

The key here is for Israel to get away from all this PC nonsense about avoiding "civilian" casualties (we Americans also need to drop this sillyness). The Shia in South Lebanon ARE Hizbullah. These people support and vote for Hizbullah. Drive those whom want to leave north, then simply destroy everything within the zone until resistance ceases.