A New Enemy Gains on the U.S. ("It abides by no laws of war")

NY Times ^ | 7/30/06 | Thom Shanker

[frankjr]

POUND for pound and pounding for pounding, the Israeli military is one of the world’s finest. But Hezbollah, with the discipline and ferocity of its fighters and ability to field advanced weaponry, has taken Israel by surprise.

Now that surprise has rocketed back to Washington and across the American military.

United States officials worry that they’re not prepared, either, for Hezbollah’s style of warfare — a kind that pits finders against hiders and favors the hiders.

Certain that other terrorists are learning from Hezbollah’s successes, the United States is studying the conflict closely for lessons to apply to its own wars. Military planners suggest that the Pentagon take a page out of Hezbollah’s book about small-unit, agile operations as it battles insurgents and cells in Iraq and Afghanistan and plans for countering more cells and their state sponsors across the Middle East and in Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America.

To attack Israel, Hezbollah dispersed its fighters with no distinguishing markings or uniforms or vehicles. Fighters access the weapons only at the moment of attack, and then disappear. This makes preventing the attack all but impossible. It is a significant modernization of classic guerrilla hit-and-run tactics. Israel has been unable to significantly degrade the numbers of rockets because of this approach. Hezbollah fired more than 100 a day at the start of this conflict; they are still firing more than 100 a day, despite Israeli bombardment.

Hezbollah still possesses the most dangerous aspects of a shadowy terror network. It abides by no laws of war as it attacks civilians indiscriminately. Attacks on its positions carry a high risk of killing innocents. At the same time, it has attained military capabilities and other significant attributes of a nation-state.

[MNJohnnie]

Nathan, Glad you have feeling. However please stop confusing your feeling with facts. There were no facts in your post. None.

Do you realize your nonsense was Soviet doctrine in Afghanistan and the Nazis in Eastern Europe? It doesn't work at all. Clinging to the 1860s since your understanding of history and International Relations hasn't evolved a wit beyond where your name sake was in 1864.

Unfortunately your "analysis" is completely without even the slightest touch with factual reality of what is going on on the ground in either Iraq or Afghanistan. Added to your utter ignorant statements on the US Economy their is simply no reason to waste time responding to you. You don't have a different opinion, a slight distorted view, your "analysis" of the WOT and the US Economy is simply put utter and complete nonsense. We are currently in the midst of the best sustained economic performance since the 1980s. We have LOWER unemployment levels, despite mass influx of illegals, of any time, except the last 18 months of the Clinton Presidency, in US History. We have better sustained GDP growth then anyone but Reagan accomplished. A greater % of our people own their own home then any other time in our history.

There was not one factually correct statement in your posts. Utter nonsense from start to finish.

[SQUID]

What are you talking about? Nobody is suggesting gloom and doom here. These are simply facts that are stated highlighting the challenge that we face. Being realistic doesn't mean sky is falling. Knowing your enemy is very important. Blind arrogance is most dangerous in war because one should NEVER underestimate their enemy.

[trickyricky]

"On the ground in Lebanon, the Israelis have not demonstrated that their kill rate
is high enough to sustain prolonged combat against hundreds of millions of Arabs."

If that's true, they need to break out the cluster bombs and napalm.

[Doohickey]

This game of hide-and-seek is quite easily defeated.

Think, Dresden.

[thomaswest]

Your post is a voice of sanity on this thread. Great post.

[nathanbedford]

Johnny, I am aware that you have repeatedly posted that you think you we are winning in Iraq because we are diabolically drawing terrorists from around the world to Iraq where we are killing them at will. That is the strategy of shoveling flies. You forgot how we lost the Vietnam War. Even if we could kill the cong at 10 to one levels we could not sustain the war at home. We cannot sustain a war in Iraq at only 2500 dead much longer unless there is another catastrophic strike on the homeland-public support is simply not there anymore.

You are fighting precisely the war that the Islamic terrorists want you to fight. It is a war we cannot win. You think they are running out of foot soldiers because we might have killed them in their tens of thousands but they have an infinite reservoir to draw upon. You think we have made them fight our war but they have moved the theater into the American living room. We cannot match them even at 10 to one in casualties. We cannot continue to squander billions every month to no effect in Iraq. Yet, God help us, we cannot withdraw either.

As to our economic picture, only someone dwelling mentally in the 19th century cares about where we are instead of where we will be in six months or a year. You cite housing sales, they are off and the pundits are hoping for a safe landing and not a catastrophe. The the rate of growth has just been cut in half. You're driving by looking in the rearview mirror.

The Bush doctrine of preemption is dead, mortally wounded in Iraq. We have not the will, nor the wherewithal in men or matériel, nor the sufferance of the international community to preemptively strike. We can only hunker down and passively wait another strike on our homeland and pray that it is not done with weapons of mass destruction. Meanwhile, the enemy has succeeded in separating much of Europe from us. Spain is practically gone. France is teetering. There is no support here in Europe to conduct what they see as proxy wars for Israel. The president personally and the administration has lost much of the confidence they enjoyed at home.

So long as we mindlessly pursue your strategy of shoveling flies, our position will weaken, we will become more isolated, support for the war will be undermined, oil prices will spike, as will inflation, the dollar will continue to weaken, and Democrats will get elected who will, no doubt, accelerate the emasculation of our precious military.

[Reily]

To all

To hasten the day that the MSM media does indeed 'go the way of the dinosaurs',I wonder if this could be an effective tactic.
Ok I am guessing here, but I imagine that considerable numbers of conservatives still subscribe to the main-stream-print-media. Local & regional newspapers, WashPost, NYT, etc. Conservative should use their economic power to simply not purchase their products. (Aren't all us 'wascally Republicans' filthy rich? The demos keep saying this, it must be true!) I propose us FREEPERs drop all such subscriptions and pledge to get our conservative friends and colleagues to do likewise.

[No2much3]

Because that is viewed as chemical warfare and is banned by the UN. That means the US can't do it, but the terrorists can do anything they want.

Nuke'm til they glow then shoot them in the dark!!!

NO2

[MNJohnnie]

Stick to the 1860s. Nice you have feelings, too bad feelings are not facts. Your statements made about Afghanistan, Iraq and the US Economy were made as statements of fact. They are not factually correct. They are statements of your opinion stated as facts. They are not facts.

[GSlob]

Absolutely correct, with one proviso: it is not "one day" as you put it, but right now.

[SuziQ]

Hezbollah does WORSE than hide among the people; they use them as human shields. When the people of S. Lebanon were warned to leave, as the Israelis warned them a couple of weeks ago before they started bombing, Hezbollah held them in their homes at gunpoint to KEEP them from leaving. This assured that when the bombs dropped, innocent people would be killed, thus giving Hezbollah a media victory.

[Jack Black]

All this is just stupid. The US doesn't have to care about world opinion and could bomb the entire country to smithereens. The only reason the terrorists get away with their BS is because the media plays into their hands. In a real threatening-the-USA war the US Army should take the communist controlled media off the air on day one.

Then they can do what is needed without that nonsense.

[nathanbedford]

"Pandora's Box Is Opened By Ineptitude (Should Israel take out Hezbollah with ground troops?)

The balance of power and terror that shaped the Middle East landscape until the latest Arab-Israeli war has shifted profoundly in favor of radical forces, to the detriment of Arabs and Jews alike — as well as America.

Worse yet, Mr. Olmert's ineptitude as a leader has opened a Pandora's box. Jihadis will now flock to attack Israel's newly perceived weaknesses in fighting guerrilla forces in Gaza, the West Bank, and along the border with Lebanon, further upsetting a precarious balance of power in a turbulent Middle East where the forces of radical Islam have now gained the upper hand."

But you want to keep on shovelling flies. That is something a great 19th century stategist and tactician never did and would never have approved of. I think you are the one as between us who is locked in the past. When you are digging yourself into hole, maybe you ought to consider to quit diggin'.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1674921/posts

[1234]

Why can't we make out "finding" efforts easier by using drones to unleash huge amounts of sleeping gas over swatchs of Lebanese territory, to render every person unconscious for 6-20 hours (this is possible), and then have troops safely move in to sort out the wheat from the chaff, as it were....

pls write to Israelis and Rummie on this.

[1234]

...It seems to me the only way to defeat them is to go beyond Lebanon and deal with Syria and Iran. That in fact is what Bush once promised to do: take the war to any nation which supported and sheltered terrorists.

guess it was good PR @ the time.
Pres. hasn't/isn't doin things he's supposed to do: an example: the US border joke.

[Lazamataz]

The problem for Hizbolla is, how do they win?

Sure they survive. Sure they cause pain. But a mosquito can never drain the buffalo.

There is no way for them to have victory. There is only perpetual, grinding bloodshed.

Forever.

[Lazamataz]

Well then. Screw it. We're toast.

Let's deed the country to Iran, become a Sharia law nation, and quit our jobs and our houses. I mean, comon man, we're SCREWED, right? There's no hope. It's pointless.

[Lazamataz]

Hezbollah has already won this skirmish in the war on terrorism. It has managed to divide most of Europe away from America. America is bound hand and foot to Israel by our domestic politics and Europe is increasingly coming under the influence of its Arab/Muslim minorities. Soon, European politicians will have to show the Muslims more than just a little ankle and begin to really pander in earnest. American politicians will be driven in the other direction by the Israeli lobby. Once a breach between America and Europe has been achieved, the Islamic fundamentalists will have have gone far toward winning the war. On the ground in Lebanon, the Israelis have not demonstrated that their kill rate is high enough to sustain prolonged combat against hundreds of millions of Arabs. The Israelis have not demonstrated that they can protect their homeland against missiles. The Israelis have not demonstrated they have a solution to an indefinite reign of random missiles on their homeland from embedded civilian-shielded launch sites as far as hundreds of miles away. Where are we winning? In Afghanistan the insurgency is turning sour. In Iraq, problems of casualties and squandered billions aside, we have managed to midwife the installation of a Shi'ite government which no doubt will be a proxy of Iran. Meanwhile, Iran itself inches ever closer to atomic weapons. Now Lebanon is in flames with Hezbollah having obtained every geopolitical strategic goal it could have hoped for. The price of oil is spiking and the effects on Western economies have already led to the twin evils of inflation and economic downturn with the economic growth rate recently being cut in half in America. Americans have turned against the war in Iraq with the real possibility that the Republicans could lose control of at least one house of Congress. The presidential election in 2008 looks grim for those who would actually fight a war against terrorism. Where, where are we winning?

I know, man. It's like, SO OVER.

Time to just end it.

[caver]

A New Enemy Gains on the U.S. ("It abides by no laws of war")


Has the NY Times been alsep for the last 5 years. Hezbollah is no different than any other cowardly terrorists. The way to deal with them is to kill them and their familes and cleanse the whole area once and for all.

[butternut_squash_bisque]

I've been saying that since 9-12-01, IIRC.